A Sermon by C H Spurgeon
2 Corinthians 6:2. Behold, now is the day of salvation.
No one can change a day’s weather. The kings of the earth cannot command bright days for themselves nor inflict days of tempest on their enemies. It belongs to One higher than they to command the morning and cause the day star to know its place. It is little they can do to the light and the sun, the clouds and the rain; they cannot bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades nor loose the bands of Orion. Still rulers and governors and kings have accomplished much in shaping the social character of their subjects’ days. Sometimes, like the king of Nineveh, they have proclaimed days of fasting, and their subjects have been clothed in sackcloth; on other occasions they have exercised the prerogative to ordain days of feasting, as Ahasuerus did at the palace of Shushan, when for 180 days “he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honour of his excellent majesty”, by filling the capital with feasting.
Kings of the older stamp were more able to influence the days of their people than they are now. In former times, when people had more faith in the fable of the divine right of kings than they have now, a despot could cause a thick darkness over all the land, even darkness that might be felt. They made war according to their own fancy or frenzy, and what is that but moral midnight? What does war mean but crime, suffering, death, poverty? Is it not usually the sum of all villainies? Everything that is evil either marches with it or follows in its train. The very thought of war for our beloved country darkens our heavens. Alas, with what a light heart have despots drawn the sword and sought to wade through slaughter to imaginary glory, shutting the gates of mercy on mankind that they might seize a province or avenge a jest.
Kings can also brighten people’s days when they have a mind to be quiet: they make peace and then the nations bask in the sun, and earth covers her battlefields with greenery. Peace gives the poor world respite to bind up her gaping wounds and remedy a little of the mischief of the awful fight. Hard labour and stern self-denial are not grudged by the suffering peasants if they may have time to breathe and the land may enjoy her Sabbaths; but why should such toil and suffering have been demanded? Simply because kings quarrel, and their subjects must die to end the strife.
Princes have also on occasion exercised their prerogative by proclaiming days of amnesty and oblivion: a long rebellion has been crushed out, and there
1Taken, with editing, from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol 24.
has been no fear of its return, and then the monarch has thought it best to refrain from undue severity and to overlook the evil which he has subdued; accordingly he proclaims that the past shall be blotted out if, by a certain time, the rebellious will surrender, yield up their arms and promise loyalty. Such days are calm and clear, and bring light to despairing rebels who saw no end but the gallows. Thus for humiliation or rejoicing; for war, for peace, or for pardon, monarchs can set their seal upon a day and mark it with their signature in history.
If earthly monarchs can somewhat affect the days of men; what can be done by the King of kings? The Creator of day and night can surely order all our light and shade. The Ancient of days is He who can give us “mornings without clouds” or make the day dark with gloom. How often He has made the sun of prosperity to gladden us, and how suddenly He has shrouded us beneath the thick clouds of adversity! Our days are in His hand and He is Lord of all. You and I, looking back, may well bow before the power and majesty of the Eternal, who has such infinite power over us that none of us can stay His hand or say unto Him, “What doest Thou?”
The Lord has had His days of vengeance; are they not written in the book of the wars of the Lord? How terrible was the hour when He opened the sluices of the firmament that the rain might descend in torrents, and bade the fountains of the great deep rise to meet the descending floods! How dreadful were the 40 days in which the floods above the firmament leaped downward to embrace their brethren of the ocean, till the whole earth was covered with one all-devouring deluge, and sea-monsters whelped and stabled in the palaces of kings! That was the assize of justice, and the day of vengeance of our God. Such days have been at other times as, for instance, when He poured hell out of heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, when He overthrew Pharaoh and all his host in the midst of the Red Sea, and when His sword stayed not from blood till Hivite and Perizzite and all the Canaanites fell before the hand of Joshua, because the iniquity of the people was full, and the hour of execution had arrived.
Those were the days of wrath, and there is another, far more terrible day yet to come, when heaven and earth shall flee away before the face of Him that shall sit upon the great white throne. Blessed be God, we are not at this time living under the rod of vengeance, but our text tells us that “now is the day of salvation”. When it is a day of vengeance, the Lord does His strange but necessary work thoroughly, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord”. The prophet said of Him: “The Lord revengeth, and is furieth”. Well did Miriam sing, “The Lord is a man of war, Jehovah is His name”.
