ne." Sir, your petition is granted; for (in whatsoever state I am) that is my daily prayer, and was so perhaps before you were born: for many years I have implored the assistance of God's good Spirit in the impartial search of truth, in which I have ever begged to be preserved at the expense of friends, relations, country, and all that I hold near and dear to me in this world. This you allow is much better than to canonize my own ignorance, which whether I do or not, I cannot say, because I do not at all understand the meaning of that phrase. But I am sure I do not condemn all (or any of) God's children of idiotism and madness; but I leave that to those whose schemes require it to be allowed, that many of God's children do not continue in sound mind and memory.

2. Sir, whilst you are pleased to submit to the equality of a disputant, you should not pronounce sentence ex cathedrâ. Who it is that mistakes his own ignorance for the only knowledge and wisdom, is not as yet decided; and till it is, I should esteem it a rude begging the question, to throw that imputation upon you, though it were cloaked under the charitable prayers of -"God help your ignorant head," or "the Lord correct your damnable error, and snatch you from hell fire." The softest prayers may be so contrived as to suggest the rudest things, even that one's antagonist is a brand of hell. This may move terror in children, but pity only in men of sense. Let me therefore once more entreat you to be more sparing of this manner, at least in your appeals to men of reason, and religion.

3. And if this debate is to go any farther, I must insist upon your keeping your temper, and upon your bearing with patience your adversary's supposing himself in the right, and you in the wrong; he does but suppose so, and therefore keeps himself open to conviction, whenever you shall be able to offer it. Whenever it comes, he will receive it gladly; and if it never comes, he must then conclude you in an error, but such an error as no way shakes his opinion of your being a reasonable, sincere, and good man. Instead of anathematizing you, or devoting you to hell, he hopes to meet you in the blessed regions of heaven. Now, preserve but the same candour for him that he retains for you, and then this our friendly debate may be a friendly debate to the end of the chapter.

4. To proceed then. I can very patiently hear you reply to what I said of a number of unsent persons preaching about the kingdom; you have heard of but two, and no more; but I have heard of twice that number in one county, and of many more in other counties of this kingdom. I myself never saw but one; he prayed for you and your brother by name; and besides much smooth, undigested nonsense, preached up heresy, even that worst of heresies, (as not striking at the branches, but the whole root of holiness at once,) I mean Antinomianism. I was soon after told that I should see this preacher no more, for that he was committed to the county gaol, upon his own confession, for horse-stealing. Now, how many such preachers, or such horsemen, are gone forth in the kingdom, is not at all material to my argument, which is as well illustrated by one example, as by a thousand.

5. Whether the irregulars shall never join any state faction?-Whether they are not more liable to sedition than the regularly ordained clergy ?-Whether the civil war, and the destruction of church and state, was God's vengeance for the persecution of those holy good men, the Puritans ?-Whether you, without the study of physic, can cure more hundreds in four months, than the ablest students in physic can cure in as many years ?-And whether Dr. B. and Dr. G. (whom I know not) are such wicked numskulls as are fit to pave hell withal?-All these things, to shorten our debate, I shall pass untouched. I must only observe, that much the greater part of the few clergy with whom I have the pleasure to be acquainted, are as averse to dead form, and as zealous for inward solid virtue, as you, or any one living can be: though they cannot take the liberty of gaining attention by irregular bold strokes, ás never having yet had any call from the pulpit to the tombs.

6. That you caught attention by such bold strokes as preaching on tombs and mountains, I hope I might tell you without contradiction, because I had it from yourself, and you had told me so in express terms: nay, you now confirm this, whilst you attempt to deny it for many gapers and starers came to hear you from your first appearance at Newcastle, though you had preached above sixscore times before you perceived you had made much impression. But you perceived the impression much sooner at Epworth, where the novelty and oddity of a son's preaching on his father's tomb, had more effect in three days, than preaching in his pulpit had in three years. Is not this plainly declaring that the effect was owing to the novelty, and to the novelty only? For here was the same preacher, the same hearers, and surely the same God to influence, (unless it were to be profanely said, that there is one God of the church, and another stronger influencing god of the churchyard,) so that the only difference

between preaching in the pulpit and on the tomb was this, that the former, being customary, made little impression; while the latter, from its strangeness, caught much attention. You may fancy, perhaps, that you have a divine call thus to catch attention; but other clergymen are sure they have no such thing, and therefore hold themselves obliged to forbear the novelty of preaching on tombs, as much as the singularity of preaching on their heads.

