preachers; this is the cafe with children, but not with fathers. Officers muft care for the public, fathers must lay up for the children. All the above stock of heavenly treasure, though in all its fulness, would be exhaled by a thirty flock in two full difcourfes; whereas it might entertain our own hearts a whole month, were there no public expenditures. But our light muft fhine to others; we muft feed, keep, watch over, and water; and the freer we receive, the freer we must give. Thine office, my fon, will forbid what thou haft long imagined; and let it be fo, fince bleffed are thofe fervants whom their Lord hath made rulers over his household, to give to each a portion of meat in due feafon; bleffed are those fervants, whom, when the Lord cometh, he shall find fo doing. Envy not the private believer; he brings forth fruit, but it turns chiefly to his own account. However, we fee the encomiums that are put upon them who in this way occupy till the Lord comes; witnefs the applaufe given to the men of five and of two talents; we are a fweet favour unto God; whether of life or of death, the bearer of this will tell his own tale.

Ever thine,

W. H.

LETTER XXX.

LAST night I arrived fafe at Cricklewood, through a dismal, dark, windy, and rainy night; God being my only protector. And this morning I found a letter from my dear friend, the fight of which always does me good; for my love to him has never abated, nor my confidence of his falvation ever yet funk or failed: he is ftill in my heart to live and die with him; and he is the firft man in my heart, and the highest in my affections of any man living in all the world. But this muttering and repining, murmuring and complaining, I hate, both in him and in myself alfo. My own conflicts, both without and within, have far exceeded yours, and yet I believe they have been wifely ordered to anfwer fome good purpofe, and have been overruled for my good in the end. If thou waft not a branch of the Lord, and if thou waft not in the true vine, why all this purging? God fends no rods upon the wicked; baftards are not chaftened; they are not in trouble as other men. God often destroys the falfe hopes of fuch finners, and he makes them relinquish all their claims upon him; he expofes their deception and

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arrogance, and lets them fee his rejection of them; and they seeking self in their profeffion, their pride is hurt, and they hate the Almighty, and his choice of his people. God makes them contemptible and bafe before all his family, and they contemn him and his counsel both. He takes off all the reftraints of his providence, and they get paft feeling in fin; and if he fills them, and confumes them with terrors, their defperation and rebellion rife the more against him, and aim at counteracting him in all his defigns and works of mercy, which is doing defpite to his Holy Spirit. He throws them out of the faith, hope, prayers, and affections of all his faints, and fuffers them no more to lift up a cry or prayer for them, declaring that he will not answer them; these were his orders to Jeremiah against the Jews. To Samuel, against Saul. To John, against those that finned unto death, in fighting against Christ the life. I afk, in the name of God, if this is your ftate? God has purged you; and if great fruits in the miniftry have not been produced, the fruits of the Spirit have appeared in you, by which it is plain yours are purging, and not hardening trials. Humility, self-abasement, compunction, meeknefs, contrition, faith, hope, love, joy, and peace, have all appeared at times; and you cannot deny it, without belying both God and confcience. You tell me your hope is almoft gone. "Job's hope was removed

like a tree; and there is no removing a tree without grubbing it up, and carrying it away. Yea, Job adds, thou deftroyeft the hope of man. You are in the fteps of the flock, upon confecrated ground; and you must not limit nor reftrain God's love to fondling, fwaddling, and comforting; nor the whole work of his Spirit to meekness and joy. His power upholds you now, or you would have been in black despair, or in hell, long ago.

Adieu,

W. H.

LETTER XXXI.

Cricklewood.

To the dear fon of my vows, thine affectionate father fendeth greeting, with perfect peace and at fuch a time.

Or this, my beloved, be affured, that God does nothing in vain; he gives us grace to be exercised: and he will try every grace that he plants in the heart. When he hath performed the good pleasure of his will in us, and the work of faith with power, he will then

try that faith with fire: the fiery darts of Satan, and his infernal rage, the wrath of enemies, the hot displeasure of God in the fiery law, and the bondage of it, the flames of inbred lufts and corruptions, fhall all combine and conspire to try the faith of the faint. And the plain language of Providence at fuch times is, fight or flee: believe, or faint; I had utterly fainted unless I had believed. So, long denials to prayer, poftponed deliverances, hope defired, delaying to avenge us of our enemies, forely try hope; all which suggeft, take part with corruption, or with grace; join with the enemies, or with God; hope, or defpond; caft away your confidence, or mufter up all your courage: between which we at times halt; but after a while come to a point, as David did at the burning of Ziklag; he strengthened himself in his God; Why art thou caft down, O my foul? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him. Indigence trieth humility and submission, and leads to felf-denial; but Paul's leffon is not eafily learnt, namely, in whatever state I am to be therewith content: this, indeed, is walking humbly with God; but these peaceable fruits are not produced but by the Spirit's influence, who fanctifies the affliction; and then experience tells us that the heart is made better by them, and that all things do work for our good. Affluence will try temperance, and the infirmities of old age will try patience; and when this grace has