guinem Jesu Christi. Ne differ, quæso, credere tuum in Jesum Christum, sed potius promissionum ejus quæ pertinent ad miserandos peccatores, coram facie ejus benignâ sic mentionem fac, ut non aliter possit quam præstare tibi, quod multis aliis præstitit. O quàm multus, quàm magnus, quàm ineffabilis, quàm inexhaustus, est illius amor! Ille certè jamjam paratus est ad auxilium; et nihil potest illum offendere nisi incredulitas nostra. Crede igitur. Fratrem tuum Carolum et Hall, nomine meo saluta multùm; et admonete vos invicem ad credendum, et tunc ad ambulandum coram facie Domini azpißws, et ad pugnandum contra diabolum et mundum vouws, et ad crucifigendum et conculcandum peccatum omne sub pedibus nostris, quantùm nobis datum est per gratiam secundi Adami, cujus vita excedit mortem prioris Adami, et cujus gratia antecellit corruptionem et damnationem prioris Adami. Dominus tibi benedicat. Permane in fide, amore, doctrinâ, communione sanctorum et breviter, in omni quod habemus in Novo Fædere. Ego sum et maneo, In Agris Southamptonianis, Tuus indignus Frater, PETRUS Bоhler. ["DEAREST AND MOST COURTEOUS BROTHER,] "I love you greatly, and think much of you in my journey, wishing and praying that the tender mercies of Jesus Christ the crucified, whose bowels were moved toward you more than six thousand years ago, may be manifested to your soul: that you may taste and then see, how exceedingly the Son of God has loved you, and loves you still; and that so you may continually trust in him, and feel his life in yourself. Beware of the sin of unbelief; and if you have not conquered it yet, see that you conquer it this very day, through the blood of Jesus Christ. Delay not, I beseech you, to believe in your Jesus Christ; but so put him in mind of his promises to poor sinners, that he may not be able to refrain from doing for you, what he hath done for so many others. O how great, how inexpressible, how unexhausted is his love! Surely he is now ready to help; and nothing can offend him but our unbelief. [Believe therefore. Greet heartily, in my name, your brother Charles and Hall; and exhort one another to believe, and then to walk circumspectly before the Lord, to fight lawfully against the devil and the world, and to crucify and tread all sin under our feet, as is our privilege through the grace of the Second Adam, whose life exceeds the death of the first Adam, and whose grace excels the corruption and condemnation of the first Adam."] "The Lord bless you! Abide in faith, love, teaching, the communion of saints; and briefly, in all which we have in the New Testament. "I am your unworthy Brother, "PETER BOHLER." [Southampton Fields, May 8, 1738.] Sun. 14.-I preached in the morning at St. Ann's, Aldersgate; and in the afternoon at the Savoy chapel, free salvation by faith in the blood of Christ. I was quickly apprized, that at St. Ann's, likewise, I am to preach no more. So true did I find the words of a friend, wrote to my brother about this time : "I have seen upon this occasion, more than ever I could have imagined, how intolerable the doctrine of faith is to the mind of man; and how peculiarly intolerable to religious men. One may say the most unchristian things, even down to Deism; the most enthusiastic things, so they proceed but upon mental raptures, lights, and unions; the most severe things, even the whole rigour of ascetic mortification: and all this will be forgiven. But if you speak of faith in such a manner as makes Christ a Saviour to the utmost, a most universal help and refuge;-in such a manner as takes away glorying, but adds happiness to wretched man ;as discovers a greater pollution in the best of us than we could before acknowledge, but brings a greater deliverance from it than we could before expect: if any one offers to talk at this rate, he shall be heard with the same abhorrence as if he was going to rob mankind of their salvation, their Mediator, or their hopes of forgiveness. I am persuaded that a Montanist or a Novatian, who from the height of his purity should look down with contempt upon poor sinners, and exclude them from all mercy, would not be thought such an overthrower of the Gospel, as he who should learn, from the Author of it, to be a friend of publicans and sinners, and to sit down upon the level with them, as soon as they begin to repent. "But this is not to be wondered at. For all religious people have such a quantity of righteousness, acquired by much painful exercise, and formed at last into current habits; which is their wealth, both for this world and the next. Now all other schemes of religion are either so complaisant as to tell them they are very rich, and have enough to triumph in; or else only a little rough, but friendly in the main, by telling them their riches are not yet sufficient, but by such arts of self denial and men tal refinement they may enlarge the stock. But the doctrine of faith is a downright robber. It takes away all this wealth, and only tells us it is deposited for us with somebody else, upon whose bounty we must live like mere beggars. Indeed, they that are truly beggars, vile and filthy sinners till very lately, may stoop to live in this dependent condition: it suits them well enough. But they who have long distinguished themselves from the herd of vicious wretches, or have even gone beyond moral men; for them to be told that they are either not so well, or but the same needy, impotent, insignificant vessels of mercy with the others: this is more shocking to reason than transubstantiation. For reason had rather resign its pretensions to judge what is bread or flesh than have this honour wrested from it—to be the architect of virtue and righteousness. But