LETTER XIII. TO MISS MORTON FROM MR. HUNTINGTON.
Dear Daughter,
Yours came safely to hand. The more you write or converse, the purer the stream runs, I find. They that drink at the “well of salvation” as the scriptures have said “out of their belly shall flow rivers of living water.” Your language begins now to be pure and refreshing. The thick puddle of Arminian and Popish dregs has been well stirred up in your late tribulation; and now the “well spring of life” begins to rise the filth will be worked out” and we shall have it clearer and clearer. The spirit of love has burnt up the filthy dregs and spiders’ webs, and the “King’s daughter is all glorious within.” Her prison garments are put off, and her ornaments are put on. You have now done “lying among the pots,” and are blessed with “the wings of a dove,” and your plumage “is of yellow gold.” . . .
We have many professors in our day who are more like vermin than merchant-men. They live altogether on the comfort of others, instead of trading to heaven for themselves; be not thou therefore like unto them: find the way to God for yourself, and trade therein. God is not far from every one of us, if haply we might feel after him. Feel him out therefore, and then shalt thou have rejoicing in thyself, and trust not altogether to the candle of another. Paul says, “I know whom I have believed” and Job says “I shall see him for myself and not for another.” If you would live up to the privileges of God’s children, then be as much as possible in private, in reading, meditating, praying, confessing, praising and contemplating, which leads the mind daily to anticipate the real joys of heaven; this strikes out and erases from the mind that clog of earthly and carnal anxiety with which the devil shackles the half-hearted professor, and the imprisoned worldling. Such, with all their property are the worst of slaves for they are both servants and subjects to that which God hath sent to serve them and to serve others. Never aim at an independency, or at any stock in hand, to take your eye from the mysterious hand of Providence. I have been as sharply tried in soul and circumstances as any mortal living, and yet there is not a man in the world whose prosperity I envy, or with whom I would wish to change my state. Such as we are obliged to try the faithfulness of God every day, and he takes a pleasure in displaying his faithfulness and truth, and in “showing himself strong in the behalf of them who put their trust in him.” I have frequently been in the company of professors who have entertained my ears with their prosperity in the world, and the abundance of their riches; but I could clearly see what they could not. that is, the damning sin of covetousness, and the curse of God with it, which sunk their souls as much beneath my joys, as my wants were beneath their abundance. It is common for the poor believer to “envy the prosperity of the wicked” (Psa. lxxiii. 3) and for the tempted and buffeted saint to “call the proud happy” (Mal. iii. 15), but God curseth the former (Mal. ii. 2) and resisteth the latter (James iv. 6).
According to your desire I have written to you a long letter, which you must not expect in future. . . .
Thou art now “delivered from the snare of the fowler and the hand of the hunter” (Prov. vi. 5). Thou must now leave my skirt, seeing thou has got hold of the “skirt of him that is a Jew.” I have many more to nurse, thou must therefore get from under my feathers, and take shelter in God to whom I commit thee, and “to the word of His grace which is able to build you up.” You are now in the cleft of the rock, and “he that dwelleth in that secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” It is now a time of love with thee, the Lord has spread His skirt over thee, and taken thee into covenant with himself, continue thou in the barn’s floor till he winnow the grain, and burn the chaff. Plead thine affinity, and expect from him the kinsman’s part, and depend upon it that he will do worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem. Dear Daughter, adieu! While I remain thine affectionate friend and father in Christ Jesus.
WILLIAM HUNTINGTON.