My dear Friend, Mr. E. Walter, I am sorry to say that it will not be in my power to accept the kind invitation which you have sent me to come down to preach at Wadhurst, or Tunbridge Wells during my anticipated visit to London. I would much like once more to see your aged father, with whom in times past I have taken sweet converse in the precious things of God,… Read More

My dear Friend, Mr. Tanner, On looking over your letter this morning to refresh my memory, I was reminded of one of Bunyan’s master traits, where, in describing the clothing of the women in the house Beautiful, he says, “They could not see that glory each one had in herself which they could see in each other. Now therefore they began to esteem each other better than themselves,” etc. So I could… Read More

My dear Friend, W. T. Keal, M.D. These continual attacks warn me that I cannot go on labouring as I have done. I cannot sacrifice my health and life, as I certainly shall do if I continue my ministry at Oakham and Stamford. I have a wife and family to think of, and I may add, the Church of God generally, besides the two causes where I have laboured so many years…. Read More

My dear Friend, Mr. Lightfoot, I feel that I must write to you on a subject which, I am sure, will much try, not only your mind, but the mind also of many of my dear friends and hearers; and nothing but necessity would compel me to do so. I have for some time been convinced that the state of my health, and the repeated attacks of severe illness which I have… Read More

To The kind Friends who have contributed to the Testimonial presented to me by the Church and Congregation meeting at Providence Chapel, Oakham. My dear Friends, I accept with much thankfulness and sincere gratitude the liberal, I may indeed say noble, testimonial which you have given me of your esteem and affection. It is much beyond both my wishes and expectations; but I have long known your liberal minds, and that to… Read More

My dear Friend, Joseph Tanner, I came here last Friday, after a sad parting with many attached friends and hearers, among whom I have laboured for so many years. The Lord mercifully gave me strength to preach at both places twice on the Lord’s day, and at Oakham on the Tuesday evening before I left them. I have given them the best part of my life, and spent upon them my health… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake, I was beginning to feel very desirous, I may say anxious, to learn how matters were proceeding with you at Oakham, when your kind and affectionate letter came to hand to relieve my anxiety. I read it with very great interest, and I hope some feeling, not only on account of the expression of your affection towards, and continued interest in, my unworthy self, but as giving… Read More

Dear Friend, Mr. Whitteridge, There is much in your letter which I like, and it seems commended to my conscience as written by an honest man. You speak of yourself as one who has not had much education; and yet your letter evidences that you must have taken much pains with yourself, and after all even where, as in my case, a good foundation has been laid by early and long instruction,… Read More

My dear Friend, John Grace, It is indeed now a long time since I wrote to you, but it is our mercy that union and communion, if ever we have felt it with any of the Lord’s people, does not depend upon the post office, or indeed any other communication, but that which is maintained with our mutual Head. In Him all the members of His mystical body have both their being… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake. I believe that affliction, especially when long continued, has a sobering effect upon the mind, for we learn in it our deep need of vital realities; and these, as they are felt and apprehended, put to flight all the enthusiastic notions and mere visionary views and delusions that we might have. I am very fond of a sound mind in the things of God, for this is… Read More

My dear Friend, John Grace, I cannot find among my books the last volume of Mr. Huntington’s Posthumous Letters, but I have four volumes published by Bensley in 1822. Taken as a whole, one may say that they contain the very cream of vital godliness. Not being controversial, there is the absence of that sharpness which marks some of his other writings; and being struck off, as one may say, at a… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake, As the Lord, we hope, has brought Mr. Knill among you, you will now have, as a church and people, to watch and wait for what He may speak to your hearts by His servant. You and all our dear friends who know something experimentally of the kingdom of God, which is not in word but in power, will be looking out and feeling for the power… Read More

Dear Friend, Mr. Walter, I was very glad to get a few lines from you, and to hear the account which you have given of your poor dear old father. I was always sure that sooner or later the Lord would break in upon his soul, for I do not know that I ever knew a man more deeply or more continually exercised about eternal things than he, or who had more… Read More

Dear Friend in the Lord, Mr. Blake, I was much pleased with your experimental letter, and would be glad at some future opportunity to put it into The Gospel Standard, if not in the body, which being limited is much taken up, on the wrapper. It is indeed many years since you passed through the things which you have mentioned, and yet living experience is always fresh; there is something ever new… Read More

My dear Friend, Mr. J. Davis, I received safely your kind letter, with the enclosed cheque for £5, which I will endeavor, as the Lord may enable, to give away from time to time among the poor saints of God. I have what I call my charity purse, which is supplied from time to time by kind friends, and this, with what I am enabled to add to it from my own,… Read More

