A letter has also reached me to-day by the same conveyance, from the Bible Society, dated 27th July last year, mentioning the sending of three cases of Arabic and Persian Scriptures to my dear brother Pfander. When I consider how God, in his infinite and unsearchable providence, has seen it fit to bring to nought all our plans by the disorganization of this at all times lawless land, I cannot but feel it a strong call to form very few plans for the future, and just to work by the day. Our hope was, when we came to Bagdad, to have been able to travel pretty extensively both in the mountains of Kourdistan and in Persia; but the state of the country, and other considerations, brought all these plans to nothing, so my dear friend and kind brother left me for Shushee, having been able to obtain much of the information he desired, without the journey. And I, instead of having a large present field of useful employment, and one prospectively increasing, am now without employment or prospect, and if it were not that I feel getting on a little in the colloquial language of the country, I should be almost without hope of remaining with advantage here; but while I feel this, my heart does not sink. The Lord will yet let his light shine out of the darkness, and will one day enable me to speak of his promises; for I daily feel more assured this is the great gift after which an evangelist is to press—it is the very instrument of his labour. And let such a missionary feel infinitely happier to hear it said he speaks very low Arabic, but that every body understands him; than very pure, but which is unintelligible, except to the Mollahs. If he speaks not in a very mixed dialect of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, he will not be understood here; there is, however, still an immense preponderance of Arabic over the others.
The British and Foreign School Society have also very kindly offered to afford what assistance their limited means will allow to the furtherance of Scripture instruction in the East. I shall endeavour to repay this free kindness by obtaining the best information I can, before I call on their aid, for nothing is so discouraging as failures from precipitate attempts; but so variable is the state of affairs in these countries, that previous to your judgment being matured by experience, you may be led, with the best intentions possible, to undertake, on a bright day, plans which, before they can be executed, prove as baseless as a vision, and which will leave nothing behind but the remembrance of useless expense and unproductive labour.
July 22.—I had with me to-day, for the last time as a patient, an officer of the Pasha’s household who had the plague, and a large wound from a carbuncle, but is now quite well, and he was talking of the state of the city and country, and said, “Why do we wish to give our country into the hands of the Ghiaours,[38] and not to the Persians? It is because we know they will neither take our wives or daughters from us, nor rob us of our money, nor cut off our heads, but in Islam there is no mercy, no pity.” He added, “Did you ever see me before I came about my leg?” I said, “No.” “Yet,” he said “you had mercy upon me, and cured me and my daughter (who also had had the plague), and why? It was from your heart—there was mercy there.” I took this opportunity to explain the reason, as emanating from the command of Christ, and not the goodness of my heart, and how truly could I say it; for the Lord knows how, but for this, it would be a weariness unto me. Now this impatience of their own government is not the feeling of a few discontented men, but I am persuaded it is very general—how can such a kingdom stand?
The government, if government it can be called, is now sending the soldiers round to every house to seek for wheat and rice. From some they take half, from others a third of their little store, while they have enough for two years in their own corn cellars, and this too when the necessaries of life are raised to between four and five times their usual price; and as for fruit and vegetables, which constitute in eastern countries, during summer, so large a portion of the food of all classes, not a particle is to be seen.
Yesterday and to-day I have had two Roman Catholic merchants with me, and in quoting Scripture to them, I found them ready with the context; but the deadly evil is the separation of religion and its principles from the government and rule of every day and every moment. In these countries, where religious expressions are in every one’s mouth, a missionary has most valuable employment, as he is able to bring their minds back to their own expressions, to their own import and power, as we are desired to do to those who heartlessly use that beautiful form of dedication in the communion service of the Church of England, “We here present unto thee our bodies, souls, and spirits to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee.” Oh! that all who use these blessed words felt their power, and lived under it. Christ’s name would soon be magnified from land to land.
July 23.—The Pasha has just sent me a fish, with his compliments, and a request that I will dress it for him: this is the way he collects the daily provisions for his household; one person sends him a dish of rice, another a dish of kebaub, another bread; at other times all this takes place because of custom, but now from necessity, for he has no servants scarcely to attend to him. This is the first time I have been so honoured, and when the fish was cooked and sent, he desired the servant to come back, and bring him a few kustawee dates to eat with it; that, however, you may not think these any very extravagant luxury, I may add, their value is somewhat less than a penny a pound. I note this as a little trait of manners that one would hardly credit, had not the fact come under his own observation.
