The believer pictures her state. It is a seeming paradox. The extremes of lowliness and
greatness are combined. She presents two aspects. Deformity
and loveliness compose the portrait. I am black, but lovely. Blackness is frightful and repulsive. No eye can rest on it complacently. But blackness is the emblem of
our state by nature. We are conceived and born in
sin, and sin is most hideous wherever it appears. The Spirit
has revealed this truth to each enlightened convert. He sees
it. He feels it. He owns it. He bewails it. It is His constant
misery. When he would do good, evil is
present with him. He hates and loathes and abhors
himself in dust and ashes. Surveying the innate corruption,
which is his, he mournfully confesses, I am black, I am vile. But he looks off to Christ. He sees the precious blood washing
out every stain and obliterating the crimson dye. The blackness
disappears. In Christ, He is whiter than
the whitest snow. He puts on Christ, and adores
Him as made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. He sees His pure and perfect
obedience, wrought out as a robe to hide His every defect, so
bright, so lovely, and so glorious, that it exceeds all admiration. He feels that this righteousness
is through grace imputed to him. He knows that he is lovely through
divine loveliness. Thus clothed and decked, he triumphantly
tells his friends, I am black, but lovely. This Puritan devotional has been
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