PASTORAL LETTERS.

Lymington, July 16, 1829.

To the Church in John-street, chosen of God the Father, redeemed and justified by Christ Jesus the Lord, and sanctified by the Eternal Spirit.

DEARLY BELOVED in our dear and most blessed Immanuel, God in our nature, our Lord and our God,-Although absent from you in the body, yet am I with you in my spirit, holding you in great love and real affection, not only for the love and affection's sake which you have so long and so tenderly shown me, but especially and above all because you love the Lord, or rather are beloved by Him. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and you especially, the deacons of that Church so near to my heart, but much more to His heart who is our Head, whom, as deacons, I love and honour for your office' sake and for your work's sake, let us praise and bless and adore the God of Heaven together, for His rich mercy, His great love, His most free, unpurchased, and unpurchasable grace, towards our souls, in that we have a good hope, through grace, we that were helpless and hopeless, and that are to the present moment so utterly, so entirely unworthy of the least favour of our God. Let us thank our God-Father, Son, and Spirit for that long line of mercy by which He has distinguished His most tender dealings to us as a Church, and as individuals. Let our souls and all that is within us praise

His holy name, and forget not His vast and most unmerited benefits, who has so often and so wonderfully forgiven all our sins, healed our diseases, redeemed our lives from destruction, and crowned us with loving-kindness and tender mercies. May our lips-above all, may our lives show forth His praise.

My dear friends, my prayer to God for you is for your sanctification, that you may walk in the truth, that you may adorn the truth, that you may be subject to the truth, that you may be conformed to His image, who is the truth, and no lie, even as by the Spirit of truth,-that as the children of God, justified and redeemed, you may so experience the holy influence of the Spirit of adoption as may constrain you to a more unreserved surrender of yourselves,-body, soul, and spirit,— unto the Lord. Oh, what a loser have I been, dearly beloved, and still am, from not unreservedly and fully seeking the Lord as my only good-from not living a life of simple dependence on Christ, and of child-like receiving out of His fulness, and from not grieving for, and avoiding of, those things which grieve the Holy Spirit! Now that I am at a distance from you, I seem to sce a little more distinctly than in the hurry of continual engagement I could so well do, how great is the difference between being much occupied with the things which God has commanded, and which are, therefore, and must be, right, and being much occupied with God in those things. Oh, that in all things,-things private, things public; things the most minute, the most important; the things of the Church, the things of the world; in short, in everything, and at all times,we may be enabled to remember, "Thou God seest me" (Gen. xvi. 13), and to live under the holy conviction, Thou God lovest me (Jer. xxxi. 3); in nothing may we forget the sinfulness of sin, that we may hate it, and the necessity of holiness, that we may love it. My dear brethren and sisters in Christ, I am more and more convinced that the ways of wisdom are ways of pleasantness, and that all her paths are peace, but that if we hope to experience them to be so, there must be a sincere and an upright walking in them. I have filled my paper, but have really written but very little.

With much love I commend

Phil. iv. 6-9, Col. iii. 12-15, and these two verses especially, Col. iii. 17, 1 Cor. x. 31, to your most prayerful regard. Forgive all the faults you have to bear with in me, which are

many.

My aged brethren and sisters, the sick, the poor, the tempted, and the tried, are not forgotten by me. Let them pray for me. My unfeigned, ardent, and kind love to all. May God bless you, prays your

Affectionate but unworthy minister,

J. H. EVANS.

Lymington, July 29, 1829.

MY DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS in a crucified, risen, ascended Lord, and most dear Saviour, Jesus Christ,-It was my very joy and delight to hear of you by our brother Lawrence, because you are near my heart—and, although I dare not say with the apostle, "Now I live, if ye stand fast in the Lord," not having attained unto that measure of most endearing and tender love, yet can I say, I know of no greater joy than to hear that you prosper, and "have a good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you." (1 Thess. iii. 6.)

For this,
To Him

Beloved, it has pleased our good and gracious Lord to bless our coming here, according to His own most faithful promise, and my own firm persuasion, long before I left London. You will remember how often I expressed to you my settled conviction upon this point, and that I was not suffered to doubt but that the Lord would prosper our going out and our coming in—and even so has it come to pass up to this day. thanks are most justly due to a Triune Jehovah. mercies belong, to us shame and confusion of face. My dearly beloved friends, pray for us, as we for you. Pray that, as a Church, we may enjoy a copious effusion of the Holy Ghost, in all His revealing, sanctifying, sealing, comforting, rejoicing influences upon our souls. Thanks be to God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for what has been granted us. Little, indeed,

E E

have any of us been sensible what a great miracle of grace is that soul that has the least grace-how great a wonder it is to be out of hell, to be justified, pardoned, accepted, adopted, to have the least measure of real sanctification-to have a covenant right to all the fulness that is in Christ Jesus-to have the means of grace, and the hope of glory-but still less, my beloved friends, have we been sensible how much enjoyment of the Divine presence there may be upon earth, how nearly we may yet live to God, what precious thoughts may yet be vouchsafed us of the dear Redeemer-how much we may yet be privileged to live out of His inexhaustible fulness, and in order to this how much faith may be strengthened. Oh that we were like the horse-leech (Prov. xxx. 15)—like wrestling Jacob-like our blessed Master himself.

My dear brethren and sisters, shall I say to you what appears to my soul at this time, the great stupendous truth of the Gospel-the Aaron's rod that seems to swallow up all the rest? -I say, at this time, for the Holy Ghost, whose office it is to take of the things of Christ, and glorify Christ in the souls of His people, sometimes reveals one truth, and sometimes another. It is, then, the Incarnate God. There seems such a glory in this truth; it so glorifies the atonement, magnifies the law and justice of God, it so vilifies sin, so displays grace, it so breaks the heart of the sinner, and reveals the heart of God, when the Holy Ghost shines upon it, that it seems like the sun of the Gospel. May we learn by His blessed teaching this great mystery of godliness, then shall we walk softly, tenderly, holily, with much loathing of that idol self, and many wishes, desires, prayers, and earnest endeavours to glorify God in all things. My love to all-the poor as well as the rich, the rich as well as the poor, especially the tried, the afflicted, the tempted. I rejoice to hear the chapel is well attended, and the supplies are acceptable.

Your's, most tenderly and affectionately in the bonds

of the Gospel,

J. H. EVANS.