THE PRECIOUSNESS OF TRIAL - Part 3

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK: "THE PRECIOUS THINGS OF GOD" - 

by Octavius Winslow, 1859

THIS BOOK HAS BEEN FORMATTED AS A KINDLE AND IT IS AVAILABLE FREE OF CHARGE . click here

The time of trial often sets us upon a closer examination of our Christian progress and hope. In the season of worldly sunshine and prosperity, gliding along upon the smooth and calm current, how much do we take for granted as to our true spiritual state. We deem all right within because all is smiling without. The world smiles, friends approve, ministers commend, the heart flatters, and the candle of the Lord shines round about us—alas! alas! with what slight evidences of conversion, with what dubious marks of grace, with what a slender hope of heaven, are we then satisfied! How shallow our self-acquaintance, how imperfect our knowledge of Christ. But the trial comes, bearing the disguise of a foe, yet in reality a friend. 

And now the first blast of adversity scatters the fig-leaf covering, and destroys the beautiful tresselled wall which our own hands had constructed for our beauty and defense. What we thought was substance proves but a shadow, what we imagined was a reality proves but an appearance. The faith we thought so strong, the love we thought so fervent, the grace we thought so real, the growth we thought so unmistakable, all, all vanish before the dealings, the probings, the siftings of the Searcher of hearts in the day of trial.

We are deeply indebted to trial—and it thus fully sustains its character as among the precious things of God—as authenticating the fact of our divine sonship. Erase sanctified trial from the catalogue of the Lord's dealings with you, and you would cancel one of the strongest evidences of your adoption. What earthly father corrects not the waywardness, self-will, and disobedience of his child? and shall not our heavenly Father, in the exercise of a wisdom and love yet greater, employ a holy and wholesome discipline towards His children? Every stroke of His rod is a proof of His love, and every correction of His hand an evidence of our sonship. How tender and touching the admonition, "My son, despise not you the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives." 

Thus, then, our hallowed afflictions and trials are among the choice, precious things of God, because they are signs and seals of our gracious adoption into His family. Be not cast down, O tried believer! as though some strange and untoward thing had happened to you. Misinterpret not the dealings of God, as though your present sorrows, difficulties, and trials, were marks of His displeasure, and evidences against your true and divine relationship. Many of the Lord's people who appear exempt from those trials by which others are severely afflicted are prone to argue from thence against their being the true children of God. Most true is it that the religion of Jesus is the religion of the cross, and that there never was a true Christian without a cross. And yet the painful misgiving, arising from exemption from the crosses which others bear, may itself be the cross the Lord appoints you. 


The heart-searching and prayer, the earnestness and anxiety, which this conviction produces, may be just the self-discipline which those peculiar trials—from the absence of which you augur ill against yourself—are designed to effect. God can as richly teach, and as deeply sanctify us by the absence as by the presence of a trial. But ah! are there no crosses other than reverse of circumstances, loss of health, chilled affection, changed friendship, heart-crushing bereavement? Yes, beloved reader; this body of our humiliation, the power of indwelling sin, the assaults of Satan, the seductions of the world, the wounding of the saints, spiritual becloudings and despondencies, is enough, in the absence of all external trial, to discipline the heart, to humble the soul, and keep the believer near to the cross of Jesus. Thus, there is no believer without a trial, and no Christian is without the cross.

"A lady of rank and great piety complained that, whereas in Scripture the cross is everywhere spoken of as useful and necessary for the children of God, yet she, for her part, must acknowledge that hitherto the Lord had never deemed her worthy of one, and that this often raised within her melancholy thoughts and doubts whether she was one of His children or not. Gotthold said to her—I confess that complaints like yours are not common, inasmuch as few Christians have any ground to lament a lack of the cross, while others, whose share of it is exceedingly small, nevertheless imagine that it is quite as large as they are able to bear; and in particular, those who are yet unaccustomed to it, are prone to fancy that their cross is too great and heavy for them. As for your case, however, it seems to me that you are actually bearing a cross without being conscious of it. 

You are vexed with gloomy thoughts because you have no cross. These gloomy thoughts, however, appear to me to be themselves a considerable cross, and also a very salutary one, for they not only evince, but nourish and augment your desire to resemble the Lord Jesus, and to take up your cross and follow Him. Besides, the words of our Savior, 'Whoever does not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple,' relate not merely to the common hardships of human life, but are also and especially to be understood of the crucifixion of the old man, of his sinful lusts and desires, of self-denial and the subjugation of the will. 

