Lecture XIX. Instructions to Converts (4)

I have heard it preached as well as prayed, that seasons of backsliding are necessary to test the church. They say, “when it rains, you can find water anywhere: it is only in seasons of drought that you can tell where the deep springs are.” Wonderful logic! And so you would teach that Christians must get cold and stupid, and backslide from God, and for what reason? Why forsooth, to show that they are not hypocrites. Amazing! You would prove that they are hypocrites in order to show that they are not.

Such doctrine as this is the very last that should be taught to young converts. They should be told that now they have only begun the Christian life, and that their religion is to consist in going on in it. They should be taught to go forward all the time, and grow in grace continually. Do not teach them to taper off their religion, let it grow smaller and smaller till it comes to a point. God says, “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more to the perfect day.” Now whose path is that which grows dimmer and dimmer until the perfect night? They should be brought to such a state of mind that the first indications of decay in spirituality or zeal will alarm them and spur them up to duty. There is no need that young converts should backslide as they do. Paul did not backslide. And I do not doubt that this very doctrine, “You will not always feel so,” is one of the grand devices of Satan to bring about the result which it predicts.

2. “Learn to walk by faith and not by sight.” This is sometimes said to young converts in reference to their continuing to exhibit the power of religion, and is a manifest perversion of scripture. If they begin to lose their faith and zeal, and to get into darkness, some old professor will tell them, “Ah, you cannot expect to have the Saviour always with you, you have been walking by sight, you must learn to walk by faith and not by sight.” That is, you must learn to get as cold as death, and then hang on to the doctrine of the Saints’ Perseverance, as your only ground of hope that you shall be saved. And that is walking by faith. Cease to persevere, and then hold on to the doctrine of perseverance. “One of guilt’s blunders, and the loudest laugh of hell.” And living in the enjoyment of God’s favor and the comforts of the Holy Ghost, they call walking by sight! Do you suppose young converts see the Saviour at the time they believe on him? When they are so full of the enjoyments of heaven, do you suppose they see heaven, and so walk by sight? It is absurd on the face of it. It is not faith, it is presumption, 380that makes a backslider hold on to the doctrine of perseverance, as if that would save him, without any sensible exercise of godliness in his soul. Those who attempt to walk by faith in this way had better take care, or they will walk into hell with their faith. Faith indeed! Faith without works is dead. Can dead faith make the soul live?

3. “Wait till you see whether you can hold out.” When a young convert feels zealous and warm-hearted, and wants to lay himself out for God, some prudent old professor will caution him not to go too fast. “You had better not be too forward in religion, till you see whether you can hold out; for if you take this high ground and then fall, you will disgrace religion.” That is, in plain English, “Do not do anything that constitutes religion, till you see whether you have religion.” Religion consists in obeying God. Now these wise teachers tell a young convert, “Do not obey God till you see”—what?—till you see whether you have obeyed him—or, till you see whether you have gotten that substance, that mysterious thing which they imagine is created and put into a man, like a lump of new flesh, and called religion. This waiting system is all alike, and all wrong. There is no scripture warrant for telling a person to wait, when the command of God is upon him and the path of duty before him. Let him go along.

Young converts should be fully taught that this is the only consistent way to find out whether they have any religion.—The only evidence they can have is to find that they are heartily engaged in doing the will of God. To tell him to wait, therefore, before he does these things, till he gets his evidence, is reversing the matter, and is absurd.

4. “Wait till you get strength, before you take up the cross.” This is applied to various religious duties. Sometimes it is applied to prayer, just as if prayer was a cross. But I have known young converts advised not to attempt to pray in their families, or not to attempt quite yet to pray in meetings and social circles. “Wait till you get strength.” Just as if they would get strength without exercise. Strength comes by exercise. You cannot get strength by lying still. Let a child lie in the cradle all his life, and he would never have any strength, he might grow in size, but he never could be any thing more than a great baby. This is a law of nature. There is no substitute for exercise in producing strength. The body as every one knows, can be strengthened only by exercise. It is so in the nature of things. And it is just so with the mind. It is so with the affections, so with the judgment, 381so with conscience. All the powers of the soul are strengthened by exercise. I need not now enter into the philosophy of this. Every body knows it is so. If the mind is not exercised, the brain will not grow, and the man will become an idiot. If the affections are not exercised he will become a stoic. To talk to a convert about neglecting Christian action till he gets strength, is absurd. If he wants to gain strength, let him go to work.

