ORIGINAL LETTER FROM AN AGED MINISTER

My dear friend:—

I hope you and yours are cleaving with full purpose of heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, and fixing your whole affections on him, as your supreme portion, treasure, and inheritance. It is absolutely necessary for us so to do, as every thing else, wears a most gloomy aspect. Nothing can bear up our minds daily, hourly, and momently, and raise us above and beyond sin, self, misery, and distress, but simply looking unto Jesus, who gives his heart’s ease under heart trouble. All that you and I are in our natureselves is sin and misery, and every thing which gives us any sort or kind of uneasiness springs from within us: it were well if we clearly knew this, for then we should perceive our whole remedy to be in Christ. Yet such strangers are we to ourselves that we are continually thinking, if this were removed, if the other thing were granted, it would be otherwise with us than it now is.

No, we should be just as we are, let our state and circumstances be changed as it might; because we should have still the same self-well, affections, desires, and propensities we now have, I find and prove the truth of this by the experience of sixty years which have gone over my head; a part of which hath passed in infancy and childhood, yet enough hath been felt in youth, manhood, riper years, middle, and old age, to give just ground for asserting that every man living is altogether vanity.

There is no good out of Christ; it is all imaginary! It is all delusion! The generality of mankind find it so, therefore they grow tired of life; it is a drudgery to many to live any longer. Some seek relief from the miseries of life in religion, but in what they call religion it will never be found, for it is still in themselves they seek it, though they become religious: to be at the head of a party, to have a great name, to be thought a great deal of, to be very useful and hereby obtain great attention and respect, is the very life, soul, end, and aim of some devout and religious persons : if they lose their interest in those who have admired them, they are cut to the heart; it is death in the pot; they cannot bear it. What is such a religion worth? Nothing! whilst in Jesus Christ in the knowledge of him, and in communion with him, there is a real antidote for all the miseries we are the subjects of, and this is found no where else. If he dwell in your hearts by faith, you will prove the truth of this; for as all our sorrows arise from within us, so all our spiritual joys flow in upon us, as the Holy Spirit is pleased to teach us and realize in our hearts and lives the true and saving knowledge of Jesus. It is one part of his blessed work within us to shew us what we are, and to prove the truth of what he shews us, from our own experience of our own sinfulness and misery; in which under his heavenly instruction ye grow quite sick and wholly out of conceit with ourselves, and this brings us to loath ourselves, and to feel and confess that there is nothing in us but a privation of all good, and a positive inclination to evil.

You may think this is the first lesson in the school of Christ, and you judge right; and after he has begun he goes on with it, and he never rests from his work until he lands us in heaven; for by this he means to make us practical believers in Jesus, which we cannot be, without a daily knowledge of ourselves. We must know our disease, that we may apply to Christ for the cure of it: we must know our wants, that we may go to him for the supply of them: and we must feel our misery, that we may apprehend his mercy. It is not a general knowledge that we are sinners and sinful, will be a means of our living a life of faith on the Son of God. No; nor a knowledge of all the doctrines of grace neither; for we must be taught by the Holy Spirit what we are, and what we need; and he will not perform this but as he gives us to see and feel the truth of what he teaches us. Therefore he gives us daily in ourselves, by what springs from and arises in ourselves, to feel this truth that we are vile; and as he shews us the salvation of Jesus, he gives us to apprehend our everlasting health and cure, our free, full, present, and eternal redemption contained therein.

This salvation is so brought home to our minds that we enjoy the real benefit of it, by an inward spiritual apprehension of the same. He also shews us we need to have our spiritual minds continually engaged in it, in order that we may be continually receiving the benefit. This is the only preservative from present sin, and evil of every sort and kind, and by this lesson he shews us how they are to be brought into experience and practice: and the real knowledge of this is of the utmost importance; we can learn them no where but in this school: we can learn from none but the Spirit of Christ, Who teaches like Himself and makes such as he teaches wise unto salvation by faith which is in Christ Jesus. He brings the truths which he teaches into the mind; he gives them a real, spiritual, and supernatural existence in the understanding; so that the soul does no more really exist and dwell in the body, than the truth of the everlasting gospel does in the soul of the regenerate, by which the will and affections of the new man are influenced. The renewed mind sees the real good contained in spiritual objects and realities, the heart enjoys them, the soul partake of the sweetness of them; when we have an inward apprehension of the blood of Christ, of its worth dignity, virtue, and eternal efficacy, when we rest wholly thereon for our present and eternal discharge from all the guilt of sin before the Lord. When we have spiritual apprehensions of the worth, excellency, perfection, and glory of Christ’s righteousness, then we rest entirely on the same for our everlasting justification in the sight of God. And when we thus receive the righteousness and atonement of Christ into our minds, then, and not before, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. From hence flows experience: we know we have redemption through the blood of Jesus, the forgiveness of our sins, and this knowledge makes Christ precious to us: we set the crown of salvation on his head, and we want him now to be exalted in our hearts. Sights of him cause us to loath ourselves, to deny ourselves, to renounce all the workings of self-righteousness, legality, unbelief, high thoughts of our own attainments. Views of Jesus lift us off ourselves, and raise us up above all the efforts of nature. Views of Christ give us such ideas of his person, majesty, glory, worth, and perfection, as eclipse the whole creation of God.

