NO MATURING WITHOUT DEEP LEARNING

NO MATURING WITHOUT DEEP LEARNING

I do not think that a soul learns differently in much light to what it did in little light. Every one has to grow: and where there is growing there must be a beginning, and a beginning is always small. “Whereunto ye have already attained” belongs to every stage of the new history. The calling now is immensely higher, and the power to raise us to it is the Holy Ghost given to us; yet I believe that we have to learn as deeply as the saints learned when their calling was lower and the light much less. I think it a mistake to suppose that because greater light has come in there is an easier way, or an offhand way of learning now. I believe Saul of Tarsus saw the finish, and where grace in its fulness set him: but I am certain that he learned as deeply as Peter did (Luke 5), if not more so, that he dared not face the holiness of God’s presence but through Jesus; nay, that his learning was just as true and as deep as any saint in the Old Testament times, only (and that was a great deal) that they were not able to see the bright finish as he was. They were like birds in a fog, wishing ^[p. 106] to reach the pure light of heaven, but not able to do so; while he saw that when his wings were matured, the full expanse of heaven was before him. Learning is very real work, and there is no maturing without it, and I do not believe that any one matures brilliantly, who does not learn sufferingly. Easily got, easily gone, was never so corroborated as in the highest things. I believe, therefore, that though the Spirit is in us and with us now, there is not an ignorant state presented to us in scripture of any saint that we have not to get clear of experimentally, and that the education vouchsafed to the disciples going to Emmaus is as necessary for us as for them; indeed, when it has not been learned there is always a lack in the soul of divine revelation about Christ.

Of course, if one is not keeping His word He could not manifest Himself. Love keeps His word, but the heart that has tasted of His company in heaven loves to observe His commandments as the guide to its affections, and the acme of its delight is for Him to manifest Himself. I do not think that many know what this manifestation means. Mr. ———— asked me why I declined speaking of it at R————. I replied, because I considered it such a deep subject, and I know so little of it, though I value it extremely. The disciples who had known Him on earth followed Him by faith to heaven, but their hearts were not comforted until He manifested Himself to them on earth.

I should like to see more earnestness in souls in seeking to know the Lord. I am afraid of their being satisfied with seeing truth about Him. I am quite sure that if there were more breaking of heart to know more of the Lord, wondrous disclosures would be made to us. I never feel that I have prayed truly without the sense more or less of agony in my desire to get clear of everything which hinders me from apprehending more of what He has apprehended me for.

———— said high truth was not practical. I reply — The highest truth produces a practice least visible to the eye of man, and the more one seeks to be practically heavenly, the more will Satan try to cast a cloud or a tarnish on everything connected with one; but the Lord knows all, and there I have learnt to rest.