the Church fully agreed with the more enlightened and elevated tone of his own newly-adopted views; and became more than ever attached to her constitution and services, and laboured with more abundant zeal and success in the various offices which were assigned to him as one of her ministers. In the West Riding of Yorkshire he was the means of exciting the zeal of many active friends of the Church, and of bringing several ministers likeminded with himself into that neighbourhood. Upon his removal to the vicinity of Cambridge, his influence was exerted with signal effect upon many of the students, who came forward, from year to year, to consecrate their services to the same cause in which he was labouring.-From this hasty sketch, it is easy to perceive how greatly the character and influence of Mr. Venn tended to the revival of vital religion in the Established Church.

I shall still further trespass upon the patience of my readers, by selecting and placing together the names of a few of those fellow-labourers of Mr. Venn to whom I have already alluded.

The earliest of this class was William Grimshaw, B. A., educated at Christ's College, Cambridge. The change of his sentiments was contemporaneous with, if it did not precede, that of the Wesleys. And we learn, that, after he had been for some time engaged in preaching upon these views, "he was an entire stranger to the people called Methodists; whom afterwards he thought it his duty to counte

nance, and to labour with, in his neighbourhood. He was an entire stranger, also, to all their writings, except a single sermon on Gal. iii. 24., and "A Letter to the people of England," published by the Rev. Mr. Seagrave; in which he was surprised to find the divinity, in all material points, of the very same kind with what he now saw with his own eyes in the Word of God, and from which all his peace had flowed." (See Sketch of the Life of Grimshaw, by the Rev. H. Venn, annexed to his Funeral Sermon.)

The next in chronological order is the wellknown name of William Romaine, M.A. I am not aware that any account has been preserved of the precise steps by which his mind was led in this respect; but he was a disciple of the Hutchinsonian school; and retained to the last, in common with the members of that school, very strict views respecting Ecclesiastical conformity, and the evil of schism.

The Rev. William Talbot, grandson of a Bishop of Durham, and nephew to Lord Chancellor Talbot, was another preacher of whom Mr. Venn was accustomed to speak, as an early and eminent advocate of Evangelical views. The last scene of his labours was at St. Giles's, Reading; where he died in 1774, aged fifty-seven.

The short career of usefulness, and the admirable writings of the Rev. Samuel Walker of Truro, were very extensive service to the cause of real Chris

of

tianity in his own day; and are still held in honour, by multitudes, at the present time. A particular account is given of the progress of his mind, in the search of religious truth, by the Rev. James Stillingfleet, Prebendary of Worcester, in a short sketch prefixed to Mr. Walker's "Sermons on the Church Catechism;" from which it appears, that the light which broke in upon his mind was independent of human instruction; and it is well known, that, to the last, he maintained a strong sense of the great importance of maintaining the order of the Church.

The Rev. Thomas Adam, Rector of Wintringham, Lincolnshire, was led to the adoption of the same views, at a comparatively late period of his life, by the independent exercise of prayer and the study of the Bible; of which an interesting account is given in a Memoir prefixed to his "Private Thoughts," by the Rev. James Stillingfleet of Hotham. Mr. Adam also printed, in his life-time, "Lectures on the Church Catechism," and other works, which materially aided the spread of the Gospel in that day.

The Rev. Richard Conyers was the College contemporary of Mr. Venn: and upon Mr. Venn's removal into Yorkshire, their friendship was renewed, upon the higher ground of a perfect similarity in their views of the Gospel, and the spirit in which they laboured for its advancement. Into these views Mr. Conyers had been led by the diligent study of the Sacred Text. He was first Vicar

of Helmsley, and afterwards Rector of St. Paul's, Deptford.

The six clergymen whom I have now mentioned, together with my Grandfather, were all led into similar views, within about ten years after the time from which Mr. Wesley dates the final adoption of his own religious sentiments. I have not included the name of James Hervey of Weston Flavel, which appears in this volume with highest admiration; because his mind was first directly influenced by intercourse with Mr. Charles Wesley. But I think I have stated enough to prove, that there was a body of Evangelical Labourers, who were independent of the Methodists, and nearly contemporaneous with them, and whose labours had an immediate and remarkable influence upon the Clergy of the Church of England. After this period, the list of names might be considerably augmented, from the pages before us;-amongst the foremost of which would be Jones (of St. Saviour's, Southwark), Burnet (of Elland, one of the early friends of Walker of Truro), Powley, the two Stillingfleets, Fletcher, Berridge, Maddock, Newton, Joseph Milner, Riland, Robinson, and Simeon. Some idea of the rapid increase which took place in the numbers of the Evangelical Clergy may be formed from the fact, which has been recorded, that when Mr. Romaine first began his course, he could only reckon up as many as six or seven who were like-minded with himself: in a few years the number was

increased to tens; and before he died (1795), there were above five hundred whom he regarded as fellowlabourers with himself in word and doctrine. At what rate the increase has proceeded, since that time, I will not take upon myself to say: but, assuredly, it has been such as to fill the heart of every intelligent observer with praise and gratitude to God.

The conclusion to which I think we are led, by a review of the whole case, is this:-That when it pleased God, in a day of extreme darkness, to cast His bright beams of light upon the Church" -according to the beautiful Prayer of our LiturgyHe kindled in the minds of many ministers of the Church, in various places and under various circumstances, a revival of genuine and primitive Christianity. By their efforts, and by the large measures of success vouchsafed to them, and by the continual accession of fresh Labourers-who, no less than the first promoters of the revival, had received their views of the Truth, under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, from the independent study of the Word of God, and prayer the work was carried on to the glorious extent to which it has reached at the present day. The Methodists and the Evangelical Clergy were the chief Instruments employed in this work; and these two Bodies of Labourers had a mutual and important influence upon each other. But, as far as we can trace the