him, is greater than any thing I can here enjoy; if, therefore, ye loved me in a proper manner, instead of weeping at my departure, surely ye would rejoice at it. If the love that we bear to our Christian friends were but properly directed, if our minds were but capacious enough to take all things into consideration, we should mingle joy with all our mourning, on their account.

2. A rest before us, may reconcile us who are left behind, to all the labours and pains and weariness of life. We need not tire, or want to sit down here; there will be time enough to rest us by and by. Nor need we be discouraged with all the trials of the present state. What, though it were in weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, that we had to pass the remainder of our days? What, though bonds and afflictions should abide us? The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. The rest that remains will make us, like Joseph, forget all our toil, and all our father's house; so forget it, however, as never to think of it any more, but with joy and thankfulness.

3. The glorious reward before us, may stimulate us to work for God, with all our might, while life continues. It is affecting to consider what we are doing in this life as the seeds of an eternal harvest. Let us keep this thought habitually in view. There is a way of turning the ills of life into good, yea, an everlasting good. Every temptation to evil that accosts us is a price put into our hands; it affords us an opportunity of proving our love to God, by denying ourselves, in that instance, for his sake. The same may be said of afflictions; they afford us an opportunity for the exercise of patience, and acquiescence in the will of God; and what a harvest of joy such things may issue in, is beyond our capacity to conceive. Perhaps, it was under some such views as these, that the primitive Christians were used to rejoice in tribulation, and were exhorted to count it all joy, when they fell into divers temptations.

4. If our works will follow us, we have reason to tremble, as well as rejoice. The works of those who die out of Christ, as well as the others, will follow them. Their life is a seed-time, and they also will receive a harvest. All men have their opportuni

ties, their temptations, and their afflictions; and they will work in

some way, either as a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death; either as an eternal weight of glory, or of infamy and misery,

But what shall I say in immediate reference to the present melancholy occasion? I wish I could say something that might have a tendency to comfort those that mourn. We have all sustained a heavy loss. The town has lost one that sought its welfare; the poor have lost a benefactor; the church of which he was a member and an officer, has lost one the study of whose life it was to promote its prosperity; those who had the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with him have lost a steady, faithful, and judicious friend; and you, my friend, the partner of his life, you have sustained a heavier loss than any of us. But let us try and consider, the loss is not so great, but that it might have been greater. We have not to sorrow as those that have no hope. Our grief is confined to ourselves. We have no cause to weep on his account. This is a thought which, though frequently mentioned on such occasions as these, yet can never be sufficiently realized. To bury a Christian friend, is nothing in comparison of burying those relations of whose piety we have no well-grounded satisfaction. Add to this, the mercy of God in not taking him away in the prime of life and health and usefulness. He had been removed ten or twelve, or even five or six years ago, the stroke had been much more felt, by all his connexions, than it is now.

I have often admired the wisdom and mercy of God, in these things. We see the threatening hand of God laid upon one of our dearest friends or relatives; at first, we think we can never endure the loss; but the affliction continues; meanwhile, the weight which he sustained in society is gradually removed, and falls, by degrees, upon his friends about him; life becomes a burden to himself; at length, the very same principle that made it appear impossible for us to endure a separation, renders us incapable of praying or even wishing for his continuance; and thus the burden that we should scarcely have known how to bear, becomes tolerable, by being gradually let down, as it were, upon our shoulders.

Our dear friend has left many relations behind him; most of whom, I suppose may at this time, be present. My dear friends,

I have often heard him express his anxiety for several of you, both as to your temporal and spiritual welfare. Some of you may have been apt to consider him as an enviable character, on account of his wealth; but, be assured, he was much more enviable on account of his piety; you need not wish so much to live like him as a gentleman, as to live and die like him as a Christian.

But, I suppose, it will be expected that I should say something more particularly of the deceased himself. I have commonly declined saying much on this head; and I still think, that, generally speaking, it is right to do so; because the generality of characters even of good men, have nothing in them very remarkable or worthy of being held up for our imitation. But, for this very reason, I think, in some cases it would be wrong to omit it. Perhaps no human writings have had a better effect than the lives of eminently holy men. When, therefore, any such characters appear among us, I think it is right to collect as much information respecting them as we can, that the remembrance of them may be of general use.

