Samuel Medley, Liverpool, to Mrs. Thomas Wilson, 16 Artillery Place, London, 4 March 1799.

Liverpool 4th March 1799.

My very dear and kind friends Mr and Mrs Wilson.

  I have no doubt but you must have heard, how sorely in the Course of his Holy and wise providence, it has pleased my gracious God and Heavenly Father in Christ Jesus to visit poor me with very violent and painful Illness since my Return from London. Indeed I have been and am but exceeding low in respect of my Bodily Health and Constitution. All I went thro while in London, sore as it was—was but a kind of a prelude to, or Introduction of, what I have suffered since I came home. Never had my poor Clay Tabernacle such a shake or so many wide and gaping Cracks in it, (if I may so express myself) as it has had and still has.—It would be only tedious and painful to you my dear Friends to enumerate or make a detail of particulars in this Respect—I am still a Closely confined prisoner to my House as not having yet dared, or indeed been able to put my Head out of the doors.—Yet—and I well know it will afford you pleasure to be informed of it—It appears at present, at least in some small degree, as if it was the pleasure of the Lord to bless the use of Means towards my Recovery. I do find in several Respects that some of my Complaints—are beginning to give way and lessen and my Medical friends here, tell me that however it has been a very tedious and painful, yet they have no doubt but it will in the end, prove a profitable Crisis to my Constitution even at this advanced period of my Life—Thus far they—But kind and attentive to me as they are I trust I am enabled to look above and beyond them as Men—even to the Hills from whence & whence only Cometh my Help—Mourning indeed I have been and am still called to and daily made to Experience—But I trust and desire to be thankful for it   I am kept from the power and prevalence of Indulged Murmuring against his Holy wise and Sovereign Hand as now laid upon me—And I hope I desire to Consider and esteem this as among the many wonderful and undeserved Mercies I am yet the partaker of—I hope I do love and often am I led to Reflect upon and Expect to myself those sweet words of the Psalmist where he says— “I know O Lord that thy Judgments are right and that those in faithfulness hast afflicted me.”— And those of the Apostle Peter— “Tho now for a season if needs be, ye are in promises thro manifold Trials” —And again those words to the Hebrews— “My Son, despise not those the chastning [sic] of the Lord neither faint when thou art rebuked of him &c &c—and especialy [sic] where it is said in the same Chapter— “But He for our proffit that we might be made partakers of his Holiness”—And those words in the 27th Chapter of Isaiah— “By this therefore shall the Iniquity of Jacob be purged and this is all the fruit to take away his Sin”—And those words in Deuteronomy— “To humble thee and to prove thee and to do thee good in thy latter end”—And many more—And so I think I find and Experience somewhat of the Truth of what I have often said in publick—viz “That truly sanctified afflictions are some of the sweetest and most blessed Expositors of Gods Holy Word—And but for them we should not know the meaning of several parts of and passages in it— “But who teacheth like Him—Of whom it is said by the Prophet— “Who teacheth thee to thy profit, and leadeth thee by the way in which thou shouldest go.”—which may well lead this afflicted Christian, without fear of being mistaken to say— “It is all well now and shall be Eternaly [sic] better by and by. Blessed by God for this. I would not have you my dear and much lov’d friends—Suffer from all or any thing I have thus written to You—That I have no conflict with, or painful disturbance in my Soul from a Corrupt Nature, or the sad, sinful and shameful working of an Evil heart of Unbelief. Indeed the truth is I have much of this—in my daily Experience and yet the Lord is good, his Mercy is Everlasting and his Truth Endureth to all Generations—Yea his compassions fail not & therefore it is that I am not Consumed”— O what a Song will it be to sing in a brighter world to all Eternity”—that he has led us forth by the right way, to bring us to a City of Everlasting Habitation”   I hope and pray, my dear friends that these few lines may meet You both and your dear Infant Children all mercifully well. And that the gracious blessings of the presence power and peace of the Lord are with you all, enabling you more and more to look to and love, and live, upon him and like Him also; in humble and in holy walking with Him and in so doing to persevere to the End and then to be with him in Glory World without End Amen    

  Mrs Medley and my family here join me in presenting our Xtian Love and best Respects—And I have particularly to Request again that you will kindly accept my sincere thanks for all the many and repeated Instances of Your very great kindness to me while lately with you in London    the Lord himself reward You with a Thousand-fold better Blessings in Your own Souls—For the present therefore my Dear Friends farewell—And now Commanding You both and all Yours most Cordialy [sic] to the Lord I remain with all due Respect and gratitude your greatly oblidged [sic] and very affectionate Friend and willing Servant in the Lord Jesus and for his sake

                                           Sam Medley

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 96-98 (annotated version); also Eng. MS. 370, fol. 84b, John Rylands University Library of Manchester.A note on the back page reads, “Mr Medleys last Letter to Mrs Wilson.” Thomas Wilson (1764-1843) was a London silk merchant and prominent Independent layman and the father of Joshua Wilson (1795-1874), who succeeded his father as a leader among the 19th century Congregationalists in England.