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CXL: TO JOSEPH HUEY - Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. III Letters and Misc. Writings 1753-1763 [1904]

Edition used:

The Works of Benjamin Franklin, including the Private as well as the Official and Scientific Correspondence, together with the Unmutilated and Correct Version of the Autobiography, compiled and edited by John Bigelow (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904). The Federal Edition in 12 volumes. Vol. III (Letters and Misc. Writings 1753-1763).

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CXL

TO JOSEPH HUEY

Philadelphia, 6 June, 1756.2

Sir:—

I received your kind letter of the 2d inst., and am glad to hear that you increase in strength. I hope you will continue mending till you recover your former health and firmness. Let me know if you still use the cold bath, and what effect it has.

As to the kindness you mention, I wish it could have been of more service to you. But if it had, the only thanks I should desire is, that you would always be equally ready to serve any other person that may need your assistance, and so let good offices go round, for mankind are all of a family.

For my own part, when I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon myself as conferring favours, but as paying debts. In my travels and since my settlement I have received much kindness from men, to whom I shall never have any opportunity of making the least direct return, and numberless mercies from God, who is infinitely above being benefited by our services. These kindnesses from men I can therefore only return on their fellow-men; and I can only show my gratitude for those mercies from God, by a readiness to help his other children and my brethren. For I do not think that thanks and compliments tho’ repeated weekly, can discharge our real obligations to each other, and much less those to our Creator.

You will see in this my notion of good works, that I am far from expecting (as you suppose) that I shall ever merit heaven by them. By heaven we understand a state of happiness, infinite in degree and eternal in duration. I can do nothing to deserve such reward. He that for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands, compared with those who think they deserve heaven for the little good they do on earth. Even the mixed, imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world are rather from God’s goodness than our merit; how much more such happiness of heaven. For my own part, I have not the vanity to think I deserve it, the folly to expect it, nor the ambition to desire it; but content myself in submitting to the will and disposal of that God who made me, who hitherto preserv’d and bless’d me, and in whose fatherly goodness I may well confide, that he will never make me miserable, and that even the afflictions I may at any time suffer shall tend to my benefit.

The faith you mention has doubtless its use in the world; I do not desire it to be diminished, nor would I endeavour to lessen it in any man. But I wish it were more productive of good works than I have generally seen it. I mean real good works, works of kindness, charity, mercy, and publick spirit; not holiday-keeping, sermon reading or hearing, performing church ceremonies, or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments,—despis’d even by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity. The worship of God is a duty, the hearing and reading of sermons may be useful; but if men rest in hearing and praying, as too many do, it is as if a tree should value itself in being water’d and putting forth leaves, tho’ it never produc’d any fruit.

Your great Master tho’t much less of these outward appearances and professions than many of the modern disciples. He preferr’d the doers of the word to the mere hearers; the Son that seemingly refus’d to obey his father and yet perform’d his command, to him that profess’d his readiness but neglected the work; the heretical but charitable Samaritan, to the uncharitable tho’ orthodox priest and sanctified Levite; and those who gave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, raiment to the naked, entertainment to the stranger, and relief to the sick, &c., tho’ they never heard of his name, he declares shall in the last day be accepted, when those who cry Lord, Lord, who value themselves on their faith, tho’ great enough to perform miracles, but have neglected good works, shall be rejected, he professed that he came not to call the righetous but sinners to repentance; which imply’d his modest opinion that there were some in His time so good that they need not hear even him for improvement; but nowadays we have scarce a little parson, that does not think it the duty of every man within his reach to sit under his petty ministrations, and that whoever omits them1 [all the rest of this letter is torn out.]

[On the back of this letter is the following endorsement.]

In writing to his brother, August 6, 1747, Franklin says: “I am glad to hear that Mr. Whitefield is safe arrived, and recovered his health. He is a good man, and I love him.”

[2 ]Mr. Sparks publishes this letter as addressed to George Whitefield under date of June 6, 1753. In a note he says. “The above letter has often been printed, and always, I believe, as having been written to Whitefield, but among the author’s MSS. I find the first draft, with the following indorsement in Franklin’s handwriting. ‘Letter to Joseph Huey.’ ” Aside from the intrinsic improbability of Franklin’s preaching such a sermon as this to Whitefield, there is no good reason to doubt that it was written to the man to whom it was addressed. The first draft, from which we print, is in the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.—Editor.

[1 ]Mr Sparks concludes his letter with the words “offends God.” That is a very satisfactory conclusion, but we have no evidence that it was Franklin’s.