vation pointed out to us by the wisdom of the Almighty. May our eyes be enlightened to see this way, which many wise men overlook, at which many great men are offended!

I wish Mr would study his Bible more, and the classics less. There is little good to be got by reading the Scripture carelessly; but he who humbly applies to God for direction, and exercises himself therein constantly and conscientiously, will find such an efficacy as is not to be found in any other book whatever; and therefore it is called, by way of pre-eminence, THE BIBLE (or THE BOOK); importing, that as this, and only this, is a divine work, no other books can be compared, or even so much as named, with it. It is the book of books; the Book of GOD. Mr however neglects this book, I fear; and indeed, if I may speak my sentiments to you freely, I look upon him to be so puffed up with pride, and the conceit of his-own abilities, that his passions run away with him, and he fires at every thing which thwarts any of the notions he has imbibed. Is not such a one disqualified for friendship? Can a man of his disposition attend coolly to arguments against his preconceived opinions, how modestly or forcibly soever such arguments may be urged? This surely is not the spirit of the gospel ; nor are these the qualities of one who professes himself a disciple of that Master, whose exhortation is, "Learn of me, for I am lowly and meek." I have no hopes of doing Mr any good; and as we think so very differently, the less we have to do with one another perhaps the better. He really is not now fit even for a companion, much less for a bosom friend. No man can be a proper associate (as a writer of no small penetration has judiciously remarked) in whom these or such like infirmities are predominant; namely,

1. If he be reserved, or be incapable of communicating his mind freely. 2. If he be haughty, and proud of his knowledge, imperious in his disposition,

3.

and fond of imposing his own sentiments on us. If he be positive, and will dispute to the end, by resisting the clearest evidence, rather than be overcome. 4. If he be fretful and peevish, ready to take things in a wrong sense. 5. If he affect wit on all occasions, and is full of his conceits, puns, quibbles, jests, and repartees. These may agreeably entertain and animate an hour of mirth, but they have no place in the search after truth. 6. If he carry about him a sort of craft and cunning, and disguise, acting rather like a spy than a friend. Have a care of such a one as will make an ill use of freedom in conversation, and immediately charge you with shocking tenets, when you happen to differ from those sentiments 7. In which authority or custom has established. short, avoid the man who practises any thing that is unbecoming the character of a sincere, free, and open searcher after truth. And, above all things, pray and work against all evil qualities in your own breast.

I had a letter lately from our old acquaintance in the West, who complains grievously of his burdens, as he calls them. It seems he has ten children; and is hipped to death lest he and his family should be reduced to beggary. His income, to be sure, is scanty and precarious; but I conjured him not to be diffident of Providence, reminded him of our blessed Master's charge (Matth. vi. 25.) against being too anxious about our subsistence in this life; and I sent him likewise the following passage from a poem of the Rev. Mr Onely's; assuring him, at the same time, that if he would have a due concern for the things that are God's, then God would also be careful of him and his.

But daughters, sons, alas! thy weakness scan;
Know prescience never was design'd for man.
Their wants you dread, some able hand supplies;
Their wealth you build, some accident destroys.
From thee some mites, and honest fame be given;
The rest from virtue, and the care of Heaven.

He says, IF HE HAD NOT BEEN deprived of fore-
SIGHT, he had never married; and, by way of expla-

nation, sent me an odd quotation, which I have here transcribed: "I cannot but admire the wisdom of nature, in denying to men and women that foresight when they are young which they acquire at a greater age; for without that, I believe the world could not subsist above fourscore years, and a new creation of men would be wanted once every hundred years at least; since the inconveniencies of marriage are experimentally known to overbalance the conveniencies. This YOUNG FOLKS will not believe, and thus the world is peopled."

has made a present of

I wish,

Your friend Colonel Steel's Christian Hero to all his officers. when he had been in such a disposition, that he had given to all the common men Dr Woodward's Soldier's Monitor. This book was wrote by the command of Queen Anne, as I have been told, and delivered to every soldier at the government's expense. The Sailor's Monitor, wrote by the same hand, was given to every sailor. And I think it very impolitic in the government to discontinue so well-judged a donation. If I was chaplain to a regiment, I would preach before the soldiers on this text: "I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved," Psalm xvi. 8.

