them? No; for I have promised to love them freely, and with loving-kindness to draw them. Keeping back God's promise of love is shutting the womb; for nothing but God's love can cast out fear and torment, and make the new birth clear to us. It is well you are a mother, or else you would say he speaks parables. I do intend, God willing, to visit you shortly; but pray drop me a line first, to inform me whether I am to be admitted or denied the use of the chapel, that I may be at a certainty. I must confess that I long to see the outlandish folks, because I do believe that some in the Isle wait for his law, hoping that faith will come by hearing, and hearing by the word. Now, when my old mother has picked this over, then she will set off with it to Becky. Give my love to them all, and to the little ones. W. H. S.S. by her conception and quickening. So God raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them and so the Son quickeneth whom he will; and of his own will God begets us with the word of truth. There is both a begetting and a quickening before perfect love cometh, which casteth out all fear, and makes the birth clear to us. As soon as we are quickened, like the Prodigal, we hunger after the bread of life; for, having spiritual life within, nothing but the bread of life will feed that life, and nourish it. Husks will do while the soul is dead; but when it is quickened there is a mighty famine in every land, where Christ crucified, the bread of life, is not preached. And God tells you that it was the spirit of life that gave the Prodigal all his motions. "I will arise, and go to my father." But who can rise up and go that is dead? God says, "This my son was dead, but is alive again." Here soul travail begins. And shall I cause to labour, exercise the soul with bondage to fear, and to be tormented with a view of my terrible majesty, and with a sense of my wrath, and not reveal my love? No. God promises enlargement to such. "Shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb?" Shall I quicken them by them? No; for I have promised to love them freely, and with loving-kindness to draw them. Keeping back God's promise of love is shutting the womb; for nothing but God's love can cast out fear and torment, and make the new birth clear to us. It is well you are a mother, or else you would say he speaks parables. I do intend, God willing, to visit you shortly; but pray drop me a line first, to inform me whether I am to be admitted or denied the use of the chapel, that I may be at a certainty. I must confess that I long to see the outlandish folks, because I do believe that some in the Isle wait for his law, hoping that faith will come by hearing, and hearing by the word. Now, when my old mother has picked this over, then she will set off with it to Becky. Give my love to them all, and to the little ones. W. H. S.S. DCCVII. My dear friend's arrived last night. I cannot write nor speak of the best things when I please. God prepares the heart by putting in fresh matter, and creates the fruit of the lips to bring it forth. Without an inward spring, and an inclination, nothing goes on. Willing and doing are God's work. Besides, I know that the heart that backslides is to have a fulness of its own ways; nor shall all the prayers in the world make those words void. I have often considered inordinate affections as in Abraham to Ishmael, Jacob to Rachel and Joseph, Elkanah to Hannah, Isaac to Esau, and David to Absalom: all which brought on the cross. And I have found it, indulged it, and smarted for it, myself. For Ishmael, Esau, and Absalom, there was no ground of hope; nor had I any such ground for either of my six children. The little boy, that dropped down dead in a fit at play, stung me to the quick. I was at that time engaged to preach at Farnham, in Surrey, and I set out, in bad rainy weather, to walk all night in the dark; and went in the middle of the horse road, that I might vent my grief aloud. And in my expostulations with God these words came, "He had done no violence, neither was guile found in his mouth; yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him." This gave me some relief, though the burden abode long; but after it went it returned no more. I have often thought, and should lie if I denied it, that I have felt and enjoyed as much of God, and the realities of heaven, as any mortal living; therefore can give some guess, by these fruits, what the harvest must be when a soul quits the body of death, and is swallowed up in immortal felicity. For one, therefore, favoured with a ground of hope, and with such prospects as you had of a blissful end, to make ungrateful returns to God by fretting, repining, murmuring, desponding, and rebelling, is taking part with Satan, carnal reason and unbelief; and in effect saying, in heart and in appearance, as Micah did when his idol was stolen Ye have taken away my gods, and what have I more! and then ye say, What aileth thee?" I do love my blessed Creator, nor am I |