celerated by the loss of the wife of his youth, and joy of his heart. However, the year following her death, he contracted a second marriage with Mrs. Storrs, relict of the late Rev. Andrew Storrs, of Watertown, in Connecticut. But the prospect of a serene old age was blasted soon after their marriage, by his being seized with a paralytic shock. This happened on the 19th of November, 1786. It wholly deprived him of the use of his limbs on the left side, and greatly impaired his intellectual powers. Able physicians were consulted, and their means applied, but without success. He continued more than three years in this state of deep calamity, with little variation of his disorder; excepting that he had some lucid intervals, in which he appeared to be himself for a short space. In these seasons, he discoursed to those about him on the great things of the Gospel; the dispensations of infinite wisdom in regard to the church and himself, and his joyful hope of approaching glory, to the great satisfaction of his Christian friends, and as might be expected from his former life and ministry. But these intervals of reason became shorter and less frequent in the later stages of his complaint. About three weeks before his death, he appeared to be afflicted with a cold and oppression of the lungs, which produced an ulceration. And after a painful struggle, he received his dismission from sin and sorrow, at 8 o'clock, in the evening of Saturday, March 6th, 1790, in the 72d year of his age, and 50th of his ministry. And, we doubt not, received a welcome to that blessed society, where the imperfections and sorrows of mortality shall never come. His funeral was attended, the Tuesday following, by the clergy of the vicinity, his own congregation, and a numerous concourse of respectable and worthy friends from the neighbouring towns, who did him honour at his death, and mingled their sorrows with those of his family and particular connexions, in a manner which expressed the common sentiment, that a great man was fallen in our Israel. And, after the preceding discourse, and the connected solemnities in the house of God, his remains were deposited in the house of silence with every mark of respect and solemnity. The removal of such eminent lights from our world, draws a dark veil over the church on earth! Who shall be found to fill the vacant candlestick, and guide the bereaved flock in the path of life? Who shall instruct our young men who are designed for the sacred ministry? and be instrumental in forming them for usefulness in our churches? Who shall preside in our ecclesiastical councils, and preserve the peace and order of the churches? Who-but no man. Let every anxious thought be silent. The chief Shepherd and Bishop lives, and shall for ever live. He walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. All the churches are his care. He holds the stars in his right hand. The residue of the spirit is with him. And he hath graciously assured us that the walls of Jerusalem are ever before him; and that the gates of hell shall never prevail. May the falling mantle of our ascended prophet, rest on some favoured Elisha; and the Lord of the harvest send forth labourers who shall be still more eminent and more useful than those who are removed. May their success be still greater. And may our churches be blest with a succession of well-qualified pastors; and flourish in all the branches of Christian piety and virtue, till the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. TRUE RELIGION DELINEATED ; OR, Experimental Religion, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM FORMALITY ON THE ONE HAND, AND ENTHUSIASM ON THE OTHER, SET IN A SCRIPTURAL AND RATIONAL LIGHT. IN TWO DISCOURSES: IN WHICH SOME OF THE PRINCIPAL ERRORS, BOTH OF THE DIFFERENT SCHEMES DEMOLISHED-AND THE TRUTH, AS IT IS IN JESUS, The whole adapted to the weakest capacities, and designed for the establishment, comfort, and quickening of the people of God. BY JOSEPH BELLAMY, D. D. Late of Bethlem, Connecticut. WITH A PREFACE BY THE REV. MR. EDWARDS. Isaiah xxx. 21. "And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left." Matthew vii. 13, 14. "Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." PREFACE. THE being of GOD is reckoned the first, greatest, and most fundamental of all things that are the objects of knowledge or belief; and, next to that, must be reckoned the nature of that religion which God requires of us, and must be found in us, in order to our enjoying the benefits of his favour: or rather, this may be esteemed of like importance with the other; for it in like manner concerns us to know how we may honour and please God, and be accepted of him, as it concerns us to know that he has a being. This is a point of infinite consequence to every single person; each one having to do with God as his supreme judge, who will fix his eternal state according as he finds him to be with or without true religion. And this is also a point that vastly concerns the public interests of the Church of God. It is very apparent, that the want of a thorough distinction in this matter, through the defect either of sufficient discernment or care, has been the chief thing that has obscured, obstructed, and brought to a stand, all remarkable revivals of religion which have been since the beginning of the reformation; the very chief reason why the most hopeful and promising beginnings have never come to any more than beginnings; being nipped in the bud, and soon followed witlı a great increase of stupidity, corrupt principles, a profane and atheistical spirit, and the triumph of the open enemies of religion. And from hence, and from what has been so evident, from time to time, in these latter ages of the church, and from the small acquaintance I have with the history of preceding times, I cannot but think, that if the events which have appeared from age to age, should be carefully examined and considered, it would appear that it has been thus in all ages of the Christian Church from the beginning. They, therefore, who bring any addition of light to this great subject, The nature of true religion, and its distinction from all counterfeits, should be accepted as doing the greatest |