(WRITTEN BY HER OWN HAND.)
(Continued from page 265.)
THERE were two things that distressed me mightily in this dark and confused condition. First, that my case was singular. I conversed with none that could sympathize with me, for it was of such a nature that I could not name it; though at this time I was in society with some that were eminently godly. We met once a week for prayer, and I cannot but say it as in the sight of God, that we never met but I got something of the goodness of God displayed to me; so that I found that promise made out to my experience, Exodus xx. 24, “Wherever my name is recorded, I will be there.” My comrades thinking I was so well dealt with, they never pitied me, ail me what like.
O, this was afflicting to me! For I thought I was nothing but an hypocrite, because I was so helped in public and so distracted in secret; for by reason of this I wanted the sympathy of others, and so was left to wrestle with my difficulties alone. Yet there were two things that supported me in this lonely condition. First, that word, Isaiah xliii., “I have trodden the wine-press alone”—where I saw that Christ was the only one that could sympathize with lonely cases. I got some sweet meditations from this scripture. The second thing that supported me was a similitude I got concerning my liberty in prayer with others, and my being so straitened when alone. I thought it was like a married couple—a good husband and an ill wife. Now the husband, seeing many faults in his wife, could not but chide her when alone, but yet the entire love he had to her made him hide her faults when they were in company with others; so that all their quarrels were kept betwixt themselves, and not made known abroad. O, is not this a wonderful piece of kindness in the Lord Jesus, to condescend so far to hide the infirmities of His people! O, what a love I saw in that word, Ezek. xvi., “And I spread my skirt over thee, and thou becamest mine, saith the Lord God.” Sweet were the meditations I got from this. O, but the Lord was condescending to me at this time! And if it had not been so I could not have been supported under the consideration of the singularity of my condition; for there was no eye to pity me.
But there was a second thing that proved more perplexing and trying than any thing ever I met with before; and that was, the promises seemed to be perfectly contradicted by the providence of God, which mightily increased both unbelief and atheism to such a degree that it is not convenient for me to record it. Now, to be particular, what these things were which so wrested by faith,
and seemed to contradict the promises. The first was my father’s conversion, for which I thought I got ground to believe from Psalm lxxxviii., “Wilt thou show wonders to the dead?” 1 Cor. xv. 58, “Your labour is not in vain in the Lord”; Isaiah liii. 10, “The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” Notwithstanding of these promises, I could see nothing like a fulfilling of them, for his conversation was the same as before. Oh! oh! it is not possible to record what grievous hours I have had upon his account, crying to the Lord to make out His own promises. The second was my growth in sanctification, for which I got many sweet promises to ground my faith upon. Alas! to this day I find corruptions grow stronger and grace weaker. O, then as atheism and unbelief upbraided me and racked me, as it were, upon a wheel with the promises, casting them up in my teeth, especially these—”This is the will of God, even your sanctification. Sin shall not have dominion over you. I will, be thou clean. I will write my law in your heart, and ye shall never depart from me.” But where is the out-making of them? said the enemy. Surely they have been but delusions. This distressed me extremely; because I found the body of sin so strong in me, which sometimes sent me to the throne of grace with these words in my mouth, “O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” The third thing was—I had to wrestle with the dark exercise I mentioned before. Notwithstanding I had gotten many confirmations that it was from the Lord, from the promises, yet providence so contradicted the promises that it was almost impossible for me to believe it. O, but my enemies grew strong, and got me under their feet as a captive-slave; and all that I could do was to cry, “Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is your God? Let him be made known to them.” There were three scriptures haunted me. First, “The trial of your faith is much more precious than of gold.” The second, “And blessed is she that believeth, for there shall be a performance of these things that were told her of the Lord.” The third, “Though the vision tarry, yet it shall speak and not lie.” But, alas! faith and patience were almost worn out with me. Faith and sense fell a-fighting together, but sense seemed always to be victor.
But O, what reason have I to bless the Lord, who kept me about His hand in the way of duty, so that my enemies got not all their will of me! Though it was often my fear that I would give up with duty altogether, yet at this time I enjoyed more near and sweet communion with God than ever all my days before, both in prayer and meditation.
