his grace, and to the teaching of his Spirit*. I make it my earnest request to the favoured few who know the Lord, and have received the spirit of prayer, that in your supplications at the throne of grace, you will frequently bear in remembrance,

Your affectionate Friend and Servant

in the Gospel of Christ,

JOHN NEWTON.

Acts xx. 32.

ST. MARY WOOLNOTH AND ST. MARY WOOLCHURCH,

LONDON.

FROM THEIR MINISTER.

*

ACTS XXVI. 3.

I beseech thee to hear me patiently.

:.

I BESEECH THEE TO HEAR ME PATIENTLY.

My respected Friends,

IT being impracticable to write separately and dis

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tinctly to every person in the parishes with which I am connected as a Minister; I cannot offer you this testimony of my sincere regard for your welfare, without availing myself of the conveniency of the press. And I wish, while I express myself with freedom, to observe the same respect and tenderness, as if I had an opportunity of conversing personally and severally with each of you.

My income from the parishes is legally settled, and regularly and readily paid. I am well satisfied with it; and have only to wish on this head, that the people of my charge may be benefited by the ministry which they jointly contribute to support. I acknowledge likewise, with thankfulness to God and to you, that in the occasional intercourse I have had amongst you, I have never received the least personal incivility or un

* A passage is omitted here, expressive of the author's determination to confine this address to his parishioners, but as his executors consider this as applicable only to the period of its publication, they have not scrupled to insert the address among his posthumous writings.

kindness from any one. Though I cannot but know and lament, that the subject-matter of my preaching is to many of you not pleasing; and though several steps I have thought it my duty to take, must appear, to some of you, unnecessary and troublesome innovations, I have met with no direct and studied marks of opposition or ill-will. Your conduct has, in this respect, been worthy of the politeness and humanity which distinguish you on other occasions.

The only cause of complaint, or rather of grief, which you have given me is, 'that so many of those, to whom I earnestly desire to be useful, refuse me the pleasure of seeing them at church on the Lord's day. My concern does not arise from the want of hearers. If either a numerous auditory, or the respectable cliaracters of many of the individuals who compose it, could satisfy me, I might be satisfied. But I must grieve, while I see so few of my own parishioners among them. Let me entreat your favourable attention, while I respectfully and affectionately expostulate on this head.

The general design of my ministry in this city, might, and I trust would, have been answered, if it had pleased God to place me in some other parish. But He saw fit to fix me amongst you. This appointment, as it ought to give you a preference in my regard, and to make me studiously solicitous to promote your advantage; so likewise it gives you a more immediate and particular interest than others, in the event of my services. However little worthy of your notice in any other view, if I am a servant of God, a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ, if I speak the truth in love, how can I but be pained at the thought, that many to whom