conscience can never rise to such a height as this
it may skim the surface, but it cannot mount aloft.
Mere nature never poured contempt on human
righteousness, and never severed man from his sins.
It needs a mighty one to carry away the gates 01
the Gaza of our self-sufficiency, or to lay our Philis
tine sins heaps upon heaps. God alone can send
the sun of our own excellency back the needed de
grees of humility, and he alone can bid our sins
stand still for ever. It is Jesus who hath smitten,
if he hath with one blow uncrowned thee, and with
another disarmed thee. He is wont to perform
wonders ; but such as these are his own peculiar
miracles. None but He can kill with one stone
two such birds as our high-soaring righteousness
and low-winged lust. If Goliath s head is taken
from his shoulders, and his sword snatched from his
hand, no doubt the conqueror is the Son of David.
We give all glory and honor to the adorable name
of Jesus, the Breaker, the Healer, our faithful
Friend.

3. It frequently occurs that the circumstances of
the person at the time of conversion afford grave
cause to doubt the divine character of the wound-
ings which are felt. It is well- known that severe



78 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUR.

sickness and prospect of death will produce a re
pentance so like to genuine, godly sorrow, that the
wisest Christians have been misled by it. Many
have we seen and heard of who have expressed the
deepest contrition for past guilt, and have vehe
mently cried for mercy, with promises of amend
ment apparently as sincere as their confessions
were truthful who have conversed sweetly of par,
don, of joy in the Spirit, and have even related
ecstasies and marvellous manifestations ; and yet-
with all this, have proved to be hypocrites, by re
turning at the first opportunity to their old courses
of sin and folly. It hath happened unto them ac
cording to the proverb, " The dog hath returned to
his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her
wallowing in the mire."

Pious Mr. Booth writes, " I pay more attention
to people s lives than to their deaths. In all the
visits I have paid to the sick during the course of
a long ministry, I never met with one, who was not
previously serious, that ever recovered from what
he supposed the brink of death, who afterwards
performed his vows and became religious, notwith
standing the very great appearance there was in
their favour when they thought they could not
recover." We find, also, ready to our hand, in a
valuable work,* the following facts, which are but

* Arvine s Cyclopaedia of Anecdotes.



FAITHFUL WOUNDS. 79

specimens of a mass which might be given : " A
certain American physician, whose piety led him
to attend, not only to people s bodies, but to their
souls, stated that he had known a hundred or more
instances in his practice, of persons who, in pros
pect of death, had been apparently converted, but
had subsequently been restored to health. Out of
them all he did not know of more than three who
devoted themselves to the service of Christ after
their recovery, or gave any evidence of genuine
conversion. If, therefore, they had died, as they
expected, have we not reason to believe that their
hopes of heaven would have proved terrible delu
sions ?

" A pious English physician once stated that he
had known some three hundred sick persons who,
soon expecting to die, had been led, as they sup
posed, to repentance of their sins, and saving faith
in Christ, but had eventually been restored to
health again. Only ten of all this number, so far
as he knew, gave any evidence of being really re
generated. Soon after their recovery they plunged,
as a general thing, into the follies and vices of the
world. Who would trust, then, in such conver
sions ?"

Such examples serve as a holy warning to us all,
lest we too should only feel an excitement produced
by terror, and should find the flame of piety utterly
quenched when the cause of alarm is withdrawn.



80 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUR.

Some of us can trace our first serious thoughts to
the bed of sickness, when, in the loneliness of our
chamber, " We thought upon our ways, and turned
our feet unto his testimonies."* But this very
circumstance was at the time a source of doubt,
for we said within ourselves, " Will this continue
when my sickness is removed, or shall I not find
my apathy return, when again I enter on the busi
ness of the world ?" Our great anxiety was not
lest we should die, but lest living we should find
our holy feelings clear gone, and our piety evapo
rated. Possibly our reader is now sick, and this is
his trouble ; let us help you through it. Of course,
the best proof you can have of your own sincerity
is that which you will receive when health returns,
if you continue steadfast in the faith of Jesus, and
follow on to know him. Perseverance^ when the
pressure is removed, will discover the reality of
your repentance. The natural wounds inflicted by
Providence are healed soon after the removal of
the rod, and folly is not thereby brought out of the
heart ; but when Jesus smites for sin, the wounds
will smart even when the instrumental rod of cor
rection is removed, while " the blueness of the
wound cleanseth away evil."f We, who had mary
mock repentances ere we really turned to the living
God, can now see the main spring of our error.

