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The beasts of the field shall honour

and the owls. Ifaiah xliii. 20.

t come. Cant.ii.12.

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A

CORRESPONDENCE

BETWEEN

NOCTUA AURITA,

OF THE DESERT,

AND

PHILOME LA,

OF THE KING'S DALE.

PUBLISHED BY

WILLIAM HUNTINGTON, S. S.

MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL

AT PROVIDENCE CHAPEL, LITTLE TITCHFIELD-STREET, AND AT MONKWELL-STREET MEETING.

The time of the finging of birds is come.-CANT. ii. 12.

The beafts of the field fhall honour me, the dragons and the owls.-ISA. iv. 30.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY T. BENSLEY.

Sold at Providence Chapel on Monday and Wednesday Evenings, and at Monkwell-Street Meeting on Tuesday Evenings; by W. Baynes, No. 54, Paternofter-Row; T. Green, No. 93, and J. Baker, No. 226, Oxford-Street; J. Cobbin, No. 14, Hertford-ftrect, Fitzroy-fquare; at the Chapel in the Cliff, Lewes, Suffex; by T. Barton, Caftlegate, Grantham, Lincolnshire; and by A. Batten, fen. Wellwyn, Herts.

1799.

PREFACE.

BELOVED FRIEND,

HAVING feen and read moft, if not all, the letters which have paffed between you and my dear fifter, it is my opinion that they would be of

great ufe to many if they were made public. When I confider and reflect upon the light, support, and help, which I received when in my trouble from many of the Epiftles of Faith, as well as from your other writings; and the many accounts I have fince had of the usefulness of the Living Teftimonies to many fouls that were in distress, darkness, and bondage; it is my request, should it meet with your approbation, that you would publish them. I am fully perfuaded that the matter they contain leads to the true and living way. The bulk of profeffors, in our day, as far as I am able

to

fearing the face of any; zeal in the delivery of it, with lively frames to fet off the fweetness and excellency of it, and power to enforce it; and that with the greateft confidence, from an inward teftimony of intereft in it. And, without this divine influence of the Spirit, the pulpit would be little better than a pillory, and the work of the ministry quite a flavery; as we fee in too many who are obliged to have recourfe to country tales and old wives' fables, in order to fill up the time; or elfe to fet up fome fuppofed rival as a fcare-bird, and call him an Antinomian, and fo belabour him, juft to help out; which is done for want of matter, and for want of the divine aid of the Holy Spirit. To these men I have contributed not a little, in thus helping them out at a dead lift.

The Holy Spirit adminifters different power and authority to men; furnishing fome to be apoftles, fome to be prophets, fome evangelifts, fome teachers, and fome to be helps; enabling each in his place to be of fome ufe to the body, the church; that the whole, by the joints of one faith, and of one and the fame judgment, and by the bands of love and peace, may be bound together; and that the whole body, holding faft the head, may have nourishment communicated from the head of influence (by the Spirit) to every part of the body; fo kniting it together that it may increase in grace and in number with the increase of God. See Col. ii. 19. Every one of these different gifts are

of ufe in the

myftical

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