Oh, the infinite patience of our loving Lord

My very Dear Brother in our precious Lord,

It was the end of the Redeemer's love and death, to purify to Himself a peculiar people, zealous for good works. What a shame is it that we love Christ no more—that we can bear to think, speak, or act for any other end than His honor! Oh, what black creatures are we! And yet our Lord calls us fair—and all-fair—His fair one! Oh, stupendous grace! Wonder at it, you blessed angels! Praise Emanuel's love, you winged flames!

And let us, the objects of His heart's delight, that wound and pierce Him daily by our sins, blush and be ashamed! Let us loathe ourselves in our own sight, for all our abominations, for lo! the Lord is pacified towards us for all that we have done! Oh, let us mourn like doves in the valleys, everyone for his own iniquities, while pardoning love, through the Lamb's blood, cleanses us from all sin, and grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall be done to such backsliders in heart and ways—to such as have dealt very treacherously, aye, and do still, with our Maker, our Husband; that slight His manifested love, and practically count Him not worthy of our poor, base, little selves, who gave, who gives His great, His glorious, matchless Self for us, and to us!

If our Lord were to smite us dead, yes, to the lowest hell, we have deserved it. But oh! nothing but His love can cure us; though in ourselves unlovely, loathsome creatures. Oh, the infinite grace of our Lord's heart! Rather than lose us in the fall, Himself would take our room, our nature, our law-place, yes, and our sins too, upon His holy, harmless, spotless, glorious Self! that by His great and righteous Self, sacrificed for us, He might purge us from all iniquity, make us perfect in beauty, and exalt us in and with Him, to inherit the throne of glory! and having finished this glorious work of unparalleled love in Himself for us, He will finish it by Himself upon us.

Oh, the infinite patience of our loving Lord—a patience worthy of God—a patience that flows from, is maintained by, and resolved into, an infinity of love! But, oh! if our Lord bears with us, and does not cast us off for our great provocation, if He pities and pardons us, is not that enough? Oh, this is ten thousand times more than we deserve! It is grace worthy of Himself, that none could show but the God of all grace, that is higher than the heaven, deeper than the sea, broader than the earth, longer than time, long and boundless as eternity!

But, oh! it is not enough to answer the ends of our Lord's love, for Him only to bear with, to pity, and pardon us—for to show His glory, and vent His heart, He will kiss and embrace us! He will rest in His love with infinite complacency, and rejoice over us with joy and singing, as if we were altogether lovely, and ravishingly fair! "How fair, and how pleasant are you," says the Prince of grace, the Lord of glory—to an Ethiopian, a black sinner. O love, for delights! "You have ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse, with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck." This is our God, our Maker, our Husband! This is His voice to the most vile, ungrateful worms, whom He loves and calls His bride! Oh, for melting, broken, loving hearts, under this all-penetrating, all-subduing, and all-surpassing love! Glory to the Lord our Lover!

And when we are made perfect in love, then we will love Him with our whole heart, soul, and strength—without weakness, without weariness—all love, all duty, all obedience. We will cast down our crowns at His royal feet—at His feet once pierced for us—adoring the Prince of life, and shouting the praises of His knowledge-passing love unto ages without end!

 

Oh, what a heap of empty vanities and cruel vexations

 

My Dear Sister,

How good is the Lord to us! He tries us for a while, and then He comforts us. Light and darkness—joy and sorrow—bitter and sweet—are wisely mixed and graciously overruled for the glory of God in our salvation. Oh, the infinite wisdom of our Leader, the glory of His conduct, the happiness of those under His care, and the blissful end to which He brings them! Happy is their way, and happy is their end. Happy are they in the midst of griefs—because the God of joy, God their joy, their exceeding joy, is with them there. Happy are they when delivered from grieving things—because God their deliverer is their deliverance. Jesus our Redeemer, the Captain of our salvation, marches on before His redeemed, treads down the briars and thorns of the wilderness, and gives us a comfortable passage through them to the land of rest. What need we fear, since the Lord is with us—with us when we pass through the waters and walk through the fire—that the one does not consume us, nor the other overflow us?

Our happiness lies in having a saving interest in the all-sufficient God, in the enjoyment of Him as such, and in our entire dedication to His glory, in every changing providence. To have God in everything—to see God in everything—and to love, bless, and adore God in everything—will make everything sweet to us. And without this, nothing will be substantial, nothing joyous, nothing profitable, nothing savory to a new-born soul, as such.

Oh, what a heap of empty vanities and cruel vexations are all things which this world affords without God enjoyed, without God revered in everything! It may well be said, "to glorify God, and to enjoy Him, is the chief end of man," and ineffably happy is that man who eagerly pursues this great end as his chief good. That man is prepared for the enjoyment, for the employment of heaven. And the more he answers that character, the greater is his preparation for the heavenly state; yes, the more of heaven comes down into his soul while his abode is on this earth.

