jection."--The bottle came from the clofet, and Mr. Venn took a fip. His character was now decided. "Sir, you will preach for me this morning?"-"With pleafure." Robed and ready, they pofted to the Church and Mr. Venn to the pulpit. There his bible no fooner opened, than the congregation ftared, and the parfon hid his face in the Surplice. The energetic truth, wakened up an attention to which that congregation had been little accustomed. The Vicar did not wait to thank him, he bolted out of the church the moment the fervice was done, and left Mr. Venn to retire to his inn alone.

Another inftance very fimilar occurred when Mr. Venn went once to preach for Lady Huntingdon at Bath. It was late on Saturday night when he arrived, and he chofe to put up at the Ship inn. Not being to preach till the Sunday evening, in the morning he determined to go to church, and went robed. On the way he overtook the clergyman of the place, and after the customary civilities, carrying, as the other thought, his character in his countenance, he was engaged to preach at the church in the afternoon. He did fo, and it proved the converfion of feveral perfons; among whom was the daughter of a clergyman, who afterwards followed him to the chapel, and carried with her another lady, to whom the means of grace were also rendered efficacious. In the evening when the clergyman, who had been thus innocently deceived, went among his old friends in the long room, they began to roaft him (as the phrafe is) upon the circumftance. "Who would have thought,

"faid he, from his face, that that man had been a Metho, "dift ?"

While at Huddersfield, he published his most populous and ufeful work, The complete Duty of Man" which has gone through feven confiderable editions, including thofe in America and Ireland. Here alfo he printed his "Effay upon the Prophecies of Zechariali," befide feveral fingle Sermons. His pulpit exercifes were great, labouring continually in feafon and out of feafon for the good of fouls, and his memory, will long be cherished with affection and refpect in that parish. His zcal, however, carried him beyond his ftrength; and by his earneft and frequent preaching during the ten years of his refiding there, he materially injured his health, and brought on a cough and pitting of blood, which incapacitated him for longer ufefulnefs in fo large a fphere. He, therefore, accepted in 1770, the Rectory of Yelling in Huntingdonshire, a crown living, to which VOL. VI.

li

he

he was prefented by the intereft of his friend, Baron Smythe, then one of the commiffioners of the great feal.

The fame ardent defire to be useful when a fpring of health enabled, prompted him to burft out on the right hand and the left; and his own parifh being but thinly inhabited, (tho' his preaching drew a full auditory), he hesitated not to go into the neighbourhood, and preach in a variety. of places at Godmanchefter, and elsewhere, always attended by attentive audiences, and blessed greatly to the fouls of many. As the churches were not generally open to him he preached elsewhere; not thinking the fouls of men unworthy his purfuit, even in the meaneft hovel. Where ignorance reigns, how fhall finners be plucked from the burning, if no man dare ftep out of the beaten track? Thus did our departed brother. The great fhepherd and bishop of fouls bleft his labours, and he is now receiving the full reward of grace.

A paralytic ftroke, the confequence probably of his labours, though he recovered from the fhock in his limbs, affected his memory. The writer can hardly fay his intellects; for he never heard him speak more ably than a very few weeks before his death; and when Mr. Venn vifited one of his old friends, at a large meeting of Evangelical clergymen, with whom he maintained cordial affection, he could not be prevailed to truft himself in the pulpit; but being urged, confented to speak a few words from the desk, and no man ever fpoke more profitably, more clearly, or more evangelically; betraying no trace of that lofs of memory of which he complained, and which those who lived and converfed with him too frequently perceived.

His eyes now began to fail him. The fprings of life were exhaufted. Yet the vital flame was not extinct, and corrufcations of its former fplendor, every now and then burf forth, efpecially when revived by the prefence of old friends, in whom he delighted. The laft time his aged friend and intimate acquaintance above-mentioned vifited him, though he at first knew him not, his fpirit revived, and after converfation, he opened in the moft mafterly manner imaginable, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and his elder Brother.

The fubject of the dying malefactor by the fide of our Lord alfo afforded him an occafion of difplaying the riches, fovereignty, freedom, and glory of the Redeemer's grace, in a manner, fuch as in his best days he never exceeded, perhaps never equalled. It founded like the fabled notes

of

of the dying fwan, and left the sweetest and most pleasing impreffion on the memory.

In December, 1796, he removed to Clapham, where the affiduities of his family, and friends contributed to alleviate his afflictions. Here he died at the house of his fon, the prefent rector, the heir of his father's virtues, and the zealous imitator of his excellencies.

Mr. Venn was of the middle ftature; his countenance marked with pleasantnefs and fenfibility, notwithstanding a rednefs, which might be eafily mistaken for the confequence of intemperance. His voice was ftrong and powerful; his manner of delivery engaging and impreffive; and he seemed himself deeply penetrated with the truths he delivered. His action was becoming his fubject; and his manner of treating every fubject, joined fingular ability with the most folid experience. Few men lived more beloved; and his death had been ftill more lamented, if he had not left behind him an increasing number of faithful labourers in the Vineyard, to which his own preaching, works, and example had greatly contributed. At his firft commencement he was numbered with the few fingular characters who aimed at the revival of Evangelical religion, and he lived long enough to fee them growing into a hoft, to rejoice in the amazing fpread of the Gofpel, through their labours and his own, and to die in the confidence that the Lord would do ftill greater things than these, and encrease this happy dawn into the perfect day.

