Peter N Millward

AN ADDRESS BY DR. J. WESLEY BREADY, PH.D.

Chairman: The President, Dr. F. A. Gaby

Thursday, April 25, 1940

THE PRESIDENT: I have a great deal of pleasure in introducing to you today an experienced and noted lecturer, Dr. J. Wesley Bready, who is an explorer of social and industrial relationships with an international reputation. He has been the recipient of many honours: B.A. from Queen's University; B.D. from Toronto University; M. A. from Columbia University. 

Dr. Bready has travelled extensively throughout the Dominion and his interest in sociology has become his chief life work. This caused him to move to Great Britain in 1920 and one result of his work there was the award of Doctor of Philosophy from London University, upon the recommendation of the famous historian, George Macauley Trevelyan, O.M. 

In addition to his many lecture tours, he is also an author of note, and among his books are Lord Shaftesbury and Social-Industrial Progress, first edition in 1926; Dr. Barnardo: Physician, Pioneer, Prophet, first edition in 1930: and England before and After Wesley, published a year ago and already in a fifth edition. The last mentioned was chosen as a "Book of the Month" in England in 1939. He is a true Imperialist and a firm believer in the perpetuity of the British Commonwealth of Nations. 

I take much pleasure in introducing Dr. J. Wesley Bready, whose address is entitled, "Why Britain Still Leads."(Applause) 

DR. J. WESLEY BREADY, PH.D.: Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: Before grappling with my subject, allow me to express my warm appreciation of the honour bestowed upon me in inviting me to address this august Club, whose purpose is the true service of a liberty-loving, liberty-mediating and liberty-defending Empire. 

My only apology for speaking from this platform is that as a Canadian born, I have had the privilege of spending some seventeen years of historical research in those glorious Islands I love to call the Mother Country. Those years, moreover, afforded me the privilege--a great privilege--of interpreting the lives of three of the noblest sons of the Empire, of three, I think, of the most truly noble sons of the modern world: John Wesley, Lord Shaftesbury, the mighty social reformer, and Dr. Barnardo, "the Father of Nobody's Children". This study and these years of sojourn in the Mother Country have made me realize as never before could I have realized, the debt of the whole world to the liberty-loving and liberty-spreading spirit of the British Empire. 

Well, Gentlemen, we meet in troubled times. Today, over the face of the earth, liberty is being threatened. Today, freedom, justice, righteousness, truth, mercy and religion are on the defensive. Blustering, bullying and brutal forces in the form of totalitarian states are rampant. Everywhere the armies and the emissaries of the totalitarian states are striving, ruthlessly, to trample to death the spirit of liberty--yea, some of us believe of civilization itself. 

Tyrannies, however, are no new thing in this old world's history. Military, political, academic, economic and even religious tyrannies have had their day and ceased to be; but never, perhaps, has the world been threatened with such a tyranny-so gruesome, so repulsive, so soulless-as that inherent in the ideologies of these modern totalitarian states, these states that would coerce initiative and suppress freedom. 

The other day I ran across some humorous lines which to me were suggestive. I pass them on 

Germany's Reichstag has met once more, "Ja!"says the Reichstag, "Ja!"

To hear the speech it has heard before, "Ja!"says the Reichstag, "Ja!"

It has no voice and it has no views, It just comes in on the chorus ques, With the only word it's allowed to use, "Ja!"says the Reichstag, "Ja!"

Deputies "Heil", and click their heels, "Ja!"says the Reichstag, "Ja!"

Quite as human as well-trained seals, "Ja!"says the Reichstag, "Ja!"

Hitler herring, without their roes, Hitler "yes-men", without their "No's", Hitler's clack for his one-man shows, "Ja!"says the Reichstag, "Ja!"

(Applause) 

There you are, Gentlemen. Sometimes humour comes close to truth. 

In this skit surely is reflected the world's arch-tragedy today. Not only Germany and her vassal states, but Russia, Italy and Japan are flattened under the steam roller of a "Ja! Ja!"system of military dictation. In these countries all creative debate is silenced; all consciences are coerced; all non-conformity to official tyranny is muzzled. Hence, free people today, the world over, are looking increasingly to Britain for guidance, leadership and defence. 

This brings me to my central theme: why does Britain still lead? Why, on all sides, are the forces of liberty and conscience assembling beneath her banner and behind her shield? 

In answering this question I know there are some who simply would say that the British people by nature are so uniquely endowed with balance, graciousness, good sportsmanship and the love of liberty, that they are comparatively free of the Old Adam, and therefore predestined to world leadership. Now, that the land of Chaucer, Spencer, Shakespeare, Milton and Cromwell was possessed of a more-than-ordinary instinct for liberty, fair play and decency, who will deny? Nevertheless, to suggest that the British people are by nature superior to all others and that in an unbroken and, as it were, apostolic succession, they have been the mediators of justice, freedom and integrity, is surely to do violence to the facts of history and to betray truth. Britain's record is such that we can afford to be both frank and fair. 

To three eras in modern British history I now invite your attention: First, the era of moral and spiritual eclipse: and that we must admit. Secondly, the era of moral and spiritual rebirth. Thirdly, the era of epic reform. 

The first of these three eras we must needs treat frankly, if briefly. The second we shall centre in the life of an incomparable spiritual leader, a Briton to the bone. A discussion of the third is utterly essential to any understanding of the heritage of conscience, vision and achievement which the British Empire at this moment is guarding and defending for all liberty-loving peoples the world over. 

