by the Rev. Christopher Love.
How to live in this world so as to live in heaven? Yours I received, and thought on that question. It is one of the common pleas of my heart which I have often occasion to study, and therefore takes me not unprovided.
It is hard to keep the helm up against so many cross winds as we meet with on this sea of fire and glass. That man knoweth not his own heart that finds it not difficult to break through the entanglements of the world. Creatures’ frowns encompass and tempestuate the spirit, that it thinks it doth well to be angry. Both ways grace is the loser. We had all need to watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation. The greatest of our conflicts and causes of complaints seem to have their original here —
temptation follow tempers, as there are two predominant sins in the temper of every heart. Pride is one in all men in the world.
I will tell you familiarly what God has done for my soul, and in what tread my soul keeps towards Himself. I am come to a conclusion to look after no greater matters in the world but to know Christ and Him crucified. I make best way in a low gale. A high spirit and a high sail together will be dangerous, and therefore I prepare to live low. I desire not much; I pray against it. My study is my calling; so much as to tend that without distraction I am bound to plead for no more. By my secluded retirements I have advantage to observe how every day’s occasions insensibly wear off the heart from God, and bury in itself, which they, who live in care and lumber, cannot be sensible of. I have seemed to see a need of everything God gives me, and to want nothing he denies me. There is no dispensation, though afflictive, but either in it or after it, I find I could not be without it. Whether it be taken from or not given to me, God quiets me in Himself. I cast all my concerns on the Lord, and live securely on the care and wisdom of my Heavenly Father. My ways, you know, are in some sense hedged up with thorns, and grow darker and darker daily; but yet I distrust not my God in the least, and live more quietly in the absence of all, by faith, than I should do, I am persuaded, if I possessed them. I think the Lord deals kindly with me to make me believe for all His mercies before I have them. They will then be Isaac’s “sons of laughter”. The less reason hath to work upon, the more freely faith casts itself upon the faithfulness of God. I find that while faith is steady, nothing can disquiet me, and when faith totters, nothing can establish me. If I tumble out among creatures, I am perfectly lost, and can come to no end. But if I stay myself on God and leave Him to work in his own time and way, I am at rest, and can sit down and sleep on a promise when a thousand rise up against me. Therefore my way is not cast before hand, but to work with God by the day — “Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.” I find so much to do continually with my calling and heart, that I have no time to puzzle myself with peradventures and futurities.
As for the state of the times, it is very gloomy and tempestuous. But why do the heathen rage? Faith lies at anchor in the midst of the waves, and believes the accomplishment of the promise through all those overturnings, confusions, and seeming impossibilities. Upon this God do I live, who is our God for ever, and will guide us unto death. Methinks I lie becalmed in His bosom, as Luther in such a state. I am not much concerned; let Christ see to it. I know prophecies are now dark, and the
books are sealed, and men have all been deceived, and every cistern fails, yet God doth continue faithful and faithful is He that has promised who will do it. I believe these dark times are the womb of a bright morning.
Many things more I might have said, but enough. O, brother, keep close to God, and then you need fear nothing. Maintain secret and intimate communion with God, and then a little of the creature will go a great way. Take time for duties in private; crowd not religion into a corner of the day. There is a Dutch proverb — “Nothing is gained by stealing or lost by praying.” Lay up all your goodness in God, so as to overbalance the sweetness and bitterness of all creatures. Spend no time anxiously in before-hand contrivances for this world; they never succeed, God will run His dispensations another way. Self-contrivances are the effects of unbelief. I can speak by experience. Would men spend those hours they run out in plots and devices in communion with God, and leave all on Him by venturesome believing, they would have more peace and comfort.
I leave you with your God — and mine. The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Pray for your own soul, pray for Jerusalem, and pray hard for your poor brother.
Spurgeon 100 years ago
Almost exactly 100 years ago, C. H. Spurgeon inserted the following in his magazine, The Sword and Trowel, December 1888, p620.