I had to travel, some few weeks ago, from Bristol to Scarborough; and being anxious to procure a through carriage, I spoke to a very active, intelligent, and obliging official on the Midland platform, who most kindly undertook to put me into a carriage which, he assured me, would go right through to Scarborough. I knew him to be one in whose truthfulness and knowledge I could safely confide. In short, I felt most fully assured that he was a thoroughly competent authority, and therefore I took my seat without a shade of misgiving; nor do I think that anyone could have shaken my confidence, as to my being in my right place. I rested upon competent authority; and this is the true secret of peace, in everything.
We traveled by way of Derby, and I heard a good many passengers discussing the various routes and the different changes necessary to reach this place or that; but nothing occurred to test my position until the train reached Normanton. Here a good deal of shifting and shunting took place; and we all know that shifting and shunting times are sure to be testing times.
Thus it was with me. Very many of the passengers got out, and our train was shunted from the platform out of our sight altogether. I walked up and down while waiting for its return to the platform. An official, to whom I spoke about the line, told me there was no through carriage to Scarborough. This, under other circumstances, would have made me feel rather uneasy; but I fell back upon my competent authority, and on the return of the train, I stepped, with boldness, into my carriage. I felt sure my would-be guide was ignorant and incompetent, and I paid no attention to him whatever. I knew my Bristol friend and could trust him thoroughly, and hence my peace was not disturbed for a single moment. I knew in whom I had believed, and was persuaded that his testimony was true and safe.
Well, by and by we arrived at York, where further shunting and shifting took place; and I found myself shunted on to a siding, and down into a kind of shed where we were left standing for about twenty minutes. This, again, under other circumstances, would have made me feel very uncomfortable. As it was, I sat in perfect peace, without a single question or misgiving. I never even put my head out of the window to look, nor did I turn to a fellow-passenger to ask. I sat still reposing upon the competent authority on which I had originally started. I had unshaken confidence in my Bristol friend. I knew he would not deceive me. I knew he was both able and willing to guide me aright; and therefore spite of all the shifting and shunting—spite of the efforts of ignorant officials to shake my confidence—I sat perfectly quiet, and, in due time, reached my destination. And I can truly say that I had quite as much confidence in the testimony of my Bristol guide, when shunted on to the dark siding at York, as when I stood on the platform at Scarborough. The only difference was that I needed it more in the former case than in the latter. It is in dark and changeful times we most stand in need of competent authority. It is when the conflicting cries of blind guides fall upon the ear, that we feel the tranquilizing power of that word which is settled forever in heaven.
My reader will be at no loss to seize the moral of my tale. May the Eternal Spirit enable him to apply it! The word of God is the only competent authority. It is not the Church, or the doctors, or the fathers, or the brothers. It is the voice of God. Let us hear this and follow it.
Moreover, it is not feelings, or experience; it is the word of God. A person may say, “But must I not feel? I reply, “You must believe” The word “I feel” casts me upon myself. The word “believe” casts me upon God. Of what use would my feelings have been as an authority for my position in the railway carnage? None whatever. No doubt I had a very comfortable feeling; but it was because I was not trusting my feelings, but the testimony of a competent authority. I felt I was in my right place, because I rested upon a sure testimony.
Reader, art thou resting, for the salvation of thy precious soul, on a divinely competent authority? “If we receive the testimony of man, the testimony of God is greater.” And what is His testimony? “That God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life.” If therefore you believe in Jesus, you have eternal life. God says so, and faith takes Him at His word. Faith is believing what God says because He says it, not because you feel it. No doubt you will feel when you believe it; but if you wait to feel in order to believe, it would be faith in your feelings and not in God’s word at all.
Thus it is as to the grand and all-important question of salvation. And the same holds good as to all the details of the Christian’s course, from first to last. How am I to know that I am in my right position, and pursuing my right path? By having competent authority, even a “Thus saith the Lord” for everything. Nothing but this will stand amid the shiftings and shuntings and dark sidings of Christendom; and in the face of ten thousand blind guides and incompetent authorities.
In one concluding sentence, The word of God is the only basis of my individual peace, and the only authority for my individual path.
May every reader of “Things New and Old” know the deep repose and solid blessedness of resting, as to all things, upon a divinely competent authority!