340 CORRESPONDENCE. Our Correspondent who signs himself "A Friend" may expect to see two out of his three communications in the Repository. The third is superseded by the article to which he alludes. But he must allow as time. We ardently wish to satisfy all our correspondents; but we are equally bound to consult the gratification of our readers. T. V. of Brighton is informed that the Repository is published as early and regularly as any Magazine. His not receiving it till the middle of the month must be owing to the mismanagement of his agent. The Remarks on the " Physical and Metaphysical Enquiries" from Glasgow, shall appear in our next. We shall be happy to receive the continuation of them. We are obliged to "No Bigot" of Norwich for his very friendly letter, accompanying his rejoinder to the reply of P. Q. on Card-Playing.. His can dour will, we trust, acquit us of partiality in dropping this controversy. It is exhausted. And the writers on each side are anonymous. The Paper on Dueiling and the interesting communication from Sandon,, are unavoidably postponed to our next number. ERRATA. In the Obituary of Edward King, Esq. in our last No. (p. 280) for " Mo rals," read Morsels. In the Review of Griesbach in the same No. (p. 267,) for “ Knittle,” which occurs twice, read Knittel. A REVIEW OF THE LIFE, WRITINGS AND CHARACTER OF THE REV. BENJAMIN BENNET, OF NEW SIR, CASTLE UPON TYNE. To the Editor of the Monthly Repository. THE HE subject of these memoirs has a title to respectful notice in the biographical department of your useful miscellany. He, deservedly, ranks among devotional and historical writers of peculiar merit. Mr. BENJAMIN BENNET, was a native of Wilsborough, near Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire, where the remarkable indications of his early piety and zeal were remembered and spoken of with admiration and pleasure to the day of his death. His mind received a religious, and devotional tincture from a dangerous illness, with which he was attacked, when he was very young. The serious impressions, which that sickness left on his heart, were carefully cultivated and improved. "In the period of youth he was solicitous to raise and strengthen a sense of religion in the souls of his companions, and engaged several to join, in convenient retirements, in associations for acts of devotion. He was destined for trade, but when the time came to determine on some employment, the piety of his disposition directed his views to the ministry: and, being encouraged to follow his inclinations, he applied himself closely to study, and made a rapid and conspicuous proficiency in all parts of learning subservient to the sacred office to which he devoted himself. He pursued his academical course at a seminary of the greatest antiquity among the Nonconformists, directed by Mr. John Woodhouse, silenced at Thrumpton, in Nottinghamshire, by the act of Uniformity; who kept an academy at Sheriff-Hales, in Shropshire, which flourished in the reign of VOL. II. 27 Charles II. and at one time the number of students amounted to forty or fifty*. On the removal of the Rev. John Sheffield to St. Thomas, Southwark, in 1697, Mr. Bennet commenced his ministry, at Temple-Hall, which adjoined to the place of his birth, and where Mr. Sheffield had formed a Society of Protestant Dissenters. Here he officiated, with great acceptance to a very serious people; till he received an invitation to succeed Dr. Gilpin, a gentleman of eminent talents and name at Newcastle upon Tyne; which station he filled with great usefulness to the time of his death. On the 30th of May, 1699, he was, with three other young ministers, Mr. John Reynolds, Mr. Hand and Mr. Warrent, ordained and set apart by prayer and impo In the list of Mr. Woodhouse's pupils appear the names of the following gentlemen; some of whom were of the first rank. Sir Edward Harley's two sons, viz. the Earl of Oxford and Auditor Harley, Henry St. John, well known in the reign of queen Ann, Thomas Foley, Esq. afterwards Lord Foley, -Leechmere, Esq. Thomas Hunt, of Boreatton, Esq. and Mr. Yates, of Deanford, who was, in 1764, the last survivor of the young gentlemen, educated at SheriffHales. The Ministers brought up here were assistants and immediate successors to the ejected Ministers and many of them adorned eminent stations among the dissenters; as Mr. Spilsbury, at Kidderminster, Mr. Warren, at Coventry, Mr.. Ferdinando Shaw, Derby, Mr. Tong and Mr Newman, who both finished their ministry at Salter's Hall, in London. The Aristotelian and German Systems of Divinity were read at Mr. Woodhouse's seminary. He died in 1700, pastor of a congregation at Little St Helens, Bishopsgate-Street, where he discharged the duties of his ministry with much acceptance and usefulness. His funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Williams; "who," it was remarked by some of his pupils, as Mr. Orton informs us, "hath said too little of him§." Dr. Calamy's Funeral Sermon for Mr. Sheffield, p 34. Mr. JOHN REYNOLDS, born Feb. 19, 1666-7, was the eldest son of Mr. Joun REYNOLDS, ejected from the living of Wolverhampton, a considerable market town in the county of Stafford. He was entered when he was seventeen a scholar at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he studied four years. He spent several years, in connexion, as an assistant, with Mr. Noble, of Bristol. In 1708, he accepted an invitation to Shrewsbury. After ten years service in this town, ill health induced him to resign his pastoral office there, and he removed to Bethnel Green,` in London, where he spent nearly two years, and frequently preached for Mr. Chapman, the Minister of a congregation of Dissenters there. In 1722, he returned into the country and fixed his residence at Walsall, in Staffordshire, where he spent the remainder of his days, till the 24th Aug. 1727, usually preaching in the morning for the valuable Mr. Godley, the pastor of the congregation in that town. This was a place suitable to his taste, as he coveted privacy and retirement; though his manners were courteous and obliging, and his conversation, though grave and serious, was oftentimes very pleasant and facetious His temper was extremely modest, humble, peaceable and very benevolent. His charity was so munificent, that though he had a plentiful estate he saved nothing, but freely gave whatever he could spare to the poor, to whom he was ever accessible, and received their visite with conciliating tenderness and respect. His ministerial talents were distinguishing his mind was replenished with divine and human literature: his love to manPalmer's Non-Conformist's Memorial, v. ii. p. 209, 300. 