Extract from Mr. Flavel’s Sixteenth Sermon on “The Fountain of Life.”—ED.
WE will open the way and manner in which Christ obtains a throne in the hearts of men, and that is by conquest; for though the souls of the elect are His by donation and right of redemption; the Father gave them to Him, and He died for them; yet Satan hath the first possession; and so it fares with Christ, as it did with Abraham, to whom God gave the land of Canaan by promise and covenant, but the Canaanites, Perizzites, and sons of Anak, had the actual possession of it, and Abraham’s posterity must fight for it, and win it by inches, before they enjoy it. The house is conveyed to Christ by Him that built it, but the strong man armed keeps the possession of it, till a stronger than he comes and ejects him.—(Luke xi. 20, 21, 22.) Christ must fight His way into the soul, though He has a right to enter, as into His dearly purchased possession. And so He doth; for when the time of receiving them is come He sends forth His armies to subdue them; as it is in Psalm cx. 3, “Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.” The Hebrew may as fitly be rendered, and so is by some, “in the day of thine armies;” when the Lord Jesus sent forth His armies of prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors, teachers, under the conduct of His Spirit, armed with the two-edged sword, the Word of God, which is sharp and powerful.—(Heb. vi. 12.) But that is not all; He causes armies of convictions, and spiritual troubles to begird and straiten them on every side, so that they may know not what to do. These convictions, like a shower of arrows, strike point blank into their consciences (Acts ii. 37), “When they heard this, they were pricked to the heart, and said, Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Christ’s arrows are sharp in the hearts of his enemies, whereby the people fall under Him.—(Psalm xlv. 5, 6.) By these convictions He battles down all their loose vain hopes, and levels them with the earth.
Now all their weak pleas and defences, from the general mercy of God, the example of others, etc., prove but as paper walls to them. These shake their hearts, even to the very foundation, and overturn every high thought there, that exalts itself against the Lord. The day, in which Christ sits down before the soul, and summons it by such messengers as these, is a day of distress within, yea, such a day of trouble that none is like it. But though it be so, yet Satan hath so deeply entrenched himself in the mind and will, that the soul yields not at the first summons, till its provisions within are spent, and all its towers of pride and walls of vain-confidence, be undermined by the gospel, and shaken down about its ears, and then the soul desires a parley with Christ. O now it would be glad of terms, any terms, if it may but save its life; let all go as a prey to the conqueror. Now it sends many such messengers as these to Christ, who is now come to the very gates of the soul; Mercy, Lord, mercy, O were I but assured Thou wouldest receive, spare, and pardon me, I would open to Thee the next moment! Thus the soul is “shut up to the faith of Christ” as it is Gal. iii. 23, and reduced now to the greatest strait and loss imaginable; and now the merciful King, whose only design is to conquer the heart, hangs forth the white flag of mercy before the soul, giving it hopes it shall be spared, pitied, and pardoned though so long in rebellion against Him, if yet it will yield itself to Christ. Many staggerings, hesitations, irresolutions, doubts, fears, scruples, half-resolves, reasonings for and against, these are at the council-table of man’s own heart at this time. Sometimes there is no hope; Christ will slay me if I go forth to Him, and then it trembles. But then, whoever found Him so that tried Him? Other souls have yielded, and found mercy beyond all their expectations. O but I have been a desperate enemy against Him. Admit it, yet thou hast the word of a King for it; “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”—(Isaiah lv. 7).
But the time of mercy is past; I have stood out too long. Yet if it were so, how is it that Christ hath not made short work and cut me off, set fire, hell fire, to my soul, and withdrawn the siege? Still He waiteth that He may be gracious, and is exalted that He may have compassion. A thousand such debates there are, till at last the soul, considering if it abide in rebellion it must needs perish; if it go forth to Christ it can but perish; and being somewhat encouraged by the messages of grace sent into the soul at this time, such as in Heb. vii. 25, “Wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him”; and John vi. 37, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out”; and in Matt. xi. 28, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” It is at last resolved to open to Christ, and saith, “Stand open, ye everlasting gates, and be ye opened, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.” Now the will spontaneously opens to Christ; that royal fort submits and yields; all the affections open to Him. The will brings Christ the keys of all the rooms in the soul. Concerning the triumphant entrance of Christ into the soul, we may say, as the Psalmist rhetorically speaks concerning the triumphant entrance of Israel into Canaan (Psalm cxiv. 5, 6), “The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs; what aileth thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou wast driven back?” So here, in a like rhetorical triumph, we may say the mountains and hills skip like rams, and the fixed and obstinate will starts from its own basis and centre; the rocky heart rends in twain. A poor soul comes in to the word full of ignorance, pride, self-love, desperate hardness, and fixed resolutions to go on its way; and by an hour’s discourse the tide turns, Jordan is driven back. What aileth thee, thou stout will, that thou surrenderest to Christ? thou hard heart that thou relentest, and the waters gush out? And then the soul is won to Christ; He writes down His terms, and the soul willingly subscribes them. Thus it comes in to Christ by free and hearty submission, desiring nothing more than to come under the government of Christ for the time to come.