To Arcana V. (1763)
Dear Madam,
Your acceptable favour of the 20th of April, demanded my grateful acknowledgement long before this, but I have been prevented hitherto by illness, &c. But now I come to you in all my self emptiness, and all dependence upon the fulness of Him, that filleth all in all, postponing other letters to send a line directly: Oh that God may be in it to your felicity! And as on seeking the Lord for encouragement to, and assistance in writing, he was pleased to say, O my Dove that art in the clefts of the rock in the secret places of the stairs; let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. And, The Lord shall satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones, and thou shalt be as a watered garden. This grace descends unto you likewise, as a believer in Jesus. He calls you, in the exercise of faith, and every grace, to let him hear your voice in prayer and praise; and says of you most graciously, Sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. Your believing and rejoicing, your supplication and thanksgiving, yea, even your mourning voice, makes sweet musick in your infinite lover’s ears! And your countenance, as you appear before God is his Righteousness, and in your Gospel-profession by his grace, is exceeding pleasant unto him, who liv’d, who dy’d, who lives for ever for you; to make you a perfect beauty in himself mystically, through his comeliness put upon you; and by and through him, a beautiful Bride personally; initially here, and completely hereafter! And though you are now in a barren wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is, the Lord will satisfy your soul in drought. Put him for a well while passing through Baca’s vale, and the rain shall fill the pools. Oh was all your stock of grace in yourself, how miserable would you soon be! You would soon sin it away, and die for thirst instantly and inevitably! But it hath pleased the Father, that in him (his incarnate Son, who is an infinite, unchangeable person) all fulness should dwell. In him, as your head of communication, all fulness, in an immense completion, dwells for you to an eternal duration: And hence your soul shall be as a watered garden: yea, as a spring of water, whose waters fail not: because the water of life, the Spirit of Grace, which your communicative head, Jesus, hath given from his fulness, to take up in you his eternal residence, will still remain in you, as a well, an overflowing, unwastable well of living water, that shall spring up into everlasting life. You may by your sins grieve the Comforter, and cause him for a while in displeasure to suspend his comforting influences; but glory to Jehovah’s infinite, immutable grace! You shall never sin away the Holy Ghost, or drive him from his residence in your heart, as the Comforter in office. No; the Spirit of Grace, as the spirit of wisdom and revelation, of supplication, sanctification, and consolation, is given, to abide with you for ever: and thence, in your greatest distress, comforts shall spring afresh. The overflowings of this springing, this never failing well, that’l make your soul like a watered garden, flourishing and delightful.
But to your letter; Madam, I rejoice that any thing in my last, and in my poor books, to you was made of any use: to the Lord be all the praise! I am likewise a partaker of your bliss, in that the Lord hath said to you, The Father himself loveth you. [226] And has the love of God, of the Father himself, been thus sealed upon your heart, by his word and spirit; from henceforth, when tempted, yield not to doubt; for the Spirit is the witness, because the Spirit is Truth. Truth in his nature and essence, that God which cannot lie; and Truth in this his witness: your soul may rest complacently in his eternal veracity. And it is a due which you owe to the Spirit of Truth, that you believe the word of his mouth which was then applied to your heart. You cannot doubt it, for one moment, without doing great dishonour to the Holy Spirit, and making him a liar; nor without grieving the Comforter, and wounding and weakening your own soul exceedingly, and giving to the Father of Lies an hellish pleasure, who of all the brethren is the grand accuser. Stand in awe, therefore, and sin not by unbelief, by hearkening to his suggestions, and to the false voice of that his captain. For the love of God to you, is, and will be, invariably the same, through all time, and to an endless eternity: the love of his heart, I mean, however it may vary as to manifestation. It was in his heart towards your from everlasting; it has been and shall be displayed to your sweet sensation in time, and though clouds at seasons may intercept its beams, and you go mourning, all dark and cold without the sun, yet his love in its eternal round, runs on, and like the sun in the firmament, keeps its steady course, for your salvation-bliss, whether it casts or vails its rays, in his wisdom’s infinity, as is most for his glory, and your felicity: and shortly it will draw you up into its own bright body, to live for ever in a perfection of holiness, joy and praise, to a vast eternity!
