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and Jarvis of Newark, were present at his ordination.

In the exercise of the pastoral office, Mr Fletcher manifested the tenderness of a father, for many years watching over the interests of this church with anxious solicitude. He was well acquainted with the circumstances of all the members; and his unremitting exertions to promote their temporal and spiritual advantage, produced a strong attachment to his person and ministry. He studiously aimed to promote fervent love among the members of the church; and regularly met the serious young people of the congregation in the vestry, for the purpose of free conversation on religious topics, as well as to introduce them to such society as he hoped might be useful to them. By this conduct he obtained the affections of his hearers; and though his preaching was simple and unadorned, he had a very attentive audience, to whom his humble and faithful labours were highly beneficial. Several additions were made to the church, and Christian love abounded. It may indeed

be doubted whether there ever were such encouraging prospects, as at the very period when the affectionate pastor of the little flock at Burton was laid aside from his work. This afflictive event took

place on Lord's-day, February 16, 1820; when, after preaching and administering the Lord's-supper, he was unable to meet his friends in the evening, and never afterwards resumed his work among them.

that he believed his time was at hand, quoting those lines of Dr. Watts:

"Jesus can make a dying bed

Feel soft as downy pillows are," Then, lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said with much emphasis, "Yes, he can." Afterwards he said, all the earth do right? He must, "Well; shall not God the Judge of he will do right. Though I die, I shall live again." In these affecting circumstances, he urged on all who visited him, the great necessity of repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. On the Independent minister, Mr. Clark, saying to him, Brother, God is good," he earnestly replied, "Yes, he is gracious too; he is gracious too." At another time, when repeating those well-known lines:

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66

Though painful at present,
'Twill cease before long;"

A friend added,

"And then O how pleasant

The conqueror's song!"

"Yes, (replied he,) that's it."

his recollection failed him; and beFor a few days before his death, ing overpowered with disease, he was incapable of saying any thing on the state of his mind. But on the 13th of April he so far recovered, as to unite in singing the 54th Hymn in the 2d Book, beginning,

"My God, the spring of all my joys.”.

On the 14th, he was much convulsed. He once exclaimed, with great earnestness, "Impossible, impossible, that the soul should be lost, being firm on the rock." After this the fits returned more frequently. When coming out of one, he said, "I am yet alive," which was the last sentence he was heard to articulate; and at twenty-five minutes past three, A. M. he fell asleep in Jesus.

For some time previous his health had appeared in a declining state. In a letter which he wrote to his daughter, he remarks, that she was then without a mother; and that he sometimes feared, from what he felt, that she would soon be without a father too. He then admonished her to seek to God to be her father against such a day. He did not appear, however, to apprehend the Mr. Fletcher was twice married, affecting termination of his illness, and enjoyed much domestic happiuntil the 6th of April, when, withness in the connexions he formed. sweet composure of mind, he said His first wife died December 28, he believed himself to be a dying 1806, leaving three children, one On the next day, while la- of whom soon followed its mother to bouring under much pain, he said to the grave. He was married again one of the members of the church, | in the early part of 1808, and lost

man.

his second wife in July, 1819, so that by his death his four children were left without either father or mother. May we not hope, however, that the Lord will take them up?

The last four days were the most painful of her affliction. She many times in a day begged her father to pray for her, that the Lord would give her faith and patience, and prayed herself to the same effect. She would cry out, "How long! how long! When will it be over? Lord Jesus have mercy on me a poor sinner; prepare me for thyself." After her father had been praying with her, she would say, "That is what I want."

In the last few days of her illness, she frequently prayed to the Lord Jesus for mercy, faith, patience, and preparation for death; and for her parents, brothers, sisters, and friends.

Observing an aged friend come in, she said, "Soon shall I see dear Mr. P. come to heaven." She

Though in the early part of his ministry he felt the truth of the proverb, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country; yet by his humble, prudent, and amiable deportment, he so far overcame this prejudice, that his preaching was well attended; and at his death, Churchmen, Dissenters, and Methodists united in paying the most marked respect to his memory, evincing that the most disadvantageous circumstances shall not prevent the fulfilment of the Divine declaration, "Them that honour me, I will honour." Such was Thomas Fletcher, the plain, faithful, and af-wanted all to pray for her, and was fectionate pastor of the church at Burton-upon-Trent: and though he is now taken from the church on earth, it is pleasing to call up to our recollection his dying words, "I am yet alive." Yes, in the seals of his ministry he still lives on earth; and now that he has ceased from his labours, he lives in heaven, where, with ineffable delight, he waits to Behold his works follow him into the blissful mansions of eternal day.

ANN SCROXTON.

