IN these days when many true and sincere Christians are harassed by the dogmatic assertiveness of professing Christians of the Keswick Convention type, relative to “the deepening of spiritual life,” “perfectionism,” and “the victorious life,” it will doubtless be comforting to recall what four great Christians had to say on the subject of sinful self in the true believer.
In his sermon on “The Fainting Warrior,” the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon commented as follows:—”I know it is my duty to be perfect, but I am conscious I cannot be. I know that every time I commit sin, I am guilty, and yet I am quite certain that I must sin—that my nature is such that I cannot help it. I feel that I am unable to get rid of this body of sin and death, and yet I know I ought to get rid of it. It is my agonizing death struggle with my corruption that proves me to be a living child of God. These two natures will never cease to struggle so long as we are in this world. The old nature will never give up; it will never cry truce, it will never ask for a treaty to be made between the two. What a fight is that. It were worth an angel’s while to come from the remotest fields of ether to behold such a conflict.”
The saintly and intellectual Jonathan Edwards solemnly stated concerning inbred corruption in the believer:—”When I look into my heart, and take a view of its wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than Hell, and it appears to me that, were it not for free grace, exalted and raised up to the infinite height of all the fulness and glory of the great Jehovah, I should appear sunk down in my sins below Hell itself; far below the sight of everything but the eye of sovereign grace, that alone can pierce down to such a depth. And it is affecting to think how ignorant I was, when a young Christian, of the bottomless depths of wickedness, pride, hypocrisy, and deceit left in my heart.”
Rev. John Newton testified in this connection as follows:—”I have lived hitherto a poor sinner, and I believe I shall die one. Have I then gained nothing? Yes, I have gained that which I once would rather have been without—such accumulated proof of the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of my heart as I hope by the Lord’s blessing has, in some measure, taught me to know what I mean when I say ‘Behold I am vile.’ I was ashamed of myself when I began to seek it, I am more ashamed now.”
The late Rev. Neil Cameron, Glasgow, on a Communion occasion in the Highlands, declared on this subject:—”I have such a deep and painful consciousness of my inbred corruption that if it were not written: “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin,” I would have no hope at all in view of Eternity.” There is not much room for the Keswick theology of the triumphant life in the foregoing testimonies of experienced Christians.—J. P. MacQ.