exact proportion; and He who cannot lie hath said, "My strength shall be perfected in thy weakness; and as thy day is, so shall thy strength be." Creatures are like candles: very useful, and always most prized when the sun is absent; but if he arise, we can do without them. May the Lord arise and shine, and his glory light upon you and yours! As death does not separate from the Lord, neither does it divide the saints from one another. Your spirit and hers daily meet at the same throne: she to praise, and you to pray; therefore, in that sense, though absent in the body, you are present in the spirit; and after a while you will meet in person, to part no more; for "they that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." In the mean time, we are called to walk by faith, and not by sight; and He, in whom we may safely confide, hath declared, "All things work together for good." It was once a reconciling thought to me in great trouble, that afflictions are compared in Scripture to workmen; all employed and busy in the Christian's behalf. They work for you: it might have been against you, as is frequently feared. They work together, not separately, but in happy harmony. I then thought, the more the better, if God direct and point out their employment; for the end to be accomplished is "a far more exceeding, eternal weight of glory." As persons take pleasure in reviewing the industrious workman, so the Christian, with Paul, may rejoice, not only in the Lord, but in his tribulation also. "I take pleasure in mine infirmities also." If God send a great affliction, thought I, we may then view it as a fresh workman engaged in our favour; and not only so, but look upon it as one who, in consequence of singular strength, will despatch business, though of a heavy nature, at a great Thus those for whom they are employed will grow rich at last. Among others, "let patience have her perfect work." She is a pensive, but a precious grace. Have, likewise, labour abundant in the Lord. Desire goes in search after celestial productions; Hope stands on tiptoe to view them; Faith goes to receive them, and brings them home. Thus the just shall live by his faith; for what Faith brings, Love cordially receives, and Volition bids it welcome. Joy sings, and makes sweet melody; Peace possesses; Rest receives; and Fear ceases to quake, and Jealousy to tremble. How well is it for the soul when tribulation worketh for her, and when every grace is active in her! Angels encamp about her, and God rejoiceth ever her to do her good. I would not be tedious; excuse my prolixity.

pace.

I remain your affectionate and sympathizing friend, and, I hope brother in the kingdom and patience of Christ Jesus, ROBERT HALL.

II.

TO A CLERGYMAN OF CAMBRIDGE.*

Cambridge, Aug. 7, 1795.

REV. SIR-Altercation is at all times unpleasant, especially when occasions of disagreement arise between ministers of the gospel of peace who reside in the same place. On this account, no motive less powerful than self-defence and the desire of vindicating aspersed innocence could compel me to address you, in this public manner, on the very extraordinary sermon you delivered last Sunday afternoon at your parish church. Not having had the satisfaction of hearing you, I am obliged to depend for my information of its contents upon report; and I hope, if I am so unfortunate as to mistake or misrepresent your sentiments, you will be so kind as to set me right.

Your text, I understand, was Matt., vii., 15-20, "Beware of falseprophets," &c. Your sermon, I find, was directed to a display of the arts of religious seduction, with a view to prepare and fortify your hearers against the designs of bad men, who, under the cloak of religion, might endeavour to corrupt their innocence and pervert their simplicity. You levelled these precautions particularly against the Dissenters; complained of the artful methods they took to draw off men from the Church; and that the Baptists, in particular, would never be satisfied till they got your people under the water. You read, you remember, the following extract from Matthew Henry's comment on the words of your text, as applicable to the false prophets you had in view, observing it would have the greater weight with some, as coming from a Dissenter: "If the doctrine be of God, it will tend to promote serious piety, humility, charity, holiness, and love, with other Christian graces; but if, on the contrary, the doctrines these prophets preach have a manifest tendency to make people proud, worldly, and contentious, to make them loose and careless in their conversation, unjust, or uncharitable, factious, or disturbers of the public peace; if it indulge carnal liberty, and take people off from governing themselves and their families by the strict rules of the narrow way, we may conclude that this persuasion cometh not of Him who calleth them." I have a right, sir, to demand who these ministers are whose preaching tends to make their hearers proud and contentious, factious, or disturbers of the public peace? You cannot mean to guard your parishioners against preachers at a distance: precaution is useless where there is no danger.

