A SERMON by the late REV. HUGH MARTIN, D.D., Edinburgh.1
“Make you a new heart and a new spirit.”—Ez. xviii. 31.
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.”—Ez. xxxvi. 26.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Ps. li. 10.
IT is proposed in the following discourse to enquire into the relations which subsist among these three verses, with the view of exhibiting the helplessness and responsibility of man in connection with the sovereignty and grace of God in the matter of the new heart (and indeed in salvation generally); if by the blessing of the Divine Spirit, we may lead you to despair of “man, with whom this is impossible,” and with mingled anxiety and hopefulness to have recourse to “Him with whom all things are possible,” (Matt. xix. 26)—”even God, who quickeneth the dead, and who calleth the things that are not as though they were,” (Rom. iv. 17.)
That these texts are closely related to each other must be obvious even on the most cursory examination. The same expressions occur in each of them, and they all clearly point to one and the same subject of momentous interest. A further attention, however, will show, that while the subject is the same in all it is presented in a different light in each. In all, the one unvaried topic of regeneration is placed before us; but in passing from one to another, the point of view from which we look upon it is changed. In the first, it is presented to us embodied in a command, “Make you a new heart and a new spirit.” In the second, it is embodied in an offer. “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.” In the third, it is embodied in a supplication, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” The first comes from God the Lawgiver; the second comes from God the Redeemer; the third comes from man the suppliant. The first is the loud and authoritative voice of Majesty; the second is the still small voice of Mercy; the third is the humble, earnest voice of Entreaty. In the first, God presents His authority and demands His right; in the second, God presents His mercy, and makes offer of His gift; in the third, man
1 This sermon is taken from vol. 3 of “The Free Church Pulpit,” 1847. Dr. Martin was then the Rev. Hugh Martin, of Panbride. The complete title of the discourse is “Precept, Promise, and Prayer: an Illustration of the Harmony between Divine Sovereignty and Human Agency.”—ED.
presents to God His own offer again, and pleads for its fulfilment. The first is an utterance from the throne of justice; the second is an utterance from the throne of grace; the third is an utterance from its footstool. The first is a Precept; the second is a Promise; the third is a Prayer.
A true veneration for the word of the living God will at once deliver us from the sin and folly of looking on this as a random combination, the product of mere chance, and will dispose us to behold in it an exhibition of Divine wisdom, and the result of a Divine arrangement, fraught, we may well believe, with much practical instruction, and calculated to give comprehensive and satisfactory views of certain vital “truths once delivered to the saints.” It is not with the materials of a curious speculation, savouring more of ingenuity than utility, that we are furnished in these verses, and in the threefold light which they cast upon the self-same subject. On the contrary, they are replete with principles which pervade the Word of God, and the life of God in the soul,—principles which are the only real key to the harmony of Divine truth, written both in Scripture “and on the fleshy tablets of the heart.” And it may deepen this impression on our minds, if we consider that the three verses chosen as the subject of illustration are not the only three in Holy Scripture so related to each other, but an instance only of a general rule—a specimen merely of a very frequent arrangement. It might be shown by a large enumeration of cases that every duty incumbent upon us, as the sinful creatures of the Most High, may be regarded in the same threefold aspect; first, as enjoined in a command to performance: secondly, as involved in a proffer of help; and thirdly, as acknowledged in a supplication for help. Let the following suffice.
Is it our duty to seek a knowledge of God—an acquaintance with His name, His character, His nature? Assuredly, for “this is life eternal” (John xvii 3), and thus only shall we “be at peace.” Then the command is, “Acquaint thyself with God” (Job xxii. 21); the promise is “I will give them a heart to know Me” (Jer. xxiv. 7); and the appropriate prayer is that of the Psalmist, “Give me understanding according to Thy word (Ps. cxix. 160). If, following his example, “thou criest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.” (Prov. ii. 3 and 5.) Again, the duty of saving faith, so often neglected in the character of a duty is presented to us in Scripture under the same threefold aspect. It is matter of precept, “This is His commandment, that we should believe upon the name of His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John iii. 23); it is matter of promise also, “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. ii. 8); the gift of God, promised “on the behalf of Christ,” and bestowed in answer to the intercession of the “priest,” now “upon His throne”—”I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not” (Phil. i. 29 and Luke xxii. 32); and it is matter of daily sup-
plication with all saints, “Lord, I believe, help mine unbelief” (Mark ix. 24). Another very interesting illustration of this principle, and one in which we do not need to bring the texts from different parts of the Word, is found in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, where Jesus is speaking of Himself as the true manna, the bread of life which cometh down from heaven. In the midst of this discourse He lays the following injunction on His disciples, “Labour for the meat which endureth to everlasting life” (ver. 27)—an injunction which He immediately follows up with the precious corresponding promise—”which the Son of Man shall give unto you;” and, rightly exercised under the teaching of their Lord, the apostles hasten to offer up to Him the appropriate prayer, “Lord, evermore give us this bread” (ver. 33). And not to multiply farther instances, let it be borne in mind, that not even the duty of prayer itself is exempt from this principle of triple relation. We have a commandment to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thes. v. 17); but we have a promise too, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself,” even “the Spirit of grace and supplications,” maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom. viii. 26 and Zec. xii. 10); and the special prayer applicable in these circumstances we learn from the example of the apostles, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke xi. 1).
