LETTERS of J. C. Philpot (1848)
January 13, 1848
My dear friend, John Grace—I hope that by this time you are fully
recovered from your fall, and have had additional proof that, if a sparrow
cannot fall to the ground without your heavenly Father, much less the body
of John Grace. How much better, my dear friend, to fall from a scaffold,
and break a couple of ribs, than fall into sin and break all your bones!
There is no guilty conscience, nor hanging down of the
head, heart, and hands before God, nor rejoicing in the Philistines' camp,
when we have only broken a rib or a leg. The dreadful consequences of sin,
external or internal, I need not tell you.
I am sorry to have cast any doubt upon the previous
non-publication of the letter of Huntington, and have, I hope, set the
matter right in the forthcoming Standard. The great similarity of
thought and expression to what I have met with in his published letters led
me to believe I had seen it before; and I was not willing to give occasion
to those who seek occasion to bring charges against the Standard, in
order to wound and injure its reputation and influence, and that of its
editors.
I am glad you like the writings of John Rusk. I myself
have the highest opinion of them, and think them most scriptural and
experimental. Few writers, it appears to me, dive so deeply into the
mysteries of nature and grace, and bring forward Scripture so closely and
pertinently to clear up and prove every point and well-near sentence. He
often describes the very feelings of my heart. He was, I believe, a poor
sail-maker, and lived in Rotherhithe. He was a constant hearer, if not a
member, at Mr. Huntington's chapel; and, after his decease, heard first, I
believe, Mr. Robins, and then Mr. Henry Fowler. He died a few years ago;
and, I think, there is some account of his death in the Spiritual
Magazine, some years back. I know a person who knew him well. Mr. Gadsby
bought all his MSS. two or three years ago, amounting to seven or eight good
sized volumes, and we hope to insert them gradually in the Standard.
Send me, when you can, more of Huntington's letters.
Yours affectionately,
J. C. P.
February 9, 1848
My dear friend, Thomas Godwin—If I delay much longer to write you
will think I have fulfilled the old saying, "Out of sight out of mind," or
that something has occurred, as illness, to prevent me. I am glad, however,
to say that neither of these causes has prevented; for, as regards the
former, I can say, I never felt a better union with you since we first knew
one another; and, as regards the latter, I am much as when you left
Stamford.
I hope, my dear friend, your visit here was of the Lord.
I am sure that our friends heard you with sweetness and power, much more
than they ever did here before, and I hope we may one day see more clearly
that you came with a message from God by the fruits and effects following.
We sometimes do not hear for years, and perhaps never, of any blessing that
may have rested on our ministry. We could not bear much of either—for or
against. To hear too much, or to hear too little, of what God may
condescend to do by us might not suit our pride or our despondency. I
have sometimes thought myself a wonderfully great man, and sometimes felt
myself one of the poorest noodles that ever stood up in a pulpit.
My dear friend, how much I feel as you describe; and it
is, in my right mind, one of my greatest griefs and troubles that I am so
earthly, sensual, and devilish. I remember, as I think I told you,
somewhere about this time twenty-one years ago, when eternal things seemed
first laid with weight and power upon my soul, that for many months two
subjects only occupied my mind—a temporal trouble that I was passing
through, which cost me almost rivers of tears and sighs, and the solemn
things of eternity. I may one day open up a little of what I then passed
through, when I have often wetted the pommel of my saddle with tears amid
the lonely valleys of the Wicklow hills, or galloped half distracted along
the seashore, where no mortal eye could see or ear hear me cry and groan,
sometimes from natural trouble, and sometimes in pouring out my soul before
the Lord. I did not then think I would ever be the carnal and careless
wretch which I often now feel to be. I once told friend Parry, when I first
went to Allington, that "I often had no more religion than a horse." Friend
Parry could not then receive such a speech, though since he has often found
himself in the same plight. Next to the cutting feelings of a guilty
conscience I feel my own carnality my greatest burden. Oh, what a
cumber-ground! Oh, what an unprofitable wretch! Oh, what a fruitless branch
do I feel myself to be! with just enough feeling to sigh a little after the
Lord as I lie awake in the dead and still night. As Hart says– "Fickle
fools, and false to You." And again– "Only wise by fits and starts."
