the unfruitful works of darkness. For sure I am that such preachers are in the condemnation of the devil; they are lifted up with pride when they intrude themselves into the sacred office, and in the gall of bitterness while they execute it. If Eli breaks his neck, the priests fall by the sword, and their widows make no lamentation for their loss; if the ark goes into captivity, and the glory of God into the enemy's hand; if Ichabod comes upon Shiloh, and the house of Eli is never to be purged by sacrifice nor offering for ever, for the vileness of Hophni and Phinehas under that dispensation; what must the end of them be, who carry on the works of Belial under the light and heat of life and immortality brought to light by the gospel? I know what flesh and blood is, and the different lustings and continual war between flesh and spirit. But to hold the bonds of iniquity in a seared conscience, and under unpardoned guilt to appear with a brazen brow as God's ambassador, and to enforce daring and damnable presumption under the name of the assurance of faith; these are as evident tokens of perdition as ever was found upon the arch-leader of the rebel angels; but I have done. I pity my dear Lord and Master, and I know he pities me, and I truly feel for his poor flock. Adieu; thine in the best of bonds.

Pray for me.

W. H. S. S.

LETTER XLV.

To the Rev. Mr. HUNTINGTON.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

YOUR last kind favour has been safely received, and thankfully too. I believe that none of them has ever come without bringing me something that I am the better for receiving; and if I do not find it at the first reading, I am sure to meet with it at the second, or the third; they never get dry by lying in my house. I remember it was said of one, that his letters were weighty and powerful; yea, and I can say that his speech and his bodily presence are acceptable to me, and I wish I could both see and hear him oftener. Nothing in this world, I am persuaded, can ever make me forget you; I feel such heartfelt friendship with you as I never did with any other living person. I do not know whether I may call it by any other name than friendship; I know it is that, and more than that, but I should rejoice for ever if it should prove at last to be spiritual union. I have often wondered why I should be laid so much upon your heart, when I know that I am so unworthy of it. I hope, at times, that the Lord puts me there, and am thankful to him, and that he puts it in your heart to care for me; for this gentleness of yours, I can tell you, has often

been very sweet to me, when I could find no such treatment from any other quarter. At other times I have attributed the whole of it to your natural tenderness, and at some seasons I have trembled for you as well as for myscit, and have been sorry in my heart that you should have exposed your judgment to the rage and contempt of all the fools that would see my destruction at last. I never have been angry with you in my life, but for one thing; and that is, that you have exposed me so much; that you did not conceal me, pray for me, and write privately to me, and say nothing more about me, but let me be hid until the indignation be overpast.

I am, at present, just where you mention in your letter; in the balance, between hope and despair: sometimes hope turns it, then I wait and expect; but that which is hoped for not coming, doubts arise, fear, and unbelief; then to fretting and murmuring I fall, and darkness and bondage gather fast, and despondency then weighs me down, and I give up all for lost. If I could but see that the Lord, by these things, is teaching me things profitable for me to know, I should be more patient and more resigned; sometimes I can see a glimmering light, but it soon goes off.

I see you can well describe the preparations for the pulpit, and the operations in it, and it is some comfort to me that you have known and felt them as you have described. Indeed I know that the second sermon is a preparation for the

third; and though I am loath to go at it the third time, and wish not to meddle with it any more, yet I can soon feel, when I begin, that I have been taught something by my last disappointment. But, above all, I think, the mocking of the Philistines is the worst; I can see it in their countenances, but have no strength to cut at them; I am sensible then that quietness behoves me best, and pass over my tale as well as I can; and I have wished that the people would build me a little vestry behind the pulpit, and cut a door to go into it, that I might lock up myself immediately, and see no face at all. I hope, when the days get a little longer, that I shall be able to come and see you. I have been very poorly all this winter, with gouty and rheumatic pains all over me, which make me unable to ride much. The Lord bless you, and give you power to pray for me, and my poor prayers shall mix with yours. J. JENKINS.

LETTER XLVI.

To the Rev. J. JENKINS.

My hope of thee, dear brother, is steadfast; knowing this, that as thou art a partaker of the sufferings of Christ, so shalt thou be also of the consolations. Thy internal conflicts are doubtless

the chastening rod of but not altogether so. ing in order to future

God upon thee for thy sin, One part is divine teachusefulness, and that which

comes upon thee from fools, for truth and conscience sake, is the sufferings of Christ. The first cutting rebuke given to Paul was for his madness in persecuting; but what came afterwards was for the sake of Christ: "I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name sake." From the authority of that text Paul calls all his sufferings the sufferings of Christ, which he suffered for his body's sake, which is the church. I perceive, by your invitations to fresh places, that God sets before you an open door, and none shall shut it; he will spread your fame, and the word will sound out from L. and bear down all opposition, insomuch as Christ will make manifest the savour of his name in a fresh line of things not made ready to your hand, a line to reach unto many who have never yet heard the fame of Jesus. That light which shines upon thy state of mind is the day-dawn which breaks out upon them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; thou wilt not always grope for the wall like the blind at noon-day. After thou hast had a proper view of thyself, of the law, and of the holiness and justice of God, thou shalt see the mysteries of the kingdom, and a covenant God in the face of Jesus shining into thy heart, and changing thee into the same image from glory to glory, and all this by looking through a