EIGHTEEN LETTERS

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THE REV. MR. S******

LETTER I.

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My dear Friend,

November 27, 1767.

CONGRATULATE you and Mrs. **** on your settlement at B, in your new house, where I hope the Lord will dwell with and bless you both, and make you blessings to many.

Visits, &c. of ceremony are burdensome; yet something is due to civility; and, though we cannot have equal comfort in all our acquaintance, it is best to be on peaceful and neighbourly terms. You need not have much of it, but so far as it cannot be prudently avoided, bear it as your cross. I would not wish to have you attempt to force spiritual things too much upon those who do not like them; or to expect them from those who have not experienced them. But, like a physician among sick people, watch opportunities of doing them good if possible.

You know not what the Lord has to do; some whom you now can hardly bear, may prove your comforts hereafter; and if in the mean time they are disposed to

be friendly, and show you good offices, they have a right to a return in the same way.

I approve and rejoice in your faithfulness, but in some things, perhaps, you would do as well to keep your mind more to yourself; I mean in your free and unreserved speaking of ministers, &c. Our Lord's direction to his disciples, in something of a similar case, was, Let them alone. So far as it is needful to withstand them, do so in the Lord's strength; but in mixed conversation, it is a good rule, to say nothing without a just call, to the disadvantage of others. I must agree with Mr. B**** that such expressions as, drowsy Dissenters, are as well avoided in public prayer, being more likely to give offence than to do good. And I thought some few things you said at Mr. W****'s might as well have been spared, considering the spirit of some of your hearers. I endeavour to bear a testimony against every thing wrong, but as in professors, without distinguishing between church and meeting; for, alas! the best of us have cause for humiliation. My judgment of many persons and things agrees with yours; but I have seen there is good sense in the old proverb, "Least said,

soonest mended." We are sometimes mistaken in our own spirits, and though it becomes us to be plain and open upon proper occasions, it is not our duty to be very busy in disturbing a nest of hornets. I was once in a large company where very severe things were spoken of Mr. W****, when one person seasonably observed, that though the Lord was pleased to effect conversion and edification by a variety of means, he had never known any body convinced of error by what was said of him behind his back. This was about thirteen years ago, and it has been on my mind as an useful hint ever since.

Believe me to be affectionctely yours.

My dear Friend,

LETTER II.

July 15, 1768.

I WAS glad to hear that you and Mrs. S**** were

But

again safely restored to each other, and that the Lord had freed you from your complaint. No doubt it was far from pleasing to be so straitened at R. to be made, in a measure, submissive to the Lord's will, to appear to a disadvantage at those times and places when, perhaps, we should particularly desire to do our best; I say, to be content to appear weak and poor, from a real sense of our weakness and poverty in his sight, to see his wisdom and love in appointing us such humbling dispensations, and to submit to them, is a nobler attainment than to be able to speak with the tongue of an angel. The Lord who opened the mouth of Balaam's ass, could, if he had pleased, have enabled it to have preached a sermon an hour long, and with as much method and accuracy as the most learned in academies or universities. Speaking is but a gift, and if he is pleased sometimes to open our mouths freely, we know not but a wicked man might equal or exceed us. But grace is the peculiar is the peculiar blessing which he bestows upon his dear children, and upon them only. Your streams may sometimes run low, but only when he sees it good and necessary; at other times you shall be as if you were taking water from Ezekiel's river. However, rejoice in this, that the fountain is yours, and nothing can cut you off from it.

I am affectionately yours.

My dear Friend,

LETTER III.

September 30, 1778.

THIS has been a sort of busy week; but seldom have

I felt more unfit to teach others, or more unfit to preach to my own heart. O these outside services are wearisome things, when the Lord leaves us to feel our own hardness and emptiness! But I would learn to glory

in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. As to myself, though cause enough to be hum. bled, I have none to be cast down, if my righteousness is in heaven. And as to my ministry, I ought to desire it may appear, that the excellency of the power is of God, and that there is nothing in me but weakness.

Dust and ashes is my name,

My all is sin and misery.

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So we say, so we believe, and yet we would fain forth as if we were wise and good. The Lord help us to discover self in all its various windings, to resist it by the sword of the Spirit, as we would the devil, for surely it is his great engine. It would be a fine thing to have the knowledge of Paul and the eloquence of Apollos united in our dear persons; so that we might be the tip-top characters in the foolish dispute among professors, Who is the best preacher? But I can tell you of a finer thing, and more within our reach, because it is what the Lord invites even the meanest of the flock to seek for; I mean, the, character to which the pro VOL. VI.

mise is made, Isa. lvii. 15. Let the discourses of others be admired for ingenuity, learning, or pathos, but may we be ambitious that ours may savour of a broken and contrite spirit; then shall we be best able to commend a precious Saviour, and then we may warrantably hope the Lord will not suffer us to speak in vain.

I am affectionately yours, in the best bonds.

LETTER IV.

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Dear Sir,

February 17, 1769.

CANNOT agree with your friends, or with Witsius, respecting the degrees in glory. Perhaps we are not capable of stating the question properly in this dark world. I see no force in the argument drawn from 1 Cor. xv. 40, 41.; or rather, that does not appear to me the sense of the passage, or that the apostle had any respect to degrees of glory. The text in Matt. xix. 28, may be compared with Rev. iii. 21. However, admitting such degrees, perhaps they will not be distributed, (according to human expectation,) to such as have been most employed in active life, Matt. x. 41. As wickedness is rated by the judgment of God, not according to the number of outward acts, but by what the heart would do had opportunity offered, Matt. v. 28.; so the lord will graciously accept the desires of his people, and they shall in no wise lose their reward, because his providence has appointed them a narrower sphere.

One man like Mr. Whitfield is raised up to preach