I think I feel a little stronger these last few days. I
get out and walk, which seems to do me more good than anything else. George
Isbell and I walked to Tinwell today, and I felt all the better for it when
I came home. The fresh air seemed to revive me. He is but middling, and much
harassed with different things.
My poor sister, Mrs. Watts, is, I fear, very ill, and
much tried both in mind and body. I hope the Lord may appear for her. . . .
I wish you could drop in, that we might have a little talk as we had when
you were here. I much enjoyed your visit and company. I have not had your
depths nor heights, but I know scarcely another man that I can travel so
well with in spiritual things. Your letters seem sometimes written out of my
heart. I am, you know, a black man, and I must have an Ethiopian companion.
I once made great attempts to be holy, and was going on
pretty well, with, however, some terrible inward pull-backs sometimes, until
the winter of 1830-31, when it all went to wreck and ruin. Death stared me
in the face, and I used to count how many months I had to live. How I used
then to roll about on my midnight bed, with scarcely a hope in my soul, and
turned my face to the wall like good old Hezekiah!
Some have said and thought that I stole my religion from
books. But I preached experience before I knew there were such men as
experimental preachers, or such writings as experimental books. I never
stole a searching ministry from anyone, for I did not know there were such
ministers. But I was searched, and I searched others; and I actually thought
when I left the Church of England that all the Baptist Calvinist ministers
were in that line of things. And I believe, in my conscience, that at my
Thursday evening lecture at Stadham, when I was in the Church of England, I
used to preach at times more searchingly than I have done since. For why?
Because I was being searched myself. But I must not run on any more like
this, for if I do you will begin to say, "What is my friend J. C. P. about,
praising himself so?"
My friend, I have sometimes gone into the pulpit full of
confusion, and sometimes as guilty as a malefactor, begging mercy, cut up
with guilt and shame. Where was my, 1st, doctrine, 2nd, experience, 3rd,
practice, then? And after preaching at Zoar I have almost roared aloud in
the cab with real sorrow of heart, and just stopped while the wooden
pavement was passed over, lest the cabman should hear me. There was not much
self-applause for a nicely divided sermon then. To my mind, what we read
together in —'s sermon cuts up experimental preaching root and branch. Where
was your nicely divided doctrinal sermon, the first evening you preached
here, when the friends heard you so well? I know for myself that when I
preach doctrinally it is when my soul is not exercised; and when I am in
that carnal state I sometimes hate myself for every word that I say, and
hate and am condemned for any prating chatter.
To preach what is called "a great sermon," condemns me
inwardly as a presumptuous wretch; and my carnal liberty and great swelling
words about Jesus Christ trouble me more than darkness and bondage. In my
right mind I would rather stumble on with a little life and feeling in my
soul than preach the greatest sermon in the world without it, and I know
that my friend Thomas Godwin is of the same mind. How little godly fear can
a man have to say inwardly, after preaching free grace, "Well done!" But I
shall tire you with my chatter.
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. P.
February 12, 1848
Dear Friend—I shall be very glad to have any or all of the late Mr. Gadsby's
letters which you can furnish me with. They generally contain much of the
fullness and sweetness of the gospel, and in most cases are well backed with
such views of and glimpses at man's deeply and dreadfully fallen nature as
prove him to have been well and experimentally acquainted with both sides of
the question. It is this which gives sweetness and savor to his very scraps
of notes and short letters—that he wrote them out of his heart, and that his
knowledge of Christ and of himself was not notional, doctrinal, and
theoretical, but spiritual and experimental. The Lord in mercy teach and
lead us in a similar way; for I am very sure that no other knowledge will
"Stand every storm and live at last."
