MOTTO'S
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"It is my uniform custom," said the Interpreter, "when Christian friends are about to leave my house, to give them, by way of token, a written motto; consisting of some particular passage of God's word, which, by wearing it in their bosoms, may serve at once, through divine grace, to bring to their remembrance the instructions which they have received from me; and also furnish them with somewhat of consolation suited to the peculiar frame and constitution of their own minds." In saying this, he presented to a poor man who stood near me, and whose appearance indicated that the glass of his life was nearly run to the last sand, a piece of paper on which was written Jeremiah 49:11, "Leave your orphans; I will protect their lives.
Your widows too can trust in me;"—and within this paper, there was another folded piece, bearing this inscription, Isaiah 54:5, "For your Maker is your husband—the Lord Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth;"—and within this also a third, with this motto, Psalm 27:10, "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up."
As the Interpreter presented this paper to the poor man, he said, "You have heard all that I have said to you, my brother, on the subject of your own everlasting welfare; and I am much pleased to see, from the evidences which appear in your experience of the renewed life, that a work of grace is wrought in your heart, and that your hopes are well founded; but as I know that the several claims of nature in your family have a strong hold upon your feelings, I beg you frequently to have recourse to these sweet covenant-promises. The first is for yourself; the second for the beloved partner of your heart; and the third for your children."
To another, who stood also near me, and whose concern had been very greatly exercised respecting the deceitfulness of his heart, and who feared lest, after all, his religion should be found to be nothing more than a cloak of hypocrisy, the Interpreter presented a paper with this motto—"Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any evil way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (Psalm 139:23, 24.) And, as he presented it, he said, "Take this, my friend, and make it the subject of your daily enquiry before God. See whether you can pray with the same earnest desire as David did; or appeal to the great Searcher of hearts, as Paul did—'God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son.' (Rom. 1:9.) If the approbation of God, and not the applause of man, be the desire of the heart—if the mind hates sin as sin, and not for its consequences—if you can bless a taking God, as well as a giving God—if you feel your soul humbled with a sense of unworthiness, while God is showering down upon you the abundance of his grace—if Jesus is loved for his own sake, more than for his gifts—these are all so many marks and touchstones of character which never can belong to hypocrisy, and therefore may be considered by you as evidences of a well founded hope."
"Young man," said the Interpreter to a very hopeful and promising youth who was in the circle, "the best motto I can present you with, is the declaration which the Lord commanded the prophet to make in the ears of Jerusalem—'Thus says the Lord, I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, when you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown,' (Jer. 2:2.) Keep this precious text of scripture in your bosom as an infallible antidote against all the poisonous influence with which you may be surrounded in the long pilgrimage through which you have yet to pass. The man that has many days to count, has many wintry dispensations to be exercised with. Nothing can serve, more effectually, through divine grace, to bear up the mind under all its pressures, than the recollections of early notices of God and from God, and so sweet a promise of being remembered through all."
"And as for you, my brother," the good man said, addressing himself to me, "there is no passage of Scripture more suited to your case and circumstances than that which is contained in the prayer of the Lord Jesus, in the conclusion of his ministry upon earth, (John 17:11.) 'Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom you have given me.' Originally given, as all the faithful are, by the Father to the Lord Jesus, before the Redeemer manifests the Father's name unto them; evidently the property of the Father at the time of the donation, 'for yours they were, and you gave them to me;' fully proved to be redeemed by Jesus, by having the Father's name manifested unto them, and having kept his word; strongly and powerfully recommended to the Father's keeping by one whom the Father hears always, and whose joint interest in the believer is one and the same with the Father's, for 'all mine are yours, and yours are mine;' how is it possible that such can ever perish—or that any should pluck them out of his almighty hand? Keep this sweet scripture therefore, I charge you, always in your bosom, and carry it about with you wherever you go—that its influence may be perpetual, and that the will of the Redeemer, corresponding with the gift and grace of the Father, may never escape your recollection. 'Father I will that they also whom you have given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold the glory which you have given me.'" (John 17:24.)
The Interpreter conducted me to the door; and as I stepped over the threshold, I turned about once more, to express my thankful acknowledgment of the affectionate manner in which I had been entertained.
But it was an event which the coincidence of circumstances in a Pilgrim's life, like mine, could only produce, that soon after I left the house of the Interpreter, I met the poor man, of whom such honourable testimony is made by me in the former part of these Memoirs, accompanied with my moral neighbour, at whose instance I attended the elegant preacher's sermon, who is also mentioned in the first days of my enquiry for the way to Zion. Struck with astonishment at what I saw, that such an one should come on pilgrimage, I was going to express my surprise, when he anticipated all my enquiries, by accounting for the change. "To this dear friend," he cried, taking the poor man by the hand, "I am indebted, under God, for the gracious conversion of my mind from the error of its ways.
