fact, that he must have been very affiduous in his ftudies. When he was about entering the miniftry, or had not long entered upon it, if I remember right, he was judged to be in a deep and irrecoverable confumption. Finding himself upon the borders of the grave, and without any hopes of recovery, he determined to spend the little remains of an almoft exhaufted life, as he apprehended it, in endeavouring to advance his mafter's glory in the good of fouls. Accordingly he removed from the place where he was to another about an hundred miles diftance, that was then in want of a minifter. Here he laboured in feafon and out of feafon; and, as he told me, preached in the day, and had his hectic fever by night, and that to fuch a degree as to be fometimes delirious, and to ftand in need of perfons to fit up with him. Here GOD gave him fome glorious firft-fruits of his ministry, for two inftances of the converfion of two gentlemen he related to me were very remarkable, and he had the fatisfaction, as he informed me, to find in the after-accounts of them, that there was good reason to believe that they were faints indeed their goodness being by no means "like "the grass upon the houfe tops, which withers afore "it grows up, and with which the mower filleth not “his hand,” Pfal. cxxix. 6, 7, but yielding the fruits meet for repentance in an holy and well-ordered converfation.

Afterwards he fettled in Virginia, a colony where profaneness and immorality called aloud for his facred labours. His patience and perfeverance, his magna nimity and piety, together with his powerful and evangelical miniftrations, were not without fuccefs. The wilderness and the folitary places, in the course of his ftay there, bloomed and bloffomed before him. His tract of preaching, if I remember right, for fome time was not less than fixty miles, and by what I have learnt, though not from himself, he had but little of this world's goods to repay his zealous and indefatigable labours; but his reward, as he well knew, was in

Heaven; and he felt, I doubt not, the animated joy that every Negro flave, which under his miniftrations became the LORD's freeman, would furnish an additional jewel to his eternal crown.

Upon the decease of that excellent man the Rev. Mr. Jonathan Edwards, Prefident of the college of Naffau-Hall, in New-Jersey, Mr. Davies writes me word, that Mr. Lockwood, in New-England, a gentleman of worthy character, was chofen to fill up the vacancy. "I have not yet heard, fays Mr. Davies, whe"ther he has accepted the place. The Trustees were "divided between him, another gentleman, and my"felf, but I happily escaped." But fo it was ordered, by Mr. Lockwood's not accepting the invitation, that Mr. Davies was afterwards elected President of the college; and what concern, and indeed what confternation this choice gave him, his letters to me amply testify; and I could particularly relate to you what views he had of things, and what fteps he took to determine what was his duty. At laft he accepted the call to his important office of prefiding in the college; and tells me in a letter, dated June 6, 1759, "That the evi"dence of his duty was fo plain, that even his fceptical "mind was fatisfied; and that his people faw the hand "of providence in it, and dared not to oppose."

Here he was fettled for about eighteen months; and as he could exercise his ministry as well as prefide over the college, great things might have been expected from that rare and remarkable union there was in him of what was great and good; and with pleasure I have received the information from his friends how well he fupported and adorned his character, and what high expectations were formed as to the benefit and bleffing he was likely to prove to that feminary of religion and learning. "His whole foul (fays the letter that gives "the news of his death) was engaged for the good of "the youth under his care." And again, "Naffau"Hall in tears, difconfolate, and refufing to be com"forted."

But,

But, alas! in the midst of his days, (little more than thirty-fix years of age) he was called away from this but opening scene of large and extraordinary usefulness to the invifible world, the world of glory and blessednefs, never to fojourn in mortal clay, or to irradiate and blefs the church militant more. He is dead, he is departed-America in groans proclaims her inexpreffible lofs, and we in Great-Britain fhare the distress, and echo groan for groan.

Thus ended the days on earth of this truly great and good man; having in his little circle of life fhed more beams, and done more fervice than many a languid and lefs illuminated foul, even in a public fphere, in the revolution of fixty or fourfcore years.

Truly great and good I may ftile him without the fufpicion of flattery, and without the flight of hyperbole. Let me call to your remembrance, as proofs of what I fay, the excellent difcourfes he has delivered in this pulpil, and the feveral Sermons of his which have been published, ftrong in manly fenfe, loaden with full ideas, rich with evangelical truth, and animated with the most facred fervor for the good of fouls. And to these evidences of the admirable fpirit that dwelt in him, let me add a few paragraphs from the many letters with which, in the courfe of about nine years correfpondence, he has favoured me.

