Candid and moderate men will think that they acted wisely; and that, in considering themselves qualified to administer the sacraments, they usurped no powers which did not legitimately belong to the ministerial office which they had, many of them, so long and so usefully held.

In this position the matter stood for some years, few doubting but that the right to administer the sacraments was assumed by men who had previously possessed the ministerial qualification without using it, in deference to the general usage. They who knew the men would have small difficulty in admitting their fitness for the right discharge of the function; and they who looked a little deeper than the human authority established in the ecclesiastical canons of a particular church, could not doubt their divine right to its exercise. It would require some acuteness to prove that men who had been intrusted with a call from God, and thus " "put into the ministry," had not received a full commission, when, in truth, it was exercised in every way but this one. They had most successfully sustained the office of Evangelists, Superintendents, the administrators of discipline; and it would be difficult to show that such men as Benson, Pawson, Mather, Olivers, Clarke, Taylor, Wood, Entwisle, and their co-workers, went beyond their calling, when they administered the Lord's supper to the flocks over which the Chief Shepherd had made them overseers.

and the people also by their election; for as we read that Bishops have done it, so Christian Emperors and Princes have done it; and the people, before Christian Princes were, commonly did elect their Bishops and Priests." In answer to other questions relating to cases of urgent necessity, it is held by Cranmer, and many of the most celebrated theologians of the day, that it is not unlawful for laymen of every degree to preach the word of God, to administer the sacraments, and perform all the other functions of the ministry. (See Burnet's "Historical Records," vol. iii., sect. xxi., quest. 9-14.) Moreover, it is a curious fact, that the Reformed Church of England did not prepare any Reformed ordinal until 1550. Did Cranmer and his compeers use the old Popish service in the consecration of Bishops, and the ordination of Presbyters? or did they act on their own principle, as above stated, and appoint to the sacred office by election? This subject is involved in some obscurity; and yet, during the interval referred to, we have the record of the election of many of the Bishops of the Reformed period of Henry VIII., and no account of their consecration. Even Mr. Percival, in the list appended to his book on Apostolical Succession, has failed to produce any evidence of the consecration of these Bishops. Now, in case this should prove to be in fact, what it appears to be, as understood by the general laws of evidence; namely, that for several years during the early part of the Reformation, Bishops were appointed by election, and not by consecration; then what becomes of the doctrine of apostolical succession? These Bishops were appointed to their office without the communication to them by other Bishops of the power and grace supposed to be inherent in the Episcopal function. Consequently they were out of the line: their ordinations, supposing they performed any, must be invalid; their "making the body and blood of Christ" in the eucharist must in its turn fail; and as none can be saved but by partaking the sacrament so prepared, consequences the most disastrous must necessarily have followed.

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(6.) When the field of Missionary enterprise enlarged, the right of ordination, by the imposition of hands, began to be exercised in the case of those who were appointed to Foreign Stations. An attempt to carry the same point, in regard of all who took upon them the full ministry in this country, met with a powerful resistance, on the ground of the validity of the existing vocation of the brethren: this was not disputed by those who considered the imposition of hands as more perfect; and, in the absence of something approaching to unanimity, the question for the time was abandoned. A few years rolled on, and then the usage was adopted without a dissentient voice.

From all this it appears that, in fact, we possess and exercise all the functions of a full and completed ministry; not merely in substance, but in form. This, then, is our fifth note of a church.

The whole case may be summed up in few words. The Methodist UNITED SOCIETIES" constitute a communion of Christians, on the basis of the faith of the New Testament; these societies are spiritual, holy, living believers, united to Christ, and blessed with the influence of the Holy Spirit. A Christian service, embracing preaching, the sacraments, and such private meetings as tend to edification, is fully provided, and in constant practice; holy discipline, for the purposes of purity, conservation, and progress, founded on the word of God, is assented to, enforced, and observed; and a ministry converted, called of God, set apart and ordained by the pastorate, is in the full exercise of its functions. This we call a CHURCH.

