John Newton's Letters
Communion with God
Dear Sir,
Though many authors have written largely and well concerning communion with
God, I shall not refer you to books, or have recourse to them myself; but,
in compliance with your request, shall simply offer you what occurs to my
thoughts upon the subject. I propose not to exceed the limits of a sheet of
paper, and must therefore come immediately to the point.
That God is to be worshiped, is generally acknowledged;
but those who worship him in spirit and in truth, have real fellowship and
communion with him, is known only to themselves. The world can neither
understand nor believe it. Many, who would not be thought to have cast off
all reverence for the Scripture, and therefore do not choose flatly to
contradict the Apostle's testimony, 1Jo. 1:3, attempt to evade its force by
restraining it to the primitive times. They will allow that it might be so
then; but they pretend that circumstances with us are greatly altered.
Circumstances are, indeed, altered with us, so far, that men may now pass
for Christians who confess and manifest themselves strangers to the Spirit
of Christ: but who can believe that the very nature and design of
Christianity should alter in the course of time? and that communion with
God, which was essential to it in the Apostles' days, should be now so
unnecessary and is practicable as to expose all who profess an acquaintance
with it to the charge of enthusiasm and folly? However, those who have
tasted that the Lord is gracious, will not be disputed out of their
spiritual senses. If they are competent judges whether they ever saw the
light, or felt the beams of the sun, they are no less certain that, by the
knowledge of the Gospel, they are brought into a state of communion with
God.
Communion with God presupposes union with God. By nature
we are strangers, yes, enemies to God; but we are reconciled, brought near,
and become his children, by faith in Christ Jesus. We can have no true
knowledge of God, desire towards him, access unto him, or gracious
communications from him, but in and through the Son of his love. He is the
medium of this inestimable privilege: for he is the way, the only way, of
fellowship between heaven and earth; the sinner's way to God, and God's way
of mercy to the sinner. If any pretends to know God, and to have communion
with him, otherwise than by the knowledge of Jesus Christ, whom he has sent,
and by faith in his name, it is a proof that they neither know God nor
themselves. God, if considered abstracted from the revelation of himself in
the person of Jesus, is a consuming fire; and if he should look upon us
without respect to his covenant of mercy established in the Mediator, we
could expect nothing from him but indignation and wrath. But when his Holy
Spirit enables us to receive the record which he has given of his Son, we
are delivered and secured from condemnation; we are accepted in the Beloved;
we are united to him in whom all the fullness of the Godhead substantially
dwells, and all the riches of Divine wisdom, power, and love, are treasured
up.
Thus in him, as the temple wherein the glory of God is
manifested, and by him, as the representative and high priest of his people,
and through him, as the living head of his mystical body the church,
believers maintain communion with God. They have food to eat which the world
knows not of, honor which comes of God alone, joy which a stranger
intermeddles not with. They are, for the most part, poor and afflicted,
frequently scorned and reproached, accounted hypocrites or visionaries,
knaves or fools; but this one thing makes amends for all, "They have
fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ."
I would observe further, that as the incarnation of that
Mighty One, on whom our help is laid, was necessary, that a perfect
obedience to the law, and a complete and proper atonement for sin, might be
accomplished in the human nature that had sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God; so, in another view, it affords us unspeakable advantage for
our comfortable and intimate communion with God by him. The adorable and
solemn perfections of Deity are softened, if I may so speak, and rendered
more familiar and engaging to our apprehensions, when we consider them as
resident in him, who is very bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; and
who, having by himself purged our sins, is now seated on the right hand of
the Majesty on high, and reigns, in the nature of man, over all, God blessed
forever.
Thus he who knows our frame, by becoming man like
ourselves, is the supreme and ultimate object of that philanthropy, that
human affection, which he originally implanted in us. He has made us
susceptive of the endearments of friendship and relative life: and he admits
us to communion with himself under the most engaging characters and
relations, as our Friend, our Brother, and our Husband. Those who, by that
faith which is of the operation of God, are thus united to him in Christ,
are brought thereby into a state of real habitual communion with him. The
degree of its exercise and sensible perception on our parts, is various in
different people, and in the same person at different times; for it depends
upon the communications we receive from the Lord the Spirit, who distributes
them to each one, just as he determines, adjusting his dispensations with a
wise and merciful respect to our present state of discipline.
If we were wholly freed from the effects of a depraved
nature, the snares of an evil world, and the subtle temptations of
Satan--our actual communion with God would be always lively, sensible, and
fervent. It will be thus in heaven; there its exercise will be without
obstruction, abatement, or interruption. But so long as we are liable to
spiritual pride, indolence, an undue attachment to worldly things, and
irregular distempered passions, the Lord is pleased to give, increase,
suspend, or renew, the sensible impressions of his love and grace, in such
seasons and measures as he sees most suitable to prevent or control these
evils--or to humble us for them. We grieve his Spirit, and he withdraws;
but, by his secret power over our hearts, he makes us sensible of our folly
and loss, teaches us to mourn after him, and to entreat his return. These
desires, which are the effects of his own grace, he answers in his own time,
and shines forth upon the soul with healing in his beams.
