LXIII. TO THE REV. THOMAS LANGDON. My dear Friend, Leicester, Jan. 11, 1820. As Mr. Ryland is passing through to Leeds, I take the liberty of troubling you with a few lines, just to let you know how I and my family are, and to express my undiminished affection and attachment to one of my oldest and best friends. I look back with renewed pleasure on the scenes through which we have passed, and deeply regret that Providence has placed us at such a distance from each other that our opportunities of intercourse are so few. I hope the period will arrive when we shall spend an eternity together, and look back with mingled wonder and gratitude on all the way the Lord God has led us. What a scene will that present when the mysterious drama shall come to a close, and all the objects of this dark and sublunary state shall be contemplated in the light of eternity! "O could we make our doubts remove, Those gloomy doubts that rise, I am very sorry to hear that you have been so much afflicted with your asthmatic complaint. It is high time you retired from your school, and procured a house nearer your meeting. I am persuaded your long evening walks are extremely prejudicial. Do, my dear friend, be prevailed upon to give up your evening lectures. It is what you owe to your family to be as attentive as possible to your health. "Do thyself no harm," is an apostolic injunction. I was much affected to hear of the death of dear Mr. Robert Spear. It must have been peculiarly distressing to the amiable youth I saw at your house. He was a most excellent man, and has no doubt had an abundant entrance into the joy of his Lord. May we be followers of those who thus inherit the promises. My health is, through mercy, very good. Mrs. Hall is at present very much indisposed by a bad cold and oppression of the lungs, but through blistering and bleeding is, through mercy, better. Let me indulge the hope that next summer you and Mrs. Langdon will visit me at Leicester. Be assured that the company of no friend would give me more pleasure. Please to remember me affectionately to Mrs. Langdon, to your family, and to all inquiring friends as if named. I am your affectionate Friend and Brother, ROBERT HALL. LXIV. TO A GENTLEMAN AT TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. Leicester, April 30, 1821. Dear Sir, I am considerably at a loss how to answer your letter. I sincerely sympathize with you in the perplexity you experience on a very high and awful subject. For my own part, I acquiesce in the usual and popular interpretation of the passages which treat on the future doom of the finally impenitent. My reasons, in brief, are as follows:-I assume it as a maxim, that we are utterly incompetent to determine, à priori, what is the amount of guilt incurred by such as reject the overtures of the gospel, any further than God has been pleased to make it the subject of express revelation; that the terms expressive of the duration of future misery are as forcible as the Greek language supplies; that the same term is applied to the duration of misery as to the duration of happiness, or even the eternity of God himself (Matt. xxv. 46; Rev. xix. 3); that the exclusion of the impenitent from happiness is asserted in the most positive terms-"They shall not see life,' &c. &c., that "their worm dieth not, and their fire is not extinguished;" that positive terms may be understood in different degrees of latitude, but this is impossible respecting negative terms, since a negation admits of no degrees. If the eternal misery of a certain number can be rendered conducive to a greater amount of good in relation to the universe at large than any other plan of action, then the attribute of goodness requires it; for I take it for granted that the Supreme Being will adopt that scheme, whatever it be, which will produce the greatest quantity of happiness on the whole. But our faculties are too limited, and our knowledge of the laws of the moral world, and of the relation which one part of the universe bears to another, too imperfect to enable us to say that this is impossible. For aught we know, therefore, the existence of eternal misery may not only consist with, but be the necessary effect of, supreme goodness. At all events, it is a subject of pure revelation, on the interpretation [of which] every one must be left to form his own judgment. If the milder interpretation can be sustained by a preponderating evidence, I shall most sincerely rejoice; but I have yet seen nothing to satisfy me that this is the case. I would only add, that in my humble opinion the doctrine of the eternal duration of future misery, metaphysically considered, is not an essential article of faith, nor is the belief of it ever proposed as a term of salvation; that if we really flee from the wrath to come, by truly repenting of our sins, and laying hold of the mercy of God through Christ, by a lively faith, our salvation is perfectly secure, whichever hypothesis we embrace on this most mysterious subject. The evidence accompanying the popular interpretation is by no means to be compared to that which establishes our common Christianity; and therefore the fate of the Christian religion is not to be considered as implicated in the belief or disbelief of the popular doctrine. Earnestly wishing you may be relieved from all painful solicitude on the question, and be guided by the Spirit of God into the paths of truth and holiness, I remain, TO RICHARD FOSTER, JUN., ESQ. Dear Sir, Leicester, July 21, 1821. I thank you for your kind favour (which I should have acknowledged sooner, but was not at home), including a draft for 771., and odd. With respect to my sermon on the Trinity, I entered into no metaphysical disquisition whatever: I merely confined myself to the adducing passages which go to prove a plurality of persons in the blessed Godhead; such as the plural name of God in the Hebrew, the use of plural pronouns, the injection of plurals in the name of God coupled with singular