LETTERS of J. C. Philpot (1868)
January 10, 1868
My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake,
How we seem to stand, as it were, amid the dead and dying! How many of
those with whom we have walked and talked on the things of God have passed
away; and how, as each one is removed, it speaks as a personal warning, "You
also be ready." But we know well that all our readiness must be in Him and
from Him who gave the precept. What a gradual unloosening there is of the
ties which bind us to life. And I believe for the most part the Lord
makes His people willing to depart before He calls them up from this world
of sin and misery.
I desire to sympathize with you both in your path of
trial and affliction. Your dear sister has had a long and painful experience
of an afflicted and suffering tabernacle, the trials of which those who
enjoy health and strength have no idea of. And as regards yourself, such a
weight of care, labor, and anxiety has been laid upon you as to tax to the
utmost all your powers of mind and body. But in the world, and especially in
the Church, there must be those who are willing and able to work and spend
their energies on tasks laid upon them for the good of others; and, though
sometimes they rebel at having so much cast upon them, yet they are made
willing to work when they see and feel it is for the glory of God and the
good of His people.
I am very sorry to hear so sad an account of poor Mrs.
P—. No doubt she needs all the heavy strokes which have been laid upon
her. She is a woman of good and choice experience, and has had greater
manifestations of the Lord to her soul than most can speak of. The faith
thus given her has to be tried by fire, and I have no doubt that she will
come out of the great Refiner's hands with her dross and tin purged away.
I know perhaps more of her experience than most do, and the remarkable way
in which my writings, and especially "Winter afore Harvest," were blessed to
her soul, when she did not know whether I was alive or dead, and then her
being brought under my roof and ministry in a special way of providence have
much knit us together. The Lord will surely regard the work of His own
hands, and it will be well with her in life and death. I also much respect
her husband, as I have long marked his consistent Christian conduct and
bearing under very trying circumstances.
I am glad that you like the Address. It is very
difficult year after year to write what shall be edifying and instructive to
so many of the family of God, and so varied in circumstances, character,
leadings, and experience. But my desire was to lay before them such
things as I know from experience harmonize with the Scriptures of truth and
the teachings of the holy Spirit. This I believe the Lord will ever bless.
My Christian love to all who love the Lord.
Yours very affectionately in the truth,
J. C. P.
January 30, 1868
My dear and valued Friend, Mrs. Peake—I feel much obliged to you for
your kind feeling towards my ministry among you, and could say much upon the
point, if I could do so without seeming self-exaltation. The blessing of
a sound healthy ministry is little appreciated, because, like our food,
its influence upon the whole system cannot be always distinctly traced. To
be kept from error which is so rife and so deadly—to have the eyes, heart,
and feet guided and directed to the only true Object of real faith, hope,
and love—to have all that is good in us by grace nurtured, strengthened, and
encouraged—and all that is evil in us, worthless and unprofitable, to be
exposed to view, beaten down, cast aside, or subdued—to have weak things
strengthened, feeble things confirmed, and the grace of God and what we are
by grace brought out of, and disentangled from, all creature admixture—this
peculiar feature of a sound wholesome ministry is only valued by a few, who
know that in it is their life.
My desire and aim from the very first of my ministry,
with all its weakness and shortcomings, have been and are to exalt and trace
out the special grace of God as manifested in and by the Three Persons of
the glorious, undivided, and indivisible Godhead. And you, dear friend, in
looking at and over my testimony, whether preached or written, from the
earliest days in which I stood before the church of God, will be able to see
that there has been a unity in it from first to last, whether by tongue or
pen. Allow me to add that our dear friend William Tiptaft used to say that
my writings would be more valued when I was gone. But I am sure of
this, that if there be any value in them, it is because the Lord was pleased
to show me from the very first, and to impress deeply upon my mind, the
grand distinction between nature and grace.
The first sermon that I ever preached was from Romans
6:23, at South Moreton Church, in Berks., and a gracious godly woman, the
late wife of Mr. Doe, who happened to be present and was considered a mother
in Israel, I am told, said of me after it—"That is a good man, and he will
leave the Church of England." She lived to witness the truth of her
prediction, and has often heard me at Abingdon Chapel. Excuse this much
about myself. . .
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. P.
February 24, 1868
My dear Friend, Mr. Hoadley—I am much obliged to you for
your kind remembrance of us in sending us your acceptable present, and I
would have been glad to have thanked you in person, had you given me the
opportunity yesterday, or looked in upon me this morning.
Like many others, you probably did not expect to see me
in the pulpit yesterday, and indeed, as I then said, I would much sooner be
a hearer than preach myself. I hope, however, you were not disappointed, or
at least, if you were, that it was made up in the evening. My dear friend
Mr. Covell and I fully, I believe, understand each other, and that our
mutual desire is the profit and edification of the people of God. We are not
striving which should be the greater, but believing that in the mouth of two
witnesses every truth shall be established, are made willing so far to work
together that the people of God may have all the profit, and the Lord all
the glory. I told our dear friend when I first came to Croydon that my
desire was to avoid all party spirit with all strife and contention, and
that I would, for my part, much sooner never step into his pulpit than be
the least means of causing or strengthening any spirit of division or
disunion.
I am, my dear Friend,
Yours, I trust, in the best bonds,
J. C. P.
March 20, 1868
My dear Friend, Mr. Godwin—I have been so very busy of
late that I have been obliged to neglect my correspondents, and among them
my old, faithful, and affectionate friend, to whom I am now endeavoring to
send a few lines. Writing, however, is but a very imperfect mode of
communicating with our spiritual friends. There is always something which we
should like to say, but cannot, and which we could impart so much better in
seeing them face to face. I feel this especially with respect to one or two
things which you have named in your last kind letter. We have to be tried
about ourselves, and we have to be tried about others, and for much the same
reasons—that there are things in them and things in ourselves which we
cannot make altogether straight with conscience and the word of God. And
I am well persuaded that none but He who makes crooked things straight can
make these things straight either as regards ourselves or others.
