All this while my
heart had the coldness of a stone upon it, and the straitness that is to
be expected from the lone exercise of reason. But now all on the sudden I
felt an inexpressible force to fall on my mind, an afflatus, which cannot
be described in words; _none knows it but he that has it_.... It was
told me, that the Lord Jesus Christ loved my father, and loved me, and
that he took delight in us, as in two of his faithful servants, and that
he had not permitted us to be deceived in our particular faith, but that
my father should be carried into England, and there glorify the Lord Jesus
Christ before his passing into glory....
"Having left a flood of tears from me, by these rages from the invisible
world, on my study floor, I rose and went into my chair. There I took up
my Bible, and the first place that I opened was at Acts xxvii. 23-25,
'There stood by me an angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying,
Fear not, thou must be brought before Caesar.' ... A new flood of tears
gushed from my flowing eyes, and I broke out into these expressions.
'What! shall my father yet appear before Caesar! Has an angel from heaven
told me so! And must I believe what has been told me! Well then, it shall
be so! It shall be so!'"
"And now what shall I say! When the affair of my father's agency after
this came to a turning point in the court, it strangely miscarried! All
came to nothing! Some of the Tories had so wrought upon the governor,
that, though he had first moved this matter, and had given us both
directions and promises about it, yet he now (not without base
unhandsomeness) deferred it.
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