* Prov. cix. 59. f Prov. xx. 30.



FAITHFUL WOUNDS. 8 1

Every tliief loves honesty when he finds the jail
uneasy ; almost every murderer will regret that he
slew a man when he is about to be executed foi
his crime : here is the first point of distinction
which we beg our reader to observe.

That repentance which is genuine ariseth not so
much from dread of punishment as from fear of
sin. It is not fear of damning, but fear of sinning,
which makes the truly humbled cry out for grace.
True, the fear of hell, engendered by the threaten-
ings of the law, doth work in the soul much horror
and dismay ; but it is not hell appearing exceeding
dreadful, but sin becoming exceeding sinful and
abominable, which is the eifectual work of grace.
Any man in his reason would tremble at everlast
ing burnings, more especially when by his nearness
to the grave the heat of hell doth, as it were, scorch
him ; but it is not every dying man that hates sin
yea, none do so unless the Lord hath had deal
ings with their souls. Say, then, dost thou hate
hell or hate sin most ? for, verily, if there were no
hell, the real penitent would love sin not one whit
the more, and hate evil not one particle the less.
Wouldst thou love to have thy sin and heaven
too ? If thou wouldst, thou hast not a single spark
of divine life in thy soul, for one spark would con
sume thy love to sin. Sin to a sin-sick soul is so
desperate an evil that it would scarce be straining
the truth to say that a real penitent had rather

4*



82 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUR.

suffer the pains of hell without his sins than enter
the bliss of heaven with them, if such things were
possible. Sin, sin, SIN, is the accursed thing which
the living soul hateth.

Again : saving repentance will most easily mani
fest itself when the subjects of our thoughts are
most heavenly. By this we mean, if our sorrow
only gushes forth when we are musing upon the
doom of the wicked, and the wrath of God, we
have then reason to suspect its evangelical charac
ter; but if contemplations of Jesus, of his cross,
of heaven, of eternal love, of covenant grace, of
pardoning blood and full redemption bring tears
to our eyes, we may then rejoice that we sorrow
after a godly sort. The sinner awakened by the
Holy Spirit will find the source of his stream of
sorrow not on the thorn-clad sides of Sinai, but
on the grassy mound of Calvary. His cry will be,
"O sin, I hate thee, for thou didst murder my
Lord;" and his mournful dirge over his crucified
Redeemer will be in plaintive words

" Twas you, ray sins, my cruel sins,

His chief tormentors were ;
Each of my crimes became a nail,

And unbelief the spear ;
Twas you that pull d the vengeance down

Upon his guiltless head ;
Break, break, my heart, oh burst mine eyes,

And let my sorrows bleed."



FAITHFUL WOUNDS. 83

Ye who love the Lord, give jour assent to this our
declaration, that love did melt you more than
wrath, that the wooing voice did more affect you
than the condemning sentence, and that hope did
impel you more than fear. It was when viewing
our Lord as crucified, dead, and buried that we
most wept. He with his looks made us weep bit
terly, while the stern face of Moses caused us to
tremble, but never laid us prostrate confessing our
transgression. We sorrow because our offence is
against Him, against his love, his blood, his grace,
his heart of affection. Jesus is the name which
subdues the stubborn heart, if it be truly brought
into subjection to the Gospel. He is the rod which
bringeth waters out of the rock, he is the hammer
which breaketh the rock in pieces.

Furthermore, saving repentance will render the
conscience exceedingly tender, so that it will he
pained to the quick at the very recollection of the
smallest sin. Natural repentance crieth out at a
few master-sins, which have been most glaring and
heinous the more especially if some visitor point
them out as crimes of the blackest dye ; but when
it hath executed one or two of these on the gallows
of confession, it is content to let whole hosts of less
notorious offenders escape without so much as a
reprimand. Not so the man whose penitence is
of divine origin he hates the whole race of the
Evil One; like Elijah he will cry, "Let none



84 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUK.

escape ; " lie will cut up to the best of his power
every root of bitterness which may still remain,
nor will he willingly harbour a single traitor in his
breast. The secret sins, the every-day offences,
the slight errors (as the world has it), the harmless
follies, the little transgressions, the peccadilloes, all
these will be dragged forth to death when the Lord
searcheth the heart with the candle of his Spirit.