(Applause) 

We proceed, then, to the first of these three specified periods, the era of moral and spiritual eclipse. The late 17th and early 18th century in England is designated in the Cambridge Modern History as--"an age of materialism, a period of dim ideals and expiring hopes."It is a sad picture. 

This was the age when the slave trade was dominating England's economic and financial life and Britain, following the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, rejoiced in gaining the lion's share of that nefarious traffic. This age of "expiring hopes"was also the age of gin-drunkenness. In the large cities-London, Bristol, Norfolk-hundreds of public houses hung out signs, "Drunk for a Penny; Dead Drunk 2 pence; Free Straw."

It was the age, too, we must admit, of South Sea Bubble finance, of Whig oligarchy politics, with its shameless corruption; the age of incredible child neglect. It was the age of shallow brilliance and tinsel show. Like most charlatan eras of history that put on airs it called itself "the Age of Reason and Naturalism". In reality, it was the age of Rationalistic Materialism and Futilitarian Fatalism. Pope was but expressing the Zeitgeist of that era when he wrote, "One truth is clear, whatever is, is right. "Of course that included the slave trade. It included the rotten politics of that period. It included the right of a skeptical, cynical clique to domineer over the vast outcast multitudes of working England in that day. 

Mandeville, in his Fable of the Bees was more outspoken than Pope. He dared to write, "To make society happy it is necessary that great numbers should be wretched as well as poor."

This swashbuckling paganism was, as we shall soon see, checked and defeated in England by an unparalleled revival of vital, practical Christianity. But ere passing to that Baptism of Fire, it is significant to note that Montesquieu, Rousseau and Voltaire had all lived in this Deistic England. They all had been feted by the smart skeptical set and they carried back to France this species of Deism called Rationalistic Naturalism, or more accurately, Rationalistic Materialism, and there it finally issued in the holocaust and bloodshed, known as the "Reign of Terror."

From France this same Humanistic Paganism travelled to Germany and there issued in Nietzsche's Power Politics that expressed themselves finally in Prussian Militarism. Nietzsche, himself, incidentally, died in a mad-house. 

Later, when Economics was to the fore, Karl Marx took the same Atheistic Materialism, and dressing it up in the so-called "philosophy "of Communism, created the vitriolic propaganda which issued in that spiritual monstrosity, Bolshevik Russia. 

Well, Gentlemen, that is a sorry period of History. It is with joy we pass on to the second part of our subject--the era of England's moral and spiritual rebirth- Now, we will see a different country from the England in that age of the slave trade and rotten politics. 

I invite you to return now to the Cambridge Modern History. We see that this great history characterized the foregoing age as an "age of materialism, dim ideals and expiring hopes-"Thank God, it continues: "Before the middle of the century its character was transformed; there appeared a movement, headed by a mighty leader, who brought forth water from the rocks to make a barren land live again. "These are the words of Dr. Temperlay in the Cambridge Modern History, designating "The Age of Reason."

Recall that today the totalitarian states are calling themselves expressions of "The Age of Science". 

This mighty leader, "who brought forth water from the rocks to make a barren land live again, "is the central character in the greatest moral and spiritual drama the British Empire in its whole history has known. Mark the verdict of that great Minister of Education, the Rt. Honourable Augustine Birrell: "No man lived nearer to the centre than John Wesley; neither Pitt nor Clive, neither Mansfield nor Johnson. You cannot cut him out of the national life. No single figure influenced so many minds: no single voice touched so many hearts; no other man did such a life's work for England-"

What an amazing tribute! Could we point to any other character, in all modern history, and pay such a tribute as that? Yet it is paid by a great educationist and statesman. Nor do such tributes stand alone. You will pardon me mentioning that just after the publication of my book, England: Before and After Wesley, Sir Charles Oman, head of the Modern History Department of Oxford, Member of Parliament for Oxford, and Intelligence Officer of the British Government during the last war, wrote me saying:-"I have always, Sir, agreed with your central conclusion, that John Wesley saved England from spiritual and moral collapse."

It is a stupendous claim. Why, then, have most historians ignored such things? Why? That is one of the vital questions of this hour. 

As friends of the Empire, whatever our politics or our creed, let us pause now and consider briefly the life of this amazing man whom historians have little understood and much ignored. 

We can indulge but a flying panorama. At 35 years of age, this man, who later was to save England and the Empire from moral and spiritual collapse, was a failure. Note that word. Don't misunderstand me. From his earliest youth he had been a person of amazing self-discipline, amazing intelligence, amazing erudition and amazing sincerity. He had been a Don at Oxford (an Oxford Professor) and was a great classic scholar. Nevertheless, he was a failure. 

Then something happened. This disillusioned professor-priest underwent a transforming spiritual experience, called (it is a word today unpopular) "conversion". Would to God we knew its meaning! It would be great for the Empire. He had a soul-illuminating, heart-warming rebirth; and that experience lifted him up, like his Lord, to the Mount of Transfiguration. To use Wesley's own words, his "spiritual eyes were opened "and he beheld the Holy One, the Invisible. His "spiritual ears were unstopped "and he heard the still, small voice of the Son of God, and began to live abundantly, triumphantly, as never before. The old tattered robes of legalism fell from him, and he knew himself "clothed upon "with the new and gleaming mantle of the Spirit Eternal. 

This man, after his rebirth, looked with a seer's vision upon this England in eclipse, the England of the slave trader, the England of the kidnapper, the England of rotten theatres with free entrances for prostitutes of the street, the England of brutal sports-the England of a Deistic clique that had left the multitudes to wallow in ignorance, bestiality and shame. The Age of Reason, indeed! 

