DIVINE ILLUMINATION. 69 Why had not Cowper seen all this before? Because, according to God's own answer, "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." These truths were as clearly truths, and as well know in speculation, before that hour, that moment, of the shining of heaven in his soul, as they ever were afterward. But as yet they had not been revealed by the Spirit. But the instant God thus interposed, then could Cowper exclaim with Paul, "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." First, the revelation of the things that are given, then the Spirit, that we might know them. And the reason why this Divine Illumination did not take place years before, was just because the vail was on the heart, and it had not turned to the Lord, that the vail might be taken away; and it pleased the sovereign blessed will and infinite wisdom and love of God to lead the subject of this mighty experience out of darkness into light by a gradual preparatory discipline. And yet, when the light came, it was as new, as surprising, as ecstatic, as the light of day to a man blind from his birth. "Unless the Almighty arm had been under me," says he, "I think I should have died with gratitude and joy. My eyes filled with tears, and my voice choked with transport, I could only look to heaven in silence, overwhelmed with love and wonder. But the work of the Holy Spirit is best described in His own words—it was joy unspeakable, and full of glory. Thus was my Heavenly Father in Christ Jesus pleased to give me full 70 THE VOICE OF CHRIST. assurance of faith; and out of a strong unbelieving heart to raise up a child unto Abraham. How glad should I now have been to have spent every moment in prayer and thanksgiving! I lost no opportunity of repairing to a throne of grace, but flew to it with an eagerness irresistible, and never to be satisfied. Could I help it? Could I do otherwise than to love and rejoice in my reconciled Father in Christ Jesus? The Lord had enlarged my heart, and I ran in the ways of his commandments. For many succeeding weeks tears were ready to flow, if I did but speak of the gospel, or mention the name of Jesus. To rejoice day and night was my employment; too happy to sleep much, I thought it was lost time that was spent in slumber. Oh that the ardour of my first love had continued!" cure. It was such a change, so bright, so sudden, so complete, so joyful, that at first his kind, Christian, and watchful physician, Dr Cotton, was almost alarmed lest it might terminate in frenzy; but he soon became convinced of the sacred soundness and permanent blissfulness of the Every morning of the year he visited his interesting and beloved patient; and ever, in sweet communion, the gospel was the delightful theme of their conversation. What a history of passing hours within the apartments of an insane hospital! Oh, if this were the theme of communion, and this the instrumentality of healing oftener employed, how many distressed, diseased, and wandering spirits might have been restored, that, neglected still, have wandered on till the wreck of reason became confirmed and hopeless! The voice of Christ is the voice of true Science to every lunatic, "Bring him hither to me." COWPER'S SURVEY OF HIS OWN CASE. 71 CHAPTER VII. Cowper's survey of his own case-His removal to Huntingdon-His happy experience there-Scenes of the composition of his earliest hymns-Preparation for his work. "OH the fever of the brain!" exclaimed Cowper, in one of his beautiful letters to Lady Hesketh, after his recovery; "to feel the quenching of that fire is indeed a blessing which I think it impossible to receive without the most consummate gratitude." แ "My affliction has taught me a road to happiness which, without it, I should never have found." Cowper then refers to the rumour which was put in circulation, and has not ceased in some hands to be passed as current from that day to this, although, like a counterfeit bill long in use, it is now nearly worn out, that his madness was the cause of his religion, instead of religion being the cure of his madness. "It gives me some concern, though at the same time it increases my gratitude, to reflect that a convert made in Bedlam is more likely to be a stumbling-block to others than to advance their faith. But he who can ascribe an amendment of life and manners, and a reformation of the heart itself to madness, is guilty of an absurdity that in any other case would fasten the imputation of madness upon himself." He says, 72 COWPER'S SURVEY OF HIS OWN CASE. Cowper speaks of the belief, or rather the vain imagination entertained by multitudes, that a person needed no such change as that of conversion in order to be a Christian. "You think I always believed, and I thought so too; but you were deceived, and so was I. I called myself,' indeed, a Christian; but He who knows my heart knows that I never did a right thing, nor abstained from a wrong one, because I was so; but if I did either, it was under the influence of some other motive." This is a most impressive and searching remark; it goes to the inmost condition of every unchanged heart, the native condition of every heart; and it shews with what profound and thorough a sweep of analysis Cowper had been taught to survey the elements of his own character. He adds, "It is such seeming Christians, such pretending believers, that do most mischief in the cause of its enemies, and furnish the strongest arguments to support their infidelity. Unless profession and conduct go together, the man's life is a lie, and the validity of what he professes is itself called in question. The difference between a Christian and an unbeliever would be so striking, if the treacherous allies of the Church would go over at once to the other side, that I am satisfied religion would be no loser by the bargain." In the survey of his case, Cowper rejoiced with gratitude in the providential care with which it pleased God to assign his treatment, not to any London physician, but to a man so affectionate and experienced as Dr Cotton. "I was not only treated by him with the greatest tenderness while I was ill, and attended with the utmost diligence, but when my reason was restored to me, and I had so much need of a religious friend to converse with, to COWPER'S SURVEY OF HIS OWN CASE. 73 whom I could open my mind upon the subject without reserve, I could hardly have found a better person for the purpose. My eagerness and anxiety to settle my opinions on that long-neglected point, made it necessary that while my mind was yet weak and my spirits uncertain I should have some assistance. The doctor was as ready to administer relief in this article likewise, and as well gratified to do it as in that which was immediately his province. But how many physicians would have thought this an irregular appetite, and a symptom of remaining madness! But if it were so, my friend was as mad as myself, and it is well for me that he was so. My dear cousin, you know not half the deliverances I have received; my brother is the only one in the family who does. My recovery is, indeed, a signal one; and my future life must express my thankfulness, for by words I cannot do it." The remark concerning Cowper's brother is exceedingly interesting and instructive, taken in connexion with his own remarkable conversion five years later. It was the sight and knowledge of what Cowper passed through— those depths of anguish and despair beneath the burden. of his guilt in the valley of the shadow of death, where the kindest and most affectionate of brothers could do nothing for him, and could not even understand the causes of his gloom, or the means and the process of his recovery and joy-that began to awaken that brother's own suspicions that in his own case all was not right, and set him upon investigating the subject of religion with an attention he had never before paid to it, though he had been a clergyman of the Church of England, with a pastoral charge, for several years. This was not the least remark |