A Letter To Joseph Tanner – October 14th, 1864

My dear Friend, Joseph Tanner,

I came here last Friday, after a sad parting with many attached friends and hearers, among whom I have laboured for so many years. The Lord mercifully gave me strength to preach at both places twice on the Lord’s day, and at Oakham on the Tuesday evening before I left them. I have given them the best part of my life, and spent upon them my health and strength. God grant that it may be manifested that I have not laboured in vain, nor spent my strength for nothing. Nothing but my failing health would have induced me to leave them; but both they and I were well convinced that I was not fit to carry on my continuous labours. We parted therefore, I trust, in mutual love and affection, as well as mutual regret.

I unhappily took cold the day before I left Oakham, and have been poorly ever since—not having crossed the threshold of my new abode since I entered into it. I have much desired to experience here the power and presence of the Lord, that I may have His approbation upon the step, and His sanction of my pitching my tent in this place. I desire to be ever watching His hand, both in providence and in grace; to acknowledge Him in all my ways, that He may ever direct my steps. I have been so often laid aside from preaching, and that for weeks and months together, that I do not feel the trial so great as might be anticipated. I live also in hope that it may be the Lord’s will so far to restore me that, during the summer months at least, I may be enabled to go forth in the Lord’s name. At present I am seeking rest, though as usual it is hard to obtain it, for much work lies before me; and if my tongue be still, my pen apparently will not lie idle. Indeed I have never for many years sought indolence, but have found a willingness to labour as far as the Lord has given me strength.

The meridian of life with us is gone by. The Lord has seen fit to lay his hand upon our poor bodies, and we may expect the rest of our lives to be more or less invalids, scarcely hoping for any length of time to be free from those attacks, which we must expect rather to gain potency with declining years. I think sometimes of you, our dear friend at Allington, and myself. We all seem to have before us a trying path, and I believe our desire is to find in it submission to the will of God, and to have every trial sanctified and blessed to our soul’s profit. No doubt we need a great deal to bring us down. “He brought down their hearts with sorrow.” We desire to have a broken heart and a contrite spirit, a humble mind, a tender conscience. We desire to live and walk in the fear and love of the Lord, to be kept from evil that it may not grieve us. We also covet the presence and blessing of God in our souls, in the manifestations of His love and mercy. We desire also to see His good hand stretched out in providence, that we may have reason to bless and praise His holy name for His kindness and goodness to us; and yet with all this, what coldness, deadness, and darkness often beset the mind! Unbelief and infidelity, doubt and fear, surmises and misgivings, possess the mind, so that the life and power of real religion appear almost gone! Thus we have many changes, and these will ever keep us from being settled on our lees and being at ease in Zion. The flesh, it is true, loves an easy path, and left to ourselves, we would almost barter eternal life for better health, greater strength, and a larger amount of earthly good.

But it is our mercy that we cannot choose our own way, our own will, or our own cross, but that all is appointed for us—what to do and what to suffer, what to be, and what not to be. I wish I could be more spiritually-minded, which is life and peace, walk more in the enjoyment of the love and favour of God, feel more of the preciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and have a stronger faith in Him. We cannot always nor often tell how our trials and afflictions are working for our spiritual good, nor how they are answers to our prayers for more humility of mind, and to know more of the power and blessedness of eternal realities. It takes a great deal to wean us from the world, to humble and mortify our proud heart, and break our stubborn spirit. We would like to have it done quietly and gently, by a secret, spiritual, and supernatural influence resting upon the mind, without any affliction of body, trial of mind, or crucifixion of the flesh. We would like Jesus to be manifestly our All in all, without walking in a path of trial or suffering.

We tell people from the pulpit what is the right way of getting at spiritual blessings, and yet are ever seeking or desiring them to come to ourselves in some different way. At least I find it so to be the case with me. It is a great thing to be made spiritually upright and sincere, to be ever seeking the blessing of God as a felt internal reality, and to desire nothing so much as His sensible favour and approbation. But it is a hard struggle to get at this and into this in the right way, especially when the Lord seems to hide His face and turn a deaf ear to our petitions. Still we must keep on seeking His blessed face, until He turns the shadow of darkness into the morning.

Yours affectionately in the truth,
J. C. P.