02.B01. The Light Dawning

PART II OUT OF DARKNESS INTO LIGHT

CHAPTER I. THE LIGHT DAWNING. THE baptism of power for the conversion of sinners which I received at the camp-meeting referred to was retained when, in the early spring of 1835, I assumed my duties as President of Oberlin College. At the institution, in connection with the labors of Professor Finney, and in five protracted meetings held by myself, more than one thousand souls were hopefully converted prior to the middle of March of the next year. With very few exceptions, these converts evinced by their subsequent lives the genuineness of their conversion. Yet the conscious deficiencies above described remained, and pressed upon me with a weight never before experienced. Aside from my new relations to the churches, I had under my immediate care hundreds, and in successive years was likely to have thousands, of youth who would, after passing under the instruction of myself and associates, go out into the world to teach what we had taught them, and to represent Christ as we had represented Him in our instruction and example to them. "Has not God," I asked myself with the most deep and solemn interest, "in reserve for ’those that love Him,’ ’some better things’ than I, through my experience and present knowledge, am able to make known to these young disciples and to the churches round me? It must be so," I replied; "and if it be possible I will, by the grace of God, be both in experience and knowledge abundantly furnished for the good work before me."’ In accordance with this purpose, I made careful inquiry of Brother Finney and our associates. I found their minds, like mine, to be in darkness, just where, and about what, I was seeking light. In my researches after the mystery of the hidden life, I was, consequently, thrown back upon the Word of God and prayer for divine enlightenment.

During the second summer of our residence at Oberlin, a meeting in a large tent, furnished us by friends in New York for such services, was held in the vicinity of Mansfield, Ohio -- a meeting attended by great congregations of unregenerate persons and of Christians. While many of the impenitent were hopefully converted, the preaching and exhortations had a wonderful effect upon professors of religion, not a few of whom gave up wholly their old hopes, and started anew for the kingdom of God. Among the individuals of this latter class was one minister of the gospel, who arose in the congregation and presented himself as a subject of special prayer, saying to us that, after the most careful self-examination, he had come to the deliberate conclusion that up to that time he had never been a converted man. In giving his reasons for that conclusion, which he did very clearly, "the thoughts of many hearts were revealed," and a large number of professing Christians saw themselves, in the light of the statements made, "weighed in the balances, and found wanting." Oh, that the same searching process might go through all our churches throughout the world! How many who are now resting upon their lees would be saved from that final catastrophe in which their "hopes shall be as the giving up of the ghost!" The facts above stated rendered that meeting remarkable in the churches in all that region of country. Upon myself, the effect was to quicken and intensify the inquiry which I had been pursuing for years. What shall be done, I inquired, for these young converts and these believers, all of whom have started anew, and not a few have, for the first time, really "tasted that the Lord is gracious?" Shall all these be started upon that old track where backsliding is a certainty? Or shall they be set forward upon that "new and living way," where "their feet shall not stumble?" While pressed with such questions as these, I took up a little volume, that providentially lay by me, a volume entitled, "Clarke on the Promises," and read, on the title-page, this passage "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." No words can describe the effect which the reading of that passage had upon my mind. I seemed at once to be fanned by "the wings of that morning" whose everlasting light was about to dawn upon my waiting spirit. I looked at the passage, and deeply pondered every clause and leading word of it.

2 Peter 1:4 Explained and Elucidated.

Let us tarry for a few moments under the shadow of the great revelation before us, while I shall endevour to set before the reader the views of truth and the way of life opened upon my mind as I continued to reflect upon this wonderful utterance: "Whereby," that is, as the verses preceding show, "through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord." In this knowledge, "divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that bath called us to glory and virtue." We think of the holy and godly life required of us in the Scriptures. Everything requisite to the full realisation of that life in our experience is conferred upon us as a gift of grace, through the revelation of God in Christ. In knowing Christ, and the Father in and through Christ, we have all the knowledge, and all the forms and sources of influence and power, requisite to our being, becoming, and doing all that is required of us, and to assure for ourselves all the good that "God hath prepared for them that love Him." In addition to all this, there are given to us specific promises, "promises exceeding great and precious." "What are divine promises?" I asked. In every such promise, as I at once perceived, God designates some specific blessing requisite to our purity, peace, fulness of joy, or highest usefulness as His servants; and absolutely pledges every attribute of His nature to grant us that blessing, whenever by faith He is "inquired of by us to do it for us." We trusting God to do for us what is pledged in the promise, He must do it for us, or be false to His own word and to His own divine nature. "What then is the creature to do?" I asked again. First of all, the answer was, he is to acquaint himself with the promise, that is, with what it really means, and then go directly to the throne of grace and ask the Father, in the name of Christ, to do for us just what He has pledged to our faith in the promise. When we thus ask, we must "ask in faith, nothing wavering," "counting Him faithful that hath promised," not "staggering at the promise through unbelief," and that on account of its vastness or littleness, and never "limiting the Holy One of Israel." Doubting His promise, we in our hearts "make God a liar." Limiting His promise, that is, expecting to obtain less than what is specified in God’s plighted word, we call in question both His power and His grace. Neglecting the promise, we "judge ourselves unworthy of eternal life," and part with our birthright as the sons of God. But these promises are not only specific, but "exceeding great and precious." The view which I then received of their exceeding greatness and preciousness -- that view being of necessity at the time a very limited one -- has continued to grow and expand before my mind from that time to the present, and, no doubt, will continue thus to grow arid expand to eternity. What strikes the mind as very peculiar about these promises is, not merely their greatness and preciousness, but their absolute completeness. In them, every want, demand, and necessity of our mortal and immortal natures is distinctly specified, and to each want a pledge is given to our faith of the specific good which is fully adapted to meet that want in the best possible manner. Negatively, they pledge to our faith a total emancipation from all that would be to us a real evil, and positively all that would be to us a real good, and that the best possible. "No evil shall befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." "I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil." This is the negative side of the promises. Positively they pledge to the same faith all the possession of which would be to us a real good, and that in its best possible form. "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" "Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." Such are the promises on their positive side, and they descend to particulars, and specify the evil and the good in all their specific forms, and absolutely pledge to our faith absolute freedom from the one and the full possession of the other. Standing in the presence of the promises, as they shine out in the bright firmament of divine revelation, we can say with absolute assurance, "All things are ours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are ours, and we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s."

