Letters to and from the Author

Letters from the Rev. Mr. Henry Davidson, late lYiinister of the Gospel at Galashiels, to the Author.

Very dear Sir, March 25, 1728.

‘Your two letters of the last month’s date, breathing so much of a kindly concern, and bearing so many seasonable advices, and relieving grounds of comfort, could not miss to be most acceptable to me, when plunged in the deep; and this should have been acknowledged to you before this, but my indisposition of body being considered, will, I know, sufficiently plead the excuse of my delay.

Dear Sir, When there is a keeping in any measure from a despising of the Lord’s chastening, yet I find no small difficulty to bear off from the other rock, a fainting under His rebukes. Faith’s views, that it is the Lord, will prove quieting. A right view of His sovereignty, wisdom, righteousness, and faithfulness, works up the soul into a holy acquiescence in, and composure under the eternal decree, now revealed by the event. But O! how hard to believe a Father’s love it is with us under trials, especially those of a complicated nature, or that have some entangling especially in them, as it was with the disciples when our Lord came upon the water in a tempestuous night to their relief They thought He was a spirit; so we look upon God as an enemy, when He comes to sanctify and save. The promise reconciles the roughness of a Father’s hand with the sweetness of His voice, and love of His heart. He calls to His children in the darkest night, “It is I, be not afraid.” Our disquietments do enter at the door of unbelief, for in every case, however trying, joy and peace accompany believing, and keep measures with it. That heroic grace performs surprising achievements under sharpest trials, as they stand registered in Heb. xi.; and whatever our trials are, the strength of the conflict lies betwixt faith and unbelief; and as the balance sways towards the one or the other, so is the situation in other regards. All goes backward, and towards ruin, as unbelief prevails, for it carries its train alongst; and did not our gracious God stem the current from time to time, and be the lifter up of the head, we would infallibly sink beneath the stream; nevertheless, upon the begun recovery of faith, matters arc accordingly sot at rights. It is in this way that in the Lord’s strength, we are to look out for His kinfl scattering the clouds, and making us to hear, and to give in to the voice of His rod. It is by faith the soul must bo moulded into a serene composure of mind, and a kindly compliance with the Lord’s heart- weaning methods of providence. It is in this way of believing, that we must take up with God alone for our portion and great all; and seek to have all our losses and wants made up and supplied in Him who has proclaimed Himself God all sufficient. — Dear Sir, Yours very affectionately,

H. Davidson.

Very dear Sir, May 11, 1730.

Yours bearing the resolve about the sacrament came to hand some weeks ago. Difficulties taking rise in holy wise Providence from your own circumstances, and likewise from those of your ordinary assistants, I make no doubt, have caused various thoughts not a little perplexing to overy one of us; I would fain hope, the Lord on our head, as the breaker up going before, will make the way clear. When we are saying among ourselves, and within ourselves, who shall roll us away the stone? He will possibly shew us the stone, though very great, rolled away. The account of your weakness, and your wife’s distress, gave me no little pain: infinite wisdom and love make all things work together for good; His ways and thoughts are above ours; in due time the perplexing riddles shall be fully expounded, and it shall then be seen, what we are noAV to believe, that our God and guide hath not taken one wrong step, and that unquestionably He had a very good reason for whatever He did. We must account that our God hath ever gone the best way that could have been gone, in all that is past, and we shoulii have no doubting thoughts about what He will do afterwards.

Dear Sir, I give you no trouble at present with any account of my circumstances; may I bi’ helped to wait on and not weary; and may His rich blessing make the afflicting rod fruitful. — I remain, very dear Sir,

Yours affectionately, H. Davidson.

Very dear Sir, Galashiels, December 30, 1730.

To have owned my receipt of your kind letters, three of them with Mr. Glass’s pamphlet, has been often resolved. The delay has been much owing to bodily disorder, by no means to a want of due respect and gratitude. My long silence after your writing once and again made it appear necessary to me to say so much by way of apology. The whole of our time is divided between summer and winter, heat and cold, night and day, a constant revolution there is of storms and a calm. There is a shining beauty in the conduct of Providence, that we are not always fed with honey, nor yet is our cup always filled with gall and wormwood. There is a wise mixture in our lot of light and shade, as there is in ourselves of flesh and spirit; there is the mixture of anger and love in the trials of the Lord’s children, not the anger of an enemy intending ruin and hurt, as flowing from hatred and revenge, but the anger of a father which is guided by wisdom and tempered by love, intending the good of his offending child. It is a jiiece of prerogative royal, to have the power of life and death, which God reserves to Himself He only knows when the appointed work is finished; He alone is fit to give the failing orders, and assign the time when the sore tossed and shatteredvessel shall be laid up in a safe harbour. — Very dear Sir, 3’ours very affectionately

H. Davidson.

Galashiels, February 25, 1732.
Very dear Sir,

Your several letters came safe to hand, and were very acceptable. This comes to inform you that the good old woman my mother went home to her own, the better country, this morning betwixt three and four o’clock. She took her bed upon the Lord’s day evening, had a fever pretty high, but retained all her senses to her dying hour. How cruel is our love I how blind and inconsiderate is our affection; we would prefer the small advantages or greater gains we reap from their abode with us, to their entire satisfaction and complete happiness, a very great but common solecism in true friendship we are often guilty of However frightful and ill-favoured death appear to the eye of sense, it is viewed by faith as the messenger of our heavenly Father; and when the Christian opens its hard cold hands and looks into them there are to be found gracious letters full of love, bearing an invitation to come home, a call from the new Jerusalem to come up and see. When death with the one hand covers our eyes, and deprives of the light of the stars, with the other it rends in pieces the veil, and so makes way for our being set immediately under the refreshing beams of the Sun of Righteousness, without the least appearance of a cloud through the long days of eternity. Now that His way is in the sea, and His path in the deep waters, and His footsteps are not known, we must believe loving kindness in all the mysterious passages of Providence; we shall in due time see a wheel in the wheel, and be taught how to decipher the dark characters; we shall, with an agi’eeable surprise, perceive an all-wise Providence in all its intricate, oblique, and seemingly contrary motions, to have been a faithful servant to the divine promise; so that we must say Amen to Heaven’s disposals, and cry out in the dark and gloomy night, Hallelujah. I should certainly make an apology for giving you so much trouble, but allow it to be written to the Lord’s prisoner of hope with you, as I design it, though the direction tjears your name. The fault of its length will, I hope, appear less when taken in that view. My affectionate respects to Mrs. Boston, with yourself, are offered by him who is, very dear Sir, yours very affectionately, in the straitest bonds,

H. Davidson.

Extract of a letter from Mr. Grant to the Author,
dated June 8, 1730.

