Copy of Letter

From [Benjamin Seward, see note below] at Badsey to [William Seward]. He was grateful for the kind letter sent to Brother Edward. As for the query within it concerning the 'new birth', Benjamin cannot say that he is able to claim that state to any 'tolerable degree'. He is very aware that his heart remains 'deceitful on the weight and lighter than vanity itself'. He despairs of salvation, either by his own works or his righteousness. He has reason to be despondent, as God knows that, not only from Benjamin’s original sin but from his many actual committed sins, that he has nothing to fall back upon but divine pardon. He has run with the wicked and 'sat in the seat of the scornful'. He prays that he may be cleansed of his many secret faults and that evil will not be allowed to dwell in his heart.

His dear wife went with him to the society meeting last Sunday night and is very good at 'hearing and instructing my children at home. I am very glad to hear Miss Gracy is happily instructing, and thank you for your good wishes, of having your nieces there with her, but hope God will give us grace to set up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in our own family...' Spiritual matters are further discussed in great detail.

When William mentioned [George] Whitefield’s visiting Badsey, Benjamin 'had no great notion of it, but was rather against it. I thought him in some points an enthusiast and that he made religion a heavier burden than it is, but believe it was my own corruption that could not bear the test of his purity, and I bless God I now being to be really of Mr [William] Law’s opinion [see note below], that if we would be Christ’s disciples, we must forsake all in affection and follow him, tho I could wish some few amendments were made in his books, that the most captious worldling might have no room for censure. I have not read them through, they being now with Mr Rollins, but design to do it soon, and I hope with a resolution to make the most favourable allowances and constructions, on what I believe was wrote with a pious design.'

Benjamin has lately read [John Bunyan’s] Pilgrim’s Progress, which he has often heard ridiculed, but without being aware of the fact that there are many pearls contained within such 'an obsolete and unfashionable stone house'.

Mr Henry is a very valuable writer '& notwithstanding some small differences in opinion as to ceremony, I verily think all true Christians are in perfect unity, as to all essentials & that if the lives of our ministers were as exemplary as Mr [George] Whitefield’s, we should soon become one fold under one shepherd...'

Their society here is flourishing a great deal. It is a 'very fruitful soil in temporal blessings. O that it may rightfully improve them to their spiritual advantage.' Benjamin intends when they go to settle at Bengeworth to establish societies there and at Evesham. He trusts that Whitefield’s preaching there will assist in that process 'for I am very unduly qualified to set about such a work...' They would be very pleased to be informed of William’s progress from time to time.

Benjamin had not heard of the Welsh clergymen who William referred to [Probably a reference to either Daniel Rowland (1711-1790) or Griffith Jones (1684-1761)]. What are their ages? where do they mainly live? and have they any 'considerable preferment'?

William should pass on his friendly regards to Whitefield. He wishes they were at home so that they could have a house at Bengeworth as well as here to entertain William and his associates. Spiritual matters are discussed.

Dear mother is pretty cheerful today. She sends her blessings.

Notes

• Benjamin Seward (b.1705) was brother to the Methodist martyr William Seward and an older contemporary of Charles Wesley at Westminster School. Seward was a graduate of Cambridge University and was converted under his brother's influence in 1739. He apparently planned to enter the Anglican ministry but did not do so for reasons which remain unknown. Two of his brothers Francis and Thomas were Anglican ministers.
• William Law (1686-1761) was the son of a Northamptonshire grocer. He was educated at Emmanuel College Cambridge and was elected to a fellowship in 1711, the same year that he was ordained into the Anglican ministry. Law was a fervent supporter of the Stuart claim to the throne and refused to take the oath of alliegance to King George I upon his accession in 1714. Law was a prolific writer and talented controversialist. He is best known for his series of treatises on Christian Perfection, the first of which appeared in 1726. These had a tremendous influence on the early evangelicals. In 1727 Law was appointed tutor to Edward Gibbon, father of the famous historian. He made a favourable impression on the Gibbon family and remained in residence at their home in Putney after his charge left college and went on a tour of Europe. John Wesley visited Law in 1732 and they later engaged in correspondence. Wesley disagreed with Law’s bent towards mysticism but always expressed admiration for the older man. Law left Putney in the late 1730s and moved first to Somerset Gardens, near the Strand in London, and then in 1740 to his native village of King’s Cliffe. Law had established a Girls’ school there in 1727 and in 1745 a wealthy admirer Mrs Hutchinson added a school for boys. Hutchinson and another gentlewoman Miss Hester Gibbon settled close by King’s Cliffe and devoted their substantial private incomes to carrying out Law’s instructions regarding charitable giving, as set out in one of his best-known works a Serious Call published in 1728. Alms houses were also added to the community and it became a magnet for destitute people from miles around – much to the chagrin of some of Law’s neighbours. Law continued his writing, authoring for example an attack on Bishop Warburton in 1757. He died after a short illness in April 1761.