But, such is our weakness, and so unapt are we to retain
even those lessons which we have learned by painful experience, that we are
prone to repeat our former miscarriages, and to render a repetition of the
same changes necessary. From hence it is that what we call our frames are so
very variable, and that our comfortable sense of Divine communion is rather
transient than abiding. But the communion itself, upon which the life and
safety of our souls depend, is never totally obstructed; nor can it be,
unless God should be unmindful of his covenant, and forsake the work of his
own hands. And when it is not perceptible to sense, it may ordinarily be
made evident to faith, by duly comparing what we read in the Scripture with
what passes in our hearts. I say ordinarily, because there may be some
excepted cases. If a believer is unhappily brought under the power of some
known sin, or has grievously and notoriously declined from his profession,
it is possible that the Lord may hide himself behind so dark a cloud, and
leave him for a while to such hardness of heart, as that he shall seem to
himself to be utterly destitute and forsaken. And the like apprehensions may
be formed under some of Satan's violent temptations, when he is permitted to
come in as a flood, and to overpower the apparent exercise of every grace by
a torrent of blasphemous and evil imaginations. Yet the Lord is still
present with his people in the darkest hours, or the unavoidable event of
such cases would be apostasy or despair. Psalm 41:11.
The communion we speak of comprises a mutual fellowship
and communication in love, in counsels, and in interests.
In LOVE. The Lord, by his Spirit, manifests and
confirms his love to his people. For this purpose he meets them at his
throne of grace, and in his ordinances. There he makes himself known unto
them, as he does not unto the world; causes his goodness to pass before
them; opens, applies, and seals to them, his exceeding great and precious
promises; and gives them the Spirit of adoption, whereby, unworthy as they
are, they are enabled to cry "Abba, Father." He causes them to understand
that great love with which he has loved them, in redeeming them by price and
by power, washing them from their sins in the blood of the Lamb, recovering
them from the dominion of Satan, and preparing for them an everlasting
kingdom, where they shall see his face, and rejoice in his glory.
The knowledge of his love to them, produces a return of
love from them to him. They adore him, and admire him; they make an
unreserved surrender of their hearts to him. They view him and delight in
him, as their God, their Savior, and their portion. They account his favor
better than life. He is the sun of their souls: if he is pleased to shine
upon them, all is well, and they are not greatly anxious about other things;
but if he hides his face, the smiles of the whole creation can afford them
no solid comfort. They esteem one day or hour spent in the delightful
contemplation of his glorious excellencies, and in the expression of their
desires towards him, better than a thousand. And when their love is most
fervent, they are ashamed that it is so faint, and chide and bemoan
themselves that they can love him no more. This often makes them long to
depart, willing to leave their dearest earthly comforts, that they may see
him as he is, without a veil or cloud: for they know that then, and not
until then, they shall love him as they ought.
In COUNSELS. The secret of the Lord is with those
who fear him. He deals familiarly with them. He calls them not servants
only, but friends; and he treats them as friends. He affords them more than
promises; for he opens to them the plan of his great designs from
everlasting to everlasting; shows them the strong foundations and inviolable
securities of his favor towards them, the height, and depth, and length, and
breadth of his love, which passes knowledge, and the unsearchable riches of
his grace. He instructs them in the mysterious conduct of his providence,
the reasons and ends of all his dispensations in which they are concerned;
and solves a thousand hard questions to their satisfaction, which are
inexplicable to the natural wisdom of man. He teaches them likewise the
beauty of his precepts, the path of their duty, and the nature of their
warfare. He acquaints them with the plots of their enemies, the snares and
dangers they are exposed to, and the best methods of avoiding them. And he
permits and enables them to acquaint him with all their cares, fears, needs,
and troubles, with more freedom than they can unbosom themselves to their
nearest earthly friends. His ear is always open to them; he is never weary
of hearing their petitions, and answering their petitions.
The men of the world would account it a high honor and
privilege to have an unrestrained liberty of access to an earthly king; but
what words can express the privilege and honor of believers, who, whenever
they please, have audience of the King of kings, whose compassion, mercy,
and power are, like his majesty, infinite? The world wonders at their
indifference to the vain pursuits and amusements by which others are
engrossed; that they are so patient in trouble, so inflexible in their
conduct, so well satisfied with that state of poverty and obscurity which
the Lord, for the most part, allots them; but the wonder would cease, if
what passes in secret were publicly known. They have obtained the Pearl of
great price; they have communion with God; they derive their wisdom,
strength, and comfort from on high; and cast all their cares upon him, who,
they assuredly know, vouchsafes to take care of them. This reminds me of
another branch of their communion, namely.
In INTERESTS. The Lord claims them for his
portion; he accounts them his jewels; and their happiness in time and
eternity is the great end which, next to his own glory, and in inseparable
connection with it, he has immediately and invariably in view. In this point
all his dispensations of grace and providence shall finally terminate. He
himself is their guide and their guard: he keeps them as the apple of his
eye; the hairs of their head are numbered; and not an event in their lives
takes place but in an appointed subserviency to their final good. And as he
is pleased to espouse their interests, they, through grace, are devoted to
his interests. They are no longer their own; they would not be their own; it
is their desire, their joy, their glory, to live to him who died for them.
He has won their hearts by his love, and made them a willing people in the
day of his power.
The glory of his name, the success of his cause, the
prosperity of his people, the accomplishment of his will—these are the great
and leading objects which are engraved upon their hearts, and to which all
their prayers, desires, and endeavors are directed. They would count nothing
dear, not even their lives, if set in competition with these. In the midst
of their afflictions, if the Lord is glorified, if sinners are converted, if
the church flourishes--they can rejoice. But when iniquity abounds, when
love waxes cold, when professors depart from the doctrines of truth and the
power of godliness--then they are grieved and pained to the heart; then they
are touched in what they account their nearest interest, because it is their
Lord's.
This is the spirit of a true Christian. May the Lord
increase it in us, and in all who love his name! I have room only to
subscribe myself.