Live and bathe and dive to a blessed eternity!

 

Sir,

My work on earth is almost done, glory be to God! A nobler work in heaven will soon come on. Now I would serve the Lord—but then I shall serve Him perfectly, incessantly, and eternally; serve Him without sin, interruption, weakness, and weariness—which attend our present services; serve Him under the full and immediate vision of His glorious face—to His perfect and endless praise—and to my ineffable and eternal bliss.

Oh, dear Sir, what grace is this, that the Lord has formed and shaped our hearts for His service, else for the perfect and eternal service of God in Christ in future bliss we would have no taste; whereas to a soul that loves the Lord fervently, the perfect, endless service of God in Christ is esteemed by him an essential part of heaven's bliss; nor shall any one soul that is thus prepared by grace for divine service here, lack the ineffable bliss of perfect, endless service hereafter. Alas! what would an unholy soul do in heaven? Heaven would be no heaven to him—he has nothing in him suited to heaven's enjoyment and employment. A soul that cannot make a life out of God, or rather that cannot live joyfully in God as His life, and find his unspeakable bliss in an entire dedication to Jehovah's praise, is quite unfit for the glories of the heavenly state; as there is not the least agreeableness between the object and the subject, so there can be no enjoyment. What thanks then shall we give "unto the Father, who has made us (initially, and will make us perfectly) fit for the great inheritance of the saints in light"—in light without darkness; in the light of His immediate Presence, without the least darkness of distance; and in the light of perfect holiness, without the least spot of sin to darken our perfect, endless praises!

Oh, how great and vast is our Jehovah's infinite essence—who with the simple vision of His glorious face can satisfy and solace myriads of glorious angels, and an innumerable multitude of saved men, when most capacious—and excite in all thereby perfect, ceaseless, endless praises to His eternal glory and their eternal joy! Well may it be said, "Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, O God, besides You, what You have prepared for him who waits for You!" For no line short of an infinite understanding can search the immense glories of an infinite Being. None but the Lord Jehovah has seen, or can see, those immense glories which He has prepared in His infinite self as the boundless ocean of our soul-filling and eternal enjoyment!

We shall be cast, when all-enlarged, into the God of glory for an eternal fill of all felicity, and there live, and bathe, and dive, to a blessed eternity! And though the communications of divine glory will not be infinite, because of our incapacity, as we shall ever be but finite recipients, yet it is an infinite sea of glory we shall live, and swim, and play in—to a blessed eternity just as the God of nature has prepared an immense ocean of water for the fish of the sea to live, and dive, and sport in—although they can never comprehend that which comprehends them.

Thus, Sir, I humbly think, as the apostle says, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him;" and then adds, "but God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit;" and elsewhere says, "we know in part" that we are to understand the revelation of them which is now made unto spiritual men, to be that which is partial and suited to our present condition; and though to the knowledge had in the present state he opposes that knowledge we shall have in the future state, and says, "but then shall I know, even as also I am known;" yet we are to understand the difference to lie only in this—our present imperfect and our future perfect knowledge of God, according to our creature-measure; because, as creatures, we can never have an adequate knowledge of an infinite essence. And as that revelation of God and His things which is here made to spiritual men, is denied by the apostle to natural man, "But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them," and as, in the text which he refers to, it is said, "Eye has not seen, besides You, O God," I think, Sir, we may justly form these distinctions:

First, That no natural man has seen, nor can see, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him, because he lacks a spiritual capacity to discern the spiritual nature and kind of eternal glory.

Secondly, that spiritual men, in the revelation now made of spiritual things unto them, have seen them but partially, and will hereafter see them but finitely.

Thirdly, That none but God Himself has seen, nor can see them, infinitely; as the glories prepared for our enjoyment in His immense Being can be searched by no line short of His own infinite understanding.

Thus, Sir, all the texts will harmonize; and how vast, in Jehovah's infinite essence, is our prepared bliss!

That the Spirit of the Lord, in His sevenfold gifts and graces, may rest upon you, dear Sir, unto all assistance and success in divine service, and that you may at last be blessed with a massive crown of righteousness, is my earnest desire.

Weeping may endure for a night

 

Dear Madam,

It is with much pleasure that I read your last, and I was engage to give thanks and praise to the God of all grace for His making my poor letters of any use to your dear soul. Yes, Madam, your benighted soul shall be favored with the light of God's countenance, only wait for it in faith and patience. Your sins are forgiven you; wait awhile, and the Lord will tell you so. He who now in wise love hides His face, will shortly, to your unspeakable joy, break out upon you afresh with superior rays of His infinite and eternal kindness. "Weeping may endure for a night—but joy will comes in the morning. His anger endures for a moment—but in His favor is light." An immensity—an eternity of light remains for you in God's infinite favor—that all-comprehending source of all the various flows of your felicity for time's and eternity's forever! And give your Father leave to choose what channels He please to convey to your beloved soul His inexhaustible, immutable, and eternal kindness—for if for a while His love runs under-ground, out of your sight, it is but in order to its breaking up again, to your more joyful surprise, in a richer exuberance. And beware of thinking, when you do not see love in its flows; that love is not upon the flow towards you; for when love is most hid from your view, that hiding is one of love's flows. That is one of the appointed channels in which love swiftly and gloriously moves; indeed, it is ‘veiled love’—but love in a veil is the same love still. And "what you know not now—you shall know hereafter." When the veil is taken off from love's face, you shall see as great a glory in ‘hiding love’ as in its most smiling countenance—and that both alternately were ordered most wisely for God's highest glory and your greatest felicity.

