It is of immense interest and profoundly instructive to us, to trace the history of souls in the word of God. Not only does this interest grow upon us in apprehending His dealings with “men of like passions as ourselves”; but in such a study we learn what God Himself is, in His unspeakable goodness and mercy: One who never withdraws His gifts, nor repents of His calling; and who never falters in His purpose until it is accomplished fully; in vessels “which he afore hath prepared unto glory, even us whom he hath called; not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.”
In all this work His sovereignty shines conspicuously. Nay, He would have us accord to Him His own place in this; who “works all things after the counsel of his own will.” He has a right to do as He pleases, which man has not. Man would seek to bind God to certain laws of his own, and so fetter His sovereign will, as to refuse that He should act outside them, but once we know that all our blessing hinges upon His absoluteness-and that this absoluteness is pleased to display itself in mercy, in which He delights — all is changed. In fact, beloved reader, we are shut up to this in God. We have no more right to claim our soul’s salvation from Him, than we have power to change places with Him on His throne of glory! We may have grace given to surrender this supposed claim; to put ourselves before Him, conscious that He has a right to do just as it pleases Him. We may find, too — nay, we shall find, that our very title to mercy is the absence of any! and that rest of soul is found in His nature itself — which, had He not been pleased to reveal to us, in Christ, we never even would have known.
He was pleased to create a world, to set it revolving in space amongst the countless orbs which shine in the heavens around us. He was pleased to allow sin and death to enter that fair scene. Who can reply? He was pleased to choose and to call a people out of it, and to permit them to destroy themselves, while He, with long suffering, bore with them “till there was no remedy.” He was pleased to send His Son to endure the cross and bear His wrath. Who was before Him in all this? Not one! In all things He wrought He permitted; He ordered; and it is He who challenges the stubborn heart which would say “Why doth he yet find fault; for who hath resisted his will?” It is He who deigns to stoop to the reply, “Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?” (Rom. 9:2020Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? (Romans 9:20)).
Have we ever stood in the potter’s house, and beheld him, as he wrought on the wheels? The workman takes the lump of clay; he presses it to the wheel; the wheel revolves before his eye. Where now, (let me ask) is the vessel? It is in the mind of the potter, before it is formed: the design is there. His fingers shape the mass before him: gradually it grows up before his eye: gradually the thought in his mind is transferred to the clay, and it rises up before him, and the thoughts hitherto unexpressed, grow into the vessel which his fingers mold.
He sees a flaw; an imperfection in the clay. Others, beholding, have not detected it, as with the artist’s eye. He crushes the clay, under his hand into a shapeless mass again. And again his fingers mold and fashion it into his design. Again, and again defects appear. Again and again the clay is reduced to a shapeless mass, until at last it rises, in perfection of design before him; his eye surveys it with satisfaction and pride; and he removes it from the wheel to take its place with the choice things of the earth around.
Where now is the potter? Where was the vessel before he began? It was in the potter! Where now is the potter? He is in the vessel All that his mind designed and wrought is there seen. The vessel is fit for that which he had intended.
And this is the history of the soul. The clay is in the Potter’s hand. His fingers fashion it, and it is marred; the clay needs more of His patient manipulation and skill. It is not yet smooth and even, nor pliable to His hand. He crushes it time after time. The perfect vessel stood before His mind and purpose ere His hand had taken the clay, and placed it on the wheel. But when all is done, He has transferred His thought with unerring skill to the clay; the Potter is now seen in His handiwork; and it is a vessel of mercy, which He afore has prepared for glory.
How important, as these crushings take place, is the need of the interpretation of these skillful workings of the hand of the Potter! How often are the lessons misunderstood; or not apprehended at all! In the history of souls in the Word these actions are seen; the results are reached. In them we read the history of His dealings with our own souls, and the handiwork of God. We look then for the lines of beauty, resulting from His hand; we yield ourselves to the things which happen; we see the end of the Lord: we know how it is that all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to His purpose.
As a Potter (Yatsar) the Lord God took of the dust of the ground, in the first creation; and fashioned it into a man; and then “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” But the vessel was marred. Again the divine Potter takes of the same lump, and puts forth afresh His skill, and forms a vessel of mercy, for eternal glory: a new creation in “ Christ.”