1.A 08. LETTER VIII

LETTER VIII The views expressed in the former letter sustained by an appeal to Job His great afflictions Justified in the midst of them all Yet not sanctified His confession This the language of every believing heart A more notable confession of Job His deliverance and full sanctification All in conformity to Wesley’s poetry Proved by quotations from his hymns. MY DEAR M : Believing that your heart is still beating with pulsations of love to God and man, and that you are ardently desirous to know the whole truth as it is in Jesus, I proceed to sustain the views I expressed in my former letter, by an appeal to that Book to which all our theories, whether they relate to doctrine, experience, or practice, must be brought for their final decision. The first that I shall refer to is the Book of Job, being probably the oldest inspired record we have, and containing an account of one of the most extraordinary instances of Divine Providence and grace, watching over the affairs of a favoured servant of God, in the midst of trials of the severest character, and which eventuated in his complete vindication from the accusations of his enemies, and his triumphant victory over all his foes. That Job was a righteous man from the beginning of his history, as recorded in the Book, is evident from the testimony of God himself, who says of him in chapter i, 1, that he " was perfect and upright, and one that feared God and eschewed evil." And during all the afflictions of body and mind through which he passed, the accusations of his mistaken friends, the calamities which fell upon his household, his property, his own person, and the many temptations which must have pressed upon him, to induce him to abjure his allegiance to his God in the midst of all these indescribable afflictions he said, " Till I die I will not re move my integrity from me." "Also now, behold, my witness is in heaven, and my record is on high." Job, therefore, must, even at this time, have enjoyed a " witness " of his acceptance before God, for his record was on high, his name was recorded in the Book of Life, as one of God’s favoured servants; in other words, he must have been justified in the sight of God, and have had so much of grace as to enable him to hold fast his integrity, and so to deport himself in the midst of all his trials, that it was said of him that he " sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." And yet it does not appear that, during this severe conflict, he enjoyed the sanctifying influences of God’s Spirit. Notwithstanding all these evidences of his uprightness, his steadfast confidence in God, his irreproachable life and conversation, yet, when God challenges him to answer for himself, in view of the awfully sub lime exhibition of the majestic holiness of his character, Job confesses his native vileness in the following memorable words, chapter xl, 3, 4, 5 : " Then Job answered the Lord, and said, Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer; yea, twice; but I will proceed no further."

Oh what a humiliating confession was this!

After all his suffering, which was permitted to come upon him for the trial of his faith and patience; after all the manifestations of God’s goodness in sustaining him amidst the fiery trial; after all the testimonies, even from God himself, in favour of the righteousness of his life; no sooner does the glory of God’s majesty burst upon him in its I will not say in all its effulgence, for I doubt whether any mortal man could bear up under such a full blaze of God’s "dazzling glory bright" effulgence, than in this light he sees his many imperfections and his native impurity so vividly, and he feels the presence so consciously, that he cries out, in the language of deep self-abasement, " Behold, I am VILE!"

O! my dear M., is not this the language of every believing heart that has come to a thorough knowledge of itself of its native vileness? Was it not your language after the Lord shone into your soul, and thereby showed you all the latent evils that lay lurking undiscovered until that moment when God un locked the inner chamber of your heart, and showed you all, at least as much as you could bear to see, the " imagery " that long had enshrined itself there? Then indeed you cried out, in the language of the poet,

O that my LOAD OF SIN were gone!
O that I could at last submit,
At Jesus feet to lay it down,
To lay my soul at Jesus feet!" But we have a more notable confession from the lips of Job in chapter xlii, 5, 6, where he says, " I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee! Where fore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and This confession was extorted from Job after God had proclaimed himself more fully than He had done before his former confession. The manner in which God is represented as un folding the*glories of His august character, His awful majesty, is exhibited so illustriously, and his holiness shines out so conspicuously upon the mind of Job, that it sinks him into the dust, and ^ by comparing his own character with God s, the contrast was so striking that he said, ABHOR MYSELF, and repent in dust and ashes." Though, before this, he had known God, had acknowledged Him, had confided in Him as his reconciled Father, yet the brighter manifestations of his perfections now made to him, gave that clearer view of His immaculate purity, of the tremendous nature of His power, the displays of His consummate wisdom, of His intimate knowledge of all the affairs of men; and all this was exhibited to his astonished soul so vividly, that he felt himself surrounded, pervaded, and his inmost soul so sensibly touched with the presence of the immense Deity, that his former knowledge seemed re mote and imperfect in comparison to his present clearer and more intimate view. Hence he said, I have before only heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. What was the effect of that sight? I abhor myself!