Jesus never enters the soul of man to drive out
one or two sins, nor even to overcome a band of
vices to the exception of others ; his work is per
fect, not partial ; his cleansings are complete bap
tisms ; his purifyings tend to remove all our dross,
and consume all our tin. He sweeps the heart
from its dust as well as its Dagons ; he suffers not
even the most insignificant spider of lust to spin
its cobweb, with allowance, on the walls of his
temple. All heinous sins and private sins, youth
ful sins and manhood s sins, sins of omission and
of commission, of word and of deed, of thought
and of imagination, sins against God "or against
man, all will combine like a column of serpents in
the desert to affright the new-born child of heaven ;
and he will desire to see the head of every one of
them broken beneath the heel of the destroyer of
evil, Jesus, the seed of the woman. Believe not
thyself to be truly awakened unless thou abhorrest
sin in all its stages, from the embryo to the ripe
fruit, and in all its shades, from the commonly



FAITHFUL WOUNDS. 85

allowed lust down to the open and detested crime.
When Hannibal took oath of perpetual hatred to
the Romans, he included in that oath plebeians as
well as patricians ; so if thou art indeed at enmity
with evil, thou wilt abhor all iniquity, even though
it be of the very lowest degree. Beware that thou
write not down affright at one sin as being repent
ance for all.

There are, doubtless, other forms and phases of
doubt, but our space does not allow us to mention
more, nor does the character of the volume require
that we should expatiate on more of these than are
thp most usual causes of grief to the Lord s people.
We beseech the ever-gracious Spirit to reveal the
person of Jesus to every smitten sinner; to anoint
his eyes with eye-salve, that he may see the heart
of love which moves the hand of rebuke, and to
guide every mourning seeker to the cross, whence
pardon and comfort ever flow. It is none other
than Jesus who thus frowns us to our senses, and
chastises us to right reason ; may the Holy Ghost
lead every troubled one to believe this encouraging
doctrine, then shall our heart s desire be granted.

We cannot, however, bring our remarks to a
close until again we have urged the duty of self-
examination, which is at once the most important
and most neglected of all religious exercises.

When we think how solemn is the alternative
"saved" or " damned" we cannot but importune



86 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUE.

our readers, as they love their souls, to " examine
themselves whether they be in the faith." Oh !
remember it will be all too late to decide this ques
tion soon, since it will cease to be a question. The
time will have passed for hopeful changes and
gracious discoveries ; the only changes will be to
torments more excruciating, and discoveries then
will but reveal horrors more and more bitterly
astounding. "We wonder not that men should
anxiously inquire concerning their position ; we
might marvel more that the most of them are so
indifferent, so utterly careless to the things of the
kingdom of heaven. It is not our body, our estate,
our liberty, concerning which there is this question
at law, it is a suit of far weightier nature our
eternal existence in heaven or hell. Let us nar
rowly inspect our innermost feelings ; let us search
what manner of men we be ; let us rigidly scru
tinize our heart, and learn whether it be right with
God or no. Let not the good opinion of our fel
low-men mislead us, but let us search for ourselves,
lest we be found like the mariner who bought his
bags of one who filled them not with biscuit but
with stones, and he, relying on the merchant s
word, found himself in the broad ocean without a
morsel of food. Yet if good men tell us we are
wrong, let us not despise their opinion, ror it is
more easy to deceive ourselves than the elect. He
was not far from truth who said, " We strive as



FAITHFUL WOUNDS. 87

hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from
others, and always with more success; for, in
deciding upon our own case, we are both judge,
and jury, and executioner; and where sophistry
cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second,
self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by
bribing the third a bribe that in this case is never
refused, because she always comes up to the
price."* Since we are liable to be self-deceived,
let us be the more vigilant, giving most earnest
heed to every warning and reproof, lest the very
warning which we slight should be that which
might have shown us our danger. Many trades
men are ruined by neglecting their books ; but he
who frequently casts up his accounts will know his
own position, and avoid such things as would be
hazardous or destructive. ISTo ship was ever
wrecked by the captain s over- anxiety in taking
his longitude and latitude ; but the wailing sea
bears sad witness to the fate of careless mariners,
who forgot their chart, and wantonly steered
onward to rocks which prudent foresight would
easily have avoided. Let us not sleep as do others,
but rouse ourselves to persevering watchfulness,
by the solemn consideration that if we be at last
mistaken in our soul s condition, the error can
never be amended. Here, if one battle be lost, a

* Colton.



