John Dickie  Divine Compassion in the lot of every Christian

JUSTIFICATION BY C H R I S T ALONE

A fountain of life and comfort, Declaring that the whole work of man's salvation was accomplished by Jesus Christ upon the cross, in that He took away and healed all His, from all sins, and presented them to God holy without fault in His sight. And the Objections against this are Answered, for the consolation of such as believe, that they may not ascribe that which is proper to Christ's Priestly Office, to their believing. __ Isa. 53:11. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many for he shall bear their iniquities. John 19:28,30. Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled; he said it is finished, and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Col. 1:22. In the body of his flesh through death, to make you holy and unblamable, and without fault in his sight. Rom. 5:9. Being justified by his blood. Cant. 4:7. Thou art all fair my love, there is no spot in thee. By Samuel Richardson. London; Printed by M.S. and are to be sold by Hannah Allen at the sign of the Crown in Popes-head-Alley, and George Whitington at the Anchor near the Royal-Exchange. 1647.

Grace and Peace be multiplied.

Words of Wisdom Because The Times Are Evil

Dearly beloved brethren, these are the last times wherein iniquity abounds and the love of many waxes cold, so as we are ready to misconstrue and take all things in the worst part from God or man, for lack of love. The times are perilous. I cannot but desire you before I go hence, that you keep yourselves pure from the error of the wicked, and from Idols and to love one another, and that you may the better do it:

Keeping and Holding the Wholesome Pattern of Sound Words

1. Keep to and hold fast the wholesome Pattern of sound words which are expressed in the Holy Scriptures, 1 Tim. 6:3 and 6. For if you come once to forsake the words and expressions of Christ, you will quickly lose the Truth of Christ and receive error instead of Truth. I cannot but believe when the Apostle condemns preaching Christ in wisdom of words, 1 Cor. 2:17, 8:24, He mainly strikes at holding out the Truth in strange and curious words which tend to render man excellent, a man of great parts and incomes, falsely also flurts with the fleshly banners of the bearers; and to pass their understandings, as Circumlocution Intrinsicall etc. Which is no other to the common people then a strange Language, which they understand not. Also to take heed, that you deny not the truth of the Letter of the Scriptures, (as the manner of some is) nor so to rest in the letter, as to come short of the sense and meaning of it. If the first be admitted we may burn the Bible, for if it be not true, what shall we do with it? If some of it be false, why not the rest also? And then who can tell what is truth? And so we venture our souls upon uncertainties. This is dishonorable to Christ and uncomfortable. It is to be abhorred by all, and is the only way to bring in and defend all errors; on the other side, if we affirm that the mind of God is so expressed in the letter, in so many words as he that can read may see it, is to deny any Interpretation of Scripture, and to deny them to be a Mystery: But without controversy great is the Mystery of Godliness, and he that observes the variety of expressions in Scripture concerning one thing, may well confess that unless the Holy Spirit reveal to us the deep things of God. we cannot know them. Therefore, take great heed that you receive not any thing for truth unless for the substance if it, it clearly appear in the Scriptures which is to be our Rule both for Doctrine, and manners.

The Place Of Justification

Some place justification to be only in the conscience. But we place it only in Christ where it is, and to Whom it belongs. Justification consists in taking away of sin. None but Christ can do that. Justification and acceptation are one. For without justification there is no acceptation. And seeing we are accepted in Christ, we are justified in Him. If our justification be a spiritual blessing, (as it is) then it is in Christ where all spiritual blessings are, "Blessed be God, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ," Eph. 1:3. Where our redemption and righteousness are, there is our justification. Righteousness and justification are one. This we have not in our selves but in Christ, "who is made unto us of God, wisdom and righteousness," 1 Cor. 1:30. "In whom we have redemption," Col. 1:14. Our justification is a part of our completeness. Therefore, where we are complete there we are justified. But we are not complete in our selves, but in Him Col. 2:10. If all things on which depends our happiness were accomplished, John 19:28, then was our justification also. For without that no man could be saved.