This one thing I have to observe—that the nearer access I got, the stronger were my assaults on the back of it; so that sometimes I would be, as it were, all broken in pieces, even after I had been in a nook of heaven. Then it was that I got a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me.
There were two books I found great satisfaction in reading of them: Mr. Andrew Gray, on the precious promises, and Mr. Wedderburn, on the covenant, especially on these words, “Although he make it not to grow.” I thought I saw much of God’s mind to me in these books, concerning the dealing of the performances of the promises; but the greatest satisfaction I found was from the Word, the Holy Scriptures, where I got light, life, and direction, and where I saw it was the Lord’s ordinary way with His people, that, after they received the promise, a storm of providence seemed to contradict and clash against it. How encouraging was it to me to look to Abraham, Joseph, David, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk, and see how their faith was tried! These were my conversants and correspondents in these dark exercises of mine, and many sweet lessons I got from them, especially from these three scriptures—”Wait on the Lord; do not fret; for he will deliver your feet out of the net. I waited patiently on the Lord, and at length he heard my cry. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he will give thee the desire of thine heart.” Sweet was the meditation I got from these; from all which I saw that it was my duty to wait patiently by faith, and the Lord in His own time would let me see an accomplishment of all the promises from that word, “He is faithful who hath promised, and is able also to perform.” Now, on the back of all these things, when Satan saw that he had gained but small ground on me by his temptations to atheism and unbelief, he brought a new temptation to my door, which did me more mischief than any before; and that was self-conceit and vain-glory! O, that abominable thing, self! What name shall I give it? It is a great deceiver; it is a God-dishonouring and a soul-destroying thing. I shall tell you how it came to deceive me. In the meantime that the Lord was loading me with extraordinary manifestations of Himself, then it would come and run in my ears, Your diligence and pains and religion had procured these things to you; ye deserve commendation indeed. And with such language as this it haunted me from duty to duty, so that I could never be quit of it: go where I would, it haunted me like a ghost. I also found a party in my heart which joined with it. Then I thought, This cannot be one of the spots of God’s children, for their end in everything is to glorify God; but all that I do is to seek honour and praise to myself. Then these words came to me, Zech. vii. 5, “When ye fasted and prayed, and did other duties, did ye it to me, yea, even to me?” Where I saw, that whatsoever duties we go about, if self-ends be the spur that puts us on to them, they are abhorred of by God, and we shall reap no advantage by them. Then was I afraid lest all the duties I had performed should receive no other stamp but self-seeking. This was very distressing to me to think that as yet I had never done anything for the glory and honour of God, nor had I any hope ever to do it; for I found that thing—self—so much glued to my nature, that it was almost impossible to get it crucified. I truly think it is one of the most difficult parts in religion to get self-conceit cast out, and God’s glory put in room of it.
I was one day reading on Mr. Samuel Rutherford’s letters, where I found him have this expression, “O, self, self! that woful thing, self! it will not be satisfied unless it ride side for side with Christ.” This was a little comforting to me, that any other of God’s people had been in this case beside myself; and I also found Mr. John Knox, in his life and death, was strongly tempted with it, even on his death-bed. And oftentimes Mr. James Kirkton had this expression in the pulpit, of self, “That dead dog, self; it is as easy to pull the marrow out of our bones, as to pull self out of our hearts.” But what did all things avail me as long as I cannot get it put to the door, as I was persuaded they had done? All the encouragement I had, on reflecting on these worthies, was even such as it would be to a man that had broken his leg in such a place, and one comes and tells him, I know several others that broke their’s in the same place. Oh, one would think that this was but small comfort to the poor man. O, but says another, I can tell you of an excellent physician that restored them perfectly whole, and if you employ Him, He will do the same to you, for I can tell you His name and surname, and where He dwells. Then did I betake myself to that blessed physician, the Lord Jesus Christ. O, that He would deliver me from that woful distemper of self-seeking, and that He would dedicate and devote me to glorify Him in everything whatsoever, both in spiritual and temporal things! I must say, as in the sight of God, there was nothing I longed so much for as to be enabled to obey this command, 1 John ii. 6, “Walk even so as he walked.”