Speaking in one of his letters concerning his children, he fays, "I am folicitous for them when I con"fider what a contagious world they have entered into, "and the innate infection of their natures. There is "nothing that can wound a parent's heart fo deep, as "the thought that he should bring up children to dif"honour his GOD here, and be miferable hereafter. I beg your prayers for mine, and you may expect a re"taliation in the fame kind."

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In another letter he fays, "We have now three fons "and two daughters; whofe young minds as they open "I am endeavouring to cultivate with my own hand, "unwilling to truft them to a stranger; and I find the

"bufinefs

"bufinefs of education much more difficult than I expected. My dear little creatures fob and drop a tear "now and then under my inftructions, but I am not fo happy as to fee them under deep and lasting impref"fions of religion; and this is the greatest grief they "afford me. Grace cannot be communicated by na"tural descent, and, if it could, they would receive "but little from me. I earnestly beg your prayers for

"them."

In another letter, "I defire seriously to devote to "GOD and my dear country, all the labours of my “head, my heart, my hand, and pen; and if he pleases "to blefs any of them I hope I fhall be thankful, and "wonder at his condefcending grace.-Oh! my dear "brother, could we spend and be spent all our lives in "painful, difinterested, indefatigable service for GOD "and the world, how ferene and bright would it ren"der the swift approaching eve of life! I am labouring "to do a little to fave my country, and, which is of "much more confequence, to fave fouls-from death "-from that tremendous kind of death, which a foul " can die. I have but little fuccefs of late, but blessed "be GOD, it furpaffes my expectation, and much more. "my my defert. Some of Some of my brethren labour to better "purpose. The pleasure of the LORD profpers in their "hands."

..

Another epistle tells me, "As for myself, I am just ftriving not to live in vain. I entered the miniftry "with fuch a fense of my unfitness for it, that I had "no fanguine expectations of fuccefs. And a condefcending GOD (O, how condefcending!) has made

me much more serviceable than I could hope. But, "alas! my brother, I have but little, very little true "religion. My advancements in holiness are extreme

ly fmall: I feel what I confefs, and am fure it is true, "and not the rant of exceffive or affected humility. "It is an eafy thing to make a noife in the world, to "flourish and harangue, to dazzle the crowd, and Jet "them all agape, but deeply to imbibe the spirit of "christianity,

christianity, to maintain a fecret walk with GOD, to "be holy as he is holy, this is the labour, this the work. "I beg the affiftance of your prayers in fo grand and important an enterprize.-The difficulty of the mi"nifterial work feems to grow upon my hands. Perhaps once in three or four months I preach in fome "measure as I could wifh; that is, I preach as in the fight of GOD, and as if I were to step from the pulpit to the fupreme tribunal. I feel my fubject. 1 "melt into tears, or I fhudder with horror, when I "denounce the terrors of the LORD. I glow, I foar "in facred extafies, when the love of JESUS is my "theme, and, as Mr. Baxter was wont to exprefs it, "in lines more ftriking to me than all the fine poetry " in the world,

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"I preach as if I ne'er fhould preach again;
"And as a dying man to dying men.

"But, alas! my spirits foon flag, my devotions lan-
guish, and my zeal cools. It is really an afflictive
thought that I ferve fo good a Master with so much
"inconftancy; but fo it is, and my foul mourns upon
"that account.'
""

In another letter he fays, "I am labouring to do a "little good in the world But, alas! I find I am of "little ufe or importance. I have many defects, but "none gives me fo much pain and mortification as my "flow progress in perfonal holiness. This is the grand qualification of the office we fuftain, as well as for "that heaven we hope for, and I am shocked at myself "when I fee how little I have of it."

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In another of his letters he acquaints me, "That he "indeed feels an union of hearts which cannot bear "without pain the intervention of the huge Atlantic, "nor even the absence of a week. But our condefcending LORD, adds he, calls his minifters Stars, "and he knows beft in what part of the firmament of "the church to fix them: and (O the delightful "thought!) they can never be out of the reach of his "beams, though they fhine in different hemispheres