own bosom! I beg the continuance of your interest at the throne of grace for the most unworthy; and as enabled, shall remember you most heartily. I commit you to the all-sufficient grace of your own dear Lord Jesus; to be carried honourably and joyfully through all your appoint→ ed service, until you have finished your course; and then to be blest with a rich, immortal crown of life and righteousness; unto his eternal glory, and your everlasting felicity! And with great affection, esteem, and gratitude for all favours, permit me to be, reverend sir, your most obedient humble servant, Anne Dutton. P. S. Pardon me, dear sir, that I could not get time to write sooner. I embraced the very first leisure. It gives me pleasure to hear that the Countess of Huntingdon appears on the side of Christ, and is eminent for God. May her life be continued, and her usefulness great! From the Rev. Mr. Hayward to Mr. Darracott. Bristol, April 22, 1757. Reverend and dear sir, I received your kind and affectionate letter, and rejoice to find that God is so remarkably blessing your labours. How comfortable! How animating! to see sinners melted, prodigals returning, blasphemers fearing. Oh happy sight! Blessed be God, your eyes see it, and your soul cannot but exult in the Lord. I need not say how pleasant it is to study and preach when God thus sets to his seal. You are favoured beyond many, my dear friend. God is owning you, whilst many are crying out, Lord, who hath believed our report? May the Lord continue your zeal, continue your life, and continue your success, and make you a burning and a shining light. Your letter found me at Bristol, where I have been now these five weeks, and yet but little alteration. I hope, upon the whole, I am better. I have had a strong hectic, and a bad cough. I'shall have been laid aside from my work three quarters of a year: a long time to be silent! a long affliction, but little improvement. Gladly would I again labour in my Lord's vineyard, and be an instrument of good to souls. The ministry never appeared to me in so amiable a light. Oh, my brother, how highly God is honouring you, to continue your capacity for service, and make you useful. I am ready to say, oh that it was thus with me! What God will do with me, he only knows. I desire to be waiting for his will. All that he has laid upon me I have deserved, and infinitely more. It is rich mercy that I am out of hell. I doubt not your remembrance of me at a throne of grace. Pray recommend me to your people as . a proper object of their prayers. I am a liv ing evidence of the power and excellency of prayer. And God can as easily perfect the mercy as he began it. However, I would desire to say, Father, thy will be done. Lady Huntingdon was extremely kind. I find her to be a humble, sweet Christian, and ready to support the cause of Christ in any place. I hope you and your family enjoy health. The Lord confirm and continue it. I cannot enlarge. I am ordered not to write, but I must a little. I shall be glad to hear from you. My kind respects to yours, Mrs. Darracott, Kitty, and all your family. I am, dear sir, your most affectionate friend and brother, Samuel Hayward. From Lady Huntingdon to Mr. Darracott. The affairs of my family called me home, but I am again brought back in safety, and much happiness of heart; and that to a sweet little family who live but to devote every hour more and more to the love and knowledge of the Lord Jesus. We had agreed upon this retreat, and taken a larger house among us for this purpose, and we all wish your prayers. To become the Lord's in body, soul, and spirit, is the one cry and desire of our hearts; and we know he will I not reject us, nor cast us out; and though we can do nothing, yet we can receive of his fulness grace for grace; and in this world suffer reproach and persecution for his name's sake, which is sweet and honourable to us; when, though we can do nothing, we glory in this, that, to his praise, he hath redeemed, and will make us priests unto God. We should rejoice to see you among us; and I hope nothing will prevent it if convenient to you. All gospel ministers, it is our highest honour and happiness to serve, and no denomination do we ever reject. If their bowels are straitened, ours are not. All glory to his free spirit that is never bound. Such a general stir I have never known. From the Rev. Dr. Haweis to Mr. Darracott. January, 28, 1755, Reverend and very dear sir, Since it hath pleased the great God, and him who hath the keys of death, and in whose hands the issues of it are, to restore you again to our important supplications, we shall, with delight, consent to your request in aiding your praises, and gratefully join with you in thanksgiving to the God that heareth prayer. Next to my joy for your returning health, I must add that of the sweet experience of God's favour and acceptance which, in your distress, he was pleased to manifest to you. I trust the bonds it leaves on you, sir, will appear, and that, like the great apostle Peter, many years after, you will have a delightful remembrance of this manifestation of the Lord to you such things comfort the living in expectation of them, and almost make us say, "it is good for us to be here too." Your reviving, cheering, and spurring exhortation, accompanied with your prayers, shall not, I trust, through the assistance of the Spirit of God, fail to have its intended use: it is what, amidst all the blessed means I enjoy, and kindness of the Lord I experience, I abundantly need. For, sir, I have a sad heart, loath to leave the present glitter, to dig for hidden gold; and frequently leaning, with perverse attachment, to earth and its transitory trifles, which, with all the vanity I discover in them, too often would impose on my affections, and, like objects seen through a wrong medium, appear what they are not. You describe a glorious hope, and my heart cannot but bound on the expectation. Yes, sir, I trust these eyes shall see the salvation of the Lord, with all the imperfection and unprofitableness I find in myself. I dare not, would not for a thousand worlds, cast away the hope of my confidence, nor, having so often tasted that the Lord is gracious, ungratefully distrust his kind |