But when He puts on the robes of mercy, and proclaims with a silver trumpet the day of salvation, “blessed are the people that know the joyful sound”. I trust that there are among us some of that happy company who have heard, with the inner ear, the note of grace. At any rate, the Lord has set a period of salvation, from the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus to the present hour. The day of salvation has not been suspended; it still lasts, and it shall last till the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout: then shall come the judgement, and strict justice shall sit upon the throne.
When the Apostle was writing this wonderful sentence, he dreaded that men should not avail themselves of its great truth. Read the first verse of the chapter: “We then, as workers together with Him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain”. The day of salvation is a great favour from God, and it would be a fearful thing if we should live in it and miss its privilege. It is only through God’s favour that we enjoy this day of amnesty, oblivion and forgiveness; therefore we beseech you not to let its golden hours pass over you in vain.
This is the great anxiety of my heart at this time in addressing you; I have great fear lest some of you should live in the day of salvation and yet die without being saved, should live in the midst of light with blinded eyes, should dwell with deaf ears where the silver trumpet sounds, and the kingdom of God should come very near you and yet you should not enter it. It will be sad indeed if you should see strangers from afar brought into the kingdom of heaven and you, who live on its borders, should be utterly thrust out. May the Holy Spirit bless the words which shall now be spoken, so that the evil which we fear may not come upon you, but that you may receive this grace, or favour, of God to your eternal good.
That you may not receive this grace in vain, (1) I shall try to show the great reason for this day of salvation; (2) I shall speak of the glorious day itself; (3) I shall dwell upon the dark shadow which will close that day if the Spirit does not lead us into salvation.
1. The great reason for this day. “Now is the day of salvation.” Will you kindly read the context in order to understand why there is a present day of salvation? I will take you a little away from the text to chapter 5, verse 20, and I would ask you to bear in mind that the division into chapters is arbitrary, and we need take no notice of it. The Apostle says, “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Here then is the secret of the whole matter. This day is the day of salvation because “He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him”. There could have been no day of salvation if a Saviour had not appeared; and if that Saviour had not become a substitute and surety, salvation would have been denied us by the stern voice of justice. But now Christ has come into the world and died for sin, and because He has finished all the work which He undertook, the Lord God proclaims to us the day of salvation.
Notice that, according to the context, this is the day of salvation because we may now be reconciled to God. “We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.” The Lord would not set His ministers to plead with people to be reconciled to Him if peace was out of the question. He would not send us on an impossible errand. God is already reconciled to every sinner who has an interest in the blood of Jesus. Toward them the Lord is full of peace. Nothing is required now to reconcile God to the believing man. The great thing is that people would believe in Jesus Christ and be reconciled to God. The feud between you and God, poor prodigal child, need not be continued. You quarrelled with your Father, and you went into the far country; and now you have spent your substance, but He sends to you this message, Be reconciled; come home; a loving reception awaits you; return at once.
Because Jesus has died, the partition wall is broken down; the great gulf between a holy God and unholy man is bridged by the atoning blood. You may be reconciled; there is no reason why the terrible quarrel should continue; therefore, because reconciliation is possible, it is a day of salvation. As long as man remains an enemy to God, he cannot be saved, for enmity to God is the very essence of his ruin and the sting of his condemnation. While a man lives in enmity to God he is, and he must be, under the power of an evil spirit which curses him; therefore reconciliation to God is absolutely necessary if he is to enjoy salvation. I repeat that, because reconciliation is possible, this day of salvation has come.
Next, lest anyone should exclaim, But how is it and why is it that so great a boon is conferred? I cannot understand it but the plain statement of verse 21 explains it all: “He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin”. Here is the grand doctrine of substitution. O soul, if you believe in Christ Jesus, you shall be saved because He stood in your stead, He took your sin; the Lord made Him to be sin on your account and exacted at His hand satisfaction for your iniquity. The Lord bruised Him and put Him to grief; so that He was made a curse for us and bore in our stead the wrath of heaven. Now therefore the righteous God will not, cannot, need to vindicate His law a second time. If He has made the Lord Jesus to be sin for us, He need not visit us for sin nor punish the same offence a second time. Indeed it would be injustice to lay sin once upon the Substitute and afterwards upon the sinner;
therefore a day of salvation may well be proclaimed, since Christ has finished transgression and made an end of sin.
