fountain of life, that from him we might receive grace for grace. May great grace rest on you. I remain Your willing Servant in Christ, [Picture: Signature of J. C.] _LETTER VI_. TO THEOPHILUS. _DEAR BROTHER_, I OWE you a long epistle, for the many kind letters I have received from you. This acknowledgment of my debt is a part of payment. Being a little confined through indisposition of body, I thought I would pen a few thoughts to my dear friend, trusting they will be acceptable at this time. I am more than ever delighted with the pleasing theme the Gospel exhibits of our most adorable Lord, of whom it is written, _that in all our afflictions he was afflicted_; _that he was the subject of all sinless infirmities_; _that he was a man like ourselves_, _sin only excepted_. This is a sweet thought to me, under every pressure; and surely it proves our union with him, and a participation of his Spirit, of course of the same covenant privileges. What a Christ have we got! God with God, Man with Man, very God and very Man; a kind brother, to feel with and for me, under all my trials, and a God able to supply my every need; and what adds a glory to this point is, that as God-Man he is the glorious Mediator, commissioned to give all I need; for this purpose he hath ascended upon high and received gifts for the rebellions! This is a most charming consideration, it is the joy of my heart; I feel it so—and such an High Priest became us: O! for an heart to bless him, to praise him as I ought, as I wish to do! I long to be disembodied for this purpose. O could my soul leap out of her dull clay, scarce should a harp above aim at a sweeter, nobler song, _Unto him that hath loved me_. My dear brother, I feel mortality, I am at times very glad of it: I have had much sickness of late, it is a signal, it is a knock, it is a servant sent with a message. Mark the command, _Look_, _as when the messenger cometh_, _and shut to the door_: _is not the sound of his master’s feet behind him_? I keep the messenger; I retire; I read the note, Thus saith my Master, _Behold I come quickly_; I can send no answer back but thus—_Even so come_, _Lord Jesus_. May I therefore esteem every pain, every felt weakness, and every beating pulse, but as so many messengers sent in covenant love, to remind me of my mortality—that this is not my rest, that my whole bodily frame is but as a Shepherd’s tent, as Hezekiah calls it, soon unpinned, easily taken down, and removed, as the Arabian Shepherd’s tents were.—Hence the scriptures in a variety of places shew that the body is but earth, dust and ashes, formed of it, lives on it, and must soon return to it. The apostle calls the body an outward man, which must decay, while the inward man, the hidden man of the heart, is