LETTER XLIX.

Weston-Favell, Jan. 12. 1748.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-LOTH to make your servant stay, and loth to trespass too much upon the patience of our family who wait for me, I write in the utmost hurry. After so great an opinion as that of the judicious Dr, I hardly dare venture to deliver my sentiments; yet I must confess myself strongly inclined to prefer your intended motto.

Is it a vulgarism? Rather the simplicity of the gospel; accommodated to the lowest capacity, suited to strike ordinary readers; who are the persons most likely to be impressed. Or, if it is a vulgarism, let this be for the illiterate, the poetry for the polite.

Is it Puritanical? Be not ashamed of the name. They (the Puritans) were the soundest preachers, and I believe the truest followers of Jesus Christ. If such an imputation is a bugbear, we shall not act like gallant soldiers of Christ. Is it not the most important truth in the whole book of God? the surest, easiest, most compendious means of overcoming the dread of death? If so, I need not make the conclusion.

Will censure ensue? Dear sir, dread it not. Be bold for once to despise ridicule; or rather, if it must needs fall upon you, to glory in this: Dedecus haud indecorum.

Pardon my freedom. Only just think on my rea

sons.

Reject them, and welcome. I shall be glad to be overruled for the better.-Yours, &c.

LETTER L.

Weston-Favell, Feb. 4. 1748.

DEAR SIR,-I SINCERELY thank you for taking the trouble of correcting my marks for Italics. I am 's name. I assure

glad you did not erase Mrs S

you, Doctor, I shall always esteem it a real honour to be reckoned in the number of your friends; and shall look upon it as one of the satisfactions accruing from my book, that it tells it in so pertinent a manner to the world; though, with regard to your truly amiable deceased lady, I fear it will be an instance of the arrogance of my heart, and a reproach upon the impotence of my pen, or else I would say,

Si quid mea scriptula possunt,

Nulla dies unquam memori illam eximet ævo.

Yours, &c.

LETTER LI.

Weston-Favell, March, 1748. DEAR SIR, I AM very much obliged for the present of your franks; they could never be more wanted, or more welcome. If you have not so much as you wish, to relieve the necessities of the poor, distribute from my stock. I am cloistered up in my chamber, and unacquainted with the distresses of my brethren. Lend me therefore your eye to discover proper objects, and your hand to deal about my little fund for charity. Do not forbid me to send a guinea, in my next, for this purpose; do not deny me the pleasure of becoming, through your means, an instrument of some little comfort to my afflicted fellowcreatures; and (what is a far more endearing consideration) to the friends, the brethren, the members of him who died for my sins. If you have any other friend, to whose taste it may be agreeable, and in whose hands useful, I will empower you to make the present. Herewith comes the Descant enlarged. I hope you will be able to read it, and not a little to improve it. Can you engage Dr to run it over? to grant prostremum hoc munus ?

I must write it over again, so fear not to erase and blot. I have not seen where or how I can handsomely introduce that fine quotation from Mr Dyer's Ruins of Rome; but will still consider it, because you desire it.—I am, dear sir, yours, &c.

LETTER LII.

April, 1748.
I had been

Fr, fy upon you, dear Dr endeavouring all the day long to fix my admiration on that most exalted, that most amiable Being, who, though possessed of excellencies which the very angels contemplate with rapture and adoration, yet humbled himself to death, the death of the cross, for my friend and me; when your praises, kind indeed, but, alas! perniciously kind, fetched my thoughts from their proper element, and proper object, to grovel on a creature, and that the meanest of creatures-self. I could wish myself, on such occasions, like the deaf adder, which stoppeth her ears, and refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so sweetly. Praise is most enchanting music to the human ear; shall I rather say, most delicious poison to the human taste? From strangers, or complimentary correspondents, we must expect a touch upon this string, a sprinkling of this spice. But among friends, bosom friends, Christian friends, it must not be so. You and I, dear sir, will teach one another's hearts to rise in wonder, and glow with love, at the consideration of that ever-blessed sovereign, who is higher than the kings of the earth, higher than the potentates of heaven, and yet lay in darkness and the shadow of death, that he might make us the children of God, and exalt us to everlasting life. Pardon my excursions on this subject. A letter from my father is enough to cast contempt upon created things. It informs me that my poor sister is reduced very low; so low, that my father cannot hear her speak. He seems to look upon her life to be in very great danger. May the Father of compassions restore her health, that she may live to the honour of her dying Master, and be a comfort to her afflicted parents !-Glad I am that my dear friend can relish the writings of that shining and burning light Mr Our disesteem of such

gospel doctrines as he teaches, generally arises from ignorance of ourselves. Therefore I heartily join with the Grecian sage, in saying E cœlo descendit. I am affectionately yours, &c.

LETTER LIII.

Weston-Favell, May 26. 1748. DEAR SIR, I HAVE given directions to my bookseller to present you with the new edition of my Meditations; which I desire you to accept, and to look upon as a small but unfeigned expression of my most affectionate esteem. The pleasure of your company I cannot expect often to enjoy; let me therefore, dear sir, by means of my little treatise, converse with you now and then, as it were by proxy, with a view of familiarizing to our minds those sublime subjects which will be the study and the delight of a glorious eternity.

Another set I have sent for Mr ; which I beg of you to render acceptable, by presenting. That worthy minister stands entitled to my grateful acknowledgments for his judicious and excellent letter. His candid and weighty observations have induced me to alter the exceptionable passage in the book; and will, I hope, incite me to cultivate in my heart that amiable spirit of charity which hopeth all things.

What I accidentally hinted to Dr, who favoured me with a sight of Mrs -'s letter, I never imagined would have been communicated to her, or any person living. Had I suspected any such consequence, I should certainly have withheld my pen, and concealed what I might happen to think; because I neither relish controversy, nor have strength of mind, or solidity of judgment, sufficient to conduct the procedure of an argument. All my aim, all my desire is, to quicken in my own heart the seeds of practical faith and vital holiness. If to this I might be enabled to cherish the same sacred principles in the hearts of some of my serious and humble

acquaintance, I should wish for no other fruits of my labours. However, as Mrs's objections are advanced, and are now before me, it would be a failure. of respect to her, and a desertion of my divine Master's honour, if I did not attempt, at least, to satisfy her scruples, and vindicate his conduct. I shall, therefore, with all freedom, but with sincere goodwill, transmit my sentiments on every article of her letter.

And first, with regard to the little assistance which I have contributed, and which Mrs thinks worthy of her acknowledgments, I beg of her to observe, that it is owing, wholly owing, to her adored Redeemer. To him, to him alone, she is obliged (if there be an obligation in the case) for this friendly donation. He has been pleased to command this instance of my gratitude, for his unspeakably tender mercies to my soul. He has been pleased to declare, that he will look upon such a piece of kindness as done to his own most blessed self. This makes me, this makes all believers, glad to embrace every such occasion of shewing our thankfulness to our infinitely condescending, gracious Lord. The action which Mrs's grateful pen calls generous, does not arise, as she expresses it, from any innate nobleness of mind. I remember the time, when this heart was hard as the flint, and these hands tenacious even to avarice. But it is Jesus, the quickening Spirit, and the lover of souls, who has made your friend to differ from his natural self. If the flinty bowels are melted into compassion, they are melted by a believing consideration of his most precious blood. If the avaricious hands are opened, and made ready to distribute, willing to communicate, they are made so by the free grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore not unto me, not unto me, but unto the great and good Redeemer, are all the returns of gratitude due.

"It is utterly inconsistent," says Mrs, "with my way of thinking, that the Son of God should be present at a wedding at all." But why should it