Rev. John Foster

I had many opportunities of seeing Mr. Foster, from the time he was a student at Bristol to the period of his death. He was thrice settled near me, viz., at Downend, at Frome, and at Stapleton. His wife had relations in my congregation; and he sometimes passed a Sabbath in Bath; but I could never induce him to preach for me. He decHned commonly by saying, (with complacency and pleasantry,)” You know neither you nor your people would ever ask me again; I am never desired to preach a second time.’’

The first interview I had with him was at the house of Miss Hannah More. It was attended with the incident which I mentioned in my Reminiscence of this extraordinary and excellent woman, — the producing, for the opinion of the party, of the tract entitled” The Shepherd of Salisbury Plairty’ as the first of a series which, it was hoped, would tend to supplant the worthless and mischievous trash in immense circulation, and to famish something not only harmless, but useful, in its stead. It was at a breakfast; the company was select, yet rather numerous. But all I remember with regard to Foster was his taciturnity; for I know not that he uttered a single sentence. As, like myself, he had risen Trom (what is called, I know not why) penniless life, and had, as yet, seen little of society, it might have been supposed that he was rather restrained, when among persons above the class in which he had moved j but even then, he had such a consciousness of his talents as would have secured him from such influence.

Some time after this, Mr. Henry Thornton, M. P. for the Borough of Southwark, being in Bath, and having heard of his powers, desired me to engage him some day to dine with him. I did so; and, mortifyingly, he again showed his indisposition to talk; and our most excellent entertainer was not much formed to make his company easy, and free, and communicative; for his manner was peculiarly cold, distant and reserved. Foster said, (yet I think very untruly,) that he sat as if he had a bag of money under his arm; but at this time Mr. Foster had a kind of silly prejudice against persons of affluence, however their wealth had been obtained. This lessened in time; and when he thought of espousals, he seemed to think property “was good and profitable to men;’’ not that, in his choice, he overlooked wisdom and goodness, but showed that he thought these were not the worse for being endowered.

And this leads me to observe, that I never knew a man possessing such a capacity for every kind of conversation who spoke so little, unless he had an individual or two; not (as he used to express it) to talk upon, but to talk with.

An observable circumstance was his omission of Scriptural expressions in his prayers; for I can hardly remember his ever using any. This could not have been from his ignorance of the Scriptures, for from a child he had known them; and, if it were designed, what could have been the motive for the omission? As this applied very much to his sermons, as well as to his prayers, (as may be seen in his skeleton lectures,) I ventured to ask him once concerning it; when he rather lamented than justified the practice, and said the fault was principally in his memory, and that he feared to repeat such expressions, lest he should fail or boggle in the accuracy of the sacred diction.

This leads me to remark another thing. In his account of

Mr. Hairs prayers, he has gently censured him for too much of personal reference and specification. The remark being rather bold and novel, and coming from such a pen, I hoped it would have excited notice, and produced a friendly discussion in some of our religious periodicals. For myself, I had always wished that less of the practice prevailed in our public devotions. I say public devotions; for the family altar, and the private closet, admit these, and often require them; and there they are not only allowable, but desirable. But against the public and frequent introduction of minute and specific cases pertaining to individuals, there lie, I think, four objections: — First, it often perplexes and embarrasses the preacher to bring them forward properly, Few have command of that fluency which would enable them to express incidents with readiness and with ease; and there is frequently danger in extempore prayer, lest the faculties should be employed where the affections only should be exercised; and this difficulty should not, if possible, be increased. Secondly, it excites improper and unseasonable attention and inquiry in the minds of the hearers. This is especially the case with the more curious and inquisitive. The devotion of many of these is at an end as soon as such personalities are brought in; and their minds are immediately hunting through the congregation or the neighbourhood to ascertain the family, or the individual, to whom the minister has alluded. Yet some in their devotions introduce, not only a particular fact, but its circumstantial attributes; the thanksgiving is not only for a safe delivery, but for that of a son or daughter; and the prayer is not only for a safe journey, but by land or by water; and the recovery is implored, not from sickness, but from dropsy or fever; and so of the rest. Thirdly, there is frequently in these references a kind of adulatory, complimentary strain. This is sometimes so gross that, if it be not very trying to those for whom it is designed, it must be offensive to those by whom it i& heard. Hence expressions must be sought which tell in favour of the individual; and, when several are to be noticed at the same time, great caution must be observed not to use more respectful terms in speaking of one than of the other. So averse have I been to this, and so afraid of it in my own case, that I have commonly, especially with younger ministers, when they have been preaching for me, taken them aside before they entered the pulpit, and begged them, either not to refer to me personally at all, or in only general terms. Fourthly j a difficulty arises from the multiplicity of cases. And which of these can be passed by without offence? Yet how can all be distinctly referred to? I had, when preaching in the great congregation in JBlackfriars Road, ten or twelve notes at a time. Who had memory enough to retain them all? And what time would all these particularizations have taken up? And — “God is in heaven, and we upon earth; therefore, our words should be few.”

