Mark 1:15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent you, and believe the gospel. I have known instances where for years there have been right views of the evil of sin, and of the nature of holiness, and a desire after holiness — and what is this but repentance? imperfect it may be, but still repentance at least in its beginnings: imperfect, it went not far enough, inasmuch as it was without faith. I knew a man a public character, who wrote to me, in youth, many an instructive letter, a man of no common intellect, who, when only a boy, on reading Martin Luther's book on the Epistle to the Galatians, absolutely rolled in agony on the floor, under a sense of sin and the wrath of God; and though his home influence and his occupation in after life were opposed to his spiritual progress, he never lost his reverence for the Bible and his desire to be religious. It is a fact that it was his habit to read the Bible with a commentary of a night, after he had left his occupation, which was eminently worldly; and he used to say, "it was his greatest comfort in life." I have, as a boy, listened to his reverential reading of the Bible and that commentary to his family. But the error of seeking salvation by the works of the law prevented his enjoyment of peace, or sense of pardon. It was not till the later years of his life, when the providence of God had removed him from his ensnaring and worldly occupation, that he attained to what the Scripture calls faith — salvation by grace through the faith of Christ — a simple, childlike trust in Christ, as made sin for him, that he might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. For several years of his later time, Archbishop Leighton's works, especially his commentary on St. Peter's first epistle, one of the noblest works which ever came from uninspired man, was his daily companion, from which he seemed never weary of making large extracts: and he owned that he now apprehended faith as he had never done before. Like many others, in his zeal for good works he had thought that such sweeping statements about faith alone being needful for salvation were contrary to good works. Whereas he lived to see and know and feel that faith in Christ works by love, and is the fruitful source of all good and holy works. He found that the Twelfth Article of our Church is the truth of God. "Albeit that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith; insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit." I have no doubt that in the case of my departed friend, as in many others, the Holy Spirit was slowly bringing about His purpose of mercy, through the workings of repentance; and when he had been brought to see that there was no good in him, and that all his strivings after holiness were altogether vain, then came the gift of faith, and he believed to the saving of his soul. As another example of the long separation between faith and repentance, in some souls, I cannot withhold from you the case of one of our greatest literary characters, Dr. Samuel Johnson. His writings have been my companion from my youth up; I early conceived a great admiration of him, not only for his large intellectual powers, but because he stood forth in an immoral age as a friend of revealed religion, and an earnest teacher of morals. I am fully aware of the defects of his character, — they were many and great; but these imperfections were balanced by some great and noble qualities, accompanied by an intellect of the highest order, which to use his own words, at the close of his Rambler, he vigorously employed, "to give ardour to virtue and confidence to truth." Let me briefly sketch his soul's religious history. As a young man at Oxford he took up Law's Serious Call to the Unconverted, expecting to find it a dull book, and perhaps to laugh at it. But he found Law an overmatch for him, "This," he says, "was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest about religion, after I became capable of rational inquiry." Nor did he conceal his convictions. He attended church with much regularity; he was indignant when, for political reasons, there was some hesitation about giving the Highlanders of Scotland the Scriptures in Gaelic; he would allow no profane swearing in his presence, and he sternly rebuked anyone who ventured to utter in his presence impure or profane language. To a young clergyman he gave this admirable advice, that "all means must be tried by which souls may be saved"; and in one of his writings he declares, that, compared with the conversion of sinners, propriety and elegance in preaching are less than nothing. Yet, with all this honest earnestness, his religion gave him no peace. His views of the gospel were very defective, and partook very largely of that legal spirit so natural to man. He rested, as he himself says, his hope of salvation on his own obedience by which to obtain the application of the Saviour's mediation to himself, and then; o repentance to make up for the defects of obedience. "I cannot be sure," he said, "that I have fulfilled the conditions in which salvation is granted; I am afraid I may be one of those who should be condemned." He never could be sure that he had done enough. And yet no one can read his meditations and prayers and not be convinced that he had a deep sense of sin and an earnest desire for holiness, accompanied with great self-abasement before God: but all in vain; there was no peace; there was repentance, but no faith. He had yet to learn that "being justified by faith, we have peace with God." And he was taught this blessed truth by the Holy Spirit in his last illness. All his life long he had looked upon death with the greatest terror; but though late, relief was granted to him. At evening time it was light. It appears that a clergyman was the main instrument in bringing his mind to a quiet trust. In answer to the anxious question, written to him by the dying moralist, "What shall I do to be saved," the clergyman wrote, "I say to you, in the language of the Baptist, 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.'" That passage had been often read by him, and made but a slight impression; but now pressed home by the gracious Spirit, it went straight to his heart. He interrupted the friend who was reading the letter. "Does he say so? Read it again!" Comfort came and peace. His biographer tells us, "for some time before his death all his fears were calmed and absorbed by the prevalence of his faith and his trust in the merits and propitiation of Jesus Christ." Now all those years of darkness, fear, and disquiet, would have been saved had he known and received the free grace of God in Christ — in other words, if he had not only repented, but also believed the gospel. (R. Dixon, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. |
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