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This is the work of faith, or rather this is faith itself. The soul established in this, can rest in all possible circumstances, it depends not on its frames; in darkness, when it is tossed, tempted, dead, worldly minded, wandering, unfit for any duty, conscious of the raging of unhallowed tempers, perhaps of the actual commission of sin, though at such times, the warfare between grace and corruption is so strong, as to make the Christian exclaim, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of sin and death;" he can still say, "the Lord lives, blessed be my rock;" see the xlii. and xliii. Psalms. The Christian can still say, my Lord and my God; he is sure the conflict will end, and that his God will bring good out of it; he enjoys hope; he feels his state as safe as in the most enlarged frame of mind, when he can pray, praise, love, rejoice. This is a riddle which only Christians can understand, and even they require many lessons to comprehend it, many more to practise.

Have you Newton's letters? See his 2d letter in Cardiphonia. O try to fix your anchor. of hope on that sure foundation which God has laid in Zion-Christ himself. Trust him to save you from every evil without you, and within you. When your own weakness sinks you, try to be strong in his strength: when guilt disturbs, wash in the open fountain. But hold fast the beginning of your confidence unto the end.

Be comforted, fight on, aim at trusting, and you shall in the Lord's time also cease from your own works, and rest with more advanced Christians on the faithfulness of your own God in Christ. See Hebrews iv. 9, also chap. xii. throughout. I finish with chap. xiii. 20, 21. My earnest prayer, and sure hope, for you my precious friend!

November 28, 1804.

My dear friend's letter is truly in the Pilgrim's style. O that slough of despond, to the end of which you have not got! It is hard for you to believe that your compassionate Redeemer stands by and sees, with power to relieve, but does not, and yet loves you better than you

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love yourself. Alas, poor pilgrim! yet pilgrim you are, and shall have a pilgrim's portion. The Lord knows all your troubles and perplexities; you are bound to believe that the very hairs of your head are numbered.' Often, my dear, think on the suffering life your Redeemer led on earth, and all the apostles and prophets. You are not to have your portion in this world; and you are to be tried and purified in the school of affliction. Say, would you exchange with those who are at ease? I hope not.

CHRISTIAN left a jovial company behind him, in the Valley of Destruction: but, O the difference in the end! and, my dear friend, the end will soon come. O try to cast your soul, your body, your temporal and your spiritual concerns, your husband, your children, your all, on a God of rich grace. It will soon be over, even at the worst. As to your children: it may be in great mercy, that the Lord keeps from them the means of being fitted for gay life; sure am I, happiness does not depend on any style of living. Ask for them the provision of the new Covenant, and that lot in life which God sees most to their eternal interest.

Gladly would I spend part of the winter with you; and could with pleasure, and without suffering, sleep in a room without fire, and share in all your troubles : but I dare not leave my post : I desire to trudge along by the King's highway of duty, to the habitation which the Lord my God has provided for me. I am not my own. I too am under trial; few days pass over my head, which does not witness many tears. I look not for comfort in this world, but I have comfort in the prospect of another.

I long to hear from you, if you enjoy health, if the children do; above all, if you attain to any measure of resignation, any measure of confidence and hope through faith in the Redeemer's righteousness. Aim at it, my dear friend; call him your Lord, and your God, your Husband, your Friend; pour all your complaints into his bosom; groan, sigh on your knees, and plead for patience and resignation under the cross, strength and fortitude, to carry it all the length he has appointed. Cast your burden on the Lord, and try to leave it there. Es·

say to go forth to the laborious duty he has been pleased to call you to, with cheerfulness, and alacrity. Go, depending on strength being communicated from hour to hour; look for it, and go forward in the faith of it.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Greenwich, September 26, 1805.

I ARRIVED here on Monday. I found my children in health, but much affected with the death of the amiable youth M--and the melancholy situation of his bereaved parents.

The epidemic spreads over the city in every direction, among the few remaining in it: all the public offices are here; crowds of the citizens, and houses and stores spring up in a day: all is bustle and confusion, and all seem mad on business.

