Do you not own yourself to be a sinner?—a deep-dyed and ruined sinner? If so the death of Christ applies itself as perfectly to you as the "live coal" did to Isaiah when the seraph declared to him, "This hath touched thy lips." The word is, "If any say I have sinned,"—What then? He will send him to hell? No; but "he will deliver him." The very moment you take your true place, and cry out, "Undone!" all that Christ has done, and all that He is becomes yours—yours now—yours for ever. You need not make any effort to improve your condition. Do what you will, and you cannot make yourself anything but undone. A single effort at improvement is but the evidence that you know not yet how bad, how incurably bad you are. You are "undone," and, as such, you have to stand still and see the salvation of God—a salvation the foundation of which was wrought out through the cross of Christ—a salvation which the Holy Ghost reveals on the authority of that Word which is settled for ever in heaven, and which God "has exalted according to all His name." May the blessed Spirit lead you now to put your trust in the name of Jesus, that so, ere you lay down this paper, you may know that your "iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged"! Then you will be able to follow me while, in a few closing words, I seek to unfold the practical result of all that has been engaging our attention.
We have seen the complete ruin of the sinner; we have seen the complete remedy in Christ; let us now look at the result, as exhibited in whole-hearted consecration to the service of God. Isaiah had nothing to do for salvation, but he had plenty to do for his Saviour. He had nothing to do to get his sins purged, but plenty to do for the One who had purged them. Now he gave the willing, ready expression of obedience to God when, on hearing that a messenger was needed, he answered, "Here am I; send me." This puts works in their proper place. The order is absolutely perfect. No one can do good works until he has experienced, in some degree, the action of the "throne" and the "altar." The light of the former must shew him what he is, and the provisions of the latter must shew him what Christ is ere he can say, "Here am I; send me."
This is a settled, universal truth, established in every section of inspiration, and illustrated in the biography of the saints of God and of the servants of Christ in every age, in every condition. All have been brought to see their ruin in the light of the throne, to see the remedy in the provisions of the altar ere they could exhibit the result in a life of practical devotedness. All this is from God the Father, through God the Son, by God the Holy Ghost—to whom be all the glory, world without end! Amen and Amen!
LEGALITY AND LEVITY
Feeling, as we trust we do, in some little measure our responsibility to the souls of our readers, as well as to the truth of God, we desire to offer a brief but pointed word of warning against two opposite evils which we can plainly see working among Christians at the present moment. These are legality on the one hand, and levity on the other.
As to the first of these evils, we have sought in many of our former papers to deliver precious souls out of a legal state, as being, at once, dishonoring to God and utterly subversive of their own peace and liberty. We have endeavored to set forth the free grace of God, the value of the blood of Christ, the standing of the believer before God in perfect righteousness and acceptance in Christ. These precious truths, when applied to the heart in the power of the Holy Ghost, must deliver it from all legal influences.
But then it frequently happens that persons, when apparently delivered from legality, run into the opposite evil of levity. This may arise from the fact that the doctrines of grace are only taken up intellectually, instead of being wrought into the soul by the power of the Spirit of God. A great amount of evangelical truth may be taken up in a very light way, in cases where there has been no deep work of conscience, no real breaking down of nature, no thorough subjugation of the flesh in the presence of God. When this is the case there is sure to be levity of spirit in some form or another. There will be a very wide margin allowed for worldliness of various kinds—a liberty given to nature wholly incompatible with practical Christianity. In addition to these things, there will be exhibited a very deplorable want of conscience in the practical details of daily life—duties neglected, work badly done, engagements not faithfully observed, sacred obligations trifled with, debts contracted, extravagant habits indulged. All these things we place under the head of levity, and they are, alas! too common amongst the very highest professors of what is termed evangelical truth.
Now we deeply deplore this, and would desire to have our own souls, as well as the souls of all our Christian readers, really exercised before God about it. We fear there is a great deal of hollow profession amongst us, a great want of earnestness, truthfulness and reality in our ways. We are not sufficiently permeated by the spirit of genuine Christianity, or governed in all things by the word of God. We do not give sufficient attention to "the girdle of truth," or "the breastplate of righteousness." In this way the soul gets into a very bad state indeed; conscience does not act. The moral sensibilities become blunted. The claims of truth are not duly responded to. Positive evil is trifled with. Moral relaxation is allowed. So far from there being the constraining power of the love of Christ, leading forth in the activities of goodness, there is not even the restraining power of the fear of God keeping back from the activities of evil.