solemn acceptance of Christ as your Lord and Saviour, and surrender of yourself to him, to be his for ever, and to live to his glory.

"That you have need to cry instantly and constantly to the Lord, to hold you up that you may be safe, is certain, and you are sure to fall hurtfully when you neglect it; but, if you are truly the Lord's, while you do this, you are not to distress yourself about the final issue; for he hath engaged not to let you fall fatally. Christ will not let Satan pluck his sheep out of his hand. They are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. Only give diligence to make your calling and election sure. Those who are spoken of in the scripture you mention were never truly converted, but only outwardly changed..... "Your's affectionately,

"DEAR BROTHER,

"THOS. SCOTT."

"Olney, July 21, 1784.

"AFTER long waiting I received your letter, and am sincerely glad and thankful that the Lord has made my sister the living mother of a living son and I as sincerely wish and pray that he may live to be a comfort to you: which he will be most likely to be, if you and his mother do really, and heartily, and daily, bring him by faith and prayer to the Lord Jesus, that he may lay his hands upon him and bless him. Bring him and dedicate him to the Lord; and then he will do by you as Pharaoh's daughter did by Moses' mother; he will bid you take him home, and bring him up for him; and he too will reward you for bringing

up your children for him. I hope, dear brother, now the Lord is increasing your family, you will be the more careful in praying for them and with them, setting them a good example, and, as they become capable of it, giving them every godly instruction; remembering that they are to live for ever either in happiness or misery; and that God has said, Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.-I hope, dear brother, you will cease from your over anxiety about the world, and about growing rich, which will infallibly prevent you from being rich towards God, and cause you to be like that rich man whom Christ mentions, and calls a fool, in the twelfth chapter of Luke. You have had frequent convictions, and have several times been almost persuaded to be a Christian: but let me in love ask you, yea ask your own heart, Have you gone any further? Are you altogether a Christian? Do you in judgment count all things but dung that you may win Christ? Do you in practice seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousnes? Do you stand prepared to leave all, deny yourself, and follow Christ, when called to it? Are you weaned from outward things, so as in temper and affection to have left them; possessing them as though you possessed them not, using them as not abusing them, seeing the fashion of this world passeth away Do you actually leave for Christ all that your conscience admonishes you to leave, whether profit, pleasure, company, credit, friendship, or whatso ever it be that entangles and ensnares you, and prevents your simply following Jesus whithersoever he calleth you? Are you looking to him to

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bless you in turning you away from your iniquities ? or to the world to satisfy you in making provision for your lusts? True Christianity, dear brother, requires all this, and much more: and I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. I hope you will not only excuse me, but love me the bet ter, for thus anxiously desiring and seeking your salvation. I greatly fear your heart is yet thorny ground, and that, though the good seed has seemingly taken root and sprung up, yet the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful. If so, go directly to Jesus Christ, and beg of him to make your heart good ground, that the seed may henceforth spring up, and bring forth a hundred fold. Your long silence, and making no mention of the precious Saviour and your precious soul in your last, give me much reason to suspect. Oh, for your soul's sake, spread this letter before the Lord, and spend an hour or two in reflecting, examining, praying over it. If you could gain the whole world, and lose your own soul, what would it profit? Oh, mind the one thing needful! Be diligent in true religion! Seek grace to make you a faithful follower of the Lamb! and then you will find that peace and joy which you now in vain seek in a deceitful world-Write soon, and let me hear good news of you and your's; that you really love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. My wife joins in love and prayers with

"your truly loving brother, VO "THOS. SCOTT."

"DEAR BROTHER,

"Olney,

April 9, 1785.

"I own I have not paid proper attention to your postscript, or I should have answered your letter sooner. But I have had many engagements, and am frequently indisposed, and, alas! more frequently indolent. I have waited some time lately in expectation of

-, intending to

send some letters, and some copies of a sermon I published on the thanksgiving day: but, now the time is come, I have only this evening to prepare, and am but poorly in health, and not capable of writing much. I should have been glad if it had been deferred about a fortnight longer, as I could then have sent you a parcel of books that are now printing-on Repentance. But that must be deferred. The sermons I now send you you may lend, and give among your friends, as you see good; and I am not desirous of selling one, as the printer is paid, and I am no loser: but, if I send you some of the Discourse upon Repentance, you must sell them; because I publish them so cheap, that, if most of them are not sold, I shall be money out of pocket, besides my labour; which I cannot afford.

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"But to come to more important matters. was much pleased with your last letter; and was thereby encouraged to pray with more earnestness for you all. I do not know Mr.; but like your account of him, and your sister's; for I suppose it relates to the same person. I hope you will all value and improve the opportunity of hearing statedly a faithful minister of Jesus Christ :

and be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving, not others, but your own selves. Of the rich mercy of our offended God, all things which the vilest slave of sin and Satan needs, in order to be made accepted, holy, and happy to eternity, are laid up in Christ, as in a treasury; the purchase of his atoning blood, the fruit of his availing intercession. All this is revealed and proposed to us in the word of God, and we are most pressingly invited and entreated to partake of it, as the gift of God to us. Nothing then is wanting to complete our blessedness, but such a view of our own wretchedness and vileness, and of the suitableness and preciousness of the blessings thus freely offered us, and of the propriety and glory of the way and manner in which alone a holy offended God will bestow them, as shall render us willing to accept them, and sincere and diligent in seeking them. But we are naturally proud and carnal: because we are proud, we like not the humbling plan of being saved in the character of condemned sinners: because we are carnal, we despise spiritual blessings in comparison with worldly interests and gratifications, which we must forego for them. Therefore we must be born again: and, except a man be born again, he can neither see, nor enter into the kingdom of heaven. But, when once our eyes are open to behold the glory of that God, from whom we have revolted; the relations and obligations we are under to him; the hatefulness of every sin; our own sinfulness, and the world's vanity and insufficiency; then we begin to repent of sin, and cry for or mercy; then we understand the worth of eter