In short, the Word of God is full of this important and beautiful arrangement. You will always find a promise adapted to the precept, and a prayer grounded on, and appropriate to them both.
Our intention, then, is to lead you to contemplate somewhat of the wisdom of God in this arrangement, to enquire into the practical spiritual purposes which it subserves, in the hands of the Divine Spirit, in awakening the soul and leading it to God, making good that paradox of grace which engrafts the most joyous hopefulness upon the convicted sinner’s abject helplessness—the gracious Creator’s strength being perfected in the guilty creature’s weakness. In other words, let us examine the Divine economy of Precept, Promise, and Prayer, when brought powerfully into contact with the anxious and enquiring soul.
I. And, first, as to the Precept. What place does it hold in this arrangement? What is its office? What good practical purposes does it serve?
“Make you a new heart and a new spirit.” At first sight this command may appear to be worse than useless. Does it not enjoin a thorough impossibility? The practical and the possible seem to be utterly put to flight? “Can the Ethiopian change his
Compare the following sets of texts:—(Phil. ii. 12; Phil. ii. 13; 2 Thes. i. 11). (1 Cor. xvi. 13; 2 Cor. xii. 9; Ps. xx. 2). (Phil. iv. 4; Isa. lxi. 3; Ps. li. 12.) (Isa. i. 16, 18; Ps. li. 2 and 7). (Eph. v. 14; both precept and promise; Ps. cxix. 25, or Ez. xxxvii. 9). Jer. iii. 22, first clause; Matt. xviii. 11, 12; Ps. exix. 176).
skin, or the leopard his spots?” (Jer. xiii. 23.) “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one” (Job xiv. 4.) “In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing” (Rom. vii. 18.) But surely the power to make a new heart and a new spirit is a good thing—one of the best of things, the most wonderful, the most glorious, the most holy. It belongs not to me. I am “dead in trespasses and in sins” (Eph. ii. 1.) I have as little power to make a new heart as I had to create my living soul at first. My present heart can be of no use to me in this matter, for it is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. I cannot even know it” (Jer. xvii. 9.) The law of God can be of no use to me, for it cannot accomplish this holy achievement, in that it is “weak through the flesh” (Rom. viii. 3), my fleshly heart being “enmity against it, not subject to it, neither indeed can it be” (Rom. viii. 7.) The assistance of my neighbour can avail me nothing, for he cannot redeem himself, and as little he can help “by any means to redeem his brother. The redemption of my soul is precious, but it ceaseth for ever” (Ps. xlix. 7, 8.) And, oh! surely this command is but a mockery of my helplessness? Is this not a cruel triumphing over my inability? What tendency can this have to remove the evil? Surely there is no step taken here to give a practical movement to my helpless soul.
