Your’s, truly,
Ruhamah.
LETTER XXXII.
Achor’s Vale, November 18th, 1818.
Mrs. March.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I well know the cause why you are absent from chapel—if a preacher does not stand manifest to your conscience, you cannot hear him, nor can I blame you. The time of my deliverance I hope will come, when I trust to meet the Lord’s people once more, and abide with them, till sickness and death finally separate.
The second chapter of Isaiah is a very grand and solemn part of God’s word. I have no commentators here to explain it, but hope the Lord will give me a little light into it, as I write this short note on it, particularly that important address, in the 10th verse, which you beg a few thoughts on. The compass of a very long letter, would be too short to set forth one half the beauties and excellencies contained in this part of sacred writ. The prophet Isaiah is supposed to be the most evangelical of all the prophets, not, but all the rest wrote of the same grand object, Christ, but this great man was led more deeply into the subject. He lived under the reigns of several kings, and died a martyr, under the reign of Manasseh. It is supposed he was sawn asunder with a wooden saw. He was led most divinely to see the person, glory, love, work, and the kingdom of Christ, the nature of the Gospel dispensation, and the peculiar happiness of the Church, in the first dawn of that period, and its full meridian in the latter day glory. To these distant times, he, no doubt, alludes in the five first verses of this chapter. The conquests of grace, is particularly pointed out in the 4th verse. When Christ, to whom all judgment is given, shall reign in the power of his Gospel, in every part of the world, and when fierce persecutors, who have been as swords and spears against the saints, those being converted, should be made useful characters in the Lord’s garden. We are exhorted to walk in the light of the gospel, and perhaps our Lord, and his servant John, alludes to this text in their several addresses to the saints, in the Gospel and Epistles of John. We may, with propriety, call Isaiah the Old Testament Apostle—such were his clear views of Christ, that one would think we were reading a history of circumstances past, more than a prophesy of what was to come, although he lived, probably, seven hundred years before the events themselves took place. The prophet then proceeds, from the 6th verse of this chapter, and the following verses, to predict the desolation of Jerusalem, for those sins which had so much displeased the Lord, particularly the reigning sin of idolatry, to which the Jews were so awfully prone. This prophecy may allude to the first captivity, by Nebuchadnezzar, which was a very desolating siege, but more particularly to the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem, by the Roman armies, for their rejection of the Gospel, the murder of the Son of God, and their persecution of the apostles and ministers of Christ. The Jews were all wedded to their own works, and trusting in them, is idolatry. This was their base conduct, both rich and poor, therefore the Lord was determined to break up house-keeping with them, and devote the whole land to destruction; and such should be the terrors of the siege, that the prophet is commanded to direct the attention of many to the holes of the rocks and caves of the earth—such should be horrors experienced by all the inhabitants of Judea, from the terrible majesty of Jehovah, when he should shake the earth with his awful vengeance. This subject is again and again repeated, to shew its certainty and its horror, a faint shadow of the last great day, when our God shall appear in grandeur, our world shall be in flames, when consternation shall turn every unprepared heart pale as the second death, 24th Matthew; and the 6th of Revelations should be read with this chapter, but I humbly conceive this address in the 10th verse, may be applied to God’s children, who should live to see these awful times, and indeed, viewed in a gospel sense, there is no period when the exhortation is needless. We are sinners, guilty, polluted, undone, and hell-deserving. God, as viewed in the law, is truly awful. He appears, and every truly awakened soul sees him, and dreads him as a sin-avenging God, who will by no means of man’s devising, clear the guilty. The sinner who is under the hand of the law, feels the intolerable burden of his own sins, views the holiness of God, the extent and spirituality of the commandments, and groans under fearful apprehensions of eternal woe, and who finds he can do nothing but sin in thought, word, and deed, notwithstanding all his vows, watchings, and care; yet his mind apprehending the faithfulness and unchangeableness of God, who has declared, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. This awful perfection dwells on his mind, and the horrors, real and imaginary, seize his spirits. Here he feels the evil of sin, the terrors of the Almighty, the nature of the law, the impossibility of being saved by it, the awful state of all who are out of Christ, however moral their deportment, or clear their doctrinal views. Here a soul sees his need of a surety, his need of a better righteousness than his own, his need of an atonement, and a Saviour, who is God-Man Mediator. This is learning the subject from real heart felt experience; and this explains many passages in the Bible, descriptive of the feelings of many who were brought into this state. This is being planted into the likeness of Christ’s death, and when such souls are brought into the liberty of the gospel, they know, even if they cannot explain, what it is to be planted into the likeness of his resurrection also. Now to all such tried souls, exercised with the terrors of God, and fearing his wrath and terrible majesty, as a sin-avenging God, to all such is the address made, Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust. When the prophet Jeremiah was exercised, with some awful impressions of the divine majesty, he describes a soul made so willing to see his interest in pardoning mercy, that he putteth his mouth in the dust. If so be there may be hope, the lowest place that can be, suits such an one, yea, in the very dust, pleading for mercy and pardon, through the blood of the Lamb, and his law-fulfilling righteousness. I have often been in this state; and perhaps the prophet refers to such a state in the 29th chapter, 4th verse, And thy speech shall whisper out of the dust. This, although many miseries are experienced, is a safe state; but none can believe that we are thus exercised, till God raises the poor from the dust, and the needy from the dunghill. See 113 Psalm, 1st of Samuel, ii, 7, 8. The command is, Enter into the rock. There is no safety but in him, he is the rock, and his work is perfect. He is the high, holy, fruitful, refreshing, foundation; shelter, safety, defence, and strength of his church. Here many a soul has run, and found safety, help, comfort, and peace: this is the only dwelling place for a law-condemned sinner, who has fled for refuge; here alone is firm, floating, and solid peace, all, all is sea beside. I must refer you to that blessed circumstance, recorded in 33rd Exodus, and the close of the chapter. This will greatly assist your spiritual views of the passage under consideration. It is only in Christ we can see the glory of God. To enter in, is the mind enabled by God the Spirit’s power, to receive the truth, and to be led by the same Spirit to apprehend the Lord Jesus Christ, as he is revealed. This is the truth that makes us free, hand as it enters into the mind, so we sweetly enter into it.
Your’s, truly,
Ruhamah.
LETTER XXXIV.
Valley of Achor, April 4th, 1819.