CHAPTER 27

Devonport, 1855.

I was at this time invited to preach in a church in Devonport, where it pleased the Lord to give blessing to His word.  With this exception, my work was, generally speaking confined to individual cases.  I will give an account of a few which present the most instruction and interest.

The first I will mention is that of one of the curates of the church in which I was asked to preach.  At this time he was preparing for confession, and his self-examination had brought him to see and feel that he was a sinner.  Under this course of preparation, the preaching of the Gospel had much effect upon him, and he came to tell me of his state.  I was able to show him from the Word of God that he was in a worse condition than he supposed—­that actually, by nature, we are lost sinners now.  Under the operation of the Holy Spirit he was brought to feel this also, and was very miserable.

One day, while officiating at a funeral, the Lord spoke peace to his soul; so great was his joy, that, he said, he could scarcely refrain from shouting aloud in the middle of the service.  After it was over he went about everywhere, telling of his conversion, and the Lord’s dealings with his soul.

The result of this was that his fellow-curate (who was also preparing for confession) was awakened, and came to me in great distress of mind, declaring he “could not say he was converted,” and that he was very unhappy.  He acknowledged that he should not like to die as he was, and therefore knew he ought not to be satisfied to live in that state.  However, when I got to close dealing with him about his soul, he said that though he could not say he was saved, he certainly thought that he was being saved by continual absolution and the sacrament.  Upon this, I was enabled to show him that he did not go to the means of grace, or even to the Lord’s table, because he was saved, but in order to be saved; and that he was working for life, and not from life.  He gave up disputing, and was not long before he too found peace in believing.

The time was approaching for these two curates to go, as usual, to confession.  They came together to ask me about it.  I counselled them to go, by all means, to the reverend doctor, who usually received their confession, and to tell him in their own words how the Lord had convicted and converted them.  I said that Bilney, one of the first martyrs of the Reformation, when he was converted, went immediately to make confession to Latimer, and by doing so he became the means of his conversion.  “Go, by all means; you do not know what use the Lord may make of your testimony.”

They went accordingly, but did not meet with the happy success of Bilney, for they were sent indignantly away one after the other for saying their sins were pardoned and their souls save, and that by direct and personal faith in Christ, without the intervention of a priest.  The reverend confessor, unlike the honest Latimer, said these young men had come to mock him.