the comfort I can from past tokens: but though, as before observed, this sometimes affords both pleasure and profit, yet I find the hungry soul cannot be satisfied without an experience of the truth of that declaration, "He filleth the hungry with good things." And I have often had to acknowledge the faithfulness of my God to his promise, that "they that wait upon him shall renew their strength." It is a barren season indeed when I have not found the word in some degree profitable, either for doctrine, or reproof, or correction, or instruction, or consolation; though sometimes even this has been the case, and I have come away as dead and unsatisfied as I went.

I have several times known, when staggered with some adverse circumstance in providence, or some knotty and apparently contradictory point in my experience, which I could not for a time reconcile to the good-will of God towards me, nor clear up from the word, nor my former feelings, nor indeed see what was the end and aim of God therein; that it hath pleased the Lord the Spirit, after exercising me for some time, to unravel the mystery, to shew me what was his will, and to make me know that his thus dealing with me was suitable to something then relating to my case; and by this means he has enabled me to sit down at his feet in humble acquiescence, and my soul has received fresh comfort and establishment from the dispensation. ticularly to admire,

And here is what I have parnamely, that you have been

afterwards led to treat upon the very same subjects, have given the very same description, and have come to the very same conclusions, to the no small confirmation of my faith and hope, seeing God hath declared that he gives his people one heart and one way, and that they are led by one Spirit.

I have sometimes been tempted to doubt of the work in my soul, and to fear it was not of God, because it was not effected in that sudden, that outward manner, or with those violent operations that some persons have described and felt. But, after some time, this temptation was effectually answered to my comfort by the parables of the grain of mustard seed and the little leaven hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened. And, blessed be God, I have been enabled to see that this living principle of his grace implanted within me has sprung up and increased; and I have not a doubt but it will grow up to life everlasting. I have also, ere now, entertained great jealousy of my state on account of not having then shared much of the furnace of affliction, knowing that it was the common lot of the elect, and that they were bastards only that escaped it. But I remember an observation of yours, that has since been verified in me, viz. that it would not be much to the credit of a soldier to shew his back scarred with stripes, since it would be a strong indication that his faults had called for them; and I know, and have seen in some instances, at the

very same time, that my perverseness, carelessness, and rebellion, have been the procuring cause of those crosses, spiritual and temporal, that have since been laid upon me, and which have been neither few nor small; for, besides sore conflicts in soul, in which I have sometimes walked in darkness and had no light, and found it hard work to stay myself upon my God, I have also met with some very severe trials in temporal affairs, at which times carnal reason has set before my eyes my family to be provided for, and unbelief has represented the improbability of my being able to do so; yet under this I have found that my chief concern has been lest the cause of God and his honour should suffer reproach through me, or that I should be a stumblingblock to others. hitherto my God has supplied all my need, and my faith has been led to believe that, having given me his dear Son, he will with him also freely give me all things. And on one occasion especially, the heaviest I ever met with of this kind, through a loss in trade, I was so greatly supported by access to God, communion with him in public and private means, and a sense of his love to me in the covenant head, that I was constrained to acknowledge, that if such dispensations were always to be attended with such manifestations, I could joyfully submit to them, and think myself richly repaid; for, as afflictions abounded, consolations did much more abound also. When this is the

But

case, the things of earth sit lightly. I could trust him, in covenant faithfulness, to supply me with every thing needful, both for the life that now is, and for that which is to come. But afterwards, on another occasion of the same nature, though not to a fifth part of the same extent, I found the trial sit much heavier on my soul, for now I was under great spiritual darkness, my evidences were obscured, I saw not my signs; doubt and despondency gathered upon my mind; added to this, the hand of God seemed to be gone out against me in providence; and though I knew him to be just in his dealings with me, yet I did not see his fatherly chastisement, but feared his wrathful indignation; and therefore I could not, as before, receive his correction with humility, till, after long contention, during which the calamity was still further increased, he was pleased to humble my proud spirit, and endue me with submission. Then by degrees my hope was strengthened, my confidence restored, and I was enabled to cast my burden upon the Lord, and he sustained me. In this conflict I remarked that a light shone into my understanding upon several passages of scripture in an extraordinary manner; but as I did not find them applicable to my case, and as it reached my understanding only, without producing comfort, humility, submission, or re-establishment of soul, I could derive no satisfaction from them, and was, if possible, more than ever convinced that it is

only by drinking of the streams of the river of life that the city of God can be made glad.

In my avocations in life I have sometimes found it necessary to take long journeys into the country, which has deprived me for weeks together of the green pastures in public ordinances; for wherever I have attended I never found any thing, either in preachers or professors, that was accompanied with a divine unction, or upon which my soul could feed. Not but there may be some of the Lord's sheep scattered in the darkest corners of the earth; and it has often struck me, when I have been in some of these dark corners, that many of our missionaries, if they were good workmen, might find ample room for employment among those who, I should think, have quite as strong a claim upon them as others who live thousands of miles off. To be sure, when a man leaves his home and native land, and voluntarily makes his field of action lie at such a distance, he may perhaps, at the great day, think he can plead, with a better grace, his having done such wonderful works. But that is a subject for their own consideration; and it must be allowed they have left the work in hands that will not be idle, and perhaps with this they are satisfied, for in every place Arminianism is spreading its damnablyerroneous influence, and making its converts twofold more the children of hell than before. I only notice what has passed under my own obser