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to go out with their lives in their hand, and ory to a profane, careless, bufy world, "Oh! every one that thirfteth, come ye to the waters?" Can any confiderate, much more any real good man, be fo cruel, as even to wish that the Gofpel fhould be confined either to Church or Meeting, when there are fo many thoufands and tens of thoufands who, as to fpiritual things, know not their right hand from their left, and who never go either to Church or Meeting at all? If fome are called to be fettled Minifters (and may the great Head of the Church fill all our Parish-Churches and Meeting-Houfes with true evangelical Paftors!) may not others' be called out to be Itinerants? Have there not been Prefbyters at large, even from the earliest times of Christianity? And if fome of a more inferior rank and order should be qualified, and thruft forth by the great LORD of the harvest, when the harvest is fo great, and the labourers fo few, who fhall dare to fay to Him, "What doft thou?" Shall our eye be evil because he is good? If Ifaiah was a Courtier, was not the Prophet Amos a Herdfman? In the days of Mofes, when the Ifraelites were under a more immediate divine theocracy, news was brought him, and that too even by a Jofhua, that Eldad and Medad were prophefying in the camp, without his Licence or his Ordination; what doth this meek man of God say? "Envieft thou for my fake? Would to GoD all the LORD's people were prophets." And in the days of our LORD himself, when He was perfonally prefent, his beloved difciple John, before his heart was more enlarged by divine love, faid unto him, "Mafter, we faw one cafting

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out devils in thy name, and he followeth not with us, and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us." But what faid JESUS, that good Shepherd and Bishop of Souls? "Forbid him not."

Such inftances, fuch triking inftances as thefe, methinks, fhould make even good men careful not to give way to a narrow, felfish, bigoted spirit; and caution them againft joining with the world in fmiting their Fellow-fervants, by crying down or fpeaking flightingly and reproachfully of a method of preaching and acting, which, maugre all oppofition, for thefe thirty years laft paft hath been bleffed and owned of Gob to the converting of thousands; not to a bare name, fect or party, or merely to head or notional knowledge, but from darkness unto light, from the power of Satan upto GOD;" from holding the mere form, to the true abiding poffeffion and practice of true fcriptural godlinefs, in heart, lip, and life. But if good or bad men now diflike, and therefore oppofe fuch an irregular way of acting, they may be told to their comfort, that their uneafinefs on this account, in all probability, will not be of long continuance; for few will choofe to bid, or offer themselves candidates for fuch airy PLURALITIES: to go thus without the camp, bearing all manner of reproach; to become in this manner,

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Spectacles to GOD, to angels, and to men; facrifice not only our natural, but spiritual affections and connections, and to part from thofe who are as dear to them as their own fouls, in order to pals the Atlantic, and bear the colds and heats of foreign climes; there are fuch uninviting things to corrupt

nature,

nature, that if we will have but a little patience till a few-old weary heads are laid in the filent grave, thefe uncommon gofpel-meteors, thefe field-phænomenas, that seldom appear in the atitude of England scarce above once in a century, without the help of any coercive means, will of themfeles foon difappear. They begin to be pretty well in direpute already: Yet a little while, and in all human probability they will quite vanish away. But though I at neither a Prophet, nor the son of a Prophet, I am grealy mif taken if, in the Redeemer's own good time and way, fome fpiritual phoenix will not hereafter arise, fomẹ bleffed gospel-inftrument be raised, that fhall make the devil and his threefold army, "The luft of the Flesh, the luft of the Eye, and the pride of Life," to fly before the found of the gospel trumpet.

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I have dwelt the longer upon this particular, Reverend SIR, because the prefent learned Bishop of Gloucefter, in his late volumes, intitled, The Doctrines of Grace, is pleased to obferve, more than once, that he finds fault not so much with the matter, as the manner of the Methodists preaching. But if by the manner his Lordship would have us to understand, not their manner of preaching in the field, but the manner of their delivery, whether in the church or field, I would humbly ask his Lordship, if he ever heard any of them preach ? If not, doth our law condemn any man, or any set of men, unheard?› And I would humbly inquire further of his Lordfhip, and all others whom it may concern, how they would have them or any others preach?

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I remember the great Doctor Delauny, when I had the honour of being with him, many years ago, at the Right Reverend Doctor Boulter's, then Lord Primate of Irelaid, among other hints, proper for a young preacher, gaye me to understand, that whenever he went up into a pulpit, he defired to look upon it as the aft time he should ever preach, or the laft time that he people fhould ever hear him. O that all Preaches, whether within or without doors, however dignified or diftinguifhed, went always up int their refpective pulpits thus impreffed! They would then preach as Apelles once faid he painted, namely, for Eternity: They would then act the part of true gofpel Chriftian Grators, and not only calmly and cooly inform the understanding, but by perfuafive pathetic addrefs endeavour to move the affections, and warm the heart. To act otherwise befpeaks a fad ignorance of human nature, and fuch an inexcufable indolence and indifference in the preacher, as must constrain the hearers, whether they will or not, to fufpect that the Preacher, let him be [who he will, only deals in the falfe commerce of unfelt truths.

Were our Lawyers, our Counsellors, or our Players to act thus, both the Bar and the Stage would foon be deferted; and therefore that answer of Mr Betterton, to a worthy prelate, when he afked him "how it came to pafs that the Clergy, who spoke of things real, affected the people fo little, and the Players, who spoke of things barely imaginary, affected them fo much," is worthy of lafting regard. "My Lord, fays Mr Betterton, I can affign but one reason,

reafon, which is, We Players speak of things imaginary as though they were real, and too many of the Clergy speak of things real as though they were imaginary." Thus it was in his, and all know it is too much the cafe in our time. Hence it is, that even on our most important occafions, the worthy gentlemen concerned in our public Charities," generally find themselves more obliged to the Muficians than the Preachers, for the largenefs of their collections and hence, no doubt it is, that upon our most folemn Anniversaries, after long previous notice hath been given, when fome even of our Lords Spiritual preach themselves, perhaps not two Lords temporal come to hear them.

Sorry am I therefore, Reverend SIR, to inform you, that a celebrated Orator, in one of his Lectures delivered, if I am not mistaken, in the University of Oxford, takes the liberty of faying, "That it is to be feared this is too much the ftate of the Pulpitelocution in general, in the church of England: On which account, adds he, there never was perhaps a religious fect upon earth whofe hearts were fo little engaged in the act of public worship as the members of that Church. To be pleafed, we muft feel, and, we are pleased with feeling. The Prefbyterians are moved; the Methodists are moved; they go to their meetings and tabernacles with delight; the very Quakers are moved; fantaftical and extravagant as the language of their emotions is, yet ftill they are moved by it, and they love their form of worship for that reafon: Whilft much the greater part of the members of the Church of England, are either ba

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