We take the guilty sinner's name, I am a great sinner! Truth, Lord;' yet the great sinner claims the great Saviour. I am the chief of sinners! 'Truth, Lord;' yet the chief of sinners claims the chief of Saviours. I am ignorant! Truth, Lord;' yet Christ is my wisdom. I am unrighteous! Truth, Lord; yet Christ is my righteousness. I am unholy! Truth, Lord;' yet Christ is my sanctification. I am in bondage! Truth, Lord;' yet Christ is my redemption. That 'yet' is the pleading of need from the place that truth has given. Mercy and truth are met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. And now, what is the answer, and what the result? Then Jesus answered and said unto her, 'O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.' This was the answer, the very resources of Jehovah thrown open for her use. 'And her daughter was made whole from that hour.' And this was the result, 'From that hour.' What hour? The hour in which she said, Truth, Lord.' The hour in which she took the dog's place, and claimed the dog's portion. Is this but a crumb from His blessed table? What must the full feast be, when the Church of God, gathered out of Jew and Gentile, shall sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb; and every prayer shall have ended, because all shall have been answered; and the combined glory of grace and truth shall shine out for ever from the brows of all the myriads of sinners saved by grace, who came in all their degradation and need to the feet of Christ, giving Him His true place, and taking their true place? Friend, God now waits to be gracious to you; but you must take the dog's place. In the following papers I have tried to preserve the balance between GRACE AND TRUTH. The grace of God' brings salvation, this is the truth of Titus ii. The righ teousness of God'-God being just and justifying him that believes in Jesus is the truth of Rom. iii. I have endeavoured to show both the grace and truth of God :— 1st. With regard to the justification of a sinner. Grace has to be seen and truth seen, each equal to the other. 2nd. With regard to the sanctification or growth in grace of a believer. Grace is seen and truth is seen. 'Being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life' (Rom. vi. 22). I here give the thread on which the papers in this volume are crystallized : 1st. There is no difference,' for until a man sces this, he is not in the place where God can bless him. This is fundamental. 2nd. Would you like to be saved? Whosoever will' is pointed to the work of Christ for sinners. 3rd. 'Ye must be born again.'—Wherein are discussed the necessity and nature of regeneration. Regeneration is an act done at the same time as justification-not a work as many seem to think, confounding it with gradual sanctification. Justification gives pardon and acceptance. Regeneration gives a new life, a new nature at the same time, perfect in parts but not in development, sanctification being the development of this new life. In this is discussed the question what is the water, of which we must be born again. 4th. Do you feel that your sins are forgiven? In this is pointed out that most dangerous error of confounding man's feelings with the testimony of God's Word-the confounding of the eighth chapter of Romans with the fifth-the confounding of the Spirit's witness to sonship with 'being justified by faith we have peace with God'; that we stand only on the written word thus saith the Lord' for our 'knowledge of salvation,' as we stand only on the incarnate Word for that salvation itself. 5th. The work of the Holy Spirit. The connection and difference between the work of the Spirit in me and Christ's work for me are here considered. Many souls would wish to study the work of the Spirit in them first, but only a saved man can profitably study this; one who has come through the former chapter do you feel that your sins are forgiven?' The Holy Ghost is never mentioned in Romans till the fifth chapter. Misplaced truth is the worst error. 6th. Heaven opened.' In which we get a glimpse of the counsels of God in the past, present, and future. Heaven is opened now for us and all that is there is ours. The Epistle to the Hebrews discloses our opened heaven. 7th. Triumph and Conflict come next. The conflict before was between me and God, now it is between me and myself, and this will be a life-long conflict, for every Christian is in the world, has the flesh within and Satan against him. These are typified by Israel-in Egypt, which is spiritually the world-in the Wilderness, where Amalek (the flesh) has to be defeated-and in Canaan, where the Canaanites ('spiritual wickednesses') have to be overcome. " This Satanic trinity' is considered in the three following papers in detail. 8th. Under the sun.' " Our great foe the world' is here looked at. What is it? and how is it to be overcome ? 9th. No confidence in the flesh'-the believer's beacon fire. Here we consider what true holiness is and what it is not. Not the old nature made better, but the believer as a whole, as an individual, made better by his new nature keeping the old under. In this is shown the all-important truth concerning the existence in the one individual saved man of two distinct natures. The one person has two natures, one that cannot sin because born of God, the other that cannot but sin because born of Satan. Our practical holiness does not consist in assimilation, but in opposition-not in improvement of the old man, but in his mortification. Our responsibility remains in the individual person, possessed of these two natures. 10th. The devil. The truth so plainly shown in Scripture concerning the real personal existence, and not mere influence of the devil; where he is, what he is doing, and our power over him, are stated. 11th. Serving the Lord' now comes in. Since we are made free from our foes, since our bands are loosened, we can now serve. 'Let my people go that they may serve me.' 12th. Judgment is looked at as past with regard to the believer's person, present as to the believer's ways, and to come for the believer's works. Many Christians fail to see the perfect balance here between grace and truth-grace putting us for ever beyond judgment, and truth bringing up at the judgment-seat of Christ all our deeds done in the body, good or bad. In issuing the hundredth thousand of this work we have made a few corrections, in order if possible to make our meaning plainer. At the same time we would record our adoring thanks to Him whose name is Wonderful, for having in any way used these pages as the means of sending light into dark hearts, or of solving difficulties for those who already knew His grace and truth, and leading them more intelligently to walk with Himself; and that it has found its way into the hands of tens of thousands of anxious enquirers or earnest Christians in these times of blessing with which our country is now being favoured. May the gracious Spirit whose work it is to lead into all truth bless what is His own in these pages, to the glory of the ever blessed Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour. W. P. M. THE PARK, HULL. |