Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

free grace of his Father and my Father. While I can live thus by simple faith, I find I am enabled to go on well. The sense of his free, covenant, everlasting love, keeps my heart happy, and makes walking with him my delight. O that he may enable me to press forward, that I may hold my confidence, and the rejoicing of hope, steadfast unto the end! And why need I doubt of it, since he has me in his keeping? His love has bound itself to me by covenant engagements, which are my full security for what he has declared "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."

These desires, I am persuaded, are from thee, O Father of Mercies. I could never have sought my happiness in thy love, unless thou hadst first loved me. O, grant me then the desires of my heart. What thy good Spirit has put me upon seeking, let me, by his grace, find continually. He has manifested to me thy perfect reconciliation to thy people, through the life and death of Jesus. It has been given me on his behalf, to believe this. I have, therefore, taken thee

for my God and my portion; and I would so walk with thee, as to obtain a growing knowledge and experience of thy love. For this cause I bow my knees unto thee, Holy Father. O hear and answer the prayer of faith. Give me grace to walk with thee in love, all the way to glory. I ask it in the name of Jesus: for thou art the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. One Father, one family, one love. Thou receivest all thy children, whether in heaven or earth, into the same near relation, and embracest them with the same dear affection in thy beloved Son. O what a mercy is this! Blessed, for ever blessed be thy fatherly love, which chose me to be of thy family, and which has brought me to know that I am a child of God, by faith in Christ Jesus. I thank thee for giving me the desire to live as such, and to walk worthy of my high calling. O grant me, then, according to the riches of thy glory, (out of thine infinite treasury of grace, and to the praise of the glory of thy grace,) to be strengthened with might by thy Spirit in the

inner man. He is the promise of the Father. All thy children have their new birth, and every faculty of the new man from him; and by the working of his mighty power, they are kept, as well as renewed, day by day: for without him they can do nothing. Of this he has thoroughly convinced me. I know I cannot call thee Father, nor believe in thee, nor love thee, but by thy Spirit. O my God! strengthen me effectually by his grace in the inner man, for every purpose of spiritual life. Whatever he has engaged to do in thy children, let him do it in me; that through his dwell in my presence and power, Christ may heart by faith. O let him continually discover to me mine interest in Christ, and open to me the exceeding riches of thy love in him. Holy Father, let thy good Spirit abide with me, that I may know for certain, Christ is one with me, and I am one with him; and may thereby be able to maintain constant fellowship with him-he dwelling in me, and I in him. 0 may I thus live continually by the faith of the Son of God, depending always for acceptance with thee upon his atonement and

his righteousness; and so may find the happy fruit of his prayer to thee-" O, righteous Father, I have declared to my disciples thy name, and will declare it, that the love, wherewith thou lovest me, may be in them, and I in them." Thou didst hear; thou hast answered, times out of number, the request of thy beloved Son. Lord God, answer it to Let me rejoice in thy love, and find it

me. to be the same to me, as to him. Let thy good Spirit root me and ground me in the knowledge of thy love to me in Jesus. O grant me to be deeply rooted in the experience of it, that my faith, working by love, may bring forth much fruit to thy glory, and I may become so grounded in love, as to stand unshaken, like a house built upon a rock, against every attack made upon my love to thee. O my God and Father, my heart is naked and open to thee. Thou knowest the secrets of it. Thou seest how fervently pray for the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. My prayer comes from a feeling sense my want of him; and from a dependence on thy promise to give the Spirit to them that

I

of

ask him. Lord, I ask. Grant me to be strengthened by him, with every needful gift and grace in the inner man. Send him to manifest plainer and plainer my union with Jesus, in order to my keeping up communion with him that having him dwelling in my heart by faith, I may be so established in the experience of thy love to me in him, as to be able to comprehend with all saints, what is that breadth, and length, and depth, and height of thy love. All the saints comprehend it. But the saints below less than they above. And some of them below comprehend more than others. I know but little : O my God, increase my knowledge of thy love in Jesus. Whereunto I have attained, establish me; and keep me pressing forward for clearer discoveries of it. "Help me to survey it, so far as faith is able, in its most glorious dimensions, and to praise thee for mine experience of its rich mercies. Holy Father, teach me still more by thy spirit of the boundless freeness, and of the endless fulness of thy love-let me know thy love in Christ, which passeth knowledge. Although I cannot know it as it is,

« AnteriorContinua »