I Have Stuck Unto Thy Testimonies

Ps 119:31

I know by soul experience that sticking to God s testimonies has kept me from many errors. When I have been placed, years back, before my mind was established in the truth, in circumstances of great trial; when I have seen dear friends fall around me, on the right hand and on the left, some into one error and some into another, and my own mind was driven to and fro by these winds and gusts, it was this solemn conviction that made me stick to that testimony which God had dropped into my heart, not to go into things which I had not known, nor to rush into doctrines which I was not spiritually taught. I have seen some friends dropping first into Arianism, then into Socinianism; others I have known to become Irvingites; some going into one error and some into another. And what then kept me? Why, this solemn conviction, which I trust the Lord himself had implanted, to stick to God s testimony, to cleave to what I had felt, to abide by what I had known, and to hang upon that as the only link which held me up from making shipwreck altogether. And thus the Lord kept me by this powerful though invisible tie, when those who seemed to know more than I departed on the right hand and on the left. Therefore, by soul experience I can, in some measure, say, "I have stuck unto thy testimonies;" and since then I have felt the solid benefit of sticking to God s testimonies in my conscience, though it has cost me many sacrifices, and often made me on the right hand and on the left to encounter friend and foe. But to stick to God s testimonies will bring peace at last.