Chapter I: RECEIVED my dearest ****’s long letter, and have more and more reason

to be thankful to God on your account. Oh how my soul exults in your happiness, in your increase in faith, and love to _Christ_!――Your conversation with the captain delights me; no doubt but he rejoiced over you――there _you_ see the true christian spirit. The advice he gave you is excellent: Oh may we be both enabled to follow it! Those who forsake all _for_ Christ, will certainly find all _in_ Christ.――As to ****, I would advise you to try first, to raise in him a _desire_ to receive the sacrament, before you persuade him _to receive_ it; and be earnest at the throne of grace on his behalf. All probable means are to be made use of, but it is the _Spirit_ of God alone can convince of sin.――I have been lately a good deal affected with the death of a lady in this neighbourhood, who led what is called an innocent life. Mr. **** attended her, and all his endeavours to convince her were in vain: her answers were, “Though she had not made such a shew of religion as _some others_, yet she had _done_ her duty.” This is the most fatal delusion of all; this blindness is the most dreadful state in which a soul can launch into eternity! Can you and I be ever enough thankful to that God who has opened our eyes, to see the things which make for our peace? Was our whole life to be one continued act of praise, it would be nothing in comparison to the blessings we have received; nay, even the eternity, which we shall spend in continual _praise_, is not enough _fully_ to express all we owe to our _redeeming God――Redemption_, how much is comprehended in this word! And how sweet does it sound to a soul sensible of its wants! May that pathetic prayer my dear **** has made for me be heard; then shall I experience that _fulness_ of redemption for which I long! Then shall I indeed be intirely dead to the world and sin, and live only to Christ. All this unspeakable happiness, I as sincerely wish to the brother of my soul as to myself;

_And am his truly affectionate_,

****

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_Sunday Afternoon, March 10, 1754._

_My dear ****_,

LAST night after you were gone, I read your letter, and thought of what you had told me with the greatest satisfaction. What reason have you to be thankful, that God should at so early a time of your life convince you of _sin_, and give you to _know_, that you have redemption through Christ! How might you have plunged into all the follies and vices of youth, and laid up a large stock for future and bitter repentance, had not the free and unbounded grace of God displayed its power in your soul! Oh continue earnestly to seek still more and more of the _fulness_ of Christ. Think not because you have had a sense of the _pardoning love_ of God, that you are to _rest here_: no, still seek for fresh evidences of his love to your soul; press forward with unwearied diligence towards the mark of the _high calling_ of God in Christ Jesus; seek and _strive_ to gain the _abiding witness_ of the _Spirit_; strive for that perfect renewal of heart by which you may say, “’Tis no more I that live, but Christ liveth _in me_.”――You tell me you was assaulted, some days after you had this dear sense of the mercies of God in Christ Jesus, with doubts and fears. Whenever you are attacked in this manner again, argue thus with yourself:――“This peace and joy which I felt, this sense of forgiveness _seemed_ to me to be the work of God upon my soul: but was it really so? Might not a warm imagination deceive me, or might not the great enemy of souls transform himself into an angel of light, in order to lull me into a fatal security? But have I not an infallible rule to judge by, whether this work was of God? What were the fruits it produced? Did I upon this grow more careless and remiss? Was my mind puffed up with spiritual pride? Did I allow myself liberties which before I was afraid to take?――Or did I, on the contrary, watch still more diligently against the most distant approaches of sin? Did I find increasing power over sins of the heart, as well as outward sin? Did I find in me a _still_ deeper sense of my own nothingness and the all-sufficiency of my Redeemer, and a large increase of the love of God and all mankind? If these were the happy fruits of this evidence, I have no cause to doubt this work _was certainly_ of God.”

In this manner, my dear, if you will examine yourself, begging the assistance of the blessed Spirit, to enable you to search every winding and turning of your heart, you can never be deceived, and will always be able by the shield of faith to repel all the fiery darts of the devil. I thank you for your affectionate prayer for me (may God return all those blessings double on your own head) and am,

_Your ever-affectionate friend_,

****

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