The Answered Prayers Of A Loving Father

Gospel Standard 1869:

A Correspondence Between A Daughter And Her Parents

The following letters will speak for themselves. The first was written by the daughter of Mr. Scandrett, for many years pastor of the Strict Baptist church at Godmanchester, and the two others are the answers to it from her parents:

A Letter By F. Moss (Scandrett) To Her Father And Mother

My dear Father and Mother, I take up my pen at this time to address you with feelings very different to what I have formerly done. Yes; I feel that I am a sinner, a great sinner, and always was, though I did not know it as I have lately seen myself to be. I have been led to see my lost and ruined state by nature, and feel my need of a Saviour. The Lord has been pleased to set my sins in order before me; and what a mercy if I am snatched as a brand from the burning. But my fears, though somewhat removed, are still very great, and I am yet afraid to say, “Rejoice with me, for I have found that which I have been seeking after;” that is, the pardon of my sin through the blood of Christ. I know there is no other way whereby I can be saved but by that Saviour who came into the world to save sinners. But ah! Did he die for me? That’s the great question! O! Could I but have some token to know this, what should I fear? Still I have a little hope; and though it is but small, I could not give it up. No; I would not exchange my state for all the world. I have been convicted many times under Mr. Sewell’s ministry, and I can say I believe he has been the means of opening my eyes to see my lost and sinful state. There was a young man from Braintree preached here about Christmas time, afternoon and evening. His text in the evening was, “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” As soon as the words were read they were like a dagger to my heart. Never shall I forget how I felt. I thought no one ever felt as I did. I wished I could have sunk into nothing, as I could see no way of escape. I well knew I had neglected every thing. I could hear very little of the sermon. My heart felt broken. But I did not continue in that state long. I read my Bible and found many precious promises that somewhat relieved me. I tried to compose myself in this way: “Well,” I thought, “I have never committed this or that outward act as many have;” but I see very differently now. I find I have such a wicked heart, even my thoughts are sin; my heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it? I could not tell my dearest friends the wicked thoughts that cross my mind, which makes me sometimes ready to despair, thinking if I was right I should never have such thoughts. I have felt a little comfortable sometimes; but for so short a time that I am almost afraid to take encouragement. I never felt so happy as I did one evening a week or two back. I had been reading my Bible all the evening, and it seemed a sealed book to me, and I was praying to the Lord that he would open it to me and enlighten my mind; and I felt such a spirit of prayer that my heart melted within me. I felt such love to the Saviour that my whole heart and mind was in it; and I could praise him and could give everything up for him. I did feel happy indeed. I do not know how long this pleasing sensation lasted; but it seemed to me to be but for a few minutes. They were the happiest moments I ever had. But they were soon gone; I soon lost them; but still I love to think of them.

I have written two or three letters to you, but could not send them, I feel such changes. Sometimes I can say such great things, and then at another time I am afraid to say anything. I think sometimes, “It is of no use for me to write; for perhaps they will think there is a change in me, and I am afraid there certainly is not, nor ever will be;” so that I am ready to give up all for lost. Sometimes I think if I perish, it shall be crying for mercy. Last Sunday week my mind felt so uncomfortable I wanted some one to open my mind to. I thought it would be such a relief if I could tell any one howl felt. On the Monday morning I went to Mr. Sewell’s, and told him how I felt as far as I was able. He encouraged me much, and seemed pleased, and said I had no cause to despair; which relieved me a little while.

Now I begin another week with better news. On Saturday morning I felt very low, when these words came into my mind: “Unto you is the word of this salvation sent.” “Unto you.” I thought, “To whom?” and I kept repeating it, and I said, “To whom is it sent?” “Why, to you who feel the need of it,” was the answer; for it seemed as if some one was talking with me. “Well,” I thought, “I know I feel the need.” “Then it is sent to you!” In an instant my mourning was turned into joy, and immediately this followed: “Jesus is the Friend of sinners.” He died that sinners might live. “Well,” I said, “if he is my Friend, I want, I need no other. In him there is everything I want.” If I try, I cannot express to you my feelings. It seemed too much for me; the bliss appeared so great. What love, to lay down his life for sinners who could make him no return! All I could say was,

“Here, Lord, I give myself away;

’Tis all that I can do.'”

A poor return! My fears were then all removed. I felt not the least doubt that he died for me. I wept; but they were tears of joy.