Oh, could you now believe this and say thus, "Well, the Lord hides His face, but this, even this, is in boundless, endless love to me," how full would be your joy, how abundant your praise, if faith was thus in exercise! Whereas sense, when love veils, loses sight of love in all; it sees no love in the veil, and inclines the heart to fear that love's past shinings were not real, and thereby shuts the mouth of praise awfully, and sinks the soul into grief exceedingly. And were not faith upheld by an omnipotent arm to look and wait for God the Savior, when as such He hides His face from the house of Jacob, through depressions from sense it would fail quite. But, glory to omnipotent grace! faith is and shall be maintained in its principles, and in some degree of exercise, amid ten thousand contraries.

"Blessed (says our Lord) are those who have believed—and have not seen." Thomas saw, and believed; but believing without sight upon the promise-word of the faithful God has an eminency, a transcendency of blessedness in it. "His arm is not shortened, that it cannot save, nor His ear heavy that it cannot hear." "My soul, hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, for the light of His countenance," according to His promised grace. This exercise of ‘faith in the dark’ has a blessedness in it of transcendency. Little do you think how much glory this gives to God. Little do you think how much pleasure He takes when He thus hears your voice. And can you think, dear Madam, that this your faith is God shall be in vain? No! the Lord will say shortly, "You have ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse, with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck." "O woman, great is your faith; be it unto you even as you will." And then you shall praise Him with joy. Meantime, though in sorrow, praise the God of promise by trusting in Him who will be the God of performance, and you will give Him double glory, which will be to your eternal joy.

I am glad, dear Madam, that the Lord made the burning bush a fit emblem of your case, and that you desire greenness and fruitfulness. Your desire after greenness and fruitfulness is from your having these, and it is a greater measure that you desire. And be not dismayed at your apparent lack of greenness and growth in grace. It is one thing to be green and fruitful—and another to discern that we are so. God, and other of His children, may see our greenness and fruitfulness, when for wise and gracious ends these may be hidden much from ourselves. Only let this be your chief care, to "glorify God in the fires," and fear not greenness and fruitfulness—to His praise and your bliss, amid fiery trials.

I am grieved, dear Madam, that your outward affairs are so much declined and perplexed—but if it was not best, it would not be thus. May you be enabled most humbly and earnestly to make a fresh solemn surrender of yourself, and all that you have, unto God, and say, "Lord, here I am—I give myself up to You—to be Yours entirely—I give up everything that You have given me into Your all-wise, all-gracious, and almighty hands. O Lord, the difficulties I am encompassed with are too great for my wisdom and strength to rid myself of—but You know no difficulty. I cast them all upon You. I am oppressed, O Lord, undertake for me. And, were everything else gone, give me grace to glorify You, and to count myself happy—fully, ineffably happy—in Your great Self as my earthly-portion and eternal all. I call nothing my own but You, my great God—do with me, and all things that concern me, just as You desire."

After this manner, dear Madam, resign all unto God, and there leave all, without anxious care for anything. Let a ‘prudent care’ for everything, as your duty in the use of all means, be your concern. But take no ‘anxious care’ for any events—for most surely, in this respect, "every man disquiets himself in vain." And if you thus resign all unto God, and put and leave everything in His hands, I do assure you that God will undertake for you. I, did I say? A poor assurance this. He, Himself therefore excites you to duty, and gives you His own assurance thus—"Call upon Me in the day of trouble—I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me."

As you had that promise, Madam, when you entered into that change of life, "My presence shall go with you—and I will give you rest," and yet you had not those measures of His comforting presence which your soul wished—learn hence to distinguish between God's gracious, supporting, and sanctifying presence—and His soul-filling, heart-rejoicing presence. The former you had, have, and shall have always; and the latter, when He sees it best. And remember, rest is in the promise—all that earthly-rest which your God of love sees best—and eternal rest, unto full and endless delight! And let this bear up your spirit while your troubles last—"Unto you who are troubled, rest with us." When the Lord Jesus shall make His glorious appearance, then we shall all rest together and forever!

I bear you on my heart before the God of all grace in your every case. To His love, power, and care—I commit you.

A love-stroke

 

Dear Madam,

You thought right that I should pity you, when I knew the cause of the lameness of your hands. For who that loves can forbear the greatest pity to a worthy friend who was used most cruelly? Cruel treatment was this from the creature—but a love-stroke of God your Father! You have hereby seen the wonders of His infinite goodness which He has wrought for you in that support under and deliverance from those many and great distresses which at present are to your wonder, joy and praise, and shall be to the advance of your felicity in eternal glory and to God's honor, unto endless ages!

