IT is needless for me to assure you of my deep interest in your spiritual state; you know it. Your letter of the 4th interests me much. What you really want, is to take your true place, as utterly lost and undone,-a "sinner," "an enemy," “ungodly, without strength," according to Rom. 5. I believe your baptism and self-dedication were a complete mistake, an attempt to ascend by steps to the altar of God, a thing strictly prohibited (see the close of Ex. 20). Of what possible use would it be for a man who owes ten thousand talents, to go through a ceremony and profess to dedicate himself to his creditor? Would this pay his debt? Assuredly not. What does he want? Full forgiveness, the complete blotting out of his heavy score.
Well, dear friend, this is what is proclaimed in the Gospel to every creature under heaven, and therefore proclaimed to you. "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Does not this apply to you? How can you refuse the application, in the face of that far-reaching word "whosoever?" “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ." It is not a promise. There is no such thing as a promise to the unconverted. There is a proclamation. God is now preaching—not promising—peace by Jesus Christ. There are exceeding great and precious promises to the believer, to the child of God. “All the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus, to the glory of God by us,"—that is, by all believers.
It is an utter mistake to speak of God as having forsaken you. It is a scheme of the devil, to cast dust in your eyes and keep you from Christ. God is seeking you. He is beseeching you to be reconciled to Him. To talk of baptism and dedication before you have gotten eternal life, divine righteousness, and peace with God, is a most complete delusion. Isaiah did not, and could not, say, " Here am I; send me," until he had heard the blessed words, “This hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged." Till then, all he could say was, " Woe is me I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips." What could baptism and self-dedication do for a poor undone man with unclean lips? How could one undone and unclean dedicate himself to God? Impossible But the very moment he knew himself pardoned and purged, he could say, with a full heart, a free conscience, and an enlightened understanding, "Here am I; send me”
Thus it must be in every case, and therefore in your case, my dear friend. You want to get to the end of yourself, and find your all in Christ, “Who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." Then all your difficulties will be solved, all your questions answered, all your clouds and mists removed. The very moment a sinner takes his true place, he finds a full Christ, and all is divinely settled. The fullness of God ever waits on an empty vessel; and when the vessel is filled into all the fullness of God, then verily there can be dedication, but not till then.
It is marvelous to see how the enemy seeks to blind and bewilder souls, in order to prevent their seeing the salvation of God. Only reflect for a moment, dear friend, on the utter absurdity involved in the idea of any poor anxious soul being disturbed by “the unsolved mystery of where Cain's wife came from." Surely it was not the object of the inspired writer of Genesis to enter into such details. Hundreds of births are passed over in silence, as having no link with the inspired narrative. You say, “Even now the mystery is unsolved as to where Cain's wife came from also to whom Cain alluded when he complained that every one who found him would slay him." It is not difficult to trace such questions to their real source. You must fling them behind your back, as suggestions of the father of lies, and rest, like a little child, in the grand truth of the divine inspiration of Moses and all the scriptures. May the blessed Spirit, by His powerful and indispensable ministry, enable you so to do. I shall not cease to cry to God on your behalf; and when your precious soul is brought into full peace and joy in believing, let me know, that I may praise Him with you. C. H. M.
“FAITH is not what we see or feel,
It is a simple trust
In what the God of love has said
Of Jesus as the Just.”