"Where can such sweetness be, As I have tasted in thy love, As I have found in thee?" O, my dear friend, let us press towards the mark. We know where true happiness is to be found. Let the dead bury their dead; but let us follow Christ, and aspire, with an intense and increasing ardour, to the heavenly kingdom. Happy shall we be if we can habitually act as becomes those who are but a few steps from heaven. I rejoice in your domestic felicity. May it long be continued, and, if possible, increased, without being permitted (and God can attemper all things) to abate your ardour after heavenly enjoyments. Your account of the reception of Mr, Gregory's book on Mechanics gives me great pleasure. He thus affording a demonstration that the highest scientific attainments are by no means incompatible with the simplicity of the gospel. Please to remember me affectionately to him when you write. May God long preserve and bless him! I thank you sincerely for your proffered assistance in packing up my books, which I shall probably shortly need; for I am tired of wandering, and propose soon to fix upon some place where I may have my books about me. Remember me to Mrs. Bosworth, and all other friends, as if named. Pray let me hear from you soon and often. I am, dear Sir, Yours most affectionately, ROBERT HALL. XX. TO THE REV. JAMES PHILLIPS. My dear friend Phillips, Leicester, Jan. 2, 1807. I ought long since to have written to you, but you know what a poor correspondent I am, and how reluctant to write letters. I feel myself much obliged by your kind favour. Your letter, like many things else in human life, contained a mixture of what excited melancholy with what produced pleasing emotions. The succession of calamitous accidents which befell our friends in your neighbourhood is truly singular and affecting. I am happy to hear every one of the sufferers is doing well. I hope it will have the right impression on their minds, by bringing them nearer [to God;] and they will have abundant occasion for thankfulness, even if their respective calamities had been worse. Present my kind and sympathizing respects to each of them, the first opportunity. Your account of Ireland interested me much. The state of the class of inhabitants you describe is truly deplorable. I am afraid any attempts to remove their ignorance will have little success, unless some methods could be adopted at the same time to relieve their excessive poverty. There is a close connexion between the two. I suppose their poverty must be ascribed to the want of encouragement to industry afforded by the landed proprietors, and, perhaps, in some measure, to the hardihood of their constitution, which enables the Irish peasantry to subsist and multiply where a more feeble race would absolutely perish. You give no account of the lakes of Killarney, which, I understand, are singularly sublime and beautiful. You are desirous of some information respecting my situation and intentions. I have not yet taken possession of my apartments at Enderby, having been detained at Leicester by the affliction of my sister and niece; the former is nearly recovered, the latter is not worse, and I intend to go to Enderby to-morrow or Monday at furthest. Enderby is a very pleasant village, about five miles from Leicester; it stands upon a hill, and commands a very pleasant and beautiful view. I am extremely pleased at the prospect of seeing you there in the spring. I hope nothing will occur to disappoint me. Be assured I shall do every thing in my power to make your visit pleasant. I have no immediate intention of coming to London: there are some friends there and in the vicinity it would give me much pleasure to see; but the bustle and hurry of London are little suited to my taste. * * * * But my times are in the hand of God; and my chief solicitude, if I do not greatly deceive myself, is to please him in all things, who is [entitled] to all my love, and infinitely more than all, if possible; and who is, indeed, my "covenant God and Father, in Christ Jesus." I do not at all regret my past afflictions, severe as they have been, but am persuaded [they] were wisely and mercifully ordered. I preach most Sabbaths, though at no one place statedly, and have found considerable pleasure in my work. I have little or no plan for the future, but endeavour to abandon myself entirely to the Divine direction. All I have to lament is the want of more nearness to God, and a heart more entirely filled with his love, and devoted to his service. Pray let me hear from you often: a letter from you never fails to give me a high degree of pleasure. Please to remember me affectionately and respectfully to Miss Wilkinson, and to Mr. Wilberforce, should you see him, and to Mr. Beddome's family, in all its branches. I am, dear Sir, Present my kind respects to Mrs. Phillips. ROBERT HALL. Dear Sir, * XXI. TO THE REV. DR. COX. Enderby, April 26, 1807. The lukewarmness of a part, the genteeler part of congregations, with respect to vital religion, is matter of grief to me. Many have the form of religion, while they are in a great measure destitute of the power of it. With respect to the excuses that this class are ready to make for neglecting private meetings, it might not be amiss to urge them to inquire whence the indisposition to devote a small portion of their time to religious exercises arises. If it spring from a secret alienation of heart from devotional exercises, or from a preference to the world, it affords a most melancholy indication of the state of the mind. It is surely a most pitiful apology for declining such services, that they are not commanded by the letter of the New Testament. Whoever says this virtually declares that he would never give any time to religion unless he were compelled. The New Testament is sparing in its injunctions of external or instrumental duties. But does it not warn, in a most awful manner, against the love of the world; enjoin fervour of spirit, deadness to the present state, and the directing all our actions solely to the glory of God? How these dispositions and principles can consist with an habitual reluctance to all social exercises of religion, except such as are absolutely and universally enjoined, I am at a loss to determine. If the real source and spring of the neglect of devotional exercises, whether social or private, be an estrangement from God, and attachment to the world, the pretences by which it is attempted to be justified only enhance its guilt. With respect to the doctrine of election, I would state it in Scripture terms, and obviate the antinomian interpretation, by remarking that man, as man, is said to be chosen to obedience, to be conformed to the image of his Son, &c., and not on a foresight of his faith or obedience; as also that the distinction between true believers and others is often expressly ascribed to God. "Thou hast hid these things."