“Love, joy, peace.”—Gal. v. 22.

Feelings clearly have their place in the things of God. Our Christianity is based on principles, but still it calls forth the feelings. Now there are two great extremes into which we are apt to fall with reference to Christian feeling.

There are some whose religion seems to consist in feeling only. They look for warm, bright emotions, they bring everything to the standard of their feelings, and if they feel as they wish to do they are satisfied. Their hearts are warmed by the things of God, and many a cold, phlegmatic theologian would be a different being if he could but catch something of their feeling.

But still we must put in a caution, for feelings, however bright, are not to be trusted unless they rise out of principle and end in practice. If you have feeling only—a feeling not based on solid acquaintance with Scriptural truth, it will rise like a bubble, and look as beautiful in its colours, but it will burst as easily as the bubble does, and even at its best estate can never bear the slightest pressure. Here, then, is one extreme—the religion of feeling, of emotion, of impression, taking the place of the religion of conviction, of principle, of faith.

But there is another extreme: I mean the religion without feeling. Some seem to think all emotion, or warmth, or fervour is enthusiasm, and settle down satisfied with a cold reception of Christian truth. They may be quite correct in their creed, and may really believe all the great truths of the Gospel, but their system is to give no expression to Christian emotion, and this has a wonderful power of chilling all around them.

We must not rest satisfied with an unfeeling consent to Christian truth. We want to feel as well as to know, and to have the heart really warmed by the tender love of our gracious Saviour. But here I suspect that I shall be met by a great difficulty on the part of many of you, for this feeling is exactly that which many cannot find. You can understand, but you cannot feel. Your great trouble is, that there is such a dreadful apathy over your whole soul that nothing seems to rouse it. If this is the case consider—

I. The Feelings, however Warm, can never justify, and the Want of Feeling does not prevent Justification.

I have known persons who have long since given up all idea of being justified by works, who still have a secret clinging to some idea of being justified by feelings. If they could but feel more—more love, more repentance, more warmth—then they think they could trust Christ for their acceptance. They have learned, they think, to trust Him if they have the feelings, but they would not venture to do so without them.

Now, before they can be happy in Christ they will have to go a step deeper, and learn to trust Him when they have not the feelings as well as when they have. They must remember that our justification is entirely dependent on His atonement and His righteousness, and so it is His free gift, freely given to those that are dead in sin. Now a dead man has no feelings. If, therefore, we wait for our justification until we have the feelings we must wait till we are alive. But the language of Scripture is, “God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.” [26] Your only hope, therefore, is to trust Him as you are, without waiting till you are one atom warmer than you are at this present moment. With your heart as cold as you now feel it to be, you must throw yourself at once before His feet, and cry, “Lord, save me, I perish.”

Closely connected with this suggestion is another, namely this—

II. If you want to be made to feel, you must lose no Time in going Near to a Father’s Throne.

You will never feel warm while you stand shivering outside the city. You must go inside, even while you are cold, and there have your heart warmed by the Lord Himself. Remember that the great heart-warming subject is the tender love of God as displayed in Christ Jesus. If the love of Christ does not make you feel, nothing else will. Do not, therefore, stand afar off gazing on your own coldness, but turn at once to the Cross of Christ. Study Him in the garden bowed down under the heavy burden of sin; study Him on the cross forsaken even of the Father, and remember that all that was borne for you, even for you. Remember there was a personal connection between Him and you in the whole of that great transaction, and so abide, as it were, gazing on the Lord Jesus, on His life, on His meekness, on His burden, on His cry. Pray God that you may realize your part in the whole matter. Confess before Him your own cold, dead, lifeless condition. Trust Him, as He died for you, to save you from it; and so you may hope that, though you feel so cold as you approach Him, you may experience something of His love when you gaze on Him, and know something even of His joy when you go on your way justified through His grace.

III. Remember well that Feeling is the Gift of the Holy Spirit, and that you cannot work yourself up to it.

It is very clearly the work of the Holy Spirit to call forth feeling. He does not act on the head only, but on the heart also. He opens the understanding, but His great office is to make His people feel what they already know. Thus of the nine fruits of the Spirit [27a] the first three are all emotions. Their seat is neither in the head nor in the practice, but they are all feelings of the heart, “Love, joy, peace.” They all lead to practice, and all are founded on principle, but all three are sacred emotions implanted there by the Holy Ghost Himself.

If, therefore, your cold, unfeeling heart is a real sorrow to you; if the trouble of your heart is that your sins trouble you so little, and that you feel so coldly towards that Blessed Saviour who has felt for you so deeply, rest not content, but throw yourself before God that the Spirit of grace and of supplication may enable you to look upon Him whom you have pierced, that He may take of the things of Jesus and show them unto you; that He may call forth in your soul His own fruits of love, joy, and peace, and that so He may answer you the Apostle’s prayer—“The God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.” [27b]