I may be permitted publicly to acknowledge (says Doddridge) the sense I have of the favour of divine providence, in leading me so early into the acquaintance of this excellent person, and blessing me with so great a share of his friendship, with which I was honoured from my first entrance into the ministry, and which his singular humility and condescension, wisdom and piety, have rendered exceedingly delightful and improving to me in all the succeeding years of life. And surely I should be greatly deficient in the duty of this day, if I did not solemnly charge it upon you frequently to recollect your obligations to the divine goodness in giving you so able and so tender a shepherd, and in continuing him amongst you for so long a time with such cordial love, that repeated, unanimous, and earnest solicitations from the most considerable congregations in the neighbouring counties could not prevail upon him to remove from you. So evident was it that "he took the oversight of you, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind." It may eminently be said of you, my friends, in a spiritual sense, that you have been "fed with the finest of the wheat," as the pure and uncorrupted truths of the Gospel have been preached amongst you with plainness and seriousness, and in the spirit of love. Your minds have not been amused with useless subtilties and barren speculations; you have not been vexed with strifes of words, unprofitable and vain; nor grieved with passionate invectives against your brethren of any denomination--invectives, which are never more criminal than when delivered in the name of the Lord, and which too often turn the food of souls into poison, and that which should have been for their welfare, into a trap. This "good man brought out of the good treasure of his heart good things"; his generous and benevolent soul overflowed with sentiments of candour and love; and he was never more in his own element, than when he was telling you that "the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost": and I firmly believe, that in the thirty-eight years of his ministry among you he never delivered a sermon or a sentence inconsistent with that great principle.