For the rest, we cannot and ought not to make crosses for ourselves, for this would end in hypocrisy. The Lord holds the cup of affliction in His own hand, and pours out of it when and as much as He will. That He has spared you hitherto, acknowledge with humble gratitude; He is the Searcher of hearts, and perhaps knew that, with the cross, your heart would not have felt towards Him as it has done without it. Recollect, however, that the drama of your life has not yet been played to the end, and that, for ought you know, your gracious God may still have some little cross in reserve for you, to be imposed in due time. The fiercest tempests often come in the evening of the finest summer days, and it is after the pure wine has been run off that the lees are used to follow. It ought to be another ground of gratitude to God, that He has given you time to prepare for all emergencies, and provide yourself with the armor necessary for your defense." (Gotthold's Emblems.)

It is not the least hallowed result of sanctified trial, thus increasing its preciousness, the deeper acquaintance into which it brings us with God's word. In trial we fly to the Scriptures as the unfailing source of guidance and comfort. Whatever may be the nature of our sorrow, or the singularity of our path, we are sure of finding in God's word light, sympathy, and soothing corresponding therewith. God sends us into this school of affliction to learn. Thus He dealt with David—"It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn your statutes." 

God's word at all times should be our study and delight. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." But there is, through outward distractions and inward conflicts, a tendency to neglect the word, to lose our relish for its sweetness, or to turn from its faithful rebukes. And as a parent or a teacher sometimes employs the rod to stimulate his pupil to learn, so our Heavenly Father, our Divine Teacher, often sends His rod of correction to drive us to the study of the truth; then we testify, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted (corrected, chastened, rebuked), that I might learn your statutes." And oh, with what increased clearness and beauty does the Bible often unfold to us in the time of precious trial! We understand the Scriptures now as we never did before.

We may have consulted critics and expositors, and by our own ingenuity and skill have endeavored to penetrate the sacred mysteries of the word, and yet but to little perception of the truth. But the rod of correction has proved our best expositor under the guidance of the Spirit of truth! "Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures." Dark, mysterious, and trying providences—trials which we thought so untoward—have been our best commentaries on the deep things of the word. What a honied sweetness, in our personal experience, has the bitterness of trial imparted to it! We did not know that there was so much sweetness in the word until we found so much bitterness in the world; nor so much fullness in the Scriptures until we found so much emptiness in the creature. 

We see the Bible now to be full of Jesus—Christ its revelation, its glory and sweetness, its Alpha and Omega, its beginning and end. Satiated with creature comforts, and surfeited with self-satisfaction, we had loathed the manna of the word, and it had no more relish to our spiritual than the most insipid element to our natural taste. But sweet, sanctified, precious trial has led us to the Book of the tried—God's own word—and we have "rejoiced at it as one that finds great spoil." With the Psalmist we have testified, "How sweet are your words to my taste! yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth." "This is my comfort in my affliction: for your word has quickened me." Oh welcome, then, cheerfully and submissively the precious trial that renders more precious in your experience the preciousness of God's word.

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THE PRECIOUSNESS OF TRIAL - Part 2

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK: THE PRECIOUS THINGS OF GOD - 

by Octavius Winslow, 1859

THIS BOOK HAS BEEN FORMATTED AS A KINDLE AND IT IS AVAILABLE FREE OF CHARGE . click here

But, in addition to personal, there are often relative trials, which many are called to experience. It is impossible for feeling hearts not to make the circumstances of those to whom they are bound by close and tender ties of love and friendship in a measure their own. The religion of Jesus is the religion of sympathy. It teaches us to "weep with those that weep, and to rejoice with those that rejoice"—to "bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." And what a touching exemplification of this our religion did its great Author present when bending over the grave of Lazarus; as the evangelist tells us—"JESUS WEPT." He had griefs of His own—oh, how bitter!—but He buried them deeply and silently within His breast, and seemed to feel and to weep only for the griefs of others. "In all their afflictions he was afflicted." 

And thus, too, it often is with the Christ-like believer. Concealing his personal sorrows, and bearing in lonely and uncomplaining silence his own burden, he is often found, from his unselfishness and sensibility, to be more deeply afflicted and oppressed by the sorrows and burdens of others. "Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?"

