I may receive the Holy Ghost the Comforter. Take away these ingredients from faith, and its spirit evaporates; its very life expires; you have nothing left but a mere caput mortuum.

The Doctor charges us "with spiritual pride." But is it pride to confess ourselves ungodly wretches, and, as such, to receive free justification from infinitely rich grace?" With presumption and unwarrantable persuasions." But is that a presumptuous claim, or that an unwarrantable persuasion, which is founded on the infallible promise of God, and implied in the very nature of faith? He bids us beware, lest we be the dupes of our own credulity. We thank him for the friendly admonition; and, to shew our gratitude, we would suggest a caution to our worthy friend, that before he argues on a religious subject, he would gain clearer ideas of its nature. He talks of reconciliation, as implying concern and grief. Here he fights with a shadow, and a shadow of his own raising; no mortal ever affirmed or dreamed of any such thing. Reconciliation is neither more or less than a removal of offence, and a restoration to favour. He mentions Mr Marshall's three propositions as the requisite signals of faith; whereas they are the constituent parts, the very essence of faith: they differ as much from a signal, as the florid blood and lively spirits differ from the bloom on the cheek, or the sparkle in the eye. He tells us, "That the faith of the Jews was one thing; but after our Saviour's death, the faith of the Gentiles was another." St Paul, who was a Jew by birth, and an apostle of the Gentiles by office, tells us the very reverse. There is one faith, of which Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, was and is the invariable object. "To him give all the prophets," as well as all the apostles, "witness, that whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." Believing in Christ, we see, is the one, constant, unalterable way, in which both Jews and Gentiles, the hearers of the prophets and the converts of the apostles, obtained pardon, life, and glory.

Had Dr observed this caution, he would not have spent so many needless and random words on the third proposition, which proceed upon an absolute mistake of the point. "We advocates for selfsufficiency in man!" I wonder how the ingenious Doctor can entertain such a suspicion, especially as he knows we have subscribed, we believe, and we maintain the tenth article of our Church. He has blamed us for this belief; therefore he should, in all reason, blame himself for those extravagant excursions of his pen; which are just as far from sobriety and fact, as the Antipodes are from the latitude of London. Our maxim and Mr Marshall's meaning is, Though less than nothing, though worse than nothing in ourselves, we can do all things through Christ's strengthening us. I am, &c.

LETTER CIV.

Saturday morning. SHALL I beg you to tell Dr that his beautiful Visions* were, by Dodsley the bookseller, put into the hands of a very pious and ingenious friend of mine, who proposes an alteration in the ninth line of the sixty-ninth page of the fifth edition, where he would read Jesus instead of virtue.

At that important hour of need,

Jesus shall prove a friend indeed.

But I am not of his opinion, unless an uniform vein of evangelical doctrine had run through the whole. This, I must confess, I could have been glad to have seen in so elegant a poem, where Spenser's fancy, and Prior's ease, are united. And I hope if the Doctor should ever write any more poetry, he will take this important hint into his consideration. Indeed he ought; for even in his Vision on Death, he has not paid the least regard to Christ our Redeemer, the conqueror of death. I presume they sell according to our wishes. May they, under the blessing of a most gracious God, impart good to the world, and bring gain to the author!

* See Letter XCVII.

If I mistake not, you are a subscribing member of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; will you be so kind as to procure for me a dozen of Bibles, and a dozen of the Bishop of Man on the Lord's Supper? I give away this to communicants, because it has the communion-service in it; and because it is more evangelical, and less exceptionable than the generality of what are called preparations for, or companions at the sacrament; too many of which books, by long prayers for each day in the week, and by injudicious representations, have sometimes, I fear, a contrary effect to what was intended. I had once a design, nor have I wholly laid it aside, of extracting from Jenks' Office of Devotion, the few leaves he has there wrote so pathetically on the sacrament, and of printing them with the communion service, after the manner of the Bishop of Man; adding on the sides suitable observations of my own, to supply Jenks' deficiencies. I propose likewise to add what Marshall says on the subject, and insert from the Bishop of Man his short, yet striking meditations on some well-chosen texts of Scripture, which will be of service to every one; particularly to those who are unaccustomed to meditate, or have no talents for it, and consequently want such an assistance to employ the time while others are receiving the bread and wine. What says my fidus Achates to this? Give it a place in your thoughts; and however we may determine on this, let us determine to cleave more closely to the Lord, and wait upon our God continually. "Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens." Let this be our pattern, and such our practice. To his tender care, and continual guidance, I commit you; and am cordially yours, &c.

