tioned; and if it please God that I should die in your service, I shall not (seeing no apparent cause of apprehension, such as would justify my flight from my proper station) think it will close unseasonably with respect to myself or the world.

I am, my friends and fellow-christians, your affectionate pastor.*

FROM DISSENTERS OF BRISTOL AND BATH.

REV. SIR, Bristol, Oct. 10, 1791. WE, the undersigned Protestant Dissenters of the cities of Bristol and Bath, being deeply affected by the calamities which have lately befallen you and our brethren in Birmingham, beg leave to express to you the sentiments we feel on the occasion.

Differing as we do in opinion on various points of speculation, we unite in lamenting that a spirit of bigotry, which would have been a disgrace to the darkest ages of Christianity, should have discovered itself in this country at the close of the eighteenth century, and particularly that its fury should have been principally directed against a person whom we presume every other country on the globe would be proud to call its citizen.

Sincerely sympathising with you on the losses you have sustained, losses which we consider as of a public, and not merely of a private nature, we feel some alleviation of our anxiety in the reflection that your life and health are preserved, and that the world, which has received so much improvement from your writings, has now an opportunity of improving by the example which you have exhibited of firmness and magnanimity in the most perilous circumstances.

We fervently hope that these outrages, so disgraceful to the age and country in which we live, will prove the expiring efforts of the spirit of persecution, and that they will finally be productive of good, by exciting a general abhorrence of the principles from which they proceed, by effecting a closer union among Dissenters of different denominations, as engaged in one

* Appeal, p. 180.

common cause, and by diffusing a spirit of inquiry into the nature and foundation, and an ardent zeal for the extension, of religious and civil liberty.

We request you to convey our sentiments of sympathy and attachment to our brethren and your fellow-sufferers in Birmingham, and are, with cordial respect, Rev. Sir, your sincere friends and Protestant Dissenting brethren.*

FROM THE NEW MEETING CONGREGATION.

Birmingham, Oct. 24, 1791.

REV. AND DEAR SIR, YOUR truly interesting letter of the 8th instant has deeply affected us. We are grieved to an excess at the separation it announces, and the apparent necessity of our acquiescing in it, and in your own deliberate opinion that it will be more for the general good to have some other person fill your place here, and that you may be more usefully employed in London or its neighbourhood.

It is with the most painful reluctance that we yield to this truly humiliating conclusion, without importuning you with our entreaties that you would reconsider it, and resume your first purpose of speedily returning to us; but seeing it your deliberate judgment, and knowing the circumstances which surround us, we patiently resign our wills, and, urging you no farther, most devoutly pray our heavenly Father that your prospect of greater usefulness may be realized; that many souls may yet be added to your faithful ministry; that your glorious career of usefulness and benevolence may long be continued ; and that your final removal from it to the realms of light may be serene and happy.

You will permit us to add, that the apprehensions which we have been recently informed some of our wisest and best friends entertain for your safety, should you prosecute your intended return to us, necessarily compel us to make a farther sacrifice of our anxious desires to see you here. We are in

"One hundred and six from Bristol, twenty-two from Bath." MS. from Dr. Estlin's papers.

deed truly sorry to abandon the prospect of your promised return, though it is but for a few weeks; but we should be wanting in affection towards yourself, and in respect to the general good of mankind, were we not to attend to these apprehensions. Indeed, Sir, we speak very sincerely, when we declare that we bear you too sincere and fervent an affection; that we have too great a value for your peace and safety; are far too anxious for your preservation from insult, to consent that you should upon the present occasion expose your person to the hazard of it.

