p130 [Mr Pinkerton] MY DEAR BROTHER, - It is a good while now since I exchanged a line with you; and, in fact, I have been laid up, so that I could do, for some time, little or nothing - entirely down, so that I did not know whether I should be raised up at all again. It is now near three months that I have been unable to pass the night stretched in my bed - at first, not at all: now I sit up in bed about a third of the night, but I sleep rather better then, than lying down - all this of the poor body, but it makes its being left, if not glorified, nearer to us. God may give higher apprehensions of the joys before us, and if all be not habitually and honestly purged before God there may be exercises of conscience, even if we know the remedy. I hardly came so near to going away as that; but I was surprised, in at least looking it in the face, how little difference there was: Christ with me for the way, and Christ at the end for full and perfect joy. It is a difference to go. It is what is eternal, but we live as in Christ in what is eternal; but faith is not sight. But the word is ever precious, which brings what is of God, and God Himself to us, in the power of His own Spirit, and so as from Himself, and this gives it a peculiar and blessed character: soon it will be better still; not from Himself, but Himself. But it is suited to us here, just like Christ Himself - what is of God and heavenly, but suited to us here - with a divine flexibility which suits itself to all circumstances and to everything that is in our hearts, but to take us up whence it comes from.

I have written a tract on the "Sealing of the Spirit." I felt its being muddied, as it was, a good deal, and this was the case everywhere; it was a sign of the state of souls. But dear - was never, I think, clear; I have often told him so, never really out of Romans 7. But how many are there! Yes, very many take for granted they are out of it, while full, perfect, simple redemption is not really known. Ask, not in Palestine, but in Boston and New York, what it is to have "no more conscience of sins," and they cannot tell; and then God for us is not known. This side in the public teaching was wanting at the Reformation. They saw Christ's work meeting our need before God, but "God so loved" was hardly a part of their gospel. On assurance they largely insisted; indeed, justifying faith was, to them, the personal appropriation of Christ's work in an assuring way: it was not sufficiently the object of faith, though it was there, but the state of the soul. But when it pleases God to do so, He works with very imperfect truth, provided it be Christ; it is one of the present difficulties. At the first, full truth flowed from the centre and drew souls up to it; now it works where all is confusion, to bring in divine order and faith through the word - I mean order as to the truth. But I close.

In general, throughout the country, there is a real appetite for the word - a happy sign - and brethren are blessed. In some parts of London, though there is nothing outward, the effect of local troubles remains. But the Lord loves His church, and does not cease His care for it. Nothing will fail of His purposed grace. Peace be with you, dear brother, and constant guidance, keeping near enough to hear His voice through grace.

Your affectionate brother in Christ.

January 29th.

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