shall either bring or send in writing, with his hand subscribed thereunto, the names of all such persons within his parish as he shall think fit to be presented to the bishop." 81. Now the question is not, whether these rubricks ought to be observed, (you take this for granted in making the objection) but whether in fact they have been observed by you or me, most? Many can witness I have observed them punctually, yea, sometimes at the hazard of my life and as many, I fear, that you have not observed them at all, and that several of them you never pretended to observe. And is it you that are accusing me, for not observing the rubricks of the church? What grimace is this! "O tell it not in Gath! Publish it not in the streets of Askelon!" 82. With regard to the canons, I would, in the first place, desire you to consider two or three plain questions. 1st. Have you ever read them over? 2dly, How can these be called "The canons of the Church of England?" Seeing they were never legally established by the Church? Never regularly confirmed in any full convocation? 3dly, By what right am I required to observe such canons as were never legally established? And then I will join issue with you in one question more, viz. Whether you or I have observed them most? To instance only in a few. Can. 29. No person shall be admitted godfather or godmother to any child, before the said person hath received the holy com munion. Can. 59. Every Parson, Vicar, or Curate, upon every Sunday and Holyday, before Evening Prayer, shall, for half an hour, or more, examine and instruct the youth and ignorant persons of his parish. Can. 64. Every Parson, Vicar, or Curate, shall declare to the people every Sunday, whether there be any holydays or fasting-days, the week following. Can. 68. No minister shall refuse or delay to christen any child that is brought to the church to him upon Sundays or holydays to be christened, or to bury any corpse that is brought to the church or church-yard. (N. B. Inability to pay fees does not alter the case.) Can. 75. No ecclesiastical persons shall spend their time idly, by day or by night, playing at dice, cards, or tables. Now, let the clergyman who has observed only these five canons for one year last past, and who has read over all the canons in his congregation; (as the King's ratification straitly enjoins him to do once every year) let him, I say, cast the first stone at us, for not observing the Canons (so called) of the Church of England. 83. However, we cannot be," it is said "friends to the Church, because we do not obey the Governors of it, and submit ourselves (as at our ordination we promised to do) to all their godly admonitions and injunctions." I answer, in every individual point of an indifferent nature, we do and will (by the grace of God) obey the governors of the Church. But the testifying the gospel of the grace of God, is not a point of an indifferent nature. The ministry which we have received of the Lord Jesus, we are at all hazards to fulfil. It is the burthen of the Lord which is laid upon us here; and we are to obey God rather than man. Nor yet do we, in any ways, violate the promise which each of us made, when it was said unto him, "Take thou authority to preach the word of God, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." We then promised to submit (mark the words) to the godly admonitions and injunctions of our ordinary. But we did not, could not promise to obey such injunctions, as we know are contrary to the word of God. 84. "But why then," say some, "do you leave the Church? Leave the Church! What can you mean? Do we leave so much as the Church walls? Your own eyes tell you, we do not. Do we leave the ordinances of the Church? You daily see and know the contrary. Do we leave the fundamental doctrine of the Church, namely, Salvation by Faith? It is our constant theme, in public, in private, in writing, in conversation. Do we leave the practice of the Church, the standard whereof are the ten commandments? Which are so essentially in-wrought in her constitution, (as little as you may apprehend it) that whosoever breaks one of the least of these, is no member of the Church of England. I believe you do not care to put the cause on this issue. Neither do you mean this by leaving the Church. In truth, I cannot conceive what you mean. I doubt you cannot conceive yourself. You have retailed a sentence from somebody else, which you no more understand than he. And no marvel; for it is a true observation, "Nonsense is never to be understood." 