NOVEMBER 12TH, 1918
NOVEMBER 12TH, 1918
... I think amidst all the exercises of the present time one learns to value in a special way every movement of divine love. And it is a real comfort to know that every such movement is a bit of what is eternal, and of that which will be for ever our bond and joy.
I have very often thought of you in relation to your long time of bodily weakness, and have felt for you and your husband in all the exercise of it. I am very thankful that you are now somewhat enlarged, and able to get to meetings, etc. I can sympathise with you better than many for I have passed that way myself. I can never forget the eight months when I had no meetings, and very little intercourse with saints. And yet, like yourself, I can bear witness to an exceeding bounty of goodness and mercy in it all, and I do not look upon it as lost time.
I think there is something about a “vow” which the Lord values very much. It seems to suggest an energy of affection which delights to express itself. The Nazarite vow was “unto the Lord”; it supposed that Jehovah was so known as to command the heart, and provision was made for the free action of devoted affections. I do not doubt the principle of it comes out in Romans 6. J.N.D. used to say that in that chapter we are set free, and then the question is, What is the freed man going to do? He yields himself, etc. Romans 12 is on the same line, and also 2 Corinthians 5: 14, 15. It would be an immense [p. 77] loss to let this side of the soul’s exercises drop. There is movement on God’s part in Romans 3, Romans 4 and Romans 5, but on our side in chapters 6, 7 and 8. The Lord has emphasised the connection between the two in ordaining that wherever the gospel is preached Mary’s anointing Him should be spoken of. The tendency is, I am afraid, not to observe this ordinance of the Lord! Much is made of movements and actings on the divine side — and too much cannot be made of these blessed actings — but the answering movement of heart by which something is secured for God and for Christ in man is not so fully asserted as it might be. Is the explanation that the preachers are not so warmly sympathetic with the woman’s state of heart as they might be? Certain dear brethren were not so even at the time when she paid her vows!
November 12th, 1918.