Abbott's Hill and Principles; Christ in Glory and Humiliation

You will have received much later news than I can send you how beloved Mr. Wigram is gone home, and since then tile trouble they have had in London. But God makes this, as all else, work together for good to those who love Him. With the details I have had little or nothing to do, being absent in France; with the root and ground of it everything.... The result is in God's hands, so that I go no further. I have long felt the state of things; and that the Lord will sift the brethren, or is doing so, cannot be doubted. What struck me was, not the evil, I see as much in the apostles' days, but powerlessness to meet the evil. I was most thankful to get the news of brethren in Australia, New Zealand, etc. God, I think, is working here in spite of all. There are conversions, and He is binding saints together where there was division and evil.... On the whole in England there is much to thank God for. We are not out of the place of patient waiting on the Lord, but the mass of evil which seemed insurmountable is wasting to its own real dimensions, and people's consciences, I trust, are awakening to God's presence, and realities; and when we are in God's presence all goes right. I have the Lord greatly with me in it all, though deeply tried. When people were tried with circumstances, I was comparatively at peace, had gone through it with the Lord.
I think I see that Christ is presented in glory as one who leads us on in energy, conforming us to what He is according to the glory; and that when the question is of nourishing the inward life, and the affections and character, it is the humbled Christ on whom we have to feed. This is partly the case in Phil. 2 and iii.: the former the inward state and character, Christ coming down; the latter, a glorified Christ, the Object after which we run. But it is taught in many passages. I have been struck also latterly, in connection with a controversy on certain teaching whose soundness was in question, that while Romans gives us death to sin, the old man or flesh, and Colossians death and resurrection, just touching Ephesian ground, this last has nothing to do with dying to the old man. The object of grace is owned as dead in sins, and then a wholly new creation in Christ; so that we have the contrast of the two things, what by the Holy Ghost we are put into, and what we were in the flesh. Colossians is life, not the Holy Ghost; estate, not place. But I must close. We have nearly done the bulk of our work.
Pau. 1879.
Abbott's Hill and Principles; Christ in Glory and Humiliation
I was very glad to get your account. I need not say how thankful I am for the blessing God has bestowed on the work.... I do trust the Lord may continue His blessing on the depot and on the saints. As to me, I am growing old, past eighty, and my activities somewhat more burdensome; but till to-day, and some days of traveling, I have had two meetings daily these six weeks or more, and when in London it is yet harder work. In general there is a very open ear for the word, and we cannot complain of want of blessing. There is nothing very new, but the thirst for the word is striking, nor are conversions wanting. The shake brethren got in London has aroused consciences; they needed it, but the Lord has been very gracious, and though there are local traces of it, God has not allowed His testimony to fail. But there is not the same deadness to the world as at first, but more than a while back: I do trust there may be yet growth in this respect...
What I still dread is worldliness; it weakens the spring of all. For what is there but Christ? He reveals the Father; He is eternal joy, and present life too. We do not enough feel that what is not seen is revealed to us. See 1 Cor. 2 How could we look upon it if it were not, or how set our affections on things above? Perhaps as one draws nearer we see clearer, or are more occupied with it, but it seems to me all. People go on around me with their occupations, and I suppose must, and I know ought in one sense; but it seems to me another world which ends in nothing. At any rate, the fashion of it passes away - Christ, and His word, and they who do God's will, never. All that is eternal; only we have to seek His guidance to serve Him, with His wisdom and according to His will.
Kindest love to the brethren. It would, were it possible, be a joy to me to see them, but it is hardly likely now.
Aberdeen, September, 1880.