- vent in prayer. As for what the Rev. Mr. Hoar has been
pleased to say, either to you or Mr. H. it is not my business (out of deference, as he is so much my superior, as to the dignity of his office, his age, and his learning) to make any reply. I shall only add, what I am sure I can prove, "That the gospel tells us that there is but one thing needful. That we cannot sit down content with just such a degree of goodness, and claim just such a proportionable degree of glory;" but that "we are to love the Lord with all our souls, strength, &c." and that "he who endureth to the end, (and he only) shall be saved." There is a little treatise lately come out, which I have made bold to send to Mr. Hoar, where we may be fully convinced by argument deducible merely from reason, "that God is our sole end," and that barely upon a principle of prudence, (supposing we could be happy without it) we ought to press forward, in order to attain the greatest degrees of happiness hereafter. Whether this letter, Sir, may prove as offensive as the former, is not my business to enquire. God's will be done in all things. He, and he alone can (and indeed will, if we are desirous of it ourselves) work this conviction in our minds. Give me leave just to add, that I thought it my duty to answer these few objections, that have been raised against the difficulty of conforming our wills to the will of God, by shewing that the greatest struggle lies only at our first beginning, and that it is no more than what is indispensably necessary for our salvation. As for the means to be employed for the attainment of this end, I shall be wholly silent: Being sensible, that if you are once fully convinced of the greatness of it, you will be necessarily carried on to the use of such means as God hath constituted for that purpose. I hope my writing after this manner, Sir, will not be esteemed a piece of self-conceit, or be an instrument of unloosing our former band of friendship, which was once designed to be bound the faster, by tying it with a religious knot. But whether this proves to be the event, or not, of my telling my friends the truth, I wholly leave to God's Providence. Be pleased however to favour me with a line in return, and give me leave to subscribe myself, Dear Sir,
Your sincere friend and most obliged humble servant,
G. W.
