• William Gadsby's Letters (Complete)

    An Everlasting Task For Arminians

    A Letter To Mr. Edward Smyth, Formerly Of Trinity College, Dublin. To Which Are Added, Lines In Praise Of Free Will I. THE PREFACE A Few Hints To Them That Are Sanctified By God The Father, Preserved In Christ Jesus, And Called. Beloved, in reading the word of God, it becomes us ever to remember that the sacred pages are a transcript of the perfections of the infinite God, who is the "high and lofty One that in habiteth eternity, whose name is Holy;" a Being whose omniscient eye beholds the end from the beginning, who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, and will do all his pleasure; who "bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought, and maketh the devices…

  • William Gadsby's Letters (Complete)

    True Benevolence

    To those kind Friends who have so liberally given to the Distressed Poor in the Manufacturing Districts,—In the name of the poor I sincerely thank you for your kindness; and I can, in the fear of the Lord, say that your bounties have been much blessed to a great many of the Lord's dear tried family. I have already been enabled to send of your bounty to more than twenty places besides Manchester, and from some places I have received acknowledgments of real heartfelt gratitude. To some places I have sent five pounds, to some others four, three, two, and to some few places one pound, and have also disposed of a considerable sum to poor distressed private persons and families both in Manchester and…

  • William Gadsby's Letters (Complete)

    A Frowning Providence, Smiling Face

    Dear Friend in the dear Lord of the House,—I drop you this line from a real feeling for you. I am really sorry, that—has turned out as it has. Well, my friend, this must be a trial for you; but I hope the Lord will support your mind, and grant you peace in him. Should it be a means of making you poor, remember the dear Lord was poor before you, and in the riches of his grace he has made you, in the best sense, rich through his poverty, and you will find in him one that will be a very present help in trouble. I know what poverty is, for I have been so poor as to feel grateful for two pence. I…

  • William Gadsby's Fragments (Complete)

    Odd Sayings

    My dear Friend,—You request me to send you some of Mr. Gadsby's odd sayings. If they are, odd, they are striking, when we consider their spiritual signification. I wish I could send the beautiful truths he conveys in them. He is continually lashing Arminianism. Free-will, he terms a filthy dirty lane, and the poor creatures in it go hobbling along besludged all over. He warns us not to stir a step to hear an Arminian minister, as we each of us carry one in our own bosom. He tells us he has one that gets up with him, and has the assurance to breakfast, dine, drink tea, and sup with him. Our hearts are full of lumber and rubbish, which he earnestly prays for the…

  • William Gadsby's Letters (Complete)

    A Path Of Tribulation

    There are many letters in the “G.S.” to the Church, but I must leave them. The following is the last he wrote to them. It was written a few months before his death, after a certain minister in London, high in doctrine, had been propagating the sentiments that a child of God cannot backslide and that Sin can do a child of God no harm: To the Family of God, meeting for the worship of their adorable Lord in George's Road, Manchester. Dear Brethren,—Through the tender mercies of the Lord, I am still in the path of life; and though I find it a path of tribulation, I am, in some solemn, and at times, sweet measure, enabled to unite with Moses, choosing “rather to…

  • William Gadsby's Fragments (Complete)

    The Fear Of Death

    I do not know that death ever appears to me more terrific than when I feel a fear that I shall die in darkness; I do not want such a death as that. But I can tell you what the Lord has brought me to know a little of, and to feel a little satisfaction in; and that is, that if God should see good that I should be in darkness, I am but level with the Lord Jesus Christ. He was in darkness, and cried out in darkness, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"