will always give me unspeakable satisfaction, and I hope you will do me the justice to believe that I am, with the most cordial wishes for the prosperity of you and yours, in which Mrs. Baker and my sons join most heartily,

Dear Sir,

Your most faithful and most affectionate humble Servant,

H. BAKER.

FROM THE BISHOP OF LONDON.*

REV SIR, Temple, March 24, 1750. It was with great pleasure and satisfaction that I received and read your very excellent and seasonable sermon, published upon the occasion of the late earthquakes. I pray God it may have a due influence upon the minds of all who read it; and I wish all would read and consider it.

Though I am a stranger to your person, yet I am not so to your character and abilities, which I have been made acquainted with by many, and particularly by my worthy friend Dr. Grey.

Whatever points of difference there are between us, yet I trust that we are united in a hearty zeal for spreading the knowledge of the gospel, and for reforming the lives and manners of the people according to it. I have lived long enough to know by experience the truth of what we are taught, “That there is no other name by which we may be saved, but the name of Christ only." I have seen the true spirit, and the comfortable hopes of religion lost in the abundance of speculation, and the vain pretences of setting up natural religion in opposition to revelation; and there will be little hope of a reformation, till we are

* Dr. Sherlock.

humble enough to be willing to know Christ and him crucified.

In this necessary and fundamental point I am fully persuaded we do not disagree; and I earnestly beg of God to bless our united endeavours to make his ways known. Recommending you and your Christian labours to his gracious protection, I am, Sir, with great truth,

Your affectionate and humble Servant,

THOMAS LONDON.

DEAR SIR,

FROM NATHANIEL NEAL, ESQ.

Million Bank, April 11, 1750.

THE interposing between yourself and Dr. Jennings, in relation to Dr. Watts's MSS. is to me by no means an agreeable undertaking; but if he requests it (and if he does not it can answer no purpose) I shall be ready to do what I am able for the honour of the MSS. as well as to prevent a misunderstanding between the Doctor and you.

Allow me to say that I am very glad you have found out at last, that many, much talked of amongst the dissenters, are poor creatures; and though I am satisfied if you judgė as right in the application of that general observation to individuals, as you do in making it, that it will set me and many other of your friends some degrees lower in your esteem with regrad to our talents; yet if it does not affect us in the professions we make of esteem for you, I shall greatly rejoice, in that it will make you more moderate in the opinions you take up of men, and in the compliments which, in consequence thereof, you pay them, and which, in some instances, I fear you have found cause to retract. As to the principles you act upon, I am as fully per

suaded of their goodness as any man living; but as it is generally known you have within the last two or three years increased your acquaintance with some of the most eminent members of the establishment, let not your worst enemy have a pretence for saying that you are paying court to them, in hopes of increasing their esteem of you, and your own interest amongst them; for, although I think that a charming collect which you have selected, yet I am free to say the whole liturgy together is so very exceptionable, that one ought to be cautious in paying a compliment to any part of it, unless one was professedly considering which was to be commended and which to be censured. Excuse this hasty line, and believe me to be, in bonds of the most inviolable friendship,

Dear Sir, ever yours,

NATH. NEAL.

FROM NATHANIEL NEAL, ESQ.

DEAR SIR, Million Bank, May 10, 1750. I SHOULD not venture with so much freedom to apprize you of the censures that have been cast on you, if I did not think they were undeserved. I wish I knew my own intentions and views to be as uniformly right and benevolent as I firmly believe yours to be. Yet, when a great character is exhibited to view, upon the whole deserving wonder as well as applause, an inconsiderable looker on may discern a defect, and make a remark that may be worthy attention and regard; and I sometimes flatter myself, that if being your adviser does not make me vain, nothing that is likely to fall to my lot will.

The reading your Expositor in manuscript, before it goes to the press, will afford me both so much improvement

and entertainment, that, for my own sake, I should desire it if I have time. But my conceptions are really so slow, that, in order to do any thing well, I must not undertake too much. And I sometimes fear that, by attempting things out of my own sphere, I am in no small danger of being justly despised.

You make me smile when you say that you think "the dissenters too stiff." I am afraid we are all so, when we are thwarting any thing besides our own follies, passions, and vices; there we are too apt to be pliable, and every where else stiff. We can bear with no follies but our own! and those we magnify into virtues. He that is very wise for, or against modes, and rites, and forms, and speculations, must be very stiff, or he will make no figure; and he that knows the difficulty of attaining true wisdom and real goodness of heart will have little leisure to attend to other people's follies, that he may get time to subdue his own. There is so little hope of curing these mad sailors, that the most we can attempt is to steer clear of them.

The chaplain's post which I want to fill I shall be extremely cautious of recommending to, for it is a difficult one, and many a youth, who might make a very reputable and honourable figure in a congregation, might make a contemptible one there. And it is a misfortune to our interest, that our ministers are so generally taken out of the lower families, where they have had neither instruction nor example of any degree of polite behaviour, are then carried through a course of studies on the foot of a charitable exhibition, which will not allow of the least expense or opportunity for improving in a genteel deportment, and are immediately forced into the world, decked in a low bred familiarity and confidence, or a sheepish awkward manner, which is as ridiculous, as the former is offensive. Perhaps I speak in terms too strong concerning these external qualifications; but you, who know the world as

well as the Scriptures, also know the truth of that observation, That man looketh only at the outward appearance, &c. and, perhaps, it may suggest to you some expedient for its gradual correction.

But I forget the number that receive their intellectual food from your hands, whilst I thus long detain you. Yet, before I conclude, I must inquire whether you and Dr. Jennings esteem the profit of Dr. Watts's manuscripts a sufficient recompense for the trouble you may have in preparing any of them for the press, because I am called on to settle the account of his estate by his residuary legatees, which if I do, it will prevent my making you and him any further acknowledgment. Yet I have no other reason, nor any inclination to delay it. I have sold Dr. Watts's copies to Mr. Waugh, for six hundred pounds. I have seen Mr. Bradbury's sermon just published; the nonsense and buffoonery of which would make one laugh if his impious insults over the pious dead did not make one tremble. I am perfectly yours, dear Sir,

In the sincerest esteem, and warmest affection,

NATH. NEAL.

FROM THE REV. JOHN BARKER.

Walthamstow, June 5, 1750.

DEAR AND REV. SIR,

You may be more sure of my esteem and affection than of most things in this world of which you have not an absolute infallible certainty; nor is it easy for you to conceive how much joy I reap from your labours in the church, and usefulness in the world; and with this preface I introduce the following account of what is now under consideration at London:

In April last I made a motion at our'synod for an altera