I think my afflictions are nothing if compared with those which you have passed through. Afflicted in body, from head to foot severely—terrified in soul so exceedingly—brought to the very brink of death and the grave in the former, and, as it were, into the belly of hell in the latter; and yet, everlasting arms underneath you in all this, the consolations of God given to your heart, and great deliverance to your body from its sore distress as an answer to social prayer—how great, how wondrous was the grace! And when a little raised up yourself, to be so soon plunged into distress by the awful affliction of your dear sister, and ever since to be exercised with such various scenes of distresses through which you have been called to pass, and yet maintained in life—in the life of nature and in the life of grace, and favored with the use of your natural and spiritual senses, how bright towards you have been the displays of the Lord's excellent loving-kindness! You may well say, "in deaths often; troubled on every side."

But when you shall have come up at last out of all great tribulations—having washed your robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, and are presented faultless before the throne of God—how sweet, how ineffably sweet, will be your eternal glory-rest! Then you will reflect with the highest pleasure upon all your past sorrows, and in unknown transports of joy and praise forever adore that wise grace which conducted you safely and advantageously through all the terrors and dangers of the wilderness. Most surely, your joy and glory, and God's joy and glory in yours, is to be exceeding great, or you would not have met with such great miseries and griefs in the present state.

I am glad that you long, dear Madam, to devote yourself and your all unto God, and to be of special service to His praise, who has shown towards you such wonders of grace. And let the Lord's past appearances for you, in your great and sore troubles, encourage you to trust in Him for delivering grace, even to the last of your distresses. For He who said unto you, "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God"—is still the same. And so He will be through all your earthly-necessities, and to an endless eternity. It is His covenant with you to "work marvels."

And think, O woman of sorrows, think, and think again—Christ, the tree of life, is cast into all your deaths, and will not He well sweeten these bitter waters. Oh, what is Christ, your Christ? "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily!" He is God in your nature, a Father, a Brother, a Husband, a Friend, that ever lives, and ever loves! For love, in all relations, His is immense and endless; for life, He is the Lord of it—an immensity, an eternity of life dwells in Him for you, to perpetuate and perfect your life of grace, and to ripen it into the life of glory! Yes, to maintain your unknown felicity to a boundless eternity. And having Him, who is love, who is life, your love and life with you in all your deaths—will not He make every bitter sweet, and swallow up all your deaths in the infinity of His love and life? Yes, verily, He will for you, both in soul and body, swallow up death in victory, instate and maintain you in a glorious immortality to a blessed eternity. And so wondrously will He work for you, that He will bring life, and an increase of it, out of every death that passes over you.

Is it not better, infinitely better to have Christ with you as your own Lord Jesus, amid ten thousand deaths, for this small moment of time, who will swallow them all up in perfect victory and eternal glory in the world to come—than to be surrounded with all the outward felicity of the present state, with all the splendors of a worldling's honors and pleasures—those ‘glow-worm glories’ which will suddenly be no more—and sent away from Christ at last, with a "Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire?" May you be enabled to rejoice then in your portion, your soul-sustaining, your soul-satisfying, your life-giving portion, and walk worthy of your portion, by a constant dependence on Him, and a joyful expectance from Him, until you are fully blessed with the complete possession of Him who fills all in all, and will fill you brimful of light and life, of joy and glory, endless and unknown!

Oh, dear Madam, you are straitened in me, a little babe, a little child, who cannot speak; but you are not straitened for immense and eternal bliss in your Jesus. The tongues of angels and archangels, in all their innumerable armies, can never, never tell a thousandth part of His infinite fullness, beauties, and glories! What then can an earth-worm, the least, think or speak of that infinitely glorious Lord? When all is said that can be uttered by the greatest of men, it may be fitly said of their most comprehensive speeches concerning Him, "There was the hiding of His glory!" Yes, when the Lord Himself is set forth in the bright display of His power, it is said, "And there was the hiding of His glory!" What, in the display of it? Yes, with regard to the infinity of it in His own immense and unsearchable essence!

But it is enough, Madam, to make you inconceivably blessed, that in Him, this infinite Him, you have an entire and eternal interest. God grant you the joy of this ineffable felicity. I mourn that I can say no more of this vast and endless storehouse of blessings. Confusion covers me that I have thus veiled Him, when I would gladly have given you a glimpse of His glory. God grant you "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him" to your unspeakable joy!

Your Father's love-tokens!

 

Dear Madam,

Though the Lord has tried you for many months of afflictions, think it not strange, since you are put among God's children, that you have had and must have your own part of afflictions—they are, they shall be, your Father's love-tokens! Satan and unbelief often misrepresent God to His tried children. "If God was your Friend, your Father," say they, "if He loved you, He would not allow such grievous things to befall you—He takes no notice of you—He turns a deaf ear to your prayers—and who among God's children are so greatly afflicted as you are? Do not these things show that you have been deceived—that you are not among the number of God's children—that you have no saving interest in His special favor—but He lays these heavy strokes upon you in wrathful displeasure." And especially do they urge these things upon God's tried children from that sin which they sadly find to work in them under trying dispensations. And if they can but get God's children to hearken to them, these enemies gain their end upon them—to weaken their faith, to dampen their love, to slay their meekness and patience, and to cause them to murmur and fret at afflicting providence.

