LETTER VI.
Valley of Achor, Sept. 1, 1818.
M. A. Hill.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I have many friends of your name, and thousands know I have also many enemies of the same name, though they never saw me; there are little hills of Zion, loved of the Lord, and hilly difficulties to encounter. I am sure you will smile, when I observe I have often noticed, that if God raises me up a friend, the Devil often raises me up an enemy of the same name; but this is the experience I have long had, of mercies and miseries, dark nights and cheerful days, heavy losses and great spiritual gains, sore temptations and seasonable helps; tears and smiles, castings down and liftings up, fits of despair and lively hopes, the powers of unbelief and the triumphs of faith, the heart at times fretting against the Lord, then all at once sweet submission to his will; a glorious time in the pulpit, and the very next time, shut up, barren and dead: a sweet testimony from some poor soul of the Lord’s giving efficacy to the word of his grace, by my message, another comes in directly after, to tell me some one has turned an enemy. Hearing the Lord has blessed some of my poor writings, and presently the Devil has sent the baser sort to blow their horns about the streets, proclaiming my supposed infamy. Perhaps a precious soul-animating letter is sent me, and while reading it, the post-man brings another, filled with the most abominable obscenity, written, no doubt, by an hypocritical professor—one part of the day enjoying the very life and power of religion, the other part lean, barren, and trifling. I could enlarge on this, and fill a volume, but I must inform you I am reading the Pilgrims Progress, and find it very blessed; it is a glass, wherein I see much of the face of my own experience; I intend in many future letters to my friends, to quote and explain a part of it, especially those parts which are the most intricate, and perhaps the least noticed. It is an invaluable book; others have attempted to write similar books, but they are all very inferior to the Tinker’s Master-piece of Piety and Genius. Here I see the chequered scene the Lord generally leads his people through, from conversion to glorification. Here we see the christian burdened and delivered, sighing and singing, on the mount of communion and in the shadow of death, loaded with corruption and pardoned by blood, condemned and justified, happy and miserable, meeting a few real pilgrims and plenty of hypocrites, fighting and fainting, rising and falling, yet kept, sanctified, and assured of glory. Sometimes groaning under a body of death, then soaring with the wings of a dove; brought out of self and living by faith, on the person and love, the work and grace of Christ. I trust you will be led to seek Jesus the Pearl of great Price—never rest till you have found him, for it is life eternal to be favored with an experimental knowledge of him. May your heart be led from every thing else, and fixed there alone; that you may know and enjoy all that is implied in this greatest of texts, “For thy Maker is thy husband, the Lord of Hosts is his name.”
Your’s, truly,
Ruhamah.