verbs, the use of the terms Makers, Creators, &c. I adduced Isaiah, saying, "The Lord hath sent me and his Spirit," &c. From the New Testament I mentioned the baptismal form, the salutation to the Corinthians. To these I added the principal passages usually adduced in proof of the divinity of Christ and the personality of the Spirit. In short, it was a mere appeal to the letter of Scripture, without the smallest attempt at metaphysical refinement. I considered that doctrine continually as a doctrine of pure revelation, to which reasoning can add nothing but darkness and uncertainty. It appears, however, to me replete with practical improvement, being adapted to exhibit the part which each person in the blessed Trinity sustained in the economy of redemption in the most engaging light, and to excite the utmost ardour of gratitude. The time was when I maintained the dual system, supposing the Holy Spirit to be an energy; but I have long found abundant reason to renounce that doctrine, and now find much complacency in the ancient doctrine of the Trinity. As you mention the [meeting-house] being shut up, I hope it is to heighten it. I have no doubt that the extreme heat and closeness of the place must have a very injurious effect on the health both of the minister and people. I hope you continue comfortable, and that the Lord is giving testimony to the word of his grace. The interest of religion in a church which I served so long and so happily will ever lie near my heart. I am your affectionate Brother, ROBERT HALL. འ LXVI. TO THE REV. ISAIAH BIRT. My dear Sir, Leicester, May 29, 1822. I am much obliged to you for your very cheerful compliance with my proposal respecting supplying and preaching for our school during my visit to Kidderminster. It is an arrangement which gives high satisfaction to our people. The prospect of spending a little time with my dear and honoured friend is, I confess, my chief inducement for proposing it. I should be very unhappy if I did not spend a little time with you, at least once a year; and as Providence has happily placed us in the same general vicinity, I shall always eagerly embrace the opportunity it affords. Friendship is the balm of life; and the thought that time must dissolve, ere long, the tie that has so long united us, would be melancholy indeed, were it not for the consoling recollection of a reunion in a better world: "Let us love one another, for love is of God;" and I hourly hope we are both training up for a world of perfect love. I am certain of it respecting you. O that I had as great an assurance respecting myself! But I have a feeble hope, which I would not exchange for a world! With respect to the other part of the arrangement, having heard nothing from Tamworth as yet, it seems premature to say any thing of it. But I must say that I can by no means comply with it. My lecture is on Wednesday, to which I justly attach a great importance; and the arrangement you mention would occasion my absence two Wednesdays, which I would not incur for any ordination whatever. Ordination services, as they are now conducted, I consider as of more show than use. The presence of one or two ministers, along with the church, accompanied with prayer and laying on of hands, and a few serious exhortations, would be a genuine Scriptural ordination. Nothing can be more distant from this than the manner in which these things are at present conducted. Suffice it to say, that I can by no means consent to be absent two lectures for such a purpose. You may, therefore, expect to see me on Friday at Birmingham. I beg to be most affectionately remembered to dear Mrs. Birt, and to dear Mrs. Tucker and her husband. I am your affectionate Brother, ROBERT HALL. LXVII. TO THE REV. THOMAS LANGDON, OF LEEDS. ON THE DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER. My dear Friend, Leicester, January 9, 1823. I am much concerned to hear of the heavy bereavement with which it has pleased God to afflict you and dear Mrs. Langdon, by the unexpected removal of your most amiable daughter. I never saw a young female whose character impressed me with higher esteem. I cannot wonder for a moment that your tears flow freely on her account. It is, indeed, a most severe and afflictive stroke, which none but a parent, and the parent of such a child, can duly appreciate. I feel myself highly honoured and gratified in the recollection of having possessed any share in her esteem. Still, my dear friend, there is much mercy mingled with the severity of the dispensation. It is an unspeakable mercy to be able to reflect on the decided piety of the dear deceased, which so eminently prepared her for the event you so deeply deplore. Nor is it a small alleviation of the anguish resulting from such a stroke, to reflect that the time is short, and the end of all things at hand. Painful as is the thought to all your friends, to you, my dear friend, it must be familiar, that, in all probability, her separation from you will be but of short duration; and that she has entered, a little while before you, into that blessed eternity for which you have long been waiting. LXVIII. TO THE REV. THOMAS GRINFIELD, CLIFTON. Dear Sir, ON HUTCHINSONIANISM. Leicester, March 4, 1823. I must beg your pardon for not sooner replying to your favour, in which you condescend to inquire my opinion on the subject of Hutchinsonianism. The reason of my delay was my conscious inability to give an opinion entitled to any degree of weight. I have been in the habit of considering Hutchinsonianism as a tissue of fancies, unsupported by reason or Scripture; and all that has occurred to me to read on that system, has confirmed that impression. I have attentively perused Parkhurst's Dissertation on the Cherubic Figures in the Temple: it appears to me a most confused and unsatisfactory disquisition; nor is he able to answer, in any tolerable degree, the objection arising from their being represented in the attitude of worshippers. He VOL. III.-S |