nesday to C, if God permit, where I am to preach five times. My success is not small, blessed be God, but I get old, and withering day by day; and the sooner dried up the better for me.

Ever yours,

W. H.

LETTER LXXXIX.

To the Rev. J. JENKINS.

I HAVE at last obtained a line from the excellent one. His outward man decays: this I feel, and doubt not but it is true in him: but the inner man is renewed day by day; this I see in him, nor is it otherwise in me also, in a small measure. Death now will work in him, but life in the flock, and he will build them up, as God pulls him down. The infirmities of the body, and the revivals of the soul, will keep pace: and the house above will appear clearer and clearer, as the earthly house of this tabernacle decays; I mean the building not made with hands. Every grace, from faith to fear, has the promise of glory annexed; and this is no small encouragement to old weather-beaten, and invalid soldiers, who live in expectation of a discharge. I always thought, and have often said, that you would be the best man, when at the worst; the strongest man, when most weak; and the most lively in death. That

health would appear in your sickness, the swiftest pace would be at the goal, and you the most robust on the bed of languishing. Your hardest birth throes have been in imagination, and your sharpest pains in the midst of health; and what has been feared and imagined will appear ten times worse than what will be felt when it comes in reality. No lepers were pronounced clean but those covered with scurf; and sure I am that they are most alive who die daily. Communion with God is always attended with self-loathing; the more self is exalted, the farthest from God: lovers of God, and lovers of themselves, divide the world. Every one of God's family cannot bear enlargement; too much new wine would burst the bottle unless well softened, meekened, and supplied by affections; nor will trials do without godly sorrow and contrition to sanctify them: Paul's sharp thorn was to prick the bladder that was puffed up, that it should not swell. The best of men have a fleshly mind: and this, above measure overblown, must burst. Many that have bemoaned, lamented, and pitied his Excellency in his former conflicts, will envy him on his deathbed. The best wine of the marriage feast will come forth at last, and perhaps the groaning caudle at the hour of death. You are nothing but a riddle, and so I have sent you a paradox.

I

LETTER XC.

To the Rev. J. JENKINS.

AM glad at my heart that any help or support should be conveyed by any scrap from me. "Who hath despised the day of small things?" God has not, nor should we. The bruised reed is as near to him as the well-tuned harps of Zion, filled with thanksgiving and the voice of melody. The lambs in the arms and bosom, and the rams of Nebaioth, that minister, are both alike to the good Shepherd. There is joy in heaven over one pénitent, more than over ninety and nine who need no repentance. If there was not much dross, there would not be so much fire; but remember this, his fire. is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem, not in the world. The body and the soul are the work of the Saviour's own hands, and every grace, life, and light are his own treasure; so that he only purifies his own property; and he is the strength of the heart, the life of our grace, and the length of our days: our times are in his hands. Christ is Lord both of life and death; he can lengthen out his work, or cut it short. Death shall not invade till the people, of old prepared, be made ready for the Lord, Luke i. 17. It is not the furnace of affliction, nor the fiery trial, that can take away or purge our sins, our dross, our tin; nor is it intended so to do, but to discover all these. It is by

mercy and truth iniquity is purged; the mercy of God in regeneration is that which washes us: this is the clean water that cleanses us from filth and from idols. And truth respects the covenant of promise, in which God promises forgiveness, and Christ is the truth, being the fulfiller and the fulfilment of the promise, for in his crucifixion the fountain is opened, and the best robe is brought in. This is the mercy and truth by which iniquity is purged. The furnace is to search, to try, to stir up, and to make manifest the counsel of the heart, that we may see it and feel it, and be sensible of the need of Christ; seek him, call upon him, and trust in him, and be thankful for him. Meekness, patience, submission, humility, and love, are all by the Spirit alone; and whenever these are produced in us, the work is done at

once.

But we are not to go unpunished; for if we are ignorant of our fearful fall, we shall not prize the great salvation, nor give all the glory of it to God. Besides, God will be waited on, and waited for; nor is a stubborn mind, and a hard heart, a proper soil to receive seed, nor a good stock to graft upon: hence the word is called a hammer, a fire, a sword, an axe, a plummet, to cut, to wound, to break, &c. and "By sorrow of heart the spirit is broken;" and this God will have. I have no doubt of your salvation, for I have you still in my heart, and in all my prayers. I have of late been indulged with a praying frame, and for a few days past been much engaged; for

God has bent my mind, and fixed a full purpose in my heart, to cleave close to him, and to press forward, though it be through many discouragements. And I am fully persuaded that you are chastened for your good; and though you kick at it, yet I am sure that if the Lord was to take away his rod, and all afflictions from you, and give you up to dead sloth and carnal ease, and to a judicial hardness of heart, so as to have no more pain, sorrow, or concern, you would be glad to get back again into the same furnace where you are now. The Lord knows that you are a Welchman, and no small man, and so do I; and he is at no loss for power, nor ways, nor means, to pull thee down. Give my love to all friends; and be assured that you will share in my petitions.

W. H.

LETTER XCI.

To the Rev. J. JENKINS.

May 11.

My dear friend's is just come: he is in the balance of the sanctuary; in which all ranks of men are a lie, and lighter than vanity. God puts us all into the scales, and weighs us, as Job says, in an even balance. In which there are two things God aims at, man's spirit, and man's actions. "Every way of a man is clean in his own eyes,