They who arrogate to themselves the exclusive title of "the holy catholic church" will, of course, place us in the same category with the Lutheran, Reformed, and Scotch Churches, deny our title, and denounce us as heretics. From some of the very last prelatical Charges, there is reason to conclude that something more than this would be done, if "that which letteth were taken out of the way.” Whether this may be the case, and how soon, none can know. The times are most ominous. For the last few years a spirit has been abroad most hostile to the principles of the Reformation, and threatening the religious liberties of the country. We seem to be marked out as the first victims of this crusade. The peaceful exercise of our religious privileges and attempts to do good, are suddenly and every where opposed and assailed; we are, from the pulpit and the press, denounced as heretics, as well as schismatics; a quiet grave is refused to our dead; and exultation and joy are expressed at the prospect of breaking in upon our tranquil borders, and scattering our people. How soon and how suddenly are the tables turned! But a few fleeting years have passed since we were courted as allies, our assistance sought in the emergency of the Church, and our position allowed to be the very opposite of antagonist. In that dark day

we did not forget our Founder and his principles. A ready, frank, and willing friendly assistance was accorded. This was not ineffective. If we did not hold the balance in our hands, which, in the circumstances, is extremely probable, yet it was in our power to have greatly swelled the flood, and to have rendered resistance a more difficult task. We sought no favour-we asked for no compromise

* It is so unusual, and, at the same time, so refreshing, to meet with any thing like truth, when the character of our Founder and the spirit of Methodism are concerned, that we cannot deny ourselves the gratification of inserting the beautiful and eloquent eulogium on both, delivered at Oxford, in the recently-published Bampton Lectures, by the Rev. James Garbett.

"The period was full of danger; but, mean while, the providence of the Head of the church had been preparing from afar off the forces which were to resist the tempest. So long ago as the middle of last century, in the midst of the general slumber, two remarkable men had sprung up in the bosom of the Church, and had commenced that spiritual movement which, both within and without her, has never since been checked, but has gone swelling on and on, till it has pervaded the length and breadth of the land. Both of them were singularly endowed with popular eloquence, and the power of moving, as one man, the hearts of the greatest multitudes. But one of them, John Wesley, was as remarkable a man as any age or country has produced-resolute, calm, indefatigable-combining with a strong personal asceticism, a rare sympathy with the minds of other men-with the most piercing and farreaching sagacity, that profound enthusiasm, which gives to great truths the power by which they overbear opposition, and conquer mankind—a mind legislational, systematic, creative, fixing what would have been, in other hands, the heats of the moment, in a permanent form; and embodying, in profoundly-calculated institutions, the spirit which, in the case of Whitefield, evaporated, after a few convulsive efforts, without any lasting result.

"Amongst the vehement opposition of authority, the scoffs and contempt of the learned, and the violences of popular outrage, these men succeeded in conveying spiritual consciousness, and the purifying influences of the Gospel, to wildernesses into which the Church had never attempted to penetrate—and to thousands of souls within her pale, whom the indifference of her Ministers had permitted to walk in darkness. But the power of these remarkable men lay in the great truths which they preached-truths which, from the beginning until now, have carried their own witness with them, and commanded the hearts of mankind. As, at the Reformation, it was the announcement of the Gospel, as contained in the written word, which moved men's souls so deeply; and, with all the drawbacks of enthusiasm, and the other evil influences which are always found to accompany the resuscitation, partial or general, of the religious spirit, it has permanently impressed an ameliorating influence on countless masses, which would otherwise have been abandoned to practical Heathenism. In the mean time, there was not wanting a succession of Ministers within the Church, who, through evil report and good report, announced the same long-neglected doctrines; and they had grown so strange to men's ears, that, though they are fundamental truths, and the very message of Christ, they were denounced at first as but little better than heresy. But gradually the spirit of reformation spread; the dead slumber of the Church was effectually broken; the oncedespised doctrines were widely recognised, not only as the unquestionable truths of Scripture, but as the authorized teaching of the Church of England. Henceforth her Ministers ceased to be the apes of Epictetus;' they spoke to men's souls; they began from Christ, as the source of life, instead of working up to him; in one word, they preached Christ crucified, the beginning, the middle, and the end of our faith. Along with this bold and simple scriptural teaching there went necessarily, hand in hand, a less secular life in the established Clergy; an indefatigable zeal in all good works; an earnestness hitherto unknown; and a primitive abandonment of soul, and

we expected no sacrifice to be made to us. But we had a right to expect peace. War, however, has been proclaimed. This, it will be said by some, is not from authority. It is replied, Authority does not even attempt to stop or mitigate its course. No one can mistake the objects sought. They are evidently designed to maintain the Church, not merely as the Establishment of the nation, but as per se -the holy Catholic Church-and that other bodies are no churches at all, but heretical and schismatical rebels, to be hunted, harassed, beaten down, and overthrown by such weapons as the constitution allows. The issue is with God. In the mean time we take our position, we trust in the spirit of prayer, meekness, and Christian love, but,—firmly, resolutely, and unalterably, as a branch of the one true church of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