I shall be very glad to insert them in the Gospel
Standard as opportunity may offer, and will give directions to have the
originals carefully preserved. I am still laid aside from the ministry, and
it seems at present uncertain when I shall be restored to labor in the
vineyard. The winter and two successive attacks of influenza threw me back;
but I trust I am gradually recovering from their effects, and slowly, very
slowly, progressing onward. I labored too hard during the last two years for
my weak constitution, and did not take warning in time, continuing to preach
when perhaps a little rest might (D.V.) have restored me. I was once before,
about seventeen years ago, laid aside in an almost similar way, though
weaker then than now, and did not recover for more than a year.
I would not have troubled you with these details about my
poor clay tabernacle but for two reasons—1. I was induced to think that my
kind friends at — are interested about my bodily health; and, 2. so many
false reports are in circulation that I thought it might be desirable to
give a true statement as far as I can of my real state.
I hope you are being made and kept sensible of your
utterly lost and undone state by nature, and that you cannot possibly
deliver yourself from it, but at the same time are pressing after that
experimental knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ which is eternal life. It
is a great and inestimable mercy when our various trials and troubles are
made a means of driving us to the Lord, as our only hope and help. Those
circumstances, outward or inward, temporal or spiritual, which stir up an
earnest spirit of prayer and supplication, make us cease from the creature,
beat us out of all false refuges, wean us from the world, show us the
vileness and deceitfulness of our hearts, lead us up to Jesus, and make Him
near, dear, and precious, must in our right mind be considered blessings. It
is true, troubles rarely come to us as such, or at the time appear as
such; no, they usually appear as if they would utterly swallow us up. But we
must judge of them by their fruits and effects.
Hezekiah saw no blessing wrapped up in the sentence of
death (Isa. 38), but he found one when it had made him turn his face to the
wall. Job could not see the hand of God in his troubles and afflictions; but
it was made plain after he was brought to abhor himself and repent in dust
and ashes. The smiles of God in providence, and the flatteries of his
friends did not do him half the good that the frowns of the Lord and the
cutting speeches of his old associates did. I am very sure, if we are in the
right way we shall find it a rough way, and have many trials and troubles. I
am obliged by the friends at — still bearing me in affectionate remembrance.
It is nearly seven years since I saw them face to face. My kind love to
them; greet them by name. Remember me affectionately to your wife and all
that have any spiritual desire for the welfare of,
Yours affectionately,
J. C. P.
March 9, 1848
My dear friend, Thomas Godwin—When I tell you that my poor sister,
Mrs. Watts, is dead, you will not be surprised at the paper on which I
write. She departed on Lord's-day morning about 8:30. She was a great
sufferer both in body and mind, believing herself to be a reprobate and
filled with condemnation and despair. We have, however, some hope that her
poor soul is not lost, as three times on the night before she died she said,
"I am going to God above," and, I believe, never spoke after, being
insensible all the night. My Sister, Mrs. Isbell, said that her convictions
of sin were very deep; all her sins of childhood, etc., were laid on her
conscience, and her distress of mind was very great, being fully persuaded
hell was her portion forever. She was a remarkably sincere and honest person
naturally; and, I think, the most reserved character almost that I ever
knew. So that, knowing her disposition, and what she passed through, we
cannot but hope that a sense of mercy at last reached her soul, and that she
felt she was going to God above.
My poor mother is at present calm and resigned, though
she was her favorite child, from whom she has scarcely been ever separated,
and her life was almost bound up in hers. But I have often observed, and no
doubt God has wisely ordained, that old age blunts and dulls the feelings,
so that aged parents do not feel the loss of their children as younger ones
do. . . .
Oh, my friend, what is all preaching or all the gifts in
the world unless the power of God accompany it to the soul? I am at a point
here. We need the mighty power of God to be felt in the soul, and without
that, all is nothing. What two sermons William Tiptaft preached here last
Lord's-day! As regards 'giftedness', what most professors would despise, and
perhaps ridicule, but what weight there seemed to be in them to exercised
souls!
