Part 2

The next day, the 23d, two or three passages of Scripture were introduced to his notice; besides which a fuller view was presented to him of the nature and consequences of sin. On this occasion he was taught in what manner sin is the defilement of the whole heart; that even the sins of his youth brought him just as much into condemnation before a holy God as his one great crime; that eternal death was the wages of every transgression of the Divine law; and that repentance unto life required not only a feeling of sorrow for one sin, but for every sin, yea, for sin itself, as an offence against the Almighty. The promises of God to the chief of sinners were then pointed out him from Isa. i. 18, that “though his sins were as scarlet, they might be made white as snow;” and from Isa. lv. 6, 7, that “if the wicked forsook his way, and returned unto the Lord, he would have mercy, and abundantly pardon.” The former of these passages remained fixed in his memory, and was a continual source of consolation to his mind. He now began to feel that his sins were as scarlet, and to desire earnestly to be pardoned. Two other passages were also at that time referred to, and enlarged upon. The first of these was John iii. 14, 15. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This type presenting so remarkable an image of the Lord Jesus Christ lifted up to bear the sins of his people, and affording a remedy to those who really believe in Him, was peculiarly calculated to meet his case: and he was further taught from it, that as this people, if they had rather chosen to trust to other remedies, or had refused to look at the brazen serpent, or had spent their time in mourning over their maladies, instead of doing as they were commanded, would never have been healed; so if the sinner does not look to Christ, there is no hope for him. One other important lesson was also gathered from this subject; namely, that “if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived;” and in like manner, “Whosoever believeth on Jesus Christ shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Jolin was thus instructed in the mode of pardon before God, through the merits of Jesus Christ; and in the efficacy of this remedy, the universality of it to all that believe, and the nature of faith, the means by which it can alone be appropriated.

The last passage referred to was the history of the Scape goat, contained in Lev. xvi. In this history we find that Aaron, whilst the people afflicted their souls, (ver. 29,) laid both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confessed on him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, putting them upon the head of the goat, and that the goat bore away with him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited. The illustration of this subject, and its application to Jolin’s own case, were very obvious. The people “afflicting their soul,” denoted the state in which every sinner must present himself before God—for it is the broken and the contrite heart which God will not despise; the “confession of sin” on the head of the goat pointed out the first and necessary duty of the returning penitent—for “if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; but if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins:” the laying the sins upon the head of the goat exhibited the act of faith, by which the condemnation of the sinner is transferred to his atoning sacrifice; and the leading away the goat into the wilderness, the full, perfect, and eternal pardon promised in the Gospel, of every sin to every repenting sinner.

Although Jolin was not a person of uncommon capacity, and although these passages of Scripture seemed to be new to him, yet he apprehended them in a manner which gave just indication that his heart was under the Divine teaching. It is said, Isa. liv. 13, “All thy children shall be taught of the Lord.” This state of teachableness now seemed to have been produced in this poor young man. The power of God had made his heart _willing_, Ps. cx. 3; and he came very soon to understand the truths by which he might be saved. When the will of man is not disposed to submit to God, every doctrine of the Gospel presents difficulties; one point is unreasonable, another impossible, a third useless; but when the mind is taught of God, it is astonishing how soon all these difficulties vanish. The doctrines of the Gospel, which seem the most hard to understand and to receive, are at once comprehended. It is like a change from darkness to light. The passages of Scripture which teach the sinfulness of our own nature, the worth of a Saviour, the nature of faith, the pleasantness of religion, the delight attendant upon dwelling with God, are at once received and adopted; and the whole system of Christianity is discovered to be one exactly suited to the sinner’s own state. But the willingness of heart which is necessary to a right reception of religion, we are every where in Scripture taught, is the gift of the Holy Spirit. It cometh “not of blood,” that is, from our parents; “nor of the will of the flesh,” that is, by our own natural inclination; “nor of the will of man,” that is, by the teaching of others; “but of God.” “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” We see then how necessary it is that, if any man “lack wisdom,” he should “ask it of God;” and so much the more, as our Lord himself declares, Luke xi. 13, his desire to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him.

