“I have sincerely aimed at truth in writing the Essay you have been so kind as to peruse.[[494]] If I am not mistaken, Dr. Coke told me, when I passed through London, that he had it; but I went out of town in such a hurry that I had not time to take it with me. I feel the propriety of your remarks, and shall make the alterations you mention, as soon as I shall have the manuscript.
“I had thought of what you name, respecting a less plan of the doctrine of the New Birth,—a plan calculated to make way for the larger essay, and to guide into the truth those who have never taken one step without the leading strings of prejudice, and who cannot judge of a doctrine if it be not brought within the narrow compass and focus of their understanding. I shall be glad of an opportunity of consulting you about that sketch, if I live to make it. I love truth, because I love Jesus; but I am, every way, too feeble an instrument to defend and hold it forth with success. Your thought about it makes me pray with earnestness that I may, in some degree, answer your too favourable opinion of the importance of my little attempts to vindicate, or clear up, some part of the Gospel truths.
“Alas! what am I? A cracked voice crying in the wilderness;—a blunted pen scribbling in a village. Thanks be to grace, however, I sincerely desire to be a living shadow of the Divine Man, who is truth and love incarnate. I sincerely desire to embrace those great and precious promises given unto us, whereby we may become partakers of the Divine nature. I will not rest in the first Comforter, so as to slight that other Comforter, who is to abide with us for ever. I want not only to see Jesus altogether lovely, but to feel Him altogether powerful and wise, both in myself and in all my fellow-Christians. Restless, resigned for this, I wait for this. My vehement soul is on the stretch. Some tell me I carry my views too high; but how can that be, if God can do in us exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think? Is not the soul joined completely to the Lord, one spirit with Him? Are we not called to come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ? Is a dwarf’s state of grace the full prize of our high calling? If this hope preys upon my feeble frame, I dare not cast it off: let me rather die a martyr to it than lose it. Why should there not be true martyrs for the hope, as well as for the faith of the Gospel? At all events, let us wait for the great salvation of God the Spirit. Against hope, let us believe in hope that we shall see the royal priesthood clothed with Divine righteousness, and all God’s saints rejoice and sing.
“The openness with which you mention what some might call your enthusiasm, makes me reveal to you, Madam, what some call mine. I own I do not believe that Scripture repealed, ‘Your young men shall see visions; your old men shall dream dreams.’ ‘These signs shall follow them that believe,’ etc. (See Mark xvi. 17, 18). ‘My sons and my daughters shall prophesy.’ ‘Desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy’ (1 Cor. xiv. 2). Shall I offend you, if I ask you in simplicity the following questions? Do you know any soul filled with all the fulness of God? Anyone walking as Christ also walked, and able to say, in truth, ‘As He was, so are we in this world?’ Do you know any knit together in love, sharing all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of Christ in us the hope of glory (Col. i. 27; ii. 2)? Or, are the professors about you (far from having the full assurance of understanding with respect to this mystery) ready to say, when one speaks of this mystery, ‘Thou bringest strange things to our ears’?
“If you condescend to favour me with an answer, please to direct it to me at Madeley, Salop. There I hope to be next week. In the meantime, I pray the Lord to give us an understanding, that we may know more of Him, and be completely in His Son Jesus Christ, that is, in the true, Divine, and eternal life. May the living unction be and abide with you! I ask it ardently for you; condescend to ask it also for, dear Madam, your obliged friend and servant in the Gospel,
“J. Fletcher.
“P.S.—The third part, which I designed to add[[495]] to the ‘Essay on the New Birth,’ was an application to the disciples of Moses, of John, and of Jesus glorified; to those who have the fear of God, the faith of the Son, and the love of the Spirit. My health is mended, thanks be to God! but my lungs remain weak. Please to remember me in Christian love to Sister Crosby.
“Miss Bosanquet,
“At Cross Hall,
“Near Leads (sic),