“HOW could the power of grace be manifest, either to you, in you, or by you, without afflictions? How could the corruptions and devastations of the heart be checked without a cross? How could you acquire a tenderness and skill in speaking to them that are weary, without a taste of such trials as they also meet with? You could only be a hearsay witness to the truth, power, and sweetness of the precious promises, unless you have been in such a situation as to need them, and to find their suitableness and sufficiency. The Lord has given you a good desire to serve Him in the Gospel, and He is now training you for that service. Many things, yea, the most important things belonging to the Gospel ministry, are not to be learned by books and study, but by painful experience. You must expect a variety of exercises: but two things He has promised you, that you shall not be tried above what He will enable you to bear, and that all shall work together for your good.
We read somewhere of a conceited orator, who declaimed upon the management of war in the presence of Hannibal, and of the contempt with which Hannibal treated his performance. He deserved it; for how should a man who had never seen a field of battle be a competent judge of such a subject? Just so, were we to acquire no other knowledge of the Christian warfare than what we could derive from cool and undisturbed study, instead of coming forth as able ministers of the New Testament, and competently acquainted with the devices, the deep-laid counsels and stratagems of Satan, we should prove but mere declaimers. But the Lord will take better care of those whom He loves and designs to honor. He will try, and permit them to be tried, in various ways. He will make them feel much in themselves, that they may know how to feel much for others.
I know the Lord loves you, and you know it likewise: every affliction affords you a fresh proof of it. How wise His management in our trials! How wisely adjusted in season, weight, continuance, to answer His gracious purposes in sending them! How unspeakably better to be at His disposal than at your own! So you say; so you think; so you find. You trust in Him, and shall not be disappointed. Help me with prayers, that I may trust Him too, and be at length enabled to say without reserve, “What Thou wilt, when Thou wilt, how Thou wilt.” I had rather speak these three sentences from my heart, in my mother-tongue, than be master of all the languages in Europe.
The complaints you make of what passes within encourage me under what I feel myself. Indeed, if those who I have reason to believe are more spiritual and humble than I am, did not give some testimony that they find their hearts made of the same materials as mine is, I should be sometimes hard put to it to believe that I have any part or lot in the matter, or any real knowledge of the life of faith. But this concurrent testimony of many witnesses confirms me in what I think the Scripture plainly teaches, that the soil of human nature, though many spots are certainly better weeded, planted, and manured than others, is everywhere the same―universally bad so bad that it cannot be worse, and, of itself, is only capable of producing noxious weeds, and nourishing venomous creatures. We often see the effects of culture, skill, and expense will make a garden where all was desert before. When Jesus, the good Husbandman, encloses a spot, and separates it from the waste of the world, to make it a residence for Himself, a change presently takes place; it is planted and watered from above, and visited with beams infinitely more cheering and fertilizing than those of the material sun.
But its natural propensity to bring forth weeds still continues; and one-half of His dispensations may be compared to a company of weeders, whom He sends forth into His garden to pluck up all which He has not planted with His own hand, and which, if left to grow, would quickly overpower and overtop the rest. But, alas the ground is so impregnated with evil seeds, and they shoot in such quick succession, that if this weeding work were not constantly repeated all former labor would be lost. Hence arises the necessity of daily crosses and disappointments, daily changes of frame, and such multiplied convictions, that we are nothing, and can do nothing of ourselves: all are needful, and barely sufficient to prevent our hearts from being overrun with pride, self-dependence, and false security.
Freedom for public service depends much upon the spirituality of our walk before God and man. Wisdom will not dwell with a trifling, an assuming, a censorious, or a worldly spirit. But if it is our business, and our pleasure, to contemplate Jesus, and to walk in His steps, He will bless us; we shall be like trees planted by a constant stream, and He will prosper the work of our hands.
The sermons of some preachers are often more ingenious than edifying, and rather set off the man than commend the Gospel of Christ.
When the Lord gives confidence, He will not disappoint it.” J. N.
FRAGMENTS. ― “The cross was the outlet of man’s enmity and the inlet of God’s love.”
“Repentance is the judgment we form, under the effect of God’s testimony, of all in ourselves to which that testimony applies.”
“Faith is the divinely given perception of things not seen, wrought through the word of God by the Spirit.... True faith is the work of the Holy Ghost in the soul, revealing the object of faith in divine power; so that the heart receives it on divine testimony as divine truth, am a as a divine fact.”