joyed in the soul through the virtue of his atonement; "for this man shall be thy peace," and at the time when the Assyrians shall come into our land,-ah, it is these Assyrians coming into our land, and waters of tribulation into our soul, that makes us fully prize the sweet calm and peace enjoyed, when Jesus says, "It is I, be not afraid." I believe you will overlook and pity me in attempting to preach unto you, but I am led on to write down what I trust the Holy Spirit is pleased to dictate. May the glory of the Lord our God be upon us, whatever glory we may want besides. You are now, I suppose, (if all is well) at this moment, while I am destitute and needy, like the owl in the desert, or pilgrim in the wilderness, trying to cry aloud and spare not to lift up your voice like a trumpet, to show unto God's people their transgressions, and the house of Israel their sins, with a "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." The past week was to me a week of great mercies in temporals, but what rebellion, sin, and backwardness to every thing that is good did I feel, is only known to God; but, blessed be his name, he has this morning, from the sweet repository of sacred truth, sent his word, and healed me, and given me again to prove that his love is unchangeable and ever the same, irrespective of our frames and feelings; for, while I was reading the 15th Psalm this morning, the 7th and 8th verses were sweet indeed: "Hear, O my people, and I will speak; hear, O Israel, and I will testify unto thee, for I am God, even thy God: I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offering that have not been continually before me." What a rich fund of consolation (when made so by the blessed Spirit) such words as these afford to to such poor, heavy laden sinners as you and I know ourselves to be, almost at times worried to death with the lustings of the flesh against the spirit. May the dear Redeemer (in whom alone is true rest) favour you this day with a sweet entrance into rest by faith, which will cause you, as a good steward of the grace of God, to bring out of the gospel treasury things new and old, proper food for the sheep and lambs of God's household.

And if it should be the will of

God, to favour me with a reclining of my head on the dear breast of Jesus, I, too, shall glide sweetly into the promised rest, and prove the suitableness of true gospel peace, stopping the mouth of discontent about my forlorn and lonely situation, and my cravings of old nature after this and that, which infinite wisdom sees best to deny May this, dear Barnabas, find you and leave me rejoicing that we have ever been called to know, through the riches of free grace, the reality of that rest that remains for the people of God, while so many are apparently only walking round it and talking about it. I conclude, as ever, your cast down but not destroyed,

SARAH.

Dear Barnabas,-It is the sweet hope that Christ is my ever living and ever loving Husband that encourages me still, midst all my discouragement, midst all my weakness, burdens, and cares, to venture to lean upon him and to trust in him for all that I want for time and eternity, knowing that this best of all Husbands is able to do exceeding and abundantly above all that we can ask or think. I am often thinking of Luther's experience, when he says, that he "lies becalmed in the bosom of Christ, unconscious about futurities;" and, says he, "let Christ see to that happy saint, favoured of thy God;" and I know the same God that gave Luther this confidence in the power and love of Christ can give it to me, for we know who it is that makes the weak as David, and David as an angel of the Lord. If reason could work this confidence in the watchfulness and care of God, I think there is not one upon the earth that has greater reason thus to do than myself; but reason cannot, for I find even to this hour that I am a very coward in the prospect of any trial, and that it is only a warm persuasion of interest in dying love that proves an effectual antidote against the smiles or frowns of this vain world. How frequently (since I heard you at Chapmamlade) have I thought of a remark you made in your sermon there. You said, that "when the Holy Ghost had separated an elect vessel from among the people, his troubles, which, before the manifestation

of Christ to the soul, were only drops as it were, would then be bucketfulls, and that God had placed his fire in Zion, and furnace in Jerusalem. But what for?" said you; 66 why, to be used; for the vessel of mercy must go into the furnace and walk through the fire to prove the truth of God's own word, when he says, When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt;' and when in the furnace, to know the dear Redeemer is sitting by to regulate and determine its heat." In looking back to the time when I hope the Holy Ghost separated me from among the people experimentally, I have found my troubles bucketfulls; yet, glory be to our divine Emanuel, he has not yet suffered me to be tempted above what he has enabled me to bear, and, with every temptation, he has made a way for my escape; for I could see none, except I had got through hewn stones.

