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I bow my knees unto the Father, … that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.—Eph_3:17.
The indwelling Christ was a far greater and more wonderful thing to Paul than the birth at Bethlehem. He is never lost in wonder at that, he says very little about it. He seems to be lost in the far greater wonder that the Babe of Bethlehem and the Man of Nazareth lives and speaks to men and rules their spirit with His, and is so near to them that His person is more real than their own, and they are more conscious of Christ than of themselves. So this man said, “I no longer live, Christ liveth in me, my will is merged in His, and my whole being is enveloped in His.”1 [Note: C. Brown, God and Man, 55.]
Let us examine our faith in Christ by this text. Does He dwell in us by our faith? If He does not, our faith is vain. It will not benefit us to call Him Lord, Lord, if He does not rule as Lord over the inward man. He is truly the Saviour of men; but He has no other way of saving men than by acquiring whole and sole dominion in the house of the soul. If another spirit of life than His reigns within us, we may call Him Saviour, but He is not our Saviour. The only salvation which we want is salvation from the spirit of our own life, for we are exposed to hell, only because another spirit than that of God’s only Son prevails in us, and no one can live in Heaven, unless the Son of God be his life. “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”1 [Note: John Pulsford, Christ and His Seed, 116.]
If thou couldst empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the Ocean shelf,
And say—“This is not dead,”
And fill thee with Himself instead.
But thou art all replete with very thou,
And hast such shrewd activity,
That, when He comes, He says—“This is enow
Unto itself—’Twere better let it be:
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me.”2 [Note: T. E. Brown, Old John and Other Poems, 151.]
2. In these central words of his great prayer, the Apostle teaches his Ephesian converts that the Gospel is to be found not in outward observances, but in the purity and Christlike holiness of the inward spiritual life. In every age this spiritual life has been in danger of extinction through the pressure of material influences swathing and crushing it with the coarse sensual bonds of outward forms; sometimes in the shape of superstition, sometimes in that of gross carnality, sometimes—and more especially in days like ours—in the shape of mere personal self-indulgence and comfort. It is always the tendency of ordinary men to turn away from the more refined and subtle beauty of the spiritual life and seek refuge in the tangible, the visible, the material, too often adopting, as the outward form, the product of some false extraneous idolatry, borrowed from a world that could no longer retain God in its thoughts. The Jews were in constant danger of yielding to idolatry and sensuality through the pressure and bad example of surrounding nations, against which they were not firm enough to maintain the pure faith of their father Abraham. Pass into Church history, and you will find that the Christian Church has been constantly exposed to the full force of the same temptations. At this very day there are old pagan superstitions which linger in many parts of Christendom, and veil their real heathen character under the pretext of some Christian sense or application. Too often the historians of the Church have found it almost impossible to trace out the hidden stream of spiritual life, overshadowed as it was by the oppressive influence of a vast external system, which occupied the eye and filled the attention, yet destroyed religion by its fatal combination of an elaborate ceremonial with lamentable sensuality, amidst which purity of life and the spirit of self-sacrifice were blotted out and forgotten. When such times were at the worst God sent the reformer; and the message of all reformers who are worthy of the name has always been to proclaim that the spirit is incomparably more important than the framework, that it is a fatal mistake to sacrifice the end to the means, and that faith and holiness are the proper objects and the true characteristics of the Christian. Such declarations have in darker ages seemed like fresh epiphanies of Christ, bringing men back from the oppressive weight of an immoral religion to a new and keen sense of those eternal realities—faith in Christ, trust in His mercy, purity of heart, and righteousness of conduct.
There are at least three kinds of external or material influences by which the life of the spirit may be stifled and destroyed; superstition, sensuality, and worldly self-indulgence. These three causes of mischief may mix and intertwine with a wonderful complexity. It is one of the favourite devices of sensuality to try to silence the voice of conscience by the use of superstitious observances. Superstition cannot save its votaries from carnal tendencies. There is a dangerous attractiveness in easy lives of calm enjoyment and self-satisfied comfort which is most injurious to the religious character, and may destroy any good resolutions we have formed to serve God faithfully at all costs and hazards, and to be tempted aside by nothing whatever that would interfere with the service of God.
