SIGNS OF THE TIMES. DEVOTED TO THE OLD SCHOOL BAPTIST CAUSE. “THE SWORD OF THE LORD AND OF GIDEON.” VOL. IX. NEW VERNON, ORANGE CO., N. Y., FEBRUARY 15, 1841. NO. 4.

 

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

DEVOTED TO THE OLD SCHOOL BAPTIST CAUSE.

“THE SWORD OF THE LORD AND OF GIDEON.”

VOL. IX. NEW VERNON, ORANGE CO., N. Y., FEBRUARY 15, 1841. NO. 4.

THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES, devoted to the cause of God and Truth, is published on or about the 1st and 15th of each month.

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To whom all communications must be addressed.

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FOR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

The Plains, Fauqr. Co., Va., Jan. 25, 1841.

My heart feels that it desires a sweet communion with my brother, and I will gratify it so far as to sit down and write whatever it may dictate. Often does it fly to you with a desire of conveying health and joy, peace and happiness—spiritual and temporal, though the body be far away; but what it would bear to you it cannot administer to itself.

It seems I am not to enjoy any other happiness on earth than through the hope I have in Jesus my Righteousness;—and when that hope is bright, when I can feel that my Redeemer is near, and the Spirit of my God testifying with my spirit that I am a child of his love, an heir of his grace: then as on eagles’ wings I mount up and am lost in joy unspeakable and full of glory. But these moments are so few, so far between, and my harp so often upon the willows that I go bowed down like the bulrush, mourning the unworthiness of self, that occasions or seems to occasion my Lord’s frown on me. I seek him, but I find him not; (sometimes on my bed, sometimes in the streets and broad ways) but I cannot find Him whom my soul loveth! O, thou fairest of ten thousand, where art thou? Surely hid in the clefts of the rocks, or feeding among the lilies! My soul pants after him as the thirsty hart after the cool brook; and should I find him, he is altogether lovely, and I fear to stir lest I awake my love before he please!

Perhaps you would ask me what testimony I have that he is my beloved. I will tell you, as well as I can describe, the reason of my hope, thereby furnishing you evidence from which to judge whether I ought to claim a relationship with the household of faith or not; and, although you may encourage me to hope on still, my own heart presents itself so often against me, I am almost constrained to believe I have no hope, and to call for rocks and mountains to fall on and hide me, if possible, from the presence of the Just and True. Just then, perhaps, my soul looks up in darkness and sees the star of Bethlehem: I am led to my Redeemer and am comforted by his holy doctrine. He seems beauteous as ever, and still able to save all that come to God by and through him, no man coming to him unless the Father draw him, and when God works who can hinder? I return to the evidence. I grew up and boasted of what I supposed good works. I was taught to be truthful, to be honest, to be kind and to be useful; all of which I thought I was; yea, I fancied I was one of the most circumspect of the young, cultivating, as my democratic sentiments taught me, kind feelings for every fellow being; and even now, I am unconscious of nurturing any malevolence, except to the lovers of truth. But salvation by grace was enough to my blind heart to set me against all who preached and all who believed it;—still the unnatural doctrine of Election and Predestination was gall-and-wormwood to my human pride. If I could but contemn and pity the deluded mortals that avowed such nonsense. I ridiculed, sneered at, and would in the blindness of my zeal have banished them with my teeth, had I not been restrained by the laws of our happy land. I went so far as to risk my reputation by writing or attempting to write against a Baptist church. I honestly thought that people a set of dupes and the preachers a pack of greedy dogs who prowled for prey; and others whom I heard I thought nearly right when they proclaimed Do and live.

