need is to go to our sermon, and to our pulpit, feeling, "Lord, I go, under thee, to pluck men as brands from the burning, to open their eyes, and turn them from darkness to light, to espouse sinners, in an everlasting betrothment, to Jesus Christ, to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Who is sufficient for these things?" In such a work weakness is strength. Strength is but deep-felt weakness linking itself to the arm and word and love of Jehovah. Here, the little child is truly the "greatest in the kingdom of heaven." "My strength is made perfect in weakness."

How little have we known of that baptism of suffering and humiliation, which Moses underwent, and Joseph, and David, and Paul, Luther, also, and Zwingle, and all that have been greatly blessed of God in any age! We have known little of the mystery of combining the careful use of all appointed preparations and means, with the renunciation of all, of using them, and yet, in the very act, paradox though it may seem, renouncing them,-ay, and the more complete they are, the more renouncing them, and the more simply and singly looking to the Lord alone. "What was felt most,' writes Dr. Duff in the account of his memorable shipwreck, as being to him irreparable, was the entire loss of all his journals, notes, memorandums, essays, &c., &c., the fruits, such as they were, of the reflection and research of many years, when he possessed special opportunities which he could never expect again to realize. But they are gone,' was his own written declaration at the time, 'they are gone; and blessed be God I can say gone, without a murmur. So perish all earthly things: the treasure that is laid up in heaven alone is unassailable.'....The only article which was recovered, in a wholly undamaged state, was a quarto copy of Bagster's Comprehensive Bible and Psalm-Book....Ah! the lesson and the schooling of a mysterious Providence seemed now complete; and its designs and intentions perfectly developed....It seemed as if the

heavens had suddenly opened, and a voice from the Holy One had sounded with resistless emphasis in his ears, saying, ' Fool that you are, to have centred so unduly your cares and anxieties and affections on books and papers! So intense and devoted was the homage of your heart towards these in the eyes of the heart-searching God, that, as there seemed no other method of weaning you from them, your heavenly Father, to save you from the doom of an idolater, has in mercy to your soul removed the idols, sinking them all to the bottom of the deep, or scattering them in useless fragments on this desolate shore; all, all save one, and that is, the ever-blessed book of life. Here is the Bible for you: grasp it as the richest treasure of infinite wisdom and infinite love,-a treasure which, in the balance of heaven, would outweigh all the books and papers in the universe. Go, and prayerfully consult that unerring chart, that infallible directory; humbly trust to it, and to your God; and never, never will you have reason to regret that you have been violently severed from your idols, as thereby you become more firmly linked by the golden chain of grace to the throne of the Eternal.""* How little, thus also, through ignorance of our own utter insufficiency, have we known of prayer! As for Luther's three hours of prayer daily, it is now rather an anecdote we tell, than a thing at all approached to. yet we fail less seriously in the time, than in the spirit, of this exercise, the spirit which would come out of

And

*Duff on India and India Missions, pp. 4924. I would add, that the importance of anxious and careful preparations, both for the ministry in general, and for the pulpit, every Lord's day, in particular, is not to be over-estimated. Nothing can be more mistaken, however, than the sort of antagonism which we are apt to conceive of, and in our folly and carnality often to create, dependence upon God. between such preparations, and a spirit of simple Never, perhaps, en various accounts, has a Minister more cause to hang, with child-like simplicity, on the arm and promise of the living God,-in a sense, renouneing his whole preparations, in the very act of they are the most complete and satisfactory, is making the fullest use of them, than just wheu their own place, and for their own ends.

the soul's being intensely set on the end of the ministry, in the excellency of it, the exceeding difficulty of it, and the divine promise of it, the spirit of Jacob's wrestling with the angel of the covenant, and of Moses's strange, unearthly pleading upon the Mount,-of Jacob's, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me," and Moses's answer to the Lord's, "Let me alone," "Remember, Lord, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self," &c. (Exod. xxxii. 9-14.) How little do we know of such pleading as that in Exodus xxxiii. 12-15, divinely applicable to the ministry, throughout: "And Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people; and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me: yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now, therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight; and consider that this nation is thy people. And he said, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." How wanting have we been, alike, in pleading with God for our people, and with our people for God! Hide thy face, Lord, from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.'

