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THE REV. JOHN NEWTON TO MR. WM. BARLASS.

My dear Sir,

I THINK I have already prepared you not to expect long apologies, even for too long silence. I love you dearly; prize your correspondence, and am sorry I cannot write more frequently. Let this suffice. It gives me real pleasure that I can now sit down to write to you. I should have been glad of the indulgence months ago.

I believe the best method of answering your last favour will be to write notes upon the several paragraphs as they occur in course, though perhaps in this interval you have forgotten the particulars, and may have here and there some difficulty to recollect the references. I could write a long note indeed upon what I first meet with-your very great mistake in considering me as a very great man. If we could have a personal interview, I think you would presently be undeceived. Your mistake, however, has done me good. A whole quire of invective from an enemy could hardly have given me so keen a sense of shame. The Scripture assures us that our hearts by nature (like coin from the same mint) are all alike, and I hear my fellow-Christians complain of evils similar to what I feel, and they have the same right with myself to be believed. Otherwise I seem to have reason to conclude there cannot be one upon earth (who knows the Lord) so inconsistent, so evil as myself. There is indeed a large, (and as I have been ready to think with you) sometimes a needless, display of erudition in some of Owen's works, but it is chiefly when he has the Socinian controversy in view. The Socinians of his day were not such superficial, flimsy writers as their modern disciples, but men versed in all the branches of learning, the minutiae of criticism, and the subtleties of logic or sophistry. He undertook to ferret them out of all their lurking-places; he was qualified for it, and succeeded. I believe this was the principal reason of his method in his commentary on the Hebrews, and some other of his works. But I cannot charge him with pedantry. And he seems always to have aimed at the edification of plain people, intermixing something savoury and experimental in the midst of his arguments. Allowance likewise must be made for the manner of the times in which he lived. In point of arrangement and neatness, and avoiding superfluities, our age is

certainly improved; but I believe we are rather losers by what is called our good taste, for writers now are mere essayists, and fall in general far short of the depth, accuracy, and fulness of such men as Owen, in searching a subject to the bottom. I thought I had given you my opinion of Halyburton on Natural Religion, &c.; I think it a masterpiece, one of the most able performances I ever met with, but I suppose is most read by those who stand least in need of it. If there be such a thing as an honest, candid, inquiring Deist, I should judge he could hardly avoid receiving conviction from an attentive perusal of that book. But I am afraid there are very few who wish to be undeceived, and therefore few who will read it attentively.

What you say of Gurnal reminds me to put another book in your way, (I think the author was a countryman of yours,) Gilpin on Temptation. I think the perusal of it would throw light upon some of your inquiries. I have only room for a few brief hints. They that go down to the sea in ships, and do their business in great waters, experience hardships, and likewise see wonders, which people who live on shore have no idea of. Many of the Lord's people are comparatively landmen; others are mariners, and are called to conflict a great part of their lives with storms and raging billows. I believe much of the variety of this kind is constitutional. We are at a loss to conceive of the invisible world, and the invisible agents belonging to it, but we live in the midst of them. But it seems to me that people of very delicate nerves, and those who are subject to what we call low spirits, are more accessible to this invisible agency than others. I am rather but a landman myself, and know but just enough of some of Satan's devices to qualify me to lisp about them. And I account it a mercy, the Lord in compassion to my weakness has encouraged me to pray, Lead us not into temptation. Satan's power I apprehend is chiefly upon the imagination-his temptations may be considered under two heads, the terrible and the plausible. By the former he fights against our peace; by the latter he endeavours to ensnare us in our judgment or conduct. The former are the most distressing, the latter not the least dangerous. The former are often the lot of humble, tender-conscienced Christians; in the latter he has most success when we are careless and self-dependent. By the former he shows his rage and power as a roaring lion; by the latter his