This, my friend, is the only religion of any worth. All the powers of nature can never come up to this. Yet the Holy Ghost doth in this manner raise up the spiritual mind, and so reveal Christ in us that we know him, and the power of his resurrection. The Holy Spirit shews us also how we are to be continually receiving Christ, and how we are to bring into use and practice the truth as it is in Jesus. Every day we want light from the sun; so every day, hour, and moment, we want light from Christ: he is always one in his word, and we are to receive continual light from him by always receiving into our minds what is set forth concerning him in the everlasting gospel of his grace. Here we behold him with open face: here he shines on us, and shining on us he shines within us: we behold his glory, we taste his love, and we prove he is gracious. Now we long for more of his presence, to be in his company, and to live in close communion with him.

This leads us to the practical part of faith, which consists in walking in Christ by the same faith by which we received him. Here is no change of object, no change of faith; for our greatest faith consists in looking wholly to him, in believing on him, and in our trusting simply in him alone for the whole of our salvation. Therefore our practice lies in looking unto, and in making use of Jesus, in our continual setting Christ against all our sins, sorrows, disease, and death. While we thus live and act, we are fit for the highest communion with God: all this serves to make the heart happy, the affections spiritual, the mind holy; nothing short of this can produce this blessed effect. No, it cannot; every thing short of this is nature, old Adam’s cheat; it is positively self-delusion.

Times are likely to be very, very tremendous: the hand of the Lord is gone out against us, as a nation swallowed up in sin. I see nothnig here for you that will be worth your removing for, therefore better stay where you are, and prove yourself a christian by making up all your happiness in Jesus. Know that all real comfort consists in communion with Jesus; in your real enjoyment of his love and salvation in your heart. If Jesus is your all, why then do you not live on him as your all you cannot find anything out of Christ worth enjoying. Do not leave your habitation, nor seek to get out of the station where the Lord has placed you. Merchants fail, trades fail, and more bankruptcies must be expected, and therefore we had better prepare for the worst, by living wholly on Christ. Keep your matters snug; keep out of expense; drop every thing superfluous; look to your family; leave all yours, all your concerns in the Lord’s hand: for every thing forebodes some great, and more awful changes. Keep in remembrance the prophets words, “The prudent will keep silence, for it is an evil time.”

Now, my friend, consider these things, and may the Lord give you understanding in them. I hope to see you, if permitted to live, next summer. My very kind love to your dear wife.

I am yours in Christ Jesus,

I cannot commit sin, but I must set my foot on the law of my Maker. I cannot gratify my lusts, but I must go over my bleeding Saviour. Therefore, away, foul tempter, I hate thee and thy motions. Lord, save, or I perish.

Mrs. Romaine was in company with a clergyman, at Tiverton, who ran out with no little zeal against what he called “irresistible grace”; alleging, that “such grace would be incompatible with free-will.” “Not at all so,” replied Mrs. Romaine, “Grace operates effectually, yet not coercively. The wills of God’s people are drawn to him and divine things just as your will would be drawn out to a bishopric, if you had the offer of it.”

Deze tekst is geautomatiseerd gemaakt en kan nog fouten bevatten. Digibron werkt voortdurend aan correctie. Klik voor het origineel door naar de pdf. Voor opmerkingen, vragen, informatie: contact.

Op Digibron -en alle daarin opgenomen content- is het databankrecht van toepassing. Gebruiksvoorwaarden. Data protection law applies to Digibron and the content of this database. Terms of use.

Printen