LETTER LV.

From Mrs. Worthington to Mr. William Neville.

MY DEAR SIR,

THE company of Mr. and Mrs. Barnwell indisposed me for writing, or I should have acknowledged by the first post the receipt of your obliging letter. The great respect shown by your friends to my niece demands my best thanks; and I hope the high regard you have manifested for her, will be repaid by the tenderest affection, the most cheerful submission, and a prudent economy; and then you will have the less reason to regret that you did not marry a wife with a fortune equivalent to your own. I lately heard a gentleman say, that he could not afford to marry a wife with a fortune. For, said he, custom and education teach the ladies before marriage, to consider wealth as the one thing needful; and after marriage, when they are freed from the restraint of their parents, elegant houses, superb carriages, and an imitation of genteel people, are what the husband must indulge them in, or he must seek that happiness abroad which he will in vain seek for at home. If I thought my niece were not in disposition the very reverse of such young persons, I could not wish her to be the wife of Mr. William Neville.

Mr. Charles Clifford called yesterday morning to see me, or rather to inquire whether I had heard any thing more concerning our dear Eusebia. He was just come from Ireland when the news arrived of her shipwreck, and, being overcome with grief, he and his man immediately took horse, and visited all the towns upon the coast, both in England and France, hoping to hear something of her; but in vain. He then went to St. Omer's, where he found several persons who were acquainted with you, but could not gain any intelligence concerning your sister. He was

there at the time the Bastile was destroyed, and would have visited Paris at that eventful period, if his grief for the es loss of your sister had not swallowed up every other con sideration.. VOL. II.

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Mr. Clifford has recommended himself to my esteem, both by his great affection for your sister, and by the unaf fected piety that adorns his conversation. Yesterday in the afternoon at tea, after we had been discoursing of his being confuted by Eusebia, Q Madam, cried he, it is not a desirable thing to be a deist or an atheist; such persons are of all men the most miserable.

True, Sir, replied I; and there is no important difference between deism and atheism, the god of the deist being an unknown god, which is no god at ali. Had you no thoughts of religion, Sir, continued I, before your conversation with Miss Eusebia Neville and

my niece?

Yes, Madam, answered he, I had. My mother, who was a pious woman, had endeavoured to store my infantile mind with divine knowledge, in consequence of which my conscience many times severely reproved me upon the commission of sin, and the neglect of prayer. Her death, which happened in my tenth year, was a great misfortune to me. When I came from school, I had no one to counsel me respecting religious duties, and I became more and more remiss, and at last totally regardless of them. At Oxford, however, providence so ordered it that I became acquainted with a very religious youth, by whose entreaty and example I was induced to enter upon a new course of life. I resolved to sin no more against God; to watch over my thoughts, words, and actions; and to be constant in my attendance upon divine worship, and in private prayer. Many, very many failures, exceedingly discour aged me. I again became remiss; after a while I consorted with those who had no religion; and at last was the foremost among those who derided it.

I doubt not, Sir, said I, but there were many steps be fore you entirely cast off the fear of God, and sat in the seat of the scornful.

So many, Madam, replied he, that time would fail me to relate one half of the gradations by which I arrived at atheism. Yet I am obliged to acknowledge, that in all the different stages I trusted in my own righteousness, and was as ignorant of the design of Christ's coming into the world as a savage of the desert. I first added Arianismi to Arminianism, in consequence of my falling into the com

pany of one of that persuasion. That the Messiah was a demi-god, or secondary Jehovah, did not shock my reason so much as his true and proper deity. I also found, that both the ancients and moderns, who maintained that doctrine, varied in their ideas concerning it.

So you gave up, Sir, said I, the scriptural doctrine of the deity of the Messiah, because the defenders of it are not perfectly agreed how the Father, Son, and holy Spirit, are the one Jehovah. But you might have considered, that notwithstanding the eternity of God is an indubitable truth, yet a comprehension of the nature of existence from eternity cannot be attained either by angels or by men. Many things are clearly revealed, for which we can assign either no reason at all, or at best, reasons that are unsatisfactory. Wherefore did not God prevent sin from entering into the new creation? And why did he bring Cain, Judas, and many others into existence, when he knew that it would be infinitely to their disadvantage? Yet shall we deny these certain things, because we cannot reconcile them with the goodness, mercy, and compassion of God, which are equally certain? Is it right to suppose, because our Creator has given us minds and abilities wonderfully capacious, that they are infinite? and yet they must be infinite, to comprehend him who is infinite. When God visited his creatures, it was to be expected that questions would be proposed by inquisitive mortals relative to so wonderful an affair, which an angel could not answer. But how long, Sir, did you continue in this rational religion?

