Needs of the Times¹

5. Private Religion

J C Ryle

1 Chronicles 12:32. Men that had understanding of the times.

1. The times require of us more regular and steady perseverance in the old ways of getting good for our souls. I think no intelligent Englishman can fail to see that there has been of late years an immense increase of what I must call, for want of a better phrase, public religion in the land. Services of all sorts are strangely multiplied. They are, in fact, established institutions of the day, and the crowds who attend them supply plain proof that they are popular. In short, we find ourselves face to face with the undeniable fact that in the last quarter of the nineteenth century there is an immense amount of public religion.²

But we must never forget that, unless public religion is accompanied by private religion, it is of no real, solid value, and may even produce most mischievous effects. Incessant running after sensational preachers, incessant attendance at hot, crowded meetings, protracted to late hours, constant craving after fresh excitement and pulpit novelties – all this kind of thing is calculated to produce a very unhealthy style of Christianity; and in many cases, I am afraid, the end is utter ruin of soul.

Unhappily, those who make public religion everything, are often led away by mere temporary emotions, after some grand display of ecclesiastical oratory, into professing far more than they really feel. After this, they can only be kept up to the mark which they imagine they have reached, by a constant succession of religious excitements. By and by, as with opium-eaters and dram-drinkers, there comes a time when their dose loses its power, and a feeling of exhaustion and discontent begins to creep over their minds. Too often, I fear, the conclusion of the whole matter is a relapse into utter deadness and unbelief, and a complete return to the world. All this results from having nothing but a public religion. O that people would remember that it was not the wind, or the fire, or the earthquake which showed Elijah the presence of God, but “the still small voice” (1 Ki 19:12).

Now I desire to lift up a warning voice on this subject. I want to promote an increase of religion in private – private between each man and his God. The root of a plant or tree makes no show above ground. If you dig down to it and examine it, it is a poor, dirty, coarse-looking thing, and not nearly so beautiful to the eye as the fruit, or leaf, or flower. But that despised root is the true source of all the life, health, vigour and fertility which your eyes see; without it the plant or tree would soon die. Now private religion is the root of all vital Christianity. Without it we may make a brave show in the meeting or on the platform, sing loud, shed many tears, and have a name to live and the praise of man. But without it we have no wedding garment and are “dead before God”. I tell my readers plainly that the times require us all to pay more attention to our private religion.

(1.) Let us pray more heartily in private, and throw our whole souls more into our prayers. There are dead prayers and there are live prayers – prayers that cost us nothing and prayers which often cost us strong crying and tears. What are yours? When great professors backslide in public, and the Church is surprised and shocked, the truth is that they had long ago backslidden on their knees. They had neglected the throne of grace.

(2.) Let us read our Bibles more in private, and with more diligence. Ignorance of Scripture is the root of all error and makes a man helpless in the hand of the devil. There is less private Bible reading, I suspect, than there was 50 years ago. I never can believe that so many English men and women would have been “tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine”, some falling into scepticism, some rushing into the wildest and narrowest fanaticism, and some going over to Rome, if there had not grown up a habit of lazy, superficial, careless, perfunctory reading of God’s Word. “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures” (Mt 22:29). The Bible in the pulpit must never supersede the Bible at home.

(3.) Let us cultivate the habit of keeping up more private meditation and communion with Christ. Let us resolutely make time for getting alone occasionally, for talking with our own souls like David, for pouring out our hearts to the great High Priest, Advocate and Confessor at the right hand of God. We need more auricular confession, but not to man. The confessional we want is not a box in the vestry, but the throne of grace. I see some professing Christians always running about after spiritual food, always in public, always out of breath and in a hurry, and never allowing themselves leisure to sit down quietly to take stock of their spiritual condition.

I am never surprised if such Christians have a dwarfish, stunted religion and do not grow and if, like Pharaoh’s lean kine, they look no better for their public religious feasting, but rather worse. Spiritual prosperity depends immensely on our private religion, and private religion cannot flourish unless we determine that by God’s help we will make time, whatever trouble it may cost us, for thought, for prayer, for the Bible and for private communion with Christ. Alas, that saying of our Master is sadly overlooked: “Enter into thy closet and . . . shut the door” (Mt 6:6).