My dear Friend, Joseph Parry, I was very sorry to hear of our esteemed friend Mr. Tuckwell’s illness, but hope it may not be really serious. Oh, when I look round upon my friends, especially those who like myself are advancing in life, I see how affliction is falling upon them one after another. How true the words, that “whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.”… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake, I think I have in this and my last letter answered most of your inquiries. I thank you for the excellent advice of Miss — which you have kindly sent me. It is a most needful word of caution, and I hope I may have grace to beware of the snare which she so truthfully lays before me. I hope the Lord will give me grace so… Read More

Dear Friend in the Lord, Mr. James Churcher, You have given me an interesting account of your late visit to our esteemed friends Mr. and Mrs. Church. It is good for those who love the Lord to meet together and speak of His precious name, as, no doubt, you have found at Gower Street; and the Lord speaks of hearkening and hearing the spiritual conversation of those who fear the Lord and… Read More

My dear Friend, Joseph Tanner, I am truly glad that you did not repent of your journey to Croydon. It is good for those who fear God, and have some measure of spiritual union, to meet together for a little converse upon those things which belong to their everlasting peace. It is pleasing to the Lord (Mal. 3:16), and strengthening to the faith and love of those who thus meet (Rom. 1:11,… Read More

Dear Friend, Mr. Hammond, If my advice can be of any service to the church at — I shall feel very happy to give it; but I wish you and the friends to bear in mind that I can only give you counsel upon general grounds, as I am quite ignorant who the person is about whom you make the inquiry. Now, to be candid with you, I must say that I… Read More

My dear Friend, Thomas Godwin, I have been desirous for some time to answer your truly kind, affectionate, and experimental letter, which I read with much sweetness and pleasure. When I read how the Lord had favoured your soul, and the sweet and blessed feelings which you had under it, the words came to my mind—”Love all defects supplies.” When your letter came, I had just been reading 1 Sam. 20, and… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake, You may perhaps have already received the sad tidings communicated in the accompanying letter. I call them sad, not for Mr. Grace’s sake, poor dear man, who is sad no more and never will again know what sadness is; but sad to his family, to his church and congregation, to his personal friends, among whom we indeed were, and to the church of God at large. At… Read More

My dear Ann, I fear you will begin to think that I have quite forgotten my promise to write to you; but you know how much my time is engaged, and even were it not so, that to will is often present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. What a mercy it is for us that, if indeed we belong to the Lord, nothing can… Read More

Dear Friend I am very much obliged to you for the gift of beautiful fruit you have sent me, which arrived safely this afternoon. I accepted it, not only for the value of the present, but also for your kind and affectionate consideration of your old friend and pastor, now separated by distance, but with his church and people often still present in spirit. I desire to make daily supplication on behalf… Read More

Dear Friend, I am sorry to be obliged once more to decline the invitation of my Zoar friends. Indeed I have no alternative—for so far as I dare make engagements, the Lord’s day for which you have asked me, I had already fixed to spend with my Oakham friends. It will be therefore quite out of my power to accept your kind invitation. And I much also fear, even were you to… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake. I have no doubt that a few lines from me, just to let you all know how I am and how I am going on, will be acceptable to you and to our dear friends at Wharflands. I came back much wearied by my labours at Oakham and Stamford, and was not at all well on the Saturday evening. Still I went to chapel on Lord’s day,… Read More

My dear Friend, Mr. Tanner. I am glad there is some hope of seeing you at Calne. May we meet in the spirit, as well as in the flesh, and find and feel the presence and blessing of the Lord resting upon us in public and in private, in our communion with the Lord, with His people, and with one another. I trust I feel thankful in being so far better as… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake. I am sorry to have to mention a sad event, which took place on Saturday. I was sitting quietly in my room before dinner, when Mr. George Covell, the brother of the minister, came up to ask me to preach as yesterday. His brother, I am grieved to say, had broken a blood-vessel that morning after breakfast, and had brought up a considerable quantity of blood. Dr…. Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake. You will be glad to hear that my dear friend Mr. Covell is wonderfully restored, and seems almost as well as before. I wish you could have heard his opening address the first time he preached after his illness. He gave a testimony which might well make many of us blush or hang our heads down for shame. He said that for many months previously he had… Read More

My dear friend, We seem to have to learn every attribute of God by repeated teachings; like children ever forgetting yesterday’s lesson, and compelling, so to speak, the kind and patient teacher to teach it all again. Indeed, none but the Lord could or would bear with such miserable pupils, such out-of-the-way blockheads, such thorough dullards, and obstinate incurable dunces. Surely of all men and women we have reason to speak well… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake. I am just now in the thick of my sermon for Mr. Ford, which takes both time and care to bring out in a clear and acceptable way. I am making, I am sorry to say, very slow progress with the memoir of our late dear friend William Tiptaft; but I can only do a certain amount of work, and get so weak and jaded if I… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake. I need not tell you that, in making engagements to preach, I feel more and more my dependence upon the Lord to enable me to fulfill them. The friends therefore of course will bear this in mind, and I hope it may stir up prayer and supplication on their and my behalf, that the Lord would grant our mutual desire to meet once more in His gracious… Read More

