"I write not thus to dishearten you, but as a friend I warn you, lest you fall again into unbelief. Look not within for comfort, for consolation, for confidence. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, his blood the atonement, and you are complete in him, his grace is sufficient for you, his strength shall be perfected in your weakness, and you shall go on. Grieve for sin you will, grieve you ought; but keep ever in your remembrance 1 John, 2:1, and 5:11.
"Yours, etc."
To the same.
"JANUARY 14, 1800.
"My dear friend says, 'O that I could have the society of some aged pious clergyman or Christian, who had gone through his warfare.' O that you could, in the Lord's hand. I hope it might do you good: yet, after all, the Lord himself must loose your bonds; aye, and he will, and also appoint the means.
"There are two kinds of rest awaiting you, the one in this life, the other will not be attained till the mortal shall put on immortality. When was it that Paul, the great apostle, could say he had fought the good fight? Not till he could also say he had finished his course, and was ready to be offered up; till then, he like others
had to continue the warfare between grace and corruption; like others, found a law in his members warring against the law of his mind, so that the thing that he would, he did not, and that which he would not, that he did. Notwithstanding this, there is a blessed rest attainable here, rest from the fear of wrath and hell — a rest in Christ as our atonement, our surety, our complete righteousness, our title to eternal life, and all the grace necessary to fit us for it. This is the work of faith, or rather, this is faith itself. The soul established in this can rest in all possible circumstances; it depends not on its frames: in darkness, when it is tossed, tempted, wandering, conscious of unhallowed tempers, perhaps of the actual commission of sin, though at such times the warfare between grace and corruption is so strong as to make the Christian exclaim, 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of sin and death?' he can still say, 'The Lord lives, blessed be my Rock;' see the 42d and 43d Psalms. The Christian can still say, my Lord and my God; he is sure the conflict will end, and that his God will bring good out of it; he enjoys hope; he feels his state as safe as in the most enlarged frame of mind, when he can pray, praise, love, rejoice. This is a riddle which only Christians can understand, and even they require many lessons to comprehend it, many more to practise.
"Have you Newton's letters? See his second letter in Cardiphonia. O try to fix your anchor of hope on that sure foundation which God has laid in Zion, Christ himself. Trust him to save you from every evil without you and within you. When your own weakness sinks you, try to be strong in his strength;
when guilt disturbs, wash in the open Fountain. But hold fast the beginning of your confidence unto the end.
"Be comforted, fight on, aim at trusting, and you shall, in the Lord's time, also, cease from your own works, and rest, with more advanced Christians, on the faithfulness of your own God in Christ. See Hebrews 4:9, also chap. 12 throughout. I finish with chap. 13:20, 21, my earnest prayer and sure hope for you, my precious friend.