Like the prophet of old, Wesley's soul cried out: "Here am I, Oh, God! Use me! -not as I will but as Thou wilt, if only England be saved! "For, with spiritual eyes he could see beneath the adultery, the drunkenness and the debauchery, the infinite value of the souls of men- 

So, he came down from that mount of transfiguration to the mundane affairs of everyday life. He began moving about among the common people as a priest of the Church of England, who loved the Church of England, who loved its Creed, who had no quarrel with the Church if only it would do its job and be faithful to its purpose. He tried to work within it. I shall not engage in controversy; but I have spent years of research in this field, and the blunt truth is that he was not wanted. Probably the greatest of the Bishops of that age, Bishop Butler, told Wesley in Bristol, "You are not wanted here, Sir, go hence!"

So, in the Providence of God, working with Whitefield, his amazing colleague, Wesley took to the open fields and soon we find him travelling all over the beautiful countryside of England. (How those of us who know it love it!) Over the hills, across the ferns, fording streams and struggling in currents, sometimes hanging on to his horse's tail. He was everywhere--at the mouth of the pit, at the door of the factory, in village market places--on town cobble stones. Yea, millions of British cobble stones are forever sacred where multitudes of British workmen kneeled as this man of God led them in prayer. England was in the process of finding her soul. 

Think of the titanic labours of this man. In all recorded history they defy a parallel. He preached, in the fifty-three years succeeding his conversion, 46,000 sermons. He travelled--mostly on horse-back or on foot--226,000 miles. Despite all his other work, he published 233 books and pamphlets. He made £30,000 profits out of his writings alone. He was incomparably the greatest adult educator modern history in any land has yet known, and he never spent more than £30 a year on his own person. His was a life of almost unparalleled abstemiousness. He died in his eighty-eighth year, worth less than k10. He had given his all to God and to man. 

No wonder Mr. Baldwin, now Lord Baldwin, when Prime Minister, said, "I am supposed to be a busy man but by the side of John Wesley I am one of the unemployed."

No wonder that Lloyd George, in reviewing the life of Wesley, said, "He left to the whole English-speaking world a heritage incomparably sublime."

Why, Gentlemen, as citizens of this Empire--I don't care whether you be Jew or Gentile, Protestant or Catholic--you owe an unspeakable debt of gratitude to the sheer majesty of the life of this man of God who poured out his soul without thought of fee or hire to save England. Again, have you ever thought of the debt of Democracy to this incomparable man, or the debt of Democracy to his Class Leaders, to say nothing of his itinerary preachers, that mighty army of self-taught Enthusiasts under their great Oxford Don? 

Pause a moment on the Class Leaders--what a place they really have, if history were truly written, in the development of British Democracy. Have you ever known that Wesley was in contact with some ten thousand Class Leaders all over Britain before his death? Wherever he went, travelling everywhere in all sorts of weather, there were tortured souls who wanted to free themselves from drunkenness and sin and dishonesty and violence; so he formed seeking men into groups of twelve, under a man of character; while twelve seeking women he placed under a woman of character--to build them up in faith. They prayed together, worked together, and testified as to the miracles God had wrought in their hearts. All too, were sworn to secrecy concerning Class confessions. 

Of course they had troubles. 

There was an old fellow of Crewe, Who discovered a mouse in his stew. Said the waiter: "Don't shout and wave it about, Or the rest will be wanting one too."

Think that over and apply it to the Class Meetings. There were mice that got into the stew-even rats. But these Class Leaders, trained under Wesley, became some of the most winsome characters in Britain. When problems arose, they didn't shout and wave them about. 

For instance, if a man in a Class lapsed back into drunkenness, and tens of thousands of drunkards were reclaimed in this miraculous movement in England, they didn't wag their heads and say, "I told you so. What is the good of it? "They got down on their knees in prayer and yearned over that man as a mother over a fallen son. They went out after him when his old cronies had taken him off and poured gin down his throat; they won him back, and rejoiced more over the one sinner returned than over the ninety-and-nine that were safe in the fold. 

When you consider those ten thousand Class Leaders, what does Democracy in Britain not owe to such a movement as that? Again we quote Lord Baldwin. "Historians, "he says, "who fill their pages with Napoleon and have nothing to say of Wesley, now are beginning to realize that they can never explain 19th century England until they first explain John Wesley, "He poignantly added: "I believe it equally true to say they will never understand what is best in 20th century America until they understand Wesley. "His influence embraced the world. 

This leads us to the third and concluding section of our survey--the era of epic reform. The abolition of the slave trade and slavery, by consensus of opinion among the greatest modern historians, is the cardinal achievement of all modern history. 

Four times Professor George Macaulay Trevelyan; O.M., in his History of the 19th Century, refers to the abolition of this nefarious traffic as a "turning event "in modern "world history. "Note that word "world". He doesn't say "British"; he doesn't say "European"; he says "world history". This turning event, Trevelyan reminds us, came "only just in time". Had the accursed traffic in human blood continued but a little longer, nothing is more certain than that the rising cupidity of the growing nationalisms of Europe, not content with transporting African slaves from their own continent to the new world, would have parceled out the whole African Continent (the second largest) into "slave farms". 

Trevelyan continues: "The inevitable Nemesis of that travesty of humanity and justice would as certainly have spelled the dissolution and destruction of modern European civilization-he doesn't say of 'British civilization', but 'modern European civilization'-as the institution of slavery spelled the destruction of the old civilization of Greece and Rome."

Well, Gentlemen, here we are in the realm of the imponderables, so staggering in proportion that the average man passes by because of spiritual blindness. To talk about the British Empire without recognition of these things is to try to understand the body without any cognizance of the soul that expresses itself through the body. 

