desired thou mightest be supplied with every degree of wisdom and patience, strength and consolation, which God only wise sees meet to vouchsafe unto thee; so that I was willing to decline writing, until I felt my mind impressed with some degree of necessity; and truly I may tell thee, that I feel much sympathy and concern for thee in thy present suffering state, yet ever attended with an indubitable evidence that all things will work together for thy good; and that, when the Lord shall see meet to say, "It is enough," thy soul shall be set at liberty, and filled forever with His praise,

The Lord's ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts; one day with Him is "as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The depths, the designs, the concealed mercy in His varied dispensations, when His way is in the thick darkness, are beyond our comprehension; but this we know, that with Him there is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning;" that having loved His own, He loveth them to the end; that through whatsoever sufferings, tribulations, or conflicts, He may be

pleased to lead His chosen ones, that it is His good pleasure to give them the kingdom; that He is greater than all, and none shall be able to pluck them out of His hand.

Be not then, my dear friend, discouraged, when the enemy may be permitted to sift and to buffet thee; endeavour to stand still in these times of trial, and in the Lord's time He will lift up an effectual standard against him, and cause thee afresh to experience His complete salvation. Deeply have the most dignified of all the children of God often been tried; often led in paths of unutterable humiliation and abasement, in the course of their purification; yet were none that ever trusted in the Lord, and abode in His fear, confounded or forsaken. Whom hath He ever prepared for a habitation with Him in glory, who have not measureably drunk of this cup, and been baptized with this baptism? "I am a worm, and no man ;" I have not the spirit of a man; "I am for

gotten as a dead man out of mind; I am like a broken vessel," is a language in which all the redeemed of our God have been more or less instructed. "Are ye able

to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" was the very query proposed by our blessed Lord to the two disciples, who were emulous of a situation at His right and left hand in glory. Now what was this cup, and what was this baptism? it was a cup of ineffable, agonizing distress, and baptism into the deepest suffering and death; the depth and nature whereof are awfully set forth in that solemn expostulation, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" This was the baptism through which the holy Jesus had to pass, and with which he was straitened until it was accomplished. This was the cup which, though intolerable to human nature, He was desirous to drink, according to the will of God: "Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done." This is the acceptable state; this was the mind that was in Christ, concerning whom it is written in the volume of the book, "Lo! I come to do thy will, O God," and not his own. Oh the perfection of this state! wherein no choice is formed, no desire arises, no prayers are offered up, but

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what are circumscribed by, and centre in, "not my will, but thine be done." It is to reduce us to, or rather, raise us into this state, that all the varied turnings of His holy hand and the dispensations of His providence, are directed; and then, in this state, whether we are called to unite in the hosanna to our adorable Redeemer, or go with Him over the brook Cedron, and with Him sweat great drops of sorrow, we are equally acceptable unto Him. It is to this state all things are equally sanctified, whether it be to reign or to suffer with Him; whether the north or the south wind blows upon it, the spices equally flow out, and ascend as incense, equally acceptable unto the God of heaven and of the whole earth.

Be not then dismayed; give not way to slavish fear, attend not to the discouragements the enemy would cast before thee; for, I believe thou wast never more under the Divine notice, nor more acceptable to Him, than in this very season; and so sure as the records of heaven do not fail, so sure is thy name written there, never, never to be erased. Though thou feel not the uniform

prevalence of that Power, unto which the devils are subject, in the degree thou hast formerly done, "Yet in this rejoice," said our holy Redeemer, "that your names are written in heaven:" and though thy present state, according to thy own sensibility of it, be a painful, dark, oppressed, imprisoned state, yet permit me to say, fear not, the Lord is on thy side, encamped round about thee; "greater is He that is in thee, than he that is in the world ;" and, in His own time, He will open the prison doors; He will relieve the oppressed, and "say to the prisoners, Go forth, to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves;" and thy feeding shall again be in the ways, and thy pastures in all high places.

How canst thou think, my dear friend, at any time, that thou art finally forsaken or forgotten of God, though in unsearchable wisdom, He sees meet to hide His face, at seasons, from thee? Is God unrighteous? do His compassions ever fail? are not his promises sure? and doth He not strictly keep covenant? Hath He not delivered out of six troubles, and is His arm shortened? Hath