of a conquered enemy. I then set out for Bradforth, in Yorkshire, where I spent an agreeable year with Mr. Benson, and my dear friends. I hope our weak labours were made a blessing to many.

In the year 1778, our Conference begun at Leeds, the first Tuesday in August. I was stationed another year with Mr. Murlin and Mr. Johnson, in Bradforth circuit. We laboured together in love. God was with us, and gave us success.

In the year 1779, I was appointed at our London Conference, for Colne circuit, in Lancashire.

August 25. I took my leave of our dear friends at Bradforth, and set out with my wife for Colne. I met with many agreeable, and some disagreeable things. The grand enemy had wounded many, who, I hope, are now healed again. We have had a severe winter, many crosses and trials, and many blessings. The Lord hath owned our weak labours, and given us a little success. The last time I visited the classes in this circuit, we added thirty-eight to our number, twenty-three to the church of the living God, who had found remission of sins through the blood of our adorable Saviour. Nine have died in peace, and are now with the spirits of just men made perfect in the paradise of God.

I can say but little, about the controversy between the Calvinian brethren and the Arminians. I believe Christ tasted death for every man, but I do not love contention: I am no disputant; I therefore leave polemical Divinity to men of learning, abilities, and experience. I can only say, I have been greatly humbled for my sin. I know in whom I have believed, I know God is love. I know it by experience. He hath loved me, and given his Son for me. 1 have peace with God, through faith in the blood of Christ. I am at peace with all the saints, with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. I desire to follow after peace with all men. I hate sin, and by the grace of God I overcome it. I love holiness, the whole mind that was in Christ, and I pursue it. By all means I follow on, if I may apprehend that, for which I was also apprehended of Christ Jesus. I aim at, wish, and pray for all that grace, glory, and immortality, promised by the Father, and procured by the Son of his love. This I call Bible religion, genuine Christianity, and this religion I call

mine.

This I desire to recommend to all men, by preaching his Word in the pulpit, in the house, and in the way; in season and out of season, according to my ability.

Without this religion, all names, notions, and forms, among all sects and parties, are but mere parade and idle show. Without repentance, without faith in the blood of Christ, without holiness of heart and life, without love to God and man, all is nothing. Let all men consider this well, and pray for, and seek after this one thing needful, that they may be saved from sin in this life, and from hell in the great day of the Lord Jesus!

105

FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL.

THE following remarks have been abridged from an essay which was published some years since; they will, no doubt, be new to nearly all our readers. The subject, of which they treat, is one, concerning which, it is of the utmost consequence that, all Ministers, and other members of the Church of Christ, should correctly and thoroughly understand the will of their Divine Lord; and the intrinsic value of the remarks, renders them deserving of record in our pages. Although originally intended for Independent churches, the general principles advanced, we conceive, are applicable to the churches of the Associa tion. If any of our readers should be of opinion, that they are not in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Ghost, we shall be glad to receive a statement of their reasons for arriving at such a conclusion.

Nothing has perhaps been so enormously perverted and abused, as the authority of the Christian ministry. Into such excesses have these abuses run, such mischiefs and miseries have they inflicted on mankind, as not unnaturally to excite prejudice and alarm at the bare mention of the authority of ministers of the gospel. For when the imagination realizes the decrees and anathemas of councils; the pomp, and power, and pride of prelates and popes; the cruel and execrable persecutions of inquisitors and men claiming to be Christian and apostolic ministers; the claims of, power to remit sin, to bind conscience, to interpret infallibly and authoritatively the word of God; the requiring from Christian people absolute submission and unresisting obedience;-these things amaze and shock the mind. Yet have they been all done in the name of Christ, and by authority claimed as his ministers! The consciences and lives, the souls and bodies of men, have been reduced to a miserable slavery under ecclesiastical domination. All the terrors and miseries of superstition have been inflicted on men by an aspiring Christian priesthood, till it has become the plain duty and interest of all men, as ever they value Divine truth and their own souls, as ever they regard their rights and liberties as men or Christians, to be jealous of the power claimed or exercised by the ministers of religion. And yet all this is but the wicked abuse, by men lusting for dominion, wealth, and pomp, of an institution in itself the most friendly to truth and happiness, of an authority purely spiritual, confided to Christian ministers for no other purposes but to promote piety and virtue, happiness and salvation among mankind.