Who then were the chief leaders in this great achievement, this miracle of modern history? Note well their names: Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, Zachary Macaulay, Cowper the poet, Hannah More, Sir James Stephen-go right through the list, including John Newton and Thomas Buxton and every single one of them was an avowed Christian. They were of every denomination, including Quakers, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Anglicans and Catholics. Yes! But all of them, in the last analysis, were children of the new Zeitgeist--the new birth of national conscience which Wesley had wrought. Indeed the Evangelical revival represents the Great Divide, the water-shed, of modern British history. It bequeathed a new soul to the common people of England. 

These things are essential to our understanding of Britain today, but we pass from this amazing achievement to the foundations of popular education. And their building represents a romantic story that started with a humble Sunday School. 

The next step was the creation of the Royal Lancastrian School Society. Following that, came the British and Foreign School Society, uniting all Non-Conformists; and after that, the National School Society under the Church of England. Then, in like succession, came Shaftesbury's Educational Classes in the Factory Acts, and later, the romantic Ragged School Movement, with which Charles Dickens and some of the geniuses of England were associated. The Bible was its chief text. 

Only after all this, through the famous Board School Act, came free and popular education for the common people of England; and Gladstone under whose Government it was passed, said that it "simply filled in the gaps". Next came the humanizing of the Prison System and the Penal Code. John Howard and Elizabeth Fry were the epic characters in this field. Both were children of the new Christian Revival, the mighty Baptism of Fire, that had spread over England and through the Empire, mediating heart warmth, soul illumination and moral power. We press on to the emancipation of industrial England; and what an achievement it was! Don't forget, first, that the crudities, and cruelties and the exploitations of the early Industrial Revolution began under slavery. Most historians have utterly ignored that fact. But who now was raised up as a prophet-statesman, to lift the arms of protecting love against the exploitation of women and children? Why, Lord Shaftesbury, as every school boy should know. Think a moment regarding his life. He was born in a godless, though titled, home. The love of God and man was breathed into his soul by an old Christian nurse, Maria Millis. At fourteen years of age, while a student at Harrow School, he saw a pauper's funeral in which the pallbearers were so stupidly drunk they stumbled and fell, allowing the coffin to crash to earth, and crack. Like Lincoln at New Orleans, Shaftesbury vowed a vow and prayed a prayer, the tenor of which was: "Oh, God, can these things be in Christian England? "And there, he dedicated his life to the uplift of the downtrodden and oppressed among his countrymen. 

Later he went to Oxford where he graduated with first class honours in Classics. At twenty-five he was an M.P. At twenty-seven, he obtained Cabinet rank. Fifty-seven of the sixty years of Shaftesbury's public life were given without a penny of pay, and he was a poor man all of his life. For many years, while his father disowned him, he had to borrow money to educate his ten children. 

Consider the majesty of his life's work. He passed the epic and transforming succession of Factory Acts. He passed the Mines and Collieries Bill, the Chimney Sweep Acts, different Health, Housing and Education reforms, and also the Lodging House Bill which Dickens described as "the best Act ever passed by a British Legislature". He gave his whole life in a passionate outpouring for the welfare of the common people. Does his career mean nothing in understanding the heritage of this Empire? If we neglect it the workers of England have not neglected it. Many of you know Piccadilly Circus, London. In the heart of Piccadilly Circus stands an amazing memorial, commonly called the "Eros Monument". It is the Shaftesbury Memorial, built by the consecrated pennies of the emancipated industrial workers of England. The busiest spot in this Empire therefore contains not the memorial of a British King, or of Shakespeare, the King of Literature, but of the Prince of Social Reformers, the great Lord Shaftesbury, who gave his all in a missionary crusade (himself an Earl) to enrich the life of the common people of England. He, like Wilberforce, was a product of the same great Spiritual Awakening. 

A step further, as we draw toward our conclusion. I had the honour of writing the history of the Barnardo Homes. Dr. Barnardo's work was such that it is cardinal to the understanding of the humanity of this Empire. 

At sixteen Barnardo was a priggish agnostic. Then came a spiritual awakening. He came from Dublin, his native city, to London to train as a medical missionary to China. In London's East End slums he opened up, at his own expense, a Donkey Shed Ragged School. One night he discovered a half-starved urchin trying to hide in the school. He took him home, fed him and discovered in talking with him that he had no friend in the world; he slept out. After a hot meal, Barnardo put a half-crown in his pocket and challenged the youngster to lead him out into the night and show him a "lay "of boys sleeping out. The challenge was accepted, and off they went. After two hours 'search, Barnardo climbed a wall, ten feet high near the banks of the Thames; and there he saw the challenge of his life's work-eleven homeless boys sleeping out on a metal roof on a winter's night. 

Barnardo never saw China, the land of his dreams. He opened up the East End Juvenile Mission, and out of it grew the Barnardo Homes. Those Homes, to date, have mothered and reared 130,000 once destitute and homeless boys. They have rendered temporary help to a half-million more. Two per cent of all the British stock in our fair Dominion of Canada are Barnardo children and their descendants. At this moment, Barnardo Homes are mothering 8,500 once destitute bairns. 

Do you think you can understand our Empire without an understanding of this, and analogous Christian organizations? I am not saying the British Empire is wholly Christian. I am not saying that there has ever been a truly Christian state or Empire in history; but I believe the British Empire, since the time of Wesley has been more Christian than any other great political system the world has yet known. 

