“You will best enter into my views by considering those texts which serve to recall me to a right aspect of things. I have not that coldness in prayer you would expect, but generally find myself strengthened in faith and humility and love after it: but the impression is so short. I am at this time enabled to give myself, body, soul, and spirit, to God, and perceive it to be my most reasonable service. How it may be when the trial comes, I know not, yet I will trust and not be afraid. In order to do his will cheerfully, I want love for the souls of men; to suffer it, I want humility: let these be the subjects of your supplications for me. I am thankful to God that you are so free from anxiety and care: we cannot but with praise acknowledge his goodness. What does it signify whether we be rich or poor, if we are sons of God? How unconscious are they of their real greatness, and will be so till they find themselves in glory! When we contemplate our everlasting inheritance, it seems too good to be true; yet it is no more than is due to the kindred of ‘God manifest in the flesh.’
“A journey I took last week into Norfolk seems to have contributed greatly to my health. The attention and admiration shown me are great and very dangerous. The praises of men do not now, indeed, flatter my vanity as they formerly did; I rather feel pain, through anticipation of their consequences: but they tend to produce, imperceptibly, a self-esteem and hardness of heart. How awful and awakening a consideration is it, that God judgeth not as man judgeth! Our character before him, is precisely as it was before or after any change of external circumstances. Men may applaud or revile, and make a man think differently of himself; but He judgeth of a man according to his secret walk. How difficult is the work of self-examination! Even to state to you, imperfectly, my own mind, I found to be no easy matter. Nay, St. Paul says, ‘I judge not mine own self, for he that judgeth me is the Lord.’ That is, though he was not conscious of any allowed sin, yet he was not thereby justified, for God might perceive something of which he was not aware. How needful then, the prayer of the Psalmist, ‘Search me, O God, and try my heart, and see if there be any evil way in me.’ May God be with you, and bless you, and uphold you with the right hand of his righteousness: and let us seek to love; for ‘he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, for God is love.’”
His diary furnishes a farther insight into his experience, and the resoluteness with which he opposed the wavering of his faith by continual application to the promises of God in Christ.
“Since I have endeavoured to divest myself of every consideration independent of religion, I see the difficulty of maintaining a liveliness in devotion for any considerable time together; nevertheless, as I shall have to pass the greater part of my future life, after leaving England, with no other source of happiness than reading, meditation, and prayer, I think it right to be gradually mortifying myself to every species of worldly pleasure.”—“In all my past life I have fixed on some desirable ends, at different distances, the attainment of which was to furnish me with happiness. But now, in seasons of unbelief, nothing seems to lie before me but one vast uninteresting wilderness, and heaven appearing but dimly at the end. Oh! how does this show the necessity of living by faith! What a shame that I cannot make the doing of God’s will my ever delightful object, and the prize of my high calling the mark after which I press!”
“I was under disquiet at the prospect of my future work, encompassed, as it appeared, with difficulties; but I trusted I was under the guidance of infinite wisdom, and on that I could rest. Mr. Johnson, who had returned from a mission, observed that the crosses to be endured were far greater than could be conceived; but ‘none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto me, so that I might finish my course with joy.’—Had some disheartening thoughts at night, at the prospect of being stripped of every earthly comfort; but who is it that maketh my comforts to be a source of enjoyment? Cannot the same hand make cold, and hunger, and nakedness, and peril, to be a train of ministering angels conducting me to glory?”—“O my soul, compare thyself with St. Paul, and with the example and precepts of the Lord Jesus Christ. Was it not his meat and drink to do the will of his heavenly Father?”
“What is the state of my own soul before God? I believe that it is right in principle: I desire no other portion but God: but I pass so many hours as if there were no God at all. I live far below the hope, comfort, and holiness of the Gospel: but be not slothful, O my soul;—look unto Jesus the author and finisher of thy faith. For whom was grace intended, if not for me? Are not the promises made to me? Is not my Maker in earnest, when he declareth that he willeth my sanctification, and hath laid help on one that is mighty? I will therefore have no confidence in the flesh, but will rejoice in the Lord, and the joy of the Lord shall be my strength. May I receive from above a pure, a humble, a benevolent, a heavenly mind!”
