صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

ADDRESS.

You will be followed with the prayers of the good, whose virtuous cause you maintain. You will be attended with the blessings of the aged, whose venerable Lives you protect. You will be doubly entitled to the affections of your Wives and Daughters, whose honor and virtue you preserve. You will be loaded with the caresses of your Children, whose valuable privileges,

you secure.

But you need not words to add vigor to your energies. These insignia shall be a lasting memento of your Valour! I know you will defend them. You will rally round them-you will bathe them in your blood-you will die under their banner, and make them a sacred monument to perpetuate your name, rather than ingloriously part with them.

Suffer me to add, be as faithful to your God, as I am persuaded, you will be to your Sovereign, to your Country, and to these Standards. Meet him, before you meet your Enemy. Fellowship with God makes men bold and active. Supplicate his arm to protect you, before you encounter the arm of your Foe.

"And may the Lord hear thee in the day of trouble. May the name of the God of Jacob defend thee. Send thee help from the Sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion.

Then, O God, shall we rejoice in thy Salvation, and in thy name will we set up our Banners. Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God!

Alluding to the Colours.

Copy

Copy of a LETTER from the Rev. J. BRAND, Rector of the Parish of ST. GEORGE, Southwark, to the Rec. T. WIGZEL, Curate of the same Parish, and Rector of WIXOE, in the County of Essex.

DEAR SIR,

WICKHAM SKEITH, Aug. 4, 1803.

When I was in Town for a few days about three weeks ago, I found Mr. Payne was the gentleman you had left to officiate for you during your Summer Vacation at Wixoe-I suppose it to have been in consequence of your not having thoroughly understood how much the objection I took against a person of his principles in divinity occupying my Pulpit weighed with me.—I give all the weight you can expect to the regularity of his character, and to the observations I have myself made on the pleasantness of his manners-but when I see these qualities giving currency to erro neous opinions, I know they render them infinitely more dangerous. You stated to me, after I had written to you upon this subject, this time twelvemonth, and spoken to you personally, that his opinions were agreeable to many in the parish, and that it was necessary to admit such preachers to draw congregations and retain them together;―he is a rigid Calvinist, and of the differen sects of Christians. I know no opinions more adverse to the real Christian Faith and that of the Church of England, than some of those of Calvin, and these the Calvinists most diligently preach at present. You hold not these heretical points any more than I— but if one heresy is to be preached, because many people are attached to it, and it draws them to Church, Popery itself ought to be preached in many parts of the North of England, yet, I do not think, if my rectory laid there, you would select me such a representative. I am afraid that in some parishes also, Socinian Discourses would draw the largest congregations, in others perhaps Arianism, or Pelagianism, all pernicious doctrines--but to minds so diseased or diseased with Calvinism, (that is, the particular doctrines) you would, I am certain, give the proper medicine for their disorder, and not either by yourself or your substitute, feed them with the aliment that inflames it, because it is the most palatable—when a congregation is infected with error, that error is to be attacked, not flattered, not even passed over without re

prehension

LETTER.

prehension at certain and due seasons, although it may not be proper to make it a constant subject.

The apology, your habitual good humour sets up for Mr. Payne, has drawn me into this length of observation. This sect is the same as that which in the time of Charles destroyed the Church, and laid waste the whole Kingdom for many years with fire and sword, the name they gave themselves, then among others, was the gospel preaching ministry, as it is now that of gospel preachers. At one time they were not so strong as these sectaris who are nonseparatists are now, they did not conduct themselves with so much art nor increase so fast.—It is my strict and boundon duty therefore, not to permit any farther than I am by Law constrained, any person not known and reputed to be AGAINST this sect to have a place in the pulpit of St. George's. You may not like yourself to make the dismission of Mr. Payne your own act. I am therefore ready to take it upon myself—as you are in your summer retirement, I will not till the time of your return, break in upon your arrangements, and he continue to perform his engagement to you till then. After that time, unless he retires, I must write to him in form, to forbid him the pulpit, which I shall do but with the expressions of that personal regard I really bear to him, and shall be always ready to shew him, and I am confident, you will not give him a successor or me a representative who is in the same error.

may

But with every mark of personal civility to him, with which I can do this, I cannot but think that there is another mode in which it will be less disagreable to him, that is, by shewing him this * letter, and so inducing him to make the retirement his own act.

I am, with much Regard,

Dear Sir,

Your's truly, &c. &c.

J. BRAND.

The above Letter was not presented to the Rev. J. Payne till after the delivery of the foregoing Sermon,

PRINTED BY A. TOPPING, NO. 3, PLAYHOUSE-YARD, BLACKFRIARS.

« السابقةمتابعة »