together; after which, a service was held in the vestry of the Chapel; which was opened by Mr. David Denham, and addresses were delivered by Mr. Moyll, Mr. Wells, and Mr. Mote. The whole of the funeral arrangements were admirably conducted by Mr. E. Mote. The church were at the expense of the burial. They have given Mr. Francis £70 a year since his imbecility of mind has rendered him unfit for preaching; and intend giving the widow £30; according to appearances it cannot be long before she follows her late beloved partner to the same place. THE FUNERAL SERMON Was preached by Mr. John Foreman, at Snows Fields, Lord's day evening, Jan. 16. who, after a few introductory remarks, read an account of Mr. Francis's last days as written by one of his daughters, from which the following extracts are made. 6 "About two years ago (says his daughter) when reading to my father the account of the death of a minister who had been laid by from preaching; but was restored again for some little time previous to his death; which took place while he was preaching; I said, Would that not be your wish, father? Well, my dear,' he replied, perhaps it might; but his will be done.' I said, 'It is a comfort to me that you do not grieve about it.' No;' he answered, 'I can truly say, I do not.' At one time he was sitting and looking very bad, I thought he did not notice me; which caused me to shed tears. He quickly perceived me, and said, 'It is all right; do not weep. The reins are in his hands.' At another time I asked him if there was any text from which he should wish his funeral sermon to be preached. He replied, No, my dear; there are so many precious texts; and so many precious promises; the Lord will supply the speaker with one.' Although at this time he was very troubled to speak; he used (up to the last week of his life) to ask the blessing at meals; and in such an impressive manner as astonished many. 66 October 16th, being his birthday, (his eightieth year) we had a few friends to tea; and though unable to take part in the conversation; he joined in singing the hymn, (which was a particular favourite of his): 'Rock of ages, cleft for me, &c.' adding, at the conclusion, that he wanted it, and no other shelter. He then wished them to sing 'Salvation, Oh, the joyful sound.' and he struck the tune to it. Mr. Harris used to pray with him frequently; and when he rose up, he used to repeat aloudAmen. The last few times, however, he was unable to do so. On Christmas day, when a friend was wishing him good night, she shook his hand and said, ' Oh! Mr. Francis, There shall we see his face,' &c. Will not that do?' 'Yes, Mary! yes, Mary!' he replied. On the Monday preceding his death we were reading some lines, and I found that he heeded every word of it, and when we had finished it, he said, Amen. His face beamed with pleasure, and he said, There's a glorious finish-read it again.' It was one of Kent's hymns. The verse he so loved was this : 66 'His heart all compassion, Redressed all their woes, The grace was so mighty, Were lost in a song.' The day before he died, he ate dinner as heartily as usual; at five o'clock, he said he should like to go to bed; and soon went to sleep, but awoke again at nine o'clock, when he took his supper; slept well again till six o'clock in the morning, when he awoke with sickness, but still remained sensible and was so up to the last. I said to him, God is with you, and never will forsake you; and reminded him of his favorite text ing arms.' He opened his eyes wide, smiled of scripture-'Underneath are the everlastsweetly at me, and in a few minutes we found his happy spirit had fled." Thus ended the peaceful life and happy death of George Francis. Foreman, that I first became acquainted "It was in the summer of 1824, said Mr. with George Francis. Twenty years ago, last Christmas day, my dear departed bro ther attended, with others, at my settlement at Mount Zion Chapel. Mr. Coombs was another; and Mr. Thomas Cotton of Cambridgeshire, another. Mr. Coombs is gone; and now George Francis is gone. So haps some would have liked him to live a one after another has left the world. Perlittle longer, but he lived to a good old age. I call it a good old age, when a long life is connected with a good one. I have remarked one feature in the account just read. He particularly fell back upon the divine government of God; and it was this that rendered his affliction tolerable." (Continued on Page 41.) "Where grace is, there will be no eminent mercy gotten without much struggling; but there will be a particular thankful remembrance of it a long while after with much enlargement; and as prayer abounded, so will thanksgiving abound also. Great blessings that are won with prayer, are worn with thankfulness. Such a man will not ask a new, but he will with all give thanks for old, Thankfulness, of all duties, proceeds from pure grace. Prayer and thanks are like the double motion of the lungs. The air that is sucked in by prayer is breathed forth again by thanks." Goodwin. "A gracious soul looks and lives more upon God in prayer, than upon his prayer. He knows, though prayer be his chariot, yet Christ is his food."