You say, dear Madam, “I believe there are numbers now in the depths of misery, that never deserved to suffer those torments so much as I.” I readily grant this; for our sins, that believe in Jesus, who have been blessed with an interest in God’s distinguishing grace, and with its bright displays; all our heart and life-backslidings, from the God of our salvation, are attended with much greater aggravations, than were the sins of those who are righteously punished wth eternal damnation. And yet, such is Jehovah’s sovereign, rich, immense, and endless Grace, towards us, the happy objects of it, through our wounded, pierced Jesus, that we have the forgiveness of sins, and a right thro’ him unto everlasting slavation. Be astonished, O Heavens, at this! Let this open the sluices of evangelical repentance: Let this exalt our praises: let this most strongly engage us unto all holy obedience: for how great are our obligations! For we cannot sin at a cheap rate. Other mens sins, wound God’s name: ours, pierce his heart! Theirs, are against his tender mercies, in the common bounties of providence; ours, against the exceeding riches of his all surpassing, his distinguishing, his eternal Grace! Holy Angels, which desire to look with adoration and praise, into the wonders of sovereign Grace, wrought for us by Christ, must needs blush with an holy shame, cover their faces, and hang their wings at our disobedience: At ours, for whom the incarnate God, in the immensity of his love, obey’d and dyd, to set such Hell-deserving wretches all-triumphant in glory, at his great Father’s side! What an holy confusion then should cover us, while believing we rejoice with ineffable bliss, and with the highest adoration, shout Salvation unto God and the Lamb, for all the marvellous wonders of distinguishing Grace! [227]
I rejoice in your bliss by the Holy Ghost’s application of those sweet invitations, Ho every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. You see by these, that the fountain of the water of life stands wide open for thirsty, needy souls, at all times; and these will suit you in a time of darkness, as to interest. Have you a will to these living waters; it is you that are called, you in particular, as really as if there was never another with you, thirsty, called to take your fill. And what can you heart object, from the most extensive views of your poverty, misery, necessity, since you are invited to take freely, without money and without price, though you have not a penny to purchase. The gift of the water of life, is of infinite Grace! Of Grace that delights to display its immense glories, and the exceeding riches of its infinite freeness, in your greatest unworthiness, and in the supply of your greatest necessities. Oh, freely, freely! Will you stand at a distance famishing for thirst, while the fountain of the water of life is brought so nigh! View it in its infinite exuberance, its unwastable fulness, its all-0verflowing freeness; and stretch out the hand of faith, and take for yourself all the Grace you want. Drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved of the Lord greatly! You can never drink the fountain, the ocean, of the water of life dry, nor sink it a hair’s breadth, by drinking fully and freely of grace and glory, through time and to eternity!
And though you add, “Whilst I would acquire knowledge and wisdom, and mount upwards on the wings of contemplation, far above this dusty globe I tread on, and rise to great discoveries; all the powers of my soul are vailed in darkness, and absord’d by ignorance:” – Consider, that darkness and ignorance which you complain of, are partial, and not total. They are no other than those which remain in your brethren, in God’s regenerate children. If you had not been new-born, your soul would not stretch out its wings of ardent desire, after the knowledge of God in Christ, as your supreme, all-transcendent, and eternal bliss. No natural man, for God in Christ, as the sum of his desired bliss, hath any wish. This is peculiar to spiritual men, who with a begun enjoyment of the heavenly inheritance, at least with a supernatual revelation of its super-excellent glory, unto an heart-attraction after that supreme felicity, have been spiritually bless’d. And though in you, and in all those in their highest flights, after the knowledge of God in Christ, there still remains much darkness and ignorance; yet this may comfort us, in Christ, the Head of the Church, there ever remains for us, all fulness: and he that hath dissipated and slain partially, our natural darkness and enmity, will make us light and love in the Lord increasingly, and will shortly fill us perfectly with light, love, life, and glory. He it is that filleth all in all. He now filleth all the members of his mystical body, in their every power and faculty, with light, love and life, in manner and measure as pleaseth him, to fit them for their various enjoyments and employments in the present time: but when blest eternity comes on, we shall be filled by him, with a perfection of love, in our will and affections: His light will swallow up all our darkness; his love all our enmity; and his life all our death: and keep us he will, brimful of light, life, joy and glory, to an [228] immeasurable space, to the endless praise of his glorious Grace! Only let us be diligent, mean time, in the performance of duty; by prayer, hearing, reading and meditation: and the knowledge of him, and of the mysteries of his kingdom, unto us shall be freely and increasingly given. For if thus we follow on to know the Lord, his promise is, we shall know him; and especially let us pray for the efficacious teachings of the Holy Spirit: God will give his Spirit unto them that ask him; and he can do more for us, in giving us the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ, in a moment’s space, than we, without his influence, can do for ourselves, by our utmost endeavours for an age! Let us hoist up our sails, to be filled with the heavenly wind; and Jacob’s seed, shall not seek unto Jacob’s God in vain.
