105. Upon A Time I Was Somewhat Inclining To A Consumption.

CV ‘Upon A Time I Was Somewhat Inclining To A Consumption.’ A CONSUMPTION is sometimes said to be the most deceitful and the most dangerous of all our diseases. And that is so because in a consumption, as in no other deadly disease, the patient hopes on and hopes on till at last he is suddenly summoned away. Well, if that is a danger and a disadvantage, on the other hand, the consumptive man has this immense benefit and advantage over all other dying men in that he usually has a long warning afforded him beforehand, and has thus a long time given him in which to prepare himself for his coming translation. As Dante has it, ‘The arrow seen beforehand slacks its flight.’ That is to say, if a man foresees his death long before it actually comes to him, that gives him time and opportunity to step aside and to evade the fatal arrow. In most cases of consumption the arrow is shot so slowly, and has such a long way to travel, that the dying man has a long time given him to prepare himself for its last attack. According to our own proverb, when the dying man is forewarned he is thereby forearmed.

‘Upon a time I was somewhat inclining to a consumption, wherewith, about the spring, I was suddenly and violently seized with much weakness in my outward man, inasmuch that I thought I could not live. Now began I to give myself up to a serious examination into my state and condition for the future, and of my evidences for that blessed world to come. For it hath, I bless God, been my usual course, as always, so especially in the day of affliction, to endeavour to keep my interest in the world to come clear before my eyes.’

Then there follow five paragraphs of spiritual experience the like of which, in some respects, I do not know where to find in any other spiritual writer. In his own incomparable way Bunyan goes on to tell us what a time of terror he had at the prospect of his unprepared deathbed. How all his past sins came flocking round his bed like so many harpies of hell hungering for his soul. And now his inward man was seized with a far worse consumption than was that which had seized upon his outward man. And that went on till one day as he was walking up and down the house in a most woeful state this word of God took hold of his heart:

‘“Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, through faith in His blood.” But O! What a turn that Scripture made upon me!’ And what a similar turn that same Scripture has made upon many. For that was Luther’s favourite Scripture. And it was when William Cowper was almost making away with himself that he was led to open this same Scripture which in a moment brought light and peace and hope and joy to his sad heart. And then this other Scripture came home to Bunyan in his double consumption of body and soul:

‘Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saves us.’ My brethren, it is worth a hundred consumptions to have those two Scriptures brought home to our hearts as they were brought home to John Bunyan’s heart. Now, this is the question. Have they ever been brought home to your hearts? You will know by this:

‘Then was I got up on high. Now death was lovely and beautiful in my eyes. For I saw now that we shall never truly live till we be gone to the other world. This additional word also fell with great weight upon my mind: O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory? At this I became well again, both in body and in mind: and all at once. My sickness did suddenly vanish. And I walked comfortably, again, in my work for God.’

Now, are any of you, or are any of yours, somewhat inclining to a consumption? And are you, like John Bunyan, warningly threatened with that consumption from time to time? Well, it proved but a threat in John Bunyan’s case. He was one of those threatened men who proverbially live long. For he lived to write the Grace Abounding, and the Pilgrim’s Progress, and much more of that same kind. Bunyan’s threatened consumption was like Isaiah’s. God’s righteousness overflowed in both their cases. And you are to be spared to read the Grace Abounding and the Pilgrim’s Progress again and again, till you have those heavenly books by heart; and, who knows, perhaps you are to be spared to write an account of your own case which shall be not unworthy to be set beside those two immortal books of Bunyan’s. In any case, you must more and more read those immortal books before you go to meet their author. You would be ashamed to meet Bunyan, and Faithful, and Hopeful, and Mr. Honest, and Mr. Fearing, if you had never been at the trouble to read their recorded lives. When you are invited to a dinner in order to meet some great author, if you are not well read in his writings, you hasten to look into Who’s Who, and then you take a glance into such of his books as you can lay your hands on before the day of the dinner. Now just fancy your being set down at dinner between Bunyan and Greatheart and not being able to speak a word to them about any of their experiences or any of their exploits! You would motion to the ministering angels to change your seat to some other table. You would far rather eat and drink alone than have to sit stupid and silent beside Bunyan, and Evangelist, and Christiana, and Mercy, and the boys. I have seen as much as that you are threatened with a consumption in order to give you time to have your depraved taste for books completely changed before you are ushered in among the great authors and the great readers who shall sit on thrones in the celestial city. The last case of a fatal consumption I have had to do with was that of a Lochalsh student last summer. The last thing he had read to him in this world was the rapturous narration of how John Bunyan’s pilgrims all crossed the Jordan. Those splendid pages were read to him in the forenoon by an Edinburgh schoolboy, and then he crossed the same river himself in the afternoon. I had promised to see him again in a day or two. But that was another lesson to me not to say ‘to-morrow’ to a death-bed.