But there are spiritual trials peculiar to the children of God. The world, as it cannot sympathize with the joy of the believer, so it cannot participate with his spiritual sorrow. The Lord tries the righteous as righteous. What knows the world of trials springing from the indwelling of sin, from the temptations of Satan, from spiritual darkness, from the conflict of unbelief, from the infirmities of prayer, from leanness of soul, coldness of love, hardness of heart, perpetual tendency to spiritual relapse? Nothing whatever! But such are the soul exercises of many a saint of God, and these constitute his sorest trials.

But it is not so much on the fact of the Christian's trials that we would dwell, as upon a particular aspect of those trials which—especially in the actual process of trial—we are prone to overlook—their preciousness. The apostle clearly intimates this—"The trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold." It is to the preciousness of the trial of faith, not so much to the preciousness of faith itself, to which he refers. Let us briefly pursue this idea, and see in what respects the child of God may contemplate his trials as among he precious things of God.

Trial is precious, because that which it tries is so. The work which God brings to the test of affliction is worthy of all the pains He takes to prove its reality, to promote its purity, and to advance its growth. Nothing is so precious, so costly, so indestructible as the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. If, beloved, you have a broken heart for sin, if you possess faith less even than a grain of mustard seed, if there glows in your heart a solitary spark of Divine love, or there beats in your soul a throb of spiritual life,—if, in a word, there is the outline of the restored moral image of God, faint and imperfect though it is, no figure can illustrate its beauty, nor words describe its worth. It distances all idea in its intrinsic preciousness. Now this is the work the Lord tries. These are the Divine principles, holy emotions, heavenly feelings He brings to the test. He tries it because it is worth the trial, and so the trial itself becomes a precious thing because it has to do with a precious work.

Trial also derives a value from its being the discipline of a loving Father. The moment faith can see the extraction of any drop of the curse from the cup of sorrow, and trace in its ingredients nothing but the elements of love, wisdom, goodness, faithfulness, righteousness, it realizes the costliness of the discipline. The very rod is loved because it is the rod of Him who is "Love." The chastening is sweet because it is parental. And the true believer exclaims, "My Father designs by this to teach me some salutary lesson, to inculcate some divine truth, to rebuke me for some folly, to correct me for some sin, to recall my truant heart, to restore my wandering soul, to endear Himself, and by detaching my affections and sympathies from earth's attractions, to allure and bind them closer to heaven. Precious trial that is the dictate of a wise and holy discipline, that leaves traces of a Father's hand, that is loving in its origin, loving in its nature, loving in its results!"

Trial is precious because it increases the preciousness of Christ. It is in adversity that human friendship is tested. When the wintry blast sweeps by, when fortune vanishes, and health fails, and position lowers, and popularity wanes, and influence lessens, then the summer birds of earthly friendship expand their wings and seek a warmer climate! The same test that proves the hollowness of the world's affection and constancy confirms the believer in the reality, power, and preciousness of the friendship of Jesus. To know fully what Christ is we must know something of adversity. We must be tried, tempted, and oppressed—we must taste the bitterness of sorrow, feel the pressure of want, tread the path of solitude, and often be brought to the end of our own strength and of human sympathy and counsel. Jesus shines the brightest to faith's eye when all things are dark and dreary.

And when others have retired from our presence, their patience wearied, their sympathy exhausted, their counsel baffled, perhaps their affection chilled and their friendship changed, then Christ approaches and takes the vacant place; sits at our side, speaks peace to our troubled heart, soothes our sorrows, guides our judgment, and bids us "Fear not." Beloved reader, when has Christ appeared the nearest and most precious to your soul? Has it not been in seasons when you have the most stood in need of His guiding counsel and of His soothing love? In the region of your heart's sinfulness you have learned the value, completeness, and preciousness of His atoning work, of His finished salvation. But the tender, loving, sympathetic part of His nature, you have been brought into the experience of only in the school of sanctified trial. Oh, how precious has that trial made Him! Into what sacred intimacy and close fellowship and conscious nearness has it brought you. 