The foregoing, Gentlemen, are but a few of the rich fruits which the "epic era of social reform "brought to the British Empire. To attempt to understand British Democracy without reference to these things is like an attempt to understand light without reference to the sun. The mighty Spiritual Awakening under Wesley produced the inimitable century of the Pax Britannica, the most truly creative century, perhaps, in the history of civilization. 

Sir James Barrie, once addressing the Oxford University Union, said, "Now, don't forget to speak slightingly of the Victorians. There will be time enough for you to learn humility when you try to better them. "Think that over. 

A smart American novelist recently wrote: "Man is a parasite crawling on the vertebrae of the pygmy among the planets. "Is that philosophy common in the world today? Could a Wesley, a Wilberforce, a Shaftesbury or a Barnardo have spoken thus of man? 

The century of the Pax Britannica was the age of peace because it was an age of hope, of vision and of faith. 

Lord Bryce, summing up in his classic, Modern Democracies, writes: "If the spiritual oxygen which has kept alive the attachment to liberty and self-government in the minds of the people becomes exhausted, will not the flame burn low and perhaps flicker out? . . . Without faith nothing is accomplished and hope is the mainspring of faith."

Tragedy, today, is with us. But we are not bereft of hope, and it may be that this war is calling us afresh to guard our spiritual treasure and to recapture and enlarge the faith and the vision that inspired the mighty Pax Britannica and made the British Empire a blessing to the whole wide world. 

Gentlemen, I thank you. (Applause) 

by William Dodd ​

THE LAST AND GREAT SERMON,

Of the Rev Dr William Dodd, Preached in the Chapel of Newgate-prison, late Minister at Bloomsberry-Chapel in London, to his Convict Brethren on Friday the 6th of June, 1777, a short time before he suffered.

From Psalm. II. 3, I acknowledge my faults, and my sin is ever before me.

With his Letter of Address to the Rev, Mr VILETTE, Ordinary in Newgate-prison, in order for publication,

Dr WILLIAM DODD’s ADDRESS

My dear and unhappy fellow Prisoners,

CONSIDERING my peculiar circumstances and situation, I cannot think myself justified, if I do not deliver to you, in sincere Christian love, some of my serious thoughts on our present awful state.

In the sixteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, you read a memorable story respecting Paul and Silas, who, for preaching the Gospel, were cast by the Magistrates into prison, verse 23--and, after having received many stripes, were committed to the Jailer, with a strict charge to keep them safely. Accordingly he thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks, At midnight Paul and Silas, supported by the testimony of a good conscience, prayed, and sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them; and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's chains were loosed. The keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, in the greatest distress as might well be imagined, drew his sword, and would have killed himself supposing that the prisoners had fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, Do thyself no harm for we are all here. The keeper calling for a light, and finding his prisoners thus freed from their bonds by the imperceptible agency of Divine Power, was irresistibly convinced that these men were not offenders against the law, but martyrs for the truth: he sprang in therefore, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?

What must I do to be saved? - Is the important question, which it becomes every human being to study from the first hour of reason to the last ; but which we, my fellow prisoners, ought to consider with particular diligence and intenseness of meditation. Had it not been forgotten, or neglected by us, we had never appeared in this place. A little time for recollection and amendment is yet allowed us by the mercy of the law. Of this little time let no particle be lost. Let us fill our remaining life with all the duties which our present condition allows us to practice. Let us make one earnest effort for salvation And oh ! heavenly Father, who desireth not the death of a sinner, grant that this effort may not be in vain !

To teach others what they must do to be saved, has long been my employment and profession. You see with what confusion and dishonour I now stand before you----no more in the pulpit of instruction, but on this humble seat with yourselves. ---You are not to consider me now, as -a man authorized to form the manners, or direct the conscience, and speaking with the authority of a pastor to his flock.-I am here guilty, like yourselves, of a capital offence, and sentenced like yourselves to public and shameful death. My profession, which has given me stronger convictions of my duty than most of you can be supposed to have attained, and has extended my views to the consequences of wickedness farther than your observation is likely to have reached, has loaded my sin with peculiar aggravations; and I entreat you to join your prayers with mine, that my sorrow may be proportionate to my guilt!

I am now, like you, enquiring, what I must do to be saved ? and stand here to communicate to you what that enquiry suggests. Hear me with attention, my fellow prisoners; and in your melancholy hours of retirement, consider well what I offer to you from the sincerity of my good will, and from the deepest conviction of a penitent heart.

Salvation is promised to us Christians, on the terms of Faith, Obedience, and Repentance. I shall therefore endeavour to show how, in the short interval between this moment and death, we may exert Faith, perform Obedience, and exercise Repentance, in a manner which our heavenly Father may, in his infinite mercy, vouchsafe to accept.

 1 Faith is the foundation of all Christian virtues It is without which it is impossible to please God. I shall therefore consider, first, how Faith is to be particularly exerted by us in our present state.

Faith is a full and undoubting confidence in the declarations made by God in the holy Scriptures; a sincere reception of the doctrines taught by our blessed Saviour, with a firm assurance that he died to take away the sins of the world, and That we have, each of us, a part in the boundless benefits of the universal Sacrifice. 

To this faith we must have recourse at all times, but particularly if we find ourselves tempted to despair. If thoughts arise in our minds, which suggest that we have sinned beyond the hope of pardon, and that therefore it is in vain to seek for reconciliation by repentance; we must remember now God willeth that every man should be saved, and that those who obey his call, however late, shall not be rejected.--- If we are tempted to think that the injuries we have done are unrepaired, and therefore repentance is in vain ; let us remember, that the reparation which is impossible is not required; that sincerely to will, is to do, in the light of Him to whom all hearts are open ; and that what is deficient in our endeavours is supplied by the merits of Him who died to redeem us.