The Mystery of Justification by Christ Alone

This mystery of Christ is a great mystery. Oh meditate and dive as deep as you are able into this mystery. The benefit will be great and sweet. The more I am exercised herein, the more I see into it and enjoy justification by Christ alone, and more clearly see our believing cannot justify us. Yet I deny not but the power to believe is from the Spirit, Who is the life of motion in faith. The life of faith is the life of Christ as I have treated elsewhere; what faith is, and what it does, and wherein it differs from presumption, etc. God hath given faith in His to know, assent and believe the Truth, Heb. 11:3, Acts 28:24. This encourages us to go to God for all we need, Acts 26:18. This enables us to suffer for Christ, Heb. 11. This enables us to conquer enemies, Eph. 6:16. It makes our afflictions easy to bear. It enables us to obey, Rom. 15. It helps us to cleave to God, Acts 11:23, and to His word, Psal. 119:30, 31. This helps us to hope in His mercy, Psal. 147:11. Faith causes us to depend upon Jesus Christ alone for life and salvation. What more necessary and useful in this life than faith? There is a light in faith, and as our blind eyes and dark understandings are enlightened, Eph. 1:18 and 5:13. So, accordingly, we are filled with the fullness of God, Eph. 5:19.

The Fulness of God and Christ In Us

Fullness of knowledge is that perfection we are to press after, Phil. 3:12,17; Col. 2:2, 4:12. This sight shows us our justification to be in Christ alone. And the seeking of a further measure of knowledge is a seeking to be justified, Gal. 2:17. Because this knowledge is that which justifies our Conscience. The Unbeliever Has No Knowledge of Any Justification

Also we confess that he that believes not has no knowledge of any justification. All who are without faith are visibly in a perishing state. There is not the least appearance to the contrary. No man may apply salvation to such as believe not. Nor may they apply any to themselves. Such as believe not have no enjoyment of God, no true peace, no evidence of life, no right to Baptism, or the Supper. They cannot see the mystery of the Truth. He cannot honor God nor love the truth, nor suffer for it.

The Occasion For This Present Work

Yet faith cannot satisfy justice nor merit the pardon of the least sin. Only Christ can do that. And that exposition that gives most glory to Christ and least to man, I believe is the truth. This is that which occasioned me to write at this time. For since my Book entitled the Saints Desire has been published, I have received several Objections against what I have written in page 147. Namely, that we are justified by Christ alone and not by our believing. Some affirm the contrary. Their Reasons with an answer I here present to your considerations because I am persuaded I have written the truth, and that the contrary opinion is dishonorable to our Lord Jesus Christ, in that they ascribe not their justification to Him alone, but to something else, namely, their believing.

Justification By Christ Alone Is A Doctrine of Grace

You know this Doctrine I contend for is the Doctrine of Grace. In the knowledge whereof you find sweetness, because the work of your salvation is finished by Christ, Whose works are all perfect. This glads your hearts and keeps your souls from fainting,. This removes all objections that otherwise would discourage us. This is the fountain that cannot be drawn dry that ever flows with sweet and strong consolation and is full of Spirit and life where our souls may drink freely at all times and be refreshed with this marrow and fatness that all is finished.

Read and Consider Justification By Christ Alone

My desire is, that they into whose hands this shall come, would consider seriously what I have written and know that no man is to be believed upon his bare word. Therefore, search the Scriptures whether these things be so or no. If any thing I have written be not according to them, then let that go. My whole scope and aim in these few lines, is to prove that we are justified by Christ alone. He is our justification. And that we are not justified by any thing that is in us.

Faith Is Not The Cause

2. That faith or any thing in us is not a cause, means, or condition, required to partake of the Covenant of Grace, justification or salvation, but only fruits and effects of the Covenant.

The Elect Were Ever In the Love of God and Did Ever Appear Before Him

As Just and Righteous In Christ

3. That the elect were ever in the love of God, and did ever so appear to Him as just and righteous in and by Christ. We have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love, and he that dwells in love, dwells in God and God in him. The God of love so unite all the hearts of His people to His truth and one unto another, that so we may walk in the truth, and live and die in love.

Your fellow servant and brother in the Fellowship of the Saints, who keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Samuel Richardson.

DIVINE COMPENSATIONS IN THE LOT OF EVERY CHRISTIAN

by John Dickie

DIVINE COMPENSATIONS

The minds of a few Christians being exercised about the subject of Divine Compensations on the afflictions through which the Lord's children are often called to pass, one of them wrote to the Author of the little book, "The Devil's Cradle," asking for an expression of his thoughts on the subject. His letter in reply was found to be so helpful that it is now printed in the hope that it may be a comfort to some, who may be passing through deep waters; and with the earnest prayer that God will graciously use it for the blessing of many readers.

