Shenir and Hermon, so now from the lions' dens, from the mountains
of the leopards (Song iv. 8), do look yet after you all, greatly
longing to see your safe arrival into THE desired Haven.

I thank God upon every remembrance of you; and rejoice, even while
I stick between the teeth of the lion in the wilderness, that the
grace and mercy, and knowledge of Christ our Saviour, which God
hath bestowed upon you, with abundance of faith and love; your
hungerings and thirstings after farther acquaintance with the
Father, in the Son; your tenderness of heart, your trembling at
sin, your sober and holy deportment also, before both God and men,
is a great refreshment to me; For ye are our glory and joy. 1
Thess. ii. 20.

I have sent you here enclosed, a drop of that honey that I have
taken out of the carcase of a lion. Judg. xiv. 5-8. I have eaten
thereof myself, and am much refreshed thereby. (Temptations, when
we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon Samson; but
if we overcome them, the next time we see them, we shall find a
nest of honey within them.) The Philistines understand me not. It
is something of a relation of the work of God upon my soul, even
from the very first, till now, wherein you may perceive my castings
down, and risings up: for He woundeth, and His hands make whole.
It is written in the Scripture, Isa. xxxviii. 19, The father to the
children shall make known Thy truth. Yea, it was for this reason I
lay so long at Sinai, Lev. iv. 10, 11, to see the fire, and the
cloud, and the darkness, that I might fear the Lord all the days of
my life upon earth, and tell of His wondrous works to my children.
Psalm lxxviii. 3-5.