Yet let us likewise be careful, lest an erroneous opinion of the all-sufficiency of our Saviour's merits lull us into carelessness and security. His merits are indeed all-sufficient! But he has prescribed the terms on which they are to operate. He died to save sinners, but to save only those sinners that repent,

Peter, who denied him, was forgiven, but he obtained his pardon by weeping bitterly. They who have lived in perpetual regularity of duty, and are free from any gross or visible transgression, are yet but unprofitable servants ;--- What then are we, whose crimes are hastening us to the grave before our time ?---Let us work with fear and trembling, but still let us endeavour to work out our salvation. Let us hope without presumption ; Let us fear without desperation; and let our faith animate us to that which we were to consider.

Secondly, “ Sincere Obedience to the laws of God.” Our obedience, for the short time yet remaining, is restrained to a narrow circle. Those duties, which are called social and relative, are for the most part out of our power. We can contribute very little to the general happiness of mankind, while those whom kindred and friendship have allied to us, we have brought disgrace and sorrow. We can only benefit the public by an example of contrition, and fortify our friends against temptation by warning and admonition.

The obedience now left us to practice is,“ submission to the will of God, and calm acquiescence in his wisdom and his justice.” We must not allow ourselves to repine at those miseries which have followed our offences, but suffer, with silent humility and resigned patience, the punishment which we deserve ; remembering that, according to the apostle’s decision, no praise is due to them who bear with patience to be buffeted for their faults. | When we consider the wickedness of our past lives, and the danger of having been summoned to the final judgment without preparation, we shall, hope, gradually rise so much above the gross conceptions of human nature, as to return thanks to God for what once seemed the most dreadful of all evils----our detection and conviction!----We. Shrink back by immediate and instinctive terror, From the public eye, turned as it is upon us with indignation and contempt. Imprisonment is afflictive, and ignominious death is fearful ! But let us compare our condition with that which our actions might reasonably have incurred. The robber might have died in the act of violence, by lawful resistance. The man of fraud might have sunk into the grave, while he was enjoying the gain of his artifice :--and where then had been our hope? We have now leisure for thought ; we have opportunities of instruction, and whatever we suffer from offended laws, may yet reconcile ourselves to God, who, if we sincerely seek him, will assuredly be found.

But how are we to seek the Lord? By the way which he himself hath appointed; by humble, fervent, and frequent prayer. --Some hours of worship are appointed us; let us duly observe them, Some assistance to our devotion is supplied ; let us thankfully accept it. But let us not rest in formality and prescription : let us call upon God night and day. When, in the review of the time which we have past, any offence arises to our thoughts, let us humbly implore forgiveness : and for those faults (and many they are and must be) which we cannot recollect, let us solicit mercy in general petitions. But it must be our constant care, that we pray not merely with our lips ; but that when we lament our sins, we are really humbled in self-abhorrence ( See Job. chap. xlii. ver. 6.) ; and that, when we call for mercy, we raise our thoughts to hope and trust in the goodness of God, and the merits of our blessed Saviour, Jesus Christ.

The reception of the holy Sacrament, to which we shall be called, in the most solemn manner, perhaps a few hours before we die, is the highest act of Christian worship. At that awful moment it will become us to drop forever all worldly thoughts, to fix our hopes solely upon Christ whose death is represented ; and to consider ourselves as no longer connected with mortality. And possibly, it may please God to afford us some consolation, some secret intimations of acceptance and forgiveness. But these radiations of favour are not always felt by the sincerest penitents. To the greater part of those whom angels stand ready to receive, nothing is granted in this world beyond rational hope :- and with hope, founded on promise, we may well be satisfied.  outward actions... But such promises of salvation are made only to the penitent. It is requisite then that we consider, 

Thirdly, “ How Repentance is to be exercised.” Repentance, in the general state of Christian life, is such a sorrow for sin as produces a change of manners, and an amendment of life. It is that disposition of mind, by which he who stole, steals no more ; by which the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, and doth that which is lawful and right. And to the man thus reformed it is expressly promised, that be shall save his soul alive.  (There cannot be a stronger explanation of this idea than the conduct of the Jailer, who uttered the question, with which we commenced our enquiry-What shall I do to the saved ? What a change of mind and manners was Wrought in him by the power of God. Read Acts chap. xvi,)  Of this repentance the proofs are visible, and the reality certain, always to the penitent, and commonly to the church with which he communicates; because the state of the mind is discovered by the

Outward actions. - But of the repentance which our condition requires and admits, no such evidence can appear; for to us many crimes and many virtues are made impossible by confinement; and the shortness of the time which is before us, gives little power, even to ourselves, of distinguishing the effects of terror from those of conviction ; of deciding, whether our present sorrow for sin proceeds from abhorrence of guilt, or dread of punishment ; whether the violence of our inordinate passions be totally subdued by the fear of God, or only crushed and restrained by the temporary force of present calamity.

Our repentance is like that of other sinners on the death-bed; but with this advantage, that our danger is not greater, and our strength is more. Our faculties are not impaired by weakness of body. We come to the great work not withered by pains, nor clouded by the fumes of disease, but with minds capable of continued attention, and with bodies, of which we need have no care! We may therefore better discharge this tremendous duty, and better judge of our own performance.

