Miss Hatton. Madeley, July 17th, 1766, My very dear Friend, I WANT to hear of you, if I cannot hear from you by a line. The last account I had of your state of health was a very poor one. done for your body fince? What hath the Lord My dear friend, we are all going the way of all flesh; and though you are more fenfible of the journey in your body than I am at prefent, yet I follow you, or perhaps you follow me. I often feel a defire to bear your load for you, but the impoffibility of this makes me rejoice, that Jefus, who does not faint as I might do, will and does carry both you and your burden. By a firm, unfhaken faith, you know, we caft our fouls upon Jefus, and by that power, whereby he is able to fubdue all things to himself, he receives and bears that which we commit to him. That this faith may be the firmer on our part, let it be rational as well as affectionate; affectionate as well as rational. God is good: he does not want us to take his word without proof. What expectations of the dear Meffias from the beginning of the world! What amazing chains of miracles and wonders were wrought in favour of that people and family, from which he was to come! What prophecies fulfilled, that we might rationally believe! What difplays of the Godhead, in that heavenly Man Chrift Jefus! In him dwelt, of a truth, the fulness of the Godhead bodily You fee the power of God in his miracles; the goodnefs of God in his character; the juftice and mercy of God in his death; the truth, and faithfulness, and glory of God in his refurrection, in the coming of his Spirit, and the preaching of his everlafting gofpel. O, my friend, we may believe rationally, we may with calm attention view the emptiness of all other religions, and the fulness of affurance that ours affords. And fhall we not believe affectionately alfo? Let us ftir up ourselves to love this Jefus, who hath given him felf to us with all his blood, all his grace, and all his glory. Come, give him your whole foul, my dear friend, and take him with all his pardons, all his love, all his ftrength. If he wants you to embrace him in his faint, bloody fweat, or in his wracking tortures on the cross, draw not back-love him, love him, and let not the grave frighten you: it is good to drop our clay in his quiet fepulchre, and to follow him on the wings of faith and love, without a clog of fickly flesh, to heaven. He died for us, and rose again, that, whether We live or die, we might be together with him; to us to live is Christ, and to die is gain. He hath blotted out I am happily interrupted by your kind letter. Bleffed be God for the profpect of recovery you mention! All is well that Jefus does; fick or well, living or dying, we will be Jefus's. With regard to your complaint of flothfulness, your body cannot bear the ftrong exertions of a wrestling faith; therefore, you are called, I apprehend, with a calm confent to accept of the gofpel tidings, and, with the quietnefs of a child at the breaft, to fuck the milk of divine confolation. Inward, loving, believing recollection and refignation is the path, into which our dear heavenly Friend wants now to lead you. Be faithful, be bold to follow where he leads: make no words--no unbelieving words, and all will be well. Farewell in body and foul, I. F. Miss Hatton, My dear Friend, Madeley, July 28th, 1766. I HEAR ftill a very indifferent account of your health. I ftand in doubts as to your bodily life; but it is in the hand of Jefus, and Jefus is wife, Jefus is good, Jefus is almighty: he will, therefore, difpofe of for the best. While you fee the fcales hovering and it may be that of life flowly defcending towards a quiet grave, calmly look at Jefus; and when the fee N your blenefs of your fpirits prevents you from crying out, in extatic love, My Lord and my God! let your devoted, refigned, patient heart ftill whifper, Thy will be done! Your laft letter raised my hopes of your recovery; Mr. Perry, who faw you fince, damps them again : but whether we live, we live to the Lord, or whether we die, we die to the Lord. Not for works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy he saveth us: Glory be to God for his unspeakable gift! Jefus remembers you in his all-prevailing interceffion and I might add, I do in my prayers, if the weight of a dancing mote deferved to be mentioned, after that of an immenfe mountain. I am, with Chriftian refpects to our kind loving friends at Wem, your poor Madeley friend, I. F. Miss Hatton. My dear Friend, Madeley, July 30th, 1766. SO you are likely to be at reft firft! Well, the Lord's will be done! I fhould be glad to have