LETTER DCCCCXLIV.
To Mr. S.
My dear Brother, London, Dec. 9, 1752.
IF your heart was full, so was mine when we parted. Such seasons make me long for that happy time when we shall neither part from each other, nor depart from the blessed Jesus any more. Our wanderings and tossings, fightings without, and fears within, will then all be over. Here the church is, and will be militant; in heaven it shall be altogether triumphant. Let us go on, my dear brother, fighting the good fight of faith. Ere long we shall be called to lay hold on life eternal. Christ is our captain; we are therefore assured of conquest.
A feeble saint shall win the day,
Though death and hell obstruct the way.
Endeavour to obstruct they will, and young converts little know how resolutely, how unweariedly. The way to heaven is a round-about way: we must go through a wilderness. God suffers this, to prove and try us, and to shew us what is in our hearts. Humility must be taught us, as Gideon taught the men of Succoth, with briars and thorns: these will frequently fetch blood from the old man. O that we may be made willing to have him bleed to death! "Away with him, away with him; crucify him, crucify him." May this be the language of your heart and mine! To have this prayer answered, what trials must we necessarily meet with from the devil, the world, the flesh, and even from God's own children? All little enough to lead us into that mortified, pacific, resigned, and disinterested mind, which was in Christ Jesus. The more we suffer, and the less we are esteemed for doing, or attempting to do good for his great name's sake, the more we are conformed to his blessed example. In heaven, justice will be done to all. Strange! that we cannot wait more patiently till the great day of retribution. Lord, help us to walk more by faith, and less by sense! "Help, O help us to leave ourselves and all with thee." I know you will say, Amen!" But I forget myself. How willingly does the pen write,
