the living God, and sharing the fate of the lukewarm. Be hunbly zealous for your own falvation, and for God's glory; nor forget to care for the falvation of each other. The cafe of wicked Cain is very common, and the practice of many fays, with that wretch, An I my brother's keeper? O! pray God to keep you by his mighty power, through faith, to falvation. Keep yourfelves in the love of God if you are there; and keep one another by example, reproof, exhortation, encourage ment, facial prayer, and a faithful ufe of all the means of grace. Ule yourselves to bow at Chrift's feet; as your Prophet, go to him continually for the holy anointing of his Spirit, who will be a teacher always near, always with you and in you. If you have that inward Inftructor, you will fuffer no material lofs, when your outward teachers are removed. Mike the most of dear Mr. Greaves while you have him. While you have the light of God's word, believe in the light, that you may be the children of the light, fitted for the kingdom of eternal light, where I charge you to meet, with joy, your affectionate brother and minifter, Bristol, Oct. I. F. 1776. To all who fear and love God in and about Madeley: Grace and peace, power and love, joy and triumph in Chrift be multiplied to you, through the blood of the Lamb, through the word that teftifies of that blood, and through the Spirit who makes the application. I Expected I should have been with you to fee your love, and be edified by your converfation, but Providence has hindered. Twice I had fixed the day of my departure from this place; and twice, the night before that day, I was taken worse than ufual, which, together with the unanimous forbiddings of my fpiritual, temporal, and medical friends here, made me put off my journey. The argument to which I have yielded is this, "There is yet fome little probability, that if you ftay here you might recover ftrength to do a little minifterial work; but if you go now you will ruin all." However, God is my witness, that, if I have not ventured my life to come and fee you, it was not from a defire to indulge myself, but to wait and fee if the Lord would reftore me a little strength, and add a few years to my life, that I might employ both in your fervice; just as a horfe is fometimes kept from his owner, and confined to the yard of a farrier, until he recovers the ability of doing his mafter fome fervice. I only defire to know, do, and fuffer the will of God concerning me; and I affure you, my dear brethren, if I faw it to be his will, that I fhould give up the means of health I have here, I would not tarry another day, but take my chance, and come to my dear charge, were the parish fituated ten times more North than it is. I do not, however, defpair of praifing God with you in the body; but let us not fty for this to praife him. Let us blefs him now; and if any of you are under a cloud of unbelief, and fee no matter of praife in being out of hell, in being redeemed by Chrift, crowned with thoufands of fpititual and temporal mercies, and called to take poffeffion of a kingdom of glory; I beg you would praise praise him on my account, who raifes me fo many friends in time, who afflicts me with fo gentle a hand, who keeps me from all impatience, and often fills me with confolation in my trouble; giving me a fweet hope that all things work, and fhall work together for good. Love one another. The love you fhew one to another will greatly refresh my heart. Keep united to our common head, Jefus. Pray for your infirm minifter as he does for you; and let me hear of your growth in grace, which will be health to the withering bones of your unprofit able fervant, I. F. P. S. Medicine does not feem to relieve me; but I rejoice that when outward remedies fail, there is one, the blood, and word, and Spirit of Jefus, which never fails;--which removes all fpiritual maladies, and will furely give us eternal life. Let me recommend that remedy to you all: You all want it, and, bleffed be God, I can fay, Probatum eft-tried. Newington, Dec. 28th, 1776. To the Parishioners of Madeley. I hoped to have spent the Christmas holydays with you, and to have miniftered to you in holy things; but the weakness of my body confining me here, I humbly fubmit to the divine difpenfation, and eafe the trouble of my abfence, by being prefent with you in Spirit, and by reflecting on the plealure I have felt, in years paft, while finging with you, Unto us a child is born, unto us a fon is given, &c. This truth is as true now as it was then, and as worthy to be thankfully received at Newington as at Madeley. Let us, then, receive it with all readinefs, and it will unite us: we fhall meet in Chrift the centre of lafting union, the fource of true life, the fpring of pure righteoufnefs and joy; and our hearts thall be full of the fong of angels, Glory be to God on high! Peace on earth! Good-will towards each other, and all mankind! In order to this, may the eye of your underftanding be more and more opened to fee your need of a Redeemer; and to behold the fuitablenefs, freenefs, and fulness of the redemption, which was wrought out by the Son of God, and which is applied by the Spirit, through faith. The wish which glows in iny foul is fo ardent and powerful, that it brings me down on my knees, while I write, and, in that fupplicating posture, I entreat you all, to confider and improve the day of your visitation, and to prepare in good earneít,, to meet, with joy, your God and your unworthy piftor in another world. Weak as I was when I left Madeley, I hear that several, who were then young, healthy, and strong, have got the ftart of me; and that fome have been hurried into eternity, without being indulged with a moment's warning. May the awful accident ftrike a deeper confideration into all our fouls. May the found of their bodies, dathed to pieces at the bottom of a pit, rouse us to a fpeedy converfion, that we may never fall into the bottomlefs pit, and that iniquity and delays may not be our eternal ruin. Tottering as I ftand on the brink of the grave, B fome fome of you, who feem far from it, may drop into it before me; for what has happened, may happen fill. Let us, then, all awake out of fleep; and let us all prepare for our approaching change, and give ourselves no reft, till we have got gospel ground to hope, that our great change will be a happy one. In order to this, I beseech you, by all the minifterial and providential calls you have had for thefe feventeen years, harden not your hearts. Let the long fuffering of God towards us, who furvive the hundreds I have buried, lead us all to repentance. Difmifs your fins, and embrace Jefus Chrift, who wept for you in the manger, bled for you in Gethfeiane, hanged for you on the crofs, and now pleads for you on his mediatorial throne. By all that is near and dear to you, as men and as Chriftians, meet me not on the great day, in your fins and in your blood, enemies to Chrift by unbelief, and to God by wicked works. Meet me in the garment of repentance, in the robe of Chrift's merits, and in the white linen, (the purity of heart and life) which is the holinefs of the godly;-that holiness, without which no man shall fee God. Let the time paft fuffice, in which fome of you have lived in fin. By repentance put off the old man, and his works; by faith put on the Lord Jefus and his righteoufnefs. Let all wickednels be gone,-for ever gone, with the old year; and with the new one begin a new. life, life of renewed devotion to God, and of increafing love to our neighbour. The fun of all I have preached to you is contained in four propofitions, Firft, heartily repent of your fins, original and actual. Secondly, be |