Yes, there is. Your very meditations prove it. For
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This command has evidently made you conscious of your helplessness, and I call that a practical movement, a very practical movement—an invaluable result—and the indispensable prerequisite to all others. Would your thoughts ever have been directed towards your helplessness at all but for such commands as this? Would you ever have imagined it such that it cannot be mended or improved at all, but must be altogether removed and replaced, but for this injunction, “Make you a new heart?” Would you ever have imagined that you had wandered so far from God, but for the loud voice in the distance behind you crying, “Return, return?” Would you ever have known how thoroughly your soul is paralyzed in spiritual death but for the command, “Arise from the dead?” (Eph. v. 14.) Would you ever have known how completely your senses are sealed in spiritual sleep but for the authoritative voice of God? and even that, as you can testify, only like a dying echo, through your dream, crying, “Awake, awake, thou that sleepest” (Ibid.) Say not that the precept is useless. If you have been aroused to earnest thought at all, the precept has already done you good service. If your meditations on this impracticable commandment—this “hard saying”—are at all honest and heartfelt, they are abundant testimony to the practical worth and working of the precept on your soul. It has led you to think of your helplessness. You have one invaluable lesson already. Follow on, for “to those that have shall be given.” “Thank God and take courage.” For
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This is not all that the precept can do for you. It will not
only lead you to think of your weakness and helplessness, but it will tend to show you how complete and thorough your impotency is, and to deepen the sense of this upon your soul. For it will not do to have merely some vague and general idea of your inability; you must have a deep and pervading spiritual conviction of this truth. It must not be a matter of hearsay, but of actual experiment and experience. I can conceive a sick man confined to his couch, murmuring and fretting over the injunction of his physician, which prevents him from rising and walking through his chamber. He feels that he is indeed weak, but he knows not how much disease has debilitated his shattered frame; and he thinks it a hard restriction to be deprived of the liberty of trying his strength. If nothing else will convince him, let him get the proof of experience. Let permission be given him to walk across his chamber, and, as in the attempt he falls helpless into the arms of the friendly physician, whose wisdom he doubted, and whose advice he despised, he will at last acknowledge how thoroughly his strength has been prostrated. This is not to be supposed an accurate illustration in all points, for the natural man does not possess even those wretched remnants of strength which the case imagined involves—paralysis and even death itself are the favourite images of Scripture. Yet what I wish you to observe is, that in the sinner’s spiritual experience, the command, “Make you a new heart,” holds a place and serves a purpose exactly similar to the permission given to the sick man to try the measure of his bodily powers. You may have some dim notions of your helplessness. But bring it to the test of experiment. This precept gives you the opportunity: nay, lays you under the obligation to do so. Go and try to make yourself a new heart. Labour to regenerate your own soul. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” And then tell your success. Break off every old habit, if you can. Give up every outward act of sin. Mortify the deeds of the body. But have you changed your heart? Have you given it new dispositions, new desires, new delights? In short, after labour the most painstaking, the most strenuous, the most unremitting, have you succeeded in yielding obedience to this commandment? Have you “made you a new heart and a new spirit?” No. But you have proved experimentally that it is wholly beyond your power. By the precept you have been taught experimentally what you but dimly surmised before, even your thorough, unmitigated, and hopeless helplessness. You had heard of that helplessness “by the hearing of the ear,” but now your whole soul feeleth it. You have now a far more deep and pervading and pressing conviction of this humbling truth; for the spiritual precept, and your efforts to obey it, have proved to you conclusively, because experimentally, that you are wholly “carnal, sold under sin” (Rom. vii. 14.) Is not this another practical movement? “I had not known sin but by the law” (Rom. vii. 7.) I had not felt my helplessness but by the precept.
- But the precept can do you more service. It can originate another and perhaps a still more important practical movement. It may have already taught you how thoroughly helpless you are by nature. But this is not enough. Besides evoking the testimony of experience and consciousness, the precept has power to touch the springs of conscience; and without this it would indeed be utterly inefficient.
Let me commend the truth to your conscience in the sight of God, who searcheth the heart. With what moral feelings do you regard this thorough helplessness? Is it not the case that you regard it, or are at least continually tempted to regard it, more in the light of a melancholy misfortune, which makes you very much to be pitied, than as a heinous crime which makes you very much to be condemned? Is it not the case that you look upon yourselves chiefly as sufferers in this matter, and scarcely, if at all, malefactors? Do you not think that your case calls more for sympathy than for blame—that you should rather be soothed than threatened? We appeal to you if this is not very often the cast and current of your meditations. Because you cannot obey this commandment, therefore you imagine you are not responsible for disobeying it—because you are thoroughly helpless, therefore you imagine you are excusable. And thus the deceitful heart, ever tender to its own sores, and plausible in its own defence, contrives to shake itself clear of the irksome feeling of obligation to keep the impracticable commandment. In such circumstances, it is strange with what wretched sophistry conscience will submit to be baffled and silenced, and with what contradictory excuses its remonstrances are put away; so much so, that out of his own mouth the sinner may be condemned. “If we were only in more favourable circumstances, we might and would obey this precept; but as matters stand, with the whole head sick and the whole heart faint, with “nothing in us but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores,” surely we cannot be expected to come up to the high standard which this commandment sets before us.” Now, in giving vent to such meditations as these (and it is to be feared they are not uncommon), do you really consider what you say? If you were in more favourable circumstances, you would obey this precept? What do you mean by more favourable circumstances? Your circumstances, spiritually considered, must be such that you have within you either the old heart or the new. No possible condition can be imagined between these two; and what, therefore, does this promise—so potent in silencing the conscience, and ending all debate, and putting all anxiety to flight—what does it amount to but simply this, that if you had the new heart already, you would then “make you a new heart and a new spirit”—you would do the work after it had been fully accomplished? Truly, if by such a proffer conscience were momentarily silenced, the deceitful heart ought in its turn to be thoroughly ashamed; and if these are its
wretched delusions, it is surely high time it were for ever got rid of and replaced.
