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p285 Dearest W Kelly, - I had overlooked Liverpool. . . . They resolved not to receive without examination, perhaps more; but P - who, with a great deal of the manners of grace (what is called charity, of which I have the greatest dread) and, I doubt not, a good deal of real grace, which I trust I appreciate - like all Irishmen whom grace has not total mastery of (I forgot you were one!) has an amazing confidence in himself; so that, though there is a healthful change, I believe I should look before I leapt; for who could tell where an Irishman would lead you? There is an inconceivable looseness about them: excellent in Ireland where all are so, it has a strange effect in England where men are not so, and in religious things has a peculiar danger of its own.

The connection of ἡμας and αὐτους is not so difficult (Rev. 5:9, 10) because the elders were offering up the incense of the prayers of others in their vials and the αὐτους is extraordinarily far from ἡγόρασας ; though Revelation Greek is unusual.

As regards Maurice, it is a mind dissatisfied with the stupidity and narrowness of dead orthodoxy and having no spiritual reins from God by the word and Spirit, that has run loose to make a God such as he would have - and the common course of middle-age heresies. Often real witnesses and sufferers for God and the truth, but not guarding themselves from the seductions of mental heresies - sometimes, no doubt, this last a one; and the persecuting church, which kept nominal truth (a thing the Fathers never did), was very glad to lump them all up together, charge them all with the worst things, and burn them, doing the devil's work with both hands earnestly in another way. They seldom escaped the superstition and paganism of the hierarchical iniquity and corruption, without the mind getting loose, and meddling with and spoiling the things of God. It is this that shews what a total ruin the church of God was and is. I have found a solemn and most affecting consideration - what love God must have had to His elect to carry them through it all, and bear with them, as He does indeed with as cold and lifeless ones in, perhaps, things more hateful to Him than these helpless wanderings of mind. Such is M.'s case, in a measure, but he has the misfortune to be the original mover in the mental wandering. Will is in it, and hence, I fear, unless God steps in, that it is one of the many ways in which the devil is let loose in these days to unsettle everything. Men cannot be satisfied with death; God Himself is rousing them; and Satan would seek to bring in an activity not subject to, and outside God's word, the only guide in such cases, not merely into truth, but hindering the will from being active, which, acting by the mind, just makes heresy, and (whatever the thoughts) cannot profit, because it makes God subject to it. I do not see much grace in M.; he will have, not truth, but liberty to put God out his own way. He is not willing to suffer, nor suffer for the truth; he likes the Establishment; it is a comfortable place - so it is, no doubt - and he would seek to maintain a liberty in it which would leave free his will without its costing him anything. God may lead him into subjection, but I do not see it yet. In the present universal unsettling it is possible God may allow this one in addition, and not allow the dead barrier of orthodoxy and authority to settle and quiet the matter; sometimes for souls for His elect's sake, He does. If I can, I will look into it.

I have been a little occupied with heretics lately, Paulicians, Albigeois, Waldenses, Bohemian brethren, and the like. I find historians generally superficial somewhat; but it is a deeply sorrowful inquiry on one side, and yet exalting God's grace, as I have said, on the other. The ruin was utter as regards man - the Reformation a wonderful thing, but Luther's flesh terribly strong - a mixed thing, though the action of the Spirit of God astonishing - God's work. It is not Luther himself by himself proves it to me; he was merely one remarkable instrument in it. It is just its springing up here, there and all around that proved God was at work. As far as Luther is personally looked up to, it has made one of the most stupid, bigoted churches (as they call them) in existence, where if piety entered - gave birth to rationalism because of the dull bigotry of their orthodoxy; for the Pietists are the historical parents of rationalism, strange to say. What a world we live in! "I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy commandment is exceeding broad."

I trust God is thus working around now in England: His good hand is surely seen among brethren; there is a movement of His Spirit in many places. Humbled we must be, and then God can bless. . . .

Ever your affectionate brother in Jesus.

1853.

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