While thus engaged in troubling my mind about every body’s religion, I became disgusted with my own; and then as with a bright light, I saw myself a sinner, a vile rebel against God: the good heart I was now changed to one of deceitful idols—my monsters seemed to be there; every thing that was hideous and wicked; so that I awoke praying for God’s mercy, and for safety from a self so vile, prayed, or tried to pray, frightened and weeping, deadly sin stole of the night; and poor, the sinner, then I commenced reading the bible and trying to pray—often in the fields, and sometimes in some grove or wood—any secret place where no human being could see: for I wished to hide from the world every appearance of contrition, since I had become so dead in sin in my own sight. Still my load and heavy burden were upon me, and I could not lessen them by aught that I could do; my do-and-live system failed me in this extremity; I could not comfort myself with the promises that the scriptures held out to mourning, heavy laden souls. I fancied God had made a hell for just such as I felt myself, and that there he would soon drive me—whither could I fly! If to the gay and unthinking, I received only an addition to my load when I would try to thrust it off by becoming like them. Several years rolled away, and a sweet and interesting family was springing up, while things worked thus—receiving no consolation from the gospel or any other source, except what I drew from my family and from my labors to provide for my household—my second son sickened and died in defiance of medical skill—my wife’s tender frame had taken a cold and was under the care of the physician—amid these dreadful afflictions, I attempted to plead louder and more fervently before the Lord, seeing he did whatsoever was right in his sight. My wife grew worse—I became wretched beyond description—all that had made life endearing was fading as if by stealth. I tried to be resigned, but could not: my sins were before me in mighty array: a crucified Saviour was there, but I saw him only as a God whom I sought to murder by my enmity: life and consolation; Judas-like, I felt like going and hanging myself. Often since I had been awakened had I talked with my wife of the plan of salvation and of the desires she evinced; one of which I saw myself; and a great joy in her sickness was it a matter near our hearts. Some of our friends came and talked with her and prayed with us. It was about six weeks before her death when my night was darkest: when I felt dead and lost, my Savior came with light and life, opened his arms and bore me to glory. On this occasion we were at prayer: my heart was filled with joy, and upward—the Spirit of the Lord descended upon me—my spirit was borne aloft—I shook as with a whirlwind, my burden rolled off, and I rejoiced in love. Soon after (a week or two), my wife died. Here I must record the mercy and goodness the Lord had done for me, and told me she had found a Physician—that Jesus had healed her of whatsoever disease she had, and thought she would soon leave me; she was going to him. O how sweet was that interview when we could realize an interest in the blood of the Lamb that was slain on Calvary! Often have I sought for that burden that had so bowed me down, but I cannot find it. I suppose the Lord hid it as he did Moses’ body. I was wonderfully supported under my coming afflictions; my wife died (and in ten days) my first-born and only son (between two and three years old) was taken, and I alone was left: again, I have been blest with a family, and again I have lost the best one blest. My journey has been through deep waters and dark places, and I am tried in a furnace of affliction doubly heated; yet I have a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, who has gone before, and bids me follow; making me feel his ways are right though past finding out, it is true, I sometimes may cry out “not so my Father,” although I believe all things shall work together for good to those who love God, who are the called according to his purpose. Tribulation is our inheritance, for through much shall we enter into his rest, and if we cannot bear what the Lord in his providence may put on us, surely we should not expect to reign with him in his glory.

I have attempted to tell you what I have taken for my new-birth. If the work is done, who did it? The creature or Creator?—or the Lord? I fought against him until he arrested me. He then took me and led me in his own way, forgave me in his own time, and I trust will save me for his own glory. But why he loved me I cannot tell, unless he did it in accordance with his will, his everlasting covenant; and if he had mercy, it was because he would have mercy and not for my unrighteous deeds. And now might I not break out in the language of Isaiah since my iniquity is pardoned, and say I have received of the Lord’s hand double for all my sins, though my grief is, I love him no better who has so loved me, weak, ungrateful as I am, I am oft strengthened to think there is no power able to separate me from the life I have in Christ Jesus, and as I am not consumed it is because he is God and changes not. Oh! Lord if thou wilt sustain me, there is no cross I will not bear in honor of thy name—there is nought left I would not resign to follow thee since there is salvation in no other, and righteousness no where else except it be Pharisaical.

I sit down to write, and have followed my heart rather than my head, and have filled my sheet with the Lord’s doings towards me: judge you whether I have received evil and not good at his hand. That I could break forth and praise him like the sweet singer of Israel, I am a young follower, pardon my seeming egotism. I hope to see you at our association, and will meet you in Alexandria, should you desire it. I long to hear you proclaim the doctrine of God my Savior again—the doctrine that like the snow and the rain shall not return void but accomplish what our God shall please.

Time cannot efface the pleasure I have enjoyed while with you both when you published peace and when we have talked by the way. Continue to blow the gospel trumpet and watch on Zion’s towers: our enemies sleep not night or day—proclaim the truth; though it offend earth and hell it must make glad the hearts of the righteous who are freed by it, and be pleasing to God who is truth and the author of it.

Farewell, and may the Lord hold you in the hollow of his hand, and guard you as the apple of his eye, is the prayer of your unworthy
brother in the best of bonds.
P. A. L. SMITH.