The

wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins.”* expression of such a desire opens the door into the classroom, and inducts the candidate into the community. He enters for six months, or is subjected to a trial of six months' continuance. He is now to report once a-week how his soul prospers, and contribute what he pleases to the ministry. or the poor, and attend to the prayers of his class-mates. He is now to be regarded as one seeking for salvation, or intending to get religion.

This I presume to be a fair statement of the conditions and designs of membership in the Methodistic societies. It is obvious, then, that persons without religion, and with but a desire to obtain it, may become members of such institutions. Where, then, is the divine authority for such an institution, or for the condition of admission? Can any one refer to one sentence in the New Testament authorizing a class of such persons, so constituted and so meeting, reporting to each other, and praying for each other under a leader in order to become Christians? Has it any other authority than the name, or will, or wisdom of John Wesley ? If it has not, it is then, a human, and not a divine institution; consequently, a legitimate subject of analysis and examination.

Let us, then, my good Methodist friends, in all benevolence, gravely and sincerely reason together upon this fundamental sectarian peculiarity. Why, let me ask, do you assume, in the beginning to improve upon the apostolic institutions? They had no such institution as your " class," -no such officer as your "class leader”"-no such "condition" of membership, and no such "prayers for getting religion, nor such weekly reports of soul statistics as you have adopted and commanded in this nursery of Methodism.

Name the passage that authorizes such an institution; or, refer me to any apostle, prophet, evangelist, that ever so enacted or ordained. And is not a warrant-a divine warrant-necessary for every religious institution? or do you claim for Methodism, for its very nursery and most elementary ordinances, a merely human authority, a prudential expediency? If so, say so; and let all the world know that your primary school for forming Methodists, or your freshman's class of raw recruits, is purely a human institution, a mere experiment.

* Discipline, Cin. ed. 1841.

But are you prepared for such a view of the matter? In what attitude does it place the holy apostles, as prime ministers and plenipotentiaries of the Lord Messiah's institution? Were they not so wise, so learned, so methodical as your founder, the wise, and great, and good John Wesley? They acted by the authority of the great King. Their master was full of expedients, an infallible judge of human nature-the great author of all adaptations, omniscient, omnipotent, and divine. And whence had John Wesley all the wisdom and power to cope with him? for, certainly, he is either a rival, or a new discoverer, an inventor, or a patentee of heaven: if so be, the thing is of God. The class institute is either better or worse than the institutions of the apostles. If better, then how stands their master, his spirit, and their inspiration? If worse, why adopt it?

You cannot get out of this dilemma; you cannot deny that John Wesley was the founder of Methodism; that it only began in the last age. You will not say that he did not get up this class institution, and all its ceremonies. You glory in it, and in him; and let him have the glory of it now, henceforth, and for ever! But why did not Paul think of it? Nay, why did not Paul's master think of it? Why did the Spirit conceal it for seventeen hundred years? Why was it hid for so many years and generations ? Ay, these are questions of no trivial importance, because, when you admit the truth, as no doubt you will, that this institution is rightly called Wesleyism or the institution of John Wesley, you concede that any person may get up a scheme as novel as John Wesley's. Every minister and every student in every college in the United States, has as good a right as John Wesley to set up a new order of religious society. Whenever the Pope sanctioned one order of monks, whether of Saint Bernard, Saint Benedict, or Saint Angustine, he was obliged to sanction another. Now, if the Messiah sanctions and blesses, or if he has sanctioned and blessed the institution of Wesley, he will sanction and bless any other institution got up in the same sincerity, benevolence, and wisdom.

Do you see, then, adventurous friends, that you are innovating on principles subversive of the exclusive authority of those prime ministers of Mesiah's realm; and that you are setting up an example which, if followed up, must eventuate

in the entire annihilation of every atom of divine authenticity for religious institutions. Wherein differ your classes, and their mysteries, from the orders in masonry, or in monarchism, so far as divine authority is concerned? The wisdom and tendencies of the system I am not canvassing. This, and some other aspects of the system, will come in proper time and place. It is the authority of Wesley, and your conferences, his succèssors in power, that I am now contemplating.

