September 25th, 1866.
My Dear Fellow-Laborer And Fellow-Sufferer In The Patience Of Christ Jesus,- It has seemed right to the Lord to allow trial to spring up here, according to that word, there must also be heresies, that they which are approved may be made manifest. A solemn word and description of a soul-humbling sorrow. May we mistrust self, and judge all the secondary motives of our hearts, and have faith and hope in God alone.
The attack on myself is for printing -. " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me " (Psa. 22), refers to the blessed Lord's bearing the wrath due to me; that He was forsaken then and there in my stead. As the paper is in the Present Testimony, every one can judge for themselves. All I can say is, that I believe I ought to be willing to go to the stake for the precious truth there described. I dare say there may be slips of the pen, and perhaps mistakes which I cannot see, but as to the main statement I could not recall it. Man turned his back on God and broke away from Him in Eden; God forsook Christ and hid His face from Him on Calvary. If no one else will say it was for my sake, G. V. W. does; and in that act, which faith says was because of my sin, I have peace. All my blunders, whatever they may be, notwithstanding, the honor of being identified with—in these attacks upon him seems to me too high an honor altogether. The attack upon him is chiefly as to dispensational statements; as to me it is as to what forms the groundwork of my soul's rest. I believe He, Jesus Christ, was a substitute for me under wrath; and it does seem to me that the great question of sin is, and can be, nowhere else wound up and settled. Either the Son of God, who was and is Son of man, bore the whole wrath for the saved people when God forsook Him, and then I have peace through faith in Him, or the question of sin never can be settled or finished for me; for if I disbelieve in what He bore, and have to bear the judgment of sin myself as a creature, the judgment is never ending, but runs throughout eternity; is measureless upon the creature as it is measureless when looked at, as having been borne by the infinite Son of God as Son of man. Of course I do not want any one to take my view of the question if their faith extends not so far as mine, but I am persuaded that faith cannot find contradiction between my view of atonement and any lesser view of it. The paper was not a new one, but the substance of a lecture given at Woolwich three years ago.
The brethren at Woolwich found immense help in the lecture. I judge it to be a carefully written paper, with plentiful latitude in it; but I meant-and have done it-to put down what that is which is the basis of my own mind's peace; namely, that as I in the first Adam was one broken away from God, my back to Him, so my Lord, in the perfectness of His obedience to God and love for me, was forsaken in my stead when He called out, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? " These five underlined words were no exaggeration on the lips of the Son of man. All God's billows and waves rolled over His soul because He was my substitute. Do not take my view of this paper or the controversy. May God show you the right.
G. V. W.