I cannot say much about soul-matters just now. We need a
little flowing in before there can be any flowing out; and where this is not
the case the pen or tongue move in vain, or like Pharaoh's chariot wheels
drive heavily.
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. P.
March 16, 1848
My dear George Isbell—I am truly glad to learn that my dear
mother and sister have been supported under this heavy trial and affliction;
and I hope they may still find that as their day so is their strength. It is
a great mercy to be supported in and under the first outbreak of trouble
when the heart is too full to find relief in giving vent to its feelings.
The grief afterwards may be more poignant, but is more endurable.
I think that we are warranted in indulging a good hope
that our dear sister's poor soul is at rest. Having sunk so low and been so
near despair, putting away all hope, I think she would hardly have uttered
the words which her nurse and husband heard, had not some divine intimation
of mercy and acceptance reached her soul. There at least I wish to rest;
and, indeed, have found my mind to lean upon it as a support. We might,
indeed, have wished for earlier and clearer tokens, but these are not always
given. We are apt to forget, or, rather, hard to believe, that salvation is
all of grace from first to last; and that the Lord in all His dispensations
is and will ever manifest Himself as a Sovereign. I have often thought of
the dying thief. What a display of grace! One short prayer, one
believing look, one act! Oh what a mighty act of living faith upon the
crucified Son of God, and his soul was fit for paradise! What a death-blow
to works and work-mongers! Simeon Stylites on his pillar for thirty-seven
years, and the thief on the cross—how different their religion! Of the
latter I would say with Hart– "Be this religion mine."
When I have sometimes felt my miserable carnality and
earthly-mindedness, so that it has seemed impossible for me to be either
going to or to be fit for heaven, I have, as it were, fallen back upon the
dying thief. Where was his fitness, externally or internally? I have thus
seen what grace can do by what grace has done; and I neither expect nor
desire to be saved in any other way than the dying thief.
We may know, or think we know, a great deal, but really
and truly in what a narrow compass does all vital religion lie? I am
tried because I am day after day the same carnal and earthly wretch. No
better, no better; no, never shall be in myself anything but a poor, filthy,
fallen sinner. I have long believed the doctrine of the non-sanctification
of the old nature; but am now compelled to believe it whether I would or
not. I might as well doubt whether ink were black or snow white, as doubt
that my fallen nature is incurably corrupt. I must, therefore, ever despair
of salvation from self or from anything short of the blood of the
Lamb; and in teaching or preaching, dreams or doctrines, that lay the least
stress on creature doings or duties, piety, or holiness, I look upon as I
should a zealous defense of perpetual motion, squaring the circle, or aerial
navigation.
I have attempted to speak a little here on the Oakham
Lord's-day, confining myself, however, at present to exposition and prayer.
I do not think what little I have hitherto done has at all hurt me. Still I
hope to move cautiously, and not to attempt too much at first. I find this
cold, damp weather much against me, and I am anxiously expecting the advent
of a warmer and drier season.
I wish you could got a little rest. I think when medical
advisers of acknowledged skill recommend rest, it is desirable to attend to
their directions. I know, indeed, that it is a trial to be silent, but you
know the adage, "for lack of a nail the shoe was lost." . . .
[The remainder of this letter is missing.]
April 4, 1848
My dear friend, Thomas Godwin—I hope I may say I am better. I
preached here last Lord's-day morning, and went up and prayed in the meeting
in the afternoon, and did not seem much fatigued by the exertion. As all
tell me how much better I am looking, I cannot help believing what they say.
I think, too, that I am getting flesh on my bones, which is perhaps more
favorable than mere face-looks, which vary from day to day. . . . I would
not have troubled you with all these details about my poor worthless body if
I did not believe you wished really to know how matters stood with me.
