r. From my dear friends in England I
heard little; from Ireland not a word. Things were in this state, when
suddenly there came in three Tartars bringing us three packets, so
full of Christian love, sympathy, and such good tidings, that it
almost overcame our hearts, weak from long abstinence from similar
entertainment, and even on this day, the third from their arrival,
they fill my heart till it runs over. To hear and see that those one
most loves, are indeed joying and rejoicing in their holy, most holy
relation to God in Christ,--the relationship of sons and daughters, to
see them anxious to walk blameless in all the ordinances their Lord
has left them, while they glory in being free from the law of
condemnation, and desire to know no freedom from the law of loving
obedience: moreover, to see them becoming more and more sensible to
the great truth that inestimable as knowledge is, it is what devils
may share, but that the love of Jesus, and a tenderness of conscience
as to his will, is infinitely higher than that, and that therefore his
high command to the members of his church to love one another as he
loves them, can never be slighted by them:--oh, to see this it does
indeed rejoice my heart, and I pray among us all that it may abound
more and more, particularly among us who have been so graciously and
so kindly led into all the holy freedom of the Gospel. Let us see we
use it not as a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of Christ,
loving and serving one another, not returning evil for evil, or
reviling for reviling, but contrariwise blessing. The path God's
children have to take when they are determined in the name of the Lord
not to give the name of God's truth to any thing merely human, knowing
that it is a vain thing to teach for doctrines the commandments of
men, is so naturally offensive, that our zeal for the truth should
lead us to pray for such especial graces of the Spirit as may prevent
any unloveliness in our walk, preventing the Lord's dear children from
coming, and seeing, and drinking of that well-spring in Christ by
which we have been so refreshed and invigorated. Whilst we profess,
my very dear friends, absolute freedom from man's control in the
things relating to God, we only acknowledge in a tenfold degree the
absoluteness of our subjection to the whole mind and will of Christ in
all things. As he is our _life_ hid with him in God, so let him be our
_way_ and our _truth_, both in doctrine