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METHODISM OF THE FUTURE.

WE leave Wesleyanism, and return for a moment to METHODISM.

Concerning the Methodism of the last century, we have assumed that it was indeed a dispensation from Heaven. But when it is thus considered, this inference is involved, namely, that this recent renovation of the powers of the Gospel must stand related, as well to the future, as to the past: in other words, that it must be held to take a position in that series of events, through the medium of which Christianity has, from the apostolic age onward, continued to work its way forward towards its destined issue- the subjugation of the human family, and the universality of a pure religion.

Inscrutable always are the reasons of the Divine Government; nevertheless, the evidences of the fact of such a scheme of government, having its marked stages, and its sequences, linking each conspicuous period of religious revival with the one preceding it, and then with the next the evidences, we say, of such an ordered sequence of events force themselves upon the notice of the meditative reader of (what is called) Church history. Yet, although illustrations of this alleged causal connexion of events might easily be adduced, yet to carry them clear of all plausible exceptions, and to construct, by means of them, a well-compacted and impregnable argument, would be difficult. So arduous a task, who shall attempt it?

A purpose far less venturous we have now before us, and, therefore, we shut off from our view that wider

prospect which would claim to be contemplated if the intention were to bring Methodism to its place in the general history of Christianity.

It must suffice here to say, that, if the wide-spread revival of evangelic piety which followed the itinerant ministry of Whitefield, and Wesley, and their companions, be regarded as "from Heaven" (and this belief will, at this time, be rejected by few religiouslyminded persons) and, if this Methodism be thought of, as it should, as a following up of that recovery of true theology and of a pure worship, which it was the work of the Reformation to bring about, then will it be inevitable, or it will come upon us as an irresistible impulse, to look onward from the now extinct Methodism, to its destined sequence, or to that which we have here ventured to designate, beforehand, as the Methodism of the coming time. If the hand of God should be acknowledged in that work which Whitefield and Wesley effected, can we think that that hand has been withdrawn from the sphere of human affairs? or are those high purposes which then were moved forward, rescinded or broken? Shall the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and the Methodism of the eighteenth, and the missionary impulse which followed hard upon it, shall these movements onward toward an issue proportionate, shall they stop short, and be looked back upon, ages hence, as a dawn that was followed by no day?

We otherwise think. But even if Christian men might incline to abstain from all forecastings of the future, they would not be suffered, in quietness, so to do, by those on every side, who, adducing in triumphant tones, and with apparent reason, as the grounds of their anticipations, the actual and indisputable course of events, and the tendencies of opinion in the educated

classes, throughout the civilised world, are challenging the Christian community to look well to that which is coming, and to interpret, as they do, the signs of the times. We may not then, even if we would, refuse to consider that which is impending in the times that are now next us, and near at hand.

The ROMANIST-naming him, for convenience sake, as the truest representative of all who, Romanists or not, hold substantially the same principles-the Romanist believes, and in so believing he is justified by a great amount and variety of evidence, that the religious instinct of mankind, so far as it assumes the form of a definite creed, and so far as it conforms itself to an external worship, is now fast gathering itself around the one visible source of authentic belief, and which is also the centre of spiritual government, and which enjoins the one form of worship acceptable to Heaven. The Romanist believes-and this his persuasion has, at least, its semblance of reason, that, yet a little while, and the eyes of all men shall be seen to turn toward the chair of the Prince of the Apostles; at least so it shall be with all who profess any sort of dogmatic faith, and who adhere to the usages of a visible worship. This belief, recommended as it is by its simplicity of expression, is strong also on the ground of its antiquity, and of its wide diffusion, and of the apparent tendency of devout minds.

On the other side, again for convenience sake, and for brevity, we name the PANTHEIST of the present time as the representative of that various mass of undefined opinion which has existed always as the counterbelief, though not the real antagonist, of Romanism. It is this Pantheism and this Romanism which, from the earliest periods known to history, have, under different names, shared between them, in shifting forms,

the empire of the human family; the one shaping itself always in counter-conformity to the other; and the two, like binary celestial masses, revolving round a common centre, are found to be necessary, the one to the other: -annihilate either, and the other would fly off from its orbit, and be lost in infinite space. Each, silently conscious of its dependent relationship to the other, has been tolerant of the other; and thus it is that, while Romanism, under cover of mysticism, reserves a place for Pantheism, Pantheism has been used to say, and is now saying aloud, "Inasmuch as the mass of mankind-the herd, high and low, must and will have a dogmatic belief of some sort, and must have an ostentatious worship, Romanism supplies both in a mode that is well adapted to satisfy the instincts, and to meet the prejudices of the unthinking many."

But the Pantheist, resting his calculations of the future at this time, upon the observed tendencies of modern science, in all its branches and amid its amazing developments, of late, and seeing also toward what end social and political institutions are moving, announces it as a fact, well nigh accomplished, or as now evolving itself rapidly, that the entire body of instructed and intelligent men, throughout the civilised world, and leaving, by peaceable connivance, the Romanist to take to its bosom the uninstructed and the unintelligent -that this thinking class is now preparing itself for its near approaching time of triumph-its millennium when it may ingenuously profess its rejection of every dogma, and its independence of every authority in matters of thought, and its tranquil contempt of all forms of worship alike. The Pantheist, in support of this, his confident anticipation, appeals to the admitted fact that, already all, or nearly all, educated men, from end to end of Continental Europe, those of the Anglo

Saxon race alone excepted, if they have not yet declared themselves on his side, are held back from doing so only by motives of conventional propriety, or of policy.

Now the question between the Romanist, on the one hand, and the Pantheist, on the other, and those who hold to the religion of the Bible, on the third part, would not relate to the fact, which is obvious and notorious, of the present prevalence of both Romanism and Pantheism, or of the probable future triumph of both; but only as to the extent, or the amount, and the value of that exception, which both must admit to existnamely, the firmly-held Christian belief of multitudes within the circle of Protestantism. The over-weening feeling of the Romanist impels him, indeed, to set down, as of little account, Protestantism, in its several forms; he swells and boasts himself too much. The Pantheist, ever vague in his mode of thinking, and prone to beguile himself among baseless speculations, apart from evidence, and regardless of facts, professes not to know, or knowing, not to care, whether, at this moment, the Christian exception, or "remnant of faith," be larger or smaller the world, or the world of mind, is, or it will speedily become, his own undisputed property, and he can be patient a few days or years, until that which is inevitable has actually come about.

Rather than enter upon an ambiguous controversy, as to facts which in themselves are not to be precisely defined, or ascertained, as between himself and the Romanist, or the Pantheist, the Christian, or he who holds to articles of belief, as authentically taught in Holy Scripture, and to a worship thence gathered, will do well (for himself, and as a means of reaching a tranquil position) to grant, for an hour at least, to both his antagonists, that the facts are as they severally profess