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within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh." Of this important truth, with all the doctrines connected with it, this young person was convinced. When his eyes were opened by the Holy Spirit, he found himself guilty and polluted-he felt that his heart was naturally at enmity with God, and was satisfied that God alone could change it by his power. The same spirit which enlightened his understanding, constrained him to seek perseveringly the blessing he needed, and enabled him to find it. Under affecting views of himself, he cried to God for mercy-he was stripped of all self-righteousness, and presented himself a needy suppliant at the throne of grace. He thus worked out his own salvation with fear and trembling, because God worked in him both to will and to do of his good pleasure. So far are the doctrines of grace, where they are understood, from producing carelessness, and slothfulness, or pride, that they invariably produce opposite fruits. This young person was incessant in his prayers-faithful in warnings to others—and in his testimony for the truth. May we all obtain the like grace, and rejoice in the same hope of glory!

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A Sketch of the Life of the Rev. WILLIAM HUMPHRIES, Pastor of a Dissenting Congregation at Hammersmith, in England, taken from the Rev. ROBERT WINTER's Sermon, occasioned by his death.

THE Rev. WILLIAM HUMPHRIES was blessed with a religious as well as a liberal education. When he was only nine years old he began to seek after God: having at that early period received some impressive views of the vast importance of religion, which from that time he never lost. These views awakened in his breast a desire to be useful to the souls of his fellow-creatures, and led him to think of the ministry as his future employment. By his friends he was designed for the established church; but he became, on full conviction, a decided, though a liberal Protestant Dissenter. Hence he was induced to enter a student of the Academy at Homerton, in 1778, then under the direction of Drs. Conder, Gibbons, and Fisher. In 1779 he became a memVOL. III.-Ne. II.

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ber of the church in Whiterow Spitalfields, then under the pastoral care of the Rev. Nathaniel Trotman, now of the Rev. John Goode. With great solemnity, and many fears of self-deception, he commenced a public profession of religion; but at the same time with an entire surrender of himself to a Redeemer whom he believed to be truly divine..

On leaving Homerton he was soon invited to preach to a small decayed congregation at Haverhill in Suffolk. His labours among this people were so acceptable, that he was ordained their pastor, on the 10th of December 1783. His pulpit labours here were highly esteemed. His attention to the families and individuals of his flock was unremitting. His visits of consolation were full of tenderness and piety. His reproofs, where reproof was necessary, were firm and faithful, though always softened by the most genuine compassion for offenders. His care of the young was such as left on the hearts of many of them traces which will never be removed.

His constitution here was greatly enfeebled: the course of his ministry suffered many interruptions: and at length he was induced, although with very great reluctance, by the advice of medical friends, to resign his charge in 1791. He then returned to London, and united himself to the church in Fetterlane, then under the care of Dr. Davies.

A temporary relaxation from the bodily and mental fatigues of a stated ministry, was the mean of restoring to him more health than he ever expected. With returning vigour he resumed his ministerial labours. In the spring of 1792, divine providence opened the door for his connexion with the congregation of Hammersmith. The morning ser

vice of the Lord's day alone was vacant. The other duties of the situation were performed by Mr. now *Dr. Robert Winter. He accepted the invitation to the office of morning preacher, only as an experiment, doubting whether his health would permit his continuance. When Dr. Winter relinquished his charge, Mr. Humphries was chosen his successor. On the 22d of March, 1796, he was set apart as pastor of the flock. From this time he rose in the estimation of all who knew him. During the whole period of his residence here, there was not the least dissatisfaction between pastor and people, to interrupt friendship or prevent usefulness.

In other respects he was greatly tried and afflicted.

His labours were often interrupted by returns of debility and disease. Three times these interruptions were occasioned by the rupture of a blood vessel. But these, although to himself and to his friends, seasons of great distress, were to both, sources of advantage and instruction. While these seasons were passing over him, he manifested the most devout resignation to his heavenly Father's will, contented either to live or die, as should be most for his glory, and the eternal welfare of his own soul, and of the souls of his dear people. For their sakes, more than for his own, he was desirous of life, and once and again his prayer was heard. Out of the furnace he came forth more refined than before, and had the happiness of meeting in the public assembly and in the circles of friendship, many who had benefitted by his afflictions. The truly Christian spirit with which he bore his trials, had instructed and edified them: and the prayers

The Trustees of Princeton College conferred the degree of Doctor in Divinity on him in 1809.

which they had offered on his account, had diffused over them an increasing seriousness, which, to such a pastor, must have been unspeakably delightful.

From the rupture of a blood vessel in the beginning of September, 1807, he had rapidly and unexpectedly recovered, so as to resume every part of his works with a vigour which astonished all who beheld it. To his congregation, the last, four months of his ministry were especially interesting, and peculiarly important. His sermons, his prayers, and his conversation, during this interval, constituted, as it were, his dying testimony to the truth and power of the gospel.

On the Lord's day, July 20, 1808, he finished his public testimony in Hammersmith. In the morning he addressed his auditory from Psalm 84, 10. "For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand.. I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." In the afternoon his discourse was founded on these remarkable words of Job, ch. 2. 10. "What! Shall we receive good at the hands of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?" How important a preparation of the minds of his beloved hearers, for the calamity, the deep calamity, at the eve of which they had unconsciously arrived! Having finished the work of the sabbath; conversed cheerfully and instructively with several friends; and performed the devotional exercises of his family, he discovered symptoms, which convinced him of the third return of the former disorder, by another rupture of a bloodvessel. The attack was awfully severe; the loss of blood in a very short space of time excessively great; and the danger of a rapid decline alarmingly obvious. From the great debility occasioned by the loss of so large a quantity of the precious vital fluid, he

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