Daviot Free Manse, 16th September, 1852
MY DEAR SIR, — I received your kind letter some weeks ago. I should have answered it sooner, but I hardly know what to say, nor have I at present hardly anything, being like an empty cistern or a dry tree. I was glad to hear from your dear sister since her return to her father. I hope she does not repent coming north, at least in regard to her body. I felt the time very agreeable that she had been with us. We were at last beginning to understand each other when she left us, and perhaps beginning to be too happy when it was perhaps time to separate us. Poor sinners can hardly bear long too much sorrow, or too much cheerfulness. Sacred wisdom knows well this, because there is in each a mixture of sin; each sin opens a door to the enemy; hence we are warned to mix our joy with trembling.
Very often a proportionable sorrow may be at our door, so that there is need of watchfulness. “Be sober, because your adversary the devil goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” Yet the Great Advocate reigns. He knows well how to deal with His poor people. Satan cannot hurt them, or do anything to them, but as He permits. In sorrow one becomes exposed to his temptations. It is easy to prevail on one who is already on his back. It is easy to make one believe he has no grace, when one sees and feels that he has none. It is easy to make him believe his sins are unpardonable, when himself sees them more in number than the hairs of his head. It is easy to believe the day of grace is past, when the heart refuses to repent. It is in such cases the enemy comes; surely he is a merciless being, his aim in all things is to ruin the poor soul, but the Saviour rules over him. He knows how far he should be permitted to bruise and break the creature. Hence the Saviour has the tongue of the learned, knows how to speak a word in season to the weary soul, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite one. He will not be always wroth, because the Spirit which He made would fail before Him. He knows well what His people cost Him. He also knows all their difficulties, but He knows His own expense to meet all, and that they shall come forth at last as gold tried in the fire. It is therefore our duty to be about His door, to look to His promises, and plead the fulfilment of them to ourselves. This may take time. There are many things to be worn out of us before the consolations of the gospel could do us good. “For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie; though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.”
The time for comforting the soul is fixed with Himself. He is a wise Physician, and will not apply the balm while the poison is at the root. He uses His lancets, cuts deep to the very bottom of the wound, lets out the poison of the old covenant. “I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.” “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin.”
Remember me kindly to your dear sister and your father, though I have not had the pleasure of seeing him. Grace be with you. Miss — is still here. She thinks of leaving us next week. — Yours sincerely.
Archd. Cook