AN OUTCAST

BROTHER BEEBE:—I have often been struck, at the professed Ministers of this our day who are crying up human effort and human means for advancing the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; believing that if they had been taught the first lesson in Grace, which is the shutting up of ones mouth, and had known what it is to be shut up in prison, and had known experimentally what a real spirit of bondage was; they would rather sit in eternal silence than thus to prate like a parrot, and cut out work enough for others, but perform no part of it themselves, yet by the bye, look at the activity and fleshly sincerity of such characters;—Hark! how they can mimick the child of God, & with what vehemence they preach their Gospel.

Behold! how they ornament society with their superior religion; but it is a certain fact, men may write volumes on divinity, and still be total strangers to the import of these blessed words, “Blessed are the people that know the joyful sound” there are thousands of what is passing for gospel sermons which are preached by men who know nothing savingly, and who prove after all to be but crooked sticks devoted to distruction; how many have we seen and heard, whose religious subjects have worked mechanically as well as politically upon the minds, when the heart has never felt the power of God’s first saving touch; hence how many do we hear preach up holiness of life, progressive sanctification, and the Sinai Law as an invariable rule: on hearing this we reasonably conclude that they above all others have not failed to make their calling and election sure; but Alas! how reverse to this, when you visit them on their sick bed, they know nothing of that peace from God that passeth all understanding, nor can they tell in whom they have believed, nor of having past from death into life, or having the witness within themselves; in short they cannot come into the first class, or say whose I am, or whom I serve; such characters bring an evil report upon the most cheerful and benign system that God ever revealed to man, they know nothing of that abundant rejoicing that a believer has in Christ Jesus; they appear to be in the service of a bad master, whose service is complete drudgery, and when they die, all is but a peradventure. Brother Beebe, Now for a few of my best wishes:—I hope and pray that the God of all grace, will lead you into the different departments of his blessed truth, and enable you to war a good warfare; and that you may be enabled from an experimental acquaintance with the necessities of the poor and needy, so to speak and write as to meet their case, circumstances, trials and tribulations; for they above all people stand in need of comfort and support.

If the theological account as given in the Old and New Testaments, of the Church of Christ, unconnected with a divine life implanted in the soul, would satisfy the cravings of the hungry and thirsty heaven-born, and spiritual soul, we have a smattering thereof; but the historian’s gift falls infinitely short of the unction of the Divine Spirit, however polished by scholastic trimmings and external trappings of the Gamaliels of this wise and enlightened age.

Although I live in a place which contains a population of more than 6000 inhabitants and more than a dozen of what are called churches; yet he whose entire dependence is fixed upon the Man Christ Jesus, as his Prophet, Priest, and King, as made unto him Wisdom, Righteousness Sanctification and complete Redemption, is denounced as inert, do-nothing, Antinomian and a dangerous fellow, irrecoverably lost, and past all hopes.

Yours in the bonds of the Gospel.
AN OUT-CAST.
March, 24th, 1834.