I felt no small confusion from the strength of your observations respecting the ineffectual tendency of morality to justify before God; and particularly from the manner in which you stated it in your conversation, as instanced in the conduct of brethren towards another, while deficient in love and obedience towards their Father—but the remarks of this poor man at the church-porch, after the sermon we had heard, were such as threw to the ground, through God's grace, all the building of self-confidence which I had been rearing up from the supposed rectitude of my life; and since that time, I have been so thoroughly convinced, from the frequent instructions of this dear friend, whom I have made my constant companion, of the utter impossibility of man's being justified by anything of his own before God, that all my astonishment now is, not that I have forever relinquished the vain pretension—but that I ever should have imbibed it. I am now most fully satisfied, I bless God, that so far is the highest moral virtue from affording any ground of justification before God, that unless divine grace keeps the soul humble under all its attainments, it is apt to produce pride in our hearts, and thereby to subject us to the greater condemnation.
It may very safely be granted, that all moral excellencies will be the necessary result of true religion, as good fruit will be the natural production of a good tree; and that after the greatest pretensions, we have no authority to call that man truly pious who is immoral; but it must at the same time be insisted upon as strenuously, that so far detached is morality from piety in a great variety of instances, that nothing is more common in life than to see people who are truly irreproachable in their conduct towards man, who are totally remiss and even profane as to their demeanour before God.
Hence, therefore, there are a thousand cases to which the best and most extensive laws of morality cannot reach; but yet they are all cognizable before Him who tries the heart. I discovered these truths by this poor man's instruction, through divine grace, and immediately found the fallacy under which I had been living; and, blessed be God, I have now learned, that 'without repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,' the most punctual and diligent discharge of the moral obligations I owe my neighbour, cannot justify me before God."
My heart rejoiced at what I heard, and secretly I felt within me the full force of that question, "What has God wrought!"
I detain not the reader with the relation of what followed this unexpected meeting; neither do I think it necessary to extend my narrative by an account of a great variety of occurrences with which my pilgrimage has since been distinguished. I promised him at the commencement of my history, that it should be a short one, from the hour in which the Lord was pleased to call me by his grace, to the period in which I sat down to communicate it; and having brought the subject thus far, I shall therefore now relieve the reader's attention altogether.
To tell him of my present feelings, amid a mingled state of many precious assurances, tempered with many trying dispensations, would be to relate the uniform history of every pilgrim to Zion. These are the "spots of God's children;" and they all prove a family-likeness. I am frequently exercised with deep and sharp trials, and sometimes feel a heart disposed to tell my heavenly Teacher, that I think I might be spared many such lessons; but the upshot of the instruction generally brings me to this conclusion—"How happy is it for me that I am placed under a wiser and better direction than my own!"
I am now waiting the Master's call, rather I persuade myself (if I know anything of my own heart) with a pleasing than an anxious expectation. My desire is, "to die daily to the world, and to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts." I wish to sit as detached as possible from everything here below, that, when the carriage to fetch me stops at my door, I may rise up instantly and depart, "to meet the Lord in the air." Under this view, my heart is weaning more and more, I hope, from all things beneath the sun. Little of this world can I speak, for I know but little of its employments. I am seeking "a better country, that is, an heavenly." And what is it to the man under sentence of death in Newgate, what is transacting on the Royal Exchange?
And as to the full assurance of faith, respecting the possession of those immortal objects which open before me, I can and do say, with the humblest—but at the same time, with the best grounded confidence, "I know in whom I have believed; being confident in this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in me, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." That "crown of righteousness," which the apostle declared was not only laid up for him—but for all those who "love the appearing of the Lord," is laid up for me also. I have examined myself by this standard, as well as by every other which I know of.
Do I love the Lord's appearing? Yes! I love his appearing in the conversion of every poor sinner whom God the Holy Spirit makes "willing in the day of his power." I love his appearing in the gracious, seasonable, and suitable relief of all his tried family. I love his appearing in the defence of his oppressed ones from sin and Satan, in the ten thousand instances with which they are exercised here below. And, I trust, I am of that happy number who are said to be "looking for and hastening unto, the coming of that great day of his appearing, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all those who believe."
Reader, farewell!—May our experience, when Jesus comes, correspond with the declaration of the prophet—"It shall be said in that day, Lo! this is our God, we have waited for him, and he will save us—this is the Lord, we have waited for him, we will be glad, and rejoice in his salvation." Amen.
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