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النشر الإلكتروني

LECTURE LXI.

SANCTIFICATION.

CHRIST OUR SANCTIFICATION.

(27.) We need also to know ourselves as starving souls, and Christ as the "Bread of Life," as "the Bread that came down from Heaven. We need to know spiritually and experimentally what it is to "eat of his flesh and to drink of his blood," to receive him as the bread of life, to appropriate him to the nourishment of our souls as really as we appropriate bread, by digestion, to the nourishment of our bodies. This I know is mysticism to the carnal professor. But to the truly spiritually minded, "this is the bread of God that came down from heaven, of which if a man eat he shall never die." To hear Christ talk of eating his flesh and of drinking his blood was a great stumbling block to the carnal Jews, as it now is to carnal professors. Nevertheless this is a glorious truth that Christ is the constant sustenance of the spiritual life as truly and as literally as food is the sustenance of the body. But the soul will never eat this bread until it has ceased to attempt to fill itself with the husks of its own doings, or with any provision this world can furnish. Do you know, christian, what it is to eat of this bread? If So, then you shall never die.

(28.) Christ also needs to be revealed to the soul as the Fountain of the water of life. "If any man thirst," says he, "let him come unto me and drink." "I am the Alpha and Omega, and to him that is athirst will I give to drink of the fountain of the water of life freely." The soul needs to have such discoveries made to it, as to beget a thirst after God, that can not be allayed except by a copious draft at the fountain of the water of life. It is indispensable to the establishing of the soul in perfect love, that its hungering after the bread and its thirsting for the water of life should be duly enkindled and that the spirit should pant and struggle after God, and "cry out for the living God," that it should be able to say with truth: "My soul panteth after God as the hart panteth

for the water brooks; "My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God;""My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath after thee at all times." When this state of mind is induced by the Holy Spirit so that the longing of the soul after perpetual holiness is irrepressible, it is prepared for a revelation of Christ in all those offices and relations that are necessary to secure its establishment in love. Especially is it then prepared to apprehend, appreciate and appropriate Christ as the bread and water of life, to understand what it is to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God. It is then in a state to understand what Christ meant when he said, "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." They not only understand what it is to hunger and thirst, but also what it is to be filled; to have the hunger and thirst allayed, and the largest desire fully satisfied. The soul then realizes, in its own experience, the truthfulness of the apostle's saying that Christ "is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." Many stop short even of any thing like intense hunger and thirst; others hunger and thirst, but have not the idea of the perfect fulness and adaptedness of Christ to meet and satisfy the longing of their souls. They, therefore, do not plead and look for the soul-satisfying revelation of Christ. They expect no such Divine fulness and satisfaction of soul. They are ignorant of the fulness and perfection of the provisions of the "glorious gospel of the blessed God," and consequently they are not encouraged to hope from the fact that they hunger and thirst after righteousness that they shall be filled; but they remain unfed, unfilled, unsatisfied, and after a season through unbelief, fall into indifference and remain in bondage to lust.

(29.) The soul needs also to know Christ as the true God, and the eternal life. "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord save by the Holy Spirit." The proper Divinity of Christ is never and never can be held otherwise than as a mere opinion, a tenet, a speculation, an article of a creed, until he is revealed to the inner man by the Holy Spirit. But nothing short of an apprehension of Christ as the supreme and living God to the soul can inspire that confidence in him that is essential to its established sanctification. The soul can have no apprehension of what is intended by his being the "Eternal Life," until it spiritually knows him as the True God. When he is spiritually revealed as the true and living God, the way is prepared for the spiritual apprehension of him as

the eternal life. "As the living Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." "In him was life and the life was the light of men." "I give unto them eternal life." "I am the way, the truth, and the life." "I am the resurrection and the life." These and similar passages the soul needs spiritually to apprehend, to have a spiritual and personal revelation of them within. Most professors seem to me to have no right idea of the condition upon which the bible can be made of spiritual use to them. They seem not to understand that in its letter it is only a history of things formerly revealed to men; that it is in fact a revelation to no man except upon the condition of its being personally revealed, or revealed to us in particular by the Holy Spirit. The mere fact that we have in the gospel the history of the birth, the life, the death of Christ, is no such revelation of Christ to any man as meets his necessities and as will insure or render his salvation possible. Christ and his doctrine, his life, and death, and resurrection, need to be revealed personally by the Holy Spirit, to each and every soul of man to effect his salvation. So it is with every spiritual truth; without an inward revelation of it to the soul, it is only a savor of death unto death. It is in vain to hold to the proper Divinity of Christ as a speculation, a doctrine, a theory, an opinion, without the revelation of his Divine nature and character to the soul by the Holy Spirit. But let the soul know him and walk with him as the True God, and then it will no longer question whether, as our sanctification, he is all sufficient and complete. Let no one object to this that if this is true, men are under no obligation to believe in Christ and to obey the gospel without or until they are enlightened by the Holy Spirit. To such an objection, should it be made, I would answer,

