(Continued from page 392.)
SECTION III. Containing an account of the temptations I laboured under, while I was employed in the duty of writing, and the way the Lord gave an outgate therefrom.
WHAT cometh from the Lord in a way of love and grace, leadeth to Him in a way of love and duty. By this exercise I was taught more than ever before, viz., a constant trading with heaven: new duties brought in new difficulties, and discovered new wants, and gave me repeated errands to the fountain of infinite fulness, in order to get them supplied. I am persuaded the Lord sends none a warfare on their own charges. In a word, the Lord bears all the charges of His own work: blessed be His name.
I neither had education nor natural endowments for such an undertaking. Any memory I had was owing to the Spirit’s bringing His own words to remembrance. When the Lord, by His Spirit, shined upon His word and work, then I had a clear remembrance of both. I have cause to speak it, to the praise of the Lord; it hath often been His way with me, to bring old experiences to remembrance, with new discoveries of Himself. Sometimes with brighter views of the glory of God, shining in the face of Jesus Christ: “The brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews i. 3). At other times I got further views of the mystery of justification, and how that question was answered that would have non-plussed men and angels to have answered it, how God would be just in justifying the ungodly, who saith, “I will by no means clear the guilty” (Exod. iv. 7). It is done in a crucified Christ: “He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Upon the ground of His justice-satisfying, law-fulfilling, and law-magnifying righteousness, God is just in justifying the ungodly, in a consistency with all His other attributes and perfections: “Mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other” in the person of the God-man, “Emmanuel; God with us.” This way of saving sinners brings in a revenue of praise and glory to God in the highest. O wonderful wisdom! how brightly is it displayed in God’s providing so well for His own glory and the sinner’s salvation!
This view endeared the Lord to my soul and made me say upon the matter, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do for Thee?” But after these sweet manifestations of the love of God in Christ, ordinarily came my sorest trials. Satan raised such a mist upon these truths, I found it a hard thing to win to a steadfast adherence to them in the hour and power of darkness. Satan injected those, or the like hellish temptations: Hath God said so and so? or to call in question the being of some attribute or perfection in God; which struck at His very being, and the foundation of religion. It is the saying of a divine, “Experience is the mother of affection.” By the experience I had of that temptation, I was taught more than ever before to sympathize with, and pray for, as I could, though not as I should, for ministers who are much in the study of divine truth, knowing they are men of the like passions with ourselves, and liable to the same temptations. I saw also that it was no wonder though they easily parted with truth, if they had a temptation to it, who never felt the power of God, or the saving influence of the truths of God upon their own souls; nor ever feasted on the ravishing sweetness of God that is to be found in His word. “Thy word was found of me, and I did eat it; and it was to me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart” (Jer. xv. 16).
When I was sore shaken, and faith like to fail, then ordinarily the Lord brought to my remembrance some part of His word, which confirmed me in the truth. I was shaken about when the Lord manifested Himself in the promise. Then I saw matters, in the light of the Lord, to be what they were before; then I was both strengthened and encouraged in the way of the Lord. I saw also cause to bless Him for His word and the teaching of His Spirit; had I wanted them but a little, I would soon have been, I thought, as great an atheist as was upon the earth. Whenever a temptation offered, how easily was I shaken about the clearest revealed truths in the Bible! “Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom, nor have I the knowledge of the holy” (Proverbs xxx. 2, 3). Such has been the condescendency of my sweet and altogether-lovely Lord, as to warn me of onsets from Satan, sometimes before they came, by those scriptures, “And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not” (Luke xxii. 31); and, “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Eph. vi. 11). It is no easy matter to be sifted by Satan. O blessed be God, the Mediator’s prayers prevail in heaven: “Him the Father heareth always,” etc. Satan often suggested to me that hellish temptation, the longer I continued a profession of religion, I would dishonour God the more. It was suddenly darted in upon my mind, as lightning into a room, and with that hellish force and vigour as left little strength in me: my hands were ready to hang down, though I never omitted duty upon that account, so far as I can remember, but I was much discouraged in it. I often feared I would fall one day or other by the hand of the roaring lion of hell, and be a scandal to religion. Satan made use of, as a bait for his temptations, the saying of the unjust judge to the widow (Luke xviii. 5). He moreover suggested, that by His continually persevering to tempt, He would weary me out at last. Indeed my standing was entirely owing to Him “who hath all power in heaven and in earth,” and who can set the powers of heaven against the powers of hell: “We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.”