He was a faithful minifter of the Church of England, but never afhamed of the brand of Methodism; or of those most liberally abufed by a wicked world, and often most obnoxious to their own brethren. He took a decided part with the Crofs-bearing labourers, and went boldly to Chrift without the camp, bearing his reproach. His work was his wages, and the fouls of men redeemed his object, through evil report and good report. He is difcharged from his warfare, and his works will follow him. May our last end be like his !

ON PREACHING THE GOSPEL.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER VI.

PROCEED to fhew, in the laft place, that the Evangelical preacher, muft perfeveringly demonftrate to them, from the oracles of God, that no good difpofition, no change

of

of nature, no reception of spiritual bleffings, is to be defired, fought after, or expected by men, but in the way of first receiving Chrift himself; that by fpiritual union with his perfon and actual intereft in his righteoufnefs, they may be justly fet free from the curfe of the law, which is the ftrength of fin, and may be juftified, adopted, and created in him unto good works.-If his hearers have been driven by the law as a covenant, and allured by the Gospel, strictly fo called, to re eive and unite with Chrift, as their faviour, hufband, and head: the Evangelical preacher must carefully inftruct, and earnestly excite them, to walk in him, and worthy of him.

1. He muft carefully fhew them, how Chrift is their Jupporting and fecuring way, and only medium of their accefs to, and fellowship with, God; and how God's holy law of the Ten Commandments, as a rule in his hand, in all the extent of its precepts, but without any penalty of judicial wrath here, or hereafter, or any promife of happiness as the proper reward of their works, is their directing way, and the unerring and authoritative ftandard of their whole converfation.

2. He muft earnestly urge them, as perfons who have had their fate and nature changed by union to Chrift, to confider, abhor, and flee from fin, of every kind and degree, as their fearful mifery, as their only crime, and in them a crimne peculiarly heinous and hurtful. He muft urge them to follow after righteoufnefs and holinefs in all manner of difpofition and converfation; receiving it out of Chrift's fulnefs, as their great privilege, purchafed with his blood, given in his promife, produced by the application of his blood, and the operation of his in-dwelling Spirit. He muft urge them to the practice of this holiness, as their honourable and all-comprehenfive duty, enjoined by his law, conftrained to, by his love, directed in, by his example, performed by his affifting grace, and accepted for his fake. He must urge them to the practice of this righteoufnefs, as their ufeful bufinefs, by which, they at once honor God, profit their neighbour, and gain to themselves a prefent and everlasting, but abfolutely gracious, reward. He muft, in this view, teach and ftir them up to deteft, thun and mourn over fin, as that abominable thing which is infinitely difhonourable to, and hated by, their God and Saviour; and defiling to their foul, on which his image hath been mercifully renewed. He muft ftir them up to ftudy to perfect holinets in heart and life, as the will of their God, as the

gforious

glorious end of all his gracious purposes, precious promises, ineftimable benefits, holy laws and ordinances, and diverfified providences, particularly those which bear relation to the work of Redemption.

3. He muft with clear evidence infift, that no attainments poffible in men's natural state, whether inward, or outward, can have the true form of holiness in them, or be obedience to the authority of God, seeing they proceed from a heart, deceitful above all things, and defperately wicked, a carnal mind, enmity against God which cannot be fubject to his law, but which must be unclean, the mind and confcience being defiled; and that every thing done, by even a faint according to the remaining temper and principle of his natural ftate, is an abomination to the Lord.

4. He muft infift, that, as union to Chrift, as of God made to us wifdom, righteoufnefs, and fanctification, is the foundation of the renewing of our ftatc and nature, fo, the continuance of this union, and the fellowship with Chrift dependant on it, are the immediate fource of all our holiness in habit and practice. Hence we are faid, to walk in Christ, to be rooted and built up in him, to have Chrift living in us, to have a good converfation in Chrift, to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, to be strengthened in him and walk up and down in his name, to go on in his ftrength, making mention of his righteoufnefs, to do all things in his name, to know Chrift, and the power of his refurrection, to be fet free from the law of fin and death by the Spirit of life in Chrift Jefus, to be led by the Spirit, and walk after the Spirit, and through the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the body; or, in fhort, that Chrift dwelling in our hearts by faith, as the Lord, our righteoufnefs and ftrength, by his Spirit as our fanctifier and comforter, beftows fupport actuates, determines and ftrengthens our new nature, for every good word and work.

5. He ought clearly to teach how, as the curfe of the law is the peculiar ftrength of fin in our natural state, so justification, through the righteoufnefs of Chrift, imputed to our perfon, and applied to our confcience, is the diftinguished ftrength, fource and fupport of all our holinefs of heart, or life, in our gracious ftate. It is not fufficient to represent the fanctifying influences of the Holy Ghoft, and the gracious and holy tempers and good works produced by them, as purchafed by the rightcoufnels of Chrift; but the removal of the curfe of the law, which is the ftrength of fin; the engagement of all the divine perfons and perfections by the

fentence