(1) Superstition.—Superstition is a vice of many forms, and may be found where its presence is least suspected. For instance, what shall we call the watchwords and shibboleths of parties? Idolatry means the substitution of the image for the reality. It denotes worship rendered to the creature instead of the Creator. Is it not idolatry, then, to put such trust as amounts to a kind of worship in mere forms of words of man’s devising, the dead phrases which were once the war-cries of great contests, but are now mere excuses for a self-delusion which substitutes the worthless profession of the lips for the living faith of Christ dwelling in our hearts? But the error goes beyond the words of man’s devising. We may turn the inspired words of Scripture itself into idols, if we use them as the symbols of a party, like the colours of a regiment, or the white and red rose of the old English wars. This very word faith, to which the Apostle rightly gives such pre-eminent importance, has been often so treated as to be an instance of superstition. The word itself is Divine and sacred; the habit which it describes is the blessed result of the Divine grace received in the obedient heart. But sometimes people turn faith itself into a work of man; they treat it as something which they are to do, and which shows a kind of merit in the doing. The word then ceases to describe the habit and the attitude of humble trust, whereby Christ will dwell in our hearts, through the willing welcome of our own submission; and it denotes a supposed meritorious form of human exertion, so that faith itself becomes an idol, and its worship is a form of superstition.
People, in their struggle with lies and superstitions, frequently find consolation in the number of superstitions which they have destroyed. That is not correct. It is impossible to find consolation until everything is destroyed which contradicts reason and demands faith. Superstition is like cancer—everything must be cleaned out, if an operation is to be undertaken. Leave a small particle, and everything will grow out again.1 [Note: Tolstoy, Miscellaneous Letters and Essays, 525.]
It were better to have no opinion of God at all; than such an opinion, as is unworthy of Him; for the one is unbelief, the other is contumely: and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity.… Atheism leaves a man to sense; to philosophy; to natural piety; to laws; to reputation—all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy, in the minds of men. Superstition, without a veil, is a deformed thing; for, as it addeth deformity to an ape, to be so like a man; so the similitude of superstition to religion, makes it the more deformed. And as wholesome meat corrupteth to little worms; so good forms and orders, corrupt into a number of petty observances. There is a superstition, in avoiding superstition; when men think to do best, if they go furthest from the superstition formerly received. Therefore care would be had, that (as it fareth in ill purgings), the good be not taken away, with the bad; which commonly is done, when the people is the reformer.1 [Note: Bacon, Essays, “Of Superstition.”]
(2) Sensuality.—Perhaps we boast of our freedom from the coarser vices. It is a most blessed thing if we can do so. Let us thank God heartily, if we can, for His most precious gift of a pure heart and unstained conscience. But the world is very near us, and its temptations are abundant; and we shall never be quite safe till our bodies have passed through the grave, and we have been raised again to put on the pure likeness of Christ. And there are too many who will scarcely venture to boast of their freedom from compliance with sensual temptations. If there is nothing worse, men will too often read books of doubtful morality, or perhaps of very undoubted immorality. They will gaze with interest on spectacles of very doubtful purity. They will indulge in pursuits which will bring them very close into the neighbourhood of open sin. In such cases it is very hard indeed to assure ourselves that Christ is dwelling in our hearts by faith.
Samson, who fell a victim to his own licentiousness, is a type of the sensualist. Physically strong, but morally weak, woefully deficient in self-restraint, he stands for ever as a warning beacon to young men. Our sensual nature we share with the brutes. Our measure as a man is the height of our moral and spiritual nature. There is something unspeakably pathetic in the record of the strong man going out, as he was wont, to shake himself, and knowing not that his strength had departed.2 [Note: David Watson, The Heritage of Youth, 90.]
