DEAR MR. GOVERNOR, You will, perhaps, recollect one who went up with you in the train from E. to D., now about a year ago, or not far from it, and be surprised, perhaps, to receive a letter from him from Canada. But though I have been much occupied-as you may suppose, I did not cross the Atlantic for nothing-I have not forgotten our conversation in the train, and I crave to hear how you are getting on. We have had here the governor of the jail fully brought to the knowledge of salvation, and to walk with the saints of God, as he still does. He would ranch like another employment, but awaits the Lord's leading to find him something. His dear wife-already a believer-was also led to see she ought to be more entirely separate from the world, and live more devotedly, and so she did thoroughly, and the Lord has taken her. She expected it, and was longing to go. No cloud came over her peace and joy. She suffered dreadfully and long, but no impatience was shown; all was bright, and all peace. She left four little children, charming little ones; we had them in the house where I was, to spare the nurse while she was ill. She saw them, gave them her blessing, and bid farewell, but it raised no lingering look behind. Another dear old man, only six months converted, died just after, rejoicing with all his heart. We buried both, not far apart, under the deep, deep snow, which indeed kept the earth soft enough to be opened (for sometimes they cannot bury), committing them to Christ till the resurrection.
And, now, how would it be with you if thus called 2 Is all peace, and right with God? You know yourself that you need. it; you know that Christ is the only way to have it. Let me add a few words as to the fullness of it. He appeared once in the end of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. That work is finished-it can never be added to, nor taken away from; its value does not change. But the Spirit of God works in us, to show us our need of it, makes us to see that we are sinners, that we are lost in ourselves; leads us (perhaps by deep and painful convictions) to the sense that there is no good in us, that when even to will is present with us, how to perform that which is good we find not. We find, not only that we have sinned, but that there is a law of sin in our members warring against the law of our mind, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin in our members. But when really humbled about this, and convicted in our own hearts-removing all pretensions of righteousness in ourselves-we turn to Christ, we find that He has died for this, that He has been a sacrifice for the sin, as for the sins, that burdened us-has been made sin for us, has put it away for us by the sacrifice of Himself.
Thus we get peace and liberty of heart before God, because the sin is put away between us and Him-Christ has made a full expiation. Sin does not exist as between God and us. When He looks on the blood of Christ, He cannot see sin in the believer, because, when Christ shed that blood He put it away. Thus we get liberty and power too, because submitting thus to the righteousness of God; having Christ for our righteousness, we are sealed with the Spirit, which. gives us power and skews us Christ, so that we get strength and joy, and are able to glorify Him.
How is it, then, with you? Are you still a worse prisoner than those you are watching over, or freed by the redemption that is in Christ? Have you been brought to see that, if you refuse life through His name, you must perish? Do you seek that you should know Him, or are you joining with His enemies-hail-fellow-wellmet with the world, that, to its judgment and ruin, crucified Him? If we have His Spirit, we know that we are in Him, and all is peace, and joy, too, because we know the Son of God, and abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. I shall be glad to hear from 3-on. May the blessed Lord, in His grace, direct your eye fixedly on Christ.
Ever truly yours in Christ,
. 1863 J. N. D.
DEAR BROTHER, I have been greatly struck with the difference of the instruction in that which precedes and follows verse 12 of chapter v. of Romans. To the end of verse 11 it is a question of sins, and of our justification, of pardon by the blood and by the resurrection of our precious Savior. From verse 12 it is a question of sin, of our condition, common to all before God, and not of pardon, but of deliverance; and therefore it is not a question of Christ dying for our sins, but of our death with Him, and of the fact that we live by Him. The blessedness of the first of these mercies is portrayed in chapter 5 1-11; that of the second in chapter 8. The first is specially that which God is Himself, that which He is for the sinner; the second, our position before Him, and what He is for His own. In the Epistle to the Romans the sinner is looked at as living in sin, then dead with Christ (he is not yet risen with Him, but living by Him). In the Epistle to the Colossians the apostle goes further-we are dead in sin, and raised with Him; it is a change of position, as well as the communication of a new life. In the Epistle to the Ephesians we are only viewed as dead in sins (even as walking in them), then quickened, raised with Christ, and seated in Him in heavenly places. In the Epistle to the Colossians the Christian, though raised, is on the earth; his life is hid with Christ in God, he ought to have his affections on high-his inheritance is there, preserved for him. You can examine these things in the word. What I have said of Romans is very useful for the deliverance of souls-it is deliverance.
