A Letter To Mrs Peake – December 20th, 1866
My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake.
You know how interested I am in all that concerns the spiritual welfare of the Church at Oakham. I am truly glad therefore to find that, as the Lord takes away with one hand, He gives with the other. You must expect to see every year increasing gaps made in your midst. For many years our ranks were but little thinned; but as you know, my later days witnessed the removal of some of the chief pillars and ornaments of the church. My own feeling was much against widening the gate of the church, or we might have had numerous accessions. But my desire was quality rather than quantity; jewels which would one day shine in the heavenly kingdom, rather than what might turn out reprobate silver. But we are liable to extremes, and therefore I do not say that we might not have kept out some who might well have come in. It is a very difficult and delicate point, and one which requires very great judgment, discernment, and wisdom from on high, united with the spirit of love and tenderness. All I can say is, that I hope your new members may be to the church, both for its strength and ornament, and that neither you nor they may ever have any cause for grief for their admission among you.
I am also glad to find that the Lord gives His blessing to Mr. Knill’s ministry; and I hope that as he becomes increasingly united to the church and people, he will find a corresponding increase of light, life, and power to minister among them the Word of truth. A church and its pastor should be like private friends, who know each other increasingly through length and intimacy of communion, and are thus enabled better to understand, and feel for, and sympathize with each other. The great point is reality, that a minister should be a real partaker of the grace of God, and be enabled by the Spirit’s teaching and power to deal spiritually and experimentally with the Word of truth, and with the heart and conscience of the people of God. If a man be right, all in the end will come right, and be made right; and if he is in his right place, that also will be made manifest. God will ever acknowledge His own grace, His own work, His own cause, His own people, and His own servants. Clouds and darkness may rest upon them all, but the true light will arise, and shine them all away. A minister therefore need well be assured of three things:
(1) his own standing;
(2) his ministerial commission;
(3) that he is ministering to a people over which God has set him.
Doubts and fears may and will try his mind upon all these three points; but only so far as he is in some good measure established in them, can he find faith and confidence in doing the work to which he has set his hands.
The loss of Mr. Lightfoot at Stamford will be, humanly speaking, irreparable. He and I did not quite see eye to eye on every point, but I very much esteemed him, and indeed as a deacon he was quite my right hand. No man in the church or congregation was, I believe, so much esteemed by the people generally; and from his great amiability of disposition, he had but few enemies. I fully believed he would make a good end, as I have seen for some years much growth in him of life and grace; and he was a man who increasingly loved and feared the Lord, bringing forth fruit in his old age.
Yours very affectionately in the Lord,
J. C. P.
Jesus is LORD! 
Leave a comment