(3) Self-indulgence.—Those who think too much of their mere comfort are exposed to the subtle temptation of forgetting the law of duty, the law of self-sacrifice, obedience to which is the proof and token that Christ is dwelling in our hearts by faith. Now, of all the idols men can worship, there is scarcely a meaner than the idol of mere ease and comfort; there is scarcely a tendency that is more destructive of lofty aims and worthy efforts; there is scarcely one that is more unlike the Gospel image of our Saviour, who had not where to lay His head, or more at variance with the spirit that would pray, with the Apostle, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith.
Oh I could go through all life’s troubles singing,
Turning earth’s night to day,
If self were not so fast around me, clinging
To all I do or say.
My very thoughts are selfish, always building
Mean castles in the air;
I use my love of others for a gilding
To make myself look fair.
I fancy all the world engrossed with judging
My merit or my blame;
Its warmest praise seems an ungracious grudging
Of praise which I might claim.
In youth, or age, by city, wood, or mountain,
Self is forgotten never;
Where’er we tread, it gushes like a fountain,
And its waters flow for ever.
Alas! no speed in life can snatch us wholly
Out of self’s hateful sight;
And it keeps step, whene’er we travel slowly,
And sleeps with us at night.
O miserable omnipresence, stretching
Over all time and space,
How have I run from thee, yet found thee reaching
The goal in every race.
The opiate balms of grace may haply still thee,
Deep in my nature lying;
For I may hardly hope, alas! to kill thee,
Save by the act of dying.
O Lord! that I could waste my life for others,
With no ends of my own,
That I could pour myself into my brothers,
And live for them alone!
Such was the life Thou livedst; self abjuring,
Thine own pains never easing,
Our burdens bearing, our just doom enduring,
A life without self-pleasing!1 [Note: F. W. Faber.]
The Indwelling
Go not, my soul, in search of Him,
Thou wilt not find Him there,—
Or in the depths of shadow dim,
Or heights of upper air.
For not in far-off realms of space
The Spirit hath its throne;
In every heart it findeth place
And waiteth to be known.
Thought answereth alone to thought,
And Soul with soul hath kin;
The outward God he findeth not,
Who finds not God within.
And if the vision come to thee
Revealed by inward sign,
Earth will be full of Deity
And with His glory shine!
Thou shalt not want for company,
Nor pitch thy tent alone;
The indwelling God will go with thee,
And show thee of His own.
O gift of gifts, O grace of grace
That God should condescend
To make thy heart His dwelling-place,
And be thy daily Friend!
Then go not thou in search of Him,
But to thyself repair;
Wait thou within the silence dim,
And thou shalt find Him there.1 [Note: F. L. Hosmer.]
2. The dwelling of Christ in the heart is to be regarded as being a plain literal fact. To a man who does not believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, that is, of course, nonsense; but to those who see in Him the manifested incarnate God, there ought to be no difficulty in accepting this as the simple literal force of the words before us, that in every soul where faith, however feeble, has been exercised, there Jesus Christ does verily abide. It is not to be weakened down into any notion of participation in His likeness, sympathy with His character, submission to His influence, following His example, listening to His instruction, or the like. A dead Plato may so influence his followers, but that is not how a living Christ influences His disciples. What is meant is no mere influence derived but separable from Him, however blessed and gracious that influence might be; it is the presence of His own self, exercising influences which are inseparable from His presence, and to be realized only when He dwells in us.
We are called “mystics” when we preach Christ in the heart. Ah! brother, unless your Christianity be in the good deep sense of the word “mystical,” it is mechanical, which is worse. I preach, and rejoice that I have to preach, a “Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again; who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” Nor do I stop there; I preach a Christ that is in us, dwelling in our hearts if we be His at all.1 [Note: A. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart, 17.]
