John Gill in Camberwell, London, to John Collett Ryland, Northampton, 20 March 1771.

Dear Sir

         I received some little time ago a few lines from your son by means of Mr Warne, acquainting me that you had sent me an hare, which I have received & give you thanks for it; it proved a good one & I eat a tolerable good dinner of it— Your son also intimates your desire of being favoured with a loaning of Mr Messey’s M.S. Translation of John Bunyan—that I delivered to Mr Keith two years ago, & quickly after MrMesseys Son & I suppose his executor called upon him for it— Addingtons Book of Baptism[6] I have not seen nor do I chose to see it; I have done with all controversies & especially about Baptism; I have exhausted that subject all I can & I think I have wrote enough to convince any man of the Truth whose mind is open to conviction what you propose viz. reprinting all I have wrote about it in my Body of Practical Divinity will answer no end at all for that party who always cry up every new thing as unanswerable, never think any thing answered tho’ it has been done over & over again unless a formal answer is given to it, which if you think it necessary it should be done by one of you ministers in Northamptonshire or Leicestershire & there are [enough] of you capable of it as your self Mr Woodman &c. & I imag[ine] it will give you but little trouble it having nothing new unless it be scandal & that stands for nothing—they have now nothing to throw out but their old assumptions their old thread bare arguments, which are quite wore out, so that you will have nothing to do but to return our arguments upon ’em!  I think MrJohn Browne of Kettering is ye properest person to undertake ye work, he has wrote against this same man heretofore & a very good thing which I suppose sticks in this mans stomach & is ye occasion of his writing this & thereat he entitles his pamphlet the ministers reasons for baptizing infants &c. he may entitle his by way of contrast ye ministers reasons for not baptizing infants & for acknowledging the ordinance not by sprinkling or pouring water but by Immersion only of which he is very capable of giving & who also may be supplied with arguments & answers to objections if necessary from my last Treatise  & others which he has by him for as they give us nothing but their old reasons & arguments we must return ours, in our own defence; but if you chuse another person of your body of ministers, he will find no great difficulty in encountering those doughty advocates for infant sprinkling, a cause which no man of Taste chuses to engage in. I indeed then beg leave!  enough wrote on both sides ye  question to satisfy any man who is desirous of knowing on what side truth lies, at least, so as to determine for himself.

         I desire the two of you to acquaint Mr Davey of your Town, that whereas I now live a little way out of ye city by reason of my age & growing infirmities I very rarely attend any of the meetings of the Fund, & therefore I desire that he will send up his next letter to ye Fund to some other person either to Dr Lewelyn in Southampton Street Bloomsbury, or to one of ye Treasurers of ye Fund, or to Mr James Smith,[12]watchmaker in Bunhill row near Morefield, auditor of ’em or to Mr John Robinson, stationer in Shad Thames Southwark Secretary of yeFund or to any minister he has any acquaintance or correspondence with & I should be glad if you could convey by any means ye same intelligence to Mr Cole of Long Bugby, in doing which you greatly oblige 

                                                               your affectionate Friend & Bro. in X

                                                                                                   John Gill

Camberwell March 20th 1771.

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp.  10-12 (annotated version); also MAM PLP 44.47.1, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. O the back page of the MS. John Ryland, Jr., has written, “Dr Gill respecting Addington on B[aptism]. March 20th 1771.” Gill (1697-1771) is referring to John Brown’s A Sermon Preached at a Public Administration of Baptism Interspersed and Enlarged with Testimonies from Learned and Judicious Writers, who Espoused Infant-Sprinkling (1764), which was sold by George Keith. The "Fund" mentioned by Gill is the Particular Baptist Fund, founded in 1717.