T. PHILOMELA, in the King's Dale.

DEAR SISTER IN CHRIST,

YOURS came fafe to hand; and I have confidered it, and I will by no means fay that the Lord God of Ifrael had no hand in the work described in your narrative. But this I must confess, that evangelical repentance, which to my view is effential to falvation, is not in the account. The new wine was put into an old bottle; and, where this is the cafe, pride will burst the bottle, and the wine will run out, and the old bottle must perish. I mean, that your joys were not received into an humble, broken, and contrite heart. God hath promised to give us a new heart, as well as a new spirit; and, when the new wine is put into a new bottle, both are preferved. However, the ftony heart shall be taken away, and it shall be destroyed, as well as the other parts of the body of fins, for our old man was crucified with Chrift; and, under the operation of the Spirit's renewing power, the body of fins fhall be put off.

Repentance is two-fold, legal and evangelical. The former is extorted by fears, terror, and torment, and is always attended with hard thoughts of God, and felf-pity. This is all the repentance

that

that can be produced in us under the law, where we have nothing before our eyes but our own fins, and a fin-avenging God. Evangelical repentance is drawn forth and flows out under the fweet operations of pardoning love, and is attended with a believing view of him whom we have pierced, and with mourning for him; and this is accompanied with a juftifying of God, and sympathifing with and condoling a fuffering Saviour, and with felf-abhorrence: and fo it is written, "From all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you; a new heart will I give unto you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and then ye fhall remember your own evil ways, which were not good; and you fhall lothe yourselves in your own fight for your iniquities when I am pacified toward you." God appearing pacified, and we filled with felf-lothing, is the finishing work when God brings a foul into covenant with him. He accepts us in the Beloved; the atonement applied purges us from our filthinefs; and God fhines pacified, reconciled, and well pleased, in the face of Jefus Chrift. All repentance but this needs to be repented of, but this never does; for Chrift is exalted to give this repentance to Ifrael, and the forgiveness of fins; and this repentance is unto life, and is attended with purifying faith. The very text that was fent to you informed you that the humbling rod, and the bond of the covenant, were wanting in your experience. The rod of

God is fmiting us with terrors, horrors, flashes of divine anger, reproofs, rebukes, the lashes of confcience, bitter reflections, and fmiting us with the application of the threatenings and fentences of a broken law, and with the fore buffetings of Satan, and the killing ftings and remorfes of guilt. To come into the bond of the covenant is to have the love of God fhed abroad in our heart by the Holy Ghoft given unto us. The work on you seems to me to be very much like that of Hezekiah, much joy and confidence. And no wonder; for at that time he knew nothing of the plague of his own heart; but, when God shewed him this, his joy, confidence, and hopes, all funk together: "I said, I shall not fee the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world: he will cut me off with pining fickness; from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me." Ifa. xxxviii. 11, 12. And, indeed, nothing will hide pride from our eyes but an abiding fenfe of our own depravity, and of the superabounding and undeserved mercy of God in Chrift Jefus to us. May this religion ever reft with thee and me.

So prays

Thy friend and fervant in Chrift Jefus,

The Defert.

NOCTUA AURITA.

A CORRESPONDENCE.

LETTER I.

To PHILOMELA, on the Spray, Mount Tabor.

THE long, cold, dreary winter

of my beloved fifter in God is paft; the difmal cloud of mount Sinai, which hath long rained its entangling fnares on thy foul, is now over and gone; the hiding place from the impending ftorms, and the covert from the dreadful tempeft, is found at laft; "being wet with the showers of the mountains, the hath embraced the rock for want of a fhelter." "He was angry with me," fays Philomela; " but his anger is turned away, and he comforts me." "In his favour is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."

"The flowers appear on the earth, the time of finging of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." Ifrael buds and bloffoms as the rofe; the lilies of the valley ap

B

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