ANN SCROXTON, daughter of the Rev. John Scroxton of Bromsgrove, was born February 13, 1808. Previously to her affliction, (a palpitation of the heart, which began in January, 1817, and terminated in a decline,) she was lovely in her person, and mild in her manners. She was fearful of a falsehood, attached to the house of God, and given to prayer; and these amiable qualities brightened during her illness. It was affecting to see her love to the house of God; for when her strength failed, so that she could not walk, she went with the assistance of two crutches; and when she could no longer walk with them, she often cried to be carried thither, and received that indulgence as long as she could sit when there.

afraid to neglect prayer, lest thereby she should offend the Lord. She loved good books; and was mucli pleased with reading the lives of good children, and the obituary part of the Baptist Magazine. These books she has often read till nature seemed exhausted, and they dropped from her hands. Books of amusement were sometimes sent her; but her reply generally was, "These are not what I want."

It was a great trial to her to leave her parents: she longed to take them with her. Her affectionate expressions and looks can never be forgotten; but towards the last she was enabled to commit them, and her brothers and sisters, to the Lord, begging they would not grieve for her, but would pray "that the Lord would take her to himself."

During her long illness, she often read and sung many suitable hymus with great interest, and begged her parents to sing, even in the middle of the night, when their hearts were overwhelmed with grief. A little before her departure, she said to her mother, "You often told me my affliction would be for my good: I did not then think so; but now I see it."

On the 14th of September, after bidding her friends farewell with looks of the most ardent affection, she endured a few sharp struggles and sunk into the arms o dea

On the 24th, a funeral sermon was preached to a crowded audience, from Ezekiel xxiv. 14, "Son of man, behold, I take away the desire of thine eyes with a stroke."

RECENT DEATH.

DIED, at Arlingham, near Gloucester, on Tuesday the 24th of October, 1820, Mrs. Hannah Carter Rippon, wife of the Rev. T. Rippon, late of Swansea; fourth daughter of the late Mr. Henry Carter, of the above place; and nearly six years a truly pious and exemplary member of the Baptist Church in Broad Mead, Bristol.

mily, and to act an ineffably more sublime and ennobling part in the presence of her adorable Redeemer. She was long and very heavily afflicted, her disease being pulmonary; but she uniformly numbered her afflictions with the most blessed and important of her Heavenly Father's visitations; and during the whole of her illness, and especially as the dissolution of her lovely body approached, her conversations and her conduct produced the most powerful and pleasing testimony to those who were with her constantly or occasionally, of the reality, the efficacy, and the value, of the divine religion of Jesus Christ.

The interesting history of her life and death, necessarily known to but few, presents a subject for a rather full memoir, by the compilation of which her bereaved and sorrowing husband hopes to beguile his grief, and to interest and benefit her friends; and an epitome of which will, it is hoped, be prepared for the columns of this work.

The variety and superior order of her mental endowments, natural and acquired; and her unaffected, habitual, elevated, and attractive piety; procured her the esteem and respect of all who knew her, and qualified her most effectually to fill and highly to adorn the station she occupied, and rendered her the pat1ern and the ornament of her sex. Her rare virtues, all derived from the original source of moral beauty and excellence, excited in her friends the most cheering hopes of her permanent and extensive usefulness on carth; and the heart rending disappointment is accom- "The Lord reigneth; let the panied by the consoling and firm earth rejoice; let the multitude of the persuasion, that her redeemed and isles be glad thereof. Clouds and purified spirit is gone to embellish darkness are round about him ; righthe society, and heighten and parti- teousness and judgment are the hacipate the joys, of the celestial fa-bitation of his throne." T. R.

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She was born December 4, 1792; married May 15, 1819; and became the joyful mother of a most lovely and healthful daughter March 29, 1820. On July 6th, after three days' illness, this little augel preceded her weeping mother to the realms of eternal purity and bliss.

Review.

On Protestant Nonconformity. By Josiah Conder. 8vo. Bds. 2 Vols. 617 Pages. 14s.

THAT it is the duty of every man to worship God, is a position few will have the folly or hardihood to deny. This is not an obligation imposed upon us by the stern mandate of arbitrary authority, but one that necessarily arises out of the acknow

ledgment of his being, the perfec tion of his moral character, and the relation we sustain to him as the offspring of his hand, and pensioners upon his bounty. If it had not been expressly enjoined upon us by a revelation from himself, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve, the duty would still have been imperative, to wor

ship and bow down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker; for we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

Now if it be conceded that every man is under an indispensable obligation to worship his Creator, his right freely to perform this duty according to the dictates of his own conscience, will necessarily follow, unless it can be shown that meu have no right to perform an acknowledged duty, or that a conscientious discharge of duty is not essential to its moral character. No devotional service, it ought never to be forgotten, can be acceptable to God, unless it be a voluntary and spiritual exercise. Bodily exercise profiteth little. God is a spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth. He requires the unreserved homage of the heart. And whatever forms or fervency our devotions may assume, if they be not the genuine expression of internal feeling, in vain do we address them to an Omniscient Being: instead of securing his benediction, they will meet with his reproach. This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Bring no more vain oblations; your new moons and your solemn assemblies I cannot away with,

