Written by herself some years before her death, and now taken from her original Copy with great care and diligence.
“Come and hear all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.”—PSALM lxxvi. 16.
“As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts.”—PSALM xlvi. 8.
“Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”—2 Cor. iii. 18.
(Continued from page 155.)
S O I went to attend the public work of the day, and was entertained with truths suitable to the occasion, and got leave to hear rationally; but no loosing of bands nor melting of heart did I feel, but returned home with bitterness of soul, making my case known to none.
On the Saturday I heard a sermon on Song iv. 16, “Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.” The discourse was refreshing, and I was brought thus to think and believe, that if Christ would come to my soul He would bring with Him that which would entertain Himself. The other sermon was upon that word, 2 Chron. xxx. 8, “Yield yourselves unto the Lord, and enter into His sanctuary,” etc. A great part of the discourse consisted in exhortation; but, alas! my heart sank as a stone within me, so as I could neither open to embrace Christ when offered, nor were the faculties of my soul enlarged, nor faith exercised, in applying that fulness of grace that is stored up in Christ, my covenanted and living Head, that my case called for at the time. The Sabbath and Monday I got rational hearing with some stayedness of mind, but felt no present power either as to loosing of bands or as to reviving or refreshing my weary soul. In this melancholy case I remained, and could be refreshed with nothing.
One bitter ingredient in this present exercise was my mother’s trouble, which did increase to a greater degree than formerly, so that many a time I was forced to run out of hearing and stop my ears, the extremity of her trouble was so great. Oh, I can neither word nor write the extremity I underwent between my own case and her affliction; yet there was this mitigation in it, the Lord was pleased, in His sovereign grace, to allow her clearer views of her reconciled state and interest in God’s covenant, with sweet meditations on a future state, which reconciled her more to death than ever formerly; as also was she helped to bear her trouble with such submission and patience, which, I must own to my shame, I could not win at. For all along these nine years her affliction hath cried in mine ears, but, alas! I think I have never won to understand the meaning thereof, nor answer what the Lord called for at my hand by it in a due manner.
This complex case, mixed with so many bitter ingredients, as hinted above, with others I forbear to mention, I desire to cast at the feet of mercy: “Oh that a gracious God, in a blessed Daysman, would exert His gracious and infinite power on my soul, and keep me from going to any other way for an outgate but to Himself alone.”
About this time it pleased the Lord to take away one of the ministers of Stirling by death, namely, Mr. James Brisbane, who had been an eminent minister of the Gospel there for about twenty years, and also a great light in the Church, and who was, of all ministers, by the Lord’s blessing, made most useful to me, whose death I thought I could never have borne. Yet such was the bitterness of soul I was under that I could grieve for nothing, neither could rejoice in any thing as I should; so it is with me when Christ is away, and withholds the operations of His gracious Spirit.
At this time the Lord’s hand was also in the season of the year, so that the fruits of the ground, as to many of them, were not gathered in till the first month of winter. The like had not been for some years formerly. In all these things I observed, as it were, an out-making of the awful threatening, “I have cursed your blessings, yea, they are cursed already.” This appeared to me in my minister’s death, and in the season of the year, together with what is mentioned in the beginning of the year. Oh, I can neither word nor write the bitterness of spirit I underwent, day after day, to see the Lord’s righteous judgments, as it were, execute against us both in spirituals and in temporals, and yet few or none so exercised in a suitableness to such dispensations as the Lord was calling unto.
“Oh, weary time to me! Oh, my soul! stoop to the will of thy God Creator, and to thy Holy Redeemer. Oh, for faith and patience, with submission to His will, so as to run along with all His dispensations. Oh, if it might please a merciful and gracious God to lose my bound-up and weary soul, and allow me to pour it out in His bosom.” So much as to what passed over me in this year of my weary wilderness, being the year 1725, and the fortieth year of my life.
After this, for the space of four years, I got none written, for I had but one room; and having both my mother and school, I could get neither time nor place for that purpose; but now it hath pleased the Lord to take away my mother by death, so I desire to look back on these melancholy years, and record somewhat of the Lord’s way with me, as it shall please Him to bring it to my mind.
It pleased the Lord that my mother’s trouble was greater these four years than formerly, so that she could do no more for herself than a child, for she could neither walk nor turn herself in her bed. Another piece of trial that fell out in providence on us, namely, all that she had in the world, and the most part of all that I had, was lost; and that which made the trial more sharp, it was by the hand of a near relation. There was much more in this dispensation that I can either word or write. Oh, this was a wrath-like dispensation and a great trial, together with the sad case my soul had been in, and yet continues to be in. I felt a party in me flying in the face of God’s dispensations, saying, These seem to contradict the promises on which I was made to hope formerly, as recorded in the seventeenth year of my life, when He said unto me, my bread should be given, and my water should be sure. And in the twentieth-and-fifth year of my life the same was renewed, and that in Matt. vi. 30, “Doth He so clothe the grass of the field and feed the ravens, and will He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” These promises I could not quit, for I had been made to plead and apply them in the face of seemingly contradicting providences these twenty years bygone, yet I found a strong party struggling in me and taking foot on this dispensation. I had also a great reasoning after this manner, namely, I thought the promises might be accomplished, and yet I brought to beg my bread; but I remembered that during these years when I pled these promises it was ever in my view that I and my parents might have our bread and not be a burden for it, and this I could not reconcile with begging of my bread, and yet the promise be accomplished in the way I was helped to seek and apply it. And I can neither word nor write the strugglings of unbelief and the spurrings of proud nature against Sovereignty’s dealing thus with me; yet glory ever be to Father, Son, and blessed Spirit, who, in the time of my extremity, stepped in for my relief, and sent in a power of faith on my soul that made me to believe that before I should starve God would yet do great things for me, and that same God that made the widow’s barrel of meal and cruse of oil to answer her pinch, as recorded in 1 Kings xvii. 12, could also bless our little, and make it multiply and answer our pinch.
(To be continued.)