“But out of all the Lord has most graciously delivered us; and I can look back upon the whole with real gratitude to God. There was not a stroke or a drop too much; all was merciful in the design, and I hope the benefits still remain. Tribulation working ‘patience,’ a calm waiting upon God. Patience an ‘experience’ of his divine support at the time, and an experience of his eventual deliverance. Experience ‘hope,’ an expectation of future help and future deliverance; and this hope will not make me ashamed. There were times in which I felt this to be a weary land; but still I found the shadow of a great Rock, and this shade was truly refreshing to my soul. Oh, that I could ever there abide!
“I think I mentioned to you that our mutual friend Cox had the living of Bridgenorth presented to him. He has been there now some months, but he labours under very great discouragement, owing to the little effect resulting from his ministrations. A few weeks ago he wished that we should exchange duties, hoping that my Methodistical zeal might arouse them. After an enumeration of the probable consequences to which he must make up his mind, I at length consented, and, as I supposed, the stir has been great; rascal, villain, ranter, field preacher, are the usual epithets attached to my opprobrious name. A petition has been drawn up, with many signatures attached, requesting Cox to forbid me his pulpit; in short, the whole place has been in a hubbub. Inquiry, however, begins to take place, the stagnant waters are moved, and after the working off of the scum and the grosser particles, we may expect to see purer and even living waters. Cox answered their petition with becoming spirit, united with pleasing conciliation. It has, I find, given great offence, notwithstanding all; but we wait for the issue in a spirit of prayer. It is somewhat remarkable that Bridgenorth was the place in which Richard Baxter, author of the “Saint’s Rest,” met with such decided opposition, that as he went out of the town, he shook off the dust of his feet as a testimony against them; and, since that time, no preached gospel has prospered among them. The Dissenters and even the warm-hearted Methodists have hitherto laboured almost in vain. But who knows how soon the curse may be removed? We keep encouraging Cox all that we possibly can, but he seems determined at present to leave. Unite your prayers, my dear friend, with ours, that he may not be permitted to desert this wilderness and solitary place, but that he may patiently wait till he rejoices over it as a peculiarly verdant spot in the garden of our Lord.”
TO HIS SISTER.
Madeley, 21st Nov. 1817.
My dear Mary,
The case of conscience with which your letter begins is such as would puzzle a much more expert casuist than I ever expect to be; and, therefore, after reading all that you have written upon the subject, as explanatory of your views and feelings, I feel more disposed to commend you in prayer to the teachings of God’s most Holy Spirit, than attempt to darken counsel by words without knowledge. I am sensible, however, that this may originate in an unwillingness to meet a difficulty from a consciousness of the scantiness of my spiritual information, and from a fear of the consequent poor opinion you might entertain of me for my want of success, I will, therefore, hazard a few remarks. It has always struck me that the creature occupies an improper place when we consider it in any way essential to our good, when we fancy that there is any absolute and positive necessity for the presence of any one thing in order to constitute us happy. It was God’s declaration to Abraham, “I am the Almighty [the all-sufficient] God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.” And St. Paul so fully realized this, that he lived, as it were, completely independent of the creature; he found his God an all-sufficient portion, quite adequate of himself to satisfy the largest desires of his soul. He could, therefore, take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, &c.; for he experimentally found that, as his afflictions abounded, his consolations did much more abound. In a word, he discovered in his God a happiness which was not merely independent of the creature, but which flourished and abounded under circumstances most likely to interrupt or destroy it. The fact is, that the creature is only an arbitrary channel, the pipe, if I may so speak, which a God of love has been pleased to choose, in order to convey his benefits. The pipe is neither the benefit, nor the source; and, of course, though it is conducive to our comfort, though it may in many respects be subservient to our welfare, yet it is by no means essentially necessary, for God is the God of all consolation, whether intermediately or immediately conveyed, and should He, on any occasion, see fit to remove the medium, the same and even more abounding happiness may be received immediately from Himself; and since God is infinite in his wisdom and in his love, this will be so, provided it be for our good. And if we need not the former quantum of happiness, if it would prove injurious to us, is it not a mercy that it should be denied? But perhaps you will ask, How are we to know whether we love the creature too much or not? How is it to be ascertained whether we regard it as essential to our good, or merely subservient to it? This may be ascertained in two ways—1st, How do we feel when our channels are removed? Does it seem as though our all were gone? If after a prop has been removed from under us, we immediately fall, it is evident that our whole weight has been placed upon it; if we stagger and stumble, though by dexterity we may recover ourselves, and not actually fall, yet we show that too much of our weight was resting on it; but if, after its removal, we stand upright as before, it is manifest, as Archbishop Leighton observes, that we have been leaning not on our prop, but on an invisible arm for support. The application is easy. But I suggested another means of ascertaining the same point. What are our feelings under any probable expectations of the removal of our channel? This, however, is so closely allied with the former that it needs no separate enlargement or elucidation. It is evident that the man who is filled with alarm at the bare idea of the removal of his gold, is too much in love with it, and, more or less, is making it his god. And he who, with more specious refinement of taste, dreads the interruption of his social pleasures, or the removal of some of his wonted sources of good, follows but too closely in the same steps. God must be owned and felt as our all in all. He must be regarded, not merely as our supreme good, but as our only good, as that which is alone necessary. In a word, all I have to say is summed up in those two expressive lines in the Methodist hymn-book,
“Lead me where I my heaven may find,
The heaven of loving Thee alone.”