I bless God, clear brother, that He has spared you your dear little girl, after having taken away your son. His good hand is upon us, even (and very particularly) in things that are painful. It was not worth while to give a long history of the prosperity of Job, but the Holy Spirit of God has given us details of all that took place in his difficulties. It was worth while, and it is for the profit of His own to the end of the age. It is there that the work of our God is found, May He give us to have entire confidence in Him. It was the first thing that Satan destroyed, before and in order that lust might enter into Eve. Now the entire life of Jesus was the manifestation of love, to regain the confidence of the heart of man. Without doubt, he needed grace; but it is what He was-God sheaving Himself to man, that He might trust in Him. His death does not diminish the of His love.
Your affectionate brother in Christ,
1868. J. N. D.
MY DEAR ——, I did not answer your letter, being laid so low myself as to stop, my activities. I am better, and seek gradually to clear off old arrears. Indeed I did not know for some time after your letter whether I was not going to be taken away from this world. I found it a solemn thing, for it was present with me, but a very useful, and in result quite a blessed experience. It made me much more feel to belong to the other world, and the Father's love; and the Son's love and work stood out with a clearness and real depth they never did before. No new truth, but a different realization of what that truth brought. It has linked me wonderfully more with the sources of grace, but we are poor creatures after all.
As to Rom. 6, of which you speak, it is not our experience as, to redemption-a work done for us, accomplished, and where accomplishment and value are owned of God; Christ has died for our sins, and, as to imputation, we have no more conscience of sins -this is connected with our state, and vet in one sense it closes experience, that is the efforts of the soul to get rest by victory, and chapter vii is the experience that we cannot succeed; even where to will is present, we have no strength. When fully, experimentally, convinced of this, we find, through grace, that as to the flesh we died in Christ's death; that what the law could not do, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin has condemned sin in the flesh-not forgiven, that cannot be; but that the sin I find working in me and distressing my soul, and which I condemn and hate but is still there, God has condemned in the cross, so that that condemnation is accomplished for me; but that it was wrought in death, so that if I was there, and I am now for faith in what Christ took, it is in death-Christ's death, the condemnation over, the death come-I died with Him; so that the condemnation is passed, and I have died for faith.
In Col. 2:33In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:3) it is God's estimate of this my state," Ye are dead." In Rom. 8 it is faith's through grace, I reckon myself dead, because Christ who is my life died. In 2 Cor. 4:1010Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. (2 Corinthians 4:10) you have the apostle carrying it out in practice. Now, Christ's work outside us-for us-is done entirely outside us, and accepted of God, we believe in it and God's acceptance of it. But in. being dead. with Christ, though it puts an end to the experience of my own useless struggles, it is something I reckon as to myself; and while it is judicial (according to Col. 3), and hence is the way and only way of liberty, as I know God so accounts it about myself, yet I have by faith to reckon it according to what Christ has done once for all. I do reckon myself to have died with Him, and God so accounts me, as having Him who did die as my life. Still, it goes on in my heart; and so far is experimental. I believe that the sin was condemned of God on the cross, and that God does reckon it so (Col. but Rom. 6 takes it up on the faith side, and I reckon myself-that is not judicial, though based on faith in what is, namely, Col. 3; Rom. 8:33For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: (Romans 8:3); and I have to carry it out according to 2 Cor. 4
It is then experimental as that which is the exercise of faith in us, and taking what has taken place in Christ as true of us-not a work done about us and available as accepted of God-it is so far judicial, that is, in seeing the work accomplished and judicially in Christ, we obtain liberty with God in spite of flesh, and power in the law of the Spirit of life. Conflict remains, because the flesh and temptation are there; vigilance and diligence called for, just because we are delivered, to maintain holiness and communion. The thought of imputation is gone, or acceptance connected. with it; till then, even if justification be known, it is a question of acceptance, if not of righteousness. That question, as well as that of our sins, was settled on the cross, and we are free, free with God, but free to be holy, and that is real deliverance; we pass from the effort of a captive against his chains to conflict with the strength of Christ against the enemy. Jordan and Colossians have come in, for Romans only insists on death with Christ, not on resurrection; life there is in Christ, but not resurrection with Him.
Ephesians is another thing, but that would be too large a subject now.
Your affectionate brother in Christ,
1881. J. N. D.