And there's another thing which you know as well as I do,
that the more we know of people and the more we see of them, as well as the
more we know of ourselves and see of ourselves, the less grace do we seem to
see in ourselves and them. Now what does this bring us to, but highly to
value the least mark of real grace; and I am sure it rejoices us to be able
to find in ourselves and others any clear testimony that God is with us of a
truth. I am glad therefore that you were able to speak so confidently at O—
of a dear and old friend of ours, and I hope it may have a good effect. I
quite understand an unwillingness to see friends when one is ill, for I have
had, and still have, much of the same feeling myself; though when I have
been enabled to break through the feeling I have been cheered and comforted
by their company and conversation.
The memorial of our late dear friend Richard Healy is
just published, and I think will be read with feeling by the Lord's family.
I would like to insert in the Gospel Standard, as opportunity may
occur, some of our late dear friend Carby Tuckwell's letters. The one which
he wrote to you, giving an account of the special blessing with which he was
favored last June, will appear next month in the obituary. I have often felt
much union to him when we have got upon the things of God, and much esteemed
and respected him; but he was, as you know, rather reserved, and not gifted
with utterance of speech, as many are. We are losing our choice friends and
companions, and where shall we find others to take their place?
Our dear friend at A. would deeply feel his doctor's
death. What a mercy to be kept by the mighty power of God! What debtors
we are to Him, both in providence and in grace, both for body and soul, both
for this life and that to come. My chief, my daily grief is to have
sinned against so good a God, and my desire is ever to walk in His fear, and
to live to His praise. It is His goodness which leads to repentance,
His mercy which melts the heart, His truth which liberates and
sanctifies the soul, and His grace which superabounds over all
aboundings of sin. What have we now, dear friend, to live for, but during
our short span of life to know and enjoy more of His presence and love, and
have clearer testimonies of what He is unto us and in us?
I am, through mercy, much as usual. Our good friend
wishes me to take his place next Lord's-day morning. His annual collection
on the 8th was £166 3s. 1d. You would think there must be both will and
power in his congregation. But he sets a noble example of liberality, and
the Lord honors him.
Yours very affectionately in the truth,
J. C. P.
March 25, 1868
My dear Friends in the Lord, Mrs. Peake and Miss Morris—In my prayers
for you both, I feel led to ask of the Lord to give you faith and patience,
for these two graces you much need in active and daily exercise. But that
you may have them brought into your heart and there maintained with a divine
power, tribulation is needed, for tribulation works patience (Rom. 5:3), as
well as the trial of faith (James 1:3). And this patience must have her
perfect work, that you may be made perfect and entire, lacking nothing. If
then you had no trials or perplexities, no tribulation or temptation, you
could not have your faith tried as by fire, and there would be no patience
accompanying it, working with it, and perfecting it. Nor again would you
have it made manifest to yourselves or others that you are possessed of the
grace of love, for that bears all things and endures all things (1 Cor.
13:7).
I was thinking the other morning about Christian love,
and I seemed to see that it was the first of all evidences, and the last of
all graces. Let me explain my meaning. Love to the brethren is the first
Scriptural evidence of having passed from death unto life. But this love, as
we journey onward, and have to do more and more with the crooked ways of
God's people, is the last of all graces, as well as the greatest, as having
to live and thrive under well-near everything which serves to damp or quench
it. As patience then is useless without burdens to bear, and trials
and temptations to encounter, so love is useless unless it has to be
maintained under all those circumstances, and all that chilling opposition,
which seem so contrary to it. If the people of God were all we could wish
them to be, and for ourselves to be kind, forbearing, forgiving,
affectionate, unsuspecting, open-hearted and open-handed, prayerful and
spiritually-minded, love would flow out so toward them, that it would not be
a matter of any difficulty. But to love the people of God for what we see of
Christ in them, in spite of all their crookedness, perverseness, ignorance,
obstinacy, ill-temper, fretfulness, and deadness in the things of God this
is the difficulty.
But the Lord does not bestow His graces to lie idle in
the bosom; but to manifest their presence, their activity, and their power
by what they have to do. If then you are to be blessed with the graces of
faith, and love, and patience, you must expect burdens, exercises,
afflictions, perplexities, annoyances, and a variety of circumstances most
contrary to your natural feelings and expectations. But if, in the midst of
all these painful and perplexing circumstances, faith credits the word of
promise, patience quietly and meekly endures its load, and love is still
maintained in exercise in word and deed, you will find the approbation of
the Lord in your own bosom, and will sooner or later prove that He ever
honors His own grace and His own work in the soul.
The great thing that we have to dread is the giving way
to, and being overcome by, our own spirit; or what is worse, mistaking our
own spirit for a right spirit, and our own will for a right will. In these
things we need to be instructed by the Holy Spirit, the promised Teacher,
that we may have not only a right judgment in all things, but be enabled to
speak, live, and act as He would have us to do. I think I know something of
your perplexities and difficulties, and can see that to support you under
them, and bring you through them, you need faith, and love, and patience;
and this is the reason why I have ventured to lay before you a word of
friendly counsel and encouragement, and I shall be very glad if you may find
it suitable and supporting. I have endeavored to show you such a path as I
would desire, if grace enabled me, to tread myself if placed in a similar
position.
But, alas, it is one thing to give advice, and another to
act upon it one's self. I remember, how many years ago, the words of
Eliphaz (Job 4:3, 4, 5) came to my mind as sadly applicable to my case.
But we have to learn our weakness, as well as where and in whom our strength
lies, and the Lord is very merciful and gracious, never leaving us, nor
allowing us to be led into any path in which His grace is not sufficient for
us, if sought and looked to; for we have to confess that when it has been
otherwise, it has been because we did not look to Him, nor lean upon Him;
but looked to self either for strength or indulgence.
Yours very affectionately in the Lord,
Jesus . C. P.