I did not feel as I could wish on Lord's-day. William
Tiptaft has been here, and other supplies, and they have quite daunted me as
a preacher. I never heard William Tiptaft preach so well and with such
weight and authority as this time. He was, indeed, most searching, and made
such appeals to the conscience, that at times it seemed quite to thrill
through me. Oh what a poor, ignorant, unprofitable, carnal wretch do I
see and feel myself compared with some that I know! I see them growing
in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and preaching with
power and savor, while I feel a miserable cumber-ground, going back while
they are going forward. I think once I had some life and feeling in my soul,
and in the ministry; but now I seem to be destitute of all I value and
esteem, as the only things that make and manifest a minister and a
Christian.
But I can assure you, my dear friend, that I find it a
much easier thing to get guilt on my conscience than to get it off again;
and more easy to talk about and lament one's darkness and deadness, than get
life and light into the soul. I told the friends on Lord's-day why the Lord
had afflicted me, though I could not enter into all the circumstances of the
case. I can see mercy in it and mingled with it, and hope I shall one day
see it more clearly. . . .
I have written to the friends at Eden Street to decline
going there this year. I have two reasons for so doing.
1. My health, which is not sufficiently re-established
for the exertion, anxiety, and excitement of London.
2. As I have been so long laid aside from my own people,
I think it hardly right to leave them just as I am getting a little better.
. .
Still, I hope to pay my Allington friends a visit in
August.
Since I wrote part of this I have been among some of the
friends, and to my surprise learned that I was very well heard on
Lord's-day. I kept mumbling on with my own path, temptations, helps, and
hindrances; and I suppose it suited some poor bewildered creatures. How
different is preaching from what I once thought it was! All my vapouring
knocked into nothing; and poor J. C. P. mumbling and stumbling like a fool.
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. P.
April 15, 1848
My dear friend, Joseph Parry—I hope I may say I am through mercy
better in health. I have partially resumed the work of the ministry, having
commenced to preach once on the Lord's-day. I seemed shut up and embarrassed
the first Lord's-day that I spoke here; but had somewhat more life, liberty,
and feeling at Oakham. I seemed favored with a little of the spirit of
prayer while going there by the coach, and also in the morning before
preaching. It is a mercy to feel the heart sometimes a little softened and
humbled, and life and power to accompany the word. I was in hopes that my
long affliction would have done my soul more good, and produced more
solid, spiritual, and visible fruit, internal and external, than I have yet
experienced from it. It seems to be indeed a sad and lamentable thing to be
continually chastened, and yet be after all an unfruitful branch and a vile
cumber-ground!
A sickly body and a dreadfully diseased soul make a daily
cross, and one sometimes hard to be borne. I cannot throw aside my
religion, and yet how hard it is to keep it. To think, speak, act, and live
as a Christian; to be one inwardly and outwardly; to be a true follower of
the Lamb wherever He goes; to walk daily and hourly with godly fear in
exercise; to conquer sin, master temptation, and live a life of faith in the
Son of God—if this be true religion, how little I seem to have of it! I
never could boast much of my exploits and attainments, or the great things I
have done or mean to do; but now seem less disposed to do so than ever.
Nothing short of an almighty miracle of mercy and grace can suit or save me!
We often prate and prattle about sin and grace, faith and repentance,
and Christ, and so on, when we really know scarcely what the words mean.
Many painful lessons and humbling cutting strokes are needed to teach us the
A B C's of vital godliness; and perhaps all that we may know about eternal
things, may be no more than what a babe a few days old knows of this life.
It breathes, and cries, and nurses, and sleeps; and as regards divine things
we may never here do much more.
I hope that the Lord may own and bless Thomas Godwin's
word among you this time as He did before. I am very sure that all
preaching without the power and blessing of the Lord upon it will be but
empty breath. I never saw the littleness of man so clearly, and my own
littleness in particular. I never felt so much my miserable ignorance,
unfitness and insufficiency for the ministry. Indeed, I am and have nothing.
