“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. There He causes His goodness to pass before them, and opens, applies, and seals to them, His exceeding great and precious promises, and He 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 wherewith 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 this, 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 Saviour, and their portion.
They account His favour 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 careful 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 till then, they shall love Him as they ought.
The secret of the Lord is with them that 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.
He show them the strong foundations and inviolable securities of His favour towards them, the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of His love, which passeth 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, wants, 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 complaints, and answering their petitions.
The men of the world would account it a high honour and privilege to have an unrestrained liberty of access to an earthly king.
But what words can express the privilege and honour of believers, who, whenever they please, have audience of the King of kings, whose compassion, mercy, and power are, like His majesty, infinite?”
–John Newton, The Works of John Newton, Volume 1 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1988), 1: 309-311.
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