forth in his strength! and with the stones of the brook overthrow all your enemies. you shall I am, dear Sir, Your obedient servant for Christ's sake. CLXXXV.-To DEAR SIR, Dublin, April 18, 1760. DISCE, docendus adhuc quæ censet amiculus ;* and take in good part my mentioning some particulars which have been long on my mind; and yet I knew not how to speak them. I was afraid it might look like taking too much upon me, or assuming some superiority over you. But love casts out, or at least over-rules, that fear. So I will speak simply, and leave you to judge. It seems to me, that, of all the persons I ever knew, save one, you are the hardest to be convinced. I have occasionally spoken to you on many heads; some of a speculative, others of a practical nature; but I do not know that you was ever convinced of one, whether of great importance or small. I believe you retained your own opinion in every one, and did not vary a hair's breadth. I have likewise doubted whether you was not full as hard to be persuaded, as to be convinced; whether your will do not adhere to its first bias, right or wrong, as strongly as your understanding. I mean, with regard to any impression which another may make upon them. For perhaps you readily, too readily, change of your own mere motion; as I have frequently observed great fickleness and great stubbornness meet in the same mind. So that it is not easy to please you long; but exceeding easy to offend you. Does not this imply the thinking very highly of yourself? particularly of your own understanding? Does it not imply, what is always connected therewith, something of self-sufficiency? "You can stand alone; you care for no man; you need no help from man." It was not so with my brother and me, when we were first employed in this great work. We were deeply conscious of our own insufficiency; and though, in one sense, we trusted in God alone, yet we sought his help from all his children, and were glad to be taught by And this, although we were really alone in the work; any man. *This quotation from Horace is thus translated by Francis:"To the instruction of a humble friend, Who would himself be better taught, attend."-Edit. for there were none that had gone before us therein; there were none then in England who had trod that path wherein God was leading us. Whereas you have the advantage which we had not; you tread in a beaten path; others have gone before you, and are going now in the same way, to the same point. Yet it seems you choose to stand alone; what was necessity with us, is choice with you; you like to be unconnected with any, thereby tacitly condemning all. But possibly you go farther yet; do not you explicitly condemn all your fellow-labourers, blaming one in one instance, one in another, so as to be thoroughly pleased with the conduct of none? Does not this argue a vehement proneness to condemn ? a very high degree of censoriousness? Do you not censure even peritos in suâ arte?* Permit me to relate a little circumstance to illustrate this: After we had been once singing a hymn at Everton, I was just going to say, "I wish Mr. Whitefield would not try to mend my brother's hymns. He cannot do it. How vilely he has murdered that hymn; weakening the sense, as well as marring the poetry!" But how was I afterwards surprised to hear it was not Mr. Whitefield, but Mr. B.! In very deed, it is not easy to mend his hymns, any more than to imitate them. Has not this aptness to find fault frequently shown itself, in abundance of other instances? sometimes with regard to Mr. Parker, or Mr. Hicks; sometimes with regard to me? And this may be one reason why you take one step which was scarce ever before taken in Christendom: I mean, the discouraging the new converts from reading; at least, from reading anything but the Bible. Nay, but get off the consequence who can: If they ought to read nothing but the Bible, they ought to hear nothing but the Bible; so away with sermons, whether spoken or written! I can hardly imagine that you discourage reading even our little tracts, out of jealousy lest we should undermine you, or steal away the affections of the people. I think you cannot easily suspect this. I myself did not desire to come among them; but you desired me to come. I should not have obtruded myself either upon them or you; for I have really work enough; full as much as either my body or mind is able to go through: And I have, blessed be God, friends enough; I mean, as many as I have time to converse with; nevertheless, I never repented of that I spent at Everton; and I trust it was * Those who are clever in their particular profession.-EDIT. not spent in vain. I have not time to throw these thoughts into a smoother form; so I give you them just as they occur. May the God whom you serve give you to form a right judgment concerning them, and give a blessing to the rough sincerity of, Dear Sir, Your affectionate servant. CLXXXVI.