1st Ed. and an account of the Disenting Academies from the restoration of Charles II. MS.--penes me, : sition of hands, to the ministerial office at Oldbury Chapel, in Shropshire, by five ministers, who had been ejected from their livings by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662*. Mr. Bennet entered on his public character with a mind, richly replenished with divine and human learning; and had formed an extensive acquaintance with ancient and modern books, of which he had a good collection. But, though the kind was extensive: his piety was warm and lively, and his zeal for the divine glory fervent and active. He was the author of "Three Letters to a Deist," "The Religion of Jesus Delineated." "A Discourse on Reconciliation," and a treatise on "The Angelic World." An epitaph on "Bigotry," written by him in Latin was translated by Dr. Watts into English, and appeared in his " Reliquiæ Juveniles." To his life is affixed "A View of Death, a Philosophical Poem, with Notes." His piece entitled "The Religion of Jesus delineated," was meant as a contrast and supplement to Wollaston's celebrated and learned work entitled "The Religion of Nature delineated." The writer of this has met with no information concerning Mr. HAND. Mr. WARREN, who had pursued his academical studies under Mr. Woodhouse, was first Chaplain to Fhilip Foley, Esq. of Prestwood: from that retirement he was invited to the city of Coventry, where he officiated first as assistant to Mr. Tong and then as co-pastor with Mr. Joshua Merril; and last as sole-pastor, till he died in Sep. 1742. He is represented to have been a man who made a very amiable figure and through whose life a general lustre was diffused; his natural temper being mild, obliging and humane; his mien and address being genteel and manly; his conversation being rendered agreeable, from a facility and pleasantness of behaviour, a good acquaintance with men and things, and a quickness of wit. All his deportment had an air of good-will to men. Few were more assiduous in the pastoral office. In the public functions of it he greatly excelled. The clearness of his thoughts, the propriety and freedom of his expression, the justness of his method and the decency of his elocution were all animated by a true sense of the importance of the things he delivered. He was much in prayer and had a happy talent that way. His life was prolonged to near seventy years. He died as he lived, recommending a regard to serious religion to all that came about him; in the mot pertinent and pathetic manner, expressing at the same time a deep sense of the failures of his life and a cheerful hope of a bles ed immortality. "I have," he said, on the day of his death, "that peace and comfort I would not be without, for a world." Upon all views he had taken of religion it was his conviction that Love was so essential to it, that without that all our religious pretensions are vain and insignificant. It was a striking proof of the prevailing temper of his mind, a pleasing trait in his last moments, that he desired a particular friend to improve his death by a Discourse to his congregation on these words. "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him." 1 John iv, 16. In a paper found after his death, he had written" God is Love, &c. This is the great ground of my hope, I dwell in the love of God with all my heart, and soul, and strength of the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity of all good people without dis tinction and of all men, and even of all enemies, therefore I shall dwell with God for ever and ever. Amen." This was the sentiment, which in his illness he expressed to the friend on whom he devolved the last tribute of respect to his memory. : He that duelleth in love, dwelleth in God. I dwell in love, and therefore I dwell in God; and may I not conclude, I shall dwell with him? I think," said he, “this conclusion is justt." Memoirs of Mr. John Reynolds, p. 27. Mr. Joseph Carpenter's Sermon upon the death of the Rev. John Warren, 19th Sep. 1724 P. 1. 26---31. avocations of his public post were numerous, he remitted nothing of his assiduous application to study, to which he constantly devoted fifty, sometimes sixty hours a week, which he distributed among the six days, as best suited his other occasions. He took great delight and was very diligent in the work of preaching, for which he was finely qualified. He was ready to this service in season and out of season, not only among his own people, but all the adjacent congregations. He said to a friend, that he often recollected being one time solicited to preach in London, when Mr. Timothy Rogers was present, who broke out into such expressions as these: "Oh preach, by all means preach, I would fain preach but cannot; and what do you know but you may do some good, which you may never hear of till the day of judgment." One way or other he was much engaged in the concerns of most of the congregations in the northern parts of England. He was usually applied to in their exigences and readily assisted them with his advices and services, as the occasion might require. His offices sometimes proved ungrateful, and his services not so well received as they deserved. But it was justly observed, that they who pursued measures contrary to what he recommended, commonly saw reason to acknowledge their mistake. He was singularly pertinent, copious and fervent in prayer; rising sometimes to a rapture. His discourses from the pulpit were always very judicious and pathetic; addressed at once to the judgment and the hearts of the hearers. He was happy in the choice of his subjects, both as to their importance and tendency. His manner of treating them was rational, clear and lively. His thoughts were solid and weighty, and generally accompanied with novelty of sentiment. His method was accurate and natural. His style had freedom, vivacity and strength. His delivery was graceful and solemn. And his whole deportment in the pulpit was calculated to awe and affect the audience. His administration of the Lord's supper was grave, warm and affectionate and in this service, for which he took great pains to prepare his own heart, he was thought to excel himself, as his performance of it raised admiration. To his very acceptable, able and useful ministrations a violent fever put an end, on September 1st, 1726, in the 52d year of his age. As his life was peculiarly exemplary, his death was tranquil and happy. He met his dissolution with admirable composure and cheerfulness. From the moment in which his distemper seized him, the attack was of a nature and force that |