Our Evangelical forefathers had far fewer means and opportunities than we have. Full religious meetings and crowds, except occasionally at a Church or in a field when such men as Whitefield or Rowlands preached, these were things of which they knew nothing. Their proceedings were neither fashionable nor popular, and often brought on them more persecution and abuse than praise. But the few weapons they used, they used well. With less noise and applause from man they made, I believe, a far deeper mark for God on their generation than we do, with all our conferences and meetings and multiplied religious appliances. Their converts, I suspect, like the old-fashioned cloths and linens, wore better, lasted longer and faded less, and were more stable, rooted and grounded than many of the new-born babes of this day. And what was the reason of all this? Simply, I believe, because they gave more attention to private religion than we generally do. They walked closely with God and honoured Him in private, and so He honoured them in public. Let us follow them as they followed Christ. Let us go and do likewise.

Let me now conclude this paper with a few words of practical application.

(1.) Would you understand what the times require of you for your own soul? Listen and I will tell you. You live in times of special spiritual danger. Never perhaps were there more traps and pitfalls in the way to heaven; never certainly were those traps so skilfully baited and those pitfalls so ingeniously made. Mind what you are about. Look well to your goings. Ponder the paths of your feet. Take heed lest you come to eternal grief and ruin your own soul. Beware of practical infidelity under the specious name of free thought. Beware of a helpless state of indecision about doctrinal truth under the plausible idea of not being party spirited, and under the baneful influence of so-called liberality and charity. Beware of frittering away life in wishing and hoping for the day of decision, until the door is shut and you are given over to a dead conscience and die without hope.

Awake to a sense of your danger. Arise and be diligent to make your calling and election sure, whatever else you leave uncertain. Christ the almighty Saviour, Christ the sinner’s Friend, is calling you to come to Himself. Arise and cast away excuses; this very day Christ calls you. Wait for nobody. The times, I repeat, are desperately dangerous. If only few are in the narrow way of life, resolve that, by God’s help, you at any rate will be among the few.

(2.) Would you understand what the times require of all Christians for the souls of others? Listen, and I will tell you. You live in times of great liberty and abounding opportunities for doing good. Never were there so many open doors of usefulness, so many fields white to the harvest. Mind that you use those open doors, and try to reap those fields. Try to do a little good before you die. Strive to be useful. Determine that, by God’s help, you will leave the world a better world on the day of your burial than it was on the day you were born. Remember the souls of relatives, friends and companions; remember that God often works by weak instruments, and try with holy ingenuity to point them to Christ. The time is short; the sand is running out of the glass of this world. Then redeem the time, and endeavour not to go to heaven alone.

No doubt you cannot command success. It is not certain that your efforts to do good will always do good to others, but it is quite certain that they will always do good to yourself. Exercise is one grand secret of health, both for body and soul. “He that watereth shall be watered also himself” (Prov 11:25). It is a deep and golden saying of the Lord Jesus, but seldom understood in its full meaning: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35)

The gospel requires men to believe things above reason merely on the authority of divine revelation.

John Owen

Broken Vows¹

James Buchanan

Vows which are not kept are a plain proof of insincerity and hypocrisy of heart. We do not say that every partial declension of piety, occurring after a time of distress, or that every infirmity or sin after such a time, ought to be regarded in this light. Far from it. In the time of trouble, God’s people are placed in circumstances which are fitted to deepen even their impressions – to invigorate their faith, by imparting a nearer and clearer view of things unseen and eternal, and to quicken all the graces of the Christian character. Even they, when they return to the active business of life, are often constrained to mourn over the decay in their religion, and to look back to their experience in affliction as the sweetest which they have ever enjoyed.

But while we are careful not to make “the heart of the righteous sad, whom [the Lord hath] not made sad” (Ezk 13:22), we must not strengthen “the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life”. It is necessary therefore to say, with the utmost faithfulness, that there is too much reason to suspect the insincerity and hypocrisy of those who vow unto the Lord in the time of trouble and afterwards neglect or refuse to fulfil their vows.

