"May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so
great you will never fully understand it!" (Ephesians 3:19)
To E. M., August, 1857.
Much Beloved in Jesus,
I was delighted with your short line, and its sweet enclosure. Dear Miss C.,
I do rejoice with her, how the Lord does think upon the poor and needy, and
visit them in their most needy times. She can say, "He has done all things
well." May this be only as the pledge of greater things, leading her to
press after yet fuller revelations of Jesus. I would never have any sit down
satisfied—but still press on after what is beyond; for there are heights
and depths in the love of Christ of which the most favored have no
conception; and there are beauties and glories in His person which none have
yet beheld! Oh! I would have none rest short of the revelation of His
person. His benefits indeed are all precious; His atoning blood and
sacrifice, His justifying righteousness, and the effects flowing therefrom,
pardon, justification, peace in the conscience, etc., etc.; these are
essential to salvation, and we seek them first—but it is a further and
sweeter privilege to know and enjoy Himself. Salvation is sweet—but the
Savior crowns all; and when He is revealed in us, we bless the Lord and do
not forget His benefits.
Having once been brought to enjoy Him, may we be more and
more jealous of felt distance or absence. Absent He never is—but He is at
times silent, and we do not feel His presence. Oh to make immediate and
diligent search, and not go even a day's journey merely supposing He is in
the company, for then will follow a sorrowing seeking for Him, as in Luke
2:44-48, of which I have thought much today in this experimental sense. It
is poor, heartless work when we can be quieted by "supposing" He is near;
and how vainly we may seek Him among kinsfolk and acquaintance! Very often
we find Him not there—but in Jerusalem, the place of sacrifice. "You
shall seek me and find me, when you shall search for me with all your
heart."
I must now tell you how much I have been enjoying Lev.
14:18. The oil, as a type of the blessed Spirit, to be poured upon
the head; and only think of whom—of the poor leper just healed. Who could
enjoy it so much as he who had been so afflicted; shut out from the house of
God; separated from His people; being so polluted that he must dwell alone,
outside the camp, and if any were coming near him, he must warn them by the
sorrowful cry, "Unclean, unclean!" Now he is to have the oil poured upon his
head. Oh! would not such a one most joyfully sing, "He anoints my head with
oil, my cup runs over!" Yes, indeed he would! I know it, and you know it
too, for you have felt the same. "Sing, O you heavens, for the Lord has done
it; shout, you lower parts of the earth." He has said to the leper, "I
will--be clean!" And as the true Priest, He has poured on that healed,
pardoned one--the true anointing. And now no longer shut up and shut out, he
comes up to the house of the Lord, to see the beauty of the Lord and to
inquire in His temple. Precious, all precious Jesus! I feel the truth of
what I write, and like the poor stranger of old, would fall at Your dear
feet, giving You thanks. (Luke 17:15, 16) My soul does "give thanks to the
Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures for ever." "Let the redeemed of
the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy." (Psalm
107:2, 3)
My heart is full, and cannot half express what I would in
praise of my Beloved. The chief sinner, and the chief and only Savior--have
met and embraced again and again. And she sweetly finds that by Him she is
justified from all her own evil things, from which she could never be
justified by the law of Moses. In believing, she apprehends and enjoys the
justification, for by faith we have experimental access into this grace in
which we always stand before God. In short, this chief sinner finds such
fullness and freeness in the salvation--such love and loveliness in the
Savior--that she can hardly leave off extolling and praising Him in whom she
is justified, and in whom she may glory. Oh, come and "magnify the Lord with
me, and let us exalt His name together." May He fill us with His love, and
use us for His glory. May He so reveal Himself to us and through us, that it
may be like oil from vessel to vessel; for thus "sweet to my heart is
communion with saints" through communion with the King of saints.
I must cease, though I seem to have said nothing of the
endless, blissful theme, the love and loveliness of our dear Redeemer, the
Redeemer of worms. May He favor you with His precious presence, and may many
new Ebenezers be set up!
A warm adieu, with best love, from your tenderly attached
but unworthy,
Ruth