them, and pray for his merciful regards to us. If the excellent of the earth are taken away, and taken away in the midst of their usefulness, and if, in such dispensations of Providence we may hear, as it were, the first alarms of the Almighty anger from his secret place of thunder, let us be the more fervent in our supplications that he would turn away his anger, and not deal with us after our sins, nor reward us according to our iniquities. The more gloomy apprehension, the more apparent danger, the more should we be excited to prayer, lively and importunate prayer. Let us beg of God, and beg the more earnestly, that he would have compassion upon us, and that the tokens of his judgments may proceed no farther, and not continue upon us in a storm of resistless and overwhelming vengeance. And,

(3.) As we know not but the deaths of the excellent of the earth, in the midst of their days and usefulness, may be the forerunners of some judgments from God at the door, let us prepare to meet our God if he should come out against us in the way of his judgments. Do we hear the sound of his anger, and are there some awful flashes, though at present at a distance, that seem to signify an approaching tempest, then let us prepare to meet our God. Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. Amos iv. 12. Let us gird our christian armour close about us. Let us strengthen ourselves in our God, and abound in the exercises of a dependence upon him, whose grace only is sufficient for us, and whose strength alone can be perfected in our weakness. 2 Cor. xii.

9.

Let us be in readiness to follow our God at his call, either through the waters or fires of affliction, being as willing magnanimously to suffer for him as we are cheerfully to serve him, and not being at all shaken in mind or spirit by the most grievous calamities and trials of life; having an inviolable connexion with and a sure interest in him “who will make all things work together for our good,” Rom. viii. 28, and who has promised us a better life and a better world, after we have suffered a while, even an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away, I Peter i. 4. and an admission into his palace and presence, where there is fulness of joy, and a place at his right hand, where are pleasures forevermore. Psalm xvi. 11.

(4.) By the deaths of the excellent of the earth in the flower or prime of their days, and in the midst of their usefulness, let us be excited to exert ourselves more vigorously and constantly to glorify God, and serve our generation, than hitherto we have done. Their removal shews us that we may be removed, and so quickens us to our duty; and their loss, likewise, their loss to the world, should also excite us to duty, since though there is as much work as ever, yet there are fewer labourers to perform it. The more the world is impoverished, the more let us endeavour to enrich it. If an army is reduced of its number, let the officers, the soldiers that remain, not be unwilling to go through double service, and to exert themselves with a double activity and vigour.

(5.) By the removal of the excellent of the earth in the flower or prime of their days, and in the height of their usefulness, we are sure that we have lost by their departure from our world one tie to earth, and gained one attachment more to heaven. The excellent of the earth are taken away; our friends, our companions with whom we took sweet counsel. In every such instance one or more bond to earth and time is consequently broken. We are in one more degree detached from the charms of the creature, and hereby may come nearer, if we rightly improve the providence, to a deliverance from this world, that may have had too fast an hold of our hopes and affections. Had our pious and excellent friends stayed behind us, the thought of parting from them, though but for a time, might have thrown a gloom upon our expiring moments, and sharpened the sting of death. But they are gone, and life has lost by the departure of each of them one of its strongest engagements. And as we have dropt one tie to earth by their removal, so we have gained one more argument for heaven. Heaven lets down one more attractive, and a most sweet and powerful attractive it is, to draw up our hearts and hopes to it; heaven, where our immortal treasure lies, and whither our pious friends are gone. Let us feel the attachment; and the more heaven enlarges its glorious and blessed company of saints made perfect, the more let us look by faith within the veil, and the more ready let us be to follow our brethren that have died in Christ to the world of glory, that we may share with them in their eternal blessedness, and in the joys of an intimate, perfect, and indissoluble friendship.

(6.) And lastly, Let the removal of the excellent of the earth, in the flower or prime of their days, and in the meridian of their usefulness, quicken us to importunate and incessant prayer that God would pour out his Spirit upon such of his servants as remain, and upon our rising ministry, and rising generation. The residue of the spirit is with God, and it is a residue copious enough to qualify and consecrate such as survive, or such as are entering into life, and service, with as eminent gifts and as eminent graces as those who are gone before us. O for the spirit of the ascending Elijahs, to rest upon our young Elishas! The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few; let us earnestly and incessantly beseech the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. Matt. ix. 37, 38. O that God would kindle by his almighty breath, and a rich unction from himself, bright and burning lamps, to fill up the places of those which are removed from his sanctuary below, to shine in his temple above! Let the death of such an eminent servant of Christ as Mr. Davies, in the prime of his age, and in the height of his usefulness, excite us to importunate and abundant prayer that God would be pleased, in compassion to our world, to raise up like instruments of his glory, both in our land and wherever his name is known, or there are any opportunities to preach his gospel

for the descent of a double portion of the spirit upon sur

viving ministers, and upon all other nurseries of religion and learning at home and abroad! "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" He lives, he is still with us, though Elijah is gone. To him therefore let us look, to him let us pray with holy importunity and zeal, that the time, even the set time to favour his Zion may come. Let but the Lord "give the word, and pour out of his Spirit, and great shall be the number of those that publish it." Ps. Ixviii. 11. "Let him but clothe his priests with salvation, and his people shall shout aloud for joy." Ps. cxxxii. 16.

