LXIII.

April, 1805.

Dearly beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ,

HAVING a few minutes to spare, I am coming once more with a scrap to my friend, wishing much to know how you do. The last time I saw you, you seemed much altered in countenance, and not a little shaken in frame. This is not alarming, if the inward furniture be but in good repair. "The outward man perishes," says Paul, "but the inward man is renewed day by day." The enlightened understanding is the eye of the new man, which is renewed in knowledge; and, if the path shines more and more, this member of the new man increases. The appetite of the new man is a principle of divine life in the soul, craving the bread of life. When this cries out, "When shall I come and appear before God?" and "as the hart pants for the brook, so my heart and flesh cry out for the living God," it is well. The feet of the new man are the actings of faith, by which we walk, and not by sight. When these are not clogged with doubts and fears, nor left to stagger with fits of unbelief, we make straight paths for our feet: faith purifies the heart, so that nothing lame is turned out of the way, but healed by the word, in answer to faith's prayer. The compassionate bowels of the new man are charity; this makes the soul tender of God's honour, and causes compassion, mixed with grief, when the old man struggles, and rebellion rises up, and is the true spring of all godly sorrow, and real repentance. The mind of the new man is peace: "I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me." The labour,. toil, and hourly exercise of the new man, are bearing the cross with patience, and looking out in hope and expectation of the great reward of inheritance. These, my dear friend, are some of the members, features, and traits of the new man, who is much talked of, but little known. If these things be in us and abound, we shall not be barren nor fruitless in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

God bless thee: so prays

Thine in him

S.S.

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