worse than Judas himself! You have sinned against goodness and mercy, against light and knowledge! It is impossible that you can be one of the Lord's saints! You are a hypocrite, and are only filling up the measure of your iniquities, and you will sink to hell at last!" And thus, through Satan's powerful accusations, they will be mourning over a sense of their guilt and misery, and he will suggest to them thoughts like these, "Destroy yourself!" or, "Go out of the kingdom!" in order to drive the soul into despair. But, nevertheless, where the Lord has really begun the work, he will come and manifest his mercy again, give a fresh application of his precious blood, wash away the guilt and stain of sin from the conscience, and enable the poor mourning and sorrowful soul to rejoice in the loving-kindness and compassion of the Lord, and to say, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." Here God makes it evident that such are safe in his keeping, and that none shall be able to pluck them out of his hands. And thus, while the poor sinner is humbled in the dust with views of himself, he will be constrained to praise and adore the riches of God's mercy in the salvation of his soul, and learn that it is all of free and sovereign grace, from first to last.

But, now, who are there among you that can honestly say before God that they are deeply concerned about their souls, and that they are pleading and wrestling with him that he would give them "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness?" Who can say it is their earnest desire that the work of grace may be carried on in their souls at any cost rather than be lukewarm professors? Who are there among you that are willing to be wounded, and to have sorrow, and feel the rod of God's chastenings, if so be that the Lord will work with his mighty power on your souls? Who are there ready to sacrifice their idols, and to part with the things which they most esteem, to have tokens, and evidences of the Lord's favor to them; and who can say with that well-taught and excellent man, Joseph Hart,

"Vanquish in me lust and pride;

All my stubbornness subdue;
Smile me into fruit, or chide,

If no milder means will do."

Who is there here that can say, "Lay thy rod upon me, O Lord, and smite, if so be that thou wilt manifest thy love unto my soul!" and can call upon God to witness that they do not want to live in any thing in which they would not wish to die? But Satan will come in here, and say, "Are you not living in neglect of God's commandments, and are you not committing this or that sin?" which will cause the soul to pray unto the Lord that he would not suffer him to live in a careless or indifferent way, but that he would quicken him according to his word. So that the Lord's people will have something to pray about, and not be suffered to become hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

But, now, you that are making a great profession of religion, what has God done for your soul? Are your sorrows greater, or are you

just in the same state? Do you go from the beginning of the year to the end of it with the same feelings? Is the work really begun? Have you any fresh evidences of the love of God in your souls? Do you hunger and thirst after Christ's presence more, and have a greater love for his people? Are you trying to embrace your idols, and to have Christ also? Do you want to enjoy the world while you live, and go to heaven when you die? Are you trying to give a flat con-tradiction to Christ's words, where he says, "No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other; ye cannot serve God and mammon?" Are you trying to overturn this testimony, which no man has ever yet been able to do, nor ever will? But, if these things cannot be done, and you fall under the power of the word, there will be groans and cries rising up to the Lord that he would carry on his work of grace more powerfully in your souls. And if you are in earnest about these matters, and sincere before the Lord, there will. be great exercises and trials in the mind, and a desire to be made. upright and honest, and kept so. And thus the truth of God's word will be felt, that it is "through much tribulation ye must enter the kingdom." So that you will be asking yourselves this question, "Will the profession of religion that I am making lead me to heaven or hell?" Then I say to such of you who may be walking in a quiet and easy way, and have everything that is comfortable and pleasing to the flesh, and are satisfied with mere head religion, consider the rich man in the gospel, who fared sumptuously every day! And where do you behold him after he had left this world? Why, it is said, that “in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments!" if any now present are going on in the same easy way, depend upon it it will lead you to the same fearful place! So, therefore, do not begin to flatter yourselves, and think that all is well with you, and that you are going to heaven; for if you can go with the stream, like a dead fish, it is evident that you have only a name to live, while you are dead. But, if you are alive to God and the things of God, set it down as certain that you will meet with great opposition, have much fighting and conflict, and find constant difficulties strewed in your path. And I tell all those who are satisfied with an easy profession of religion, that I would not be in their state for ten thousand worlds. I would sooner be a poor horse belonging to the most cruel cabman, and be beaten and driven about town till I dropped, than I would be in their condition! Therefore, I say, have any of you here had any manifestations of God's love to your souls? Have you ever had the "spirit of heaviness," and felt bowed down on account of what you meet with in your path, or are you always happy and contented? For many talk about religion just as though there was no such thing as deceit in the heart, nor any devices of Satan to deceive the soul; and such professors will say, "Prophesy not unto us right things; speak unto us smooth things; prophesy deceits." And thus the false ministers sew pillows under the arms of all such people, to bolster them up in hypocrisy and deceit!

