Annual Visits to London and Services at Surrey Chapel

My dear Children, — The capabilities of preachers are not always to be estimated by their performances. This is the case with those who have numerous claims upon them for public services. If they are not to neglect their various other duties, what adequate preparations can they secure for the many sermons they have to deliver? Dr. Watts laments, in a letter to a young divine, that he was so soon after his ordination required always to produce two discourses every week, and rather advises him to make use of published assistance for one part of the Sabbath. But those among whom I began my efforts were all accustomed to three sermons every Lord’s-day, and one at least in the week, and a private meeting besides. In addition to all this, in their own places, the ministers frequently preached in the neighbouring villages. To all this I was early inured, and for some considerable length of time, and since my settlement in Bath, I have always had to furnish two discourses on the Sabbath, and one in the week, together with a private admonitory address; not to mention (by no means unfrequent) extra engagements from home.

For nearly fifty years I annually supplied Surrey Chapel. In this I yielded to the importunity of Mr. Hill, whom I found it

difficult to refuse, as I had rather offended him by declining his pressing proposal to enter entirely into what he called his connexion, and by which I should have been at his disposal, to divide my labours among a number of places under his influence, if not authority. From taking that wrong step, (for so it would have proved) I was prevented by the care and wisdom of my friend and father, Mr. Winter, who foresaw consequences of which I was not aware.

For more than thirty years I supplied for eight Sundays yearly, (a period too long for a pastor to be absent at once from his charge). Then I supplied for six Sundays, then for four, and then for three only. At last I terminated my annual engagement; and I should have done it sooner, had not many, even of my reverend brethren in London, urged me to continue the service.. My reason for gradually shortening, and entirely resigning, the engagement, was not for want of respect and attendance in the congregation, to which I was much attached, or want of pleasure in the services; for the cause had become much endeared, and I had often found the place to be none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven. But, first, my growing disapproval of the system of providing for places by a merely successional supply. This system wants the advantage of a pastoral relation, and robs many churches for too long a time of the labours of their own ministers, while it affects surrounding congregations by tempting hearers, and members, to leave their own places, to follow some one preacher and some another, deservedly or undeservedly popular, with whose novelty and excitement a stated pastor can hardly compete. Secondly, because, in consequence of these engagements, I had less time and liberty to attend to occasional calls for services in other directions; for these had multiplied from the various residences of my children, and the amazing increase of new religious interests, and public institutions calling for assistance.

Though, therefore, I curtailed and declined my visits to London, I have laboured more in the country, and have been oftener abroad preaching on particular occasions, such as ordinations, associations, openings, and reopenings of places of worship, and especially for the various benevolent societies that adorn our age and bless our nation. Judging from the results, I was found a tolerably successful beggar, and was made not a little free with, under that mendicant character. Had not David numbered the people, I might perhaps have kept an account of the multitude of collection sermons which I have delivered. But I can truly say nothing has afforded me more pleasure than perceiving that, though 1 could do but little myself in the way of giving, I had some influence to aid, through others, so many schemes of civil and sacred beneficence.

But in the course of these services my mind has undergone some variation, and, I think, improvement. Though I have not been much at sea, I have observed that a kind of side-wind is the best for filling all the sails, and for securing speed. I have, therefore, for some years past, been led to preach very few direct charity sermons. Many of the subjects of these appeals are well known, and the common enlargements upon them are become trite and satiating, when a peculiar frame of soul in the audience is necessary; and I regard it as a kind of desecration of the place, and a debasement of the glorious Gospel, to deal much in pounds, shillings, and pence. I, therefore, more generally have chosen a very evangelical or experimental subject, the warm discussion of which was more likely to produce in my hearers a favourable state of mind and feeling for every good work; so that at the close of the service their inquiry would be, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” And I have only had to present the case with its nature and claims, all tricks and teazings being unnecessary.

In these occasional services, I have preached as I had oppor-LET. XIV.] VISIT TO DUBLIN. 129

tunity for all parties that invited me. The thing was not where I preached, but what I preached, and I never felt fetters or embarrassment; such a general agreement is there now in those leading tniths which ought on these occasions to be called forth. These interminglings too I have always found beneficial. They tend to reduce the strangeness that keeps Christians of different denominations so improperly from each other, and to produce that spirit which will lead us to exclaim, “Behold my mother and my brethren! for whosoever shall do the will of my Father that is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.^^” Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity .^^

Once I visited Ireland for six weeks, at the invitation of what was then called” The Evangelical Society.^’ This Society consisted of pious individuals of every Protestant and Evangelical denomination, who, forgetting their minor differences, were anxious to do something for the spiritual good of their countrymen, especially in Dublin, by employing preachers who were likely to awaken some degree of attention. They professed only to defray the travelling expenses, without any remuneration for their labours. I was one of the invited, but could not have gone at a less favourable season. The rebellion broke out the very day after my arrival; and the alarm and agitation immediately following, together with the fierceness of party rage, were such as for the time to injure, if not destroy, all serious and profitable impressions in the hearers. I was at the house of Alderman Hutton. He took me in his carriage (which was in our passage several times looked into by the soldiers stationed at the cross-roads) to preach one week-day afternoon at the Black Rock for the Bev. Mr. Kelly. But this was the only public service in which I could be engaged out of Dublin, being by martial law nearly confined to the city, and almost to the house. Every Sabbath-day morning I preached at Dr. M’Dowall’s church.

He had a large and respectable congregation of orthodox presbyterians, but displaying at that time little of the power of godliness. In the evening I always preached at Plunket-street chapel, where assembled a few poorer people, but whose hearts God had touched. I also several times preached at the Baptist Meeting in St. Mary’s Abbey.

It may seem surprising that a temporary missionary should have gone at such a period. The error lay entirely with the gentleman at whose mansion I was accommodated. Here {in England) we deemed everything lowering and foreboding, and I wrote for leave to resign or postpone my visit; but he rather ridiculed my apprehension. “He was upon the spot,’’ — ‘^ He was a magistrate,’’ — “He well knew the state of things,” — There was no more danger in Dublin than in Bath,” — “Come and fulfil your engagement.” I went, but my preaching was in a sad degree dry and powerless, and the word, I feared, produced little or no effect. But in what a state did I find religion, as far as I had opportunity for observation! There were a few grains of salt, but what were they to save the community from entire

corruption? Mr. W r [Walker) was then preaching at

Bethesda Chapel and Penitentiary, built by a gentleman at this

time one of my congregation in Bath. Mr. W r was a man

of erudition, mind, and influence, and distinguished as rather the leader of the Evangelical party in Dublin, especially among the Episcopalians. He had an extreme aversion to everything he deemed Arminian, and seemed to hate Mr. Wesley as much as he did Dr. Priestley. He was too orthodox to be evangelical, i. e., to preach the Gospel to every creature, and betrayed a disdainful censoriousness which brought to mind Solomon’s aphorism, “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” He soon afterwards fell into one discovery after another, till “the light that was in him became darkness,” and, oh! how great was that darkness! But there were several most

excellent young men belonging to the university, who then gave promise of what they have since become. There were also private meetings successively in various houses for social prayer, in which persons of all parties zealously engaged; and, soon after I left Dublin, a considerable revival commenced, and much has been done since to advance the cause of Christ in different parts of that interesting, but always distracted and misgoverned, country. Had the same exertions been made in former years, what a different state of things might have been now witnessed I

I am, &c.