Your’s, truly, _Ruhamah_. LETTER XLIII. _Achor’s Vale_, _June_ 1st 1819. Mr. SWEETLAND. MY DEAR KIND FRIEND, I hope the Lord Jesus is precious to your soul, that your heart is fixed on him, and that you are daily looking to him for life and salvation. I hope every fresh feeling sense of sin, urges you to his blood and righteousness, as the only remedy, as the serpent-bit-Israelites of old were to look to the brazen serpent: all were to look at it; some looked stedfastly, others feebly, some had a full, near, distinct view of it, but others only had a feeble, distant, imperfect, confused sight, and many, perhaps, could hardly raise their dying eyes to catch a glimpse of it; yet, they all looked, at some rate or other, and all who looked, lived, and were healed. This points out the various states of God’s dear people, in the strength and weakness of their faith, as exercised on the dear Saviour; and as it shews the diversity of their cases, so it also points out the various frames of mind an individual soul may experience. There are times when we are strong in faith, persuaded the work is begun, and we can look to the Lord with stedfast eye; but there are other seasons when faith seems to languish, love to be dead, and hope seems to have perished, the world and its cares have carried the mind away, and Satan has confused and perplexed us. Nothing seems left in the soul, but perhaps a little desire, and that hardly awake or felt. Here we stumble, till the work is again revived, and the dew descends again. This made the prophet of old exclaim, Wilt thou not revive us again, and, Oh Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years. And when the Saviour draws near, we are grieved that we should slight him so ungratefully, and as love flows in, godly sorrow flows out. To this repentance we are called by the Spirit, and it is a change of the mind; this change is God’s work on us: we cannot produce it, and yet it so important, that we cannot be saved without it, it must be wrought in us by the power of God. Christ is exalted to give it in _his_ most blessed characters, as a Prince and a Saviour: this is a dissolving the heart, or rather the new heart in exercise, under the gracious operations of the Holy Spirit; the mind is overcome with a sense of the long suffering of God towards us, and a feeling discovery of his love to us, in Christ Jesus, with a view of our own depravity, and base backslidings; we mourn that we ever offended such a Saviour, or sinned against such love; we are ashamed of ourselves, especially when we see our God sweetly pacified, and his heart full of love towards us. This was the holy generous feeling of Mary Magdalen, and this work must be felt in some humble degree, if ever we are saved,