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The smiles of an encouraging, if not a believing world, have long followed the writers and preachers of evangelical truth, making smooth and pleasant their allotted tasks.  We believe that it will cease to be so:  the envoys and ambassadors of the Most High will be dismissed with ignominy on the approach of war, where in a time of apparent peace, they have been feted and applauded…… Shall any be found wanting?  Shall voices that in more halcyon days were heard on the Lord's side, grow now so confused and indistinct, that it cannot be known what is piped or harped?  Shall trumpets that were used to echo through the camp of Israel their notes of victory or warning, give now so uncertain a sound that none shall know whether to prepare themselves for battle,  for fight, or for submission?  It may be so. Men sometimes seem to want in things spiritual the wisdom and courage that not uncommonly characterizes the children of this world in their generation.  When the wind sets in, and the tide flows strong upon a rocky shore, the skillful mariner turns the vessel's head, makes for the sea , and calls all hands together to keep her off the land.  Our helmsmen are doing contrariwise:  they have set their sails to wind and their head to the tide, and are doing all they can to near the fatal shore.  In some instance they have gone the utmost length their principles will admit, to conform themselves to the fashion of the times, to avoid the imputation of extreme opinions, and relieve themselves of a name they would once have been ashamed to be without…..

…we are apt to talk a little too vaguely about opinion - as if all religious truths were matters of opinion, subjects of reasoning, exercises of judgment.  It is not so.  The most important truths of the Gospel are not opinions - they are matters of revelation, and therefore matters of fact.  A positive declaration, statement, or command in the Holy Scriptures excludes opinion - forbids opinion - stamps on opinion the sin of unbelief.  There are more of such things  in the book of God than some people are aware of; and the 'I think,' and 'I don't think' of common talk, grates harshly sometimes on the considerate believer's ear; falls unbecomingly sometimes from the inconsiderate believer's lips.  He who insists upon such truths as these, however imperatively, is not dogmatical: he who condemns all contradiction and contravention of them, is not uncharitable; while the believer who when called upon to contend for the faith, from deference to opinion concedes or compromises, or withholds these plain declarations of the word of God, is a traitor or a coward, and no true soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ.  

 

Excerpt taken from Christ Our Law - by Caroline Fry Wilson

https://snickerdoodlesquotes.blogspot.com/

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(On progressive sanctification)No, indeed, dearest, I shall not tell you that having Christ, and being therefore rich in hope, you can want nothing more.  I know that when sure, quite sure of the pardon of sin, we do want more - we want to be rid of it.  Such is the beautiful design of God.  We are safe in being justified; but we are not happy, but in proportion as we are sanctified; the former satisfies our fears, but our desires are restless for the latter.  As the former is the first act of divine love, it is naturally the first thing a believer seeks to be assured of; and when he has assured himself of pardon and justification in Christ, he very often fancies for a time that he has the whole of salvation, and is sanctified.  But this does not last; he finds out as you do, that he wants more; he wants holiness and cannot be happy without it.  But then what a comfort that the one is secure as the other,  although a slower process; that the same blood which bought our justification, and bestows it at once, bought our sanctification - the other half of one and the same salvation, - and must bestow it ultimately.

Caroline [Fry] Wilson
From:  An Autobiography and Letters of the Author of The Listener, Christ Our Law, Etc. (1849)

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As to your thoughts of chastisement for past sin, I do not think we may look for it with emotions of fear.  I think the chastisements of God upon his people are prospective; retrospective never.  Do you see what I mean, dear; if I had yesterday a cankered wound in my hand, the careful surgeon may come today and cut it off.  Not because it was diseased yesterday, but that it may not be so tomorrow...Exactly in this point of view, I look upon the chastisements the believer has to anticipate.  No punishment but that which is remedial; if the sin which last year broke out into action of offence before God, be this year existing unabated in my bosom, ready to break out again, then chastisement must come;; the bitter remedy must be applied; the painful cure performed, because by any means, or all means, I must be made holy....there is no wrath in His bosom for the past: and if my view be right, I see in it no ground of depression, but rather of rejoicing, of encouragement. If we hate the sin more than its consequences, which I believe we do, we shall rather hope than fear, to see those consequences doing execution upon the sin.

Caroline [Fry] Wilson writing to a friend in 1829

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In the blessed Redeemer's service, not one thing is required, that is not first bestowed; not a service for which strength is not given, nor a grace tha thas not been promised.  We serve a Master, who gives us all for naught:  and we repay him only with his own.