II. WE MAY NOW, IN REFERENCE TO THIS SUBJECT, APPLY EXHORTATION OF THE APOSTLE : "LET US WALK BY THE

THE

SAME RULE, LET US MIND THE SAME THING."

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1. By still acknowledging the supremacy and the sufficiency of holy Scripture.

This was a rule, a principle, an axiom, with our Founder and fathers. That which was not found clearly stated in the word of God, or could not be honestly and fairly deduced therefrom, was rejected. Every truth of the sacred oracles, whether relating to doctrines, experience, duties, order and government, was held as of equal and paramount obligation. THE BIBLE, THE WHOLE BIBLE, AND NOTHING BUT THE BIBLE, constituted the foundation of that fabric of religion which, by the mercy of God, we have been enabled to rear. The beautiful passage of Mr. Wesley, in the Preface to his Sermons, expresses this sentiment in forcible and glowing language :—

"To candid, reasonable men, I am not afraid to lay open what have been the inmost thoughts of my heart. I have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God; just hovering over the great gulf; till a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I

body, and substance, and every thing, so that Christ might be glorified, and his Gospel win its way in the hearts of men.'

Of the conduct of the Methodist body, in the late troubles and dangers of the Church, this distinguished man has the candour to say,

"The convulsions which, from the troubled depths of a diseased social system, threatened the overthrow of every existing institution, had taken a tone of decided hostility to the Church; and not only anarchist and infidel-which was naturalconspired her ruin; but, with the exception of the followers of Wesley, to whom the lasting gratitude of the Church is due, the great Dissenting bodies likewise; they were utterly reckless of ultimate consequences, and unmindful of the dangers which threatened the very existence of the Gospel in the overthrow of the Church, under whose mighty shadow they themselves had been sheltered." (Vol. ii., pp. 453, 458.)

open,

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drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing,the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way: for this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri (‘a man of one book'). Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. sit down alone; only God is here. In his presence I I read his book; for this end, to find the way to heaven. Is there a doubt concerning the meaning of what I read? Does any thing appear dark or intricate? I lift up my heart to the Father of Lights:Lord, is it not thy word, If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God? Thou givest liberally, and upbraidest not. Thou hast said, If any be willing to do thy will, he shall know. I am willing to do, let me know, thy will.' I then search after and consider parallel passages of Scripture, comparing spiritual things with spiritual;' I meditate thereon with all the attention and earnestness of which my mind is capable. If any doubt still remains, I consult those who are experienced in the things of God; and then the writings whereby, being dead, they yet speak. And what I thus learn, that I teach." He adds: "I have accordingly set down in the following sermons what I find in the Bible concerning the way to heaven; with a view to distinguish this way of God from all those which are the inventions of men. I have endeavoured to describe the true, the scriptural, experimental religion, so as to omit nothing which is a real part thereof, and to add nothing thereto that is not."

This passage is important, on account of its beautiful simplicity and piety, but much more so, in consequence of the Sermons in question being our standard of doctrine, not only assented to by every candidate for the ministry, but so referred to, by legal settlements, as to make it unlawful for any opposing doctrine to be taught from our pulpits, or in any of our Theological Schools. No secondary authority is here acknowledged, or ever has been, as co-ordinate with the Bible. Tradition, councils, creeds, catholic theology, or an infallible interpreter, are all discarded as in any sense occupying an equal place with the word of God. The sacred text alone, in our system, is clothed with divine authority, either in the sense of giving the rule of faith, or the precepts of practical religion. We are fully prepared to subscribe to the sixth Article of the English Church on this point:

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Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed, as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of 'holy Scripture' we do understand those canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church."