The Eagle-Winged Believer

By RALPH ERSKINE.

I. As to the wings wherewith they do mount up, they are especially these two, viz., the wing of faith and the wing of love.

1. The wing of faith they have, and must have, who would mount up heavenward. Now, there is not a feather in this wing but is made in heaven: “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Eph. ii. 8). Yea, after the believer hath got faith, he cannot spread out his wing without God: “To you it is given not only to believe but to suffer for His sake” (Phil. i. 29). To you, believers, it is given to believe; not only the habit of faith is the gift of God, but the exercise of faith is His gift also. Now, this is one wing, and none can mount up to heaven without it; for it is a grace that looks not at things that are seen in this world, but at things that are not seen; it is the evidence of things not seen; it mounts the soul to heaven and heavenly things, and makes them evident.

2. There is the wing of love, by which the believer mounts up to heaven: and this is a wing made also by God: “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost” (Rom. v. 5). This is a wing, then, framed in heaven, a grace that comes

from the God of love; and, therefore, it flies up to heaven again: the holy spark of this fire flies upward. This grace is of such a mounting quality, that it unites the soul of the believer to Christ as well as faith. As Jonathan’s soul was knit or joined to the soul of David by love, so is the soul of the believer knit and glued to Christ by love: and, Oh, this wing of love is a strong wing! (Song viii. 6), “Love is strong as death;” yea, stronger than death and life, and principalities and powers: “I am persuaded,” says the Apostle, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. viii. 38, 39). This is such a strong wing that the fire cannot burn it: martyrs have found that it would abide the fire when they glorified God in the fires; the fire did not burn their love; no, it mounted up to heaven with the flame.

II. As to those things wherein they mount up, we shall give you both a negative and a positive account of them.

1st, We propose to give you a negative account of these things.

1. They do not mount up in airy speculations: some mount up only in airy notions; they have a great deal of head-knowledge, but no heart-love to the truth: “They receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved; for which cause God sends them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (2 Thess. ii. 10, 11). The devil himself knows God and Christ, but hath no love to God or Christ in his heart: there may be much speculative knowledge where there is no saving grace.

2. They do not mount up in sinful curiosity, to pry into the secrets of God; “for secret things belong to God, to us the things that are revealed” (Deut. xxix. 29). Many mount up too far into the decrees of election and reprobation. Oh! I fear I am a reprobate, say some. Alas, Sirs! beware of such blasphemy; as if, forsooth, you were omniscient, like God; and as if, you had been upon the privy council of God from eternity, when he marked down the names of elect and reprobate: this is a thing that cannot be known. In this side of time you cannot be sure

you are a reprobate as long as you are out of hell; but I can give you assurance, better than the stability of heaven and earth, that if you truly repent of your sin, and flee to Christ, the only Saviour, you are no reprobate: “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” (Isa. lv. 7). But if you will not part with sin, nor flee to Christ, you subscribe your own reprobation. Now, I say, the believer doth not mount up in sinful curiosity concerning the decree of election and reprobation, but in so far as it is revealed to him, to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure: neither does he pry curiously into the secrets of God’s providence: “It is not for you to know the times and the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power.” Some have been very rash in telling when the day of judgment would be: we should not meddle with such secrets; “for of that day and that hour knoweth no man” (Matt. xxv. 13).

1. They do not mount up in self-conceit and self-estimation, as some do, who mount up in the pride of their hearts; God abhors the proud, and he will cast them down, let them mount up never so far: “He resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble” (Jas. iv. 6). Pride was the sin of fallen angels; they would be as high as God, viz., self-dependent; and, therefore, God cast them down. This was the ill lesson that the devil taught our first parents, “Ye shall be as gods;” and they were taken with this bait, to their overthrow and ruin; and ever since, pride and self-conceit hath been natural to their posterity; and hence it is, so much self is mixed with all our preaching, praying, communicating. But when the believer mounts, he mounts in some measure above self, and gets it trod under his feet in self-abasing, self-abhorring thought.

2. They do not mount up in fits and starts of devotion, in moods and pangs of affection in a transient way. Many professors, when they hear the Word, they seem to be mounted up in joy; but what comes of it? It is but a flash, and like a land-flood. The stony-ground hearers may receive the Word with joy;

but having no root, they wither and dwindle to nothing (Luke viii. 6, 13). Some, when they hear of Christ’s sufferings, and see Him sacramentally crucified, it draws tears from their eyes, and they never mount further.

