in every part, and enjoy him; now, alas, it is not so, but it is as a spring shut up, and sealed from us. While this is attended with a lowering sky, and a continual dropping of rain; no bright clouds now return as they used to do, and how it is with us we cannot tell. Once if we felt a little dark or uncomfortable, it was soon gone, smiling hope used to spring up, or a promise sent home with power. The company of God’s people cheered us up, or a little access to God’s throne revived us. Seldom heard a sermon but we got something by it—and if a few storms of persecution, temptation or corruption, or family trials befel us, the Lord made a bright cloud after it; but, alas, it is not thus with us now, these clouds don’t return after the rain—thus Afflictions like vapours may rise, Light, love, and delight may be gone; The sun may be dark in the skies, And hell with its legions come on! Ah, my dear Brother, these are dark days truly, but it shall not be always thus; _to the upright there arises light in darkness_—this light is sown for us, and shall spring up again. But may I not here enquire, as on another occasion, the Prophet did, _Shall there be an evil in the City and the Lord hath not done it_? _Is there not a cause_? _Why doth a living man_ (a quickened man) _complain_? Let us enquire the cause: Have you not been making too much of your comforts? Have you not been looking at them instead of the Saviour, living on them instead of his fulness?—and were you not too prone to slight those who had not attained the same consolation? And, if so, Can you wonder that God should permit a partial death to overtake you?—Or, perhaps, there may be other causes—a sad neglect of those means which are appointed for the spiritual health of the soul: as abstinence, or neglect of food, will soon bring the body into a pining, languishing condition, so, if the means of the knowledge of grace be not diligently attended to and implored, our souls must get into a starving state. The indulgence of sensual pleasures may bring on deadness, darkness, and distance. See this in Sampson, while sleeping in the lap of Delilah, he was shorn of his strength; and he arose to shake himself as at other times, but he wist not that the Lord had departed from him. But perhaps the Lord has done this to shew his adorable sovereignty, as in the case of Job: hence his complaint, _He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass_, _and he hath set darkness in my path_. And so complains Jeremiah, _He hath led me_, _and brought me into darkness_, _and not into light_. Sometimes this is done to humble us, lest we should be exalted above measure. But, above all, the Spirit leads into these deep and painful feelings, to make us prize our adorable Redeemer, and see our continual need of being supplied from his fulness. He lets our cisterns run dry, that we may come and lay our vessels under the flowings of the blessed