FAITH’S VICTORY OVER SENSE.
1838.
JUST at present my soul is very heavy through declensions, darkness, desertion, and indwelling sin, which in me gets no better. But I think it a great mercy that God maintains my hope and confidence in Him. I can say, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him unto or against that day.” Blessed be the name of the Lord, He will not permit me to rest upon my frames or feelings, even whilst He teaches me the value of a feeling religion. My soul is taught to rest upon the unchangeable promise of the unchangeable Jehovah – Jesus, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever! I think it a great mercy that through the Lord’s goodness I can with a naked faith rest upon a naked promise, and lay a holy claim to Jesus, and say, He is mine. And surely this is no easy work, when the aspect of things is dark and gloomy, and the dispensations of God seem to clash with His promises; when past experiences and evidences are obscured, and present marks, signs, and evidences there are none; when there seems to be no fruit, when the enemy tempts hard, and indwelling sin struggles for the mastery; when my own bad heart seems like a troubled sea, and Satan, like another leviathan, makes that deep to boil like a pot of ointment. Then, under such painful circumstances, to be enabled to lay a holy claim to Jesus as my Saviour, to claim my everlasting union to His person, as God-man and Mediator, and my everlasting standing and completeness in Him —as having for me fulfilled the law of God, satisfied the claims of justice, and having for me, honourably met every divine perfection —so as to take hold of Him as my wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption, is a “living” faith which has stood the fire. Yet I would not glory in faith, but in Jesus alone. Adored be His name, all He is and all He has is mine and yours also. We can say with the Apostle Paul, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” It is a great mercy when present evidences and fruits are out of sight, that by supernatural help we can (by a fresh act of faith) venture on Him, and believe that He is faithful who hath promised, who says, “Cast not away your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward,” and “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.”
It is better by a fresh act of faith to venture on Him, than to stand at a distance and look only within ourselves. I find it good to follow Christ, at all events, whether through darkness or light, through evil report or good report. Still, I delight in my dear Master’s presence as much as ever. Come, sweet Jesus, sprinkle Thy blood upon my conscience, array me in Thy robe, and adorn me with thine image, and as a refiner, sift and purify my affections. Dear Lord, be my parlour guest, come in unto me, let us mutually sup with each other. Bind my heart to Thy cross, and detain that roving thing in the bands of love. Make me faithful and true.
ED. BLACKSTOCK.
ZION’S CHANGES.
LEICESTER, 1841.
I read your letter with pleasure, and the more so as I had scarcely expected to hear again from your village. See what a deal of mischief the devil can do in a short time! He is the whisperer that separateth chief friends! “Behold,” says the Apostle James, “how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”
Well, I feel persuaded after all that a spiritual union shall never be broken, nor shall true brotherly love ever cease. It may be damped, but it cannot die. Much cause we have to blush and be ashamed that it runs so low; but those living springs that have so often supplied us with it can never fail—they will flow again. Washed in the blood of Jesus, clothed with His righteousness, and adorned by His Spirit, we shall meet again, “where congregations ne’er break up, and Sabbaths never end.” There we shall love one another purely and unceasingly. O that the blessed Spirit of unction might soon shed His holy influences into our hearts and cause our love to flourish again. Zion is at present in a torpid state. A long and chilling frost has benumbed every spiritual faculty and laid Zion’s men out as dead men. But there is a promise in her behalf, which the Lord will fulfil—“Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth her dead.”
On a Saturday I sometimes think I shall have to give up preaching; the Bible seems a sealed book, and my soul is as dry as the barren heath. But when the time comes, the Lord helps me, and often sheds such a heavenly savour on my spirit whilst preaching as affords me solid comfort. But, alas! I have black Mondays, and I almost wonder what I was talking about the day before! I am in a very trying place just now, and know not what to do; but I desire to lie in God’s hand and be at His disposal. . . . Sea and land have been compassed against me, but I am ready to halt or march as the Lord may see good. I only want to know His will and do it. I hope the Lord is with me to help me. But as the following words have been much on my mind, I am wondering what God is about to do with me—Matt. x. 22, 23. Our people have called me to be their pastor, but I have not seen my way clear; so I am waiting to see what He will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved. . . .
Since I came here I have been upon the whole somewhat raised and strengthened in body and mind, and am not without hope that God will yet make all things work together for good. We have seen many brooks and streams dried up, but the Lord has been our stay. Blessings on Him! He is my best and only Friend, the only one that never, never forsakes. He keeps me feeling after Him, and sometimes seems as if He were not far from me. My hope and trust are in His name. He will never fail me nor forsake me—bad though I am.
I often think of your dear father and mother; tell them from me that my love to them is still the same. I am glad of the recovery of your wife; tell her I hope the Lord will reconcile her to the death of her child. Under the law the first born was His; He has taken no more than He had a right to. He saw it to be best, and took but what He gave. How many have wished in vain that they had been as an infant that had never seen the light.
EDWARD BLACKSTOCK.
The Altar in Barnhill Poorhouse.
The Southern Presbytery of the F.P. Church has sent the following resolution to the Clerk of the Parish Council:—”The Southern Presbytery of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland views with indignation the unlawful way in which the Parish Council of Glasgow have spent money raised by public taxation in this Protestant city in the erection of a Popish altar, &c., in Barnhill Poorhouse, thereby bringing the guilt upon Protestant ratepayers of paying for the maintenance of idolatrous and superstitious rites; it strongly protests against the parish rates being put to any such use, and respectfully calls upon the Parish Council to have the said altar and accompaniments at once removed, warning them that unless this is done the matter may lead to unpleasant complications between the Council and ratepayers.”