LETTER XVI.

To NOCTUA AURITA, in the Defert.

I RECEIVED fafe your very valuable epiftle; and I hope you will excufe my not acknowledging the receipt of it before this time. I affure you it has not been for want of inclination, but want of time. My hands have been fully employed in nurfing, which hath been to me a fore trial. The Lord has, vifited my dear little boy with a diforder which we feared would prove fatal. And under this trial the Canaanites, which are left in the land to be as thorns in my fide, made me feverely feel their power, affifted by Satan their ally, who appeared at their head, and who made fuch an inroad upon me as greatly difquieted my fpirits. The rebellion of my heart was firred up, and hard thoughts of God followed. I could not give up the child; and Satan fuggefted fuch things to my mind concerning the eternal state of the boy, fhould he die under the curfe of God's righteous law, as I believe I never fhall let come out of the doors of my lips. But I affure you they were fuch as rent the caul of my heart; and, though I could not give the child

up, yet I trembled at the thoughts of asking for his life. I was preffed beyond measure. I could only fay to the Lord, "Thou knoweft my heart, what I am by nature; and that nothing but thefe rank weeds will ever be produced by me, unless thou art pleased, by the operations of thy Spirit, to work in me that fubmiffion and refignation to thy will which shall glorify thee." The Lord appeared for the child, and hath restored him to us again. But fubmiffion and refignation were not found in my heart. His Excellency fent me your epistle, which you directed to be left with him, with the following direction on it: "To her Majesty the Queen of the Beggars, value a thoufand pounds." But, when I had read the contents, I was constrained to enhance the value; for I found the price of it to be far above rubies. I thank you kindly for it. I thought of an old proverb, viz. "To be fore-warned is to be forearmed."

I think there can but little befall me in the path of tribulation but what you have fhewed me already. You seem to intimate that you think I may be a stumbling-block to those whose joys do not rise so high as God is pleased to raise mine. Indeed, it is true that fome envy me, and fome are filled with jealousy. But envy and jealousy seem to me to be two different things. Where the latter is working, I believe it will be a means, under God, of bringing the fame bleffings into their fouls.

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fouls. These will not rejoice when I am brought low, but will be the first that will help me, by their prayers, that I may be raised up again. But where envy works, nothing would gratify these more than to fee me down. But this is like to bring nothing into their own fouls. To the former I feel my whole heart and foul going out; but to the latter I cannot find a union.

Something in your letter quite furprised me, and that is, to think that, after you had been led in such a sweet path for ten months, and under fuch manifeftations of divine love, you fhould again be brought into fuch darkness as to doubt of the work on your foul being real. Had you not related it as experienced by yourself, I fhould have staggered at it. But, if God has dealt fo with you, I fear I shall not escape. But it is fuch an evil day as I would wish to put far from me. Should fuch a time ever come, I think I fhall find your epiftle to be of great ufe to me. But L-fhould never have thought there was a probability of any thing like it befalling me. To be fure at prefent my mountain feems to ftand ftrong; the place of my defence is the Munition of Rocks; and God is truly gracious to me; for I have not had one day of real darknefs in my own foul fince the time we all met at Gaffon's Bower, where the Lord met me by the way, as he did the difciples in their journey to Emmaus. I faw his Excellency yesterday. We are reaping the fruits of his

labour. He came to us (after his long abfence, as I called it) in the fulness of the bleffings of the gofpel of peace. I am glad to hear we are to have another printed fermon from you next week. I found your laft much bleffed to me. I fhall be glad to hear that you are coming among us again; and I hope you will favour me with another epistle foon; for I feel myself disappointed if I do not hear from you once a week. I should be glad to know, in your next, if I am at liberty to fhew your last epistle to our friends: they know I have had one. I believe his Excellency has told them. But I have given them to understand that they fhall not fee it without your leave. The young ftripling from the Bower declared yesterday that he would not let me be at peace till he had feen it. I was glad to hear, by my fifter's letter, that you had not been afflicted fo badly with cold and hoarfenefs this winter as you have been fome winters paft. May the Lord continue you in bodily health and much foul profperity, is the fervent prayer of

Your affectionate fifter in the

The King's Dale.

bonds of the gofpel,

PHILOMELA.

LETTER

LETTER XVII.

To PHILOMELA, of the King's Dale.

THE epiftle of my fifter is comé fafe, and now lies before me. It is, according to the prophet Habakkuk, a song of various things, fung in various tunes. Your days have been forrow, and your travail grief. Call this time of adverfity Gad, for there is a troop behind; or call them the beginning of forrows, for unbelief will often tell you that there will be no end of them. Satan is a fkilful adverfary. He can alter both his appearance and his influence. While I lay in the dark regions of the fhadow of death, under the arrefts of divine juftice, and filled with fury and the rebukes of my God, he worked conftantly upon the hardness. of my heart, the carnal enmity of my mind, and on that foul-destroying fin of unbelief, in which I was fhut up. He took occafion to multiply his accufations by the fins which stood before mine eyes, the burden of guilt which I felt, and the wrath of the law which worked in me. And I knew that this was the devil, and the works of him. But, after my deliverance had been proclaimed, my calling made clear, and mine election fure, he came to me again,