3. When Paul prayed that Christ might “dwell” in the hearts of the Christians at Ephesus he was thinking of something far greater than that kind of union with Christ which is the condition of even the lowest forms of spiritual life. The whole emphasis of the clause is thrown on the word “dwell.” There is an abiding presence of Christ in the heart which is a perpetual manifestation of the infinite love of God, and brings with it the very righteousness and blessedness of heaven, a presence which fills the whole life with a glory unbroken by clouds, and which does not change with rising and setting suns, but is like the glory of the city of God of which it is said that “there is no night there.” This presence is possible only where there is a great faith, and for a great faith there must be a great strength, a strength which is given to the inward man through the power of the Divine Spirit.
St. Paul asks that “the Christ may take up his abode,—may settle in your hearts.” The word signifies to set up one’s house or make one’s home in a place, by way of contrast with a temporary and uncertain sojourn (comp. Eph_2:19). The same verb in Col_2:9 asserts that in Christ “dwells all the fulness of the Godhead”; and in Col_1:19 it declares, used in the same tense as here, that it was God’s “pleasure that all the fulness should make its dwelling in him” now raised from the dead, who had emptied and humbled Himself to fulfil the purpose of the Father’s love. So it is desired that Christ should take His seat within us. He is never again to stand at the door and knock, nor to have a doubtful and disputed footing in the house. Let the Master come in, and claim His own. Let Him become the heart’s fixed tenant and full occupier.1 [Note: G. G. Findlay, The Epistle to the Ephesians, 189.]
We all know how having certain persons with us changes the spirit-atmosphere by which we are surrounded and affected. Certain things you might do when alone you would not think of doing in the presence of these friends. Your speech is restrained by the presence of some; it is made to flow more freely by the presence of others.
The presence of Christ may become in a very real and practical sense the atmosphere of the life. He is with us. He is unseen by these outer eyes. That is true. But He is far more real than these outer things which I can touch and see and smell. The sense of His presence can be cultivated. It should not be thought of as a day-dreamy, visionary sort of thing, a using of certain religious phraseology constantly. It may be a real, practical, sane, sensible living as in His presence, in such a way as to give a wholesome sweetness and sanity to all of one’s life.
That wondrous presence of His so recognized, and in growing degree realized, will change all the life subtly but tremendously. He will become a Host in the home, reshaping its usage and life, until by and by it will be permeated by His spirit, and take on the shape of His personality. He will affect one’s social intercourse, the conversation, and the prevailing spirit and motive under the conversation. He will shape one’s business transactions, shutting some things wholly out, bringing other considerations in to guide and decide, and making a new standard by which all will be measured and controlled.
He will control the whole life. There will be sacrifice of a real cutting sort. It need not be sought for. It comes of itself in the path of obedience. It is sin that makes sacrifice. Sin put a cross in the Saviour’s path, and will see to it that a cross is as surely put in the path of every follower of the Saviour.
And there is yet more, so much more that all this seems scarcely like a beginning. He reveals Himself. There is a peace, a gladness, a joy that must sing; there is a fragrance in the spirit air, the fragrance of His presence. There is fighting, sometimes thick and hard, with moist brow, clenched hand and tight breathing. But there is victory. It is victory through fighting. It is all the sweeter for that.2 [Note: S. D. Gordon, The Crowded Inn, 59.]
In the Heart
That He may dwell in your hearts, that best room of the house of manhood; not in your thoughts alone, but in your affections; not merely have Him in your minds, but have Him in your loves. Paul wants you to have a love to Christ of a most abiding character, not a love that flames up under an earnest sermon, and then dies out into the darkness of a few embers, but a constant flame, the abiding love of Jesus in your hearts, both day and night, like the flame upon the altar which never went out.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]
I was reading lately Montalembert’s Memoir of Lacordaire, and could not but feel that there was, and I hope is, high, principle among some of the Roman Catholics of France. Here are one or two sayings of Lacordaire:—
“I will never believe that the heart can wear out, and I feel every day that it becomes stronger, more tender, more detached from the ties of the body, in proportion as life and reflection neutralize the covering in which it is stifled.”