And it is all the more necessary to press this consideration because such people may have been conscious, in the day of trouble, of such sharp convictions of conscience, such solemn views of death and eternity, such an agonising disturbance of spirit, and such real earnestness in regard to some at least of the subjects of their prayers, as to be in imminent danger of confounding these feelings with that genuine sincerity and that thorough change of heart which the gospel requires. “Were we not sincere,” such persons may say, “when we felt so deeply and prayed so earnestly, when our fears were so strong, and our resolutions so holy? We know best how we then felt, and no one will ever convince us that then, at least, we were not sincere.”

But will they not bear to be affectionately reminded that they are liable to be mistaken, and that a mistake on this point must be dangerous and may be fatal. When they speak thus confidently of the impossibility of their being deceived, do they remember the solemn testimony of God: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked”? Instances of a kind precisely similar to theirs are recorded in the Holy Scriptures, instances both of individuals and of communities, who in the hour of danger were as much alarmed and as much in earnest as themselves; yet their partial and temporary

¹An edited extract from Improvement of Affliction, a sequel to Comfort in Affliction, which has been reprinted by Free Presbyterian Publications.

convictions did not amount to a saving change. Witness the case which I have already quoted from the Psalm 78; witness again the case of Judah: “Judah hath not turned unto Me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord” (Jer 3:10). And again, the case of Israel: “They have not cried unto Me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds” (Hos 7:14).

There is much in the time of trouble that may excite an earnestness of desire which is altogether different from religious sincerity, and awaken deep convictions of conscience which must not be mistaken for thorough conversion of heart. The sufferer may be not only sincere, but earnest and importunate for some blessings, while his heart is shut against the reception of a full salvation as it is presented in the gospel. He may cry to God for help; he may pray earnestly for recovery; he may as earnestly ask for the pardon of those sins which lie heavy on his conscience, and for deliverance from that future, eternal punishment which no human mind can deliberately anticipate without aversion and alarm. In all this he may be sincere and earnest, and yet every thing that is purely spiritual in religion may be as distasteful and offensive to him as it ever was. He may wish for recovery, yet shrink from present conversion. He may cry for God’s help, when vain is the help of man, and yet he may have no love for God’s person. He may pray for pardon and yet have no affection for the Saviour. He may fear hell and yet have no fitness for heaven.

Now, in such circumstances and with these feelings, he may vow unto the Lord that, if he is spared, he will lead a new life and devote himself to God’s service. And if, on his recovery, he shows by his conduct that he has forgotten, or that he is now unwilling to perform his vows, what other conclusion can we entertain concerning him than that he either never had a right and scriptural view of the nature and extent of that holy obedience which the gospel enjoins, or that he is justly chargeable with an insincere and hypocritical profession?

Christ’s Intercession: Some Lessons¹

William Symington

How the people of God ought to beware of dishonouring Christ’s intercession! What an abuse of this function takes place when encouragement is taken from it to indulge in sin! But it is also dishonoured by being neglected or overlooked. This we fear is no uncommon occurrence. There is a dispos-

¹This article is an edited extract from Symington’s The Atonement and Intercession of Jesus Christ and follows on from the extract in October.

ition in many to regard what Christ has done and neglect what He is doing. Not that we would have men to think less of the former, but more of the latter. Surely the preceding pages have been read to little purpose, if they have not left the impression on the mind that the present work of Christ in heaven is also important. Much is said about it by the inspired writers in the Scriptures. The purpose for which the Saviour lives in mediatorial glory cannot be of small importance: “He ever liveth to make intercession”; “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life”.

Let us then think highly, and think much, of the intercession as well as the death of Christ. Let us see too that we do not restrain prayer before God. This would be to do what we can to nullify the Saviour’s character as an advocate, as in this case He could have no service to offer, no cause to undertake, nothing to perfume with the fragrance of His merits. Such as would honour Christ’s intercession must “pray without ceasing”. Nor let anyone indulge unreasonable despondency. The intercession of Christ ought to prove an antidote to every such feeling. Hear how the Apostle reasons on the subject: “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them”.

