IN connexion with the view that has been taken of the treatise, by Thomas Aquinas, on "the Perfection of the spiritual Life," its two leading faults have been pointed out the first, an absolute omission of reference to the proper means of obtaining such ripeness and establishment of evangelical blessing; the second, some absolutely mistaken, and even dangerous, recommendations, under the guise of counsel. Some further observations on these subjects will now be laid before the reader,-partly with the intention of illustrating the providential character of that leading which was vouchsafed to the first Founder of the Wesleyan societies, and by which his theological system became so admirably balanced, and self-consistent, and thus eminently calculated to further the great work to which his whole life was devoted; and partly, indeed chiefly, with reference to the personal improvement of those who may attend to them.

About the middle of the seventeenth century, some sixty or seventy years before Mr. Wesley entered upon his evangelical labours, several Divines in the Anglican Establishment published some valuable statements on Christian holiness, considered as resulting from the influence of Christian truth. Whichcot may perhaps be taken, if not as the founder, yet as the type, of this school of Divines. But, perhaps, in none of the writers in the Church is the effect more visible of the sin of which the leaders of the Church had been guilty at the time of the Reformation, and especially in the days of Elizabeth, in yielding so much to a dominant and irreligious secular power, than in the writers to whom reference is now made.

Parker, and the Bishops who had been exiles at Strasbourgh and Zurich in the days of Mary, found in Elizabeth a Sovereign who knew nothing of spiritual religion; and who, though by circumstances she was compelled to be a Protestant, did not love that faithful preaching of the truth which all true Protestant Reformers considered to be the great instrument of the salvation of men; and she did love that ritual splendour with which Popery had sought to garnish those sepulchres of the dead, into which it had transformed the churches that were designed to be the abodes and nurseries of the living. And she was surrounded by hungry courtiers, who, with a clamorous craving, were perpetually seeking to enrich themselves by the spoils of the Church. They cared not for the spiritual destitution of parishes, so that the fruits of the benefice might be made over to themselves. Whether ignorant, unpreaching men were inducted, or whether pulpits were vacant, was nothing to them. The Bishops who have been mentioned, and who may be termed the conforming Prelates, saw these evils, and bitterly lamented them. Their writings, now in course of publication, are full of complaints on the subject,-complaints couched in language which proves that they groaned under the burden which was imposed on them; and to which, we believe, they had only submitted as hoping that its continuance would be but for a time. There were some, however, who refused to submit, who were afterwards called Puritans. By these a principle was seen to be involved in the imposition which they believed

By the Parker Society.

to be in direct opposition to the will of Christ, and to the rights of his church, and to the spiritual profit of his people. They therefore refused to conform. Parker and his friends repeatedly declare that they conformed, not as approving the impositions, (they strongly condemned them,) but as believing it would be wrong to refuse to accept office on this ground. Of two admitted evils they chose what they thought was the least. Justice requires that their conduct should be considered in this its true light. It is now evident that they were greatly mistaken. Subsequent history shows that they selected the greatest, not the least, evil. The consequences demand statement. The evils to which they submitted not only became permanent, but, in process of time, became the marks of true Churchism. The Tractarians of the present day admit, that it was not till the days of Laud that the evil leaven of the Protestant Reformation was entirely removed, and Church principles raised to active supremacy. Parker, Sandys, Grindal, and such men, were evangelical, as well as Conformists; but power was altogether in favour of unevangelical conformity; the Church became increasingly outward and ritual; evangelical preaching was more and more discountenanced; and Pastors were introduced who neither experienced, nor even knew, those doctrines which had shaken Popery to its centre, because they were mighty through God,"-because they belonged to that system of truth which is, in itself, by the adaptation given to it by divine wisdom, and by its ordained association with the living might of the Holy Ghost, "the power of God unto salvation."

But this is not all. It is possible that separate Churches may co-exist in peace. But when separation takes place, in connexion with argumentation and contention, such is human nature that human passion is sure to be mingled with divine zeal; and the effects of human passion will be apparent in the increasing works of the flesh. The Puritans refused

con

conformity because of the strong convictions which they cherished that religion was personal in its obligations, and personal in its blessings; and that, in the order of God, evangelical preaching was, above all things, necessary to call men to the enjoyment of evangelical blessings, by the fulfilment of evangelical obligations. Their writings bring them before us as the men who, in that day, laid most stress on what all true Protestants allowed to be the great doctrines of the Gospel, in what they regarded as their personal and proper application. They preached the necessity of a work of grace in the soul; that this was the work of the Spirit of God; and that, ordinarily, it was nected with the faithful preaching of those truths which referred to human guilt and sinfulness, to God's mercy in Christ, to personal justification by faith in Christ's merits, followed by personal regeneration and sanctification effected in the soul by the power of the Holy Ghost, the Lord and the Life-Giver. They who conformed could not, from their position, lay the same stress on these subjects. They first justified their conformity on the ground that, though they approved not certain regulations respecting vestments, ceremonies, and other matters, yet it was better to submit, than not accept their ministry. It is too late to ask, What would have been the result of their firm and continued refusal? This was not the path they chose. Only, let it be recollected, while they submitted, they disapproved. To ask, What would have resulted? would now be useless speculation. But let not what they confessed to be a grievous burden, be now defended as an excellence. And yet that soon became one result of their conformity and it continues to this day. The Church is often defended, as though what they reluctantly submitted to had been what they cordially approved and fully sanctioned. The Parker Conformists complained as deeply of the impositions of Elizabeth, and the conduct of her greedy, avaricious courtiers, as the Puritan

