To the Rev. William Law

VIII. — TO THE REV. WILLIAM LAW.

May 14, 1738.

Reverend Sir, — It is in obedience to what I think to be the call of God, that I, who have the sentence of death in my own soul, take upon me to write to you, of whom I have often desired to learn th6 first elements of the gospel of Christ.

If you are born of God, you will approve of the design, though it may be but weakly executed. If not, I shall grieve for you, not for myself. For as I seek not the praise of men, so neither regard I the contempt either of you or of any other.

For tM’O years (more especially) I have been preaching after the model of your two practical treatises; and all that heard have allowed that the law is great, wonderful, and holy. But no sooner did they attempt to fulfil it, but they found that it is too hisjh for man: and that by doinji “the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified.”

To remedy this, I exhorted them, and stirred up myself, to pray earnestly for the grace of God, and to use all the other means of obtaining that grace, which the all-wise God hath appointed. But still, both they and I were more and more convinced that this is a law by which a man cannot live; the law in our members continually warring against it, and bringing us into deeper captivity to the law of sin.

Under this heavy yoke I might have groaned till death, had not a holy man, to whom God lately directed me, upon my complaining thereof, answered at once, “Believe, and thou shalt be saved. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ with all thy heart, and nothing shall be impossible to thee. This faith, indeed, as well as the salvation it brings, is the free gift of God. But seek, and thou shalt find. Strip thyself naked of thy own works, and thy own righteousness, and lly to hiin. For whosoever cometh unto him he will in nowise cast out.”

Now, sir, suffer me to ask. How will you answer it to our common Lord, that you never gave me this advice? Did you never read the Acts of the Apostles, or the answer of Paul to him who said, “What must I do to be saved?” Or are you wiser than he? Why did I scarce ever hear you name the name of Christ? never, so as to ground any thing upon “faith in his blood?” Who is this who is laying another foundation? If you say you advised other things as preparatory to this, what is this but laying a foundation below the foundation? Is not Christ then the first as well as the last? If you say you advised them because you knew that I had faith already, verily you knew nothing of me; you discerned not my spirit at all. I know that I had not faith, unless the faith of a devil, the faith of Judas, that speculative, notional, airy shadow which lives in the head, not in the heart. But what is this to the living, justifying faith in the blood of Jesus? the faith that cleanseth from sin; that gives us to have free access to the Father; to “rejoice in hope of the glory of God;” to have “the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost” which dwelleth in us; and “the Spirit itself bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of God?”

I besocc-h you, sir, by the mercies of God, to consider deeply and impartially whether the true reason of your never pressing this upon me was not this, — that you had it not v(nirsolf? whether that man of God was not in the right who gave this account of a late interview he had with you? —” I began speaking to him of faith in Christ. He was silent. Then he b<^gan to speak of mystical matters. I spake 10 him of faith in Christ again. He was silent.

Then he began to speak of mystical matters again. I saw his state at once.” And a very dangerous one in his judgment, whom I know to have the Spirit of God. I Once more, sir, let me beg you to consider whether your * extreme roughness, and morose and sour behaviour, at least I on many occasions, can possibly be the fruit of a living I faith in Christ? If not, may the God of peace and love fill up what is yet wanting in you!