May 8, 1868
My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake—I walk every day when I can, and usually
to the same spot, which is more than a mile from my house, to the top of a
gentle hill, where there is a seat under a wide-spreading oak and commanding
a lovely view of hill and dale, the latter wooded; and there I sit in the
warm sun, sometimes meditating or otherwise engaged, perhaps not
unprofitably, with soul matters, while the lark is singing just above me, or
the thrush giving out its shrill sweet note. I think I never saw so much of
the glory of God, and, I may add, His goodness and beauty, as manifested in
visible creation. I was thinking in my walk today, when I looked round upon
the beautiful face of nature, how beautiful must He be who has stamped so
much of it on this present world—and yet what is all this beauty compared
with the riches of His mercy, grace. and glory as manifested in the Person
and work of His dear Son (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:6)! How grievous it is ever to sin,
rebel against, disobey, or displease such a God; and it is my desire to walk
in His fear, live to His praise, and to glorify Him by knowing His will and
doing it. There is no peace, rest, or happiness anywhere else, nor is it
possible for God to make a man happy except by making him holy, sanctifying
him by the power of His Spirit and grace, and conforming him to the image of
the Son of His love. When this is perfectly done, he will be perfectly
happy—but as long as sin remains in him, and it will do so to his dying day,
he will ever find something to mar his peace. . . .
Yours affectionately in the Lord,
J. C. P.
July 2, 1868
My dear sister Fanny—I am sorry to find from your letter that you
are still so afflicted in body. I was in hopes you were gradually recovering
health and strength, and, though weak, were able to come down stairs, or
even get out into the open air. Unless much favored and supported by God,
bodily illness is a great affliction; but you know where to look to for
strength, and who has graciously said, "I will never leave you, nor forsake
you." In times past He has been your stay, and "He is the same yesterday,
today, and forever." To be so weak and helpless is a great affliction;
but it is sent to wean you from this world, make life burdensome, and death
desirable. You have had a long life compared with most, and for the most
part a healthy one, and you cannot wonder if growing years bring with
them growing infirmities. How many have we seen younger than we borne
away—and we still remain. It is nearly twenty-one years ago since I came to
Stoke from Malvern. Dr. S., your dear husband, and many others, little
dreamt that I would survive them. But here I still am, "faint yet pursuing,"
in body and soul. . . .
The Lord support you under your trials and afflictions.
Your affectionate Brother,
J. C. P.
August 19, 1868
My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake—Having now a little respite
from my labors, and an opportunity not being likely soon to recur to write
to you again, I send you a few lines according to your request.
You will be desirous to know how my health is, especially
as the season has been so very trying. In common, then, with most who are
weak, I much felt the great heat, especially as being obliged to preach to
large congregations at the very time when it was at its greatest height. I
was, however, mercifully brought through my labors in London, and have now
completed my engagement here. I trust I found the strength of the Lord made
perfect in my weakness, in soul as well as in body, and that He gave
testimony to the word of his grace. But, for the most part, the things of
God are at a very low ebb everywhere, both in town and country, and the
churches seem much sunk into a cold, lethargic, and apathetic state. There
are, indeed, a few souls which seem kept alive, and are sensible of their
own state and the state of others, and these the Lord seems from time to
time to revive under His word. There are some of these whom I know at Gower
Street, and who spoke of the revival and renewal which they experienced
under what one of them called the "sweet droppings of the Gospel." I cannot
say that I felt any peculiar or extraordinary power resting upon my spirit
as I have sometimes experienced; but upon the whole I was favored with some
good measure of life and liberty. Some of the sermons were taken down; some
perhaps of the best, and two especially, were not, as Mr. Ford was not
there. I may, however, take the same words again when he is present, though,
without special help, I shall not be able to handle them as I did then.
We had, I believe, on the whole, a good day at Calne, and
the collection on behalf of the Aged Pilgrims' Friend Society was more than
£30. Some of the friends said they had never heard me speak with greater
power there. But the place was so full, the ventilation so imperfect, and
the heat so great that I much felt the exertion, and did not get over it for
several days. Mr. Taylor was not able to come on account of illness, which
was a great disappointment.
I hope it may please the Lord to give me health and
strength for the work which still lies before me; but this extreme change in
the weather, from drought and heat to cold and damp, makes me feel very
poorly. We are poor, dissatisfied creatures. When it was so hot I was
impatiently waiting for the cold; and now the cold has come I could almost
wish the heat were back. We have been favored in the weather as regards the
Lord's-day, and I hope we have been favored also in the house of prayer,
especially on the last Lord's-day, when the Lord, I trust, enabled me to
speak with some life, feeling, and power. We had a large congregation, and
gathered from distant quarters, some having come twenty miles, and there was
a large collection of vehicles. . . .
Yours very affectionately in the truth,
J. C. P.
September 3, 1868
Dear Friend in the Truth—I expressed in my last letter my inability to
accept the kind invitation of the church to come among you, so as to have
the opportunity of conversing with you upon your present trying
circumstances. Indeed, there is scarcely any position more trying to a
church than when it loses a beloved pastor, who under God has for many years
been the honored instrument of feeding, guiding, and ruling it in the fear
of the Lord. Such a loss, humanly speaking, is irreparable; for whatever
gifts and graces his successor may possess, he can never be to a church what
their own beloved pastor was. And it seems to me that in this day there is a
peculiar dearth of men qualified for the pastoral office. They have neither
the gift nor the grace to qualify them for that most important office. Even
as Supplies, there is a great deficiency in the needful gifts and graces.
I wish that I could name any man as one whom it is likely
you could receive as qualified to go in and out before you. Meanwhile you
cannot do better than wait upon the Lord under a sense of felt weakness,
that He would supply all your need out of the fullness which is in Christ
Jesus. The great thing is to hang together in a spirit of love and union,
and walk as far as you are enabled in the footsteps which your late lamented
pastor for so many years laid before you. Some among you will probably get
weary of meeting together in weakness, and be crying out to get the pulpit
supplied rather than have no preaching. If indeed you can get a gracious,
humble, spiritually-minded, faithful, and experimental servant of God to
speak to you as occasion serves, it would be a great blessing, and would, I
doubt not, be highly prized by those among you who love to hear the Gospel
preached with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. But merely to desire
preaching for preaching's sake, and to want the pulpit supplied because they
cannot bear to see it empty, and think God has no other way of feeding his
people when they meet together, is a great mistake, and often leads to very
painful consequences. Strife and a party spirit come into the church and
congregation. They are not united in one mind and in one judgment; they do
not stand fast in one spirit, striving together for the faith of the Gospel,
but have men's persons in admiration because of advantage; and this breeds
strife and confusion, with every evil work. I have seen this again and
again, and have observed how churches have in this way lost all their former
spirituality and love to the Lord, His truth, cause, and people, and sunk
down into carnality and death.