Do you still suggest that your helplessness sets you free from blame and responsibility? If you have any reverence for the Word of God, the precept ought at once to cure you of such perverse imaginings? For here you have the Lawgiver Himself giving forth His deliverance on your case, and His utterance is in the form of a command. It is not an utterance of pity, or of sympathy, or of lamentation, over your prostrate impotency. The Lord does not say, at least here he does not say, Oh that you were able to make you a new heart and a new spirit. On the other hand, this is an utterance of authority. It is an unhesitating and peremptory injunction from the God who rules in righteousness. You may have begun perversely to imagine that your helplessness had removed you from under His authority, and beyond the limits of His government. But it is not so. He is still the God with whom you have to do; with whom you have to do, not as sufferers merely, but as subjects still; and, in testimony thereof, listen to the voice of His commandment, “Make you a new heart and a new spirit.” He comes to deal with you, not as sufferers whose disease may issue in death as its result, but as rebels whose crime must issue in death as its doom. He comes to tell you that you have not got beyond His dominions—that still He is your lawgiver and your judge. Could He be a judge at all, if rebellion carried you beyond His right and His power of judging? Could he be a lawgiver at all, if entitled to legislate only for the righteous? Nay; “the law is not made for a righteous man,” but for exactly such as you, “for the lawless” (1 Tim. i. 9), for all those who, like you, are seeking freedom from the obligation of this very law, which commands you to “make a new heart and a new spirit.” Surely, then, it is miserable affectation for a guilty sinner to sorrow over his helplessness as a misfortune, and then to think that all that can be expected of him is discharged, and he is responsible for nothing more. Let him learn rather to tremble over this helplessness as a crime, the very fountainhead and cause of all crimes.
Is this demand said to be unreasonable? This might be pleaded if there could be two opinions as to the source of our inability to obey, but not if it springs from our perverse and irrepressible and willing habit of doing evil—not if we are incapable of making a new heart, because our natural hearts have not only shown symptoms of enmity to God, but are very enmity itself. Is it possible for any one to affirm that the very depth of our iniquity, and the uniformity of our criminal habits, must set us free from the charge of all crime? Is it possible that the consciences of men can be so perverted and debauched? No: not so long as they are found “the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another” (Rom. ii. 14.) Suppose it possible for some man, some monster in human form, to acquire the habit of murder, so that he could not refrain from assassinating every victim that crossed his path—
that by habit, and a monstrous love for blood, he had become utterly incapable of obeying the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”—would any one tell me that this man’s inability to obey excused him from the penalty of disobeying? Would not the doom of death be sealed upon this human fiend, amidst the loud execrations of outraged humanity? And is the case any different, or less urgent, when the just and righteous King of Glory sits in judgment? Shall His high and righteous bar be degraded by the admission of a plea which would be scouted as insane at a human tribunal? Shall the very strength of the grasp which the law has over the rebellious heart be pleaded as a reason why the Lawgiver should abdicate His throne, and denude Himself of all His claims? Nay, verily; not to obey is a crime—not to be able to obey is a second, rivetting and fastening the first as with iron. Rather it is a habit of crime plunging the soul in a sea of guilt.