2dly, We come now to give a positive account of these things wherein the believer mounts up. Believers mount up with wings as eagles, in these following things, or the like.

1. They mount up in spiritual-mindedness, contemplation, and holy meditation: hence says David, “My meditation of Him shall be sweet” (Psa. civ. 34). Having got the Spirit, they mind the things of the Spirit: “They that are after the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit, mind the things of the Spirit: that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit” (Rom. viii. 5). Their heart is set and bent to mind the great mystery of godliness, “God made manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. iii. 16); “and to know the height, and depth, and breadth of the love of Christ.” They do not suffer their thoughts to wander on the mountains of vanity.

2. They mount up in high designs and intentions: their ultimate design is the glory of God, and the enjoyment of Him, which, you know, is man’s chief end. This is the winged Christian’s end: he mounts up in this high and holy end, and that in all his actions; in his civil actions, as in his buying and selling, travelling, labouring; and in his sacred actions, as in his praying, reading, hearing, communicating; or in his relative actions, what he doth as a father, master, servant, or child; and in his natural actions, whether he eat or drink, or whatever he doth, he doth all to the glory of God (1 Cor. x. 31). At least, his shortcoming herein is matter of sorrow and shame to him.

3. They mount up in holy desires, saying with Job, “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to His feet.” And their desires are not like the faint, languishing wish of the wicked, such as Balaam had; no, no; their desires are spiritual and sincere, such as these spoken of (Isa. xxvi. 9), “With my soul have I desired thee in the night; and with my spirit within me, will I seek thee early.” Their desires are strong

and fervent; none but Christ will satisfy them. “What wilt thou give me seeing I go childless?” said Abraham (Gen. xv. 2). So, says the soul, mounting up towards God, Oh! what wilt thou give me, seeing I go Christless? It pants after God, the living God. Their desires are restricted to God and Christ alone: “One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee (Psa. lxxiii. 25). Their desires are dilated on a whole God, and a whole Christ: “Oh, my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord, my God, my King” (Psa. xvi. 2). They will have a whole God in all His essential perfections, and in all the relations He stands to His people. They will have this God for their God for ever and ever, and for their guide even unto death. And they will have a whole Christ—Christ for sanctification as well as for salvation, yea, Christ for their all in all.

1. They mount up in pious inclinations; they have an aversion at sin, at the sinful pleasures of this life; yea, they abhor them with Ephraim, “What have I any more to do with idols?” That is the language of the eagle-like believer; he hath a great inclination, a strong bent of spirit after a God in Christ, as the top of his perfection, as the very spring of all his pleasure, and as the magazine of all his treasure, as the rest of his soul; if the devil and his evil heart hath set him at any distance from God, his mind is restless till he return to Him again: “Return to thy rest, Oh, my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee” (Psa. cxvi. 7). The top-stream, as it were, of his inclination mounts up this way.

2. He mounts up in heavenly affection: hence is that injunction, “Set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth” (Col. iii. 2). He endeavours, through grace, to have his affections some way corresponding with God’s affection, so as to love what God loves, and hate what God hates; yea, to love as God loves, and to hate as God hates. God loves

holiness with a strong and great love; so doth the believer. God hates sin with a perfect hatred; and so doth the believer: “I hate every false way.” See also, Psa. cxxxix. 21, 22.

1. They mount up in a gospel conversation; so saith the apostle, “Our conversation is in heaven from whence we look for our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. iii. 20).

2. The winged saint mounts up in a heavenly walk: as Enoch and Noah walked with God, so doth the winged soul whose strength is renewed; he runs without wearying, and walks without fainting on the Lord’s way. His heavenly walk discovers itself, 1. In his heavenly words—they are seasoned with salt, and edifying. And, 2. In his actions, wherein he studies sobriety, righteousness, and godliness in all the duties of religion, prayer, and praise. And, 3. In his company, for he can say with David, “I am a companion of all them that fear thee” (Psa. cxix. 63). III. The next thing was, the seasons when it is that the believer, whose strength is renewed, doth mount up.

