REAL RELIGION, A SECRET

Real religion is threefold, I. Internal, II. Feeling, and III. Personal.

I. It is internal. By the power of the Holy Ghost man is brought into an internal acquaintance with himself as a poor, polluted, sinful, helpless, ruined, lost, and hell-deserving sinner, having no might nor power either to reist evil or to do good: he finds he has sold himself for nought, to work evil and all uncleanliness with greediness, that in him, that is, in his flesh, dwells no good thing; he sees nothing in himself but enmity against God, God’s word, God’s truth, God’s people, God’s plan of salvation, and God’s salvation itself, connected with love to, and of the world, and all its customs, maxims, and vanities, delight in sin, and all that is sinful and devilish, glories in the flesh, and all that is fleshy; he sees he is as a beast before God, he also is led to see the holiness of God in a broken law, that he is altogether unholy and undone; he knows its claims and requirements are purity of life and perfect obedience: this (though he strives to produce for a season) he finds he cannot render; he tries again, still it cries, “he that offendeth in one point is guilty of all” He looks at what he has done, and (dread sight), he sees it is all defective, and that he has offended in every point, yet he cannot rest; so he tries again, and, while he is surveying what he has done, a dreadful sound like a peal of thunder rattles in his ears and rings in his conscience, “Cursed is he that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them”: he trembles, looks again at his doings, and finds he has not continued in one thing, nor done one as God will have it done, namely, without sin. Now he fears and quakes, now trembles to his very centre, expecting its tremendous curse will fall upon him, and hurl him into the regions of the damned, acknowledging God just in the solemn act. This, reader, is the place of stopping of mouths with respect to free-will, boasting, and human sufficiency; this, with a vast deal more, is brought about in the experience of believers, the result of God’s shining into the heart, and putting truth into the inward parts, from whence, in return, he requires it again. What a host of professors there are, highly pleased with their profession, who neither have, nor want this internal possession: these are out of the secret, and living and dying so, they will most awfully prove that the secret is, and ever was out of them, and that real religion is not in word, but in power.

II. Real religion is a secret feeling. The man just described feels in reality he is a complete sinner, he feels miserable, wretched, and spiritually sick, he feels (as the effect of life in his soul) his need of a better righteousness than his own cobweb dress, he feels he is full of enemies within, and environed with enemies without, and that he has not an atom of strength to fight with, resist, or overcome one of them; he feels the force and power of the commandment in his conscience, sin revives, arid he dies, and a good thing too; he feels his need of a Saviour, of an interest in his blood, and of its efficacy in his soul, to purge, purify, and pardon him; he feels he is a leprous, depraved sinner, in consequence of which he feels after the Saviour, he feels it must be God in human nature to redeem, deliver, and save such a monster of iniquity as he is, he feels sin to be an intolerable load, a heavy burden, he feels that unless it is atoned for and put away by the sacrifice and blood of Christ it will damn him for ever and ever. O solemn feeling, laughed at now by those who have a name to live while they are dead; but woe unto you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep: moreover, when the Holy Ghost, who has thus begun the work, leads the man to Calvary, and takes of the things of Christ and shews them unto him, testifying of the suitability, ability, and willingness of Christ to him, and to save him, applying the efficacy of his precious blood to his conscience, taking away all his sin, and removing all his guilt, the man really feels it, and feels truly happy for a season, thinking he shall never be miserable any more; his mind is filled with real delight, and true joy and pleasure fill his soul. True, this is most pleasant while it lasts, yet anon, clouds begin to encircle him, temptations begin to distress him, Satan begins to assault him, corruptions begin to plague him, darkness begins to perplex him, a warfare begins within him, enemies without begin to reproach him, his peace and his pleasure begin to abate, and in a measure to depart from him, his sun is behind a cloud, and he begins to go mourning without it, and he certainly feels it; he feels he is worse than ever, and hastily concludes it is all deception and delusion: now he is tempted to give it all up, but he cannot, tempted to go into the world again, but he cannot, tempted to deny the being of a God, the reality of religion, and the truth of the Bible, but he cannot, and why? because God has begun within him a good work, and God will finish it to the glory of his great name. All this, then, and much more, a living soul really feels, and it is a secret work, and a secret feeling, for none know anything of it but God and himself, “for his secret is with the righteous.” (Prov. 3:32). But,

III. Real religion is personal. An individual brought to know the value of his own soul is not, nor can be satisfied in hearing of, and merely knowing, there is a Saviour, but he wants to call him his, which can only be done by the witnessing of the Spirit; his knowledge of himself and sin is personal, and so is, and must be, his knowledge of God and salvation; he has a personal knowledge of his own heart being desperately wicked, and a personal knowledge of the heart of God being toward him, full of compassion; it is not what others think of him, it is what he thinks of himself; hence his cry is, “That I may know him”; and sometimes his cry is, “He loved me, and gave himself for me”; then again, “O wretched man that I am”; then again, presently, “The Lord is my portion”: thus his joys and sorrows are alternate as he journeys homeward, his heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with his joy; his brightness is personal, his darkness is personal, his hope is personal, his fear is personal, his happiness is personal, his grief is personal, what is going on between God and his soul is personal, possessor, professor, nor profane, know anything about it; his personal desire to be always able to say, “God is my rock, my refuge, my salvation, my Lord, and my God”: thus he lives alone as a sparrow upon the house-top; he will die alone, (in matters relating to an eternal world), and shall see God for himself, and not another. This is secret work, and essential work, and, reader, without something of this known and felt in thy own soul, where God is you never can come. May he himself assure you of it, and that in this world, and then you will know it in real earnest, or you will know it in the world to come.

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