LETTERS. I. TO THE BAPTIST CHURCH, BROADMEAD, BRISTOL. Old Aberdeen, King's College, Dec. 4, 1783.* DEAR AND HONoured Brethren, I DULY received your affectionate letter, in which you expressed your desire of engaging my labours as an assistant minister. Your request does me honour, and confers upon me an obligation which no efforts of mine can fully discharge. Yet, young and inexperienced as I am, I tremble to think of engaging in so arduous a work, especially in a situation where all my incapacity will be doubly felt. I cannot but think a few years would be necessary to enable me to gratify the lowest expectations. To plunge into the midst of life at so tender an age, with so little experience and so small a stock of knowledge, almost terrifies me. Your candid judgment of my past services I acknowledge with a mixture of pleasure and surprise,-pleased to attain the approbation of the wise and good, and surprised I in any measure have attained it, which I can attribute to nothing but the tenderness and forbearance which have ever strongly marked your conduct. A retired and private sphere would indeed be more upon a level with my abilities, and congenial to my temper; yet I would willingly sacrifice my private inclinations to more important views, and lose sight of myself if I could benefit others. My reluctance, therefore, to obey your call arises merely from a feeling of my weakness, and my secret fear lest you should hereafter have occasion to repent it. If you could have dispensed with my labours till the final close of my studies, I might then have hoped to have been more able to serve you; but if not, I submit. Let me but crave your prayers, that as my day so my strength may be. Your welfare, honoured brethren, will ever lie near my heart; numberless reflections concur with a thousand tender recollections of past kindness to keep it there. But these are not my only inducements to embrace your proposals. It is an additional pleasure to me when I reflect with whom I have the honour to be connected,-with one whom I most sincerely reverence, and to whom I am bound by every tie of affection and gratitude.t I hope I * Mr. Hall was at this time in his twentieth year. † Dr. Caleb Evans. undertake this work in the fear of God, and look forward to that awful day when all these solemn transactions shall be reviewed, and every secret motive that entered into them will be brought to light. Wishing you, dear brethren, all prosperity, and that you may be "steadfast in that day," I subscribe myself yours, &c. ROBERT HALL, Jun. II. TO THE REV. ISAIAH BIRT, PLYMOUTH. Dear Sir, Cambridge, Feb. 5, 1791. I have frequently thought it something remarkable, that you and I have had an intimate acquaintance for many years, and yet that we have scarcely exchanged a letter. Our frequent occasional interviews have formerly rendered this less necessary; but now that I shall probably be settled in a distant situation, and an opportunity of seeing each other may seldom occur, I cannot satisfy myself without requesting a stated correspondence. You will excuse my earnestness to solicit this, when you recollect that it is the effect of that fixed and wellfounded esteem I always did and always shall bear you. I will communicate to you, not the incidents of the day or of the week, for my time at present slides away without incident, but the inward sentiments of my heart, and the trifles, serious or gay, that spring up there; happy if I can imagine for a moment I am conversing with you as we did in the days of yore, when, without care or sorrow, we sauntered in the fields near Bristol. Ah, happy days, never to return again! I am at present at Cambridge, in the element of peace at least, if not of happiness; and indeed, after the tumults of strife and din of parties, quiet itself seems happiness. Perhaps you may wish to be informed of some particulars relating to my present situation. It is, on the whole, happy. The people seem very harmonious, and much united to me. I could wish their sentiments were more orthodox, though the far greater part of them are sufficiently so. They who are not seem very ready to hear cool, dispassionate reasoning on the other side of the question. I have tried their pulse several times since I have been here. On the first Sabbath of my arrival, I preached in the morning on Heb. ix. 13—“ How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God," &c.-an entirely controversial sermon in defence of the atonement. I had the satisfaction of finding few, very few, who did not acknowledge the justice of my reflections, and that they who were not convinced were not displeased. I should be happy if Providence should make me an humble instrument of with |