“Love, joy, peace.”—GAL. v. 22.
FEELINGS clearly have their place in the things of God. Our Christianity
is based on principles, but still it calls forth the feelings. Now there
are two great extremes into which we are apt to fall with reference to
Christian feeling.
There are some whose religion seems to consist in feeling only. They
look for warm, bright emotions, they bring everything to the standard of
their feelings, and if they feel as they wish to do they are satisfied.
Their hearts are warmed by the things of God, and many a cold, phlegmatic
theologian would be a different being if he could but catch something of
their feeling.
But still we must put in a caution, for feelings, however bright, are not
to be trusted unless they rise out of principle and end in practice. If
you have feeling only—a feeling not based on solid acquaintance with
Scriptural truth, it will rise like a bubble, and look as beautiful in
its colours, but it will burst as easily as the bubble does, and even at
its best estate can never bear the slightest pressure. Here, then, is
one extreme—the religion of feeling, of emotion, of impression, taking
the place of the religion of conviction, of principle, of faith.
But there is another extreme: I mean the religion without feeling. Some
seem to think all emotion, or warmth, or fervour is enthusiasm, and
settle down satisfied with a cold reception of Christian truth. They may
be quite correct in their creed, and may really believe all the great
truths of the Gospel, but their system is to give no expression to
Christian emotion, and this has a wonderful power of chilling all around
them.
We must not rest satisfied with an unfeeling consent to Christian truth.
We want to feel as well as to know, and to have the heart really warmed
by the tender love of our gracious Saviour. But here I suspect that I
shall be met by a great difficulty on the part of many of you, for this
feeling is exactly that which many cannot find. You can understand, but
you cannot feel. Your great trouble is, that there is such a dreadful
apathy over your whole soul that nothing seems to rouse it. If this is
the case consider—
I. THE FEELINGS, HOWEVER WARM, CAN NEVER JUSTIFY, AND THE WANT OF
FEELING DOES NOT PREVENT JUSTIFICATION.
I have known persons who have long since given up all idea of being
justified by _works_, who still have a secret clinging to some idea of
being justified by _feelings_. If they could but feel more—more love,
more repentance, more warmth—then they think they could trust Christ for
their acceptance. They have learned, they think, to trust Him if they
have the feelings, but they would not venture to do so without them.
Now, before they can be happy in Christ they will have to go a step
deeper, and learn to trust Him when they have not the feelings as well as
when they have. They must remember that our justification is entirely
dependent on His atonement and His righteousness, and so it is His free
gift, freely given to those that are dead in sin. Now a dead man has no
feelings. If, therefore, we wait for our justification until we have the
feelings we must wait till we are alive. But the language of Scripture
is, “God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us,
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.”
{26} Your only hope, therefore, is to trust Him as you are, without
waiting till you are one atom warmer than you are at this present moment.
With your heart as cold as you now feel it to be, you must throw yourself
at once before His feet, and cry, “Lord, save me, I perish.”