A Testimony to a Life of Faith (Rewritten)

 Written originally by an anonymous clergyman in the early 1800's:

 

Let me speak plainly and personally about what God has done in my soul, and about the path my heart now follows toward God. I have settled on this: I will not chase after great things in this world. My aim is simply to know Christ — and Christ crucified.

I move best with a gentle wind. A high-spirited heart paired with full sails is dangerous, so I prepare myself for a quieter way of living. I don’t want much, and I actively pray against wanting much. My work — my calling — is my study. I ask for whatever genuinely serves that calling, and does not distract me from it. Beyond that, I want nothing more.

God's Testimony in the Bible

But God’s great testimony for himself is his Bible. It is said of the believer, that “he hath the witness in himself.” And so of the Word of God. Considering the early periods of the world, in which it was composed, the nature of the remarkable events which are recorded in it, the imposing character of the moral and religious doctrines which are proclaimed, the illustration of these doctrines in the lives and actions of a series of men such as the world never saw before, and of which the world was not worthy, looking at the subject in this point of view, the candid mind cannot fail to see and to acknowledge, that it is a Book, of which God himself, in some important sense, must have been the author. It seems to us, independently of the external evidence of miracles, that neither the Book, nor the things contained in the Book, could have come into existence without God. It is here, that God proclaims himself, in language both written and acted, in the language of the precept given and the language of the precept lived, which cannot fail to be understood. And hence it is, that Lord Bacon has remarked with so much truth and beauty: “Thy creatures have been my books, but thy scriptures much more. I have sought thee in fields and gardens; but have found thee in thy temples."

God's Testimony in His Providences

But God has a testimony also or witness for himself in his providences; in other words, in all events which take place, especially when considered in their moral aspects and relations. The history of nations and individuals furnishes a series of facts, from which, if we could get it from no other source, may be deduced the general proposition, that all actions, which are not merely instinctive, have a moral character; and are attended with a moral retribution. We do not say, that the adjustment of reward and punishment to the moral merit and demerit of actions is entirely perfect in the present life; but it is so much so, as to leave no doubt of a moral government and a moral governor. It is true, that the vicious sometimes succeed in life, becoming rich and honored, while the virtuous suffer in poverty and contempt; but it does not follow from this, that the vicious are happy, or that the virtuous are miserable. The virtuous have an inward consolation, which more than compensates for outward adversities; and the vicious, with scarcely an exception, have inward sorrows, which are none the less deep and real for being concealed under the garb of outward prosperity. The history of man, therefore, including the history of nations as well as of individuals, utters its declarations loudly and impressively, in favor of God and of his government.

— The Life of Faith (1852) Part 1, Chapter 4.