Letter from Rev. Theodorus van der Groe (1747)
Good Friend — There is none good but one, that is, God.
You wrote truthfully at the end of your letter, that you will deviate from the Lord as long as you can and will seek advice at creatures. This is, unfortunately, the sad fruit of hellish atheism and of unbelief, with which satan keeps all in captive and ties, till the coming of Christ into the soul, Who alone can destroy the works of the devil.
Yea, with open eyes the sinful creature must remain to wander from God, as long as the heart is in a covenant with satan. You
do it, you know it, you say it and you write it.. O can there be a greater bond of slavery upon us? Yet, my dear friend, you do not understand very well, as far as I can see it, what it is to deviate from the Lord. You have heard and read about it and you have seen with eyes without eyesalve some, yea, I can say much about it, but it seems, you do not understand the matter itself very well.
Adam, our father, began at first to deviate from the Lord in Paradise and after that time it had been the general way of all flesh. But I can assure you by grace, that no creature in the world ever can see this horror with a saving Light of the Holy Ghost and yet can continue with his heart in this way of deviating from the Lord.
It seems, you wish that I, a miserable and incapable man, shall judge faithfully about your way and estate, according to the Light the Lord is giving me; but you do not see that your own judge and conscience had already judged enough the matter with these words: that you will deviate from the Lord as long as you can and seek it at creatures.
My dear friend, this is the matter fundamentally called with its own right name. I have read and reread your letter attentively and with pitying affection and I might see a Hand of the Lord you are writing to me so very open-hearted and detailed about yourself and your experience; but now I wish to tell you with Christian love and sincere interest under the matter of great weight of your eternal estate, that I cannot see that in all your discoveries and awakenings and anxious wanderings your way and course fundamentally changed by the Lord’s Spirit till now and that you already recovered of your works (I write about your estate upon your own desire, as the Lord shows it me after His Own Word, don’t I) but you have not yet believed in Christ and in the Covenant of free Grace, for in that way the sinner is standing experimentally in his total lost estate before the Lord as a very wicked and a blind and powerless man and as one who is in Adam totally without God in the world and totally dead under curse and wrath. In that way the sinner ends his life in his own hand and cannot find any other life in himself but a life of mere sin and enmity against God, that is only worthy hell and damnation.
Sometimes one can see about these things rather much and orthodoxy, for man is hearing that truth and is reading this all days, especially where he is under a sound and discovering preaching and if he has some work then with himself. But my dear friend, it is quite another matter if the Spirit Himself teaches a poor sinner with His Saving Working, so that the sinner himself views with Heaven Light now and no longer more alone with his own light, or has to do with creatures, books, but with God Him-
self. In that way, man is coming not only about and near, but into the matter itself, that is into the guilt and under the wrath of a righteous and almighty God. And, O, there he is lying powerless, lost and desperate, and the poor sinner has to say nothing, neither to ask, nor to claim, but alone to sign his sentence of death, without any more. And O, wonderful, in this way Christ has opened the way for Himself now, to call this sinner by His Spirit, and that unasked and unprayed, in the promise to his heart: Live, yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, live, etc. O, Christ Himself must teach you that by Grace if you will ever understand it. And you must pray Him for it, and you cannot pray Him for it, because you are always praying with a spirit of the covenant of works, as it is evident now to me very clear from all your writings.
What shall I have to advise you? I can give you no better advice than that Christ Himself gives you: Rev. 3: 18, I counsel thee to buy of me, etc. and Rev. 22: 17. I can simply say to you that your whole way and course in acting with Christ must be changed thoroughly by the Lord’s Spirit and by free grace. You must come there: to work less at Christ’s door and to believe and to receive more: for you must know, that Christ already some thousands years ago made His covenant of Grace for poor sinners as well and after that affirmed it by His own Blood and Death and that nobody has to work now to receive grace from Him. I, unworthy, have received this command of my Master already some years ago, that I have to assure in His Name that for all, all sinners, without exception, that there is to get not only Grace, but an abundance of Grace from Christ if they only desire it seriously from Him and from His Promises. And though I cannot see that you have had a right and believing eye upon me as a servant of Christ and a distributor of His Secrets, when you were writing a letter to me, so I have yet to act with you in this quality, because I know that Christ Himself will read this letter to you and will re-read this letter in the Day of Judgment. My friend, I have to put my own salvation under it, which I am hoping by grace from the Lord by Christ, that Christ truly will give you grace, if you only desire grace seriously from Him.
Now I will advise you: 1. Try to learn by the Lord’s Spirit what Grace is; O, you will not desire it, before you know what Grace is. I wish, that Christ will teach you what Grace, Grace is; 2. Try to learn, too, and to understand what are the hindrances (obstacles), that, as Christ is so gracious in His offers and so wide and general in His promises, your poor soul is not helped yet and contented by Him. But I can assure you, he not only promises, but He gives rest to all who come heavy laden unto Him. See His Own Word, Matth. 11: 28. Though you have seen it
thousands of times, O, see it again and believe it by His Spirit; so you will be helped and saved surely; 3. Try to learn and understand what matters are, such as: sin, hell, curse and wrath and what these things mean according to you. O, I wish you get Jesus’ Light. Do study with your heart by God’s Light in these things until the inward ground of your heart is broken by the Lord’s Spirit and do look how long a time you can dispute with Christ and with His Grace and Almighty Spirit.
Your state and former activities and experiences you wrote me, it is not Christ and not the way to Christ.
You are a boatman yourself, as I read in your letter, and you like to sail the shortest good way, don’t you? The Lord may grant you that you act with yourself in such a way with your own soul and eternal salvation. I ask you do not turn over more work than only the three points I proposed to you. Put yourself (O, the Lord’s Spirit may do it with you and in you) into this strait prison and do not walk out of it before you as a tied prisoner by Christ Himself are set at liberty by the Blood of the Covenant. People take thousands of times, turns to come into Heaven, but they miss the strait and narrow Way, Christ Himself.
You have freedom from the Lord to write to me so often you need it and I wish that the Lord will make me able to answer you that which is good and that His Spirit my plain words will bless graciously to your fundamental change and to your coming to Christ out of yourself and from the realm of darkness.
I am and remain unto your salvation and unto all in the Lord,
Your obliged friend and servant,
Rev. Theodorus van der Groe.
To: Jan Corn. de Jong,
deacon and ferry boatman,
AALSMER.
25 januari 1747.
(Translated from Dutch into English by Joh. Freeke, ‘s-Gravenhage – 3A, Holland).