“I am sad betimes; but who is there that is not so? It is a dart which we must always carry in the soul; we must try not to lean on the side where it is. It is the javelin of Mantinea in the breast of Epaminondas; it is extracted only by death and entrance into eternity.”
“I desire, like Mary Magdalene, the day but one before the Passion, to break at the feet of Jesus Christ this frail vessel of my thought.”
Among his last words were, “I am unable to pray to Him, but I look upon Him”; his very last, “My God! open to me, open to me!”2 [Note: Letters of John Ker, 147.]
2. The indwelling of Christ in us is not like that of a man who, abiding in a house, is nevertheless in no sense identified with it. No; His indwelling is a possession of our hearts that is truly Divine, quickening and penetrating their inmost being with His life. The Father strengthens us inwardly with might by His Spirit, so that the Spirit animates our will and brings it, like the will of Jesus, into entire sympathy with His own. The result is that our heart then, like the heart of Jesus, bows before Him in humility and surrender; our life seeks only His honour; and our whole soul thrills with desire and love for Jesus. This inward renewal makes the heart fit to be a dwelling-place of the Lord. By the Spirit He is revealed within us and we come to know that He is actually in us as our life, in a deep, Divine unity, One with us.
Be good at the depths of you, and you will discover that those who surround you will be good even to the same depths. Nothing responds more infallibly to the secret cry of goodness than the secret cry of goodness that is near. While you are actively good in the invisible, all those who approach you will unconsciously do things that they could not do by the side of any other man. Therein lies a force that has no name; a spiritual rivalry that knows no resistance. It is as though this were the actual place where is the sensitive spot of our soul; for there are souls that seem to have forgotten their existence and to have renounced everything that enables the being to rise; but, once touched here, they all draw themselves erect; and in the Divine plains of the secret goodness, the most humble of souls cannot endure defeat.1 [Note: Maeterlinck, The Treasure of the Humble, 166.]
But if we remain wholly in ourselves, separated from God, we shall be miserable and unsaved; and so we ought to feel ourselves living wholly in God and wholly in ourselves, and between these two sensations we shall find nothing but the grace of God and the exercises of our love. For from the height of our highest sensation, the splendour of God shines upon us, and it teaches us truth and impels us towards all virtues into the eternal love of God. Without interruption we follow this splendour on to the source from which it flows, and there we feel that our spirits are stripped of all things and bathed beyond thought of rising in the pure and infinite ocean of love.2 [Note: Maeterlinck, Ruysbroeck and the Mystics, 91.]
Speak to me, my God;
And let me know the living Father cares
For me, even me; for this one of His children,—
Hast Thou no word for me? I am Thy thought.
God, let Thy mighty heart beat into mine,
And let mine answer as a pulse to Thine.
See, I am low; yea, very low; but Thou
Art high, and Thou canst lift me up to Thee.
I am a child, a fool before Thee, God;
But Thou hast made my weakness as my strength.
I am an emptiness for Thee to fill;
My soul, a cavern for Thy sea.1 [Note: George MacDonald, “Within and Without” (Poetical Works, i. 10).]
Through Faith
2. And this is equally true of all the later stages of the Christian life. All growth and progress, all perfection of character, all victory and fruitfulness, are by faith. The promise of the Spirit is received by faith. Christ dwells “in our hearts by faith.” Christ is not an object of sight or sense to us. We know Him only by believing in Him. From first to last, faith is the instrument and medium of all our union and fellowship with Him. Faith alone brings Him into the soul; and faith alone keeps Him there. By faith alone we find His presence, and by faith alone we continue to realize it. By faith we make Him ours, by faith love Him, and by faith live unto Him. “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” We have no eye but that of faith whereby to see, no ear but that of faith whereby to hear, no hand but that of faith whereby to apprehend, and no heart but that of faith whereby to embrace Christ. Thus faith lies at the very foundation of all personal religion, and must be the pervading element of all. We are true Christians in so far as we have true faith. We walk to heaven by faith, and live in God by faith.