"When thou passeth through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overthrow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee, for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." Isa. 43:2-3. I understand "Compensation" to mean a something on the one side that goes to counter balance a corresponding something on the other. Your friend, I dare say, uses the term with reference to the outward circumstances of a man's lot in life, and to the DOUBLE influence which each of these circumstances exerts on spiritual interest. The FAVORABLE circumstances (or what are counted such) are not altogether favourable, but have compensating drawbacks; while the unfavorable circumstances are not altogether unfavourable, but have compensating advantages. It is the part of wisdom then, to look at the entire set of circumstances amid which God has set us, as a perfectly adjusted whole, and to lie passive in His gracious hands, saying "amen" to His sovereign disposal of us." In fact there are no circumstances in a Christian's lot that can rightly be spoken of as evil, for the lot, down to it's minutest details, is all arranged by God; and "as for God, HIS way is perfect." (Psalm 18:30). --- perfect in its wisdom as in its LOVE. He has devised a wonderful plan in regard to each of us; and He is working it out daily, and hourly with persevering steadfastness. But we too, alas, allow ourselves to form plans about our own lives; and, as His plan and ours, about ourselves, are never the same, the working out of His plan is certain to cross ours at a thousand points. These points, where our plan is marred by His, we call EVILS: and this subject of "compensation" may be useful to us, if our meditation on it helps us to feel more deeply, that anything may be made an evil to us, if in self-will we seek to enjoy it, or employ it, apart from God, and for our own ends. The circumstances of a man's life may be roughly grouped into two classes; the pleasant, and the unpleasant. The pleasant things in our lot we easily see to be mercies; and we are thankful for them. This is so far right, but these same pleasant things are also trials, and full of danger to us; and we have need, in enjoying them, to cry "Lead us not into temptation," for their helpfulness has a perilous "compensation" annexed to it. Good health, for instance, and kind friends, and worldly comforts, are very pleasant: and they are God's good gifts. But how often, I had almost said, how invariably, are they more or less, misused. How many sinners do they keep lying, like besotted drunkards, asleep in the devil's arms! Aye, and how many Christians are feeble and languid, living and little more than living, because of their enjoyment of these mercies. The prodigal, in Luke 15, would never have sought his father had he found rest in the "far country." Israel would never have sought God in penitence if He had not planted thick hedges with sharp thorns between her and her former enjoyments. Hos. 2:6,7. No one ever seeks God, except under the sore pressure of constraining need. It is for this end that affliction is sent. On the other hand, the natural effect of outward ease is godless worldliness. ---See Psalm 73: and note the word "THEREFORE" in verse 6 "THEREFORE pride compassed them about as a chain: violence covers them as a garment." On the other hand, outward trial is unpleasant: and it is not to be desired for its own sake. "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." (Heb. 12:11). Thus its issues are, with God's blessing VERY PRECIOUS, and this is its "compensation." It worketh the peaceable fruits of righteousness, and as the results of its precious efficacy stretch forward into eternity, it enriches the soul that is suitably exercised by it, infinitely beyond the calculation of angelic intellect. We are told, again, that our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, --(II Cor. 4:17). (Note in this verse that the affliction is spoken of as actually WORKING OUT the glory; so that the same degree of glory would not be reached apart from the afflictions). Without being made truly HUMBLE, no man shall ever be EXALTED. "For everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased: and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." Luke 18:14. Humility is to be regarded as an indispensable pre- requisite for the everlasting glory. No man, unless he be "poor in spirit" can expect to inherit the eternal kingdom. Matt. 5:3. Now there are two influences that are needed to work in a man this indispensable humility. He must be placed in circumstances which are more or less humiliating. There is a positive "need-be" for this: and therefore the Lord never omits this mode of treatment in the training of His best-beloved children. --- James 2:5; Heb. 12:6-10: Rev. 3:19. Affliction