It is wisdom, then, in God's children, instantly to cry unto Him for wisdom and strength to discern and resist these enemies in their lying voice, upon the first hearing of it; for this we may be very certain of, "that whatever comes from God leads to Him—and whatever excites us to depart from Him as the God of all grace—is from unbelief and Satan." Nothing like faith in God's love to us, as His dear children in Christ—strengthens our spirits to endure afflictions patiently to His glory and our joy.

And therefore, says the apostle Paul, "whom the Lord loves, He chastens." He proposes the ‘love of God in chastening’ as the ground of a believer's faith, for his strength in patient suffering. And says James, "The trying of your faith works patience." If faith has got a thwart in the fight, God will come in with His auxiliary aid for the help of His child, and give his faith renewed strength; and then, instantly, his tried faith being made to stand upright in God and for Him, after its thwarting and in its trial, the child of faith is patience. Says faith—"God's love is in the sharpest stroke!" Then says patience—"I will endure it until love shall bring joyous fruit out of present grief." And lest patience should faint when trials are great and of long continuance, the apostle adds, "Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing." It is as if he should say—You are to be made perfect in very grace, and every perfected grace to redound to your eternal glory—therefore patiently endure the greatest, the longest trial here, that is to fit you for your immortal crown hereafter—that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing—nothing lacking in the exercise of grace—and lacking nothing in your crown of glory!

A sweet soft bosom to rest our weary heads

 

Dear Sir,

It gave me pleasure to hear from you, but I am sensibly touched with grief for your ill state of health. May the Lord support you under the trial, increase your graces in the furnace, and bring you thence with advantage.

It is our unspeakable privilege—that in all our afflictions our dear Lord Jesus is afflicted. Our best Friend, our sympathizing Friend at God's right hand—has an inexpressible fellow-feeling with us in all our miseries of soul and body. When His members on earth are sick, the Head in heaven accounts the sickness His own—"I was sick." What wondrous grace is this! It is a bright display—of the Savior's goodness—of His tender mercy—of His love which passes knowledge. We have in the love of Christ a sweet soft bosom to rest our weary heads—an open ear to all our requests—a flowing heart to relieve us in straits—and an almighty hand to supply all our needs. No indulgent father—no compassionate mother—nor countless numbers of them, were all their affections united in one person, has or could have a thousandth part of that sympathy with a beloved child, when sick—which Jesus has with us, His sick children. Yes, with us—though rebellious children. For we are unto Him dear, ineffably dear children—from an infinity of tender mercy—from an all-endearing love—that has in it neither bottom, bound, nor end!

And what a joy in grief may it be to us, that all our afflictions—for kind and degree—are measured out to us and continued upon us, by our infinite Lover's hand! Wise is our compassionate Father's love—and His medicine, to promote our health, when He sees it best for us Himself will give unto us. Not an ingredient in our bitterest potion, but is put into it by wise love—to make it just fit to work for our salvation.

Our Father, as our physician, not only prepares and gives our medicine—but His own hand also has the whole direction of its operation, to answer effectually all His wise and gracious ends designed thereby.

And as He who afflicts us is afflicted with us—measures our afflictions to us—and over-rules them for us—so His love-sympathy with us in the best time and way will bring all salvation to us. He will say of us, "Is Ephraim my dear son, is he a pleasant child? For since I spoke against him I do earnestly remember him still, therefore my affections are troubled of him; I will surely have mercy upon him."

Be free then, dear Sir, with the bosom of your heavenly Father; you shall be no more bold than welcome. The grace of your sympathizing Lord is boundless! You can never come too often to His bosom, which is always open—yes, the oftener you there flee the more welcome shall you be! Jesus loves you as His own, and will embrace you in love unknown! His sympathy with you in sorrow shall give you joy—His supports under pressures make heaviest burdens light—His management of your crosses bring greatest advantages—and His gracious designs gloriously ends in your salvation—by a light and momentary affliction, unto a weight of glory of eternal duration.

Great grace be with you.

The furnace of affliction

 

My Dear Sister in Christ,

As it is the pleasure of your heavenly Father still to continue you in the furnace of affliction, do not think the time long; this momentary affliction is to prepare you for glory of an endless duration. Therefore, "let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing," in the exercise of your graces to the completion of your filial obedience, which will be to God's eternal praise and your eternal bliss. Suffering is the last work of a Christian. Our dear Lord, after a life of complete active obedience, was to drink the deep cup of His sufferings and to be obedient even unto death, and this was His direct way to His all-transcendent glory. And the members must be conformed to their Head in sufferings as well as glory, and in sufferings for the advance of their glory. And "if we suffer with Him (in a meek, patient, Christ-like spirit), we shall also be glorified together."

