London, April 17, 1795

DEAR SIR,

I CANNOT keep pace with your kindness in the article of correspondence, but as franks though sentenced, are not yet executed, I am willing to thank you once more for books, extracts, and letters.

A friend sent £10 for Mr. R*** in consequence of what I had printed. I forwarded it, and have his answer that he received it safely. I rather expected his help would arise from Scotland than from London. — »-

A Calvinist professes that a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. If so, we need not wonder that others, who are not favoured like us, cannot see with our eyes. However, if a man be born again, I am content he should call himself an Arminian; and if he be not born again, his Calvinism will do him but little good. I believe there is not a truly awakened Arminian in the world, though many through prejudices of education and connexion, &c. (which we have happily outgrown if ever we had them) deem ihemselves so. Detach them from their teachers, avoid the Shibboleths and expressions they have been taught to boggle at, and let them pray together, you will find they all say and mean the same things. Religion, my friend, is not a system of sentiments, it is a new nature, a new life, and they who have it, are under divine teaching, and will in due time learn all that the Lord sees it needful for them to know. Some of my frequent hearers, whom I rank among the best of them, would start at the word Calvinist, which therefore they never hear from me; nor the words election or predestination, unless they lie in my text, and then I explain them in an experimental way, and they receive the truths intended, as a young child does milk. They will not allow

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themselves to be Calvinists; but they are humble, spiritual, peaceful — they lcve the Lord and his people — they overcome the world. They are satisfied with me, and I with them.

Some people have a sharp eye, others are near-sighted, but both sorts love the light, and can see by it to walk and work; though good eyes have the advantage in viewing an extensive prospect. It is thus in spirituals. Yet if the heart be upright, we usually grow wiser by years and expenence. Thus some who set out Arminians, in the Lord’s time become Calvinists; and many who were once speculative and positive, are ripened by age, and become less assuming and dogmatical — learn to bear and forbear; and though they have not changed their sentiments, are strongly suspected by some, because they can love even an Arminian.

A dealer in anecdote should have the scripture touchstone and fan always at hand. I think the story of Pagey, however attested to you, is not quite sterling. The Moravian brethren had many Indian converts. These, all of them loved the Saviour, not because he gave them corn, but because he gave himself for their sins, and redeemed them by his bloody death upon the cross. If the voice Pagey heard had convinced him of the depravity of his nature, or told him of the atonement, I should have liked it better. I dare not say what the Lord may or may not do; but I

Jiave no present conception of love without faith, or of faith without some communication of gospel truth and light to the mind.

I think 1 could match you, and overmatch you on the hand of coldness and wanderings in secret prayer. But in prayer I am to confess my sins and depravity, which I could not honestly do unless I felt them. Nor do I expect to be much better than Paul was, who found that when he would do good, evil was present with him. Farther, if the Lord favours me with some liberty before men, it may be a great mercy that he leaves me to feel in private how little I can do without him. Otherwise, pride might tempt me to consider that as my own, which experience now assures me I only receive, and am dependent entirely upon him for, without whom I can do nothing. You will meet with the sum of all your complaint in the Olney Hymns, book 1. No. 119, which was written longbefore I heard of you. As face answereth to face in a glass, so the heart of man to man. Your guinea and mine bear the same impression, because they came out of the same mint. When we most feelingly say, “O wretched man that I am!” we may still cheerfully add, “I thank God, through Christ Jesus my Lord.” There is a difference in us, according as the Lord is pleased to afford or suspend his power. But in ourselves we are no better at one time than another; for there dwelleth in us no good thing.

The eye can see when there is light, but it has no light in itself.

I thought you had seen the sermon I printed on the king’s recovery, at the end of which are the verses you mention. The sermons ?.re now out of print, or I would send you one, but Miss C. with her respects, sends you a copy of the hymn. My love to Mr. and Mrs. B***. May the Lord bless their union. Yea I trust he will.

Mrs. Rowe was an excellent woman — she had a warm heart, a lively imagination — she was a poetess. But I confess some of her aspirations are too seraphic for me. Mrs. A***’s Christian Character Exemplified is more to my taste. Give my love to Miss G***: tell her I am in good health, excepting a cold in my head, which has made me for some time almost totally deaf; but I can now hear a little better. But at the age of 70, I must expect mementos that my outward man must decay.

1 The breaches cheerfully foretell,
The house must shortly fall.’

Few people have less reason to be weary of life then I; and I trust in him who has promised strength according to the day, that when the time comes I shall not be afraid to die. I seem not to fear death at present, but as yet he is at some distance. If he should open the study door, while I am writing, and beckon me away, I cannot answer for myself, how I should behave; for it is a very serious transition. But I may say with Dr. Grosvenor, “if the [Lord be pleased to smile upon me, I will smile upon death.”

With my love to all who love the Saviour, in Edinburgh, Leith, and elsewhere,.’as they come in your way, and my prayers for your and their best welfare, I remain,

Your affectionate and obliged,

J. N.