Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Bunyan of Brooklyn podcast. I am your host, Tony Miano. Thank you very much for joining me. When we began this series of podcasts, which is primarily a reading of Pastor Ichabod Spencer's book, A Pastor's Sketches, I made mention of the fact that from time to time, we would stop our reading of that wonderful book to read some of Pastor Ichabod Spencer's sermons, and that's what we're going to do today. Now, I've read a pastor's sketches four, maybe five times. I'm reading it twice now as we go through these podcasts, once in preparation to do the podcast and reading it, of course, during the podcast. And so I'm very familiar with Pastor Ichabod Spencer as an evangelist. I'm well familiar with him as an apologist. But I really knew nothing about the man, and I had never heard him preach. Now, of course, he was a pastor in Brooklyn, New York in the mid-19th century, so none of us have heard him preach. But I have on my shelf a three-volume set of Pastor Ichabod Spencer's sermons published by Solid Ground Christian Books. The first of the three volumes includes 125 to 130 page biography, as well as a collection of what are considered his practical sermons, his practical sermons. And so prior to a few days ago, I had never read one of Ichabod Spencer's sermons, and after reading the first sermon, I asked myself, why? Tony, why have you not been reading this man's sermons? If the first sermon I read, which is going to be the sermon I read to you today, If that first sermon I read is any indication of what kind of preaching he did regularly, I am going to be edified, and I believe you will be too. And so, again, that's what we're going to do today. We're going to read one of Pastor Ichabod Spencer's sermons. It is the first sermon I've ever read. I read it just a few days ago. I'm working my way through the second sermon now. As I was, I believe you will be very, very encouraged. The title of this first sermon is A Devotional Spirit, and the verse from which Pastor Iqbal Spencer draws his sermon is Psalm 73, 28, which reads, It is good for me to draw near to God. Alright, I hope you're encouraged by this reading of the sermon. Now, keep in mind, reading a sermon is much different than preaching a sermon, and reading someone else's sermon is even more different than that. So, I ask for your patience as I read. I'm not a professional reader, as I've mentioned before, so forgive me for times when my cadence is off or I mispronounce a word or something like that. I hope it's not a distraction to you in any way and hope it doesn't take away from the encouragement I believe you're going to receive from this sermon. All right. A devotional spirit. The devotional spirit manifestly was prevailing in the heart of Asaph when he uttered these words. In the former part of the psalm, he rehearses what had been some of his experiences at a time when, it would seem, such a spirit of devotion did not prevail with him. At that time, speculation prevailed. It had very much taken the place of devotional feelings. It did him no good. He found it did him no good. His steps had well nigh slipped. Says he, he was envious at the foolish when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. He could not so understand God as to be happy and satisfied. The impenetrable shade of a dark cloud hung over his allotments, and all his sagacity and study could not lead him to such an understanding of God as to bring peace to his heart. But now, done with speculation and animated with the spirit of devotion, he was more happy. He was satisfied with God. He was satisfied also with himself. The exercises of his devotional soul were soothing and pleasant to him. It is good for me to draw near to God. The text itself, therefore taken in its connection, shows us that the author was now in a devotional frame of mind. There are different means of grace, and there are different exercises of piety. None of them are to be undervalued. in their place, they may all be beneficial. But there are some reasons for supposing that those exercises of religion which are more purely of a devotional nature are not comparatively justly valued among Christians, and much less are they justly valued among unbelievers. Be this as it may, the devotional parts of religion are of much moment to us. We ought to know this. We ought to give to them their just weight. We propose, therefore, 1. To explain what is meant by this devotional spirit, and 2. To demonstrate its importance and commend it to your cultivation. 1. The Explanation An emotional spirit is a thing susceptible of an intelligible explanation. The accuracy of the understanding of the explanation will always depend far more upon the justness of the heart's temper than upon any mere clearness of intellectual ideas. But it is easy for anyone to perceive that there is a vast difference between that state of mind which merely delights to contemplate religious truth as a matter of observation or intellectual apprehension, and that state of mind which contemplates it in the way of a personal and ready application for the soul's use. Study is one thing, and obedience is quite another. To know is one thing, and to feel is quite another. It would be impossible to sketch all the exercises of a devotional spirit. They are infinitely various. Such a spirit has its peculiarities of exercise and all the means of religion in all its ideas and all its affections. You will have sufficient understanding of it by attention to these three ideas, its means, its refuge, and its exercises. 