—"To you it is given not only to believe," &c.-"As many as were ordained to eternal life believed." As the doctrine of election, however, occupies but a small part of the New Testament revelation, it should not, in my opinion, be made a prominent point in the Christian ministry. It is well to reserve it for the contemplation of Christians, as matter of humiliation and of awful joy; but, in addressing an audience on the general topics of religion, it is best perhaps to speak in a general strain. The gospel affords ample encouragement to all its generous spirit and large invitations should not be cramped and fettered by the scrupulosity of system. The medium observed by Baxter and Howe is, in my opinion, far the most eligible on those points. : On the other subject you mention I perceive no difficulty; none, I mean, to embarrass the mind of a minister. On a subject so awful and mysterious, what remains for us but to use the language of Scripture, without attempting to enter into any metaphysical subtleties, or daring to lower what appears to be its natural import? A faithful exhibition of the Scripture declarations on this subject must be adapted, under a Divine blessing, to produce the most awful and salutary effects. With best wishes for your welfare, I am, dear Sir, Yours affectionately and sincerely, ROBERT HALL. XXII. TO THE REV. DR. RYLAND. Leicester, Dec. 28, 1808. I hope you continue to enjoy much religious prosperity. The only comfortable reflection, in the present state of the world, is the apparent increase of the kingdom of Christ. His glory, his gospel, his grace, are, I hope, considerably advancing: and how little are all the revolutions of kingdoms when compared to this? We should rejoice in every event which seems to tend to that issue; and, on this account, I am more than reconciled to the recent intelligence from Spain. I long to see the strongholds demolished, and "every thing that exalteth" brought into subjection to Christ. How deep an infatuation blinds the counsels of Great Britain! How fatal may we fear the intimate alliance of this country with the papal power, which the vengeance of God has marked out for destruction! May the Lord bring good out of evil, and "fill the whole earth with his glory!" I am now removed to Leicester, and find my situation, on the whole, very comfortable. The people are a simple-hearted, affectionate, praying people, to whom I preach with more pleasure than to the more refined audience at Cambridge. We have had, through great mercy, some small addition, and hope for more. Our meetings in general, our prayer-meetings in particular, are well attended. For myself, my mind and body are both much out of order; awful doubt and darkness hanging on the former, and much affliction and pain in the latter: let me, dear brother, entreat an interest in your prayers. I am, my dear Brother, Yours affectionately, ROBERT HALL. P.S.-In gratitude to God, and to my dear companion, I must add, that marriage has added (a little to my cares), much to my comfort, and that I am indulged with one of the best of wives. *That of future punishment, I presume.-ED. * Rogers I have not yet found time to read through. I thank you for it, and am much pleased with the piety and spirit of it, as far as I have gone. I have read Zeal without Innovation with extreme disgust: it is written with shrewdness and ability; but is, in my esteem, a base, malicious, timeserving publication. It was lent me by Mr. Robinson, who, in common with all the serious clergy in these parts, disapproves it highly. I suppose the author wrote it to curry favour with such men as the . ... and to procure a living. His poverty is to be pitied; but I hope I would rather starve in a workhouse than be the author of such a book. I am afraid there is a party rising among the evangelical clergy, that will ruin the reformation which has been going on in the established church during the last forty or fifty years. XXIV. TO A FRIEND IN PERPLEXITY AS TO HIS RELIGIOUS STATE. Leicester, April 20, 1809. Dear Sir, I am much concerned to learn the unhappy state of your mind respecting religion. You may depend upon no one seeing the letter but myself; and I wish it were in my power to say any thing that might be of use. Of this I have very little hope; for the adage might, in too great a degree, be applied to me-" Physician, heal thyself;" as I labour under much darkness and despondency respecting my religious prospects, through the prevalence of indwelling corruptions. What then, my dear sir, can I say to you, or to any other? I would recommend you, above all things, to have recourse to prayer-to fervent, importunate, persevering prayer. Take no denial: if you cannot pray long, Take the utmost pains in preparing your heart, and in the exercises of the closet; for surely an assurance of the forgiveness of sin, the light of God's Spirit, and the animating hope of glory are worth all the labour, and infinitely more than all, we are capable of using to attain them. They are heaven upon earth. From what I know by experience, though it is not with me now as in months past, the enjoyment of God throws every other enjoyment that pray often. |