Jefus; for I proteft, before God, I would fooner lofe my life than lofe it: but the Lord has given me a tender confcience, and a filial fear, and in fome meafure the difcerning of fpirits, which I hope will be of use to me. Pray for me, for you are in my heart to live and die with you; therefore I hope you will excufe my familiarity with you, for I cannot help making free, feeing God hath fhined through you, and fpoken by you, to my heart, which I fhall never forget. The fruits and effects of the fpirit of bondage I have left out, fecing they are fo fully defcribed in your above-mentioned book. And now, Sir, I know your goodnefs will excufe my boldness with you, feeing it is intended to God's glory, and to strengthen your hands in the work. So I remain your very affectionate and loving fon,

T. W.

LETTER

I RECEIVED my dear friend's epiftle. The contents are, that his name is ftill great among the Gentiles, and an ointment poured forth to all that feel their need of him. He must increase, and Mofes fhall decreafe; though he hath in every city thofe that preach him, the fervant shall not share his Mafter's glory, nor ftand in competition with him. When we get upon the holy mount, Mofes and Elias are fure to withdraw; but the former will accufe us all the time we are in the wilderness, for it is the rebellicus that dwell in a dry land. There are few that go from Jerufalem to Jericho but what fall among thieves: their great light and fwelling words. are wonderously enchanting to thofe who live only upon their inward joys; the former is a wandering ftar, and the latter a tinkling cymbal, and it is no unufual thing to fee a child catch at a lighted candle, and be charmed with the found of a fiddle. Such are pimps for Satan. We (like fools) give up ourfelves to their guidance, viewing them as eyes to

the blind, feet to the lame, and as hands to the paralytic; but when thefe offend, we must cut off thefe feet, pluck out thefe right eyes, and cast these offenfive hands from us, and appear halt, lame, and maimed, rather than accompany them to hell-fire. Here we go mourning back again to the chief Shepherd, with only two fragments, for these are all that are taken out of the mouth of the lion, a leg and a piece of an ear. There is a grain of faith left for Jefus, and a little attention to what he fhall be pleafed to fay to us, and that is all that is perceptible, and fometimes hardly that. Congregations of hypocrites and heretics are the devil's brothels, and the work of thefe fiddlers is to procure fresh provisions, and no morfel fo fweet as the poor man's ewe-lamb; they rejoice more at the wounding and laming a lamb of the Lord's fold, than they do in the flaughter of a thoufand goats, or ten thoufand bulls of Bafhan.

There is, my fon, a twofold repentance; the one legal, the other evangelical. Judas had the former, the prodigal the latter. The first is forced, or extorted, when the wrath of God and the guilt of men meet together in the finner's confcience; this is attended with no hatred to fin, but to the punishment; it is always attended with felf-pity and enmity against God; this may be feen in a fullen, desperate wretch going to the gallows; the law works no other than this. Evangelical repentance springs from the joyful meeting of the Saviour's dying love

and

and man's mifery in the finner's heart, and is the bleffed effect of pardon, peace, and reconciliation; this is attended with an hatred to fin and felf, and a loving, fimpathizing with, and mourning over, the Son of God in his dolorous fufferings for finful worms like us; this is not extorted, but poured forth, and the more the love of Jefus operates, the more it flows; this is repentance unto life, for the living God is the object of it, and he is alive from the dead that exercifes it: and fomething like it may be seen in a young feduced tranfgreffor, who hath received his fentence, and who faints away at the fight of the fatal tree, and little better than half dead when the cap is drawn over his face; but, to his astonishment, his pardon is proclaimed while the halter is about his neck. The former fight drank up his fpirits, but his pardon diffolves him quite. But what is this, when compared to a foul in the fearful hands of the living God, and who receives his pardon over the belly of hell, and is at once plucked as a brand from the burning, and wrapped up in the bofom of divine and everlasting love? Let the fons of God rehearse these his mighty acts in the places of drawing water, when the ftreams from the wells of falvation overflow all their banks, and the glorious God appears to be a place of broad rivers and streams wherein fhall go no galley with oars.

No fruitfulness, my fon, wilt thou ever find, but by virtue of union with the living Vine. In him is our fruit found; the clofer we cleave to him, the

more virtue comes from him; and the more we re, ceive from his fulness, the more we fhall favour of his name. All his garments fmell of myrrh, aloes, and caffia; abide under his skirt, and thou shalt be a fweet favour of Chrift to them that love him, and a fweet favour of God in Chrift to them that hate him. The Holy Spirit is a fweet leader, and an inward dictator: obferve the inclinations which he gives to prayer, and obey them; likewife the aid and affifiance that he grants to us while engaged in it; the paffages he brings for us to plead, the arguments he gives us to use; the fervour, the faith, the expectation alfo, as well as the enlargement of heart, the boldness, the nearness of accefs, the freedom and familiarity; in all these things he helps our infirmities, and makes fenfible interceffion for us, according to the will of God: befides the melting and humbling fenfations, the powerful motions of love, the fight that he gives us of our wants, and of the fulness of Chrift to fupply them; the various views that he gives us of his fufferings, and the dif coveries he gives us of the mysteries of his kingdom; the future views and fweet thoughts which his wonderful operations produce in the heaven-born foul. He that is led by this infallible guide is a child of God; therefore what he dictates obferve, what he points out do, and where he leads go-and be that foweth to the Spirit, fhall of the Spirit reap life verlafling.

Beware alfo of the leaven of the Pharifees, which