Gay, Claude 1707?-1786.

To all those whom it may concern. As I have often, in passing along the streets and high-ways, heard the Most Sacred Name very profanely made use of, both by men and women, and many grievously calling for Damnation on themselves and one on another, my heart has been, and is, deeply afflicted thereat; and therefore I beseech you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, do not defile your souls, which are dear and precious, by any wilful sin: and amongst other things, do not take the Holy Name of God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him or her guiltless that taketh his Holy Name in vain. God would save you; why would any of you lose and destroy yourselves? Observe this attentively; for notwithstanding all what the Lord has done, and is doing for us, such as die in their sins, where he is gone, they can never come. Abstain from drunkenness, and all excess, and from every appearance of evil; love one another, as Jesus Christ hath loved you; apply yourselves to the witness of God within you, which reproves you for evil; submit to, and obey its holy manifestations and discoveries, and it will do much more for you than all you can hear from any man: this witness of God is the Word of his Grace, even the Word of Life, which is able to save your souls. In the love of the gospel, I invite you all to come and taste how good and merciful the Lord is towards all those that return to him with their whole hearts. Farewel. London, the 28th of the Seventh Month 1777. Claude Gay