BY THE REV. HENRY DAVIDSON, GALASHIELS.
DEAR MRS BOSTON,—Out of a just regard to the memory of the dead, and a tender sympathy with the living, I have given you the trouble of a few lines. We pray to our heavenly Father, thy will be done, and yet do our own wills answer these prayers? It is in our will, as a throne, that God must reign. It is a corrupt and sinful will, and therefore unfit to be our guide and governor—it is guided by a dark understanding, follows the direction of an ignorant counsellor. Our wills are like the will of a man in a fever, that would fain have cold water to refresh him, but it really proves hurtful—we would soon undo ourselves if we had our own wills. A patient can deny himself for his health, and submit to the will of his physician, and should not we much more submit to our all-wise Physician? Had we more of the wisdom of faith, that gives a holy skill of judging aright of God’s dealings, we, upon a review, would certainly find that God hath showed more mercy and kindness in the crossing of our wills, than in accomplishing of them. By virtue of the covenant, the cross is a blessing, the curse is separated from it; there is no wrath in it to the believer; though it be ill looked, yet there’s no ill-will in it; it comes upon no ill design, nor shall have any ill issue. The cross is proportioned to their necessities and strength (Jer. xxx. 11); the wise and kind Physician considers at the same time the patient’s need and strength; your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things; He will neither over, nor under do; every one shall have his own load and no more; and, to be sure, when the saint comes to heaven, and reviews all the crosses of life, he’ll be made to see there was not one of them he could have wanted.
Our God has fixed the time of His children’s going home, and keeps to it, and His time of removing them is the best; we must be still and know that He is God, and that all is done by the wise decree of Him who is a God of judgment, who knows the times and seasons, and who “worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will.” There can be no shadow of reason to doubt it, that the Christian dies in the fittest time, if we consider the infinite wisdom and the tender affection He bears to all His children: we see some cut off very young, and the ground covered with tender blossoms, shaken off by a violent blast; again we see a great gap made in the garden by the cutting down of a large spreading tree laden with rich and excellent fruit, so that the beholders cry out what a thousand pities is it that it did not grow that it might bear a great deal longer. We are ready to say, why are some taken up into heaven so soon, when they can be so ill spared on earth? and why are others staked down here so long, when they can do so little? All this is the doing of the Lord, “wonderful in counsel and excellent in working, and who giveth not account of His matters.”
Doth not the departure of relations, eminent pictures of holiness, call upon surviving relations and friends to transcribe their bright example into our hearts and lives, and to make their remarkable graces the matter of our imitation, and their counsels and conduct, so full of piety and wisdom, our rule; to speak and act like them, that thereby we may honour their memory, remembering that though dead, they address us in the language of Paul, I. Cor. xi. 1?
Doth not our wise Father and everlasting Friend above, by the late providence, call to a more constant and immediate dependence on Himself? The cutting off the stream requires our running to the fountain. Are we deprived of the light of the Star now shining above, we have the Sun of Righteousness to go to, and He never sets, though He is not always seen. He fills up, in point of comfort and use, all relations of husband, father, pastor, and friend; when holy and wise Providence brings into such circumstances as to cause us to take up David’s complaint (Psalm cxlii. 4), we must likewise copy after the example, and adopt the language of his faith in the fifth verse. I need not tell you, that when lamenting the absence of your skillful guide and faithful tender-hearted friend, the loss of whom is inexpressible, the spirit of Christian friendship calls you to rejoice in his being adorned with perfection of grace, and possessed of a fulness of joy in the presence of God and the Lamb, in the heavenly Jerusalem above. He has finished all his warfare, and is safe in the city of triumph, having left you and his friends below in the field of battle. But is it not matter of comfort that the Captain of Salvation will never leave the sons and daughters upon the road till He have them brought to the mansions of glory in His Father’s house? He and our fellow-travellers that are got home do wait our happy arrival: do they not call and encourage us to hold on with courage, faith, and the patience of hope? You will, I hope, excuse the tedious length of this scribble, and accept it as a testimony of sincere friendship and hearty concern for you in the day of your sore adversity. May the Lord Redeemer fill up the import of His own promise to you and your family, in being a husband to the widow, and a father to the fatherless! I do kindly remember your son and daughters. I remain, dear friend, yours affectionately, in the straitest bonds.
* This beautiful letter was written to Mrs Boston on the death of her eminent and saintly husband, the Rev. Thomas Boston, Ettrick, by the Rev. Henry Davidson. Mr Davidson was closely associated with Mr Boston in the Marrow controversy.—Editor.
Oh, how many part with Christ at a cross-way, like Orpah, ‘that go a furlong or two with Him, but when He bids them prepare for hardship, then they fairly kiss and leave Him; loath, indeed, to lose heaven, but more loath to buy it at so dear a rate.—Sibbes.
One Almighty is more than many mighties. All these mighty sins, and mighty devils, make not any almighty sin, or almighty devil. “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.—Sibbes.