My former letters to our worthy and dear friend Mr. Hogg, will give you a tolerable account of that rare gentleman, vSir Richard Ellys, and of your obligations to him; though I own it is much above me to give either his character, or express how much you are obliged to him. But I cannot help saying that I so sincerely think that there is ground of many thanksgivings to sovereign grace, that we have in our island a gentleman of his rank (being one of the first for birth and estate in England), and one of the ablest scholars in it, who, I hope, and am persuaded, is such a pleasant scholar in Christ’s school, and is let in to the wonders and glories of free grace, and whose soul thirsts after further and further discoveries of the purity and beauty of the Gospel. He has many a time warmed my heart to hear him speak of that subject. He speaks indeed of grace like one who has seen its glory, felt its power, and tasted its sweetness. There is one amongst many lovely accounts he was pleased to communicate to me, which I am satisfied will be pleasing to you, viz., that when he was a bigoted Arminian, God was pleased to give an old gentlewoman, of an understanding entirely weak as to everything but free grace and the mystery of Christ, an uncommon concern about him, at whose notions of Christ and grace he was wont to laugh. However, a sovereign and gracious God made this weak woman conquer this Goliath, and teach this Rabbi. O! with what respect he talks of her memory! and O! what a glorious demonstration does he reckon such a one of the reality of divine teaching, who knows nothing of the world, has weak understanding of all the concerns of human life, but knows more of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven than thousands of scholars, nay, and thousands of divines! She died full of the faith and hopes, that God would take care of him, and keep him by His power through faith to salvation. Your Fourfold State has engaged his heart to you; he has made presents of it to several of his friends, and made another great man, Sir John Philips, purchase it, who says free grace is his Bible, and admires your book, reads it daily himself, and makes all his family read it. This gentleman. Sir Richard assures me, is a man of great worth, and has a great concern about the declining of religion, and has a noble public spirit for doing good.

A letter from the Author to Sir Richard Ellys, Bart.

Honoured Sir, Ettrick Manse, June 13, 1730.

It was no small encouragement to me to find by my good friend Mr. John Grant’s letters, that you had been pleased to read the specimen of the essay on the Hebrew accentuation, lately sent from this place; that you relished the design of that essay, and shewed a favourable inclination in the matter. This was unto me ground of thankfulness to the Sovereign Disposer of all, and natively issued in determining to do myself the satisfaction of expressing, by a line, the warm sense I have of your favour, though I cannot pretend to the honour of your acquaintance.

It is very natural to think, that such a work falling, “just because so it seemed good in the sight of the Father,” to the share of an obscure person living in a desert, exercised with a variety of personal and domestic trials, and under some uncommon disadvantages beside, must needs with him remain in obscurity, unless it obtain the countenance of one of your Honour’s character in the learned world; and that especially at this time of day, when, in the depths of sovereign wisdom, so many learned men of all denominations reckon any such work a mere laborious trifling, because they believe not the divine original and authority of the points themselves, on which the essay is made.

That I was led to the study of the Hebrew accentuation, was owing purely to the conduct of Providence, bringing Cross’s Taghinical Art into my hand; and through the divine favour falling on the scent, I was carried into the belief of the divine original and authority of that accentuation as stigmatological, seeing glaring evidence of the same in my reading of the sacred Hebrew text, shining by means thereof with its own intrinsic light. And therefore I am inclined to think that, after all that has been said on both sides of the question by the learned, the most habile method of conviction therein, is to “come and see”; and that a happy explication or genuine representation of the nature of the accentuation of the Hebrew Bible, in its natural and artless contrivance, is the only thing wanting to procure it the same awful regard with the other parts of the sacred text. This is what is aimed at in the essay, though I am not so weak as to think I have fully reached it; but I have the fondness to imagine that, being brought forth to the public view, it might possibly minister occasion unto some learned men to enter into a further consideration of that matter, and so set it at length in a due light, to the increase of Scripture knowledge in the churches of Christ.

I have now sent off the English copy of the essay, ho])ing that through the favourable conduct of Providence, it may come safe to London. It is what I wrote at first, while I was not dreaming of putting it in Latin; the which I was afterwards engaged in, by the advice of some, for whose judgment I had a great deference. And in case of its coming safe to my friend’s hand, I humbly intreat that, if your affairs will permit, you will be pleased to take the trouble of glancing it over, to the end you may have a more clear view of the nature of the work, and may be fully satisfied in the point of your affording or denying it your countenance; for bating some alterations which I found ground for making when the Latin copy was written, the former is the Siime with the latter.

If, upon perusal of the English copy, your favourable inclination shall continue, I will presume to beg your advice to Mr. Grant, as to his management of the affair.

The weight and importance of the matter, and the justice of allowing one to express a due gratitude, will, I hope plead excuse for offering you the trouble of this from a stranger, who craves leave to subscribe himself — Honoured Sir, Your Honour’s very obedient, most humble servant,

T. Boston.

Sir Richard Ellys’s answer.
Sir, December 16, 1730.

I RECEIVED yours with great pleasure, and can assure you it is not for any want of respect that I have been so long in returning you my thanks for it. Believe me from what I have read of yours, and the character I have from others concerning you, I have the highest regard for you. The Fourfold State, which I went through with much satisfaction, has given me no small idea of your piety; and I have some reason to think, your Essay on the Hebrew accentuation may in time give the learned world as great a value and esteem for your knowledge in that abstruse part of literature. I cannot pretend to much depth in any part of learning; in this I must own myself entirely ignorant; but this I know, if it succeeds, it is a glorious work, as it must necessarily be subservient in the highest degree towards settling our minds and composing our differences, in these sad distracted times. Has Providence directed you to rules for the ascertaining the sense of Scripture, or at least for reducing it in some good measure to a greater certainty than heretofore? For my own part I had rather be author of such a book than master of the Indies.

After I have said this, Sir, I hope I need not add much to assure you I will do whatever lies in my power to serve you in this noble design. The very failing in an attempt of this nature has its merit —

Magnis tamen excidit ausis,
you know, is given as no mean character.

The specimen has been shewed to Messrs. Schultens and Abraham Gronovius, the two best judges of that sort of learning at Lyden, or perhaps in all Holland. I shall not trouble you with their answer, our common friend Mr. Grant having undertaken to send it you verbatim; but this I must say, it pleased me. The specimen is, I suppose, before this time, in the hands of Mr. Loftus at Rotterdam, who has promised me to examine it himself, put it into the hands of others, and then give me his and their impartial sentiments. And now, Sir, I have a favour to beg of you, or rather I insist upon it, that you think of me sometimes in your most retired hours. It is what I desire with some earnestness; and reckon I have a sort of right to it, as being your hearty well-wisher and friend, though unknown to you, as well as, dear Sir, your very humble servant.

R. Ellys.

THiOMAS BOSTON. 479

A second letter from the A^ithor to Sir Richard Ellys.

Ettrick Manse, December 31, 1730. Honoured Sir, Often have I been made to adore that sovereign gracious hand, which pointed into the innch-nogloctcd path travelled in, in the MSS. some time ago sent from hence; and which, in dependence upon Him, opened a passage through several thickets there, in which I found myself entangled; having frequently been in such a situation therein, that when I had set down one foot, I knew not where to set down another. But when, by the Divine favour, I had got through it in some measure, such as was comfortable to myself, and might, I apprehended, be of some use to the church of God, my friendless circumstances were perplexing. These have for several years been matter of exercise to me; and, I am not ashamed to own, have often made me cry unto my God, who doth all things for me, that He would raise up instruments for the work. And now. Sir, that, after disappointments and discouragements from several hands, whence I looked for encouragement, it hath pleased the Lord, there where I could have no expectation, to raise me up a friend, by inclining your heart to take notice of and comfort me, and to bestir yourself to act in favour of that and me.

