Besides this gentleness, long-suffering, and faithfulness, which the Lord has manifested towards me, and which I have experienced in common with you all, the Lord has bestowed upon me peculiar blessings and privileges. One of the chief is, that He has condescended to call me for the ministry of His word. How can I praise Him sufficiently for this! One who was such a sinner, such a servant of Satan, so fit for hell, so deserving of everlasting destruction, was not merely cleansed from sin and made a child of God through faith in the Lord Jesus, and thus fitted for heaven, and did not merely receive the sure promise that he should have eternal glory; but was also called unto, and, in a measure, qualified for the expounding of the word of God. I magnify Him for this honour!---But more than this. More than eleven years, with very little interruption, have I been allowed, more or less, to preach the Word. My soul does magnify the Lord for this! More still. The Lord has condescended to use me as an instrument in converting many sinners, and, in a measure at least, in benefiting many of His children. For this honour I do now praise God, and shall praise Him not merely as long as I live, but as long as I have a being. But I do not stop here. I have many other reasons to speak well of the Lord, but I would only mention one. It is my present affliction. Yes, my present affliction is among the many things, for which I have very much reason to praise God; and I do praise Him for it. Before you, before the whole church of Christ, and before the world would I confess that God has dealt in very kindness towards me in this affliction. I own, I have not borne it without impatience and fretfulness; I own, I have been several times overcome by irritability of temper on account of it; but nevertheless, after the inner man, I praise God for the affliction, and I do desire from my heart, that it may truly benefit me, and that it may not be removed till the end has been answered, for which it has been sent. God has blessed me in this trial, and is still blessing me.--As I know you love me, (unworthy as I am of it), and feel interested about me, I mention a few of the many mercies with which God has favoured me during these twelve weeks. 1. At the commencement of my illness, when my head was affected in a manner quite new to me, and when thus it continued day after day, I feared lest I should lose my reason.--This created more real internal suffering than ever I had known before. But our gracious Lord supported me. His precious gospel was full of comfort to me. All, all will be well, was invariably the conclusion, the conclusion grounded upon Scripture, to which I came; yea, all will be well with me eternally, though the heaviest of all earthly trials should coins upon me, even that of dying in a state of insanity.--I was once near death, as I then thought, nearly nine years ago: I was full of comfort at that time; but to be comfortable,--to