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no root, as suddenly withers away. But if, in any persons, a religion, appearing to be constituted of passionate emotions, should prove more lasting; then watch its motions and its progress. See whether it be a bright meteor carried about in the air, or a star in the firmament of heaven. See whether the passions, which the reputed converts display, are those which the gospel sanctions; whether they partake of the meekness and gentleness of Christ, or of the ostentation and proud confidence of the Pharisees; and whether it appear, from their uniform conduct, that their heart is interested as well, as their passions warmed.

Churches of Christ, it is hoped that the foregoing remarks arising from a deep concern for your peace and prosperity, will be

seriously considered, and faithfully applied. Forget them not in the important work of self examination, and in attending to the qualifications of those, who wish to be admitted to your holy communion, and of those, who offer themselves as candidates for the gospel ministry. Forget them not when forming a judgment of revivals of religion, and of the various descriptions of conversion and Christian piety, which you hear from the sacred desk. Be not deceived by counterfeit appearances; be not misguided by the ingenuity of error. Diligently use all your advantages, as children of the light, and humbly remember your dignity, as the ground and pillar of the truth, and the repos itory of evangelical religion.

PASTOR.

Selections.

Messrs Editors,

The Copy of a Letter from the celebrated Dr. Isaac Watts to Madam Sewall, upon the death of her children, having lately fallen into my hands, I have supposed it worthy of publication in your very useful work, as the sentiments are singularly calculated to give instruction and consolation to Christian parents, under the loss of offspring.

Madam,

Yesterday, from Mr. Sewall's hand, I received the favour of several letters from my friends in New England, and a particular account of that sharp and surprising stroke of Providence, that has made a painful and lasting wound in your soul. He desired a letter from my hand,

H. J.

7 November, 1728.

directed to you, which might carry in it some balm for an afflicted spirit. By his information I find, I am not an utter stranger to your family and kindred. Mr. Lee, your venerable grandfather, was predecessor to Mr. Thomas Rowe, my honoured tutor, and once my pastor in

my younger years. Mr. Peacock, who married your eldest aunt, was my intimate friend. Mrs. Bishop and Mrs. Wirley were both my acquaintance, though my long illness, and my absence from London, has made me a stranger to their posterity, whom I knew when children. But now I know not who of them are living or where. Dr. Cotton Mather, your late father-in-law, was my yearly correspondent, and I lament the loss of him. But the loss you have sustained is of a tenderer and more distressing kind. Yet let us see, whether there are not sufficient springs of consolation, flowing all around you, to allay the smart of so sharp a sorrow. And may the Lord open your eyes, as he did the eyes of Hagar in the wilderness, to espy the spring of water, when she was dying with thirst, and her child over against her ready to expire. Gen. xxi. 19.

Have you lost two lovely children? Did you make them your idols? If you did, God has saved you from idolatry. If you did not, you have your God still, and a creature cannot be miserable, who has a God. The little words "My God" have infinitemore sweetness than my sons" or" my daughters." Were they very desirable blessings? Your God calls you to the nobler sacrifice. Can you give up these to him at his call? So was Isaac, when Abraham was required to part with him at God's altar. Are you not a daughter of Abraham? Then imitate his faith, his self denial, his obedience, and make your evidences of such a spiritual relation to him shine brighter on this solemn occasion. Has

God taken them from your arms? And had not you given them to God before?, Had you not devoted them to him in baptism? Are you displeased that God calls for his own? Was not your heart sincere in the resignation of them to him? Show then, Madam, the sincerity of your heart in leaving them in the hand of God. Do you say, they are lost? Not out of God's sight and God's world, though they are gone out of our sight and our world. "All live to God." You may hope the spreading covenant of grace has sheltered them from the second death. They live, though

not with you.

Are you ready to complain, you have brought forth for the grave? It may be so, but not in vain. Is. lxv. 25. "They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; (i. e. for sorrow without hope) for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord,and their offspring with them." This has been a sweet text to many a mother, when their children are called away betimes. And the prophet Jeremy, ch. xxxi. 15, 17. has very comfortable words to allay the same sorrows. Did you please yourself in what comforts you might have derived from them in maturer years? But, Madam, do you consider sufficiently, that God has taken them away from the evil to come, and hid them in the grave from the prevailing and mischievous temptations of a degenerate age? My brother's wife in London has buried 7 or 8 children, and among them all her sons. This thought has reconciled her to the providence of God, that the temptations of young men in this age are so exceedingly great, and

she has seen so many of the young gentlemen of her acquaintance so shamefully degenerate, that she wipes her tears for the sons she has buried, and composes her soul to patience and thankfulness, with one only daughter remaining. Perhaps God has by this stroke prevented a thousand unknown sorrows. Are your sons dead? But are all your mercies dead too? A worthy husband is a living comfort; and may God preserve and restore him to you with joy! Food, raiment, safety, peace, liberty of religion, access to the mercy seat, hope of heaven; all these are daily matters of thankfulness. Good Madam, let not one sorrow bury them all. Show that you are a Christian by making it to appear, that religion has supports in it which the world doth not know. What can a poor worldling do, but mourn over earthly blessings departed, and gone down with them comfortless to the grave? But methinks a Christian should lift up his head, as partaking of higher hopes. May the blessed Spirit be your comforter, Madam. Endeavour to employ yourself in some business or amusement of life continually, lest a solitary and inactive frame of mind tempt you to sit brooding over your sorrows, and nurse them to a dangerous size. Turn your thoughts often to the brighter scenes of heaven and the resurrection.

