“But I would not have you dwell even upon this evil, so as to lose sight of your Sun, unless it be to see Him covered, on this account, with our flesh and blood, and wrapt in the cloud of our nature. Then you will cry out with St. Paul, ‘O the depth!’ Then, finding the manhood is again resorbed into the Godhead, you will gladly renounce all selfish, separate existence in Adam and from Adam. You will take Christ to be your life; you will become His members by eating His flesh and drinking His blood; you will consider His flesh as your flesh, His bone as your bone, His Spirit as your spirit, His righteousness as your righteousness, His cross as your cross, and His crown (whether of thorns or glory) as your crown. You will reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through this dear Redeemer. You will renounce propriety; you will heartily and gladly say, ‘Not I, not I, but Christ liveth; and only _because He lives_, I do, and shall live also.’ “When it is so with us, then we are creatures in our Creator, and redeemed creatures in our Redeemer. Then we understand and feel what He says, ‘Without Me the Creator, ye are nothing; without Me the Saviour, ye can do nothing.’ ‘The moment I consider Christ and myself as two, I am gone,’ says Luther; and I say so too. I am gone into self, and into Antichrist; for that which will be _something_, will not let Christ be _all_; and that which will not let Christ be all, must certainly be Antichrist. What a poor, jejune, dry thing is doctrinal Christianity, compared with the clear and _heartfelt assent_ that the believer gives to these fundamental truths! What life, what strength, what comfort flow out from them! O my friends, let us believe, and we shall see, taste, and handle the Word of Life. When I stand in unbelief, I am like a drop of muddy water drying up in the sun of temptation. I can neither comfort, nor help, nor preserve myself. When I do believe and close in with Christ, I am like that same drop losing itself in a boundless, bottomless sea of purity, light, life, power, and love. There _my good_ and _my evil_ are equally nothing; equally swallowed up; and grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. “There I wish you all to be. There I beg you and I may meet with all God’s children. I long to see you that I may impart unto you (should God make use of such a worm) some spiritual gift, and that I may be comforted by the mutual faith of you and me, and by your growth in grace, and in divine as well as human wisdom, during my long absence. I hope matters will be so contrived that I may be with you, to behold your order, before the anniversary. Meanwhile, I remain your affectionate fellow-labourer and servant in the Gospel of Christ, “JOHN FLETCHER.”[206] Footnote 205: Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.“ Footnote 206: