been a little chastened, they shall be greatly rewarded for God proved them, and found them worthy of himself*.

Many and important lessons may be learnt, from the object and the conclusion of the mortal life of a faithful minister of Christ. Sure I am that reflection on them addresses to those of us who bear the same office much instruction, encouragement and consolation, and should animate us to make Christ the great end of our lives, in order that our earthly existence may be useful, and that death, whenever it arrives, may be our gain. They, moreover, to whose best interests the services of the preachers of the gospel are devoted, should hence be taught in what light to regard the characters of those who speak, and the memories of those who have formerly spoken, to them the word of God. They may here see the ground, the limits, the nature and the influence of the attachment due to those who are or have been helpers of their joy.

This attachment, so far as it is rational and scriptural, rests upon a broad and solid basis: it is an attachment not so much to persons as to virtues and labours, or rather to persons, in consequence of their labours and virtues: not so much to external advantages as to substantial Wisd. iii. 1, 2, 3, 5.

causes.

qualifications of the mind and heart, exerted from the purest of motives and in the best of With cordial esteem and gratitude, and with the tenderest affection, we contemplate or remember those to whom to live has been Christ: this thought endears them to our bosoms: this leads us to pronounce them emphatically our friends and benefactors: and we hold them very highly in love for their work's sake. So opposite in principle are the respect which is paid by men of large and enlightened minds to the exemplary teachers of religion, and that which is rendered to them by the weak and superstitious!

For let not the attachment which I am describing be pushed so far as to occasion a forgetfulness that ministers are frail and mortal. When the idolatrous people of Lystra would have sacrificed to Barnabas and Paul, these apostles rent their clothes and ran in among the multitude, crying out and saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions, like feelings, like infirmities, with you*. It is sometimes, if not often, necessary to remind even better informed persons of this important truth. Alas, consciousness and observation may teach us that the preacher of the gospel, notwithstanding he possess all the zeal of a Paul and all the

Acts xiv. 13-16.

eloquence of an Apollos, is still but human: and "we know that we have the sentence of death within ourselves." Our circumstances and emotions at this moment constrain us to own that the treasure is in earthen vessels. They who have lived most to Christ, must nevertheless, die: but then death is their gain. Let our belief of these facts reduce our veneration for them and our grief on their dissolution within the bounds marked out by reason and the gospel.

Attachment to the upright minister of Jesus Christ is not blindness to his faults, or acquiescence in his decisions, before they are examined: it is a just proportion of affectionate esteem and gratitude, and is shown in the cheerful supply of his temporal wants, in regular and serious and candid attendance on his services, in a delicate concern for his reputation and success, in faithful counsels, in zealous co-operation, and, above all, in an aim to live under the power of the truths and in the exercise of the virtues which it is his business and pleasure to enforce.

In vain, my brethren, do we profess to cherish superior respect and thankfulness for the services and characters of ministers, whether living or departed, if we attempt not to fulfil their joy: in vain do we speak of their having sought out acceptable words, and of their having endea

voured with energy to waft our affections to God and heaven, if it be not the end of our daily prayers and efforts to carry their exhortations into practice. Our assembling here has a far nobler object than temporary gratification: we come hither for solid instruction: as a body of Christian worshippers, and not as those who have enlisted under the banner of any human and uncommissioned name. Who is even Paul and who is Apollos but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord giveth to every man? Every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner and another after that. The recollection of virtuous friendship and of pious teachers is one of the most persuasive of all arguments with ingenuous minds, themselves to aspire at being distinguished by piety and goodness. To have enjoyed privileges and to have abused them, nay, only to have neglected the improvement of them, is heinous guilt, and will incur the most dreadful condemnation; while, on the other hand, they whose happiness it is to walk in all the commandments and institutions of the Lord blameless afford the best possible demonstration that the attachment avowed by them to the persons and the memories of teachers whose life was Christ and whose death is gain, is founded in nature, in reason, in the very principles and

spirit of Christianity, and, instead of being the offspring of self-deceit, caprice and fancy, is indisputably genuine and supremely honourable.

Such are the reflections into which I have been led by the death of the excellent person who immediately preceded your present ministers in the charge of this society.

The Reverend John Edwards was born, January 1st. 1768, at Ipswich, where his father was pastor of a dissenting church, of the congregational denomination. In the year 1783, he entered upon his studies for the ministry, in the seminary then supported at Hoxton by the trustees of Mr. Coward's will, and under the able direction of Dr. Savage, Dr. Kippis and Dr. Rees: in 1785, he enjoyed the same patronage at Daventry, where he completed his academical education. His first settlement, as a minister, was at Gateacre, near Liverpool: in this situation, retired as it was, he manifested that ardour of mind which he afterwards more fully exhibited in defence of what he conceived to be truth and duty: and here he began to realize the expectations which had been formed of him as a preacher. that when the years and

The consequence was infirmities of the Rev.

* The Rev. David Edwards. (See Appendix, No. 1.)