By these dull wretches you have been an unspeakable loser. Perhaps it was in company with some of these, that you first thought of taking a little sport, and catching a few fish, or killing a partridge or a hare. Miserable employment for a preacher of the Gospel! for a Methodist preacher, above all others! Though I do not at all wonder, if, after practising it for some time, you should be so infatuated as even to defend it. I am afraid these same poor creatures afterward taught you (if that report be true) even to countenance that wickedness for which Cornwall stinks in the nostrils of all who fear God, or love King George; I mean that of smuggling; though surely they could not persuade you to receive stolen goods! That is an iniquity to be punished by the judges. Is there any truth in that other charge, (you must not ask who tells me so; if so, I have done,) that you imposed on Mrs. H————, in the writings; and fraudulently procured 100l. a year to be engaged for, instead of fourscore? I hope this was a mistake; as well as that assertion, that you encouraged drunkenness, by suffering it in your company, if not in your own house. O remember from whence you are fallen! Repent, and do the first works! First recover the life of God in your own soul, and walk as Christ walked. Walk with God as you did twelve years ago. Then you might again be useful to his children. Supposing you was truly alive to God yourself, how profitably then (leaving the dead to bury their dead) might you spend three months in a year at Bristol, or London, three in Cornwall, and six in spreading the Gospel wherever it might be needful. I have now told you all that is in my heart: I hope you will receive it not only with patience, but profit. You must be much in the way, or much out of the way; a good soldier for God, or for the devil. O choose the better part!-now!-to-day! I am Your affectionate brother. CXCVII.-To the Same. CORK, August 17, 1760. MY DEAR BROTHER,-The conversation I had with you yesterday in the afternoon, gave me a good deal of satisfaction. As to some things which I had heard, (with regard to your wasting your substance, drinking intemperately, and wronging the poor people at Silberton,) I am persuaded they were mistakes; as I suppose it was, that you converse much with careless, unawakened people. And I trust you will be more and more cautious in all these respects, abstaining from the very appearance of evil. That you had not always attended the preaching when you might have done it, you allowed; but seemed determined to remove that objection; as well as the other, of using such exercises or diversions as give offence to your brethren. I believe you will likewise endeavour to avoid light and trifling conversation, and to talk and behave in all company with that seriousness and usefulness which become a preacher of the Gospel. Certainly some years ago you was alive to God. You experienced the life and power of religion. And does not God intend that the trials you meet with should bring you back to this? You cannot stand still; you know this is impossible. You must go forward or backward. Either you must recover that power, and be a Christian altogether, or in awhile you will have neither power nor form, inside n or outside. Extremely opposite both to one and the other, is that aptness to ridıcule others, to make them contemptible, by exposing their real or supposed foibles. This I would earnestly advise you to avoid. It hurts yourself; it hurts the hearers; and it greatly hurts those who are so exposed, and tends to make them your irreconcilable enemies. It has also sometimes betrayed you into speaking what was not strictly true. O beware of this above all things! Never amplify, never exaggerate any thing. Be rigorous in adhering to truth. Be exemplary therein. Whatever has been in time past, let all men now know, that John Trembath abhors lying; that he never promises any thing which he does not perform; that his word is equal to his bond. I pray be exact in Be a pattern of truth, sincerity, and godly simplicity. What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear, to this day, is, want of reading. I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep; there is little variety; there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it, any more than a thorough Christian. O begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not: what is tedious at first, will afterward be pleasant. Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days, and a pretty, superficial preacher. Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross and be a Christian altogether. Then will all the children of God rejoice (not grieve) over you; and, in particular, Yours, &c. CXCVIII.-To Mr. Jonathan Maskew. LONDON, February 22, 1753. MY DEAR BROTHER,-I cannot blame you at all for writing to me before you determined any thing. I believe your staying so long in the Newcastle circuit has been for good, both for you, and for others; and you are still wanted there. But you are wanted more elsewhere. I do not mean you should go to Mr. Grimshaw's circuit, (although you might stay a fortnight there, not more,) but to Manchester. I promised you should set out to help brother Haughton, as soon as brother Hopper could go to Newcastle. So that you are sadly beyond your time: the blame of which is probably (as usual) laid upon me. Therefore the sooner you are at Manchester, the better. Peace be with your spirit. I am Your affectionate brother. CXCIX.-To Mr. Knox. SLIGO, May 30, 1765. DEAR SIR,-Probably this will be the last trouble of the kind which you will receive from me. If you receive it in the same spirit wherein it is wrote, I shall be glad. If not, my reward is with the Most High. I did not choose it should be delivered till I was gone, lest you should think I wanted something from you. By the blessing of God, I want nothing, only that you should be happy in time and in eternity. Still I cannot but remember the clear light you had with regard to the nature of real, Scriptural Christianity. You saw what heart religion meant, and the gate of it, justification. You had earnest desires to be a partaker of the whole Gospel blessing: and you discovered the sincerity of those desires, by the steps you took in your family. So that in every thing you was hastening to be, not almost, but altogether, a Christian. Where is that light now? Do you now see that true religion is not a negative or an external thing; but the life of God in the soul of man; the image of God stamped upon the heart? Do you now see, that in order to this, we are justified freely, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus? Where are the desires after this which you once felt? the hungering and thirsting after righteousness? And where are the outward marks of a soul groaning after God, and refusing to be comforted with any thing less than his love? Will you say, "But if I had gone on in that way, I should have lost my friends and my reputation ?" This is partly true. You would have lost most of those friends who neither love nor fear God. Happy loss! These are the men who do you more hurt than all the world besides. These are the men whom, if ever you would be a