THE CHURCH.

"Built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone."-Eph. ii. 20.

JANUARY, 1850.

THE FIRST THING.

AN ADDRESS TO OUR OWN DENOMINATION.

Dear Brethren,

Probably most of us have read and admired Mr. Cobden's speech at the late meeting in London of the Freehold Land Association. It was not, indeed, a mere speech; it was a sober and clear judgment of the end to be obtained, and of the available means to attain it, with an expression of personal determination to address himself to the task as at least a seven years' work. Did not the aspiration arise in our hearts as we read it,oh, for such a spirit in all our ministers and members, in regard to the infinitely greater ends of their Church Association ?*

Our ends as Baptists are twofold. A subordinate, though highly important one, for which we are a denomination, and a far higher one in common with all evangelical christians. Baptists have become a denomination not as springing from any human founder,-from a Luther or a Calvin, a George Fox, a Robinson, or a John Wesley; nor merely to diffuse this or that ecclesiastical organization; but to urge on their fellowchristians' attention the New Testament simplicity of a grossly and dangerously perverted ordinance; to bear witness efficiently to the injury done to christianity, taken as a whole, by either baptizing to regenerate, or baptizing the unregenerate,-that infant baptism, with either view, must fill the world with baptized rebels against God; nay, must render the number of baptized unbelievers far greater than that of baptized believers! Brethren, if we appreciated our mission as a Denomination in proportion to its importance, and set about it with the spirit of the great Statesman whom we have just commended,-determined, patient, and prepared for a long task,-what a change might we effect in the views of our fellow-christians; for it is to them that our denominational mission is directed. Our Lord expects of us far more of kind and unsectarian yet earnest zeal to deliver His church from that mischievous bondage to Judaism, transmitted to it through popery, which deforms so large a por

* We are not intending to chill the zeal of any of our friends in regard to the Freehold Land Movement, as will be seen in another page. We don ot believe in the antagonism of good objects to each other. It is, indeed, treachery to Religion to employ it in neutralizing efforts for freedom. The clerical agents of our profligate Government do thus, almost to a man, abuse Religion to pacify the victims of aristocratical ambition and extravagance. VOL. IV.

B

tion of it, even three hundred years after the Reformation. Brethren, let us make a serious, prayerful, prolonged effort to accomplish our denominational duty. Love to our brethren, allegiance to truth, above all, the honour of our great Master, summon us to this important work.

Should any of our brethren, yet remaining in pædobaptism, read the preceding lines, they must excuse what they do not yet see to be needful exhortation. We have written to our brethren who admit what we assume, and who need to be stirred up to what would be to them "a work of faith and a labour of love." In what follows, however, in writing to Baptists we write to all.

We wish then, brethren, at the beginning of the Thirty-seventh Jubilee of Christianity, to invite your attention to a more well-considered and determined effort for the spiritual emancipation of our fellow-men than we have ever yet made. We will say at once, that we rather distrust Revival efforts. If, indeed, Revivals come unsought let God be praised; but let not other churches try, by imitating the mere manner of their occurring, to produce the like effects. Surely considerate christians must have learned that something very different to Finneyism (we may be pardoned the word) is needed to effect great and permanent good. We regard Revivals, as compared with a more considerate effort for religious good, very much as we do the political liberties so quickly gained, and as quickly lost, on the Continent, compared with the practical liberty, slowly but securely gained, which Mr. Cobden sets before us. Nor do we think very much of days for simultaneous prayer and preaching. We own there is something pleasing in the idea. Still there is ever danger of the mechanical and formal when all are summoned in all places to do the same thing and at the same hour.