Thus, then, the office of the precept is most vital and important. It first of all informs the sinner that all is not well, and points to the seat of the disease. Then it leads him experimentally to a knowledge of his miserable condition, his thorough helplessness and inability to save himself. And lastly, it presses on his conscience a deep feeling of his responsibility and criminality. Thus he learns much of himself, and he learns much of the God with whom he has to do. He is taught to feel his own weakness and worthlessness. He is taught, also, God’s authority and power. He is led to see his thorough subjection to the heavenly Majesty, and his not less thorough incapacity to do the duties of a subject. You may have been “alive without the precept once, but when the precept comes in spiritual power, sin revives and you die” (Rom. vii. 9). You die to all pride, and peace, and hope. You learn two solemn truths, which, when taken together, give you no rest till they mercifully shut you up to the only remedy. You know your helplessness; but you cannot sit down contented, for you know also your obligation and responsibility. You know your obligation; but you do not become legalists, for you know also your helplessness. You feel that you cannot obey; but this does not set all at rest, because you feel that you must obey. You feel that you must obey; but neither does this settle all, for you also feel that you cannot. It is “as if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him” (Amos v. 19). “Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass, that he that fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit, and he that cometh out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare” (Is. xiv. 17, 18). In neither can you remain. You struggle from the pit of helplessness, because you feel you are bound over to obedience. You avoid the snare of legalism, because you know you cannot render the obedience required. Oh! what a source of unspeakable spiritual agony is there here! And so must it still remain, while the “inhabitant of the earth” looks not beyond the earth for
deliverance. But look up, and lift up the head, O wearied sinner—look away from thyself; long enough has that poor self of thine agonized thee—truly thou wilt find no help there. Look “up into the hills whence cometh thine aid;” and then, baffled with thy weak and helpless attempts to “make thee a new heart and a new spirit,” and prostrated, too, with the thought that it must be done, turn now from the terrible precept and listen, “Be still and know that it is God.” Thus saith the Lord, “A new heart also will I give thee, and a new spirit will I put within thee.”
II. We come, then, to the consideration of the Promise.
- And, in the first place, it is obvious that the wisdom of God is wonderfully exhibited in bringing in the promise at this precise point. If it had come sooner, the soul would not have been prepared to receive it. If it had come later, the soul would have been already given over to hopeless despair. The promise cannot go before the precept, for then the soul would not feel the need of it, and consequently its value would not be appreciated; and the promise cannot come after the prayer, for then prayer would have no foundation on which to ground her supplication. But the Lord, who knoweth the spirits which He hath made, and who “knoweth what is in man, and needeth not that any should testify unto Him” (John ii. 25), seeth the end of a spiritual conflict from the beginning, and all the parts thereof in their order; and He comes in with His separate dealings at the proper time, and at the proper point. Thus, when the precept has done the preparatory work in righteous authority, the promise begins to reign on the throne of meekness and of mercy. The precept, like affliction, may not have seemed joyous, but rather grievous; nevertheless it hath wrought the humbling “fruits of righteousness,” preparatory to the gifts of mercy, “in them that have been rightly exercised thereby” (Heb. xii. 11). The reign of the precept, if we look not beyond it—if we regard it as an end—may have been a reign of terror. Viewed, however, as a means, as the prerequisite merely to the “better things to be revealed,” it has indeed been the reign of grace begun, although the grace as yet has been concealed. But now “the better things themselves” are brought to us by the promise. If the precept could have brought these things, “if that first covenant had,” in this respect, “been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second,” no room for the promise. But because the precept has a tantalising “shadow” only “of the good things to come, and not the very image of these things,” because it can never “make the comers thereunto perfect”—because “the law can make nothing perfect”—therefore “there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before, for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof,” to make way for “the bringing in of a better hope”—“He taketh away the first that He may establish the second;” and what the precept “cannot do, in that it is weak through the flesh, God” through His own Son can do, by the “promise, which in Him is yea and amen.” (Compare
Heb. vii. 18 19, viii. 6-13, x. i. 9; Rom. viii. 3). Is the precept then useless? No, by no means. “Is it then against the promise of God? God forbid; for if there had been” a precept “given which could have given life, verily righteousness” and a new heart “should have been by” that precept. “Wherefore then serveth the” precept? “It was added because of transgressions,” and nature’s helplessness, “till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” And its indispensable and blessed, though painful work, is this—that it “hath concluded all under sin” and helplessness, and proved this in their own experience and to their own consciences, “that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before” the promise “came we were kept under the” precept, “shut up unto the” promise “which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the “precept” was our schoolmaster, to bring us to” the promise, and to Him who is “the surety of a covenant established upon better promises,” “that we might be justified by faith.” (See Gal. iii. 19-24).
Thus there is the economy of a Mosaic dispensation, carried on preparatory to that of a Christian dispensation, in God’s dealings with every regenerated soul, as truly and really as in the history of the collective church. This preparation in the church was not more necessary than it is in the individual heart; and just as there was a Divine wisdom seen in emancipating the Church from the “tutors and governors,” at “the time appointed of the Father,” when “He sent forth His Son,” so there is a “fulness of the time” in the history of every believing sinner, when God sends forth His promise, even the promised Spirit of His Son, into the heart, as faithfully as He sent forth His Son into the world, emancipating the despairing soul as fully in the one case from the grievous bondage of the precept as He freed His people in the other from those beggarly elements, and from that “yoke of bondage which neither they nor their fathers were able to bear.” In the days of Moses the Church was not ready for the simplicity, the liberty, the manliness, and the spirituality of the Christian dispensation. And so, at the opening of the soul’s spiritual discipline, by reason of its childish ignorance and wayward pride, God introduces a dispensation of precept first; and when this has accomplished the work whereunto He sent it, at the proper point, and at the proper time, He brings in His dispensation of promise. “Surely this also cometh forth from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.”