As I was one day meditating what sort of temptations Christ was tempted with in His life, and what His carriage was concerning them, I saw He had strong temptations from Satan (Matt. iv.) of very grievous natures; but He overcame them. So this is very encouraging for His people to make application to Him when they are tempted with temptations of the same nature. But where He met with any temptations to this, I could never find; this put me a little to a stand; but, when I had inquired more diligently, I found that Christ frequently expressed Himself thus, “I seek not mine own honour, but the honour of him that sent me.” And in Romans xv. 3, it is said, “And even Christ pleased not himself.” O this noble and excellent pattern of self-denial! to Him I made application, that the same mind might be in me that was in Him. Now the Lord was at much pains with me (I must acknowledge) to win me out of myself, though, alas, I have made but little progress in it as yet, by holding forth the heinous nature of this sin and the unreasonableness of it, from many examples in natural things; but above all, He took these gifts and attainments from me, that occasioned the growth of this sin; and I was threatened to be set naked and bare, as in the day that I was born. Then, let me be as painful and diligent as I would, yet could I not bring back one of these again, no more than I could pull the stars out of the firmament; so then events prove that self is a great deceiver, and that my soul knoweth right well.
After this, I fell under an extraordinary deadness, so that I could apply myself to nothing; duties were a very burden to me, and that because I found not the Lord in them. And I thought the Lord had casten me off altogether, and that I was departed from Him by a perpetual backsliding, notwithstanding of the promises on which I was made to hope, “I will never leave you nor forsake you; and you shall never depart from me.”
In this dark case, I wandered from duty to duty; sometimes with some little hope, and sometimes swallowed up with doubts; but this increased my trouble the more, nobody pitied me, nor would believe the evil case I was in, which truly made me think I was nothing but an hypocrite, and that I was deceiving everybody that knew me; for they thought me to be that which I was not.
I remember that, when I had been complaining to my comrades of my ill case, they oftentimes chided me for so doing, saying, it ill became me so to do; and what the better was I of complaining to them? And with such words as these they would command me to silence. Then would I reply to them, What needs you upbraid me for telling you the truth? The Lord knows I cannot help it; but He that knows all things, knows that it was not my ordinary custom; for I was always ready to communicate the Lord’s gracious dealings to my soul, when He was pleased to bestow them on me, and had a far greater pleasure in so doing, than in complaining. But what person, having a broken leg, or a pain in the head, or a sore arm, will not be crying, O my leg! or, O my head! O my arm! though none could help them? For it is even an ease to the mind to complain when there is cause for it. But, what shall I say? When no eye could pity me, then the Lord was not awanting to me: Christ is a true friend indeed, for He is always a friend in time of need. One day, as I was making ready to meet my comrades in a place where we met weekly for prayer, before I went, that word was made to me, “Can a woman forget her sucking child? yea, she may; yea, she can; but I will never forget thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.”
Then, as my heart rejoiced in the Lord, hoping that the Lord would disappoint me of my fears! for I thought that I had run so far out of the way of the Lord, that there was never any went so far back, that ever was once in His way. But His way with me is all wonders. O that I could so record them, as God might get the glory of all; and that I might take shame and confusion of face to myself; and that others that hear of these things, might fall in love with Christ and holiness!
Upon 3rd April, 1698, It being Sabbath Morning.
I had upon my spirit the impression of apostatizing, and turning out of God’s way, and what dreadful consequences it had brought upon me; so that I was as it were, in hell upon earth, what one thing, what other. I went to secret prayer, where I cried for an answer to these petitions, “O that I knew where I might find him! Turn me, O Lord, and I shall be turned.”
When I came to the public ordinance in the College-kirk, where that servant of Christ, Mr. John Moncrief, preached on James iv. 8, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you,” he observed, that sin had made all mankind at a great distance from God; and that even the godly were at a great distance from Him by reason of sin. He pressed this duty on all of us, to draw near to God, assuring us, that God would draw near to the soul that was seeking Him; and, it being a little before the sacrament he cried out, Who knows but God hath sent His word to call back some straying prodigal to Himself? Then, thought I, that is me, for I have been straying this long time. I must confess this was a day of power indeed; and the minister was made to speak as briefly to my case as if I had conversed with him. O such a sweet day! where all the graces of the Spirit were put in exercise again, and I made willing to close with Christ on His own terms.
