A PECULIAR PEOPLE
by Joseph Philpot, 1841
"A peculiar people." 1 Peter 2:9
What an involuntary testimony do ungodly people often
bear to the truth of the Scriptures! What, for instance, is more common in
the world, and among those who are lying dead in a profession, than language
of this kind--"What an odd kind of people there are at such a chapel!
What particular notions they have! What peculiar sentiments they entertain!
There is only a set of peculiar books suited to them, and there are only a
few peculiar preachers whom they will hear; and in all their words and
actions they manifest an exclusiveness, a bigotry, a narrow-mindedness which
is very different from what you witness at other places!"
Is not this bearing a testimony to the truth of God's
Word? Does not truth unwillingly fall here from the lips of enemies? Has not
God Himself said that they are 'a peculiar people'? Then this very
peculiarity which is stamped upon them, and which the keen eye of the world
discovers, is an evidence that they are those, of whom God has said that
they are "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar
people, that they should show forth the praises of Him who has called them
out of darkness into His marvelous light." This peculiar people has existed
through all ages from the days of the first promise, and will exist until
the final consummation of all things.
ABEL was one of this peculiar people; and the peculiar
blessings that God favored him with, drew down upon him the wrath of his
murderous brother. NOAH was one of this peculiar people, whom God directed
to build the ark, as typical of Christ Jesus the Lord, in whom His dear
people find a refuge from the deluging waves and showers of God's wrath. LOT
in Sodom was one of this peculiar people, who tormented in his righteous
soul from day to day by witnessing their ungodly deeds. ABRAHAM in the land
of the Canaanites, ISAAC his son, JACOB his grandson, were the ancestors of
a peculiar people, upon whom God had set his own stamp that He had separated
them from the nations of the earth, as typical of a people foreordained to
eternal glory. The separation of the JEWS, the lineal descendants of
Abraham, from all nations, typified the separation of the elect from all the
people that dwell upon the face of the earth; and the enmity that was
manifested against that peculiar people was but a manifestation of the
enmity which exists in the heart against the people of God--the development
of that enmity which God said He would Himself put between the seed of the
woman and the seed of the serpent (Gen. 3:15).
When they were in Egypt, their being a peculiar people
called forth the enmity of that king that knew not Joseph. After the
captivity, when they were dispersed through various lands, they called forth
the enmity of Haman. He therefore went to the king and said, "Then Haman
approached King Xerxes and said, "There is a certain race of people
scattered through all the provinces of your empire. Their laws are different
from those of any other nation, and they refuse to obey even the laws of the
king. So it is not in the king's interest to let them live. If it please
Your Majesty, issue a decree that they be destroyed, and I will give 375
tons of silver to the government administrators so they can put it into the
royal treasury." Esther 3:8-9.
Here was the discovery of the venom that ever dwells in
the heart of the reprobate against the elect--here was the manifestation of
that hidden enmity, which exists in the world against the peculiar family of
Jehovah. These manifestations, then, of enmity are marks and testimonies,
not merely to the truth of revelation, but in favor of those people against
whom these envenomed arrows are shot.
And depend upon it, friends, if you and I have never been
aimed at by the bitter shafts of contempt, if we have never experienced
persecution, if our fine fame has never been tarnished by the malicious
slander of the world, if we have never been held up to scorn and execration
as having such a peculiarity stamped upon us as the world hates, we carry
with us no evidence that we are of the number of that peculiar people whom
God has chosen in Christ, and blessed with all spiritual blessings in Him.
There is a peculiar people, then; and the desire of every
heart that God has touched with His finger is sweetly breathed forth in the
language of Ruth, when she said, 'Your people shall be my people, and your
God my God' (Ruth 1:16). "Yes", says the living soul whom God has quickened
into a new and spiritual existence--"yes, they are the people of God; my
heart cleaves to them with affection, I desire to be one with them; may my
lot and portion be among the living family of God. Though there are in them
many things which grieve me, though there are in them many divisions, though
there is much lacking in those who I desire to see present, and much present
in those who I desire to see absent, yet with all their failings and all
their imperfections and all their infirmities, they are the people of the
living God. With them I desire to live, and with them I desire to die."
Then, friends, if you and I are walking in the strait and narrow path that
leads to eternal life, we shall carry about with us some stamp, some
evidence, that we belong to this peculiar people; we shall bear with us some
marks that God has separated us, by a work of grace upon our souls, from all
the people that are upon the face of the earth (Ex. 33:16).
