WINDINGS OF THE RIVER

OF THE

WATER OF LIFE.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

Beginnings of the River.-Poverty of truth without life.-Grace and truth combined only in Christ.-Mistakes of mere head-work without heartwork.

DOES the River of the Water of Life go into the mind first, and into the heart through the mind, or into the mind. through the heart? Grecian, Jewish, and Saxon philosophers, so called, might laugh at this question, as if it were very easily answered; for they think that truth alone constitutes life, truth according to their seeing; and that all truth is addressed only to the understanding. But truth alone, truth left to itself, is not the River of the Water of Life to sinful beings; but if they be left to themselves, and the truth left to itself and to their reception of it, it is a river of death. The Law of God is truth without mixture; but to sinful beings it is not a river of life; without grace it worketh death. The Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. Grace and Truth together, and that only, is the River of the Water of Life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. Grace and Truth, from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

All truth is addressed to the understanding; but if men "walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts," then the process of enlightenment, the process of cure, must begin with the heart. In this sense the River of the Water of Life runs into the heart first, from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and then into the mind; and the mind is enlightened only in proportion as the heart is cleansed. Hence the prayer of the Psalmist, Create in me a clean heart, O God! and the prayer of the Apostle, "That the God our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened." The eyes of the understanding, in spiritual things, are right affections and a believing heart. This is that single eye, with which the whole body shall be full of light. Full of light, because there is life-light in the heart. It is not simple intention merely, but a heart purified by faith. A single eye, in the ordinary sense, is no great wonder. A man may have a single eye, it is well said, by putting one eye out, or keeping one eye shut; and in this way men full of prejudice and blindness often think they have a single eye. In this way even an Atheist may have a single eye, putting one eye out entirely, and looking with the other straight forward into darkness. But the true single eye is where both eyes look out from a single heart, purified by faith; looking together, and looking to God, and looking in God's light.

And so again the Apostle prays to be "strengthened with might by God's Spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend." So it is plain that love is the source and ground of comprehending— of understanding. Right affections are the opening of the eyes of the understanding, the removal of the blindness of the heart, and then and thus light pours into the mind. “The

entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple."

Truth

God's law shines upon it,

In HIM was Life, and the Life was the light of men. The Life was the light, not the light was the life. The law given by Moses was light, but it was not life. In Him, in Christ was the life, and the life was the light. discloses sin, but cannot cure it. but only to forbid and condemn it. remove the deformed objects it shines upon, but there must be another hand, another power, another influence. There must be a life at work within, as well as a light shining upon.

The light alone cannot

For this reason it is that that remarkable expression is used to signify regenerated persons, Children of Light. Children; it is a filial, affectionate, obedient relationship to the light as life, a confiding, childlike life in it. Children of light, not mere servants or slaves. The servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever. The mind without the heart may be a slave of light, but the heart only can be a child of light. The mind filled with light may be a convict, condemned to work at the galleys; but the regenerated heart filled with light is a free, gentle, loving child. And so, for all gracious truth, all true liberty, all true life, the mind must come, just like a little child, to Christ. For truth, the mind may go to a great many sources, and may gather many kinds of truth; but for grace and truth it can go only to Jesus Christ; it can find that combination nowhere else.

Let men therefore beware of thinking to work out their own salvation by the truth only, or the head only, or by speculative knowledge, or by the prayer-book only, or by external rites. The salvation of the soul will not come, revivals of religion will not come, except by grace and truth, and they come only by Jesus Christ. And whoever undertakes to produce them in any other way than by going to him, will be found very much in the predicament of those seven sons of one Sceva a Jew and Chief Priest, who took upon themselves to call over those who had evil

spirits, the name of the Lord Jesus; the name only, but neither grace nor truth; and the man in whom the evil spirit dwelt leaped upon them and beat them, so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. Such, sooner or later, must be the result of all efforts, either upon ourselves or others, made by mere names and ceremonies, without a heart acquaintance with Christ, and a humble, contrite application to him for grace and truth.

Truth, alone, is mere head-work, grace is heart-work. Truth in the head alone, turns into error; it becomes vermiculate, as Lord Bacon once said of the wit of man exercised upon mere speculation; it breeds worms, and men spin it into brain-cobwebs of their own fancies. Men by the head, take truth which was meant for the heart, and which must be baptized into the heart, along with grace, and the heart into it, before it would be salvation, and absolutely pervert it into falsehood by using it apart from its meaning and intent. They take the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, for example, which is really heart-truth, and heart-affecting truth, and was meant eminently for the heart's good, and which, as a rite, is the heart's language of loving remembrance towards the Blessed Saviour, and the Saviour's assurance of neverceasing love to his disciples, and they work at it and by it with the head only; they assert and reason themselves into regeneration by it; they eat it, and say they are saved by the ordinance; and a man who believes himself saved by an external ordinance, or is persuaded that he receives the Spirit of God by an external ordinance, without the heart, is not likely to take much other trouble to gain the Spirit of God; is not likely, either, to inquire very particularly into the need of the Spirit of God in the heart, or to make regeneration a heart-work in any way." So this truth is made a lie, by working at it with the head only, without the heart. We might show, indeed, how multitudes of monstrous, misshapen errors have come about in the same way.