May not I be allowed to say unto you, though I have never with mine eyes seen your face, and it is likely never will in this world, “I have seen thy face as if I had seen the face of God?” A person of honour, learning, and piety, stirred up to befriend me. The acceptableness of the Fourfold State to you notwithstanding of its homely dress, gave me an inexpressible pleasure. Your transmitting the specimen, title and index, and friendly writing along therewith, to Mr. Gowan and Mr. Loftus, in Holland, was a most charitable action; and the sending therewith the Fourfold State was such an encouraging token of your regard for it, as I could not have expected, more than I could have dreamed of what else you did in favour of it. ][r. Gowan’s return, concerning the specimen, which you was pleased to dictate to my worthy friend Mr. Grant, coming into my hand, was “as cold waters to a thirsty soul.” And your generosity, preventing the remotest thought in me, is quite surprising; having received at your hand ten guineas, a gift in that kind, of such value in itself, that it was new to me, and therefore received with proportionable thankfulness; the which value is yet but a very small thing in comparison of the value I put upon it, as a token of the regard you are pleased to have for me, and pledge of your readiness to lay out yourself to encourage any work of mine. What remains on my part is, on your account to bless the Lord, who hath given you wealth and honour, and, which is more rare, a heart and wisdom to improve them to the honour of His name; and to pray, that He so multiply His blessings on you and your comfort, as you may plainly perceive that what you have done, and are disposed to do, in this matter, is a good work, acceptable unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And I am not without confidence in the Lord, upon the gi’ound of His own word (Prov. xi. 25), “He that watereth, shall be watered also himself,” that it shall be even so unto you in due time; the view being can-ied, but without limiting of sovereignty, towards the particular trial it hath pleased God to exercise you and my Lady EUys with; the which, since it came to my knowledge some several months ago, hath been much on my heart, continuing in a disposition to wait on the Lord’s hand in that matter; having also recommended it to the prayers of two godly ministers, my intimate friends. Herein I am the more encouraged, that as we learn from the words I have learned also by forty years experience, and upwards, that the more signal and eminent mercies designed for one in the way of the covenant, are usually brought through iron gates, which for a time making their access apparently hopeless, for the exercise and trial of faith, hope, and patience, do yet, in the Lord’s own time, open of their own accord. However, other kinds of mercies may fall into the lap of the receiver sitting at ease. The MS. on the covenant of grace is not as yet returned to me, but expected shortly. I will greedily embrace an opportunity of putting it into your hand, how soon I can: being exceedingly refreshed with the accounts of your favour and relish of the doctrine of the free grace of God in Christ Jesus, the foundation of all our hopes.

I own the great civility of your Honour’s noticing your not writing me; though I think the circumstantiate case leaves not an apology to be necessary. If at any time I shall have the honour of a few lines at your hand, it will be very acceptable; but while you shew such a warm concern otherwise, I can be in no pain about it. If you have had any leisure to glance the MSS., your judgment and remarks thereon would be an additional favour.

I hope you will pardon the prolixness of this, since it is occasioned by the multiplicity of your favours, and the warm sense of them had by — Honoured Sir — your Honour’s most obliged, and most obedient, humble servant,

T. Boston.

Letters fro-nx the Author to his correspondent in Edinburgh. Dear Sir, October 8, 1720.

.... Last time I wrote to you I was in a mind to have written you anent the matter I have now in hand, but that I was hurried, and time would not allow. The prospect of engaging in it, which is awful, whether I consider myself or the matter; and the proof I have had of your Christian friendship, natively led me to impart it you, as I have done to a very few others.

The subject is the accentuation of the Hebrew Bible, which in the depth of sovereign wisdom has been less cultivated by the learned than anything else I know of relating to the sacred volume. My acquaintance with books is very narrow; but I know no translations of the Bible in which the translators have not thought themselves very much at liberty in pointing of the text. I am of their opinion who think the Hebrew text is most accurately pointed; and from my own observation, as well as from books, I am convinced the sacred stigmatology bears the signature of a Divine hand. The difficulty has been, and is, to assign the proper value to the several stops therein used. Now, if that divine pointing can be cleared, it is easy to see what influence it must have on translations, and commentaries too, fixing the grammatical sense of the words. There have been but very few books written purposely for that effect. I have but two of them — viz.. Cross’s Taghmical Art, and Wasmuth’s InstitiLtioncs: accent. If either of them could have satisfied me, they had saved me a considerable labour. I have employed some to get me other two; but they have not found them. I hope I have, through the blessing of our gracious God, attained to some insight into this matter. I will no longer say, if it be a delusion; but several difficulties there are, which I see, that I know not how to get through; besides others, which (it is like) I see not. But in dependence on the same Father of lights, who, in other points of the same kind, has been pleased to guide me through thickets, where I could discern no outgate when I entered them, I design to press forward in the study; and if any essay of mine on that subject might prevail to awaken the learned to the further study of that point, it might be reckoned good service. I havip some materials prepared, though I see I want some others. I cunnot obtain it of myself, to fxll at this season in quest of theni; but in regard my health and strength are not so finn as before, and that I know not what may befall me, I desire (if

HH the Lord will) this winter to begin to put in form what I have, that it may not be useless to others, in case Providence do not allow me to finish it. As for printing expenses, there is no occasion to speak of that; He only knows whether ever I shall have anything of that nature prepared for the press or not. Sir, I have imparted this matter to you out of an earnest desire that you would be concerned in prayer for me with respect to that business of so great importance, that, if it be His holy will, I may have life and health, and the light of His Spirit, to lead me into all truth; that He will make darkness light before me, and crooked things straight, in this matter particularly. I do not desire it to be propaled, nor would it be prudent for me to do it, the matter not being ripe, and it remaining doubtful if ever it shall be so. But I am content you impart it to the Honourable Person you speak of, if you judge it proper. As for Buxtorf de Punctis, I shall be obliged to anyone who will get me a loan of it; but I would rather have it of my own; and I suppose you have correspondents both in London and Holland; and if you could help me that way, I would desire the favour of you to do it; not only to that book, but to the other two I spoke of before.... I hope to hear from you by the bearer; and continue, dear Sir, yours, &c.

Very dear Sir, December 28, 1721.

If that project wherein my good friend would have had me concerned, (for my advantage I ‘m sure), do miscany, it is but of a piece with other tokens of the Lord’s anger against us: and I know that when he was in greatest concern for advancing that and other projects, he still shewed himself under apprehensions of impending public judgments; and we are already under a signally heavy one, in respect of the present state of our church affairs, which hath a very terrible aspect. That burning mountain cast into the sea (Rev. viii. 8) makes sometimes awful impressions on my heart; but I hope still God will arise, and have mercy on our Zion yet, though He may cause us, in the first place, to pass under the rod. I know some would reckon themselves not obliged to believe me in what I have said of the burning mountain, alleging I have contributed to the setting of it on fire: the truth is, Scotland’s sins, and mine among the rest, have done it; especially the sin of not improving the glorious Gospel we have so many years enjoyed; and I doubt not if the Lord were returned to us as in former days. He will write shame on the faces of us altogether; and my heart cries, Why tarry the wheels of His chariot? But I reckon it in the meantime the safest course to endeavour to hold at a distance from causes of farther dciclining. Grace be with you, and with your yoke-fellow, whom my wife kindly remembers. May you be helped to live as heirs of the grace of life, and as followers of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. — I am, with the greatest respect, dear Sir, yours, &c.

Dear Sir, August 8, 1724.