1. Its Means Such a spirit finds at once delight and improvement, especially in such things as prayer, meditation, contemplations of God in heaven, remembrances of God's dealings with the soul, and thankfulness and praise amid both recollections of the past and anticipations of the future. Private prayer and private meditation, in a special manner, are the means of good to which a devotional spirit turns. Such a spirit is the poetry of religion. It delights in song. It breathes in song. It lives in song. Its soul, its whole soul, can blend with the harp of David or the lyre of Asaph. A believer of such a spirit delights in, and is improved by, the psalms and hymns of religion, as well as the mere argumentative or didactic truths of religion. It is not so much the study of truth as the use of it, the taste and enjoyment of it, and hence its resort is, in a special manner, to such means of grace as we have just mentioned. 2. Its Refuge A devotional spirit is a spirit which has direct reference very much to God Himself. To draw near to God is its aim and delight. His character, His law, His love, His dispensations, and His presence are not mere matters of a speculative understanding to a devotional soul, but they are matters of taste and experience, of delight and strength. God is sought. And hence, all those religious exercises which have more immediate or direct respect to God Himself become the choice of the soul. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon the earth that I desire beside Thee. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God, as the heart panteth for the water brooks. So panteth my soul after Thee, O God. And hence, it is easy for us to understand that those great doctrines of truth which unfold the character of God, His sovereignty, government, and grace, are the very matters which kindle the devotions of a truly pious soul. God's independence, His majesty, His holiness, His eternal election, His redemption by the great atonement, His efficacious grace and everlasting faithfulness, the truths which make God Himself familiar to the soul in all the solemn holiness and majesty of His nature, are the things which true devotion loves best and clings to longest. Solid doctrine feeds devotion. It fills the soul because it is full of God. Aside from such doctrine, true devotion dies. 3. Exercises With a devotional spirit, the religious affections are particularly exercised, not merely religious mind or religious conscience, but religious affections. Heart takes the lead in a devotional Principle is not undervalued, indeed, but principle is not everything, not the main thing, with a believer in his devotional frame. Instruction has more immediate respect to the understanding, the will, the conscience. Devotion exercises the affections. And, consequently, a devotional spirit is ordinarily a more happy spirit. Happy it will be with a species of happiness it would not willingly dispense with, even amid its occasional pensiveness in seasons of the twilight of the soul. Such graces of the Spirit as love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, the dependence of the Spirit upon God and hope in Him, are the common exercises of a devotional spirit. These are some of the marks of such a spirit. You may find examples of its exercise in such places as the Psalms, in Job, in many passages of the Prophets and of the New Testament. You may find examples of it, too, wherever you can find believers having peculiar attachment to prayer, private and social, to meditation, habitual and sweet, to contemplations of heaven and remembrances of God's mercies, and having habits of walking with God and habits of exercising the affections of piety as the delights of the heart. 2. We pass, as we proposed, to demonstrate the importance of a devotional spirit and commend it to your cultivation. We name to you nine different ideas. 