-Brooks. THE CHRISTIAN LOOKING AT THE CROSS. uproar, and nothing would satisfy them but the death of the murderers, and they ran to the house of the conspirators, and burnt them down to the ground: but what was Caesar's coat, and Cæsar's body, to the body of our dear Lord Jesus, which was all rent and torn for our sins? Ah, how should this provoke us to be revenged on our sins! how should we for ever loathe and abhor them! how should our fury be whetted against them! how should we labour with all our might to be the death of those sins, that have been the death of so great a Lord, and will, if not prevented, be the death of our souls to all eternity. To see God thrust the sword of his pure, infinite, and incensed wrath, through the very heart of his dearest Son, notwithstanding all his supplications, prayers, tears, and strong cries, is the highest discovery of the Lord's hatred and indignation of sin that ever was or will be. IN the sufferings of Christ, as in a whereupon the people were all in an gospel-glass, you may see the odious nature of sin, and accordingly learn to hate it, arm against it, turn from it, and subdue it; sin never appears so odious as when we behold it in the red glass of Christ's sufferings. Can we look upon sin, as the occasion of all Christ's sufferings; can we look upon sin, as that which made Christ a curse, and that made him forsaken of his Father, and that made him live such a miserable life, and that brought him to die such a shameful, painful and cruel death, and our hearts not rise against it? Shall our sins be grievous unto Christ, and shall they not be odious unto us? shall he die for our sins, and shall not we die to our sins? did not he therefore suffer for sin, that we might cease from sin ? did not he bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin, should live to righteousness? If one should kill our father, would we hug and embrace him as our father? no, we would be revenged on him: sin hath killed our Saviour, and shall we not be revenged on it? Can a man look upon that snake that hath stung his dearly beloved spouse to death, and preserve it alive, warm it at the fire, and hug it in his bosom, and not rather stab it with a thousand wounds? "Tis sin that hath stung our dear Jesus to death, that has crucified our Lord, and shed his precious blood, and O how should this stir up our indignation against it: ah how can a Christian make much of those sins that killed his dearest Lord! how can he cherish those sins that betrayed Christ, and apprehended Christ, and bound Christ, and condemned Christ, and scourged Christ, and that violently drew him to the cross, and there murdered him! It was neither Judas, nor Pilate, nor the Jews, nor the soldiers, that could have done our Lord Jesus the least hurt, had not our sins, like so many butchers and hangmen, come in to their assistance. After Julius Cæsar was treacherously murdered in the senatehouse, Antonius brought forth his coat, all bloody, cut, and mangled, and laying it open to the view of the people, said, 'Look, here is your emperor's coat, and as the bloody conspirators have dealt by it, so have they dealt with Caesar's body;' In all ages and generations, they that have been born after the flesh, have persecuted them that have been born after the spirit; and the seed of the serpent have been still a multiplying of troubles upon the seed of the woman. Would any man take the church's picture (saith Luther) then let him paint a poor silly maid, sitting in a wilderness, compassed about with hungry lions, wolves, boars, and bears, and with all manner of other cruel hurtful beasts, and in the midst of a great many furious men assaulting her every moment and minute; and why should we wonder at this, when we consider, that the whole life of Christ was filled up with all sorts and kinds of sufferings? Oh, where is that brave spirit that has been upon the saints of old? Blessed Bradford looked upon his sufferings for Christ, as an evidence to him, that he was in the right way. It is better for me to be a martyr than a monarch,' said Ignatius, when he was to suffer. Happy is that soul, and to be