There is no appearance of the dissolution of the cloud that for several years now has been over my wife. We have made a new essay this season in the use of means for her help: but all hitherto serves for nothing, but to discover that vain is the help of man in the case. She has not wanted seasonable supports, from a higher hand; and when several coals were by wise and holy Providence cast in together into our furnace, she who behoved to be waited on and served before, was even helped to wait on, and be very helpful to others in distress; and then the clouds returned after the rain, and now she comes little out of bed at all. But all is necessary, and He is infinitely wise who has the managing of all in His hand. It is a very sweet view of affliction, to view it as the discipline of the covenant; and so it is indeed; and nothing else to the children of our Father’s family. In that respect it is medi-’ cinal; it shines with many gracious purposes about it: and, end as it will, one may have the confidence of faith, that it shall end well. And O how happy would we be if we could always maintain the confidence of faith! The soul in that case would be like that babe in the shipwrecked woman’s arms on the plank, smiling amidst the waves, unconcerned with the hazard. I desire to remember, and be remembered by you. — I am, with cordial respects to yours, &c.

Dear Sir, You will excuse me when I have told you, that since I saw you I have been in the furnace of affliction through the rod of a kind and gracious God on myself and family. ^ly eldest daughter had a fever when you were here last: and on the morrow after you went off, my other daughter took her bed also by a fever; after her my youngest son — another boy of the family being in the meantime indisposed. While thus severals were together in sickness, but my eldest daughter beginning to recover, I myself was, on a Lord’s day after sermons, suddenly seized with a violent illness, which afterwards

I knew to be a fit of the gravel, before that time unknown to me. It was sharp; but the time was kindly shortened, for I got up again on the Wednesday; neither did I agonize all that time, but was favoured with intermissions: but I had one fit of six or seven hours continuance. Meanwhile my distressed wife was helped to get from her bed, and to go between me and the children, and to be useful to both. Our ship seemed to be hard at the shore, in mine and the children’s recovery, when behold a wave came and drove back the shattered vessel again. My eldest son and our servant-woman being taken ill on one day, and his fever the most dangerous of all, the woman’s fever abated on the 6th, my son’s not till the 13th, niy second daughter’s on the 11th. My eldest son is now recovering, though slowly, and all are well again, except my distressed wife, whose chastisements are new every morning. I have given you this particular account, as making no doubt of your sympathy, and that you will join with us in the deliverance wrought for us, and in seeking pity and help in the continued affliction, and grace rightly to improve both the one and the other. The Lord was very gracious according to His word, and I felt Him to be the lifter up of mine head, while carried through the deep waters; and my soul blesseth His holy name for this dispensation in this trial, in which He made me inwardly to rejoice when nothing of that kind appeared about me. O that I could praise and trust Him! He is a skilful pilot, and one might be very easy in doubtful events, trusting and relying on Him, believing that what is good He will give. — I am, &c.

Dear Sir, December 14, 1724.

I REJOICE to hear of the success of your affairs, which you take as you ought from Him who keeps the balance of trade, as well as of crowns and kingdoms, in His own hand. O, but the management of the kingdom of grace must be a great thing! and our Mediator must be well furnished for the managing of it, since the vast and extensive kingdom of Providence is put in His hand as a subordinate, there to be administrate in a subserviency to the kingdom of grace, and to carry on the glorious purposes thereof He sits enthroned in Zion, and as Zion’s king. His power reaches through the whole earth, the seas, heaven, and hell! All power is given Him everywhere. His subjects in Zion are but few, but the whole world is rolled hither and thither for that little kingdom. For their sakes he sent to Babylon and brought down the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships; for it the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Ronian monarchies wore brought down. O, Sir, continue to follow your business in the actual faith of this; and as, when there is a prosperous turn in it, you willingly give it under your hand, you arc the Mediator’s debtor for it. So when there comes about an awkward-like turn at any time, labour to believe the same haiul docs it for the best: for this reason, that He never does anything but what is best done, which will one day be demonstrated beyond contradiction. As for the discourses on the covenant of ace, I have long ago ended that subject; but I am so engaged otherwise that I cannot take it in hand for vSome time — to be counted by years, for aught I yet see. And my years now appear to me, in a manner more than formerly, uncertain; and I would fain do as the Lord is pleased to enable what I conceive might be of gi’eatest usefulness, as long as life is continued with strength. — I am. Dear Sir, &c.

Dear Sir, May 21, 1726.

I HAD yours, with the much affecting account of your loss of a dear child. I travelled that gloomy road six times, and learned that God has other use for children than our comfort: an use far more honourable and happy for them; and the parents often come to see it afterwards, that it is peculiar kindness to the dear babes they were so early carried off. It likewise serves to let in to the sweetness of that word in particular, “I will be thy God, and the God of thy seed.” While parents are taken up for the eternal salvation of their dying little ones, and look about to see what the word says with relation to the case, O do not grudge the freedom the Lord has used with you in pitching upon a preci(Mis thing of yours for himself, and accordingly taking it away. Both of you have offered your all to the Lord; and though, when it comes to the pinch, the heart is ready to misgive, yet in calm blood I am persuaded you will stand to the bargain, and check yourselves for any semblance of ruoing. The next time you see your child you will see him shining white in glory, having been washed “in the blood of the Lamb.” who was an infant, a child, a boy, a youth, as well as a grown man. because He came a Saviour of infants, little children, Szc, as well as of persons come at age. Perhaps his cries are not yet out of your and his mother’s cars; but then you wi see him capable of managing his harp ixs well as the saint that died an hundred years ago. Ah, ah! why are we thus not fully satisfied and acquiescing in the wise management of the great Counsellor, who puts clouds and darkness round Him, bidding us follow at His back through the cloud, promising an eternal, uninterrupted sunshine on the other side. “Lord, increase our faith,” is a petition we need to be oft putting up. But I hope the Lord has taught you and your spouse resignation to the will of Him who does all things well. But I find it is a difficult lesson to learn: the flesh still spurns and rises against the rod. And O how difficult is it to get our hows and tvhys crucified, and to resolve all into, and rest satisfied in infinite wisdom tempered with covenant love! Our affliction is returned to an extremity, and the storm has blown hard now for some time; but the Lord sits on the flood, and though it seems to be without all order, yet certainly there is an order in it, though imperceptible to our eyes, and the several drops keep their ranks according to the word of command. — I am, with the most endeared respects, &c.

Dear Sir, August 6, 1726.

As to the matter of the sacrament not celebrated here this season, some things falling out in our session did put me off from aiming at it in our usual time, which I was otherwise of thoughts of as ordinary; but when it was so determined to pass the diet, the extreme distress of my wife did perfectly confirm me in it. We have had a heavy summer of it in that respect, which yet continues. We exceedingly need the prayers of our friends, and know that several do carry our afflicted case before the Lord, and hope that He will at length incline His ear to hear, though the afflicted cries, “Why are his chariot wheels so long in coming?” It seems we are not yet sufficiently humbled and ripe for deliverance. May the Lord himself send forth humbling influences, and so prepare our hearts and cause His ear to hear. For my own part, I am much as when you saw me — the Lord still affording me strength to go on in the work I was then engaged in, and am not without hopes that He will carry me through it.

It would be comfortable to hear of a favourable turn in your wife’s afflicted case; but whatever be in that, the time will come when the Lord’s children, prisoners of affliction and iron, as the words of the Holy Ghost are (Psalm cvii. 10), will be as light, free, and easy, as if never an iron had been on their legs and aftlictions on their spirits, nor a prison door closed on them, if the sun, that is making post-haste, had made a few rounds more. — I am, &c.

Very dear Sir, June 5, 1727.

The bearer comes for the wine and will take the saint; quantity as usual: though I apprehend our throng here will not be so great as some time heretofore, the same ordinance being to be celebrate the same day in two places in the neighbourhood from whence people use to come hither. The bruised serpent, who ordinarily is not idle among us at such a time, has given us a broadside at this time; but I hope our Lord will see to His own honour. I remember the word, “A great door, and effectual is opened; and thei-e are many enemies.”