I am sure you know better about these feelings than I can describe to you. You have been this way before me. I believe those words that I have mentioned are in the Bible, but I cannot find them. Yesterday afternoon Mr. S. preached from these words: “Jesus saith unto Thomas, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” He is the Way, a true and living way. I seem to have just commenced my journey. I pray that he may keep me in the way, that I may not turn to the right hand or to the left, that my feet may not slip, that I may follow on until I arrive at last where he is. Yes; I need his keeping. If I am left, I am sure I shall err. But he will never forsake those that put their trust in him.

My dear father and mother, I do earnestly beg an interest in your prayers. Remember me. My desire is that your Father may be my Father, and your God my God. I have thought lately that perhaps your prayers have been answered for me. Another thing I have to beg of you is, your instruction. You, father, have been as a guide to many; you both, I have no doubt, have had many a slough to pass over, many a giant and lion to meet in the way.

Had the Lord dealt with me according to my deserts, I should not have been spared to write to you, as hell would have been my place. It is of his mercy I am not consumed. You will think me a strange being; but I have been so tried and tempted today not to send you this letter. Satan suggests to me it is all delusion; but I know I have told you just my feelings, and if I am deceived I hope the Lord will undeceive me. If I write for a week I cannot tell you my thoughts.

I hope you will write to me soon; perhaps it may be a means of settling my roving mind. So I will venture to send this, and hope when I write again my mind may be more settled.

Yours sincerely and affectionately,

F. Moss

Thaxted, Feb. 13th, 1833.

A Letter By Mr. Scandrett To His Daughter

My dear Child, We received your epistle with peculiar pleasure, and I hope with feelings of gratitude to the blessed God, whose finger of Divine power I can clearly trace throughout the whole of it.

O what an unspeakable mercy it is to be brought by the teaching of the Holy Ghost to realise our true sinnership, and feelingly to know and honestly to confess before God our real deservings of endless wrath; for though we may not have been left in our nature-state to have run into many outward abominations which others have done, yet the Holy Ghost, when he comes to renew, will sooner or later most assuredly make all the Lord’s people to know in a measure that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, and that our whole nature is nothing but sin. “I know,” said the apostle, “that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” Now, wherever these things are taught by the Spirit of God, and I am compelled to believe they are in you, mind this, they are in the truest sense a good work; and where God begins a good work, he will perfect it to the day of Christ. Now this day has dawned upon you. You say you are sure you never can be saved but by him. This is an eternal truth, and gives me much pleasure in reading it; for “there is none other Name given under heaven amongst men whereby we can be saved;” and blessed be his precious name, we need nor desire any other.

Thus you see, my dear, the Lord makes us feel our great sinfulness, our complete helplessness, our ill and hell-deservedness, that we might be saved by Christ alone; and thus it is that the Lord make us feel the power of guilt, that we may look to Christ for pardon; our own vileness, that we may be led to the fountain of his blood for cleansing; and be sure when the Holy Ghost fills you with self-abasement and self-abhorrence, under a sense of the filthiness of the rags of your own righteousness, it is to make you long for the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the righteousness of God to all them that believe, and who has himself declared that “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

I am very glad you are led to read the precious word of God. May you pray to the Lord for the Spirit’s teaching, to enable you to read it indeed as the word of God that can never fail. Its promises, when viewed by faith, will afford sweet consolation. May the Lord enable you to make it the man of your counsel at all times and in all cases.

You say you are sorely tempted by the enemy. This is nothing new.

“Satan the weakest saint will tempt,

Nor is the strongest free.”

May the Lord give you to discern his assaults, and to see how your own heart, through unbelief and carnality, is ready to join in with him. Whatever leads you to think highly of yourself in any measure, or lightly of the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, is temptation.

You cannot be too thankful for the peace of God, or any sensible enjoyment of Christ’s gracious presence manifested to you; but take great care not to make a Christ of your frames; but while sipping of the streams may you never forget the fountain. That is, when you find, as you certainly will, your joys declining, your comforts all gone, your poor soul cleaving to the dust, and you can neither rise nor go to reach eternal things, then is the time you need faith. May the Holy Ghost, then, lead you to believe and rejoice in it, too, that the Lord Jesus Christ is just the same as when you sat under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to your taste.

The portion of Scripture that was brought to your mind, and which, through God’s power, so relieved you, you may find in the Acts of the Apostles, 13:26.

But I must leave off. Let us hear from you soon. When I write again, perhaps I may write more. I cannot now. So fare thee well.

May the blessing of him that dwelt in the bush rest upon you.

Your affectionate Father,

Wm. Scandrett

Godmanchester, Feb. 26th, 1833.