When I was sore wounded by Satan’s fiery darts, then the merciful Samaritan poured in some sweet word of comfort; He bound up my wounds: He said unto me, “Fear not, I am thy exceeding great reward” (Genesis xv. 1); “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might” (Eph. vi. 10). Notwithstanding, so far did those unbelieving fears prevail at times, to my shame I acknowledge it, and to the praise of the glory of His grace, “Who hath made us accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. i. 6), that I wished for a cottage in the wilderness, where no saint might know me, that if I fell, I should not “offend the generation of the righteous.” I consulted with myself how to get off the name of religion: I remembered the common proverb, “Such company as ye are, such company take you to.” Then such insinuations as these came into my mind—I must leave the godly and associate with the wicked. That I abhorred, for I could appeal to the Searcher of hearts what a burden the company of the wicked had been to me, especially upon the Lord’s day; and as for the saints, I counted them for “the excellent ones of the earth,” and favoured them most, when the image and Spirit of God most appeared in them. I have cause to speak it to the praise of God, I have found Him pleased often to breathe upon the company of saints, both in social worship and spiritual converse: “those that feared the Lord, spoke often one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name” (Mal. iii. 16). In this divided day we live in, I have often thought it would have been more for the glory of God and for the promoting of religion, if the saints had walked together more friendly in what they are agreed than what they do: “Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend” (Proverbs xxvii. 17). It will never be the privilege of the saints to see eye to eye in all that concerns the glory of God, in this imperfect state; yet they generally agree in the experimental knowledge of religion, though they differ far in the gifts and attainments that God is pleased to confer upon them. However, the least saint has a saving knowledge of a God in Christ; why then may not the saints converse together about what God hath done for their souls? “Follow peace with all men, and holiness; without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews xii. 14).
I conversed with a godly minister who had been much in the school of temptation. He told me that he studied a whole week how he might throw off the name of religion. I was glad to hear of that, for I thought none had been in my case, though the Apostle saith, “No temptation hath happened unto you, but such as are common to man.”
In the time of the late war, Satan assaulted me much by that temptation, “It is needless for you to write, for the French will come and destroy both you and your nation;” “The fear of man causeth a snare;” that I found to my sad experience. Many things occurred to increase my fear: my own and the land’s guiltiness; and the many awful tokens of the Lord’s anger smoking against us, made me fear the Lord might justly make the French a rod in His hand to punish us for our iniquities, and to avenge the quarrel of a broken covenant. The Lord sent famine on the land of Israel three years, year after year, to avenge the quarrel of a breach of covenant with the Gibeonites (2 Samuel xxi. 1). To my great grief, I conversed with one in the character of a minister who ridiculed the covenants. I spoke to him to this purpose, “If the covenants bind us only to Bible principles, then we are bound by the law of God to perform them; though Scotland had never abjured, by covenant, every doctrine inconsistent with the word of God, and our Confessions of Faith.” He replied, “It would not be asked us at the day of judgment, whether we owned a covenanted work of reformation or not.” That scripture occurred to my mind, Matthew v. 19, “Whosoever therefore breaketh one of the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do, and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” The noble marquis of Argyle, when upon the scaffold, expressed himself thus: “God hath laid engagements upon Scotland; we are tied by covenant to religion and reformation. Those that were then unborn were engaged to it; and it passeth the power of any under heaven to absolve a man from the oath of God.”
One time when I was much shaken by the forementioned temptation, I had left my writings lying in a window: that night there came on a great rain, which came down in the window. The first thing I saw in the morning was the window in a flood of water; then I said with Job, “That which I greatly feared is come upon me,” for now I thought they were all ruined. When I came to the window, and saw the water had made no impression upon them, I was amazed at the condescendency of a God of power: He who preserved the three children, in the midst of the fiery furnace, preserved them in the midst of water. It was all one to my view as if they had been taken out of a pool of water dry, and I saw no natural cause for it. O the astonishing condescendency of God, who vouchsafed to work, as it were, a miracle, to confound me for my unbelief! I was ashamed and confounded when I remembered the words of the Lord which He had borne in upon my mind in the hour of temptation: “But upon all the glory shall be a defence” (Isaiah iv. 5); “This shall be written for the generations to come” (Psalm cii. 18).