Parting with my dear friend, was most painful; so painful that nothing could alleviate, but the presence of my own children; who, could there have been room, from deeper sorrows, would have shared it with me. O that I could put my God, in my place, in your heart! What are earthly friends? How few are steady against all change of circumstances! of these few, fewer still have it in their power to supply the every link of friendship's chain; a thousand unforeseen incidents disappoint their wishes, and frustrate their hopes, rendering abortive their greatest exertion. But there is a Friend, every where present, thoroughly acquainted with every circumstance of the heart, and of the life; all-powerful to relieve, whose love is invariable, and ever the most tender, when every other friend stands aloof; a friend in adversity, a Friend who sticketh closer than a brother,' whose love surpasseth the love of women.' This friend receiveth sinners-casts out none who come to him. He was never known to disappoint the hopes of any poor sinner. He receives them into his heart; he takes all their burdens and cares on himself, pays all their debts, answers all demands against them, and is every way surety for them : they become his own, no one has any thing to say to them, but himself. He knows them-how apt to err, S

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to wander, yea, to forget him, and prove ungrateful; all this he knows, but he has made provision for all. He has a rod, and he will subdue their iniquities. He will heal their backslidings, he will bring back and restore his wanderers. He will in due time perfect what concerns them, and present them to his Father purified, without spot or wrinkle.

In the mean time, he requires them to confide in him; to go up through this wilderness leaning upon him; to tell him all their complaints and griefs, and to comfort themselves: and he will impress the comfort, by means of his great and precious promises, scattered like so many pearls through his sacred Bible, tabled there on purpose for us to ground our prayers upon, and delight ourselves in. This is your friend's Friend, and of ten thousand beside. This was the wicked Magda, lene's Friend; this, the persecuting, Paul's Friend, wicked Manasseh's Friend; the adulterous murdering David's Friend. And he is your Friend, though your eyes are holden that you see him not. He is leading you by a way that you know not. This is one of his characters, I will bring the blind by a way that they know not.'

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I was happy to find your niece was to return with Mr. P ; but, my dear, a painful dread has assaulted my peace, lest Satan get the advantage by means of a stranger in the family, and undo what has been begun. The world may have peace without God; but you shall not. You have, however feebly, taken hold of his Covenant, and he will keep you to your choice. If his children forsake his laws, and go astray,' &c. Psalm lxxix. 30.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

6

November, 1805.

THIS is not our rest; through much tribulation all Christ's disciples must follow him. There is a rest prepared for the people of God, as far as tasted in this world, (and in this world it is tasted :) it consists in a mind resigned to the will of God, in proportion as it can say, thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.' Christ himself was made perfect through suffering, and

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all his followers shall be so in their appointed measure. What is our cup to his? O my dear friend, we are ransomed, we are redeemed, and we are fitting and preparing for the purchased inheritance, that perfect rest preparing for the people of God, when their warfare is finished. Let him do all his pleasure with us here; let him subdue our iniquities in his own way; let him glorify his name by our sufferings-his glory is ever connected with his people's best interests. We shall one day acknowledge that he has done all things well, and that not one word of all that he has promised has failed. It has pleased the Lord to take from us, our dear sweet Rebecca; young as she was, through much tribulation, she entered in: I have scarcely seen severer suffering, nor a harder dismission. It is well, the Lord will answer his own ends by it, for the good of all concerned, as well as for his own glory. Our dear G. was ill at the same time, and all hope was lost as to him also; for a whole week we looked upon him as dying. A bold measure was taken with him, which succeeded; the Lord had commanded life: it was not thought of for her. God had appointed to her entrance into life eternal. It is all well. Blessed, blessed be his name! for her he has taken, and him he has restored both equally. I. G. S was confined at the same time with a broken arm. N. Bwith the fever and pleurisy. Deep have been the wounds in this aged heart, not yet weaned from earth, but tremblingly alive to every thing that concerns my children. Yet I do give up. I have asked but one thing with importunity, and by that I abide. I did not ask for temporal life, but the life which Christ died to purchase, and lives to bestow: let him answer my petition by means of his own appointing by health, or by sickness, by riches, or by poverty, by long life or early death-only let all mine, by the ties of nature, be his by regeneration of his Spirit.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

August 24, 1810.

I BLESS and praise our gracious God for his late manifestations to you in the midst of so many tumultua

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