But this people are a peculiar people in several points
of view.
They are a peculiar people by the original separation of
them in the eternal councils of the Three-one God (election). They were
chosen in Christ before all worlds, that they might be a people in whom the
Lord Jesus might eternally delight, and in whom He might eternally be
glorified. Their fall in their first parent was foreseen and fore-provided
for. The Lamb of God was slain, in the mind of God the Father, before the
foundation of the world, and they stood eternally one with Christ, justified
in His glorious righteousness, holy in His spotless innocency, perfect in
His perfection, and lovely in His loveliness.
And thus this peculiar people were blessed with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ (Eph. i. 3), before time
had an existence; before this world had a being; before the all-creative
voice of God made the sun and stars shine in the skies; when eternity alone
existed, and the Three-one God dwelt alone in sacred communion, without any
one object of Their creative hand. This people had a being then in the mind
of God; and in virtue of this original being, they are brought forth first
in time (each according to the moment that God has foreordained) and then in
God's appointed season, are brought forth by the quickening operations of
the Holy Spirit into a new and spiritual existence.
But how, as a matter of individual inquiry, shall we know
that we belong to this peculiar people? Shall we turn over the leaves of our
Bible, and read Ephesians 1, or Romans 8, and seeing there that God has an
elect people, at once conclude that we belong to them? Shall we turn to the
first epistle of John, and reading there, 'The blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sin', therefore conclude that our iniquities are
pardoned? Shall we cast our eyes on the text--'Who is he that condemns? it
is God that justifies'--and by reading that text of Scripture, without
further ado, believe in our own personal justification? No; this may do for
a dry professor, for one dead in a form; but it will never do for a living
soul, whose conscience God has touched with His own finger.
Before he can realize his interest in those blessings,
with which God has blessed His people before all worlds, he must have a
personal manifestation and revelation of those blessings to his own soul,
under the operations of the Holy Spirit; and if they are not sealed upon his
conscience, and evidenced to his heart, by the witness of the Holy Spirit,
he can never be satisfied that he is a sharer in those blessings that are
stored up for the elect in Christ Jesus.
But there are certain marks and evidences, which fall
short of the manifestation of Christ with power to the soul; there are
testimonies which do not amount to a full and complete satisfaction; and
when a child of God is in deep poverty and strong exercises of soul, he will
be glad to accept a little token when he cannot get a greater. The beggar
in the street will take a copper coin; he does not turn away from that with
contempt; his hunger and his poverty make the smallest gift acceptable. A
man in good circumstances would turn away from such a pitiful donation, and
think it an insult; but he that is deeply sunk in poverty is glad to have
anything that may relieve his pressing need.
Many times, when the Lord lays poverty as a deep and
galling load upon the souls of His dear family, He makes them glad to get
hold of those 'little coins' (I mean apparently such, for no coin is little
that comes from heaven's mint), which proud professors despise. We will,
then, with God's blessing, endeavor to trace out a few of the PECULIAR MARKS
that are stamped upon this peculiar people; and if the Lord shall be
pleased through my mouth to convey from the courts of heaven one of these
coins into your heart, He will lock it up safe in that treasury; He will
sometimes bring it out for you to look upon; and thus you will have at times
a sweet evidence that you have a saving interest in that love which knows no
bounds.
1. The peculiar people, then, have
peculiar exercises of soul. No man knows anything of spiritual
exercises, except he is a spiritual man. He may have convictions, it is
true; he may have passing doubts and fears; he may have some dim and dismal
apprehensions of the wrath to come; but as to spiritual exercises, he knows
them not, for they are peculiar to spiritually taught people. But all God's
family, each according to their measure, have spiritual exercises.
Sometimes, for instance, they are powerfully exercised
with UNBELIEF; that is, the unbelief of their hearts so powerfully works in
their carnal mind, as to obscure every evidence, hide every testimony, and
deface every inscription that the Holy Spirit has engraved upon their souls.