To help us to understand mercy’s great expedient still better, the Holy Spirit tells us that the divine design in Christ Jesus is to make sinners the “righteousness of God” in Christ. Wonderful expression! I shall not attempt to enter into its fullness, but I will content myself with saying that the two expressions of the verse set forth the imputation of sin to Christ and of righteousness to us, the substitution of Christ in our place, and the standing of our souls in Christ’s place. And they do so in terms so forcible that he must be determined not to believe the doctrine who does not see it in the words before us. Our Lord is not merely made a sin-offering, but He is made sin, and we are not merely made righteous in Christ, but we are made righteousness itself, indeed the righteousness of God, which is the very highest righteousness conceivable.
I never wish to strain expressions, nor push them one inch beyond their proper meaning, but I think it difficult to do so here, since the language is so very forcible and explicit. If the doctrine which I have explained was intended to be taught, I do not see how it could be more clearly stated. Now soul, if you desire salvation, see how God can give it to you.
As He takes the sinner’s sin and lays it upon Christ, so He takes Christ’s righteousness and lays it upon the sinner. He looks at the believer as if he was as righteous as His Son, who represents him. He treats the believer as if he had been obedient to all His law; He looks on the model man, Christ Jesus, the perfect humanity, and He sees in Christ all His people and treats them accordingly. He looks upon His people as if they themselves had magnified the law and made it honourable by a sinless life. Wonderful doctrine this! But he who believes it shall find rest to his soul, and it is because of it that we are authorised to come forth this day and declare the day of salvation. The guilt of the believing sinner is put away, for Christ has carried it. And now righteousness belongs to the sinner, for God imputes it to him without works; therefore this is the day of salvation.
Still keeping to the context, and illustrating in another way the great reason for the day of salvation, will you kindly read the verse which contains our text? “For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” It is a quotation. Paul says, “He saith”. Where does God say that? We have no difficulty in discovering this: it is in Isaiah 49, a passage you should carefully read and ponder heartily.
I wish to call your special attention to it as opening up the glorious reason for the famous proclamation about which we are preaching. Verses 6-12 in
that chapter apply eminently to the Messiah – that is, to the Lord Jesus Christ. Of whom else could the prophet have spoken as in verse 7: “Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and His Holy One, to Him whom man despiseth, to Him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers”? Who is this but the Lord as He stood before Herod and Pilate? To this very day He is abhorred of the Jews: they mention Him ordinarily by the name of “the Crucified”, and to them that term is the embodiment of the utmost scorn. We glory in that word, but to them it is the essence of contempt. “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” We are sure that Isaiah spoke concerning Him, the Crucified, whom we adore.
Our next enquiry is, What did He say about Him? Read verses 5-6: “And now, saith the Lord that formed Me from the womb to be His servant, to bring Jacob again to Him, though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and My God shall be My strength. And He said, It is a light thing that Thou shouldest be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth.” Beloved, are you not glad to hear these words. If you are not curious to hear me, but eager to hear my Master’s truth, your heart will be rejoiced at the blessed news that now Christ has come to be the salvation of the Gentiles. We were out in the cold; we were the younger branch of the family, and the heir despised us; we had not yet come into our portion; we were left in darkness and in sin.
But now our turn has come, and we are favoured. From the day when Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” our privileges began. From the day when Paul said, “Seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles,” ours has been a day of favour, and we have obtained the portion which once belonged alone to the seed of Abraham. Only we have obtained it to a far larger extent, and we see more clearly its deep spiritual meaning and wealth of blessing. What was veiled under types and shadows is evidently set forth before our eyes.
Tell it all over the world today that salvation has come to the Gentiles, and especially to the dwellers in the islands. As for the ends of the earth, surely we are intended by that term, for our forefathers dwelt where Phoenicians made distant and dangerous journeys to find tin and other metals, and our land was thought to be upon creation’s edge, inhabited by a barbarous people of uncouth tongue. And yet to us, even to us, has the gospel come. Jehovah, the God of the whole earth is our God at this day; in this let us exult, for it proves that the day of salvation has come to the Gentiles.
Further, He goes on to say in verse 8: “Thus saith the Lord, In an acceptable time have I heard Thee”. Mark this well. God saves us because He hears the Lord Jesus. Here is the secret of all the answers of grace to the prayers of penitents. He says, “I have heard Thee in a time accepted . . . behold, now is the day of salvation”. In the lonely watches of the night, the great Intercessor prayed for His own. He lived a life of supplication, and He did not pray in vain, for He said to the Father, “I knew that thou hearest Me always”. It was always so. His prayers may be said to have reached their highest point when He offered the marvellous intercession recorded in John 17 and followed it up by His strong crying and tears in the garden, when He poured out His soul in agony; while prostrate among the olives He sweat as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground.