Nonconformists. Here was the difference, just here, that the first thought that by submission they could ultimately secure their removal; the latter, that this could only be done by refusal. Truth demands that this justice be paid to both. History shows whose judgment was most correct. The evils were not removed; and, by the days of James, they had begun to be regarded as excellences.

But there was another result. One unhappy effect of party is, entire defence, and entire opposition. The Conformists first defended their conduct, and soon began to defend the very things to which at first they had only submitted. And, in opposing their antagonists, they gradually passed to a similar proceeding. Along with much good, the Puritans mixed something-some of them much-that was erroneous. But it was not long before Puritanism was attacked in its altogetherness; in its truths, as well as in its mistakes. And, by the time that Laud became Patriarch of England, the broad distinction between Puri

tans and Churchmen was found to be here, that the former preached evangelical doctrines in connexion with the necessity of a personal experience of the Spirit's work, and that the latter did not. The former, it is true, sometimes mixed with their preaching some of the stronger statements of Calvinism; and the latter, along with much that went to confirm the rising notions of church and sacramental salvation, sometimes presented instances of evangelical statement. But still,-looking only at the general features of the case, when Charles I. came to the throne, the Puritans were Calvinistic, and practically evangelical: the Clergy, even where evangelical, had begun to defend what the Parker Conformists condemned while they submitted; and the bulk of them, who possessed any influence, had embraced Arminianism only so far as opposed to the peculiarities of Calvinism; and were, in point of fact, what would be called, at the present day, Tractarians. Such Arminianism naturally made

the Puritans yet more Calvinistic; and Calvinism became so wrought up with evangelism, that, in a later age, about the period of the Restoration, the more pious of the Clergy, many of whom had seen so much of sectarian violence in the time of the civil wars and commonwealth, while they sought to introduce more of the truth which, as they thought, would tend to produce and promote a divine life among the people, were not able sufficiently to distinguish truth from error, and rejected much that was evangelical, believing that they only rejected Calvinism. They had been defeated; and they viewed their triumphant opponents under the influence of feelings which defeat had occasioned. During the Commonwealth, no doubt, there had been much real enthusiasm and fanaticism. Many had pushed the peculiarities of Calvin into consequences which he always repudiated. But all preached not thus. Unhap pily, the triumphant Church-party, first, taking the mere sectarians as the model of the whole; and, secondly, justifying this by showing, as they believed, that such and such were the logical consequences of Calvin's peculiar doctrines; regarded Puritanism as though it were a mere developement of the doctrines of election and reprobation; and carried their opposition so far, as that they are frequently found arguing against doctrines which Arminius held as soundly as Calvin did.

Of course, so far as opposition to the distinctive peculiarities of Calvinism is concerned, we think they were right; but we cannot overlook two facts: first, that the Puritansmen like Baxter, Owen, Howe, Alleine-preached evangelism as well as Calvinism, the work of grace in man in reference to justification and regeneration; and, secondly, that even the more pious of the Restoration Clergy, while they took those views of the disputed doctrines which Arminius had taken, did, in opposing the Calvinism of their opponents, likewise oppose, to a greater or less extent,-sometimes to a very great extent,-their evan

gelism also. The consequence was, that their preaching was, to a melancholy extent, ineffectual. Some of Whichcot's discourses, for instance, contain beautiful developements of what may be termed the philosophy of the influence of divine truth on man. But there is not only the omission of right statements respecting the justification and regeneration of a sinner, but there are such arguments against what were supposed to be the errors of the Puritans,-for here is one fearful result of party, (a result so fearful, as to mark the deepest characters of guilt on the actual perpetrators of division,) that not the real, but the supposed, opinions of the adversary are chiefly assailed,-that their hearers would be completely set against their doctrines; and even, if ever they met. with them, would take them, not as they truly were, but as they had been described. Beautiful, therefore, as were many of the statements of men like Whichcot; true as were portions of their descriptions of the life of God in the soul of man; cogent as were some of their arguments in favour of God's willingness to save from all sin; beautiful as they were, and profitable as their perusal might be, to those in whom there was, for a foundation, a right understanding, and a sound experience, of the work of Christ as Justifier, and of the Spirit as Comforter and Sanctifier; -yet, as their hearers for the most part were, it was preaching philosophy to the dead. They no more promoted inward religion by their preaching, than did their successors promote true morals by theirs. The progress of corruption was not at all stayed. Men must be called to receive justification, actual, personal pardon, by faith; they must be called to receive the promise of the Spirit by faith and then only is the Gospel preached, when these calls are addressed to men.

