riences of real believers; and bringing into contempt his own profession, as well as the experience of others, and exposing to shame the church of God; he is said to do despite to the Spirit of grace, because he exposes to ridicule and contempt all that he has learned in the church; and opposes knowingly his real operations on humble and simple souls. Thus, such a monster sins against law, against conscience, against his profession, confession, and reformation; against light, against knowledge, against Christ, against the covenant, and the blood of it; against the joys that he felt; against the convictions that he had from what himself felt, and from what he saw of the power of God on others; and so sins against the Holy Ghost, and against the church of God, the very temple of him. . And for my part, I can see no ground of hope for such a man; no place of repentance; no promised warrant for faith; nor any way to escape the damnation of hell; because every door of hope is barred against him, the saints are commanded not to pray for him, nor is there a plea in all the covenant of grace but what he has sinned against. Such men are either left with a seared conscience, a reprobate mind, and impenitent heart, to commit all uncleanness with greediness, or else shut up in black despair, under a fearful looking for of judgment, and in the daily expectation of a fiery indignation from God to devour such an adversary.

Thus, dear Madam, I have sent you some of

the heads of the subject; and as it was blessed to your happy deliverance, I hope God will bless this epistle to confirm your faith in Christ, and of your comfortable part and lot in his great salvation. I find many poor, simple, weak souls harassed by Satan about this unpardonable sin, when at the same time there is every appearance of filial fear, tenderness of conscience, anxiety for holiness, contrition of heart, chastity of converse, diligence in the means of grace, fervour in devotion, jealousy of themselves, suspicion of their own bad and deceitful hearts, which appear to me to be things that accompany salvation, and as far from the marks of an unpardonable apostate, as the east is from the west: but it is the devil's business to weaken a good hope, and to support a bad one; to harden the hypocrite, and distress the sincere; he is not divided against himself; if he was, how should his kingdom stand?

You need not have made that apology in your letter; it is the joy of my soul to be found useful, and the desire of my heart to be more so; therefore you are welcome to draw any thing out of my earthen vessel that the Lord has been pleased to put therein. Dear Madam, adieu; may every essential truth and special grace be with you, while I remain with profound respect, and with a willing mind,

Yours to command in the gospel of Christ,

W. H.

LETTER XIX

Winchester Row, August 12, 1785.

I

DEAR HADAM,

RECEIVED yours of the first instant, and have reason to conclude that God has heard my prayer in your behalf. The throne of grace, or mercyseat, is the large room that electing and redeeming love has opened as a common receptacle, or meeting-place for all believing, hoping, praying, and praising souls to meet at; here all prevalent petitions and grievances are cast in; and it is from hence that all favours are dispensed, and all grievances redressed. It is here that every chosen vessel's name appears; here every believer's case is considered; and from hence are all the angels sent with their charges and messages unto them that are, or ever shall be heirs of salvation.

From hence comes the blessed Spirit of God, like a dove of swiftest wing, with the olive leaf of gospel peace, emblematical of a final closure of the floodgates of an ireful deluge by covenant; and of an eternal peace proclaimed through the sweet savour of an immortal and ever-available sacrifice. From hence comes, by the Holy Ghost, the everlasting love of God to be shed abroad in the trou

bled and disquieted heart of the coming sinner. This love is the immutable and eternal bond of union, which goes from the Father, through the Son, to us; and runs through every circumcised heart in all the world; and through every human spirit now made perfect in heaven; and holds all the lively, or living stones of mercy's fabric fast together, as united to Christ, the chief corner-stone; and through him to God the Father, as the decretive and glorious fabricator of the whole building. God laid the foundation; and it was he that made our Lord the headstone of the corner; surely this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. All glory to the first founder, and equal glory to the foundation! Amen and Amen, says the most rugged stone in all the building.

This, Madam, is the grand tie of the building, and loving faith in the great atonement is the immortal cement that compacts the whole fabric together; for the want of this many fall off; the word does not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that hear it.

The redeemed church, thus united to the corner-stone by eternal love, and cemented together by faith in the great atonement, is called a building fitly framed; and, under the divine operations of the Holy Ghost, it grows up into an holy temple in the Lord, for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

Formerly God dwelt in a tent, and in a tabernacle, wheresoever the children of Israel travelled,

2 Sam, vii. 6, 7; and after that at Shiloh, until the profanity of the priests caused him to forsake it, and give his strength, which was prefigured by the ark, into captivity, and his glory into the enemy's hand, Psalm lxxviii. 61. After this he appeared as a wayfaring man, or visitor, and only turned aside and lodged with them for a night, Jer. xiv. 8, in a judge or in a prophet; until the days of David, who found out a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built him a house; and at his pious and fervent invitation he put his name there, and manifested his glorious presence in it, until idolatry provoked him to leave it to the rage of them, whose idolatrous iniquity brought from Babylon, was by the Israelitish captives carried back again to the land of Shinar, from whence it came, and established there on its own base, Zech. v. 6-11. At their return God took up his residence among them, until they turned his house of prayer into a den of thieves, and a house of merchandize; and then he threatened to leave them; and this he faithfully accomplished after the abominable idols and heathenish idolaters profaned his temple, and provoked him to jealousy; which caused him to go up from between the cherubims, and for a long time to stand only on the threshold. But when the death of his dishonoured, rejected, and murdered son had rent the vail, he went out through the same rent, and broke up housekeeping for good and all; your house of prayer and royal house is left unto you desolate.