common head, Jefus. Pray for your infirm minifter as he does for you; and let me hear of your growth in grace, which will be health to the withering bones of your unprofitable fervant, I. F.

P. S. Medicine does not feem to relieve me; but I rejoice that when outward remedies fail, there is one, the blood, and word, and Spirit of Jefus. which never fails; which removes all piritual maladies, and will furely give us eternal life. Let me recommend that remedy to you all: You all want it, and, bieffed be God, I can fay, Probatum est-tried.

Newington, Dec. 28th, 1776.

To the Parishioners of Madeley.

My dear Parishioners,

I HOPED to have spent the Christmas holyday with you, and to have miniftered to you iu holy things; but the weakness of my body confining me here, I humbly fubmit to the divine difpenfation, and cafe the trouble of my ablence, by being prefent with you in fpirit, and by reflecting on the pleafure I have felt, in years paft, while finging with you, Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, Cc. This truth is as true now as it was then, and as worthy to be thankfully received at Newington as at Madeley. Let us, then, receive it with all readinefs, and it will unite us; we fhall meet in Chrift the centre of lasting union, the fource of true life, the fpring of pure righteoufness and Joy; and our hearts fhall be full of the fong of angels, Glory be to God on high! Peace on earth! Goodwill towards each other, and all mankind!

In order to this, may the eye of your understanding be more and more opened to fee your need of a Redeemer; and to behold the fuitablenefs, freeness, and fulness of the redemption, which was wrought out by the Son of God, and which is applied by the Spirit, through faith. The with which glows in my foul is fo andent and powerful, that it brings me down on my knees, while I write, and, in that fupplicating posture,

I entreat you all, to confider and improve the day of your vifitation, and to prepare in good earnest, to meet, with joy, your God and your unworthy paftor in another world. Weak as I was when I left Madeley, I hear that feveral, who were then young, healthy, and ftrong, have got the start of me; and that fome have been hurried into eternity, without being indulged with a moment's warning. May the awful accident ftrike a deeper confideration into all our fouls. May the found of their bodies, dafhed to pieces at the bottom of a pit, reuse us to a speedy converfion, that we may never fall into the bottomlefs pit, and that iniquity and delays may not be our eternal ruin. Tottering as I ftand on the brink of the grave, fome of you, who feem far from it, may drop into it before me; for what has happened, may happen ftill.

Let us, then, all awake out of fleep; and let us all prepare for our approaching change, and give ourselves. no reft, till we have get gospel ground to hope, that our great change will be a happy one. In order to this, I beseech you, by all the minifterial and providential calls you have had for thefe feventeen years, harden not your hearts. Let the long fuffering of God towards us, who furvive the hundreds I have buried, lead us all to repentance. Difmifs your fins, and embrace Jefus Chrift, who wept for you in the manger, bled for you in Gethsemane, hanged for you on the crofs, and now pleads for you on his mediatorial throne. By all that is near and dear to you, as men and as Chriftians, meet me not on the great day, in your fins and in your blood, enemies to Christ by unbelief, and to God by wicked works. Meet me in the garment of repentance, in the robe of Chrift's merits, and in the white linen, (the purity of heart and life) which is the holinefs of the godly ;-that holiness without which no man shall see God. Let the time past fuffice, in which fome of you have lived in fin. By repentance put off the old man, and his works; by faith put on the Lord Jefus and his righteoufnefs. Let all wickedness be gone,-for ever gone, with the old year;

and with the new one begin a new life,-a life of renewed devotion to God, and of increafing love to your neighbours. The fum of all I have preached to you is contained in four propofitions. Firft, heartily repent of your fins, criginal and actual. Secondly, believe the gofpel of Chrift in fincerity and truth. Thirdly, in the power which true faith gives (for all things commanded are poffible to him that believeth) run with humble faith the way of God's commandments before God and men. Fourthly, by continuing to take up your crofs, and to receive the pure milk of God's

word, grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Jefus

Chrift. So fhall you grow in peace and joy all the days of your life; and when rolling years thall be lot in eternity, you will forever grow in blifs and heavenly glory. Owhat blifs! what glory! The Lord thall be our fun and our crown; and we fhall be jewels in each others crown, I in yours, and you in mine. For ever we shall be with the Lord, and with one another. We shall all live in God's heavenly church, the heaven of heavens. All our days will be a fabbath, and our fabbath eternity. No bar of bufinefs nor ficknefs, no diftance of time nor place, no gulph of death and the grave, fhall part us more. We hall meet in the bofom of Abraham, who met Chrift in the befom of divine love. O what a meeting! And fhall fome of us meet there this very year, which we are juft enter ing upon? What a year! On that bleffed year, if we are of the number of thofe who die in the Lord, our fouls fhall burst the womb of this corruptible flesh; we fhall be born into the other world; we fhall behold the Sun of righteoufiefs without a cloud, and for ever bafk in the beams of his glory. Is not this profpect glorious enough to make us bid defiance to fin and the grave; and to join the cry of the Spirit and the Bride, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, though it fhould be in the black chariot of death?

Should God bid me to flay on earth a little longer, to ferve you in the gospel of his Son fhould he renew my ftrength, (for no word is impoffible with him)

;

to do among you the work of a paftor, I hope I fhall, by God's grace, prove a more humble, zealous, and diligent minifter, than I have hitherto been. Some of you have fuppofed that I made more ado about eternity and your precious fouls than they were worth; but how great was your mistake! Alas! it is my grief and fhame that I have not been, both in public and private, a thousand times more earnest and importunate with you about your fpiritual concerns. Pardon me, my dear friends, pardon me my ignorances and negligences. in this refpect. And as I most humbly afk your forgiveness, fo I most heartily forgive any of you, who may, at any time, have made no account of my little labours. I only entreat fuch now to evidence a better mind, by paying a double attention to the loud warn ings of Providence, and to the pathetic difcourfes of the faithful minifter, who now fupplies my place. And may God, for Chrift's fake, forgive us all, as we forgive one another!

The more nearly I confider death and the grave, judgment and eternity, the more, bleffed be God, I feel that I have preached to you the truth, and that the truth is folid as the rock of ages. Glory be to his divine grace, I can fay in fome degree," here is firm footing." Follow me, and the forrows of death, inftead of encompaffing you around, will keep at an awful diflance, and, with David, we fhall follow our great Shepherd, even through the dreary valley, without fearing or feeling any evil.

Although I hope to fee much more of the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living than I do fee; yet, bleffed be the divine mercy, I fee enough to keep my mind at all times unruffled; and to make me willing, calmly to refign my foul into the hands of my faithful Creator, my loving Redeemer, and my fan&tifying Comforter, this moment, or the next, if he calls for it. I defire your public thanks, for all the favours he fheweth me continually, with respect to both my foul and body. Help me to be thankful; for it is a pleafant thing to be thankful. May our thankfulness

crown the new year, as God's patience and goodness have crowned all our life. Permit me to befpeak an intereft in your prayers alfo. Afk that my faith may be willing to receive all that God's grace is willing to beftow. Afk that I may meekly fuffer and zealously do all the will of God, in my prefent circumstances; and that living or dying, I may fay, with the witness of God's Spirit, For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If God calls me foon from earth, I beg he may in his good providence, appoint a more faithful fhepherd over you. You need not fear that he will not; you fee, that for thefe many months, you have not only had no famine of the word, but the richest plenty; and what God has done for months, he can do for years; yea, for all the years of your life. Only pray; ask, and you shall receive. Meet at the throne of grace, and you fhall meet at the throne of glory your affectionate, obliged, and unworthy minifter, I. F.

Mr. William Wase,

Newington, Jan. 13th, 1777.

My dear Brother,

I AM two kind letters in your debt. I would have anfwered them before, but venturing to ride out in the froft, the air was two fharp for my weak lungs, and opened my wound, which has thrown me back again. I am glad to fee by your last, that you take up your fhield again. You will never prove a gainer by vilely cafting it away. Voluntary humility, defpondency, or even a defeat, fhould not make you give up your confidence; but rather make you hug your fhield, and embrace your Saviour with redoubled ardour and courage. To whom should you go, but to him, who hath the words of everlasting life; and if you give up your faith, do you not block up the way, by which you should return to him? Let it be the last time you compliment the enemy with what you should fight for to the last drop of your blood.