Christ's imputed righteousness is bestowed equally on all believers--none, the least any more than the greatest sinner, being more justified than another. Feeling assured or not of their salvation, all His are equally safe--"those whom Thou hast given me I have kept, and none of them are lost." There is no such equal enjoyment among believers of peace in believing; some walking all their days under a cloud, and some who walk in darkness and have no light, only reaching heaven, like a blind man guided homewards by the hand of his child, by their hold of the promise, Who is he that feareth the Lord and obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light; let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay himself in his God. But where there is peace springing from a sense of forgiveness, of all the fruits of the Spirit that grow in Christ's fair garden, this is sweetest. Among the blessings enjoyed on earth, it has no superior, or rival even. It passeth understanding, says an apostle. Nor did David regard any as happy but those who enjoyed it--pronouncing "blessed," not the great, or rich, or noble, or famous, but "the man," whatever his condition, "whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." And so he might. With this peace the believer regards death as the gate of life: enters the grave as a quiet anchorage from seas and storms; and looks forward to the scene of final judgment as a prince to his coronation, or a happy bride to her marriage day. A sense of forgiveness lays the sick head on a pillow softer than downs; lightens sorrow's heaviest burdens; makes poverty rich beyond the wealth of banks; spoils death of his sting; arms the child of God against the ills of life; and, lifting him up above its trials, makes him like some lofty mountain, at whose feet the lake may be lashed into foaming billows, and adown whose seamed and rugged sides clouds may fall in gloomy folds, but whose head, shooting up into the calm blue heavens, reposes in unbroken peace, rejoices in perpetual sunshine. Happy such as obtain a firm hold of Christ,
Muckle Kate Not a very ordinary name! But then, Muckle Kate, or Big Kate, or Kate-Mhor, or Kate of Lochcarron was not a very ordinary woman! The actual day of her salvation is difficult to trace to its sunrising, but being such a glorious day as it was, we simply wish to relate something of what shone forth in the redeemed life of that "ill-looking woman without any beauty in the sight of God or man." Muckle Kate was born and lived in Lochcarron in the county of Ross-shire. By the time she had lived her life to its eighty-fifth year she had well-earned the reputation of having committed every known sin against the Law of God with the exception murder. Speaking after the manner of men, if it took "Grace Abounding" to save a hardened sinner like John Bunyan, it was going to take "Grace Much More Abounding" to save Muckle Kate. However, Grace is Sovereign and cannot be thwarted when God sends it on the errand of salvation, and even the method used in bri...
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