and is pleased to cause our hearts to burn would make us choose. We were not dewithin us while we are speaking of his good-signed to be mere recluses, but have all a ness. But often it is far otherwise with me: I carry with me a dissipation of spirit, and find that I can neither impart nor receive. Something from within or from without crosses my schemes; and when I retire I seem to have gained nothing but a fresh conviction, that we can neither help nor be helped, unless the Lord himself is pleased to help us. With his presence in our hearts, we might be comfortable and happy though shut up in one of the cells of Newgate: without it, the most select company, the most desirable opportunities, prove but clouds without water. I have sometimes thought of asking you, whether you find that difference between being abroad and at home that I do? But I take it for granted that you do not: your connexions and intimacies are, I believe, chiefly with those who are highly favoured of the Lord, and if you can break through or be upon your guard against the inconveniencies which attend frequent changes and much company, you must be very happy in them. But, I believe, considering my weakness, the Lord has chosen wisely and well for me, in placing me in a state of retirement, and not putting it in my power, were it ever so much my inclination, to be often abroad. As I stir so seldom, I believe, when I do, it is not upon the whole to my disadvantage; for I meet with more or less upon which my reflections afterwards may, by his blessing, be useful to me, though at the time my visits most frequently convince me, how little wisdom or skill I have in improving time and opportunities. But were I to live in London, I know not what might be the consequence. Indeed, I need not puzzle myself about it, as my call does not lie there; but I pity and pray for those who do live there, and I admire such of them as, in those circumstances which appear so formidable to me, are enabled to walk simply, humbly, and closely with the Lord. They remind me of Daniel, unhurt in the midst of lions, or of the bush which Moses saw surrounded with flames, yet not consumed, because the Lord was there. Some such I do know, and I hope you are one of the number. This is certain, that if the light of God's countenance, and communion with him in love, afford the greatest happiness we are capable of, then whatever tends to indispose us for this pursuit, or to draw a vail between him and our souls, must be our great loss. If we walk with him, it must be in the path of duty, which lies plain before us when our eye is single, and we are waiting with attention upon his word, Spirit, and providence. Now, wherever the path of duty leads we are safe; and it often does lead and place us in such circumstances as no other consideration part to act in life. Now, if I find myself in the midst of things disagreeable enough in themselves to the spiritual life, yet-if, when the question occurs, What dost thou here? my heart can answer, I am here by the will of God,—I believe it to be, all things considered, my duty to be here at this time rather than elsewhere. If, I say, I am tolerably satisfied of this, then I would not burden and grieve myself about what I cannot avoid or alter, but endeavour to take all such things up with cheerfulness, as a part of my daily cross; since I am called, not only to do the will of God, but to suffer for it; but if I am doing my own will rather than his, then I have reason to fear, lest I should meet with either a snare or a sting at every step. May the Lord Jesus be with you.-I am, &c. LETTER V. April 13, 1776. DEAR MADAM,-I am rather of the latest to present my congratulations to you and Mr. -on your marriage, but I have not been unmindful of you. My heart has repeatedly wished you all that my pen can express, that the new relation in which the providence of God has placed you may be blessed to you in every respect, may afford you much temporal comfort, promote your spiritual progress, and enlarge your sphere of usefulness in the world and in the church. By this time I suppose visits and ceremonies are pretty well over, and you are beginning to be settled in your new situation. What an important period is a wedding-day! What an entire change of circumstances does it produce! What an influence it has upon every day of future life! How many cares, inquietudes, and trials, does it expose us to, which we might otherwise have avoided! But they who love the Lord, and are guided by his word and providence, have nothing to fear; for in every state, relation, and circumstance in life, he will be with them, and will surely do them good. His grace, which is needful in a single, is sufficient for a married life. I sincerely wish Mr. and you much happiness together; that you may be mutually helps meet, and assist each other in walking as fellow-heirs of the hope of eternal life. Your cares and trials, I know, must be increased; may your comforts be increased proportionally! They will be so, if you are enabled heartily and simply to entreat the Lord to keep your heart fixed near to himself. All the temporal blessings and accommodations he provides to sweeten life, and make our passage through this wilderness more agreeable, will fail and disappoint us, and produce us more thorns than