A Letter By Mrs. Scandrett To Her Daughter

My dear Child, I received your letter and read its contents with surprise and with feelings of pleasure and astonishment. Indeed, I was quite overcome with so unexpected an account of the dealings and goodness of the Lord towards you, as it appears very clear to be the Spirit’s work upon your heart.

O what a mercy that the Lord should in his great goodness bring you to a sense of your lost and ruined state by nature, and to feel that you were so completely helpless that you could do nothing to bring yourself out of it without his gracious interposition and the blood of Christ to cleanse you from guilt and defilement. You see the Lord is never at a loss to effect his work upon the hearts of his own blood-bought children, to bring them to a sense of the need they stand in of a Saviour, and to make them cry to him for mercy and pardon to be applied by the Holy Spirit to the heart and conscience.

It appears by your letter that the Lord was graciously pleased to fasten the word of conviction upon your heart by the application of those words: “How shall we escape?” This so humbled and brought you to his footstool to cry for mercy, to wish you could have sunk into nothing. My dear, I think I never saw the Lord’s work clearer than in this instance, that he is following on his work in your heart, and has given you a sweet token of his love and meltings of soul from those words so powerfully applied: “To you is the word of this salvation sent.” O what a mercy that you were enabled to receive it by faith and to rejoice in the Lord with exceeding joy; and though it was but for a short time, it appears, nevertheless, to be the Spirit’s work upon your heart, the recollection of which is sweet and consoling to the mind, sometimes, in dark seasons, when the enemy and your own unbelieving heart is ready to call all into question. But fear not, “More are they which are for you than all those that can be against you.” The Lord will never forsake the work of his own hands. If you are tempted at times to think it is not the Lord’s work, may you be helped to look to Jesus and rejoice in his dear name: “Trust in the Lord for ever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.” He is gracious and full of compassion, and is ever ready to hear the cry of his poor and needy ones.

I rejoice with you, my dear, that the goodness of God has led you to that repentance that needs not to be repented of. O may you be enabled to give him all the praise and the glory. The goodness of God is truly astonishing when we are led by the Spirit to see our ill and hell-deservedness and the goodness of God in pardoning such rebels, in bringing them to his footstool, to plead for mercy and then to calm the tempestuous ocean of the mind and to say, “Peace be unto you.”

I have many times felt an inclination to write to you on the importance of eternal things, but never could bring my mind to enter upon it; but now I see it is all well, since the Lord has been pleased to take you in hand; for nothing that I could have said would have been effectual without his blessing. I do always remember you in my poor petitions; but what a mercy that you are remembered by the Lord Jesus Christ, who prayed for you when here on earth, as you may find in John 17, where he was praying to his Father on behalf of all his dear family. He says, “I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me;” and of all that are given unto him he will not lose one. It is a sweet portion. Read it over, and may it be blessed to your comfort and edification to see what love (was ever love like this?) and O what a cheering thought that now he is entered into his glory he ever lives to make intercession for them, and says, “Father, I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.” His words are full of comfort and consolation to his dear family. May you, my dear, be enabled to derive all that comfort and support you stand in need of from them.

I wish I could see you. I should love to have a little conversation with you, to hear all particulars, as I know you feel much more than you can write; but whenever you are particularly tried or comforted make a memorandum of it, that so you may be enabled to trace the goodness of the Lord.

I can perceive you have had a great struggle in your mind in sending us an account of the Lord’s dealings towards you, fearing lest you should be deceived; but be not troubled on that account. May the Lord strengthen and settle you in the truth, that you may at last come off a conqueror and more than a conqueror through him that hath loved you and given himself for you. I trust Mr. S. is a man that preaches the truth as it is in Jesus, and as such you hope he has been instrumental in the Lord’s hands in convincing and in bringing you, through the Spirit’s teaching, to the knowledge of the truth. I hope you may be still blessed under his ministry, that you may have to set to your seal that the Lord is true. May the Lord bless you and lead you and keep you in the truth, that you may see more and more of the riches of his grace in Christ Jesus.

I write this, my dear, with peculiar pleasure, and hope you will write a few lines by S., and let us know how you have been exercised since your last.

I am happy to hear your dear husband is inquiring the way to Zion. May he be enabled to seek so as to find, to knock so as the door of mercy may be opened, not in his own strength, but by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Wishing you much of the Lord’s presence, to comfort you and support you under every trial or temptation you may have to meet with in the way, that you may go on your way rejoicing,

I remain, your affectionate Mother,

H. Scandrett

Godmanchester, March 4th, 1833.