John Newton
1Another part of a letter to a friend, taken with editing from Newton’s Works, vol 1. In the first part Newton spoke about what constitutes a believer.
- We seem to differ likewise as to the marks of a lively, thriving spirit – at least if any are supposed to be better or surer than those to whom the Lord has promised blessedness (Mt 5:3-9). He has said, “Blessed are they that mourn”, but he has not said, More blessed are they that are comforted. They are, to be sure, more happy at present; but their blessedness does not consist in their present comforts, but in those perceptions of gospel truths which form in them that contrite spirit in which God delights (Is 57:18) and which make them capable of divine comforts, and spiritual hungerings and thirstings after them.
Perhaps we do not argue in the same way; we may mean different things. I would not represent myself as a stranger to peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. In the midst of all my conflicts, I have a heartfelt satisfaction from the gospel which nothing else could give. But I mean, though this is with me as an abiding principle, it rarely affords me what I think you intend when you speak of conscious comforts. I cannot feel that warmth of heart, that glowing of love, which the knowledge of such a Saviour should inspire. I account it my sin, and I feel it my burden that I cannot so feel.
And when I truly do this – when I can abhor myself for my stupidity, mourn over it, and humbly look up to the Lord for relief against it – I judge my soul to be at such times as much alive to God as it would be if He saw fit to increase my comfort. Let me always either rejoice in Him, or mourn after Him. I would leave the alternatives to Him, who knows best how to suit His dispensations to my state; and I trust He knows that I do not say this because I set a small value on His presence. As to the experience of the Apostles, I believe they were patterns to all succeeding believers. But God shows some regard to the various trials and services to which we may be called in this world; He distributes them to all His people according to His own will, yet with a wise and gracious accommodation to the circumstances and situations of each of them.
The Apostle Paul connects the aboundings of his consolations with the aboundings of his afflictions, and with the state of the people to whom he preached (2 Cor 1:4-7). And if, instead of preaching the gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum in the face of persecution, he had lived in a land of liberty and been confined to a parish, for aught I know his cup might not have run over so often. Succeeding ministers of the gospel, when called to very laborious and painful services, have, for similar reasons, been often favoured with a double portion of that joy which makes hard things easy and bitter things sweet. In general, all the Lord’s people who walk humbly before Him may expect that, in or after times of great trial, and in proportion to their pressures, He will favour them with special comforts.
In this way He in a great measure fulfills His promise of making their strength equal to their day. And I am enabled to trust Him in this matter that, if He should at any time see fit to call me to a more difficult and dangerous sphere of service, or lead me into the furnace of affliction, He would, if He saw it needful, support and refresh me by such manifestations of His glory and love, as I know but little of at present. In a word, a humble, dependent frame of spirit, perseverance in the use of appointed means, care to avoid all occasions of sin, an endeavour to glorify God in our callings, and an eye to Jesus as our all in all; these things are to me sure indications that the soul is right, that the Lord is present, and that grace is thriving and in exercise, whether conscious consolations abound or not.