A Lamp to the Path / Or, The Word of God in the Heart, the Home, the Workshop and the Market-Place

by W. K. Tweedie

THE RELIGION OF THE HEART.

THE
RELIGION
OF THE
HEART. We cannot glance at the lives of godly men without noticing the prominence which belongs to this subject of religion in the heart. Their first aspiration is for the friendship of God, and their next, their perpetual longing is to have the heart right with Him; “to keep the heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” We open the life of one man of God at random. He says, “An inward sweet sense of divine things at times came into my heart, and my soul was led away in pleasant views and contemplations of them.” “The sense I had of divine things would often of a sudden kindle up, as it were, a sweet burning in my heart, an ardour of soul that I know not how to express.” “I was almost constantly in ejaculatory prayer wherever I was. Prayer seemed as the breath by which the inward burning of my heart had vent.” “My former delights never reached the heart, and did not arise from any sight of the divine excellence of the things of God.” “My heart panted after this, to lie low before God as in the dust, that I might be nothing, and God might be all; that I might become as a little child.” “Oftentimes in reading the Holy Scriptures, every word seemed to touch my heart; I felt a harmony between something in my heart and those sweet and powerful words.”[4]

WITNESSES.

Another says, “O God, impress more deeply on my heart thine exceeding great and precious promises, that I may perfect holiness in thy fear.” “Though God’s pure Word is presented to worldly men in ever such a variety of ways; though the provision be ever so daintily served up, none of them relish it at heart. As well might the preacher have the restless and ungovernable waves of the sea before him, and think to control them with the rod of Moses, or the words of Christ, ‘Peace, be still.’” WITNESSES. “In his earliest years he had many pure, tender feelings, and stirrings of his heart concerning God, and the texts inscribed on the church walls of his native town, from the Epistle to the Romans, concerning death, sin, righteousness, and the crucifixion, produced in him, as a mere child, emotions of great joy and peace, and left upon him very profitable and lasting impressions.” “How may I know that I am become an heir of heaven? How may I know that God is in me of a truth? When I have the earnest of the inheritance, that is, when I am habitually led by the Spirit of God, so as to walk in love, with my heart crying to him, Abba, Father! and listening to every whisper of his Holy Spirit.”[5]

WITNESSES.

WITNESSES. Another says, “My heart was utterly averse from spirituality. Sometimes, through the force of convictions, I was indeed brought for some time to aim at getting my mind fixed upon heavenly things, and kept on the thoughts of them; but my heart being still carnal, I weaned of this bent and of this forcible religion; it was intolerable to think of being always spiritual.” “I abominated the more gross breaches of all the commands, and disliked open sins. But, meanwhile, my heart was set upon the less discernible violations of the same holy law.” “Under a searching ministry, the Lord began to give me some discoveries of the more secret and spiritual evils of my heart. He carried me ‘into the secret chamber of imagery,’ to let me see what my heart did in the dark.” “Though sin might prevail, my heart was not with it as before; I found another sort of opposition made to it.” “I have looked on death as stripped of all things pleasant to nature. I have considered the spade and the grave, and everything that is in it terrible to nature; and under the view of all these, I found that in the way of God they gave satisfaction—not only a rational satisfaction, but a heart-engaging power attending it, that makes me rejoice.”[6]

One of the profoundest thinkers that ever lived has said, “There are only two kinds of persons who can properly be styled reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart, because they know Him; and those who seek Him with all their heart, because they know him not.”[7]

WITNESSES.

WITNESSES. —But it is needless to prolong such illustrations. Human nature, revelation, and daily experience, agree in testifying to the necessity of planting the truth in the heart of man, if it is to control his life. For that purpose the Spirit of God is sent to take the truth from the sacred page, where He himself has placed it, and stamp it on the soul. And O, what man consents to sacrifice, by keeping truth in the outer court as the Gentiles were kept in the outer court of the Jewish Temple! What holy joy! What hopes and consolations! What communion with God he forfeits! Or, how blind the world to its own best interests, when the truth is kept cold and shivering, apart from the soul and the heart! How would the woes of a groaning world be soothed—how would our biting and devouring of each other cease—how would swords be beat into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks, were truth enthroned in the heart, and suffered to control the life! A single sentence of that truth, honestly believed and obeyed, would soon revolutionize a world; and should not every Christian therefore be busy, earnest, and solemn, in spreading the truth; in seeking to have it planted deep in his own soul first, and then in the souls of all?

THE NEED OF ZEAL.