that either these marks partake of the nature of true religion, or
they do not. If they do, they must be identified with it, and here the
mark is the thing: if they do not partake of its nature, some of
them may exist as indications where genuine religion is not. It is
necessary, then, that we combine a variety of particular signs of
grace: any one taken by itself, may, or may not, exist, without true
religion; but where many are combined, no just doubt can remain.
Whether you have the love of God in your soul presents a most
critical subject of inquiry; since the love of God will be
acknowledged by all to be the great, the essential, principle of
true religion. The simple question, then, to which I would call your
attention, is this: "Am I, or am I not, a sincere lover of the Author
of my being?"
In endeavoring to assist you in the decision of this momentous
question, as it respects yourselves. I shall entreat your attention
while I suggest a variety of marks which indicate love to God; and
supposing the conviction produced by the statement to be, that you
have not the love of God, I shall point out the proper improvement of
such a conviction.
In suggesting various marks by which you may ascertain whether you
love God or not, I would mention the general bent and turn of your
thoughts, when not under the immediate control of circumstances; for
these, you are aware, give a new and peculiar bias to our thoughts,
and stamp them with an impress of their own. There is an infinite
variety of thoughts continually passing through the mind of every
individual: of these, some are thrown up by occasions; but others, and
often the greater part, follow the habitual train of our associations.
It is not to thoughts of the former kind that I refer; it is to those
of the latter class--those involuntary thoughts which spring up of
themselves in the mind of every person: it is these, not the former,
that afford clear indication of the general temper and disposition.
The question I would propose to you is, What is the bent of your
thoughts when, disengaged from the influence of any particular
occurrence, you are left to yourselves, in the intervals of retirement
and tranquillity, in the silence of the midnight watches, and, in
short, whenever your mind is left free to its own spontaneous musings?
Are the thoughts most familiar to your mind, at such times, thoughts
of God and the things of God--or are they thoughts that turn upon the
present world and its transient concerns? Are they confined, for the
most part, within the narrow circle of time and sense; or do they make
frequent and large excursions into the spiritual and eternal world?
The answer to this question will go far to decide whether you have, or
have not, the love of God. It is impossible that such an object as the
divine Being should be absent long from your thoughts; impossible
that His remembrance should long remain merged in the stream of other
imaginations; unless you are supposed chargeable with a decided
indifference to divine things! Unless you are destitute of love to God
you can never be so utterly uncongenial in sentiment and feeling with
the psalmist, when he says, "My mouth shall praise thee with joyful
lips, while I meditate upon thee in the night watches." "How precious
are thy thoughts unto me, O God!" When that man of God gazed upon the
starry heavens, his mind was not merely wrought into astonishment at
the physical energy there displayed; he was still more deeply lost in
grateful admiration of the mercy of Providence as manifested to man--a
sinful child of dust, and yet visited by God in the midst of so
magnificent a universe! But when day passes after day, and night after
night, without any serious thoughts of God, it is plain that He is not
the home of your mind, not your portion, center, and resting-place:
and if this is the case, it is equally plain that you are not in a
state of acceptance with Him; since nothing can be more certain than
that, as our thoughts are, such must be our character. I do not ask
what are your thoughts at particular times, or under the influence
of some particular event: there may be little difference, on some
occasions, between those who remember, and those who neglect, God
habitually. The charge against the ungodly is, that "God is not in all
their thoughts." If there are any here who feel this charge as bearing
against themselves, let them take that solemn warning given by God
himself at the close of the fiftieth psalm, "Oh, consider this, ye
that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to
deliver you!"
Let me request you to consider seriously how you stand disposed to the
exercises of religion. If God is the object of your love, you will
gladly avail yourselves of the most favorable opportunities of
cultivating a closer friendship with the Father of your spirits: on
the contrary, he who feels no regard for these opportunities, proves
that he has no love to God, and will never be able to establish the
conviction that God is his friend. Wherever there exists a sincere
friendship, opportunities of cultivating it are gladly embraced, and
the opposite privations are regretted. Where a habitual neglect of
sacred exercises prevails it must be interpreted as if it said, like
those whom the prophet describes, "Cause the Holy One of Israel to
cease from amongst us. Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge
of thy way!" If your closets seldom witness your private devotions,
if your moments in retirement are languid and uninteresting--your
religion can have no hold on your heart; and the reason why your
religion has no hold on your heart is because you have no love of God.
There are some whose religion sits easy and delightful upon them; its
acts and functions are free and lively: there are others who seem to
bear their religion as a burden, to drag their duties as a chain--as
no vital part of themselves, but rather a cumbrous appendage: this is
a decisive and melancholy symptom of a heart alienated from God. There
is no genuine religion, no real contact of the heart with the best of
beings, unless it makes us continually resort to Him as our chief joy.
