Octavius Winslow

Are there things in one’s spiritual life, that you always seem to be going to sort out, attend to, be obedient under God to, “tomorrow”? Yet, tomorrow, always remains tomorrow? We are told in Scripture to redeem the time well, and that includes not putting off to tomorrow what we can or should do today. Because, even if bursting full of health and vitality today, no one in even that condition can grantee they will have a tomorrow. No one has any certainty that when we go to sleep tonight, we will wake up in the same bed tomorrow morning to go about our day and be pilgrims on earth.

Oliver Cromwell is a somewhat intriguing and fascinating character in history. Folk seem to either love him or hate him; he is either viewed as a great man of God; or a tyrannical megalomania. I be live Cromwell maybe one of those figures in history that over time, the truth has so many different versions that we may never really know the truth about Cromwell the man, the Christian in our age, beyond speculation or guess work.

However, I did read something interesting regarding Cromwell, where he himself on his deathbed, more or less stated he had fallen from grace.

Cromwell died on September 3rd, 1658, and on his death bed he had this conversation with his chaplain.

Cromwell: Tell me, is it possible to fall from grace?

Chaplin: No, it is not possible.

Cromwell: Then I am safe, for I know that I was once in grace.

Yet we know that people can have what to all appearances are true conversions, yet they are temporary and they fall away, they are not savingly converted. So one cannot be sure that Cromwell’s security or assurance was well founded.
However, his words indicate that he had been aware for some time at the state of his declension, and reading the below by Octavius Winslow, wonders if he was like the prodigal, only in the excerpt below, the prodigal only meant to return, yet never quite did:

Too Many rest in a mere deploring of their barrenness ; they will ingenuously acknowledge their state, freely confess It before God and yet meet them When you will, this is always their posture, and thus their confession. One seems to mark in them no advance, no striving after higher attainments, the Crucifixion of known Infirmities, the mortification of easy besetting Sin. the surrender of that which feedeth as a worm upon the rest of the religion There just seems like an Consciousness enough to detect the Secret declension of the Soul, but not enough to arrest its progress
–Octavius Winslow

you see we really do need to do today, what we ought and should do, and not put it off until a “tomorrow” that never quite arrives.

Return, O wanderer, return!
And seek an injured Father’s face;
Those warm desires that in thee burn,
Were kindled by reclaiming grace.

Return, O Wanderer, return!
Thy Saviour bids Thy spirit live;
Go to His bleeding side and learn,
How freely Jesus can forgive.

Return, O wanderer, return!
Regain thy lost, lamented rest;
Jehovah’s melting bowels yearn,
To clasp His Ephraim to His breast.”
–Octavius Winslow

A professing Christian man may talk well of Christ, and may do homage to his Name, and build up his cause, and promote his kingdom, and yet rest short of having Christ in his heart, the
hope of glory. It is not talking about religion, or ministers, or Churches, nor an outward Zeal for their prosperity, that either Constitutes or indicates a truly spritual man, And yet how much of this in our day passes current for the life of God in the soul?
O that among God’s dear Saints there were less talking of ministers and more of Jesus; less of sermons and more of the power of The truth In their Souls; less of “I am of Paul” and “I of Appollos” and more of 1am of Christ.
Octavius winslow-”Personal Declension and revival of religion in the Soul.”

It is the privilege of a poor soul to go to Jesus at his worst, to go in darkness, to go in weak faith, to go when everything says “stay away”, to go in the face of opposition, to hope against hope, to go in the consciousness of having walked at a distance, to press through the crowd to the throne of grace, to take the hard, the cold, the reluctant heart and lay it before the Lord. O what a triumph this is of the power and the grace of the blessed Spirit in a poor believer! What is your state? Are you weak in prayer? Are you tried in prayer? And yet is there anything at all of real want, of real desire in your heart? Is this so? Then draw near to God. Your state of mind will not be more favourable tomorrow than it is today. You will not be more acceptable or welcome at any future period than you are at this moment. Give yourself to prayer. Supposing your state is the worst that can be, your frame of mind the most unfavourable, your heart the hardest; still go to the throne of grace, and opening your case to the Lord with groanings that cannot be uttered, you shall adopt the song of David, who could say in the worst state, and in the most pressing times, “But I give myself unto prayer” [Ps 109:4]—”O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked unto Him, and were lightened; and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” Ps 34:3-6.

The throne of grace is for the needy. It is always a time of need with a child of God. “Without me,” says Jesus, “ye can do nothing.” [John 15:5] There is not a moment when, if he knows his real state, he is not in need of something. What a blessing then is the throne of grace! It is for the needy. It is for those who are in want, those to whom all other doors are closed, with whom all other resources have failed, who have nowhere else to look, nowhere else to fly. To such is the throne of grace always open. Is it a time of trial with you? then it is a time of need.

Take your trial, whatever it be, simply to God. Do not brood over it. This will not make it sweeter or more easy to be borne, but taking it to Jesus will. The very act of taking it will lighten it, and casting it upon His tenderness and sympathy will make it sweet. Is it a time of spiritual darkness with you? Then it is a time of need. Take your darkness to the throne of grace, and “in His light” Who sits upon it, you “shall see light”. Is it a time of adverse providences? Then it is a time of need. And where can you go for guidance, for direction, for counsel and for light upon the intricacies of the way, but to the God of grace? Is it a time of temporal distress with you? Then it is a time of need. Take your temporal cases and necessities to the Lord, for He Who is the God of grace is also the God of providence. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” [Heb 4:16
—Octavius Winslow