3. Whenever he gets the new nature, and the disposition; whenever he is converted, he mounts up on wings as an eagle. It is said of Paul (Acts ix. 11) whenever he was converted, “Behold, he prayeth:” think you Paul never prayed before that time? Yea, many a prayer had he uttered, no doubt; for he profited in the Jewish religion above many of his equals in his own nation: he had learned to say his prayers as well as the best of them; but he never prayed spiritually and acceptably before; he had never mounted up to heaven in his prayer before: but now, “Behold, he prays;” behold he mounts up, whenever he is converted.

4. He mounts up to heaven, all the days of his life, after his conversion; he is still making some progress heavenward; whatever backsets he may get by sin and Satan now and then, yet he gets up again, and still ascends nearer and nearer heaven: “Nevertheless, I am continually with thee” (Psa. lxxiii. 23). Whatever I do, I endeavour still to be up on the mount with God. David would have both day and night spent with God:

“The Lord will command his loving-kindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life” (Psa. xlii. 8). He went to bed, as it were, with God in his arms; for he remembered Him upon His bed, and meditated upon him in the night-watches; and his soul was satisfied as with marrow and fatness: and when awakened out of his sleep he found Him in his arms: “When I awake, I am still with thee.”

1. He mounts up when he gets a fresh gale and new influences of the Spirit. The believer, at his lowest, is like a ship wind-bound, lying at anchor, but ready to set sail whenever the wind is fair; he can but make small progress with the oars of diligence when the wind and tide is against him. O sirs! if there be any gale of the Spirit blowing among you this day, then mount, mount, mount; you make more progress then in an hour, than you will do without it in many a year, yea, in a whole lifetime.

2. The believer uses to mount up with wings about a communion time; nothing less will serve him than to come to Bethel, the house of God; he will go into the chambers of presence, and never rest till he be at the end of his flight. Where is that, say you? Doth he mount to a communion-table? nay, he must be farther: doth he mount to the top of duties and ordinances? nay, he must be farther: doth he mount to heaven? nay, he must be farther yet. Strange! Where would he flee next? Indeed, he would flee into the heart of Christ: “Set me as a seal upon thine heart;” yea, and which is more yet, he would not only have himself in Christ’s heart, but he would have Christ in his heart—”Christ in him the hope of glory.” And what would he do with him when he hath got there? Oh then, saith he, “He shall lie all night between my breasts;” If I can, I will keep Him all the night-time of this life, which is but a night, “till the day of eternity break, and the shadows fly away.”

3. The believer mounts up on wings, as an eagle, at the day of death; then he soars aloft: “This night thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” It is said of the adder, that when she is old

she goes through some strait passage, and leaves her old skin in the passage, and thereby renews her vigour and life. This passage of death is strait, and uneasy to the body, which, like the adder’s skin, is left in the way; and not without much pain and difficulty to it: but the soul passeth through without any harm; and the next moment mounts up to her state of immortality and happiness: then the believer mounts up indeed to the general assembly and church of the first-born, to the innumerable company of angels, to God the judge of all, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant; yea, then he is made a pillar in the temple of his God.

1. The believer will mount up at the day of judgment as with eagle’s wings; then will he flee up to meet Christ in the air: “Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. iv. 17). You see then when the believer mounts up.

IV. The fourth thing is, to speak to the manner how the believer mounts up—”He mounts up with wings as an eagle.” In whatever respects the eagle mounts up, the same way doth the believer.

1. The eagle mounts up freely and naturally: God gives it a mounting nature: “Dost the eagle mount up at thy command?” says the Lord to Job (chap. xxxix. 27); nay, it is by the instinct which the Lord hath given it, so that it is natural to it. Thus the believer mounts up naturally after God hath given him the new heart; it is natural to him to be mounting towards God. When the hypocrite mounts, he is forced up contrary to his natural tendency, as it were, like a stone cast up into the air; it is not natural to it to fly up, but rather to fall down; but the believer mounts up naturally and freely.

2. The eagle mounts up highly; she flies higher than other birds: she makes her nest on high, on some inaccessible rock; not like the ostrich, that leaves her eggs in the sand, as some leave their souls here on earth: but these spiritual eagle-believers, these heavenly birds, they fly high, even to the Rock of Ages;

and hence their daily desire is, “Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

1. The eagle mounts up strongly, vehemently, and violently; it is a strong bird, and, when it has got the prey, it flies with violence. Thus doth the believer mount up: “For the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” With such earnestness and intentness doth he mount up towards heaven, that no difficulty in the way shall hinder him.