85. Nearly related to this is that other objection, that we divide the Church. Remember the Church is, The faithful people, or true believers. Now how do we divide these? Why, by our societies." Very good. Now the case is plain. "We divide them," you say, "by uniting them together." Truly, a very uncommon way of dividing! "O, but we divide those who are thus united with each other, from the rest of the Church. By no means. Many of them were before joined to all their brethren of the Church of England (and many were not, until they knew us) by assembling themselves together, to hear the word of God, and to cat of one bread, and drink of one cup. And do they now forsake that assembling themselves together? You cannot, you dare not say it. You know they are more diligent therein than ever: it being one of the fixed rules of our societies, "That every member attend the ordinances of God," i. e. that he do not divide from the Church. And if any member of the Church do thus divide from or leave it, he hath no more place among us. 86. I have considered this objection the more at large, because it is of most weight with sincere minds. And to all these, if they have fairly and impartially weighed the answer as well as the objection, I believe it clearly appears, that we are neither undermining nor de-stroying, neither dividing nor leaving the Church. So far from it, that we have great heaviness on her account, yea, continual sorrow in our hearts. And our prayer to God is, that he would repair the breaches of Sion, and build the walls of Jerusalem, that this our desolate church may flourish again, and be the praise of the whole earth. 87. But perhaps you have heard, that "we in truth regard no church at all that gain is the true spring of all our actions: that I, in particular, am well paid for my work, having thirteen hundred pounds a year (as a Reverend Author accurately computed it) at the Foundry alone, over and above what I received from Bristol, Kingswood, Newcastle, and other places: and that whosoever survives me, will see I have made good use of my time; for I shall not die a beggar." 88. I freely own, this is one of the best advised objections which has ever yet been made; because it not only puts us upon proving a negative, (which is seldom an easy task,) but also one of such a kind as scarcely admits of any demonstrative proof at all. But for such proof as the nature of the thing allows, I appeal to my manner of life which hath been from the beginning. Ye who have seen it (and not with a friendly eye) for these twelve or fourteen years last past, or for any part of that time, Have ye ever seen any thing like the love of gain therein? Did I not continually remember the words of the Lord Jesus, It is more blessed to give than to receive? Ye of Oxford, Do ye not know these things are so? What gain did I seek among you? Of whom did I take any thing? From whom did I covet silver, or gold, or apparel? To whom did I deny any thing which I had even to the hour that I departed from you?-Ye of Epworth and Wroote, among whom I ministered for (nearly) the space of three years, what gain did I seek among you? Or of whom did I take or covet any thing?-Ye of Savannah and Frederica, among whom God afterwards proved me, and showed me what was in my heart, what gain did I seek among you? Of whom did I take any thing? Or whose food and apparel did I covet (for silver or gold had ye none, no more than I myself for many months,) even when I was in hunger and nakedness? Ye yourselves, and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, know that I lie not. 89. "But," it is said, "things are fairly altered now. Now I cannot complain of wanting any thing; having the yearly income of a bishop of London, over and above what I gain at other places." At what other places, my friend? Inform yourself a little better, and you will find, that both at Newcastle, Bristol, and Kingswood, (the only places beside London, where any collection at all is made) the money collected is both received and expended by the stewards of those several societies, and never comes into my hands at all, neither first nor last. And you, or any who desire it, shall read over the accounts kept by any of those stewards, and see with your own eyes, that by all these societies, I gain just as much as you do. 90. The case in London stands thus. In November 1739, two gentlemen, then unknown to me (Mr. Ball and Mr. Watkins) came and desired me once and again, to preach in a place called the Foundry near Moorfields. With much reluctance I at length complied. I was soon after pressed to take that place into my own hands. These who were the most earnest therein, lent me the purchase-money, which was 1151. Mr. Watkins and Mr. Ball then delivered me the names of several subscribers, who offered to pay, some four, or six, some ten shillings a year towards the re-payment of the purchase-money, and the putting the buildings into repair. This amounted one year to near 2001., the second to about 1407., and so the last. 91. The United Society begun a little after, whose weekly contribution (chiefly for the poor) is received and expended by the stewards, and comes not into my hands at all. But there is also a quarterly subscription of many of the society, which is nearly equal to that above mentioned. 