"The patients in the Lock Hospital are the refuse of this sink of wickedness, (the metropolis,) especially the wretched women. About five hundred are cured annually. I preach twice a week to them in the wards, as plainly as possible; besides their attendance on public worship. We can tell little of the effects on those who leave us; though I know of a little, and am persuaded there is a great deal more, good done. But I have been enabled to establish another charity1 on a small scale, for such women as when cured, express a desire to reform. We have now living at least ten steady Christians of some years' standing, who were thus brought out. Others have died happy, and many are living creditably in service; though our disappointments are numerous. In short our charity (the hospital and asylum together) is a Bethesda, a house of mercy to the bodies and souls of the vilest and most wretched of the species, and I think peculiarly evangelical.

"I can only add that I shall be glad to hear from you either on the subject of this letter, or on that you refer to; though I cannot promise to enter particularly into the former.—I remain with great sincerity,

"Your affectionate friend and servant,

"THOMAS SCOTT."

With the remark that "one may go further in a confidential letter than would be proper in print," I would (for my own justification,) com

'The Lock Asylum, founded 1787.

bine that which I elsewhere had occasion to make, that, “under the sanction and authority which death has added to his character," the writer of these

letters " may now speak some things publicly, which perhaps propriety or expediency required that he should before say only in private to his friends."1

In illustration of that part of the preceding letter which speaks of "effecting," or proposing to effect, by a sort of "natural process," namely by means of "false affections springing from a baseless confidence," that change "which the scripture ascribes to the new-creating power of the Holy Spirit," I shall take the liberty of here copying from my father's edition of the Pilgrim's Progress, a pretty long note, to which I should be glad to draw attention.

"When believers, 'in the warmth of their affections,' feel the humbling, melting, endearing, and sanctifying effects of contemplating the glory of the cross, and the love of Christ in dying for sinners; and consider themselves as the special objects of that inexpressible compassion and kindness; they are apt to conclude that the belief of the propositions, that Christ loves them and died for them, and that God is reconciled to them, produces the change by its own influence; and would affect the most carnal hearts in the same manner, could men be persuaded to embrace it. For they vainly imagine that apprehensions of the severity of divine justice, and the dread of vengeance, are the sources of the enmity which sinners manifest

1 Life, p. 613. (627.)

against God.-Hence very lively and affectionate Christians have frequently been prone to sanction the unscriptural tenet, that the justifying act of faith consists in assuredly believing that Christ died for ME, in particular, and that God loves ME; and to consider this appropriation as preceding repentance, and every other gracious disposition; and as, in some sense, the cause of regeneration, winning the heart to love God, and to rejoice in him, and in obeying his commandments.-From this doctrine others have inferred, that, if all men, and even devils too, believed the love of God to them, and his purpose at length to make them happy, they would be won over from rebellion against him, which they persist in from a mistaken idea that he is their implacable enemy: and they make this one main argument in support of the salutary tendency of the final restitution scheme. But all these opinions arise from a false and flattering estimate of human nature; for the carnal mind hates the scriptural character of God,1 and the glory displayed in the cross, even more than that which shines forth in the fiery law. Indeed, if we take away the offensive part of the gospel ; the honour it puts upon the law and its awful sanctions, and the exhibition it makes of the divine justice and holiness; it will give the proud carnal heart but little umbrage: if we admit that men's aversion to God and religion arises from misapprehension, and not from desperate wickedness, many will endure the doctrine. A recon

"His real character, and not a mistaken notion of him." Warrant and Nature of Faith.

ciliation in which God assures the sinner that he has forgiven him, even before he has repented of his sins, will suit man's pride; and, if he has been previously frightened, a great flow of affections may follow but the event will prove that they differ essentially from spiritual love of God, gratitude, holy joy, and genuine humiliation; which arise from a true perception of the glorious perfections of God, of the righteousness of his law and government, of the real nature of redemption, and of the odiousness and desert of sin. In short, all such schemes render regeneration needless; or substitute something else in its stead, which is effected by a natural process, and not by the new-creating power of the Holy Spirit.-But, when this divine agent has communicated life to the soul, and a capacity is produced of perceiving and relishing spiritual excellency, the enmity against God receives a mortal wound: from that season, the more his real character and glory are known, the greater spiritual affection will be excited, and a proportionable transformation into the same holy image effected. Then the view of the cross, as the grand display of all the harmonious perfections of the Godhead, softens, humbles, and meliorates the heart while the persuasion of an interest in these blessings, and an admiring sense of having received such inconceivable favours from this glorious and holy Lord God, will still further elevate the soul above all low pursuits, and constrain it to the most unreserved and self-denying obedience. But, while the heart remains unregenerate, the glory of God and the gospel will either be misunderstood, or hated in proportion as it is dis

covered. Such views and affections, therefore, as have been described, spring from special grace; and are not produced by the natural efficacy of any sentiments, but by the immediate influences of the Holy Spirit; so that even true believers, though habitually persuaded of their interest in Christ, and of the love of God to them, are only at times thus filled with holy affections: nor will the same contemplations constantly excite similar exercises; but they often bestow much pains to get their minds affected by them, in vain; while at other times a single glance of thought fills them with the most fervent emotions of holy love and joy." 1

"I was very much pleased with the contents of your letter, and with your way of stating the meaning of the terms to which I had objected. Many of these expressions would be harmless enough, if men were more simple, teachable, and upright but the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; and Satan is continually employing all the deceivableness of unrighteousness, in order to impose upon men with the semblance of truth. He is ever aiming to mix poison

1

Scott's Works, vol iii. p. 395-397: or his edit. of the Pilgrim's Progress, 12mo. p. 296, 297: 8vo. part ii. p. 71, 72.— See also observations upon the same subject, and on "schemes of preaching" formed on this erroneous view, in Warrant and "Nature of Faith, part ii. sec. 3:Works vol. i. p. 474–477.4