Our letters shew us to be companions in tribulation, and I hope we shall be companions in victory, everlasting victory. Let us leave it to our Lord how to carry us through the world; His own glory is at stake, seeing by His grace we have committed ourselves to Him. He is a skilful pilot; and His skill appears best in guiding the ship among the rocks and shelves. The natural effect of affliction on a sinner is, to drive him away from God; but we must consider affliction as an ordinance of God, and the discipline of the covenant, having a promise annexed to it, and believe the promise; and so the bitter pill, taken by faith in the vehicle of the promise, will lose its natural efficacy, and have its instituted one. If your affairs are in confusion, it is not your riotous living, nor carelessness about them, that has brought them to that pass, but the over-ruling providence of God; and so it is not your sin, but your affliction, and you may have many a time laid your substance, and your all at the Lord’s feet, never to break with Him on any such head, nor any whatsoever. And now word is sent to you about some of it from heaven, as was sent to. the owner of the ass, saying, “The Lord hath need of him;” i.e, He has use for it for His own glorious purposes. And He can make you an ornament to the Gospel in the confused state of your affairs, as well as when they went on more prosperously. My heart is feelingly touched with yt)ur dear wife’s case; but ere all be done, she shall be nothing behind the hand with her Lord, for all she suffers at His will and pleasure — The broad blessing of the covenant be on you and her, and your seed. Pray for us. — I am, &lc.

P.S. — O! what think ye will He not come to the feiist!

Very dear Sir, July 22, 1727.

I HAD yours of the 11th instant, and was concerned to understand by it, the increasing of your -wife’s distress, and the additional trial of the seizing of the ship at Cadiz. Here’s work for faith, to see and believe that He into whose hands the Father hath committed all judgment, doth, in a consistency with His love to our souls, make deep call unto deep, and manages all to work together for our good. This is too fine a thread to be perceived by the eye of sense, but by the help of the glass of the word, it may been seen satisfyingly and believed. Jacob and Job are two very plain instances of saints meeting with a train of crosses, one upon the neck of another, as if Providence had designed to run them aground, and break them in pieces; and yet we see also the end of the Lord in these cases, that it was quite otherwise. I have had use for consulting these instances often, and the first particularly hath been very staying to me. I cannot but with tender affection observe your care of my affairs in midst of your plunges; and it is with some difficulty, in that respect, that I can lay them to your hand. However, you may consider, that what of that nature is done, it is for a companion in tribulation, &:c., I am, with tender respects. — Very Dear Sir, yours most affectionately.

My wife continues as formerly; but the prayers at Maxton, I found she had remarkably reaped the benefit of; for which we desire to praise, and thereby be encouraged to hope.

Very dear Sir, August 26, 1727.

Yesterday I had yours, together with newspapers, and a letter from P. Hamilton, some account of which you will meet with in the inclosed to Mr. Gordon, which I commit to your care, for the forwarding of it to him. You will perhaps think strange of my wTiting in the inclosed, that passage anent prayers with respect to that affair. I considered ere I did it; and judging him that acknowledgeth the Lord in His ways, as well as I, and that it might be of use for exciting and encouraging him for his part of the work he has undertaken, and that it may abide the censure of the learned, being Christians, I gave that general account of the thing. As for Professor Gordon’s differing from me in the matter of expressing the dignity of the accents, by marks of our own stigmatology’; he does not refuse it simply, but only that ahvays, and everywhere, they are to be expressed by the same marks, and this depends upon the question. Whether the value of the accents is ambulatory, or fixed; in which there is a main difference betwixt Wasmuth and the MS., the former holding it to be ambulatory; so that e.g., Athnach may be expressed by a colon in one verse, but in another only by a comma, the latter holding it to be fixed. This I have in) doubt of, and I hope it will make its way through j)rejudices by the Divine blessing. I find Mrs. G. has harl a trial by the way home. I rejoice that she was pitiid of <mr gracious God, and that her son recovered. That is the discipline of our Father’s family, by which they are conformed to the image of Christ, that He may appear the first-born among many brethren. It sincerely touches me to hear that your wife’s affliction is continued, and for the time growing worse, so that you fear the issue. I understand that very well through long experience of such fears, not onh- of late years, but even formerly. That is a vanity that attends all our earthly enjoyments; the more dear they are to us, the more piercing fears and sorrows arise to us from fear of losing them: but I hope your Father will stay His rough wind in the day of His east wind; and your Lord, Head, and Husband, who is at the helm, will carry you safe even where two seas meet. Our broken ship has been long in a storm, and yet we are not within eyesight of land; but we hope to get through, and stand upon the shore yet, and sing and say. He has done all things well; and would say to you our fellow- voyagers, Fear not, we will all get safe ashore at length. When I came home from Galashiels, I found matters had been, and were extraordinary ill; yet the Lord kept me, that I was not staggered; but that I was still to pray, and not to fliint, on the credit of the word He tells us, and it was not in vain, and since that time we have been down and up. Dear Sir, let us, by all means, endeavour to believe, and hang on, and beware of surmises of ill designs of Heaven against us to appear in end, as we would beware of coals of hell flung into our breasts. God is love. Amen. — I am as formerly.

Very dear Sir, January 27, 1728.

The last letter I had from you gave a very aftecting account of the increase of j-our wife’s indispisitioTi, of the trial of your affaii’s continuing without any prospect as yet of an issue. When the storm is hard where two seas meet, gi-eat is the hazard of fainting; but patience must have her perfect work. These things are designed, I believe, by a holy wise God, not against you, but against the unrenewed part in you. called in Scripture the fesh, which is not to be amended, but to be mortified gradually till it die out in the close of the spiritual warfare, at which time the new creature will be perfected, and the image of God, that is never on the whole soul, will wholly occupy every part of the soul, through full and perfecting supplies of grace from Christ the Head, not communicate during the course of this life. Then will be fully seen the beauty of these perplexing dispensations, the necessity of them, and everyone of them, which is now to be believed, but not to be clearly seen, by reason of the remains of darkness that is to be found together with the light of grace in the mind. Be we so happy as to take part with the spirit against the flesh in this war; and though this last complaint under great hardships put upon it, let us secretly rejoice, that the Lord is at such pains to advance mortification in us, that we may be still aiming to be as weaned children, and look upon your afflictions as what the Lord is laying on, to conform you to the image of His Son, whereof suffering and holiness are joint parts. If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him. These things I aim at to stay my own heart with them in the afflicted lot He has pleased to carve out for me, and have found some advantage thereby in my case, wherein the waters break in at several hands at once too. My wife’s case has made notable advances this season, in point of growing weakness; and the gravel has come heavily on me, in so much that the two last weeks I had two sore fits of it each week, and still it hangs about. — I am, Dear Sir, yours, &c., me.

Very dear Sir, April 13, 1728.

