A BROTHER'S DREAM.
"God speaketh ... in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings on the bed; then He openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction."—Job xxxiii. 14-16.
Superstition attaches much importance to the night wanderings of a disturbed mind, and augurs good or ill, according to the nature of the dreamy imaginings. Thousands have dreamed themselves to ruin, by following the empty speculations of a fervid imagination, and neglecting the path of prudent industry.
The text above does not teach that God speaketh in all dreams, but that He is pleased sometimes (and the writer believes very occasionally) to communicate instruction by such means. He that made the soul can approach it by any avenue He pleases, and is shut out from none.
Winters and summers, as many as fourteen, have rolled over my head since the night made memorable by "a brother's dream." Thirteen years have likewise passed since my arms were placed beneath this dying brother—since the glad angels conveyed his sweet spirit to the paradise of God.
Oh, the heavenly smile—oh, the beaming eye he cast upon me—as he gently subsided into endless rest! Never shall I forget that scene. Never will be erased from memory's tablet that chamber, and all that there I felt, and saw, and heard.
"Friend after friend departs;
Who has not lost a friend?"
Come, then, all sympathizing hearts; come, ye who know what sorrow is; come, all who
"feel an aching void,
The world can never fill,"
and listen to "a brother's dream."
Brought up to attend public worship, and under religious instruction, the period when spiritual life first animated his soul is not known to any survivors; nor, also, what were the peculiar exercises of his mind during the first year or two of his Christian life.
Up to the time of his dream, he was associated with many of those whose religion consists chiefly in name and show, carnal excitement, and flesh-pleasing formality; and, being of a very cheerful disposition, and generally beloved by all who knew him, it needed no small effort—nothing short of divine power—to sever the confederacy.
As will always be the case where the life of God is, his soul began to languish and starve under the "Yea and nay," "Do and live," orations to which he from time to time listened. He could not feed on husks. Distressed, hungry, and thirsty, his soul at last fainted. Then he cried unto God in his trouble. Full of vexation and perplexity, not knowing where to go or what to do, he dreamed.
He saw, as he thought, an old woman with a cross-handled basket crying her saleables. "Who wants to buy any religion? Who wants to buy any religion?" she repeated again and again. Gladly, eagerly he vociferated, "I do! I do!"
He bought a large supply. It consisted of a great number of props, which supported him all around, and on each prop was written something which he was to do—some deed or good work he was to perform.
Almost as soon as he was in possession of his purchased religion, he saw, at a great distance, a fire raging, which soon increased, so that it seemed to compass the whole sensible horizon. But what was more fearful, it burned still nearer and nearer to the spot where he stood, consuming everything as it approached. Alarmed, amazed, terrified, his horror was increased as he beheld his props already on fire.
Everything had been destroyed as the burning ocean approached, and could he escape? Alone and helpless, how could deliverance be effected? Power and hope were alike gone, and into the infinite fire he was just sinking, when, lo! the mighty Jesus, before unseen, stretched out His gracious arm, and with words of promise, instantaneously performed, said, "I'll hold you up!"
Forthwith the fire was quenched, and he sang delivering grace.
These solemn scenes, so visibly portrayed in his imagination while asleep, became a subject of serious consideration when awake. Who could explain the matter to him?
Not long he lacked a teacher. The Gracious Interpreter sent a messenger to blow the Gospel trumpet in the neighbourhood. He went; he heard. Oh, what a sermon! Never had such statements fallen upon his ears; never had such light shone into his mind. And what a text!—"The hail shall sweep away your refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-place."
One after another, the preacher described the vain hopes on which he had rested, and showed their frailty and destruction, in the way he had felt. And then his refuge, his hiding-place, his props, away, away they go, just as he saw, exactly as he felt. In short, the preacher's sermon was a map of the path—a verbal unfolding of the secrets of his heart.
What was the consequence? The meshes of the devil's fishing-net were broken; free-will, creature-dependency, were gone; and hope—Gospel hope—"good hope through grace"—filled his anxious bosom. He had been down in the horrible pit; he had been sinking in the miry clay. Now he is brought to the verge of deliverance. Now he sees, he hopes in, the boundless prospects of covenant grace.
Not many miles distant in another direction, lived and preached a servant of the Lord, lately taken to his everlasting home. He bent his steps to hear the words of truth and grace from his lips. "Wonderful! Astonishing! Was it an angel I heard before—one who had assumed a bodily shape, to bear those joyful tidings to my soul, and now appears again with other features and with another voice? No; he was a man; and this is a human voice I hear. But how astonishing! He seems to know all the other told me, and to begin where the other left off. Their sermons seem like two following pages of a book, in which I read the secrets of my life, and behold in legible lines those things I never breathed to human friends. 'This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in my eyes.'"
