We say of a ship, ill-constructed, that she is too much by the head; she ploughs into the waves, instead of flying over them, and making them the means of her progress: so men who carry truth by the head knock their heads against it, instead of using it for heart-life, and for onward progress. Such men put forms for realities, and change realities into mere forms. They take, for example, the truth of regeneration by the Holy Spirit, which was meant for the heart, and is nothing without the heart, and put it into the form of baptism, and go at it by the head, saying, that men are regenerated by baptism, and that baptism is regeneration. They take the truth of baptism, also, which is nothing without the heart, and was meant for the heart to be put into, and which is like an outward case to be put round a picture that God himself is painting, and by head-work only they put baptism itself in the place of that which it merely signifies, in the place and stead of regeneration in the heart. So men come to man to do that for them which God only can do. Suppose that men should be so utterly deluded as to resort to a man professing the ability to produce perfect miniatures, but giving instead thereof merely the outside morocco cases; and suppose they should accept the empty cases and carry them home on the faith of the man's assurance (inasmuch as he received his commission for painting in a direct line from Titian), that when they get home they shall find the pictures inside; we should look upon that as a very strange delusion. Yet in spiritual things, many take the cases, and comfort themselves with the assurance that they have the pictures; and they lay them away carefully, but never look inside to see whether they are not disappointed. Poor Ignorance fumbled for his roll of assurance at the Gate of the Celestial City, but found it not!

Thus more head-work makes absolute error out of hearttruth. It is so in innumerable cases. Prayer itself may be turned from truth into error, and always is, when it is resorted to and relied upon by the head without the heart.

It is truth resorted to without grace. A man must bring his heart to Christ, for truth and grace to be put into it, and not stand tinkering upon it himself by truth only, or by Moses instead of Christ. Moses and morality are good, if they lead to Christ. Moses commanding morality is good, as the Schoolmaster, to teach a man his own sinfulness, his utter destitution of all that can make any pretence to morality, and his need of Christ; but that is all Moses can do. And if, instead of learning of Moses their need of grace and truth, and coming to Christ for it, men work with Moses and truth only, it is just using truth with the head merely, and not the heart, and so it proves error, or at the best, mere condemnation. Such will the truth always be to sinful men, separated from grace and without it.

There are fabrics of our food, which have to pass through certain processes to become wholesome, and taken without those processes, may be absolute poisons. There are fabrics in the arts for our clothing, which have to pass through certain mediums or processes before they are fit for use, and which, if men take them without those processes, are slazy and worthless. So it is with forms of truth belonging to the heart, and of heart-manufacture by grace, when men attempt empirically to lay hold upon them, and pronounce names over them, and use them in the raw, without those heart processes. They may be deemed valuable, but they are worthless. They may be relied upon for salvation, but dead or perverted truth is no better for salvation than positive unmingled error. It is just as if a man going to sea, should provide his ship with a quantity of unspun hemp instead of cables, and having pronounced the word cables over it, should confidently set sail, insisting that the heap of raw hemp was cable enough, and would hold the ship, if kept beneath the hatches so miserably mad and deluded are men who rely upon forms, without God's grace in the heart, in the affections. There are those who, in times of spiritual

danger, run to forms instead of Christ, as if a return to form, or a clinging to form, would save them. A delusion not unlike that of those who, in a case of fire, will throw a looking-glass out of the window, and carry an andiron carefully down stairs.

Even where external forms seem not to be trusted in, nor mere external morality, there may be a formalism of the heart, and a trusting to Moses there without grace, or to truth there without Christ. And truth without Christ is as poor as forms without truth. We may sometimes see serious-minded men pounding upon their own hearts with prayer and with the truth, away from Christ, and wondering that still nothing is returned but the ring of empty metal. They do not pound very earnestly, for if they did, like Luther, for example, in his time of delusions, they would soon find the vanity of such mere pronunciamentos away from Christ. But they work just enough to half satisfy conscience, and keep themselves from that self-despair which might lead to Christ. It may, perhaps, be asked, What can a man do, otherwise than go to the Word of God and prayer? He can go to Christ. That is what he can do, and must do, and that is his whole duty. But is not my Word (does not God say?) like the fire and hammer, to break the rock in pieces? Indeed it is, in the hands of the Spirit of God, in the hands of Christ; but if you stay away from Christ, and think to do the work yourself before coming to him, you may stay pounding till you die, and no good will come of it. Take the hammer and the fire, and your heart also, and carry them to Christ.

CHAPTER II.

Coloring of Truth through the prism of individual experience.-Grace a winding River, and a free, original, unconstrained life.-Danger of making press-gangs out of human theories and hypotheses.-The law within and the law without.-Light within and light without.—Heartlight and intellectual light, and God's prerogative in regard to them.

THE stream of truth, running into the heart and mind, or through the heart into the mind, will also be colored, more or less, by the individual's own experience; a thing in regard to which each for himself, and all for each, must be upon their guard. If not, how can any one know that his peculiar views, which he may have regarded as the result of great knowledge or originality, are not owing merely to a defective experience? It is very certain that the purer, the truer, and deeper a soul's religious experience becomes, and the more a man distrusts and abases self, and clings solely to God and his Word, exalting them, the more sure and trustworthy and full of truth will be that soul's views of religious doctrine. He who exalts the Word, the Word will exalt him; but he who neglects or disesteems the Word, will himself go down in proportion. It is surprising what an invigorating and expanding power a great faith in God's Word exerts upon the mind; and on the other hand, a weak faith in God's Word leads to weakness, in doubt, self-confidence, and dependence upon men.

Hence, among the questions to be asked concerning a propounder of new things are these : Has he a deep

experience of the Divine Life? Is he known as maintaining a close walk with God? Is he a soul of much prayer, much communion with Christ, living, by faith, upon God's Word, received as God's, not man's? It is certain that none but such souls are qualified to be guides in untried paths. Hence the writing of the books of inspiration was committed only to those, whom God had trained to great heights of attainment in holiness. If it had not been so, where would have been, or what would have been, our volume of inspiration? If only an ordinary Christian had had the writing of the Epistles, what a poor and low exhibition of Christian experience would we have had, instead of the glowing and lofty experience of Paul, Peter, and John; what a defective or excrescential or one-sided exhibition, in personal hobbies of doctrine ridden upon out of vanity, like the shows of horsemanship in a circus, instead of simple gospel truth, displayed for God's glory.

This River of grace in the heart of man runs not in an artificial channel, but is a winding stream, going hither and thither at God's will, not man's. Men may attempt to dyke it in, and keep it strait and elaborate, according to their own mathematical surveying of the ground, but it follows no human arrangement or analysis, but takes its own way. And a much sweeter, lovelier way it is, than men's metaphysics would often appoint for it, or than any human heart-geographer ever traces for it in his map, when, wishing to have all things very accurate, and according to some pretended invariable model or rule, he draws his line and says, this course the river of grace always pursues. Doubtless, there has been too much pursuing of this river by maps, after certain old surveys by others, taken for complete and accurate, instead of going anew to the fountain head in God's word, and thence following the stream. through valley and meadow, woodland and green pastures.

The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus works various forms of fruit and beauty in the character of life, almost infinitely various, yet all the work of the self-same