But it is not the mere existence of unbelief, that manifests a child of God,
for unbelief reigns and rules in the hearts of the reprobate; it is the
exercise of the soul under unbelief, that shows the existence of spiritual
life; it is the conflict, the opposition, the struggle, that is carried on
in the bosom; for this implies a counteracting principle, the existence of
the company of two armies (Song 6:13). To be shut up in unbelief is no
testimony of being a living soul; but to find in our hearts a counteracting
principle which discovers unbelief, which fights against unbelief, which
groans under unbelief as a burden, which longs to be delivered from the
power of unbelief--here we trace the existence of a living principle, by the
opposition which that living principle carries on against the unbelief which
rises up in the carnal mind.
The grand thing which I want to come at in my own soul,
and which I want to come at in yours, is this--the existence of the life of
God--and I desire to trace out in your consciences this hidden life, in some
of its bearings and its workings. But in order to do that, I must go into
those exercises of soul, wherein the life of God is manifested.
If I were to say, "Every one who has unbelief is a child
of God," I should build up a false evidence, because there are hundreds and
thousands and millions, who have unbelief, who are not children of God; and
therefore I must come to the grace of God in the soul, the work of the
Spirit in the heart, the existence of a living principle which works and
manifests itself under this mass of unbelief that seems to press it down.
But, again, I need something more than that.
Suppose you were in Derbyshire, and a person were to say
to you, "There is a river here, the river Dove, which buries itself in a
certain spot close by, and runs underground for a considerable distance."
You would say, "I think I can hear it rushing along, but I certainly should
prefer ocular evidence; and if I cannot see where the river first buries
itself, I should like to see it in some part of its subterraneous course."
Now if that person could take you to some deep dell or rocky chasm, where
the earth parted, and you, looking down into the deep fissure, saw as well
as heard the river rushing along, you would say, "I can believe it now;" and
yet all the time this river had been running underground. But when you saw
its waters through the chasm in the earth, then you had ocular evidence that
the river was there.
So it is with faith in our heart. Faith in the soul runs
like a hidden river under the overlying mass of unbelief. But how am I to
know that it is there? I know it sometimes by the strugglings, the
upheavings, the attempts of this river to rise to the light of day. But if
sometimes there is a chasm made--if rocky unbelief be parted asunder, and I
can discern the actings, breathings, and workings of living faith, and it
sparkles up as it catches a beam from the Sun--then I have another and a far
brighter evidence that I have the faith of God's elect. Thus, in tracing out
the work of faith upon the soul, we must not only discover faith in its
conflicts, but we must sometimes see faith in its victories. We
must see and feel faith, not merely as heaving itself up under the mass of
unbelief, but we must sometimes see that blessed grace springing forth into
lively exercise, so as to realize the things of God in Christ. The peculiar
people have faith; and this faith is sometimes called forth into blessed
exercise, and is drawn up by the Spirit of God, so as to rise up to the
light of day, and glisten and shine beneath the Sun of Righteousness.
Again; another exercise of the living soul, is its
conflict under that CARNALITY, deadness, earthliness, and barrenness, which
seem at times to clasp it down to the earth. But am I to say, that
carnality, barrenness, coldness, and deadness are evidences? I say not. But
the evidence is, when I find something of a different nature working up in
them and counteracting them, and manifesting the power and strength of the
Spirit's work in the midst of them. If I say, "I am carnal, I am dead, I am
cold, I am stupid, I am unfeeling, I am lifeless, therefore I am a child of
God," what do I but build up that which is the work of the flesh, and say of
it that it is the work of the Spirit?
Again; do I say, "I am always spiritual and heavenly
minded, I am always enjoying the presence of Christ as my soul-satisfying
portion, I am never dead nor stupid nor barren;" dare I say such things (I
dare not say them, for I would have a lie in my right hand), it would be
distressing the poor, burdened and exercised family, and not casting up the
highway in which the redeemed walk.
But the path of the just is one in which spirituality at
times breathes forth out of carnality, life at times enjoys blessed
deliverance out of death, fruitfulness at times overcomes barrenness, light
at times bursts forth out of darkness, mercy at times overcomes guilt, love
at times casts out fear, and hope at times repels despondency. Here we come
to that which is peculiar to the quickened elect--we touch upon peculiar
workings, peculiar traces; here we begin to discern the stamp of the Holy
Spirit, as distinct from all the religion of the flesh, and all the
delusions and deceits of the wicked one.