The psalmist is always expressing his fervent desires after God: after
the light of the divine countenance, and the sense of the divine
favor: but do you suppose such desires peculiar to the state of
believers under the Old Testament? No, my brethren; there exist more
abundant reasons than ever, since the gospel of Christ has been
displayed in all the glorious fulness of its blessings, why our souls
should be inflamed with such feelings as those which inspired
the psalmist, when he exclaimed, "As the hart panteth for the
water-brooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God!"
If you would ascertain whether you love God, consider how you stand
affected toward the Word of God. We can entertain no just thoughts of
God, but such as we derive from His own Word: we can acquire no true
knowledge of God, nor cherish any suitable affections toward Him,
unless they are such as His own revelation authorizes. Otherwise we
must suppose that revelation insufficient for its specific purposes,
and set the means against the end. All, therefore, who sincerely love
God, are students of His Word; they here, also accord in soul with the
psalmist, and like him, can say, "O how I love thy word! in it is my
meditation all the day:" they eat it as food for their souls, and find
it sweeter than honey. They go to it as to an inexhaustible fountain,
and drink from it streams of sacred light and joy. A neglected Bible
is too unambiguous a sign of an unsanctified heart; since that blest
book can not fail to attract every one that loves its divine Author.
How is it possible to delight in God, and yet neglect that Word which
alone reveals Him in His true and glorious character--alone discovers
the way by which He comes into unison with us, and condescends to
pardon us, to love us, and to guide us through all this mysterious
state of being? It is observable that the only persons who are
inattentive to their own sacred books are to be found among
Christians. Mohammedans commit large portions of the Koran to memory;
the Jews regard the Old Testament with reverence; the Hindu Brahmans
are enthusiastically attached to their Shastra; while Christians alone
neglect their Bible. And the reason is, that the Scriptures are so
much more spiritual than the religious books received by others; they
afford so little scope for mere amusement or self-complacency; they
place the reader alone with God; they withdraw him from the things
that are seen and temporal, and fix him among the things that are
unseen and eternal; they disclose to his view at once the secret evils
of his own condition, and the awful purity of that Being with whom he
has to do. No wonder the ungodly man hates their light, neither comes
to their light, but retires from it farther and farther into the
shades of guilty ignorance. How melancholy the infatuation of such a
character!
Estimate your character in respect to your love of God, by reflecting,
with what sentiments you regard the people of God. God has a people
peculiarly His own: they are not of that world to which they outwardly
belong--not conformed to it in the spirit of their mind; they stand
apart, many of them at least, in conspicuous conformity to Jesus
Christ, and in earnest expectation of the glory which He had promised.
How, then, do you regard these decided followers of God? Do you shun
their society with aversion and secret shame; or do you enjoy
their communion as one of the most delightful among your Christian
privileges? Are you content merely to be the companion of those who
"have a name to live, but are dead": or can you say with the psalmist,
"My delight is in the excellent of the earth"? or, with the beloved
disciple, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because
we love the brethren"? for, as he adds, "He that loveth him that
begot, loveth him that is begotten"; if you do not love the image
which you have seen, how can you love the unseen original? If the
features of holiness and grace in the creature are not attractive to
your view, how can your affections rise to the perfect essence? How
can you ascend to the very sun itself, when you can not enjoy even the
faint reflection of its glory? He who knew the heart, could alone say
to those around Him, "I know you, that ye have not the love of God
in you": but tho none can address you now in the same tone of divine
authority, yet we may hear it uttered by a voice--the voice of your
own conscience: you may know, without any perturbations of hope or
fear, by the spiritual insensibility and inaction of your soul--by
this you may know, with equal certainty as by a voice from heaven,
that you have not the love of God in you.
Consider the disposition you entertain toward the person and office of
the Son of God. "If ye had loved the Father, ye would have loved me
also," was the constant argument of Jesus Christ to those Pharisees
whom He addresses in the text For Jesus Christ is the express image of
God: the effulgence of the divine character is attempered in Him, to
suit the views of sinful humanity. In the life of Jesus Christ we see
how the divine Being conducts Himself in human form and in our own
circumstances: we behold how He bears all the sorrows, and passes
through all the temptations, of flesh and blood. Such, indeed, is the
identity, so perfect the oneness of character, between the man Christ
Jesus and the divine Being--that our Savior expressly assures us, "He
that hath seen me, hath seen the Father; I and my Father are one." The
purpose for which God was manifested in the flesh was not to reveal
high speculations concerning the nature of the Deity: it was to bear
our sorrows, and to die for our sins. But can you contemplate Him,
thus stooping to your condition, thus mingling with every interest of
your own, and not be moved by such a spectacle?--not be attracted,
fixt, filled with grateful astonishment and devotion--crucified, as
it were, on the cross of Christ, to the flesh, and to the world? What
mark, then, of our possessing no love of God can equal this, that we
are without love to Jesus Christ?--that neither the visibility of His
divine excellence, nor His participation of all our human sufferings,
can reach our hearts and command our affections?