When He has approached with an expression so benignant, with a look so winning, with words so soothing, with an influence so tranquillizing, and told you that He was acquainted with your sorrow, entered into your loss, felt all the keen, delicate touches of your grief; and then spoke words of comfort to your spirit, bound up your broken heart, gently drew you into a sweet, holy, cheerful submission to His will and full justification of His dealings, oh, has He not enthroned Himself upon your soul at that moment more supremely and firmly than ever? You once thought you knew Him, and you did in some degree, but now, in the depth of your hallowed sorrow, a sorrow into which the Man of sorrows and the Brother born for adversity has enshrined His whole self, you exclaim, "I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye sees you." 

We ask, Is not trial a precious discipline, a precious correction, a precious school, that leads you more fully into the heartfelt experience of the preciousness of the Savior? Shrink not from, nor rebel against, that which makes you more intimately acquainted with your best Friend, your dearest Brother, the tender, sympathizing, Beloved of your soul. You will know more of Jesus in one sanctified trial than in wading through a library of volumes or in listening to a lifetime of sermons.

It is impossible either to contemplate the costly results of trial, and not find an evidence of its preciousness. Trial is a fruitful process; and, though often painful as the incisions of the amputating knife, the results, like those incisions, are salutary and healthful. Sanctified trial opens an outlet for the escape of much soul-distemper. Deep-rooted, hidden, and long pent-up evil, the existence of which has been as a fretting sore, inflaming, irritating, and impairing the whole spiritual constitution of the soul, has by this process been thrown off, and thus a more wholesome state and healthful action has supervened. Oh, what selfishness, what carnality, what rebellion, what worldliness, what secret declension, has God's lancet brought to light, revealing it but to inspire self-abhorrence, sin-loathing, and sin-forsaking—and all this the costly fruit of a deeply sanctified affliction!

Trial, too, stirs us up to lay hold upon God in prayer. Nothing, probably, in all the Lord's means of grace and dispensations of providence so leads us to prayer, incites us to call upon the Lord, as the pressure of affliction. And so high a privilege is access to God, so sweet a spot is the throne of grace, so great and holy the blessings that spring from a waiting of soul upon the Lord, that must be a wholesome discipline that leads to such results. Oh, count it a precious trial, a golden affliction, that brings your heart into a closer communion with Christ! Your Elder Brother's voice may, like Joseph's, sound harshly and alarmingly upon your ear, filling you with fear and foreboding; yet it is the voice of your Brother, the "voice of the Beloved," and it speaks but to rouse you to a more full, confiding opening of your heart in prayer. Oh, precious trial! Oh, heaven-sent affliction! that breaks down the barriers, removes the restraints, thaws the congealings that intercept and interrupt my fellowship with God, and with His dear Son Christ Jesus. 

Our heavenly Father loves to hear the voice of His children; and when that voice is still, when there is a suspension of heart-communion, and the tones are silent which were used to fall as music upon His ear, He sends a trial, and then we rise and give ourselves to prayer. Perhaps, it is a perplexity, and we go to Him for counsel; or it is a want, and we go to Him for supply; or it is a grief, and we go to Him for soothing; or it is a burden, and we look to Him for upholding; it is an infirmity, and we repair to Him for grace; it is a temptation, and we fly to Him for support; it is a sin, and we repair to Him for pardon; but, be its form what it may, it has a voice—"Rise, and call upon your God!" and to God it brings us.

How much, too, does deeply sanctified trial correct our false judgments. We conceive dark thoughts of God's character, wrong views of His dealings, crude interpretations of His word—our judgments often miscarry in their opinions of persons, of actions, and events; but when under God's hand how much of this is corrected. The passing tempest has swept the clouds away, cleared our intellectual, and purified our moral atmosphere, and a brighter, serener sky has smiled upon us from above, and our path has become easier and pleasanter. We see God's character and our own in a different light—His so glorious, our own so vile. We interpret His dealings differently and more favorably, and begin to learn that there is no individual who has not, perhaps, more in his character to admire and love than to censure and condemn; and that there is no event in Divine Providence that has not a lesson of truth and a message of love.

