A LETTER

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My dear Madam,

THOUGH

June 8, 1780.

HOUGH I write to both when I write to one, it seems time to drop a word expressly to you, that I may keep you in my debt, and maintain a hope of hearing from you again.

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I sympathize with my friends at afflictive dispensations with which the Lord has been pleased to visit the town. He has a merciful design even when he inflicts, and I hope the rod will be sanctified to those who were too negligent under the public means of grace. I am not sorry for Mrs. H****'s death, as you say she died in the Lord, for she had but little prospect of temporal comfort. The death of Mrs. *** affected me more on account of her husband and family, to whom I hoped she would have been a comfort and a blessing. But we are sure the Lord does all things wisely and well. The moment in which he calls his people home, is precisely the best and fittest season. Let us pray, (and we shall not pray in vain,) for strength proportioned to our day, then we have only to wait with patience, our time likewise will

shortly come. The bright, important hour of dismission from this state of trial is already upon the wing towards us, and every pulse brings it nearer. Then every wound will be healed, and every desirable desire be satisfied.

I believe you must now take the will for the deed, and give me credit for what I would have said or written if I could. Mrs. came in and engrossed the time I had allotted for your letter. I knew not how to grudge it her; she had wished to spend an hour with me; her conversation I think was from the heart, and I believe the interruption was right. If it should abridge the pleasure I proposed in writing to you, I must make myself amends some other time.

Mrs. N has some degree of the head-ache today. But her complaints of that kind are neither so frequent, nor so violent, as when at. His mercies to us are great, and renewed every morning.

I have still a quarter of an hour for you; but now, when opportunity presents, a subject is not at hand, and I have no time to ruminate. I will tell you a piece of old news. The Lord God is a sun and shield, and both in one. His light is a defence; his protection is cheering; a shield so long, and so broad, as to intercept and receive every arrow with which the quiver of divine justice was stored, and which would have otherwise transfixed your heart and mind; a shield so strong that nothing now can pierce it, and so appositely placed that no evil can reach us, except it first makes its way through our shield. And what a sun is this shield! when it breaks forth, it changes winter into summer, and midnight into day, in an instant; a sun whose beams can not only scatter cloud

but the walls which Sin and Satan are aiming to build, in order to bide it from our view.

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Public affairs begin to look more pleasing just when they were most desperate. Affairs in America are in a more favourable train. A peace with Spain supposed upon the tapis. I should hope for some halcyon days after the storm, but for the awful insensibility which reigns at home. But if the Lord revives, his people, we may hope he will hear their prayers.

Mr. **** bids fair to be as unpopular in the course of another month as any of his opponents have been. This is a changeable world. The ins and the outs, being fastened upon the same rolling wheel, have each, their turn to be uppermost. Really, one is tempted to smile and constrained to weep in the same breath.— The Lord bless you and keep you.

Iam, for self and partner,

Most affectionately yours,

tion, and with the case which you did me the honour: to propose me for my judgment. I hope it is from: some real sense of my own weakness, that I usually und dertake the office of casuist with fear and trembling.t How unhappy should I be to mislead you in a point of such importance! How cruel, to wish you to be de termined by my decision, except I am sure it) is warranted by the word of God! Indeed, you have been hardly out of my thoughts since I saw you, in the garden. I have considered again and again, the advice. I ventured to give you, and I am the more confirmed in the propriety of it; and in a persuasion that if the Lord, (for what are our resolves without him?) enables you to act the part which you seemed to be satisfied was right, you will never have just cause to blame either yourself, or me. I think the Lord highly honours you, by permitting you to be brought to such a trial, and thereby putting it in your power of giving both to the church

you; he be

and to the world, (so far as you are known,) such a singular and striking proof of the sincerity of your heart towards him. Surely I shall not cease to pray, that he who has wrought in you to will, may strengthen you with his power to act accordingly; and that you may do it with cheerfulness. You have good reason for it, madam. He for whose sake you are about to reject what many would eagerly receive, deserves it well at your hands. He gave up much more for came very poor that you might be rich. And though he was once poor for us, he is now rich again: rich enough to make you ample amends for all you give up. Be not afraid. His own kind providence will take charge of you, and surely do you good. Were your conduct generally known, you would be blamed or pitied, by those who know of nothing better than gold, and such toys as gold can purchase. But they will neither blame nor pity you in the great day of your Lord's appearance. When I see so much interested and formal profession, I should be almost discouraged, were it not that the Lord has given me to know a happy and favoured few, whose conduct exemplifies and adorns the glorious Gospel they profess. In them I see a simplicity, a spirituality, a disinterestedness, a submission, and a ready obedience becoming the servants of such a Master. They have made the choice of Moses; they endure as seeing him who is invisible, and prefer even the reproach of Christ to all the treasures of Egypt. The sight of one such person in the house of God, animates and comforts a minister more than a crowd of common hearers. I bless the Lord that I have the honour of preaching to more than one of this description. Go on, madam; may the Lord be with you. I feel for you, I pray for you, and I rejoice in the hope, that I

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