the presence of God, and sinking in distress under it, Satan will begin to tempt you, conscience will accuse you, and God will frown upon you. When this is the case, you will naturally wither to all the charms of your husband, and be brought to hate him as the cause of

distress.

your soul's

When your husband sees this, it will provoke him to jealousy; your coldness to his embraces will quicken his malice; and the devil telling him that your religion is the cause, he will then appear in his proper colours; curse your profession, and take up the cudgels against you; and then you may expect to go all the rest of the way with a corpse strapped to your back.

I know this letter will not please you; it is a purge for your conscience, not a cordial for your wantonness. However, you will seek counsel from some other professor, who will approve of your measures, and then my letter will have no weight till after the wedding be

over.

I do not expect an answer to this, as it is so wide to your purpose. But if ever you should write to me again, I crave one favour of you, which is, that you will never more call me your father, or even own that you were called under my ministry; for your presumption in wedlock will be a scandal even to a coalheaver. Remember you are a daughter of Sarah, as

long as you do well; and I will own you as long as you obey the word of God, and no longer.

Yours, &c.

W. H. S. S.

LETTER VIII.

DEAR BROTHER,

Winchester Row, July 6, 1784.

GRACE, mercy, and peace be with you through Jesus Christ our Lord. I received your melancholy epistle, which I believe to be expressive of the gloomy state of your soul. Your appearing in your own eyes one of the greatest of sinners, is intended to erase the sandy foundation of human excellency, and to level the towering pinnacle of vain boasting; but is no argument against salvation by grace. This I tell you by the word of the Lord, that there is not a single text in God's book against a poor sensible heavy laden sinner, that is willing to renounce all confidence in the flesh, and to submit to be saved by free grace through faith in Christ Jesus.

I do not wonder at the threatenings in God's word levelling their contents at you; they will do this, till your eye is singly fixed on Jesus Christ. When this is the case, the promises, as so many breasts of consolation, will meet you with cordials; and the threatenings will level all their arrows at your back, to keep you from looking again towards

Sodom. After the Saviour had given his followers many admonitions, he bid them remember Lot's wife.

You would not have continued so long in your present situation, if all your working abilities were exhausted; for God has promised to appear when his people's strength is all gone, and there is none left; for by strength shall no man prevail. A legal hope dies hard; and it must be a killing sight and sense of sin that buries it. At the funeral of this wretched hope, deliverance will rise to you another way. "Let the weak say I am strong.' Moses must bring in many bills before our supposed wealth be expended. Insolvency is a cutting consideration to a man of consequence and reputation; nor can self-sufficient nature submit to the kind offers of a surety. But the family of God are all brought into this strait; "And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both." This step brings them in debtors to grace; and leaves them no stock in hand to boast of. "Which thinkest thou will love him most? Simon answered, He to whom he forgave most. And the Lord said, Thou hast rightly judged."

If I had not been well acquainted with your occupation, I should have taken you to have been an advocate at a bar of judicature; for you labour as hard against a good cause as a counsellor doth when his arguments are drove home by a thousand pound bribe.

If you was to use as many arguments in your

plea for the atonement of Christ, as you do against your soul's salvation, you would cut as good a figure at a throne of grace as any sinner that ever carried a plea into court.

and strain our Plead your own

Moses is said to accuse us for breaking his law; and Satan will accuse us, conscience will accuse us, and the world will accuse us. But we have no reason to puzzle our judgments, nerves to assist either of them. wretchedness, and a Saviour's fulness; and that will silence every accuser. Your despairing of the mercy of God under a sense of want, and nursing unbelief, are the greatest sins you ever committed, and are daring reflections cast on him who saves to the uttermost.

We

I believe you will be eternally saved; and if your faith has given up the ghost, you ought not to labour so hard to knock down mine also. are commanded to bear each other's burthens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

Beware that there be not in thy heart a secret thought of meriting something by thy long-suffering. There is also a kind of mock modesty, that often possesses us under our first legal convictions. This appears, when we endeavour to put away from us what we hope to enjoy. Job said, "I shall come forth as gold;" and yet he refused to be comforted.

I believe if death was to stare you in the face, I should find it hard work to dispute you out of your right and title to those gospel blessings,