Life and Times of David. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. VIMackintosh, Charles Henry
Religion
Life and Times of David. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. VI
Mackintosh, Charles Henry
Theology
"_I am undone._" He does not say, "Woe is me! I am not what I ought to
be." No; he saw deeper than this. He stood revealed in the power of a
light which reaches to the most profound depths of the soul and
discloses "the thoughts and intents of the heart." Isaiah had never
before seen himself in such a light--measured himself by such a
rule--weighed himself in such a balance. He now saw himself standing
in the presence of Jehovah's throne without any ability whatever to
meet the claims of that throne. He "saw Jehovah sitting upon a throne,
high and lifted up." He saw himself a helpless, ruined, guilty sinner
at an immeasurable distance from that throne and from the blessed One
who sat thereon. He heard the cry of the seraphim, "Holy, holy, holy";
and the only response which he could send back from the depths of a
broken heart was, "Unclean, unclean, unclean." He beheld a gulf of
guilt and uncleanness separating him from Jehovah which no effort of
his could ever bridge. Thus it was with him in that solemn moment when
he gave forth that cry of a truly convicted soul, "Woe is me!" He was
wholly engrossed with one thought, namely, _his own utter ruin_. He
felt himself _a lost man_. He thought not of comparing himself with
others, nor of seeking out some fellow-sinner worse than he. Ah, no! a
divinely-convicted soul never thinks of such things. There is one
grand, all-pervading idea, and that idea is embodied in the words, "I
am undone."
And be it carefully noted by the reader that the prophet when under
the convicting light of the throne is not occupied with what he had
done or left undone. The question before his soul was not as to the
evil he had done or the good he had left undone. No; it was something
far deeper than this. In a word, he was occupied not with his _acts_
but with his _condition_. He says, "_I am_" what? Defective in many
things? Far behind in my duty? Deplorably short of what I ought to be?
No. These and such-like confessions could never embody the experience
of a heart on which the bright beams of Jehovah's throne had fallen in
convicting power. True it is "we have done that which we ought not to
have done, and left undone that which we ought to have done." But all
this is merely the fruit of a nature which is radically corrupt, and
when divine light breaks in upon us it will always lead us to the
_root_. It will not merely conduct us from leaf to leaf or from branch
to branch, but passing down along the trunk it will lay bare the
hidden roots of that nature which we inherit by birth from our first
parents, and cause us to see that the whole thing is irremediably
ruined. Then it is we are constrained to cry out, "Woe is me!" Not
because my _conduct_ has been defective, but my nature is undone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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