equalled with angels, who is willing to suffer, if it were possible, as great things for Christ, as Christ hath suffered for it,' saith Jerome Sufferings are the ensigns of heavenly nobility,' saith Calvin. Hath Jesus Christ suffered such great and grievous things for you? Oh, then, F in all your fears, doubts and conflicts Christ: Doth death, that rides upon the with enemies within or without, fly to pale horse, look gastly and deadly upon the sufferings of Christ as your city of thee? oh, then remember that Christ refuge. Did Christ endure a most igno- died for you, and that by his death, minious death for thee, did he take on he hath swallowed up death in victory: him thy sinful person, and bare thy sin, oh, remember that a crucified Christ hath and death, and cross; and was made a stripped death of his sting, and disarmed sacrifice and curse for thee? Oh, then, it of all its destroying power: death may in all thy inward and outward distresses, buz about our ears, but it can never sting shelter thyself under the wings of a suf- our souls. Look, as a crucified Christ fering Christ. I have read of Nero, that hath taken away the guilt of sin, though he had a shirt made of a Salamander's he hath not taken away sin itself; so skin, so that if he went through the fire he hath taken away the sting of death, in it, it would keep him from burning: though he hath not taken away death Oh, sirs, a suffering Christ is this Sala- itself. He spake excellently that said, mander's skin, that will keep the saints that is not death, but life, which joins from burning in the midst of burnings, the dying man to Christ; and that is not from suffering in the midst of sufferings, life, but death, that separates the living from drowning in the midst of drownings. man from Christ. Austin longed to die, In all the storms that beat upon your in- that he might see that head that was ward or your outward man, eye the suf- crowned with thorns. 'Did Christ die ferings of Christ, lean upon the sufferings for me,' saith one, that I might live with of Christ, plead the sufferings of Christ, him? I will not, therefore, desire to live and triumph in the sufferings of Christ. long from him; all men go willingly to Let us learn in every temptation which see him whom they love; and shall I be presseth us (whether it be sin, or death, unwilling to die, that I may see him or curse, or any other evil) to translate whom my soul loves?' Bernard would it from ourselves to Christ; and all the have us, never to let go out of our minds good in Christ, let us learn to translate the thoughts of a crucified Christ; let it from Christ to ourselves. Look, as these,' says he, 'be meat and drink unto the burgess of a town or corporation, you, let them be your sweetness and consitting in the parliament-house, beareth solation, your honey, and your desire, the persons of that whole town or place, your reading, and your meditation, your and what he saith, the whole town saith; contemplation, your life, death, and reand what is done to him, is done to the surrection: certainly, he that shall live whole town: even so, Christ upon the up to this counsel, will look upon the cross, stood in our place, and bare our king of terrors, as the king of desires. sins; and whatsoever he suffered, we Are you apt to tremble when you eye the suffered; and when he died, all the faith-curse threatened in the law? Oh, then, ful died with him, and in him. I have look up to a crucified Christ, and rememread of a gracious woman, who, being by ber that he hath redeemed you from the Satan strongly tempted, replied, Satan, curse of the law, being made a curse for if thou hast anything to say to me, say it you. Doth the wrath of God amaze to my Christ, say it to my surety, who you? Oh, then look up to a crucified has undertaken all for me, who hath paid Christ, and remember that Christ hath all my debts, and satisfied divine justice, trod the winepress of his father's wrath and set all reckonings even between God alone, that he might deliver you from and my soul. Do your sins terrify you? wrath to come. Is the face of God clouded? oh then, look up to a crucified Saviour, Doth he that should comfort you stand afar who bare your sins in his own body on off? oh, then look up to a crucified Christ, the tree. When sin stares you in the and remember that he was forsaken for a face, oh then, turn your face to a dying time, that you might not be forsaken for Jesus, and behold him with a spear in ever: are you sometimes afraid of conhis side, with thorns on his head, with demnation? oh, then look upon a crunails in his feet, and a pardon in his cified Christ, who was condemned, that