roses, unless we can keep sight of his hand in bestowing them, and hold and use the gifts in some due subserviency to what we owe to the giver. But alas! we are poor creatures, prone to wander, prone to admire our gourds, cleave to our cisterns, and think of building tabernacles, and taking our rest in this polluted world. Hence the Lord often sees it necessary, in mercy to his children, to embitter their sweets, to break their cisterns, to send a worm to their gourds, and to draw a dark cloud over their most pleasing prospects. His word tells us, that all here is vanity, compared with the light of his countenance; and if we cannot, or will not, believe it upon the authority of his word, we must learn it by experience. May he enable you to settle it in your hearts, that creature-comforts are precarious, insufficient, and ensnaring; that all good comes from his hand, and that nothing can do us good, but so far as he is pleased to make it the instrument of communicating, as a stream, that goodness which is in him as a fountain. Even the bread which we eat, without the influence of his promise and blessing, would no more support us than a stone; but his blessing makes every thing good, gives a tenfold value to our comforts, and greatly diminishes the weight of every cross. The ring upon your finger is of some value as gold, but this is not much; what makes it chiefly valuable to you is, that you consider it as a pledge and token of the relation you bear to him who gave it you. I know no fitter emblem of the light in which we should consider all those good things which the Lord gives us richly to enjoy. When every thing we receive from him is received and prized as a fruit and a pledge of his covenant-love, then his bounties, instead of being set up as rivals, and idols to draw our hearts from him, awaken us to fresh exercises of gratitude, and furnish us with fresh motives of cheerful obedience every hour. Time is short, and we live in a dark and cloudy day. When iniquity abounds, the love of many waxes cold; and we have reason to fear the Lord's hand is lifted up in displeasure at our provocations. May he help us to sit loose to all below, to watch unto prayer for grace to keep our garments clean, and to be faithful witnesses for him in our several places! O, it is my desire for myself and for all my dear friends, that whilst too many seem content with a half profession, a name to live, an outward attachment to ordinances, and sentiments, and parties, we may be ambitious to experience what the glorious gospel is capable of effecting, both as to sanctification and consolation, in this state of infirmity; that we may have our loins girded, and our lamps burning, and by our simplicity and spirituality constrain those who know us to acknowledge that we have been with Jesus, have sat at his feet, and drank of his Spirit.-I am, &c. LETTERS TO MRS. H— LETTER I. would be like a mill without wind or water; the contrivance and design of the wheel-work within side would be unnoticed and unknown, without something to put it in motion from without. Nor would our graces grow, unless they were called out to exercise: the difficulties we meet with not only prove but strengthen the graces of the Spirit. If a person was always to sit still, without making use of legs or arms, he would proba affliction to taste, that we might pledge him, and remember how he loved us, and how LONG and often have I thought of writing much more he endured for us than he will to you; now the time is come. May the Lord ever call us to endure for him. Again, how help me to send a word in season! I know could we, without sufferings, manifest the not how it may be with you, but he does, and nature and truth of gospel-grace? What to him I look to direct my thoughts accord-place should we then have for patience, subingly. I suppose you are still in the school mission, meekness, forbearance, and a readiof the cross, learning the happy art of extract- ness to forgive, if we had nothing to try us ing real good out of seeming evil, and to grow either from the hand of the Lord, or from the tall by stooping. The flesh is a sad unto-hand of men. A christian without trials ward dunce in this school; but grace makes the spirit willing to learn by suffering; yea it cares not what it endures, so sin may be mortified, and a conformity to the image of Jesus be increased. Surely when we see the most and the best of the Lord's children so often in heaviness, and when we consider how much he loves them, and what he has done and prepared for them, we may take it for granted that there is a need-be for their sufferings. For it would be easy to his power, and not ably wholly lose the power of moving his thousandth part of what his love intends to do for them, should he make their whole life here, from the hour of their conversion to their death, a continued course of satisfaction and comfort, without any thing to distress them from within or without. But were it so, should we not miss many advantages? In the first place, we should not then be very conformable to our Head, nor be able to say, As he was, so are we in this world. Methinks a believer would be ashamed to be so utterly unlike his Lord. What! the master always a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and the servant always happy and full of