7. There are three ways in which the Holy Spirit may be said to bear witness. 1st. By external, miraculous, sensible attestations, (as by an audible voice from heaven, by visible signs, wonders, &c.) Or, 2dly, By internal, plainly-perceptible whispers, ("Go not into Macedonia. Go with these men. Join thyself to this chariot," &c.) Or lastly, By his standing testimony in the Holy Scriptures. In all these three senses St. Paul and the other apostles might truly say-The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.' If external miraculous powers, and internal prophetic inspiration, both continued in the days of Ignatius and Polycarp; then they might too truly assert the same thing in all the three senses. But if in the days of Origen and Chrysostom external miraculous powers had ceased, while internal prophetic inspiration still remained; then they could not truly use the same phrase but in the two last senses. Lastly, if in the days of St. Bernard both miracles and prophecy had entirely ceased; then he could not truly use the expression but in the last sense only. If Bernard (who was somewhat enthusiastically given) yet insisted that he had still plainly-perceptible whispers, it would be natural for his neighbours to call on him to show either that it should be so by Scriptnre, or that it was so by facts. If for the former he produced Rom. viii, 16, the answer was easy, “You attempt to decide controversies by the very controverted texts." If for the latter he produced variable facts, to-day asserted, to-morrow doubted, and the day following denied; then it is evident the whispers were not so plainly-perceptible as was asserted, or that they were not the whispers of Him in whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning. The spirit of man, and his fancies or opinions, may vary, but the Spirit of God, and his facts, cannot. You may be fully of opinion to-day that the Scriptures are of God, and doubt of that to-morrow, and so vary your opinion a thousand times: but what is this to the purpose? We were speaking not of man's opinions, but of God's facts. Turn this to fact, and see how you will like it. If God tells you to-day that the Scriptures are true; can you to-morrow doubt whether they are false? Or could the man in the gospel, to whom Christ distinctly said, "Thy sins are forgiven thee," doubt or deny the day following that Christ ever said such a word? Yes, if we will groundlessly and blasphemously suppose that the god of this world can more strongly obliterate than the God of heaven can imprint: but if it be obliterated, whether it be by the god of the world, the devil, or by the goddess of the night, the moon, the man is no longer compos mentis; is altogether incapable of true religion, and fit only for the regions of Moorfields. Yet you suppose such a one still a religious subject, even after you allow that he does not continue in sound mind and memory. Now, pray sir, is it you or I that impute idiotism and madness to the children of God?

8. That the Spirit beareth witness with the spirit of the faithful, that they are the children of God, in some sense or other, (suppose in the third above mentioned,) was never denied by sober Christians: but that he beareth witness precisely in the first or second sense, was never maintained but by Montanists, Quakers, and Methodists: who have no more right to quote this text as decisive in favour of their peculiar interpretation, than the others have to urge [it] as decisive in favour of theirs, Neither this text, therefore, nor any other that I know of in the Bible, at all favours the doctrine of a direct, perceptible inspiration, as easily distinguishable from all suggestions of reason or fancy, as light is from darkness. Now, if Scripture fails, the only remaining proof is from instances and experiences. If we ask how we may know that these instances are not mistakes; the answer is, you feel they are not, for God speaks to the inmost soul as never man spake. If we reply that there are enthusiasts in the world, who are fully persuaded that they have this inward speaking, when in truth they have not; then you can keep your temper no longer, and the only answer is, that if we question it in you, or perceive it not in ourselves, we are ignorant of the whole affair, and doomed to the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Proceeds this now from the benign spirit of charity, or breathes it not a different and quite contrary spirit?