Neither will it suffice for the purposes of faith, that we subscribe to any religious formula, however scriptural the articles contained in it, unless we obey from the heart that form of doctrine which is delivered unto us. Faith does not consist in a simple apprehension of the truth, but in a sense of its vital energy, and supreme importance. It is not an intellectual attainment, but an operative principle. It is the gift of God. Its implantation in man is the work of that divine Agent, to whom the recesses of the mind are alone accessible. The enlightening and sanctifying influences of this celestial Visitant, constitute a prominent feature of that system of mercy which infinite Wisdom has devised to meet the exigencies of our fallen nature. Hence it is that in scripture, the commencement, progress, and consummation of true religion in the soul, are uniformly ascribed

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Christianity, on account of its spiri tual nature, can in no sense be made visible, and the profession of it, discon nected with the religious principle, is altogether worthless: it is not obedience any kind, but an aggravation of delinquency." P. 21.

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nature; every thing, therefore, in order Every thing in religion is of a moral to possess the character of religion, must be uncompelled. Nothing short of an obedience purely voluntary and spiritual, can be acceptable to the great Object of religious fear, and the produc tion of this principle in the heart is the design of Christianity. If this obedience could be produced in any other way, it would be of no value. Secular in

ducements may bias the mind to the side of truth, may dispose a man to be

lieve on the strength of a less degree of

evidence than would otherwise have been sufficient to satisfy the pride of his understanding; but if his belief, or his obedience, partakes of no bigher character than that of an action thus involuntary as respects the understanding, or impure as respects the motive, it is not religion; the ends of the Divine Government are not fulfilled in the character of that individual." Page 71.

No means employed to propagate the gospel are lawful, or will prove efficient, but those which its Author has appointed. Every attempt to impose upon mankind a form of worship, or a system of faith, by the intervention of secular power, betrays a melancholy ignorance of the design and essential character of Christianity. Religion, if it has any power, operates upon the consciences of men. It places before the mind the invisible realities of an eternal world;—and as human sanc tions can add nothing to the magui tude or solemnity of these objects,-~ neither can they supply any addi tional evidence as to their reality, or invigorate that principle of faith, by

which alone they can be apprebended. It is not in the nature of pontifical decrees, or parliamentary enactments, to supply laws to the conscience, or light to the understanding, or impulse to the affections, or motive to the will, at least none but what would destroy the religious purity of the action it impelled. The force of truth is the only power, the cords of love the only fetters, Christianity employs; and had not the Spirit of Intolerance been as blind as it is cruel, it must have perceived the inadequacy of any other in such a service. The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit;-Whose love also is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

Sin has extinguished in the soul that moral sense of the divine excellence which it once enjoyed; and enveloped its spiritual perceptions in darkness; and to expect to meet these evils by any political expedient, betrays not less egregious folly, than to expect to rekindle the spark of vitality in the dead, or scatter the shades of midnight, by physical force. Vain is it in man,whether he be called Prince or Pontiff, to seek to extend his empire over the intellectual and moral worlds. Conscience is the exclusive domain of that Being to whom alone it belongeth to quicken whomsoever he will; and who, having commanded the light to shine out of darkness, can shine into the heart, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Religion does not even require to lean upon the arm of secular power, to assist its progress through the earth. It is true, it has hostilities to encounter, but it has energies of its own. Its weapons are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strong holds. My kingdom, said the Redeemer, is not of this world, else would my servants fight. Every attempt to blend the church and the world is an attempt to effect an unnatural alliance. The friendship of the world is enmity with God. Between the two there can be no coalescence, for there is no affinity. The genius of Christianity, and the character of its Founder, alike for

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bid the union. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. It is si lent in its progress, and unostentatious in its character; and flourishes most, remote from the noise and tumult of secular interests.

When Christian Emperors, heedless of its native simplicity, bavé sought to render the gospel more imposing, by attaching to it the empty and artificial distinctions of worldly greatness, they have only impeded the cause they professed to accelerate; for religion has always declined in purity, just in proportion as it has advanced in splendour. It has for ages been the most frightful anomaly of the moral world, that he who was born in a stable, who expired upon a cross, and who, during bis residence upon earth, had not where to lay his head, should be represented by a train of followers, seizing with rapacity upon the very things which he despised, and who, instead of being clothed with his humility, are solicitous only to invest themselves with the insignia of secular grandeur. Well was the voice of warning at length heard in reference to such a church, Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

The Author's object in the work before us is," to redeem the subject of which it treats, from the disadvantages of fugitive controversy; and to exhibit the principles of Nonconformity, as a coherent system of religious and political truth; and in this object we think he has well succceded. He takes an ample view of his subject, and, in his method of discussing it, discovers the happy union of a mild temper and a vigorous understanding.

His conviction of the truth and

importance of the cause he advocates, appears to be the result of extensive reading, patient research, and matured reflection. His reasoning is dispassionate and clear; and if prejudice be not subdued by the cogency of his arguments, it will not be inflamed by the bitterness of his spirit. He does not feel it necessary in the defence of truth to have recourse to invective, but has well fortified his positions by the

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