August 9. After extreme suffering, which lasted about seventeen hours, my wife was this day delivered of a still-born child.--Who of my readers would suppose, that whilst I was so abundantly blessed by God, and that in so many respects, my heart should have been again many times during several months previous to this day, cold, wretched, carnal? How long-suffering is the Lord! Repeatedly, during this time, I could let hours run on, after I had risen in the morning, before I prayed; at least, before I retired for prayer. And at that time when I appeared most zealous for God, perhaps more so than at any time before or since, I was often far from being in a spiritual state. I was not now, indeed, indulging in gross outward sins, which could be noticed by my brethren; but often--very often, the eye of my kind loving Father must have looked on me with much grief. On this account, I have no doubt, the Lord now, in great compassion, sent this heavy blow. I had not seriously thought of the great danger connected with childbearing, and therefore had never earnestly prayed about it. Now came this solemn time. The life of my dear wife was hanging, as it were, on a thread, and, in the midst of it, my conscience told me, that my state of heart made such a chastisement needful. Yet, at the same time, I was much supported.--When the child was still-born, I saw almost immediately afterwards, that this could not have been expected otherwise, for I had not looked on the prospect of having a child as on a blessing, which I was about to receive from God, but rather considered it as a burden and a hindrance in the Lord's work; for I did not know then, that, whilst a wife and children may be in certain respects, on the one hand, a hindrance to the servant of Christ, they also may fit him, on the other hand, for certain parts of his work, in teaching him things which are important to be known, especially for the pastoral work. The Lord now brought, in addition to this, very great sufferings upon my beloved wife, which lasted for six weeks, combined with a partial lameness of the left side.--Immediately after the eventful time of August 8th and 9th, the Lord brought me, in His tender mercy, again into a spiritual state of heart, so that I was enabled to look on this chastisement as a great blessing. May this my experience be a warning to believing readers, that the Lord may not need to chastise them, on account of their state of heart! May it also be a fresh proof to them, that the Lord, in His very love and faithfulness, will not, and cannot let us go on in backsliding, but that He will visit us with stripes, to bring us back to Himself!
There was one point, however, in which, by grace, I had continued to be faithful to God, i.e. in my mode of living, and, therefore, in as far as I had been faithfully sowing, I now reaped abundantly; for the Lord most graciously supplied, in rich abundance, all our temporal wants, though they were many. Another reason for this may have been, that the Lord never lays more on us, in the way of chastisement, than our state of heart makes needful; so that whilst He smites with the one hand, He supports with the other.--We saw it to be against the Lord's mind to put by any money for my wife's confinement, though we might have, humanly speaking, very easily saved £20. or £30. during the six months previous to August 7th. I say, humanly speaking, and judging from what we had received during all these months, we might have laid by as much as the above sums; but I have every reason to believe, that, had I begun to lay up, the Lord would have stopped the supplies, and thus, the ability of doing so was only apparent. Let no one profess to trust in God, and yet lay up for future wants, otherwise the Lord will first send him to the hoard he has amassed, before He can answer the prayer for more. We were persuaded, that, if we laid out our money in the Lord's service, He would send more when we needed it; and this our faith, His own gift, He graciously honoured, inasmuch as He not merely gave us what we needed, but much more.