You unquestionably had in view some minister or ministers upon

This letter is the one referred to by Dr. Gregory, in the preface to vol. iii., p. 5, as the only article he had omitted in his volumes which Mr. Hall had previously published. I am sorry in this instance to differ from the Dr., and think it important to print it. The clergyman to whom it was addressed was in early life exceedingly friendly with his dissenting brethren, but incurring, in this manner, the displeasure of his superiors, he became a bigoted and violent opponent to all who ven tured to worship within unconsecrated walls. Unhappily, this spirit in England is greatly on the increase, and the letter has been recently republished there. I have thought it important to present it to the American public, as a standing argument against a system which cherishes the spirIt that is bere censured.- B.

the spot. Permit me to ask who they are; and upon what authority you presume to charge their doctrine with being inimical to piety, and subversive of order and government? Have you ever yourself heard them utter any such doctrine? or, if you collect your report from hearsay, on whose report do you rely? You are, unquestionably, not so little instructed in the principles of morality as to be ignorant that calumny is a vice, and that-under every character by which you can be respected, as a minister, as a Christian, and as a man of honour-you are called upon either to establish the truth of your positions, or confess their falsehood.

You have thought fit to caution your people against being seduced from their attachment to the Church by the supposed insinuations or artifice of the Dissenters. What insinuations and what artifice have we ever practised? Our dissent from the Established Church is publicly tolerated by the laws, and its reasons are open to the whole world. Name, if you can, a single instance in which the Dissenters at Cambridge have attempted to make proselytes by any private and clandestine methods, by any other means than the open avowal of their sentiments. I believe you will not be disposed to make the same demand on your part; or, if you should, I am prepared to give you a farther answer than you wish.

As you passed from a general attack upon Dissenters to specify the Baptists in particular, and to put your hearers on their guard against their arts of proselytism, I call upon you, in the character of a Baptist, to explain your insinuations. Produce, if you would not stand convicted as a public calumniator, one specimen of that unfair and ungenerous method of making converts which you have attributed to us. Our sentiments upon the baptismal rite exempt us from any temptations to lay undue stress upon it; we consider it merely as the symbol of a Christian profession, while you profess to believe it regenerates the partaker, and makes him a child of God. It would be cruel and inhuman in you not to enforce with eagerness the observation of a rite which can confer such exalted happiness at so cheap a rate. You ought to remember, too, that our mode of administering baptism by immersion is conformable to the laws of your own church, which appoint the candidate to be dipped, except in cases of weakness and dis

ease.

The prominent feature in the description of those false prophets whom you undertake to expose was, that they preached a doctrine which had a manifest tendency to make the people factious, or disturbers of the public peace. Now, if it should appear that the dissenting ministers in this town do not touch upon politics in their religious services in any shape, their doctrine cannot be factious, or have any tendency to make men disturbers of the public peace. For myself, all who have ever heard me are witnesses that I never introduced a political topic into the pulpit on any occasion; nor have I any doubt the other dissenting ministers in this town can make the same declaration with equal sincerity. But, had our conduct been ever so remote from this moderation and reserve, modesty should unquestionably have re