And

But God forbid that I should encourage any such characters that

may be here to-night, and tell them they are going to heaven, while they have not one real evidence of it! I would sooner break stones on the road than be placed in such a dreadful position! I cannot persuade people that they are going to heaven and eternal happiness, when they do not show any of the marks and tokens of God's Spirit. So that I say to those who hear me, Do you know what it is to have broken bones on account of sin? Have you ever been brought in guilty before the Lord, and have you fled to the Lord Jesus for refuge and salvation? If you have, it is a sure token for good, and you will be constrained to bless and praise the Lord for his great mercy towards you, and to acknowledge that your salvation is all of grace.

But God must work all these things in your soul, for there is a set time to favor Zion. And he says, "the bruised reed he will not break, and the smoking flax he will not quench." God does not despise the day of small things. And where he has really begun the work of grace in the soul, he will surely carry it on, and bring it to eternal glory, to the praise and honor of his own great name. Amen.

I SAT DOWN UNDER HIS SHADOW WITH GREAT DELIGHT, AND HIS FRUIT WAS SWEET TO MY TASTE.

My dear respected Friend,-It may well be said, "The season will be sweet,

If Jesus be but there."

Truly since I last wrote to you I have had many precious seasons. I have felt that precious Christ formed in me the hope of glory. I have been favored to hold sweet communion with him, as one friend with another. We have been as familiar friends together. The day before our ordinance I was sweetly blessed with a meditation on, "Do this in remembrance of me." The blessed Spirit led my mind out sweetly into some of the many things we were to remember Christ in. It was not in eating the bread and drinking the wine only, but in the many things that Christ had suffered for such rebel wretches as you and I. Sweetly. was I led to see Christ seated at his Father's right hand, and daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, when my mind was led out concerning his leaving his Father's throne to be carried about in the womb of the Virgin Mary. May God lead your mind out to view this precious Christ in his humility and condescension, to be thus contracted to a span, and to be carried about in the womb of the Virgin. What the Father devised the Son delighted in, for he said, "Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God." I was then led to remember his being born in a stable, and cradled in a manger, as also his being blindfolded, smote with the palms of his persecutors' hands, spit upon, scoffed at, and mocked, the hair plucked off his cheeks; then to view him as a partridge hunted upon the mountains, worse than the birds that have nests, and the foxes that have holes; for

this precious Christ had not where to lay his head. Then my mind was led out to remember him taken upon the pinnacle of the temple and shown the world and the glory of it; then to view him in his bloody sweat in the garden, and in the purple robe, his precious temples crowned with thorns, his mangled back which was so lacerated with the scourge, and to behold this precious Christ bearing his cross; and, lastly, to see him stretched out, lifted up, and hung betwixt heaven and earth by his hands and feet. May God anoint thy eyes with his holy anointing, to look unto him whom we have pierced, view his dear feet, his mangled back, his pierced side, his dear mangled hands, and his head crowned with thorns.

My dear friend, it might well be said that "his face was more marred than any man, and his visage than the sons of men.” These are only a few things to what I might say that we are to remember concerning this precious Christ.

