there are more for us: all the praying souls on earth, all the glorified saints in heaven, all the angels of God, yea, the God of angels himself, all are on our side. Satan may rage, but he is a chained enemy; men may contradict and fight, but they cannot prevail. Two things we shall especially need, courage and patience, that we neither faint before them, nor upon any provocation act in their spirit. If we can pity and pray for them, return good for evil, make them sensible that we bear them a hearty good-will, and act as the disciples of Him who wept for his enemies, and prayed for his murderers-in this way we shall find the Lord will plead our cause, soften opposers, and by degrees give us a measure of outward peace. Warmth and imprudence have often added to the necessary burden of the cross. I rejoice that the Lord has led you in a different way; and I hope your doctrine and example will make your path smoother every day: you find it so in part already. As the Lord brings you out a people, witnesses for you to the truth of his word, you will find advantage in bringing them often together. The interval from Sabbath to Sabbath is a good while, and affords time for the world and Satan to creep in. Intermediate meetings for prayer, &c., when properly conducted, are greatly useful. I could wish for larger sheets and longer leisure; but I am constrained to say adieu, in our dear Lord and Saviour.

Yours, &c.

Dear Sir,

า

LETTER IV.

Dec. 12, 1767.

THIS is not intended as an answer to your last acceptable létter, but an occasional line, in conquence of the account Mr. T**** has given me of your late illness. I trust this dispensation will be useful to you; and I wish the knowledge of it I am favoured with an unusual

may be so to me.

I am

share of health, and an equal flow of spirits. If the blow you have received should be a warning to me, I shall have cause to be thankful. glad to hear you are better; I hope the Lord has no design to disable you from service, but rather (as he did Jacob) to strengthen you by wounding you; to maintain and increase in you that conviction which, through grace, you have received, of the vanity and uncertainty of every thing below; to give you a lively sense of the value of health and opportunities; and to add to the treasury of your experience new proofs of his power and goodness, in supporting, comforting, and healing you; and likewise to quicken the prayers of your people for you, and to stir them up to use double diligence in the present improvement of the means of grace, while by this late instance they see how soon and suddenly you might have been removed from them.

I understand you did not feel that lively exercise of faith and joy which you would have hoped to have found at such a season: but let not this discourage you from a firm confidence, that, when the hour of dismission shall come, the Lord will be faithful to his gracious promise, and give you strength sufficient to encounter and vanquish your last enemy. You had not this strength lately, because you needed it not: for though you might

think yourself near to death, the Lord intended to restore you and he permitted you to feel weakness, that you might know your strength does not consist in grace received, but in his fulness, and his promise to communicate from himself as your occasions require. Oh, it is a great thing to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus! but it is a hard lesson: it is not easy to understand it in theory; but, when the Lord has taught us so far, it is still more difficult to reduce our knowledge to practice. But this is one end he has in view in permitting us to pass through such a variety of inward and outward exercises, that we may cease from trusting in ourselves, or in any creature or frame or experiences, and be brought to a state of submission and dependence upon him alone. I was once visited something in the same way, seized with a fit of the apoplectic kind, which held me near an hour, and left a disorder in my head which quite broke the scheme of life I was then in, and was, consequently, one of the means the Lord appointed to bring me into the ministry; but I soon perfectly recovered. From the remembrance Mrs. **** has of what she then suffered, she knows how to sympathize with Mrs. B**** in her share of your trial. And I think dear Mr. **** some years since had a sudden stroke on a Christmas-day, which disabled him from duty for a time. To him and to me these turns were only like the caution which Philip of Macedon ordered to be repeated to him every morning; Remember thou art a man. I hope it will be no more to you, but that you shall live to praise him, and to give many cause to praise him on your behalf. Blessed be God, we are in safe hands: the Lord himself is our keeper; nothing befals us but what is adjusted by his wisdom

and love. Health is his gift; and sickness, when sanctified, is a token of love likewise. Here we may meet with many things which are not joyous, but grievous to the flesh; but he will in one way or other sweeten every bitter cup, and ere long he will wipe away all tears from our eyes. Oh that joy, that crown, that glory, which awaits the believer! Let us keep the prize of our high calling in view, and press forward in the name of Jesus the Redeemer, and he will not disappoint our hopes.

I am but just come off from a journey, am weary, and it grows late; must therefore break off. When you have leisure and strength to write, oblige me with a confirmation of your recovery, for I shall be something anxious about you.

I am, &c.

LETTER V.

March 14, 1775.

My dear Friend, I THOUGHT you long in writing, but am afraid I have been longer. A heavy family affliction called me from home in December, which put me out of my usual course, and threw me behindhand in my correspondence; yet I did not suspect the date of your last letter was so old by two months as I find it. Whether I write more frequently or more seldom, the love of my heart to you is the same; and I shall believe the like of you; yet, if it can be helped, I hope the interval will not be so long again on either side. I am glad that the Lord's work still flourishes in your parts, and that you have a more comfortable prospect at home than formerly: and I was pleased with the acceptance you found at S; which I hope will be an earnest of greater things. I think affairs in general, with respect to this land,

have a dark appearance; but it is comfortable to observe, that, amidst the aboundings of iniquity, the Lord is spreading his Gospel; and that, though many oppose, yet in most places whither the word is sent, great numbers seem disposed to hear. I am going (if the Lord please) into Leicestershire on Friday. This was lately such a dark place as you describe your country to be, and much of it is so still; but the Lord has visited three of the principal towns with Gospel light. I have a desire of visiting these brethren in the vineyard, to bear my poor testimony to the truths they preach, and to catch, if I may, a little fire and fervour among them. I do not often go abroad; but I have found a little excursion now and then (when the way is made plain) has its advantages, to quicken the spirits, and enlarge the sphere of observation. On these accounts, the recollection of my Njourney gives me pleasure to this day; and very glad should I be to repeat it; but the distance is so great, that I consider it rather as desirable than practicable.

My experiences vary as well as yours: but possibly your sensations, both of the sweet and of the bitter, may be stronger than mine. The enemy assaults me more by sap than storm; and I am ready to think I suffer more by languor than some of my friends do by the sharper conflicts to which they are called. So likewise, in those seasons which comparatively I call my best hours, my sensible comforts are far from lively. But I am in general enabled to hold fast my confidence, and to venture myself upon the power, faithfulness, and compassion of that adorable Saviour to whom my soul has been directed and encouraged to flee for refuge. I am a poor, changeable, inconsistent