AS soon as Dr Chalmers really came to know the gospel experimentally, sinners were awakened and saved under his ministry. After that, too, he used often to speak in private to anxious souls.
On going to see an awakened woman one day, he had to cross a plank thrown over a little stream for a bridge―a very common thing in the country―quite near to her house. He was a portly man, and as the plank seemed to him not to be very strong, he was cautiously feeling it with his staff and gradually risking himself upon it, when the woman he was going to see, having observed him coming, and having run out to meet him, called out, “Oh! Mr. Chalmers, it’s strong enough; just lippen till” (just trust to it). He believed her, and stepped firmly upon it, and had her by the hand on the other side in a moment.
Soon they were sitting in her house in earnest conversation about the way of salvation. Her difficulty was—faith. The preaching she was now hearing went to show that she could not be saved but by faith in Christ. But what was that? And how was it to be got? These were her difficulties. Chalmers, ever so ready and apt with his illustrations, remembered the plank and her own exhortation to him to “lippen til’t,” and so he said, “‘Faith’ is just another word for ‘lippen’ and ‘lippen’ is just another word for ‘faith.’ You are to nut faith in Christ precisely as I put faith in the plank”; and in this way, to make a long story short, her own word “lippen” was used by the Holy Spirit to lead her to Christ.
I was telling this story in a meeting one night in a country town, and showing that, in order to be saved, one must get over the “lippenin’ til’t.” A very respectable, decent man, belonging to the district, asked me, after the meeting, “to take a mouthful of fresh air with him” up a quiet road. I was glad to find that he was intensely anxious, and made so by that story; for before this he had been under the impression that though he could not say that he was saved, and consequently had not New Testament love, joy, and peace (Gal. 5:2222But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, (Galatians 5:22)), yet he thought he had all that could be had now, or that anybody else had.
Ah! dear reader, his peace, even such as it was, turned out to be false peace, as he himself discovered. What about thine? Now, think for a moment, and let conscience, enlightened by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, speak! It never seemed to enter this man’s head for a moment, the first few nights of the meetings, that be required anything himself. He thought, with many other decent professors, that these meetings would help their church, that more sittings would be taken, more money would be raised, more names, would be got upon the communion roll, &c., and so all that was said at first he put past himself to his neighbor, pitching it all over his shoulder, till by God’s grace he discovered that with all his profession (and he was a most consistent professor, so far as his character went) he was an unsaved soul, inasmuch as he had never known what believing in Christ meant, had never “let go,” had never “lippened” to the finished work’ of Christ.
In perfect agony of soul in the dark that night at a late hour on the lonely country road, hanging on my arm, he exclaimed, “Man, that lippenin’ bit is the warst” (that is, it is the most difficult thing to do). Cruel though it may seem to say it, I was very glad to hear him thus speak, and smiled in the dark (he was looking to the ground, and did not see me), and I looked up to heaven, thanked God, and put the saying into my memory for future service in the gospel. I knew from experience where he was, and that it would soon be all right with him.
Dear, respectable, church-going, praying, religious, but unsaved reader, my prayer for thee is that the Holy Spirit may apply the above to thy conscience, and lead thee to “lippen” to Jesus alone henceforth for salvation, and to start from the seat thou art now sitting upon and do all thy good works, which have hitherto been dead works, from quite different motives. I know it is far more difficult for thee to bring thyself to trust Christ all at once and be saved now than to go on living upon the whole a good life, and performing a round of religious duties, in the vain hope that thou wilt be saved at last.
But it must be done if thou wouldst be saved. Thy creed must no longer be D, O―DO, but must henceforth be D, O, N, E―DONE. Thy motives must no longer be for salvation, but from salvation, for all thou doest. The nature of thy works must no longer be law-works but life-works. I pray God that thou mayest indeed be brought to a standstill, having got thy last sound sleep in an unsaved state; that an entire revolution may now take place in thy views regarding the whole plan of redemption; that thy heart may sink within thee, the very breath, as it were, taken out of thee, and thus, every false prop removed, thou may’st fall a helpless sinner without strength (Rom. 5:66For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)) on the kindly bosom of Him who has been all this time standing with outstretched arms to receive thee, and thus thou too shalt have got over the “lippenin’“ bit and be saved.
J. G.