(From “Waiting At Wisdom’s Gates”, 1843)

“Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.” Proverbs 8:34
When he who has climbed in over the wall, that has taken up a profession of religion without feeling its power, whose religion has hitherto been “feeding upon ashes,” and who has never known the strait gate and narrow way, is awakened by the solemn feeling that “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, and that except a man be born from above, he cannot see or enter into the kingdom of God”; when the sluggard awakens from his slumber, and the man that was asleep upon the top of the mast has his eyes opened to see his danger, and his heart and mouth opened to implore assistance, when the Spirit Jehovah has blown upon the bosom, and all its glory withers away; when natural knowledge of Divine truth, formal prayer, mock spirituality, feigned love, and presumptuous confidence become “a heap and desperate sorrow”; when examining himself whether he be in the faith, and trying himself by the test of God’s Word, his faith is found to stand not in the power of God, but in the wisdom of man, his hope to be a false one, his love only fleshly and excited feelings, his zeal a spark from the fire of his own kindling, his wisdom folly; when he sees Tekel written upon his forehead and he trembles lest he should be lost after all his profession; when he cannot find that God has begun a good work in him, and yet lifts up his voice and entreats the Lord to have mercy upon him, and lead him in the way everlasting; when his spirit is broken with grief and sorrow, his strength has failed him and is gone, his beauty is turned into corruption, his sweet smell becomes a stink, and his girdle a rent; when, under these feelings, he is constrained to sit alone and keep silence, to separate from those he once walked with, and to esteem those to be the excellent of the earth that he once despised; when he feels the vanity of all teaching but Divine teaching, the folly of all wisdom which comes not from “the Spirit of Wisdom,” and the abomination of all religion that is not planted in the heart by God’s own hand; when he besieges the throne of grace with fervent petitions that he may not go on deceiving and being deceived, but that he may know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent; that he may have godly sorrow bestowed upon him, to work in his soul repentance not to be repented of; and that he may have the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, put into his heart, with faith, hope, and love, a tender conscience, godly sincerity, truth, uprightness, meekness, and humility. Then he may be said to have heard the still small voice of Wisdom, to have heard her rod, and who has appointed it. He has then the features of a “blessed” man; “Blessed is the man that hears Me.”