Spiritual Knowledge

A brother's spirit is more edifying than his communication. We experience that every day. And let us take a hint from another, "to aim to gather knowledge more from meditation than from study, and to have it dwell in us, not as opinions, but as the food of communion, the quickener of hope, the husbandman of divine charity, and the blessed refreshment of the kingdom of God within us." I esteem it holier to confess difficulties than to grapple with them, in either the ingenuity or the strength of intellect. And surely it is bad when some fond thought or another is made the great object. It soon works itself into the central place, and becomes the gathering point. The order of the soul is disturbed, and the real godly edifying of the saints hindered. For we have to remember that knowledge is only a small part in the wide field of our husbandry. (2 Peter 1:5-7.) An appetite for it needs to be regulated rather than gratified, and many who in their husbandry have raised far less of it than others, have more abundantly prospered in bringing forth richer fruits in service and in charity and in personal love to Jesus. May the Lord deepen in the souls of all His saints the power of His own redeeming love, and shed more and more among us the savour of His precious and honoured name.

But I desire still to add another thought. The sense of the nearness of the glory should be deeply cherished by our hearts, and we need to be at no effort to persuade ourselves of it. It is taught us richly in the Word - "Whom He justified, them He also glorified," is a sentence which intimates this. It tells us of the path and title to glory. When by faith we stand justified by the blood of Christ, we are at once made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. And the path to it being thus simple the place of it is near, and its capacity to unfold and manifest itself lies in the compass of a moment, or of the twinkling of an eye, if the Lord please. An Extract.