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 THEIR AUTHORS AND ORIGIN. 155

a course in which repentance was again and again followed by a return to sin.

At length, a great domestic affliction was made the occasion of his obtaining an affecting sense of the sinfulness of his state. Then followed a strange condition of spiritual perversion, in which he even gloried in his supposed liberty of sinning. He says : &quot; In this abominable state I continued a loose backslider an audacious apostate a bold-faced rebel for nine or ten years, not only committing acts of lewdness myself, but infecting others with the poison of my delusions. I published several pieces on diffe rent subjects, chiefly translations of the ancient heathens, to which I prefixed prefaces, and subjoined notes of a pernicious tendency, and indulged a freedom of thought far unbecoming a Christian.&quot; His work on &quot; The Unreasonableness of Religion&quot; is dated 1741.

Subsequently, he became the subject of compunctions of con science, which led to reformation of conduct. But he was still self-righteous and morally dead, and at times, in pride of heart, even denied the necessity for an atonement. In 1757, after a period in which feelings of despondency alternated with feel ings of hope, he had an &quot; amazing view of the agony of Christ in the garden,&quot; and received an impression too deep ever to be obliterated. This was followed by great distress for having so cul pably misused his Gospel privileges. At this stage in his history, he sometimes found comfort in attending the ministry at the &quot; Tabernacle in Moorfields, and sometimes at the chapel at Tottenham Court.&quot; And at length he entered into the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of peace, while listening to a sermon at the Moravian Chapel, Fetter Lane, on the text Rev. 3, v. 10, &quot; Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, &c.&quot; The details of the history of his religious course are remarkable, and deserving of thoughtful perusal. In addition to the prose account given of them in his preface to his Hymns, he has given a poetical narration of them in a hymn of twenty-three verses No. 27 in his collection. In 1759 he commenced preaching and hymn-

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