9. Some years ago a Quaker came to me with a message, which he was fully persuaded he had received from God. As the matter of the message was innocent, it might possibly come from Him; but I thought it more probable that it was only the effect of an overheated imagination. I asked the man what reason he had to think

it rather an inspiration of God than a suggestion of fancy; he answered almost in your very words, that the inward light was as plainly perceptible as the outward, and that God speaking to the inmost soul was distincter and sweeter than ever man spoke. Thus far you are equal. But, in point of charity he far outdid you: for he allowed that all the sincere servants of God, and hopers for salvation, were in a fair way for it, though they had not been favoured like himself with a direct perceptible inspiration concerning these things. Yet I could not help suspecting that my neighbour was enthusiastic, although for some years, (except in this respect) he continued in his sound mind and senses; but at last his heated imagination blazed out; and I had the mortification to see this poor man confined, when he employed himself all day long in repeating gibberish, as a proof of his having the gift of unknown tongues.

10. In short, as the enthusiast seems as confident of his inspiration as one really inspired is of his, a third person hath a right to call for other proof than confident assertion: every one may say like Pharaoh in Cowley,

"If thus from God you come," said Egypt's king,

"What sign, what powers, what credence do you bring?"

God commonly attests to inward inspiration by outward miracles. To this attestation too you have likewise laid claim, to the casting out devils, to the doing many wonderful works, and to the having seen many miraculous things; now do but make good this claim, and I shall readily believe (not any thing which you shall advance contrary to plain Scripture, but) your interpretation of doubtful and controverted passages, preferably to the interpretation of all other men. But if you can by no means make this good, then I again call upon you ingenuously to own it, and to confess (as you do on another occasion in your last letter) that the expression is too strong.

11. I heartily thank you for your sermons: I was in hopes to have found there, (according to your profession in your first letter,) the love of God and man more insisted on ten times over than all other subjects whatever, but I must own I was disappointed; other subjects being ten times over more insisted on than that. There is, however, such a vein of seriousness and piety throughout the whole, as will ever make me love and esteem the author, and wish him freed from all excess and extravagance. Where we

differ I may possibly be in the wrong; but where we agree I am sure we are both in the right. Our agreements are material, our differences (at least in the eye of charity) but trivial. Charity never faileth. This shall endure when all controversies about faith shall be ended, and when faith itself shall be swallowed up in vision. April 27, 1747.

P. S. Since I wrote the above, it came into my mind that possibly by your putting in Greek letters, the eveoysia of the powers of darkness, you meant to suggest to me some particular emphasis of the original. But upon turning to the original I find no such expression. can find the word but seven times in the New Testament. Six times it notes the power of God: the seventh is- ενεργειαν το Σατανα, the working of Satan: " What, to erase the testimony of the Holy Ghost out of the memory of justified believers who are saved?" No, but to amuse with signs and lying wonders, them that receive not the love of the truth, them that perish. The same apostle elsewhere says, 'If our gospel be hid, it is hid' (to whom? to those to whom God specially reveals it? No, but) to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds' (of whom? of true believers? No, but) of them who believe not.'-Strange! that from these passages, that mention the influence of the devil over wicked infidels, men should frame such a groundless, such a blasphemous hypothesis, as that when God has testified their justification to the regenerate in express terms and as perceptible as the sun at noon; yet the devil has the controlling power to erase God's plain testimony, and to throw God's children into such distraction, that they shall not only assert what God testified was false, but shall totally forget and deny that he ever testified any such thing at all!

LETTER IX.

To Mr. John Smith.

St. Ives, July 10, 1747.

SIR, -1. You put me in mind of an eminent man, who preaching at St. James's said, "If you do not repent, you will go to a place which I shall not name before this audience." I cannot promise so much either in preaching or writing, before any audience, or to any person whatever. Yet I am not conscious of doing this very

often, of "profusely flinging about everlasting fire." Though it is true I mentioned it in my last letter to you, as I have done now a second time, and perhaps I may mention it yet again. For (to say the truth) I desire to have both heaven and hell ever in my eye while I stand on this isthmus of life, between these two boundless oceans. And I verily think the daily consideration of both, highly becomes ali men of reason and religion.