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This part reminds me again of some part of our conversation once at our house. When I said unto you, "Well, now I know not what the Lord is about to do with me, for I cannot see an inch from my nose;" you justly replied, "Well, Mrs., if you can see thus far, it is too much, for you must be made quite blind;" and so I have found it, for how would the honour and dignity of the divine attributes be maintained, if we could see or act any thing towards our spiritual and temporal deliverance. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing from us, that we may be brought simply and solely to rest on God alone, and to know in whom we have believed. We trust he will perform his own word, when he says, "I will bring the blind by a way they know not." I find a something within me that would, like Hezekiah, turn my face to the wall of God's power and faithfulness, and see nothing else, though death is stamped on every creature-comfort. But, O these Canaanites still in the land, how. they perplex and dismay, and drive us to cry, with the same Bible saint, "O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me." With what amazing sweetness did that exhortation of God come to my mind this morning while reading in the psalms, "Cast thy burden on the Lord," and Beza's translation says, "and he

shall nourish you." God's biddings are enablings, and feeble faith well knows the voice of its divine author and support, and is strengthened to cast that burden on the Lord, which was before like poor David's troubles at the burning of Ziklag, when David and the people that were with him wept until they had no more power to weep. This was, indeed, a time of great trouble with David; yet David was enabled to encourage himself in the Lord his God, and say, "Thou, which hast shown me great troubles and adversities, wilt return again and revive me, and take me up from the depth of the earth." And we, I trust, my brother, are not utter strangers to the Lord's work. In this way, how frequently have large impassable mountains become plains before our great Zerubbabel, and we have gone, in the strength of the Lord our God, up many a hill Difficulty, while lions on each side have threatened, with their dreadful roar, to devour us, and we never could have moved one step more, had not the blessed porter whispered in our ears, "They are chained." I do hope, after all, that I shall have sufficient reason to bless God, and admire his greatness and goodness in preserving such a poor wretch as I feel myself to be, from so many innumerable evils; and that he will present me faultless before the throne. May the hope of this enable us to endure hardships as good soldiers of Jesus Christ, the alone Captain of our salvation, until he is pleased to give us a full and free discharge from every battle, and place the final laurel of victory on our brow; and then, and not till then, shall we sing without ceasing, "Salvation to God and the Lamb.'

May great grace rest on you, making you strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, and pray, do not forget,

Yours in gospel bonds, a poor combatant,

SARAH.

Dear Barnabas,-Except the Lord is pleased to favour you with a taste of his dying love for poor sinners, I know you will be tired again and again in reading my complaints and rejoicings, my ups and downs, my

ins and outs. But, whether you are or are not, I must write; but what I shall write in this letter I know not. IfI had written yesterday, I should have told you how much my mind was depressed under a sense of my present situation, having the past week been called out among the sons of pride, wealth, and arrogance, to work at my needle, and trying to fill up the station God called me to honestly and conscientiously; but I observed, that except I could join them in jest and ridicule, I was not one among them; and they were as unhappy in my company as I was in theirs; and by these things I was instructed, while I heard the dear Saviour say, Marvel not if the world hate you." I have thought, from the manner those words were spoken, that the disciples did marvel at it, and if they did not, I have been so foolish at times to do so, when I have been, as I thought, doing them good and serving them justly. O what poor, weak, ignorant fools are we, not considering who it was that said, "I will put enmity between thy seed and my seed, and they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, and they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit:" and, as dear Gadsby once said, when I heard him at Poplar, near London, "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, while," says he, "those that live, in their way, godly in themselves, escape it, and thus prove themselves to be bare born." Ah! my dear brother, I find, by sweet and sad experience, that it is in proportion to the sweet testimonies within of the Spirit to our spirits that we are born of God, that we speak and act to the honour of his dear name and cause with any decision; and if we are through this enabled plainly to declare that we are seeking a better country, we shall always find the old man, who is corrupt in all his deeds, in arms against But O how unspeakably sweet it is for us poor, distressed, persecuted creatures, esteemed by the world as the filth and offscouring of all things, to know that our Redeemer liveth, and is our record on high, and our witness there, pleading as an advocate with the Father, our every cause, and encouraging us, under every storm, to take shelter in his blood and righteous

us.