Remember your afflictions as dreams which pass away—that are here one moment and gone the next; and while they last, oh, the sweet, the strong supports of the everlasting arms! What can we not do and endure through Christ, who strengthens us! Your Beloved with you in everything, you need fear nothing. Glory in Him, and in His promised grace—"I will never leave you, nor forsake you"—for it is made in infinite faithfulness, and will be productive of earthly-supplies in your greatest necessities, of full joys, of eternal glories. Your afflictions are all measured out—in kind, degree, and duration—by infinite grace—and not one more shall you taste than what shall be for God's praise and your bliss! Therefore, give up yourself with the sweetest resignation to your all-wise, all-gracious Father's dealings—for all shall work to your salvation. Endure the cross—and look to the crown! The former is light and short, the latter an ineffable, eternal weight. Who would not die to see the Lord in His eternal glory? Who would not die to be free from sin's misery? Who would not die that mortality might put on immortality?

And oh, my dear sister, when death dissolves the union between soul and body, your union to Christ in both your constituent parts shall remain unbroken to a blessed eternity. Your body shall sweetly sleep in Jesus until He shall swallow up death in victory, and fashion it like unto His glorious body. And your spirit, as soon as ever separate, being made perfect, shall be admitted instantly into glory, into a perfect love-union and communion with your infinite Lover—to unknown felicity forever! "The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed you—and lead you unto living fountains of waters—and God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes." No more sorrow, pain, nor death then—these, as former things, will be all passed away, when once you are blessed with that fullness of joy, that perfect ease, that immortal life which awaits you in eternal glory. And then a reflection on all your grieving thorny way through the wilderness will make your pleasures rise in endless praise on the flowery plain of Immanuel's land—the Canaan of full and eternal bliss!

Meantime, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit." I commit you to His heart and arms!

No step of your thorny path

 

Dear Sir,

I rejoice to see your faith in the unchangeable love of our three-one God, and your humility under its bright display. But why, my dear Sir, should you say, "I am discouraged because of the difficulty of the way?" You know the Lord led Israel of old "by a right way" through the wilderness, in all their forward and backward traces—"to a city of habitation." And thus He leads you through this world's wilderness, by a right way, to your eternal rest—by that very way which infinite wisdom devised, which infinite goodness ordained to be the path in which you were to walk, as your direct way to eternal glory—as that which should be most for God's praise and your salvation-bliss.

And when once you reach the land of promise, and have the advantage of that higher ground, you shall remember all the way by which the Lord led you through the wilderness, and see it to have been a right way, and that no step of your thorny path could have been better than it was. You shall then see, to your endless joy, what wonders of infinite grace have been wrought for you—in preserving and increasing your spiritual life amid innumerable deaths—and forever adore the conduct of wise grace that brought you safe to the heights of glory—through such a dark and intricate maze—from the depths of earthly encumbrance. And until you are blessed with sight, you must live by faith. No reason is there for discouragement, since through the wilderness you have such a glorious Guide! Your dear Lord Jesus is given to be your companion through the world's tribulation—you have His arm to lean on—and His bosom to rest in, under all your weakness, and in all your disconsolation. If your way be rough—your shoes should be iron or brass; if you are surrounded with dangers—the eternal God is your refuge; if you are ready to faint under pressing weights—underneath are the everlasting arms for your support.

And He who has been the God of your youth will not forsake you in old age. You know what He says, "And unto your old age, I am He; and unto grey hairs will I carry you—I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you." Then, Sir, you shall never quite tire, because you travel in omnipotent strength. So long as the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints not, neither is weary—who gives power to the faint, and increases strength unto those who have no might—so long shall you renew your strength, run and not be weary, and walk and not faint—until He has brought you unto Himself! You may set up your Ebenezer, and say, "hitherto has the Lord helped." And you know His faithful promise, "I will never, never, never leave you, nor forsake you!" When all creatures and things fail you, yes, when your own strength and heart fail you—"God is the strength of your heart, and your portion forever." And what can you desire more? 

Therefore, yield not to discouragement, but lean on a God all-sufficient. For He says, "the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you; neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord who has mercy on you." And in His kindness, in the covenant of His peace, you have all that your soul can want or wish. Behave, then, in faith as an heir of God, and leave it to them to be discouraged, who have no interest in His infinitely free, rich, and super-abounding grace—in immutable, eternal grace! For this grace is and will be the source of all your earthly-felicity and immortal glory.

I wish you the rich consolations of the Holy Spirit while you abide in any distress, until you are called to "enter into the joy of your Lord," where sin and sorrow shall have no place!

We live in a world of changes!

 

Dear Sir,

We live in a world of changes! The dispensations of God toward us alter—the manifestations of His love vary—the kindness of friends ebbs and flows—and our love to God and to each other varies like the changing light. But this, oh this, is our unspeakable privilege—and the spring of our bliss ineffable and eternal—the love of God to us changes not! The love of God's heart towards us is as unchangeable as His great Being, whose name is I AM—and is as invariable as that glorious Person through whom it flows, who is yesterday, today, and forever the same. The designs of Jehovah's kindness, the thoughts of His heart concerning us, stand fast unto all generations; and by all our earthly-changes He ushers in upon us some new fruit of His eternal unchanging love—to refresh our pilgrim-souls in this desert land, and to prepare us for our promised rest in the unchanging bliss of blessed eternity.

