Table of Contents - VU-DARE Home

and ordinances also prosper in the hands of Thy ministering servants. Forgive all
party-spirit animosities and contentions. Forgive all that are against poor me, and
forgive me if any of Thy people I have offended. May peace with candor and
brotherly love revive and prevail, and we experience that the God of peace and
love be in the midst of our land and this city. Bless all the Protestant Churches,
reform them in discipline and purity of life and conduct, and oh, may they be
more and more united in the bonds of Christian love. I rejoice in the hope, though
suffering by opposition and suspicious persons. The Lord forgive us, and reunite
us in mercy, for Zion’s prosperity. Oh, may our land also be visited with wisdom,
prudence, peaceableness, and more happiness, that the inhabitants be united into
such measures for public safety as the Lord will own and establish, for the
permanent interest of the whole. May the schools here and elsewhere also
prosper, and the rising generation be brought up in the fear of God, in the
principles of our Holy Religion and the other arts and sciences, so necessary and
advantageous for Church and state, my worthy colleague be strengthened and we
both be like David and Jonathan: 402 sunergè su too kuroo yerwo. 403 Jesus Christ.
Amen.
March ’88
4. I would bless the Lord for all His mercies to me and my family, though
unworthy of the least, nay, deserving His displeasure. Oh, how many are the
bounties of His distinguishing goodness unto us. Last Friday I was strengthened
to preach from Romans 3.25-26, 404 and to recommend a crucified Jesus, as the
ilastèrion. 405 Oh, may I be enabled continually to look unto Him, as a propitiation
also for my sin, both original and actual, and experience the sanctifying and
comforting influences of His grace and Spirit. I thank the Father of mercies for
His assistance also in receiving many into the full Communion of His Churches,
of whom I would hope that a sincere desire to belong to Christ has brought them
to make confession of our most Holy and precious Faith. My worthy colleague
assisted me in receiving others, and also baptized a servant maid, whose mother
seems to be upright and diligently in attending the means and doing her work.
May many more be piked and added to the Church, and me rejoice in their good
conversation in Christ. On the Lord’s Day, though afflicted and much tempted,
the Lord has not left nor forsaken His poor, distressed servant, but strengthened by
a promise which was brought to my anxious mind, I am with you all the days, 406
and I was carried through the work of the day with some comfort to my
disconsolate soul. I endeavored to lament my loss, and my son’s, with sorrow and
tears, but found many fears and assaults, and not so composed as I could have
402
1 Samuel 17-31 describes the relationship of these two heroic figures.
403
Greek [letters, half transcribed]: I approve this your getting together [?]. Westerlo read passages of
the Bible in Latin and Greek.
404
[Christ Jesus,] whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through
faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the
sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he
justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.
405
Transcribed Greek: reconciliation.
406
Matthew 28:20: And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
162