LETTER XXVI.
Dear Charles,—I acknowledge a forgotten promise.
Your story is not applicable to myself. I think special
providences often bring—Disappointment. Your hero who
always celebrated “the goodness of Providence,” when success
followed his labors; but who was puzzled at “the mysteries
of Providence,” when disappointment occurred, was
only half-learned.
The plain scriptural teaching is, that “all things work
together for good” to Christ's people; that chastisement is a
good, a needful discipline contracted for and bought, as a
spiritual gift for his brethren; and that the Heavenly Father
is solemnly bound by his own covenant to bestow that very
gift when needed.
That there are mysteries, in the popular sense of the
term, in divine providence, no one with common sense
denies. Mystery, however, is as great when we receive
“good at the hand of the Lord,” as when we “receive evil.”
He is a weak and mistaken man who never discovers that
we need very often the evil, as well as the good. Still
weaker and more mistaken he that sees not that a failure
on the part of God to bestow evil at the proper time upon
his children, would be a very great and alarming mystery.
It would create a suspicion, either that the Holy One had
forgotten his covenant, or that we were “bastards and not
sons.”
I am aware that to the cold and lukewarm, and especially
to the skeptic and infidel, and to all the worldly-wise, this is
a wholly distasteful and unpalatable doctrine; and that it
makes all such actually loathe the spiritual meaning of the
Bible. Ought we not, Charles, distrust our vital Christianity
if we have not from the inmost soul abandoned ourselves,
unreservedly, entirely, to the revealed plan of gaining
heaven? And when this is done, do not good men begin
clearly to discern and cordially to love Providence bestowing
affliction as well as prosperity? Blessed they that
hope in the mercy and trust in the faithfulness of God!
Oh! my dear friend! what is heaven? perfect love, perfect
purity, perfect goodness, perfect confidence—perfection
itself, complete, boundless, endless! But where is the
Christian, even freely justified, and therefore entitled to
sanctification, who feels within himself a preparation sufficient
to join that company in the New Jerusalem?
What sanctification yet is needed! and how devoutly is
offered the mental prayer, and continually, “cleanse thou
me!” A true Christian comes at last to dread sin more
than chastisement. And if his path to that Home must of
necessity wind away down into the obscurity of the humble
vale, or pass through dark and tangled forests, amidst dangers
appalling, and difficulties seemingly invincible; or
through a “furnace heated seven times more than was
wont;”—that man says, with pale lips, and trembling knees,
and quaking heart, and yet with some heaven-bestowed
firmness, “Father! Father! if it be not possible otherwise,
thy will be done!—lead on, thou kind and merciful one! in
thy strength I follow!”
This is a hard saying; but they to whom power is given
do try honestly to receive and love it: and the more they
try, the more power is given; and, at length, they distinctly
see, in a light broad and intense as a noontide sun, a special
and kind Providence in bestowing evil.
But, Charles, looking no farther than the present life, and
narrowing our view to the contemplation of mere earthly
good, even yet in a thousand instances can it be plainly
seen, that
evil leads to
good. Some excellent men have
failed, indeed, to note this result in their individual cases:
while others have noted it for them, and have seen them
emerging from darkness into light; passing from weakness
to strength, from sorrow to joy, from perplexity to certainty;
in a word, from all affliction to all prosperity. And
good men, who before such discipline as belongs to God's
friends, were comparatively worldly, selfish, conceited, and
“lifted up with pride,” and ready “to fall into the condemnation
of the devil,” have so altered, that all the world could
see these men had been in the school of wisdom whilst they
were in the suffering of sorrow.
Many religious persons, however, will tell you that their
worldly honor and prosperity is owing to the efficacy of
disappointments: and such, with adoring wonder, do often
in their hearts say, “Oh! the mystery of Providence!”
And this, Charles, not in the fretful and rather suspicious
spirit of your hero, but from the very depth of souls pervaded
with love, gratitude, and veneration.
* * * * And I have had, in truth, my “disappointments.”
Yes, Charles, sentiments written in this
sheet are not mere words or theory. Whatever may be
thought or said, the sentiments are from experience. We
are ready to be ranked with “the saints,” even if by such
avowal we become the “sport of the drunkard.” Let
“malicious revilers and hypocritical mockers at feasts”
scorn us; but may the Infinite Mercy deliver us from the
holy and indignant scorn of the spirits of the just made perfect
in that day! Oh! that we may “stand in the congregation
of the righteous,” both here and hereafter, even if
hell now smile at such enthusiasm, and, in the invisible
state, rage at the loss of former dupes and friends.