1. The devotional spirit, in a very special manner, tends to improve a believer in the most important parts of his piety. There are sentiments, as well as principles, in religion. In some respects, the piety of sentiment, wherein the ardor and strength of the affections are brought into exercise, is superior to the piety of mere principle, wherein reason and conscience take the whole control. the affections more peculiarly, then either reason or conscience constitute the lifeblood of a vital religion. If the affections were right, the conscience would seldom be wrong, and reason would seldom be jostled from her throne by the deceptions of sin. Sin itself, and the deep home of its existence, is to be found rather among those diverse lusts that take up their abode in the heart than among imperfections of knowledge or primary pollution of the moral principle. While it is true that the sinfulness of man certainly includes the corruption of his whole nature, It is at the same time true also that the fountainhead of corruption is to be found in the heart. And the employment of argumentation of principles of conscience and reason on the subjects of religion is a matter which has its aim not so much to drive deception from the judgment as to dethrone sin from its empire seat in the heart. reason and the moral principle are brought into exercise in order to have all the thunder of their artillery directed against the citadel of sin, and make the sinner know in mind and feel in conscience that a new heart is indispensable to his peace with God. And in the exercises of a positive religion, a believer will be very signally defective unless he has to aid himself the impulses and delights of affection, as well as the purity and strength of principle. A devotional spirit is just the thing to reinstate the affections into their own place and gift them with power. It is this which will lead one to that part of piety which is most directly opposed to the very essence of sin. It is this which will lead a believer to serve God from love, and not from mere principle, from delight in his character, and not from a cold respect to the magnitude of obligation. In devotion the soul is fed. It gains its strength and satisfaction. Devotion is not study. It is not labor. It is not mind grappling with the severities of knowledge. It is just heart breathing its wants into the ear of God in prayer, meditating in delightful complacency upon His character and love, or singing its joyful songs of delight. It is heart entering into the great doctrines, feeding on the bread of life. It is, therefore, just an indulgence of the heart's affections, satisfied with God and hoping in His lovingkindness. By a devotional spirit, the heart becomes better. It becomes more tender, more humble, more happy. It breathes freer. It rises above the cloudy atmosphere of this world, where mists and fogs obscure and storms beat. and in the light of eternity in God, takes its own chosen course in the exercise of affections, bland as they are strong. A devotional spirit exercised in the love of God, in faith of Christ, in divine fellowship, in prayer, in song, will wear away that sternness and severity of character and all that coldness of a calculating spirit which sometimes distinguishes a man of principle without love. It is this devotional spirit which we need to make us affectionate Christians, to cultivate and adorn that part of piety which tends as much to make men love us as purity of principle does to command their esteem. 2. A devotional spirit is of no small moment for us. even in reference to a just apprehension of divine truth. Because the truth is the instrument of sanctification, it does not therefore follow that mind alone has business with it, or alone can understand it rightly. The heart has much to do with it. Indeed, there will always be a real and practical defect in the religious intelligence of the mere scholar. He may learn his lesson intellectually, and then it is only half learnt. He needs to learn it devotionally. His heart needs its impulse quite as much as his head needs its light or its logic. Divine truth will have quite a different aspect when a soul comes to employ it in intercourse with God from what it will have in the eye of a mere beholder who only examines it by itself. and affectionate Christian, full of sentiments of piety which delight in prayer, in meditation and praise, in the exercises of trust and love and hope, is just the soul to see divine truth in its proper dimensions and aspects, and to take its proper direction. It is speculation which bewilders. Love, tenderness, faith, delight in God never bewilder. A frame of mind which does God the homage that belongs to Him, which delights to draw near to Him and depend upon Him, will ordinarily give two different divine truths their just relative importance. And those great and deep doctrines, which trouble so many minds with perplexity and doubt, will lose all their power to trouble when received with the solemnity, homage, and affection which are exercised and nurtured by habits of devotion. Such doctrines, like the majesty and mysteries of the thunder, were not given to be understood so much as to awe and humble. Impression was more the purpose of them than comprehension. Like the self-existence of God and the eternity of God, we may grapple with them forever in vain if we only design to sit in judgment upon their dimensions, and not to be awed and influenced by matters we cannot fathom. Much in God, and therefore much in religion, is unfathomable to us. and those deep things which a mere speculator might dig at forever without profit, are the very things which a devout spirit contemplates most delightfully and understands the best. These deep doctrines are most like God, unfathomable and peculiar, in many things beyond mind, but in all things such as the heart loves to lean upon, sensible of imperfection and sin here, and hastening to a deep and unseen eternity. the sovereignty of God, His eternal decrees, His blended justice and mercy in the atonement made for sinners by the sacrifice of Christ, these are just the rock of repose for a devotional man, and just the wilderness of perplexity for one of an opposite spirit. The frame of devotion is the fit frame of study. You will not be likely to misunderstand God on your knees. 