Oh! I am my Beloved’s,
And my Beloved is mine!
He brings a poor vile sinner
Into His “House of wine”.
I stand upon His merit,
I know no other stand,
Not e’en where glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.
“By grace are ye saved through faith... not of works.” Eph. 2:8-9
Free Grace
Grace, grace, free grace, the merits of Christ for nothing, white and fair, and large Savior-mercy (which is another sort of thing than creature-mercy, or law-mercy, yea, a thousand degrees above angel-mercy), have been, and must be, the rock that we drowned souls must swim to.
I wish all professors to fall in love with grace. All our songs should be of His free grace. We are but too lazy and careless in seeking of it; it is all our riches we have here, and glory in the bud. I wish that I could set out free grace. I was the law’s man, and under the law, and under a curse; but grace brought me from under that hard lord, and I rejoice that I am grace’s freeholder. I pay tribute to none for heaven, seeing that my land and heritage holdeth of Christ, my new King. Infinite wisdom hath devised this excellent way of freeholding for sinners.
I know no sweeter way to heaven than through free grace and hard trials together; and one of these cannot well want another.
Let us be ballasted with grace, that we be not blown over, and that we stagger not. Yet a little while, and Christ and His redeemed ones shall fill the field, and come out victorious.... He shall not faint nor be discouraged, till He hath brought forth judgment unto victory.
Faith
Consent and say “Amen” to the promises, and ye have sealed that God is true and Christ is yours. This is an easy market. Ye but look on with faith; for Christ suffered all, and paid all.
When the truth is come to your hand, hold it fast; go not again to make a new search and inquiry for truth. It is easy to cause conscience to believe as ye will, not as ye know.
Christ Alone
I am glad to hear that Christ and ye are one, and that ye have made Him your “one thing,” whereas many are painfully toiled in seeking many things, and their many things are nothing. It is only best that ye set yourself apart... for Christ alone; for ye are good for no other thing than Christ; and He hath been going about you these many years, by afflictions, to engage you to Himself. It were a pity and a loss to say Him nay.... Let us, then, go on to meet with Him, and to be filled with the sweetness of His love. Nothing will hold Him from us. He hath decreed to put time, sin, hell, devils, men, and death out of the way, and to rid the rough way betwixt us and Him, that we may enjoy one another. It is strange and wonderful... that He would have the company of sinners to solace and delight Himself withal in heaven.
I know that you are looking to Christ and I beseech you to follow your look. Howbeit this day be not yours and Christ’s, the morrow will be yours and His. I would not exchange the joy of my bonds and imprisonment for Christ, with all the joy of this dirty and foul-skinned world.
Make tight work at the bottom, and your ship shall ride against all storms, if withal your anchor be fastened on good ground; I mean within the veil. And verily I think this is all, to gain Christ. All other things are shadows, dreams, fancies, and nothing.
Poor folks must either beg or borrow from the rich; and the only thing that commendeth sinners to Christ is extreme necessity and want. Christ’s love is ready to make and provide a ransom, and money for a poor body who hath lost his purse. “Ho, ye that have no money, come and buy” (Isa. 55:1), that is the poor man’s market.
The sweetest and safest course is, for this short time of the afternoon of this old and declining world, to stand for Jesus. He hath said it, and it is our part to believe it, that ere it be long, “Time shall be no more, and the heaven shall wax old, as a garment.”
Christ the Believer’s Security
The Nail fastened in a sure place cannot be broken, nor can the smallest vessel fail to find sweet security in dependence upon Him, since all the weight of heaven and earth, of redeemed saints and confirmed angels, is upon His shoulder, I am a fool, and brutish to imagine that I can add anything to Christ’s special care of and tenderness to His people. He who keepeth the basins and knives of His house, and bringeth the vessels again to the second temple, must have a more tender care of His redeemed ones than of a spoon, or of Peter’s old shoes, which must yet not be lost in his captivity.
Submission
O blessed soul, that could sacrifice his will, and go to heaven, having lost his will and made resignation of it to Christ! I would seek no more than that Christ were absolute King over my will, and that my will were a sufferer in all crosses, without meeting Christ with such a word, “Why is it thus?”
Oh, what wisdom is it to believe, and not to dispute; to subject the thoughts to His court, and not to repine at any act of His justice? He hath done it: all flesh be silent! It is impossible to be submissive and religiously patient, if ye stay your thoughts down among the confused rollings and wheels of second causes; as, “Oh, the place!” “Oh, the time!” “Oh, if this had been, this had not followed!” Oh, the linking of this accident with this time and place! Look up to the master-motion and the first wheel.
Oh, how hard it is to get the intentions so cut off from and raised above the creature, as to be without mixture of creature and carnal interest, and to have the soul, in heavenly actings, only, only eyeing Himself, and acting from love to God, revealed to us in Jesus Christ!
A Good Conscience
Keep the conscience whole without a crack! If there be a hole in it, so that it take in water at a leak, it will with difficulty mend again. It is a dainty, delicate creature, and a rare piece of the workmanship of your Maker; and therefore deal gently with it, and keep it entire, that amidst this world’s glory you may learn to entertain Christ.