Christian letters full of spiritual instructions tending to the promoting of the power of…

Most Loving and best Beloved,

MY heart is with you, my affections are espoused to you. And methinks I could even say with the Apostle, (you are in my heart, to live and die with you:) and who can but love where they have received so much love (and continually do) as I have from you! the Lord requi•e your love which is great (and if compared with his, but little) with his which is infinite; this is a love worthy of your ambition, worthy of your adoration and admiration. This is the Womb that bore you from eternity, and out of which have burst forth all the Mercies, Spiritual and Temporal, that you enjoy. This was the love that chose you, when less Offenders, and those that being converted, might have been a hundred sold more serviceable to their Makers Glory, are l•ft to perish in their sins: May your souls be filled with the sense of this love. But it may be you will say, how shall I know if I am an object of Electing love? least an unbelieving thought should damp your joy; know in snort, that if you have chosen God, he hath certainly chosen you. Have you taken him for your blessedness? and do you more highly prize, and more diligently seek after conformity to him, a•d the fruition of him than any, than all the goods of this World? If so, then away with doubts, for you could not have loved, and have chosen him, unless he had loved you first. Now may my Beloved dwell continually in the thoughts, the views, the tastes of the love. Get you: down under its shadows, and taste its pleasant fruits. Oh the Provisions that love hath made for you, before the Foundation of the World! Ah silly dust, that ever thou shouldest be thought upon so long before thou wast: that the contrivances of the infinite Wisdom, should be taken up about thee! that such a Crawling thing, such a ⟨p. 36⟩Mite, a Flea, should have the consultations of the Eternal Deity exercised about thee! verily his love to thee is wonderful. Lord what is man! thou tellest us he is Dust and Vanity, a Worm, nothing less than nothing; how then dost thou love him! oh wonderful! be astonished yea Heavens at this: be moved ye strong foundation of the Earth. Fall down yea Elders, strike up ye Heavenly Quires, and sing yet again, Glory to God in the highest: for all our strings would crack to reach the Notes of love, praise, and admiration that this love doth call for. Oh that ever emptiness and vanity, should be thus prized!