3. A devotional spirit greatly contributes to the promotion of holiness in the soul because it employs the influences of beneficial and powerful habitudes of mind. Devotion is not like study. There is a wide difference betwixt them. You can not take it up when you will. You need something more than an act of volition to enter upon it really and therefore profitably. It belongs to the heart, its frames, temper, and hopes, its delights, tenderness, and faith, more than to the mind. The heart will not yield its frames and impressions to your command in the same manner as you can command your thoughts to what subject of study you will. A devotional spirit is a habitude of the soul. It is a cast of character flung over it and woven into it. It is more of a frame than a mere fact, more of an abiding spirit carried along with it than a mere exercise taken up for the occasion. Human character, good or bad, worldly or religious, is very much formed by the subtle and plastic influence of habits, and habits too, in all ordinary cases, in very little things. To cultivate an emotional spirit, therefore, has the advantage of arraying the full influence of habit on the side of sanctification. Such a spirit not only keeps the mind in such a frame that the occasions of devotion are not barren, but in such a frame that its ordinary exercises amid the busyness of the world are more just and peaceful. A devotional man has his spirit arrayed in the panoply of God. He brings all things to the examination of a mind tempered with piety. He receives more profit from devotional privileges because he goes into his closet, or to the place of social prayer, or to the house of God with a soul ready for their duties. And he departs carrying the same spirit along with him, a help, a habit, and a delight. The devotional habit lends its influence amid the thousand thoughts and emotions of life to promote the holiness of his soul. It spreads over all of them. It tempers every emotion, touches every thought, tunes every passion, because it lives and bears the sway of habit in the life spring of them all. Number four. The devotional spirit is one of the strongest safeguards, therefore, against the subtlety of temptation. Temptations are ordinarily addressed to two things. First, to an unguarded heart. They seldom assail principle directly. They assail it only through the medium of affections, of passions. The power of truth is always superior to the power of error when the two principles assail an unbiased mind. Temptations to sin prevail when the mind has received a bias, and principle has become weak through sinful affections. Passion is a foe to principle. It biases mind. It creates prejudice or some other mental deception. And truth is obscured in principle's sacrifice not because the argumentation of sin is superior to the argumentation of holiness. but because their argumentations are addressed to feelings, not to reason. Now it is only a devotional spirit occupying the heart which can prevent its bias of the mind and its giving efficacy to temptation. An unoccupied heart is a source of danger. An engaged one is a source of security. and mere conscience, mere truth, ever so clear, mere principle, ever so pure, do not lie in the soul on the side where temptation assails. There is nothing which can secure, but a heart accustomed to something more than doctrine, more than truth in the abstract. The heart needs precisely that frame of devotion which spreads over it all, which forms its habitudes of affection, and which says to its solicitations of the evil, Depart from me, ye evildoers, for I will keep the commandments of my God. Not the most instructed, the most enlightened believers, are the most secure, but the most habitually devotional. All the high places of our Zion are wet with the blood of the slain, while the foot of the altar where the humble meal has never yet been reached by the sword of the enemy. The second thing which temptation addresses is a lacking of enjoyment. Some painted delight is held up before a wanting heart, and the arguments which may impose silence upon the passions are not always powerful enough to eradicate them. The arguments may be conclusive enough in the sermon, in the book, in the hours of abstraction and study, and yet they may fail entirely, their strength be turned into weakness before the attractions of pleasure, or the wild tide of solicited passions. Now it is the piety of devotion, just the piety of affection and taste, just the piety which is more than principle and truth. and has become habit and happiness, which can secure a tempted believer. The delight of a devotional spirit needs to be put in opposition to the proffered delights of sin. Joy in God must be opposed to joy in sin, and the pleasures of a devotional indulgence opposed to the pleasures of indulgence in forbidden delights. Feeling in religion will be opposed to feeling in sin. The security will be just where temptation assaults. Joy will be opposed to joy, pleasure to pleasure. The pleasure of converse with heaven to the pleasure of converse with the world. And the delights of the place of prayer to the delights of the place where prayer is never breathed. With a heart whose frame of habitual devotion can say, It is good for me to draw near to Temptations of sinful pleasure will seldom prevail. 