Forgive the freedom of a stranger, Madam, who desires to be the humble and faithful servant of Christ and souls.

ISAAC WATTS.

P. S. Madam, you have so many excellent comforters around you

that I even blush to send what I have writ; yet since the narrowness of my paper has excluded two or three thoughts, which may not be impertinent or useless on this mournful occasion, I will insert them here. You know Madam, the great and blessed God had but one Son, and he gave him up a sacrifice, and devoted him to a bloody death out of love to such sinners as you and I.

Can you shew your gratitude to God in a more evident and acceptable manner, than by willingly resigning your sons to him at the call of his providence? This act of willing resignation turns a painful affliction into a holy sacrifice. Are the two dearest things taken from the heart of a mother? Then may you ever set so much the looser to this world, and you have the fewer dangerous attachments to this life. It is a happiness for a Christian not to have the heart strings tied too fast to any thing beneath God and heaven. Happy is the soul, who is ready to remove at the divine summons. The fewer engagments we have on earth, the more we may live above, and have our thoughts more fixed on things divine and heavenly. May this painful stroke be thus sanctified, and lead you nearer to God.

I. W.

The following Extract from M. Massillon's Sermon on 66 MINISTERIAL ZEAL" is recommended to the serious and attentive perusal of those whom it may concern.

HAVE not ministers, animated with the Spirit of God, expe

rienced contradictions, in all ages? In succeeding to the zeal and ministry of the apostles, have they not succeeded to their tribulations and reproaches? It was not by temporizing with sinners that they converted them; it was by combating them; it was not by flattering the great and the powerful, that they induced them to submit to the yoke of Christ; it was by making them tremble, as Paul formerly did even kings upon their thrones, by the terrors of the holy word; by the frightful image of a judgment to come, and of the punishments reserved for the worldly-minded and unchaste.

We however flatter ourselves with succeeding better by adopting another method towards the great and the powerful; and this is a perpetual illusion, which conceals from us our prevarication and weakness. We hardly dare show them, even at a distance, truths which displease them, which yet alone can be useful to them. Their most public and most shameful vices are to us like sacred things; and we touch them only with circumspection, and with strokes so slight and tender that they are not perceived. Our great object seems to be, not to convert them, but to forbear irritating them; as if our ministry, as respects them, consisted in humouring them, not in converting them; and in preaching to them the words of salvation in such a manner, that they cannot find any thing that regards and interests them. We persuade ourselves that we ought not, by an indiscreet zeal, to deprive the church of worldly greatness,

which may be useful to it; as if the church had need of an arm of flesh to support it; as if men, plunged in sin, could be useful in the work of God; as if it was necessary to flatter the great, for the maintenance of a religion, which was at first established by combating their passions; in fine, as if it was indiscreet not to use flattery and collusion in our ministry.

My brethren, let us not seek supports of flesh and blood for religion. Let us unite fidelity in our ministry, with the respect and regard due to human greatness; what we owe to a love of the truth, with a proper regard to the rules of Christian prudence. Religion does not authorise excesses and indiscretion in zeal; it condemns only a fear of man, and the cowardly and interested views of self-love. Let us respect the great and the powerful, but let us not respect their vices and their sins; let us render to their persons the love, the homage, and the regard which are due to them, but let us not render the same to their vices; let us exhibit to the common people examples of submission and fidelity to the great, not of adulation and shameful meanness. The men of the world study enough to corrupt and blind them by the poison of continual flattery; let us not prostitute our ministry to so unworthy a use; but, by a wise and respectful sincerity, let us preserve for them a resource for knowing the truth. If, in consequence of our places and station we have free access to them, let us not be occupied in advancing our own fortune, but their salvation. The only means

of being useful to them is not to desire them to be useful to us. If we aspire at procuring their favour, we must begin by humouring their foibles. It is rare that their good graces are to be purchased but by weakness and base complaisance on our part. We should tremble when they load us with favours; the higher they elevate us, the lower, we have reason to fear, we are in reality degraded; their gifts cost us dear, since they must, almost always, be purchased at the expense of truth, and of the dignity of our ministry. Not that the great are unsusceptible of the truth; on the contrary, by their being the less accustomed to it, it would make the stronger impression. Their ruin generally proceeds from this source, that there is no person near them, who dares to show them the precipice, and reach forth a hand to hinder them from falling into destruction.

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to put in a word, that may be to edification.

Use no recreations or delights of sense, but what thou canst at that very time desire of God, that it may be sanctified to spiritual ends.

Take your eye off from others, and turn it inward upon yourself; this will render you less sensible of their failings, and more observant of your own, both which consequences are desirable.

Use not animosity and contention in any matter, that may be brought to a good issue in the way of peace.

Engage not hastily as a party in a difference between others, but reserve thyself impartial and unengaged, that thou mayest moderate between them.

When thou hast an opportunity of speaking a word for the good of another's soul, defer not the doing of it till another time.

Watch against all bitter and passionate speeches, against malignant opposers of truth. For meekness of spirit and behaviour is more according to Christ, than wrathful zeal.

In thy zeal against the sins of others, be mindful of thy own exceeding sinfulness: call to remembrance thy great offences, which, though they be unfeignedly repented of, give thee to understand what cause thou hast to be meek, and humble, and patient toward all men.

INDIAN DUELLING.

NATCHES, July 1, 1807. The following very extraordinary cir cumstance occurred a few days since. If the advocates for duel

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