devil may well lay about him; he feels the lash, and must and shall give way; Resist him, says God, and he will flee; he cannot stand before the Spirit's supplication and the intercession of Christ; he cannot stand before the faith of God's elect, and the Spirit's sword. I expected no less than what you write; I was sure he would labour hard, and use violence; but, "I will give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you," saith the Lord; and what think you of that? Never give it up: pursue it ten times a day, and beg these two things as I do, a satisfactory token for good; this is for the soul, and deliverance from a sleepy devil; this is for the body. Depend upon it that, by God's leave, I will meet you daily at the throne: nothing under heaven that is against God can stand before us; this I know, for God is for us and with us. Persevere, my dearly beloved; quit yourself like a man, that you be not a servant and slave to the worst of tyrants. You see how the lion can change into the serpent, and the serpent into the fox, in order to mar the vines; and into an angel of light, by moving in our corrupt affections, to make us favour the things of men more than the things of God. And now from being the strong man armed in defence of his own palace, he is become a rocker, to attend the cradle, and lull thee to sleep; and how has he foiled thee in this? Fight, flinch not, but at him, and he will soon flee, and

you will see it. I expected a damp from the quarter you mention. If we provoke others to jealousy, our own locks must and shall be shorn. God will deal as we deal. But this, yea even this, shall work for thy good.

"The needy shall not expectation of the poor

always be forgotten; the shall not perish for ever." The orders will come, Friend, go up higher; then shalt thou shine, and many shall see it; for those that cry in secret shall be rewarded openly. You know not how confident I write this; and who gives confidence? he that owns it and honours it. The heaven of heavens bless the scrap of excellence, so prays his faithful affectionate friend,

W. H.

I

LETTER LXXXIV.

To the Rev. J. JENKINS.

AM coming once more to visit the invalid. His outward man gets feeble, and his old man is as strong as ever. But neither of these can injure the new man: what God does is done for ever, nothing can be added to it, or taken from it; and God doth it that men should fear before him. The effect of this work on the souls of men is fear, and, "The fear of the Lord is his treasure:" a

2 A

treasure from the Saviour's fulness, and is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, who is called the Spirit of the fear of the Lord. And this grace is in my beloved. Nor is this all; for he is light in the Lord. He can see himself, his sinful nature, the old man and all his members, the devil and all his wiles; and you may depend upon this, that whatsoever makes sin and sinners vile in their own sight, and at the same time makes Christ the most lovely, and the most desirable of all objects, this, this is the true light: and it now shines in my beloved, and it is attended with unfeigned love to the brethren, and such dwell in the light, and there is no real or just occasion of stumbling in such; such being the children of light, and God is the father of these lights, and the father of glory, as Paul calls him; being the father of lights; for light is glory. Moreover, my beloved is not without love to Christ Jesus; for what does he make all this ado about him for; what is all this hunger and thirst after him; what is all this love, joy, meekness, weeping, crying, sorrowing, and sobbing over him when he comes; and all this fear and dread; this bitterness, this misery, and trembling; this hell and distraction within when he is gone? Surely he must be the chiefest among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely; lovely in the eyes of poor sinners that make so much of him, esteem him so highly, and who count themselves, and all things else, but dung and dross, when compared to him. Can such lovers and admirers of Christ be among

that number who say unto him, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways?" or among them who say there is no beauty in him; no form or comeliness, whereby he should be desired or admired? &c. And of this, my dear friend, be assured, that the law will never allow wrath to be executed, either upon fathers or upon children, unless they hate God. And sure I am, that those who have nothing but a hell without Christ, and who desire nothing else but him, must love him; and even the law itself shews mercy unto thousands of them that love him, and keep his commandments; and love to God keeps every commandment that ever came from God. And I am sure that I love my friend with an unfeigned, undissembled, and unadulterated love in Christ Jesus; and this love is not in the flesh, nor in nature. For I once saw my friend in the state of nature, and he took me by the hand at Ashdown; and so far from loving him, a toad, a dog, or a devil, would have been just as acceptable to me as he was. My soul loathed him as a senseless hardened sinner, a rebel, and a deceiver, a hypocrite, and a presumptuous invader of the priest's office. But it is not so now; he is a lost sinner, and he knows it, and such the Lord came to seek and save; and as such I love him in Christ Jesus and as such I shall ever hold him as one dear to me, dear to the Lord, and dear to all humble souls who know him. God bless thee!

W. H. S. S.

LETTER LXXXV.

To the Rev. J. JENKINS.

My best beloved seems quite in the dark about his own head. My views and firm opinion of him is, that a very gentle stroke of the paralytic kind has gone imperceptibly through his whole frame; of this I have been long assured in my own mind; and when you was last with me, I watched you narrowly, and compared what I saw in you with what I have seen in others, and was confirmed in my own private opinion. And this seems to me a most easy, gentle, and gradual way of gathering lilies, Song vi. 2. This relaxing, enfeebling, and debilitating complaint, not only weakens the joints and limbs, but the brain, eyes, ears, and even the speech. It also affects the memory and the recollection, by confusing and disturbing the head; so that the power of thinking, of recollecting, and even of attending, observing, and that also of looking and hearing, is at times much disturbed, disordered, or impaired. But all cannot alter or injure the noble powers or faculties of the soul; such as the will, the mind, the understanding, the affections, and the conscience, in all which the Holy Ghost works, and which are the proper receptacles of his presence, his power, and of his grace. Bodily afflictions are