Mysterious was that bloody sweat! Precious drops, they did not fall by chance. They wrote on the earth the reversal of the curse which fell upon the ground, and the ending of the day of wrath in the day of salvation. That sacred sweat bedewed a garden which henceforth yields the oil of joy, where-with believers may anoint their faces with gladness. Jesus was heard in that He feared, and henceforth it is a gospel of good cheer to the chief of sinners. “In an acceptable time have I heard Thee.” Is it not wonderful that Jesus in the garden made intercession for transgressors who as yet had not learned to pray for themselves? I trust that among those who hear me there are people as yet unconverted who nevertheless are special objects of the Redeemer’s intercession and who shall find salvation because their great Substitute was heard on their behalf. All believers were heard when their great High Priest was heard; the Father’s answer to Him was an answer to all His people.
It is added, “In a day of salvation have I helped Thee”. Help came to the man Christ Jesus in His hour of agony; the Father succoured Him, and there appeared unto Him an angel strengthening Him. How must that angel have marvelled as he saw the face of the incarnate God red with a sweat of blood. The whole scene is beyond conception strange and singular: the prostrate Saviour in agonising pangs utters strong crying and is helped by His God. The angel came to strengthen our Champion, not to join in the fight. No one could share the conflict; Jesus must tread the winepress alone. But the angel was empowered to communicate strength to the manhood of Christ, and he did so. Then it was that, being succoured in His hour of need, the Master took the appointed cup so full of woe, drank it to its utmost dregs and said, “It is finished!” It was then that, by one dreadful draught, He pledged the justice of God and gave this day of salvation to the sons of men.
You see then that our present day of privilege has come to us through the Lord hearing and succouring the Daysman and Redeemer of His people. But
salvation comes to them also because, according to verse 8, it is written, “I will preserve Thee, and give Thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth”. Jesus is now God’s covenant with man, and that covenant is one of peace and favour. The Lord says to each believing man: Thy sins will I remember no more; a new heart also will I give thee, and a right spirit will I put within thee; thou shalt be Mine; I will sanctify thee and glorify thee with My Son; behold, in token of My faithfulness, I have given My Son to be the seal, the surety and the sum of My covenant; behold, I have given Him for a covenant to the people, a leader and commander for the people. Brethren, you are not under the covenant of Moses today: you are under the covenant of Jesus; you are not under law, but under grace and, because of this, today is the day of salvation.
I cannot at this time enlarge on the other blessed verses which make up Isaiah 49, but let me say it is because Christ is now anointed to give liberty to all captives and to say to them, “Go forth” – it is because He brings the darkened ones out of death-shade and says, “Show yourselves” – that this is a day of salvation. Furthermore, when we are delivered from bondage and darkness, then because Christ is a shepherd and leads His flock and makes them feed in the ways, finds pasture for them in high places, protects them from hunger and thirst and gives them springs of water to drink from – it is because of all this that now is the day of salvation.
I will not enlarge further, but only say, If I now preach the day of salvation, as I will try to do, with the utmost boldness and fullness, and if any of you enquire, How is it? Why is grace so free this day? I shall tell you that the cause is quite as marvellous as the fact, that the way of salvation is as surprising as salvation itself, and that Jesus Christ the Son of God, who has done and is doing it all, is the most wonderful of all. In His eyes I see the tears which can shine away the midnight of despair; in His hands I see the majestic might which can break the fetters of Satanic bondage; and in His face I see the sacred guidance which shall bring the host of His elect safe home, in unbroken ranks, to the land of the tearless eyes.
The confession of sin is not the cause of its pardon – the moving cause is God’s free, unmerited grace; it is the blood of Jesus. God pardons from the fullness of His mercy and on the ground of the Saviour’s sacrifice. But the confession of sin is the channel by which God speaks comfort to the soul.
If I look at my giant corruptions and say they are too great for the grace of Jesus to subdue, I limit Him. If I think my difficulty in life too insurmountable for the power of Christ, then do I limit Him. But if in simple faith I see that, in receiving Jesus as a gift, I receive all good in Him, then am I enabled to rise superior to all my circumstances.