Nothing but unbelief in us can prevent our total protection, not against all seeming, but against all real evil, on the one hand; and our actual possession, not of all apparent, but real good, on the other; and this not only for life, but for an eternity to come. While the promises present to our faith that which will fully meet each specific want as we apprehend it, they are so worded as to indicate, in every case, that "there is more to follow," and that we are authorised to expect "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." The apostle now specifies two fundamental purposes for which "the promises were given, and towards which they all in common, tend, -- "that by these," that is, by believing in and trusting God’s fidelity in all His promises, and by faith seeking and expecting their fulfilment in our experience, "we might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." The words, "the divine nature," imply, as all will admit, not only the holiness and blessedness of the divine mind, but also that divine disposition or nature in God which induces His holiness and blessedness. For us to become possessed of this "divine nature" implies not only present holiness and blessedness such as God possesses, but a divine disposition in us, a new and divine nature, which induces and prompts us to holiness, just as God’s nature prompts Him to the same. In our old or unrenewed state, we not only sinned, but had a nature or dispositions which prompted us to sin. In Christ, we not only obey the divine will, but receive from Him, as the Mediator of the new covenant, a new or "divine nature," which prompts us to purity and obedience, just as our old dispositions prompted us to sin.

When, by faith, we have "obtained the promises," it becomes just as natural in us to obey as it once was to rebel, just as natural and easy to be lovingly quiet and forgiving as it was to be angry and revengeful when injured or provoked, -- to bless, as it was to imprecate retribution when reviled, -- to return good, as it was to return evil for evil received; -- to be "content with such things as we have," as it was to "be careful and troubled about many things;" in short, to bring forth "the fruits of the Spirit "-- "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," as it once was to do "the works of the flesh." In illustration of what I now mean, I will state a single example. As an aged coloured woman, of the city of New York, was returning one evening to her home from the place where she had been selling apples during the day, and was carrying on her arm a basket containing the few which she had failed to sell, she was met by a drunken sailor, who thought that a fitting occasion was presented for him to show his temper. He accordingly kicked the basket from her arm, and thereby scattered the apples about the street. He then placed himself bolt-upright before her, and heaped upon her every vile epithet he could think of. Looking the offender in the face with the mildest compassion, the injured woman thus addressed him, and that with a manner of the gentlest meekness: "Young man, I hope God forgives you as freely as I do." The poor creature was startled and confounded, and returning the apples to the basket, he returned it to her arm, and having humbly confessed his wrong, took from his pocket what money he had, and gave that to her.

What I desire to have noticed here is the fact that, in consequence of the new and divine nature which God had given that woman, it was as easy and natural for her to feel, and speak, and act, as she did, as it had been, in her old life, to become furiously angry under far less provocation. That woman had no occasion under that provocation to hold back and resist an evil temper; she did as she did in accordance with promptings of her new nature. So it is universally. When the promises are embraced by faith, "God sends the Spirit of His Son into our hearts," -- a spirit which induces in us the same "love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity" as dwelt in Him, and renders it just as natural for us to be "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," as it was for Him -- just as natural to do the will and the work of our Father, and to "drink the cup which He giveth us," as it was for Christ. Were this not the case, "the Spirit," or disposition, of His Son would not be sent into our hearts. To "escape the corruption which is in the world through lust," implies that we are not only saved from the actual sins that are in the world, but that the evil propensities and tempers, "the law in our members," which induces sin, are taken from us, and are supplanted by new and divine tendencies which naturally induce the opposite virtues. Nothing less than or diverse from the above exposition can be the meaning of the passage under consideration. To insure all this, as I shall show more fully hereafter, is a main and specific purpose of all the promises. They assure to us, when understood, and embraced by faith, not only deliverance from sinning, but "the death of the old man," or the crucifixion of all those tempers and dispositions which induce sin; and not only actual obedience to the divine will, but "a divine nature," which prompts and constrains obedience in all its forms. It is as much the nature of "the new man," or the promptings of his new and divine tendencies, to be pure in heart and life, as it was that of "the old man" to "obey the law of sin."