“One Priest alone can pardon me,
And bid me go in peace;
Can speak those words “Absolve te,”
And bid these heart throbs cease.”
A FEW months ago, in all the beauty and glow of summer, a poor Roman Catholic lay dying in the ward of a large city hospital. Disease had worn out his bodily frame, and the weakness of death now oppressed him. But his mind was clear, indeed clearer than it had ever been in the vigor of life and health, for now there fell from his eyes as it had been scales, and though there was not one near to tell him so, he felt the tremendous reality of an undying soul entering an unending eternity, and passing, consciously unsaved, into the presence of a holy God.
Like the poor leper of old, L― was ready to cry “Unclean, unclean;” and shown by the Holy Spirit his lost and ruined condition, his one thought now was, “What must I do to be saved?”
Reader, what would be your thoughts were you in the same condition as L —, had you, like him, but a few hours to live? Do you think his fears unreasoning and unmeaning? Do you expect, did you pass into the presence of a holy God in your unconverted state, to find it heaven to you? Hear, then, what God says on the subject, “Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” These are not the words of any mere human being, they are the words of the Lord Himself, and He means what He says: you may have often heard them before, think of them now.
But to return to poor L―. The same Holy Spirit, who can use the feeblest and most inadequate instrument to reveal Divine truth to the soul, was about, through untoward means indeed, by the revelation of the full and complete work of Christ, to answer the cry and meet the need of this poor dying sinner.
Hoping for rest and relief, L― anxiously asked a priest to be sent for, and was at once attended by one. The man heard L―’s confession, heard his story of sin and misery so far as it could be related; for the deepest human sense of sin must necessarily be superficial after all. It is only as we in some measure learn what it cost God to forgive sin, even the death of His beloved Son, the One who is equal with Himself, that we learn what God thinks of sin. The Cross is His full estimation of it. There I see not only my sins forgiven, but my sinful nature which committed them, put an end to. It is only, as the Holy Spirit enables us to see who the One who Buffered there was the very brightness of God’s glory, and never more so than when He suffered―what He left, the glory He had with the Father before the world was, what He went into when He said, “I sink into deep mire where there is no standing; all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me;” it is only when we in any measure take in all this, that we can at all see what sin, and therefore what salvation, really is in God’s sight.
God is just indeed, but now He can righteously become the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. This He showed when He raised Christ from the dead. The perfection and completion of the redemption He accomplished was thus fully shown. It was impossible that He, the righteous One, could be holden by death. But the Father’s entire expression of satisfaction in the atoning work of the Cross, is seen by His highly exalting Christ and placing Him at His own right hand in heaven, where he has “forever sat down,” having by one offering perfected forever all who, in simple faith, come unto God by Him. So that if I now seek to add my works to what Christ has done, to help in my salvation by anything of my own doing, I thereby deliberately challenge God’s holiness in accepting Christ’s work as all-sufficient, and therefore declaring Himself completely satisfied therewith.
The awfulness of the position I thus place myself in, eternity alone will disclose.
However, the priest, when L― had finished his story, pronounced him fully absolved, and then proceeded to administer the extreme unction of the Church of Rome.
Every rite and ceremony by which she seeks to soothe the conscience of the dying was duly gone through; and then, having no more to do, the priest rose to leave. But the poor dying man called him back, ― “Oh, give me, tell me something that will save my soul!” The priest looked astonished. “My son, the Church has fully provided for all your need.”
“But I am dying! I am dying! Tell me, in pity tell me, what would you rest your own soul on if you were in my state?”
The priest paused for a moment, and then, drawing a small crucifix from beneath his clothes, he said, as he held it before the dying man, “I should rest my soul on the work of the One who died for me on that cross.”
“Oh, tell me that again, tell it to me once more!” said poor L―.
“I say, I should rest my soul for salvation on the One who died there,” replied the priest.
“That is enough for me; you have told me enough,” and lifting up his hands for an instant in the attitude of worship, L― closed his eyes, lay back on the pillow, and died.
Does the reader of this true incident trust, look to, or in any way turn for peace of soul now, for hope in a dying hour, to any outward rice or ceremony of any Church whatever? Let him know, as surely as he holds this paper in his hands, such a hope and such a trust will utterly fail him “in the hour of death and in the day of judgment.” Though the sinner’s conscience may be quieted, and in some measure satisfied, as, alas! it often is, God is not satisfied, and He will not be mocked. The only refuge that will prove unfailing in the end, is the one of God’s own providing. The wages of sin most surely is death, wages which must be paid, either by the Savior or the sinner. If not by the Savior who died for me, then by me in a death which is undying. God has no other alternative, no other way to deliver me from going down to the pit than by the adequate price He has found in the ransom paid by Christ. See, then, the dread consequences of neglecting this great salvation, of standing in unsaved responsibility before the judgment-seat of Christ.
How will you grapple with eternity without Christ? Be wise, then, oh sinner, today! Come to Christ as you are, where you are; you will get more than a welcome from Him. If you really wish to come to Christ, know that He wishes it far more than you ever could, so that it cannot be long before you meet.
He knows there is in your heart a need, a craving, a want of rest, that can only be filled and satisfied by God Himself, and He is ready, longing today to give you all you need. See how precious your soul is in His sight, when all that Christ did was done in order to save you.
God had no other object. It is thus He glorifies His Son, and shows out His own great love in a way that, but for your need, never could have been known. Behold, then, “the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world,” even Him who has said, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest,” and “Him that cometh unto me, will in no wise cast out.”
R. B.