than I have known, and continue to know to this hour? I wish you may equal us; and if you do, we shall still be as before, but upon even ground, I need not turn Deist, to enjoy the best and the most that this life can afford.

But I need not tell you, that the present life is not made up of pleasurable incidents only. Pain, sickness, losses, disappointments, injuries, and affronts with men, will, more or less, at one time or other, be our lot.

And can you

And can you bear these

trials better than I? You will not pretend to it. Let me appeal to yourself: How often do you toss and disquiet yourself, like a wild bull in a net, when things cross your expectations? As your thoughts are more engrossed by what you see, you must be more keenly sensible of what you feel. You cannot view these trials as appointed by a wise and heavenly Father in subservience to your good; you cannot taste the sweetness of his promises, nor feel the secret supports of his strength, in an hour of affliction; you cannot so cast your burden and care upon him, as to find a sensible relief to your spirit thereby; nor can you see his hand engaged and employed in effecting your deliverance. Of these things you know no more than of the art of flying; but I seriously assure you, and I believe my testimony will gofarther with you than my judgment, that they are realities, and that I have found them to be so. When my worldly concerns have been most thorny and discouraging, I have once and again felt the most of that peace which the world can neither give nor take away. However, I may state the case still lower. You do pretty well among your friends; but how do you like being alone? Would you not give something for that happy secret, which could

enable you to pass a rainy day pleasantly, without the assistance of business, company, or amusement? Would it not mortify you greatly to travel for a week in an unfrequented road, where you should meet with no lively incidents to recruit and raise your spirits? Alas! what a poor scheme of pleasure is yours, that will not support an interval of reflection!

What you have heard is true; I have a few friends who meet at my house once a fortnight, and we spend an hour or two in worshipping the God who made us. And can this move your indignation, or your compassion? Does it shew a much nobler spirit, a more refined way of thinking, to live altogether without God in the world? If I kept a card-assembly at those times, it would not displease you. How can you, as a person of sense, avoid being shocked at your own unhappy prejudice? But I remember how it was once with myself, and forbear to wonder. May He who has opened my eyes, open yours! He only can do it. I do not expect to convince you by any thing I can say as of myself; but if He be pleased to make use of me as his instrument, then you will be convinced. How should I then rejoice! I should rejoice to be useful to any one, but especially to you, whom I dearly love. May God shew you your true self, and your true taste; then you will attentively listen to what you disdain to hear of,-his goodness in providing redemption and pardon for the chief of sinners, through him who died upon the cross for sins not his own. Keep this letter by you at my request; and when you write, tell me that you receive it in good part; and that you still believe me to be, &c.

Dear Sir,

LETTER XXXIX.

A Word in Season.

In this dark and declining day, when iniquity abounds, the awful tokens of God's displeasure are multiplying around us, and too many professors, not duly sensible of the real cause of all the evils we either feel, or have reason to fear, are disputing, instead of praying; may the Lord bestow upon you and me, and upon all who fear his name, a spirit suited to the times! that the words of David, "I beheld the trangressors and was grieved," may express the very sensation and frame of our hearts. Permit me to keep this expression in my view while I write, though it may perhaps give my letter something of the air of a

sermon.

The Hebrew word answering to "I was grieved," signifies such a kind of grief as is mixed with dislike; such a grief as a believer must feel when he has a sense of his own corruptions. It is frequently rendered, as in Ezek. xx. 43, to loathe: "You shall loathe yourselves in your own sight." We are not required strictly to hate ourselves, but the evil that is in us. So, when we look at transgressors, we are not to hate, but to pity them, mourn over them, and pray for them; nor have we any right to boast over them; for, by nature, and of ourselves, we are NO BETTER than they. But their sinfulness should cause a dislike, an holy indignation as it is recorded of our Lord, who, though full of compassion and tenderness, so that he wept over his enemies, and prayed for his actual murderers, yet looked upon transgressors with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.

A feeling of this kind seems essential to that new nature which characterises the children of God; and where it is not in habitual exercise, it is a sufficient evidence that the soul, if truly alive to God at all, is at least in a lean and distempered state. Who can avoid being grieved and hurt by that which is in direct opposition to what he most loves? Believers love HOLINESS; and, unless when stupified by the arts of Satan, can hardly bear themselves for what they find contrary to it within their own breasts; and must, therefore, of course, be grieved with the sins of others. Like righteous Lot, and from his principles, they are "vexed with the conversation of the wicked." Can they who reverence the name of God be easy and unconcerned when they hear it blasphemed? No; their ears are wounded, and their hearts are pained. Can they who are followers of peace and purity, behold unmoved the riots, licentiousness, and daring wickedness of those who have cast off both shame and fear? Can they who have bowels of mercy and compassion, be unaffected when they see the iron hand of oppression grinding the faces of the poor? Or can any who love the songs of Zion, help being shocked with the songs of drunkards? I trust there are many, who, upon these accounts, are daily crying, "My soul is among lions:" "Woe is me that I dwell in Mesech!" "O gather not my soul with sinners." The thought of being shut up for ever with the ungodly, would be terrible as hell to a gracious soul, though there were no devouring fire, no keen sense of the wrath of God, to be feared.

They are grieved likewise upon their Lord's account; for they have obtained a spark of zeal for his honour and glory. With Elijah, they are

very jealous for the Lord of hosts." They feel their obligations to him, and know he well deserves to reign in every heart. But when, on the contrary, they see almost every one in a conspiracy against him, despising him to his face, trampling upon his laws, rejecting his authority, and abusing his patience; their eyes affect their hearts. What • man of sensibility could brook to see every one about him contriving how to affront and injure the person whom he most loved? Now the Lord is the believer's best friend, the beloved of his soul; and therefore he is grieved and troubled when he "beholds the transgressors."

This emotion is likewise heightened by compassion to souls. Grace gives some view of the evil of sin, the dreadfulness of the wrath of God, and the vast importance of that word ETERNITY. Thus instructed in the sanctuary of God, they would be stocks and stones, were they capable of beholding sinners rushing upon destruction without being grieved for them. But they cannot bear it. They cannot but give and repeat a faithful warning, though they have little reason to expect any better return than scorn and ill-treatment, for what the world accounts an impertinent officiousness.

But who then are believers? Who are thus "on the Lord's side? If these sentiments are common and radical to all who are born of God, can we make no abatement? or must we unchristian perhaps the greater part of professors at this time? for it is too evident, that many, who bear the name of Gospel professors, discover but little of this concern. In general, I think, this subject affords no improper test for the trial of our spirits. The effects of grace in similar circum