“BEING informed of your continued infirmity and affliction, I wish to express in a few lines the concern I entertain for your support, consolation, and deliverance. I know that in a long night of trial, when the cheering light of the morning of spiritual gladness seems to be long waited for in vain, the heart is ready to become sick, and overwhelmed with its own reasonings, to say, ‘Why am I thus? Is His mercy clean gone for ever? Doth His promise fail for evermore? Can such a way of dealing be consistent with a state of reconciliation and of special favour?’ Many pages might be filled up with the multitude of thoughts and inquiries which are ready in such a condition to fight in the weary soul. But let me entreat you to remember that one word of power from the throne of Jesus Christ, one beam of light from His glorious countenance will be sufficient to drive back whole armies of doubts, fears, and perplexities, and to kindle darkness into day. Who can describe the inimitable grace and energy wherewith, in the days of His flesh, Jesus addressed with His own voice words of consolation and of eternal life suitably to the situation of the afflicted objects of His love, saying to one, ‘Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee;’ to another, ‘Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace;’ to a third, ‘Said I not unto thee that, if thou wouldst believe thou shouldst see the glory of God?’ to another, ‘O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?’ and to another, ready to faint under seeming unkindness, ‘O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.’ We are not indeed warranted to seek extraordinary voices, but neither are we to imagine that by ascending into the heavenly sanctuary Jesus hath lost the power of conversing with the souls that seek His fellowship, so as to give them an infallible certainty that the voice is His, and that it is the voice of all-conquering, unchangeable love.”
IF any speak ill of thee, flee home to thy own conscience, and examine thy heart. If thou be guilty, it is just correction; if not guilty, it is a fair instruction. Make use of both, so shalt thou distil honey out of gall, and out of an open enemy create a secret friend.—Quarles.