- How is the grace of God adored by the fainting soul, when, after the conflict with the precept, the promise comes brightly into view. The wisdom of God is seen in the promise, coming at the very time when it was needed. But the grace of God is glorified in bringing in the very gift which was needed. “Make thee a new heart and a new spirit,” says the precept. “Ah,” replies the sinner, “that is not in my power;” I am carnal; sold under “sin,” “dead in trespasses and in sins.” I cannot frame my heart other-
wise than it hath been formed by iniquity. “I am as an unclean thing, and all my righteousness are as filthy rags. I do fade as a leaf, and my iniquities, like the wind, have taken me away” (Is. lxiv. 6). “A deceived heart hath turned me aside that I cannot deliver my soul” (Is. xliv. 20). In this helpless state is it a partial promise that is given? Is it a greater earnestness to try the work ourselves that God offers to communicate? Does He promise to help us out with the laborious achievement, if we will arise and put our hand to the work ourselves? Does He engage to fill up or supplement our deficiencies? Does He offer to overlook our failures, if only our attempt shall be sincere? Oh no! These may be the doctrines of a wretched Arminianism. These may be the desires of a half-humbled soul. But they are not the promises of God. These would be boons of little value; they would tend to no practical result, no saving issue. There would indeed be mockery in promises like these; for the very condition on which such offers are supposed to be made, never could be realised in us till the whole work were done. But the very thing that we cannot make ourselves, God promises unconditionally to bestow, freely to bestow, without condition, without money, and without price. The precept, having done its painful work, seems, as it were, recalled, and the form being annulled, but the whole substance retained, it once more returns in the form and the language of peace and hope and joy. Like the same law given to Moses a second time, not amidst thunderings and lightnings, and darkness, and tempest, but amidst light, and peace, and favour, all God’s goodness passing by before His servant, sheltered now in the cleft of the rock; so here, the preceptive form, which caused the tempest and the terror in the soul, being all done away, the very same substance, in all its integrity, is restored, but now beaming in the light and lustre of a free and gracious promise, “A new heart will I give unto you, a new spirit will I put within you.” It is the very thing required, without restriction, and without abatement, offered freely and without condition, without money and without price.
- But the grace of God is still more wonderfully glorified by the consideration, that, while this is the very thing which we need, and which God offers to bestow upon us, it is also the very thing which we are bound to render unto Him. And here, again, the good fruits of the precept as the forerunner of the promise come clearly into view. The precept teaches that we need this, for it teaches us experimentally our want and our helplessness. But when it teaches our responsibility, our obligation to make us a new heart and a new spirit, our crime and our guilt in not doing so, then we see, not the depth of wretchedness and misery merely, but the essence of rebellion in our inability. Oh! when the responsibility is really felt, as well as the helplessness, how does the manifold grace of God grow before the view of the admiring soul! If I feel that I would be better if I had a new heart, and, at the same time,
feel my utter incapacity to make me a new heart and a right spirit, how gracious in the great God to come and offer me the very thing I need—the very thing that I cannot do without! But when, besides this, I feel my deep and unchangeable responsibility to make this new heart which yet I cannot make—when I feel my criminality in delaying every moment to do it, and my criminality in being unable to do it at all, either now or at any future time, oh! how shall I speak then of that grace which pities both my weakness and my guilt, and delivers me most fully from the death-bringing consequences of both. It was much when He “looked upon me in my low estate;” but it was more when He looked upon me in my lost estate. It was great grace when He, “in due time,” pitied me as a weak and helpless sufferer, “yet without strength” (Rom. v. 6); but it was greater far when He pitied me as a daring rebel, “a sinner, an enemy” (v. 8-10). Grace abounded when, sympathisingly, He gave me that new heart which I was unable to make; but grace much more abounded when, forgivingly, He gave me that new heart which I was bound to make, and guilty in my inability to make it. “Bless the Lord, O my soul, for He healeth all thy diseases; He also forgiveth all thine iniquities” (Ps. ciii. 2, 3).
