'He that keepeth his life shall lose it,' 'He that loseth his life' for the profession of the Gospel 'shall keep it to life eternal.' If we suffer with Christ, we shall also reign with him and be glorified together.'"*

The truths which relate to Jesus himself are among

the most important which the Gospel reveals. 'We preach Christ,' says the Apostle, ' warning every man and teaching every man, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.' From this passage we derive a most important sentiment, confirmed by the whole New Testament—that the great design of all the doctrines and precepts of the Gospel, is, to exalt the character,—to promote eminent purity of heart and life, to make men 'perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect.' We must preach not to make fiery partisans, and to swell the number of a sect; not to overwhelm the mind with fear, or to heat it with feverish rapture; not to form men to the decencies of life, to a superficial goodness, which will secure the admiration of mankind. All these effects fall infinitely short of the great end of the Christian ministry. We should preach that we may make men perfect Christians: perfect, not according to the standard of the world, but according to the law of Christ; perfect in heart and in life, in solitude and in society, in the great and in the common concerns of life. Here is the purpose of Christian preaching. In this, as in a common centre, all the truths of the Gospel meet; to this they all conspire; and no doctrine has an influence on salvation, any farther than it is an aid to the perfecting of our nature."t

"Christ is a great Saviour, as he redeems or sets free the mind, cleansing it from evil, breathing into it the love of virtue, calling forth its noblest faculties and affections, enduing it with moral power, restoring it to order, health and liberty." ****"Christ has revealed to us God as the Father, and as a Father in the noblest sense of that word. He hath revealed Him as the author and lover of all souls, desiring to redeem all from sin, and to impress

*Priestley's "Discourses on Various Subjects," p. 419. See also p. 14, &c., and Prefatory Discourse, p. 93.

+ Channing's Discourse on preaching Christ.

his likeness more and more resplendently on all; as proffering to all that best gift in the universe, his 'holy Spirit ;' as having sent his beloved Son to train us up and to introduce us to an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading in the heavens.'"*.

"I confess when I can escape the deadening power of habit, and can receive the full import of such passages as the following, 'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' 'I am come to seek and to save that which was lost.' 'He that confesseth me before men, him will I confess before my Father in heaven.' 'Whosoever shall be ashamed of me before men, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of the Father with the holy angels.' 'In my Father's house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you;' I say, when I can succeed in realizing the import of such passages, I feel myself listening to a being such as never before and never since spoke in human language. I am awed by the consciousness of greatness which these simple words express; and when I connect this greatness with the proofs of Christ's miracles which I gave you in a former discourse, I am compelled to speak with the centurion, 'Truly this was the Son of God.'t

"In reading the Gospels I feel myself in the presence of one who speaks as man never spake; whose voice is not of the earth; who speaks with a tone of reality and authority altogether his own; who speaks of God, as conscious of his immediate presence, as enjoying with him the intimacy of an only son; and who speaks of heaven, as most familiar with the higher states of being."

"Go to Jesus Christ for guidance, inspiration, and strength in your office."***"The privilege of communing with such a spirit is so great, and the duty of going from man to Christ is so solemn, that you must spare no effort to place yourself nearer and nearer to the Divine Master." My brother, go forth to your labors

* Channing's Works. On the great Purpose of Christianity. Channing's Character of Christ.

Channing's Sunday School.

with the spirit and power of Him who first preached the Gospel to the poor."*

"To Jesus the conqueror of death we owe the sure hope of immortality."***"Is that teacher to be scorned, who, in the language of conscious greatness, says to us, 'I am the resurrection and the life?" "+

"What are we to understand by the Divinity of Christ? In the sense in which many Christians, and perhaps a majority interpret it, we do not deny it, but believe it as firmly as themselves. We believe firmly in the Divinity of Christ's mission and office, that he spoke with Divine authority, and was a bright image of the Divine perfections. We believe that God dwelt in him, manifested himself through him, taught men by him, and communicated to him his spirit without measure. We believe that Jesus Christ was the most glorious display, expression, and representative of God to mankind, so that in seeing and knowing him, we see and know the invisible Father; so that when Christ came, God visited the world and dwelt with men more conspicuously than at any former period. In Christ's words, we hear God speaking; in his miracles, we behold God acting; in his character and life, we see an unsullied image of God's purity and love."‡

* Channing's Charge at the Ordination of Rev. R. C. Water

ston.

+ Channing on Infidelity.

Channing's System of Exclusion.

LETTER IV.

WESLEYAN METHODISTS.

TOWARDS the beginning of the last century, two young men at Oxford, the one a fellow of Lincoln College, struck by the thoughtlessness or lukewarmness of those about them, resolved to devote themselves to closer and more profitable study. They were brothers, by name John and Charles Wesley; and two other students joined them in their evening readings of the New Testament in the Greek: the elder of the brothers was at this time about twenty-six.* After a year of this kind of life, they admitted two or three of the pupils of the elder brother, and one of those of the younger, to their meetings; and the following year, being joined by yet more of the students, the regularity of their lives obtained for them the title of Methodists from those who were not inclined to follow their example.

In 1735 another name was added to their number, which has also become celebrated: this was George Whitfield, of Pembroke College, then in his eighteenth year: but of him I shall have occasion to speak by and by. I shall therefore confine myself to the Wesleys. A difference of opinion on the subjects of Free will and Predestination separated them from their younger coadjutor in 1741, and their respective friends, adopting strongly the distinctive opinions of the two, the grand division of the sect, which sprung up from their preaching, into Wesleyan or Arminian, and Whitfieldian or Calvinistic Methodists, ensued. All three received holy orders according to the ceremonial of the Church of England, and Wesley never ceased to hold his spiritual mother in high estimation. "The Church of England," he says in one

* John Wesley was born in 1703.

place, "is the purest in Christendom." But the singularity of their proceedings raised suspicion, and though both brothers continued to profess the fullest assent to the articles and liturgy of the established church, yet their manner of preaching and form of worship had something in it which led the bishops and clergy in general to consider them as verging on Sectarianism. In many places they were refused the use of the pulpit; and then, in the perhaps enthusiastic belief that they were the appointed instruments of rekindling religion in hearts where it had been dead hitherto, they began a system of field preaching.

There were at that time large districts slumbering in utter darkness and ignorance of the saving truths of the Gospel; and it was to these that the Wesleys especially directed their attention, with a success proportioned to their zeal; and had the then heads of the church availed themselves of the assistance of these earnest men in the way they might have done, by sanctioning their missionary labors among the poor and the uninstructed, the benefit would have been incalculable. But the harsh treatment* they met with, drove John Wesley at last into complete schism and then the ambition, which had perhaps animated his first exertions almost unknown to himself, assumed a bolder flight, and he aspired to the distinction of being the head and leader of a sect which grew so rapidly, that at the time of his death in 1791, "the num

*I rode over to a neighboring town," says Wesley, "to wait upon a justice of peace, a man of candor and understanding; before whom I was informed their angry neighbors had carried a whole wagon load of these new heretics." But when he asked, " what they had done," there was a deep silence, for that was a point their conductor had forgot. At length one said, "Why they pretend to be better than other people, and besides they pray from morning till night." Mr. S- -asked, "But have they done nothing besides?" "Yes sir," said an old man, "an't please your worship they have convarted my wife; till she went among them she had such a tongue, and now she is as quiet as a lamb." "Carry them back," replied the justice, "and let them convert all the scolds in the town.”— (Wesley's Journal.)