A DESCRIPTION. OF THE QUALIFICATIONS NECESSARY TO A GOSPEL MINISTER, CONTAINING ADVICE TO MINISTERS AND ELDERS, HOW TO CON- CORDING TO THEIR GIFTS IN THE CHURCH OF CRHIST. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same BY SAMUEL BOWNAS. PHILADELPHIA: WILLIAM D. PARRISH & Co., 4 NORTH FIFTH STREET, HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF FRIENDS HISTORICAL LIBRARY MERRIHEW & THOMPSON, Printers, 7 Carter's Alley, Philadelphia. PUBLISHER'S NOTE. THE publisher of this second edition has prefixed to this volume the preface to the jour nal of Samuel Bownas, written by Joseph Besse, as it contains a short discription of him. But for a more full account, the reader is referred to his instructive journal, printed in London in 1795; by which it appears that he made two visits to America, the first in the year 1702 and returned in 1706, and of his second visit, he says, in page 171: "In about twenty-two months and odd days I finished this journey, from the 22d of the Tenth month 1726, to the 2d of the Eighth month 1728, and in that time I travelled by land and over rivers about five thousand three hundred and twenty-two miles, besides passing and repassing the great ocean; and as I had been out of that country somewhat more than twenty-one years, and found so great an increase of the professors of truth, I had a curiosity to examine a little into it, finding most of the old meeting houses very much enlarged, some to hold double, and some treble, and some four times the people that the old ones would in my first going thither, and even now some wanted to be either enlarged, or new ones built at proper distances; besides the account of new houses built in that time, in places where were none, nor meetings but what were kept in private houses, which grew so numerous, that necessity put them upon erecting houses to accommodate themselves. In New England and Rhode Island are twelve: in the government of New York are six: in both east and west Jersey are nine: in Pennsylvania thirteen: in Maryland four: in Virgi nia nine and in North Carolina three. In all, there have been fifty-six new meeting houses built within these two or three and twenty years past, and in these provinces there are about ten places more that want where they have none, and many old ones want to be enlarged, not having room for half the people. Now the extraordinary increase of professors is much to be attributed to the youth retaining the profession of their parents, and marrying such : for indeed most of the people in Pennsylvania are of this profession, as well as in the Jerseys, and Rhode Island, so that young people are not under the temptation to marry such as are of different judgments in religion, as in some parts. Although at the time this work was first printed, "it was not thought fit to be made so generally public, as such tracts which were. intended for general benefit and may concern all" yet at this time it is believed that the republication would be serviceable, as it embraces the substance of the principles of Friends in relation to the subjects treated of. JOHN TOWNSEND, 7th month, 1847. West Philadelphia. BESSE'S PREFACE ΤΟ BOWNAS'S JOURNAL. THE following sheets exhibit to thy perusal a plain man's plain and undisguised account of his own progress in religion; an artless narrative of his sincere and hearty endeavours, as much as in him lay, to promote the doctrine of the gospel of Christ in the earth. The motives inducing him to undertake the office of a preacher, appear to have been perfectly consonant to the precepts of holy writ, and to the practice of Christ and his apostles, viz: 1st. A clear, cogent and convincing evidence of a divine call, and heavenly impulse there unto. 2d. An indispensable sense of his duty necessarily obliging him to yield obedience to that call. And 3d. The sweet returns of inward peace and divine consolations accompanying his obedience therein, did greatly conduce to his confirmation and preference in the way of his duty. To the performance of which he found him |