[1.] Men are under an obligation to believe every truth so far as they can understand or apprehend it, but no farther. So far as they can apprehend the spiritual truths of the gospel without the Holy Spirit, so far, without his aid they are bound to believe it. But Christ has himself taught us that no man can come to him except the Father draw him. That this drawing is teaching is evident from what Christ proceeds to say. "For it is written," said he, "they shall all be taught of God. Every one therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh to me.' That this learning of the Father is something different from the mere oral or written instructions of Christ and the apostles, is evident

from the fact that Christ assured those to whom he preached with all the plainness with which he was able, that they still could not come to him except drawn, that is, taught of the Father. As the Father teaches by the Holy Spirit, Christ's plain teaching in the passage under consideration is, that no man can come to him except he be specially enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Paul unequivocally teaches the same thing. "No man," says he, "can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Spirit." Notwithstanding all the teaching of the apostles, no man by merely listening to their instruction could so apprehend the true Divinity of Christ as to honestly and with spiritual understanding say that Jesus is the Lord. But what spiritual or true christian does not know the radical difference between being taught of man and of God, between the opinions that we form from reading, hearing and study, and the clear apprehensions of truths that are communicated by the direct and inward illuminations of the Holy Spirit.

[2] I answer that men under the gospel are entirely without excuse for not enjoying all the light they need from the Holy Spirit, since he is in in the world, has been sent for the very purpose of giving to all all the knowledge of themselves and of Christ which they need. His aid is freely proffered to all, and Christ has assured us that the Father is more willing to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him than parents are to give good gifts to their children. All men under the gospel know this and all men have light enough to ask in faith for the Holy Spirit, and of course all men may know of themselves and of Christ all that they need to know. They are therefore able to know and to embrace Christ as fully and as fast as it is their duty to embrace him. They are able to know Christ in his governmental and spiritual relations just as fast as they come into circumstances to need to know him in these various relations. The Holy Spirit, if he is not quenched and resisted, will surely reveal Christ in all his relations and fulness in due time, so that in every temptation a way of escape will be open, so that we shall be able to bear it. This is expressly promised, 1 Cor. 10: 13. "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." Men are able to know what God offers to teach them upon a condition within the compass of their ability. The Holy Spirit offers, upon condition of faith in the express promise of

God, to lead every man into all truth. Every man is therefore under obligation to know and do the whole truth so far and so fast as it is possible for him to do so with the light of the Holy Spirit.

(30.) But be it remembered that it is not enough for us to apprehend Christ as the True God and the eternal life, but we need also to lay hold upon him as our life. It can not be too distinctly understood that a particular and personal appropriation of Christ in such relations is indispensable to our being rooted and grounded, established and perfected in love. When our utter deficiency and emptiness in any one respect or direction is deeply revealed to us by the Holy Spirit with the corresponding remedy and perfect fulness in Christ, it then remains for the soul in this respect and direction to cast off self and put on Christ. When this is done, when self in that respect and direction is dead, and Christ is risen and lives and reigns in the heart in that relation, all is strong, and whole, and complete in that department of our life and experience. For example, suppose we find ourselves constitutionally, or by reason of our relations and circumstances, exposed to certain besetments and temptations that overcome us. Our weakness in this respect we observe in our experience. But upon observing our exposedness and experiencing something of our weakness we begin with piling resolution upon resolution. We bind ourselves with oaths, and promises, and covenants, but all in vain. When we purpose to stand, we invariably, in the presence of the temptation, fall. This process of resolving and falling brings the soul into great discouragement and perplexity, until at last the Holy Spirit reveals to us fully that we are attempting to stand and to build upon nothing. The utter emptiness and worse than uselessness of our resolutions and self-originated efforts, is so clearly seen by us as to annihilate forever self-dependence in this respect. Now the soul is prepared for the revelation of Christ to meet this particular want. Christ is revealed and apprehended as the soul's substitute, surety, life and salvation. in respect to the particular besetment and weakness of which it has had so full and so humiliating a revelation. Now if the soul utterly and forever cast off and renounce self, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ as he is seen to be needed to meet his necessity, then all is complete in him. Thus far Christ is reigning within us. Thus far we know what is the power of his resurrection, and are made conformable to his death.

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