BELOVED,

You are known of God, though you may not be discerned by man. You are scattered up and down the world, in a cloudy and dark day, undistinguishable to the human eyes, from the common mass of mankind. Your divine mark or seal, wherever you are to be found, consists of the belief, obedience and love of the truth which God has caused to be set forth in the writings of Moses, and the prophets, and the apostles. Having this mark, you are precious in His eyes. Your faith is well-pleasing to Him; your obedience, your free-will offerings, your sacrifices in his service at the time when all the world ignores Him ascend before Him as the odour of a sweet smell, and are acceptable to Him through the High Priest of our profession.

And they will be spoken of again to your great joy, in a day when they will seem to have been all forgotten, and when they will seem too small to be mentioned in the presence of the world-stirring events that will belong to the coming again of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I write to you concerning our common affliction -- common in a large sense. I do not write to you because I know you. Some of you, I doubtless know; but no man knows you as "the Lord knows them that are His." A man cannot even know himself in this sense -- as our beloved brother Paul has said, "I judge not mine own self: he that judgeth me is the Lord." We know the principles upon which men will be saved, because they have been revealed: but we are not capable of discerning infallibly where these principles have had their effectual work, though we may discern where they are set aside and violated.

I write to you as those whom the Lord loves, and who will be banded together in a joyous company when the Lord comes.

I write to you, as one of you, having the same experience and the same need. The scorner may mockingly enquire what right I have to write to such, I answer, the right of brotherly love, which belongs to every man who can rise to his privileges in Christ. Brotherly love leads to brotherly concern in all things, but particularly in those that relate to our standing in God, our position in the present probation, and our hope concerning the purpose of God which will surely be accomplished. Your present lot is grievous in many respects; and at times you are greatly cast down, and nigh despairing altogether of the Lord's promised kindness in Christ.