What a Happy Condition We Are In

A Letter from John Newton to his Wife

My dear wife,

I hope you will make good use of the Bible and the throne of grace to preserve you from being infected by the spirit of the world. Ah! what a poor vain thing is the world! We have both found it so at times, though we once loved it, and shall find it so again. May the Lord keep us alert to a sense of its vanity!

Your recent sickness and near prospect of death force upon your mind a conviction of the littleness and vanity of a worldly life. But there is a more pleasing way of learning this lesson, if we pay due attention to the Word of God, and pray for the light of His countenance. If He is pleased to make His face to shine upon us, all that the world can offer to bribe and tempt us will appear insignificant and trivial as the sports of children!

What a happy condition we are in! We have peace with God by Jesus Christ, liberty of access to the throne of grace, a saving interest in all God's promises, a sure Guide along the way and a glorious inheritance at our journey's end!

These things were once hidden from us! We were so blinded by the god of this world that we could look no farther than the present life! But, even then, the Lord looked upon us with an eye of mercy. He led us on gradually by a way which we knew not, to bring us into the path of eternal peace.

Though death will eventually part us, we shall soon meet again to part no more, to be forever with the Lord, to join in an eternal song to Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood! Then all tears shall be wiped from our eyes and we shall weep no more forever!

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him!" 1 Corinthians 2:9

- John Newton