“Mary.” The acknowledgment which you make with regard to yourself may, in a great measure, account for your present unhappy state of soul. You say, “I never walked close to Jesus, and have greatly backslidden of late years.” It was just so with Peter. “He followed Jesus afar off.” Then he warmed himself at the high priest’s fire; and, at length, he denied his Lord, and cursed and swore he never knew Him; but one look from Jesus pierced his conscience, broke up the fountains of his heart, and drew forth floods of penitential tears. The devil desired to have him, that he might sift him as wheat, but Christ’s prayer sustained him, and so fully was he restored, that he could afterward stand in the presence of the congregation of Israel, and charge them with doing the very thing which he himself had done under the most aggravated circumstances. Such is the restoring virtue of the blood and advocacy of Christ. Now, dear friend, that which restored Peter can restore you, and restore the greatest backslider on earth.
But there are other expressions in your letter which lead us to doubt very much, not that you were ever converted, but that you ever really understood the true ground of a sinner’s peace. You say, “I believed, at one time, that I had an interest in Christ.” Now, while it is quite true that the believer has a deep, personal and eternal interest in Christ, yet the ground of his peace is not that he believes he has an interest, but that Christ died for his sins according to the Scriptures, and that God has been perfectly satisfied, as to sin, by the death of Christ. The moment I get occupied with my interest in Christ, my eye is taken off from Him, the true object of faith, and spiritual darkness sets in. Again, you say, “I long so ardently to feel that He is my Savior.” And again, “If I could realize myself a Christian.” All this self-occupation contributes to your mental anguish. We are not saved by feeling and realization, but by Christ, and we get Christ by simple faith. If we make feeling our object, we shall get away from Christ. If we make Christ our object, we shall have the feeling. This makes a most material difference. May the Spirit of God enable you to look off unto Jesus, and find all you want in Him!