But those who have no grace are very glad to hide
themselves under the wing of a minister; and when they hear him speak of
deadness, carnality, barrenness, unbelief, and doubt--"Ah!" say they, "he is
tracing out my experience now; oh! I can come in there; there is a little
nibble for me". But what is he tracing out? Not the work of God in the soul,
not the work of the Spirit upon the conscience; but that carnality,
barrenness, and death, which all men have--merely the work of the flesh, and
not the work of the Spirit of God.
But God's people have also peculiar exercises under
TEMPTATIONS. To have temptations is no mark of being a child of God, because
men in the world have temptations. What makes the pick-pocket dip his
fingers into the coat of the passer-by? Temptation to theft. What makes the
drunkard steal into the gin palace? The love of drink. What brings the felon
to the gallows? Temptation to murder.
Therefore the existence of temptation and the power of
temptation is no proof of being a child of God; but the proof of being a
child of God is what are the feelings and exercises of the soul under
temptations, how the living principle is manifested by working against and
under temptations. Is there any pain? Does temptation cause distress? Is
there a sigh and cry to God for deliverance? Does the renewed spirit groan
and heave exceedingly beneath the heavy weight of it? Are there occasional
deliverances from it? Is mercy manifested in pardoning the soul that has
been entangled in it? Is the grace of God blessedly glorified in healing the
backslidings that temptations have caused? Is there a stretching forth of
the arms of faith to embrace the cross of Christ as the only refuge from
temptation? Now we come to life.
But if you conclude yourself to be a child of God because
you are tempted, it is but a deceiving of yourself. It is a dreadful
delusion of the devil to set up temptation as an evidence of grace, without
the exercises of the soul under temptation, without the burdens of
temptation, without the bitter sighs and cries under temptation, without
deliverance out of temptation. To set up temptations in themselves as
way-marks is nothing else but to obscure the road which the Holy Spirit has
traced out in the Word of God, and which the Holy Spirit traces out in the
consciences of the living family.
2. But again, these peculiar
people have peculiar DELIVERANCES. And after all, friends, say
what we may about doubts and fears, and convictions, and distresses, and
sore temptations, and painful exercises, I am well convinced that the grand
soul-satisfying evidence is deliverance.
Does the prisoner, when he is confined in the dark cell,
feel an evidence that he shall come abroad by looking at the prison bars?
Does the trembling criminal standing upon the gallows, and reaching forth
his anxious eyes over the crowd, if he can see the king's messenger riding
at full speed with a pardon in his hand, conclude that he shall be respited
because he feels the halter pinching his neck? No; it is deliverance which
is the testimony; it is the king's pardon which sets him free; it is the
unrolling of the document signed by the hand of the king, that detaches the
noose from his neck, and sends him forth once more among his fellows as a
living man.
And so it is with a child of God that is exercised with
distressing fears, that feels the agonizing throes of despair in his soul,
that seems suspended over eternity by a hair. He needs deliverance, he needs
pardon, he needs a testimony, he needs the manifestation of God's mercy to
his soul. "Well," but say some, "if this be the case, if there is no
evidence to be traced in doubts and fears, if sin and corruption and
temptation are not marks of grace, what in the world makes you and other
ministers preach them? Why do not you leave them all alone, and exalt a
glorious Christ? and why not be done with all these temptations and
corruptions?" I will tell you why.
Suppose that I had lost my way in going to a place which
I very anxiously wished to reach, and I inquired of a person whom I can
trust, which road leads to it. He tells me, and he says, "I will give you a
mark to know the road by; it is very hilly, it is very rough, it is very
rugged and stony; there are many pits and sloughs in it, and above all, the
road is very dirty". I listen to his instructions; I thank him for his
advice, and I start forth. But I come to a road as smooth as a
bowling-green; I find not one large pebble on the road; everything is easy
to my feet. I say to myself, "this cannot be the road; I was told the road
had stones in it, and hills and pitfalls, and mud and mire--surely I must be
out of the road". But if I find at last a road which is very hilly, and very
rough and rugged, and I now and then sink up to my shoes in the mud and
mire, and everything which I find in the road tallies with the description
which my informant has given me, I say, "I am in the road now; it is just as
I was told; here I am in the right road".
Well, the Word of God has traced out the road to heaven
as a road of this nature, a rough and thorny road, full of difficulties,
exercises, straits and temptations; and if you read the eleventh chapter of
Hebrews you will have a description of the travelers there--what trials and
temptations they pass through.