It is long now since we had an occasion to the town. We have had a very threatening season, and the effects of the Lord’s anger are found in the country, both on the sown gi’ound, and on the flocks. And I see the Lord’s own children, in common calamity, miss not their leal share; so that all falls alike to all in respect of the matter. But O the difference that there is in the manner of conveyance! The two covenants are very different channels of conveyance; and it is the work of faith to perceive the coming of trials in the way of the covenant of grace wherein the heaviest things bring down blessings with them. It has been something relieving to me of late, in consideration of the Lord’s hand, gone out against me, and many of my dear friends in Christ, that whereas it is now a time of the church’s peace; and others that went before us in the way of the Lord to the kingdom, through much tribulation, some suffering the the spoiling of their goods, some long and tedious imprisonments, some the loss of their relations, lives, &c., and all these were needful to purify and make them white in giving evidence of their love to the Lord; the Lord is making up that want to us another way, bringing about to us, by His own immediate hand, or by the hands of naughty men, th(.’ same things on the matter as He did formerly by the hand of persecutors. Now it is His to make choice of the manner of our trial; it is our part to take it as they did, and our work shall be rewarded, even our suffering work. My wife is brought through the additional stonn, and it pleased the great Manager not to carry her back again into the main .sea at the time I last wrote to you. She is now returned to her ordinary, which is great and continued trial; but of late the Lord has been pleased to make His refreshing visits to her soul somewhat more frequent than formerly. I long to hear how it is with your wife, the prisoner of Jesus Christ with you: they will both hear at length, “Woman, thou art loosefl from thine infirmity.” — And I am, Very Dear Sir, yours affectionately.

Very dear Sir, November 21, 1730.

I HAD yours, with the melancholy news I was fearing, and wish I could bear a part of your burden, which, I doubt not, presseth sore. It will be your wisdom to consider it as the work of God, your God, in Christ; being persuaded, that according to the measure of that persuasion, so will the Christian carriage under the rod be. O, what kind of hearts do they imagine themselves to have, that can think to employ them for one moment of the creature, farther than they can fill them farther with a God in Christ, as their God, in its room and stead! By any experience I have had, I judge the heart of man to be such a hungry craving, and griping thing, that it will part with nothing, but for what it takes to be as good, or better than what it gives up with: so that the Gospel offer, by faith embraced, and the benefit thereof claimed, must of necessity, be the most sovereign remedy against the heart’s hankering after the withdrawn comforts of the creature. I was sensibly gladdened with your Christian conduct, in going out on the Saturday and Sabbath; and bless the Lord who gave you counsel. It is a desirable thing to see Christians walking by the rules of Christianity in their greatest trials. Mr. Davidson has had no access yet to connuunicate your letter to me; but what you shew me, sutticiently seals the character she bore in mine eyes; and will, I hope, alleviate your affliction; since, without controversy, that mourning that is only for ourselves, must, with considering persons, be the most supportable. My wife was much affected with your trial. Grace be with you and the child. — I am, &c.

Very dear Sir, December 8, 1731.

I HAVE yours of October 26, together with Sir Richard Ellys’s letter to you, the copy of the letter from Keydan, together with my notice on three texts, therewith transmitted. The first I return; the second I keep, as your letter allows. I never saw that letter of yours, nor knew anything about it, or what it enclosed, till Saturday night last, that my daughter came home; the which happened by inadvertency of my servant: But divine Providence manages inadvertencies of men to carry on His purposes; and I doubt not but there was a becoming design in this, though I know not what it was; and by some lessons I have got of that kind, I am engaged to think it was a kind one; and so taking it out of the hand of God, will not grudge it, but hope for the best of it... I had been long waiting for a providential signal to move anent the MSS.; and now I have got it fair and clear by your last, and am on the road pointed out to me, disposed to march on or halt, as I can take up my orders.

I am much satisfied that I can gather from yours, that your affair is in a hopeful situation; and I hope, that by the hand into which it is committed, it will be carried on. Only believe that God will do the best: and being conscious to yourself of your desire not to manage, but to be managed by the Great Leader, pray hold off, and refuse to admit fears of being left to your own management, for however rational, well-grounded, and but just in a sort, these may appear to you from your sins, assure yourself they are the fruit of unbelief, and measuring God’s ways by our own; and if you yield to them, you are in a fair way to bring on you that which you feared. To believe over the belly of felt foolishness, that God will be as good as His word, is most acceptable to Him, and most for our interest, though the difficulty thereof, in practice, is great; whereby it appears the more to be of God, and a trial and proof of faith. I speak the more confidently of this, that sometimes I have seen in such circumstances I could not have known where to have fixed my feet, had not the doctrine of free grace pointed out to me a sure ground; and I would pity them from my heart that would look on this as a dangerous course, and tending to make one careless and untender. ... I have your further account of the affair of transporting Gronovius to Edinburgh, which is a favour to me. I with it may succeed, whether he be of my mind with respect to the points or not. Were the Hebrew language itself brought amongst us intu greater reputation, people would perhaps hear the points before they would condemn them. If he has vented anything to the prejudice of their divine authority, it is likely it will be improven to lessen the credit of my essay industriously. It is an ill-natured world. ... I forgot to tell you in the due place, that I do not forget, but have a hearty concern in the matter of your obtaining a partner in trade; that you might be delivered from that overwhelming engagement in business you have so long been immersed in; and yet, after all, it must be owned, that one is well employed in the work the Sovereign Manager shapes out for him, be the kind and measure of it what it will, and therefore dare not but advise to protest, that it be not taken off, till He who laid it on take it off, with His own hand. Happy are they who are impressed with a terror of choosing for themselves, and hold it for a principle, that He shall choose out the lot of our inheritance for us. We are here as ordinary; and remembering your son, I am, in straitest bonds, very dear 8ir, yours, &c.

Very dear Sir, December 30, 1731.

Yours of 16th I received; which refreshed my bowels, and opened my mouth to return thanks unto God, who had condescended to make my last of use to you, and kept ytni in a way with respect to your affair, which cannot miss of a happy issue, go as it will. I think I never saw more than about this time, how absolutely nothing the creature is in point of action and usefulness to us in itself, and how God is all; the former nothing, but just as He touches it for motion, and resting moveless like a stone when He moves it not; and therefore would fein learn to overlook all, and look to Him as my party in all things, finding this view of matters mightily staying and quieting to the heart, and a promoter of faith and hope. Wherefore let us aim at this, rolling ourselves securely and confidently over on Him, whether we see or see not whither He is like to carry us — “For he careth for us.” Let us exercise patience to wait the end of the Lord; and as sure as the Bible is the Word of God, we will see there was nothing in the conduct of Providence, about us and our mattere, that should have been out, and nothing out that should have been in. O! He doth all things well; no hazard of singing this triumph before the victory... I find myself obliged to essay what you moved to me, whatever the Lord minds to do with me in it; and whether I am to see the end of it or not, I desire to be found so doing. I know there is solid comfort in that, “Thou didst well that it was in thine heart.” You will know somewhat of the disposition of my heart by the premises, with respect to the situation of iny affair at London. I think I may, if the Lord will, need so requiring, write Sir Richard Ellys, and in February, or before, if I find my letter to Mr. G. successless. Take kindly your concern about my son. We continue here much as ordinary. My love to your son. I am, in the straitest bonds, very dear Sir, yours, &c.

My very dear Sir, March, 9 1782.

