I continue now the extracts from my journal.
March 19, 1841. It is twelve years this day since I arrived in England. How exceedingly kind and gracious has the Lord been to me day by day ever since! And the Lord has crowned this day also with mercies. I have been for some time again very weak in body, on account of which it appeared to me desirable to change my sphere of labour for awhile, to which I was the more inclined as I purpose to write the second part of my Narrative, for which I need more time than I can well find in Bristol, along with my other engagements. Today I had fully determined to leave, as I am now exceedingly weak; but we had no means for it. This morning, after the exposition of the Scriptures to the Orphan and Day School children, there was given to me a check for 15l., of which 5l. is for brother Craik, 5l. for myself, and 5l. for the Orphans, Thus my way, even as to means, is made quite plain.
March 20. Nailsworth. I had purposed to take lodgings in the neighbourhood of Tetbury, passing only a night or so at Nailsworth. When I came here today, and heard about the state of the saints here and in the neighbourhood, I could not but think that the Lord had sent me to this place to labour for a season.
March 21. I ministered twice today among the brethren at Nailsworth, with much assistance from the Lord, and feel already much better from the change of air.
March 22. Truly God has sent me here! Certain matters which have been brought to light through my being here, prove it. May the Lord make it still more abundantly plain that He has sent me here!--There is a small house, which a brother left a few weeks since, but has to pay rent for at least three months longer. He will let me have it rent free, and he and brother--mean to put into it the needful furniture.--Thus the Lord has provided a lodging, not only for me, but also for all my family, who can now join me here.
A sister in the Lord in Ireland, who did not see her acceptance before God, and who was habitually without the assurance that she is a child of God, that she is born again, that her sins are forgiven, and that she shall be saved, in her distress of mind wrote to me about this time. As her case is by no means a solitary one, but as there are so many children of God who do not know that they are children of God; as there are so many whose sins are forgiven who do not know that they are forgiven; and as there are so many who will be saved, who do not know that they will be saved, and who are continually afraid of what would become of them, were they to be taken out of the world:--I have thought it well to say something here on this most important subject.
I. Question. How may I obtain the knowledge that I am a child of God, or that I am born again, or that my sins are forgiven, or that I shall not perish but have everlasting life?
Answer. Not by my feelings, not by a dream, not by my experience being like this or that ones, or unlike this or that ones; but this matter is to be settled, as all other spiritual matters, entirely by the revealed will of God, the written word of God, which is the only rule, the only standard for believers.
II. Question. By what passages, then, for instance, may I make out that I am a child of God, or born again?
Answer. 1. In 1 John v. 1, it is written: "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." The meaning of these words is evidently this, that every one (whether young or old, male or female, one who has lived an outwardly moral or immoral life,) who believes that the poor, despised Jesus of Nazareth, of whom we read in the New Testament, was the promised Christ or Messiah, such a one is no longer in his natural state, but is born again, is born of God, is a child of God. The question therefore is, Do you believe that Jesus, who was born at Bethlehem, and crucified under Pontius Pilate, is the promised Saviour, the Messiah, the one for whom the Jews were to look? If so, you are a child of God, else you would not believe it. It is given unto you to believe it. Millions may SAY that Jesus is the Saviour, the Messiah, but none BELIEVE it except the children of God. It proves me to be a child of God that I believe it; to none besides is it given to believe it, though millions might say so.
Perhaps you say, I do not feel that I am born again, born of God, and I have therefore no enjoyment.