2. I think likewise, (or I would not spend five words upon the head,) that these are nearly concerned in our present question. To touch only on one branch of it: if I live in wilful sin, in a sinful "deviation from established order," am I not in the way to hell? I cannot take it any otherwise. I cannot help "blending these two inquiries together." I must therefore speak seriously or not at all; and yet, I trust, without "losing my temper." Do you complain of this first, that I may not complain? It appears to me that you show more eagerness of spirit, more warmth and resentment in your last, than you ever have done from the beginning.

3. You spoke of "a number of unsent persons going about and preaching the worst of heresies." I answered,-" Within these nine years I have heard of two, and no more, who have gone about thus, though I doubt neither sent of God nor man." Their names were Jonathan Wildboar, and Thomas Smith, alias Moor, alias I know not what for I fear he changed his name as often as his place. It is not unlikely that either of these might steal as well as lie, which they have done abundantly, particularly in claiming acquaintance with Mr. Whitefield or me, wherever they judged it would recommend them to their hearers. I should not be surprised to hear of two more such but I have not yet, in all the counties I have gone through between London and Berwick-upon-Tweed, or between Deal and the Land's-end.

4. I would to God all the clergy throughout the land were “zealous for inward, solid virtue." But I dare not say one in ten of those I have known are so in any degree. The two clergymen of this place, on a late public occasion, were led home at one or two in the morning in such a condition as I care not to describe. One of them is rector of Lalant also, (a parish east of St. Ives,) of Twidnack to the south, and Zunnor to the west. At Zunnor he keeps another assistant, and one who is just as sober as himself, and near as zealous-not indeed for inward or outward virtue; but against these "scoundrels that pretend to preach in his parish."

5. I never "attempted to deny" that the novelty of our manner of preaching has induced thousands and ten thousands to hear us, who would otherwise never have heard us at all, nor perhaps any other preacher. But I utterly deny that "the effects wrought on many of them that heard, were owing to novelty, and that only." The particular effects wrought at Epworth were these :-Many drunkards-many unjust and profane men, (on whom both my father and I had for several years spent our strength in vain,) from that time began to live (and continue so to do) a sober, righteous and godly life. Now I deny that this effect can be owing to novelty, or to any principle but the power of God.

If it be asked, But were there not "the same hearers, the same preachers, and the same God to influence, in the church, as on the tombstone?" I answer, 1. There were not all the same hearers in the church; not above one third of them: 2. There was the same preacher in the church, but he did not then preach the same doctrine; and, therefore, 3. Though there was the same God, there was not the same influence or blessing from him.

6. The sum of what I offered before, concerning perceptible inspiration, was this:"Every Christian believer has a perceptible testimony of God's Spirit, that he is a child of God." You objected, that there was not one word said of this, either in the Bible, or in the Appeal, to which I referred. I replied, "I think there is in the Bible, in the 16th verse of the viiith chapter to the Romans. And in the Farther Appeal, this place is proved to describe the ordinary privilege of every Christian believer." This is there shown, both by Scripture, by reason, and by authority, particularly that of Origen and Chrysostom, whom his lordship of Litchfield had cited in his Charge, as asserting just the contrary. But waiving authorities, I reasoned thus: "You allow there is a testimony of the Spirit with our spirit, that we are the children of God. But you say, it is not a perceptible one. How is this? Let us examine it thoroughly. It is allowed, 1. The Spirit of God: 2. bears testimony to my spirit: 3. that I am a child of God; but I am not to perceive it. "Not to perceive what? The 1st, 2d, or 3d particular? Am I not to perceive what is testified? That I am a child of God? Then it is not testified at all. This is saying and unsaying in the same breath. Or am I not to perceive that it is testified to my spirit? Yea, but I must perceive what passes in my own soul! Or, lastly, am I to perceive that I am a child of God, and that this is testified to my spirit, but not to perceive who it is that testifies? Not to know it is the Spirit of God? O, sir, if there be really a man in the

world who hath this testimony in himself, can it be suppposed that he does not know who it is that testifies? who it is that speaks to his heart?"

