May 1768

Thank you, my good friend, for remembering me. I began to have some hard thoughts of you, but they are gone; time has taught me, that old friends are better than new, and grace has improved this experience; for friends in Christ will be so forever. We may part, but only to meet again.

Love can reach from London to; yes,

a great way farther. I feel my heart just

now united to, and rejoice from my soul

that Jesus has taken her up to himself: thanks be to him for the grace she had, and the glory she had received out of his fullness. Blessings on him, that we are going the same way, to meet our best friend, and all our friends; and to be with him our heaven-making Jesus, and to be with them for evermore. I was led, from reading your letter, to a very comfortable view of the Prince of Life, I thought I saw him, in that character, exceedingly amiable and glorious; and the more I considered it, the more lovely it grew to the eye of faith. For it seemed to me that sin and death came into the world with all their train of evils, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. Wonderful is his name, who can bring righteousness out of sin. What a miracle-working Jesus is he, who can make life out of death! Indeed, all he does is in this strange way, peculiar to himself, that HIS might be the crown of crowns. As a Jesus, he not only saves from the evil of sin and death, (this is the least part of his matchless work,) but he also, in the free gift of his sovereignty, bestows righteousness and life; and, to the everlasting praise of his sovereignty, bestows them on the most unrighteous, and on the most dead in sin. In this praise, how glorious is our Jesus! My heart is now captivated with his inimitable loveliness, although I see him through a glass darkly: what must he be in full and open view, when the display of his beauty will make an eternal heaven! I knew one, who was admitted as that happy soul was, Cant, ii. 9, to see the Divine lover looking forth at the window, and showing himself, or, as it is in the margin, flourishing, opening and expanding like a flower his beauties and fragrance through the lattice window. It was a ravishing sight. If the eye and senses of faith can be thus highly delighted, what will it be to see him face to face, and to enjoy his fullness of glory! since he thus, by the death of our friends, can let us behold some fresh discovering of his life-giving charms. What! O what will it be to us, when mortality shall be swallowed up of life! Yet a little, a very little while, and this shall be. In the mean time, may you and I be growing in the knowledge and love of the Prince of Life. I got a good advancement by the death

of Lady M 1, and was led into a sweet

path of meditation, in which I went on, meditating and contemplating, till my heart burnt within me. Methought he had given a noble display of the riches of grace in his dealings with her, and had made her a happy partaker of that life which he came to give unto his world. You can witness that he had repealed the sentence of death. She was freed from condemnation, and was passed from death unto life. He gave her to know it, to enjoy it. Many a time my spirit has been refreshed with hearing her relate simply and feelingly how Jesus was her life. And in consequence of this, having peace with God, through Jesus Christ her Lord, she had an attachment to his person. You can tell, better than I can, how she showed this. She was certainly spiritually alive, and he who made her so kept her so, to as great manifesting of his power as if he had preserved the burning bush in Horeb in flames, and yet unhurt, from Moses to this day. This spiritual life bodily death cannot touch, because it is rooted and grounded into the Divine life. And the keeping of it is laid up in Christ with God, safe, happy, out of the reach of storms and enemies. What did I say, bodily death cannot touch it? I retract that word: bodily death does what the angel did to Peter in prison — knocks oflf his fetters, and sets him at liberty; the angel of life takes down the mortal that he may perfect the immortal life, and so we die to live; die to the world, to live with him; die to time, to live forever; yea, die in faith, that this body of death which we leave behind us shall soon be raised to life and immortality. Is death our enemy? What has he done to hurt? Only fulfilled the kind will of Jesus, who wanted her company, and would have her with him, to live as he does in his life of glory. Blessed death, heavenly comforter, thou art a loving friend, indeed, to Jesus’ friends! Your letter was the means of my entering on this meditation, and blessed it was. O what a sight and sense had I of the incomparable grace of life-giving Jesus! While I am writing, he makes himself, beyond what any words can describe, lovely to my eyes, and precious to my heart. He is my life. I find it, enjoy it, in him; and let me speak, my dear friend, a word for him to you: for him, as I am in duty bound — to you, as love constrains me. For him I speak a most complete, absolutely and eternally perfect Saviour; his person, his work, possessed of all the glories of the Godhead. What he did and suffered, in order that he might save to the uttermost, admits of no addition. It was once done and perfected forever. My friend, have you the benefit of this? Do you enjoy it in your conscience? and there read, and there maintain, a full and everlasting repeal from the sentence of death. This is the honor Jesus claims of you, and it is the highest you can pay him. Y( u can do him no greater homage, nor more acceptable worship, than to put your entire dependence, without any the least drawing back, or wavering, on his life and death, as your whole deliverance from sin and death, as your clear title to heaven and glory. When faith shows you the Divine majesty of Mary’s son, and the everlasting honors of his obedience unto death, then will the peace of God rule in your heart, and thereby you will glorify the blood and the righteousness of the Redeemer, more than any angel, more than any happy spirit, around his throne.

The enemy long — too, too long — kept me from that enjoyment, by wiles and snares, chiefly legal views and self-righteous plans. Still he now and then gets an advantage of me. But I beg, my friend, you would beware of his devices. Are you resting upon Jesus? and do you find the sentence of death is no longer in force against you? Read, study your Bible, pray and beg for an inci-ease of faith. This is the use of all means. May the Lord the Spirit bless them to you! Faith is your shield against the accuser of the brethren, and against your own legal workings. If you grow in this experience, you will grow more and more alive to God; you will believe, and find more of the love of a reconciled Father. The more you rest on the finished salvation, you will certainly abound more in the blessed fruits of it: such as, seeing yourself perfectly saved, your hopes will all cast anchor within the veil; your affections will get fixed on their everlasting object, and you will come under the sweet government of King Jesus. Thus living in him, you will live to him, which is not only spiritual life, but is also, indeed, spiritual liveliness. And if you ever find this decay after you once had it, mind and attend to the cause of its decay, and you will see this was the only cause; namely, your faith was therefore not lively, because you was not resting perfectly upon Jesus, as your Saviour from the sentence of death. This was the worm which eat into the gourd and made it wither. Keep this out, it will flourish and grow as long as you have any need of faith for protection, or for happiness, and when the time comes, that faith is to be no more, — What is dying? Is it not in the hand of Jesus? Does not he appoint it, fix it, send it? Has not he promised to be with you in the hour of death, to keep you from the fear and from the pow er of it? Is not he faithful, almighty, all-loving? his love wants no power to make his promises good to his dying friends; yea, he does make them good every day. He will to you, doubt it not. I have written till my time is up. You are sure my subject is not exhausted; no, never will be. But I am forced to stop. My dear friend, pray for me. You know my profession of love for your soul. God knows my heart. Adieu. W. R.