A Letter To Mr Clowes – December 17th, 1866
My dear Friend, Mr. Clowes.
You cannot expect to have now that health and strength which you had in younger days, and it will be your wisdom and mercy to bow down before the will of God, and submit with patient resignation to the strokes of His afflicting rod. He has often in times past blessed, relieved, and comforted your soul, and though through the power of unbelief you may at times call in question all He has done for you and in you, yet all your doubts and fears do not affect the reality of His work nor the exceeding riches of His superabounding grace.
I was glad to learn, from a few lines received from Mr. G., that you felt your feet upon the rock. May the Lord give you grace and strength there to continue fast and firm, and not be moved from your standing by the assaults of Satan and the flesh. But I know from painful experience that it is only as the Lord is pleased to give and strengthen faith, that we can fight in this battle. We think of our sins, backslidings, inconsistencies, infirmities, the little fruit that we have borne or are bearing, and the few marks that we seem to have of the grace of God being in us of a truth. Unbelief is a dreadful foe to the soul’s peace, and Satan takes every advantage of working upon our natural feelings to bring us into bondage and confusion. Bodily weakness also much helps him on, as we seem to have no strength of mind or body to resist him. In such extremities there is only one way of getting help and relief—to fall down before the Lord in all our weakness and sinfulness, and beg of Him to undertake our cause, that the sighing of the prisoner might come up before Him, that He would save those who are appointed to die.
But I hope my dear friend has obtained some gracious answer from Him who is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him; for it is this alone which can give any solid comfort or abiding relief. You have for many years been learning your own sinfulness, weakness, and helplessness, and have often been brought down in your soul before God, as having in self neither hope nor help. And there have been times and seasons also when you have had discoveries to your soul of the goodness and mercy of the Lord, which have enabled you to believe in His name, hope in His mercy, and cleave to Him in love and affection. Now all these things are so many pledges and foretastes of His unchanging and unchangeable love; and I hope that you may be enabled to hold firmly what the Lord has given graciously, and not give way to Satan and unbelief.
We are miserable sinners in a miserable world. All around us, within us, and without us is a wreck and ruin. Sin, horrid sin, has utterly defiled both body and soul, and stained and polluted everything that is of the earth. Amid all this wreck and ruin which we daily feel, there is only one ray of light to guide our feet through this tangled maze of sin and sorrow, and this light beams forth out of the Son of God as once crucified, but now risen from the dead, and gone up on high to appear in the presence of God for us. He has destroyed death and him who had the power of death, even the devil, who through fear of death has so often brought us into bondage.
I was glad to hear from my dear wife the message that you sent, that you had no fear of death. He is the last enemy, and if his sting be taken away, then the victory is won. The sting of death is sin—but if that sin be pardoned and put away, then the sting is taken out, and to die is only to fall asleep in Jesus. I believe, for the most part, God makes His people willing to die before He takes them to Himself, for they feel there is no other release from trouble and sorrow.
Yours very affectionately in the Lord,
J. C. P.
Jesus is LORD! 
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