88 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUB.

hopeful commander expects to retrieve his fortunes
by future victory ; but let us once fail to overcome
in the struggle of life, our defeat is everlasting.
The bankrupt merchant cheers his spirit with the
prospect of commencing trade again business
may yet prosper, competence may yet bless him,
and even wealth may deign to fill his house with her
hidden treasures ; but he who finds himself a bank
rupt in another world, without God, without Christ,
without hope, must abide for ever penniless, craving,
with a beggar s lip, the hopeless boon of one poor
drop of water to cool his burning tongue. When
life is over with the unrighteous all is over where
the tree falleth there it must for ever lie ; death is
the Medusa s head, petrifying our condition he
that is unholy, shall be unholy still ; he that is
unjust, must be unjust still. If there were the
most remote possibility of rectifying our present
errors in a future state of existence, we might have
some excuse for superficial or infrequent investiga
tion ; this, however, is utterly out of the question,
for grace is bounded by the grave. If we be in
Christ, all that heaven knows of unimaginable
bliss, of inconceivable glory, of unutterable ecstasy,
shall be ours most richly to enjoy ; but if death
shall find us out of Christ, horrors surpassing
thought, terrors beyond the dreamings of despair,
and tortures above the guess of misery, must be our
doleful, desperate doom. How full of trembling is



FAITHFUL WOUNDS. 89

the thought, that multitudes of fair professors are
now in hell : although they, like ourselves, once
wore a goodly name, and hoped as others said of
them, that they were ripening for glory ; whereas
they were fattening for the slaughter, and were
drugged for execution with the cup of delusion,
dreaming all the while that they were drinking the
wines on the lees, well refined. Surely, among the
damned, there are none more horribly tormented
in the flame than those who looked to walk the
golden streets, but found themselves cast into
outer darkness, where there is weeping, and wail
ing, and gnashing of teeth. The higher the pinna
cle from which we slip, the more fearful will be
our fall ; crownless kings, beggared princes, and
starving nobles ; are the more pitiable because of
their former condition of affluence and grandeur :
so also will fallen professors have a sad pre-emi
nence of damnation, from the very fact that they
were once esteemed rich and increased in goods.
When we consider the vast amount of unsound
profession which prevails in this age, and which,
like a smooth but shallow sea, doth scarcely conceal
the rocks of hypocrisy when we review the many
lamentable falls which have lately occurred among
the most eminent in the Church, we would lift up
our voice like a trumpet, and with all our might
entreat all men to be sure of their grounds of trust,
lest it should come to pass that sandy foundations



90 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUR.

should be discovered when total destruction has
rendered it too late for anything but despair.

O age of profession, put thyself in the crucible !
O nation of formalists, take heed lest ye receive the
form and reject the Spirit! O reader, let us each
commence a thorough trial of our own spirits !

" Oh ! what am I ? My soul awake,
And an impartial survey take :
Does no dark sign, no ground of fear,
In practice or in heart appear ?

" What image does my spirit bear ?
Is Jesus form d and living there ?
Say, do his lineaments divine
In thought, and word, and action, shine ?

" Searcher of hearts ! oh search me still,
The secrets of my soul reveal ;
My fears remove, let me appear
To God and my own conscience clear.

" May I at that bless d world arrive,
Where Christ through all my soul shall live,
And give full proof that he is there,
Without one gloomy doubt or fear."

