LETTER CLI.

BOOKS. STATE OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.

To the Rev. Mr Benjamin Colman, Minister of the Gospel at Boston.

REV. AND DEAR BROTHER,-Since my last packet for you, I think in March or April last, I am run very much in your debt. I had a letter from you by the post, with most satisfying and refreshing accounts of matters with you in New England, for which I return you my most hearty thanks. Nothing could have obliged me more than the notices you give me of these things I had begged the accounts of, and I shall never be in case to make such a return to it as I would incline.

This letter is in mine eye just now; and I was just about offering you some hint of affairs with us, when I have an express, with the melancholy accounts of the death of a religious lady, a relation of my wife, about twenty miles distant; and I must go and pay my last duty to her remains; and the ship this comes by is to sail before I can return, so you must forgive my shortness and confusion in this.

To supply what I once designed to have given you, please to receive a book from the bearer, which, if you have not seen before this comes, will give the fullest view of our discipline and practice of any thing I could think upon. It was writ by a gentleman, a relation of mine, who, some months ago, died in this place, Mr Walter Steuart of Pardovan. Whatever other things you desire to be satisfied in let me know, and I shall use my best endeavours. Meanwhile, pray continue to give me what further offers as to your discipline, church order, university, and other things you would desire to know, were you here, and your friend where you

are.

Since that, by the bearer, Mr Zuil, you have obliged me with two valuable packets of your own sermons, Mr Sewel's, Mr Williams', and some others. I have been much abroad since I had them, and have not got through them all; but those of them I have read it's with great pleasure, and return you my hearty thanks for them, and give my kindest respects to your reverend colleague, and any others of them who are labouring with you, and bless the Lord for assisting them in these public services.

I presume to beg you will continue to send what comes to your hand of your reverend and dear brethren's productions, which are both welcome and useful here. And, by the law of kindness 'twixt us, I'll expect all that you yourself publish. Indeed, I'll be sorry if I want any thing that has been published by my dear friend; and a good many you have sent me, I think eight or nine of your own sermons; but they have raised a thirst after more, and I pray the Lord may remarkably assist you for doing eminent services this way to the souls of many.

No doubt, you'll expect accounts of matters since my last in this Church, which I would willingly give, were I not interrupted. Our last General Assembly, u May, had very little before them of importance. The Act of Parliament re-imposing the Oaths upon ministers, a copy of which I send you, came down at that time, and this new form of the Oath does not satisfy all. There are about thirty or forty recusants, not from the least dislike of the government, or inclination to the Popish Pretender, but from an opinion that this form of the Oath involves an approbation of the impositions we lie under in this Church, and the thoughts they have entertained that Oaths are neither proper tests of loyalty for ministers, who daily, and from their heart, pray for his Majesty, and his Royal Family; neither are they, as matters stand among us, any real tests of loyalty. If the scruplers be overlooked, and the government is persuaded of their firm loyalty, the re-imposition will have no ill effects; but if they be persecuted, the consequences will be lamentable.

We are like to have some new trouble among us as to doctrine.

There is a process beginning against a minister1 in the Synod of Stirling, and it's said several of his brethren about him have too much gone in with him. Some of the articles libelled against him are as follows: (vide and copy alibi.) What issue this matter comes to you shall, if the Lord will, hear afterwards.

The Proposals enclosed for the History of our Sufferings meet with but slow encouragement. The price is high, the book being large. It is probable it may be yet several months before I can begin the printing of it.

I have only time to thank you for all your kindnesses to Mr Erskine, and any of my friends who come to Boston, and to beg you'll continue to give them your best advices. I have written to Mr Erskine by this ship, and endeavoured to guard him against what you hint to me he is in hazard of.

May your kind Master furnish you every day with furniture for your great work, and serve himself eminently of you! I earnestly beg you'll miss no opportunity of letting me hear from you; and believe me to be, Rev. Dear Sir, your most affectionate brother.

Eastwood, August 24, 1719.

LETTER CLII.

RELIGIOUS ADVICES.

To Mr David Erskine.

DEAR DAVID,-I have yours of the 22d, and could not answer it last post. Perhaps the post may be too late, but it must take its venture, as you seem to be about to do. I am not sure that this finds you, and though it do, by yours you seem to be pretty

Mr Drummond of Crieff.

VOL. II.

2 G

much determined to make a trial how

you will

agree

with a gar

rison. It's not my part to raise difficulties against what you and your friends seem to be gone into. I only notice to you, that you make a wrong use of that part of the New Testament you cite. And, as I hope and expect, you are making conscience to be in a readiness for an eternal state, when you are leaving your native air and going among strangers; so there is nothing which is not inconsistent with everlasting happiness, (that is, unrepented sins,) which will be a sufficient argument against what you are pleading against. Therefore, when I persuade myself that you are making conscience to have matters clear, and in good terms 'twixt God and your own soul, and have publicly owned him for your God, your reasoning will not hold. I am not more particular, because I know not in whose hands this may fall; and I can only commend you to the grace of God and his divine conduct, and advise you not to stand in the way of what you once had some inclinations to, if Providence clear your way. Put a blank in the Lord's hand, and let him choose out your way, and bring it to pass. Let your eye be single, and your dependence on the Lord close in the road of a tender walk and conversation, and diligent improvement of the talents God has blessed you with; which I still think may be much better employed than in attending a business that is the result of the wickedness of poor fallen mankind, generally speaking. Now, I am almost sure you'll think I have exceeded.

I would send you a long set of queries for the Netherlands, had I not spent this whole day in writing to Boston, where I forgot not your brother, and am obliged to take a journey to-morrow, and have no time to form them. But as soon as you are settled, which I wish for one year were at some university; but wherever it be, let me know, and I shall send what may be matter of conversation and inquiry to you.

Meanwhile, dear David, I commit you to the grace of God; remember him in your youth; realise him still with you, and the party you have to deal with; and remember your education, your views, your parents, and the main concerns which relate to eternity,

and acknowledge God in all your ways, and never lean to your own understanding. And, by the law of friendship that has been 'twixt us, see you write frequently to, dear David, yours most affectionately.

August 24, 1719.

I'll be fond to know if this has reached you.

LETTER CLIII.

PROPHECY.

To William M'Farland.

SIR, I have yours, with the printed piece of Mr Parker on the Revelation, and the papers upon that dark book you send me under the title of "The Crisis;" both which I return to you. You tell me the author is a little of my acquaintance, and has some other collections and other things to communicate with me, and desires I would set down my remarks upon the margin of the MSS. (The author is J. Giles, wright in Hamilton.)

I have glanced through the manuscript very correctly. The calculations of matters relative to the accomplishment of Daniel and the Revelation were never what I have much studied, though I am far from blaming any who dip into these dark parts of Divine revelation. And at this juncture, when you know my hands are full of another work, indeed I have not so much time as to examine them, which is a business of very much labour, far less to give the author any amendments; so that all I can do is to offer what occurs to me, after an overly view of the manuscript.

It's not many books ever I read upon the Apocalyptical subject; and a good many years now since I have considered none save Mr Mather's Appendix, and a little pamphlet upon the great period