I hope therefore, dear friends, that you will cleave to
each other in love, waiting upon the Lord in prayer and supplication, that
he would send you a man after his own heart to feed you with knowledge and
understanding.
Yours affectionately in the truth,
J. C. P.
September 13, 1868
To the Congregation in Providence Chapel, Oakham
Dear Friends—It is a sad disappointment to me, and I doubt not will be so to
many of you, that I am not able, from bodily indisposition, to stand up
before you this morning and speak to you in the name of the Lord. But it has
pleased the Lord to lay upon me one of those attacks of cold on my chest
which so often, in times past, laid me aside, and which not only used so
much to try my faith and patience, but yours also. Having been favored for
thirteen Lord's days to preach His Word, I was greatly in hopes that health
and strength might have been given me to speak once more to those who were
so long my own people, that our union and communion in the Lord might be
strengthened and renewed, and that meeting once more in the house of prayer,
we might realize the power and presence of the Lord in our midst.
But we live to prove that our thoughts are not the Lord's
thoughts, and that disappointment upon disappointment attends all our plans,
even when they are made, as we hope, for the glory of God and the good of
His people. You were looking perhaps too much to the instrument, and
expecting that from the man which the Lord keeps in His own hands, the
blessing which makes rich. It is a great trial to me that I cannot, as I
hoped and expected, meet with you once more in the house of prayer, that
heart might unite once more with heart in prayer and supplication, that I
might preach to you again the Word of life, that our faith, hope, and love
to the Lord might be strengthened, and our esteem and affection for each
other renewed. It is however a great alleviation of my trial that our dear
and esteemed friend Mr. Knill has so kindly determined to forego his
engagement and preach in my stead, and may such a blessing rest on him, and
the Word of God by him, that all disappointment may be removed, and you well
reconciled to the will of God in this trying dispensation.
The Lord be with you and bless you.
Your affectionate Friend,
J. C. P.
September 21, 1868
My dear sister Fanny—It is now some time since I sent you a few
lines, but we often hear of one another through the correspondence of our
dear relatives. I was sorry to learn that the Lord had laid upon you His
afflicting hand; but that is what we must expect at our time of life, and if
these afflictions are blessed and sanctified to our souls' good, as we trust
they are, they are rather marks of the Lord's favor than of His displeasure.
But I know well that the poor coward flesh is fretful and impatient under
the affliction, and would gladly have a smoother, easier path. I have
myself been suffering for nearly a fortnight under one of my old attacks,
and am not yet recovered from it. I was carried through thirteen
Lord's-days, besides preaching in the week; but the great heat and exertion
in London seemed at last too much for me, and when the weather turned
suddenly cold the great change affected my chest and brought on one of my
attacks. Being, however, not severe, and hoping it might pass off, which it
does sometimes, I came down here to fulfill my engagement. But to my great
disappointment, and that of the people, my illness increased so that I was
not able to preach here, as engaged on the 13th. There was a large
congregation gathered to hear me; but Mr. Knill very kindly consented to
come and preach, which much alleviated the disappointment. Nor was I able to
go to Stamford for the 20th, being at present confined to the house, and
indeed to my two rooms up-stairs. I shall try, however, if I am able, to go
to Leicester, as I have several times before disappointed the friends there
from illness.
I long much for my own home, and what I call my winter
quarters, when I am not obliged to preach, or even leave the house if the
weather be unfavorable or myself indisposed. I was greatly in hopes that I
might be allowed to fulfill all my engagements; but it was not the Lord's
will and I must submit.
It must be a great comfort to you to be with your niece
and so be relieved in good measure from those domestic troubles and
anxieties which you must have had in a house of your own. I view it,
therefore, as a special providence on your behalf, and doubt not that you,
at times, have seen and felt it to be so. But such is our unbelieving
infidel heart that, though we may see the Lord's hand at first in a
circumstance, yet when difficulties and perplexities arise we get into a
state of darkness and confusion, and almost fear it has been a wrong step.
Wherever we go, and wherever we are, we must expect
trials to arise; but it will be our wisdom and mercy to submit to what we
cannot alter, and not fret or repine under the trial, but accept it as sent
for our good. You have had a long and trying affliction, but I hope you
see at times mercy mingled with it. To be taken aside out of the world, to
have opportunity for meditation, that after you have done the will of God,
which is as much by suffering as by doing, you may receive the promise. Do
not give way to fretfulness, murmuring, impatience, self-pity, hard thoughts
of God, unbelief, doubt and fear, and other such evils of the heart which
obscure the light of God's countenance and bring confusion and darkness into
the soul. Those whom the Lord loves He loves unto the end, and as you have
had many proofs and marks of the Lord's love to your soul, let not Satan and
unbelief rob you of your faith and hope. I commend you to His grace,
believing that He will be with you to the end. My own path is often dark and
cloudy, but I daily endeavor to do what I have been counseling you to do.
Accept my brotherly love in every sense of the word.
Though I do not often write to you, I think of you and endeavor, in my poor
way, to ask of the Lord to support and bless you and give you faith and
patience to hold out and hold on.
It is more than thirty-two years since I first came to
this place, and about four since I was obliged, from failing health and
strength, to leave it. In the lapse of those years I have seen great
changes. Many, very many, have died since I first preached to them, and most
of those who professed to fear God, and believe in His dear Son, have died
well—but their decease has left great gaps in the church and congregation,
not likely, I think, to be filled up, at least not with equally gracious
people. . . .
Your affectionate Brother,
J. C. P.
October 1, 1868
Dear Friend in the Truth, Mr. Parrott—it was a great disappointment
to me not to be able to fulfill my engagement at Stamford on the 20th, and I
have no doubt it was so to others who, like yourself, in times past have
been blessed and favored in that house of prayer, and were looking forward
for a fresh discovery of the Lord's goodness and love to their souls under
the preached Word. It is very difficult to read the mind of the Lord in
these dispensations of His providence. As regards myself, I feel willing
and desirous to preach His Word, so far as I understand it, feel the power
of it, and taste and handle its sweetness and blessedness; and I know there
are those who desire to come under the sound of the Word as thus preached,
from seeing eye to eye with me in the things of God, having felt, as we
hope, the same divine power, and seeking after the same spiritual blessing.