Then, mark this--the mud, the mire, the stones, the
hills, the valleys, are not the road, but they lie in the road. Could they
be swept away, the road would be the same; but they are there, and we must
travel through them. So with the mud and mire of my heart, the unbelief, and
pride, and presumption, and hypocrisy of my fallen nature, the sharp arrows
that Satan shoots, the temptations that the world spreads, the opposition of
professors, the persecution of the world, the doubts and fears of my own
mind--if I am to walk in the strait and narrow path that leads to eternal
life, I must pass through these.
These are not evidences, but still they are so
inseparable from the road, that though they are not the road itself, they so
lie in the road that if I walk in that road I must walk through them. Then
that is the reason why those who desire to take the stumbling-blocks out of
the way of God's people, and to be sons of consolation to the poor in Zion,
talk of doubts, and fears, and exercises, and temptations, and griefs, and
sorrows; that they may strengthen the living family who are struggling in
this rough and miry road--for a living foot will toil on though in the mud,
when a dead carcass would sink in it without a struggle.
For after all, deliverance is the grand evidence. To be
sweetly blessed with a view of Jesus; to have the pardon of sin sealed upon
the soul; to catch a sight of that glorious robe which covers and shrouds
the guilty criminal; to have one's eye open to see Jesus; to look into His
bosom; to see His tender heart beating with compassion; and to feel the
atoning drops of His blood falling into our conscience, to purge it and to
cleanse it from all guilt and sin--that is the evidence, that is the
soul-satisfying testimony, and that which brings into the heart the peace of
God which passes all understanding.
None but the elect can ever have this evidence, and I
will tell you another thing, none but the elect ever desire to have it. I
cannot believe in my conscience that anyone but a vessel of mercy that is
quickened by the Holy Spirit ever pants with unutterable pantings after the
sweet visitations of the love of God, after the revelation of Christ's
presence, and the applications of His atoning blood. I am sure I never
dreamt of such things, or cared for such things, and would have derided them
as enthusiasm, and trampled them under foot, as nothing but the fanaticism
of bigoted minds, until the Lord led me into these feelings, as I trust, by
His own powerful and blessed teaching in my soul.
3. But again– this peculiar
people will have peculiar marks stamped upon them EXTERNALLY, as well as
have peculiar marks internally. They will be separate from the
world; they will have no communion beyond what business requires, with the
men of this life, who have no fear of God in their heart, no grace of God in
their soul. They will be separated, as God from time to time calls them,
from the 'dead profession' of the day; they will have no real fellowship or
communion except with the spiritually taught family; they will bear an
honest testimony against error of every shape and form; and they will obey
strictly that precept, 'Come out from among them, and be separate says the
Lord, and touch not the unclean thing.'
That is what I have been obliged to do from compulsion;
not carnal compulsion, but from inward spiritual compulsion. Who has been
wrapped up in stronger folds than I? cradled as it were in everything
contrary to the truth of God, swathed round with the strongest swaddling
bands of prejudice, steeped up to the lips in worldliness, pride, and
ignorance; wrapped round with as many grave-clothes of death as an Egyptian
mummy, so that nothing but the hand of God could tear away these folds upon
folds, and bring me into anything like uprightness and integrity of heart,
and separate me from all that I was entangled in, and from all that I was
connected with.
I know, then, from personal experience, that there is an
inward power communicated, whereby we obey the precept, 'Come out from among
them, and be separate, and touch not the unclean thing', and prefer the
reproach of Christ to all the riches of Egypt. When in my right mind, I
would rather have the testimony of God in poverty and obscurity, than have
the testimony of man with all that the world can bestow.
Again, in the peculiar people there will be HONESTY,
UPRIGHTNESS, AND INTEGRITY. I am ashamed to say it (for it is a blot upon
the professing Church), but say it I must, that I myself have known much
more honesty and integrity, a truer sense of honor, more uprightness in
worldly dealings, stricter punctuality and straightforwardness in all
pecuniary matters, in men of the world who make no profession, than in some
of those who pride themselves upon being the people of God. But I believe,
wherever the grace of God is in a man's heart, it will make him honest, not
merely before God, but honest before men. No shuffling, no evasion, no
swindling, no cheating, can ever exist in a regenerate heart.