I soon became acquainted, replied he, with several Socinian gentlemen, who undid all that my Arian friends had been doing. They endeavoured to prove, that Jesus was nothing more than a prophet commissioned by God to instruct mankind, and that he died a martyr to the truth of his doctrine. They either plausibly explained away the obvious meaning of the many passages of Scripture which opposed their hypotheses, or they at once rejected them as interpolations; and I as readily embraced a scheme, which lowered down to almost nothing a religion that I had the greatest reason to believe was not very favourable to me. After this I met with a gentleman who endeavoured to set aside the divinity of Christ in a summary way, namely, by

attempting to prove that the far greatest part of the New Testament is spurious.

To have done his work effectually, interrupted I, he should have proved that the greatest part of the Old Tes tament is spurious likewise; since the deity of the Messiah is as much the subject of the prophetic writings, as of the apostolic. When you were making such progress, I doubt not but you soon arrived at the end of your journey.

Indeed, Madam, I did, answered Mr. Clifford : I presently fled from an accusing conscience, by giving up the whole as a volume contrived by priests for the purpose of keeping the ignorant multitude in awe, and of picking their pockets.

It has indeed, said I, been used to accomplish those purposes. A far nobler purpose, however, has been unremit tingly pursued by its great Author. Not that its perversion has been without its use. Almost the whole of the book of Revelation is a prophetic description of the corruption of Christianity by its being made a state religion. This corruption of Christianity, therefore, is a proof of its truth, and such a proof as the first Christians could not possibly possess. But, Sir, how did you go on after you had silenc ed the Old and New Testaments?

Alas, Madam, cried he, I can testify to the truth of what is asserted in divine revelation, that there is no peace to the wicked. From that moment I would thankfully have changed condition with my dog or my horse. Every step to this state of unbelief and uncertainty was from bad to worse, till I plunged headlong into that gulf from which nothing but an almighty arm could extricate me.

Did you never, said I, pray all this while ?

I thought, replied he, that if I had attempted to pray, the earth would have opened and swallowed me up. Yet, I remember that I stopped short once as. I was walking, and, looking up to heaven, cried out, O God, if thou wilt save me, thou mayest; but I dare not ask it. I endeavoured by travelling and company to sooth my melanchoIy, and sometimes succeeded. I endeavoured to fortify myself in unbelief by the consideration, that a great part of the wise and learned, both at home and abroad, have long viewed it as a proposition already demonstrated, and

needing no farther proof, that the Scriptures are calculated only for the meridian of the vulgar. I also looked upon Christians as far worse than Mahometans or Pagans, and as answerable for all the blood which has been spilt on a religious account.

I think I know, Sir, said I, who confuted you when you advanced these sentiments.

Yes, Madam, replied he, it was one too good for this world, and who has therefore been called to the abodes of the blessed. That night is a night never to be forgotten. It was late when I reached home. Sitting down in the apartment of our steward, who is a pious man, I carelessly opened a book which lay there, and finding it to contain some sermons by Mr. Whitefield, determined to read a discourse upon Eccles. vii. 16, Be not righteous overmuch, &c. I said to myself, I am certain that I am righteous little enough; and I was so ignorant as to suppose that it was a dissuasive from over-strictness in religion. Upon reading it, I for the first time had a view of salvation by Jesus Christ; and an affecting view it was. It was too much for me to bear. I saw that every divine perfection centres in the Redeemer, and that he is the great atoning Sacrifice prefigured by all the sacrifices under the law. I was convinced that all my former attempts to please God were strange fire, idolatry, and self-dependence,, and were not commanded in the oracles of truth. The glory that I saw in Christ left me no choice whether I would or would not trust in him. He appeared to me a precious Saviour, and the only physician of my soul. I prayed for the first time, in short and broken sentences, but with floods of tears; and my God heard, and delivered me out of the prison of Satan, out of the pit where there was no water, from the confines of hell. I bless God that he has hitherto preserved me from relapsing into my former infidelity, which of all evils I the most feared.

I rejoice with you, Sir, said I, that God has delivered you from that dreadful state. Having received much mercy, I hope you will be enabled to love much, and to manifest your gratitude by an obediential regard to the revealed will of God. You will remember the great price that was paid for your redemption, and the felicity which