you ftay to help us to the kingdom of God; but if God wants to take you there, and houfe you before a storm, I thail only cry-" One of the chariots of Ifrael, and the horfeman thereof and try to make the best of my way after you. A calm receiving of the gofpel tidings, upon a conviction of your loft eftate, with fuitable tempers, is a fign that you are in a fafe ftate; but I want you altogether in a comfortable one. Your bufinefs, 1 apprehend, is not to turn the dunghill of nature, but to fuck the gofpel milk: Dwell much, if not altogether, upon free justification, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. View the fufficiency, fulness, fuitableness, freeness of his atonement and righteousness; and hide yourself without delay under both. Look at death, only as a door to let you out of manifold in firmities and pains, into the arms of Jefus, your heavenly Bridegroom. Stir up faith, hope, and love; that is trimming your lamp. Since last Monday, I find the burden of your foul upon mine in a very particular manner, and I hope that I fhall not cease to pray for you, that you may go not only calmly, but joyfully, the way of all flesh. I have got fome praying fouls to fhare with me in that profitable work, and I hope you will meet our fpirits at the throne of grace, as we do yours. Let me have the comfort of thinking, that you are with your Phyfician, Hufband, and all; who will order all things for the best. Pray hard, believe harder, and love hardest. Let the cry of your foul be, "None but Jefus living, none but Jefus dying." Let Chrift be your life, and then death, whether it comes fooner or later, will be your gain. -- Mr. Glazebrook waits for thefe lines, and I conclude by again entreating you to believe. Only believe, faid Jefus to the ruler, and faith will work by love, and love by a defire to depart and to be with Christ. God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft, blefs, uphold, and comfort you! Farewell, and forget not to pray for your helpless friend, I. F. Miss My very dear Friend, THE providence of our good God brought me fafe here laft Thursday, loaded with a fenfe of your exceffive kindnefs, and my exceffive unworthiness of it. Your Araunah-like fpirit fhames and diftreffes me: I am not quite fatisfied about your evafions with respect to the bill; and though I grant it more bleffed to give than to receive, I think you fhould not be fo felfish as to engrofs all that bleffednefs to yourself. Nevertheless I drop my upbraidings, not to lose that time in them which I fhould fave to thank you, and to praife Jefus. I thank you, then, for all your fa vours, but above all for your fecret prayers for a poor, unworthy, unprofitable wretch, who deferves neither the name of a minifter, nor of a Chriftian. If you are fo kind as to continue them, which I earnestly beg you will, I beseech you pray, that I may have power to tarry at the footstool of divine mercy for a day of Pentecoft, till I am endued with power from on high for the work of the miniftry, and the bleffings of christianity. I know not whether I am wrong in this refpe&t, but I expect a power from on high to make me what I am not an inftrument to fhew forth the praises of the Redeemer, and to do fome good to the fouls of my fellow creatures. Until this power comes, it appears to me that spend my paltry ftrength in vain, and that I might as well fit ftill. But I know I must keep rowing though the wind be contrary, till Jefus comes walking upon the waters, though it were in the last watch of the night. all. You fee that while you praise on the top of the mountain, I hang my untuned harp on the mournful willow at the bottom. But Jefus was in Gethsemane as well as on Tabor, and while he bleffes you, he fympathizes with me. But this is fpeaking too much about felf; good and bad felf must be equally denied, and he that is the fulness of him who fills all in all, must fill my thoughts, my defires, my letters, and my Come then, Lord, come and drop into our fouls as the dew into Gideon's fleece; drop thy bleffing on thefe lines, and may thy fweet name, JESUS EMMANUEL, GOD WITH US, be as ointment and rich perfumes poured upon my dear fifter's foul! Spread thy wings of love over her; reward her an hundred fold in temporal and fpiritual bleffings, for the temporal and fpiritual mercies the hath beftowed upon me as thy fervant, and vouchfafe to make and keep me fuch! I want you to write to me what you think of the life of faith, and whether you breathe it without interruption; whether you never leave that rich palaceChrift, to return to that dungeon, felf; what your |