“Cease from thine own works.”
OUR last paper brought us down to 1749. John had then been at College fifteen years, and was thirty-three years old. He took the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1738, and Master of Arts in 1742.
Soon after the gracious revival of God’s work in his soul, Berridge had a great desire to be a minister, and was appointed to the curacy of Stapleford, near Cambridge, where he preached regularly for six years. Notwithstanding his great learning, he took care to speak to his hearers in the simplest possible way; it really being his desire not to show his knowledge, but to do good to the people’s souls. Thorough earnestness was one of his chief good points.
The people among whom his lot was cast were extremely ignorant, and loose in manner of life; even the usual forms of religion were neglected by them. At the end of his six years’ earnest work, there was not, so far as he knew, one soul really turned to God, though there was a little increase of mere formality. It was a great disappointment and grief to him; for not only by his sermons, but also by his life—sincere, upright and honorable—he sought to set the people right, but all seemed to no purpose.
In July 1755, he was admitted to the vicarage of Everton, his home for the remainder of his life. Here he preached for two years, with all his former earnest ness, and with his former lack of success. It was distressing to him, and the doubt crept across his mind, only to be indignantly repelled, “Am I right myself? It was not a pleasant thought, and he thrust it from him with disdain. Surely he, a man of education, could not err in this matter! But again and again this secret doubt arose, “Am I right?” He could not answer it, and such trouble came upon him because of this, the like of which he had never known before. Then there arose the simple, earnest cry from his heart, “Lord, if I am right, keep me so: if I am not, make me so. Lead me to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus.” Day after day this little prayer went up to heaven, and an answer was returned in a remarkable way. Let us give it in his own words:
“As I was sitting in my house one morning, and musing upon a text of Scripture, the following words were darted into my mind with wonderful power, and seemed like a voice from heaven, viz. ‘Cease from thine own works.’ Before I heard these words, my mind was in a very unusual calm; but as soon as I heard them, my soul was in a tempest directly, and the tears flowed from my eyes like a torrent. The scales fell from my eyes immediately, and I now clearly saw the rock I had been splitting on for near thirty years. Do you ask what this rock was? Why, it was some secret reliance on my own works for salvation. I had hoped to be saved partly in my own name, and partly in Christ’s name, though I am told there is salvation in no other name, except in the name of Jesus Christ. Acts 4:1212Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12). I had hoped to be saved partly through my own works, and partly through Christ’s mercies, though I am, told we are saved by grace through faith, and not of works. Eph. 2:7, 87That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (Ephesians 2:7‑8). I had hoped to make myself acceptable to God; partly through my own good works, though we are told that we are accepted in the Beloved. Eph. 1:66To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. (Ephesians 1:6).”
The words “Cease from thine own works” are not exactly the words of Scripture, but they no doubt came to Berridge’s mind from Heb. 4:1010For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. (Hebrews 4:10). They may have been heard long before, and forgotten, yet brought again so powerfully to the memory by the Spirit of God, that, in a certain state of mind, they would seem like words spoken aloud. They were such as Berridge needed, he had been working for life. He turned to a Concordance and was surprised to find that the words “faith” and “believe” filled many columns. “Faith” occurs more than 240 times in the Bible; and it is remarkable that out of this great number, the word is only twice used in the Old Testament, and one of these texts is quoted in the New Testament three times. Hab. 2:44Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. (Habakkuk 2:4), used by Paul in Rom. 1:1717For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (Romans 1:17), Gal. 3:1111But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. (Galatians 3:11), Heb. 10:3838Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. (Hebrews 10:38)). What Berridge had really been doing was this: he had placed himself like a Jew under the law of Sinai, which said, “Do, and thou shalt live,” to find, however, that he had not strength to do anything. The law showed him that he was a sinner, but could never take away his sins, it never could give him peace. A looking glass will show a man his dirty face, but will never cleanse it. Again, the conditions, “Do, and live,” referred to the time before the Cross of Christ. After this, the day had passed in which God proposed to man that by working he should earn life. Not that anyone, from Adam to the giving of the law, or from the law downwards, did so earn life; it was always God’s gift in grace, but since the death of Christ God has ceased to test man as before. He declares all are lost, and salvation is given through Christ’s death to everyone in whose heart the Holy Ghost works repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance had been wrought in Berridge years before, but various things had hindered his faith in Christ; he had vainly sought to win peace by a mixture of the law of Moses and the grace and truth of Christ. He needed to be instructed in this―that by the deeds of the law could no flesh be justified in God’s sight. The apostle Paul writes that we (believers) are justified by faith; that we are saved by grace through faith, which is God’s gift.
Much of this solemn and precious teaching of the Word of God Berridge quickly learned, and it showed him the secret of his failure in his past preaching. He had imputed his “want of success to the naughty hearts of his hearers, and not to his own naughty doctrine,” so he writes. He had chiefly aimed at “knocking off fine caps and bonnets,” the evil state of the heart he had left unexposed. Like a will-o’-the wisp, which draws the traveler from his way by its false light; he had led his hearers on in false paths; false, because, while having such an appearance of truth and safety, they were really leading the soul away from Christ, to trust, partly at least, to its own works. The truth that he and all others were lost and guilty before God he had not learned, and his teaching was simply this, that no man was past recovery, he had only to render a sincere obedience to the law of God, and trust to the grace of Christ for his shortcomings. “Thus,” he says, “I stumbled and fell. In short, to use a homely similitude, I put the justice of God into one scale, and as many good works of my own as I could into the other; and when I found, as I always did, my own good works not to be a balance to the divine justice, I then threw in Christ as a makeweight. And this everyone really does, who hopes for salvation partly by doing what he can for himself, and then relying on Christ for the rest.”
Berridge had too much earnestness in his nature to allow himself to cover up the new light he had received from God’s Word in order to hide the mistakes of past years. He says, “As soon as God opened my own eyes, and showed me the true way of salvation, I began immediately to preach it. And now I dealt with my hearers in a very different way from what I had used to do. I told them very plainly that they were children of wrath, and under the curse of God, though they knew it not, and that none but Jesus Christ could deliver them from that curse. I asked them if they had ever broken the law of God once in thought, word or deed. If they had, they were then under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.... If we break God’s law, we immediately fall under the curse of it, and none can deliver us from this curse but Jesus Christ. There is an end forever after of any justification from our own works... If I behave myself peaceably to my neighbor this day, it is no satisfaction for having broken, his head yesterday.’” And he adds, “So that if I am once sinner, nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ can cleanse me from sin. All my hopes are then in Him, and I must fly to Him as the only refuge set before me. In this manner I preached, and do preach to my flock, laboring to beat down self-righteousness, laboring to show them that they are all in a lost and perishing state, and that nothing could recover them out of this state, and make them children of God, but faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
We hope to see, shortly, how these new statements were received by Berridge’s hearers. W. J.