And thus have I endeavoured, from various considerations, to resolve this problem in providence, "Why the excellent of the earth should be taken away in the flower or prime of their age, and from the most enlarged spheres of usefulness, or what instruction and improvement we may gather from such seemingly unkind and undesirable dispensations." I pretend not to assign

all the reasons of such a conduct in Deity, in that "God, who works all things after the counsel of his own will," but yet possibly I may have assigned some, and some such as may convince us that even these afflictive, and perhaps frequently supposed impenetrable proceedings, are not without evident traces of the divine wisdom, righteousness, and mercy upon them to a duly observing eye, so that we may not only as the voice of faith, but as the confession of experience say, I know, O Lord, that thy judg ments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me. Psalm cxix. 75.

I shall only add, that whether we can or cannot investigate the motives in the counsels of a holy, wise, and merciful God, why such providences should take place as the removal of the excellent of the earth in the flower or prime of their days, and in the height of their usefulness; yet two things methinks are indispensable duties upon us in such dispensations, congratulation and submission-congratulation that our pious friends are gone to a better world; for as one says, "Was not self-love too predominant, and our faith of invisible realities too weak, we should rejoice at a pious relative or friend's admission into the society of the blessed. We congratulate them on some petty advantage, gained in this low state of being, and we mourn their advancement to the highest degree of honour and felicity, because out of our ken! Such awkward and preposterous creatures are we."

The other duty is submission-submission to the high and holy, though awful will of Heaven. Patience has its hour of exertion and effulgence in the darkness of providence, and the season of our greatest trials. "Father, not my will, but thine be done,” how glorious, how pleasant to hear from a soul under the pressures of the sorest afflictions! I have often thought of the noble speech of the Archbishop of Cambray, who, when he heard the news of the Duke of Burgundy's death, to whom he had been preceptor, and for whom he had the most tender affection, burst into tears, but yet presently said, "If I knew that by the turn of

a straw I could recover him to life, and yet at the same time was assured that it was contrary to the will of God, I would not do it."-Oh for a complacent acquiescence in the divine disposals! Oh for the meek and cheerful surrender of our wills to the will of our God! May this be our experience till faith is turned into sight, and hope and patience shall be swallowed up in boundless and everlasting fruition and joy,

CHARACTER OF THE AUTHOR.

BY THE REV. DAVID BOSTWICK, M. A. OF N. YORK.

"IT will doubtless be acknowledged on all hands, that a decent respect, and a proportionable tribute of honour are due to the memory of those deceased, whom the God of nature and grace had furnished with every valuable endowment, and in his providence had advanced to an extensive sphere of usefulness while they lived: And that this was eminently the case of my reverend friend and brother, no one, who had the happiness of his personal acquaintance, or could rely on the testimony of universal fame, will pretend to dispute.

"I am, however, truly sensible that to exhibit a just portraiture of President Davies, and draw the lineament of his amiable character, is a task too arduous for me, and would require a genius not inferior to his own; but however, the friendship with which he was pleased to honour me, the esteem and veneration I had for him while he lived, with the just sense I still entertain of his uncommon worth, unitedly demand the present exertion of my feeble attempts.

"Mr. Davies was a man of such uncommon furniture, both of gifts and grace, and adorned with such an assemblage of amiable and useful qualities, and each shining with such distinguished lustre, that it is truly hard to say in which he most excelled, and equally hard to mention one valuable or useful accomplishment in which he did not excel. A large and capacious understanding, a solid, unbiassed, and well-regulated judgment, a quick apprehension, a genius truly penetrating, a fruitful invention, an elegant taste, were all happily united in him, and constituted a real greatness of mind, which never failed to strike every observer with an agreeable surprise.

"To this extraordinary natural capacity were added the improvements of a learned and polite education, which, though in the early years of his study it was embarrassed with many peculiar disadvantages, yet by the strength of his genius, and dint of indefatigable application, was cultivated to such a degree of elegance and refinement, that attracted the notice and admiration of all the friends of science wherever he was known.

"And as the powers of his mind were enriched with every valuable human accomplishment, so they were eminently improved by the influence and efficacy of sanctifying grace; in consequence of which they were all sincerely devoted to the service of God, and the good of mankind. In the early stages of his life, it