In examining whether you love God, examine how you are affected by His
benefits. These are so numerous and so distinguished that they
ought to excite our most ardent gratitude: night and day they are
experienced by us; they pervade every moment of our being. We know
that favors from an enemy derive a taint from the hands through which
they are received, and excite alienation rather than attachment: but
the kindness of a friend, by constantly reminding us of himself,
endears that friend more and more to our hearts; and thus, he that has
no love to God receives all His favors without the least attraction
toward their Author, whom he regards rather as an enemy than as a
friend. But the Christian feels his love of God excited by every fresh
goodness. The mercies of God have accompanied you through every
stage of your journey; and they are exhibited to you in His word as
stretching through a vast eternity. Are these the only benefits you
can receive without gratitude, and suffer to pass unregarded How,
then, can any love of God dwell in your bosom?
Consider, in the next place, in what manner you are imprest by
the sense of your sins. The question is not whether you have any
sins,--none can admit a doubt on this point; the only inquiry is, how
you are affected by those sins? Are they remembered by you with a
sentiment of tender regret, of deep confusion and humiliation, that
you should ever have so requited such infinite goodness? And is this
sentiment combined with a sacred resolution to go and sin no more,--to
devote yourself to the service of your divine Benefactor? If you
can live without an habitual sense of penitential tenderness and
reverential fear, be assured you can not love God; you have no
experience of those Scripture declarations: "They shall fear the Lord
and his goodness in the latter days;" "There is forgiveness with thee,
that thou mayst be feared;" you know not that "the goodness of God
leadeth to repentence." If the mind is softened by the love of God,
all His favors serve to inflame its gratitude, and confirm its
devotion to His will: but he who has no love of God in his soul,
thinks of nothing but how he may escape from God's hand, and selfishly
devours all His favors, without an emotion of gratitude to the Giver.
Finally, let me remind you to consider how you are affected to the
present world. If you could only be exempt from its afflictions, would
you wish it to be your lasting home? If you could surround yourself
with all its advantages and enjoyments, would you be content to dwell
in it forever? Yet you know that it is a place of separation and exile
from the divine majesty; that it is a scene of darkness, in comparison
with heaven, very faintly illuminated with the beams of His distant
glory; that its inhabitant is constrained to say, "I have heard
of thee by the hearing of the ear, but mine eye hath not yet seen
thee";--while heaven is the proper dwelling-place of God and His
people! Could you then consent to remain here always, without ever
seeing as you are seen--seeing light in His light--without ever
beholding His glory; without ever drinking at the fountain,
and basking in that presence which is fulness of joy, and
life forevermore? always to remain immersed in the shadows of
time--entombed in its corruptible possessions? never to ascend up on
high to God and Christ and the glories of the eternal world? If such
is the state of your spirit, you want the essential principle of a
Christian--you want the love of God. The genuine Christian, the lover
of God, is certain to feel himself a "stranger on the earth." No
splendor, no emolument of this world,--not all the fascinations of
sensual pleasure,--can detain his heart below the skies, or keep him
from sympathizing with the sentiment of the psalmist: "As for me, I
shall behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I
wake in thy likeness." I do not ask whether you have, at present, "a
desire to depart": perhaps you may not be as yet sufficiently prepared
and established to entertain so exalted a desire; but still, if you
have received a new heart, you will deprecate nothing so much as
having your portion in this life,--as having your eternal abode on
earth. It is the character of faith to dwell much in eternity: the
apostle says, in the name of all real believers, "We look not at the
things that are seen, but the things that are not seen; for the things
that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are
eternal."
And now, my brethren, supposing the preceding remarks to have produced
in any of you the conviction that you have not the love of God in you,
permit me very briefly to point out the proper improvement of such a
conviction.
First, it should be accompanied with deep humiliation. If you labored
under the privation of some bodily organ, requisite to the discharge
of an animal function, you would feel it as in some degree a
humiliating circumstance; but what would be any defect of this kind,
however serious, in comparison with that great want under which you
labor--the want of piety, the calamity of a soul estranged from the
love of God! What are the other subjects of humiliation compared with
this--a moral fall, a spiritual death in sin: and this, unless it be
removed, the sure precursor of the second death--eternal ruin! "This
is a lamentation indeed, and it shall be for a lamentation."