I always dissented from Mr. Foster’s recommending preachers (sanctioned by his own practice) to lay aside the language of what he called religious technicalities; and speaking of divine things in the same phraseology as that in which they would speak of other things. Would the substitution be easy? Would the advantage repay the endeavour? Has it ever succeeded where it has been tried? I have known attempters who have injured their acceptance and usefulness, especially among those who would have heard our Saviour gladly. And is the improvement of the mass of hearers to be forgotten, in trying after two or three dry-minded, perhaps captious, speculatists, or indrviduals, looking only for literary display, when they hear the Gospel, as well and as much as when they hear or read anything else?

Three things should be remembered. First, that many (and let the main of these be poor,) suppose they have not the same things, if they are delivered in new and strange words. Secondly, the terms and phrases to be laid aside are generally the language of our translation (the only Bible the many have); and, of all our divines, the most eminent and the most known. — Thirdly y Is the new image preferable to the old currency? Is reformation equal to renovation? Is favour as significant as grace? Is forgiveness a full substitute for justification? Does a promise supersede ^’ an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things y and sure?”

No one seemed to delight more in a simple, consistent Christian, or ^’ an Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile,^^ whatever was his condition or religious party, than Mr. Foster; but he was very indignant at the inconsistencies of many professors. I was one day visiting with him at the house of a gentleman, who, though a deacon of a Christian church, was too much carried away with the pride of life. The mansion was decorated with every kind of ornament, and the table furnished with every luxury. As we’ were entering the sumptuous dining-room, Foster pinched my elbow, and said, ‘’ Is this the strait gate?”

In preaching, his delivery all through was in a low and equable voice, with a kind of surly tone, and a frequent repetition of a word at the beginning of a sentence. He had a little fierceness occasionally in his eye; otherwise his face was set, and his arms perfectly motionless. He despised all gesticulation, and also all attempts to render anything emphatical in announcement; looking for the efiect from the bare sentiment itself, unhelped by anything in the delivery, which he professed to despise. He contended that all eloquence resides essentially in the thought, and what is eloquent in any mode of expression would be so in every mode. Yet he was singularly slow in composition, and fastidious in the structure of his sentences. But, upon the admission of his own principle, how needless was the solicitude of his practice! But in what do any of our professions and our practices ever perfectly accord?. He declined all explicit divisions in his sermons, and was never

D D found using the numerals “first/^ or” second/^ The notes of his discourses (I have seen many of them) seemed to consist of some leading sentences, as places from which he started to enlarge. These sentences to change the metaphor, were seminal, and contained much matter which he could deduce from them; and the seemingly detached parts had some real connexion or relation in his own mind.

An anecdote here may be instructive. I remember dining with him in company, when the gentleman who entertained us, (the conversation happening to turn upon preaching) remarked the propriety of an obvious and numerical arrangement; stating that, whatever may be the case with educated and intellectual individuals, the greater part of an audience do not perceive what is relative unless it be expressed; nor are they able, without methodical assistance, fully and easily to receive and secure what they have heard. Mr. Foster not seemingly assenting, the gentleman proceeded to ask, what no one could deny, whether that which escaped in the mere act of hearing could do much good; and whether that was not more likely to be beneficial which remained on the mind, and would be thought of alone and repeated in company. He added,” Now, sir, here is a preacher present who heard you deliver in Bristol a few days ago a sermon which he much admired; but when I pressed for a sketch of it, he said he could not recall or relate it. But, sir, I will call in my gardener. * * * John, did you hear

Mr. last Sunday?’’ “Yes, sir.” “Did he not preach

from such a text? “” He did, sir.” “Do you remember anything of the sermon?” John, after a little reflection, replied, “Why, sir, he introduced the subject by observing what a difference there was between pretension and reality in religion, — that there may be a form of knowledge and a form of godliness without the power, — and how necessary it was to remember and be able to distinguish this, especially with regard to ourselves.

