I PITY you, my dear friend; I saw yesterday that your head was full, and your heart not so warm towards God as it sometimes is. Oh when shall we be free from these distractions? Or rather when shall our love to our Redeemer be so intense, that our hearts may be constantly fixed on him, and we (as it were) walk through the fire without being burnt? *I remember having sometimes said to you the beginning of last summer, “There is more a vast deal in faith than we all imagine;” and though, thanks to the free grace of God, we both know more of faith now, than we did at that time, yet I may still repeat the saying, and may continue to repeat it, till our eyes are fully opened in eternity. “All things are possible to him that believeth,” said the God of truth; and why then do not you and I conquer all sin? Because _we do not believe_. The unbounded riches of the grace of God in Christ Jesus are hardly more astonishing, than the perverseness of that soul, which will not fully trust in them. Christ stands ever ready to save to the uttermost, if we will but believe, that he can, and will do it; and we draw back and shrink from his redeeming hand. We suffer the dark clouds of our fallen nature to obscure the glorious light of the promises of God. And though our heads may be fully convinced of their truth, and we may have some desires of attaining them, yet there is in the centre of our souls an hidden root of unbelief, which just as we are going to lay hold on the prize, whispers――“How can these things be?” and then we sink. I have heard it observed of the eagle, that she holds her young ones full against the bright beams of the mid day sun: if they behold it stedfastly, she nourishes them, but if they turn away their heads or shut their eyes, she dashes them to the ground. There is something very striking in this. A nominal believer, who makes a profession of holiness, has all the outward marks of a true believer, as these dastard eagles have of the others; but he cannot look stedfastly at the glorious beams of the Sun of Righteousness: and how dreadful is the consequence? Oh my love, how ought we to watch and pray! How careful ought we to be not to lose sight for one moment of our immaterial sun, lest the eye of our minds should by that means contract a dimness and weakness, which might render us incapable of stedfastly beholding him, when he shall appear in all the fulness of his glory. May the God of mercy preserve you in all temptations, and be your portion in time and in eternity.
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_My dear Friend_,
I PRAISE God with my whole heart for your happiness and strength, and I pray him to increase it every moment. O may that blessed peace never leave your soul: it is eternal life begun, and ten thousands laid in the balance with this peace would be all lighter than vanity. It is a glorious sign, that in outward troubles, or inward temptations, you can leave the means of your deliverance intirely to God, without suffering your imagination to run out after the manner in which you probably may be delivered. O that we could always venture ourselves upon the mercies of our God! Then would he indeed work wonders for us――wonders which we now can scarce believe, though the God of truth himself declares them unto us. And this God will surely keep you in the dangers to which you are going to be exposed, if you will be watchful to keep the eye of your mind constantly turned towards him, and wait and hang upon him, as a little child on its fond parent, drawing all your help, all your comfort from him, and him alone. If you have but little outward retirement, shut more closely the door of your heart, and there in its inmost recesses commune with your God, and Redeemer, there be continually crying unto him――Lord thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee; thou knowest, O life and joy of my soul, that I desire nothing but to do thy perfect will, and to be conformed to the likeness of thy sufferings, as well as to the likeness of thy resurrection. Oh crucify in me the whole body of sin! Give me an humble, a mortified, and child-like spirit, and in thine own good time perfect the work thou hast begun in my soul.
As to examples which are not good, I hope I may say, that all the effect they can have upon my beloved friend (in her present happy state of mind) will be to drive her nearer to her God, and in that nearness what comfort does the believing soul find?
What tho’ earth and hell engage To shake that soul with fear; Calmly it defies the rage Of persecution near.
Suffering faith shall brighter grow, As gold when in the furnace tried: Only Jesus will we know, And Jesus crucified.