The blessed insight of John Newton as he fights remaining sin in his own heart and mind.
My heart is like a country but half subdued, where all things are in an unsettled state, and mutinies and insurrections are daily happening. I hope I hate the rebels that disturb the King’s peace. I am glad when I can point them out, lay hold of them, and bring them to him for justice. But they have many lurking holes, and sometimes they come disguised like friends, so that I do not know them, till their works discover them.
I want to deliver up that rebel Self to him in chains; but the rogue, like the mythical god Proteus, puts on so many forms, that he slips through my fingers: but I think I know what I would do if I could fairly catch him. My soul is like a besieged city; a legion of enemies without the gates, and a nest of restless traitors within, that hold correspondence with those without; so that I am deceived and counteracted continually. It is a mercy that I have not been surprised and overwhelmed long ago: without help from on high it would soon be over with me.
We are totally depraved is a truth which no one ever truly learned by only being told it.
The gospel affords no hope but to those whose hearts are not contrite and broken by a conviction of sin; for while we feel not our malady, we cannot prize, or rightly apply to the only Physician.
Every day draws forth some new corruption which before was little observed, or at least discovers it in a stronger light than before. Thus by degrees they are weaned from leaning to any wisdom, power, or goodness in themselves; they feel the truth of our Lord’s words, “without me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
I am a riddle to myself; a heap of inconsistencies.
I have a troublesome inmate, a lodger, who assumes as if the house were his own and is in perpetual disturbance and spoils all. He has long been noted for his evil ways, but though generally known, is not easily avoided. He lodged with one Saul of Tarsus long before I was born and made him groan and cry out lustily. Time was when, I thought I would shut the door, to keep him out of my house. But my precaution came too late, he was already within; and to turn him out by head and shoulders is beyond my power, nay; I cannot interdict him from any one single apartment. If I think of retiring into the closest corner, he is there before me. We often meet and jostle and snarl at each other; but sometimes (would you believe it?) I lose all my suspicion, and am disposed to treat him as an intimate friend. This inconsistency of mine, I believe, greatly encourages him…we both lay such a strong claim to the same dwelling, that I believe the only way of settling the dispute will be (which the Landlord himself has spoken of) to pull down the house over our heads. There seems something disagreeable in this mode of proceeding; but from what I have read in an old book, I form hope that when things come into this crisis, I shall escape, and my enemy will be crushed in the ruins!
If some, as you suppose, in their dullest frames, can read the Bible, go to the Throne of Grace, and mourn, as they ought, over what is amiss, I must say of myself; I can and I cannot! Without a doubt I can take the Bible in my hand, and force myself to read it; I can kneel down, and I can see that I ought to mourn; but to understand and attend to what I read and engage my heart in prayer, or to be duly humbled under the sense of so dark and dissipated a state of mind; these things, at some seasons, I can no more do than raise the dead; and yet I cannot plead positive inability. I am satisfied that what prevents me is my sin, but it is the sin of my nature, the sin that dwells within me. And I expect it will be thus with me at times, in a greater or less degree, till this body of sin shall be wholly destroyed.
We seem more attached to a few drops of grace (and I add common grace and not special grace) in our fellow creatures, than to the fullness of grace that is in himself. I think nothing gives me a more striking sense of my own depravity than my perverseness and folly in this respect; yet he bears with me, and does me good continually.
Though sin wars, it shall not reign; and though it breaks our peace, it cannot separate from his love. Nor is it inconsistent with his holiness and perfection, to manifest his favor to such poor defiled creatures, or to admit them to communion with himself; for they are not considered as in themselves, but as one with Jesus, to whom they have fled for refuge, and by whom they live by faith.