The 24th was the day of Jolin’s first trial, at the close of which he was found guilty. Some of his friends, whom he had asked to go to him, went after the trial. They expected to find him, on this occasion, in some degree disturbed and agitated in mind; but it was altogether otherwise. The irons to which he was sentenced were put on him in their presence. To this, as the natural consequence of his condemnation, he submitted almost without notice. Indeed, the trial and the condemnation itself seem to have made little or no impression upon him; for it was only by minute and repeated inquiry as to the proceedings of the day, that visitors could obtain from him any account of them. His mind seemed absorbed in something else; and what this was, afterwards appeared. His conduct, during his trial, had been remarked by many of his judges, as entirely suitable to his awful situation. Indeed, his whole frame of mind was now beginning to discover the influence of a new principle, and to show that the great work of regeneration was taking place. In the early part of his confinement, and indeed very recently, he had wished, as he might naturally, for his escape; and his cry to his advocate had been, “Save me from the gallows;” but at this period, the desire that his life might be spared, seemed to be taken away from him in a most astonishing degree. It was not so with the very zealous and able advocate to whom his cause had been committed, and who very properly continued to the end, to urge every plea, and to encourage his client to every effort, by which his punishment might be remitted, or even delayed. His friends too were most kindly anxious on this point; and they even attempted to prove him insane, that they might effect their purpose. For a time he was influenced by the same desire. But to those who visited him about this period, he never once alluded to a desire to escape; but on the contrary, seemed almost always to refer to his sentence without apparent emotion; and towards the end, he appeared to long for, and to be earnest for its completion. This state of mind was no doubt to be attributed to two causes; in part, to a complete acquaintance with the state of his own case, and to its final settlement by his judges; but probably much more to his new state of religious feeling; a sense of his own spiritual condition had begun to swallow up every other consideration.

A friend had given him the second chapter of the Ephesians for his consideration, that he might gain still further views of his state of guilt and defilement, and that he might more clearly trace both the power of Divine grace, by which the sinner is quickened, and the bright prospect placed before those who seek for pardon by the blood of Christ. The conversation of this day led to the subjects contained in this chapter; and more particularly to the impossibility of man’s pardon, but by the grace of God, through Christ Jesus. In the midst of a statement of the hindrances in the way of salvation, from the evil of our heart, the weakness of our best endeavours, and the defilement of our services, Jolin remarked, “I must put off my sins.” It was asked, what he meant by putting off his sins. His answer manifested at once the simple, but clear, manner in which he had received the Scripture illustration pointed out to him the day before, and it was truly gladdening to the feelings of his visitors: “Did you not tell me yesterday about the live goat on whose head the sins were laid?” The application of the type of the scape goat had thus been made by him to his own state; and he had arrived at the conviction, that, whatever might have been his sins, and whatever were his hindrances, he was permitted to “put them all off,” upon that all-sufficient atonement, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. He had thus been enabled to feel his burden, to bring it to the cross of Christ; and at once it seemed to have fallen from him at the feet of his Redeemer.

The nature of faith is illustrated in a very interesting manner, by the case of Jolin. The sinfulness of his own state he knew, and felt deeply. He did not, however, seek to excuse himself, or to palliate his offences: he did not think that past services would be any compensation to God; that any circumstance of his life or character would skreen him from Almighty wrath; or that by repentance he might be pardoned through the mere mercy of his Heavenly Father. In himself, therefore, he had no ground of hope whatsoever: he was as a debtor who had nothing to pay; as a sick man whose case was desperate: but he felt an assurance that Christ was able to pay his debt, and to cure his disease, and that in his own particular case, he would do it; and he himself did in heart, what the high priest did with his hands, transfer all his sins to the atonement. Thus he came to feel, not indeed presumptuously, but with confidence, that all his sins were laid upon the sacrifice; and he was able to contemplate the Saviour’s mercies instead of his own merited doom as a sinner. The ground of this assurance in his mind was an acceptance of the simple testimony of God, that he would blot out his transgressions. He believed in this word of promise, and joy in believing was at once imparted to him. The simplicity with which Jolin received the testimony of God in this instance characterized his religious experience during the whole of his remaining course. The Scriptures were as a message of God to his soul. He received them as feeling there could be no doubt but every word of them was true. I often, said Mr. Hall, in the after part of his history, tried to persuade him that it was, naturally speaking, an incredible thing that God should have come in the flesh and atone for sin. But he always said that he believed it, because it was so written in the book which is the truth.

