these lines. O may they be lines of consolation to my dear friend! May the God of all grace, who comforts unworthy me, rejoice your oppressed heart, and make it overflow with his patient love, and sanctifying truth.

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You still complain of vile self: I wish you joy, for your knowing your enemy. Let vile self be reduced to order, and, though he be a bad master, he will become an excellent servant. If you say, How shall I do this? I reply, by letting the Lord, the Maker, the Preserver, the Redeemer, the Lover of your soul, ascend upon the throne of your thoughts, will, and affections. Who deserves to engross and fill them better than he does? Is he not your first Lord, your best Husband, your most faithful Friend, and your greatest Benefactor? If you say, I do not see him ;" I reply, that you never saw the soul of any of your friends;-nor do you see even the body of him you call your idol. O! allow Jehovahı, the Supreme Being, to be to you, what he deserves to be, 'all in all.' One lively act of faith, one assent and consent to this delightful truth, that your Father, who is in heaven, loves you a thousand times more than you love your idol, (for God's love is like himself, "infinite and boundless,") will set your heart at liberty, and even make it dance for joy. What, if, to this ravishing consideration, you add the transporting truth, that the Son of God, fairer than the sons of men, and brighter than angels, has loved you unto death-to the death of the cross, and loves you still more than all your friends do, were their love collected into one heart; could you help thinking, with a degree of joyous gratitude, of such an instance of divine condescension! No, your vile self would be ennobled, raised, expanded, and set at liberty, by this evangelical thought; and if you did not destroy this divine conception, if you nourished this little degree of the love of Christ, Emmanuel, the God of Love, would be more fully manifested in you, and salvation would from this moment grow in your soul. would grow in your believing, loving heart; self would be nobody, Emmanuel would be all in all; and Lady

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Mary would share all the happiness, and ere long, all the glory of that favoured virgin whom all the nations shall call blessed. You bear her name: Let her Son, by the incorruptible seed of the Word, be also formed in you through faith; and you will be so taken up with this wonder of divine love, so employed in praising your Father's mercy, and Saviour's love and tenderness, that you will have little time to speak either of good or bad self. When self is forgotten as nothing before God, you put self in its proper place; and you make room for the heavenly Being, whose holy and happy existence you are to shadow out.

If you have left off attending on the Princess, attend on the Prince of Peace with double diligence. If you have been wanting in that sweet and honourable duty, it is because the enemy has told you lies of your Saviour, and has cast a veil over the love of his heart, and the beauty of his face. See the snare, and avoid it.

Shall we ever have the honour of seeing you, my Lady? My wife, who joins in respectful love and thanks to your. Ladyship for your remembrance of her, says she will do her best to render our cold house safe for you, if not convenient. You would have had a repeated invitation from us, if fear and a concern for your health, heightened by the bad weather, had not checked our desires to have an opportunity of assuring you here how much we are devoted to your service. But the roads and the weather beginning to amend, we venture to offer you the best apartment in our hermitage. I wish it were large enough to take in dear Mrs. G- and our dear friends in St. James's Place; but we have only two small rooms; to which, however, you would be received with two enlarged hearts: I mean those of, my honoured Lady, your Ladyship's obedient, devoted Servants,

J. AND M. FLETCHER.

LETTER LXIX.

To Mrs. Dolier,

MADELEY, Nov. 1783.

AND were my dear Brother and Sister Dolier pleased by the receipt of a letter from such an unworthy worm? O that I could convey some word from the mouth of my adorable Lord to your hearts! O that he would permit me, his poor creature, to drop a sentence, which may prove an encouragement to my dear friends in their way! You ask, "Shall I hope to obtain the clean heart, and walk in purity while here below?" Why not? 'Abraham hoped against hope, and there sprang from him, as good as dead, as the stars of the heaven for multitude.' Does unbelief say-" Thou art dead; thou hast out-stayed thy day, and it is all over?" Then arise out of the dust, rouse up all your powers, against hope believe in hope,' and by faith receive strength to apprehend the fulness of God. Remember, Christ is in your faith;' hold faith, and you hold Christ. If you know not how to get hold on faith, remember it is in the promise:' Seek for a promise, and lay hold there. But if you cry out, "I see the links of the chain so far off, that, alas! I cannot take hold on the promise; I don't know which is for me, I cannot reach so far;" well, don't faint yet; there is another link still lower, that is to say, your wants. you be sure there is a wound within? Are you certain you are a sinner? Well, then, reach your hand hither, 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.' Are you a helpless sinner? To them who have no might he increaseth strength.' Are you an ungrateful, backsliding sinner? Hear him say, 'Thou hast played the

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harlot with many lovers; but return unto me, saith the Lord;' and if you doubt, whether you may believe for a great measure of holiness; whether your soul, already in old age and barren, shall believe for abundant fruitfulness; answer yourself, my dear friend, from that word, 'Whosoever will, let him come, and take of the water of life freely.' I have just told Mrs. Smyth of one of your sisters here, once a deeper unbeliever than yourself, but now quite full of God; I refer you to her letter. O my God, in mercy let thy power rest on thy dear servants! Convey, even by this poor scrawl, some power to their poor hearts; some fresh light into the mighty chain, which begins with man's wickedness, hangs on God's mercy in the promises, is continued by faith and victory springing there from, and ends with Christ's fulness becoming all in all. We pray the God of love to be with your children, and all who meet with them. Tell Sister Hammond to keep hold on the chain: It shall draw her into the holy of holies. With our kindest and most grateful remembrance of you both, we remain your sincere, but unworthy friends,

J. AND M. FLETCHER.

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LETTER LXX.

To Mr. Henry Brooke.

MADELEY, April 27, 1784.

MY DEAR BROTHER,

MERCY, peace, and perfect love attend you, your dear partner, and the dear friends under your roof, with whom I beg you may abide under the cross, till, with John, Mary, and Salome, &c., you all can say, 'We are crucified with him, and the life we now live, we live

by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave himself for us.'

You are certainly right, when you prefer the inward to the outward: The former is the safer, but both together make up the beauty of holiness. The inward life may be compared to the husband, the outward to the fruitful wife: What God hath joined together, let no man, nor even angel, put asunder.

With respect to the glory of the Lord, "it is at hand, whatever false wisdom and unbelief may whisper to our hearts: It can be no farther off, than the presence of Him, who fills all in all. Our wrong notions of things are a main hindrance to our stepping into it: And perhaps our minding more the cherubims of glory, than the plain tables and the manna hid in the ark." "There is a passing," says Bromley, "from the outward to the inward, and from the inward to the inmost, and it is only from the inmost, that we can see the Lord's spiritual glory."-Pray, my dear brother, when you get so fixed in the inmost, as not to lose sight of Him who dwells in the light and in the thick darkness, may we share your joy. Love will make, me partake of your happiness.

With respect to what you say of the kingdom not coming with outward pomp, which is discoverable by the men of the world, it is strictly true; but that there is an inward display of power and glory, under pentecostal Christianity, is undeniable, both from our Lord's promises to his disciples, and from their experiences, after the kingdom was come to them with power. It is sometimes suggested to me, that, as the apostacy hath chiefly consisted in going after the pomp of the whore of Babylon, so that, while the woman, who fled into the wilderness, remains there as a widow, she must be deprived even of those true ornaments, and of that spiritual glory which was bestowed upon her on the day of Pentecost, the day of her espousals. I do not, however, close in the with the suggestion, as I am not sure, that it cannot come from Satan transformed into an angel of light to rob me of a bright jewel of my Christian hope.