The Kentucky Gazette

A letter from Doctor Benjamin Franklin to a gentleman in New Jersey.

Philadelphia June 6, 1793.

Dear Sir,

I received your kind letter of the 2d inst. and am glad to hear that you increase in strength--hope you will continue mending until you recover your former health and firmness. Let me know whether 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, are that you would be always 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 favors, but as paying debts. In my travels and since my settlement I have received much kindness from men, to whom I shall never have an 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 the mercies from God, by a readiness to help his other children and my brethren. For I do not think that thanks and compliments, though repeated weekly can discharge our real obligations to each other, and much less to our Creator. You will see in this my notion of good works, that I am far from expecting to 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 would 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 little imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world are rather from God's goodness than our merit; how much more to the 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 to submit to the disposal of that God who made me (who has hitherto preserved and blessed me) and in whose fatherly goodness I may well confide, that he will never make me miserable, and that the affliction I may at any time suffer may tend to my benefit.

The faith you mention has doubtless its use in the world. I do not desire to see it diminished, nor would I deny 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 charity, mercy, and public spirit; not holiday keeping, sermon hearing or reading, performing church ceremonies or making long prayers filled with flatteries and compliments, despised 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 the tree should value itself on being watered and putting forth leaves though it never produced any fruit. Your good master thought much less of those outward appearances than many of his modern disciples. He preferred the doers of the word to the hearers--the son that seemingly refused to obey his father and yet performed his commands, to him that professed his readiness but neglected the work; the heretical but charitable Samaritan to the uncharitable but 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 though 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 though great enough to perform miracles but have neglected good works shall be rejected. He professed that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, which implied in his modest opinion that there were some in his time so good that they need not even hear him for improvement. But now a days we have scarcely a little parson that does not think it the duty of every man within his reach to sit under his petty ministration, and that whoever omits it offends God--I wish to such more humility and to you health and firmness.

Being your friend and servant,

B. FRANKLIN.