I was very glad to hear from you, and always am, from the beloved brethren who are at the work, though in my constant but so similar work one day with another, I may have nothing very interesting to answer. At this moment I am occupied in a special way, translating the Old Testament into French. I feel I am at the Lord's work, so that I am through grace very happy. I preach and lecture naturally too, but have less active service. But I can tell you something of the brethren. And, in general, thank God, the account is happy. I think the brethren were in a critical state, but I believe the Lord has been working in grace. In several places where there was trial, blessing seems to be springing up. I do not think we have all arrived, even at what our poor hearts could desire; but if He is at work the heart can rejoice, and look for more blessing. I feared the world for them; and, on the one side, incapacity to meet cases of discipline, which left all in disorder; and, on another, loss of spiritual power so that the testimony was weakened, and therewith some setting up a claim of high attainment without knowing themselves. But God is ever faithful, and when He works none can hinder: some were inclined to settle things, and things are never settled till souls are. I have not interfered, for what was wanting was the Lord's working, and as to ministry—what would raise the whole tone was, as far as God enabled me, what was really the profitable thing Where I chiefly was we were, thank God, getting on very happily and unitedly, and there was a good deal of attendance of persons seeking the grace and truth that is in Christ. It is a great thing to trust God and look to Him; it carries you through everything. But the brethren still want stirring up to more spiritual life, which One only can give. God's truth for these last days they have, though of course there is always need of fresh apprehensions of scripture to feed and lead on the soul. But what I look for for all of them is a heart devoted to God, to Christ who suffered for us here below—the blessed One we wait to see.
I have been struck lately with the difference of Paul's writings and John's, or rather with how little Paul speaks of the Father, The way in which John presents God to us, and Paul us to God, had been before our minds, but I had not applied it particularly to this point; and I had been occupied with the Father's revelation of Himself lately, and how far hymns could be addressed to Him, and then I found that Paul puts us clearly in liberty before Him—the Lord be praised for it!—giving the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father, but never Him distinctly before us. John does both in the gospel and epistle: it is Himself—known through Christ and by the Spirit; but it is " the Father himself loveth you." This is another thought and relationship; and the difference is very practical for our state and affections.
As you have been long away, I add what we have had before us: how the apostle, in Romans, gives us man, still a living man on earth, but Christ his life and justified, having the Holy Ghost so as to know his position. Then the exhortation is to give ourselves up a living sacrifice to God as transformed. Colossians—we are risen with Christ, not only a new life but a new state, "meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light," but not there—life (not the Holy Ghost) but it is a hope in heaven, and the exhortation is that we may seek the things which are above where Christ sits—say, like Christ the forty days before the ascension. In Ephesians we are sitting in heavenly places in Him, and the Holy Ghost in us. Hence the exhortation is to come out and show the character of God as revealed in Christ. (Eph. 4; 5) Then there is another difference: Christ is only seen as raised from the dead, %Doi we not as dead in Him, and having had to die and rise again, but as wholly dead in sins, and then a new creation: hence God's counsels. The Colossians only just touches this, and does not of course take us to heaven. The wilderness makes no part of the counsels of God, but of His ways with us. We are completely brought to God by redemption—so after the Red Sea at Sinai. Then come exercises of every kind, whether in or out of Canaan, in the world or in heavenly places. The true knowledge of the Father is in the affections, in relationship. It is goodness, love—not in the kind of sympathetic exercises and experiences into which Christ is entered for us; we may be in them, and the Father's love known—but it is in another—love of experience and more absolute. Hymns, you will find, do not run on this theme.
I write all this as you are comparatively alone. The Lord be with you and your work. Greet the dear brethren, though I do not know them.
Pau,
January 22nd.