I know well that it is not a man's gifts or abilities which can profit or
edify the Spirit-taught family of God. These may please and attract
outer-court worshipers, but those who have seen the beauty of the Lord in
the sanctuary desire His presence, His power, and His blessing. This is what
I am ever seeking after, both in my own soul and in my ministry—for I am
well satisfied that all short of this leaves us full of unbelief, darkness,
guilt, and bondage. But the blessing of the Lord—it makes rich, and He adds
no sorrow with it.
I am glad to find that you have been brought out of your
long captivity. The Lord is faithful, and where He has begun a gracious
work, He will fulfill it until the day of Christ. What a mercy it is to have
a faithful covenant-keeping God, and a gracious compassionate High Priest
who can sympathize with His poor, tried, tempted family, so that however low
they may sink, His pitiful eye can see them in their low estate, His
gracious ear hear their cries, His loving heart melt over them, and His
strong arm pluck them from their destructions. Oh what would we do without
such a gracious Lord and most suitable Savior as the blessed Jesus! How He
seems to rise more and more in our estimation, in our thoughts, in our
desires, in our affections, as we see and feel what a wreck and ruin we are,
what dreadful havoc sin has made with both body and soul, and what miserable
outcasts we are by nature, as helpless and forlorn as the poor babe spoken
of in Ezekiel 16—"Cast out in the open field, to the loathing of its person,
in the day that it was born."
But oh how needful it is, dear friend, to be brought down
in our soul to be the chief of sinners, viler than the vilest, and worse
than the worst, that we may really and truly believe in, and cleave unto,
this most precious and suitable Savior!
Can we not say that we have laid at His sacred feet
thousands and tens of thousands of earnest petitions, prayers,
supplications, and importunities, that He would come into our heart with a
divine power, speak to us words of peace, and commune with us from off the
mercy-seat? And when He is pleased in any measure to discover the wondrous
mystery of His Person and work, blood shedding and obedience and death, and
to give us to know the power of His resurrection in raising up our souls
from death unto life, and secretly inspires faith, and hope, and love toward
Himself as the glorious and glorified Son of the Father in truth and love,
what then are all earthly things compared with Him?
Yours affectionately in the Lord,
J. C. P.
October 1, 1868
My dear Friend, James Davis. . . I am sorry that you should have
experienced so heavy a loss; but I have found myself more than once, when I
have been calculating on some increase of income or some temporal advantage,
that a sudden stroke has come and swept it away. We are thus taught not to
trust in uncertain riches, which make to themselves wings and fly away; but
trust in the living God, who has helped us so many years, and not allowed us
to lack any good thing. Those words of our Lord, Mark 10:29, 30, were once
made very sweet to me, for I could see them all fulfilled in my experience;
but the sweetest of all was, "and in the world to come, eternal life." That
crowns all. We might have all the gold that ever was dug up in Australia,
and what would that profit us on a dying bed, or in the great judgement day,
if gold were our god, and we had no other to look to, believe in, or love?
It has been with us a summer almost unparalleled for heat
and drought, the thermometer being for several days at 92 E,
and in some places 94E.
The whole country was burnt up, and the grass fields almost as brown as the
road. I very much felt the heat and the exertion of preaching, and it very
much prostrated my strength. I was at the Calne anniversary, and it was one
of the very hot days, though not the hottest of the season. The heat of the
chapel was very great, as it was much crowded; but I was much helped in
speaking, and many of the friends spoke of it as having been a blessed time
to their souls. My text was Jer. 32:14, and I endeavored to show from it the
two kinds of evidences, which we must have to know that we are
redeemed—sealed evidences known only to the happy possessor, and open, which
are to be known and read by others. I said that these were put into an
earthen vessel—our poor, frail, mortal bodies, and that they are in a sense
buried with us, and will rise with us in the resurrection morn. Your old
friend Hicks was there, and friends from Bath, Castle Cary, Malmesbury, and
a long way round. It was at the anniversary that I first saw you, as no
doubt you remember. Our friend Mr. Parry was better this visit, and able to
hear me each Lord's day. He sadly misses our dear friend Mr. Tuckwell, and
indeed all do who knew him and esteemed him for the truth's sake. He made
indeed a good end, and as dear Tiptaft used to say, was well laid in his
grave. I saw there many old friends, but it was the middle of harvest, and
that and the great heat kept some away.
I hope you find the Lord with you in speaking to the
people. You would find it a great trial to be laid aside. . . .
Yours affectionately in the truth,
J. C. P.
October 12, 1868
My dear Friends, Mrs. Peake and Miss Morris—We were highly favored in
our journey home, not only in the day, but in the comfort of the transit,
being by ourselves all the way, and passing from Leicester to London by the
new line without once stopping. Still I felt very tired before I reached my
own home, and though preserved from taking fresh cold, yet I have felt
greater weakness than when at Oakham. I trust however that, through mercy,
the attack is passing off, though I expect it will be some time before I
regain that measure of health and strength, never very great, which yet
enables me to go through the various tasks that lie before me, with some
tolerable comfort.
I do not think I ever felt the disappointment so great as
being laid aside on this present occasion. I wished so much to be allowed to
speak once more in the Lord's name to those who I knew were desirous again
to hear my voice. It is indeed to me a mysterious dispensation, and yet I
hope it has in some measure been sanctified to my soul's good. I have felt,
through infinite mercy, much of the life and power of divine truth in my
heart, have had much of a spirit of grace and supplications, and not been
allowed to drop into carnality and death, or be filled with murmuring,
fretfulness, self-pity, or rebellion. The flesh indeed has felt, and
sometimes almost fainted under the burden, but the spirit has been made
willing, has cleaved to the Lord with purpose of heart, and hung upon Him
and Him alone, as a nail fastened in a sure place. It has been with me a
sowing time, and I hope in due season to reap, if I faint not. It is very
sad in old age to sink into worldliness, carnality, carelessness, and
deadness; and though the flesh may writhe under the afflicting strokes of
God's hand, it is a mercy to have the life of God stirred up thereby, to be
separated in heart and spirit from carnal earthly things, and to have the
affections set where Jesus sits, at the right hand of God.