comfort! Jesus despised, reproached, neglected, opposed, and betrayed, and his people admired and caressed; he living in the want of all things, and they filled with abundance; he sweating blood for anguish, and they strangers to distress: how unsuitable would these things be! how much better to be called to the honour of filling up the measure of his sufferings! A cup was put into his hand on our account, and his love engaged him to drink it for us. The wrath which it contained he drank wholly himself, but he left us a little limbs at last; but by walking and working he becomes strong and active. So, in a long course of ease, the powers of the new man would certainly languish: the soul would grow soft, indolent, cowardly, and faint; and therefore the Lord appoints his children such dispensations as make them strive, and struggle, and pant. They must press through a crowd, swim against a stream, endure hardships, run, wrestle, and fight; and thus their strength grows in the using. By these things, likewise, they are made more willing to leave the present world, to which we are prone to cleave too closely in our hearts when our path is very smooth. Had Israel enjoyed their former peace and prosperity in Egypt, when Moses came to invite them to Canaan, I think they would hardly have listened to him. But the Lord suffered them to be brought into great trouble and bondage, and then the news of deiiverance was more welcome; yet still they were but half willing, and they carried a love to the flesh-pots of Egypt with them into the wilderness. We are like them: though we say this world is vain and sinful we are too fond of it; and though we hope for true hap- | should you doubt their being fulfilled? If you piness only in heaven, we are often well con- say you do not question their truth, or that tent to stay longer here. But the Lord sends they are accomplished to many, but that you afflictions one after another to quicken our can hardly believe they belong to you; desires, and to convince us that this cannot I would ask, what evidence you would rebe our rest. Sometimes, if you drive a bird quire? A voice or an angel from heaven you from one branch of a tree, he will hop to an- do not expect. Consider, if many of the other a little higher, and from thence to a promises are not expressly directed to those third; but if you continue to disturb him, he to whom they belong. When you read will at last take wing and fly quite away. your name on the superscription of this Thus we, when forced from one creature-letter, you make no scruple to open it: why, comfort, perch upon another, and so on; but the Lord mercifully follows us with trials, and will not let us rest upon any. By degrees our desires take a nobler flight, and can be satisfied with nothing short of himself; and we say, To depart and be with Jesus is best of all. I trust you find the name and grace of Jesus more and more precious to you; his promises more sweet, and your hope in them more abiding; your sense of your own weakness and unworthiness daily increasing; and your persuasion of his all-sufficiency to guide, support, and comfort you, more confirmed. You owe your growth in these respects in a great measure to his blessing upon those afflictions which he has prepared for you, and sanctified to you. May you praise him for all that is past, and trust him for all that is to come.-I am, &c. LETTER II. then, do you hesitate at embracing the promises of the gospel, where you read that they are addressed to those who mourn, who hunger and thirst after righteousness, who are poor in spirit, &c. and cannot but be sensible that a gracious God has begun to work these dispositions in your heart? If you say, that though you do at times mourn, hunger, &c. you are afraid you do it not enough, or not aright; consider, that this sort of reasoning is very far from the spirit and language of the gospel; for it is grounded on a secret supposition, that in the forgiveness of sin God has a respect to something more than the atonement and mediation of Jesus; namely, to some previous good qualifications in a sinner's heart, which are to share with the blood .of Christ in the honour of salvation. The enemy deceives us in this matter the more easily, because a propensity to the covenant of works is a part of our natural depravity. Depend upon it, you will never have a suitable and sufficient sense of the evil of sin, and of your share in it, so long as you have any sin remaining in you. We must see Jesus as he is, before our apprehensions of any spiritual truth will be complete. But if we know that we must perish without Christ, and that he is able to save to the uttermost, we know enough to warrant us to I think your experience is generally of the cast our souls upon him, and we dishonour fearful, doubting cast. Such souls, however, him by fearing that when we do so he will the Lord has given particular charge to his disappoint our hope. But if you are still ministers to comfort. He knows our infirm- perplexed about the high points of election, ities, and what temptations mean, and as a &c. I would advise you to leave the disposal good shepherd he expresses a peculiar care of others to the great Judge; and as to yourand tenderness for the weak of the flock, self, I think I need not say much to persuade Isaiah xl. 