42. - To Mr. Henry Brook.
You have always a feeling which, properly attended to, would make you shout, “I am, I am out of hell!” I beg that this wonderful mercy may not appear cheap to you: if it does, you have got up, and must come down; for it is proper that the Lord should bring down your spirit, and keep you upon crumbs, till you have learned to be thankful for them.
At the first reading your letter, three things struck me,
(1.) You are wanting in the venture of faith: you do not give enough to that kind of implicit confidence in Christ, which says, “I will trust in thee, though thou slay me.” Now this is a lesson which you must learn. Sink or swim, a believer must learn to cast himself headlong into the boundless sea of Divine truth and love.
(2.) You have not learned to hold fast what you have, and to be thankful for it, till the Lord comes with more; till he baptizes you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
(3.) You do not make a proper use of the joy of hope, which, nevertheless, is to be your strength till the Lord comes to his temple to make his abode there Adieu.
J. FLETCHER.
42. - TO MR. HENRY BROOK.
MADELEY, Sept. 6, 1772.
DEAR SIR, - If to do was as present with me as to wish, you would have been half ruined in the postage of letters. I cannot tell you how often I have thought of thanking vou for your kind letter. My controversy made me put it off some time, and when I was going one day to answer you, a clergyman called upon me, read your letter, said you were a sensible author, and if I would let him have it he would let me have the “Fool of Quality,” of which I had never heard. I forgot to take your direction, and my backwardness to writing had a very good excuse to indulge itself. However, it ceases now: after some months my friend has sent me back your unexpected but welcome flavour, for which I give you my sincere thanks. Accept them warm from my heart to yours; and thence may they return like a thousand drops into that immense ocean of goodness, truth, love, and delight, whence come all the streams which gladden the universe, and ravish the city of God.
I thankfully accept the pleasure, profit, and honour of your correspondence. But I must not deceive you. I have not yet learned the blessed precept of our Lord in respect of writing and receiving letters: I still find it more blessed to receive than to give; and till I have got out of that selfishness, never depend on a letter from me till you see it, and be persuaded, nevertheless, that one from you will always be welcome.
I see by your works that you have truth, and that you will force your way through all the barriers of prejudice, to embrace it in its meanest dress. That makes me love you. I hope to improve by your example and your lessons. One thing I want truly to learn, that is, that creatures and visible things are but shadows, and that God is God, Jehovah, the true eternal substance. To live practically in this truth is to live in the suburbs of heaven. Really, to believe that in God we live, move, and have our being, is to find and enjoy the root of our existence: it is to slide from self into our original principle, from the carnal into the spiritual, from the visible into the invisible, from time into eternity. Give me, at your leisure, some directions how to cease from busying myself about the husks of things, and how I shall break through the shell till I come to the kernel of the resurrection, life and power, that lies hid from the unbeliever’s sight. You mention, “A short sketch of your path already passed and of your present feelings.” I believe it will be profitable to me for instruction and reproof; therefore, I shall gladly accept it.
Pray, my dear sir, about feelings. Are you possessed of all the feelings of your Clinton, Clement, and Harry? Are they natural to you, I mean, previous to what we generally call conversion? I have often thought that some of the feelings you describe depend a good deal upon the fineness of the nerves and bodily organs: and as I am rather of a Stoic turn, I have sometimes comforted myself in thinking that my want of feeling might, in a degree, proceed from the dulness of my Swiss nerves. If I am not mistaken, Providence directs me to you to have this important question solved, - May not some persons have as much true faith, love, humanity, and pity, as others who are ten times more affected, at least for a season? And what directions would you give to a Christian Stoic, if these two ideas are not absolutely incompatible? My stoicism helps me, I think, to weather out a storm of displeasure which my little pamphlets have raised against me. You see, I at once consult you as an old friend and spiritual casuist, nor know I how to testify better to you, how unreservedly I begin to be, my very dear friend, yours in the Lord,f24
J. FLETCHER.