He then said the text contained three things. These he stated and severally explained. He then called upon us to examine ourselves, and I shall never forget (it thrills through me now) how he closed with Bunyans words, ‘So I saw there is a way to hell by the gate of heaven.’

But though Mr. Foster despised the usual order and arrangement, yet he did not leave things general and indefinite in their bearings; and there was often a pointed force and appropriateness of reflection, which seemed suddenly called forth without design, and which fell terribly on the conscience. This may be seen in the Lectures which have been published; for though they are posthumous, and none of them were entirely the discourses which he delivered, they fail not to give a just impression of his usual preaching. They also show (though too sparingly) that he held what are commonly called the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel. Of these doctrines, as a Christian, he felt the truth and importance; yet not sufficiently by believing to enter into rest, and feel that peace which passeth all understanding, keeping his heart and mind through Christ Jesus; or fully to enjoy the blessedness of the people who know the joyful sound, and walk all day in the light of the Lord’s countenance. His mind seemed too much surrounded with gloomy, rather than cheerful, images; nothing appeared to satisfy him in civil or religious concerns; and he commonly was not indulged with the peculiar associations which well suited and pleased his mind and heart.

It is needless to speak of his endowments, which have become so generally known from his works, and so justly rated. His Essays have excited universal admiration, and have obtained for him a very high and established position, in the estimation of all readers of judgment and taste. These Essays first came to my hand on the morning of a day devoted to rural jaunting and recreation; and though I was bound to be attentive to my companions, and was always fond of natural scenery, (some fine

D D 2 specimens of which we were visiting,) yet, having opened the work in the carriage, I was tempted to go astray more than once in the day, to dip into the contents, which I could not leave until the morrow.

Mr. Wilberforce thought his Essay on Popular Ignorance much inferior to its predecessors; others have thought the same. I confess I could never see any reason for this. But priority has here an advantage; and if an author does not surpass in a second attempt, he is supposed to come short of himself. The Lectures, without being sermons or expositions, abound with thought; but the reflections are too subtle, or profound, for the seizure of common attention or intellect; and what degree of impression or effect did they produce?

I love not to draw comparisons between good and great men, but I have commonly thought he was superior to his illustrious contemporary; not in every respect, by any means, especially in learning, and composition, and eloquence, but in a kind of unlaboured penetration, an iron grasp and hold of whatever he seized, a bottomless profundity of thought, and a fulness of all kinds and degrees of illustration, nothing of which ever seemed derived ab extra, but all springing from his treasures within. And I found, when in Scotland, that Dr. Chalmers and others conceded to him the same partial pre-eminence.

I have sometimes thought of the one as having more genius, and the other more judgment; the one as having more comprehensiveness of mind, the other more force and condensation; the one having more of intuition, the other of acquirement; the one more discursive, the other more consecutive; the one more distinguished by depth, the other by height. But all this is of little significance; they were both great and extraordinary men; I knew enough of each to feel competent to describe them accurately; and, if they were to be weighed, I should strive to hold the scales.

It is worthy of observation that, though Mr. Hall, as a preacher, was so much more popular than Mr. Foster, (we were always hearing of the one, and scarcely ever of the other); yet, since the decease of both, quotations from the sermons (I mean the unpublished) of the former are seldom to be met with; extracts and whole skeletons from the ordinary preaching of the latter, have been, and continue to be, in various modes multiplied.