I have before noticed the indifference which Jolin appeared to feel to outward circumstances. I have yet to observe another point connected with it, in this day’s visit, which was the brightness and almost cheerfulness of aspect that his manner and countenance gradually assumed. In the period before his condemnation, his downcast look and general air of wretchedness were not unsuited to a state of despair; but now he lifted up his head, and even his voice seemed to have changed its tone. This surprising change was observed by others. Mr. Hammond, Jolin’s advocate, told M. Durell, as he himself has recorded it, that when he saw the prisoner on the twenty-third of September, he found him “in really a distracted state, torn by every conflicting passion, and all his faculties hurried by the unutterable anguish of remorse. The dread of death was uppermost in his thoughts; and there was nothing to which he would not have submitted to avoid capital punishment: but when he saw him again on the evening of the twenty-sixth, he was astonished at the sudden change which had taken place in him: he was calm, placid, and resigned, and he had not one wish to live. I then,” continues Mr. Durell, “mentioned to Mr. Hammond, that I had found him exactly in that state on my first visit, the twenty-sixth, which had preceded his own only by a few hours.” He adds, “the opinion of an impartial and enlightened man, like Mr. Hammond, was certainly very important: but M. de Quetteville, the mayor of the town, and other laymen of the highest respectability, who had formerly known the prisoner, had been equally struck with that great and salutary change. From a comparison of dates,” adds Mr. Durell, “I am inclined to believe, that his change must not only have been rapid, but that his heart must have been almost as instantaneously touched as that of the penitent malefactor in the gospel.” Now how was this wonderful change to be accounted for? We read in Acts xvi. 34, that when the keeper of the prison in Philippi had received St. Paul’s message, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;” that he “took” the apostles “_the same hour of the night_, and washed their stripes;” and was “baptized,” and rejoiced believing in God. It was perhaps this very feeling of joy which Jolin now experienced; a joy which arose from a clear, full, well-grounded belief in the doctrine of justification by faith. This doctrine, which gives peace with God, is, when rightly apprehended, attended with an experience of the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, Rev. i. v., and this necessarily brings joy with it. Thus, the man who has been taught to look to him that justifieth the ungodly, is able to walk in the light of God’s countenance, and is “filled with all joy and peace in believing.”

On the 25th, Jolin narrated to his visitor the whole history of his melancholy life; his difficulties and discomforts, arising, not so much from others, as from his own sinful, wilful heart. Like many other young persons, he had chosen the way of dissipation and folly, instead of that which many circumstances had led him to think was a happier and a safer course. It is indeed true, that his parents were not in a state to check him in his proceedings; but he seems to have had at many intervals those convictions of conscience which were sufficient to have guarded him from the transgressions into which he fell, and even to have guided him to seek the paths of religion. His wretched education, however, came in aid of his natural self-will, and soon confirmed him in those vices which led to his ruin.

