66. - To Miss Perronet. 67. - To the Right Hon. Lady Mary Fitzgerald.

66. - TO MISS PERRONET.

MADELEY, Sept. 4, 1781.

MY DEAR FRIEND, - You want “some thoughts on the love of God,” and I want the warmest feelings of it. Let us believe his creating, feel his preserving, admire his redeeming, and triumph in his sanctifying love. Loving is the best way to grow in love. Look we, then, at the love of our heavenly Father, shining in the face of our elder Brother, and we shall be changed into love, his image and nature, from one glorious and glorifying degree of love to another. Love always delights in the object loved. “Delight thou in the Lord, then, and thou shalt have thy heart’s desire;” for we can desire nothing more than the supreme good and infinite bliss: both are in God. When, therefore, we love God truly, we delight in what he is, we share in his infinite happiness; and by Divine sympathy, his throne of glory becomes ours; for true love rejoices in all the joy of the object it cleaves to. Add to this, that when we love God, we have always our heart’s desire; for we love his will, his desires become ours, and ours are always perfectly resigned to his. Now as God does whatever he pleases both in heaven and earth, his lovers have always their heart’s desire, forasmuch as they always have his will, which is theirs. Submitting our private will to his is only preferring a greater good to a less, as our Lord did in the garden; and we are called to do it in afflictions. Farewell, my dear friend, and excuse these reflections, which you could make much better than your humble servant,

J. FLETCHER.

67. - TO THE RIGHT HON. LADY MARY FITZGERALD.

MADELEY, Sept. 29, 1781.

MY DEAR AND HONOURED FRIEND, - You have been in the fire of affliction, where faith is tried, where patient hope is exercised, and where perfect love, which casts out fear, and endureth all things, is proved worthy of Him who made bare his breast, and said to his Father, “Lo! I come to do thy will, O God!” I come to be obedient unto death, even the painful, shameful death of the cross!

Continue to offer your body as a living, or if it please God, as a lingering, dying sacrifice to him, who has decreed, that if we will reign with Christ, we must suffer with him. This is our reasonable service; for it should be absurd, that our Lord should have been perfected by sufferings, thorns, and the cross, and that we should have nothing but enjoyment, roses, and a crown. How faithful, how merciful is our God! He brings you once more from the verge of eternity: well, my dear friend, I welcome you back into life, and into the enjoyment of farther opportunities of receiving and doing good, - of growing in grace, and perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. Chastened, spared like you, and more and more convinced that I am helplessness itself, and that there is help laid on our Surety and Saviour for us, I invite you to say with me, “When I am weak,” Christ my life is strong still: “for me to live shall be Christ, and to die gain.” Dear madam, to know the bare cross is uncomfortable; but to know, and gather the fruit of that tree, is life from the dead, it is more abundant life after fainting. Let us then know, that is, consider, and embrace Jesus Christ crucified to make an end of sin; shedding tears, and his most precious blood, to cleanse us from all sin; to trace again the Divine image, goodness, love, and happiness on our souls, and seal our firm title to glory.

“Not a text,” say you, “came to me, only I knew none perished at his feet;” then you remembered Christ, the sum and substance of all the Scriptures; then you believed on him, in whom all the sweetest texts, and all the promises are “Yea, and Amen.” O believe more steadily, more confidently! Dare even to obey the apostolic precept, “Reckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive to God by Jesus Christ our Lord.” Embrace, with more earnestness, the righteousness of faith, and you will have more peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Rejoice in Christ your peace: yea, rejoice in God your Saviour; and if there is a needs be, for your being in heaviness for a season, rejoice in tribulation; “sorrowful, but always rejoicing.” “When I am destitute of all comfort, this shall yield me comfort,” saith Kempis, “that thy will is done.” If Abraham believed in hope against hope, that is, against human, natural hope; can you not, through grace, as a daughter of Abraham, rejoice in heavenly hope against all natural feelings, and even against all temptations? “Count it all joy,” says St. James, “when you fall into divers temptations and trials.” Don’t be afraid of the storm; Christ is in the ship, and he does not sleep, as unbelief is apt to fancy. I thank you, my dear lady, for your friendly wish of leaving your clay here. I return it, by wishing you may leave all the body of sin, now, in that mysterious grotto of Mount Calvary, where myriads of sinners have buried