EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER, 1811.

MEMOIR

OF

THE LATE REV. EBENEZER WHITE,

OF CHESTER.

EVERY attempt to develope the principles and illustrate the tendency of Christian truth, accords with the great design for which the ministerial office was instituted. In that institution we discover a wise and benevolent adaptation to the condition of mankind; and its duties, when rightly discharged, like the Scriptures themselves, are profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.' Such also are the purposes which should be invariably regarded in the details of Christian biography. Its important ends are not answered by a mere recital of facts and dates. Character must be unfolded; its diversifying causes ascertained; the influence of religion, in its formation, accurately traced; and the immense advantages of that influence so exhibited, as to convince the judgment and impress the heart. Every believer who walks worthy of his high vocation,' is a living witness to the truth of the gospel: his life and death are practical confirmations of its divine authority and heavenly origin. Hence the value of those memorials which record the virtues of departed saints, and attest the excellency of that religion which gave them a good hope and everlasting consolation.' It is with sentiments peculiarly affecting to himself, that the writer of this account has undertaken the mournful task of transmitting a brief Memoir of one who was once his faithful friend and pastor. He looks back on the days that are gone, with mingled emotions of gratitude and sorrow; gratitude for the blessings of social intercourse and Christian fellowship; and sorrow, that those blessings were so imperfectly improved, and that they are now no longer to be enjoyed! But, thanks be to God, we sorrow not as those without hope;' come to the spirits of just men made perfect;' and even here, are happily associated with the glorified above!

'we are

The late Rev. Ebenezer White was the son of Stephen and Ann White. He was born in London, March 9, 1771; and

* It is preserved as a traditional record in the family, that some of the ancestors of Mr. White were amongst the first sufferers for Puritanis xix, Un

was baptized in the same month, by that eminent servant of God, the late Rev. Edward Hitchen, then pastor of the church assembling at White Row, Spital-fields. His parents, one of whom survives him, were pions and respectable; and im parted to him and to a numerous family, the invaluable advantages of religious education. His mother' (says an affectionate and near relative of the deceased +) in pious and grateful remembrance of the Lord's helping hand in some dif ficulties, desired that he might be named Ebenezer; and his father, who has now been dead about nine years, mentioned that, from the birth of the child, he had a strong desire and presentiment, that he would be devoted to the service of the Lord in the sanctuary. It may be truly said of him, that, like Obadiah, he feared the Lord from his youth.' From his earliest years, he was of a grave, serious, and studious turn of mind; manifesting great tenderness of conscience and attention to divine things. At a very early age he used to take his younger sister into a retired apartment, and pray with her, and urge her to pray for herself. When he was only ten years of age, his father being often detained out late at night by business, he used to read a chapter with his mother and the other children; and on one of these occasions, when his mother proposed to him to read a prayer, he answered, with great simpacity, "Oh, mother, I don't pray with a book!" With a litle persuasion, he was induced to engage in prayer; and from that time generally officiated as the chaplain of the little circle in his father's absence. Shortly after this, he formed a society of youths, about his own age, who used to cet on Sabbath evenings, in his father's house, for social prayer; and a refreshing season it often proved to many older and more experienced Christians, who occasionally entered the room, or listened at the door.' Evident and pleasing as were these intimations of early piety, it appears that he had no dccided intention of entering on the work of the ministry till a more advanced period of his life. He was apprenticed at the usual age, to Mr R. Butler, a respectable hosier, in Gracechurch Street. In this situation he met with a kind friend in the late Rev. John Olding, of Deptford, who enand Noyconformity; and that one of these having had an information laid against him, when the officers came to search his house, took refuge in an oven, over the mouth of which a spider almost immediately wove a large web. This circumstance induced the oficers to omit searching the oven, as they concluded that nobody could have been there for months. By this singular event the good man escaped. A similar story 1 related in some part of Llaver's writings; and it is probable, refers to the same person. How just the observation of Dr. Paley, that in the works and ways of God, great and title are terms of no meaning!

+ The passages marked by inverted cominas are selected from an interesting letter, which the writer received from his brother, Mr. Walter White, of London.

couraged his serious and studious inclination, and supplied him with many suitable books. During his apprenticeship he was uniformly steady and consistent.' His youth was never stained by the pollution of those vicious habits, so fatally prevalent at that period when the passions predominate, and reason, conscience, and religion, are too generally disregarded. -From one of his letters, written about three years ago, to his brother, it appears that at this time he was in some measure inclined to a system of Hyper-Calvinism, bordering, at least, on Antinomianism, and which nas obtained popularity under the mistaken notion of its tendency to glorify the divine grace, though it gives a dishonourable view of the divine character; and the spirit of which is even worse than its principles, tending to subvert all that characterizes the Christian temper. Mr. White had peculiar reason to be thankful that he was delivered from the paw of a lion and a bear,' much more dreadful than ever David encountered. Alluding to his juvenile feelings and opinions, he says, in the letter referred to, I wish our poor father had not permitted our absence from the meetings of that church where we were naturally and providentially connected, and where we received our baptism. Many a time, when a dupe of a boy, have I ran sweating to H's, to be amused, or surprized, when my conscience might have been more effectually searched, and my mind edified at White Row."'