In Gods hand it is to make great, and to give strength “of every kind” to all; and superior talents are never given in vain. They have their use and their value; but, lest we should idolize them, and think them essential, we often have them (unlike the instances before us) unassociated with piety, and God doing his work without them, “that the excellency of the power may be of Him, and not of them.” Admired, therefore, and valuable, in their way, as natural and acquired endowments and attainments are, they are not grace; and Paul would say to us, “Covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet I show unto you a more excellent way.” Many without splendid endowments have been the power of God to save, and will have to present a number of converts, their joy and crown, in the day of the Lord Jesus. How lamentable is it to reflect how little this master-genius efiected, at least in the higher species of good; and how every religious interest he served was diminished, rather than increased, by his labours!

The biography of Scripture is impartial, and faithfully records the errors and miscarriages of God’s greatest and dearest servants; and need we, should we, overlook the errors and imperfections of wise and good men now? Especially when they have excellencies which will bear a gentle censure without snuffing them out? And is not this the more necessary where persons are elevated, and their example the more likely to be seen and influential; where morals, like fashions, always work downwards? We should not readily concede the dispensableness of attending on the means of grace and ordinances of religion to any. Man is not purely intellectual, nor is reason the only attribute of his nature. His mind must be approached through the medium of sense; and his fellowship with things unseen and eternal must be maintained, or aided, by those which are seen and temporal. And those eminent degrees of the divine life which some might suppose render attendance in the sanctuary ’ and at the Lords Table needless, always attach the possessor more to them. But, if some individuals could supply the place of such attendance from their own stores, yet it is otherwise with the mass of persons. Without these excitements and advantages, the very appearance of religion would soon cease among them. Therefore, how desirable and dutiful is it that we should sanction and enforce such usages, even for the sake of the public welfare, by our own example! However defective the public services may be, they conduce to some profit. Nothing tends so much to socialize, and civilize, and to produce decorum and cleanliness; so that by the want of these you may always infer the spiritual destitution of a neighbourhood.

When residing in the vicinity of Bristol, and disengaged from office, Mr. Foster usually heard Mr. Hall, (and what marvel?) but no other minister; nor, I believe, did he even then commune at Broadmead; and, when residing for some time at Bourton-on-the- Water, he always heard the pastor, yet left the

table of the Lord: and Mr, C (Coles) complained, and

said what a distress it occasioned to himself, and what a stumbling-block it proved in the way of some of the members. I presume, (but I am not certain,) that in the several places where he officiated as the pastor himself he administered the Lord’s Supper; but, as to the other ordinance, he never dispensed it, or attended the administration; and, after several attempts, Mr. Hughes, his most familiar friend, assured me, he never could get him to express himself upon the subject; but had a fall persuasion that with the Friends he did not believe in the perpetuity of water-baptism.

I never knew a person, (with the exception of Mandeville and Rochefoucaultj) who had such views of the badness and depravity of human nature. He seemed to regard it as a mass of entire corruption, and especially of aversion in everything towards God; so that he saw nothing in it capable of being altered, or improved into something better; and religion was not with him a transformation, by the renewing of the mind, but a perfect reproduction and substitution of other powers, through the power of God. His views also of ministerial and missionary labours, far from being sanguine, were scarcely hopeful; and his expectation of a better state of things did not arise from the blessing of God on the use of the means we possess, but from an express interposition of Almightiness coercing its effects.

And who can commend his wish to break up all churchinstitutions and orders, leaving religion to individual influence and exertion? Or at most to domestic? In several of these things he was joined and aided by another remarkable and talented character, a member of my congregation, Mr. Thomas Parsons, of whom I have spoken in my published funeral sermon.

But is it wise to abandon the present methods of doing good, because of their defectiveness, instead of gradually endeavouring to improve them? Who knows what may be the result between the giving up of the old means and the establishment and pre valence of the new; for the change may not be easily, and therefore, not speedily accomplished; and who can be certain of its greater benefit and usefulness? We actually know what is now doing, and may hope for greater things than these, by the blessing of Qodi upon our wise and active use of our present instrumentalities. “To him that hath shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have,”

Mr. Foster,, though great in all his productions, appears to me greatest in his Reviews. The more I read them, the more I am astonished at the quickness and clearness of his perceptions; the power of his discrimination; his detection of sophistry; his love of fairness, rectitude, and truth; his sly, yet just sarcasms; his stinging satire; his abomination of pedantry and pretence. Nor is my admiration abated by comparison, when I read the contributions of Macaulay, JeflPrey, and Macintosh; and nothing surprises me more, than that the purchase of the two volumes of his contributions has not been rapid and extensive enough to induce the editor to send forth the large remainder, now shut up in the Eclectic Review.

