Page:Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.djvu/192

182 loud voice said: "My friends, this is a servant of the living God, who is come from a far country, to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation. We have too long been in darkness; yea, our tongues have cleaved to the roofs of our mouths, and this man is sent to animate and renew our faith." Many blessed God, they had seen and heard me; and all this I imputed to a want of knowledge, relative to the extent of the glad tidings I promulgated. The Grace, Union, and Membership, upon which I expatiated, were admitted by every Calvinist, but admitted only for the elect; and when I repeated those glorious texts of scripture, which indisputably proclaim the redemption of the lost world,—as I did not expressly say, My brethren, I receive these texts in the unlimited sense, in which they are given,—they were not apprized, that I did not read them with the same contracted views, to which they had been accustomed. When they became assured of the magnitude and unbounded result, which I ascribed to the birth, life, and death of the Redeemer, their doors were fast closed against me. For myself, I was in unison with Mr. Relly, who supposed the gradual dawn of light would eventually prove more beneficial to mankind, than the sudden bursting of meridian day. Thus I was contented with proclaiming the truth, as it is in Jesus, in scripture language only,—leaving to my hearers deductions, comments, and applications.

While I continued at Newburyport, numerous solicitations poured upon me, from various quarters; but, in haste to return to Philadelphia, I could only comply with the urgent importunities of several gentlemen from Portsmouth, to which place I journeyed on the 10th of November, 1773. I was received at Portsmouth with most flattering marks of kindness. The pulpit of the separate minister, Mr. Drown, then recently deceased, was thrown open to me; the congregations were large; my adherents were truly respectable, and I was earnestly urged to take up my residence among them. The meeting-house of Mr. Drown being too small, I was invited into the pulpit of Dr. L, in which I preached, two clergymen occupying seats therein. In Portsmouth I received many marks of friendship; my necessities were sought out, and removed; and the names of Clarkson, Morrison, Hart, and Drown, son of the deceased minister, were, on that first visit, among my most partial friends. I returned to Newburyport, accompanied by Mr. Morrison and Mr. Drown, and again delivered my testimony in the pulpits of the Rev. Mr. Parsons and Mr. Marsh. Mr. Parsons requested I would write to him from Philadelphia; and on Wednesday, November 17th, I returned to Boston, where I learned, that a spirit of