5. Young converts should not be made sectarian in their feelings. They should not be taught to dwell upon sectarian distinctions, or to be sticklish about sectarian points. They ought to examine these points, at a proper time, and in a proper way, and make up their minds for themselves, according to their importance. But they should not be taught to dwell upon them, or to make much of them in the outset of their religious life. Otherwise there is great danger that their whole religion will run into sectarianism. I have seen some most sad and melancholy exhibitions of the effects of this upon young converts. And whenever I see professed converts taking a strong hold of sectarian peculiarities, no matter of what denomination of Christians, I always feel in doubt about them. When I hear them asking, “Do you believe in the doctrine of election?” or, “Do you believe in sprinkling?” or, “Do you believe in plunging?” I feel sad. I never knew such converts to be worth much. Their sectarian zeal soon sours their feelings, eats out all the heart of their religion, and moulds their whole character into sinful sectarian bigotry. They generally become mighty zealous for the traditions of the elders, and very little concerned for the salvation of souls.

V. I proceed to mention some of the things which it is important should be taught to young converts.

1. One of the first things young converts should be taught is to distinguish between emotion and principle in religion. Do you understand me? I am going to explain what I mean, but I want you to get hold of the words, and have them fixed in your mind. What I want is to have you distinguish between emotion and principle.

By emotion, I mean that state of mind of which we are conscious, and which we call feeling, an involuntary state of mind, that arises of course when we are in certain circumstances or under certain influences. There may be high-wrought feelings, or they may subside into tranquillity, or disappear entirely. But these emotions should be carefully distinguished from religious principle. By principle I do not 382mean any substance or root or seed or sprout implanted in the soul. But I mean the voluntary decision of the mind, the firm determination to act out duty and to obey the will of God, by which a Christian should always be governed. When a man is fully determined to obey God, because it is RIGHT that he should obey God, I call that principle. Whether he feels any lively religious emotion at the time or not, he will do his duty cheerfully, and readily, and heartily, whatever may be the state of his feelings. This is acting upon principle, and not from emotion. Many young converts have mistaken views upon this subject, and depend almost entirely upon the state of their feelings to go forward in duty. Some will not lead in a prayer meeting, unless they feel as if they could make an eloquent prayer. Multitudes are influenced almost entirely by their emotions, and they give way to this, as if they thought themselves under no obligation to duty unless urged on by some strong emotion. They will be very zealous in religion when they feel like it, when their emotions are warm and lively, but they will not act out religion consistently, and carry it into all the concerns of life. They are religious only as they are impelled by a gush of feeling. But this is not true religion.

Young converts should be carefully taught, when duty is before them to do it. However dull their feelings may be, if duty calls, DO IT. Do not wait for feeling, but DO IT. Most likely the very emotions for which you would wait will be called into exercise when you begin to do your duty. If the duty is prayer, for instance, and you have not the feelings you would wish, do not wait for emotions before you pray, but pray, and open your mouth wide. And in doing it, you are most likely to have the emotions for which you were inclined to wait, and which constitute the conscious happiness of religion.

2. Young converts should be taught that they have renounced the ownership of all their possessions, and of themselves, or if they have not done this they are not Christians. They should not be left to think that any thing is their own, their time, property, influence, faculties, bodies or souls. “Ye are not your own;” all belongs to God; and when they submitted to God they made a free surrender of all to him, to be ruled and disposed of at his pleasure. They have no right to spend one hour as if their time was their own. No right to go any where, or do anything, for themselves, but should hold all at the disposal of God, and employ all for the glory of God. If they do not, they ought not to call themselves Christians, for 383the very idea of being a Christian is to renounce self and become entirely consecrated to God. A man has no more right to withhold anything from God, than he has to rob or steal. It is robbery in the highest sense of the term. It is an infinitely higher crime than it would be for a clerk in a store to go and take the money of his employer, and spend it on his own lusts and pleasures. I mean, that for a man to withhold from God, is a higher crime against HIM, than a man can commit against his fellow man, inasmuch as God is the owner of all things in an infinitely higher sense than man can be the owner of any thing. If God calls on them to employ anything they have, their money, or their time, or to give their children, or to dedicate themselves, in advancing his kingdom, and they refuse, because they want to use them in their own way, or prefer to do something else, it is vastly more blamable than for a clerk or an agent to go and embezzle the money that is intrusted to him by his employer, and spend it for his family, or lay it out in bank stock or in speculation for himself.

God is, in an infinitely higher sense, the owner of all, than any employer can be said to be the owner of what he has. And the church of Christ never will take high ground, never will be disentangled from the world, never will be able to go forward without these continual declensions and backslidings, until Christians, and the churches generally, take the ground, and hold to it, that it is just as much a matter of discipline for a church member practically to deny his stewardship as to deny the divinity of Christ, and that covetousness fairly proved shall just as certainly exclude a man from communion as adultery.