I hope Mrs. Wild will be comfortable at Allington. You
must not, however, expect too much from one another. Man is a poor fallen
creature, a selfish wretch, a very monster of iniquity. At least, I am.
Nor does grace always reign even where it dwells. I very much esteem and
respect her, and perhaps think better of her than she does of herself. But
there is truth in what William Tiptaft says, that Christians are like
cabbage-plants which flourish best when not too near. I am afraid of
everybody, and afraid of none so much as of myself. No one has ever so much
tried me, so much plagued me, or so much frightened me, as J. C. P., and no
one, I am sure, but myself knows what reason I have to be afraid of him. . .
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. P.
May 12, 1848
My dear friend, Thomas Godwin—. . . I am much as I was in health, and
do not seem to gain much strength at present. I still continue to preach
once on the Lord's-day, and for the last three weeks have also spoken here
on Thursday evenings. The friends at Oakham all seemed to hear well on
Lord's-day. The day was fine, the congregation large, and I was enabled a
little to speak on some vital things. My dear friend, we must plough
pretty deep, if we are to get at the heart and conscience. Skimming the
ground over will not do; but to be learning every day how vile we are is
trying work. My preaching seems shut up into a narrow compass—sin and grace.
I can assure you that when I was laid aside I seemed to have lost completely
the power of preaching, and felt as shut up spiritually from a door of
utterance as I was naturally. This made me a better hearer, for so far from
thinking I could preach better than the ministers who supplied for me, I
actually felt that I could not preach at all; and according to my feelings
had not ten words to say upon any text, good or bad. I cannot describe how
entirely all preaching gifts, if I have any, were as much taken away as if I
had never opened my mouth, and I felt that even were I better in health, I
could not get into a pulpit. I think I can see now this was not a bad thing
for me, for when I heard Thomas Godwin and others, I was not measuring my
abilities with theirs, and thinking how the great "I" would handle the text,
but I really felt I could not preach at all, even as to words and gifts,
much more power and savor.
But I think I may tell my friend that since I have been
able to stand up a little in the Lord's name I have not always been shut up,
and have sometimes gone beyond the time when for my poor body's sake I ought
to stop. Last Lord's-day morning I felt such a vile sinner that I could
hardly help telling the Lord He would do right if He stopped my mouth. But
it was not so, as I believe I may say without boasting (and how can such a
vile sinner boast?), that I was well heard that day, and that the friends
seemed melted and blessed. Oh that God's mercy and goodness would
constrain me to live to His glory, would overcome that raging love of sin
that so ensnares and captivates me, and make me and manifest me a
Christian indeed! I cannot, oh, I cannot subdue and mortify my pride, and
lust, and unbelief, and infidelity, and a thousand other monsters that, like
the beast in Daniel's vision, are opening their mouths and saying, "Arise,
devour much flesh."
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. P.
May 18, 1848
My dear friend, Thomas Godwin—I believe you have long found, by
painful experience, that it is impossible to do anything according to the
word and will of God without trouble before, in, or after. To serve God in
any way is a bitter-sweet. Sometimes conscience, sometimes Satan, sometimes
the world, sometimes an evil heart, sometimes foe, and sometimes friend
cause trouble. If we are let alone to have our own way, and sup up the east
wind—that brings trouble; and if the Lord exercises our souls—that
brings trouble. I do not mean to say that my troubles are so wonderfully
deep and many, but pretty well all day long there is something as it were
nagging and gnawing within. Love of sin, my poor body, family cares and
anxieties, and a wicked, unbelieving heart, keep me from much rest or peace.
I cannot, like the ungodly, rest in the world, and I cannot often rest in
the Lord.
