October 20

"O Lord, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, and the son of your handmaid: you have loosed my bonds." Psalm 116:16

IT is a circumstance worthy of remark, and important in the instruction which it conveys, that, among all the examples of deep humility, self-abasement, consciousness and confession of sin, recorded of the saints in the word, not one appears to a afford an instance of a denial or undervaluing of the Spirit's work in the heart. Keen as appears to have been the sense of unworthiness felt by Jacob, David, Job, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, and others—deep as was their conviction, and humiliating as were their confessions of sin's exceeding sinfulness, not one expression seems to betray a denial of the work of the Holy Spirit in their souls: they felt and mourned, they wept and confessed, as men called of God, pardoned, justified, adopted; not as men who had never tasted that the Lord was gracious, and who therefore were utter strangers to the operation of the Spirit upon their hearts: they acknowledged their sinfulness and their backslidings as converted men, always ready and forward to crown the Spirit in His work. But what can grieve the tender loving heart of the Spirit more deeply than a denial of His work in the soul?

And yet there is a perpetual tendency to this, in the unbelieving doubts, legal fears, and gloomy forebodings which those saints yield to, who, at every discovery of the sin that dwells in them resign themselves to the painful conviction, that they have been given over of God to believe a lie! To such we would earnestly say, Grieve not thus the Holy Spirit of God. Deep self-abasement, the consciousness of utter worthlessness, need not necessarily involve a denial of the indwelling grace in the heart; yes, this blessed state is perfectly consistent with the most elevated hope of eternal life. He that can confess himself the "chief of sinners" and "the least of saints," is most likely to acknowledge, "I know in whom I have believed,"—"He has loved me, and given Himself for me." What! is it all fabulous that you have believed? is it all a delusion that you have experienced? have you been grasping at a shadow, believing a lie, and fighting as one that beats the air? are you willing to yield your hope, and cast away your confidence?

What! have you never known the plague of your own heart, the sweetness of godly sorrow at the foot of the cross? have you never felt your heart beat one throb of love to Jesus? has His dear name never broken in sweet cadence on your ear? are you willing to admit that all the grief you have felt, all the joy you have experienced, and all the blessed anticipations you have known, were but as a "cunningly devised fable," a device of the wicked one, a moral hallucination of the mind? Oh, grieve not thus the Holy Spirit of God! deny not, undervalue not, His blessed work within you! What if you have been led into deeper discoveries of your fallen nature, your unworthiness, vileness, insufficiency, declensions, and backsliding from God, we ask, Whose work is this? whose, but that same blessed, loving Spirit whom thus you are wounding, quenching, grieving, denying? How many whose eye may trace this page are in this very state—not merely writing hard and bitter things against themselves, but also against the blessed, loving, faithful Spirit of God—calling grace nature, denying His work in them, and, in a sense most painful to His tender heart, "speaking words against the Holy Spirit."