_To the Reverend Mr. A――――, in Dublin._
_Glasgow, July 12, 1742._ _Reverend and dear Sir_,
ON _Saturday_ I received your very kind letter, and being just now returned from _Cambuslang_, I snatch a few moments to acknowledge it. I have long since waited for a call to _Ireland_. In such an important step, I care not to proceed without great caution. When I find the cloud of divine providence moving your way, I trust the language of my heart will be, LORD, I come to do or suffer thy will! In the mean while, I will watch unto prayer. I doubt not but you, reverend and dear Sir, will help me herein. I thank you most heartily, for being jealous over me. I believe it is with a godly jealousy. I wish I was more jealous over myself. But blessed be GOD, this I can say in the midst of the honours wherewith the glorious _Emmanuel_ hath honoured me, “Not unto me, O LORD, not unto me, but unto thy name be all the glory.” Dear Sir, I think I am the worst of the sons of men. Yet I dare not deny what the blessed JESUS hath done for my sinful soul. He is pleased (O infinitely condescending GOD!) to honour me still more and more. _Saturday_ last I came to _Cambuslang_, and I think I never saw such things before. The work seems to be spreading. O that it may reach and overspread poor _Ireland_ also! All things are possible with GOD. Now the LORD is watering so many other places, I pray he may not leave that intirely destitute and dry.――O for faith to expect great, and very great things from GOD! He does not love to disappoint people of their hope. Dear Sir, my heart is now enlarged with a sense of the freeness and fulness of the Redeemer’s loving-kindness. You, dear Sir, are an old weather beaten soldier. You are ripened for glory, and are ready to sing your _Nunc dimittis_¹.――I am just about to begin to be a soldier. But, blessed be GOD, I shall follow soon. The hopes of bringing more souls to JESUS CHRIST, is the only consideration that can reconcile me to life. For this cause I can willingly stay long from my wish’d-for home, my wished-for JESUS. But whither am I going? I forget myself when writing of JESUS . His love fills my soul, O free grace! Surely I shall sing the loudest in heaven; but I must have done; nature calls for rest. Depending on the continuance of your prayers, and with my hearty salutation to all that love the blessed JESUS, I subscribe myself, reverend and dear Sir,
Your most affectionate, though younger and most unworthy brother and servant in the gospel of GOD’s dear Son,