LETTER XXXVIII.
Valley of Achor.
Miss Ingle.
MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND,
I send you back the Diary of your late dear sister, which I have perused with mingled emotions of joy and grief, of pleasure and pain. Blessed be God for the grace given her in Christ Jesus, before the world began, and manifested to her in so many pleasing and painful ways. I wish I had money to spare to send it into the world; but alas, I am straitened, yet I have cause to be eternally thankful, and I beg the Lord will bring me home to glory, to praise his dear name for it. My heart is most sensibly affected with your dear mother’s trials: what a constant visitor affliction is at your house. How many times hath death looked in, and took away those of your family that were particularly dear to you all. Nor is he easy, he is on the road again. The glorious conquerer of death, has by his obedience and sufferings, his blood and death, converted him into an angel of peace, a messenger of joy, sent to conduct you to the upper and better house—
Far from a world of grief and sin,
With God eternally shut in.
The pulling down the earthly house is all the misery, but it has got the leprosy in the walls, and it must come down. Sin, that tyrant and ugly monster, has rendered it necessary that it should be changed, in order to enjoy union to the happy soul in another state. The body has sinned with the soul, and it must suffer with it, the body was redeemed with the soul, and it must also be saved with it. But in order to enjoy that, it must experience a change by sickness and death. This is a painful subject, but the Lord will make it familiar to you. I trust whenever death comes to you, he will wear an angel’s form, that he will be only your Lord’s porter, sent to open the gates of glory, and conduct you through the consecrated way which our Lord has trod. As all things are now dying with you, I humbly hope the Lord will most graciously visit your soul with his love, shew you that your sins are forgiven through the doing and dying of a precious Saviour. He has blotted out, done away, hid, removed, and covered all the sins of every coming sinner; and he says, Let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon; precious text. Returning to the Lord, is the heart, mind, faith, and hope of a soul, who was chosen in Christ, and united to Christ. Now, by the power of the spirit bending, inclining, seeking, and desiring Christ. Coming to the Lord our God is moving in mind to the Father, as a God of love, grace, and mercy, in Christ to us. Yet, if the Lord is drawing you to Christ, as your only hope, mark, he will have mercy, he will abundantly pardon. Are you, my dear girl, seeking his favour and mercy to be manifested to your soul, convinced of your need of it? is your heart set upon it? do you believe that you shall be lost without it? and has God the ever blessed Spirit shewn you that Christ is a suitable Saviour, and that he is the gift of the Father’s love to guilty man? And do you choose him as your Saviour and only hope, your atoning sacrifice, and your only righteousness? God be praised, you have ever heard the gospel, which has pointed you to him, though you know it is not enough to be pointed to Christ, but we want bringing to him. Hence the promise, They shall come, and I will lead them.
Let me conclude this short letter by reciting a few texts, to encourage you in seeking the Lord. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee. If thou seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him if thou seek him with all thy heart, and with all thy soul. Thou Lord hast not forsaken them that seek thee. Your heart shall live that seek God. I said not unto the seed of Jacob, seek me in vain. Ye shall seek me, and find me when ye search for me with all your heart. Seek ye the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. Seek ye me, and ye shall live. The Lord is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. He that cometh to God, must believe that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. The hand of our God is upon all them that seek him for good.
These are among the many precious promises that the Lord has given to his people, to encourage them to seek his face, his favour, and his friendship. May the Holy Ghost shine on his word, and shine into your beast; to give you joy and peace in believing.
Grace be with you,
Ruhamah.
The dear girl is since gone home to glory, testifying as she sunk in death, that the Saviour was very precious to her soul.