The Liberator 2
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He had been led by some blind guide who had led him into the ditch, and now when the windows were opened and the man could see, he saw written over the door, "Believe and live!" and in the new light which he had found, he trusted his Lord and Savior, and walked out free, and marveled that he had been so long a slave. I marveled not, but I thought in my heart how accursed are those teachers who hide the light from the eyes of men so that they understand not the way of life. Ignorant souls, who know not the plan of salvation, will have many sorrows, which they might escape by instruction.
Study your Bibles well; be diligent in attending upon a free-grace ministry; labor after a clear apprehension of the plan of salvation, and it will often please God that when you come to understand his truth your spirits will receive comfort, for it is by the truth that "the Lord frees the prisoners."
V. I passed on and came to another chamber. This room, marked number five, was large, and had many persons in it who were trying to walk to and fro, but every man had a CHAIN round his ankle, and a huge cannon-ball fixed to it- a military punishment, they said, for deserters from the ranks of virtue. This clog of habit troubled the prisoner much. I saw some of them trying to file their chains with rusty nails, and others were endeavoring to fret away the iron by Dropping Tears of Penitence thereon; but these poor men made but little progress at their work. The warder told me that this was the CHAIN OF HABIT, and that the ball which dragged behind was the old propensity to lust and sin. I asked him why they did not get the chains knocked off, and he said they had been trying a long time to be rid of them, but they never could do it in the way they went to work, since the proper way to get rid of the chain of habit was, first of all, to get out of prison- the door of unbelief must be opened, and they must trust in the one great deliverer the Lord Jesus, Whose Pierced Hands Could Open All Prison Doors; after that, upon the Anvil of Grace with the Hammer of Love, Their Fetters Could Be Broken Off.
I stayed awhile, and I saw a drunkard led out of his prison, rejoicing in pardoning grace. He had aforetime labored to escape from his drunkenness, but some three or four times he broke his pledge, and went back to his old sin. I saw that man trust in the precious blood and he became a Christian, and becoming a Christian he could no more love his cups- at one stroke of the hammer, the ball was gone for ever. Another was a swearer- he knew it was wrong to blaspheme the Most High, but he did it still, until he gave his heart to Christ, and then he never blasphemed again, for that foul thing was abhorred. I noticed some, and methinks I am one of them myself, although they had the ball taken away, yet on their hands there were the remains of old chains. Like Paul, in another case, when we rejoice in all things we have to say, "Except these bonds."
Once we were chained both hands together; the Divine Hammer has smitten off the connecting links, but still some one or two are left hanging there. Ah! often has that link made me cry out- "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" Though I am free, yet still the iron clings to its hold, and will hang there until I die. "When I would do good, evil is present with me." O that Old Adam Nature, the corrupt flesh, would God we were rid of it! Blessed be the Lord, as the pulse begins to beat high with heaven’s glory, the band will burst, and we shall be perfect for ever!
There is no way of getting rid of the links of old habits but by leaving the prison of unbelief and coming to Christ, then the evil habits are renounced as a necessary consequence, though the temptation will remain. Though sometimes we have to feel a link of the chain, it is a subject of unbounded thankfulness that the link is not fastened to the staple. We may sometimes feel it dragging behind, enough to trip us up, so that we cannot run in the path of obedience as swiftly as we would, but it is not in the staple now. The bird can fly; though there be a remnant of its cord about its foot, it mounts up to heaven, singing its song of praise. The Lord must Loose Prisoners from Their Evil Habits. He Can Do It- a Drop of Jesus’ Blood can Eat The Iron All Away, and the File of His Agonies can Cut Through the Chain of Long-acquired Sins, and make us free! "The Lord frees the prisoners."
VI. I must take you to another cell. In almost all prisons where they do not want to make vagabonds worse than when they entered, they have hard labor for them. In the prison I went to see in my reverie there was THE HARD LABOR CELL. Those who entered it were mostly very proud people; they held their heads very high, and would not bend; they were birds with fine feathers, and thought themselves quite unfit to be confined, but being in vile slavery, they resolved to Work Their Own Way Out. They believed in the system of human merit, and hoped in due time to purchase their liberty. They had saved up a few old counterfeit farthings, with which they thought they could by-and-bye set themselves free, though my bright attendant plainly declared their folly and mistake. It was amusing, and yet sad, to see what different works these people were about. Some of them toiled at a tread-wheel; they were going to the stars they said, and there they were, tread, tread, tread, with all their might; but though they had been laboring for years, and were never an inch higher, yet still they were confident that they were mounting to the skies. Others were trying to make garments out of cobwebs; they were turning wheels, and spinning at a great rate, and though it came to nothing they worked on. They believed they should be free as soon as they had made a perfect garment, and I believe they will.
In one place a company labored to build houses of sand, and when they had built up to some height the foundation always yielded, but they renewed their efforts, for they dreamed that if a substantial edifice were finished they would then be allowed to go free. I saw some of them, strangely enough, endeavoring to make wedding garments out of fig-leaves, by sewing them together. But the fig-leaves were of a sort that were shriveled every night, so that they had to begin the next morning their hopeless toil.