I felt anxious to know about Leicester, and am glad to
learn from Mr. Knill's letter, that the Lord was with him and granted him a
sweet sense of His presence, with an opening of the heart and mouth to speak
in His name. The Lord very frequently overrules these disappointments,
and not only displays in them the sovereignty of His will, but also the
power of His grace.
You will be glad to hear of my son's recent success. . .
. Surely I have much reason to be thankful that at present my family turn
out so well; especially when I look around me and see what a trial unruly
children have been and are to gracious parents.
I am, my dear friends,
Yours very affectionately in the Lord,
J. C. P.
October 28, 1868
My dear and much esteemed Friend, Mrs. Peake—I have often
admired the spirit in which Mr. — acted when he had to curtail his expenses.
He said the question was whether he should give up two extra carriage
horses, or give up his donations for various religious end benevolent
objects, and he at once preferred the former course. What we are enabled to
give to the Lord's cause and the Lord's poor sanctifies, so to speak, the
whole of the rest, and no one can expect to see the hand of God in
providence stretched out in his behalf who from a spirit of covetousness
or self-indulgence diminishes, unless actually compelled, what he has
thus consecrated to the Lord's service. I have proved again and again, in
providence, that the Lord will abundantly make up to us, any sacrifice that
we may make, or any act of kindness and liberality that we may show to the
members of the mystical body of Christ.
I was much pleased and struck with E.'s letter. There is
so little in our days of that sweet communion with the Lord of which she
speaks, that I have thought that its insertion in the Gospel Standard
might be both a stirring up, as Peter speaks, of the pure minds of others,
as well as a tacit reproof and rebuke to the cold and carnal state in which
Christians are for the most part so deeply sunk. . . .
The feeling of weakness, when one has so much to
do which demands energy and strength, is in itself a severe trial. Only
those who know how exhausting mental labor is can form an idea of the trial
which there is in weakness even where there is no pain; but when pain is
mingled with it, it makes the trial severe and the burden of the daily cross
heavy. But I trust I am deriving some spiritual benefit from it. We need
trial upon trial, and stroke upon stroke to bring our soul out of carnality
and death. We slip insensibly into carnal ease; but afflictions and trials
of body and mind stir us up to some degree of earnestness in prayer and
supplication, give a force and reality to the things of God, show us the
emptiness and vanity of earthly things, make us feel the suitability and
preciousness of the Lord Jesus; and as we taste any measure of sweetness
and blessedness in Him He becomes more feelingly and experimentally all our
salvation and all our desire. The Lord has His own way of dealing with us.
None can lay down lines for Him, and though His dealings with each seem to
differ widely, and few at the time can read His purposes, for He brings the
blind by a way which they knew not, yet in the end all His ways are found to
be ways of mercy, truth and peace—all stamped with the impress of infinite
wisdom, and tender mercy and love. . . .
Yours very sincerely and affectionately,
J. C. P.
November 5, 1868
My dear Friend, Joseph Parry—You have been very kind in communicating
to me the tidings of our dear friend Miss Wild's death. It has taken place
somewhat sooner than I had anticipated; but considering that the winter is
coming on, which would no doubt have severely tried her weakened frame, I
cannot but view it as a mercy that she is removed to that happy land of
which the inhabitants shall no more say 'I am sick'. She was one of the most
honest people that I ever knew in my life, and though there was a roughness
or rather abruptness in her manner, yet it was so mixed with good feeling,
as well as softened by grace, that there was nothing in it repulsive or
annoying. I always liked her from my first acquaintance with her, when I
used to go to S., and afterwards to the farm on the hill. She was a very
tender and affectionate daughter, and she and her poor mother, with many
points of roughness in each, yet were much united in the things of God, and
were, I believe, especially in latter days, a comfort to each other. There
was one thing very satisfactory in her religion—that you could depend upon
all that she said, and that she would rather keep back the marks and
evidences of God's manifested favor than put them forward, or wish you to
think well of them. I consider that the Lord was very gracious to her in the
latter portion of her life; and though she had a rough and thorny path,
yet her afflictions and trials were much blessed and sanctified to the good
of her soul. I wish there were more like her, whose religion bore so
clear a stamp of being a divine work, and one which the Lord so owned,
crowned, and blessed.
I hope, through God's mercy, I am slowly recovering from
my late attack; but though not severe, it seems to have laid deeper and
firmer hold of me than almost any one that I have had since I left Stamford.
I think the heat and exertion of preaching during the last summer had
enfeebled my frame, and therefore when I took cold, it seemed to lay firmer
hold of me. I much feel being shut up so much in the house, as I have not
been out of the gate even to chapel since I came home. I hope however that
the affliction and trial has not been sent altogether in vain, and that I
have reaped some small measure of spiritual profit from it. Hart well and
wisely says, "Affliction makes us see what otherwise would escape our
sight".
It seems to bring us to book, to make us consider our
latter end, to wean and separate from the world, to give power and reality
to divine things, to stir up the grace of prayer and supplication, to show
us the emptiness of all natural and creature religion, to make us look more
simply and believingly to the blessed Lord, to feel how suitable He is to
every want and woe; and that in Him, and in Him alone, is pardon,
acceptance, and peace. It also discovers and brings to light many past sins,
and working with the grace of God brings us to confession, self-abhorrence,
contrition, brokenness, and humility before Him, against and before whom we
have so deeply and dreadfully sinned.
We cannot choose our own path or our own trials, and
usually do not know what the Lord is doing with us by them, until
after-light discovers them. He brings the blind by a way that they knew not,
but sooner or later He will make every crooked thing straight, and every
rough place smooth. When we look back upon the way by which we have been
led, how many things we see which should indeed humble us into the very
dust. And yet how wonderfully has the Lord at various times appeared for us,
and in various ways stretched forth His blessed hand.