Darkness and distance attend the sons of God in the present state, but our approaching inheritance lies in light, in the immediate presence of God and of the Lamb—where unfading joys will be new and full unto endless days! O blessed state, when we shall be as happy, as holy—as we desire to be! A few more trials—and we shall be as gold that is seven times refined! A little more faith—and patience, and our race will be run and the crown won! And, glory to our three-one God! all needful grace to enable us to hold out unto endless glory is, and shall be given us. Ah, were our graces left to their own strength, and to our management, they would soon fly in pieces and be no more. But blessed is the man whose strength is in the Lord, and whose new-created soul is under Jehovah's care, who works in saints both to will and to do of His own good pleasure, and will perfect that which concerns them, and not forsake the work of His own hands.

I commit you to Him on whom you have believed, who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory, with exceeding joy!

His sovereign love!

 

Dear Sir,

I rejoice that the Lord has often refreshed your soul with that great word (Jer. 31:3), "Yes! I have loved you with an everlasting love! therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you."

These words were spoken by the Lord to His Church and people of old, are spoken by Him unto His people now, and unto all who shall be called by grace unto the end of time. And concerning them all, even all His chosen who have been, are, or shall be gathered in to Christ from the beginning of the world to the end of it, as a collective body, and unto every one of them individually, the Lord says, "Yes! I have loved you with an everlasting love! therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you." When the Lord (verse 2) had put His people in mind of the grace which they found in the wilderness, when, though chastised they were not utterly destroyed, as their sins had deserved—the Church, taken with that wonderful grace which was displayed in the wilderness in sparing and preserving such a God-provoking people, who deserved to have been cut off utterly, and not to have had the promise fulfilled gloriously in the land of Canaan, she begins, and says (verse 3), "The Lord has appeared of old unto me," that is, in the wilderness. "Oh," as if she should say, "what miracles of grace did the Lord work for me in the wilderness!"

Upon which the Lord speaks, and leads her to the origin, source, and fountain of grace in His own heart, from whence that glorious flow sprang through His hand which so greatly took her mind—"Yes," says the Lord, "you say truly, I did appear unto you of old gloriously—but behold, my love to you was older than that date! I have loved you with an everlasting love—with a love of eternity, that had its being in my heart towards you before time commenced—and therefore it was that I drew you thus with loving-kindness in the wilderness, and have drawn you likewise into the land of rest."

"Yes," says the Lord, "look forward also unto all that future bliss which I will cause you to possess—not for a day or a time only, but through all time—and unto all eternity. And behold it all secured for you, to flow down upon you in my heart-love to you—for I have loved you with an everlasting love—with a love that will last towards you through all the successive ages of time, and to a never-ending eternity. I have loved you, and therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn you—I do love you, and I will love you, and with loving-kindness will I draw you. The infinite fountain, the immense ocean of My love, shall still flow down upon you in copious streams of loving-kindness, by which I will still allure you and draw you, until I have drawn you up to and into Myself, for a full enjoyment of infinite love unto bliss unknown and ages without end—unto the heights of glory—in and to a vast eternity!"

If God's love to His people was an everlasting love as it respects eternity past, it must needs be a free love, in that it was fixed upon His chosen in Christ before they had done good or evil—yes, even before in God's eternal mind they were beheld as having any goodness in them, for there could be no goodness in any creature but what God resolved to give it from Himself—the infinite ocean of goodness. And His resolving to bestow goodness, special goodness, or special grace, upon one creature and not another, was from His sovereign love to one creature—when He passed by, or did not so love another, according to the good pleasure of His will; not because God's people were better than others, did the Lord set His love upon them and choose them, but because the Lord loved them. He loved them because He would love them, because He would be gracious unto whom He would be gracious, and show mercy on whom He would show mercy.

Oh, how silent would all flesh be before infinite Sovereignty, and how should they adore sovereign free love that are the happy objects of it! And as God's love to His people was free, so it was also distinguishing—I have loved you, says the Lord—and not others—"Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated," though Esau was Jacob's brother. Oh, the distinguishing nature of God's everlasting love when He chose a remnant in His dear Son unto eternal life and glory with Him—and left the rest in a state of fallen creatureship—to enjoy a perfection of natural life for a short time only in Eden's bliss, in their first father Adam; when He appointed His chosen to obtain salvation by Jesus Christ as fore-viewed sinners, and appointed the rest unto wrath righteously for their sins.

Oh, who shall reply against the sovereign Lord of all? "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" And what manner of love is this, that resolved to display the riches of its glory upon thousands of people—an innumerable company though a determinate number—in raising them to eternal glory, when all were equally sunk in the fall of Adam, and by their own sins into the desert of death, in eternal misery? Sovereign love, indeed! And as great as it was sovereign—it was great love that God loved His chosen with, even when dead in sins. And how is its greatness displayed in the great gift of His Son to death for their life, and the gift of the Spirit to them for their quickening!

Again, as God's love is an everlasting love with respect to eternity to come—it appears in this to be an unchangeable love. What is eternal must, with respect to that infinite duration, be unchangeable. And through the whole unbounded space, from eternity through time and to eternity—God's love to His people is immutable according to its own infinity and undiminishable glory—from the immutability of His nature whose name is, I AM THAT I AM!—who is the Lord that changes not.

Oh, dear Sir, God's everlasting love is a free, sovereign, distinguishing, great, and unchangeable love!