About the end of the year 1817, Mr. Mortimer entertained serious thoughts of going out to New Zealand as a missionary, and for this end corresponded with the secretary of the “Church Missionary Society” on the subject; and it so happened that about this time also two New Zealand chiefs, Tooi and Teterree, arrived in England, and it was proposed that they should abide for awhile at Madeley, which they accordingly did. The providence of God, however, did not seem to open his way for removing to a far-distant land, and he acquiesced in the result with his usual loving submission to the will of God. The following letter to the writer gives some account of the way by which he was led to contemplate the step referred to:—
Madeley, Nov. 26th, 1817.
My dear Armstrong,
Many incidents have occurred since it has pleased God to separate us, in which I should have regarded it as an exceedingly great comfort to my mind could I have consulted you, and obtained from you either your veto or procedas; but I think that I never felt the want of it more than at present. I hardly know whether I ought to puzzle you with a long detail, pro and con., of what has of late been passing in my mind, or to wait till I come to some conclusion. But as I feel that I should unbosom my mind to you in the fullest freest manner, were you now sitting by my side, I will use the same freedom, though you are at a distance. You must know, then, that I have lately been exerting myself among my parishioners on behalf of the Church Missionary Society, have read in my different exposition-rooms the very interesting accounts published in their quarterly papers and missionary registers, and, to make myself somewhat master of the matters upon which I spoke, I began to go regularly through the whole of the volumes which they have hitherto published. A great sensation has been excited among my people. I thought we should do exceedingly little; but God has opened the hearts of my people, and I rejoice in the event. This, however, is not the only effect which has been produced. My own heart has been so completely won over to the missionary cause that I am inclined to think, I shall not easily be persuaded to remain quietly and cozily at home, while so much remains to be done abroad. The call to continue here must be much stronger than it has hitherto been, or my struggling spirit will be found to burst its ties and make its escape to more needed labours. I trust I shall not force my way; this, under no circumstances, can be desirable, but I think that hitherto my mind has leaned too much one way, and has been too ready to interpret the suggestions of some, and the oppositions of others, into providential intimations of its being the will of God, to hesitate and eventually to abandon my object; but now I feel very differently. In the spirit of sacrifice, with our lives in our hands, and almost our all of earthly good at stake, we shall hold ourselves ready to proceed whenever we can with any consistency make our escape. You will ask, perhaps, what are our plans? I have often thought of joining my very very dear friends at Honduras, but the unhealthiness of the climate, and the stings of your musquitos quite deter my good wife, and she shrinks from your shore with feelings which I dare not any further attempt to correct. To speak honestly, I fear your climate would soon bring her to her grave, and therefore I should not think myself at all authorized to press the point further than I have already done. New Zealand is the place which we have in our minds, and though the inhabitants are cannibals, and though the ill treatment of the Europeans has exasperated them to a degree of determined retaliation, which might deter the mere worldly calculators from venturing to settle among them; yet as we trust that the spirit of love and kindness will ever actuate us in our intercourse with them, we trust likewise that our gracious God will become a wall of fire round about us to keep them from injuring us. A very amiable, interesting, and truly pious young man, who has lately been through college, and is now waiting till he becomes of age for orders, has fully made up his mind to join us so soon as his friends can be persuaded to part with him. Ever since I have been in the parish the Lord has been pleased to knit his heart to me in a very singular way. His mind has been turned to New Zealand for nearly three years.