hands. Hast thou wounded thy con- you might be justified: who shall lay science by any great fall or falls? O anything to the charge of God's elect? then, remember that there is nothing in it is God that justifieth, who is he that heaven or earth more efficacious to cure condemneth? it is Christ that died. Ah, the wounds of conscience, than a frequent Christians, that you would, under all and serious meditation on the wounds of your temptations, affliction, fears, doubts will become a strong cordial to keep you from fainting under all your inward and outward distresses, according to that saying of one of the Ancients, I may be troubled, but I shall not be overwhelmed, because I remember the print of the nails, and of the spear in the hands and side of Jesus Christ. Oh, that Christians would labour under all their soul-troubles to keep a fixed eye upon a bleeding Christ; for there is nothing that will ease them, settle them, and satisfy them, like this. Many, may I not say, most Christians are more apt to eye their sins, their sorrows, their prayers, their tears, their resolves, their complaints, than they are to eye a suffering Christ? and from hence springs their greatest woes, wounds, miseries, and dejection of spirits; oh, that a crucified Christ might be for ever in your eye, and always upon your THOMAS BROOKS. conflicts, and disputes, keep a fixed eye | said, with surprise, 'You judge too soon; upon a crucified Jesus; and remember you are in too much haste; you don't know that all he did, he did for you, and that all enough of me; you don't know how I am he suffered, he suffered for you: and this, situated.' That is true,' said this person; in the hands of God the Holy Ghost,-in answer to the many prayers that I have 'but I can tell you, that you are brought here put up to God for these six months past; and God gave me a promise, and faith to believe the promise; and don't you think that he will fulfil his word, and answer the prayer of faith?' I said, 'you seem very confident, my friend, but you don't know how I am situated, and what difficulties stand in the way.' This person replied, I care nothing about difficulties, God has given mè the promise, and I can believe it; besides, I know it will come to pass; for you have expressed my whole desires to God in prayer, mind, and repeated the very promises that and brought out all the exercises of my God hath enabled me to plead in prayer this day. Well,' I said,' time will shew how far you are correct.' The feelings of many others were very much like this person's. Having spent three weeks among them, I was obliged to return home. But before I left them, they had met together, and came to the determination to give me a call, which they did before I left them. I could not give them an immediate answer: it required due consideration and much prayer, But I told them they should hear from me in about a month. In the meantime, I said, 'I think, my friends, that you have given me a call too hastily. You know nothing of me, or of my moral character. I wish before you proceed any further that you make every enquiry about me, that you may not be deceived as many have been.' They said, 'we feel satisfied for ourselves; and who could we write to about you?' I said, write to Dr. Hawker. He does not know that I am here, nor have I seen him for some time; but he knows me well:' and to this proposition they' agreed. The managers wrote, and Dr. Hawker promptly answered in reply to them. They requested permission to print the letter, but the Doctor put a negative to it; I think it right, however, now the Doctor has joined the general assembly above, to insert the letter in this place; and his second letter, for I think they will be read with pleasure by many of my friends. hearts. TWO LETTERS, BY DR. HAWKER, RESPECTING The late Henry Fowler. By reference to pages 41, 136, and 183, of ministry of the word, may the Lord who sends, bless his services, so that Jesus be glorified, the church edified, and his own soul refreshed. "If he be with you give my love to him, and tell him that I hope and trust that he will go on to exalt Christ Jesus. And I beg you to tell him that as a faithful servant should honour a kind master, so I hope he will prove himself a faithful servant by honouring the Lord our righteousness: the best, the kindest, the most blessed, the most dear and precious of all masters. It is high treason to the Majesty of heaven, to preach anything but Jesus in his person, offices, character, and relations. And my poor prayers will follow my letter, that my dear Mr. Fowler will above all things honour him, whom Jehovah delighteth to honour and