I wish you daily fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit the Comforter.

Oh, why me, the chief of sinners

 

My very Dear Sister in our precious Jesus,

I thank you for your last letter, it has been blessed to me. I have read it again and again, with tears of joyful wonder at the infinite grace of God to vile, unworthy me, in making my poor books of such blessed use to you, to bring you to Jesus and to build you up in Him.

Truly, according to the exceeding riches of infinite grace our God abounds towards us in all wisdom and prudence. "He is wise in counsel and excellent in working." And we shall adore Him forever, both in counsel and work, when we see, with the veil cast off, those infinite depths of wisdom and grace in which the whole and every part of our salvation was laid in contrivance of old, before the world began, according to which He all along wrought through time, to the praise of His glory, by men and angels, to a vast and endless eternity.

O how ravishing is the least beam of this glory when it breaks out upon us now! But oh, what tongue can tell, or heart conceive, a thousandth part of that joy which shall enter into us, or rather into which we shall enter, when as vessels of mercy, all-enlarged, we shall be cast into God for a full and everlasting enjoyment of Him, that ocean of bliss and glory—when we shall live forever under all the bright, the burning, he enkindling beams of His infinite glory, or rather, dwell in the Sun, in the Lord our everlasting light, in our God, as our glory?

As you encourage me to go on in the Lord's work, and tell me "my reward will be great," my heart said beforehand what you add, even before I read it, "No, it is reward enough if it was but that great use which your books have been of to me in times past, and are still." Oh, my dear sister, this I acknowledge from the very bottom of my heart, from my inmost soul. Well in this regard has my royal princely Master, in the infinity of His grace, rewarded the poor feeble attempts of His vile worm to serve Him. According to His own heart, and not according to my worthiness, has He done this great thing to make His worm know it. I bless Him for your salvation, for your faith and joy, wrought by His own hand through the means of my poor books. I bless Him for the knowledge thereof which He has given me. He might have wrought this wonder and yet have hid it from me until the day of His appearing. But oh, infinite grace! to cheer me in this service, and draw me further on in His delightful work, He has blessed me with the knowledge of it now, as a part of my present reward, and the first-fruit of that glory which awaits me at His coming. Let you and I praise Him, let men and angels praise Him, for this wondrous grace, both now and evermore. Oh, why me, the chief of sinners, why has the Lord, chosen vile me for this service? I resolve it into the bottomless, boundless ocean of His rich, free, sovereign love and grace, and let Him have the glory of it unto endless ages! And let it in the present time be hung up in Zion as a trophy of victorious grace, of the grace of Zion's King to the least and last, and worst and vilest, of all His subjects. And as an ensign, a banner of His love, let it be lifted up upon His land, to His endless praise, by all that love Him! Amen. Hallelujah!

I am glad, my dear sister, that you love the slain Lamb, and long to see the crown flourish upon His royal head. In this my soul closely joins with yours. Let us mourn for the dishonor done to our Savior-King, and His glorious gospel, the rod, the scepter of His strength, by many that profess to be His subjects and servants. Let us rejoice in that the Father has advanced Him high, has bid Him sit at His right hand until He makes His enemies His footstool. In a little while, we shall see the Lord alone exalted, and all idols abolished, the King of Zion seated upon His royal throne in His personal and relative glory, as Lord of all, and head of His body the Church, in the glory of His universal reign; and Zion made glorious, the perfection of beauty, by the brightness of His rays cast upon her, to the praise of the Savior-God by saints and angels forever and ever. "He who testifies these things says, I come quickly. Even so come, Lord Jesus! And let the whole earth be filled with His glory!" Amen, and Amen.

The grace of Christ be with your spirit. Pray for the same blessing upon me.

Oh the heights, depths, lengths, and breadths of grace!

 

My Dear Brother in Christ,

Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied. May the God of all grace reward you with the more abundant displays of His love—His free, undeserved, rich and endless love!

Oh, my brother, I am surely the most unworthy of love from God, of any that ever found grace in His sight. Hell, the hottest hell, is my desert! Oh, what a sinner am I! The sin of my nature, that deluge of filth and guilt which overspread all my parts and powers as soon as quickened in the womb, and in which I was born—together with my actual sins, my going astray from the womb, when I did nothing else but sin—until mighty grace laid hold of me! These sins of mine I saw, when the Lord opened my eyes, did deserve the damnation of hell—and I wondered at the infinite forbearance of God in allowing me to live so long out of hell, when I was such fit fuel for everlasting burnings! And I could have justified Him if He had sent me down to the pit the next moment.