7. Instead of giving a direct answer to this, you have recourse to the same supposition with his lordship of Litchfield and Coventry, viz. That there was once an inward perceptible testimony of the Spirit, but that it was peculiar to the early ages of the church.

"There are three ways," say you, "in which the Holy Spirit may be said to bear witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: 1. By external, miraculous attestations: 2. By internal, plainly-perceptible whispers." (I must add, "not in words, at least not always, but by some kind of impressions equivalent thereto.") 3. "By his standing testimony in the Holy Scriptures. The apostles had all these three. Origen and Chrysostom probably the two latter. But if St. Bernard (several hundred years after) pretended to any other than the third, his neighbours would naturally ask for proof, either that it should be so by Scripture, or that it was so by facts."

Well, then, let us suppose St. Bernard and one of his neighbours to be talking together on this subject. On St. Bernard's saying, "The Spirit of God bears witness with my spirit, that I am a child of God :"-his neighbour replies, I suppose he does, but not by an inward, plainly-perceptible testimony. "Yes, by an inward, plaiulyperceptible testimony. I now have this testimony in myself. I plainly perceive that am a child of God, and that it is his Spirit that testifies it to my spirit :"-I fear you are somewhat enthusiastically given. I allow God's standing testimony in the Scriptures. But I cannot allow that there is now any such thing as this inward testimony, unless you can either prove by Scripture that it should be so, or by facts that it is so. "Are not these words Scripture: The Spirit itself beareth testimony with our spirit, that we are the children of God ?"-Yes; but the question is, How they are to be understood? For I deny that they speak of an inward testimony. They speak of the outward, standing testimony of God in the Holy Scriptures.-"You put a manifest force upon the text. You cannot prove that it speaks of any outward testimony at all. But the words immediately preceding prove to a demonstration that it speaks of an inward testimony; 'Ye have not received the Spirit of bondage unto fear.' (Is not fear an inward thing?) But ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father! The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God, even the same Spirit which God hath sent forth into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father!"—I do not deny that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit. But I deny your peculiar interpretation of this text. I deny that this text at all favours an inward, perceptible testimony.

6

"The Spirit which God hath sent into my heart, and which now cries in my heart, 'Abba, Father,' now beareth testimony with my spirit, that I am a child of God. How can these words be interpreted at all, but of an inward, perceptible testimony?" I tell you of God's standing testimony in Scripture.-"This is a palpable violence to the text. They no more speak of Scripture than of miracles. They manifestly speak of what passes in the heart-the spirit-the inmost soul of a believer, and that only." 8. But you would say, "Suppose this Scripture to prove that it should be so, can you show by facts that it is so?" Not if you take it for granted that every one who speaks of having this witness in himself is an enthusiast. You are then in no danger of proof from this quarter. You have a short answer to every fact which can be alleged.

But you turn the tables. You say it is I who allow that "many of God's children do not continue in sound mind and memory." ." I allowed, 1. A man feels the testimony of God's Spirit, and cannot then deny or doubt his being a child of God:2. After a time this testimony is withdrawn, (not from every child of God. Many retain the beginning of their confidence steadfast unto the end.)-3. Then he may doubt whether that testimony was of God, and perhaps at length deny that it was; (especially if his heart be hardened by the deceitfulness of his sin.) And yet he may be all this time in every other respect of" sound memory, as well as understanding." In this respect I allowed he is not; that is, "His understanding is now darkened, and the very traces of that Divine work well nigh erased out of his memory." So I expressly determined the sense wherein I allowed, "He does not continue in sound mind and memory." But did I allow that even then he was non compos mentis, a madman in the common sense? Nothing less; I allowed no more, than that the Divine Light being withdrawn, his mind was again dark as to the things of God and that he had forgotten το καθαρισμα τῶν πάλαι αυτε ἁμαρτιῶν,* well nigh, as though it had never been.

2 Peter i, 9.