Divine Methods of Reclaiming Men--"The Chief of Sinners"--Changed in a
Moment--No Violence Done to His Freedom--Yet Sovereign Power--The
Mystery of Grace--View of McCosh--Supremacy of Conscience--Sir Isaac
Newton's Alertness of Mind--Reason and Intuition--Capturing the Most
Incorrigible--Evil Environment--Suffering a Necessary Factor--Agony
of Remorse.
We must remember that God has ways and means of reclaiming men that we
do not see ordinarily put forth in this life. But we do see singular
exhibitions of grace and power sometimes. I have referred to the case of
Saul. Witness his conversion. He was a blaspheming, malignant
persecutor. He says he was "exceedingly mad" against God's saint. It is
said that he "breathed out threatening and slaughter." He said that he
was the "chief of sinners." Possibly that was no mere rhetoric. He may
actually have been the worst of mankind.
But in a moment he was changed. He was utterly transformed. His
blasphemy was turned to prayer. From that day forward he would do
anything, or go anywhere, or suffer the utmost persecution, if only he
might serve Him whom he had before persecuted and blasphemed. And what
was it that effected such a marvellous change? The Lord manifested
Himself to him, and spoke to him; that was all. How we adore the grace
and power that can work such marvels!
And in the life to come who can say but such marvels will be used, and
with similar effect? We simply do not know, but we can see that such
means can be used, and we can imagine that they will be, especially in
the case of those who had no chance before. In such a case, the period
of suffering may not need to be greatly prolonged. In other cases we can
imagine that the suffering may be long continued before the
sinner repents.
And it is wonderful how, in the case of Saul, no violence was done to
the freedom of his will. He was no mere machine. He was simply taken
captive. He willingly, gladly, surrendered. He could say afterward, "I
was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." It was a case of divine
sovereignty combined with human freedom. It may be that we shall never
understand how these two forces unite. But one thing we do know; it is
the Lord's way, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Meantime, we take
these words of Tennyson as the best definition of the mystery that
we know:
"Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine."
Who can say but some such divine yet free constraint may be exercised
in the life to come?
It will be seen that I do not think of freedom as the prime faculty of
the soul. I rather think, with McCosh, that conscience is supreme. And
why? For two reasons: First, conscience deals only with questions in the
moral realm. This gives it a peculiar dignity and sacredness. It does
not concern itself with questions of mere expediency, but with questions
of right and wrong, and discriminates intuitively between truth and
error. Yes, even in mathematical truth I think there is an element of
morality. If a man could believe that two and two are five, he would
appear to me a worse man, morally, for so believing. So then, conscience
rather than freewill is the highest quality of the soul, because it
deals with questions solely in the higher realm.