-To Miss Elizabeth Hardy. DEAR SISTER, December 26, 1761. THE path of controversy is a rough path. But it seems smoother while I am walking with you: So that I could follow you through all its windings; only my time will not permit. The plain fact is this: I know many who love God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. He is their one desire, their one delight, and they are continually happy in him. They love their neighbour as themselves. They feel as sincere, fervent, constant a desire for the happiness of every man, good or bad, friend or enemy, as for their own. They "rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks." Their souls are continually streaming up to God in holy joy, prayer, and praise. This is plain, sound, scriptural experience: And of this we have more and more living witnesses. But these souls dwell in a shattered, corruptible body, and are so pressed down thereby, that they cannot exert their love as they would, by always thinking, speaking, and acting precisely right. For want of better bodily organs, they sometimes inevitably think, speak, or act wrong. Yet I think they need the advocacy of Christ, even for these involuntary defects; although they do not imply a defect of love, but of understanding. However that be, I cannot doubt the fact. They are all love; yet they cannot walk as they desire. "But are they all love while they grieve the Holy Spirit ?" No, surely; they are then fallen from their steadfastness; and this they may do even after they are sealed. So that, even to such, strong cautions are needful. After the heart is cleansed from pride, anger, and desire, it may suffer them to re-enter: Therefore, I have long • From several expressions in this Letter, it appears to have been addressed to the Rev. John Berridge, Vicar of Everton.--EDIT. thought some expressions in the Hymns are abundantly too strong; as I cannot perceive any state mentioned in Scripture from which we may not (in a measure, at least) fall. Persons who talked of being emptied before they were filled, were, for some time, a great stumbling-block to me too; but I have since considered it thus: The great point in question is, Can we be saved from all sin, or not? Now, it may please God to act in that uncommon manner, purposely to clear this point: To satisfy those persons that they are saved from all sin, before he goes on in his work. Forgive me, dear Miss Hardy, that I do but just touch upon the heads of your letter. Indeed, this defect does not spring from the want of love, but only from want of time. I should not wonder if your soul was one of the next that was filled with pure love. Receive it freely, thou poor bruised reed! It is able to make thee stand. I am Your affectionate friend and brother. MY LADY, CLXXXVII.-To Lady March 18, 1760. It was impossible to see the distress into which your Ladyship was thrown by the late unhappy affair, without bearing a part of it, without sympathizing with you. But may we not see God therein? May we not both hear and understand his voice? We must allow, it is generally "small and still;" yet he speaks sometimes in the whirlwind. Permit me to speak to your Ladyship with all freedom; not as to a person of quality, but as to a creature whom the Almighty made for himself, and one that is in a few days to appear before Him. You were not only a nominal, but a real, Christian. You tasted of the powers of the world to come. You knew God the Father had accepted you, through his eternal Son; and God the Spirit bore witness with your spirit, that you were a child of God. But you fell among thieves, and such as were peculiarly qualified to rob you of your God. Two of these in particular were sensible, learned, well-bred, well-natured, moral men. These did not assault you in a rough, abrupt, offensive manner. No; you would then have armed yourself against them, and have repelled all their attacks. But by soft, delicate, unobserved touches, by pleasing strokes of raillery, by insinuations, rather than surly arguments, they, by little and little, sapped the foundation of your faith; perhaps not only of your living faith, your "evidence of things not seen;" but even of your notional. It is well if they left you so much as an assent to the Bible, or a belief that Christ is God over all! And what was the consequence of this? Did not your love of God grow cold? Did not you Measure back your steps to earth again? Did not your love of the world revive? even of those poor, low trifles, which, in your very childhood, you utterly despised Where are you now? full of faith? looking into the holiest, and seeing Him that is invisible? Does your heart now glow with love to Him, who is daily pouring his benefits upon you? Do you now even desire it? Do you now say, (as you did almost twenty years ago,)— "Keep me dead to all below, Only Christ resolved to know; Is your taste now for heavenly things? Are not you a lover of pleasure, more than a lover of God? And O what pleasure! What is the pleasure of visiting? of modern conversation? Is there any more reason than religion in it? I wonder, what rational appetite does it gratify? Setting religion quite out of the question, I cannot conceive how a woman of sense canrelish, should I say? no, but suffer, so insipid an entertainment. O that the time past may suffice! Is it not now high time that you should awake out of sleep? Now God calls aloud! My dear Lady, now hear the voice of the Son of God, and live! The trouble in which your tender parent is now involved may restore all that reverence for her which could not but be a little impaired while you supposed she was "righteous over-much." O how admirably does God lay hold of and "strengthen the things that remain" in you! your gratitude, your humane temper, your generosity, your filial tenderness! And why is this, but to improve every right temper; to free you from all |