Suppose the children of a family, reared and provided for by the most
affectionate of parents, to rise up in rebellion against their father,
and cast off all the feelings of filial tenderness and respect; would
any qualities those children might possess, any appearance of
virtue they might exhibit in other respects, compensate for such
an unnatural, such an awful deformity of character? Transfer this
representation to your conduct in relation to God: "If I," says He,
"am a father, where is my fear? if I am a master, where is my honor?"
"Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! I have nourished and brought
up children, and they have rebelled against me: the ox knoweth his
owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my
people doth not consider."
And let your humiliation be accompanied with concern and alarm. To be
alienated from the great Origin of being; to be severed, or to sever
yourself from the essential Author and element of all felicity, must
be a calmity which none can understand, an infinite wo which none can
measure or conceive. If the stream is cut off from the fountain, it
soon ceases to flow, and its waters are dissipated in the air: and
if the soul is cut off from God, it dies! Its vital contact with
God,--its spiritual union with the Father of spirits through the blest
Mediator, is the only life and beauty of the immortal soul. All,
without this, are dead--"dead in trespasses and sins"! A living
death--a state of restless wanderings, and unsatisfied desires! What
a condition theirs! And, oh! what a prospect for such, when they look
beyond this world! who will give them a welcome when they enter an
eternal state? What reception will they meet with, and where? What
consolation amid their losses and their sufferings, but that of the
fellow-sufferers plunged in the same abyss of ruin? Impenitent sinners
are allied to evil spirits, they have an affinity with the kingdom
of darkness; and when they die, they are emphatically said to "go to
their own place"!
This is an awful state for any to be in at present; but, blest be God,
it is not yet a hopeless situation. Let no person say, "I find by what
I have heard, that I do not love God, and therefore I can entertain
no hope." There is a way of return and recovery open to all. Jesus
Christ, my dear brethren, proclaims to you all, "I am the way. No man
can come to the Father but by me":--but every one that will may come
by this new and living way; and, if you lose life eternal, you lose
it because--according to his words just before the text--because "you
will not come to Christ that you may have life." If you feel the
misery, deformity, and danger of your state, then listen to His
invitation, and embrace His promise. See the whole weight of your
guilt transferred to His cross! See how God can be at once the just
and the justifier! Take of the blood of sprinkling, and be at peace!
His blood cleanseth from all sin: He will send that Spirit into your
heart which will manifest Him to you; and where that Spirit is, there
is liberty and holy love. He is the mystical ladder, let down from
heaven to earth, on which angels are continually ascending and
descending, in token of an alliance established between God and man.
United by faith to Jesus Christ, you shall become a habitation of God
through the Spirit; the Father will make you a partaker of His love,
the Son of His grace, angels of their friendship; and you shall be
preserved, and progressively sanctified, until, by the last change,
all remains of the great epidemic source of evils shall be forever
removed from your soul; and the love of God shall constitute your
eternal felicity.
EVANS
THE FALL AND RECOVERY OF MAN
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Christmas Evans, a Welsh Baptist preacher, was born at Isgaerwen,
Cardiganshire, South Wales, in 1766. Brought up as a Presbyterian,
he turned Baptist in 1788, and was ordained the following year and
ministered among the Baptists in Carmaerthenshire. In 1792 he became a
sort of bishop to those of his denomination in Anglesey, where he took
up his residence. After a somewhat stormy experience with those he
undertook to rule, he removed to Carmaerthen in 1832. He distinguished
himself by his debt-raising tours, in which his eloquence brought
him much success. It is said that once when he was preaching on the
subject of the prodigal son, he pointed to a distant mountain as he
described the father seeing him while yet a great way off, whereupon
thousands in his congregation turned their heads in evident
expectation of seeing the son actually coming down the hills. He died
in 1838.
EVANS
1766--1838
THE FALL AND RECOVERY OF MAN
_For if, through the offense of one, many be dead, much more the grace
of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath
abounded unto many._--Romans v., 15.
Man was created in the image of God. Knowledge and perfect holiness
were imprest upon the very nature and faculties of his soul. He had
constant access to his Maker, and enjoyed free communion with Him, on
the ground of his spotless moral rectitude. But, alas! the glorious
diadem is broken; the crown of righteousness is fallen. Man's purity
is gone, and his happiness is forfeited. "There is none righteous; no,
not one." "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." But
the ruin is not hopeless. What was lost in Adam is restored in Christ.
His blood redeems us from the bondage, and His gospel gives us back
the forfeited inheritance. "For if, through the offense of one, many
be dead; much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is
by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." Let us consider,
first, the corruption and condemnation of man; and secondly, his
gracious restoration to the favor of his offended God.