THE City of Bath, in the West of England, owes its fame and much of its importance to the hot springs of healing water found there. They were used by the Romans in the first century. In later years George III. and the great William Pitt and other notables have benefited by them.
The ancient Roman baths are described in an inscription thus: "In area. In grandeur. In completeness the Baths of Aquæ-Sulis were unequaled.”
Another inscription reads:
“These healing waters have flowed
on from time undated to this day.
“Their virtue unimpaired.
Their volume unabated.
Their heat undiminished.
“They explain the origin, account
for the progress, and demand the
gratitude of the city of Bath.”
One can imagine in bygone days gentlemen and ladies traveling down from town in stage coaches, post-chaises, and private vehicles; in later years by train and in motor-car; in days to come by airplane and dirigible balloons, in order to avail themselves of the healing waters. We can understand how gout, rheumatism, sciatica, lumbago, and a thousand ills flesh is heir to have been cured through their beneficent effects.
But this only affects the body, and is only for time. It is bad enough to endure the tortures of gout, or to be crippled by rheumatism, but death is worse. We must look deeper than the effects and their cure. SIN is the cause, disease and death the effects. Disease may be arrested and cured, but there is one disease which cannot be arrested or cured.
Once, in the Colonial Hospital at Gibraltar, I visited an aged woman. I looked at the card over her head to see what disease she was suffering from, and if it was curable. "Old Age" was the disease marked down, incurable, and with only one end—DEATH.
Is there, then, only partial relief—relief to the body for time—and is there nothing more efficacious than the waters of Bath to turn to? Sad would the sinner's condition be if that were so. And yet there are thousands who are concerned enough about their bodies, but who care naught about their precious souls. Are you one of such? What awful, suicidal folly, for it is a question of heaven or hell, weal or woe, joy or sorrow, singing or wailing, and that forever and ever and ever.
Thank God, we can take the Bath inscription and apply it, with a far deeper meaning, to healing waters for the soul. Did not the Lord Jesus stand amid the throng of unsatisfied worshippers on the last great day of the Feast, and cry, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink"? How magnificent! how blessed! Our soul's deep need may be met. We may be saved. We may be forgiven. We may have eternal life. We can say, if believers, "Death is ours." We may look forward to eternity with joy, and not with dread.
We can say of these living streams of blessing from God that
Their virtue unimpaired,
Their volume unabated,
Their heat undiminished,
is as true today as ever.
"Their virtue unimpaired." Never a thirsty sinner who drinks, but finds satisfaction. Be it the expiring robber by the side of a Savior dying for his blessing; be it the cultured, religious Saul of Tarsus; be it the monk who shook the world, Martin Luther, as he drank of the living stream, "Justification by faith"; be it the believer of but yesterday—the testimony is the same. Are you satisfied, reader? Come to the Lord. You will indeed find the virtue, the healing power, of the living stream of God's grace unimpaired. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," is as true for you in the twentieth century as for the Philippian jailor in the first century.
"Their volume unabated." Their efficacy is for all. "God so loved THE WORLD." (John 3:16.) “Christ... gave himself a ransom for ALL.' (1 Tim. 2:6.) The risen Savior commanded His disciples, "Go ye into ALL THE WORLD, and preach the gospel TO EVERY CREATURE.” (Mark 16:15.) These waters flow for you. Will you not drink? They are free. Their volume is indeed unabated. You may be saved and satisfied, if you will only turn to the Lord, and drink. To drink is to appropriate, receive, trust, believe. How simple! How easy!
"Their heat undiminished." "God so LOVED the world." God's love is just the same.
"God" still "commendeth His LOVE toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8.) The love illustrated by the father welcoming his prodigal son in Luke 15 is just the love that would welcome you to-day. Just like the sun in the heavens, of which it can be said, "There is nothing hid from the heat thereof" (Psa. 19:6), is God's love. The sun alike warms the king and the beggar, the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the white and the black. So God's love is for all. The gospel is for "whosoever will." Will you not receive this love?
But refuse these healing, cleansing waters, and you will find yourself in that spot where the wail came from the erstwhile rich man, Have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." (Luke 16:24.) The dogs' tongues had licked the beggar's sores on earth—their master craved that his tongue might lick the drop of water the beggar could carry on the tip of his finger, and it was denied him. The great gulf was fixed.
May God give you, dear reader, to be wise in time, wise for eternity, else “the great gulf" will soon be fixed for you. A. J. P.