36. “F. N.” Your most kind communication of February 27th would not have remained so long unacknowledged, were it not that I have been laid aside for eight weeks, totally unable to take a pen or a book in my hand. You will kindly excuse the seeming neglect, and accept our warmest acknowledgments.
37. “W. C.,” Yeovil. So far from thinking you have taken a liberty in writing, dear friend, we are deeply touched by your loving sympathy, and heartily thank you for your letter and lines.
38. “R. A.” Eastbourne. Your soothing and comforting letter has proved a real balm to the spirit. The Lord return your love a hundredfold! An immense number of letters have come to hand, during the last two months, which I have not been able even to read. Somehow your lines have gone astray and I cannot lay my hand on them. Pray excuse this. May the Lord bless you abundantly!
39. “An Inquiring One,” London. You may be thoroughly assured of this, dear friend, that you will never get peace by looking at your repentance or your anything. If such a thing could be, it would simply be satisfaction with yourself; and this could never be right. Christ has made peace by the blood of His cross. God preaches peace by Jesus Christ. It is not by repentance, though, most surely, we believe in the necessity of repentance! But what would you say, dear friend, to a person if he were to tell you, that he had found peace, because his repentance was of the right kind—because he hated sin as God hated it? Doubtless you would say to him that his peace was a false one. Thanks be to God the believer’s peace rests on no such rotten foundation. The apostle does not say, “Having repented enough, we have peace with God.” No; but Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. The believer’s peace rests on a divine foundation. It is based on the glorious truth that God is not only satisfied as to the entire question of our sins but that He is actually glorified in respect to it. He has reaped a richer harvest in the matter of the putting away of our sins than ever He could have reaped in the fields of an unfallen creation. Nothing has ever glorified God like the death of Christ. The hearty belief of this must give peace to the soul. It is not the work wrought in us, whether repentance or aught else, that gives peace; but the work wrought for us. It is not the work of the Spirit in, precious and essential as it is, that gives peace; but the work of Christ for us. This is a grand and most necessary truth for all anxious inquirers. It is all well and right enough to judge ourselves, our state, our ways—to be humbled because of our shallow repentance, our coldness and indifference; but we shall never get peace by self-judgment. If we have not found peace ere we sit down to the work of self-judgment, we shall find it very dismal work indeed.
It seems to us, dear friend, that you are too much occupied with the thoughts of men. One preacher tells you this; another preacher tells you that; and your own heart tells you something else. Would it not be well to listen to what God says? This is what faith does, and thus finds settled tranquility. The believer’s peace can no more be disturbed than Christ can be disturbed from His seat on the throne of God. This seems strong; but it is true; and being true, its strength is part of its moral glory. Let us entreat you to take up the lovely attitude of the soul in Psalm 85, “I will hear what God the Lord trill speak” (not what this or that man will speak) “for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints; but let them not turn again to folly.” May the blessed Spirit lead you into the enjoyment of that peace which Christ has made by the blood of His cross, which God preaches in the gospel of His grace, by Jesus Christ, and which faith finds in the simple testimony of holy scripture.