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The Malady And The Remedy
Dear Friend,—I have no doubt you think it long before I reply to yours; but the fact is, I have felt quite fast in my mind, and have not known what answer to give, for I am not very fit to travel yet. If I possibly can, I should like to comply with your request. If you ask me how I am, I can assure you that I am heartily sick of myself and almost of everybody else. There is so much self-importance, and self-seeking, and flesh and blood working under a covert of truth, and I feel so much of the stinking oozings up of it in my own cursed old man, that, as I said before, I am heartily sick; and yet, strange…
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The Pastor To His Flock
The following is a copy of the first letter in my possession by my father to the Church: To the Church of God, meeting for the Worship of our glorious Trinity in the Chapel, George's Road, Manchester. Beloved of the adorable Jehovah, and of me, his poor Servant and your Servant, for His sake,—Through the matchless kindness of the Lord, I arrived safely here on Saturday afternoon, and preached on Lord's day to the largest congregation I ever preached to before in my life; and I believe the Lord was there. One of the deacons tells me they let 2,300 sittings; and the chapel was quite crowded, aisles and everywhere, so you may guess what the numbers present were. God willing, I have to preach…
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The Two Deeps
My dear Friend,—I am, more or less, living in the engagement of wading into two great deeps, but cannot fathom either of them, and I often think I am a greater bungling fool in the work than ever; I mean the awful deep of sin and the glorious deep of God's matchless grace. O the horrible springing up and belching forth of sin that my poor soul is obliged to wade in, at times! I once thought that if I should live to be old, I should get rid of some of the branches of the boilings up of sin; but I now live to prove that the decay of nature does not mend the corruption of the heart and that the internal filth of…
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A Last Epistle
The following is the last letter in my possession, written by my father three months before his death. He had been at Leicester on the 18th. The letter was addressed to Mr. Isaac Harrison, Leicester. Dear Friend,—I just drop this line to say that through the kind providence of God, I reached home safely, and thought myself much better for my journey; but we have had some very trying weather here since I came home, and I am now much worse than I was when at Leicester. This morning the weather is very fine, and I have been out, but can scarcely walk for want of breath. O that I were blessed with a little more of the divine breathings of God the Holy Ghost,…
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Salvation From The Curse
My dear Friend S.,—I am still in a land called Sodom and Egypt, where our dear Lord was crucified, I mean this accursed earth,, where everything is withering under the curse, and sometimes everything good in me seems to he withering and dying away too, and I cannot keep alive my own soul. I know that everything in this world is under a curse, and that we must have been cursed for ever, had not the Lord Jesus come in our nature, stooped under the curse, and been made sin and a curse for us; and certainly he did by his death remove sin and the curse out of the way for ever, or it never would have been removed. If the cause be removed,…
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To Mr. Tiptaft
My dear Brother in the Lord,—Yours came to hand last evening, with the kind present from your friend. Give thanks to him, both for myself and the poor. I do assure him it will be a timely help for the poor. We had just been giving a little flannel and a few blankets to some of our poor, and though we have given to 50, there are others that still stand in great need. I think there are about 90 upon our regular poor-list; so you will see we cannot do a great deal for each; and I was just contriving how I could give them a little beef at Christmas; for there are many of them that cannot get a morsel for months together.…
