is hypocrify; and let them not entangle thee with the yoke of bondage. The fpirit of bondage is nothing else but the wrath of God: the law worketh wrath, and nothing else; it can curfe us to death, and that is all. And when they tell you that we are delivered from the curfe, but are under the precept, tell them the law is not divided. He that labours to keep the precept is under the fentence-as many as are of the works of the law are under the curfe; and he that goes to it, Chrift shall profit him nothing, he is inverting the order of God, and fruftrating his grace: he that toils at the precept of the Jaw rejects the Saviour's active obedience as infufficient, and he that relies upon his own performances defpifes his blood. And when they tell you we are under the law to Chrift, afk them what law; and if they fay the moral law, tell them that is not the new covenant, that is not the law God writes on the mind and puts in the heart by his Spirit; for God minifters not the Spirit by the works of the law. The law of faith and the Spirit always go together: the day you believed, you were fealed with the holy Spirit of promife. The ifles are to wait for the Saviour's law, and his teftimony is to be bound up, and his law fealed, among his difciples; to this law and teftimony we are to go, and if they speak not according to this word of life, there is no light in them; we are under the law of faith to Chrift, and God minifters the Spirit by the hearing of faith. Their last refuge is, that the law in the hand of

Chrift is the believer's rule of life; but tell them that the moral law is not the Saviour's fceptre, that it is not the rod of his ftrength that came out of Zion, that came from Sinai. Nor is the law the strength of grace, but the strength of fin; for the firength of fin is the law. The rod of the Lord's ftrength is his gofpel, which is the power of God unto falvation to every one that believeth; with this he fmites the earth, and with the breath of his lips he flays the wicked-by making his fervants, who are minifters of the Spirit, a favour of life unto life to them that believe, and a favour of death unto death to them that believe not. This is the rod of Chrift's strength which is come out of Zion, and by which he rules in the midst of Jerufalem. Mind what I fay, and God give thee understanding in all things; and walk in the Spirit, and ye fhall not fulfil the lufts of the flesh. The Lord be with thy fpirit. Amen.

W. H. S. S.

LETTER

LETTER LXV.

To the Rev. Mr. HUNTINGTON.

REVEREND AND HONOURED FATHER,

THE Concern, the tenderness, the fimpathy, and the compaffion, which you fhewed me when I was finking under the terrors of the Lord; when there was none, though I had looked on the right hand and on the left, that knew me, nor feemed to care for my foul; the light I received, and the power I felt from your miniftry; the many wrestlings with God in prayer with me and for me; the many kind instructions you communicated in private, and which the good Lord was pleased to bless, have for ever united my foul to you.. I know God is in you, and with you; I have felt his power and fweet influence from you; and all the attacks of open enemies have never shaken me in this confidence, nor do all the infinuations of pretended friends now move me: I know that Satan works by them, for his fuggeftions are the fame as their infinuations; but he can find no place; no, my faith ftands in the power I have felt, and God hath given me light fo fee both him

and

and them. Nor can I fee, in the light of God's word, wherein you have acted wrong in any thing.

The contents of this letter are as clear as they are

I know that where thefe joints and bands are wanting, that, fooner or latter, fuch members will either drop off, or be cut off. Such communications as these are profitable to my foul, and I thank you (under God) for what I have received, and I ftill hope for more. I know to whom God fent me at first to be taught and fed, and by that crib I mean, by his help, to abide; I know as well as Elihu, and I have feen it in the fame light as he did, that an interpreter is a rare thing; one among a thoufand Job found that fhewed him God's uprightnefs in chaftening of him, and told him that he fhould be delivered from going down to the pit, for God had found a ransom.

I can fee, now, wherefore the Lord kept me above a year under a fore fpirit of defpondency, and fent me from place to place over a deal of England, and Wales too; and every where I went I fearched for gospel preachers, and looked to their pulpits for a little light and fome hope; but in vain. Some preached the law, and holinefs in the flesh, in fuch a manner, that I despaired of ever being faved; my very flesh moved on my bones at the hearing of it, and I curfed the day wherein I was born. Others preached the doctrines of the gofpel with fuch a carnal glee, attempting to move the affections, and

with fuch bold and prefumptive expreffions, tending to raise carnal confidence, that my foul was difgufted at the hearing of it; for I knew that I had been there long enough myfelf, and that it was from them I had fallen. All that they could advance was nothing but the ruins of a hypocrite's houfe, upon which he had leaned, but it would not bear him up. Some appeared to me to preach the word very clearly, and feemed to enjoy what they preached; but they did not come near my cafe, nor could they fhew that any in my circumstances, and with my feelings, were ever faved; and therefore I concluded, at times, that I was caft away for ever, and expected every day my body would drop into the grave, and my foul into hell. But when I had read Hart's Preface, and your Kingdom of Heaven taken by Prayer, which books I had never read before, I found a gleam of hope now and then rifing within me; this led me to fearch for more of your books, and the books led me to you.

If I am not mistaken in my conjectures, the ringleaders of the party that now rife up had before this conceived a prejudice either againft you or your ministry, if not against both; and the devil was permitted to fend this preacher only to bring forward the birth; for I believe it works fome time in them before we see it brought forth. But when luft to envy is conceived, it will bring forth fin; and when this is finished, it bringeth forth death-death on all their comforts for a while, if not on their fouls for ever.

I believe