- Caroline Fry Wilson

From the book containing her autobiography and Letters

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In respect to its present state, I should say nay to what you say, as it regards the taste of the public for religious truth.  I should certify on no light grounds, that the defection lies elsewhere; there is appetite of the whole counsel of God, but they who are left in charge, have found in their wisdom that the food is not wholesome, and they dare - I speak strongly, for I have felt it strongly - even to tears; I have felt it under their pulpits - they dare deny it to the flock they have been sent to feed.  Comes there a man in town or country, or on week-day or Sunday, who in simplicity delivers the whole of his message, and you will see how they throng his aisles, how they will steal like Nicodemus by night, to take of the desired but forbidden draught, - afraid to be blamed by their ghostly confessors if they are detected…..many are the times I have whispered in the ear of those who sit satisfied, nay, abysmally devoted to some favorite preacher of a garbled truth, that there is more behind, and have been surprised to find how well they knew it, how much they could like to have it - but it is not good for them!  The servant has grown wiser than his master; the messenger can amend his message - God can no more be trusted with the salvation of his people - Man knows a better way, and expediency is like to become the Antichrist of our land.

Caroline Wilson

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I have been afraid to be too sanguine, lest another blow should come, but, that is wrong.  Thankfulness should not be kept in check by mistrust;  seeing that if disappointment do come, I have had proof that strength and guidance will abundantly come with it.   

  

Caroline Wilson

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…men have come to consider pardon, and safety, and the hope , not very animated, of a future Heaven, as the whole of salvation - all of it at least that is dispensed to us in this life - holiness and happiness, the blessed remainder, being waited for till we die.  To the scriptural doctrine of imputed righteousness, by which we stand justified and sinless in the sight of God, has been joined and in a manner confounded with it, an idea of imputed sanctification - by which, without any change wrought in us, we become holy and prepared for bliss at the same moment that we are pardoned and justified in Christ - nothing more being to be done by us, or in us, until the day of our removal hence; thus denying altogether the idea of progressive sanctification, or any sanctification at all, except as imputed to us from the perfect merits of  our blessed Lord….I have observed the consequences of this base contentedness with an unhallowed and unhappy safety; the half of what Christ has promised, and that not the better half, since if his mercy rested there, it would be unavailing to us; it would have remitted our misery without making us blessed; it would have sent us from prison with our fetters on, and preferred us to a heaven that would not suit us when we come there:  the little taste for that heaven evinced by persons of this condition, is a proof that it would not.  From this low estimate of what salvation is, I have observed to result a life and conversation proportionately low; very little of enjoyment; a stupid expectation, that scarcely ever warms into desire….there is no desire for the Bridegroom's coming, because there is no assimilation of character to make the blest companionship delightful….But if, on this, you advise them to become more fit, by a closer walk with God, they recur to first principles - there fitness is of God - He has promised - justified in Christ, they know that they are saved.  Most precious truths! Enough, one would think, to make us long after Him as the hart panteth for the water-brooks, and lose all care for what may intervene, in watchful expectation of His coming.  But they have no such effect in this case:  time loses little of its importance - earth but little of its influence….Is it not true, then, that they who rest satisfied with a  bare and barren hope of being safe for eternity, by which little more is understood than safety from the punishment of hell, do meanly estimate the Redeemer's work, accept but the half of what he has purchased, and wearily and unsafely postpone the other half, as something beyond our present reach.  True, it is beyond our present reach in its ultimate perfection…But is that a reason they should not begin? …..Should we make so light of the Savior's gift as to be in no haste to enjoy it till we possess it all, if indeed we can possess in eternity what we have made no progress towards in time? …I see no security for them in the word of God; I see there, on the contrary, that growth, increase, progression, are the terms in which the divine life is spoken of; "increasing in stature," "growing into the likeness," "going on to perfection."  Such figures and expressions do not characterize that sudden change at death which some rely on.  The first sowing of the seed is a momentary act; the putting in of the sickle is momentary also; but it grows not in an hour, it ripens not in a day.  Does the husbandman, when he comes into his field to reap, expect to find it as he left it when he sowed?  Or when suns have shone on it in vain, and in vain the waters of heaven descended, will it start into perfection under the reaper's sickle?  

  

Caroline Wilson

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While the heart is unchanged and the spirit unrenowned, vain is every exhortation to serve God and lead a good and Christian life.  This is to demand the fruit before the tree is planted - to reap the harvest before the field is sown.  It is not the language of Scripture.  "Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,"  be conscious of your need of such a change, and believe that it is the gift and purchase of redeeming love.  This is the first exhortation addressed to every sinner under the gospel dispensation; and as sinners once dead in trespasses and sins, this is the theme of our prayers, our gratitude, and our rejoicing.  For we believe on the word and faithfulness of God, that the work He has begun He will complete; and having by His Spirit touched us into life,  He will preserve the feeble breath within us till it grows into immortality.   So long as the assurance of this first act of mercy abides within us, we feel, amid all the sins and dangers that  surround us, no apprehension for the issue of our travail…Being justified freely, we have confidence towards God; and God is more honored by our confidence than He could be by our doubts or any degree of mistrustful, anxious labor with which we might endeavor to relieve them.   This is the foundation of Christian character, the living principle, without which the action of life cannot be carried on; and proportioned, I believe, to the vigour of this principle will be the action it produces.

 

Caroline Wilson

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Our home!  What spirit has not felt the charm,

The untold meaning, hidden in that word?

Can any not recall one throb of joy

That swell'd the bosom when that name was heard?

