when you should lend to many, and borrow of none, the Lord had promised you, Deut.

xxviiii. 12.

Happy should I be to sit under your ministry now, as I used to do; but this blessing is denied me. However, in this I enjoy a good conscience, that, when I had your ministry to attend on, I was enabled, through divine assistance, to embrace, and make the most of, all those precious seasons. And all the benefit I now receive, is from your writings; and this I account no small mercy: your works have been very useful to me, and have, in a great measure, supplied the loss of public ministrations.

your

It is true, I was not awakened under your ministry, but by reading the works of good old Bishop Latimer: yet, I owe my establishment in the faith wholly to your instrumentality; for it was the only means, in the hand of God, of settling me, in my early days, in the great truths of the gospel; especially when we took sweet counsel together, on a certain spot of ground in a corn field, to which we were wont to resort.

Dear friend, I have one request to make; deny me not, for my spiritual sustenance, in a secondary manner, depends upon the granting of it; that is, that you will continue publishing your Epistles of Faith, as they have been so peculiarly blessed to me; and, indeed, your writings are all the gospel that I have had for years past: and not only to me are your letters blessed, but to many others

also, in whose behalf, as well as my own, I make this request. I can publicly testify to the usefulness of this work. Your epistles contain a choice fund of christian experience; and make a little body of divinity, which is both entertaining and instructive.

The matter comprized in letters is not forced, and laboriously studied, as other works are. There are many who sit down, and force themselves to compile a subject, as Saul forced himself to offer an offering; while the heart is neither engaged in it, nor affected with it. It is the flowings and effusions of a soul under the influence of pardoning love, that refreshes the bowels of others.

Go on, my dear friend, in this profitable, delightful, and pleasing work; and let nothing withdraw thy mind from this heavenly exercise. While the cruse springs, endeavour to fill the vessels of your neighbours, by sending the oil over all the coasts of Israel.

I add no more; only request a line when opportunity offers; and subscribe myself, with much respect and esteem,

Your affectionate Friend,

Kingston upon Thames,

Aug. 1, 1790.

JOHN PAVEY.

LETTER V.

To Mr. JOHN PAVEY.

I

DEAR FRIEND,

RECEIVED yours of the first instant; the reading of which brought the former days of the Son of Man fresh to my mind; which, I believe, will never be forgotten by me while I am on this side Jordan. There was divine wisdom among fools, real happiness in misery, true riches in the depths of poverty, dignity in beggary, and the glorious King of kings was held and entertained in a hovel. I have often questioned, whether there ever was, since the days of the apostles, more of the power and presence of God with such a poor, despicable company, whose dwelling and assembling might with propriety be said to be among the tents of Kedar. I often call to mind my former song, even in the dead of the night; and my mind has frequently travelled and surveyed the whole round, even from the brook Besor to the hill Mizar. My soul has been filled with wonder, astonishment, and contrition, to see how short the triumph of those wicked ones was! How soon are they cut down like the mown grass, and withered like the green herb! The righteous shall see their fall,

which is verified. We may seek them now, but cannot find them; for, in the term of sixteen or seventeen years, there is not one in twenty to be found in the land of the living. But we that did cleave unto the Lord our God, yea, the whole of our little company, except Samuel Webb, who died in faith, are alive, every one of us, this day, Deut. iv. 4. Many a time have they afflicted us, both professor and prophane; but who has prevailed?

I reflect on my former meanness and poverty with more delight than if I had been one of the first rank and highest station in the world. I was obliged to trust in the name of the Lord, and he made all his goodness to pass before me, Exod. xxxiii. 19. The needy are grateful for little, while the affluent are ungrateful for much. "The full soul loatheth the honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." It is straits and difficulties that drive the praying soul to watchfulness; and "He that will observe these things, even he shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord."

I doubt not that you all wished for my share of the enjoyment of God; but as for my hard labour, hard fare, vile raiment, coarse lodging, and family, none of you coveted that part of the inheritance: you were like Boaz's kinsman, who liked Naomi's land, to increase his wealth; but not her daughter-in-law, for fear of charges. When I rehearsed to you my daily meditations

on the word of God, and what I had experienced of his goodness, you eagerly eat it; but, when I invited Matthew, Edward Burridge, and yourself, to sup with me on barley-cake, you all tasted it, and then spit it out again; you could not swallow that: therefore it was best as it was; a double portion of God's presence, and the barley-cake, went together.

What I said of my future prophesying, &c. brought the eyes of several enemies upon me; especially at Ditton, where many eagerly expected that all my predictions would come to nothing, that envy might prove me an impostor. But God served them as he did the unbelieving lord in Samaria: he let them live to see the accomplishment of my prophecy touching the ministry; and then cut them down, that they might receive no benefit from it. "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy;" and by it I was informed, soon after I was called, that trials and temptations were to prepare me for a future work; that I was to appear in the public ministry; that I should meet with much opposition in it, especially from professors; and that I should write my testimony, both of the grace and providence of God, which I thought, at times, was impossible; and therefore often imagined it must be a delusion. But I had an inward testimony that bore down all that the devil and carnal reason could raise against it, from the want of learning, &c. And, as I believed it,