And this is pre-eminently the case in religion. It is with Him who looks on the heart that we have there to do—as is the heart, so is our religion. A new heart is accordingly the first and the grand desideratum. All the heart is to be given to God, and till that be conceded, we have not done obeisance to the first and great commandment. The law of God is to be written on the heart, or in truth we never obey it. We may as well suppose that the ten commandments could guide the Hebrews, while these precepts were merely written on the tables of stone, far up amid the clouds of Sinai, as that the truth of God can profit, or illumine the soul, while it only floats in the understanding or the memory, without sinking into the heart. Nay, the thunders of Sinai, amid which the commandments were given, had scarcely died away, when the people who had heard them ceased to fear and quake—they set up a golden calf, and worshipped it as their God; and that forms one of the most instructive facts of history. THE HEART
UNMASKED. It seems incredible to the man who does not know the guile which lurks in the heart, but it sheds a full though a lurid light upon the soul, in the eyes of him who has been guided by the truth through the intricate mazes of iniquity which exist within us.
TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD.
Or, far more than this. Ten thousand times ten thousand may possess the gospel as well as the law. Not merely the authority, the power, or the terrors of the Lord may be brought to bear upon their minds—His love, his pity, and compassion, may also be revealed, and entreaties the most touching, or invitations the most free, may be mingled with promises the most cheering, and all may be employed to induce us to profit by them, while the heart may continue proof against them all. TRUTH AND
FALSEHOOD. The truth of God may be no truth to us; His love in the Saviour may exercise no constraining power—and what is the reason? How are we to explain the fact that the mind of God has no control over the minds of myriads of men, so that countless favours are received without awakening one grateful response? The reason is, truth was never stamped upon the heart. It is not understood that with the heart man believes unto righteousness. The first and great commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy strength and mind,” is not felt, and not obeyed; and men, in consequence, often drink up iniquity with the very Word of God open before them, soliciting their hearts and their affections for their Lord. They have his Word, but it is perverted to light them on the way to a more certain ruin.
This is all abundantly plain. If we have ever given so much as one solemn hour to God, to eternity, and the soul, it must be manifest that until the affections be set on things above, all else is vain. The heart is the citadel of the whole man, and until that be on the Lord’s side, the enemy will find a stronghold there, from which no power on earth can dislodge him. Is a man living in a state of estrangement from God? Does the Heart-searcher know that that man is perpetrating sin and regardless of his soul? The explanation of all that is, that the heart has never been given to God. Christianity is not there. Truth is not there—its place is occupied by lies. The love of the Saviour is not there. The Word of God is a dead and a despised letter. The foundation of the spiritual fabric has never been laid. The first impulse heavenward has not been given. The Spirit of God is not honoured in the heart as the temple where he delights to dwell. Religion at the best is a cold and formal thing. It only decorates the exterior, like trappings on a hearse. God is not in such a man’s thoughts—Christ is not in his soul the hope of glory. The gulf between God and him is still a yawning void, and the eternal life which is placed within his reach is practically despised.
The illustrations of religion in the heart crowd upon us on every side. Let us contemplate a few, and place them in the way of contrast.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
ILLUSTRATIONS. There is a man whose heart the Lord has touched with great love to souls. He learns that myriads are perishing in distant lands. That oppresses him with the weight of a personal woe; he takes his life in his hand and hastens away to tell the perishing of a Saviour. Now, in his work of faith, and labour of love, that man is dealing, let us suppose, with two of the youth of a dark-souled land. He is pressing on the conscience the claims of God, on the understanding his truth, and on the heart his love; but against all these appliances one of the two is stout-hearted, and steeled. There is no room in his soul either for the Spirit of God or his truth. Some idol has erected his temple there, and that idol, however hideous, is worshipped with the devotedness which is due only to God over all. Hence the heart is shut and fortified against the truth; hence the God of truth is rejected and disowned. The whole man is pre-occupied. The affections are engrossed by a worthless or revolting thing; and as there was no room in the dwellings of men for the Saviour when he came to earth, there is no room in the soul of that man for truth, though it brings salvation and the fulness of joy in its train. The secret of the whole is, that the heart is not impressed; it is never touched, and it therefore repels the approaches of Him who is love, as the granite rock repels the spray of the ocean.
CONSCIENCE ASCENDANT.
CONSCIENCE
ASCENDANT. But the case is different in regard to the other of the two: conscience in him feels the power of the truth; it cannot deny the charges which are brought against it; nay, it repeats and enforces them every one, and then begins the struggle for the control of the heart. Though the conscience be convinced, the heart may not be surrendered, and in consequence of that, a pain, an absolute distraction is sometimes produced—it has been described as the plucking out of a right eye.
THE CHANGE.