To those who have right views of this truth, there can be no room for despair. Yet there are professing Christians who give themselves up to a morbid melancholy, brooding over their sins and shortcomings, which could be warranted only on the supposition that there is no advocate with the Father, no intercessor within the veil, no daysman to plead their cause and secure their salvation. A view of the fact and the properties of the Saviour’s intercession should charm away all gloomy forebodings; and we would exhort those Christians who feel as if cast out from God’s sight to look again to that holy temple where the Minister of the upper sanctuary pleads, and to be no more sad.

Let all seek an interest in, and daily profit from, this view of the Saviour’s character and work. Those who are duly conscious of their situation will be disposed, like the Israelites when they were bitten with the fiery serpents, to look around for some one to pray for them. To whom can they go with safety but to Christ? He alone can pray for the people. Let them believe in His name, trust in His merits, and obey His commands; then they may expect to share in the benefits of His intercession. Daily they need Him, and daily they may have recourse to Him, in this character. O that men would consider the misery of having no interest in this part of the Saviour’s work! To be without the prayers of our friends is deemed a calamity. To be denied the intercession of such men as Noah, Daniel and Job is justly represented in Scripture as

serious. “Pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them,” is one of the heaviest judgements that can befall a backsliding nation. How dreadful beyond all conception then must it be to have no interest in the prayers of Christ!

But this is not all, for if His prayers are not for us, they are against us. He prays for the destruction of His enemies. That blood which speaks so powerfully for the salvation of those who believe, cries loudly for vengeance on those who despise and abuse it. Let the unbelieving and ungodly ponder this and tremble. And who can tell the happiness which an interest in the intercession of Christ is fitted to yield! It is a doctrine as full of comfort to saints as of terror to sinners. It is calculated to fill the heart with joy to know that, whatever their sinful weaknesses and infirmities may be, they shall not bring them into condemnation; that, whatever their temptations, their faith shall not be permitted to fail; that, whatever their backsliding, they shall not finally fall away; that, however weak, cold and confused their devotions, they shall be rendered a sweet-smelling savour to God.

In sin and duty, in health and sickness, in prosperity and adversity, in life and death, the doctrine of Christ’s intercession gives joy and comfort to the believer. Let it then be the concern, of all who read these pages, earnestly to seek such an interest in what the Saviour has done and is still doing that they may be able to take as their own the triumphant appeal of the Apostle: “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

Thus we have brought to a conclusion our inquiries into these deeply important subjects. Yet we must remind readers of the necessity of applying to themselves the glorious truths which have occupied their attention, before turning their thoughts to anything else. Let them not regard these truths as matters of curious speculation, or content themselves with a mere doctrinal belief. If these truths are to be rightly appreciated and properly improved, they must become the subjects of a saving faith. No doctrines stand more closely connected with the eternal salvation of the soul.

Let no one then rise from reading these pages without seriously and conscientiously asking himself these questions: Have I an interest in the atonement and intercession of Jesus Christ? Have I faith in the sacrifice of the great High Priest? Has my soul been sprinkled with His precious blood? Does He plead with the Father on my behalf? Is my name engraven on His heart? Have I any good reason to conclude that He is even now praying that my sins may be forgiven, that my faith may not fail in the hour of temptation, and that I

may be kept from the evil which is in the world? Were I called to die at this moment, could I indulge the comforting assurance that the Advocate within the veil, whom the Father hears always, would present on my behalf the request: Father, I will that he whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, and that, in answer to this prayer, my disembodied spirit should be ushered, in perfect holiness, into the immediate, unclouded presence of my covenant God, and into all the glories of the heavenly kingdom?

These are solemn questions. Let no one neglect to put them to himself, or – if no favourable answer can be honestly given to them – let no one hesitate to press them till at least such convictions have been awakened that nothing can allay but a believing appropriation of the blood and advocacy of the great High Priest of our profession. May the Spirit of all grace, whose prerogative it is to take the things of Christ and show them unto men, be pleased to grant that the perusal of these pages may thus prove the means of salvation to many. And to the only wise God and Saviour, be all the glory. Amen.