3. But what is faith? It is a certain state and condition of the whole inward man, a certain aspect of the whole mind, and heart, and soul towards God in Christ. Christ Himself, and not merely a particular set of facts, or events, or propositions, is the object of it. We believe in Him, we trust Him, we apprehend His presence, we have confidence in His word of promise, we rely on His love, His goodness, His power, we cleave in spirit to Him, we rejoice in Him, and commune with Him. This is faith, and by this Christ dwells in our heart. It is peculiar to Christians who are such not in name only, but in deed and in truth; it is peculiar to those who are partakers of the Spirit, who have the life of religion within them. As soon as ever a soul has this faith, Christ is in him. As long as ever he has it, Christ dwells in him.
Is it paradoxical, this mighty power of faith? Not more so than the mighty power of lips and throat when the strong meat, or reviving cordial, is taken into the exhausted body. The “mighty power” is not really in lips and throat, but in what they, and only they, can receive and do receive. The “mighty power” is not properly in the faith, but in Him whom it lets into the weary being, that He may do there a work which He, not faith, does; Himself making our weakness strength and our pollution purity.1 [Note: H. C. G. Moule, The Pledges of His Love, 70.]
My enemies (at Tanna) seldom slackened their hateful designs against my life, however calmed or baffled for the moment. Life in such circumstances led me to cling very near to the Lord Jesus; I knew not, for one brief hour, when or how attack might be made; and yet, with my trembling hand clasped in the hand once nailed on Calvary, and now swaying the sceptre of the Universe, calmness and peace and resignation abode in my soul. Next day, a wild chief followed me about for four hours with his loaded musket, and, though often directed towards me, God restrained his hand. I spoke kindly to him, and attended to my work as if he had not been there, fully persuaded that my God had placed me there, and would protect me till my allotted task was finished. Looking up in unceasing prayer to our dear Lord Jesus, I left all in His hands, and felt immortal till my work was done. Trials and hairbreadth escapes strengthened my faith, and seemed only to nerve me for more to follow; and they did tread swiftly upon each other’s heels. Without that abiding consciousness of the presence and power of my dear Lord and Saviour, nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably. His words, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” became to me so real that it would not have startled me to behold Him, as Stephen did, gazing down upon the scene. I felt His supporting power, as did St. Paul, when he cried, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” It is the sober truth, and it comes back to me sweetly after twenty years, that I had my nearest and dearest glimpses of the face and smile of my blessed Lord in those dread moments when musket, club, or spear was being levelled at my life. Oh the bliss of living and enduring, as seeing Him who is invisible!1 [Note: John G. Paton, i. 119.]
(1) Faith is trust.—And trust which is faith is self-distrust. “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.” Rivers do not run on the mountain tops, but down in the valleys. So the heart that is lifted up and self-complacent has no dew of His blessing resting upon it, but has the curse of Gilboa adhering to its barrenness; but the low lands, the humble and the lowly hearts, are they in which the waters that go softly, scoop their course, and diffuse their blessings. Faith is self-distrust. Self-distrust brings the Christ.
My own idea of trust is as illimitable as the word indicates. Whatever happens, to believe it is a part of the Divine plan. However unpleasant, however painful, however disagreeable may be that happening or circumstance, to determine upon finding its good meaning, and to turn it to the soul’s account and make it a means of character building. Trust does not, in my interpretation of the word, include placid acceptance of conditions or events. It means using these things as stepping-stones to deliverance. When our environment is not to our liking, when we are annoyed and hurt by events, the first thing to do is to discover if we ourselves have not been the cause of these troubles. If we realize on careful analysis that we are the cause, then trust the Divine forces to show us the way out. If we find we are blameless, and the troubles come through what we call Fate, then again trust in Divine power, within ourselves and beyond ourselves, to deliver us. Meanwhile let us go upon our way doing the duty which lies nearest, with absolute trust in the heart that we are treading the path to power.1 [Note: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, New Thought Common Sense, 233.]