 THE PRECIOUS THINGS OF GOD - by Octavius Winslow, 1859 

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF TRIAL - Part 1

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK: THE PRECIOUS THINGS OF GOD

by Octavius Winslow, 1859

THIS BOOK HAS BEEN FORMATTED AS A KINDLE AND IT IS AVAILABLE FREE OF CHARGE . click here

"The trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes." 1 Pet. 1:7

It is the preciousness of trial in general, including the preciousness of the trial of faith in particular, to which the apostle thus refers. We propose, therefore, to amplify the truth, and to illustrate in the present chapter the preciousness of all those trials of which, more or less, the saints of God are partakers. This view may present the subject of trial in a point of light more soothing and sanctifying than the reader has been used to contemplate it. You have thought of trial, have anticipated trial, have met trial, have shrunk from trial as the patient recoils from the surgeon's lance, forgetting that that very trial was the needed process by which God was about to work out some great good in your personal experience; and that so far from being dreaded, it should be welcomed as among the most precious things of God, the richest blessings of the everlasting covenant. The points we propose to illustrate are trial—the preciousness of trial—and the blessings that spring from trial.

The term is expressive. It refers to a process by which the character or strength of a thing is tested. The engineer tries the base of his arch, the architect tries the foundation of his building, the refiner tries the nature of his ore. The word trial thus acquires a significant import in relation to that disciplinary process by which God proves His people. Trial, then, becomes a necessary element in the schooling and training of the children of God for duty and service upon earth, and for enjoyment and glory in heaven. Exempt the Church of God from trial, and she is excluded from a process the results of which are incalculable in her experience.

It will tend to open this subject more forcibly, if we consider who the Lord tries in the sense in which the term is now employed. There is one passage in God's book which contains—as many brief sentences of inspired truth do—a volume in a word, and it will supply the answer to the question, Who does the Lord try? "The Lord tries the righteous." The furnace in which God places His people—in other words, the process of trial by which He proves them—is not the same by which the ungodly world is tried. "The fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem," are only for His own elect. 

He has the crucible for gold, and the crucible for earth—the fire of love, and the fire of wrath; and in nothing will He more distinguish His own people from the ungodly,—the gold from the "reprobate silver,"—than in the mode by which both are thus dealt with. He tries the righteous because they are righteous; He chastens His sons, because they are sons; He reproves, rebukes, afflicts them, because He loves them, having "chosen them in the furnace of affliction." What touching words of Christ are these—who can read them without emotion?—"As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." Again, "Whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives." Thus, it is His own people, His righteous, His holy ones, on whom His afflictive hand is often the most severely and heavily laid. "The Lord tries the RIGHTEOUS."

But what does the Lord try? It is not our fallen nature that He tries, the existence of whose depravity is clear and unmistakable. There needs no proof that we are sinful and corrupt, and that "in our flesh there dwells no good thing." But the Lord tries His own wondrous work of grace in the soul. He tries everything that is divine, and good, and holy in the regenerate. He tries their principles, He tries their motives, He tries their graces, He tries their knowledge, He tries their experience, He tries His own work. Take, for example, a few of the spiritual graces which He more especially brings to the test of trial. He tries the believer's love."Loves you me more than this?" is often the probing question of Jesus to His disciples. He will test the reality, the sincerity, the strength of our love to Him—whether it can confide in Him when He smites, cling to Him when He retires, obey Him when He commands—whether it will entwine around Him the closer that the storms seek to tear it from its hold. "Can you resign this blessing?

will you undertake this service? are you able to drink this cup, or bear this cross for me?" is the significant language of many a trial with which the Lord tries the righteous. Happy if your love sustains the test of its sincerity, and your heart replies, "Yes, Lord; Your love inspiring my love, Your grace helping my infirmity, Your strength perfected in my weakness, I can—I will—I DO."

The Lord tries also the patience of His people. There is, perhaps, no grace of the Spirit, or adornment of the Christian character more overlooked than this, and yet there is not one more precious, God-honoring, and beautifying. To find this divine and rare pearl, we must often pass from the surface of society, and seek it—where, indeed, the piety and taste of few lead them—amid scenes of suffering, of grief, of adversity. In some secluded apartment, on some couch of languor, or bed of sickness, shaded by poverty and loneliness, this divine grace may exist—no eye beholding its sparkling amid the surrounding gloom, but His whose"eyes are over the righteous, and whose ear is open to their cry." There may be seen the patient, quiet spirit of a humble believer in Jesus, enduring without a murmuring word, bearing without a rebellious feeling; suffering without a hard thought of Him who has smitten—with a calm, submissive, dignified surrender to the Divine disposal—the will of God. 

