preface - children, grace be with you, amen. i being taken from you in presence and so tied up that i cannot perform that duty that from God doth lie upon me to you-ward, for your further edifying and building up in faith and holiness, etc; yet that you may see my soul hath fatherly care and desire after your spiritual and everlasting welfare, i now once again, as before from the top of shenir and hermon, so now from the lions' dens, and from the mountains of the leopards, do look yet after you all, greatly longing to see your safe arrival into THE desired haven.
i thank God upon every remembrance of you, and rejoice, even while i stick between the teeth of the lions in the wilderness, at the grace and mercy and knowledge of Christ our savior, which
God hath bestowed upon you, with abundance of faith and love. your hungerings and thirstings also after further acquaintance with the Father, in His Son' your tenderness of heart, your trembling at sin, your sober and holy deportment also before both God and men, is great refreshment to me; for you are my glory and joy.
i have sent you here enclosed a drop of that honey, that i have taken out of the carcase of a lion. i have eaten thereof myself also and am much refreshed thereby. temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them, we shall find a nest of honey within them. the philistines understand me not. it is something of a relation of the work of God upon my own soul, even from the very first, till now; wherein you may perceive my castings down, and risings up; for He woundeth, and His hands make whole. it is written in the scripture, the father to the children shall make known the truth of God. yea, it was for this reason i lay so long at sinai, to see the fire and the cloud and the darkness, that i might fear the Lord all the days of my life upon earth and tell of His wondrous works to my children.
it is profitable for christians to be often calling to mind the very beginnings of grace with their souls. it is a night to be much observed unto the Lord for bringing them out from the land of egypt..i was kept from considering that sin would damn me, what religion soever i followed, unless i was found in Christ...and i remember, that presently this kind of despair did so possess my soul, that i was persuaded i could never attain to other comfort than what i shoulc gd
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