JOY AND PEACE IN BELIEVING; OR, HINTS FOR OBTAINING THIS BLESSING. LONDON: JAMES NISBET AND CO. BERNERS STREET. MDCCCXXXVII. 1268.f.9 4 JOY AND PEACE. MY DEAR FRIEND, You still write in depression of spirit. Alas, how I wish that I could comfort you! Most tenderly and deeply do I feel for you, and it is my constant prayer that your mourning sighs may soon be exchanged for songs of praise. It is however, delightful to reflect that you have a friend who can both sympathize with you, and richly comfort you, whose blessed office it is, to "bind up the broken hearted," "to comfort all that mourn," and to give "the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." What, then, is the only effectual way of obtaining comfort? It is, be assured, to acquire by the teaching of God's Holy Spirit, an ever-increasing, experimental B knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. For what does St. Peter say? "Grace and peace be multiplied to you, through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord." Nay I am almost certain, that all our sorrow, our doubts, and fears, arise from defective, cloudy views of our Lord Jesus Christ. Could we see him as he is, so able, so willing to save to the uttermost, so full of love to the most wretched, the most unworthy,—so longsuffering to the most provoking,-every other feeling would be swallowed up in admiration of his goodness, and we should be constrained to trust in him, to love him, and devotedly to obey him. It appears to me, that the whole of religion consists in obtaining a true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. John xvii. 3. A true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ would make sin appear unutterably odious, and most loathsome; consequently it would effectually humble the sinner; |