Flowers from a Puritan's Garden
by Charles Spurgeon, 1883
by Charles Spurgeon, 1883
The garden of the soul!
"The gardener knows what flowers are in the ground long before they appear."
Look over the garden in winter, and you will not see any flowers there. But the gardener sees in his mind's eye — here a circle of golden cups, as if set out for a royal banquet; and there a cluster of snow-white beauties, drooping with excess of modest purity. His eye knows where the daffodils and anemones lie asleep, waiting to rise in all their loveliness. And he has learned the secret of the primroses and the violets, who wait in ambush until the first warm breath of spring shall bid them to reveal themselves.
Even thus does the Lord know His hidden ones, long before the day of their conversion. He sees His church before his ministers see it, and declares concerning immoral heathen at Corinth, "I have many people in this city!"
The figure may be applied to the garden of the soul. What graces are planted in the renewed heart, waiting their season — the Creator of those graces knows right well! He sees our faith, and love, and hope, and patience — long before we can see them. Yes, and He discerns them when we ourselves question their existence. He not only knows those who are His, but all that is his within them. Nothing of His implanting is hidden from His inspection.
Bulbs and seeds of holiness are sown in the righteous, and therefore are out of their sight. But he who placed them where they are, has marked the spot, and not one of them shall die. Expectantly He waits to see His people's lives become "as beds of spices, as sweet flowers."
Lord, it is because you know all things, that you know that I love you. Were you not omniscient, I fear you would not know my sadly feeble love, buried as it is beneath so much sin and carnality. Lord, cause the sacred seed of grace to grow, and then I too shall be assured of its existence, and my present questions and doubts shall flee away!
"The gardener knows what flowers are in the ground long before they appear."
Look over the garden in winter, and you will not see any flowers there. But the gardener sees in his mind's eye — here a circle of golden cups, as if set out for a royal banquet; and there a cluster of snow-white beauties, drooping with excess of modest purity. His eye knows where the daffodils and anemones lie asleep, waiting to rise in all their loveliness. And he has learned the secret of the primroses and the violets, who wait in ambush until the first warm breath of spring shall bid them to reveal themselves.
Even thus does the Lord know His hidden ones, long before the day of their conversion. He sees His church before his ministers see it, and declares concerning immoral heathen at Corinth, "I have many people in this city!"
The figure may be applied to the garden of the soul. What graces are planted in the renewed heart, waiting their season — the Creator of those graces knows right well! He sees our faith, and love, and hope, and patience — long before we can see them. Yes, and He discerns them when we ourselves question their existence. He not only knows those who are His, but all that is his within them. Nothing of His implanting is hidden from His inspection.
Bulbs and seeds of holiness are sown in the righteous, and therefore are out of their sight. But he who placed them where they are, has marked the spot, and not one of them shall die. Expectantly He waits to see His people's lives become "as beds of spices, as sweet flowers."
Lord, it is because you know all things, that you know that I love you. Were you not omniscient, I fear you would not know my sadly feeble love, buried as it is beneath so much sin and carnality. Lord, cause the sacred seed of grace to grow, and then I too shall be assured of its existence, and my present questions and doubts shall flee away!
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