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soul he delights to honour; and what greater honour can he confer on any of his creatures, than putting his own Spirit within them, May this honour, in an eminent degree, be yours and mine!

I am, my dear children,

in dearest affection, your's,

LETTER VIII.

TO MR. AND MRS, B

J. BOWDEN,

Tooting, July, 1800.

MY DEAR J AND M—,

I DESIRE to rejoice with you in the renewed experience you have of Divine mercy, and to join with you in celebrating the praises of JEHOVAH JIREH. Our God provides, that the voice of rejoicing and salvation should be in the tabernacles of those whose hope is in him. He does not leave us to converse only with wants, and griefs, and toils, and terrors, in the wilderness, but he makes all his goodness to pass before us. How often does he surprize and cheer us with a beam of his glory, shed through the medium of some particularly gracious dispensation, thereby assuring us that he is ever mindful of his covenant! Blessed be God for these tokens for good; these notices of his presence and his power: they revive our hope, and brighten our prospects, and cheer

us in our progress: they are expressions of that love which is from everlasting: they are streams from that river which maketh glad the city of our God: the streams are then especially refreshing when we can trace them to the fountain, and taste the love of God in them. Blessed God! how sweet is that word when spoken by his Spirit to the heart, "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee!" O! how did he draw us? He saw us involved in sin and misery, guilt and wrath. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ;" and death and the curse were passing as merciless tyrants through our world, and marking the whole race of men for eternal ruin, when God in his great mercy was pleased to check their dreadful triumphs, to limit their conquests, and decree, "Hitherto shall ye go, but no further." There is an election of grace. A rem

nant must be saved, and " He saveth us and calleth us with an holy calling; not according to our own works, but according to his purpose and grace, which he purposed in Christ Jesus before the world began." The loud thunders of wrathful threatenings were followed by a small still voice of mercy, uttering exceeding great and precious promises, "Come, children, to your Father's arms;" "Fear not, I have redeemed thee; "Sin shall not have dominion over you;" "He shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly," and "death and hell shall be cast into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone:" "Look

unto me, and be ye saved," &c. Charming sounds! what a Day-spring from on high herein visited our wretched world! what a blessed hope is inspired within us! "This is the promise that he hath promised us, eternal life.... and this life is in his Son." And this comprehends every blessing connected with it: pardon, renovation, sanctification, provision of temporal good, and a safe passage through death to glory. The promises were first given to Christ, and they are sealed and ratified by his death. Through him they are proposed indefinitely to sinners of mankind; and they are a firm ground of consolation to all who believe. Sometimes they are styled the Gospel; and "blessed is the people that know the joyful sound.' Sometimes they are represented as legacies bequeathed in the testament of a deceased Friend. Sometimes they are spoken of as articles comprehended in a covenant or free grant of privileges, solemnly confirmed and ratified. The objects of this rich and everlasting mercy, while in their natural state, cannot be distinguished by mortal eye, though their names are all written in the Lamb's book of life. But they will be distinguished by the regards they pay to these overtures of mercy. Others may admit the veracity of the Scriptures, and be well skilled in religion as a science; they may give their assent to all important truths as matters of speculation; but the sheep of Christ alone hear and know the voice of the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls in the Gospel. Their hearts crave the experience of the sal

vation revealed, as one perishing with hunger and thirst craves bread or water: they believe with the heart, and earnestly desire the blessing contained in the promises, as their chiefest good, willing to account all things but loss if they may but win Christ and be found in him. They follow Christ as his disciples, with lowly teachable minds, to be instructed by him; as wretched sinners, to be justified by his righteousness, and sanctified and filled with his Spirit; and as devoted subjects, to know and do their Redeemer's will, and find protection and delight under the shadow of his wings. How instructive is the representation of the faith of the patriarchs! They had not received the promises; they had not seen Christ, the sum of them, come in the flesh; "but having seen them afar off, they were persuaded of them, and embraced them, &c." What a beautiful gradation! They saw the promised blessings afar off; they were persuaded of them; they embraced them; and then they practically and habitually applied themselves to seek the possession of them. How descriptive of the heart and life of a believer! While to carnal minds, the blessings of salvation are so far off, that they see nothing of their excellence, He has his mind enlightened to behold their attractive glory. Faith is the eye by which to see the king in his beauty: a spiritual apprehension, a supernatural capacity to see spiritual and heavenly things.-The sphere of Nature's brightest capacity lies far below these exalted objects. Represent to the natural man,

the awful state of an unbelieving sinner, and urge him to flee from the wrath to come; tell him of the love of Christ, and the glory of Heaven; alas! he has no heart to weigh these representations:—he can see things that are near; he can see and magnify the riches, the honours, and the pleasures of the world; but he depreciates Christ, and the great things of the Gospel, as some would depreciate the glory of the sun, and, for the same reason, because they are very far off. But "in thy light they shall see light." Faith is the evidence of things not seen; it pierces through the interposing heavens, and sees him that is invisible; it represents the grace of Christ by an inexpressible kind of evidence, and thus "works by love," awakens desire, and wins the soul to the obedience of Christ. When a man is enabled with spiritual discernment to see these glorious objects, he feels a firm persuasion of the reality of them, and of their sufficiency; he can believe there grace in the heart of such a Saviour, that there is merit enough in such a Sacrifice, that there is light and warmth in so glorious a Sun, and truth in such a God. Charmed, as well as persuaded of the excellence and sufficiency of these things, his very heart embraces them, his soul stretches its arms abroad, and cries," My Lord and my God!" "Whom have I in Heaven but thee?" &c. Then, his practical conversation demonstrates the reality and the divinity of his faith; he confesseth himself a stranger and pilgrim on the earth; his soul no longer

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