Period VI—From August 1745 to December 1750
At some seasons I found great desires after the Lord upon remembering my former communion with Him, and therefore said, “I will return to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now.” And although my soul was almost sunk in final despair I could not be kept from venting my grief to the Lord in the following strain, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? How long shall I find murmuring, rebellions, revenge, covetousness, slothfulness, and unbelief within my soul? Oh! how I love the image of Jesus and fain would I have it engraven on my heart and walk, for there is no soundness in my flesh, neither is there rest in my bones because of my sin. O Lord, all my desire is before Thee knocking at the door of my iron heart by Thy word and providences, but I find my heart bolted against Thee by Satan and unbelief. O Lord! if I could, I would open unto Thee. But Oh! I am bound hand and foot as in fetters and chains of brass. Oh! now I am like to break my heart when Thou art standing without, and the devil and my own lusts within. I see Thy beauty and hear Thy gracious words, and yet cannot shake off my chains to come at Thee. I can as easily overturn the course of nature, remove mountains and raise the dead as open to Thee. O Thou who has the keys of hell and of death, wilt Thou not open to Thyself and stand no longer reasoning with a man in chains? Every knock Thou givest aggravates my grief and longing, and wilt Thou leave me thus? Surely Thou hearest my groaning and seest the moving of my bowels towards Thee, yet out of this bondage I cannot get. But though I have brought all this upon myself, whether shall my covenant with death and hell or Thy covenant of grace be disannulled? Lord, deliver me, and let the gates of brass and bars of iron be broken in sunder by Thee. Thou wouldst not destroy a righteous Lot in Sodom, and wilt Thou destroy or disregard my secret groans and desires of redemption in the midst of such abundance of wickedness? for it is not merely desires of peace and rest, but desires of purity and holiness which are here. And who begat these desires? Doubtless Thou art Their Father, though Thou acknowledgest them not at present. And wilt Thou stand and see these desires choked by filthy lusts? I’ll venture to say, it is Thy grace, for what else can I call these desires? O Lord, shall the cries of lusts prevail more to keep Thee away than the groanings of my soul to bring Thee to my deliverance? Shall not the blood of Christ speak better things than that of Abel? O Lord! hast thou forgotten to be gracious, and wilt Thou be favourable no more? Is Thy mercy clean gone? Is there no help in God for my soul? Hast Thou but one blessing, O my Father! or hast Thou once blessed me, and shall I be for ever cursed? O Lord! Thou hast not ceased to be a reproveth unto me, and wilt Thou cease to be gracious? Unto Thee, O Lord, belongs mercy, though I have rebelled against Thee and have not obeyed Thy voice, therefore the curse that is written in the law of Moses, Thy servant, is come upon me, and Thou hast confirmed his words which he spake, “for I am this day a curse and reproach unto Thy ways and people, and my life hangs in doubt before me. Yea, I am wearied of my life since Thou hast departed from me.” Yet, O Lord, Thou art just in all that Thou hast brought upon me. O God! hear my prayer and supplication which I present before Thee, not for my righteousness but for Thy great mercy, and cause Thy face to shine upon my soul that is desolate, for the Lord Christ’s sake.
There are a few drops from the fountain of my heart, for such thoughts were my meditation all the day and yet the power of sin remained. I could not believe that I had any grace, though I have since been made to see that it was at the bottom of these desires. But I could not go to my knees with these petitions, for if I did I was sure to have Satan roaring upon me again; but when I got my soul vended in private thoughts, either by the way when alone or when about my ordinary affairs, then I escaped the rage of Satan. But the wrath of Almighty God lay hard upon me, the poison whereof drank up my spirits. But Oh! what are two years or millions of ages in this situation to everlasting horror and separation from God, and that in such a manner as was never conceived or felt by any while in the body. I would rather be a chained slave during life than be a slave one day to such filthy lusts. Oh! may that grace of God be for ever praised and adored which hath made me Christ’s freeman.