Of the efficacy of a death-bed repentance many have disputed ; but we have no leisure for controversy. Fix in your minds this decision, “Repentance is a change of the heart, of an evil to a good disposition.” When that change is made, repentance is complete. God will consider that life as amended, which would have been amended if he had spared it. Repentance in the sight of man, even of the penitent, is not known but by its fruits; but our Creator sees the fruit in the blossom, or the seed. He knows those resolutions which are fixed, those conversions which would be permanent; and will receive them who are qualified by holy desires for works of righteousness, without exacting from them these outward duties by which the shortness of their lives hindered them from performing.

Nothing therefore remains, but that we apply with all our speed, and with all our strength, to rectify our desires, and purify our thoughts ; What we see God before us in all his goodness and terrors ; that we consider him as the Father and the Judge of all the earth ; as a Father, desirous to save; as a Judge, who cannot pardon unrepented iniquity : that we fall down before him Self condemned, and excite in our hearts an intense detestation of those crimes which have provoked Him; with vehement and steady resolutions, that if life were granted us, it should be spent hereafter in the practice of our duty * 2 Corinthians Ch 5. V.14, 15. :  that we pray the Giver of grace to strengthen and impress these Holy thoughts, and to accept our repentance, though late, and in its beginnings violent; that we improve every good motion by diligent prayer ; and having declared and confirmed our faith by the Holy Communion* we deliver ourselves into his hands, in firm hope, that he who created and redeemed us will not suffer us to perish. Rom. 8. viii. 32.

The condition, without which forgiveness is not to be obtained, is that we forgive others. There is always a danger lest men, fresh from a trial in which life has been lost, should remember with resentment and malignity the prosecutor, the witnesses, or the Judges. It is indeed scarcely possible that with all the prejudices of an interest so weighty, and so affecting, the convict should think otherwise, than that he has been treated, in some part of the process, with unnecessary severity. In this opinion he is perhaps singular, and therefore probably mistaken. But there is no time for disquisition: we must try to find the shortest way to peace. It is easier to forgive than to reason right.  He that has been injuriously or unnecessarily harassed, has one opportunity more of proving his sincerity, by forgiving the wrong, and praying for his enemy.

It is the duty of a penitent to repair, so far as he has the power, the injury which he has done.  What we can do, is commonly nothing more than to leave the world an example of contrition. On the dreadful day, when the sentence of the law has its full force, some will be found to have affected a shameless bravery, or negligent intrepidity. Such is not the proper behaviour of a convicted criminal. To rejoice in tortures is the privilege of a martyr ; to meet death with intrepidity is the right only of innocence, if in any human being any innocence could be found. Of him, whose life is shortened by his crimes, the last duties are humility and self abasement. We owe to God sincere repentance; we owe to man the appearance of repentance. We ought not to propagate an opinion, that he who lived in wickedness can die with courage. If the serenity of gaiety with which some men have ended a life of guilt, were unfeigned, they can be imputed only to ignorance or stupidity, or, what is more horrid, to voluntary intoxication :- if they were artificial and hypocritical, they were acts of deception, the useless and unprofitable crimes of pride unmortified, and obstinacy unsubdued.

There is yet another crime possible, and, as there is reason to believe, sometimes committed in the last moment, on the margin of eternity.--i Men have died with a steadfast denial of crimes, of which it is very difficult to suppose them innocent, By what equivocation or reserve they may have reconciled their consciences to falsehood, if their consciences were at all consulted, it is impossible to know. But if they thought, that when they were to die, they paid their legal forfeit, and that the world had no farther demand upon them that therefore they might, by keeping their own secrets, try to leave behind them a disputable reputation, and that the falsehood was harmless, because none were injured :--they had very little considered the nature of society. One of the principal parts of national felicity arises from a wise and impartial administration of justice. Every man reposes upon the tribunals of his country the stability of possession, and the serenity of life. He therefore who unjustly exposes the courts of judicature to suspicion, either of partiality or error, not only does an injury to those who dispense the laws, but diminishes the public confidence in the laws themselves, and shakes the foundation of public tranquility.

For my own part, I confess with deepest compunction, the crime which has brought me to this place ; and admit the justice of my sentence, while I am sinking under its severity. . And I earnestly exhort you, my fellow prisoners, to acknowledge the offences which have been already proved ; and to bequeath to our country that confidence in public justice, without which there can be neither peace nor safety.

As few men suffer for the first offences, and most convicts are conscious of more crimes than have have been brought within judicial cognizance, it is necessary to enquire how far confession ought to be extended: Peace of mind or desire of instruction, may sometimes demand, that to the minister whose council is requested, a long course of evil life should be discovered : but of this every man must determine for himself. To the public, every man, before he departs from life, is obliged to confess those acts which have brought, or may bring unjust suspicion upon others, and to convey such information, as may enable those who have suffered losses to obtain restitution.

Whatever good remains in our power we must diligently perform.. We must prevent, to the utmost of our power, all the evil consequences of our crimes.- We must forgive all who have injured us. We must, by fervency of prayer and constancy in meditation, endeavour to repress all worldly passions, and generate in our minds that love of goodness, and hatred of sin, which may fit us for the society of heavenly minds. And, finally, we must commend and entrust our souls to HIM, who died for the sins of men with earnest wishes and humble hopes, that he will admit us with the labourers who entered the vineyard at the last hour, and associate us with the thief, whom he pardoned on the cross!

To this great end, you will not refuse to unite with me, on bended knees, and with humbled hearts, in fervent prayer to the throne of grace ! 

May the Father of Mercy hear our supplications, and have compassion upon us !