- And now the sovereignty of Divine grace can be obscured or concealed no longer. This also the believer is taught to feel and to acknowledge by reason of his previous discipline under the precept. In learning his obligation and responsibility, he at the same time necessarily learned the majesty and kingly authority of God. We have seen that the precept teaches not only the soul’s utter helplessness, but also the soul’s entire subjection to the righteous justice of the Lawgiver. We are made to feel completely in God’s power. We are exposed to His righteous anger, and incapable of effecting our deliverance from threatened wrath. The Lord maintains His right to command, though we have lost our power to obey. Whatever impotency we are groaning under, He is seen to reign as King. He has the destinies of all souls at His own free, unchallenged disposal. He is the Sovereign God: righteous in forsaking all if He will—righteous in pouring out wrath unto the uttermost. What an overpowering dignity is seen in His sovereign majesty, His uncontrolable right and power! How exalted above all created excellence! How full of uncreated, all-governing glory—a glory terrible indeed, if no grace is mingled with it! But if this high Sovereign shall give His gracious promise, then how resplendent is His sovereign grace? If He who is the God of all majesty, and excellency, and dignity, and sovereign glory—if He, who ruleth among the armies above, and the inhabitants of this earth below, free and uncontrolled in all His ways, and in all His purposes—if He who is the sovereign disposer of ten thousand times ten thousand angels, and who is sovereign over me, as His precept and commandment do fully prove—if He, who as such a sovereign hath the fullest right to execute on me wrath to the
utmost—if He shall single out and distinguish me from among the mass of helpless, dying, daring rebels, and glorying in His words, shall cry in my astonished and delighted ear, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own name’s sake,” and as “I am that I am,” “a new heart will I give unto thee, and a new spirit will I put within thee,”—oh! how shall my grateful but too straitened soul ever realise, or comprehend with all saints this mystery of sovereign grace, all made mine in the free and gracious promise of a sovereign God! Wondrous and adorable sovereignty of my God! I quarrel with it no more—I hail it with rejoicing. The Lord is my Sovereign; “the Lord is my Lawgiver; the Lord is my King;” as such “He will save me” (Isa. xxxiii. 22). None can deny His right. Who shall condemn when the Sovereign God hath justified? (Rom. viii. 33). None can resist His power. Who shall stay His hand from working? Who shall say unto Him what doest Thou? How powerful, how authoritative is the grace of this holy Judge—the Sovereign King of Zion!
Behold then, O my soul, how God, by giving thee His precept, first prepares thee for His promise—opens thine eyes to behold His wisdom, enables thee to see His grace, His multitude of tender mercies, begets in thee a deep sense of His righteous authority, which, when the promise comes, is transferred with all its sovereign majesty, to that redeeming love which then excels in glory, and shines forth in dignity and splendour. Thus the creature is abased, and the sovereign God is exalted, and no flesh can glory in His presence. Thus there is glory to God in the highest, and grace to men. The grace is compassed with sovereign glory, and the glory is full of sovereign grace. “O Lord, we beseech Thee show us Thy glory!” Fulfil to us Thy gracious promise! “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
III. We have already made use of the Prayer. Indeed we are brought almost insensibly to the third and last link of this beautiful chain—the last line of this threefold cord.
And now, the office which prayer performs in this divine and spiritual economy will be obvious to all. It appropriately comes last, because it is grounded on, and takes its warrant from the promise, pleading the fulfilment of the promise that thereby the object of the precept may be gained. The prayer, when offered, grows out of the promise; the prayer, when answered, satisfies the precept. The precept teaches man that he is helpless; the promise tells him there is help; the prayer secures the help. The precept teaches man that he is responsible and guilty; the promise tells him there is forgiveness; the prayer obtains the pardon. The precept teaches man God’s authority; the promise tells of God’s grace; the prayer tries and tests God’s sufficiency. The precept teaches man his dependence; the promise declares dependence in God well placed; the prayer puts dependence on God accordingly. The precept teaches man humility; the promise gives man hope;
the prayer shows man’s trust. The precept gives scope for God’s righteous justice; the promise gives scope for God’s faithfulness; the prayer gives scope for man’s faith. In all cases, the prayer is necessary to complete the cycle; and if the precept and the promise do but graciously exercise the soul, the prayer will and cannot but follow. He who listens to the precept and feels his need, his helplessness, his responsibility, his crime, and then listens to the promise, “counting Him faithful who hath promised, who also will do it,”—that man will and must have recourse to the prayer. He is shut up to prayer by every principle in his nature, by his sin and misery, by reason and conscience, by fear and hope. He must pray. He cannot help it. He is carried captive to prayer by a blessed necessity, a willing and therefore victorious and joyful necessity.