subtlety and address as a serpent or angel of light. His attacks in the former way are so vehement, as when he fills the mind with dark and horrible thoughts, blasphemies, and suggestions, at which even fallen nature shudders and recoils, (which is the case with many,) that his interference is plainly to be felt. In the latter his motions are so insinuating, and so connatural to the man of sin within us, that they cannot be easily distinguished from the workings of our own thoughts. I suppose that when Ananias attempted to deceive Peter, he was little aware that Satan had filled his heart, and helped him to the lie. But Satan has a near and intimate connexion with the man of sin—the heart while unrenewed is his work-shop. Ephes. ii. 2. And it is the same with believers, so far as they are unrenewed. Therefore I believe he is never nearer to us, or more busy with us, than at sometimes when we are least apprehensive of him. We have no clear ideas of the agency of spirits, nor is it necessary. The Scripture says little to satisfy our curiosity, but tells us plainly that he is always watching us, and desiring to sift us as wheat. I believe we give him no more than his due, when we charge him with having a hand in all our sin. I believe he cuts us all out abundance of work. But the other kind of temptations in which people are rather passive, though they often think themselves compliant, it is not appointed for all believers to feel, at least not frequently or in a violent degree. A fine general representation of them, we have in that part of the Pilgrim's Progress which describes Christian's passage through the valley of the shadow of death. Bunyan had been an exercised mariner in these deep waters, and he writes like one. As tempted souls go through the most distress, so they usually have the most affecting and striking discoveries of the wisdom, power, and glory of the Lord, and acquire a sympathy for afflicted minds, and a skill in dealing with them, which cannot easily be obtained by reading books. Something of this skill may be acquired from a careful observation of others, but experience is the best school. This lesson is, however, so painful to flesh and blood, that we may be thankful if the Lord permits us to pass it over. I have had some little experience of these things, but my situation in Olney, amongst a poor, afflicted people, who, from a confined and sedentary employment, (lace-making,) are mostly affected with low spirits and nervous disorders, have made me something of a theorist

in the business, and I know not but I could write a volume upon it. But no words can adequately express the dreadful tempests some of God's dear children sustain. They pass through fire and floods, but he is with them, and therefore the floods cannot drown them, nor the flame destroy them. I doubt not but the severest part of Job's trials were of this kind. See likewise Ps. viii. 8.

But I must write shorter notes, or my letter will be long indeed. Trail's three volumes are among the books I highly prize. I am acquainted with Durham, but never read Boston. Indeed most of my reading was before my admission into the ministry. The incumbent calls of my office, and a voluminous correspondence, &c. afford me but little time now. And the Scripture, which is always at hand, and expresses the substance of volumes in a verse or two, renders reading other books less necessary. Though I would always recommend to young men to read a good deal, provided they are so happy as to make a good choice.

I believe there has not been a Gospel sermon preached at Weston-Favel since Mr. Hervey's death; nor can I hear that there is one spiritual person in the parish. His other parish of Collingtree is likewise now a dark place; though there may be half a dozen people there who know something of the Lord. I preached twice a year at Collingtree for about ten years, but I am now quite shut out. Mr. Hervey's usefulness was chiefly in his writings. A few people in the neighbourhood profited by him, who, since his death, have mostly joined the Dissenters, but he never knew that one soul was awakened in the parish where he lived-though he was in every respect one of the greatest preachers of the age. As plain in his pulpit service as he is elegant in his writings. The Lord showed in him, that the work is all his own, and that the best instrument can do no more than he appoints. His own mother and sister lived with him; his temper was heavenly, his conversation always spiritual and instructive yet he could make no impression upon them living or dying.

I proceeded some way in the book I told you I was writing, but laid it aside in the middle, and have not resumed the design. I found in writing against controversy I insensibly caught the spirit of it; though I was not angry, I was growing minute and dry. If the Lord please; I will begin again de novo some time, but I mean to limit myself to about the size of a sixpenny pamphlet. I hardly

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expect to see prejudice give way every where, and Christians of all parties all loving each other fervently; but I hope there are a few individuals of every party who will enter into the views of their Lord, and cheerfully express their love to all who love him in sincerity.

I did not suppose that the Seceders, or any other spiritual people, confined the church of Christ within their own pale, by express or positive declaration; but, till I was acquainted with you, I thought the Seceders made a point of having as little communication as possible in spirituals, beyond their pale. If you are a proper specimen of the body you belong to, I have reason to be ashamed of thinking so harshly of them. But as I ought not to have judged of the whole, by the very few who have occasionally fallen in my way formerly, so perhaps I should be in the other extreme, if I should now suppose the majority of them are like you. Indeed I believe all denominations, as such, abound with bigotry in favour of their own side, and that the ministers and private Christians in each, are more or less freed from it, in proportion as they are favoured with more of the unction of the Holy Spirit, and as they have more opportunities of observing his work carried on amongst other parties. And perhaps the most catholic-minded Christian upon earth has more bigotry in him than he is aware of. To esteem all modes and forms of worship as equally agreeable to the Scriptures, or conducive to edification, or all difference of sentiment amongst those who hold the head to be of no real importance, is quite a different thing. We have a right to judge and act for ourselves, and to follow the light we have received, and are only blameable when we censure or dislike others, only because they do not exactly see with our eyes, in matters which are not essential. But I need not enlarge upon this point, nor could I express my own sentiments more satisfactorily than by transcribing what you have written upon it.

I am indeed comparatively happy at Olney, in my ministry. Our lot is cast at a distance from the various winds of doctrine, which in many places occasion so much trouble and so many dis putes, so that I have only to declare the truth, unmixed with controversy, about it. I could only wish for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to reveal the truths of the Gospel to many, who, though they are well content to hear them, and would hardly bear

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