Grace and peace be with you. I received and read your simple, but sincere testimony of the work of God on your soul, with pleasure—Oh! that the ever adorable Spirit would increase it, that you may abound in knowledge and judgement. It is a mercy to be called by grace in our early days. What shall we render to the Lord, for thinking upon us in our low estate; for bestowing a thought of us in the councils of eternity, and appointing us to obtain salvation, by the doing and dying of a glorious Redeemer? We are poor, lost, vile, guilty creatures, in and of ourselves: we are ten thousand times more vile and sinful than we can possibly conceive; there is not an evil done under the sun, but we have got the root of it in our hearts. This I have often declared, but I am now more sensibly led to know it; the Lord is gradually teaching me in deep experience, what I have often preached to others. I have many sad moments, but the Saviour smiles again, and then I get up and run on a little while; but, alas! the burden of a body of sin and death, sinks my spirits again, and sometimes I have darkness on my path; but I must tell you, that when I am drove out from every joy, hope, comfort, or pleasure, I always find it most blessed to cast myself at the dear Saviour’s feet, saying Lord thine arm must be reveal’d Ere I can by faith be heal’d, Since I scarce can look to thee, Cast a gracious look on me, At thy feet I humbly lay, Shine, Oh! shine my fears away. What a special favour, my dear friend, to be led to the Saviour, to know him in any measure, by the teachings of his own Spirit; to desire him above all, and to make up all our happiness alone in him. When you look around you on those who are destitute of grace, and whose souls abhor the very sound of religion, and others who are contented with a bare outside shew; these have a form and a name to live, but they are dead, and why do we differ from them—this is an act of pure mercy and covenant love. We do not envy their state, although they possess every comfort in life, nor does Satan trouble them; but we are chastened and judged of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world. We are brought into judgement in our own hearts, God the Spirit illuminates and quickens the conscience, we feel our guilt, we acknowledge the justice of our sentence, and see that God would be just if he cut us off, and sent us to hell. We are filled with fears, we are distrest in mind, nor can any solid comfort be felt, only as God is pleased to give us scriptural views of Christ—as the gift of the Father’s love, as every way suited to act for us with God, as our Mediator, being God with God, and man with man, well calculated to make an atonement, to bring God and man together, into a state of reconciliation; to obey the law which we had violated, and to endure that very curse which we had deserved—blessing on his dear name,