Give us leave, then, with hearts full of respect and affection, to entreat you to forego for the present your purpose of visiting us as our pastor; and let us repeat the assurance conveyed by our first letter, that when the season of perfect tranquillity and safety approaches, we shall most cordially hail your return to us for any period your other important connexions and engagements may admit. In the mean time, anxious to maintain an intercourse with you, and desirous of your aid and concurrence in our choice of a suitable person to assist your worthy coadjutor, the Rev. W. Blythe, we request that if you know of any gentleman whom you think suitable for us, and whom you have reason to expect would wish for such an establishment, you will favour us with your nomination of him. We are, with the liveliest sentiments of gratitude, respect and affection, dear and Rev. Sir, your truly affectionate friends and fellow-christians.*

To REV. J. BRETLAND.†

DEAR SIR, London, Oct. 27, 1791. I WROTE to you before, on the receipt of the Address from the ministers of your district. As their meeting is halfyearly, I did not think they would expect a formal answer. I beg therefore you would give my respects to them individually, and assure them that I feel myself much encouraged by the sense they express of my sufferings, and those of my friends at Birmingham, and especially that, notwithstanding a

*

Appeal, p. 182.

+ Exeter.

Supra, p. 154.

considerable difference in sentiment, they are sensible that, as Dissenters, we have a common cause, and have an equal claim for protection, while we behave as good subjects.

The congregation at Hackney have not yet agreed to invite me, about one-third opposing it, chiefly from apprehension of tumults, and wishing to stand well with their friends in the establishment. I imagine, however, that this difficulty will be overcome, and that I shall receive the invitation after the next Sunday.

66

I have ordered a copy of my Letters to the Swedenborgians to be sent to you, and hope you have received it. My " Appeal to the Public on the subject of the Riots in Birmingham" is nearly printed, but will not be published till about the meeting of Parliament.

I proposed, in answer to the last Address from the congregation, to go and preach to them till Christmas, but this they declined for fear of tumults.

P. S. Give my respectful compliments to Mr. Tremlett, with thanks for his Bible and letter. I have lately received fourteen out of sixty-four leaves of my translation. Though torn and trampled upon, they will be useful to me.

My best respects to your good father.*

TO THE NEW MEETING CONGREGATION.

London, Oct. 28, 1791.

MY CHRISTIAN FRIENDS, Ir adds not a little to my affliction, occasioned by my violent expulsion from a congregation to which I have so much reason to be attached, to be deprived of the satisfaction I promised myself from my proposed visit to you, and doing what might be in my power towards your future settlement; but I am more concerned on account of the reason you assign for it, as it argues a continuance of that malignant, persecuting spirit which has been the cause of all our sufferings. What must be the government of a country, nominally Christian, in which such outrages against all law and good order cannot be

*Orig. MS.

restrained, and in which a man cannot be encouraged by his best friends to come to the discharge of the duties of a peaceful profession without the apprehension of being insulted, if not murdered!

Do not, however, think that any thing strange or new has happened to us. The enemies of the primitive Christians frequently let loose a licentious populace upon them, when they did not think proper to proceed against them by law; and for this purpose they raised such calumnies against them as made them be considered as the very pests of society. I trust you are so well grounded in the principles of your religion as not to be discouraged at this, or any thing else that has befallen us. Though the enemy has burned our places of public worship, and lighted the fires, as I have been informed, with our Bibles, they cannot destroy the great truths contained in them, or deprive us of the benefit of our Saviour's declaration, "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for my sake.”

Be assured that from the interest I take in your welfare, I shall not fail to mention to you any person that I may hear of who shall appear to me proper to succeed me.

Hoping that you will soon be provided with such a person, and that in consequence of being built up in our holy faith we shall have a happy meeting in a better world, for which all the discipline and trials of this life are excellently fitted to form us, I am, my friends and fellow-christians, yours affectionately.*

FROM THE COMMITTEE OF THE GRAVEL-PIT CONGRE

GATION.

REV. SIR, Hackney, Nov. 7, 1791. WE, the Committee of the congregation of Protestant Dissenters assembling at the Gravel-pit Meeting, Hackney, have been deputed by a general meeting to invite you to accept the office of co-pastor to that society, on the vacancy occasioned by the death of your valued friend, and our highly-esteemed pastor, the late Rev. Dr. Price.

* Appeal, p. 183.