When I came home, I began to inquire what might be the reason or end why the Lord suffered me to get so far out of the way, I being one of His own children whom He has promised to keep? In answer to this inquiry, I saw these four reasons: First, It was to let me see the great difference betwixt the way of sin, and the way of godliness.
Now the way of godliness was pointed out to me in these three particulars—First, It is a way of holiness. 2ndly, A way of faith. 3rdly, A way of duty. And so long as I walked in these ways, I found much pleasure and satisfaction, much comfort and delight. By my wandering out of these ways into the ways of sin, led me in among so many pits and snares, mosses and mires, where I found nothing but confusion and discontentment, and was many times made with the Psalmist to cry, “I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing.” O the great difference betwixt the way of godliness and the way of sin! The one is strewed with joy, the other with continual sorrow.
2ndly, It was to let me see, that though I would wander out of the way, yet I had neither strength nor power of mine own to turn myself into the right way again; it must be the strength of another, even Jesus, that I must lean to. Then did I see the insufficiency of my own righteousness, though indeed I never found a harder piece in religion than to be denied to it. I truly think it is the only step that the most flourishing hypocrites never attained to, the getting out of self-righteousness, and to take the righteousness of Christ only, for justification and acceptance before God. 3rdly, It was to let me see, that when the Lord had a mind to come with a visit to a soul, nothing can hinder Him, no not their former miscarriages. His love is free, and wonderful surprising; He comes leaping over mountains, and skipping over the hills of provocations. 4thly, It was to let me see, that a walking with God in His own way was more difficult than to find God. I saw many things in my nature that were apt to lead me away from God, even after I had found Him. This bred in my heart a strong and vehement desire after the Spirit of God to lead me and to keep me in His own way. I thought this would be the only helper meet for me indeed, to teach me how to perform every duty, how to read the word, how to hear it preached so as to profit by it, to pray, to meditate, to fight, to employ Christ, to know God, to make a clean house for Christ to dwell in, to throw idols to the door, to converse with heaven, to walk on earth. O the advantage I saw in having the Spirit for my guide! I thought I could have been denied of any thing but this, to have the Spirit of God to dwell within me, of this I could not take a nay-say.
Then were these three scriptures borne in upon me—First, “I will send the Comforter to you, even the Holy Spirit, who will teach you all things.” 2ndly, “Neither will he deny his Holy Spirit to them that ask it of him.” 3rdly, “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” That gave me ground to believe that my desire should be granted.
This was great encouragement for me to renew my covenant engagements at the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, which accordingly I did, in the College Kirk, April 24, at the seventh table, where Mr. William Moncrief served. There were these three or four requests I had to present before the Lord, which my heart longed mightily for: the first was, A living in the Spirit: to have all my spiritual senses as really in motion in the spirit as in the flesh. 2ndly, To be clothed in the Spirit with the robes of sincerity, humility, self-denial, zeal for the interest of Christ, love to all His ways. 3rdly, To be walking in the Spirit, as our blessed pattern the Lord Jesus Christ did, in holiness, faith, and patience, still eyeing God’s glory in everything. 4thly, That I might be a member of His body, to have a real feeling with all Zion’s children, in whatsoever case they were. O how often did I put up this petition, Either make me faithful and fruitful, or cut me down; for why should I cumber the ground? These were my requests, as in the sight of God, and this day I engaged myself to be the Lord’s. Written and subscribed by me,
ELISABETH WEST.
(To be Continued.)
The Atonement and the Gospel Call.—If God places me successively on two mountain summits—the glorious mountain-top of a real, definite, perfect, and efficacious Atonement, and the mountain-top of the glorious universal Gospel call; and if they seem to be divided from each other by a gorge unfathomable, and in which I can trace no path of transition from the one to the other, I will not look down lest my brain becomes dizzy, I will look up—I will look up unto the hills, from whence cometh mine aid.—HUGH MILLER, D.D. (Extracted from his speech at the General Assembly, 1871.)