Oh, the amazing power of sin! I am sure that very few
know its mighty power. I sometimes walk in the streets feeling and saying to
myself, "Death in me, death in me;" and yet sin is active, strong, and
lively as if I were to live a hundred years. It is really dreadful how eye,
and ear, and tongue, and heart, are all alive after sin, like fish after a
May-fly. I keep preaching man's dreadful corruption, and that nothing but
grace through the blood of the Son of God, made known to the soul by the
power of the Holy Spirit, can save such miserable sinners. My dear friend,
we must plough deep, or we shall never get at the heart of the living
family. I find that the worse I make them out to be, the better it suits
them; and the more I draw from my own likeness, the more I hit theirs. But I
cannot bring all out, only a hint now and then to the wise. A frail
tabernacle and a wicked heart will I believe be more or less my daily plague
until they are both laid in the grave.
I hope the Lord's-day at Allington and Tuesday at Calne
may be days of blessing to your soul and those of the people. I trust I have
had good times at both places. I cannot at present preach more than once on
the Lord's-day, and I am afraid I can venture to do no more should I come to
Allington in July. Preaching tries my chest almost more than anything, and a
little extra exertion would soon, I think, make me as bad as ever. . . . We
have to live and learn; sometimes more of ourselves, sometimes more of
others. To be quiet and meek, to think little of ourselves, to prize
grace in others, to think very highly of and to cleave close to the Lord
Jesus for everything, is far better than striving who is to be the greatest.
Give my love to Mr. Warburton and any enquiring friends of the
seed-royal at Calne. I wish you a real good day there.
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. P.
August 4, 1848
My dear friend, Thomas Godwin—We arrived here safely, through mercy,
on Tuesday evening, and found my mother looking pretty well. Friend D. is
supplying at the chapel, but is not very well attended. I was there last
evening, but there were very few hearers. Truth is pretty much fallen in the
streets, as regards these three towns, with a population more than eighty
thousand. It seems strange that there should be so little concern about
their never-dying souls, until we feel what careless hardened wretches we
ourselves are, except at times and seasons when eternal things lie with
weight and power on our consciences. When my poor soul gets a little revived
out of its dark and dead state, I wonder at my own previous state of
carnality and worldliness. I need not then go far to find the cause of all
men's carnality and carelessness, for where would I not, and where, indeed,
do I not get when the Lord does not revive my poor dark soul? If we had
no gracious dealings from the Lord, either in judgment or mercy, we would
soon be a great deal worse than the professors whom we are so loud to
condemn. A sense of these things stops my mouth, and makes the stones
drop out of my hands, which, in times past, I have been ready enough to
throw at others. I cannot say what I would not do, or what I would not be,
were I left to myself; for I never hear of evil or error committed by
professor or profane which I do not find working within my heart, and a
great deal worse too; for no man ever did, or ever could, carry out in word
and act what our imagination can breed and sit upon until hatched, like a
serpent upon its eggs. It is a mercy when our eggs are crushed before they
are hatched, for, depend upon it, an adder would come out of every one of
them!
What a mercy it is to have our hard hearts softened and
blessed at times, and to hate and abhor those vile things which at other
times our fallen nature so lusts after! What a paradox are we! What a
bundle of contradictions! We love what we hate, and hate what we love; we
follow what we flee, and flee what we follow. Sin is our sweetest, and sin
is our bitterest morsel; God is our greatest friend and most dreaded enemy.
But I must not run on with my contradictions, or I shall fill up my sheet
with them. You have got both the riddle and the key locked up in your heart.
As there was a very great attendance at Allington I was
induced to preach twice on Lord's-day. I think I never saw the chapel so
crowded. It was, I think on the whole, my best day; but I have not been much
favored at Allington this time. I had so many outer-court hearers that they
seemed almost to stifle any soft or tender feeling; and I was several times
led rather to hammer away at Wiltshire profession than feed the lambs.
I am much as I was in health. That great blessing, good
health, I never expect to enjoy again. I only could wish that my various
trials, exercises, and afflictions were more blessed to my soul, but I
have lived to prove that nothing but almighty grace can do the soul good.
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. P.
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