is merely another word for these humiliating circumstances. And besides these, the man needs, also, the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit on his heart, to render efficacious all these eternal instrumentalities. But the whole process is carried on in a love that is unutterable; and the issues aimed at are so glorious, that, even now amid our severest trials, we should be able, not only to rejoice exceedingly, but to rejoice with a joy that is unspeakable, in the liveliest anticipation of the glorious outcome. (I Peter 1:6-8, 13). The principle to which we are referring is just as applicable to a believer's SERVICE as it is to his spiritual development, and his training for the eternal glory. Perhaps you have read a little book of last century, "Frazer on Sanctification." The writer of it had one of the most unsuitable wives that ever afflicted a good man; but the sore trial was useful to refine and elevate his spirit; and without the wife he would never have been able to write the book. Next to our actual salvation, we should set our goals on God's use of us. Like the prophet, as soon as we have been purged ourselves, we should cry, "Here am I; send me." Isa. 6:8. But if God use us, He will do it in a sphere of His own choosing, and not of ours; and He will do it in a way that carries out His own plans, and not ours. And these plans of His are sure to thwart and upset our own. But if we be observant, we shall see, long ere all be done, that there have been blessed compensations in our lot: nay, when all is done, we shall see that these compensations, so called, have been not even "compensations"--- "that there was no evil in our lot to be compensated--that, in short, God's way with, us, from first to last, has been ALTOGETHER "a RIGHT WAY." John Bunyan, for instance, lay in Bedford jail for more than a dozen years. His earnest voice was stilled; and he who, of all men in England of that day, was the best fitted to exhibit clearly the rich grace of God to sinful men, was not allowed to speck at all. "What a pity! said some; "What a mystery!" said others. It was neither a pity, not yet a mystery; it was God's grand plan for Bunyan's more fruitful ministry. In his prison he wrote "The Pilgrim's Progress," a book that has been ten times more useful to the church than all his preaching could have been, and which would not have been written, had he not thus been confined. What a "compensation" as it is called! And similarly we might glance at Paul's imprisonment at Rome. He had there to confine his ministry to a very narrow sphere indeed. The caged eagle could leap only from spar to spar of his narrow cage. But his epistles-- he wrote the warmest and the profoundest of them there--have been a more blessed service, on the whole, than his living voice could have been. And glance too at Paul's early training for his subsequent ministry. In Pharisaic days, see his legal self--righteous zeal. It knew no limits. It set him even on blood-thirsty persecution. What a pity! Nay, no pity at all. The suffering martyrs were not injured a bit; for God gave them blessed "compensations" through their sufferings: while Paul himself was learning the utter worthlessness of Judaism, and was being fitted to become, when God's set time should come, the Apostle of the Gentiles. Let me remind you too, of the devout Jonathan Edwards. He was most ungratefully treated by his people at Northampton. They drove him away. As men speck, his prospects were ruined. No, he was simply set at leisure to write those books which have multiplied his serviceableness a hundredfold. We have glanced at this subject of divine compensation in its bearing on our spiritual education, and also in its bearing on a Christian's service to the Lord; but even in regard to the believer's present joy (a very subordinate matter) these the divine compensations are very wonderful. In July, 1856, I sat beside the dying bed of one who had been a sorely afflicted saint. He had had twelve children, and they had all been taken from him; his wife had also been taken, and he was very poor. He said to me one morning with a bright face "I have got wonderful light last night on God's dealings with me. He has been kind, kind, and yet so blind have I been that I never saw it till now. I felt that he had sorely afflicted me, in taking away all my beloved ones; and though I bowed under His holy hand, yet I felt it to be a sore trial. But I see His goodness in it now. Every one of my children is in glory, and I am going to join them. How anxious would I have been this day, if I had been leaving them in a world like this. But they are all safe with Jesus, and I want nothing more. My heart is full of thankfulness that the Lord took them all." Was this no "compensation?" Alas, that his faith in God had not