It was on Friday, the yd instant, that yours of the 1st came to my hand. That of the 18th and 24th of February coming on the Sabbath thereafter, being the 5th, I had withal, on the Tuesday before, got an uncertain word of the ill situation of your affairs, which, by reason of what you had shown me before, did seem very probable. But while I was altogether uncertain of the state of your affairs in my concern for you before the Lord, you still appeared to me smiling: so that getting the letter of the 1st instant, it did so answer the continuing idea of you, that I declare, though the situation of your affairs was very affecting, I behoved to lay that letter before the Lord, and solemnly give Him thanks for it; and afterwards receiving that of the 18th February, wherein you was under the damp, I could not but observe that kind and wise Providence that kept it up till I had got the former of that date, and reckon it up among the many happy well-ordered disappointments I have met with. It is ordinary with the Lord’s people falling into trouble, as it is with a person wading a deep and cold water: who is, upon his first entering it, struck to the heart; but the first gliff, as we call it, is the worst. In this point the world’s frowns and smiles do readily agree: appearing at some distance, or in the first encounter, they show ordinarily greater than afterward they are found really to be. Hence our fears of the one, as well as hopes from the other, are readily carried beyond the just bounds, and Satan presently falls a-fishing in the drunily waters, stirs them assiduously, to make them more drumly and awful like. Many a time have I thought a great point gained when one gets a view of His naked cross and trial; for it is hard to get a sight of it without a ponderous cover on it, partly of our own, and partly of Satan’s making; and therefore I am convinced there is great need of making use of Christ as a prophet under our troubles, that by His light shining into our souls, we may see what that cross or trouble is precisely which He has laid before us to take uj) and bear, that we may set ourselves to bear that and no more. And I am very sure that at this rate crosses and trials lose a great deal of their weight. What but the art of hell used in a disturbed mind, would bring in the wounding of the interests of religion, by the pass y(jur affairs were brought to, the opening of the mouths of the wicked shaming the faces of the godly, &c.? Everybody knew you to be a sober man, a man of unordinary application to your business. The occasion of the confusion of your affairs, arising from others at a distance from you, would not be hid. And nobody is so ignorant of the state of human affairs, but they know the wealthiest, fairest, and most diligent traders may be broken to pieces by providential incidents, or the treachery of false men with whom they may have dealings. However, glad am I it has pleased the Lord to confound that temptation, and to satisfy you perfectly on that head. But, my dear Sir, take heed, and be on your guard against other devices of that kind: lest, if you suffer your feet to be entangled therewith, it may not be so easy to be extricated therefrom; and therefore I cannot cease to put you in remembrance, that as you employ Jesus Christ in His priestly office for the removal of guilt, and address Him as your King for strength to bear your trial, so you are still to be eyeing Him in His prophetical office for light to give you just views of it. I see our Lord, the great prophet, has come to you already in your darkness. I perceive the Interpreter, one among a thousand, was with you in a particular manner on Monday, February 20. He was in these two hours exercising His prophetical office in you. He was letting you

see your trial in its just colours, not putting colours on it: for He is the Amen, the fliithful and true witness; and therefore, though it do not always appear in these colours to you, this is the native hue of it, and the fault is in your ovt’s when it appears otherwise. He was taking you by the arms, and teaching you to go; and that you will employ Him for His light as well as His strength in time to come: that if He comes not to you, you will go to Him; and if a promise be not laid to your hand, you will go out and fetch in one, and welcome. The blessed Bible is a richly laden tree of that kind of fruit. Sometimes His peo])le has no more ado, but to take of the fruit falling into their lap; but that is only a piece of indulgence that they sometimes meet with. The ordinary way is to look up to the tree and reach out the hand of faith, perhaps with no little difficulty, and pluck the fi’uit; and O but a sharp trial makes the promise sweet 1 Witness your experience of the two last verses of Psalm cxxxiii. Sir, you are in a plunge; but, I make no question. He that sits at the Father’s right hand, having all judgment committed to Him, will bring you out of it; and the day will come when you will say from leisurely observation. He hath done all things well. Yea, Sir, look for seeing God’s wonders in the deeps, and He will not disappoint you. However, if you were through this trial, you will not be at the end of trials, lesser or greater, till you be in the better country; only this is a deep step — a deep water — but “the Lord Jesus is the lifter up of mine head,” you must say with David (Psalm iii.) That psalm has appeared of late to me to bear an instance of as strong a faith as readily appears in the whole book of Psalms, considering its firmness and the circumstances there described: only it must be owned, the terror of God on his soul, with which nothing is to be laid in the balance, was indeed wanting in it. But O how piercing was that, that the common saying on that melancholy occasion was, “There is no help in God for him” (say the Jews), who stole the ewe and killed the shepherd (Bathsheba and Uriah)! the very thing God was pursuing him for. I was so affected with your friend’s manner of entertaining your trial, that I was obliged to give God thanks for it; and since that time my heart blesses that person as acting like a Christian; and doubt not but if that mind continue, as I hope it will, it will have a plentiful reward of free grace, but will own myself quite mistaken if ever the change on that head prove a gainful one at balancing accounts. The news of Mr. Archibald Stewart’s death and burial was stunning. It is an awful dispensation of a wrathful aspect to this generation. Oh I what does it speak, that such a promising instrument is laid aside at this time a-day. But the Lord’s ways are not ours, nor His thoughts as our thoughts. We must be silent to Him. That the state of your own affairs did not keep you from proceeding in mine, is a rare token of a rare kind of friendship. It will not be unacceptable to me to hear of the matter’s being determined, with the joint advice of Mr. W. and yourself, without hearing further from me. My infirmity increases apace. The leg, still painful, is now almost useless; so that I know not if I get down stairs again, without being carried, till I be provided with two stilts. My wife, I hear, is somewhat feverish to-day. The presence of him who dwelt in the bush while it burned, be with you! I am, in the straitest bonds, my very dear Sir, years affectionately, &c.

My very dear Sir, March 23, 1732.

The use of the providential distress in your affairs, and its influence relative to your other business, I doubt not, you will see in due time to be an event, both in the kind of it, and the timing of it, becoming the Divine wisdom and goodness, and that God acts like himself Esau and his posterity who had their lot by common Providence, were soon and easily settled in the land of Edom; but Jacob and his, wh(^se lot was to be brought about in the way of accomplishing of a promise of the covenant, met with many rubs in their way, and some of them such as seemed to render it quite hopeless. Your present circumstances puts you in much need of direction from the Lord, as you remark. But dear Sir, is it not a great privilege to be allowed to come to the great Counsellor in all our straits? and you may go to Him with your greater and your smaller matters; for all is comprehended in the word, Proverbs iii. 6; both the precept and promise takes in all. You are neither to look for impression, nor anything else of that kind, whatever indulgence the Lord makes to some of His people in some circumstances; but lay you the matter before the Lord, and yourself open to the Divine determination, and believe the promise of direction, with application to your own case, firmly trusting that He will be as good as His word, Proverbs iii. 6, Psalms xxv. 9. and xxxii. 8, to you; and then, depending on the promise of heaven’s directions, set yourself as a Christian man to perceive what in the circumstances appears reasonable to be done: to the clearing whereof, observation of concurring dispensations of Providence notably contributes, that being in many cases the finger of God pointing out our way. In this way of management there is a real communion with God to be had in providences as in ordinances (Psalm cvii., idt.)

You have here my whole day’s work. I am at my ne plus ultra, my distress being considerable, whereof there is some account in the enclosed. The eternal God be your refuge; and underneath the everlasting arms, may He be eyes, and all to you in the wilderness! Kindly remembering your son, I am, in the straitest bonds, very dear Sir, youre most affectionately, &c.

P. S. — I have got Mr. Du, Pont’s letter. I am sorry

Professor Mauritius had not vouchsafed a few lines to me for the many sheets I sent him. The Lord has for my trial restrained him, and I take it kindly off that hand; but I keep foot in the main under the several pieces of that treatment: Quam si dura silex aut stet cautes.

Letter fro’ni Rev. James Hogg of Carnock.