July 24. Lord’s Day.—Nothing among the perverted use of scriptural terms has ever struck me as more remarkable than the use the Church now makes of the expression, tempting God. In God’s word it is uniformly placed among the sins of unbelief; but the Church now, by universal consent, places it among the sins of presumption, to which it is the very antipodes. For instance, it is one of the great crimes of Israel, their tempting God in the desert, and limiting the Holy One of Israel. How? By presumptuous confidence? No—but by saying he hath given bread, but can he give meat also? This is the only sense I know in scripture given to tempting God, and that famous passage from which the erroneous impression has mainly sprung, in the interview of Satan with our Lord, is quite kindred. The object of Satan was to get our Lord’s mind into a condition of doubting God, by leading him to argue, God has certainly said so, but will he do it? for our blessed Lord was manifestly as much tempting God by attempting to walk upon the water, as to cast himself into the air. What proves this to be the meaning is our Lord’s quotation, “It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Now, where is this written? Why, in the Old Testament, where it uniformly implies doubt and distrust; in Exod. xvii. 2. “Therefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel; and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?” (verse 7.) And it is in reference to this very passage, that in Deut. vi. 16. it is said “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, as ye tempted him in Massah.” And that we may not have a doubt of the meaning, see the application of the word tempting, as applied to our dear and blessed Lord. Is it ever in the sense of presumptuous confidence? Never; but always of scepticism and doubt. I do not mean to say there is not such a sin as presumptuous confidence; I am sure there is; but that is never called tempting God. The Israelites were guilty of this sin, when they went up contrary to the command of God to fight their enemies, after he had pronounced upon them the forty years wandering in the wilderness.
I think that rightly understanding this is a matter of no small moment; for many are affrighted, and made sad in the ways of the Lord by the erroneous application of this Scripture; for to whom does the Church and the world alike now apply this term? Why, if they hear of a man selling his property, and becoming poor, like Barnabas, according to the exhortation of the apostles, and the example of our Lord, he is considered as tempting God by all according to the degree in which they wish to keep all or part of their own property. Again, if he exposes himself to dangers he might avoid, troubles he might escape, for what he believes the Lord’s service, far from receiving any comfort or encouragement, he is again accused of tempting God. But tempting God is the deadly sin of an unregenerate mind, and is never charged on any saint, either in the Old or New Testament, that I recollect. Certainly, Peter did not tempt Christ, when he said, “If thou be he, bid me come unto thee on the water;” for he did not doubt our Lord’s power; yet there was a measure of false confidence in himself, as well as of unbelief; but these are compatible with the holiest affections as a state. Tempting God belongs to the family of the tempter, and is a part of no child of God at any time. After his conversion, Peter asked a miracle of Christ; but it was in faith, however weak. When the sceptical Sadducees and the Pharisees, sought a sign it was to try him, can he do it? Therefore he said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? shewing it was a sin to tempt him as well as it was a sin to tempt his Father.
I feel now that I had been led to expect a greater measure of freedom from the troubles which fall on the people, in the midst of which I find myself, than the dispensation under which I live warranted; I do not mean from those which spring directly out of the Lord’s service, but those natural and national evils which God sends as judgments on the ungodly. This error arose from considering the temporal promises of the 91st Psalm, and other similar ones in multitudes of places, as the legitimate objects of faith: whereas I have been now led to see that they, like the curses, are but typical representations of that kingdom in which the saints of the Lord shall rejoice and be safe when his enemies are swept away as the chaff of the summer threshing floor. Yet even now, spiritually they are all ours. Not a hair of our head shall fall to the ground without our heavenly Father’s permission. Therefore I feel these thoughts ought neither to trouble us, nor any more prevent our hand undertaking for Christ any service, than if a greater exemption was promised; for we know that whatever is allowed to befall us, whether natural or spiritual, if Christ is ours and we are his, they shall only so operate as to work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; for these sufferings and trials must be among all the things that work together for good to those who love Christ.
July 28. Thursday.—Up to this time the shells and balls of the besiegers have done us no harm. Two shells have passed just over us. The one fell on the roof of the house of an Arab family at a little distance from us, who were all asleep, and on bursting killed three: one cannon ball has just passed over us, besides musket balls innumerable, only two of which, however, I have felt so near as to endanger us. The one just passed by me and struck the wall, the other, by bending my head, passed just over me: yet dangerous as it seems in such circumstances to sleep on the roof, the suffocating heat of the rooms is insupportable. I recollect Mr. Wolff, when here, mentions it as so hot that he could not write his journal, and indeed such is the heat, that one unaccustomed to it feels almost perfectly unfitted for any laborious service either of mind or body, but particularly the former, for at least my own experience is, that the body is much less affected by it than the mind.