real Christian, you must avoid as you would avoid hell fire. "But then they will censure me." So they will. They will say you are a fool, a madman, and what not. But what are you the worse for this? Why, the Spirit of glory and of Christ shall rest upon you. "But it will hurt me in my business." Suppose it should, the favour of God would make large amends. But very probably it would not. For the winds and the seas are in God's hands, as well as the hearts of men. "But it is inconsistent with my duty to the Church." Can a man of understanding talk so, and talk so in carnest? Is it not rather a copy of his countenance? Indeed, if you mean, "inconsistent with my pleasing this or that clergyman," I allow it. But let them be pleased or displeased, please thou God. But are these clergymen the Church? Unless they are holy men, earnestly loving and serving God, they are not even members of the Church; they are no part of it. And unless they preach the doctrines of the Church, contained in her Articles and Liturgy, they are no true ministers of the Church, but are eating her bread and tearing out her bowels. "But you will not leave the Church." You never will by my advice: I advise just the contrary: I advise you to lose no opportunity of attending the service of the Church. and receiving the Lord's Supper, and of showing your regard for all her appointments. I advise, steadily to adhere to her doctrine in every branch of it; particularly with regard to the two fundamental points,-justification by faith, and holiness. But above all, I cannot but earnestly entreat you, not to rest till you experience what she teaches; till (to sum up all in one word) God cleanses the thoughts of your heart by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit, that you may perfectly love him, and worthily magnify his holy name. Unless this be done, what will it profit you to increase your fortune, to preserve the fairest reputation, and to gain the favour of the most learned, the most ingenious, and the most honourable clergymen in the kingdom? What will it profit a man to gain all these, and to lose his own soul? I know that to God all things are possible: therefore it is possible you may take this kindly. If so, I shall hope to receive a line from you. If not, let it be forgotten till we meet at the judgment seat of Christ. I am, dear sir, Your affectionate servant. CC.-To Mrs. Maitland. MAY 12, 1763. DEAR MADAM,-Both in the former and in the "Farther Thoughts on Christian Perfection," I have said all I have to say on that subject. Nevertheless, as you seem to desire I should, I will add a few words more. As to the word perfection, it is Scriptural: therefore neither you nor I can in conscience object to it, unless we would send the Holy Ghost to school, and teach Him to speak who made the tongue. By Christian perfection, I mean (as I have said again and again) the so loving God and our neighbour, as to "rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in every thing give thanks." He that experiences this, is Scripturally perfect. And if you do not, yet you may experience it: you surely will, if you follow hard after it, for the Scripture cannot be broken. What then does their arguing reprove, who object against Christian perfection? Absolute or infallible perfection I never contended for. Sinless perfection I do not contend for, seeing it is not Scriptural. A perfection, such as enables a person to fulfil the whole law, and so needs not the merits of Christ,-I acknowledge no such perfection; I do now, and always did, protest against it. "But is there no sin in those who are perfect in love?" I believe not; but be that as it may, they feel none; no temper contrary to pure love, while they rejoice, pray, and give thanks continually. And whether sin is suspended, or extinguished, I will not dispute; it is enough that they feel nothing but love. This you allow we should daily press after. And this is all I contend for. O may the Lord give you to taste of it to-day! I am, dear madam, DEAR SIR, Abundance of business has prevented my writing so soon as I desired and intended; nor have I time now to write so largely as I could wish, and as your openness and frankness would otherwise constrain me to do. But I cannot delay any longer to write a little, lest I should seem to slight your correspondence. "If it be the pro What you before observed is of great importance, viz. fessed aim of the Gospel to convince us that Jesus is the Christ: If I, a sinner, am convinced of the reality of this fact, am not I who believe authorized to expect life, not through any condition, or any act, inward or outward, performed by me, but singly through the name which Jesus assumed, which stands for his whole character or merit ?" Here is the hinge on which Mr. Sandiman's whole system turns. This is the strength of his cause, and you have proposed it with all the strength and clearness which he himself could devise. Yet suffer me to offer to your consideration a few queries concerning it : Is every one who is convinced of the reality of this fact, "Jesus is the Christ," a Gospel believer? Is not the devil convinced of the reality of this fact? Is then the devil a Gospel believer? I was convinced of the reality of this fact when I was twelve years old, when I was without God in the world. Was I then a Gospel believer? Was I then a child of God? Was I then in a state of salvation? Again, you say, "I who believe am authorized to expect life, not through any condition or act, inward or outward, performed by me." non. I who believe. But cannot you as well expect it without believing? If not, what is believing but a condition? For it is something sine quá And what else do you, or I, or any one living mean by a condition? And is not believing an inward act? What is it else? But you say, Not performed by me. By whom then? God gives me the power to believe. But does he believe for me? He works faith in me. But still is it not I that believe? And if so, is not believing an inward act performed by me? Is not then this hypothesis (to waive all other difficulties) contradictory to itself? I have just set down a few hints as they occurred. increase of every blessing, I am, dear sir, Your very CCII.-To Miss T―. Wishing you an affectionate brother BRISTOL, September 29, 1764. DEAR SISTER,-In the "Thoughts upon have a clear and consistent account of it. I danger I saw you in, of stopping short of it. that blessing soon. And I am thoroughly persuaded, you did taste of it; though how you lost it, I know not. It will be eternally true, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." Have this faith, and you have salvation. And this is the very thing you want. When this is joined with a strong understanding, it is well: but it may exist with a very weak one. This is the case with Mrs. W- whose understanding is extremely weak; and yet she has strong faith, and such as exceedingly profits me; though I take knowledge, that the treasure is in an earthen vessel. I see all that is of nature; but this does not hinder my rejoicing in that which is of grace. This is one branch of Christian simplicity. While reason, assisted from above, enables me to discern the precious from VOL. VI. 48 |