But oh, behold, I was a vessel of mercy; and therefore the Lord made known unto me the riches of His glory, not only in sparing, but in pardoning mercy also. He not only spared me from hell, but forever delivered me from going down to the pit by the ransom which He had found—by His own Son, to bear my sin, to be made a curse, and to die for me! By this mighty ransom—this infinite price of the life of the Son of God laid down for my redemption, did the God of all grace let me go free. And oh, the riches, the exceeding riches of His grace, which He then displayed, in the forgiveness of all my sins through the Lamb's blood! Where sin had abounded grace did much more abound!

Oh, how freely did my heavenly Father receive me, a poor prodigal, when under His own drawings I came to Him by Jesus Christ! He did not upbraid me with my vile transgressions, nor deal with me in wrath according to my sins—but graciously opened His arms and let me into His bosom—His heart's love—no more to be separated from His love, nor to fall out of love's arms forever! No! having loved me with an everlasting love, and thus manifested His love through the slain Lamb, He resolved to love me forever—that He would never cast me off, nor cast me out of His free love for all that I had done. 

 

Oh, astonishing! That abundant pardon which my heavenly Father then granted, and I received, carried in the bosom of it not only the forgiveness of my past and present sins, but of my future sins also—of all my transgressions, even to my life's end. He forgave me all trespasses—resolved to be merciful to my unrighteousness and to remember my sins no more. He took away my filthy garments and clothed me with change of clothing—put a ring on my hand and shoes on my feet—set me with Him at His table—made a feast for me of the flesh and blood of His own Son—and rejoiced over me with singing! Oh, the heights, depths, lengths, and breadths of grace!

And with this wondrous love of God He melted my hard heart, revived my dying soul, put a new song of joy and praise into my mouth, and drew me to give up myself unto Him, to be entirely His forever. Oh, then I said I would not transgress, when He had thus broken my yoke and burst my bonds, and brought me into liberty—the glorious liberty of the sons of God!

But ah! I have not rendered to the Lord according to all the great things which He has done for me, but have ill-requited Him for all His kindness. I am indeed bent to backsliding from God, and have dealt very treacherously with my gracious Father. I see, to my shame and grief, the seeds of all sin in my vile heart—a hell of iniquity there! I feel that my carnal mind is enmity, entire and irreconcilable enmity, against God—and such are the ebullitions of this unsearchable deep, this horrid fountain, that I am frequently struck with amazement that I am not sent down to hell—that my life is not among the unclean—that so vile a sinner has not a portion among the damned, in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone!

Ah, not because I do not deserve a place there am I spared—but because Jehovah will be gracious unto whom He will be gracious, and show mercy on whom He will show mercy. Oh, if the love of God was not free, sovereign, and independent of my goodness—which as the morning cloud and the early dew quickly passes away—I would perish still, and sink into the pit with the additional weight of 'abused kindness'.

Oh, my sins, since the Lord manifested His love to me, I see to be of a greater guilt, a deeper dye, than all that I was guilty of before I knew the Lord, or rather was known of Him. And these, in a special manner, break my heart and humble me before the Lord, when He breaks in upon my soul with the displays of His infinite favor.

For lo! the love of God and the blood of Christ are depths that infinitely surpass and swallow up all my sin! Oh, what are my vast, numberless, aggravated transgressions, to the boundless depth of Jehovah's love—to the infinite merit of the blood of the Son of God? Here, through the blood and righteousness of Jesus, grace reigns and triumphs gloriously over all my abounding sin. It not only began to reign thus in the first glorious displays thereof made to my poor soul when just ready to perish, but it reigns still—and will reign on in its infinite, majestic state, until all my sins, which are now pardoned, shall be fully subdued and utterly destroyed out of my nature—until all sin and death are swallowed up in the victory of eternal life to the praise of its own glory. Oh, glorious grace!

Thus, my dear brother, according to this grace has my God hitherto dealt with me. He has followed me with His kindness, His rich, free, everlasting kindness. And thus He will deal with you. According to His own heart has He done, will He do, great things for you; and not according to 'your worthiness'. Your God did not wait for your goodness before He fixed His love on you, nor seek it as a motive thereof—but from His own free heart took all His motives from within Himself to love you. And therefore they must needs be strong and invariable like Himself, who is the Lord that changes not.

And this great, free, and invariable love of God was fixed upon you in the Beloved of His Soul, who is Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. So that, as long as God's love abides, which is as permanent as His being; as long as Christ endures, who is the same, and whose years fail not; and as long as Christ stands in the love of God for you, and you stand in the love of God in Him—so long will Jehovah love you!