Cultivation of Spiritual Feelings.
It is no easy thing to keep the heart right. The downward tendencies of our fallen nature make it hard for us to rise in spiritual being—to run and not be weary—to walk and not faint. This difficulty is greatly increased when we mistake the source of our strength, or the way in which the fire of spiritual feeling is kindled up in the soul. We may attempt to draw water from a cistern that has none in it, or we may try, like Newton, to light our candle with an extinguisher on it. Christ is the life of the soul, animating and moving it in all the ways of godliness. But how does he do this? How does he work this life in us? We are not left to guesses or surmises here. He sanctifies his people through his truth. It is by this that he lifts them up, and pours light into the understanding, and strength into the heart. It is by this that he deepens their humility, and increases their faith, and raises them up above the surface of a mere profession, cold and unproductive, and enables them to live, not like the trees in winter, stripped of their foliage, and with their life hidden in the earth, but to live in the ways of God—“in beauty clad, and with health in every vein,”—living to him in all they do. We have something to do, therefore, in the attainment of this strength. We must act rightly if we would have this spiritual life. We must regard the laws of mind in this matter. Pious feeling is awakened in the soul, only, by the contemplation of that which is suited to awaken such feelings. The heart is affected through the intellect—through its action. “While I was musing,” says the Psalmist, “the fire burned.” “Mine eye,” exclaims the weeping prophet of Israel, “Mine eye affecteth mine heart.” This indirect control is all that we have over the world of feeling. The man who cannot produce a quicker circulation of the blood by simply willing it, can determine to take a medicine which will produce that effect. So the man who wishes to excite or to allay any particular feeling, while he cannot bid it exist or cease to be, can fix his mind upon considerations which bring about the desired result. Here, then, we have a fundamental principle in mental philosophy. Feeling of any kind is awakened, only, by the contemplation of that which is calculated to excite it. This is a law of man’s moral nature. It is just as uniform, and as far beyond the reach of an exception, as any law in the material world. We may, therefore, just as reasonably expect that the law of gravitation will cease, and that the stones of the street will fly upward, as to imagine that feeling will exist in the soul without its thinking upon that which is suited to produce it. Without this musing, the fire will not burn. Without this thinking, we cannot mount upward. We only dream of flying, and forget, as Coleridge remarks, that those who dream of flying, fly only in their dreams. This great principle of our intellectual and moral nature may be easily tested. A man wishes to have deep spiritual feeling. He desires, for example, to feel deeply penitent—to sink down into the dust before God. Well, this feeling will not kindle up in his soul at his bidding. Nor will its fires burn within, as the consequence of his musing upon any or every theme of meditation. The pages of a romance, the columns of a newspaper, detailing the state of trade or the condition of the money market, will not excite it—Dwelling on the pleasure of sense—on scenes of earthly delight, will not call it forth, and for the plain reason that these things are not suited to produce it. They have no tendances to awaken such feeling. They turn the mind away from those considerations through which God is wont to work repentance in the soul, namely, its action in reference to God. To have this feeling he must take a very different course. He must fix his mind upon himself—upon his true condition. He must look at God’s character in contrast with his own—at his goodness to him, and at his own action in return—at the law of God, which is holy, just, and good, and at the long, dark catalogue of his transgressions of that law. These are the considerations which are suited to affect the heart, and these are the munitions through which God is wont to work in us that repentance which is unto life, and that brokenness of heart which is the acceptable sacrifice. It is through such meditation and prayer that we reach the dust before God, for it is through such action on our part that he works in us the feeling of penitence. Again, a man wishes to feel more love to Christ—to have his bosom swell with holy fervor—with emotions of a higher gratitude, and a warmer zeal in his service. Well, sighing for this will not produce it. Simply praying for it will not cause it to exist in the soul. No, not at all. The mind must be fixed upon that which is suited to awaken such feeling. He must fix his thoughts upon the cross of Christ—upon the High and Infinite One, suffering, dying, for him. He must muse upon Gethsemane and Calvary; must judge, with Paul, “that, if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them.” It is in such thinking that the love of Christ constraineth. In such musing is it that, “The heart grows warm with the holy fire,
And kindles with a pure desire.” Yes, it is when his “dear cross” is brought before the mind that the “eyes are melted to tears.” Looking, then, to Jesus; beholding the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, is the way to have the heart burn within us with love and devotion to him. We respect the laws of the physical world in our action for physical results. We do not attempt to warm the body by sighing for it, or to recruit its wasted energies by simply willing it. We do not say to the body, “Be thou clothed, and be thou strong.” So we must act in spiritual things. We must seek to call forth and sustain pious feelings in the soul, by keeping before the mind that which is calculated to produce such feeling. We must muse on the things which are above, if the life and the power which are from above are to be ours. The thoughts must be on heaven, if the heart is to be there.—Christian Intelligencer.152