A Letter To Mrs Peake – January 29th, 1866
My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake.
I need not tell you that, in making engagements to preach, I feel more and more my dependence upon the Lord to enable me to fulfill them. The friends therefore of course will bear this in mind, and I hope it may stir up prayer and supplication on their and my behalf, that the Lord would grant our mutual desire to meet once more in His gracious and blessed name. We may indeed expect that every year, not to say month, may work a change in those of us who are advancing in the valley of tears. I look round sometimes, and think how many are fallen asleep of friends and brother ministers, whose life, humanly speaking, seemed better than my own—your poor dear husband, Isbell, J. Kay, and our dear and valued friend William Tiptaft. How I have seen them taken, and I left. Our friend Mr. Grace too, Mr. M’Kenzie, Mr. Gadsby, and Mr. Warburton, besides private Christians whom I have known. How loudly these things speak, and seem to bid us sit loosely to the world, have our loins girt and our lamps burning, not knowing how soon the message may come personally to us.
I was much struck with what you said about the year 1866 being a marked epoch. . . . When I look round upon this miserable world, and see it so overflowing with sin and sorrow, God so provoked, His people so afflicted, wickedness so rampant, godliness so low, it gives room to some inquiring thoughts—”Lord, how long?” But I forbear expressing all that I think and feel, contenting myself with this—that the Judge of all the earth must do right, that He will avenge the cause of His elect, and that it shall be well with those who fear God.
We read, I think, that there is a time when the mystery of God shall be finished, as He has declared to His servants the prophets. Then there will be a full clearing up of that great mystery, which now so sadly puzzles us—why things are as they are in this sin-disordered world; and all things will be made clear to the glory of God, the praise of Jesus, the salvation of the saints, the destruction of sinners, and the confusion of Satan. Our present portion is to suffer with Christ, that we may be also glorified together, believing that if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him.
Our wisdom and our mercy will be to be ever looking unto Jesus, hanging upon Him, and cleaving to Him with purpose of heart, fighting the good fight of faith—that fierce and daily battle which we have to carry on against sin and self, Satan, and the world. I don’t know any other way of getting on, or getting through our daily army of enemies without and within, but by believing in the Son of God, and looking to Him for the continual supplies of His grace; and this we are obliged to do, there being no other way open to us, and being shut out by law, conscience, guilt, and fear, weakness, sinfulness, and helplessness from walking in any other path but where Jesus stands at the head of the way. It is like a person in a dark night on a lonely moor eyeing a light at a distance, on which he fixes his eyes, and to which he directs his steps. How graciously He says, “I am the way; no man comes unto the Father but by Me.” This seems sometimes our only direction, like the light of a lighthouse across the sea to guide the ship unto the desired haven.
But I am writing a letter, not preaching a sermon, and must therefore pause in the full current of thought. I was at chapel on Lord’s day morning. Mr. Covell preached from 2 Chron. 33:12, 13, but did not get much beyond—”The Lord is God.” He spoke very nicely upon affliction, and its effects in Manasseh’s case. I heard him very comfortably, and could follow him very nicely in the path he laid down. I am (D.V.) to speak for him next Lord’s day morning.
Yours very affectionately,
J. C. P.
Jesus is LORD! 
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