Some, I noticed, were trying to pump water out of a dry well, the veins stood out upon their brows like whipcords while they worked desperately without result. As they labored, like Samson when he was grinding at the mill, I could hear the crack of whips upon their backs. I saw one ten thonged whip called the Law, the terrible Law — each lash being a commandment, and this was laid upon the bare backs and consciences of the prisoners; yet still they kept on work, work, work, and would not turn to the Door of Grace to find escape. I saw some of them fall down fainting, whereupon their friends strove to bring them water in leaking vessels called ceremonies; and there were some men called priests, who ran about with cups which had no bottoms in them, which they held up to the lips of these poor fainting wretches to give them comfort. As these men fainted, I thought they would die, but they struggled up again to work. At last they could do no more, and fell down under their burdens utterly broken in spirit.
Then I saw that every prisoner who at last so fainted as to give up all hope of his own deliverance by merit, was taken up by a shining spirit, and carried out of the prison and made free for ever. Then I thought within myself, "Surely, surely, these are proud self-righteous persons who will not submit to be saved by grace, therefore He brought down their heart with labor; they fell down and there was none to help; then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses." I rejoiced and blessed God that there was such a prison-house to bring them to Jesus; yet I mourned that there were so many who still loved this house of bondage and Would Not Escape, though there stood one with his finger always pointing to the words- "By the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified;" and to these other words, "By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." I had seen enough of that prison-house, for I recollect being there myself, and I have some of the scars upon my spirit now. I desire not to go back to it, but as I have received Christ Jesus the Lord so would I walk in Him, knowing that if the Son make me free, I shall be free indeed.
VII. We must not leave these corridors until we have peered into all the cells; for we may not come here again. As I passed along, there was another cell called the LOW DUNGEON OF DESPONDENCY. I had read of this in the book of Jeremiah — a pit wherein there was no water, of which the prophet said, "He has led me and brought me into darkness and not into light." I looked down. It was a deep, dark, doleful place; down in it I saw by the gloomy light of the warder’s lantern a poor soul in very deep distress, and I bade him speak to me, and tell me his case. He said he had been a great offender, and he knew it; he hall been convinced of sin; he had heard the gospel preached, and sometimes he thought it was for him, but at other times he felt sure it was not. There were seasons when his spirit could lay hold of Christ, but there were times when he dared not hope. Now and then, he said, some gleams of light did come; once a week when he had his provision sent down- a little fresh bread and water, he did feel a little encouraged, but by the time the Monday came — for his provision was always sent down on Sunday — he felt himself as low and miserable as ever.
I called out to him that there was a ladder up the side of the prison and if he would but climb it, he might escape, but the poor soul could not feel the steps. I reminded him that he need not be where he was, for a Divine Hand had let down ropes to draw him up, with soft cushions for his armholes; but I seemed as one that mocked him, and I heard some that tormented him bid him call me "liar." These were two villains called Mistrust and Timorous, who were bent upon keeping him here, even though they knew that he was an heir of heaven, and had a right to liberty.
Finding myself powerless, I thus learned the more fully that the Lord must Loose These Prisoners or else they must be prisoners for many a-day; yet it was a great comfort to recollect that no soul ever died in that dungeon if it had really felt its need of Christ, and cried for mercy through his blood.
No soul ever utterly perished while it called upon the name of the Lord; it might lie in the hole until it seemed as if the moss would grow on its eye-lids, and the worms eat its mildewed corpse, but it never did perish, for in due time it was brought by simple faith to believe that Christ is "able to save, even to the uttermost," and then they come up, O how quickly, from their low dungeon, and they sing more sweetly than others — "He has brought me up out of the horrible pit, and out of the miry clay; he has set my feet upon a rock, and put a new song in my mouth, and established my going."
VIII. Shudder not at the clinging damps, for I must take you to another dungeon deeper than this last. It is called THE INNER PRISON. Paul and Silas were cast into the inner prison, and their feet made fast in the stocks, yet they sang in their prison; but in this dungeon no singing was ever heard. It is the hold of DESPAIR. I need not enlarge much in my description. I hope you have never been there; and I pray you never may. Ah! when a spirit once gets into that inner prison, comforts are turned at once into miseries, and the very promises of God appear to be in league for the destruction of the soul.
John Bunyan describes old Giant Despair and his crab-tree cudgel better than I can do it. Sorrowful is that ear which has heard the grating of the huge iron door, and full of terror is the heart which has felt the chilly damps of that horrible pit. Are any of you in that dungeon today? Do you say, "I have grieved the Spirit, and he is gone; my day of grace is over; I have sinned against light and knowledge; I am lost?" O man, where are you? I must have you free. What a splendid trophy of grace you will make! My Master loves to find such great sinners as you are, that he may exhibit his power to save. Oh! what a platform for my Lord to rear the standard of his love upon, when he shall have fought with you and overcome you by his love. What a victory this shall be. How will the angels sing unto him that loved the vilest of the vile, and ransomed the despairing one out of the hand of cruel foes.