2. The eagle mounts up swiftly and suddenly: this follows upon the other; for its strength and violence in flying infers celerity: so doth the believer, under the lively influences of the Spirit. Oh, how quick is his motion! “Or ever he is aware, his soul makes him like the chariots of Amminadab.” It is a speedy flight that the believer makes towards Christ; he mounts swiftly.

3. The eagle mounts up gradually: though its flight be strong and swift, yet it is gradual; it comes not to the utmost extent of its motion, but by degrees: so the believer mounts up gradually; he goes from strength to strength, till he appear before God in Zion (Psa. xxxiv. 7). He flies still higher and higher; and so the object of his aim draws nearer and nearer to him, while he comes to more and more knowledge of God, and more and more communion with Him, till faith and hope land in vision and fruition.

4. The eagle mounts up frequently and daily; and, in respect of its mounting disposition, constantly: so it is with the believer. He is always mounting, he hath still a mounting disposition, and he is constantly endeavouring to be actually mounting. The carnal professor never mounts up but about the time of a communion, or the time of some sore affliction or conviction; and, whenever these seasons are over, he goes as fast down as he went up. But it is the believer’s trade of life to be mounting on week-days as well as on Sabbath-days; and on ordinary Sabbath-days as well as communion Sabbaths.

V. The next thing is, To show the reasons why the believer, who hath his strength renewed, mounts up on wings like an eagle.

1. Because he hath an eagle’s nature. I said before, that the believer mounts up naturally: why? because he hath an eagle’s nature. It is the natural disposition of an eagle to fly upward; so the believer hath a disposition to mount up to God, he being a new creature: “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature” (2 Cor. v. 17). This new nature ascends to heaven from whence it descended; the old nature goes always downward, but the new nature mounts upward. If you want the new nature, you want the mounting disposition.

2. He mounts up on wings like an eagle, because he hath an eagle’s eye: so the believer, he can see that invisible Sun which no natural eye can attain to: “The poor in Spirit, and pure in heart, shall see God” (Matt. v. 3, 8). The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him” (1 Cor. ii. 14). But the believer, knowing the mind of Christ, sees farther than the world; he sees the King in his beauty, and the land afar off. When he sees these things he cannot but mount up to them. “He endures, as seeing Him who is invisible” (Heb. xi. 27). He is far sighted: “Abraham rejoiced to see Christ’s day afar off, and he saw it, and was glad.” This is that blessed object which every believing soul doth see even when he is in this world.

3. He mounts up on wings like an eagle, because he hath his nest on high like an eagle: no wonder then he flies up, for his nest, I mean his seat, his food, his treasure, his heart, his head, his all is above. His seat is above. The believing eagle cannot find himself safe while here below; therefore he flies to the Rock of Ages, and there he sits. His food is above. Christ is his food: “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” Now, his food being above, “where the carcass is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.” His treasure is above—he hath an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, that is reserved in heaven for him; and up he must to visit his inheritance. His heart is above, where his treasure is; yea, Christ hath gotten his heart a-keeping, and he must be where his heart is. And in a word, his head is above: and must not the

members be where the head is? And must not the stones of the building be where the foundation is? Christ is the head cornerstone. His All is above: Christ is all in all to him; and, therefore, mount he must; for this eagle hath a rich nest above.

1. He mounts upon wings as an eagle, because his strength is renewed like the eagle’s: “who satisfies thy soul with good things; so that thy strength is renewed like the eagle’s” (Psa. ciii. 5). Therefore, having renewed his strength, he mounts up on wings like the eagle. Some say the eagle is renewed when it casts its old feathers and gets new ones; so the believer gets the old feathers of corruption removed, and puts on the new man (Eph. iv. 24). Others say the eagle’s youth is renewed when, its stomach becoming thirsty, it drinks the blood of the prey; and so the believer gets his strength renewed by drinking the blood of Christ by faith (Eph. iii. 13). It is in the unity of the faith that he comes to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. If you have got a drink of the blood of Christ this day, to be sure your strength will be renewed; and, if your strength be renewed, you cannot but be mounting up on wings as an eagle.