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you to return home my heart was ready to break with a mixture of grief and joy. I had no expectations of hearing you again the following week; but God's thoughts are not as ours, neither are his ways our ways; wherever he intends to do his people good, fomething muft occur to bring them there, as nothing can hinder his purpose; "God will work, and who shall let it?" Ifa. xliii. 13. A way was opened for me to go to Newark, which I gladly embraced; and on the following Sunday morning I found my mind more ferene, calm, and quiet, than it had been for some time; and in prayer I found nearness of access to the Lord, and a little enlargement: I was led out in great earneftness that the Lord would be with me to bless and comfort me; and I felt a confidence fpring up in my mind, and a perfuafion in my heart, that God had heard, and would answer the petition that I had put up to him, to bless your miniftry to me that day. "Now faith is the fubftance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen," Heb. xi. 1. And bleffed, for ever bleffed, be the Lord, he condefcended to fulfil all my petitions, and attended his word with power to my heart, while you was speaking from Ifai. xxxv. 3, 4."Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees; fay to them that are of a fearful heart, Be ftrong, fear not; behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a re

compence, he will come and fave you." I may say with the Pfalmift, "Now know I that the Lord faveth his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven, with the saving strength of his right hand," Pfalm xx. 6. He ftrengthened me

out of Zion; but what I felt I fhall never be able fully to exprefs; the God of hope filled me with all joy and peace in believing, that I might "abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost," Rom. xv., 13. While your doctrine dropped as the rain, and your speech distilled as the dew upon my foul; my beloved was come, and his reward was with him, and his work before him; the holy Spirit teftified of him, and took of the things which were Chrift's, and fhewed them plainly unto me. And I felt in my foul fuch quietnefs, compofure, tranquillity, and fubmiffion to the will of God, and fuch brokennefs of heart and contrition of fpirit, together with fuch unction, power, reft, and peace, as. I am not able to speak of; but I found that "Godly forrow that worketh repentance to falvation, not to be repented of." 2 Cor. vii. 10. All my bondage, darknefs, and fear, were gone; and I rejoiced in God, as the portion of my foul, who had reconciled me to himself by Jefus Chrift; "For your fhame ye fhall have double, and for confufion they fhall rejoice in their portion, Ifai. Ixi. 7. All that I had fuffered before was not worthy to be compared with that glory

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which was now revealed; "Arife, fhine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is rifen thee," Ifa. lx. 1. The Lord was the health of my countenance, he anointed my head with oil, and my cup ran over; my foul delighted itfelf in the Lord; and, as I faid then, so say f now again, I would not take all the world for what I then enjoyed, and what I have many times experienced fince; it is that which makes all things in this life fink into nothing. The price of wifdom is far above rubies, and in Chrift we have all things richly to enjoy; "The meek fhall inherit the earth, and delight themfelyes in the abundance of peace," Pfalm xxxvii. 11; as it is written, "The work of righteousness fhall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and affurance for ever," la. xxxii. 17. "I fat down under his fhadow with great delight, and his fruit was fweet to my tafte." "My fruit," faith he, "is better than gold, yea than fine gold, and my revenue than choice filver," Prov. viii. 19. It is by the blood of the covenant God fends forth his prifoners out of the pit, wherein is no water, causing them to return to their strong hold, Jefus Chrift, as prifoners of hope. The atonement being applied fpeaks pardon, peace, and reconciliation with God; whereby the confcience is purged from fin and dead works, truth makes us free, and the Spirit bears witnefs to our adoption, works faith in the heart, proclaims

our enlargement, and cries, Abba, Father. "Because ye are fons, God hath fent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father," Gal. iv. 6. Our confcience beareth us witness in the Holy Ghost; and, "being juftified by faith, we have peace with God," Rom. v. 1. The foul feels the bleffed effect of this union; "I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou haft fent me, and haft loved them as thou haft loved me," John xvii. 23; and, being made an heir of God and joint-heir with Chrift, I was enabled to approach him without wrath or doubting, perfect love having caft out fear and torment. This makes his fervice perfect freedom, and enables us to worship God in newness of the fpirit, and to walk in newness of life. "At that day ye fhall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you," John xiv. 20. Well might Paul call it a peace which paffeth all understanding, and an everlasting confolation; for, while the foul feels this bleffed earnest of its future inheritance, we are loft in wonder, looking forward to that felicity which will be enjoyed beyond this life, when we fhall be filled with all the fulness of God.. John, feeling the love which God hath to us, seems to want language to express it, and therefore fays, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the fons of God; therefore the world

knoweth us not, because it knew him not. «Beloved, now are we the fons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear, we fhall be like him, for we shall fee him as he is," 1 John iii. 1, 2. The Lord Jefus Chrift made to me a feast of fat things, and of wines on the lees; and I drank and forgot my poverty, and remembered my mifery no more. It was a day of release; and I, who had long been bowed down, labouring under heavy afflictions and fore trials, and had feared every day because of the fury of the oppreffor, was bidden to go free; and I could then

in my heart bless the Almighty for all the trials I had endured. It was one of the days of the Son of man; and how delightful it is to fit at his feet and receive fuch bleffed portions as thefe! My heart, like David's, was fixed, trufting in God, while his lovingkindnefs and tender mercy, made known to me in a dear Redeemer, melted my fout in gratitude and thankfulness before him. Nay, fo abundant was the revelation, that well re member that at times, whilft I fat, I hardly knew where I was. I have frequently thought of Paul's words," whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth; of fuch an one will I glory, though of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities;" this experience is a bleffed reality, which no bond fervant ever knew. "The fervant knoweth not what his

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