And though, dear Madam, we can comprehend but little at present, of the immense glories of Jehovah, in his infinite perfections, and boundless essence! Let us esteem it a rich donation of glorious Grace, that we are blest with the knowledge of him as the God of love, unto us in Christ; unto heart and life changing influence. This is life eternal, inchaoate, and shall rise to life eternal, complete. And have you the pleasure at times, to feel “rekindled desires after the heavenly mansion, and long for a telescope to reach Jehovah’s throne!” This is your begun-preparation, for immediate, endless vision. Are you ready to say, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory! You shall shortly see as you are seen, without the least vail of darkness between; and to your full and eternal felicity behold the God of Glory.
But, mean time, I in no wise think it strange, that the accounts given me, were designed by you, as an introduction to a most gloomy scene; while you mournfully complain, “I sometimes feel strong symptoms in my mind, can lay my hand upon this faithless heart, and almost feel an Atheist there too?” For while faith and unbelief both reside in the same complex-heart, or in all the powers of your soul, which are in part renewed, and in part unrenewed; the belief of a God, and a disbelief of his great Being, at least in atheistical thoughts, those sprouts from the horrid root, and some degree of practical Atheism, will abide. You must not expect to be wholly freed from these, till faith is made perfect in sight, till sin is destroyed quite, and you see him as he is. And then you shall no more feel the least unbelieving motion. When once you cast your eye upon Jehovah’s infinite glory, in his immediate presence; that sight will fix you to him, and rapture you in him, to your ineffable felicity unto endless ages. And whilst your faith, in the light of the word and spirit, now beholds the glory of God in the face of Christ, it is always attended with a soul-transforming influence, unto a heart-change into the same image. And as such it specifically differs from the faith of Devils, and that of all unbelievers. They believe his essence, as the God of vengeance, and tremble for fear of his inflexible justice: But you believe his essence, as the God of all grace, and love and praise him, as the sum of your present and eternal bliss. They flee from his awful presence, while they believe his existence: But you draw nigh with a child-like liberty and run into your Father’s embraces. And though the glorious truths of the Gospel which you always believe in your judgment, “while you revolve them in your mind, have at times but little or no efficacy on your heart:” These are seasons [229] of great suspension of the influence of the spirit. And as what you then see and feel of your own wretchedness, is, and ought to be matter of your humiliation at the throne of Grace; so from this likewise, you may see your utter inability to affect your heart duly with those saving truths, which you believe in your judgment firmly; and thence pray and praise for the holy Spirit’s energy, when you want it, or are favoured with it, and prize the Comforter more highly; for he leaves you at times, as to his sensible influence, on purpose that you might see more of your own weakness, and implore his eficacious grace, to his praise and your bliss. And likewise, that you might believe it is his work when he affects your heart. – Great grace be with you.
I am, with tender respect,
Dear Madam,
Your most humble Servant,
A. D.
Text: Divine and Moral, Miscellanies, in Prose and Verse. Containing many Valuable Originals, Communicated by various Correspondents, and other Pieces extracted from different Authors, and antient Manuscripts. The Whole being such a Collection of Miscellaneous Thoughts, as will tend not only to please, but enlighten and profit the Reader, Vol. 3 (London: Printed for J. Fuller, in Newgate-Street, London; and T. Luckman, in Coventry. 1763), pp. 225-29.