Matelda and the cloister of Hellfde

by of Magdeburg Mechthild

“Not,” says Preger, “that in regard to others she had fully cast aside the prevailing belief in the merit of works, but in her own case she saw but her own sin and God’s free grace. And with regard to the works of others, she considered no value attached to them if they were done with a view to reward. Those good works, she said, which people do from habit, have a black mark set against them; those done for Christ’s sake, and by His power, a red mark. But the red mark has a black mark across it, if there is any thought of gaining merit by those works. They have a golden mark when they are done simply for His honour, with no other aim in view.”

It should be remarked also that Gertrude entertained strong misgivings with regard to the common practices of exciting devotion by appeals to the senses. The erection of mangers at Christmas, and the representations in pictures and images of the sufferings and the death of Christ, appeared to her useless and dangerous. She feared that true personal intercourse with God in the Spirit and in truth, would be hindered by these means.

Nor did she share the devotion of her contemporaries to relics of any sort. “The Lord has shown me,” she said, “that the most worthy relics which remain of Him are His Words.”

“In such a soul,” writes Preger, “in which Christ was so entirely the central point, it was natural that Mary should recede into the background. It is true that the spirit of the age was not wanting in the influence brought to bear upon her, and the cult of Mary does not disappear, therefore, from the pages of her book. But she tells us that she was filled with bitter grief when, on one of the festivals of the Virgin, she heard a sermon which contained nothing but the praises of Mary, and of the value of the Incarnation of the Lord not a word. After this sermon, as she passed by the altar of the Virgin, she could not feel in her heart the sweet devotion to her which she had sometimes known. She was roused into a sort of displeasure with Mary herself, because she seemed to her to stand in the way of her Beloved.”

It is a painful example of the arguing of an enlightened conscience with a conscience shackled and enslaved by superstition. She imagined the Lord would have her salute His Mother, and her heart answered “Never.” And at last she resolved the difficulty by the belief that in doing that which she was unwilling to do, rather than that which would have satisfied her heart, she was pleasing the Lord Himself.

It is useful for us to follow these conflicts of a heart devoted to Christ, with the awful power of generally accepted evil teaching. The spirit of the age is not at any time the Spirit of God. How much power does the spirit of unbelief, of lukewarmness, of corrupted Christianity, exercise upon us?

It matters little that the errors are of a different order. If Mary stood in the way of Christ in the days of Gertrude, is there nothing that amongst “enlightened Protestants” stands now between the soul and the Saviour? Is there nothing believed and taught amongst us which blinds the eyes of lost and helpless sinners to their need of a Saviour? nothing which blinds the guilty to their need of the Atoning Blood? nothing which turns the eyes from Christ, the Coming One, to look for a millennium, not of His Presence, but rather a time when grapes grow on thorns, and figs on thistles?

To return to Gertrude, groping her way from the dim twilight around her to the glorious Gospel day. She was once told that there was to be an indulgence of many years proclaimed to those who were willing to sacrifice their riches to buy it. For a moment Gertrude wished she had “many pounds of gold and silver.” But the Lord spoke to her heart and said, “Hearken! By virtue of My authority receive thou perfect and full forgiveness of all thy sins and shortcomings.” And she saw at that moment that her soul in the eyes of God was whiter than snow.

When, some days later, this confidence still filled her with joy, she began to fear lest she had deceived herself. “For,” she thought, “if the Lord really gave me that white raiment, surely I must have stained it many times since then by my many faults.” But the Lord comforted her, saying, “Is it not true that I always retain in My hand a greater power than I bestow upon My creatures? Hast thou not seen how the sun by the power of its heat draws out the spots and stains from the white linen that it bleaches, and makes it whiter than it was before? How much more can I, the Creator of the sun, keep in stainless whiteness the soul upon whom I have had mercy, pouring forth upon it the warmth of my burning love?”

Here, again, we see that Gertrude arrived at the right sense of perfect forgiveness, though it was rather the Love of Christ than His bloodshedding which gave her this assurance. She no doubt had an unclouded belief in the expiation made by His blood, as we see from other passages in her book. But in resting her assurance on His love, if that were (as happily it was not) the whole ground of her confidence, she would have failed in the possession of unchanging peace. She would have rejoiced at the moments when she realised His great love, and have feared and trembled when the sense of it was overclouded by sin and infirmity. The Christian taught of God looks back to see how Christ once bore his sins in His own body on the cross, and looks up to see Christ in glory as the proof that those sins are for ever put away. He rests upon these unchangeable facts—all the more, therefore, realising the marvellous love of the Divine Saviour who died for him, and rose again for his justification.