Octavius Winslow
Luther and the Reformation1
2. All Was Omission, Sin and Impurity
J H Merle d’Aubigné
When he entered the monastery, Luther did not have what was afterwards to make him a reformer of the Church. He was proceeding in conformity with the tendencies of the age from which he was soon to begin to liberate the Church. A new stone had been added to the edifice of superstition by the very man who was before long to destroy it. Luther looked to himself for salvation, to human works and observances. He did not know that salvation comes wholly from God. He sought his own glory and righteousness, unmindful of the righteousness and glory of the Lord. But what he was ignorant of as yet, he learnt soon afterwards. It was in the cloister of Erfurt that this immense transformation was brought about, which substituted in his heart God and His wisdom for the world and its traditions.
When Martin Luther entered the convent, he changed his name and assumed that of Augustine. The monks had received him with joy. It gratified their vanity to see one of the most esteemed doctors of the age abandon the university for a house belonging to their order. Nevertheless they treated him harshly and imposed on him the meanest occupations. They wished to humble the doctor of philosophy, to teach him that his learning did not raise him above his brethren. They imagined besides that they could thus prevent him from devoting himself so much to his studies, from which the monastery could reap no advantage.
He had to open and shut the gates, wind up the clock, sweep the church, and clean out the cells. Then they sent him through the streets of Erfurt, begging from house to house, obliged perhaps to present himself at the doors of those who had once been his friends or his inferiors. On his return, he had either to shut himself up in a low, narrow cell, whence he could see nothing but a small garden a few feet square, or recommence his humble tasks. But he put up with them all; he had become a monk with all his soul. Besides, how could he think of sparing his body, or have any regard for what might please the flesh? It was not thus that he could acquire the humility and sanctity which he had come to seek within the cloister.
The poor monk, oppressed with toil, hastened to employ in study all the moments that he could steal from these occupations. He voluntarily withdrew
1This is the second in a series of abridged extracts from J H Merle d’Aubigné’s The History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century; they mark the five-hundredth anniversary of the European Reformation. The first article saw Luther betaking himself to a monastery in search of holiness.
from the society of the brethren to give himself up to his beloved pursuits; but they soon found it out and tore him from his books, exclaiming, “It is not by studying, but by begging bread, corn, eggs, fish, meat and money that a monk renders himself useful to the cloister”. Luther submitted: he laid aside his books and took up his bag again. Far from repenting at having taken upon himself such a yoke, he was willing to go through with his task. God tried him in small things, that he might learn to remain unshaken in great ones. Besides, to be able to deliver his age from the miserable superstitions under which it groaned, he must first feel their weight.
This severe apprenticeship did not, however, last so long as Luther might have feared. The prior of the convent, at the intercession of the university to which Luther belonged, freed him from the humiliating duties that had been laid upon him. The youthful monk then returned to his studies with new zeal. The works of the Fathers of the Church, especially of Augustine, attracted his attention. Nothing struck him more than the sentiments of this Father on the corruption of man’s will and on Divine Grace. He felt, in his own experience, the reality of that corruption and the necessity for that grace. The words of Augustine corresponded with the sentiments of his heart. He almost knew by heart the works of Peter d’Ailly and of Gabriel Biel. He was much taken with a saying of the former: If the Church had not decided to the contrary, it would have been preferable to concede that the bread and wine were really taken in the Lord’s Supper.
He also carefully studied the theologians Occam and Gerson, who both expressed themselves so freely on the authority of the popes. He was heard in public discussions unravelling the most complicated trains of reasoning, and extricating himself from a labyrinth whence none but he could have found an outlet. All his hearers were filled with astonishment. But he had not entered the cloister to acquire the reputation of a great genius; it was to seek food for his piety. He therefore regarded these labours as mere digressions.
He loved above all things to draw wisdom from the pure source of the Word of God. He found in the monastery a Bible fastened by a chain, and to this chained Bible he was continually returning. He had but little understanding of the Word, yet it was his most pleasing study. He sometimes passed a whole day meditating on a single passage. At other times he learned fragments of the Prophets by heart. He especially desired to acquire from the Scriptures a perfect knowledge of God’s will; to grow up in greater fear of His name; and to nourish his faith by the sure testimony of the Word.
It would appear that about this time he began to study the Scriptures in their original languages, and to lay the foundation of the most useful of his labours – the translation of the Bible into German. John Lange, one of the
friars of the monastery, a man skilled in Greek and Hebrew, probably was his first instructor. The young monk studied with such zeal that often he did not repeat the daily prayers for three or four weeks together. But he soon grew alarmed at the thought that he had transgressed the rules of his order. He then sought to repair his negligence, and began to repeat conscientiously all the prayers he had omitted, without a thought of either eating or drinking. Once even, for seven weeks together, he scarcely closed his eyes in sleep.
