To Rev. Mr. H——
Specified wants; presented, supplied, doubted — The inference — The great exchange; a man given and a God received —” Was
God unfaithful?” — Mr. H ’s statement of his experience — A
precise answer to a specific request — Confession delayed; urged — Witnesses of perfect love needed in the ministry.
Brother H kindly permits me to ask questions, or present truth, hi any form, and I gratefully avail myself of the privilege.
A pictm-e presents itself to my mind. Brother
H has a son, whom he much loves. The boy
has been in perilous circumstances, and comes to his father hungry, thirsty, and all want. His heart has been abundantly assured, from a knowledge of your nature and the resources at your command to gratify the promptings of your benevolent wishes, that he has but to come and present his case, to have all his need supplied. He “It may be something else.” A Questionable Position.
has heard his father say, “Ask what you will, my son, and it shall be given you.” Thus, at your bidding, he begins to specify his wants, and says, “Father, I am thirsty, give me water.” The request is answered; he drinks, and at once feels precisely the effect anticipated.
I ask — “Did your father give you water?” Should he, with perhaps a saddened coimtenance, reply, “I do not know; I only know that it was water I wanted.” “But did not your father assiu-e you, that he would give just what you asked; and does not the effect answer your anticipations?” “Yes, my system is indeed greatly invigorated, but yet I cannot determine — it may be something else.”
“But your father knew that you needed water, and it was because he saw your need, and had a plentiful supply, that he told you, you should have it, if you asked for it; and how can you reconcile the conduct of your father with truth? Does the general bearing of his conduct toward you warrant this want of confidence? Do you not krtow that you cast a shade upon the character of your father, by indulging in this mode of reasoning? The paternal love — ability — or fidehty, of your father, seems to be involved.” Which of the three would you have me question?
Your son looks toward me reproachfully, and thinks me unkind, and yet I know not how, from
The Great Exchange. A Want of Fidelity implied.
his statement of his case, to ariive at other conclusions; and however much he may be pained, he alone is responsible for the untrue, or unkind thoughts I may entertain of his father.
Brother H ’s spirit was all athirst for the
fountain of life and purity. His heavenly Father had given him to see the image of his Saviour infinitely desirable. The conditions upon which it was to be received, were set before you, and your spirit complied. The Holy Spirit urged you to take the image of your Saviour, assuring you that He had taken yours. You made the exchange — “gave him your sin, and took his purity — gave him your shame, and took his honor — gave him your helplessness, and took his strength — gave him your death, and took his everlasting life.” Yes, you made the exchange.
It was not in your own strength, that you were enabled to exchange your own vile image for the blessed likeness of your Saviour. But you did, through grace, do it, and here was fidelity on your part. Was God unfaithful in the performance of his part of the engagement? How can it be otherwise, if the position which you occupy be con-ect? If the want of fidelity on the part of God is not implied in the attitude in which you stand, I do not apprehend your experience, and must wait to be further informed.
Now, dear brother, do you not think this posi-Mr. H ’s own Statement of his Experience.
tion inconsistent? “Does it not intimate a fault on the part of your Saviour?” And yet your whole heart is saying, “I have no fault to find with my Saviour,” his name is “Faithful and True.’’ You have acknowledged, that at the moment you made the “exchange” — the surrender of self, He was at once true to the performance of his part of the engagement. To use your own words, “His omnipotent hand was laid upon me — I felt it not only outwardly but inwardly — it pressed upon my whole being, and diffused all through and through it a sin- consuming, holy energy. As it passed downward, my heart, as well as my head, was conscious of the presence of this soul-cleansing energy, under which I fell to the floor, and, in joyful surprise, at the moment cried out with a loud voice. Still the hand of power wrought within and without, and wherever it moved, it seemed to leave the impress of the Saviour’s image.”
Now, brother, was God true and faithful?
Your own confession has thrown the want of fidelity on yourself, and here I know you would have it rest. But will you, by loord, thought or look, in future be insti-umental in cherishing, in any one heart, the impression that your heavenly Father, after having induced you to specify your wants, ‘might possibly have given something else in place of that he had caused you to ask for? I think the lessons in doctrine reproof correction, and
The Three Loaves. Confession should have been made.
instruction in righteousmss, contained in the first paragraph of the 11th chapter of Luke, meets your case precisely.
A specific request is here made, the friend wanted three loaves. Because of his importunity, his friend rises, and giveis as many as he needs. And then the Saviour says, “Ask and it shall be given you, &c. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or, if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? or, if he shall ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion?”
You know, dear brother, that your heavenly Father gave just the blessing you asked for, and your error has been in not confessing with your lips his faithfulness in fulfilling his promises. Your heart has believed, but your lips have not fully, freely, and habitually made confession. And thus your part of the work has been left in part unfulfilled. Do you not think, brother, that the time past should suffice? Would not God have been much more honored through your instrumentality, had you not refrained your lips, but fully and freely declared with David, to the great congregation, the faithfulness of your God? 0! no longer hide, in any degree, his righteousness within your heart; redeem the time, and be assured, that the more you hold up the light that God has kindled, the more gloriously will your own soul become illuminated.
How the Creature may be Ilumbled. An Encouraging Thought.
A very holy man once said, he felt it his duty to confess to the outside of what he enjoyed — assured that it not only honored God, but humhled the creature. And, dear brother I know you will find it so in your own experience. I think you must begin to feel that you have been kept back from more open confession, by a well-circumstanced device of the enemy of God, of holiness, of your soul; and, if you continue longer thus, will not the enemy secure a partial triumph? Are you as strongly empowered to serve the cause of holiness, and honor your Saviour, who has imparted his image to you, as if you were enabled to declare at all times, unhesitatingly, that he sanctifies and saves you fully?
An encouraging thought presents itself. You know it is said that the wrath of our enemies shall praise him. Now, brother, should you not take pains to give publicity to your failure, in not confessing more specifically the great work that God has wrought for you? Yom- testimony might reach, and bring out many more among the dear brethren in the ministry, similarly conditioned with yourself — and surely this would not be a small service to the church.
You know how much the cause requires witnesses among the ministry; witnesses “that speak of that they know, and testify of that they have seeUf and for want of such testimony, the work is
A Minister’s Responsible Position. Impelling Influences.
less prosperous among the people than it would otherwise be. You know the Word directs us for example in faith and practice to the ministryy “whose fiiith follow” — “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and the people should seek the law at his mouth.”
If such is the responsible attitude in which God’s ambassadors stand, sui-ely Jesus says, more appealingly to them than to us, “Ye are my witnesses;” and the account of their stewardship, when called to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, may be found to be vastly less satisfactory, from the very fact that the testimony of their own experience had not been more fully brought out before the people.
Faithfully youi’s.