Far banished from the beings most beloved

Strangers and pilgrims on a foreign soil;

Where even that we have is scarcely ours,

Claimants to nothing but to care and toil

Chill'd by a rugged and ungenial clime,

Despised as aliens, taunted and disclaimed,

What brilliant visions animate the soul,

Whene'er our country or our home is named

Heaven is our home - our best beloved is their,

And there is all that we can call our own;

Treasures far other than earth's borrowed joys,

There are our wealth, our scepter, and our crown.

What then is death?  Is it the mournful shroud,

The soldered coffin, and the sable train?

The brief inscription, and the moldering stone

That tells the careless stranger, we have been?

Mistaken emblems of unreal ill!!

Phantoms that pale the conscious sinner's cheek;

Spectres!  That haunt us in life's gayest hours!

When Christians die, how false the tale you speak.

Far other visions crowd his closing eye;

Death comes to him a messenger of love-

He hears angelic hosts their songs prepare

To greet his coming to the realms above

He sees the Savior stand with hand outstretched

To wipe the tears of sorrow from his eye;

He hears the Father from his lofty throne,

Invite him to his mansion in the sky.

Behind him he beholds earth's thousand ills,

With all the folly of its mad pursuits;

And sin disrobed of passion's artful guise,

Stands forth confessed with all its bitter fruits.

Before- what mortal accents may not tell

Something, life's grosser vision cannot see,

The bright beginnings of eternal bliss,

The gleam of coming immortality!

 

Caroline Wilson

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Caroline [nee Fry] Wilson(1787-1846) writing to a lady friend about an apparently charismatic movement taking place:  "The party with whom it originates, and among whom it is at present confined, is certainly not marked with any character of sobriety.  They are pious and talented, but they are not sober-minded; they love novelty better than their daily bread.  The simplicity of divine truth, and the equal dealings of divine providence are not to their taste; they have mystified the plainest doctrines of the Gospel; they have made war upon every thing common and received; they have quarreled with their mother-tongue, because it can be understood.  Having thrown the whole church into confusion, they have called their own uproar, a 'sign of the times;' and denied salvation to all who will not run with them to like excess of riot….Pious people are not always wise, and clever people, by reason of their temperament, are peculiarly liable to extravagances where their feelings are interested.  ….You know that I expect as fully as they do, the events of 'the last days;' but the more I believe of this, the more I am upon my guard against the 'Lo here! Or Lo there!' with which the levity of men anticipates the majestic walk of Deity.  I know that God can do what he will, and will do what he has promised; but I am accustomed to adjust my faith to the promise, not the promise to my faith, as is the fashion now with some.  Though it is true the Scripture no-where says that miracles shall cease, I am equally sure, it no-where says that they shall not.  We can only judge therefore of what God meant to do, by what he has done, and it is certain they have ceased for many centuries.  Whether God recalled these gifts for some good purpose of his own, or whether man forfeited them by unbelief, I do not know, - for the same reason; the Scripture has not declared it.  If the former, I doubt not God will fully manifest His purpose, to restore them when His time is come; and I can wait till He does so.  If the latter, I must have some evidence that the faith of James Macdonald, and Mary Campbell, is more than the faith of Luther and Latimer, of saints and martyrs, of men of God both dead and living, who, with equal zeal and sounder minds, have followed Christ, but worked no miracles, before I believe that increase of faith has brought back the gifts.

There is one who says, 'If I testify of myself my testimony is not true; ' but these people not only testify of their own gifts, but give the credit of them to their own faith, which they represent to be more than all the faith that has been in exercise for sixteen or seventeen centuries.    Perhaps you will say, 'But here are facts, how can you account for the delusion without supposing willful imposture in the witnesses?'  This I cannot, neither can I explain how Papal Rome performed her well-attested wonders, nor how Joanna Southcote's absurdities deluded 40,000 people; nor how Prince Hohenlohe made the lame to walk; nor how Wesley and his people  raised their ghost.  All must stand together till these new miracles have some better ground to stand on, than the honest credulity of those who think they have witnessed them.  Respecting the recoveries, I am not prepared to say how far the senses may be the dupes of the imagination.  I have seen enough of this, to believe much more; and without a miracle, we see every day, the 'speculations and anticipations of physicians,' baffled by the recovery of the patient, from a seeming deathbed; and that often by no means but strong mental excitement.  As for the tongues, I can imagine nothing easier for man or woman, than to utter what neither themselves or any one else can understand……I must really wait the interpretation of their tongues, and the use to made of them, before I treat this part as any thing but a gross absurdity, calculated to discredit all the rest.  To tell the truth, if the Spirit would constrain some of these people to hold their tongues, rather than to talk; I should be much more disposed to admit a miracle:  the gift of silence would be an extraordinary blessing to the Church at this time.  Mr. E--'s letter is not the writing of a sensible man.  His talent and piety we all know; and it is sad indeed, that men who have been distinguished in the Church, should occupy themselves with turning the heads of silly women, by over-excitement of their pious feelings…….

  

Caroline Wilson