And yet, who, in whatever path he walks, finds not, in some circumstances of his daily history, the "need of patience?" The trying circumstances of life—the chafings of the hourly cross—the constant contact with dissimilar tastes, uncongenial minds, unsympathizing hearts—the delays in answer to prayer—the ceaseless pain—the restless head—the nervous temperament, to which the buzzing of a fly is agony—above all, the hidings of God, the tarrying of Jesus, the suspension of the Spirit's consolation—all, all demand the exercise of that patience with which the believer possesses his soul. This is the grace the Lord tries! Ah! how little know we of the impatience of our spirit—the petulance and unsubmissiveness which will brook no delay, which frets against the Lord, and rebels against His dealings—until the Lord tries us. But He tries our patience only to increase it. 

Humbled under the conviction how rebellious and repining is our spirit, we are led to cry mightily to God to give to us this grace, meekly to endure, silently to suffer, and cheerfully to do His will. "The Lord direct your hearts into the patience of Christ." "You have need of patience, that, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise." We are exhorted to "let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." "Here is the patience of the saints."

I have spoken of the trial of faith. Without recalling the train of thought already pursued, it may be well briefly to remark, that faith being the queen-grace of the graces—all others constituting her regal attendants—the Lord especially tries this grace of the believer, and by so doing He indirectly tries and so strengthens all the cognate graces of the soul. Thus, we read, "The trial of your faith works patience." And what are the ends to be accomplished in the trial of faith? The Lord tries our faith to test its genuineness, to promote its purity, to invigorate its power—thus to bring us into a more intimate acquaintance with Himself. Never should we try God as we do did He not try us as He does.

 We should, alas! be content to travel many a stage without Him. No childlike sense of dependence—no holy communes—no seeking His will—no trying of His love, faithfulness, and wisdom. How seldom would the Lord see our uplifted face, or our outstretched hands, or hear the plaint accents of our voice, did He permit this grace to lie sluggish and stagnant in the soul. But it is "living water" which Christ has deposited within the regenerate, and trial is needed to keep it pure, sparkling, and ascending. Be you sure of this, then, beloved, that the Lord thus exercises your faith only to make you a richer possessor of this most enriching of the graces. It is a kind process of Jesus by which He seeks your greatest good. 

The more your faith is tried, the more it deals with God, and travels to Christ; and it is impossible for you to spend one minute with God, or to catch one glimpse of Christ, and not be sensibly and immeasurably the gainer. The more your faith leads you to the throne of grace, the more precious will prayer become. The more your faith deals with the atonement of Christ, the more will the glory of His work unfold to your mind. The more your faith takes hold of the Divine promises, the more will it be confirmed in the truth of God's word. Thus faith—so supernatural and wondrous a grace is it—transmutes everything it touches into most precious gold, and so confers upon its tried but happy possessor "greater riches than the treasures of Egypt."

But who can travel the circle of all the trials to which the saints of God are subject? How great their variety! how peculiar often their character! Each child of God seems to move in a groove peculiar to himself, to revolve round the great center in an orbit of his own. The Lord deals with us as individuals that we may have individual dealings with Him. Therefore, among the catalogue of the Christian's trials, those of an individual nature may take the precedence of all others. It is a great mercy when we can retire from the crowd and deal with God individually—when we can take the precious promises to ourselves individually—when we can repair to Jesus with individual sins, infirmities, and sorrows, feeling that His eye bends its glance upon us, His ear bows down to us, His hand is outstretched to us, His whole heart absorbed in us, as though not another claimant, suitor, or sufferer unveiled a sorrow or preferred a request—as if, in a word, we were the solitary object of His love. 

Oh, deal with Christ personally, even as He deals personally with you. His invitation is, "Come unto ME,"—and He would have you come,—and you cannot honor Him more—recognizing His personality, and His personal relation to yourself, and disclosing your personal circumstances, making confession of personal sin, presenting personal wants, and unveiling personal infirmities, backslidings, and sorrows.

Three Degrees of Christ's Manifestation - CHRIST SHOWING HIMSELF THROUGH THE LATTICE- Part 3

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK: GRACE AND TRUTH
By Octavius Winslow, 1849

THIS BOOK HAS BEEN FORMATTED AS A KINDLE AND IT IS AVAILABLE FREE OF CHARGE . click here

CHRIST SHOWING HIMSELF THROUGH THE LATTICE.