where am I running? My design was only to give you warning, that wherever you go, this 'foolishness of preaching' will alienate hearts from you, and open mouths against you." Fri. 19. My brother had a second return of his pleurisy. A few of us spent Saturday night in prayer. The next day, being Whitsunday, after hearing Dr. Heylyn preach a truly Christian sermon, (on, "They were all filled with the Holy Ghost:" "And so," said he, 66 may all you be, if it is not your own fault,") and assisting him at the holy communion, (his curate being taken ill in the church,) I received the surprising news that my brother had found rest to his soul. His bodily strength returned also from that hour. "Who is so great a God as our God?” I preached at St. John's, Wapping, at three, and at St. Bennett's. Paul's Wharf, in the evening. At these churches, likewise, I am to preach no more. At St. Antholin's I preached on the Thursday following. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I had continual sorrow and heaviness in my heart: something of which I described, in the broken manner I was able, in the following letter to a friend :- "O why is it, that so great, so wise, so holy a God will use such an instrument as me! Lord, let the dead bury their dead!' But wilt thou send the dead to raise the dead? Yea, thou sendest whom thou wilt send, and showest mercy by whom thou wilt show mercy! Amen! Be it then according to thy will! If thou speak the word, Judas shall cast out devils. "I feel what you say, (though not enough,) for I am under the same condemnation. I see that the whole law of God is holy, just and good. I know every thought, every temper of my soul, ought to bear God's image and superscription. But how am I fallen from the glory of God! I feel that I am sold under sin." I know, that I too deserve nothing but wrath, being full of all abominations: and having no good thing in me, to atone for them, or to remove the wrath of God. All my works, my righteousness, my prayers, need an atonement for themselves. So that my mouth is stopped. I have nothing to plead. God is holy, I am unholy. God is a consuming fire; I am altogether a sinner, meet to be consumed. "Yet I hear a voice (and is it not the voice of God?) saying, 'Believe and thou shalt be saved. He that believeth, is passed from death unto life. God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.' เ "Oh let no one deceive us by vain words, as if we had already attained this faith! (that is, the proper Christian faith.) By its fruits we shall know. Do we already feel peace with God,' and 'joy in the Holy Ghost?' Does his Spirit bear witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God?' Alas, with mine, he does not. Nor, I fear, with yours. O thou Saviour of men, save us from trusting in any thing but thee! Draw us after thee! Let us be emptied of ourselves, and then fill us with all peace and joy in believing; and let nothing separate us from thy love, in time or in eternity." What occurred on Wednesday, 24, I think best to relate at large, after premising what may make it the better understood. Let him that cannot receive it, ask of the Father of lights, that he would give more light to him and me. 66 1. I believe, till I was about ten years old I had not sinned a way that "washing of the Holy Ghost" which was given me in baptism; having been strictly educated and carefully taught, that I could only be saved by universal obedience, by keeping all the commandments of God ;" in the meaning of which I was diligently instructed. And those instructions, so far as they respected outward duties and sins, I gladly received, and often thought of. But all that was said to me of inward obedience, or holiness, I neither understood nor remembered. So that I was indeed as ignorant of the true meaning of the Law, as I was of the Gospel of Christ. 2. The next six or seven years were spent at school; where, outward restraints being removed, I was much more negligent than before, even of outward duties, and almost continually guilty of outwerd sins, which I knew to be such, though they were not scandalous in the eye of the world. However, I still read the Scriptures, and said my prayers, morning and evening. And what I now hoped to be saved by, was, 1. Not being so bad as other people. 2. Having still a kindness for religion. And 3. Reading the Bible, going to church, and saying my prayers. 3. Being removed to the University for five years, I still said my prayers both in public and in private, and read, with the Scriptures, several other books of religion, especially comments on the New Testament. Yet I had not all this while so much as a notion of inward holiness; nay, went on habitually and, for the most part, very contentedly, in some or other known sin: indeed, with some intermission and short struggles, especially before and after the holy communion, which I was obliged to receive thrice a year. I cannot well tell what I hoped to be saved by now, when I was continually sinning against that little light I had; unless by those transient fits of what many divines taught me to call repentance. 4. When I was about twenty-two, my father pressed me to enter into holy orders. At the same time, the providence of God directing me to Kempis's "Christian Pattern," I began to see, that true religion was seated in the heart, and that God's Law extended to all our thoughts as well as words and actions. I was, however, very angry at Kempis, for being too strict; though I read him only in Dean Stanhope's translation. Yet I had frequently much sensible comfort in reading him, such as I was an utter stranger to before: and meeting likewise with a religious friend, which I never had till now, I began to alter the whole form of my conversation, and to set in earnest upon a new life. I set apart an hour or two a day for religious retirement. I communicated every week. I watched against all sin, whether in word or deed. I began to aim at, and pray for, inward holiness. So that now," doing so much, and living so good a life," I doubted not but I was a good Christian. 