Methodism, as it is called, began with calling men to spiritual life; and where spiritual life is not, it is vain to exhort men to its maturity. All such exhortations should sup. pose their personal justification and

regeneration. They who are in the external administration of the covenant, and walk in the light of its instruction, must still be told,-let the language of the Homily express it,-"THE FIRST COMING TO GOD IS BY FAITH." They must be exhorted to this. They must come for a personal acceptance with God, implying the pardon of all past sin, and adoption into the number of the true children of God. This is the great relative change in their state of which faith is the instrument; and to describe this, the term regeneration is never used in Scripture. This refers to the real change which takes place in their heart as the direct result of the other. Sanctifi cation follows justification. He who comes to God by penitent faith in Christ, and is accepted as righteous only for Christ's merits, receives the Spirit of God as he never experienced his influence before. Before, he was the striving, awakening, sin-reproving Spirit,-the Spirit working upon the heart,-Christ standing at the door, and knocking; but," because ye are sons," and, therefore, at once on your becoming such," God hath sent forth into your hearts the Spirit of his Son," "the Spirit of adoption;" who, shedding abroad in the heart God's pardoning love, kindles man's love to God in return; and thus effects the glorious work of regeneration, the commencement of that work of inward sanctification by which man is made meet to be a "partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light.”

This is the life of God in the soul of man,-the true spiritual life, the life of love. It flows from the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, exercised through the blood of sprinkling. It is produced by the Spirit of God, as operating in the wondrous economy of redemption, as the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of adoption. And without this life, man's soul is incapable of the exercises which constitute active holiness. As a sinner, viewed only in reference to his guilt and its consequences, he is dead in trespasses and sins. Even repentance, indeed, implies his presence and

influence. Where he is not, there is nothing but fallen, though intellectual, human nature. Wherever Christ is preached, he is present to apply the truth, to strive with man, to move him to repentance. But he is the Spirit of regeneration when "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us," being justified by faith.

All exhortations to spiritual progress and establishment must assume this existence of the spiritual life. And they who desire to be "holy in all manner of conversation," must seek holiness thus. They may see the glory and beauty of the divine law; its adaptation to man, individually and socially; and thus its admirable fitness to declare the holy benevolence of the Sovereign, by promoting the well-being of his subjects. But, while they thus delight in the law of the Lord, after the inner man, and try, unsaved by the blood and Spirit of Christ, to fulfil its high requirements, they only find that they are "carnal, sold under sin." They have neither PEACE nor POWER. And the struggle will continue thus fruitlessly painful, till they either give up the contest in despair, or learn the simple, the God-honouring method revealed in the Gospel, and which is emphatically the power of God unto salvation,-the method of coming to God, by faith, for free pardon, and receiving, with pardon, the Lord and the Giver of life, even the Holy Ghost the Comforter. Then the great change truly begins: "Being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end, everlasting life."

The author of the spiritual life is the Spirit, thus given through Christ. His great work is to bring us to love God; and in that love to preserve us. There is a strict relation between spiritual life, and the law of God. The first and great commandment is love; the first and leading exercise of the soul, as now truly alive, is love. Had man never sinned, the spiritual life would have been love. When man returns, and

by faith accepts remission of sins, the removal of the guilt which condemned him to die, he receives the Spirit of life; but that Spirit is the Spirit of love. Love to God, through our Lord Jesus, is the great law of the spiritual life. And as whatever grieves the Holy Spirit of God must weaken both love and life, they who would have spiritual growth and establishment must, for that very reason, avoid all that would grieve that Holy Spirit of God.

And whatever means may be instrumentally useful, and by divine appointment even necessary, for the establishment of the divine life, it is plain that they must be subordinate to the influences of the Holy Spirit. That we might truly love God, it was necessary that the love of God towards us should be "shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us." If, therefore, we would perfectly love God,-so love him, as that his love should be the absolutely commanding affection of our soul, supreme not in its nature only, (where it is genuine, it is always thus,) but in act and government, so that every faculty and affection shall be entirely influenced and moved by love to God, such a state must be the work of the same

Spirit of life and love. And if we are warranted in looking for such a work, it must be by the promises of the covenant of love; and the blessings of promise are to be sought by faith. The great law of the Gospel

"By grace ye are saved through faith"-holds good throughout. Salvation continued, salvation matured, as salvation first given,-all salvation is by grace, through faith. There are subordinate instrumentalities, that human sincerity may be tested, human obedience tried and shown. But the life of grace, that it may be felt and declared to be such, that God in all things may be glorified,-is a life of faith, of faith in the Son of God, (to quote the appropriating language of the Apostle,) "who loved me, and gave himself for me." The life of spiritual crucifixion is maintained by faith in Christ, as having loved and given himself for us.