My desire is, and never was stronger in my life, to walk
in the fear of God, and to have the manifestations of His mercy, goodness,
and love. There is a divine reality in true religion, as our dear friend
Miss Wild found upon a dying bed; and if we have not a little of this divine
reality, we have nothing. For this, you will bear me witness, I have always
contended, from the day when you first saw my face and heard my voice in
Stadham Church; and it was this which gave me a place in your esteem and
affections, because you had a testimony in your own conscience that it was a
solemn and saving truth, and that in it lay the sum and substance of all
vital godliness. You have had many testimonies to the power and reality of
this real religion in those at Allington, who have lived and died in it, as
our dear friend Mr. Tuckwell and many others; and I consider your little
place highly favored, that the Lord should have had many living witnesses,
that His eye has been upon it for good, and that He has honored, owned, and
blessed the Word of His grace preached therein. It is a sweet confirmation
of the past, and a blessed encouragement for the future—for Jesus Christ in
whom we believe is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. P.
November 19, 1868
My clear Friend, Thomas Godwin—I have often thought what a mercy it
is that the people of God are not dependent upon one another for the
supplies of grace whereby they live unto God. The ministry is useful, the
conversation of friends is useful, correspondence by letter on the precious
things of God is often useful, and from each and all of these we have
derived or communicated profit. But how soon these cisterns may become dry,
and indeed, unless supplied immediately from the Lord Himself, all the water
contained in them is soon dried up and gone.
What a mercy then it is for our souls that there is a
most gracious Lord, in whom it has pleased the Father that all fullness
should dwell, that we might receive of His fullness, and grace for grace!
How blessedly suitable He is to every want and woe, and how the poor soul is
ever looking unto, longing after, hanging upon, and cleaving to Him as all
its salvation and all its desire. Friends live apart, those whom we have
known and loved are taken home, there are few opportunities for union and
communion among Christian friends; but the Lord is ever near, ready of
access by night and by day, full of pity and compassion to poor sin-sick
souls, and able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him. He
never disappoints any who trust in Him, is more willing to hear than we to
pray, and more willing to give than we to ask. The great, the only real
grief of the soul is, that it should sin against Him, be denied His
presence, not get a word from His lips, a smile from His face, or a touch
from His hand.
We, my dear friend, are fast traveling down the valley of
life; our lease will soon be run out, and after that, every year is
beyond Scriptural limit of the appointed life of man. My desire is that my
last days may be my best days, and I much dread sinking down into carnality
and death. I have many things to try my mind; indeed some things, I may say
many things, which try me most I have never named, and probably shall never
name to any living soul. Every heart knows its own bitterness, and the
wormwood and the gall which lie at the bottom of the heart do not always or
often come to light; and yet it is felt that nothing but a word from the
Lord can purge them out or sweeten them.
But I have proved this, that trials and exercises of
body and mind keep the soul alive unto God, and thus I hope I have
reason to bless Him, among other mercies, that He is pleased to keep my soul
more or less alive unto Himself, and that chiefly through circumstances
which in themselves are painful and distressing. Among the wonderful
mysteries of the kingdom of God, this is not the least the way in which He
makes even those very sins which cause shame and sorrow to work together for
our spiritual good. It is a wonderful thing to be a Christian, and the
longer I live, the more I see how few there are, and what little real
grace the very best Christians possess or manifest. In this life it is
as it were the bud; the full fruit is reserved for a state of glory. . . .
Yours very affectionately in the truth,
J. C. P.
November 23, 1868
My dear Friend, Mrs. Clowes—I have often reproached myself
with not writing to you, and I fear you must have thought it not only
neglectful but ungrateful on my part, and a poor return for the great
kindness and hospitality which I have received at your hands. But you know,
my dear friend, how much my time is engaged, and that my silence does not
spring from any lack of gratitude or affection. I take, then, the
opportunity of a little leisure to send you a few lines. . . .
Now, my dear friend, as regards yourself. You found
things at Y—, some of which gratified and some of which pained your mind.
You were glad to find there was a pleasing recollection of your deceased
brother, and yet how many things recalled to your mind the memory of the
loved one whom you have lost. It was his native county, and I have always
observed that Norfolk men have a singular affection for the place of their
nativity. It was the case with your dear husband, who, though so long
separated from it, still retained a good deal of his native affection for
it. When you sat upon the pier, looking out on the wide sea and inhaling the
healthy breeze, how you longed to have him again at your side, and the
silent tear trickled down your cheek, or a convulsive sigh burst forth at
the recollection of the past, and the feeling that you would never again in
this life see him more. But you have found that the sorrow of this world
works death.
A heart devoid of feeling and affection is repulsive and
disgusting in all, but in none more than in a widow, who, in losing
her husband, has lost her earthly all. But this earthly sorrow is, for the
most part, so often mingled with self-pity, murmuring, fretfulness,
unthankfulness, creature-idolatry, and hardness of heart towards God, that
it is often, if not sin, yet an occasion for sin. And I would ask you if,
after you have had one of your bursts of sorrow and passionate grief,
whether, unless the Lord has blessed and supported you under them, you have
not found darkness of mind, hardness of heart, and unbelief to get sensible
prevalence. This is what the apostle means by telling us that the sorrow of
this world works death, as opposed to that godly sorrow which works
repentance to salvation not to be repented of.
Do not think me unkind in writing thus. I know and feel
for your desolate state; but that is the very reason why you should not, by
brooding over your sorrows, increase their weight and make you feel every
day more desolate still. I do hope that the Lord will draw you near unto
Himself, and, using this affliction as a means of weaning you from all
earthly happiness, will fix your heart more upon Himself. If you could
see it you have many mercies to be thankful for, and would even find that
there was a blessing couched in your bereavement.
. . . As regards myself I hope I may say I am better; but
my recovery has been very slow. At present I continue in the house, and fear
I shall be a prisoner most of the winter.
My dear wife and daughters unite with me in love.
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. P.
