Your plan for forming a Christian society, and regulating our interviews, I greatly approve. It seems to me to be complete. I see nothing that should be taken from it, nor can think of any thing to be added to it. I heartily wish to have it carried into execution, and hope it will be productive of considerable comfort and advantage to the members; and not to them only, but, by rendering them more useful in their respective stations, to many others.

A cold, and hoarseness on my voice, make me somewhat fearful of coming to this day. I hope you have perused the remainder of the manuscript; and cannot but wish you would give the whole a second reading. The unknown importance of what we print, inclines me to urge this request. Who can tell how long it may continue, and into what hands it may come? I almost tremble at such a thought, lest I should write unadvisedly with my pen, and injure instead of serving the best of causes.

-

If you have put my little piece into the hands of my Aristarchus, Dr I mean, desire him to be particularly attentive to the redundancies, and lop them off with a plentiful hand.

I shall soon create you a second task, by transmitting for your correction twenty folio pages of remarks on the stars, and serious improvements.Yours, &c.

LETTER XXXVII.

Weston-Favell, June 27. 1747. MY DEAR FRIEND,-COMING home this evening, I could not forbear musing on the various topics which furnished matter for our discourse; and now I am all thoughtful and retired, I cannot forbear taking notice of some particulars relating to our conversation. To be silent in such a case, would, I am persuaded, be more displeasing to a gentleman of your discernment and generosity, than to use the utmost freedom of speech.

VOL. VI.

Was it you, dear sir, or I, that, when a certain passage in Scripture happened to be mentioned, treated it, not indeed with a contemptuous disdain, but with too ludicrous an air? descanted on it in a sportive and frolicsome manner, in order to create a little pleasantry? If I was the person that indulged this improper levity, I beseech you to rebuke me, and severely too. Though my design might be innocent, my conduct was apparently wrong. That infinitely precious and important book should be always held in the highest veneration. Whatever the divine Spirit vouchsafes to dictate, should be thought and spoke of by mortals, with gratitude, dutifulness, and awe. It is the character of a religious man, that he trembles at God's word! and it is said of the great Jehovah, that he has magnified his name and his word above all things.

Who was it, dear sir, that lent to our valuable friend that vile book, Le Sopha, and yet wrote by Crebillon, with an enchanting spirit of elegance; which must render the mischief palatable, and the bane even delicious? I wonder that your kind and benevolent heart could recommend arsenic for a regale. It puts me in mind of the impoisoned shirt presented to Hercules. I am sure you did not think on it, or else you would no more have transmitted such a pestilent treatise to the perusal of a friend, than you would transmit to him a packet of goods from a country depopulated by the plague. If that polluting French book still remains in your study, let me beg of you to make it perform quarantine in the flames.

The last particular relates to attendance on the public worship of God. Let us not neglect the assembling ourselves together. This was the advice of the best and greatest casuist in the world; not to say, the injunction of the Maker of all things, and Judge of all men. Would we be assured of our love to God? This is one evidence of that most noble and happy temper,-Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy

house, and the place where thy honour dwelleth. Would we glorify the Lord? Then let us appear in his courts, fall low on our knees before his footstool, and in this public manner avow him for our God, recognize him for our King, and acknowledge him to be our Supreme Good. Would we follow the example of our devout and blessed Master? Let us remember how it is written, Jesus went into the synagogue, as his custom was. And, if we take due care to get our hearts prepared, by a little previous meditation and earnest prayer, I dare answer for it, our attendance will not be in vain in the Lord. God will, according to his promise, meet us in his ordinances; make us joyful in his house of prayer; and we shall experience what (if I remember right) that brightest ornament of the court of judicature, Judge Hales, declared, That he never sat under the preaching, even of the meanest sermon, but he found some word of edification, exhortation, or comfort.

Dear sir, bestow a thought on these things. If the remonstrances are wrong, I willingly retract them; if right, you will not pronounce me impertinent. Love and friendship dictate what I write; and the only end I have in view, is the holiness, the usefulness, the happiness, the final salvation of my much esteemed friend. It is for this, this only, I have now taken my pen in hand, and for this I shall often bend my knees before God, and thereby prove myself to be, dear sir, &c.

LETTER XXXVIII.

Weston-Favell, July 18. 1747. DEAR SIR, I DESIRE you to accept my thanks for the variety of beautiful lines which you sent me to chuse a motto from. They are all elegant, but not sufficiently expressive of the design of the piece. Therefore I imagined the following quotation from Dr Young somewhat more suitable:

Night is fair virtue's immemorial friend;
The conscious moon, through every distant age,
Has held a lamp to wisdom.

You advised me to add a sort of note to the passage objected to by Mr, relating to the spark's being visible. In pursuance of your direction I subjoined the following:

"I beg leave to inform the young gentleman, whose name dignifies my dedication, that this was a remark of his worthy father, when we rode together, and conversed in a dusky evening. I mention this circumstance, partly to secure the paragraph from contempt, partly to give him, and the world, an idea of that eminently serious taste which distinguished my worthy friend. The less obvious the reflection, the more clearly it discovers a turn of mind remarkably spiritual, which would suffer nothing to escape without yielding some spiritual improvement. And the meaner the incident, the more admirable was that fertility of imagination, which could deduce the noblest truths from the most trivial occurrences."

Will not this be looked upon as a sly underhand artifice whereby the author extols himself?

Does the famous Dutch philosopher, Nieuentyt (I think is his name), treat of the heavenly bodies? If he does, be so good, in case he dwells in your study, to send him on a week's visit to me. Watt's treatise on astronomy I should be glad to peruse.

Dr

The Hymn to the Moon, whoever is meant by Scriblerus Decimus Maximus, is very poetical. I durst not venture to add what is wanting to render it a complete address, lest it should become like the visionary image, whose head was of gold, his feet of iron and clay.

My transient remarks on Dr Rymer's Representation of Revealed Religion are lost. I must desire leave to postpone my observations on the other books.-I am, dear sir, &c.

LETTER XXXIX.

Weston-Favell, Aug. 8. 1747.

DEAR SIR,-AFTER my thanks for what passed in yesterday's interview, give me leave to add my acknowledgments for the perusal of your poem entitled The Deity. It is a noble piece, quite poetical, truly evangelical, and admirably fitted to alarm and comfort the heart, to delight and improve the reader. I must desire to read it again.

I visited the poor condemned malefactor; found him an ignorant person; aimed chiefly at these two grand points, to convince him of the heinousness of his sin, and shew him the all-sufficiency of the Saviour to obtain pardon even for the very vilest of offenders. To preach and teach Jesus Christ, is our office; to make the doctrine effectual, God's great prerogative. Nothing more occurs, but that I am, &c.

LETTER XL.

Weston-Favell, Aug. 8. 1747. DEAREST MR. I OUGHT to take shame to myself, for suffering so kind a letter, received from so valuable a friend, to remain so long unanswered. Upon no other consideration than that of my enfeebled and languishing constitution, can I excuse myself, or hope for your pardon. My health is continually upon the decline, and the springs of life are all relaxing. Mine age is departing, and removing from me as a shepherd's tent. Medicine is baffled; and my physician, Dr Stonehouse, who is a dear friend to his patient, and a lover of the Lord Jesus, pities, but cannot succour me. This blessing, however, together with a multitude of others, the divine goodness vouchsafes to gild the gloom of decaying nature, that I am racked with no pain, and enjoy the free undisturbed exercise of my understanding.