Let me have a place in your heart to live a few days, and then to die. Farewel, beloved friend, and beft companion on earth. Thousand bleffings attend you till we come to lie down together in peace. The graves are ready, and no mortal is to occupy our beds till we come to lie down there. J. J. LETTER X. I BELIEVE it is now two months, or upwards, fince I have had the favour of a few lines from my beloved friend. I am at present but poorly, having a few days ago loft my appetite all at once, and am now going down apace; but, what is worst of all, I have loft my way fomewhere, and am much afraid that it is by terrible things I am to be answered; a coward to fuffering I always have been, and still am, and an impatient mortal always under them, ready to conclude that no one is ferved as I am. My young friend and neighbour here is going to London to spend her holidays, and to have all good things, whilft I am cooped up in the dun geon. But I have made a refolution that I fhalj not take notice any more how the or any body elfe in this world go on, nor mind their fuccefs and profperity, or how high they ride, or faft they travel; and I think the way is preparing for me, for it seems to me, that lover and friend are to be put away from me, and my acquaintance into darkness; but let them go, and I fhall feclude myself in the thickest darkness that I can find, that nobody may come near me, nor I go near them, for I am fit for none. Mr. Morris has fhewed me your letter. My honoured and venerable parent need not doubt of a piece of ground, if it is his will and pleasure to accept of it. The vault that I have had made is three width, or where three corpfes may lie abreast, and no more; one third belongs to Mrs. T. Hooper, one third to Mr. Marchant, and a third part for myself. But I am alone, and if my old carcafe was capable of any fatisfaction in the grave, it would be that the Doctor would lie on the fide of me; or a new vault muft be built. I have had the bricklayer to look at the ground, and moft eligibly may it be built close to ours; there wants no more than your orders, and as foon as the weather will admit of it, it shall be forthwith built; but mention must be made, whether for two, or three abreaft. As for the expense, that need not be mentioned. Jofeph of Arimathea had the rock cut for the dear M Redeemer. Mr. T. Hooper paid for the poor vicar's fhare of the vault, and I am moft certain of it that J will moft readily be at the expense of building a vault for the Doctor, or many befides at Lewes, if he docs give them but leave. God bless my dear friend for ever and ever! J. J. LETTER XI. LAST night I received the last favour of my moft honoured and dearly beloved father in the Lord Jefus Chrift, our common head, the everlasting father of all the heavenly family. This is Friday morning, and I cannot refrain from scribbling a few lines, to endeavour to exprefs the inexpreffible love I feel in my heart to the perfon, who, under God, has been inftrumental in bringing me out of a state of the moft palpable dark nefs, out of the moft wretched mifery, out of the most perilous death and deftruction in which I was involved, through the delufion of the father of lies. What praises are due to the dear Redeemer for appearing on the fide of fuch a worthlefs worm; for pleading the caufes of one in fuch defperate circumstances, and carrying all before him, though the accufations brought against me were so true, and fo well and ftrongly established, that it often appeared that it was impoffible for me ever to escape eternal vengeance. What my heart feels. I cannot express. I feel like a fluttering within, as if something wanted to come forth that I cannot utter, and I think never fhall be able to do it. There was no more of me left by the hellish lion than two legs and a piece of an ear; yet the fragments of fuch a carcafe the glorious and mighty deliverer took hold of, and carried away, as his prey, from the field of blood, and left the lion to roar after his prey, and to threaten tenfold vengeance on me for this efcape. But the prey is taken from the mighty, and I do believe that the lawful captive is escaped; and I will from my heart fay, eternal glory and praise be to his adorable and renowned name, who has faid, deliver him from going down to the pit, and himself is that deliverer. I feel I do love him, but cannot fay half what I wish to say in his praife. Something feems to whisper within me this minute, faying, take care, be not too confident, fay no more than what you are fure of, &c. &c. I know that if carnal reason and unbelief can prevent it, I never fhall speak one word to the praise of him that faved me from fo great a death, and doth deliver me, and in whom my truft is that he will yet deliver me; but I feel a conftraint within me, and confcience does not object to it. I can blefs him now, at times, and I will blefs him, and let the devil rage on; I feel and believe he is in the chains, and he runs at me now and then, but I fenfibly perceive that he is checked, and when he has run the length of his chain, I have seen him bounding back, as you mention in the cafe of Little Faith, as if it were a dozen rods. My own fenfations at times are really strange to me; for, inftead of blackness and darkness, the voice of words and meditations on terrors, I feel within life, hope, ftrength, comfort, peace, joy, and praife, fpringing up, infomuch that I am ready to doubt what is come to me, and yet it is a doubt that cannot be fixed in my heart. O my beloved, my dearest, my most valuable, my moft precious, what fhall I say? You do not know half the love I feel in my heart to you, 'nor can my pen ever defcribe it. I feel as if you were incorporated in my soul, so that yours and mine are as if it were but one fpirit; and by this I am perfuaded that I have paffed from death to life. I am fure that I am out of the dungeon, though I am perfuaded I am not yet, as you well observe somewhere, out of prifon. There are fome doors yet to be opened; but from the fweet rays that have darted in, I know it is day, and have an indifputable confi |