It is an inseparable love. The happy objects of it can never, never be separated from it! Neither death nor life, heights nor depths, things present nor things to come, shall ever be able to separate those it fixed upon from the love of God! The love of God to His people is a bottomless, boundless, endless ocean, that swallows up their innumerable and mountainous sins in its infinite depths—that overflows all their great provocations, their vilest ingratitude, their utmost unworthiness—and that ever flows in its triumphant strength, and according to its infinite riches, to the full supply of all their necessities, until it has loved its beloved objects into its own image according to their creature-measure; until it has loved all sin out of them, and all grace into them; until it has freed from all death and misery, and raised them into itself as the element of their life; and then it will be to them, as vessels of mercy, an infinite ocean of joy and glory, where they shall live, and bathe, and dive to the praise of the glory of infinite love to the endless ages of a blessed eternity!

But oh, neither the tongues of men nor angels can express, much less the lispings of a babe set forth, the half—the thousandth part—of the infinite glories of God's everlasting love! Happy, thrice happy, for time and for eternity, are those blessed souls who are savingly interested in this everlasting love of God; who do and shall enjoy it to their ineffable and endless bliss, although a thousandth part of the glories of infinite love can never be expressed.

But who, O! who are those who are the OBJECTS of God's love—the darlings of God's heart, whom He has loved and will delight to love, and to love as God from henceforth and forever? They are all those who are enabled to believe in Jesus— who look, who come, who bow to Christ as the anointed Savior for their own salvation; who desire Christ above all things for their portion, and to give up themselves to the Lord, to be saved in Him with an everlasting salvation, to the praise of the glory of His grace forever. For this everlasting love of God, this free, distinguishing, great, unchangeable and inseparable love of God is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In Him it was fixed upon the happy objects of it, and in Him it is and shall be enjoyed by them. Not a single one, who is in Christ by faith, who runs in Him, the city of refuge, for its deliverance from the wrath to come—but is an object of God's love, but has an entire and eternal saving interest in God's everlasting love, and shall have the present and everlasting enjoyment thereof, to his present spiritual life in grace, and to his eternal life in glory.

And are you, brother, one of them that believe in Jesus? Are you one of those who desire Him above all things for your portion? Do you run into Christ for refuge from the wrath to come? And do you desire to be saved in the Lord to His present and eternal praise? It is you, you individually, who is an object of God's love. It is you as really as if He had loved none but you! It is you who has an entire and eternal interest in God's everlasting love! Would you give a thousand worlds if you had them, to be assured of your interest in God's unchangeable love? Are you thus athirst for that river, that fountain, that ocean of the water of life? Though you have not a thousand worlds, no, nor one mite of worthiness to give for the manifestation of God's love—Christ Jesus the Lord will give you of this fountain of the water of life freely. Oh, freely! though you may see yourself to be the most unworthy—though your sins and fears are innumerable—though you have done as evil things as you could against the Lord—and though you have dealt treacherously, and are bent to backsliding from Him daily—the Lord, your infinite Lover, will give you His love freely! He will satisfy your soul abundantly in this life with joy—and then—eternal glory! You who are athirst for the love of God, you shall not die for lack of it. No, brother, your soul is formed for love, and made thirsty in order to be filled, and with all the fullness of God, in love, shall you be delighted and eternally satisfied!

In love, then, to the God of love, doubt His love no more. Believe His love, and give up yourself to Him in love, and the God of love and peace shall be with you.

Anne Dutton's Letters on Spiritual Subjects

 

 

Dear Sir,

As pride is a sin that abides and works in all Christians in this world, let us all then, as the servants of Christ, trusting in Him—our victorious, sin-pardoning, sin-subduing and grace-giving Master—watch and oppose the enemy whenever attacked fiercely.

1. The sin of pride is the child of unbelief. Pride springs from a disbelief of God to be what He is, in His immense and essential glory, in His infinite, underived, all-comprehending, incomprehensible self-sufficiency; and from a vain conceit of the creature's being that which indeed it is not—that the creature is something independent of God. Whereas, without His all-supporting and all-supplying hand, it would soon sink into its first nothing, and be, as in and of itself it is, a mere vacuity, less than nothing, and vanity.

2. This sin of pride which turned myriads of angels of light into legions of black devils, and that for this they were hurled down from heaven to the bottomless pit of hell.

3. Pride was the sin which cast down Adam, and in him all his posterity, even to the last, from the height of created, natural, and princely excellency, into an unsearchable depth of spiritual slavery, and the just desert of eternal misery.

4. Pride is a sin by which the whole law of God, in each of its ten commandments, is broken.

5. This sin of pride, as it springs from gospel-unbelief, is directly opposite to the gospel of Christ. Pride rejects the Savior, in whole or in part, and would rival it, in extreme vanity, with the Lord of glory. Pride would rob the Savior of His invaluable crown, who died in the sinner's room, to raise him from death to that eternal life of a seat with Him of His high and everlasting throne. Yes, pride is directly contrary to the great design of God the Father in the gospel, which is, to make Himself an everlasting name, to display the exceeding riches of His free grace, in the whole and in every part of a sinner's salvation and bliss, to the eternal praise of His own glory.