Then again are you one of those greatly-to-be-pitied consumptives who through fear of death are all their life-time subject to bondage? Well then, would it not be a glorious thing if you used all your allotted time so as to fight down all your fears of death, and so as to lay a firm hold on eternal life, before you leave this world? What a splendid victory that would be! How you would bless God to all eternity for the threatened consumption that was made the means of everlasting life to your soul! What a successful life, be it long or short, your life would be if you were able to leave it with the Apostle’s shout on your lips — O death! where is thy sting? And with George Herbert’s song in your mouth:

Death! thou wast once a hideous thing:

But, since my Saviour’s death Has put some blood into thy face, Thou hast grown, sure, a thing to be desired, And full of grace. On the great advantages of a consumption Richard Hooker is rich and elaborate after his own great manner. The prince of English style takes high ground in this matter of a consumption, as thus: ‘The soul has time,’ he says,

‘to call itself to a just account of all things past by means of which its repentance is made perfect. The joys of the kingdom of heaven have leisure to present themselves. The pleasures of sin, and all this world’s vanities, are censured with an uncorrupted judgment. Charity is free to make advised choice of the soil wherein her last seed may most fruitfully be sown. The mind is at liberty to have due regard of that disposition of worldly things which it can never afterwards alter. And the nearer we draw to God, we are sometimes so enlightened with the shining beams of His glorious countenance, as shall cause those present at our death-bed to say, — Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his! All which benefits and opportunities are by a sudden death prevented.’ So far Hooker. But that great writer does not mention what I look on as one of the most outstanding advantages and opportunities of a consumption. I mean the precious time that a slow consumption gives the dying man to drink into his very soul the best books concerning that strange and wonderful world he is soon to enter. That immense advantage bulks very much in my own mind. For myself, if I am to have some spare time to prepare myself finally before I die I know the great masterpieces of salvation that I shall have set on the shelf nearest my bed. Shall I tell you some of them? My New Testament; my Paradise; my Bunyan; and, especially, the Jordan scenes at the end. My Saint’s Rest, and it in my old class fellow William Young’s beautiful and fit edition. My life-long Goodwin; my Rutherford; my Catechism on the benefits of being a believer; my Gerontius; and my Olney, and Wesley, and kindred hymns. But since I am not myself constitutionally inclining to a consumption, and will not have the great advantage of that; since I may any day die in a moment let me have my hand on that heavenly shelf for a few minutes every day; and, especially, every night, lest the cock crow in my case suddenly.

And, then, there is this other advantage in a slow consumption that Hooker should have dwelt on as he only could. A man whose life has been full of faults, and offences, and errors, and injuries, if he is dying of a slow consumption he has time to write a book of retractations and self corrections such as St. Augustine and Richard Baxter wrote before they died. A consumption gives a man time to write his late, but all the more sincere, apologies to those men to whom he has been an offence, and a temptation, and a burden, and a snare. It gives him authority also to summon the presence of some of the worst cases to his bedside and there and then to make a clean breast to them. As, also, he has time to send to his friends plain-spoken and outspoken messages of love and prayer and counsel that he has not had the courage to speak or to write as long as he was well. I would be bold enough to add these two immense advantages to Hooker’s rich and richly expressed list of the consumptive man’s privileges and advantages.

And, then, there is this last lesson:

‘Now began I afresh to give myself up to a serious examination after my state and condition for the future. For, I bless God, it hath been my usual course, as always, so, especially, in the day of affliction, to endeavour to keep my interest in the life to come clear before my eye.’

Now, you would not stay long enough to-night to let me speak to you about your interest in Christ and in the life to come. But if you have any care to possess an interest in Christ and in the life to come William Guthrie has a little book on that supreme subject, a little book of which John Owen said, drawing a little gilded copy of it out of his pocket, ‘That author I take to have been one of the greatest divines that ever wrote; his book is my vade-mecum, and I carry it always about with me.’ ‘I think Guthrie is the best book I ever read,’ said Dr. Chalmers also. Now, you might set down William Guthrie’s Saving Interest for a Christmas present to some one who is visibly inclining to a consumption, and whose interest in Christ and in the world to come you would like to see secured before his consumption gallops away with him for ever.

‘This did sweetly revive my spirit, and did help me to hope in God. And, at this, I became well again, and all at once, both in body and in mind. My sickness did suddenly vanish, and I walked comfortably in my work for God again.’ The curability of consumption is still a great question among our doctors. John Bunyan does not take time to tell us just how Dr. Skill treated his case. I fear the open-air cure would have been scoffed at in Dr. Skill’s day. But I suppose there is no doubt whatever that the open-air cure has worked many miracles in our day; and I hope it has many more miracles to work among our consumptive friends. And then their work for God will be all the more comfortable that their consumption, like Isaiah’s and Bunyan’s, has been overflowed and carried away by God’s grace and righteousness. The best programme of the work that our cured consumptives have still before them is so excellently put by my old favourite Thomas Shepard that I will copy the pilgrim father’s words for you, and will so close.

‘It may be there is much work to be done by thee at home,’ says Shepard, ‘at home, and inside thine own doors. Many odd distempers to be cashiered, and many spiritual decays to be recovered. Also, it may be, there is much for thee yet to do out of doors. It may be there are friends of thine who are still unconverted; and that may be so because thou hast been an offence to them, and hast stood in the way of their salvation. And, converted or unconverted, few will say that they have been much blessed in their souls, or much helped in any real way by thee; and that work for God and for thy friends stands yet to be done by thee. Also, it may be, God has some deep secrets of His providence, and some deep secrets of His grace, to reveal to thee before thou leavest grace for glory. Then, again, thy talents have not been laid out to the best usury in the past; thy time, thy means, thy station, thy opportunities; and thy consumptions have been suspended in order that thou mayest have a good account to render on that day. Thou wilt walk comfortably with God all the time that is left thee on earth if thou settest about these tasks with all thy recovered strength. And, then, when thy appointed work is finished, thou will say: I was not ready, at that time when I first took ill, O Lord; but now let Thy servant depart in peace!’