CXLI.

Jan. 9, 1808.

DEAR FRIEND,

I AM heartily glad that your dame and sister are well; and also at the close and endless union, which has taken place between the zealous Boanerges and the converts of T. who are one in heart, and ought to be one in communion. There are but two bonds subsisting; the one is charity, the other the bond of iniquity. Peace leads to the first, and the gall of bitterness to the second. God has purged the floor, and you no longer stagger at the fan; your own eyes see the chaff and the wheat, and you know who has made the separation. Enmity is the bar in this world; and the great gulf of God's decree will be the bar in the next; and there is no passing over either this or that. I know where they are, because I was once upon that ground; but they never saw the foundation on which we stand.

I long for the spring to come on, fearing my friends' zeal at Leicester will abate ere I can come to rekindle the sparks. They have reprobated the eternal ordinance of God, the preaching of the everlasting gospel, which must and shall continue, and end, in the midnight cry, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh." And in Leicester, where this ordinance, by speaking and writing, has been reproached, there it shall be had in honour of all them that love the Lord Jesus. Nor shall all their malice deprive me of my sacerdotal office - I am the Doctor still; and the holy oil, the anointing oil, the golden oil, the oil of joy, and oil of gladness, which I endeavour to mix with all my medicines, will be esteemed, relished, preferred, and admired, by all spiritual patients, when the spurious drugs and quack medicines of T. will be confined to wolves, bears, and dogs. So I believe, and so I conclude.

Love to all the friends.

W.H. S.S.

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