But pride—horrid pride—will not endure that the Lord should have the entire glory of His saving grace, of His free, rich, boundless grace, but sets up wretched self in Jehovah's place, to nullify, as much as in it lies, the sinner-saving, the God-glorifying, project of eternity! Pride sets up the creature as a co-partner with the Creator; a creature of time, a mere nothing, upon a level with the eternal I AM! Yes, pride excludes God—the everlasting God—and takes to a man, Jehovah's essential, eternal throne, and in the height of insolence, says, "I AM! And there is none besides me."

6. Pride renders the creature, man, though new-created in Christ, after the image of His purity, and as such, bearing upon him a fresh impress of divine glory, the most unlike to the Holy Jesus, who, by way of eminence, and to an all-surpassing excellence, was meek and lowly!

7. Pride makes a member of Christ to bear upon him the horrid image of the devil! Nothing gives such a hellish visage to a spirit of heavenly extraction as the sin of pride, the spawn of the old serpent, the infernal abomination.

8. This sin of pride, the first-born of unbelief, as springing from it, and living in it as a branch from and in the life of the root, is a pregnant monster that contains in itself, and is fertile to bring forth, a fullness of all sin.

9. Nothing like the sin of pride unfits us for divine service. It renders us incapable, so far as it prevails, of any acceptable service either to God or man.

10. That this sin of Pride, dragon-like, stands ready with open mouth to devour every heavenly birth as soon as it is brought forth. And it would destroy effectively all the saints' fruits which they by faith bring forth unto God by Christ, as soon as they appear, were they not caught up instantly by as Almighty hand unto God upon the throne of grace for security to His and His people's joy and glory.

11. Pride is that vile abomination which the Lord hates, and which He will not allow in those whom He loves. This sin of pride, if the heart is not humbled for it deeply, and if not repented sincerely, will bring down upon the children of God His fatherly chastisements severely.

12. This sin of pride is a master-thief, as it robs God of that honor which would be given Him by His people if humble, and of that joy which He takes in their humility. Pride also robs believers of their present joy and comfort.

13. Pride is a sin that militates directly against the whole of divine glory as displayed and ascribed. It turns away its lofty eye from that illustrious display of the glory of God the Father in election, of God the Son in redemption, and of God the Holy Spirit in effectual calling, and thwarts thereby, as far as it may, the great design of the God of glory, which in and by this bright display is to make us meek and lowly that we might be happy here and hereafter in being holy. Pride will not allow us to give unto the Lord in any of these respects the glory due unto His name. It robs God as well as His people, and in robbing them it aims at Him.

This horrid sin of pride will make the Lord's friends to behave as his enemies, yes, to fight against Him with His own mercies, and even with His freest, richest mercies, to act the greatest hostilities. This monster, pride—this hellish sin—will excite a man to render hatred to God for His greatest love, to wound His honor, to pierce His heart, to stab to death His infinite life, by those choicest favors which it turns into the keenest daggers, which, in his immense bounty, he bestows upon the most unworthy, and with which he crowns, unto life and immortal glory, the most rebellious subjects, who, for renewed acts of enmity, deserve to die continually, and eternally.

14. Pride is such an abominable sin that no tongue or pen can express a thousandth part of its aggravated guilt. None but the Lord Jehovah, in His understanding infinity, can search the immense depth of this great iniquity.

Then, if pride is so great a sin, and has in it such a fullness of malignity against God and man, no wonder that the people of God are tempted to it by Satan, who hates God, who hates us. Hence we may learn to admire the infinite wisdom and love of God, which devised and provided a way, by and through the death of His only Son, to save His people from this abominable sin—to save them from its dominion here, by grace—and from its very being hereafter in glory.

We hence admire the invincible strength of Jehovah's favor, in that He casts not away His chosen servants from their appointed services, though God-provoking pride makes its appearance in their best performances. We are forever amazed at that immeasurable grace which forgives this great iniquity, and continues to love us freely, notwithstanding for the Lord's choicest mercy we return enmity!

Hence we learn the infinite merit of the Redeemer's blood which atoned for this sin of an infinite guilt, and reconciled such 'children of pride', to an infinitely holy God, and which cleanses us continually from the filthy stains of this deep-dyed iniquity. And let endless wonder strike our hearts unto rising praises, and eternal ages, at and for the omnipotent grace of the Holy Spirit—Who has begun in us pride's destruction, and will perform it to our soul's perfection, and full and everlasting joy and glory.

If pride is such a great iniquity, let us . . .

bewail it bitterly;

humble ourselves before God, on account of it, deeply;

wash in the fountain set open, instantly;

and entreat forgiving and subduing grace constantly.

Again, if pride is such an abominable sin, let us set ourselves against it with all our might, or rather, to oppose and destroy it, let us be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. And since we cannot serve God as we would and should in this world, while this subtle, potent sin works within us, let us long for the nobler joys of the saints in glory; where by pride, nor by any other sin, we shall dishonor, wound, nor grieve our great and good God, the God of grace and love, no more forever.

The good will of Him that dwelt in the bush be with you, and prosper you exceedingly, until time fades into eternal glory.