5. Let it be remembered that a devotional spirit cultivates all the Christian graces. If truth and instruction lay the foundation of them, it is devotion that adorns them with their loveliness. Faith is nurtured by devotion, so is love, so is peace of mind, so is humility. In meditation, in prayer, in retirement from the world for the purposes of fellowship with the Holy Ghost and contemplation of the saints' everlasting rest, those Christian affections, which are denominated the fruits of the Spirit, receive more of the vivacity and strength and delight of life than by any other means. All the Christian graces are exercised in devotion. Faith is exercised in prayer, in praise, in anticipations of heaven, in communion with God. Hope is exercised. Joy in God is exercised. The whole heart is unloosed from the bonds of the world and the labors of study to act its chosen part in the enjoyment of God in all the felicities of a foretaste of heaven. One advantage of a devotional spirit arises from its independence. There is such a thing as leaning upon others for aid and doing nothing in the style of independence and personal strength. Such a one always remains feeble. His powers are only half developed. He cannot have much manliness of character. All men cannot become accomplished theologians and, by extent of knowledge and chains of logic, become firm and secure in opinions of truth. But all men can be men of love and men of prayer. All believers can attain a piety whose taste and sentiment, whose delight in God and ardor of love may do more for them than all possible stores of knowledge. You will never find a man of prayer less firm, less independent, less manly than a man of knowledge. one whose devotional heart has its affections habitually exercised in religion, one whose piety is his delight as well as his duty, one who can say to his God and Father, I remember Thee upon my bed. When I awake, I am still with Thee. Such a man will have an independence, a manliness of religion, which mere principle, mere knowledge, and moral obligation can never attain. His piety is woven round his affections. His heart will be firm. Love has taught him. Prayer has taught him. Praise, meditation, contemplations of heaven, and walking with God have taught him. He judges of all things for Himself, for He judges of all things not by the human book, not by the beauty and tastefulness of the sermon, but by the book of God and the great doctrines which feed the powers of life within Him, a life which breathes in prayer and lives on God. He can tell what feeds him, aids him, comforts him. He can judge for himself because he judges by his heart. Hence, 7. The spirit of devotion tends to cultivate a different kind of piety from the piety of mere knowledge, and a kind perhaps not a little wanted. The piety of devotion, a taste and sentiment, is tender, childlike, habitual, and humble. It is patient, forbearing. forgiving. If it is not qualified for attack, it is qualified for defense. If it cannot make display, it can be diligent in duty. And it will be found like the flower of the rock, green and flourishing, when all around is wilted and barren. 8. The spirit of devotion we commend to you is the spirit which will make increase of holiness from means which without it would be barren of benefit. A devotional spirit is its own instructor. It does much of its own preaching. It is self-tuition, self-rebuke, self-munition. A man of this taste for walking with God learns and grows on his knees, in the closet, in meditation, in society. Means of good profit him which are barren to others. Take a single example. The works of creation and ordinary providence are full of benefit to him. If he cannot have a sermon in the sanctuary, he can find one in the field. The heavens preach to him. The earth preaches. The beasts and birds teach him. O Lord my God, thou art very great. Thou art clothed with honor and majesty, who coverest thyself with light as with a garment, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters, who maketh the clouds his chariot, who walketh upon wings of the wind. He sendeth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field. The wild asses quench their thirst. By them shall the fowls of heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches. He watereth the hills from his chambers. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man. The trees of the Lord are full of sap, cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted, where the birds make their nests. As for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the goats, and the rocks for the conies. He appointed the moon for seasons, and the sun knoweth His going down. Thou makest darkness, and it is night. The earth is full of thy riches, so is the great and wide sea. The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever. The Lord shall rejoice in His works. He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth. He toucheth the hills, and they smoke. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of Him shall be sweet. I will be glad in the Lord. It is good for me to draw nigh unto God. Psalm 109 Thus a taste for devotion and piety cannot be at a loss for materials to work with. They are everywhere, because to such a spirit God is everywhere visible. It is the Lord who clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven. He gives the touches of their beauty to the lilies of the field, which toil not. 9. Finally, that spirit of devotion which we commend very much hangs round the very essentials of religion. It is familiar with Christ. and familiar with Him not as a mere king, but as a friend. His love prevails in its songs, His tenderness, His sacrifice and compassion. A man of this sort of piety loves the communion table, the closet, the prayer meeting. He is familiar with sin. He knows who has lifted off from his soul the burden of its guilt. And he often has occasion to mourn its power as it clips the wings of an affection which would soar to God. He is familiar with God. Prayer, praise, and fellowship with Him, joy, peace, and hope, which bathe now in His light and drink from His rivers of love, do not leave God a stranger to the soul. He is familiar with the promises. He gathers up the history of their verification from the saints who have gone before Him, and takes their safe conduct to lead His willing spirit to that unseen abode. Apostles, martyrs, prophets there around my Savior stand, as soon my friends in Christ below will join that heavenly band. He is familiar with that iron fortitude and tender love which took Jesus Christ through all the scenes of an earthly humiliation and death. He sings of Gethsemane. He plucks the flower that blooms in the garden of Arimathea and lifts his longing eyes from the top of Mount Olivet as the ascending Savior cleaves the clouds of heaven back into the bosom of his Father. He is familiar with death. He has often contemplated it, feared it, prayed about it, and, amid the crosses of the world and hopes of a final rest, sometimes even longed for it. He is familiar with heaven. It is his home. His hope is there. His heart is there. Sweetly he hopes, while tossed amid the storms of sin and the world here, and sometimes driven to despair by the buffetings of Satan, that he shall yet be at rest, where sin and Satan cannot reach him. Says he, It is a weary way, and I am faint. I pant for pure air and fresher springs. O Father, take me home. There is a taint. a shadow on earth's purest, brightest things. This world is but a wilderness to me. There is no rest, my God, no peace apart from Thee. Thus the devotional spirit lives and moves and has its being. among the very essentials of religion. Its frame is peaceful, though sometimes pensive. It is happy. It is heavenly. It hushes to rest the commotions of passion, and gives some solid good amid the tears and turmoil of the world. Happy frame, it wafts the spirit towards its home. God and hope and heaven are the solid materials for its joy, and though pained and barren everywhere else, Such a devotional believer can always say, it is good for me to draw near to God. Amen. Amen. Well, I hope you enjoyed today's reading of Pastor Ichabod Spencer's sermon, A Devotional Spirit. If you did, please include a comment below, whether you're watching the YouTube video version of the podcast or listening to it on sermon audio, there's an opportunity in either place for you to leave a comment. Now, there are a number of things in this sermon that I highlighted for myself, made notes in the book. I'm not going to take time to go over those now because I want you to ruminate, meditate upon what you heard in this sermon. You may even want to go back and listen to it again. But what I'm going to do, though, is I'm going to take some of those highlighted portions from the sermon, statements that Pastor Ichabod Spencer made that were particularly edifying to me, and I'm going to include them as quotes. in the comments, in the description rather, of the YouTube video and of the sermon audio version of this podcast. So they will be there for you. You can copy and paste those if you like. Share them on social media. Help me introduce other people to Pastor Ichabod Spencer. Again, I hope you were encouraged by this edition of the Bunyan of Brooklyn podcast. I hope you were encouraged by the reading of this sermon. We're going to read more of them, I assure you. But thanks again for joining me, and until next time, friends, God bless.