5. But this runs into a fifth great line of ministerial guilt. The four preceding, it will have been observed, belong rather to the habit, the frame, and temper of the soul. From this state of soul, however, there springs a fifth iniquity, that might be branched out without end. I refer to great and criminal perfunctoriness in every department of our work. I believe that the more the matter is considered, it will be the more evident how a man may be diligent, comparatively, pains-taking, and conscientious in the ministry, and yet may discharge it, if its proper nature be regarded, in a very

slight and perfunctory manner after all. Look at Paul's command to Timothy, "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season," connecting it with the distinction already so often drawn, between the heart of a Minister bent on the winning of souls, as the end of his work, and his seeking, substantially, the discharge of his duty, the satisfying of his conscience, by some due measure of laboriousness in his work. A man in this last state of mind will not be even able to understand that word, "Instant in season, out of season." It evidently supposes a Minister bent on saving souls, any how, if it be at all possible. Such a man will take all sorts of times, and ways, and places, not forbidden by Scripture, or by sound spiritual good sense, to attain his object. If, for example, he cannot get hearers to come to him, he will go to them, though it be to the streets and highways. Why not? If he can reach them "in season,' well. But if not, yet "out of season" he must come at them. "I became all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."

66

They watch for your souls," says Paul, as they that must give account." They watch for them. Look how it is with a man of this world, set on mercantile gains. He watches his opportunity. He is not content with going through a routine. Bent on realizing profits, he observes the prices. He watches their rise and fall, and eagerly steps in at what he deems the most favourable time. It is otherwise, alas! with us. We have exonerated our conscience; we have done our duty. Have we ? In reality we have done nothing like it, since we have lost unnumbered opportunities, just from not lying on the watch, not being bent intently on the great gain, the gaining of imperishable souls. Ah! "the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light."

This perfunctoriness appears, to take an example or two, in the preaching of the word. In our preparations it comes out, in our not seeking, laboriously and prayerfully,

The

for those things which might be the most fitted, under God, to save and edify souls, but rather being satisfied with things which will give ourselves less trouble, or may be pleasing, simply, and satisfying to the better part of our hearers. And then in the preaching itself it appears in the absence, to a fearful extent, of that winning tenderness and affection, that simplicity, that chastened and loving zeal, for which noise and vehement gesticulation are but miserable substitutes. same perfunctoriness appears in our dealing with young communicants, where we are too much satisfied with being just able conscientiously to admit or reject them, without longing after their souls, looking up to the Lord for them, seizing the golden opportunity, the most precious we can ever possess, of getting into close and earnest and personal dealing with them. In our discipline it appears, in that we are generally content, I fear, when we have given some due compliance with the letter of the Church's laws, in place of sincerely "travailing with offenders," (to use the language of our ancient statutes,) to bring them, if the Lord will, to a repentance not to be repented of. In family visitation there is a miserable perfunctoriness. If we have got through the work of the day comfortably and pleasantly, we are content, though we have neither wrestled beforehand, nor much looked up in the course of the work, for the Lord's special presence and blessing in it. In the public prayers the same spirit comes out, in our not "stirring up ourselves to take hold of God," not throwing our whole souls into " fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." As to the government of the Church, our presbyteries, and other ecclesiastical courts, we have but to look, I think, at this present Assembly, to see how miserably we have, in a great measure, thrown these away, deeming their work very much over, just where the chief spiritual efficacy of it might have begun. Altogether, who can read the following words

46

of Paul, without seeing, in the contrast of them, and seeing in every thing, a great and lamentable perfunctoriness, Therefore watch, and remember that, by the space of three years, I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears?"