4. But how must I attempt your you, that if ever you are saved at all, it must comfort? Surely not by strengthening a mis- be in a way of free and absolute grace. Leave take to which we are all too liable, by lead- disputes to others; wait upon the Lord, and ing you to look into your own heart for he will teach you all things, in such degree (what you will never find there) something and time as he sees best. Perhaps you have in yourself whereon to ground your hopes, if suffered for taking things too much upon trust not wholly, yet at least in part. Rather let from men. Cease from man, whose breath is me endeavour to lead you out of yourself; in his nostrils. One is your master, even let me invite you to look unto Jesus. Should Christ. Study and pray over the Bible; and we look for light in our own eyes, or in the you may take it as a sure rule, that whatever sun? Is it indwelling sin distresses you? sentiment makes any part of the word of God Then I can tell you (though you know it) unwelcome to you, is justly to be suspected. that Jesus died for sin and sinners. I can Aim at a cheerful spirit. The more you tell you, that his blood and righteousness are trust God, the better you will serve him. of infinite value; that his arm is almighty, While you indulge unbelief and suspicion, and his compassions infinite; yea, you your-you weaken your own hands, and discourage self read his promises every day, and why others. Be thankful for what he has shown THOUGH I have the pleasure of hearing of you, and sending a remembrance from time to time, I am willing, by this opportunity, to direct a few lines to you, as a more express testimony of my sincere regard. you, and wait upon him for more; you shall find he has not said, "Seek ye my face in vain." I heartily commend you to his grace and care, and am, &c. LETTER III. Ar length, and without farther apology for my silence, I sit down to ask you, how you fare? Afflictions I hear have been your lot; and if I had not heard so, I should have taken it for granted, for I believe the Lord loves you, and as many as he loves he chastens. I think you can say afflictions have been good for you, and I doubt not but you have found strength according to your day; so that though you may have been sharply tried, you have not been overpowered. For the Lord has engaged his faithfulness for this to all his children, that he will support them in all their trials, so that the fire shall not consume them nor the floods drown them, 1 Cor. x. 13; Isa. xliii. 2. If you can say thus much, cannot you go a little further, and add, in the apostle's words, None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear. I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me; yea, doubtless, I count all things loss and of no regard, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for when I am weak, then am I strong." Methinks I hear you say, "God, who comforteth those who are cast down, has comforted my soul; and as my troubles have abounded, my consolations in Christ have abounded also. He has delivered, he does deliver, and in him I trust that he will yet deliver me." Surely you can set your seal to these words. The Lord help you, then, to live more and more a life of faith, to feed upon the promises, and to rejoice in the assurance that all things are yours, and shall surely work for your good. If I guess right at what passes in your heart, the name of Jesus is precious to you; and this is a sure token of salvation, and that of God. You could not have loved him if he had not loved you first. He spoke to you, and said, “Seek my face," before your heart cried to him "Thy face, O Lord, will I seek." But you complain, "Alas! I love him so little." That very complaint proves that you love him a great deal, for if you loved him but a little you would think you loved him enough. A mother loves her child a great deal, yet does not complain for not loving it more, nay, perhaps, she hardly thinks it possible. But such an infinite object is Jesus, that they who love him better than parents or child, or any earthly relation or comfort, will still think they hardly love him at all, because they see such a vast disproportion between the utmost they can give him and what in himself he deserves from them. But I can give you good advice and good news: love him as well as you can now, and ere long you shall love him better. O, when you see him as he is, then I am sure you will love him indeed! If you want to love him better now while you are here, I believe I can tell you the secret how this is to be attained: trust him. The more you trust him the better you will love him. If you ask farther, How shall I do to trust him? I answer, Try him. The more you make trial of him, the more your trust in him will be strengthened. Venture upon his promises; carry them to him, and see if he will not be as good as his word. But, alas! Satan and unbelief work the contrary way. We are unwilling to try him, and therefore unable to trust him; and what wonder, then, that our love is faint, for who can love at uncertainties? If you are in some measure thankful for what you have received, and hungering and thirsting for more, you are in the frame I would wish for myself, and I desire to praise the Lord on your behalf. Pray for us. We join in love to you.-I am, &c. |