I Must Wait for the Crown

FRIDAY, AUGUST 29—In the evening I took to my bed, having gradually become worse, suffering much pain in the afternoon of that day. I can well remember that a deep solemnity rested upon my spirit when I was led to consider that I had made a profession of religion for a number of years and for some years past had stood up in the name of the Lord to preach His gospel. This thought also came into my mind—“Every sickness that ends in death has its beginning, and none but the Lord knows the issue of this. Should it be His high and holy will that this is unto death, what have I for that solemn hour? Nothing but realities will stand that shock. Have I a religion of the right sort, that will do to die by?” My soul was brought earnestly and ardently to cry to the Lord and entreat Him to give me once more “a true token,” if indeed I am so favored as to have oil in the vessel, as well as the lamp and light; also to beg the Lord, if by any means through a deceitful heart and the delusions of Satan I have been in any soul deception, that He would convince me of it and not suffer me to continue any longer in it—when, from the power and effects attending them, the Lord, I believe, spoke these words which dropped upon my soul, “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee:” but the marginal reading came into my mind, “Therefore have I extended lovingkindness unto thee.”

Upon the back of this I had such a sweet, solemn, and blessed sense of the pardon of all my sins come into my soul, which had been sealed in my conscience by the precious blood of Jesus, about seventeen years before; these words sweetly followed, “And to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” I heard its voice in my soul proclaiming with power the pardon of all my sins—past, present, and to come—of thought, word, and deed and original as well as actual sin. These words came also, “The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.” And oh what majesty and power was there in the proclamation of pardon for all my sin! How sweetly flowed into my soul and conscience the peace of God, which truly passeth all understanding! Oh, how I knew experimentally for myself the first verse of the fifth chapter of Romans.

In looking back, I have many times felt the great mercy and tender compassion of the Lord in giving me this blessed visitation to lie down upon as a solemn, solid rest, in so sore and heavy an affliction as it seemed good to His heavenly Majesty to bring upon me. Adored be a covenant God of all grace and mercy, for maintaining the sweet peace then given me during the greater part of my illness so that neither Satan nor unbelief was suffered to molest or assault my soul during my heaviest affliction.

A few nights after I took to my bed when a dear friend was sitting up with me, I had such a solemn view of the Lord Jesus in the heavens that I thought of Stephen and had also some expectation of soon being with Him whom I then beheld—to whom my soul was in a flame of love and before whose holy presence I was much humbled. The palm of victory I felt already to have in my hand which, with all my powers, I waved, in soul-feeling, above and over His sacred head. “I have the victory,” methought, “where is the crown?” and I was, as it were, looking for it. Then came these words into my mind, “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me in that day.” By this I saw, that, although I had gotten the victory through the blood of the Lamb, I must wait for the crown until I had put off this mortal tabernacle and entered into that blessed “rest that remaineth for the people of God,” which I felt awaited me.

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