This is a clearer and more glorious discovery of Christ, inasmuch as it is the manifestation of Christ in the revealed word. Our Lord does not want to conceal Himself from His saints. He remembers that all their loveliness is through Him, that all their grace is in Him, that all their happiness is from Him, and therefore He delights to afford them every means and occasion of increasing their knowledge of, and of perfecting their resemblance to, Him. The 'lattice' of His house is figurative of the doctrines, precepts, and promises of His Gospel. Through these the Lord Jesus manifests Himself, when we come to the study of the word, not as self-sufficient teachers, but as sincere and humble learners, deeply conscious how little we really know, and thirsting to know more of God in Jesus. The Lord Jesus often shows Himself through these 'lattices'- perhaps some type, or prophecy, or doctrine, or command- and we are instructed, sanctified, and blest. It is the loss of so many readers of the Bible, that they search it, but not for Christ. 

Men will study it with the view of increasing their knowledge of science and of philosophy, of poetry and of painting; but how few search into it for Jesus! And yet in knowing Him the arcades of all spiritual mystery are unlocked- all that God designed to communicate in the present world. To know God, is to comprehend all knowledge- God is only truly known as revealed in Jesus- therefore, he who is experimentally acquainted with Jesus, holds in his hand the key that unlocks the vast treasury of God's revealed mind and heart. "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." O search for Christ in the 'lattice' of the word! The type contains Him, the prophecy unfolds Him, the doctrine teaches Him, the precept speaks of Him, the promise leads to Him.

How has the light of the beauty and excellence of Christ, flashing upon the understanding from the glass of the gospel, filled the will and affections of many with desire and love to that glory it represents, and that state it offers! Grace is a beam from the Sun of righteousness, but darted through the medium of gospel air; a pearl produced of the blood of Christ, but only in the gospel sea. Rejoice in the word, but only as the wise men did in the star, as it led them to Christ. The word of Christ is precious, but nothing more precious than Christ Himself, and His formation in the soul. Rest not in the word, but look through it, to Christ.

Blessed Lord, I would sincerely open this box of precious ointment- your own word- that the fragrance of Your grace and of Your name might revive me. It is Your word, and not man's word that can meet my case, and satisfy my soul. Man can only direct me to You, Your word brings me to You. Your servants can at best but bring You in Your gospel to my heart, but Your Spirit of truth brings You through the gospel into my heart. O show Yourself to me in the gospel 'lattice' of Your word, and I shall rejoice as one that has found great spoil- in finding You.

In conclusion, be cautious, dear reader, how you erect walls, or permit them to be erected, between Christ and your soul. Beware of that which separates from God- which separates, not from Himself, but from the manifestation of Himself; not from His love, but from the experience of His love; not from His covenant, but from the 'secret of His covenant.' "But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. Nothing but sin separates between God and the soul. Affliction often quickens to a greater nearness to God; temptation and trial often are instrumental of a closer and holier walk; but sin invariably has a separating effect; it drives the soul from God. The moment the consciousness of guilt fastened itself upon the once undefiled and peaceful conscience of Adam, he ran away from God, like a constellation suddenly breaking from its attraction and its orbit, and wandering away into darkness, and distance, and death. God no longer attracted and fixed him; the light of his soul was extinguished, and he became a "wandering star"- yet destined, through sovereign grace, to be again brought back by the Sun of righteousness.

But if there is, perhaps, one sin more than another, that tends to throw up a towering wall of separation between Christ and the believing soul, it is the sin of unbelief. No sin can more dishonor the name of God, or grieve the heart of Jesus, or bring greater distress into the soul than this. God has done the utmost which His infinite wisdom dictated, to lay the most solid ground for confidence. "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us."

He has made all the promises of the covenant of grace absolute and unconditional. Were faith simply to credit this, what "strong consolation" would flow into the soul! Take, for example, that exceeding great and precious promise, "Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." What a sparkling jewel, what a brilliant gem is this! How many a weeping eye has caught the luster, and has forgotten its misery, as waters that pass away! While others, perhaps, gazing intently upon it, have said, "This promise exactly suits my case, but is it for me? is it for one so vile as I? who by my own indiscretion, and folly, and sin, have brought this trouble upon myself? May such an one as I call upon God and be answered?" What is this unbelieving reasoning, but to render this Divine and most exhilarating promise, as to any practical influence upon your mind, of none effect? But the promise stands in God's word absolute and unconditional. There is not one syllable in it upon which the most unworthy child of sorrow can reasonably found an objection.