In June, 1750, I began to search the Scriptures more carefully to see if there was any of the saints ever in the like condition, which might be a ground of hope to my soul, and then I found it written in Hosea, “I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger. I will not return to destroy Ephraim” and God’s great grace manifested in not returning to destroy him by executing the fierceness of his anger. So I thought that I would search out the iniquity of Ephraim so far as recorded and compare it with my own case. And I found that he counted the “great things of God’s law a strange thing to him,” etc. And I said, “if Thou, Lord, shouldst take him by the arms teaching him to go as a child, his first journey will be to Egypt, Assyria, or any way rather than to Thee, his God;” and shall not Thy soul be avenged on such a person or people as Ephraim?
“I will not,” says God, “return to destroy Ephraim, for I am God and not man.” Therefore Ephraim and the rest of the sons of Jacob are not consumed. “I have smitten him in the way of his covetousness and was wroth, but now I have seen his ways and will heal him and restore comforts.”
O! Lord, this is amazing grace beyond the expectation and hope of Ephraim. “Yea, righteous art Thou when I plead with Thee, yet let me talk with Thee of Thy judgments.” Wherefore hast Thou threatened such grievous threatenings against Ephraim since Thou art thus resolved to deal graciously with him, saying, I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath. “Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him I do earnestly remember him still, therefore my bowels are troubled for him,” etc.
O! the love, the grace, and bowels of compassion that God manifests in this instance of Ephraim is beyond all thoughts or expression. But although I endeavoured to make a close application of all this to my own case, yet my soul refused to be comforted; God’s time to comfort me was not yet come. “Who is he that saith and it cometh to pass, when God commandeth it not?”
A little after this, when reading that passage in Psalms ciii. 13, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him,” I began to think upon the pity of a father for his child. I had an only child myself, and therefore thought how much compassion I would show him if he was in distress. However, this consideration afforded me no comfort. Then Absalom’s case came into my mind and I saw that David was a man after God’s heart, and that what was written aforetime was written for my instruction that, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, I might have hope; so I considered Absalom as a rebellious son of David, full of all wickedness and abominations, which evidenced that he was a child of the devil. Therefore his father was obliged to raise an army to defend himself and conquer his rebellious son. But at the same time it is astonishing to hear these orders, “And the king commanded Joab, and Abishai, and Ittai, saying, deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom. And all the people heard when the king gave all the captains charge concerning Absalom.”
Now I considered myself as full of ingratitude and abominations, who by my wicked practices and cursed inventions has apostatised from the ways of God, and thereby declared myself to be a child of the devil. At the same time I beheld God in His holy justice mustering out awful threatenings against me in battle array, therefore was convinced that I could not stand and consequently began to look for conditions of peace, but could not in any way of thinking get any; and while I looked every moment to be swallowed by His divine fury I saw the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom David was a type, standing up to intercede for me, saying to the justice of God, “Deal gently with the young man for my sake, even with that young man by name, for he is yet alive in the midst of an oak hanging between heaven and hell, between hope and despair, and thrust none of Thy fiery darts through him, for I received the dart of my Father’s wrath, the dart of the fiery law, the dart of the rage and fury of hell, and all this for him; and therefore let none touch the young man, but deal gently with him even for my sake.”
O! the glorious grace I saw in this case of Absalom, the consideration of which was like to make me faint where I stood. The sympathy of David was amazing, but O the sympathy of Christ was still greater. The latter exceeds the former as far as the manifestation of the Spirit exceeds the ministration of death written and engraven in stones. O this was not the Lord’s sparing a son who served Him, but sparing a rebel, a most wicked and ungrateful son.
This instance begat some glimmerings of hope in my breast, the clouds began to dispel and the daystar to arise in my heart. “It was something like light and darkness mixed together” (Zech. xiv. 6). I was now waiting for the Lord, as they who wait for the morning, but had no knowledge of pardon and unbelief being very strong, my patience was almost worn out.