Your reflections on seeing the skeleton at Oxford, and on your near view of Death (in the emblematical shape of a skeleton with an hour-glass and a dart) advancing towards you in your late sickness, have such a similarity with those of a worthy friend of mine, as I think will both surprise and please you. "Oh! my dear sir," says he, "to talk of death, and to enter in earnest upon dying, are two different things. To view the messenger, who comes from the JUDGE of all, as actually approaching with his open commission in one hand, and his uplifted dart to execute it in another, (an expecting grave, and an eternal judgment in his immediate train), is as different as to view a painted lion, who is only terrible on

canvass, and actually to see him with his rolling eyes, and really to hear his tremendous roar."

Have you seen the Rev. Mr Adam's Practical Lectures on the Church Catechism? He is an experienced Christian, and a spirited performance it is. The same gentleman wrote the preface to Mr Walker's (Truro) heart-searching sermons. Dr Smade me a present of it; and wrote in the blank leaf before the title-page, "What betwixt the frenzy of anger, the ague of hopes and fears, the fever of love, the consumption of envy, our distempered minds are kept under a continual disease, against which these lectures are a certain specific." Mr Adam is rector of Wintringham in Lincolnshire; and has made, I am told, an amazing reformation amongst the people in that neighbourhood, who, before his settlement amongst them, were remarkably dissolute and ignorant. He spares no pains in discharging his ministerial duty. His congregations are very large, I hear; and men, women, and children, come ten or a dozen miles to attend his preaching.

A gentleman lent me the other day Dr Leland's View of the Principal Deistical Writers; amongst which is one MORGAN, who styles himself a MORAL PHILOSOPHER, a character which is of late grown very fashionable amongst our modern Deists; but THEY might, with equal propriety, call themselves MIRACULOUS HEALERS; for they could as soon heal a decayed body by their moral philosophy, as THEY could cure the sin-sick soul by it. Miserable teachers are all such, who thus pretend to reform either themselves or mankind. He only can cast devils out of the soul who can say to the leper, "Be thou clean," and to the storm, "Be thou still." He only can heal the decayed body who hath said to the paralytic, "Take up thy bed, and walk."

I am, dear sir, with great respect and much esteem, your most obliged and very humble servant, &c. P. S.-I have a particular reason for desiring you

would give me your well-weighed opinion of the amiable Dr Watts' Orthodoxy and Charity United. It is wrote with an excellent design. The gentleman who persuaded me to purchase it is a person of great candour, learning, and piety. He is so fond of this book, that he has recommended it to all his distant acquaintance, and rarely goes into any company without introducing it in the conversation: he extols it in the strongest terms as a piece which no Christian ought to be without, since its grand end is to promote charitable sentiments and practices towards one another, amidst the numerous follies and errors of the time. Would to God our religious differences were properly settled on a sure foundation, that the contending parties were reconciled in love, and that "all we who call ourselves Christians might hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life." Amen, and amen.

LETTER CLXXXIV.

Weston-Favell, Nov. 4. 1757. DEAR SIR,-You wonder at my delay in answering your very friendly letter. This is the true cause: When I received your favour, I was very busy in dispatching to the press my three fast sermons lately published. By some accident your letter was mislaid, and could not be found. This day it came to light; and the moment I looked upon the date it struck me with a painful regret, a regret almost equal to the pleasure I enjoyed in your edifying conversation.

Your lady has shewn the most welcome complaisance to me, and to the rose:* to me, in accepting what is less than a trifle; to the rose, in putting it to such a use. Could that poor vegetable be sensible,

* When this gentleman was at Weston, Mr Hervey (as he walked with him in the garden) plucked a rose, and desired him to present it to his wife, to put her in mind of the ROSE OF SHARON. She paid that regard to the giver and the gift, as to put it into a frame with a glass.