From the Grave or Receptacle of Death am I raised, and by an omnipotent power made capable of offering once more my Obedience (that lies close cabbined in the inwardmost apartment of my Soul) at the feet of your immutable Loves. My good Parents, God hath done marvellous things for me, far beyond my deserts, which at best were preposterously sinful, and unsuitable to the sacred will of an Almighty: _But he is merciful, and his mercy endures for ever._ When sinful man has by his Evils and Iniquities pull’d some penetrating Judgment upon his head, and finding himself immediately not able to stand under so great a burthen as Gods smallest stroke of Justice, lowers the Top-gallant sayle of his Pride, and with an humble submissiveness prostrates himself before the Throne of his sacred Mercy, and {107} like those three Lepars that sate at the Gate of _Samaria_, resolved, _If we go into the City we shall perish, and if we stay here we shall perish also: Therefore we will throw our selves into the hands of the_ Assyrians _and if we perish, we perish_: This was just my condition as to eternal state; my soul was at a stand in this black storm of affliction: I view’d the World, and all that’s pleasure in her, and found her altogether flashy, aiery, and full of notional pretensions, and not one firm place where a distressed Soul could hang his trust on. Next I viewed my self, and there I found, instead of good Works, lively Faith, and Charity, a most horrid neast of condemned Evils, bearing a supreme Prerogative over my internal faculties. You’l say here was little hope of rest in this extreme Eclipse, being in a desperate amaze to see my estate so deplorable: My better Angel urged me to deliver up my aggrievances to the Bench of Gods Mercy, the sure support of all distressed Souls: His Heavenly warning, and inward whispers of the good Spirit I was resolv’d to entertain, and not quench, and throw my self into the armes of a loving God, _If I perish, I perish_. ’Tis beyond wonder to think of the love of God extended to sinful man, that in the deepest distresses or agonies of Affliction, when all other things prove rather hinderances then advantages, even at that time God is ready and steps forth to the supportment of his drooping Spirit. Truly, about a fortnight before I wrote this Letter, two of our ablest Physicians {108} rendered me up into the hands of God, the universal Doctor of the whole World, and subscribed with a silent acknowledgement, That all their Arts, screw’d up to the very Zenith of Scholastique perfection, were not capable of keeping me from the Grave at that time: But God, the great preserver of Soul and Body, said contrary to the expectation of humane reason, _Arise, take up thy bed and walk_. I am now (through the help of my Maker) creeping up to my former strength and vigour, and every day I live, I hope I shall, through the assistance of divine Grace, climbe nearer and nearer to my eternal home.