79. - To Lady Huntingdon.
79. - TO LADY HUNTINGDON.
MADELEY, Jan. 3, 1768.
MY LADY, - A thousand thanks to your ladyship for the letter you were so kind as to favour me with; it relieved me, in a great measure, of the fears I had concerning your health. Blessed be our GOD who spares you to see the beginning of a new year, and to fill up the space of it with inward acts of faith and love toward Him who did not abhor the virgin’s womb and outward attempts to promote every where the savour of his knowledge. May the child born, and the Son given, show himself more abundantly than ever to be wonderful in his works and ways with regard to your ladyship’s soul and projects! May you find him turning this year into a Christian jubilee wherever his providence shall direct your steps; and may your very enemies be forced to confess that the mighty God and the Prince of Peace is your sun, shield, and exceeding great reward. What this year may bring forth who knows? This, however, we know; - all will be welcome that he shall be pleased to appoint; and nothing will befall us but by his appointment, for the very hairs of our head are all numbered. With what angelic peace and martyr - like intrepidity ought this consideration to inspire us! O for more faith to persevere, as seeing the invisible, as carrying this Saviour in arms of love with the sensibility of exulting Simeon! I am through mercy in some feeble manner penetrated with a sense of the necessity of abandoning myself to the holy child JESUS, as a worthless mite toward the reward of his humiliation. If the Word was made flesh; if the Most High exchanged his throne for a manger, his heaven for a stable, and his transcendent majesty for the apparent feebleness of an infant, good God, into what abyss of shame and humility should I plunge myself! Methinks, if my eyes were truly opened to see this mystery of godliness, I should instantly be dissolved into tears of astonishment and love. O pray for me, insensible me, that the Holy Ghost may teach me to sound the depths of incarnate love, or at least to lose myself in their immensity together with your ladyship. It is an ocean without bottom. May we fall into it every moment, as insignificant drops of gall, to be absorbed in those pure and mighty waters. There the mountains of our iniquities, and the valleys of our deficiencies, are more effectually covered than the highest mountains were by the waters of the flood. Our temptations, transgressions, losses, and pains, are lost here like drops or showers in the sea. We are in this sea; it fills heaven and earth; and if we meet now and then in it with a dash against the rock of adversity, or a storm from the boisterous winds of temptation, it is only to make our scum go from us as ISAIAH says. Welcome then even contrary winds; they are in reality favourable. Some will no doubt blow upon your ladyship from that little point of the compass, Trevecka; but the LORD hath them in his hands; fear not, the government is still upon his shoulders. I thank your ladyship for having recommended me to Easterbrook. I hope he will be the captain of the school, and a great help to the master as well as a spur to the students. He hath good parts, a most happy memory, and a zeal that would gladden your ladyship’s heart. He has preached no less than four times to - day; and seems indeed in his own element when he is seeking after the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He is employed every evening in the work of the LORD; and I give him the more opportunity to exercise his talent, as it appears he does it far better than I. I beg two things for him; first, that it may hold; secondly, that he may be kept humble. He would at first live upon potatoes and water; but finding it may impair his health, I have got him to table with me, and shall gladly pay his board; he works for me, and the workman is worthy of his hire. Our young collier seems a little discouraged with regard to the hopes of his being admitted one of your students; he thinks he stands no chance if all must be qualified as he is. With regard to books, I am in doubt what to write to your ladyship. Having studied abroad, and used rather foreign than English books with my pupils, I am not acquainted with the books Great Britain affords well enough to select the best and most concise. Beside, a plan of studies must be fixed upon first before proper books can be chosen. Grammar, logic, rhetoric, with ecclesiastical history, and a little natural philosophy and geography, with a great deal of practical divinity, will be sufficient for those who do not care to dive into languages. Mr. Townsend and C. Wesley might, by spending an hour together, make a proper choice, and I would recommend them not to forget Watts’ Logic, and his History of the Bible, by questions and answers, which seem to me excellent books of the kind for clearness and order. Mr. Wesley’s Natural Philosophy contains as much as is wanted, or more. Mason’s Essay on Pronunciation will be worth their attention. Henry and Gill on the Bible, with the four volumes of Baxter’s Practical Works, Keach’s Metaphors, Taylor on the Types, printed at Trevecka, Gurnal’s Christian Armour, Edwards on Preaching, Johnson’s English Dictionary, and Mr. Wesley’s Christian Library, may make part of the little library. The book of Baxter I mention, I shall take care to send to Trevecka, as a mite toward the collection, together with Usher’s Body of Divinity, Scapula’s Greek Lexicon, and Littleton’s Latin Dictionary.