His state had been, as he himself described it, at times truly miserable; but drinking had quickly expelled every conviction of his own guilt, and he soon returned again to his mad career. He observed to Mr. Durell, that since 1823, he had not seen one happy week.—There are two things to observe on these transient convictions of guilt in a state of unconversion. Until the Spirit of God has enlightened the heart, sin does not by any means, in all cases, appear as it had appeared to Jolin, and as it invariably does to the renewed heart, a grievous burden. The life of many wretched sinners is one unbroken course of self-satisfaction. They are described in the seventy-third Psalm, as often passing from their cradles to their graves without a feeling of sorrow, or an apprehension of death. The Bible, however, teaches, that such a state of unmixed prosperity is the most dangerous in which a man can be placed; that the sinner, when thus left alone of God, is lifted to that very slippery pinnacle from which he will fall to his eternal ruin. Ministers cannot, therefore, press upon their ungodly hearers the universal conviction of the misery attending upon sin as an evidence of their unconverted state, because sin does not in this life uniformly bring along with it any such conviction. Their state of self-complacency is, indeed, a state which comes as short of the real spiritual happiness of the true Christian, as darkness does of light; but it often affords a false peace, which perhaps does not leave the sinner till his punishment begins, and the door of hope is shut against him for ever. Another observation arising from Jolin’s feeling of wretchedness in his former state, is, that the pain sometimes connected either with the practice of sin, or a view of its consequences, will not, unassisted by the Spirit of God, produce the real repentance which the Gospel requires. It is true, the compunctions of conscience, like the afflictions of life, are means often used to prepare the sinner for the doctrines of the Gospel. Yet, in how many cases do we find men wounded, but not contrite; stunned, but not really affected by the deepest distresses of life. Thus we learn, that it is not any mere dispensation of Providence which necessarily brings men to that knowledge and faith which are needful for salvation. It is true, that God does bless the endeavours of the willing mind whenever he sees them; but the mind is not necessarily made willing because it suffers, any more than a child is necessarily made more compliant by the punishment which is inflicted. Some substances harden whilst others melt under the fire. Thus some souls are only confirmed in sin by the events which are instrumental in recovering others from it. For this he must be quickened by the power of God, he must have an entirely different sense imparted to him from the mere feeling of the misery of an evil course, or the afflictions of life; he must be convinced of his own desperate state in the sight of God, and of the need of that sacrifice which the Saviour has wrought out, before that good work is really begun, which, it is promised, shall be carried on till the day of Jesus Christ. So far, then, from the common notion, that the sufferings of our life will atone for its offences, those sufferings have no connexion whatever with our state hereafter, except as they may have been a means of bringing us to seek that sacrifice by whom alone any of our sins can be pardoned.

But to return to Jolin’s history. In the visit of the 25th, he was again led to a consideration of the only sacrifice for man’s transgression, particularly as it is exhibited in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. In this portion of Scripture he learnt more exactly the cause for which Jesus Christ came on the earth, and became a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:—“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Other passages of Scripture, connected with this subject, and pointing out the love of God as the first cause of man’s salvation, were also explained to him, as, Rom. v. 8, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” And in connexion with this, Ephes. ii. 4, 5, “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us together with Christ.” And, Rom. viii. 1, “There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” The being in Christ Jesus, and the nature of faith, by which alone he could apply the merits and sufferings of the Saviour, were now, as they were continually, dwelt upon.

The faith of the Gospel, he was more particularly taught, was such a reception of the truths of Scripture, and more especially of the engagement of God to pardon every sinner who came to him in Christ Jesus, as led not only to an entire dependence upon Christ, but to a complete submission to his will, and a consequent change in our own nature. It was not merely a reception of the doctrine of faith, which was to be regarded as faith in the soul, but the creation in the heart of a new and animated feeling of trust in the Redeemer. The influence of faith in the soul was like that of food to the body; it imparts a new feeling and character; gives new nourishment and vigour, and works by love, not only to the Saviour himself, but to all around us. Faith, therefore, to be a living principle, must be felt by ourselves, and must be seen by others: and of both these points the faith of this young man gave ample proof. It gave confidence to his own mind, and even gladdened his heart; it made the Bible a new book to him; it cheered the solitude of his prison; it directed him to be mindful of every practical duty; it gave a new direction to all his hopes and fears, and enabled him to go onwards in a spirit of filial dependence to meet the last conflict. It was at this time, I think, that he made a confession, which served to explain his previous state of mind, and to show how remarkably his attention was fixed on one point. “How extraordinary, sir,” said he, “it is, that for these last two days I have been able to give my mind only to _one_ subject; the thought of my crime and of my death have been taken from me, and I have scarcely been able to give my attention to either.” The one subject which occupied all his attention, and shut out every other, was the love of his Saviour, who had given himself for his sins. This, as he said, “filled his heart.” His state of mind served to show the absorbing nature of this Divine principle when it is fully implanted in the soul. When the mind has suddenly gained a view of its former state of alienation, and has been brought nigh again to God, it is impossible that the sense of this vast change should not swallow up every other feeling. It is difficult at all times to think much of God, and to think of any thing else; but how much more, when the first conviction of the Divine presence overwhelms the soul. And, as David, in the fifty-first Psalm, appears to have comparatively lost sight of his sin against his country, the family of Uriah, and of all the consequences of it, in the depth of the feeling which he had of his sin against God; so the love of Christ took possession of Jolin’s mind; and in its length, and breadth, and depth, and height, so filled his thoughts, and so absorbed his soul, that every other subject sank into nothing.