So far as education and parental example could influence, our deceased friend might be said to have known the holy scriptures from a child. His family, for generations past, have walked in the ways of piety. His great grandfather, Mr, William Wallis, was the founder, and first minister of the church of which you and I are members. He founded it in 1696. His grandfather, Mr. Thomas Wallis, succeeded in the same office. It was in his time that the late Dr. Gill, and the late Mr. Brine, were both called to the ministry. He died in 1726, and his funeral sermon is said, as in the present instance, to have been preached in this place,* on account of the number of people who attended it. His father, Mr. William Wallis, though not a minister, as his predecessors had been, was a very respectable member of the same

*From a respect to Mr. Wallis's memory, a greater number of people attended his funeral than Mr. Fuller's meeting could contain; and the use of the Independent meeting house having been respectfully offered, this discourse was delivered there. This circumstance accounts for some little variaton of phraseology, which an attentive reader may observe in what relates to the church.

ED.

community. When he died, which was in 1757, his son, our deceased friend, was but twenty-two years of age. From his earliest years he was under strong convictions of the truth and importance of religion; but the most remarkable impression of this sort was made at the death of his father. It was then, as he said, that he went and prayed to God, and thought within himself, " O that I had but an interest in Christ; and felt all the world and all its enjoyments, to be mere vanity without it!"

At the time of his father's death, he had a brother, Mr. Joseph Wallis, about twelve years of age. The amiable piety of that young man is said to have appeared at an early period; but, to the great grief of his friends, especially of his brother, he was removed by the small-pox, in the nineteenth year of his age.

In the year 1763, at the age of twenty-eight, Mr. Wallis became a member of the same Christian community in which his predecessors had lived and died. About five years after, he was chosen to the office of a deacon; an office which he has filled with honour and satisfaction for twenty-four years. It was a great blessing to the church, especially when, for the space of five years, they were destitute of a minister, that he was invested with this office, and was then in the prime of life and usefulness. It will long be remembered, with what meekness of wisdom he presided in the church, during that uncomfortable interval; and how, notwithstanding all the disadvantages of such a situation, they were not only preserved in peace, but gradually increased, till a minister was settled among them.

God endued him with a sound understanding and a solid judgment. His knowledge was extensive, and his observation ons men and things, ripened by long experience, were just and accurate. He had a quick sense of right and wrong, of propriety and impropriety, which rendered his counsel of great esteem in cases of difficulty.

To this was added a spirit of activity. Though during the greater part of his life, he was out of trade; yet his head and hands were always full with the concerns of others, either those of private individuals, with which he was entrusted, or matters of public utility. He would rise by five in the morning, in summer, and be as

diligent all the day as if he had had to obtain his bread by the sweat of the brow.

But, perhaps, one of the most prominent features of his character was sincerity, or integrity of heart. This was a temper of mind that ran through all his concerns. In a cause of righteousness, he possessed a severity which rendered it almost impossible for treachery to stand before him. He was prudent, but his prudence never degenerated into low policy, or any thing that deserved the name of subtilty. If motives of mere prudence were proposed to him, he would hesitate, nor would be accede till he had thought whether the measure was right. If he could but satisfy himself on that head, he would be regardless of consequences, or of popular opinion. Even in his contributions, one might perceive his love of righteousness. Though an economist from principle, he had nothing of the niggard: only convince him that a cause was right, (and that was easily done, if it was so,) and he would engage in it with all his heart, nor think much of any expense. "I wish to do what is right," he would say, "and leave consequences." He was a standing example of the falsehood of that system which teaches that "flattery is essential to politeness." If to behave in such a manner as to gain the esteem of all descriptions of men, be politeness, he was polite; yet he hated flattery. He would neither flatter, nor be flattered by others. The true secret by which he obtained esteem was, an unaffected modesty, mingled with kindness and goodness.

He possessed a peculiar decision of character. His judgment was generally formed with slow deliberation; but having once made up his mind, it was not easily altered. He was decisive in the principles he embraced. He held nothing with a loose hand. He observed to me, a few weeks before he died, when mentioning what he conceived to have been his great defect in religion, that it was not a wavering disposition. "I have not," said he, "been tossed about with every wind of doctrine." He has sometimes ingenuously confessed, that he thought himself more in danger of erring, by a prejudiced attachment to receiving principles, than by the contrary. He was equally decisive in matters of practice. He scarcely ever engaged in any thing with indifference. What his VOL. VII.

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