(2) Faith is desire.—Never in the history of the world has it been or can it be that a longing towards Him shall be a longing thrown back unsatisfied upon itself. We have but to trust, and we possess. We open the door for the entrance of Christ by the simple act of faith, and, blessed be His name! He can squeeze Himself through a very little chink, and He does not require that the gates should be flung wide open in order that, with some of His blessings, He may come in.
It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them until our feelings are deadened?2 [Note: George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss.]
The soul possesses a native yearning for intercourse and companionship, which takes it to God as naturally as the home instinct of the pigeon takes it to the place of its birth. There is in every normal soul a spontaneous outreach, a free play of spirit which gives it onward yearning of unstilled desire. It is no mere subjective instinct. If it met no response it would soon be weeded out of the race. It would shrivel like the functionless organ. We could not long continue to pray in faith, if we lost the assurance that there is a Person who cares, and who actually corresponds with us. In fact, the very desire to pray is in itself prophetic of a Heavenly Friend—a Divine Companion.3 [Note: Rufus Jones.]
With Thee a moment! Then what dreams have play!
Traditions of eternal toil arise,
Search for the high, austere, and lonely way
The Spirit moves in through Eternities.
Ah, in the soul what memories arise!
And with what yearning inexpressible,
Rising from long forgetfulness, I turn
To Thee invisible, unrumoured, still:
White for Thy whiteness all desires burn.
Ah, with what longing once again I turn.1 [Note: “A. E.”]
4. What do we gain by the indwelling of Christ in the heart through faith?
(1) Constancy.—We are ready to say again and again: “Oh, that I were always what I am sometimes!” Is not one of the greatest needs of our spiritual life constancy—strength to enable us to continue?—“Patient continuance in well doing.” There is no such token of strength or proof of power as being able to continue. That quality is lacking in us to-day. How is the defect to be met? Christ is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever”; and if He dwell in us He will impart to us that element of stability, He will make us strong by His indwelling presence that never fails.
When Mr. Browning wrote to Miss Haworth, in 1861, he had said: “I shall still grow, I hope; but my root is taken, and remains.” He was then alluding to a special offshoot of feeling and association, on the permanence of which it is not now necessary to dwell; but it is certain that he continued growing up to a late age, and that the development was limited only by those general roots, those fixed conditions of his being, which had predetermined its form. This progressive intellectual vitality is amply represented in his works; it also reveals itself in his letters in so far as they remain and are accessible. I only refer to it to give emphasis to a contrasted or corresponding characteristic: his aversion to every thought of change. I have spoken of his constancy to all degrees of friendship and love. What he loved once he loved always, from the dearest man or woman to whom his allegiance had been given to the humblest piece of furniture which had served him.2 [Note: Mrs. Sutherland Orr, Life and Letters of Robert Browning, 349.]
It is strange that of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother thus taught me, that which cost me most to learn, and which was, to my child’s mind, chiefly repulsive—the 119th Psalm—has now become of all the most precious to me, in its overflowing and glorious passion of love for the Law of God, in opposition to the abuse of it by modern preachers of what they imagine to be His gospel.
But it is only by deliberate effort that I recall the long morning hours of toil, as regular as sunrise—toil on both sides equal—by which, year after year, my mother forced me to learn these fine old Scottish Paraphrases, and chapters (the eighth of 1st Kings being one—try it, good reader, in a leisure hour!), allowing not so much as a syllable to be missed or misplaced; while every sentence was required to be said over and over again till she was satisfied with the accent of it. I recollect a struggle between us of about three weeks, concerning the accent of the “of” in the lines
Shall any following spring revive
The ashes of the urn?—
I insisting, partly in childish obstinacy, and partly in true instinct for rhythm (being wholly careless on the subject both of urns and their contents), on reciting it with an accented of. It was not, I say, till after three weeks’ labour, that my mother got the accent lightened on the “of” and laid on the ashes, to her mind. But had it taken three years, she would have done it, having once undertaken to do it. And, assuredly, had she not done it,—well, there’s no knowing what would have happened; but I’m very thankful she did.1 [Note: Ruskin, Praeterita, i. 54.]
