ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SERMONS.

THE following specimens were taken, at the time of delivery, by the author of these Reminiscences when he was a very young man. Whatever defects may appear, must be entirely imputed to him, with allowances for the great difficulty of catching any thing from so rapid a speaker as Mr. Hall. None of his most brilliant passages and flights of imagination could possibly be taken, owing to their electrifying effect. They are, however, something after the manner of parliamentary reports, where the substance and leading thoughts only of the speeches are preserved. They will, at any rate, serve to dissipate the erroneous impression, that Mr. Hall was not at this time orthodox; and, it is hoped, they will make a third class of Mr. Hall's remains, the first class being his own finished works; the second, those found in his own writing, as skeletons, and recently published. If Mr. Hall's friends and the public consider these specimens as at least not injurious to his great reputation; should the writer's life and health be preserved, he could make up a volume of Cambridge sermons before Mr. Hall's illness.

SERMONS.

I.

REV. XII. 10.-Here is the faith and patience of the

saints.

[PREACHED AT CAMBRIDGE, DEC. 5, 1801.]

OUR Saviour told his disciples that the time would come when they should be given up to persecution and afflictions; that they should be hated of all men, and be called before kings for his name's sake. This prediction was soon verified. Other systems have been established in the world by fraud and by conquest, but the christian religion grew up amidst persecution and death. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. Whether we consider it a part of human nature to triumph in this way, or the fulfilment of our Saviour's prediction, it forms the most instructive spectacle that can be contemplated. If we wish to know what the peculiar character of christianity is, we must look into the conduct of the martyrs, where we shall see in what the

faith and patience of the saints consists. Let us consider the subject of martyrdom: first, As it illustrates the truth of christianity, and secondly, As it shews the spirit of it.

I. As a strong proof of the evidence of christianity, we may observe the great length of the persecutions that attended the promulgation of it. The first in order was that which took place under the emperor Nero, that master-spirit of persecution, who, as Tertullian says, persecuted nothing but what was good, and that under false charges. To satisfy his cruelty, stakes were thrust through the jaws of the christians; they were literally rolled up in garments saturated with pitch, and were set up as lamps to illuminate the city of Rome; others drew the emperor's chariot, while he tortured them. This persecution, which ceased at the death of Nero, was revived by Domitian, in whose reign the apostle John was banished to the Isle of Patmos. It was continued with little interruption during the reigns of Trajan, Antoninus, and Decius, until the time of Dioclesian. There was a standing law, by which christians were condemned to death, without a fresh decree of the senate. The severest persecution was exercised under Dioclesian, and was more extensive and cruel than any which preceded it. It commenced with the bishops or pastors, and descended in its progress, until it comprehended all orders of men. The effect of this was a revolution which placed a christian emperor at the head of the world, when these proceedings entirely ceased.