To the prayerless, therefore, there is here very clear and simple ground for self-examination and self-condemnation. Dear brethren, matters must stand thus with you; you have received aright neither the precept nor the promise of your God; for they always bring the prayer along with them. No man can put asunder what God hath joined; and therefore if you are living in the habitual neglect of earnest prayer, it must be because you have listened proudly to the precept, faithlessly to the promise. You are quarrelling with the precept, and denying your helplessness; and herein you falsify the word of God, your own experience, and the experience of all the saints and the spirits of just men made perfect. Or you are denying your responsibility and God’s authority, “casting His cords away from you,” and saying “Who is the Lord, that we should serve Him?” Or you are quarrelling with the promise; either contemning His wisdom by counting His promise worthless, or contemning His faithfulness by insinuating that His truth will fail. One or other of these fearful alternatives you must choose, if you are not habitually plying the throne of grace with prayer; and perhaps the guilt of all these crimes together is cleaving to your consciences. Oh how unprovoked and how God-provoking must be the sin of prayerless lives? Only think how beautifully God has prepared the way for prayer. How much wisdom has He lavished upon this gracious arrangement! How safely and how gently has He contrived to carry you step by step to His throne of grace! The precept tells you that you must obey. Even God Himself cannot release you from that. It is a painful lesson; yet is it not well to know it, while hope yet remains, that it may become a practical lesson? It is mercy in God to speak out ere all hope is gone. The precept tells you of your helplessness, convinces you of this experimentally when you attempt to obey it, and find that you cannot “make a new heart and a new spirit.” Surely it is good to know this truth also. Your ignorance of it would not make it less true, and your knowledge of it will at least turn you away from a fruitless source of labour, and should make you willing to try a “more excellent way” if it can be shown to you. And that this can be done, you need not doubt;
for the promise now comes in to show that all may yet infallibly be well, pledging immutable things to your full deliverance and your eternal safety. “What could have been done more to His vineyard that He hath not done to it?” (Isa. v. 4). Will you turn it all into contempt? Nay, rather, I should say, will you yourselves become a contempt and a hissing to all passers-by, through indolence, or pride, or unbelief, or any other miserable habit of your wretched hearts, the very presence of which should only add wings to your haste, and fervour to your prayer. What! shall God do so much for miserable guilty rebels, and will you do nothing, absolutely nothing, for yourselves? Will you not even arise and call upon your God for mercy? How can we persuade you? What arguments remain wherewith to ply you? To the authoritative voice of the taskmaster, and the pleasant voice of the charmer, ye are alike deaf. Ye are like sullen “children in the market-place.” By the precept we “have mourned unto you and ye have not lamented;” by the promise we “have piped unto you and ye have not danced.” One word more, and may the Lord bless it to your souls. Your guilt is now tremendous, because your case is now made so hopeful; and your case is thus hopeful because you have so little to do. Yea, you have only to plead with God to do all the work to your hands. Will you cast away eternal joy and court eternal agony by refusing that?
How calculated are these imperfect meditations to encourage the hearts of those who are Israelites indeed, princes with God in prayer! Let the precept, and the promise, and the prayer, be alike precious to you, and have your souls disciplined by a due attention to them all. Never think you can obey the precept in your own strength. Never think that your interest in the promise sets you free from the authority of the precept. Never think that prayer can supersede either the precept or the promise. Prayer is hypocrisy except with a view to the obedience of the precept. In all thy ways diligently search for the pure precepts of thy God, crying evermore, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Fear not for thy weakness to know thy duty, though it should be thine in Divine command to remove mountains. “Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain, for He shall bring forth the headstone with shoutings, crying, “Grace, grace, unto it” (Zec. iv. 7). “His grace shall be sufficient for thee” (2 Cor. xii. 9). His promise is, that “as thy day, so shall thy strength be” (Deut. xxxiii. 25). “Yet for all this will he be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them” (Ez. xxxvi. 37). Therefore, let thy duty, and thy weakness, and thy cheering promise, send thee to the throne, for “grace is help in thy time of need” (Heb. iv. 16). “Put him in remembrance” (Is. xliii. 26), saying, “Remember the words unto thy servant, upon which Thou hast caused me to hope” (Ps. cxix. 49). Then “Fear not thou worm Jacob; thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small” (Is. xli. 14).