His words are these: 

“I was so happy as to receive yours just as I arrived, and had no sooner read it but I shut my door, and sought Him whom my soul loveth.  I sought him, and found him; and would not let him go till he had blessed us all.  It is impossible to find words to express what I obtained; but I suppose it was something like that which the disciples got, as they were going to Emmaus, when they said, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us,’ &c.; or rather like what Paul felt, when he could not tell whether he was in the body, or out of it.”

He then mentions his dread of spiritual pride, from whence he earnestly prays that God may deliver and preserve him.

“This,” says he, “would have hindered me from communicating these things, if I had not such an example before me as the man after God’s own heart, saying, ‘I will declare what God hath done for my soul;’ and elsewhere, ‘The humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.’  Now I am well satisfied that your ladyship is of that number.”

He then adds: 

“I had no sooner finished this exercise,” that is of prayer above mentioned, “but I sat down to admire the goodness of my God, that he would vouchsafe to influence by his free Spirit so undeserving a wretch as I, and to make me thus to mount up with eagles’ wings.  And here I was lost again, and got into an ocean, where I could find neither bound nor bottom; but was obliged to cry out with the apostle, ’O the breadth, the length, the depth, the height of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge!’ But if I gave way to this strain I shall never have done.  That the God of hope may fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost, shall always be the prayer of him who is, with the greatest sincerity and respect, your Ladyship’s,” &c.

Another passage to the same purpose I find in a memorandum, which he seems to have written for his own use, dated Monday, March 11, which I perceive, from many concurrent circumstances, must have been in the year 1722-3.

“This day,” says he, “having been to visit Mrs. G. at Hampstead, I came home about two, and read a sermon on these words, Psalm cxxx. 4, ’But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared;’ about the latter end of which, there is a description of the miserable condition of those that are slighters of pardoning grace.  From a sense of the great obligations I lie under to the Almighty God, who hath made me to differ from such, from what I was, and from the rest of my companions, I knelt down to praise his holy name; and I know not in my lifetime I ever lay lower in the dust, never having had a fuller view of my own unworthiness.  I never pleaded more strongly the merits and intercession of Him who I know is worthy—­never vowed more sincerely to be the Lord’s, and to accept of Christ, as he is offered in the gospel, as my King, Priest, and Prophet—­never had so strong a desire to depart, that I might sin no more; but ‘my grace is sufficient,’ curbed that desire.  I never pleaded with greater fervency for the Comforter, which our blessed Lord hath promised shall abide with us for ever.  For all which, I desire to ascribe glory &c. to Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb.”