Such views of him melt my poor soul down humbly at his feet; for, dear friend, there never was love like his. I have been drawn much of late to this precious Christ, feeling that he loves me and that I love him. One morning these words were sweetly blest to my soul: "Thou hast loved them even as thou hast loved me." And also these words came very sweet: "That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them." This brought me down in love to a precious Christ, to plead with him for the enjoyment of these precious things in my own soul. I was so overcome with love to this precious Redeemer, and love to the Father for the gift of this precious Christ to redeem me, that I was completely at a loss to find words to express my love to him.

Is not this, dear friend, "sitting under his shadow with great delight?" Is not this "eating our honey with the honeycomb? Is not this his being "the altogether lovely?" Through the help of God's Spirit, we are then enabled to bid all other idols begone, and bid them "not to stir, nor awake our Beloved until he please." I feel that I love my wife and children, but not so much as I do this ́precious Christ! David speaks of Jonathan's love to him as being "wonderful, passing the love of woman." How much more must the love of Christ be, when we feel as branches in this living Vine, and experience virtue flowing out of it into our souls, to nourish and comfort us, and cause us to bring forth fruit? "For herein is my Father glorified, that ye bring forth much fruit."

my

One morning, I bowed myself before him, with a candle in my hand, and I said, that as that candle gave light wherever I might take it, so I begged of him that I might be the same in his hand, to be a light in this ungodly world wherever it might be lot to go; and not to be as the light that is under the bushel. Another morning, whilst pleading with him that he would keep me, and hold me as the horse was held by bit and bridle, it was sweetly whispered im my soul, "and that bit and bridle to be love!" And it must be he, dear friend, who hath loved us, that must keep the reins and govern

ment. What I have seen and felt of this precious love I can tell you but little of! God has said "he will make us willing in the day of his power," and I know of nothing that will make a poor sinner so willing as this precious love shed abroad in his heart. It can then come and say unto the Lord, "Take this soul and body that thou hast redeemed, and do with it, and in it, what thou seest best, as thou hast a just right to do as thou wilt with thine own."

"For,

My dear friend, how precious must we be in his sight, to give such a ransom price for us, to redeem us from the lowest hell. It was sweetly whispered in my soul, that it was love before blood, for ove devised the plan for the shedding of blood to redeem thy soul and mine from the jaws of death and hell. I begged of God that I might be in the arms of love, as a child in the arms of a strong man, that it might influence every member of my body to obedience, that I might abide in his love even as Christ abideth in his love. in keeping his commandments there is great reward." And I believe in my soul that my prayer went up acceptable to God. How very sweetly Solomon speaks of this love when he says, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine. Because of the savor of thy good ointments, thy name is as ointment poured forth; therefore do the virgins love thee." And when this ointment is poured forth upon the head, it will "run down, even to the skirt of our garment," for the sweet odour of it will go forth in our conversation, prayers, and supplications, when and where they may be offered up. As Christ said of the poor woman, that she had wrought a good work upon him, even so I must say of Christ, that he hath wrought a good work upon me. And such special seasons, my dear friend, we cannot easily forget. I believe in my own mind, that love is the mother of all graces, and I likewise believe that pride is the mother of all sin. I shall never forget, when amongst the Independents, thinking I would have some new clothes; and whilst I was thinking of this, it came with a divine power to my soul, that pride, spiritual and temporal, was an abomination to the Lord.

I feel, dear friend, that I must still go on to tell you a little more of God's sweet love-visits to my soul, all flowing through the grace and merit of his dear Son. I hope never to forget the sweet feeling I had toward God for that unspeakable gift. I was so overcome that I did not know what to say to the Lord. I burst out in blessing and praising him. I felt, and said, that if I had a thousand tongues, and if I lived to be eighty years of age, I would have them all employed in blessing and praising the Lord. There is no fasting, dear friend, when the Bridegroom is with us! It is, "Eat, O friends, drink, yea, drink abundantly, O Beloved." One night, when down on my knees, feeling my soul much humbled within me, I said, "Lord! I have nothing to offer thee but this poor body and soul, which thou art welcome to, if it can be of any service!" I felt sorry that I had nothing more to offer, for I felt if I had had a dozen souls and bodies at that time, he would have been heartily welcome to them all. It is not, dear friend, loving in tongue and in word that creates