There is honesty, implanted by God Himself, who searches
the heart and tries the thoughts in every conscience which He has made alive
by breathing life into it out of Christ's fullness. It is a black mark
against you to be dishonest. Lowliness, trickery, and evasion come not from
God. He that dwells in the light which no man can approach unto, will
communicate to your soul some measure of His own uprightness. Let us have
common honesty, friends; let us have integrity. Let not the world say,
"These professors of religion will cheat us if they can." Let us have
something like honor and something like uprightness, that we may not bear
the stigma which the world would be glad to throw upon us.
4. Again--where God Himself has stamped us as His
peculiar people, there will be marks visible to the church of God; there
will be a gentleness, a tenderness, a meekness, a
contrition, a softness of spirit. There will not be a pouring
forth of the venom and enmity of our carnal mind against all that oppose us;
there will be no clambering to get to the topmost seat; there will be no
elbowing and thrusting people here and there, that we may be admired and
bowed down to; but there will be humility, and a meekness, and a contrition,
and a yielding submission and tenderness of spirit, whereby we are willing
to be anything so long as were are dear children of God. And we shall come
sometimes to David's spot, when he said he would rather be a door-keeper in
the house of the Lord, than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
Here is the mirror. Look into it. Can you see your
features? You say, "I have no doubt of election?" Probably not. But has God
certified you of your own election? You say, "I believe all the doctrines
you preach; my father was a Calvinist; I was always brought up to Dissent,
and I have received the doctrines of grace from infancy?" Very likely. But
did God Himself ever seal and apply these truths with power to your soul?
Those that are born of the Spirit, we read, are born not of blood, nor of
the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (John 1:13). Has
He stamped His own mark upon your spirit, engraved His own likeness upon
your soul, brought you into any measure of conformity to the Son of His
love, and raised up in your heart some resemblance to Himself?
I believe many of God's people, if not most have much ado
to make their calling and election sure (II Peter 1:10). They are not a
people to take things for granted; they cannot sit at ease and say, "I have
no doubt that I am a child of God"; they want something powerful, something
applied, something spoken by the mouth of God Himself, and short of that
they must be exercised with doubts and fears as to their state before Him.
Now let conscience speak; let us turn over the leaves of conscience. What
says that faithful witness? Has God spoken with power to your soul? Has He
pardoned your sins? Has He given you a sweet testimony of your saving
interest in the Son of His love? You say, "Why, I do not know that I can say
all that, I do not know that God has pardoned my sins". Well, we will come a
little lower then--if you cannot say that, we will take a little lower
ground; can you say that you are sighing and groaning and crying at
times--not always, but as the Lord works in you, for the sweet
manifestations of the love of Jesus to your souls? Here is a door open for
you--the door of hope in the valley of Achor. Can you come in here? Well,
these are marks of being one of God's peculiar people. But you cannot be
satisfied, short of God Himself making it known to you--you need an
immediate testimony from His blessed mouth, and nothing but that can satisfy
you; and when He sheds abroad His love in your soul, it will give you peace
and comfort, and nothing short of that can.
But remember, there is no middle place. How glad
thousands would be if there were a place between heaven and hell! O! could
they but find purgatory to be true, and have some medium spot! "They are not
good enough," they say, "for heaven; but surely they are not bad enough for
hell!" O, could they but find some place between the two! But there is none.
There is a great gulf fixed (Luke xvi. 26) between Abraham and Dives--there
is no intermediate spot. It is either a peculiar people ordained to eternal
glory, or a people foreordained to everlasting perdition; it is either being
interested in the love and blood of the Redeemer, or it is being under the
tremendous wrath and curse of God to all eternity; it is either standing
complete in Christ, wrapped up in His righteousness and washed in His blood,
or it is to howl in torments through endless ages; it is either to be
blessedly caught up into the bosom of God, or thrust down into the
habitations of the damned.
And therefore, there being such a tremendous gulf between
the one and the other, it will make the child of God quake at times, and
fear, and tremble to the center, whether he has an evidence that God is his
Father, that Christ is his Elder Brother and that the Holy Spirit is his
Teacher. But he will never get any solid satisfaction until God Himself
drops a testimony from His own mouth, gives him the spirit of adoption to
cry Abba, Father, unveils His face in Christ Jesus, and seals blood and love
in his conscience. Then he enters into his rest, and feels the peace of God
which passes all understanding, (Phil. iv. 7); he is sealed as an heir of
God and joint heir with Christ (Rom. viii. 17), and when he dies he will
forever be with Him whom his soul loves.