"I now wish to say, hold fast the beginning of your confidence. Your experience is that of God's people. To rejoice in the Lord at all times is your privilege, but will not be always your attainment. The Lord has done great things for you, whereof I am glad; but, my dear friend, the warfare is not over: you must endure trials as others; engage with 'principalities and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places,' and, worst of all, a treacherous heart within; which, for all that it has seen and tasted, is yet corrupt and deceitful. The new life which Christ gives to the soul, evidences itself in the desires of the heart and affections. As certainly as the new-born babe desires the breast, as certainly and as evidently does the new-born soul desire union to God, communion with him, and conformity to him in heart, life, and conversation. This principle is in its own nature perfectly pure, but the old nature, the law in the spiritual members, is as perfectly corrupt: 'in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.' "In the order of God's covenant it has not pleased him to deliver even believers, all at once, from sinful inclinations and passions; he has provided for their final complete deliverance, and sin shall not have dominion over them even here; but it is still in them while in the body, and a dying body; and the remains of sin in the soul make the believer's life a warfare, and this world a wilderness; soul and body are diseased; both are redeemed, and provision made for the entire deliverance of both--for the soul at death, for the body at the resurrection; but while in the body, 'if any man say he has no sin, he deceiveth himself, and the truth is not in him.' I John, I:8. Look at Paul's experience--what does he say of the believer's state? He calls it a warfare, a fight, a captivity for a time: see 1 Tim. 6:12; 1 Cor. 9:26. "I write not thus to dishearten you, but as a friend I warn you, lest you fall again into unbelief. Look not within for comfort, for consolation, for confidence. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, his blood the atonement, and you are complete in him, his grace is sufficient for you, his strength shall be perfected in your weakness, and you shall go on. Grieve for sin you will, grieve you ought; but keep ever in your remembrance 1 John, 2:1, and 5:11. "Yours, etc." To the same. "JANUARY 14, 1800. "My dear friend says, 'O that I could have the society of some aged pious clergyman or Christian, who had gone through his warfare.' O that you could, in the Lord's hand. I hope it might do you good: yet, after all, the Lord himself must loose your bonds; aye, and he will, and also appoint the means.