6

ed to earthly comfort and prosperity. They ever have been, and still are, a suffering people; they are all sinners-sin brings suffering, and God overrules suffering, so as to make it profitable to them. Though redeemed by the life and death of Christ, being justified by faith, they have peace with God;' yet the Lord has not pleased all at once to qualify them for the purchased possession. They receive a new birth, new life, and are called to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling, with this consolation, that God worketh in them, both to will, and to do, of his good pleasure. This is not their home, here they have no continuing city; they are travelling through the wilderness, to the city and mansions purchased and prepared for them by their Saviour, and must be made holy before they can enter in. They have many corruptions to be mortified; errors to be corrected in their estimation of men and things. Carnal, proud, hard, stony hearts, to be made spiritual, humble, tender, resigned, and loving. Then shalt thou remember all the way by which I led thee; to prove thee, and try thee; to show thee what was in thy heart, that I might do thee good in thy latter end.' Besides, all suffering is not the immediate punishment of sin in the individual sufferer, nor for his exclusive profit : it is evident, from Scripture, there is suffering for the benefit of the body of Christ; His Church, of which, (I think,) all have some share. God has wise ends to answer by all the suffering of his creatures, and especially of the members of his body.. The apostles rejoiced in this, and so ought we. 'If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him.' Paul- I fill up, in my flesh, that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ, for his body's sake, which is the Church.' Now, my dear friend, let us take a look at your real individual situation, as a suffering member of a suffering body; a suffering body, because a corrupt body, requiring bleeding, blistering, &c. &c. Take a view of the Saints of God in history, sacred or profane, and compare your own individual suffering with theirs, great as it is; I am apt to think, it will not rise to mediocrity. I could expatiate on this subject, from what comes every day within my own knowledge. The Lord is working in this way all

misery or wretchedness dwell upon your mind. - O no, God is good; you shall not want. O what sweet meals have I and my children made on hot potatoes, nicely boiled and cracked, with salt-not merely content, but they tasted good and savoury, There are peculiar pleasures in a life of that kind. You shall yet sing of it.

Now, my dear friend, I have done with what I had to say on this head. I have had great fears of wounding, lest you should reckon me among Job's friends: but you call me mother, and it is required of a mother to be faithful. I now leave it with the Lord. We are delighted to find you girding up the loins of your mind, and setting about active duty. Let us meet at a throne of Grace, and look to the course the Lord marks out for us.

I HAVE just parted with my dear afflicted friend P.; she left it in charge to me, that I should write to you in the time of your affliction. Surely, I would do any thing, whatever, that I thought might alleviate either her or your distress. But there are cases, to which God alone can speak; afflictions which he alone can console. Such are those, under which the sufferer is commanded to be still and know that he is God.' He never leaves his people in any case; but sometimes shuts them up from human aid. Their grief is too great to be consoled by human tongue or pen.

Such I have experienced. I lost my only son; I neither know when, nor where; and for any thing I know, in a state of rebellion against God. Here, at my heart it lies still; who can speak to me of it? neither can I reason upon it. Aaron held his peace. Old Eli said, 'It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth good in his sight.' Samuel, in his turn, had his heart wrung by his ungodly son. David lamented over his beloved Absalom: but it availed him nothing. Job's sons and daughters were all cut off in one day; himself laid down in deep sore bodily affliction; his friends sat seven days and seven nights without opening their mouths, because they saw his af

T

fliction was very great; and if they spoke, it was to aggravate it and when God himself spoke, he gave him no reason for his dealings, but charged him with folly and madness. • Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty, instruct him? He that reproveth God, let him answer it. Then he calleth his attention to his own meanness, and imbecility, but it was still in a way of sovereignty; and after he laid his hand on his mouth, and his mouth in the dust, confessed himself vile, and became dumb before him; abhorring himself, and repenting in dust and ashes,. instead of the splendid catalogue of virtues enumerated in chapter xxix. and complaints in chapter x. which I make not the least doubt were true, as far as human vir-' tue can reach : but if God charge even his angels with folly,' shall man, corrupt, self-destroyed man, plead merit before God?

I

But, my dear friend, I do not find in all God's bible, any thing requiring us to look at, far less acquiesce in, the final destruction of any, for whom we have prayed, pleaded, and committed to him, least of all our offspring, whom he has commanded us to train up for him. Children are God's heritage.' I do not say he has given us any promise for the obstinately wicked; but when cut off, he only requires us to be still, to hold our peace. do not think he takes hope from us. God has set limits to our faith for others; our faith must not rest in opposition to his threatenings. We must believe that the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all that forget God;' but he hath set no bounds to his own mercy; in that glorious plan of redemption, by which he substitutes his own Son, in the room and stead of sinners, he has made provision for the chief of sinners: and can now be just and consistent, while he justifies the ungodly who believe in Jesus. Short was the time between the thief's petition and the promise of salvation; nay, the petition was the earnest of it. The same was the case with the jailor; though less positive the assertion; yet, I think the publican had the earnest in his petition also. Now, instead of labouring to bring my mind to acquiesce in the conemnation of my child, on the supposition of its being for God's glory, (which I no where find required, but from some of your New-England divines,) I try to be

still as he has commanded; not to follow my child, to the yet invisible world; but turning my eyes to that character which God has revealed of himself--to the plan of redemption to the sovereignty of God in the execution of that plan, to his names of grace, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin;' while he adds, and that will by no means clear the guilty,' I meet it with his own declaration, he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' I read also that mercy is his darling attribute; that' mercy rejoiceth against judgment,' and many other like Scriptures, which, although I dare not ground a belief of his salvation on them, one ray of hope follows another, that God may have made him a monument of mercy, to the glory of his grace. Thus God himself consoles his own praying people, while man ought to be very cautious, if not silent, where the Scriptures are silent, as it respects the final state of another, whose heart we cannot know, nor what God may have wrought in it. God hath set bounds to our faith, which can no where find solid ground to fix upon, but on his own written promise. Yet, as I said above, he has set no bounds to his own mercy, and he has made provision for its boundless flow, as far as he shall please to extend it, through the atonement and merits of his own Son, who is able to save to the uttermost, all who come unto God by him.' Now, my dear friend, you have my ideas of our situation; if they be correct, I pray that our compassionate Father may comfort you by them; if otherwise, may he pardon what is amiss, and lead you, my dear friend P-, and myself, to such consolation as he himself will own as the work of his Spirit, and save us from the enemy, and our own spirit. Since writing the foregoing, I feel afraid of what I have said it is dangerous seeking `comfort where the Scriptures are silent; yet while we plead with God to be preserved from error, and try to be still before him, he will save us from the subtilty of the serpent, as well as from the rage of the lion.

:

I am,

with love, your sympathizing friend, ISABELLA GRAHAM.