I FIND Lev. 26:40-45 most blessed in this day. Mark well the 41St verse-if they be " humbled" and accept it." Note, too, Deut. 30:1-20; and again 1 Sam. 12, especially verses 19-25.
I desire unfeignedly to accept at the Lord's hand my ecclesiastical circumstances, ruined and broken all around as they are, and to go on with Him; accepting things as they are; recognizing all as broken, oneself ruined, but God personally present and caring, as He most surely does, for the honor of His Son, the Lord Jesus, and that His saints should purify themselves from evil-" Cease to do evil, learn to do well "-God everything and man nothing. That was the root of the blessing at -. I thank God you felt God was there.
I have long passed through in soul the burden you refer to; felt it upon me; and yet I have confidence in God about it, if we will leave Him to work; and I remark that " bitter herbs " and " leaven " were at the Paschal. Supper. God can stem any torrent. A Jonathan walking alone (but that was a sore task) proved it. Be alone with God as he was, and He will guide each step, and the road He, also, will mark for you.
As to confession, I can only say for myself that, first, the want of individual spirituality (in its divine and heavenly character), of singleness of eye, and of full purpose of heart, and, secondly, the presence of unjudged flesh and worldliness (shown in mixed motives and intentions, in planning’s, and oft in an energy not of God, as well as in ways and doings), press on my own heart as being among existing obstacles to the Father's working fully and freely for the honor of the Lord Jesus in the present day in England. I take my full share in the blame and shame. But if conscious that the glory of God and the honor of Christ alone must be sought by one who is to be honored of God, may one not seek by humbling oneself " under the mighty hand of God," that He may, by His own Spirit's working, set more honor down here on earth upon the blessed name of the Lord Jesus.
May He work, and so that we may know more practically what is the power of the resurrection and the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ, and that God's testimony in the last of these days, committed to our hands, may be made good by Him, in and through us.
1854. G. V. W.
IT is surely a wonderfully blessed thing to be like the Lord; but I think latterly I have felt the blessing of it to be more in the full capacity to dwell in Himself unhindered, which it will give those, in the fact of being like Himself. J. N. D.