I have more hope of you than I have of others; for when the surgeon enters the hospital after an accident, he always goes to the worse case first. If there be a man who has broken his finger only, "Oh! let him be," say they, "he can wait;" but if there be a poor fellow who is much mangled, "Ah!" says the surgeon, "I must see to this case at once." So is it with you; but the Lord must loose you; I cannot. Only this I know, if you would but believe me, there is a key which will fit the lock of your door of unbelief. Come, look over this bunch of keys: "He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him." "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "He that believes on him is not condemned." "Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Brother, this inner dungeon can be opened by the Lord Jesus. "The gates of brass before him burst, the iron fetters yield."
IX. I am getting to the end of this dark story now, but tarry a moment at the grating of THE DEVIL’S TORTURE CHAMBER, for I have been in it; yes, I have been tormented in it, and therefore I tell you no dream. I tarried in it until my soul melted because of agony, and therefore speak what I do know, and not what I have learned by report. There is a chamber in the experience of some men where the temptations of the devil exceed all belief. Read John Bunyan’s "Grace abounding," if you would understand what I mean. The devil tempted him, he says, to doubt the existence of God; the truth of Scripture; the manhood of Christ; then his deity; and once, he says, he tempted him to say things which he will never write, lest he should pollute others.
Ah! I remember a dark hour with myself when I, who do not remember to have even heard a blasphemy in my youth, much less to have uttered one, heard rushing through my soul an infinite number of curses and blasphemies against the Most High God, until I put my hand to my mouth lest they should be uttered, and I was cast down, and cried to the merciful God that he would save me from them. Oh! the foul things which the fiend will inject into the spirit; the awful, damnable things, the offspring of his own infernal den, which he will foist upon us as our own thoughts in such droves and so quickly the one after the other, that the spirit has hardly time to swallow down its spittle, and though it hates and loathes these things, still it cannot escape from them, for it is in prison.
Ah! thank God no soul ever perished through such profanities as those, for if we hate them they are none of ours; if we loathe them it is not our sin, but Satan’s- and God will in due time bring us to be free from these horrors.
Though the hosts of hell may have ridden over our heads, yet, let us cry "Rejoice not over me O mine enemy, though I fall yet shall I rise again." Use your sword, poor prisoner! You have one. "It is written" — "the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God." Give your foe a deadly thrust- tell him that "God is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him," and you may yet see him spread his dragon wings and fly away. This, too, is a prison in which unbelief has confined both saint and sinner, and the Lord Himself Must Loose These Prisoners.
X. Last of all, there is one dungeon which those confined therein have called THE CONDEMNED CELL. I was in it once. In that room the man writes bitter things against himself; he feels absolutely sure that the wrath of God abides on him; he wonders the stones beneath his feet do not open a grave to swallow him up; he is astonished that the walls of the prison do not compress and crush him into nothingness; he marvels that he has his breath, or that the blood in his veins does not turn into rivers of flame. His spirit is in a dreadful state; he not only feels he shall be lost, but he thinks it is going to happen now. The condemned cell in Newgate, I am told, is just in such a corner that the condemned can hear the putting-up of the scaffold.
Well do I remember hearing my scaffold put up, and the sound of the hammer of the lair as piece after piece was put together! It appeared as if I heard the noise of the crowd of men and devils who would witness my eternal execution, all of them howling and yelling out their accursed things against my spirit. Then there was a big bell that tolled out the hours, and I thought that very soon the last moment would arrive, and I must mount the fatal scaffold to be cast away for ever.
Oh! that condemned cell!
Next to Tophet, there can be no state more wretched than that of a man who is brought here! And yet let me remind you that When a Man Is Thoroughly Condemned in His Own Conscience He Shall Never Be Condemned. When he is once brought to see condemnation written on everything that he has done, though hell may flame in his face, he shall be led out, but not to execution; led out, but not to perish, "he shall be led forth with joy, and he shall go forth with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before him into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."
As we read in history of one who was met with a pardon just when the rope was round his neck, just so does God deal with poor souls; when they feel the rope about their necks, acknowledge that God’s sentence is just, and confess that if they perish they cannot complain, it is then that sovereign mercy steps in and cries, "I have blotted out like a cloud your iniquities, and like a thick cloud your sins; your sins which are many are all forgiven you."
And now, glorious Jehovah, THE LIBERATOR, unto you be praises! All your redeemed bless you, and those who are today in their dungeons cry unto you! Stretch out your bare arm, mighty Deliverer! You who sent your Son Jesus to redeem by blood, send now your Spirit to set free by your power, and this day, even this day, let multitudes rejoice in the liberty wherewith you make free; and unto Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Israel’s one Redeemer, be glory for ever and ever! Amen.
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