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treat only of the kind providences which occurred in the course of my own experience. However, I hope to rest satisfied till the great day arrives, when God will make manifest the secrets of the heart, and shew whom he approves and disapproves; and then it will be seen that neither universal charity nor natural affections shall be found among the redeemed of God; for it will not be said that natural affections shall be all, but that God shall be all in all.

As for the kind advice which some of you have given me, I thank you, and can bear with your weaknesses; knowing that "I [once] spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but, when I became a man, I put away childish things." I have no notion of getting a renowned preacher to preface any of my poor scribbling; it appears, in my opinion, too much like the Satanic art of puffing at an auction. The fewer human inventions the better, in divine things. Besides, I believe that many precious ministers of Jesus have in their young days put prefaces to commentaries and other works merely to please a bookseller; who, when possessed of a riper judgment, were ashamed of the doctrines which they had formerly recommended to others; yea, some, who I hear have condemned my book, have written prefaces to works now in my possession, out of which I defy all the masters of arts in Christendom to distil one thimbleful of evangelical divinity, exclusive of the holy name of God. Upon

this principle I do not desire any good man to expose his judgment to contempt, by puffing off my abilities; for I have not a single doubt but kind Providence will defray my expenses at the press as long as God intends that I should write any thing for him; and, when this cruse of oil fails, you will hear no more of me from thence. Besides, if I was inclined to beg or cringe for a preface, I have no such tip-top ministers to go to; for I find, by blessed experience, that I can creep into the very bosom of my dear Redeemer with more ease than I can touch the robes of a dignified clergyman. I have sometimes indeed been ad"mitted into the pulpits of some of these great men; but, if the power of God has been present to heal, and the people have been happy under me, I have been admitted there no more.

I am informed that it is common among horsejockies to cry a horse down if his heels are too light. This custom may well become the turf, but it ill becomes the pulpit. However, God has given me a pulpit of my own, so I have no cause to borrow; and this fulfils an ancient promise, once applied to my soul with power, even from God himself, Thou shalt lend to many, but borrow of none.

I choose that my doctrine and reputation should stand and fall together. It never shall be the Coalheaver and Co. All that I preach or write, that is divine, God himself taught me; for I never learned it of man, nor did I bring any of it into the world

with me: therefore it is not my own, except the errors; for I have nothing, nor am nothing, by nature, but sin: of course I think it my duty to be faithful in delivering what I have received to the benefit of others; and to be laborious, watchful, and faithful, over those whom God hath committed to my care.

I must beg leave to lead my reader a little farther on, in addition to the dedication, in order to shew him what different receptions the Bank of Faith has met with since its first appearance. Indeed I did not expect that it should be in equal esteem with the Bank of England, no; I know the greater part of the human race have their portion in this life, whose purses and bellies God fills with his hid treasure. These have so far cast off God as to call their lands by their own names, to the dishonour of God who gave them; and leave their substance as a trap to their posterity, who are too apt to praise their sayings, and go to the generation of their fathers without seeing light.

The greatest curse under heaven is an impenitent heart clogged with the sorrow of this world; "Give them sorrow of heart, thy curse unto them,” Lam. iii. 65. And the next curse is an independent fortune in the hands of such graceless souls, whose infidelity turns every providential blessing into a curse; "If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; yea, I

have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart," Mal. ii. 2.

The Bank of Faith has dropped into the hands of some of these gentlemen, and it has acted the part of Samson; that is, it has made sport for them; and no wonder, seeing they have attributed the government of the world to blind Fortune, and the glory that is due to God is ascribed to a phantom on a wheel.

But who would have thought that men calling themselves gospel ministers would have bought my book to ridicule it and pour contempt on the providence of God? Can such be called ministers. of God's word, who laugh at the fulfilment of it? If they deny the inspection of God into our temporal concerns, they must deny half the Bible, which informs us that God adorns the lilies, feeds the ravens when they cry, and gives the lion his prey; when he opens his hand they are filled, and when he takes away their breath they die. Strange! that professors of Christ should rob him of his glory, of which he is so tender, which he will never give to another, and which is due to him from all the human race; but much more so from professors, who pretend to renounce all confidence in the flesh in point of justification, and all pretensions to a portion in this life, when compared to the blessed earnest of a portion in the future. Surely such must differ much in spirit from the apostles, who seemed so zealous for the honour of Christ, that they would let no miracle of his slip

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unnoticed, unacknowledged, nor unrecorded. They tell us of the five barley loaves and the five thousand fed; of the seven barley loaves and the seven thousand fed; of the baskets of fragments that remained; and of the Saviour's strict command that nothing of the produce of these miracles should be lost.

They inform us of the Lord's condescension in coming to them on the shore of the sea of Tiberias, and of his baking bread and broiling fish upon the coals to supply their wants; of the liberality of those who were converted by their ministry; of their selling their inheritances to support the gospel and feed the poor of Christ's flock; and of Ananias and Sapphira being struck dead for mimicking the hospitality of the children of God.

Israel's forty years' journey in the wilderness abounds with the miraculous providences of God, and so does the book of Ruth. To ridicule then the mystery of Providence is to make sport of one half of the Bible. But these gentlemen have got a stock in hand, like the prodigal at his first leaving his father's house; therefore they laugh at those who are obliged to fetch their supplies daily from the fountain head. But, alas! an independent fortune is too often like the manna that Israel kept, which bred worms and stank, while that which was gathered daily was sweet food. This Paul applies to Providence, "He that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack." Let there be an equality, says Paul, in your

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