y, passing only a night or so at Nailsworth.
When I came here today, and heard about the state of the saints here
and in the neighbourhood, I could not but think that the Lord had
sent me to this place to labour for a season.

March 21. I ministered twice today among the brethren at Nailsworth,
with much assistance from the Lord, and feel already much better from
the change of air.

March 22. Truly God has sent me here! Certain matters which have been
brought to light through my being here, prove it. May the Lord make
it still more abundantly plain that He has sent me here!--There is a
small house, which a brother left a few weeks since, but has to pay
rent for at least three months longer. He will let me have it rent
free, and he and brother--mean to put into it the needful
furniture.--Thus the Lord has provided a lodging, not only for me, but
also for all my family, who can now join me here.

A sister in the Lord in Ireland, who did not see her acceptance
before God, and who was habitually without the assurance that she is
a child of God, that she is born again, that her sins are forgiven,
and that she shall be saved, in her distress of mind wrote to me
about this time. As her case is by no means a solitary one, but as
there are so many children of God who do not know that they are
children of God; as there are so many whose sins are forgiven who do
not know that they are forgiven; and as there are so many who will be
saved, who do not know that they will be saved, and who are
continually afraid of what would become of them, were they to be
taken out of the world:--I have thought it well to say something here
on this most important subject.

I. Question. How may I obtain the knowledge that I am a child of God,
or that I am born again, or that my sins are forgiven, or that I
shall not perish but have everlasting life?

Answer. Not by my feelings, not by a dream, not by my experience
being like this or that one's, or unlike this or that one's; but this
matter is to be settled, as all other spiritual matters, entirely by
the revealed will of God, the written word of God, which is the only
rule, the only standard for believers.

II. Question. By what passages, then, for instance, may I make out
that I am a child of God, or born again?

Answer. 1. In 1 John v. 1, it is written: "Whosoever believeth that
Jesus is the Christ is born of God." The meaning of these words is
evidently this, that every one (whether young