Is it now with you a 'day of trouble?'- God makes no exception as to how, or by whom, or from where your trouble came. It is enough that it is a time of trouble with you; that you are in sorrow, and in difficulty, and in trial- God says to you, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you." Resign, then, your unbelief, embrace the promise, and behold Jesus showing Himself through its open 'lattice.'

Take yet another glorious promise, "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away." "This is just the promise that my poor, guilty, anxious heart needs," exclaims a trembling, sin-distressed soul; "but dare I, with all my sin, and wretchedness, and poverty, take up my rest in Christ? What! may I who have been so long an enemy against God, such a despiser of Christ, such a neglecter of my soul and scoffer of its great salvation, approach with a trembling yet assured hope that Christ will receive me, save me, and not cast me out?" Yes! you may. The promise is absolute and unconditional, and magnificent and precious as it is, it is yours. "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away." Satan shall not persuade me, sin shall not prevail with me, my own heart shall not constrain me, yes, nothing shall induce me, to cast out that poor sinner who comes to me, believes my word, falls upon my grace, and hides himself in my pierced bosom! "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away."

My reader, is Jesus your soul's Beloved? Can you in humble faith exclaim, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine?" Then, covet His manifestation to your soul; God in Christ has laid prostrate every 'wall' on His part that would prevent your near approach to Him. The Breaker is gone up before you, the gate is open, and God waits to reveal Himself to you in Jesus. "Draw near unto God, and He will draw near unto you." Is there any wall of separation on your part behind which your beloved Lord stands? Search and see. Is it the world, or the creature, or an unholy life? Yes, is there any self-erected object that obscures your view of Christ, and prevents His manifestations to you? Submit it to Jesus, and beseech Him in love, in gentleness, and in grace to remove it, rather than that you should lose one glimpse of your beloved Lord. He is behind that wall; let it fall- and behold! He stands before you, arrayed in ten thousand charms!

And do not be satisfied with the mere open window- seek for Jesus in the window, and looking forth upon you with eyes of love. Do not come away from an ordinance without seeing your Beloved in it. While engaged in the hallowed service, watch against the wandering eye, the wavering mind, the truant affection, the cold, formal frame. Fix every glance, and thought, and affection on one object- JESUS. Let it be indeed the "communion of the body and the blood of Christ." And as it is a solemn occasion of the Lord's especial nearness to your soul, let it also be a season of especial opening of your heart to the Lord. Confess to Him all your sins, declare to Him all your sorrows, make known to Him all your needs; for while thus, like the beloved disciple, leaning upon His bosom at supper, you may indulge in the fullest, closest, and most confidential communion with your Lord.

Oh seek to know that He is your Beloved; and attempt not to rest in anything short of the blessed assurance, "I Am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine."

"Long did I toil, and knew no earthly rest;
Far did I rove, and found no certain home
At last I sought them in His sheltering breast
who opens His arms, and bids the weary come.
With Him I found a home, a rest divine,
And I since then am His, and He is mine."
"Yes, He is mine! and nothing of earthly things,
Not all the charms of pleasure, wealth, or power,
The fame of heroes, or the pomp of kings,
Could tempt me to forego His love an hour.
Go, worthless world, I say, with all that's yours!
Go! I my Savior's am, and He is mine."
"The good I have is from His stores supplied;
The ill is only what He deems the best
He for my Friend, I'm rich with nothing beside;
And poor without Him, though of all possessed.
Changes may come- I take, or I resign,
Content, while I am His, while He is mine."
"Whatever may change, in Him no change is seen,
A glorious Sun, that wanes not nor declines;
Above the clouds and storms He walks serene,
And sweetly on His people's darkness shines.
All may depart! fret not, nor repine,
While I my Savior's am, and He is mine."
"He stays me falling; lifts me up when down;
Reclaims me wandering; guards from every foe;
Plants on my worthless brow the Victor's crown,
Which in return before His feet I throw;
Grieved that I cannot better grace His shrine
Who deigns to own me His, as He is mine."
"While here, alas! I know but half His love,
But half discern Him, and but half adore;
But when I meet Him in the realms above,
I hope to love Him better, praise him more,
And feel and tell, amid the choir divine,
How fully I am His, and He is mine."