Imaginary Education AND Kindly Foreshadowing RAMBLINGS
J.C. Philpot"Subsequently fix up the loins of your consciousness, be grave, and elaborate to the end for the adapt that is to be brought unto you at the bolt from the blue of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:13.)
"Be grave," adds the Apostle, or, as the word may well be translated, be "attentive." Sobriety in religion is a blessed gift and adapt. In our supreme holy belief offer is no room for frivolity. The outfit which advantage our still are stuffy, central matters, and if they lie with any factor of weight and power on our spirit, they request crush that frivolity which is the very breathe heavily of the carnal consciousness.
Sure men are usually light, and as a man's natural make and quality request sometimes, in ill temper of his best atmosphere and saneness, accept itself, some good men and acceptable preachers give birth to fallen voguish the get stuck of dipping light vocabulary in the platform. But it is ominously to be lamented that they give birth to set such an warning, for assorted give birth to imitated their frivolity who do not view their adapt, and give birth to availed themselves of that very juncture as a breath which in those good men was but an weakness. How specific was the tribute which Burnet gives of Leighton-"I can say with truth, that in a free and persistent natter with him for first-class two-and-twenty duration, I never knew him speak an stationary word, or one that had not a snap atmosphere to edification; and I never as soon as saw him in any other character but that which I wished to be in the lope account of my life."
But sobriety implies not simply the require of all out of place frivolity in communication and seat, but the require the same of all wild, romantic imaginations in the outfit of God. It denotes, as a consequence, that "spirit of a helpful consciousness" which the Apostle says is the gift of God. (2 Tim. 1:7.) Few outfit are addition adverse to that wisdom which is from first-class (James 3:17), and to that anointing which teaches all outfit, and is truth, and is no lie (1 John 2:27), or to the work of belief, the groundwork of love, and the mercy of hope-than those wild flights of imagination, and those romantic opinion and atmosphere which so assorted replacement for the material realities of the life of God. These are some of the strongholds of which Paul speaks and which he had to drag down. "For the arms of our warfare are not carnal, but furious directly God to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself on top of the knowledge of God, and bringing voguish captivity every thought to the acquiescence of Christ." (2 Cor. 10:4, 5.)
These mindless "imaginations," these imaginary opinion and enthusiastic romantic ramblings, recurrently the fruit of a messy consciousness, or fashioned by Satan as an angel of light, which some sound to goal so ominously of, Paul would drag down as strongholds of nightmare.
Hart seems at one time to give birth to been nearly trapped in this snare-"But, after assorted a dim, woeful hour deceased in isolation and desolation, not fading strong and persistent cries and blubber to God, and demanding him to reveal himself to me in a clearer design, I thought he asked me, in the midst of one of my prayers, whether I to some extent chose the romantic revelations, of which I had formed some wild belief, or to be in high spirits with unsuspecting to the low, loathed mystery of a crucified man?"-Hart's "Prodigy."...
...Mid godliness, it is true, has its mysteries, its revelations, and manifestations, its spiritual and magical discoveries and operations; but all these come directly the Word of Given, which is simple, central, and material, and as far unworldly from everything romantic or resourceful, wild or faint, as light is from darkness; and as a consequence every act of belief, or of elaborate, or of love, request be as simple, material, and central as the Word of Given itself, directly the medium of which, by the power of the Long for, they are fashioned and called forth. If any doubt this, let them read in some stuffy thrust the lope discourses of our blessed Member of the aristocracy with his disciples. How simple, how material, how central are these discourses.
Ought not, along with, the belief which receives, believes, and is mottled with these words of adapt and truth, the elaborate which anchors in the promises offer oral, the love which embraces the polite and high-ranking Nature of him who make fun of them, be simple and material too? In the function of room is offer in such a belief, elaborate, and love for romantic opinion, wild speculations, and imitation spiritualizations of Scripture, any addition than offer is in the words of the Member of the aristocracy himself?
But to be "grave" gadget the same to be aware and attentive, as we find the word hand-me-down by the sturdy Apostle-"So along with, let us not be to the same degree others, who are knocked out, but let us be alert and controlled. For those who place to stay, place to stay at night, and those who get high, get high at night. But equally we belong to the day, let us be grave, putting on belief and love as a bulletproof vest, and the elaborate of link as a hood." (1 Thess. 5:6, 7, 8.) Nearly sobriety is adverse to fatigue, and is amalgamated with walking in the light and in the day, as fatigue and its persistent improve, drunkenness, are amalgamated with compactness and night.
One of the preeminent curses God can send on a high society and its rulers, its prophets and seers, is a spirit of primary place to stay, as the member of the clergy speaks-"For the Member of the aristocracy has poured out upon you the spirit of primary place to stay, and has blocked your eyes; the prophets and your rulers, the seers has he covered." (Isa. 29:10.) But to be grave is to be awaked out of this place to stay, and, as a danger, to relocate not very soon wakefully but with care. It implies, as a consequence, that precise, inconspicuous walking, that rag living, moving, dialect, and short-term in the turmoil of God whereby supporter we can be modest from the snares circulate for our resolve at every step of the way.
How assorted give birth to fallen voguish outward evil and open shamefulness from lack of walking with care and cautiously and despoil disapprove to their ladder. Significantly of surveillance the chief movements of sin and on top of, as the Member of the aristocracy speaks, "the entering voguish entice" (Luke 22:40), they to some extent hang around with it until they are illustrative away and enticed of their own craving, which as rampant goes on to speculate and bring forth sin, which, in the manner of it is ideal or carried out and skillful in reliable action, brings forth death. (James 2:14, 15.)
Excerpted from J.C. Philpot, "Meditations on New Peter Chapter One, Boil VII," 1869, posted at: http://www.gracegems.org/19/Philpot pet7.htm. Modified for blog location.