It was the Lord's doing; for not only was his whole Christian pathway mapped out, but his soul sweetly delivered from legal entanglements, from slavish fear and anxious doubt, and brought into that liberty with which God makes His people free. He was made "wise unto salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ." Moreover, by continuance in that Word, he gave unequivocal demonstration that he was a disciple indeed; one who was a learner and follower of Jesus; and so, knowing "the truth as it is in Jesus," he rejoiced in hope of the glory of God. Nor did he have long to wait, for, sinking under the merciless hand of pale consumption, in a little more than a year he was suddenly removed to that land of peace and love where
"Jesus sheds the brightest beams
Of His o'erflowing grace."
Reader, the dream was instructive to the dear departed; but was it given for him alone? It can no longer benefit him, for with him all is reality—no shadowy emblem, but everything substantial. May not we therefore derive instruction?
Let us look at some of its prominences. Standing out with towering majesty and grandeur, like a cloud-capped mountain, appears
Divine sovereignty—the sovereign mercy of the Lord, who "hath mercy on whom He will have mercy." You will not see this through reason's misty glass (which perverts and confuses all things beheld through it), no more than the loftiest eminence is discernible in the darkness of midnight. But in the light of God's truth it is clearly visible. There are many with whom he was associated when he "sought the living among the dead"—when he was entangled in the carnal schemes of a false religion—who remain where he could not stay, and seem contented, too. There have been but comparatively very few brought to seek what he sought, and to know what he was taught. "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."
We also discover the danger of false religion. Behold that burning flame! Thus burns God's wrath against sin. No human efforts can quench it or check its progress. All creature performances, like the PROPS, will be consumed by it. The best of human works are but as stubble to the fire of wrath divine. Indeed, when God tells of that dreadful day which shall burn as an oven, the self-righteous, or proud, are put before "those that do wickedly," as objects of God's displeasure, and doomed to that dreadful burning.
Oh, could I make my words thunder and lightning, to peal and flash this solemn truth from hill to hill and from vale to vale!
All false religion begins on the outside, and attempts to alter principles by renovating practice; but all true religion commences within. The Spirit produces a change in the practice by implanting new life and holy principles. "Ye must be born again." Religion is not a new patch on an old garment, but a new fabric entirely. "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature."
We see, likewise, the trouble and anxiety which are felt when one is soundly convinced of his sinful life and state. Salvation is then a matter of life and death. "Life, life, eternal life!" is the earnest cry. Conviction of sin, when it merely penetrates the skin, is soon soothed and forgotten; but when the arrows from the bow of God's Word pierce the heart, no hand can withdraw them but His who directed them, and no balm can heal those painful wounds but that administered by Jehovah-Jesus.
It may be seen also that, till He who is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," was proclaimed to his eager soul, he found no solid satisfaction, no stable peace.
"In vain the trembling conscience seeks
Some solid ground to rest upon;
With long despair the spirit breaks,
Till we apply to Christ alone."
He is the only Antidote to our sin, ruin, and disease; and He is freely set forth in the Gospel as the gracious, willing, almighty, and everlasting Saviour of the lost and undone. Until we are brought sensibly to feel our sin and destitution, we are ready and willing to try everything but that which God has provided; but when we are brought before His infinite holiness, and see the "filthy garments" in which we are clad, no arm is long and powerful enough to reach our case but His, who is "able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him." The blessed Spirit will always glorify Jesus by His teaching, and will lead the soul to Him as the All in all of salvation.
Here are exhibited, likewise, the gracious operations of His power and wisdom who says, "The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads." Had his soul's salvation rested on his believing, as some would tell us, he had not have been where he is. Grace begins, grace carries on, grace performs, and finally completes, the grand work of eternal redemption.
In this brief narrative appears, moreover, the peace and joy a knowledge of sin forgiven and peace secured produces in the soul. Oh, the blissful truth, "Redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace." To taste this, to know this, exceeds ten thousand worlds of sordid treasure—transcends the highest delights of this terrestrial sphere. How did his happy soul rejoice "with joy unspeakable and full of glory"!
But he has long entered his rest. He has forgotten to mourn, and loudly sings the praises of the Lamb.
Where is my reader? Is he pursuing the wind, and hunting after the shadowy trifles of earth? Is he attempting by creature works to make his peace with God?
Doomed to total disappointment and eternal condemnation are all those who die in such hostility to the way of peace and Heaven's declared will! Oh, delusion! worse than madness! "He that believeth not shall be damned!" No salvation but by a living faith in the Lamb of God and His all-perfect work.