Letter 209

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CCIX. — To the Reverend Mr. H.

DEAR SIR, March 27, 1764.

YOUR book on the Millennium and the Mystic writers was lately put into my hands. I cannot but thank you for your strong and seasonable confirmation of that comfortable doctrine; of which I cannot entertain the least doubt as long as I believe the Bible. I thank you, likewise, for your remarks on that bad performance of the Bishop of G——, which undoubtedly tears up by the roots all real internal religion. Yet, at the same time, I cannot but bewail your vehement attachment to the Mystic writers; with whom I conversed much for several years, and whom I then admired, perhaps more than you do now. But I found at length, an absolute necessity of giving up either them or the Bible. So, after some time, I fixed my choice, to which I hope to adhere to my life’s end. It is only the extreme attachment to these which can account for the following words: — “Mr. W. does, in several parts of his Journals, lay down some marks of the new birth, not only doubtful, but exceptionable; as, particularly, where persons appeared agitated or convulsed under the ministry; which might be owing to other causes, rather than any regenerating work of God’s Spirit.” (Page 385.)

Is this true? In what one part of my Journals do I lay down any doubtful, much less exceptionable, marks of the new birth? In no part do I lay down those agitations or convulsions as any marks of it at all. Nay, I expressly declare the contrary in those very words which the Bishop himself cites from my Journal. I declare, “These are of a disputable nature: They may be from God; they may be from nature; they may be from the devil.” How is it, then, that you tell all the world, Mr. W. lays them down in his Journals as marks of the new birth?

Is it kind? Would it not have been far more kind, suppose I had spoken wrong, to tell me of it in a private manner? How much more unkind was it to accuse me to all the world of a fault which I never committed!