Quote of the Day

…men have come to consider pardon, and safety, and the hope , not very animated, of a future Heaven, as the whole of salvation - all of it at least that is dispensed to us in this life - holiness and happiness, the blessed remainder, being waited for till we die.  To the scriptural doctrine of imputed righteousness, by which we stand justified and sinless in the sight of God, has been joined and in a manner confounded with it, an idea of imputed sanctification - by which, without any change wrought in us, we become holy and prepared for bliss at the same moment that we are pardoned and justified in Christ - nothing more being to be done by us, or in us, until the day of our removal hence; thus denying altogether the idea of progressive sanctification, or any sanctification at all, except as imputed to us from the perfect merits of  our blessed Lord….I have observed the consequences of this base contentedness with an unhallowed and unhappy safety; the half of what Christ has promised, and that not the better half, since if his mercy rested there, it would be unavailing to us; it would have remitted our misery without making us blessed; it would have sent us from prison with our fetters on, and preferred us to a heaven that would not suit us when we come there:  the little taste for that heaven evinced by persons of this condition, is a proof that it would not.  From this low estimate of what salvation is, I have observed to result a life and conversation proportionately low; very little of enjoyment; a stupid expectation, that scarcely ever warms into desire….there is no desire for the Bridegroom's coming, because there is no assimilation of character to make the blest companionship delightful….But if, on this, you advise them to become more fit, by a closer walk with God, they recur to first principles - there fitness is of God - He has promised - justified in Christ, they know that they are saved.  Most precious truths! Enough, one would think, to make us long after Him as the hart panteth for the water-brooks, and lose all care for what may intervene, in watchful expectation of His coming.  But they have no such effect in this case:  time loses little of its importance - earth but little of its influence….Is it not true, then, that they who rest satisfied with a  bare and barren hope of being safe for eternity, by which little more is understood than safety from the punishment of hell, do meanly estimate the Redeemer's work, accept but the half of what he has purchased, and wearily and unsafely postpone the other half, as something beyond our present reach.  True, it is beyond our present reach in its ultimate perfection…But is that a reason they should not begin? …..Should we make so light of the Savior's gift as to be in no haste to enjoy it till we possess it all, if indeed we can possess in eternity what we have made no progress towards in time? …I see no security for them in the word of God; I see there, on the contrary, that growth, increase, progression, are the terms in which the divine life is spoken of; "increasing in stature," "growing into the likeness," "going on to perfection."  Such figures and expressions do not characterize that sudden change at death which some rely on.  The first sowing of the seed is a momentary act; the putting in of the sickle is momentary also; but it grows not in an hour, it ripens not in a day.  Does the husbandman, when he comes into his field to reap, expect to find it as he left it when he sowed?  Or when suns have shone on it in vain, and in vain the waters of heaven descended, will it start into perfection under the reaper's sickle?  

  

Caroline Wilson