Anne Dutton's
Letters on Spiritual Subjects
My Dear Brother in our Precious Lord,
Oh, I am confounded at my own vileness while He thus displays the
riches of His abundant goodness; and my heart breaks within me that God
should love me so much and I love Him so little! Wonder at His grace! Praise
Him for His infinite, free, distinguishing grace to such an unworthy,
ungrateful, hell-deserving sinner. And you, my lethargic soul, afresh
touched with divine kindness, join the praise with your feeble hallelujahs
until sin and time are gone; and then with louder voice, in higher notes,
you shall shout the praises of Jehovah's grace in His kindness towards you
through Christ Jesus unto ages without end!
Oh, infinite condescension! That the Lord of all should
speak thus to such a vile, worthless, nothing worm! Oh, free love! oh,
behold, wonder and praise, the Prince of Love has said unto me, even to me,
the least and last of all, 'How fair is your love, my sister, my spouse!'
And this astonishing language of His grace at once humbles and exalts me,
fills me with heart-melting wonder and joy in Christ, and with the deepest,
sweetest mourning and self-loathing; makes me forget the things which are
behind, and press forward with an eager desire. Oh, for a soul,
all-enkindled and inflamed with love, to my lovely loving Jesus!
It is a great thing to know ourselves in our
nothingness and vileness; and to know Christ as ours in His all-sufficient
fullness!