LETTER CV.

London, Mile's-lane, April 9. 1752.

DEAR SIR,-SOON after I received your last favour, we were visited by a very alarming providence:

a fire broke out in a sugar-baker's workhouse, part of which communicated with my brother's house, and the whole was separated from us only by a court-yard, four or five yards in breadth. Three engines played from his house, and another stood ready in the dining room, in case of any unexpected exigency. We were all consternation and confusion: in the hurry, I mislaid, somewhere or other, your valuable letter, and cannot recover it by any search. I wish you would be so kind as to direct me once more to the Ma-. gazine in which your chronological observation is inserted. I shall be more particularly pleased to see difficulties of this nature cleared up; because the works of a very celebrated genius are lately published, in which he very much decries the chronology and history of the sacred Scriptures; I mean some posthumous volumes written by the late Lord Bolingbroke.

no copy

You will excuse me for not making my thankful acknowledgments sooner. The objections you started, and the answers you gave, were richly worth preserving; I am truly sorry that the afore-mentioned disaster has, I fear, deprived me of them. Have you taken for your own satisfaction? With relation to my intended work, if it was in your hands, I believe you would not think it expedient to add any thing more of the argumentative kind. I fear I have been too prolix already; and if ever I should be so happy as to obtain your revisal of it, should be very desirous that you would make very free with the pruning-knife. I have no vindication, but some excuse for my delay in writing. I catched such a cold, on the late terrifying occasion, (being obliged to wade through water, in order to escape the fire), as confined me to my chamber several weeks. I mentioned to you Taylor's Treatise of Original Sin. As you have not seen the work, give me leave to transmit, as fully as I can recollect, one or two of his objections to the orthodox opinion. God is the Maker, the true and immediate Maker of all men, Job xxxi.

15. Now it is impossible that God should make our nature, and yet not make the qualities and propensities which it has when made. Therefore, whatever principles, or whatever seeds are implanted in our constitution, they cannot be principles of iniquity nor seeds of sin; because they are all infused and planted by our infinitely good and holy Creator. Such passions, appetites, propensities, cannot be sinful, because they are necessary and unavoidable, (and that cannot be sinful in me, which I can nowise avoid, help, or hinder), neither can they render us objects of God's wrath; for it is infinitely absurd, and highly dishonourable to God, to suppose he is displeased at us for what he himself has infused into our nature.

What says St James? (James iii. 9.) "Therewith curse we men, who are made after the similitude of God." The similitude of God signifies those moral endowments which distinguish the possessor, both from the brutes and the devils; and in this image, or vested with these qualifications, men are made. What then becomes of the doctrine of original sin?

St Paul speaks of people that had their understanding darkened, that were alienated in their minds, were haters of God, &c. But this is affirmed of the idolatrous heathen. The very Gentiles, according to St Paul's account, "Shew the work of the law written on their hearts, their consciences meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another." Here then are Heathens who have the work of the law (not barely discerned by their understanding, but) written on their hearts; have both the knowledge and the love of its moral precepts; with an awakened tender conscience, ever ready to act the part of an impartial reprover, or a zealous advocate; and what higher character can you give of your first-rate believer? They are also said to "do by nature the things contained in the law;" an irrefragable proof that our nature is not so depraved in point of inclination, nor so disabled with regard to its executive powers, as the doctrine of original sin supposes.