November 24, 1727. Reverend and very dear Sir, Yours of the 22nd September came to my hand October 28, and I have taken this very first occasion to make you a return, that I may shew the cordial sympathy I have with you in your afflicted lot, and may not put you to a tiresome waiting for anything that can come from me to you, from whom I would rather hear than speak to in such matters. I could not but think, that the very writing of your letter to me, behoved, through the Divine blessing accompanying it, to be of use to you in your affliction for your comfort. Sure I am it was an apt mean; though the most fit means can of themselves effect nothing, but only as they are blown upon by the Spirit, and so rendered effectual to their ends. The account you gave of the situation of matters with you with respect to the way, as it has a comfortable distinctness in it, without anything of the confusion you speak of discernible to me; so it cames such an agreeableness to the way-marks set up by the Spirit, the Leader in the way, to be seen standing for the direction of travellers in the scripture of truth, that you have ground from the word to take the comfort of your being in the way in spite of hell; and consequently of your coming assuredly to the end of the journey in a happy sort, since the great Leader drops none by the way, but perfects what He has begun, and never leaves nor forsakes the work of His own hands, nor those in whom it is wrought. I think I need not insist to add to what you have advanced from the Scripture on that head. What pincheth you, seems to be the blowing of the wind in your face, particularly the rising of storms and tempests upon you, so that sometimes you lose sight, are blown aside, yea, blown down and foundered. But, dear Sir, if you were beyond these, you would not be a traveller, but one got home from your travels; you would not be in, or by the way, but come to the end of it. It is the glory of the man who is the Father’s fellow to be “an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest” (Isaiah xxxii. 2), to be a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, when the blast of the terrible ones is storm against the wall. When should th;it glory of his be, if these tempests and storms did not rise, if the terrible ones did not get leave to blow sometimes furiously, like a storm against the wall? If then our Lord Jesus, whise strength is made perfect in weakness, sees meet to take away your ease for a time, to make of it a stepping-stone to his own glory, where you hear the Lord hath need of it, you will straightway send it. I verily think, that when a ])oor believer is engaged in a combat with the powers of darkness, our Lord Jesus has an occasion of signalizing His victory over the bruised serpent next to that which He had on the cross. It is true, that staggering even on, that place is to be lamented as a sinful weakness; but, I think, all the travellers and combatants will be found to have been staggerers through stress, though that gives them not their denomination from their believing. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, yet we hear very much of his impatience too. Peter remained with an unfailing faith when he was sifted, yet he wa.s shamefully foundered. Even Abraham, though in that instance, Rom. iv. he staggered not; yet in another case he did, Gen. xii. 11, and downwards; and in that same instance Sarah, who was a type of the church, as Abraham was of Christ, staggered; and fell foully, but recovered. Gen. xviii. In this last faith had but one single word, “My lord,” and unbelief had all the rest of the speech; and yet the Spirit of God makes honourable mention of that one word in the New Testament, 1 Peter iii (); drawing a veil over the rest. I own

that temptations within, and troubles fron without, trysting together, make a very heavy case; yet it is scriptural too, that without be lightings, and within be feai’s. You have been particularly honoured of God to contend for the faith; and it is no wonder Satan’s malice prompt him to dispute it with you immediately; and the wisdom of the God of truth appears in permitting it to be so, to teach dependence on himself in managing the contending otherwise. The strong chaiupion of truth, Luther found himself hardly bestead in the several conflicts with his own breast. I desire to maintain a conlial sympathy with you in all your trials; being yours very attectionately.

xi letter from an eminent Dissenting Minister in Essex to the Author’s grandson.

[As this letter contains a minute ami circumMantial narrative of Mr. Bostons appearance before the General

Assembly in Prof. Shnson’s process (p. 4-01), and records some circumstances omitted in the Memoirs, it justly deserves a place here.’]

My very dear Sir, March 6, 1776.

Since the receipt of your last, I have been thinking of what I hinted to you relating to the appearance your worthy grandfather made at the Assembly, 1729, when Professor Simson’s affair was concluded. I could have wished, indeed, that the account I wrote of it to Mr. Davidson had been preserved, for I wrote it immediately after it happened, when it was fresh in my memory, and had made great impression on me, for it was the most solemn and affecting scene I ever was witness to before any judicatory. It is not to be supposed that now, at the distance of nearly forty-seven years, I can remember every particular; but to the best of my remembrance, when the act was read and the Moderator asked if the Assembly acquiesced in it, there was profound silence all over the house for the space of a minute or so, and then your grandfather rose and spoke to this effect: — “Moderator, I find myself laid under a necessity of declaring my dissent from this decision of the assembly, as I think the censure inflicted by it on Professor Simson is not adequate to the offence he has given, as to the points of doctrine that have been proved he taught the students under his care, and have been found relevant to infer censure. I cannot help thinking, sir, that the cause of Jesus Christ, as to the great and essential points of His supreme Deity, has been at the bar of this assembly requiring justice; and, as I am shortly to answer at His bar for all I do or say, I dare not give my assent to the decision of this act; on the contrary, I find myself obliged on this occasion to offer a protest against it, and therefore, in my own name and in the name of all that shall adhere to me, and if none here will (and when he pronounced these words, he looked round the house with an air of majesty and importance that I shall never forget), for myself alone I crave leave to enter my protest against the decision of this act.”

The Moderator, who was himself a very solemn, grave man, seemed to be much moved, and addressed him thus: — “Brother, I hope, in this matter, where you see such an appearance of unanimity, you will not do anything that may have a tendency to rent and divide this Church and tear out the bowels of your mother? “Answer —” Rather, sir, than what I am now offering should have that effect,

I would wish that I and iny protest should be buried under a mountain. There are many in this assembly whom I never saw in the face before, nor know, but such of them as I know and differ from me in this matter, I not only hav<; the utmost charity for them notwithstanding, but I could willingly sit at their feet and learn Christ. However, I cannot see there should be any danger of a breach in this Church on this occasion to permit one member who is grieved and gravelled by this decision to enter his protest against it.” Reply — “Second thoughts, sir, are always best. May not Mr. Boston, before he insists on this, lay the matter before the throne of grace, and consult praying ministers and Christians, and attend to their counsel and advice before you come to a positive determination as to this your protest?” Had the Moderator thought ever so long on something that would weigh with Mr. Boston in such a case, he could not have fallen on anything that would sooner have done it than this, for he immediately, in a submissive manner, said hi’ would take it under further consideration, providing the matter was left open to him to enter his protest at any subsequent meeting of the assembly, and so the matter ended at the sederunt. I was present that same evening where there were several ministers and elders, membei’s of the assembly, who met with Mr. Boston, who all advised his not insisting of his protest at that time, providing it was left open for him to do it at any future occasion, if this decision of the assembly was attended with such consequences as he was afraid of And when the minutes of the assembly were read next sederunt, this was declared and acquiesced in, and so the matter ended.

This I can well remember was reckoned at that time one of the strongest bars in the way of Mr. Simson’s ever being restored to the privilege of teaching and preaching any more, and even his warmest friends never attempted it, because he was hereby secured in his salary, which the sentence of deposition would have deprived him of Thus what was then called mercy to the man, mixed perhaps with a little worldly policy, put an end to the most important point, in respect of doctrine and discipline, that ever came before any judicatory of the Church of Scotland, or I hope ever will come again.

I am, my very dear sir, your affectionate frienil and brother in the work and bonds of the Gospel, &:c.