The first point of administrative authority, plainly and fully confided by the Lord Jesus to his ministers, respects, the Publication in all the world of his gospel. "All power," said he, "in heaven and earth is committed to me. Go ye therefore into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." The preaching, therefore, of Christ's gospel, in all ages, in all lands, rests on no general considerations, however just and wise, of utility or necessity; nor primarily on our conviction of its supreme excellency, and of its value and importance to mankind, but on the command of Christ; and the right and authority

of Christian Ministers and Missionaries to proclaim everywhere their message has the same foundation. If a door of opportunity be set before a minister of Christ, to open his commission in an idolatrous kingdom, as China, for instance, where there is a false religion of great antiquity, and of great authority with the people, were he questioned as to his right and claim to interfere with the religious customs and opinions of the people, the traditions of their fathers, the instructions of their priests, and the institutions established and upheld by their government, what reply could he give, but this? that he was sent and commissioned by Christ, the Saviour and Judge of men, the Lord of truth and conscience. Of this authority they would be ignorant, and at least, until better informed, would despise it; but it is really the authority on which his servants act, by which they are sustained, and to which the final appeal must be made. So in the stated ministry of the word, the minister preaches not merely under a mutual compact with his people to that effect, but under a commission from Christ. By him, he is invested with authority, as well as laid under duty, to preach the whole truth of his gospel, even every unwelcome, humbling, condemnatory doctrine. If he be asked, by any unsubmissive spirit among his hearers, by what authority he presumes to reprove, rebuke, exhort? his answer is, Christ empowered me, as well as charged me to publish and enforce this truth. It is as responsible to him that I preach, and you hear. Equally so, if faithful men, in Christian lands, find the people scattered as having no shepherd, through the neglect, unfaithfulness, and erroneous doctrine of those-by whatever authority appointed-who claim to be their pastors, and go to them with a purer and more zealous ministry, when they are upbraided as unauthorized, and schismatics, and intruders, may make their appeal to authority and commission from Christ; and they and their opponents must equally abide the great decision of him, who will own and recompense his faithful servants, and condemn and punish idle shepherds. We must no more renounce than abuse this divine commission and authority for preaching the gospel. It has been vested in every true minister of Christ, from the beginning of his dispensation. If it be said, How are ministers to be sure they are really thus commissioned and authorized? or how are their hearers to know it of them? And who is to be judge in the case? The answer is, Christ is the judge, and has appointed a day in which he will declare who have been the faithful shepherds of his flock, sent and empowered by him; and who have been but pretenders, wolves in sheep's clothing: a day in which he will equally determine among the hearers of his ministers, who have received with obedient mind his truth from the lips of his servants, and have therefore received him; and who have been despisers or neglecters of his truth, ordinances, and ministers, and therefore of himself. And in the mean time, it being publicly declared that the case is so- -that the gospel is preached by Christ's divine authority, of which he, at his appointed day of judgment, will take account-all who preach and all who hear, are equally bound to act as desiring to be found faithful, and therefore to know his word and will, as those who must give account. And this state of the case connects sacredness, vitality, and power, with the whole ministration of gospel truth, and makes it adapted to promote