It will no doubt occur to some of you, that we have our axiomata, and our postulates, in the science of religion, as in sciences purely human and earthly. Mine are, first, That Jesus, the author and founder of the faith, was not a mere man, nor angel, nor created being; that he is the Son of God; and, consequently, his institutions and adaptations were all perfect. Second. That the Holy Spirit was given to him personally, without measure, and its dispensation to others committed to his hands; and, therefore, his apostles were perfectly qualified to originate and perfect the whole Christian systein. Third. That Christianity was perfect as it could be in all its parts-in doctrine, ordinances, precepts, promises, institutions, offices, and officers-when the apostles finished their personal labours, and incapable of emendation or improvement. Consequently any addition to it, in the form of new societies, associations, ordinances, offices, or officers, is at variance with its genius, character, and pretensions; dishonourable to its founder and subversive of its authority and respectability in the universe.

But the wisdom of the institution, and its adaptation to human nature, will next claim attention in another essay. Should any of our Methodistic friends think proper to examine these essays, by any publication of their views in reply, I shall expect them to respond to what I do say, and not to what I do not say. I shall expect them to pay a decent respect to our mutual rights and privileges, and to confine themselves to matters altogether relevant to any issue which may be made. Meantime truth, and not party, should be the supreme aim of all who believe the gospel. To that, may we always pay a proper regard, and cultivate a spirit in harmony with its sacred authority, its pure and holy dictates and suggestions, mindful of the day of its ultimate and glorious triumph.-Millennial Harbinger.

LECTURE ON MATTHEW V., VI., AND VII.

CHAPTER V., verse 21.

"YE have heard that it was said by them of old time, to the ancients, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say

unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."

I observed in my former lecture upon this subject, that the law as delivered by Moses was not the rule of life for a Christian; but that law magnified or enlarged by Christ, extending it to the very incipient principles of the heart, is the Christian's rule. It may be said of us, as our Lord once said to a young man, who had observed the precepts of Moses' law," One thing thou lackest." We e may keep the law of Moses perfectly as to the letter, and yet be destitute of the righteousness of the faith, or of the law of Christ. His law not only forbids murder, but also the beginning of it; as anger against a brother without a cause, and all reproachful language, calculated to excite anger, as “Raca," or "fool." These are the incipients of murder, and are forbidden by the law of Christ.

"

VERSES 23 AND 24.

Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gist.'

If a person is about to offer a sacrifice, and remembers that his brother hath aught against him, because he may have been unjustly angry with his brother, or may have used reproachful language against him to excite his anger, he must desist from his purpose of offering, and go to his brother, and first be reconciled by an humble acknowledgment of his faults. Or should he remember that his brother hath something against him without just grounds,

AN INQUIRY INTO NATURAL THEOLOGY.

SECTION 1.-PRELIMINARY.

"AND they rest not day nor night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is, and is to come.'

It is no theme of wonder that heaven's dignities should be unceasingly ascribing glory to the Highest. Their elevation and rapture will be in proportion to the depth of their humility, and the profoundness of their adoration. God is the sire of all being, and the centre of the moral universe. Heaven is rife with love and harmony because all its sons re for ever attracted towards him, finding all their repose in he fulness of his blessing, and drinking all their exultation from the light of his countenance. The earth on the contrary is filled with anarchy and crime, and men are joyless wanderers in its vallies, because they have abandoned the home of God, and are striving with ferocious insanity to destroy his governme t in the world by alliance with Satan and the practice of sin. The idea of God is the cohesion of the moral world, wanting it, we become an anarchy of spirits, and life is a chaos in the room of a system. It is melancholy to survey and listen in such a scene: what unearthly haggard faces, lighted with fierce emotion or darkened with remorse and despair; what distorted diseased bodies vile in their humiliation; what frenzied pursuits; what terrible collision of antagonist passions, and rival interests; what sobs of sorrow and anguish; what groans of agony; what tempestuous voices of mastery and revenge, sin, death, and hell, take their abode and reign, where the Godhead is veiled! The man who has been reconciled to God by the death of his dear Son, can joyfully testify that he has been translated from death to life, and that the lower he lies in abasement before God, the higher he is lifted by the tide of inspiration, until the songs of heaven seem to murmur in his ear-then how distinct and living the consciousness that within him, God has a sanctified seat, the Holy Spirit a temple, and Jesus Christ a resting place. O, the hallowed calm, the unspeakable peace and joy, the high and holy hope, of all who understand such communion! Never will the arid desert of society be healed with living fountains of water, or the wilderness of humanity bloom as the garden of Eden, until earth is prepared to echo back the celestial doxology," Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty," then will his smile

VOL. VIII.

C