LETTER DCXXXIV.
To Mr. D.
Everards-Ferry, Oct. 16, 1747.
Dear Mr. D,
THE love I owe you for Jesus Christ's sake, induces me to send you a few lines. I hope they will find you yet more and more convinced of self-righteousness, and the absolute necessity of being cloathed with the all-sufficient, compleat and everlasting righteousness of Jesus Christ. This, and this only is the ground of our acceptance with a holy, just, and sin-avenging God. Here the sinner may find a sure asylum, an everlasting, never-failing refuge. Happy they! who begin to see, feel, and taste this, in a realizing spiritual manner. It is the budding of grace, the beginning of the kingdom of God in the soul. May I hope that dear Mr. D is one of these happy men. I trust so. You seemed beginning to awake out of nature's dream when I left you. O that nothing may prevail on you to lie down to sleep again! It is dangerous to trifle with the spirit of God. When he puts into our hearts good desires, he expects that we shall be workers together with him. Strive therefore, on, as the word imports, agonize with God, yourself, and the world, in order that you may enter into the strait gate of a thorough sound conversion. You know who has told you "that the kingdom of God suffereth violence, and the violent only take it by force." And surely heaven is worth striving for; especially since we are sure of a conquest; and Jesus Christ, the captain of our salvation, stands ready to assist, support, and strengthen at every rencounter. Learn therefore to endure hardness, like a good soldier of Jesus Christ: adopt Joshua's resolution, stand the laugh, quit yourself like a man, put your hand to the plough, and do not look back; fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life. I could write more, but I want time and paper. Blessed be God, I am as well as a pilgrim in my way can expect to be. I am happy in Christ, and that is all in all. I wish you and yours this happiness. I pray you may be partakers of it.