that kingdom, which consists in ruling over consciences and willing subjects. If it be asked, But should the congregation slight the pastor's faithful testimony, or hate and reject him for it? should a heathen people despise a Missionary's authority and message, and expel him from their borders, is there no remedy? The case must stand over to the great audit. An apostle could but have shaken the dust from his raiment, in solemn testimony of his fidelity and their guilt, and so appeal to the great decision. The hearer is not bereft of his Christian liberty, the minister usurps not lordship over reason and conscience. He is commissioned to preach what he deems pure, simple, gospel truth. Therein is the trial of his diligence and fidelity. The hearer listens to his testimony, as to that of one sent of Christ to preach his truth, yet liable to error. But there is the word of God, as the appeal of both. The minister requires assent and submission to his testimony, not merely because he is commissioned of Christ, but because what he advances is scriptural. And if a hearer withholds assent to the statements of a minister, because he deems them unscriptural, he offends not against the minister's commission and authority, as between preacher and hearer, but the case stands over for the decision of the Great Judge, to whose word now, and judgment hereafter, both equally appeal as the authority they venerate, and to which they are accountable. This derivation of his commission immediately from Christ, gives a faithful minister great courage and liberty in expounding the word of God. He stands under no compact with men, to withhold any part of divine truth. Its whole extent and variety is open to him. True, as churches are now constituted of Christians, who have separated themselves from other communities of the faithful, and have united in fellowship upon their agreement in certain views of doctrine and discipline, they, as a matter of course, choose those to be their ministers who also agree with them therein; and from the beginning of the relationship, between pastor and people, obtain satisfaction that their ministers are, in their view, sound in the faith: a solemn duty of churches as conservators of the truth, and as studying their own edification and peace. An upright minister, therefore, will not attempt to controvert or conceal those truths among a people, by the profession of which he originally obtained their confidence and his sacred office among them. But if, on subsequent investigation, he has found reason to change his views, in respect to them, he will state the fact, and withdraw from a station for which he is no longer qualified. Within those limits, which are indeed no restraint to an honest mind, which really believes what is professed, the minister of Christ, as sent by him, and accountable to him, is faithful to truth and to souls. With him awe towards Christ, is courage towards men. This conviction, that every true gospel minister owes his commission, authority, and account to Christ, duly considered, would render ministers solemn and tender in assuming their office; courageous, faithful, and zealous, in the discharge of it. It would make hearers of the gospel duly esteem the persons, office, and labours of their ministers. It would equally forbid ministers to assume and aspire in the church-for to remember their master's commission, and their own account to him, would make them truly humble-or the people to slight either the messenger, or the message

of Christ. Both ministers and people would think men nothing, and Jesus all in all. While the gospel ministry, in this view of it, would appear an agency of eminent efficacy to advance the kingdom of heaven, not merely by natural suitableness and adaptation-though that is great-but by divine authority and appointment; by Christ renewing, employing, and sustaining the gospel ministry, from age to age.

The second point of authority, confided by Christ to his ministers, has respect to the Administration of his instituted ordinances. Those whom he charged, and therefore authorized to teach all nations, he also in like terms instructed and empowered to baptize all who should receive their testimony. It has suited the views of carnal, aspiring, superstitious, intruders into the gospel ministry, to attach exaggerated importance and efficacy to gospel ordinances, in order to exalt themselves into power, as holding the office by which they alone were entitled to administer these mysterious, awful, rites; an artifice common to priestcraft in all ages and countries. Let it be once established in the minds of the people, that these rites are necessary and efficacious to salvation; and that by none but a priest could they be administered with validity and success; then the priests holding in their arbitrary power the souls and the hopes of the subdued and terrified people, can exact of them any degree of submission. It is but to withhold or suspend the offices of religion, and the miserable devotees are brought trembling to the feet of their tyrants and oppressors. And in proportion as the sacraments are unduly magnified, or are perverted from their true character and use, the tendency is to exalt the minister by the delusion of the flock. The very nature of the case, the apostolic practice from the beginning, and the necessity of solemn order in sacred services, unite to show that the ministers of religion should dispense its instituted offices. Not that this rule could not, under extreme circumstances of necessity, be dispensed with; but that it is the will of Christ, this should be the established order of his church. He who is duly received by a people as their minister, appears among them qualified and empowered to preside at their sacramental table, and to baptize their infant offspring. How important the due and regular attendance upon the gospel institutions of baptism, and the Eucharist, is, needs not now be declared. But so it is. Let these appointments be vitiated or neglected-let them be regarded and used with superstition, or forsaken as underserving of regard, or neglected from want of pious concern for gospel privileges and duties, and then true religion will be found in decay and feebleness. To explain them accurately to the people; to administer them with decent, devout solemnity and sacred unction; to gather the flock to them with awe and joy, is one of the great duties of a Christian shepherd. He will, therefore, rejoice to feel himself possessed of a divine commission for the valid performance of them; and neither to exalt himself, nor to enslave the people; neither to magnify the services unduly, nor to engage, for them, an excessive and dangerous confidence from the people; but to fulfil the command of Christ, to maintain the order, the edification, the worship of his church, he will delight to feel he can administer the sacraments with a valid and sufficient authority. It will