But the sphere of business was not that in which Mr. White was qualified to shine. At the expiration of his apprenticeship, his thoughts reverted to a subject which often awakened, before and afterwards, his most anxious feelings. Distressing himself, he consulted his pious and judicious friends; and at length, by the special recommendation of the late Rev. John Reynolds, of Camomile Street, he offered himself as a probationer for the ministry, to the Directors of Hoxton Academy. To that respectable seminary he was admitted in the year 1796. Here, his diligent application to the various branches of study was highly exemplary, and his personal piety habitually conspicuous. After spending three years at Hoxton, he commenced his regular labours at Potter's Pury, in Northamptonshire; but not finding the situation congenial with his wishes, he removed to Hertford, where he was ordained in April 1801. The Rev. Messrs. S. Burder, Reynolds, Greatheed, and Clayton senior, engaged in the principal services on that occasion. For reasons which to the mind of Mr. White fully justified his determination, he leit Hertford in a year or two after his ordination; and under the direction of Mr. T. Wilson, visited Lancashire, where he preached with considerable acceptance and success, for several months at Rochdale, Bamford, and the neighbouring places. The church assembling in Quecen Street Chapel, Chester, had been without a settled pastor

more than eight years. They heard of his character and recommendations; and requested him to supply their vacant pulpit. About two months after his arrival, which took place in October 1802, he received a unanimous call to labour over them in the Lord; he immediately accepted the invitation; and there his faithful services were enjoyed, till it pleased the great Head of the church to terminate his course and complete his reward. The settlement at Chester was publicly recog nized on the 19th of May 1803; and the Rev. Messrs. Johnson, Wilson, and Roby, conducted the services of that solemnity.

In this scene of pastoral duty he was uniformly assiduous, and, as far as the measure of bodily vigour permitted (and too often beyond it) he was actively devoted to the studies and pursuits of the Christian ministry. Notwithstanding the frequent depression which arose from constitutional infirmity and a melancholy temperament of mind, he generally preached thrice every Lord's Day, and once on an evening in the week. His sermons were always distinguished by their neat arrangement and perspicuous method; and he was peculiarly happy in the selection of appropriate portions of Scripture for the proof and illustration of the topics he discussed. The habit of accurate classification was remarkably predominant in all his literary and theological inquiries; and great ingenuity ap peared in what may be called the mechanism of his discourses. Hence a logical minuteness of detail appeared in his sermons, which at times interfered with the more important properties of amplitude and strength; but he was always the faithful, consistent, intelligent, and useful preacher. While the leading features of evangelical truth were prominently exhibited, he shunned not 'to declare the whole counsel of God,'-neither discarding any peculiarities of the system, he considered most agreeable to the sacred word, nor afraid of enforcing the prac tical tendency of Christian principles. He was, what every minister of the gospel should be, a good textuary, and there fore, according to the well-known adage of Luther, a good divine. His knowledge of the Scriptures was extensive, at the same time, minute. He had not only formed distinct conceptions of the great outlines of revealed truth, but all the subordinate parts of revelation were clearly within his comprehension. He studied the entire architecture of the sacred temple, and viewed its appendages and ornaments, as well as its general design and principal proportions, with interest and admiration. Thus qualified for the service of the church, and continually enlarging his stores of knowledge by incessant application, he brought forth things new and old.' His discourses were particularly adapted to promote the edifying of the body of Christ; and in this department of labour he enjoyed most success. [To be continued.]

and

Sir,

-

HINTS.

To the Editor.

A Word to the Wise is sufficient;' and sometimes short Hints, properly given, have more weight, and produce greater effect than long and laboured discourses. I have frequently seen, in your useful work, Hints to-Professors :' and, indeed, they stand in need of so many Hints, that I think this might very well form a separate department in the Evangelical Magazine; or if you only adopt the word HINTS, it would open a larger field still, and might include Hints to Ministers and their Congregations, to Saints and to Sinners, -to Rich and to Poor Professors, &c. for they all stand in need of many Hints. Should you think it proper to adopt this mode of attempting to do good, I could, perhaps, supply you with a Hint once in a while; and I doubt not but they would pour in so fast from all parts of the country, that you would soon have more Hints than you could communicate to the Public. By inserting the following, you will much oblige

Your humble Servant, JOHN THOUGHtful.

1. A Hint to Deacons. Many Ministers have large families, and very small incomes; indeed, there are but few Ministers whose salaries are at all adequate to the expences of the present times. They can barely procure the necessaries of life; how then are their children to be educated? Would it not be an easy matter in most congregations to raise, in addition to the Minister's Salary, a sun sufficient to place a Son or a Daughter of their Minister, for two or three years, at Some Boarding School, where terms are moderately low? and then perhaps another, or even a third?-This Hint is given to Deacons, because they are the properest persons to bring such matters forward before the congregation. If they should think it worthy of their notice, I must request them not to satisfy themselves by saying 'It would be a very good thing,' but to set immediately about it; and if only one poor Minister of Christ should fare the better for it, I shall rejoice.

2. A Hint to Christian Farmers. It is customary in many parts of the country, for Farmers to let their Labourers have sufficient Wheat for their families at five or six shillings per bushel. Ought they not to, manifest the same benevolent disposition towards their Ministers? Surely, nothing can be more reasonable, and nothing can be more easy, where there are eight or ten Farmers in a Congregation, and all are willing to unite in such a good work. This plan has long been adopted in some places; and I myself, who am a Minister, have found the good effects of it. Farmers, We are your Labourers. We labour for the good of your immortal souls; and, if we sow unto you spiritual things, shall we not reap your carnal things?