“ O Almighty Lord God, the righteous Judge of all the earth, who in thy providential justice doth frequently inflict severe vengeance upon sinners in this life, that thou mayest by their sad examples effectually deter others from committing the like heinous offences; and that they themselves, truly repenting of their faults, may escape the condemnation of Hell :look down in mercy upon us, thy sorrowful servants, whom thou hath suffered to become the unhappy objects of offended justice in this world !

“ Give us a thorough sense of all those evil thoughts, words, and works, which have so provoked thy patience, that thou hast been pleased to permit this public and shameful judgment to fall upon us; and grant us such a portion of grace and godly sincerity, that we may heartily confess, and unfeignedly repent of every breach of those most holy laws and ordinances, which if a man do, he shall live in them.

“Let no root of bitterness and malice, no habitual and dreadful sin, either of omission or commission, remain, undisturbed in our hearts! But enable us to make our repentance universal, without the least flattering or deceitful reserve, that so we may clear our consciences before we close our eyes.

And now that thou hast brought us within the view of our long home, and made us sensible, that the time of our dissolution draweth near, endue us, we humbly, pray thee, O gracious Father, with such Christian fortitude, that neither the terrors of thy present dispensations, nor the remembrance of our former sins, may have power to sink our spirits into a despondency of thy everlasting mercies, in the adorable Son of thy love.

“ Wean our thoughts and affections, good Lord, from all the vain and delusive enjoyments of this transitory world, that we may not only with patient resignation submit to the appointed stroke of Death, but that our faith and hope may be so elevated that we may conceive a longing desire to be dissolved from these our earthly tabernacles, and to be with Christ, which is far better than all the happiness we can wish for besides !

" And in a due sense of our extraordinary want of forgiveness at thy hands, and of our utter unworthiness of the very least of all thy favours. of the meanest crumbs which fall from thy table Oh ! blessed Lord Jesus ! make us so truly and universally charitable, that in an undissembled compliance with thy own awful command, and most endearing example we may both freely forgive and cordially pray for our most inveterate enemies, persecutors, and slanderers ! --Forgive them, O Lord, we beseech thee-turn their hearts, and fill them with thy love!

“ Thus, may we humbly trust, our sorrowful prayers and tears will be acceptable in thy sight Thus shall we be qualified, through Christ, to exchange this dismal bodily confinement (and there uneasy fetters) for the glorious liberty of the sons of God. And thus shall our legal doom upon Earth be changed into a comfortable declaration of mercy in the highest Heavens : and all through thy most precious and all-sufficient merits, O blessed Saviour of mankind, who with the Father and the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest ever, one God, world without end. Amen!

(1) See ROSSELL's Prisoner's Director - work of some merit-and which I have endeavoured, in my melancholy hours of leisure, to revise, and (I humbly hope) improve ; and mean to leave behind me, in the hands of the Ordinary, as a small testimony of my sincere, but very weak, endeavours for the best welfare of unhappy men in confinement ; to whom I have written a general Address to be prefixed to the new edition of Rossell.

Dr, Dodd's last Solemn Declaration. June 27 1777

TO the words of dying men regard has always been paid, I am brought hither to suffer death for an act of fraud, which I confess myself guilty with shame, such as my former state of life naturally produces, and I hope with such sorrow as he, to whom the heart is known, will not disregard. I repent that I have violated the laws, by which peace and confidence are established among men; 1 repent that I have attempted to injure my fellow creatures,- and I repent that I have brought disgrace upon my order, discredit upon religion; but my offences against God are without name or number, and can admit only- general confession and a general repentance,— Almighty God, for the sake of Jesus Christ, my repentance, however late, however imperfect -  may not be in vain. The little good that now remains in my power, is to warn others against those temptations by which have always sinned against conviction ; my principles have never been shaken ; I have always considered the Christian religion as a revelation from God; and it's divine Author as the Saviour of the world but the Laws of God, though never disowned by me, have often been forgotten, I was led astray from religious strictness by the delusion of show, and the delights of voluptuousness, I never knew or attended to the calls of frugality or the needful minuteness of a painful economy. Vanity and pleasure, into which I plunged. required expense disproportionate to my income, expense brought distress upon me, and distress, importunate distress, urged me to temporary fraud.

For this fraud I am to die; and I die declaring in the most solemn manner, that however I have deviated from my own precepts, I have taught others, to the best of my knowledge, and with all sincerity, the true way to eternal happiness. My life, for these few unhappy years past, has been dreadfully erroneous, but my ministry has always been sincere. I have constantly believed, and now leave the world, solemnly avowing my conviction, that there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved, than only the name of the Lord Jesus, and I entreat all who are here to join with me in my last petition, that, for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ my sins may be forgiven, and my soul received into his everlasting kingdom.

WILLIAM DODD

FINIS

N.B. It is hoped and expected that all ranks of men in whose hands this Awful Sermon may come into, will take care, and steer by the fatal Rock, on which this great man has lit upon; for through all England, there was not a more popular Clergyman in his day, and one who has left many valuable books of his own writings for the good of succeeding generations. Witness Dodd upon Death.

 *( I would have this expression to be particularly at. ended to--While as a dying man, and with all possible sincerity of soul, I add, that if I could wish to declare my faith, I know not of any words in which I could do it so well, and so perfectly to my satisfaction, as in the Communion service of our Church, and if I would wish to confirm that faith, I know not of any appointed method so thoroughly adapted to that end as participation in that communion itself. See particularly in this service, the Exhortation, Confession, prayer beginning We do not presume, &c.  - Consecration-and prayer after receiving, O Lord and heavenly Father, &c. - Convicts should diligently and repeatedly read over the service before they communicate.)  -