Dear Friend in the Truth, Mr. Hoadley. We have to thank you for a very fine hare, which you have been so kind as to send us through your son. These little marks show that you still bear me in affectionate remembrance. It is, indeed, one of my mercies that I have many friends among the dear family of God who love me for the truth’s sake; and may I never say… Read More

My dear Friend, You ask me a question, and inquire for a recipe which I can by no means give, and which, if I could, would neither satisfy nor be of any service to you. I believe that we, of ourselves, can neither obtain nor maintain the presence of God, that His visitations are as sovereign as His grace, but are directed by infinite wisdom. There is an expression in the Ephesians… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake. It will be no disappointment to me if I am not the person to open the new chapel. Indeed, I was not aware until lately that any such thought or plan was entertained by the friends. Whoever opens it and whenever opened, may the presence of the Lord fill the house, and thus a gracious token be afforded of His approbation. I am sorry to learn that… Read More

My dear friend, Joseph Parry. It seems to be your lot never to be free from your affliction for any long time. This is painful for the present, and not very encouraging for the future. But what can we say to these things? If we believe that all things are arranged by infinite wisdom and eternal love, and can believe our own interest in these wise and gracious arrangements, it will reconcile… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake. We have lived to prove the uncertainty of all earthly things; and the various trials and exercises of body and mind through which we have passed have well convinced us that all here below is stained by sin, spoiled by infirmity, and ever subject to change. But what a mercy it is that the foundation of God stands sure, that those whom He loves, He loves to… Read More

My dear Friend, Thomas Godwin. It will not be in my power to come round by Godmanchester on my return homeward, as I hope (D.V.) to go to Nottingham next Wednesday, and preach there on the next evening and the following Lord’s day. I was unable last year to fulfill my engagement, and therefore when Mrs. Henry Abel wrote to ask me, I felt bound in some measure to go there, if… Read More

Dear Friend in the Truth, Mr. James Davis. I received safely your kind letter and the cheque for £5 which it contained, and ought to have acknowledged its receipt by the last mail; but the day slipped away almost before I remembered I should have acknowledged it. Forgive me this wrong. My mind was much occupied by preaching and writing, and various engagements. As you kindly gave me the option I have… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake. I feel it to be a mercy to have been brought through all my travellings and labors, and to have reached my own home in peace and safety. To be preserved in our going in and out, and to find the Lord a shade on our right hand is indeed a mercy, and especially to one who feels his need of preservation from many things which do… Read More

My dear Mr. Whitteridge. I am obliged to you for your kind invitation to preach in your chapel when I am in town; but you will perceive from personal observation that my physical strength is but small, and, indeed, I find that my labors at Gower Street are quite as much as I can accomplish. I could not, therefore, undertake to accept your invitation, as I find that to preach more than… Read More

My dear Friend, Joseph Parry. I was sorry to learn from your last kind letter that the Lord had again laid upon you His afflicting hand; but it was your mercy to find profit from the furnace, and that the painful trial was sanctified to your spiritual good. We are such poor, stupid, cold, lifeless wretches when things are smooth and easy with us, that we seem to need trial and affliction… Read More

Dear Friend in the Lord, Alfred Hammond. I am glad to see how the Lord keeps alive His sacred work upon your heart, though I doubt not that, like most others of those who fear God, you have your changes. Indeed I believe, for my part, that the soul, when once made alive unto God, can no more be healthy than through air, food, and exercise, in the same way as the… Read More

My dear Friend, Mr. Clowes. You cannot expect to have now that health and strength which you had in younger days, and it will be your wisdom and mercy to bow down before the will of God, and submit with patient resignation to the strokes of His afflicting rod. He has often in times past blessed, relieved, and comforted your soul, and though through the power of unbelief you may at times… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake. You know how interested I am in all that concerns the spiritual welfare of the Church at Oakham. I am truly glad therefore to find that, as the Lord takes away with one hand, He gives with the other. You must expect to see every year increasing gaps made in your midst. For many years our ranks were but little thinned; but as you know, my later… Read More

Dear Friend in the Lord — What are all our thoughts of or toward each other, or our remembrance, compared with the thoughts of peace which the Lord has to the suffering members of His mystical body, and the book of remembrance which is ever open before His gracious and all-seeing eye? We are powerless to help ourselves, and we are powerless to help one another, at least in spiritual things. Even… Read More

My dear Friend, Mrs. Peake — The sad tidings contained in your letter came upon me quite with a sudden shock, as I had no idea that there was any serious danger connected with poor Richard’s illness. Being accustomed to see him enjoying so much health, I could scarcely bring my mind to think of him as seriously ill. But oh, what lessons we have to learn of the brevity and uncertainty… Read More