Burning with desire to attain that holiness which he had entered the cloister to seek, Luther gave way to all the rigour of an ascetic life. He tried to crucify the flesh by fastings, mortifications and watchings. Shut up in his cell, he struggled unceasingly against the deceitful thoughts and the evil inclinations of his heart. A little bread and a small herring were often his only food. Indeed, he was naturally of very abstemious habits. At this period, nothing was too great a sacrifice if it might enable him to become a saint – to acquire heaven. Never did a cloister witness more severe exertions to purchase eternal happiness. When Luther had become a reformer, and had declared that heaven was not to be obtained by such means as these, he knew very well what he was saying. “I was indeed a pious monk,” he wrote to Duke George of Saxony, “and followed the rules of my order more strictly than I can express. If ever a monk could obtain heaven by his monkish works, I should certainly have been entitled to it. . . . If it had continued much longer, I should have carried my mortifications even to death.”
Luther did not find in the cloister that peace of mind which he had looked for. He wished to have the assurance of his salvation, but the fears that had agitated him in the world increased in his cell. God had led him there, so that he might learn to know himself and to despair of his own strength and virtue. His conscience, enlightened by God’s Word, told him what it was to be holy; but he was filled with terror at not finding that holiness, either in his heart or in his life. A sad discovery, but one that is made by every sincere man! All was omission, sin and impurity. It plunged him into despair.
The monks and divines of the day encouraged him to satisfy God’s righteousness by meritorious works. But what works, thought he, can come from a heart like mine? How can I stand before the holiness of my judge with works polluted in their very source? “I saw that I was a great sinner in the eyes of God, and I did not think it possible for me to propitiate Him by my own merits.”
He was agitated and dejected, avoiding the trifling conversation of the monks. Unable to comprehend the storms that tossed his soul, the monks reproached him for his silence and his gloomy air. A tender conscience inclined Luther to regard the slightest fault as a great sin. He had hardly
discovered it before he attempted to expiate it by the severest mortifications, which only served to show him how useless all human remedies are. “I tortured myself almost to death,” he said, “in order to procure peace with God for my troubled heart and conscience; but surrounded with thick darkness I found peace nowhere.”
The practices of monastic holiness soon appeared to Luther the unavailing remedies of a deceptive religion. “While I was yet a monk, I no sooner felt assailed by any temptation than I cried out, I am lost! Immediately I had recourse to a thousand methods to stifle the cries of my conscience. I went every day to confession, but that was of no use to me. Then bowed down by sorrow, I tortured myself by the multitude of my thoughts. Look, I exclaimed, you are still envious, impatient, passionate! . . . It profits you nothing, O wretched man, to have entered this sacred order.”
Yet Luther, imbued with the prejudices of his time, had from early youth considered the observances a certain remedy for diseased souls. It is possible then to dwell within what he believed was a holy place, and yet bear in one’s bosom a man of sin. He had received another garment, but not another heart. Can all these rules and observances be mere human inventions? Such a supposition appeared to him, at one time, a temptation of the devil, and at another an irresistible truth. Luther passed his life in a continual struggle. The young monk crept like a shadow through the long galleries of the cloister, that re-echoed with his sorrowful moanings. His body wasted away; his strength began to fail; sometimes he seemed like one dead.
On one occasion, overwhelmed with sorrow, he shut himself up in his cell and for several days allowed no one to approach him. One of his friends, Lucas Edemberger, feeling anxious about the unhappy monk, took with him some boys who sang in the choirs, and knocked at the door of the cell. No one answered. Edemberger, still more alarmed, broke open the door. Luther was lying on the floor, showing no sign of life. His friend strove in vain to rouse him. Then the choristers began to sing and he gradually recovered. But he required another, stronger remedy to heal him thoroughly: the sound of the gospel, which is the voice of God Himself. He knew it well. Therefore his troubles and terrors led him to study with fresh zeal the writings of the prophets and of the apostles.
If only convinced sinners are warranted to embrace Christ, then I must, ere I can be warranted to embrace Him, be convinced that I am a convinced sinner. But the Holy Spirit is the only source of infallible conviction, and the Holy Spirit is nowhere promised to convince of conviction; He is only promised to convince of sin. True, the convinced sinner is the only capable subject of saving faith, but it is not as a convinced sinner I am called upon to come to Christ.
John Duncan