strained you from becoming your own accuser; when it is well known you are the chief, perhaps the only, political teacher in the place; and that you often entertain your hearers with more politics in one sermon than most dissenting ministers have done during their whole lives. The doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, which, in better times, [Sacheverell] was disgraced for preaching, are familiar in your mouth; the transient successes of the late war were, in my hearing, the subject of your triumphant boast; the exiled clergy of France you acknowledged to be brethren; and, to soften the harsh features of popery, you compared the difference of sentiment between its adherents and yourself to that which existed between the Gentile Church and the Jewish Church at Jerusalem. On the same occasion, you assured us, with infinite exultation, and with a degree of foresight which shows that if we were false prophets, you are not a true one, you anticipated the speedy return of the emigrant clergy. In admirable consistency with your character as a Protestant minister, you dwell with rapture on the prospect of seeing the walls of mystic Babylon rebuilt, and the ancient Church of Rome restored with fresh splendour. It is not politics, then, it is evident, to which you entertain an aversion: pardon me, sir, if, when I hear of your ascetic pretensions to political indifference, I suspect a little disingenuity at the bottom. While you reprobate political discussions, you embrace every opportunity of inflaming political passions; and, that you may the more securely guide the opinions of your admirers, you are anxious to keep them in the dark. The fervour of religious and ministerial attachment with you go hand in hand; and any marked dislike to the measures of government is considered as a mark of religious decline, if not of a total reprobation. Did you not lately industriously circulate an inflammatory prayer for success in the present war? Tell me how you could take a more active part in politics even if you were a hired tool of the ministry? Since, then, instead of being a calm, indifferent spectator, you are thus decided in your own political views and conduct, why have not the Dissenters an equal right to form an opinion? May not their attachment to peace and reform be as innocent as yours to war and corruption? How long is it since the support of the most profligate administration that ever plagued any country, an administration which has filled England with disease and Europe with blood, and which, in addition to its other delinquencies, is filling up the measure of its iniquities by nearly reducing us to famine, has become the distinguishing criterion of true piety?

Permit me, before I close this address, to admonish you to be upon your guard against a malignant, persecuting spirit, of which you have exhibited numerous indications for some years past. While you explain the general truths of Christianity, and inculcate its general duties, you will ensure the esteem of good men of all denominations, and find ample scope for the exertion of your ministerial talents. In addition to this, you have a right, unquestionably, to defend the doctrines and discipline of your particular church against the objections of Dissenters, provided you do it by entering into the true merits of the

question, without malignant insinuations, calculated to blacken the character of your opponents. Your ignorance of the controversy between the Establishment and Dissenters must be extreme, if you suppose general invectives against the disloyalty or irreligion of Dissenters can have any tendency to bring it to an issue. Whether we have lost the purity of our religion or not, can be known only to that Being who searches the heart; but your violation of the evangelical precepts of charity and candour makes it evident you have not found it.

You will, probably, be ready to inquire why I have not addressed you in private upon this subject, rather than through this public vehicle; especially since I had yesterday so fair an opportunity, by being accidentally thrown into your company. My reasons for preferring this mode relate partly to you and partly to myself: on the one hand, the impressions made to the disadvantage of any body of men by a public accusation can only be effaced by a public reply; on the contrary, if I have misrepresented your meaning, you have a fair opportunity of publicly clearing yourself of the suspicions of calumny.

I have only to add, if the serious perusal of this letter tend in any degree to correct the virulence of your temper, or restrain the excesses of party zeal, your character will rise in the esteem of an enlightened public, and you will have abundant reason to rejoice, though fewer bigots should applaud, and fewer fools should admire.

I am, reverend sir, your humble servant,

ROBERT HALL

III.

TO MR. JAMES.

[With what sentiments of humility and devotion Mr. Hall succeeded to Broadmead, the station of ais departed friend, the venerable Dr. Ryland, may be seen in the following extract from a letter to nis worthy brother-in-law, Mr. Isaac James, dated Leicester, January 2, 1826.-ED.]

I SHALL write again upon this subject as soon as I am able to say any thing definite and decisive. I feel, my dear brother, an awful sense of the importance of the step I have taken, and of the weighty responsibility with which it is fraught. When I consider the eminent character of that man of God whom I am to succeed, no words can express the sense of deficiency I feel. I am so far from aspiring to a comparison, that I am seriously apprehensive my character and conduct will exhibit a melancholy contrast with his. Pray for me, my dear brother, frequently and fervently, that my goings may be upheld, that I may make full proof of my ministry, that I may be instant in season and out of season, and so take heed to myself and to my flock, that I may both save myself and them that hear me. How awful will it be, if the works of God should languish, and the souls of never-dying creatures perish, through my neglect! My greatest consolation springs from my consciousness that, as I did not seek the situation, so in all the preliminary steps I have most earnestly implored the Divine direction; committing my way unto the Lord with as much submission and simplicity as I could command.