And then, and not till then, will the Lord commit to your trust the word of reconciliation, and take thee sensibly into friendship.

The language of unbelief is just like what is vulgarly called Irish bulls: it is nothing but selfcontradictions. The man that uses this tongue of the crafty never confesses what he really believes, nor speaks what he really thinks; so that the words of his mouth are diametrically opposite to the meditations of his heart: this Cretian is always a liar, an evil beast, and a slow belly; and this witness is true.

But the captive exile hastens that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit; and I am afraid of his coming forth too soon, lest, like the grass upon the house top, he wither before he be grown up, and appear among those thin ears blasted with the east wind, wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom. "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sin?" I say a living man; one whom God has quickened when dead in trespasses and sins; a man that has life, and feels the terrors of the Lord, the bondage of the law, and the plague of his own heart; who feels a mighty famine in the land, and has an appetite for the bread of life, and a thirst for the living God; who feels divine motions towards the Almighty, the comfortable rise of a good hope the conflicts of faith, and who is indulged with an expectation that shall never be cut off?

Tent hon e le serce T Bus rich tre MOR Doors toon.

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» 4x spenitent, anner can fescribe real es and they must be made wry fter a maly sur wo sexes be godly wrow. A sui fest in = gians and sing cannot preach the mickening me estions of God; or an an inpardoned nan pac the forgjumers of ons. He must be born Bru #dy deandbez a spiritual birth, and he must be possified was a a preacher of righteousness." 4 rebel w God cannot be an ambassador of peace. now a xa factay a proper person to be entrusted with the word of reconciliation.

A chance experience of these things upon thine own wad will, under God, make thee an able mimister of the New Testament; a workman that needeth not to be ashamed; a pastor in the pulpit, an interpreter to Zion's inquirers, and a valuable physician by a sick bed. But he that is destitute of these things is an empty sound in a pulpit, a dry

breast to the babe in grace, a dumb dog in spiritual company, a blind guide to the inquiring soul, and a physician of no value to a wounded spirit. But I am persuaded better things, yea the best things, of thee, my son, and things that accompany salvation: for I am fully persuaded that the good work is begun in thee, and that it will be carried on, till thou art thoroughly furnished for every good word and work. So I write, and so you believe.

Ever yours, in faithfulness and truth,

W. H.

LETTER XIX.

To the Rev. Mr. HUNTINGTON.

MY DEAR SIR,

YOUR valuable and much welcomed favour came

to hand in due time; and it gives me no small comfort that the Lord lays my case so near the heart of his servant: and I trust he will, in his own blessed time, perform the counsel of his messenger. To me the prospect is often gloomy enough; yet you can see better: and the witness of God is better yet; and it is this I want. He has borne testimony

to the word of his grace from your mouth I know, and has fulfilled it in a measure to me; and why may not the whole be accomplished? Nothing shall be impossible to him that believeth; but I cannot see that I have faith. Faith obtains promises, and overcomes the world: but I cannot rest on the promise, and am a captive to corruption.

I have found strange goings on in my soul of late. I think there never was a lust in a heart, nor a corruption in human nature, but what is stirred up in mine; and such wicked, obscene, and abominable thoughts as are too shocking to mention, which can never come but from Satan himself. These make me fear the work is not real, and into darkness and bondage I fall. I am afraid in my heart of falling into their hands. I earnestly pray the Lord against them; and sometimes they cease a little, but return again; and, though I hate them, yet I think something in me receives them.

Dark and bound God knows I am, and my feet are in the stocks the whole week round. But I am afraid this is not the same as you mean. You mean the exercise and trial of a broken-hearted sinner; but I am as bitter and as stubborn as a devil, and could lay violent hands on those that oppose me, and beat them with the fist of wickedThe Lord only knows what will become of me; and yet, through all these gloomy scenes, I am still encouraged to hope that the Lord will not give me up, but bring me through all these, and

ness.

much more. I know I am to endure before I am made truly humble. The opposition I meet with from preachers and others fills me with wrath and malice; and sometimes I am so discouraged that I am ready to give all up, fearing that I am attempting something in my own strength, and that the Lord will not countenance me.

Last Sunday Gilbert declared, before all the people at Hailsham, that neither myself nor any of my followers were to be again admitted to that place; and the next time I went there the chapel was shut against me, and the key denied. I preached, however, in a person's house who opened his door for me, and was invited by a woman the next morning to breakfast with her. I did not promise her, as I was rather discouraged, thinking the Lord had done nothing by me in that place, and therefore concluded that I would never come there again; but the next morning I altered my mind, and called on the person who had invited me, and found the Lord had wrought upon her by my ministry, and confirmed her by yours. She told me she picked up a little under every discourse you preached at Lewes; for she heard them all. The good man her husband, who is a man of some property, told me, if I could find a little place for myself in the town, he would give me 50 1. towards it whenever I should call for it; which rather lifted up my drooping head:

The morning before this I had found another farmer, whom, I trust, the Lord has called by his