runs here and there, to try various winds of doctrine. Judging himself capable of discerning good and evil, he will dispute doctrinal points with any old sorcerer, like John's young disciples, who began to dispute with the Jews about purifying, John iii. 25. He can play on the hole of the asp, and put his hand upon the cockatrice den, or even take a dog by the ears, Prov. xxvi. 17. He thinks his joys are sufficient to carry him through. However, in order to keep him in the company of wise men, the Lord sometimes permits the harlot, or false church, to cast such an one down wounded, until he finds himself laid by the heels, to teach him to run more carefully when he has the use of his limbs. Then he complains, "Thou puttest my feet in the stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet," Job xiii. 27. Sometimes he discovers much rebellion and stubbornness under the rod, and would sooner run away from God than humble himself under his mighty hand. He will flee from the rod, rather than confess and supplicate; and be froward, rather than submissive: "I smote him, I hid me, and was wroth; and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart," Isa. lvii. 17. It is common with some children, when threatened or when whipt, to take to their heels; for which defiance this message is often sent after them; I shall have you at night, I will give it you when you come to bed. We all know there is a night coming, in which no man canwork, John ix. 4. If we wait, the grave is our house; yet we should not like to make our bed in the darkness. As none would like to be put to bed in the dark, nor under the rod, let Little Faith kiss the rod, know who hath appointed it, and fly to the hand that holds it; lest, at bed time, he cry out, as other have done, "O spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence, and be no more!" Psalm xxxix. 13. The rod is useful; iniquity is bound in the heart of a child, and it is the rod of correction that shall drive it out. God does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of his love without cause: he visits sins with the rod, and we procure the stripes to ourselves. The fatherly severity of God is intended to humble our pride, embitter sin, and keep us in reverential awe and filial fear of him. A hiding God, a spiritual fast, and the chastening rod, are terrible things to the Lord's little ones: sleeping or waking, they can find no rest, till matters are made up, and peace be restored. Some children, when they have had a whipping over-night, will often dream about it; and cry out in their sleep, as if they really felt the strokes; and this is sometimes the case with Little Faith: "When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions; so that my soul chuseth strangling, and death rather than my life.” If he was terrified with dreams it is plain he dreamt of the rod. Had his dreams been heavenly, like those of Jeremiah, they would have left the same sweetness upon his soul: "upon this I awaked, and beheld, and my sleep was sweet unto me." Nei To be short: the strongest man in faith was once a babe in grace. Those that are weak are to be received, but not to doubtful disputations. Faith and her evidences, unbelief and her doubts, do inhabit a believer at one and the same time. There is little faith, growing faith, and the fullest assurance of faith, mentioned in scripture. ther the apostles, prophets, nor even God our Saviour himself, ever refused to suckle the babe, lead and feed the child, strengthen the weak, or encourage the ewe great with young. No bible pastor ever found the whole family of God in the full assurance of faith; much less did they confine their ministry to those only who are called fathers in Christ. Lambs stand in more need of the shepherd's aid than grown sheep or old rams; and children are more craving after food than aged fathers, who can feed themselves. If you choose to reply to this, I will, God willing, urge a second plea, and show thee, that I have yet to speak in behalf of Little Faith. Meanwhile I would caution thee, as David did Joab, to deal gently with the young man, even Little Faith. I do believe that you are injuring the weaklings of the flock. I have therefore printed this little plea, that Little Faith may have something to defend himself against your straitened ministry, in which I firmly believe you err, and by which you do offend many of the little ones that believe in Jesus, and make the hearts of those sad whom the Lord would not have made sad: and this you will find when you come to be soundly tried. "To the weak, says Paul, became I as weak, that I might gain the weak. I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." Go we, and do likewise. We are to separate the vile from the precious, and the chaff from the wheat, as the Lord discovers them; to purge out the old leaven, to draw proper lines, to show the sincere from the hypocritical, and to purge ourselves from disorderly and false professors. But the command to Simon is applicable to every minister of Christ: Lovest thou me? Feed my lambs; feed my sheep. The weaklings of the flock are to be fed as well as the sheep. The passage you refer to, "He that doubteth is damned if he eat," is perverted. The damnation of hell is not intended by that text: for although truth hath declared, that "meat commendeth us not to God, for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse," 1. Cor. viii. 8; "for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink;" yet God has not fixed the sentence of damnation upon meat, nor upon him that eats it, any more than he has promised heaven to them that fast in lent, or live upon fish and eggs. He that commandeth abstinence from meat under the gospel, contradicts the Saviour, who declares, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man." Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, are doctrines of devils, and are enforced by those only who give heed to se ducing spirits, 1 Tim. iv. 1-3. "I know," says Paul," and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean." Such an one goes not by the word of God; he is awed, governed, and kept in bondage, by a blind, misled, or uninformed conscience; having not light to see his liberty. God damns no man for eating meat: the sentence in the text is from the man himself: "Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth," but man is not lord of life and death; the sentence of eternal damnation is not lodged in his power; that prerogative belongs to the Judge of quick and dead, and none else. Nor is the sentence of God intended by the word damnation, but the sentence of a man's own conscience, which follows upon his commission of that which he believes to be sin: "And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith; for whatsoever is not of faith, is sin;" Rom. xiv. 23. Dear Sir, adieu. While I subscribe myself, Yours to command, In the gospel of Christ, Winchester-Row, END OF THE NINTH VOLUME W. H. |