92. The uses to which these subscriptions have been hitherto applied, are, 1st, The payment of that 115l.; 2dly, The repairing (I might almost say rebuilding) that vast, uncouth heap of ruins at the Foundry; 3dly, The building galleries both for men and women; 4thly, The enlarging the society room to near thrice its first extent. All taxes and occasional expenses are likewise defrayed out of this fund. And it has been hitherto so far from yielding any overplus, that it has never sufficed for these purposes yet. So far from it, that I am still in debt on these accounts near 3001. So much have I hitherto gained by preaching the gospel! Besides a debt of 150l. still remaining on account of the schools built at Bristol; and another of above 2001. on account of that new building at Newcastle. I desire any reasonable man would now sit down and lay these things together, and let him see, whether, allowing me a grain of common sense, (if not of common honesty,) he can possibly conceive, that a view of gain would induce me to act in this manner. 93. You can never reconcile it with any degree of common sense, that a man who wants nothing, who has already all the necessaries, all the conveniences, nay, and many of the superfluitics of life, and these not only independent of any one, but less liable to contingencies than even a gentleman's freehold estate ;-that such an one should calmly and deliberately throw up his ease, most of his friends, his reputation, and that way of life which of all others is most agreeable both to his natural temper and education; that he should toil day and night, spend all his time and strength, knowingly destroy a firm constitution, and hasten into weakness, pain, diseases, death,to gain a debt of six or seven hundred pounds! 94. But supposing the balance on the other side, let me ask you one plain question. For what gain (setting conscience aside) will you be obliged to act thus? To live exactly as I do? For what price will you preach (and that with all your might, not in an easy, indolent, fashionable way) eighteen or nineteen times every week? And this throughout the year? What shall I give you, to travel sevete or eight hundred miles, in all weathers, every two or three months? For what salary will you abstain from all other diversions, than the doing good, and the praising God? I am mistaken if you would not prefer strangling to such a life, even with thousands of gold and silver. 39 95. And what is the comfort you have found out for me in these circumstances? Why, that "I shall not die a beggar." So now I am supposed to be heaping up riches, "that I may leave them behind me." Leave them behind me! For whom? My wife and children? Who are they? They are yet unborn. Unless you mean the children of faith whom God hath given me. But my heavenly Father feedeth them. Indeed if I lay up riches at all, it must be to leave them behind me; seeing my fellowship is a provision for life. But I cannot understand this. What comfort would it be to my soul, now launched into eternity, that I had left behind me gold as the dust, and silver as the sand of the sea? Will it follow me over the great gulf? Or can I go back to it? Thou, that liftest up thy eyes in hell, what do thy riches profit thee now? Will all thou once hadst under the sun, gain thee a drop of water to cool thy tongue? O the comfort of riches left behind, to one who is tormented in that flame !-You put me in mind of those celebrated lines, (which I once exceedingly admired) addressed by way of consolation to the soul of a poo self-murderer : "Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest, 96. I will now simply tell you my sense of these matters, whether you will hear, or whether you will forbear. Food and raiment I have; such food as I choose to eat, and such raiment as I choose to put on. I have a place where to lay my head. I have what is needful for life and godliness. And I apprehend this is all the world can afford. The kings of the earth can give me no more. For, as to gold and silver, I count it dung and dross: I trample it under my feet. I (yet not I, but by the grace of God that is in me) esteem it just as mire in the streets. I desire it not; I seek it not: I only fear, lest any of it should cleave to me, and I should not be able to shake it off, before my spirit returns to God. It must indeed pass through my hands; but I will take care (God being my helper) that the mammon of unrighteousness shall only pass through; it shall not rest there. None of the accursed thing shall be found in my tents, when the Lord calleth me hence. And hear ye this, all you who have discovered the treasures which I am to leave behind me: if I leave behind me ten pounds (above my debts and the little arrears of my fellowship) you and all mankind bear witness against me, that I lived and died a thief and a robber. 97. Before I conclude, I cannot but entreat you who know God, to review the whole matter from the foundation. Call to mind what |