5. Removing soon after to another college, I executed a resolution which I was before convinced was of the utmost importance,-shaking off at once all my trifling acquaintance. I began to see more and more the value of time. I applied myself closer to study. I watched more carefully against actual sins; I advised others to be religious, according to that scheme of religion by which I modelled my own life. But meeting now with Mr. Law's "Christian Perfection" and "Serious Call,” although I was much offended at many parts of both, yet they convinced me more than ever of the exceeding height and breadth and depth of the Law of God. The light flowed in so mightily upon my soul, that every thing appeared in a new view. I cried to God for help, and resolved not to prolong the time of obeying him as I had never done before. And by my continued endeavour to keep his whole Law, inward and outward, to the utmost of my power, I was persuaded that I should be accepted of him, and that I was even then in a state of salvation. 6. In 1730 I began visiting the prisons; assisting the poor and sick in town; and doing what other good I could, by my presence, or my little fortune, to the bodies and souls of all men. To this end I abridged myself of all superfluities, and many that are called necessaries of life. I soon became a by-word for so doing, and I rejoiced that my name was cast out as evil. The next spring I began observing the Wednesday and Friday fasts, commonly observed in the ancient Church; tasting no food till three in the afternoon. And now I knew not how to go any further. I diligently strove against all sin. I omitted no sort of self denial which I thought lawful: I carefully used, both in public and in private, all the means of grace at all opportunities. I omitted no occasion of doing good: I for that reason suffered evil. And all this I knew to be nothing, unless as it was directed toward inward holiness. Accordingly this, the image of God, was what I aimed at in all, by doing his wil, not my own. Yet when, after continuing some years in this course, I apprehended myself to be near death, I could not find that all this gave me any comfort, or any assurance of acceptance with God. At this I was then not a little surprised; not imagining I had been all this time building on the sand, nor considering that "other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid" by God, "even Christ Jesus." 7. Soon after, a contemplative man convinced me still more than I was convinced before, that outward works are nothing, being alone; and in several conversations instructed me, how to pursue inward holiness, or a union of the soul with God. But even of his instructions (though I then received them as the words of God) I cannot but now observe, 1. That he spoke so incautiously against trusting in outward works, that he discouraged me from doing them at all. 2. That he recommended (as it were, to supply what was wanting in them) mental prayer, and the like exercises, as the most effectual means of purifying the soul, and uniting it with God. Now these were, in truth, as much my own works as visiting the sick or clothing the naked; and the union with God thus pursued, was as really my own righteousness, as any I had before pursued under another name. 8. In this refined way of trusting to my own works and my own righteousness, (so zealously inculcated by the mystic writers,) I dragged on heavily, finding no comfort or help therein, till the time of my leaving England. On shipboard, however, I was again active in outward works; where it pleased God of his free mercy to give me twenty-six of the Moravian brethren for companions, who endeavoured to show me “a more excellent way." But I understood it not at first. I was too learned and too wise. So that it seemed foolishness unto me. And I continued preaching, and following after, and trusting in, that righteousness whereby no flesh can be justified. 66 9. All the time I was at Savannah I was thus beating the air. Being ignorant of the righteousness of Christ, which, by a living faith in him, bringeth salvation "to every one that believeth," I sought to establish my own righteousness; and so laboured in the fire all my days. I was now properly" under the Law;" I knew that "the Law" of God was spiritual; I consented to it, that it was good." Yea, “I delighted in it, after the inner man." Yet was I " carnal, sold under sin." Every day was I constrained to cry out, "What I do, I allow not: for what I would, I do not; but what I hate that I do. To will is" indeed " with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not. good which I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. I find a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me:" Even "the law in my members, warring against the law of my mind," and still bringing me into captivity to the law of sin." " present For the 10. In this vile, abject state of bondage to sin, I was indeed fighting continually, but not conquering. Before, I had willingly served sin; now it was unwillingly; but still I served it. I fell, and rose, and fell again. Sometimes I was overcome, and in heaviness: sometimes I overcame, and was in joy. For as in the former state I had some foretastes of the terrors of the Law, so had I in this, of the comforts of |