(2) Cleansing.—The thoughts of the heart are a trouble to every Christian; the secret springs of action—they are the trouble. The secret tastes and the sympathies—these are the things that go to make the essence of Christian life.
Rivers to the ocean run,
Nor stay in all their course;
Fire, ascending, seeks the sun;
Both speed them to their source;
So a soul, new-born of God,
Pants to know His glorious face,
Upwards tends to His abode,
To rest in His embrace.
(3) Catholicity.—What do we read in the Apostle’s prayer? That we “may be able to comprehend with all saints.” If Christ is in the heart, barriers and divisions melt away. We are one with our brothers. The “hand” is not going to fight with the “foot.” We all belong to the same body and we know it; we each have a secret vital link with every other member of the mystical body of Christ. Whatever differences there are on minor points we say: “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.”
What profound and broad contrasts divide men from men; what gulfs separate one race from another, earlier from later ages, any one state of thought and social progress from what went before it and what follows it: and within narrower limits, what endless variety, baffling all imagination to follow, of circumstance and fortune, of capacity and character, of wealth or poverty, of strength or weakness, of inclinations and employments, of a kindly or unkindly lot. Yet for all, one life is the guiding light, and the words which express it speak to all. A life the highest conceivable, on almost the lowest conceivable stage, and recorded in the simplest form, with indifference to all outward accompaniments, attractive whether to the few or to the many, is set before us as the final and unalterable ideal of human nature. Amid all its continual and astonishing changes, differing widely as men do, Christ calls them all alike to follow Him: unspeakably great as His example is, it is for the many and the average as much as for the few; homely as is its expression, there is no other lesson for the deepest and most refined. The least were called to its high goodness: the greatest had nothing offered them but its brief-spoken plainness.1 [Note: Dean Church.]
That mystic word of Thine, O sovereign Lord,
Is all too pure, too high, too deep for me;
Weary of striving, and with longing faint,
I breathe it back again in prayer to Thee.
Abide in me, I pray, and I in Thee;
From this good hour, O, leave me never more;
Then shall the discord cease, the wound be healed,
The lifelong bleeding of the soul be o’er.
Abide in me; o’ershadow by Thy love
Each half-formed purpose and dark thought of sin;
Quench, ere it rise, each selfish, low desire,
And keep my soul as Thine, calm and divine.
As some rare perfume in a vase of clay
Pervades it with a fragrance not its own,
So, when Thou dwellest in a mortal soul,
All heaven’s own sweetness seems around it thrown.
Abide in me; there have been moments blest
When I have heard Thy voice and felt Thy power,
Then evil lost its grasp, and passion hushed,
Owned the divine enchantment of the hour.
These were but seasons, beautiful and rare;
Abide in me, and they shall ever be;
Fulfil at once Thy precept and my prayer—
Come, and abide in me, and I in Thee!1 [Note: H. B. Stowe.]
Literature
Burrell (D. J.), The Religion of the Future, 13.
Chapin (E. H.), The Church of the Living God, 28.
Dale (R. W.), Lectures on the Ephesians, 242.
Heywood (B. O. F.), in Sermons for the People, New Ser., vi. 162.
Holland (H. S.), God’s City, 86.
Maclaren (A.), Christ in the Heart, 15.
Maclaren (A.), Creed and Conduct, 243.
Moule (H. C. G.), The Pledges of His Love, 68.
Murray (A.), The Full Blessing of Pentecost, 126.
Webster (F. S.), In Remembrance of Me, 49.
Christian World Pulpit, xiii. 88 (Gallaway); lviii. 19 (Fairbairn).
Church Pulpit Year Book, 1905, p. 249.
Churchman’s Pulpit: Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, xii. 188 (Jobson), 201 (Armstrong), 221 (Hannah), 224 (Edmondstone).
Keswick Week, 1905, p. 49 (Moore).
Literary Churchman, xxv. (1879), 380.