December 22, 1868
My dear Friends in the Lord, Mrs. Peake and Miss Morris—I am thankful
to say that I feel somewhat better than when I wrote last. Twice I have been
for a little walk, and was able last Lord's day to go to chapel for the
first time since my return home. I was glad once more to meet with the
people, and they seemed glad also to welcome me again in their midst. The
text was from Isaiah 12:2; but I did not hear my dear friend quite so well
as I hoped, and as I have sometimes heard him. But we well know how much
we vary in our hearing, and how dependent we are upon the Lord to make His
Word spirit and life to our souls. The disciples, who heard the gracious
words that fell from our Lord's lips in the days of His flesh, knew and felt
but little either of their meaning or their power. It was only after His
resurrection and His ascension on high, when He sent the promised Comforter
and Teacher, that what they heard Him speak was brought to their
remembrance, its meaning unfolded, and its truth and power impressed upon
their souls. Not only must the seed be good, but there must be a
prepared and good soil for it to fall into; and even then showers
and sun are needed to make it spring up, and grow, and bear fruit.
It is a great mercy when those words of the Apostle are
fulfilled in us—"Let the word of Christ dwell richly in you in all wisdom."
Our heart must ever be full of something—either sin, worldliness,
vanity, and folly, or the solemn realities of eternity. And it is according
as our mind and thoughts are occupied with one or the other, that we are
what we are, either before God or man. If sin, carnality, worldliness, and
all that is vain and foolish, occupy and possess our minds, the growth of
these weeds choke what there may be of the life of God in the soul; and we
are barren, unfruitful, unbelieving, and worldly-minded, both inwardly
before God and in our conversation, walk, and conduct before men. But when
the Word of God strikes deep root in the soul, then, as by it alone do we
know anything of divine realities, there is more or less of fruitfulness
before God and man.
All the truth that we know profitably and savingly, all
the experience that we have of the things of God, all the acquaintance,
union, and communion that we have or can have with the Father and the Son in
this time state, can only be through the Word of truth as opened by the
Spirit to the enlightened understanding, and applied by His power to the
heart and conscience. And there is this great blessedness in this
sanctifying light and life, which come into the soul through the Word, that
they draw the heart upward into heavenly things, and thus subdue and keep
out the power of those worldly things, of which our mind is naturally full,
and in which our carnal nature lives. But the wonder is, what strange and
sudden changes and mutations take place in the mind; so that in one
half-hour we may seem so under the power of eternal things, as if there were
nothing else worth seeking or desiring, and yet in the next half-hour we may
seem in our feelings as carnal, worldly, sinful, and sensual, dark,
ignorant, and unbelieving, as if there were not, and never had been, one
grain of grace or godly fear in the soul.
But amid all these changes it is our mercy that we have
to do with the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning, and with His Word, which endures forever. May we highly
prize it, read it with profit and pleasure, feel its power and influence, be
cast into the mold of it, and ever find it to be a lamp to our feet and a
light to our path. It is a treasure of which nothing can deprive us, and
though we should ever highly prize a preached Gospel as being an ordinance
of God, and be thankful for having our lot cast under it, yet the Lord
may be pleased to feed our souls in private as much, if not more, by reading
and meditating upon the Word of His grace. Nor does this at all
interfere with, or militate against the preached Word, for the best hearers
are those who are best instructed out of the Word in what they get alone,
and their souls when watered by private reading, prayer, and meditation are
most fit to receive the Word in its public ministration. Next to being
quickened and made alive, is to be kept alive and lively in the things of
God; and this cannot be by negligence, sloth, and carelessness, as if God
would give the blessing independently of our seeking or desiring. But I will
not run on further in this strain, lest the whole of my letter should be too
much on one subject.
I send you some letters, among them one from the French
lady whom I named to you. I had asked her to spend a part of her holidays
here, and at the same time expressed my wish that she would write down some
of the dealings of God with her soul; and I told her that she might write to
me in her own language, if she felt more liberty in doing so. This will
explain some things in her letter. I have often thought of several things
which she named in the account that she gave of the Lord's dealings with her
soul. There was something in it so real and sterling, so original and fresh,
so evidently the teaching and work of the Lord, that it made a deep
impression upon my mind, and her manner was so simple, humble, and modest,
that what she said commended itself so much to the conscience. Most of us
old professors are so covered over and muffled up in a kind of traditionary
religion that, when we meet with one who has been led in a peculiar, and yet
unmistakably gracious path, it seems to come with a peculiar weight and
freshness to the mind.
And now, my dear friends, I wish you the enjoyment of all
those blessings which are connected with the season of the year—assuming
that it was the season in which the Lord came into the world; and may we
never forget why He came, for it is most suitable to us. "This is a faithful
saying, and worthy of all acceptance", and therefore of yours and mine,
"that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners", and can we not
add—I am sure I can, and that with great reason—"of whom I am chief"? And
again, "The Son of Man came to seek and to save those who were lost." And
were we not lost, to all intents and purposes, completely ruined, without
hope or help? And have we not a thousand times over destroyed ourselves, so
as to need above most Him in whom is all our help? I am well persuaded
that a knowledge of sin and of the depths of the fall is necessary to any
right view or feeling of salvation by the blood of the Lamb. . . .
Yours very affectionately in the Lord,
J. C. P.
December 30, 1868
My dear Mrs. Gadsby—We all desire much to sympathize with you in your
present affliction, and sincerely hope that you may soon recover from the
shock and suffering which must have been caused by your unhappy overturn. I
well remember what a sufferer you were, a year or two ago, from being
knocked down in the street; and without sanctioning any such thought or
expression as ''fatality", it would almost seen as if it were your lot to
get the heaviest part of such visitations.
I remember well also, a few words which dropped from you
in the vestry at Gower Street, when I expressed my sympathy with you in your
long affliction and trial; and indeed it greatly rejoiced my heart to find
that the sweetness of manifested mercy had so dropped into your cup, as to
reconcile you to its often bitter draught. Oh, what is this wretched
world, and this poor vain life of ours, which every day is shortening and
bringing to its appointed close! Surely, well has it been said of it, that
it is all "vanity and vexation of spirit." But to be able, in sweet hope and
confidence, to look beyond this wretched life to a state of eternal bliss,
where there is neither sin—the greatest of all ills, nor sickness—of which
you have had a large portion, nor sorrow—of which no doubt you have had your
share, will not this make ample amends for all?
Salvation is for sinners; for "it is a faithful saying,
and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners." As such therefore, and as such only, must we be saved.
We all unite in very kind regards and the best wishes of
the season to Mr. Gadsby, Mrs. Wright, and Mr. Alfred.
Yours very sincerely,
J. C. P.
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