O! the contrast between the holiness of God and the unholiness of unsanctified man, when the light of God shines upon his soul! In this " light we see light," and this light, shining into the otherwise dark chambers of the heart, discloses all the remains of unholiness, and creates an inextinguishable thirst after that righteousness which alone can satiate its longings.

How conformable to this view of himself, as expressed by Job, is that of our evangelical poet, whose poetical lines are always more especially when depicting, in his own glowing language, the blessings of perfect love full of fire! Hear him in the following energetic words :

Wilt thou suffer me to go
Lamenting all my days?
Shall I never, never know
Thy SANCTIFYING grace?

Wilt thou not thy LIGHT afford?
The DARKNESS from my soul remove!
Help me, Saviour; speak the word,
And perfect me in love."

I have caused the words to which I wish you, my dear M., to pay particular attention, to be printed in capitals, that you may fully perceive the contrast between the light and the darkness, and see how emphatically the poet makes the one expel the other, and how exactly conformable were his views and his feelings upon this subject to those of Job, and indeed to all the holy men of God in every age of the Church. That Job was delivered from the distressed vileness under which he groaned, and which he so feelingly confessed, is most evident from what God said of him in the subsequent part of chapter xlii, from verse 7 to 17. He there rebukes his mistaken friends, orders them to bring a suitable sacrifice to Job, and that his now sanctified servant, whom he had accepted, should pray for them, and "so the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning." He was now not only brought through the fiery trial, which God had doubtless permitted to come upon him for the testing of his fidelity, but he came off more than a conqueror; his heart was thoroughly purified - : *- -- 1 vileness; and so near was the access he had to God in prayer, that He declared he would hear him in behalf of his friends, who had so greatly erred in their estimate of Job’s character. The whole of this process, this confession of vileness, and this deliverance from it, is ex pressed in the following stanza, from the pen of a poet that may be justly called the " prince of poets," not only because he possessed the spirit of poetry in its highest excellence, but more especially because, as a Christian poet, he entered deeply into the human heart, as well as into the ocean of Divine truth, of Divine power and love, and poured forth, in strains of poetic melody and evangelical sentiment, all the feelings of a soul struggling under a consciousness of inbred sin, until it finally emerges into all the fulness of redeeming love. I love therefore to read him. I love to hear his hymns sung. And I love to quote him for your edification : not indeed because I think you a stranger to the exquisitely fine touches of his lyric pen, but merely to remind you of your indebtedness to CHARLES WESLEY for the finest specimens of true poetical excellence, and for the sweetest, the most deep, experimental, and practical examples of evangelical songs. The following is the verse to which I allude, and I have emphasized the words to which I wish more especially to call your attention, as expressing the sentiments I have endeavoured to inculcate :

VILEST of the sinful race,
Lo! I answer to thy call :
MEANEST vessel of thy grace,
Grace divinely free for all;
Lo! I come to do THY WILL,
ALL thy counsel to fulfil."

After having pondered well and attentively upon these words, every one of which expresses a deep thought, a Divine Scriptural truth, you may turn to the following, which you may read and sing, and read and sing again, and then read and sing a third time, until you feel their deep import pervading your whole soul :

"Eager for thee I ask and pant,
So strong the principle divine
CARRIES me out with SWEET constraint,
Till ALL my hallow d soul it thine :
Plunged in the Godhead’s deepest sea,
And lost in thy immensity!"

I have not emphasized any word in the two last lines, because no emphasis can make them more emphatic than they really are, nor add anything to the immeasurable depth of their meaning. May you, my dear M., be Plunged in the Godhead’s deepest sea.
And lost in its immensity. what must the soul of the poet have felt when he penned these words! Surely his mind must have been expanded with a believing view of the unfathomable depth, and the im measurable length, and breadth, and height of the ocean of God’s love, while his soul panted to plunge into it, and be lost in its IMMENSITY!

I have purposely concluded this letter with these views of the subject, to prevent any one who may read what I write from desponding, from a consciousness of his heart-felt impurity. To such bruised, trembling souls, I would present, for their encouragement, the following lines :

Redemption in his blood
He calls you to receive :
Look unto me, your pardoning God;
BELIEVE, he cries, BELIEVE."