stock of ideas. Search your most admired Arminian writers, and produce the noble qualities, the important duties, which constitute the dignity or the happiness of our nature; and I will undertake, I will attempt at least, to point out the expeditious and easy way to them, all on Mr Marshall's plan.

The Doctor is strangely vague in his argumentation. On the two first topics he does little else but ramble; the last he absolutely mistakes. I do not affirm that we have sufficient strength. I wonder how he could suppose this, when he knows it is our persuasion that we have not power so much as cordially to will that which is good. But a persuasion that God will give us sufficient strength, this is the point we plead for, the privilege to which we stand entitled by the gospel.

You forgot, my dear friend, to send me Jennings on Original Sin. If you think Mrs is in want, I will very willingly give her two guineas. Who would not give away their superfluities for his sake who gave his very life for our sins? O that I had also strength of body, that I might spend what is more valuable than gold in his sacred service! But forbear, my soul: his will be done. I hope God may incline your heart to review those manuscripts, and strengthen your judgment to discern their improprieties. I really have no fondness to appear again in print; I had much rather decline what requires any labour of the brain. But since I have proceeded so far in the work, since there is some expectation of it, and many prayers put up for it, I cannot be easy when I offer to discontinue it. Do, my dear friend, give me a little of your time, take some pains in my behalf; it is the last trouble of this kind I shall ever give you. For should this piece be finished, never, never will I attempt another. Who knows, but if you help me in this work, I may converse with you when I am dead; and perhaps a very weak hint from the pen of an old friend may be blessed to your comfort, when he

is gone hence, and no more seen! Till then, after then, and for ever, I hope to be affectionately yours, &c.

P. S.-Pray let me hear the issue of your interview with the gentleman. I hope the God of wisdom and of power will give you an irreproachable conduct, and a decent boldness. Why should we be "afraid of man that shall die, and the son of man that shall be as grass; and forget the Lord our Maker, who stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundation of the earth?" Fear not; you have done nothing in this whole affair but what, I am verily persuaded, is pleasing to him whose loving-kindness is better than life.

Oh that it was worth your while to wish, and that it was safe for me to grant, an absolution of my sentence against you: but you must not come to hear me so long as the small-pox is in your town, as many of my people will be terrified at your presence. I will tell you one good thing that was in our sermon last Sunday; this portion of Scripture, viz. "With the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption," Psalm cxxx. 7. And this, all this is for you, my dear friend; and for thee, my sinful soul. O let us receive the blessings; let us embrace the blessings! For it is our gracious Master's will, by these sweet, inviting, generous methods, to win us from a deluding world, and win us to his blessed self.-Adieu.

LETTER CVIII.

DEAR SIR,-My poor father is in some respects better, but he is as weak and helpless as ever. Most of his time passes in a kind of dosing sleep. He has no inclination to talk; takes little notice of persons or things. I hope his great work is done, his interest in Christ secured, and his soul sanctified by grace. For indeed, such a state of languishing is as unfit to work out salvftion, and lay hold on eternal life, as to grind at the mill, or to run a race.

Oh

that we all may give diligent attention to the things which belong to our peace, before the inability of sickness, and the night of death approaches. I sent for the Poem on Sickness, by Mr Thomson of Queen's College, Oxford, and was surprised to find it a fourshilling and sixpenny piece. It is, I think, a loose and rambling performance; some good lines, but a great deal of it nothing at all to the purpose; not comparable, in point of elegance, propriety, and beauty, to his Hymn on May. However, I would not have it depreciated, methinks, because it speaks worthily of the Christian religion, and the Rock of our hopes, Christ Jesus.-Adieu, my dear friend, ever yours, &c.

LETTER CIX.

DEAR SISTER,-I HOPE this will find my father better. I heartily wish, and daily pray that the God of everlasting compassions may comfort him under his sorrows, may sanctify his afflictions, and restore him to his health, that he may recover more spiritual strength before he goes hence, and is no more seen.

I sent my brother some books, and humbly beseech the Giver of every good gift to accompany them with his heavenly blessing; for what he blesses is blessed indeed.

I could be truly glad to hear your complaints are removed; but if they continue, do not be discouraged. "Whom the Lord loveth he chastiseth." God had but one Son without sin, but none without sufferings. Oh that his infinite goodness may sanctify your tribulations, that they may be a means of weaning you from the world, and bringing you to Jesus Christ! Then you will one day say with the Psalmist, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted."—I am, &c.

LETTER CX.

Dear Sir,-YOUR observ) yons are perfectly just, and Dr Doddridge's remarks are admirably judi

cious; his alterations are indeed excellent and charming. Oh, may they be equally impressive on me as I transcribe them, and on all that may hereafter read them! Many most solid and valuable corrections has the Doctor already made in my little piece, but, in my opinion, these are beyond them all. I cannot but wish he had leisure to have went through the whole with his improving strokes; but, as the business of his academy and ministry is so various, and so important, I cannot prevail with myself to make such a request. I will try, and do the best I can to proceed on the plan which he has formed, and to follow (magno licet intervallo) the example he has set. so good as to make my most grateful acknowledgments: Let your tongue speak, for really my pen cannot write, how greatly I am obliged to him. I will venture to turn, what was used formerly as an imprecation, into a wish and a blessing on this occasion, " May God do so to him, and more also !"

Be

Oh that our writings may be accompanied with the blessed Spirit; and that the spirit of our writings may be operative on our hearts, and apparent in our conversation.-Ever yours, &c.

LETTER CXI.

Mile's-lane, Saturday morning. MY DEAR FRIEND, IF I am tolerably well, I will wait upon Dr C on Tuesday morning. He has a delicate genius, and I dare say he is an excellent physician. O that his fine parts may be grafted into the true olive tree, and bring forth fruit unto God. If Providence permits us to meet, I hope to have some evangelical discourse with him.

Sure you could not go to London without putting to your heart some of your own important questions, under the heads of self-examination. Have you indulged yourself in needless amusements, needless diversions of any kind? Have you employed your time usefully to yourself or to others? My dearest

friend, remember in what book, by whose hands, several such like questions are written! I fear you have not so much as spoke one word for Christ since you have entered the metropolis, though you must have had so many opportunities. O why do you thus bury your sprightly talents in a napkin ? Edify your neighbours by your conversation. What a loss has Mr and Mr, and others of your correspondents, sustained by your forgetting or disusing the language of Zion? I have lately purchased Lowman's Exposition of the Revelation. Give me leave to refer you to the fifth verse of the second chapter, "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and do thy first works." Pray lend me Lowman on the Civil Government of the Hebrews, which I hear is a most excellent book, and illustrates many obscure passages in the Bible.

Do you keep a diary as you used to do, a secret history of your heart and conduct, and take notice of the manner in which your time is spent, and of the strain which runs through your discourse? Do you minute down your sins of omission as well as of commission, and observe the frame of your spirit in religious duties? Do you register your most secret faults; those faults to which none but your own conscience is privy, none but the all-seeing eye discerns? And do you often review these interesting memoirs? remembering, at the same time, that for all these things God will one day call you into judgment. Keeping a diary is the way to know ourselves, and of all other preparatives it best disposes us to prayer, and to seek in earnest after that blessed Redeemer who died to save sinners, and through whom alone we can ever expect to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Adieu, my dear friend. God in heaven bless and protect you! I hope to see you ere long; and am, in the mean time, with true regard, yours faithfully and affectionately, &c.