that he will make the Lord Jesus what Jehovah hath made him, the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the author and finisher of salvation. "And if you will allow an old man hastening on the close of his poor ministry, to say a word to the church which is among you on the subject of your minister, I would say as Paul did, 'receive him in the Lord's name (not his own), and esteem him very highly in love for his works sake;' pray for him, and pray with him. It is a blessed sign of good when the Holy Ghost sets his people to pray for a blessing on the labours of his servants. That blessing and that promise is as good as received which God the Spirit teacheth the faithful to ask in prayer. My poor soul hath found, yea, often found, the Lord's blessings in answer to his people's prayers. And you will find a fulness of blessing from the Lord's blessings on his ministry to your hearts, when the Lord hath enabled you to hold him up to the Lord, in seeking by prayer his grace upon him. "I commend both you, the church, and him, the church's minister, to the Lord for blessing; and pray the glorious Head to bless both together, to his glory and your joy in the Lord. "This from the unworthiest of his servants, "Your's in the Lord Jesus, "ROBERT HAWKER.'" "Plymouth, Oct. 27, 1813. "DEAR SIR,-I beg to make a tender of my christian love and affection to you, and the church of God which is with you, praying that all grace may abound in the covenant faithfulness of God our Father, through the dear Son of his love, by the blessed influence of God the Holy Ghost. "Indeed, indeed, I thank the church of God with whom you are one, in that you so kindly and affectionately received my poor letter. It was written (if I know anything of my own heart), in the brotherly love of one that desires (at least) to love the precious name of our dear Lord exalted and extolled, and to be very high. And where Christ and his cause are concerned, there would I feel all that Paul felt, when to the church of the Thessalonians he said, he was so affectionately desirous concerning the people that he would have imparted unto them not the gospel of God only, but also (said he) our own souls, because ye were dear to us. And surely all that a faithful servant of such a master as Jesus is, all he hath, and all he is, and by every way, and in every thing, his one, yea, his only object is, and ought to be, how to promote his Lord's glory in his church's happiness. And though I know not what I wrote to you on the occasion for which you wrote to me, yet certain I am the whole tendency of my letter must have been to this purpose: let the Lord Jesus and his cause be glorified, and it matters not by what instrument, or by what form of words. "I pray you, therefore, my dear brother in the Lord, tell the church which is with you, how very highly I prize their affectionate acceptance of my letter. But having said this, there let it rest. Kindly as you all have read it, it cannot be fit for print. It was written in the moment of your question, and no further. Besides, though I have a very high regard for dear Mr. Fowler, and have said no more of him than I believe, yet it would not be suitable or becoming in me to send forth his character (according to my views) to the world. The Lord grant that he may be found faithful, and may my God, (if it be for his glory), bless you and him together. And if the sweet savour of Jesus, in his person, grace, and favour, be among you, the account of this, from time to time, will be more refreshing to my soul, than though my poor letter was framed in gold. Be assured, my dear friend in the Lord, that my poor prayers will follow Mr. Fowler to Birmingham, and go up before the mercyseat for you, and him, as oft as I think of you all, that Jesus' love may cement you, and cause great soul prosperity among you: and like the flock of Christ coming up from the washing, every one may bear twins, and none be found barren among you.-Song iv. 2. It "I beg you to give my brotherly love to your pastor; and once more say to him, from me, that as my Lord and his Lord hath advanced him to great honour, he and I ought to seek increasing grace from the Lord, to reflect all that honour back again with great thankfulness to the Lord. matters not what becomes of such poor worms as we are, provided Jesus is glorified; and the souls of Christ's people are precious to our Lord, yea, very precious; so ought they (and so will they, I trust,) be very precious to us also. And do tell my brother to be looking out for opposition from without, in proportion as the Lord Jesus makes him useful within. The servants most employed by |