But the production of his pen the most spiritually important, and the most adapted to awaken the conscience and to urge the heart to God, (perhaps, too, the best written,) is the Essay prefixed to Dr. Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. Why is not this more known? Why is it not published separately? *

Yet, as to himself, the choice of that work for this prefix (for the subject was at his option) was remarkable. As in scenery he could not endure the old forms in which gardens were laid out, in squares, and parterres, and yew-trees cut into formal figures, but something bordering on rude, in which nature was seen rather than art; something rather wild than neatly cultured; ever yielding freshness and having no bounds. — So it was as to his taste with regard to publications; especially also as to the commencement of religion. He conceived that it began by some one powerful emotion or impression, and never from any plan or

* It was published separately, — probably after Mr. Jay put this question. — Editor.

scheme laid out in long and regular perspective. He would say, ‘^ I love a scene in which nature keeps much in her own hands.^^ Mr. Cottle (Posterns friend, and, I am happy to say, my own also), once showed me a letter of Mr. Fosters, concerning this prefixed Essay. It may be curious and gratifying to subjoin a copy. It will serve, as the receiver remarked, to show the complex motives and manner in which important productions originate and are perfected.

“My dear Sir, — Dr. Chalmers some three years since started a plan of reprinting, in a neat form, a number of respectable religious works, of the older date, with a Preliminary Essay to each, relating to the book, or to any analogous topic, at the writer’s discretion. The Glasgow booksellers, Chalmers and Collins, the one the Doctor’s brother, and the other his most confidential friend, have accordingly reprinted a series of perhaps now a dozen works, with essays, several by Dr. Chalmers, and several by Irving, one by Wilberforce, one by Daniel Wilson, &:c. &c. I believe Hall and Cunningham have promised their contributions. I was inveigled into a similar promise more than two years since. The work strongly urged on me for this service in the first instance was * Doddi’idge’s Rise and Progress; ’ and the contribution was actually promised to be furnished with the least possible delay; on the strength of which the book was immediately printed ofif, and has actually been lying in their warehouse as dead stock these two years. I was admonished and urged again and again; but, in spite of the mortification and shame which I could not but feel, at thus occasioning the publisher a certain positive loss, my horror of writing, combined with ill health, invincibly prevailed, and not a paragraph was written till towards the end of last year, when I did summon resolution for the attempt. “When I had written but a few pages, the reluctant labour was interrupted and suspended by the more interesting one of writing those letters to our dear young friend, your niece (Miss Saunders). Not, of course, that this latter employment did not allow me time enough for the other; but by its more lively interest it had the effect of augmenting my disinclination to the other. Soon after her removal, I resumed the task, and am ashamed to acknowledge such a miserable and matchless slowness of mental operation, that the task held me confined ever since, till actually within these few days. I believe that nothing but a strong sense of the duty of fulfilling my engagement, and of not continuing to do a real injury to the publishers, could have constrained me to so long a labour. It is most mortifying to think of so slender a result of so much time and toil. The article is, indeed, of the length of one half of Doddridge’s book; but many of my contemporary makers of sentences would have produced as much “with one fifth part of the time and labour. I have aimed at great correctness and condensation, and have found the labour of revisal and transcription not very much less than that of the substantial composition. The thing has been prolonged, I should say spun out, to three times the length which was at first intended, or was required. It has very little reference to the book which it accompanies, has no special topic, and is merely a serious inculcation of the necessity of religion on young persons and men of the world. In point of merit, (that, you know, is the word in such matters,) I rate it very moderately, except in respect to correctness and clearness of expression. If it do not possess these qualities, a vast deal of care and labour has been sadly thrown away. I suppose the thing is just about making up, to be sent from the publisher’s warehouse. I shall have a little parcel of copies, and shall presume to request the acceptance of one in Dighton-street.

“My dear Sir, I am absolutely ashamed to have been led into this length of what is no better than egotism, when I was meaning just five lines, to tell what has detained me from the pleasure of seeing you.” My dear Sir,

“Yours most truly,

“John Foster.”