6. I mark only one other line of our guilt, in the briefest manner; namely, our very imperfectly living, holding forth in our lives, the ministry we have received of the Lord Jesus. I speak not, of course, of any outward immoralities; -the Lord be praised, we are kept from these. I speak of nothing that could indicate that we had entered the Priests' office for a bit of bread. But what I point to is that high standard of living, which the Apostle marks in the words, Giving none offence in anything, that the ministry be not blamed,"—the elevated ministerial character marked in the following divine words of Bunyan, in his Pilgrim. Among other pictures which the Interpreter showed Christian, furnishing him with certain great cardinal lessons for his journey, one is thus spoken of: "So he had him into a private room, and bid his man open a door; the which when he had done, Christian saw the picture of a very grave person hang up against the wall, and this was the fashion of it :—It had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in his hand, the law of truth was written upon its lips, the world was behind his back, it stood as if it pleaded with men, and a crown of gold did hang over his head." Ah," the picture of a very grave person!" Austerity and gloom, assuredly, are not good. But alas! for the levity, the poor unsavoury talk, the frivolity, the foibles, as they are called, of us men, set, for a few short years, ambassadors of heaven, to stand between the living and the dead, till the plague be stayed! Are we such, indeed? Are we going to heaven, and longing to take our people thi ther along with us? I remember that once a meal was eaten on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, where Ministers were present,-where was present the chief Shepherd himself.

become a subscriber for nine copies of the "Dissertations on Job." Wesley at first declined the offer, partly on the ground that his acceptance of it would be a sore grief to his mother: but when, on the question being referred to her, that noble woman answered, "Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice that they were all so employed, though I should never see them more;" his objections were overcome, and he consented to go. None of his biographers mention the circumstance of his having been formally proposed to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and approved by that Society as a Mis. sionary to Georgia. Yet such was undoubtedly the case, as appears by the following entry in its Journal of Dec. 19th, 1735. (See British Magazine, July, 1844, pp. 14—16.).

"A Memorial of the Trustees, for establishing the colony of Georgia, in America, was read, setting forth, that the Rev. Mr. Samuel Quincy, to whom the Society had been pleased, upon their recommendation, to allow a salary of £50 per annum, has by letter certified to the said Trustees, that he is desirous of leaving the colony of Georgia, and returning home to England in the month of March next, to which they have agreed; and the said Trustees recommend the Rev. Mr. John Wesley to the Society, that they would allow to him the said £50 per annum, from the time Mr. Quincy shall leave the said colony, in the same manner the said Mr. Quincy had it.

"Agreed, That the Society do approve of Mr. Wesley as a proper person to be a Missionary at Georgia, and that £50 per annum be allowed to Mr. Wesley from the time that Mr. Quincy's salary shall

cease."

It appears from the Journals of the Society, (vol. vii., p. 261,) that his first design was to receive nothing of any man but food to eat, and raiment to put on; and those in kind only, that he might avoid, as far as in him lay, worldly desires and worldly cares; but being afterwards convinced by his

friends that he ought to consider the necessities of his flock, as well as his own, he thankfully accepted that bounty of the Society which he needed not for his own personal subsistence.

The Wesleys embarked for Georgia, Oct. 14th, 1735, and landed in America, Feb. 6th, 1736. Early in March the brothers were separated, Charles removing to Frederica, in the island of St. Simon, where he was to have the spiritual charge of the people, and where the Governor, to whom he was Secre tary, had fixed his residence. This island is about one hundred miles south of Savannah, where John remained. "March 19th, 1736, about three in the afternoon," says Charles, "I first set my foot on St. Simon's island; and immediately my spirit revived. No sooner did I enter upon my ministry, than God gave me, like Šaul, another heart." (See Jackson's Life of Charles Wesley, vol. i., p. 51.) On their arrival he addressed his shipmates in the following words :—

"The good providence of God hath at length brought you to the haven where you desired to be. This is the time you so wished to find,— this is the place you have so longed to arrive at. What, then, ought to be your thoughts, your designs, your resolutions, now the Almighty God hath granted your heart's desire? Consider well what ought to be your conduct; now choose whether you will serve God or not: but consider that if you do serve him, you must do it with all your mind; that no man can serve two masters; for ye cannot serve God and mammon; either you must give to God your whole heart or none; either lay aside the thought of pleasing him, and choose another master, or let the pleasing him be your one aim in all your thoughts, all your words, and all your actions. The God of your fathers hath lately given testimony that he hath not forsaken you or your children. Your eyes have seen that his ears are not heavy that they should not hear, neither his hand shortened that it cannot save.' You have cried unto him in