“Learnt by heart some of the first three chapters of Revelations. This is to me the most searching and alarming part of the Bible; yet now with humble hope I trusted, that the censures of my Lord did not belong to me: except that those words, Rev. ii. 3. ‘For my name’s sake thou hast laboured and hast not fainted,’ were far too high a testimony for me to think of appropriating to myself; nevertheless I besought the Lord, that whatever I had been, I might now be perfect and complete in all the will of God.”—“Men frequently admire me, and I am pleased; but I abhor the pleasure I feel; oh! did they but know that my root is rottenness!”—“Heard Professor Farish preach at Trinity Church, on Luke xii. 4, 5, and was deeply impressed with the reasonableness and necessity of the fear of God. Felt it to be a light matter to be judged of man’s judgment; why have I not awful apprehensions of the glorious Being at all times? The particular promise—‘him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out,’ dwelt a long time in my mind, and diffused an affectionate reverence of God.”—“I see a great work before me now, namely, the subduing and mortifying of my perverted will. What am I that I should dare to do my own will, even if I were not a sinner; but now how plain, how reasonable to have the love of Christ constraining me to be his faithful willing servant, cheerfully taking up the cross he shall appoint me.”—“Read some of Amos. The reading of the Prophets is to me one of the most delightful employments. One cannot but be charmed with the beauty of the imagery, while they never fail to inspire me with awful thoughts of God and of his hatred of sin. The reading of Baxter’s Saint’s Rest, determined me to live more in heavenly meditation.”—“Walked by moonlight, and found it a sweet relief to my mind to think of God and consider my ways before him. I was strongly impressed with the vanity of the world, and could not help wondering at the imperceptible operation of grace, which had enabled me to resign the expectation of happiness from it.”—“How frequently has my heart been refreshed, by the descriptions in the Scriptures of the future glory of the Church, and the happiness of man hereafter.”—“I felt the force of Baxter’s observation, that if an angel had appointed to meet me, I should be full of awe; how much more when I am about to meet God.”
“Ah! what a heart is mine! The indistinctness of my view of its desperate wickedness is terrible to me, that is, when I am capable of feeling any terror. But now my soul! rise from earth and hell,—shall Satan lead me captive at his will, when Christ ever liveth to make intercession for the vilest worm? O thou! whose I am by creation, preservation, redemption, no longer my own, but, his who lived and died and rose again, once more would I resign this body and soul, mean and worthless as they are, to the blessed disposal of thy holy will! May I have a heart to love God and his people, the flesh being crucified! May grace abound, where sin has abounded much! May I cheerfully and joyfully resign my ease and life in the service of Jesus, to whom I owe so much! May it be sweet to me to proclaim to sinners like myself, the blessed efficacy of my Saviour’s blood! May he make me faithful unto death! The greatest enemy I dread is the pride of my own heart. Through pride reigning, I should forget to know a broken spirit: then would come on unbelief, weakness, apostacy.”
“Let then,” he wrote to a friend, “no obstacle intervene, to prevent the increase of my self-knowledge, in which I am lamentably deficient. Let us both bend our minds to the discipline necessary to obtain it, and communicate our discoveries for our mutual benefit. How strongly is the importance of self-knowledge, and the difficulty of obtaining it, marked by these words; ‘Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.’ And to those who cannot keep their hearts for want of knowing any thing about them, very compassionate are the words of our Lord; ‘Because thou knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see.’ You put me in mind, in your last letter, of former days. What fruit had we then in those things, whereof we are now ashamed? But those days have passed away for ever. And when glory shall open upon our view, neither sorrow nor sin, shall again interrupt our joys for ever. I will echo your words, and say, ‘What manner of love is this, that we should be called the sons of God!’ We may look upon one another, and remember our former selves, and say, ‘What hath God wrought!’ ‘Not by works of righteousness which thou hast done, but according to his mercy he saved thee.’ Now then, my dear brother, let all the rest of our life be cheerfully devoted to God. We are no longer our own, but are bought with a price—with what a price! Let us adore him also, that we are called in our youth; that while our hearts are susceptible of warm emotions, they are taught the glow of Divine affections. Let us glorify him on the earth, if many years are assigned us, and finish the work which he hath given us to do. And may we come to our graves in a full age, as a shock of corn cometh in his season.”