p369 * * * There are difficulties in your case which have to be overcome, but I am sure there is grace in Christ to enable you to do so. And "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape." I should be sorry to see - leave, because I am sure it is the testimony of the Lord, however feeble the witnesses may be; but comparatively I am little concerned in that, if - hold fast by Christ. The danger is, that if it be the place of faithfulness and testimony, the leaving it is the downward path into the world. … We have necessarily a good deal to learn, and till we have learnt ourselves we never know fully the value of Christ so as to leave the heart at rest. But grace can keep us waiting on Him while this process is going on. This is what I look for, for you and for him.

Popery is a rest for the flesh, and Satan is busy in the many distractions of the day in suggesting it; but it is really in its principles apostasy from the truth and church of God; not that I think any safe from it (though God can keep them) till they know redemption. Once I have believed Hebrews 10, Popery is the denial of and hostility to Christ; till then it may look like piety and humility (but is "voluntary humility") and what not. It does not tell its heresies and abominations till you are in for it, and the spell of Satan is over a person; for its actual wickedness is beyond all belief. But if Christ is my righteousness, it is all a lie from beginning to end. It is really infidelity. Christ became a man to be near my heart and I trust Him, and God thus in Him. They tell me no, I must have saints and virgins, because He is so high above me. It denies His gracious tenderness: men, mortal men and women, are tenderer. This is a horrid denial of what He is. But see you hold fast through grace to a perfect redemption. Study Hebrews 9, 10. Learn your own heart, but cast your need on the perfect grace of Christ, and find what His heart is for us in patient and loving mercy. You will find peace and rest. …

December, 1863.

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