tell you, that not want of love but leisure hath been the cause of so long a silence. I will now redeem a few moments to pay this debt, and acknowledge a much greater debt of love that I owe, and intend indeed to be always owing to you and yours. Christ alone can pay you. He will. Whatever is done to his ministers, he looks upon as done to himself. What a blessed master do we serve! Thanks be to his great name, he continues to deal lovingly with me. I have been blessed in my late excursion into the country, and likewise since I came to town. The prospect of doing good at least to some of the rich, is very encouraging. I know you will pray, that the foolishness of preaching may be a means of bringing some of them to believe on him who justifies the ungodly. You find, that not gifts but grace, sovereign, all powerful grace alone, can reach the heart. But how is dear Mr. B? Is he yet fled to the world of spirits? Since the Lord has been pleased to hinder his preaching, I think it was cruel to desire he should stay any longer out of heaven. Doctor Watts is now gone. Blessed be God we shall ere long follow
Where sin and pain and sorrow cease,
And all is love and joy and peace.
I am now thirty four years of age. Little did I think of living so long. And yet when I consider how I have lived, shame and confusion cover my face. O my dear Mr. T, as you are preparing for the ministry, lose not one moment of time, but labour to be always on the stretch for Him, who was stretched on the accursed cross for you. Study books and men, but above all, study your own heart and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and him crucified. Get your heart free from worldly hopes and worldly fears, and you will avoid thousands of those snares, into which young ministers for want of this too often fall. O let the language of your heart be, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world." You will excuse this freedom. It proceeds from the love I bear you. Be pleased to present my cordial respects to your honoured father, your brother, and all enquiring friends, and