been simple enough to have put him in possession of this peace and joy, many many years before his triumphant end. How many a tear would it have spared him; how many a song of praise would it have enabled him to sang! In fact we allow ourselves to reason far too much--I am specking only of our treatment of spiritual matters; while we trust in God, with entire singleness of heart far too little. The injury which is done to ourselves in this way no tongue could tell. Our entire blessedness, as men "in Christ," comes to us only as we exercise this simple faith; while such faith finds no enemies so powerful as these same fleshly reasonings. They exalt themselves against our acknowledgement of God (II Cor. 10:5); and we shall make little progress, until, with the promised help of God, we cast them down. As Christians, we are called to walk by faith, amid circumstances where all besides walk by sight II Cor. 5:7. Every act which is not done by us in faith, is, as a consequence, done in sin. Rom. 14:23. Of course, to walk by faith implies that we do not see our own way; but that, trusting in Him who sees it perfectly, we commit ourselves to His gracious guidance. In this way, faith has always to be exercised in the dark. But since God is what we believe Him to be--infinite in every adorable perfection, how safely may we trust Him; At the same time, and just because He is thus infinite in His perfections, our trust must necessarily be exercised in the dark, must be trust IN GOD HIMSELF, without any adequate compensation of his plans, on our part. How could we be able to grasp with intelligence the immense reaches of His stupendous purposes of love? Be it enough for us that we are warranted to exclaim with joy whatever our outward lot may be: "I am poor and needy, but the Lord is planning for me." Psalm 40:17. Indeed in receiving Christ, as the Father gives Him to us, we disown for ever all trust in our own wisdom. This thought is less familiar to us than another thought is that in order to a man's being found in Christ, and having His righteousness, the man needs to cast away, and to disown his own. It is not until the man sees his own righteousness to be but filthy rags, to be loss and dung, that he can find true rest of the heart in "THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." Jer. 23:6. And the case is precisely the same in regard to Christ as our wisdom. He is made of God to us our exclusive wisdom, as He is made our exclusive righteousness. I Cor. 1:30. Apart from Him we have no true wisdom, or righteousness: and to enjoy Him as actually our wisdom, and our righteousness, we need absolutely to reject our own. How grievously then do we sin, and how sadly do we suffer, when we allow ourselves to lean to our own understandings, instead of trusting in the Lord with all our hearts. Pro. 3:5. And I do think that there is no subject of spiritual interest, concerning which we are more ready to indulge these fleshly reasonings, or in which they are more full of mischief to ourselves, than we attempt to judge the varied bearings of our own earthly lot. Unlike that of the Lord Jesus, our judgment is after the "sight of our eyes." Isa. 11:3. We forget that it is utterly impossible for the fleshly mind to estimate aright the things of the spirit (Cor. 2:11-14), as impossible as it is for the cattle in fields, or the dogs in the streets. And tough the Christian is not now, as once he was, led by his fleshly mind, that mind is still in him, to be a cause of constant conflict, and a source of perpetual danger. And this carnal mind is, in the believer, just what it is in the unbeliever: "Enmity against God," not subject to God, and incapable of subjection. Rom. 8:7. The Christian therefore has to mortify it daily; and in so far as he fails to do this, his spirit is carnal and his mind shall be unsteady. If, by its very wisdom, the world is kept in ignorance of God (I Cor. 1:21), the Christian too, by the same fleshly wisdom, so far as he follows it, is kept in partial ignorance, and in grievous weakness. We see what a muddle Job and his friends got into, when they attempted to solve Job's case by their own reasonings about it. At the close God graciously interposed to correct their mistakes; but how did he do so? Was it by pointing out to them some flaw in their logic, by explaining to them the details of His methods and plans? It was anything but this. He gave no countenance whatever to their presumptuous reasonings on such subjects; but He simply recalled to Job the grand truth which they had all forgotten: that God's majesty is infinitely above man's conception of it, and that His ways of wisdom are altogether beyond man's power to trace. He brought them to the self-abased submission of simple unreasoning trust; and they reached rest, not in seeing, but in believing. Let us, with our whole hearts, come to Job's final finding as soon as possible; and, abhorring ourselves for our indulgence of this carnal self-reliant wisdom in the past, let us repent of it in dust and ashes. "I hate thoughts," cries the Psalmist, "But thy law do I love." Psalm 119:113. We sometimes say to the perplexed sinner, in the words of the hymn All is finished, do not doubt it, But believe thy dying Lord; Never reason more about it, Only take Him at His word. Might we not say the same thing to ourselves ofttimes when depressed and perplexed? Just as bodily pain is proof of disease somewhere, so spiritual perplexity is proof of defective faith. And just as the troubled sinner needs simple faith to put him into possession of Christ, so the troubled saint needs simpler, heartier faith to bring him into a fuller enjoyment of the searchable riches of Christ. We see from Old Testament prophecy, and from our Lord's own sayings, that God the Father had a minutely detailed life-plan for His beloved Son. He has a life for every child of His, which is equally minute. Oh, if His special providence includes in its care the chattering sparrow, can it overlook the blood-redeemed child? And if it take note of the hairs of his head, shall it neglect the weightiest of all his interests? Let us cast all our burdens on the Lord, and see to leave them with Him, seeking grace to say continually, as our Lord said, "I have come not to do Mine Own will, but the will of Him that sent me." Yours J.D. I bow me to Thy will, O God! And all Thy ways adore; And every day I live, I'd seek To please Thee more and more. Thy will the end--the blessed rule Of Jesus' toils and tears; Thy will the PASSION OF HIS HEART Those three and thirty years. And He hath breathed into my soul A special love to Thee, A love to lose my will in Thine, And by that loss be free. I have no cares, O blessed Lord! For all my cares are Thine; I live in triumph, too, for Thou Has made Thy triumphs mine. And when it seems no chance nor change From grief can set me free, Hope finds its strength in helpfulness, And, patient, waits on Thee. Man's weakness, waiting upon God, Its end can never miss; For men on earth no work can do More angel-like than this. He always wins who sides with God, To him no chance is lost; God's will is sweetest to him when It triumphs at His cost. III that God blesses is our good, And unblest good is ill; And all is right that seems most wrong If it be His sweet will.