III. "We close our chapter by the third remark
the wounds of our Jesus were faithful. Here
proof will be entirely an unnecessary excess, but
we think meditation will be a profitable engage
ment. Ah ! brethren, when we were groaning
under the chastening hand of Jesus, we thought



FAITHFUL WOUNDS. 91

him cruel ; do we think so ill of him now ? "We
conceived that he was wroth with us, and would be
implacable ; how have our surmises proved to be
utterly confounded ! The abundant benefit which
we now reap from the deep ploughing of our heart
is enough of itself to reconcile us to the severity
of the process. Precious is that wine which is
pressed in the winefat of conviction ; pure is that
gold which is dug from the mines of repentance ;
and bright are those pearls which are found in the
caverns of deep distress. We might never have
known such deep humility if He had not humbled
us. Wo had never been so separated from fleshly
trusting had He not by his rod revealed the cor
ruption, and disease of our heart. We had never
learned to comfort the feeble-minded, and confirm
the weak, had he not made us ready to halt, and
caused our sinew to shrink. If we have any power
to console the weary, it is the result of our remem
brance of what we once suffered for here lies our
power to sympathise. If we can now look down
with scorn upon the boastings of vain, self-con
ceited man, it is because our own vaunted strength
has utterly failed us, and made us contemptible in
our own eyes. If we can now plead with ardent
desire for the souls of our fellow-men, and especi
ally if we feel a more than common passion for the
salvation of sinners, we must attribute it in no
small degree to the fact that we have been smitten



92 THE SAINT AND HIS 8AVHUB.

for sin, and therefore knowing the terrors of the
Lord are constrained to persuade men. The labo
rious pastor, the fervent minister, the ardent evan
gelist, the faithful teacher, the powerful intercessor,
can all trace the birth of their zeal to the sufferings
they endured for sin, and the knowledge they
thereby attained of its evil nature. We have ever
drawn the sharpest arrows from the quiver of our
own experience. We find no sword-blades so true
in metal as those which have been forged in the
furnace of soul-trouble. Aaron s rod, that budded,
bore not one half so much fruit as the rod of the
covenant, which is laid upon the back of every
chosen child of God ; this alone may render us
eternally grateful to the Saviour for his rebukes of
love.

We may pause for a moment over another
thought, if we call to mind our deep depravity.
We find within us a strong and deep-seated attach
ment to the world and its sinful pleasures; our
heart is still prone to wander, and our affections
yet cleave to things below. Can we wonder then
that it required a sharp knife to sever us at first
from our lusts, which were then as dear to us as
the members of our body ? so foul a disease could
only be healed by frequent draughts of bitter medi
cine. Let us detest the sin which rendered such
rough dealing necessary, but let us adore the
Saviour who spared not the child for his crying.



FAITHFUL WOUNDS. 93

If our sin had been like the hyssop on the wall,
our own hand might have gently snapped the
roots ; but having become lofty as a cedar of
Lebanon, and firmly settled in its place, only the
omnipotent voice of Jehovah could avail to break
it : we will not therefore complain of the loudness
of the thunder, but rejoice at the overturning of
our sin. Will the man who is asleep in a burning
house murmur at his deliverer for shaking him too
roughly in his bed ? Would the traveller, totter
ing on the brink of a precipice, upbraid the friend
who startled him from his reverie, and saved him
from destruction ? Would not the harshest words
and the roughest usage be acknowledged most
heartily as blows of love and warnings of affection ?
Best of all, when we view these matters in the light
of eternity, how little are these slight and moment
ary afflictions compared with the doom thereby
escaped, or the bliss afterwards attained ! Stand
ing where our ears can be filled with the wailings
of the lost, where our eyes are grieved by sights
of the hideous torments of the damned contem
plating for an instant the fathomless depth of eter
nal misery, with all its deprivation, desperation,
and aggravation considering that we at this hour
might have been in our own persons enduring the
doom we deprecate, surely it is easy work to
overlook the pain of our conviction, and bless with
all sincerity " the hand which rescued us." O



94 THE SAINT AND HIS SAVIOUK.

hammer which broke our fetters, how can we think
ill of thee ! O angel which smote us on the side,
and let us out of the prison-house, can we do aught
but love thee ! O Jesus, our glorious deliverer, we
would love thee, live to thee, and die for thee !
seeing thou hast loved us, and hast proved that
love in thy life and in thy death. Never can we
think thee unmerciful, for thou wast mercifully
severe. We are sure not one stroke fell too hea
vily, nor was one pang too painful. Faithful thou
wast in all thy dealings, and our songs shall exalt
thee in all thy ways, even when thou causest groans
to proceed from our wounded spirits. And when
our spirits shall fly toward thy throne of light,