Again, the subtle enemy, who had many times tempted me to destroy myself when it served his purpose, he turned it another way: he suggested that “much studying was a weariness to the flesh, and by it I would destroy myself.” I considered—that I had my being from God, my health from Him, my all from Him; and I desire to live upon Him, and to live to Him, and be disposed of by Him, and for Him: and by His grace, at this I desire to hold, “Thine am I, O David; and on thy side, thou son of Jesse.”
Lastly, Satan suggested that there was so much self in what I had written, it were best to destroy it; for if it came to the light, it would but dishonour God. While I was grieved at the thoughts of dishonouring God, those words were borne in upon me, “Thine adversaries shall be found liars;” and, “Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it” (Isaiah lxv. 8).
When I view myself in the glass of the holy law of God, or in the glass of the holiness of God, who says, “Be ye holy, for I am holy,” O what cause have I to cry out, “Unclean, unclean!” I need a Saviour to save me from my best duties, as well as from my worst sins. It is a comfortable saying of Dr. Owen’s, “The Lord Jesus takes away from the duties of the saints, the pride, the self, the unbelief, and perfumes them with the incense of His own merits, and presents them to His Father; and when they will meet the saints, at the day of judgment, they will scarce know them to be theirs.”
Again, I observe, so far as I know, I neither allowed nor approved of self; so far as it prevailed, it was my burden and grief: when my sweet and altogether-lovely Lord was pleased to bring me into communion and fellowship with Himself, then that detestable idol of self was ready to set up its head, and aspired to rob Christ of His crown, and all His royal prerogatives. Could I then be but grieved to see my glorious Lord robbed of the glory of His grace? I loathed and abhorred myself on account of its prevailing; I cried to the Lord against it, saying, Let King Jesus reign; let Him reign and wear the crown, and possess the throne in my heart for ever. I had not peace till that detestable idol, self, was discernibly got under: I rejoiced sometimes in hope of the victory over it at last, when those Egyptians, whom we see to-day, we shall see no more again for ever (Exod. xiv. 14).
SECTION IV. Remarks upon the whole.
I SHALL now conclude these reflections, by offering a few remarks upon the whole.
1. In all my trials and temptations the sin of unbelief hath been the predominant evil.
O how much have I dishonoured God by not believing in His word, and not trusting in His salvation as I ought! My sin hath many heinous aggravations attending it, being committed after so many sweet manifestations of the love of God in Christ, and being convinced of it; again and again have I foolishly requited the Lord, by razing the foundation and calling in question His former lovingkindnesses ; as if God had been changed in love, when I was changed in frame. O what cause have I to “look upon Him whom I have pierced, and to mourn !”
2. In all my trials, my comfort came by the word of God.
When He shot the arrows of conviction into my conscience, it was by His word ; when He healed me, it was by His word : “The word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword ; and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews iv. 12). When I got a discovery of the glory of God in Christ by faith, it was through the glass of the promises ; when I heard His voice, it was in His word : “Never man spake like this man.” “He told me all things that ever I did ; Is not this the Christ ?” Here we may see darkly through the glass of the promise ; but when the glass of the promise is removed, and faith swallowed up in vision, then the soul will get a sight of its glorious object, the beautiful vision of God and the Lamb. “Make haste, my Beloved, and be thou like a roe, or a young hart, upon the mountains of Bether.”
3. The sweet manifestations of the love of God in Christ, and the effects that ordinarily attended them, had their own weight with me in the hour of temptation.
I mention some of those effects. They discovered new wants, and increased new fears of sinning against so loving and kind a Lord. They discovered the want of love to God : I wondered I could love Him so little, who loved wretched me, and gave Himself for me. They discovered also much want of a holy reverential fear of God : holy fear in speaking to God, or speaking of Him, or writing concerning Him : “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints.”
4. I have observed, to my sweet experience, in the renewed manifestations of the glory of God in Christ, that I have got a brighter view of one attribute and perfection of God than of another : sometimes a bright view of the truth and faithfulness of God ; “I will praise thy name, for thy lovingkindness, and for thy truth” (Psalm cxxxviii. 2).
Sometimes a brighter view of the love of God : “God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John iv. 16). Sometimes a brighter view of the glory of God, shining in the face of Jesus Christ : “And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John i. 14). Sometimes a sensible smell of His ointment : “Thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.” “His mouth is most sweet ; yea, he is altogether lovely.” “O taste and see that the Lord is good ; blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” “That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye may have fellowship with us ; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John i. 3).
MARION LAIRD.