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Do you fuppofe that I have forgotten you? This, I am fure, can never be the cafe, if it was only for what I can get from you. I received your last favour in due time, though I have been fo long before I acknowledged it. Sometimes I am declining fomewhere, I know not where. I get into a fad labyrinth, hedged up in a wilderness, where I can hear nothing, fee nothing, but mope about, and grope like the blind for the wall, and have no power to write, to think, nor fo much as to pray; there is nothing dismal in this world, or in the world to come, but what I fear will come upon me, and then conclude if I did belong to the Lord it could not, nor would not be fo; then again fome unexpected relief, fuch as little indulgence in prayer, when I can pour out my complaints, and reflect on my baseness and awful rebellion; I begin to think how abominably vile I have acted, and how merciful the Lord has been; and ought not I to bear all

this, and much more, from him, without murmuring and repining, and let his Sovereign Majefty do with me as feemeth good in his fight? I am fenfible that I have no claim upon him; I have forfeited his favour, and that for evermore, if he was to deal with me according to his juftice. I am tempted, at times, to nibble at his fovereignty; but the fcriptures prefently fhut my mouth. What aftonishes me as much as any thing, is the unexpected enlargement I find fometimes in the pulpit, and that when I have been the whole day in fetters, and not a word opening in the Bible; this, at times, meekens and melts my heart much, but I am fure to have it that night; for the devil has kept me awake the greateft part of the night, and haraffes me in a dreadful manner, and if I fall afleep he terrifies me with dreams, fo that I really have fometimes been tempted to let him alone for fear of him; but the next time the Lord gives me power, I have at him as bad as ever.

I can fee your last clear enough, and I think I can fee your defign in writing it; which was, to let me know that I am not to expect that the old man will either be killed or mended. I believe that he is incurable, and I think the devil dwells in him; and, I am fure, I hate them both with a perfect hatred, yet I have their company day and night; but it is forely against my will. Your cafe and mine, Sir, differ widely-" perfect love," you fay, "has caft out the fear of death, and keeps it out."

This I believe with refpect to you, and can fee it clear enough agreeable to the word of God, but it is not fo with me; if I had but this, I fhould fear nothing. I long for another epiftle; for, under God, these are the means that bring me along, if I am coming along at all.

God bless you, &c.

LETTER XX.

To the Rev. Mr. J

J. J.

Ir is true, my dear friend, I did think that I was out of fight and out of mind; or, at least, the same devil that told you that I fhould write to you no more, bore the fame lying teftimony at Paddington. God knows how forely I long after you in the bowels of Christ, and how thankful I am for every visitation of God to you. I have long indulged this confidence, that the Lord hath a great work for you to do, and he is fitting thee for it. The knowledge of fin and the law, of felf and of Chrift, of hypocrites and of

faints,

faints, of profeffion and poffeffion, is abfolutely neceffary to every one that is a workman, who does the work of an evangelift, and who rightly divides the word of truth, and makes a difference between the clean and unclean, the vile and the precious. I know the Lord is with thee, thou art holpen with a little help; hope works against defpair, and counterbalances it, and we are faved by hope. Faith has got a faft hold of him; this is plain, by the violence used by fin and Satan against it; neither of which can make faith relinquifh her hold; fhe will overcome the world by the Spirit's affiftance, and by the help fhe brings from the Saviour; who will ever honour faith, because faith always honours him, and excludes all boasting from the creature, by leading the finner to reft alone in the finished work of our great Deliverer. Against this reliance alone on Jefus proud nature argues and brings forth her ftrong reafons; at this fhe fpurns, rebels, and oppofes herself, till her ftrength is exhausted, and the foul is bewildered, confounded, and befooled, infomuch that the finner becomes a mystery and a riddle to himself, and knows nothing as he ought to know; and when this clay is taught to lay paffive in the hand of the potter, it is moulded into another veffel, as it feemeth good to the potter to make it.

I wonder not at thy unexpected enlargement in the pulpit; for when we enter upon this work felfdebafed, we are fure to be exalted; when many

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filent groans, tears, and petitions, have been poured out in fecret, we are rewarded openly; when we appear felf-emptied, his fulness is fufficient, and we find that our sufficiency is of God; in our weakness his ftrength is made perfect; and when we appear dumb men, in whofe mouth are no reproofs, then it is" fon of man, when I want thee to speak I "will open thy mouth;"-a door of utterance is given, the Spirit of our heavenly Father speaketh in us, and we ourselves are aftonished, both at the matter, the manner, the fluency, and the fortitude. When we have been thus indulged, and we leave off full of power and energy, then we expect to cut a greater figure the next time; and, in this con fidence, we are minded to go unto them; and if we are furnished with a text, and some tolerable views into it, this heightens our zeal, braces and equips us, and at it we go, full of felf, self-dependance, and self-sufficiency. In the first prayer we find that we are more mighty in felf than we are in word; and though the text and the heads be given out with fome degree of boldness, yet when we come to explain them, that lock of hair wherein our great ftrength lay is cut off, we shake ourselves, but it is nothing but a fham or a banter, and the Philiftines themselves can fee it. Our heads of difcourfe are half loft, for Satan has stole two parts out of three of that which we committed to memory. Soon after we lofe fight of the text, and then every

thing

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