We rely solely, so far as human instrumentality is concerned, on the deliberate, yet pressing conviction becoming general in our churches, that we are individually responsible for more patient efforts to convert sinners to God. It is neither new men nor new measures that are really wanted. Means as old as christianity are still the most natural and best. Mr. Cobden has well pointed out, that it is not he who declaims most about universal suffrage who does most for it; but he who puts himself and others who will vote for it on the county register; and he shews them that the way to do this is almost as old as the constitution itself. May we not learn a valuable lesson indeed ? Let us reflect. What is the first point to be gained with every unconverted mind? And what are the means entrusted to us for gaining that point? From the beginning, every one who has cordially believed in the cross of Christ has felt previously his need of that cross. However varied the degree of emotion, however different the kinds of sin,-and whether the "reproving Light" entered gently through parental teaching in infancy, or appalled suddenly the hitherto hardened conscience as "by a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun," or "by an earthquake shaking the very foundations of a prison,” still sin "appeared SIN," appeared exceeding sinful, by the commandment being seen either more clearly itself, or more correctly in its application; and then, and not before, it was realized, "The cross of Christ is what I want, and all I want; it is my liberty and my life." This is, then, the practical end to be first gained. And what have been the grand means for convincing of sin; what the means available to us? Surely, beyond all question, the reasonings, in some form or other, of man with his fellow-man; and of these by far the most efficient has been the direct personal appeal "between him and thee alone."

Almost all the means which we call providential such as solemn and appalling events, have owed their chief efficacy to the previous or some

times subsequent instructions and expostulations of the human teacher; and while sermons-chiefly because individual duty is too generally thrown upon the official instructor-while sermons have been a frequent means of arousing the conscience, yet how prodigiously has their efficacy been increased when more personal efforts had preceded the public ones. Indeed, the instances are probably comparatively rare, in which christian entreaty and instruction, backed by more or less consistent christian example, has not preceded and prepared the ground for the good effected through the sermon.

To attend pretty regularly to a Sunday school class, to distribute a few tracts, to be a bible or a missionary collector, to be regular in our Sunday and even our week-day attendance, all these things may be, and yet the grand means for leading a soul to God be never made use of at all. Look around at the various classes of unconverted sinners. The utterly careless or even hostile,-what so likely to get the light of God's law into their minds, as unobtrusive, kind, and repeated conversations with them at their homes, each one by himself or herself when possible, not so much pressing them merely to come to a place of worship, as endeavouring to awaken the convictions which would soon bring them thither. Or, on the other hand, those who have long known more or less of their sin, but by numberless evasions contrive to hope that they are tolerably safe,what like, conversation to bring to light before the eyes of each the particular illusion and deceit of each mind, and shew the real danger. Or the large class who, with much more light and knowledge, withhold the distinct submission of their souls to God; who frequent our worship, perhaps teach in our schools, but who have never entered into a personal covenant with God to take him as their God; who have never yielded their will to his,-what more likely than wise and kind conversation to fill such hearts with an aching conviction of their foolish and guilty pride and rebellion. Now, to awaken feelings of this kind is the first step. All our organisations, our statistics, our preachings and writings on the subject, merely affect those of us who are already fully satisfied that an immense work has to be done by Christ's church. What is needed is steadily to look at the first end, which if attained will place us in a sure train for success, and then at the available means at our disposal. Mr. Cobden has shewn that the first efficient step towards our emancipation from the burdens imposed on us by the ambition and selfishness of our Aristocracy is to get honest men into Parliament, and that this may be surely gained by the simple process of those who suffer placing themselves, by a little economy and forethought for a few years, on the register. Just so in regard to the conversion of the world. The increase to Christ's kingdom will begin, and begin, surely, co-extensively with convictions of sin. We all know this. The most efficient means of bringing men to this state is direct, kind, yet close reasoning and appeal. We all know this

too.

Can we be aroused to use the means which by his constitution of the kingdom of grace, God has put into our hands? Can we take a lesson from one of "the wisest and best of the children of this world in his generation ?" If we could throughout our churches, it would be indeed a Jubilee year for our beloved native land, perhaps for the world. We do not overlook the need of Divine aid. Those who look at the world as it is and the church as it is, and long for the renovation of the latter in order to that of the former, will be the last to forget the fountain of success. We do not overlook the inaptitude, the sometimes natural but far oftener guilty inaptitude, of the mass of our members to this part of their duty. Even Baxter (in a book every member as well as minister would do well to read, his "Reformed Pastor") describes it as a far more diffi

cult task for an efficient minister to converse suitably with a stupid sinner, than to make the best sermons. No, we know that the work often, but by no means always, needs much intelligence, and knowledge of the heart and of men, as well as modesty, kindness, and perseverance. Still it is to this means we look, and to it we invite the prayerful attention of every christian. We have seen individuals of very humble abilities the means of more conversions by this means, than gifted and zealous ministers by their preaching. We never knew of its being carefully and prayerfully employed, without some conversion commencing with it or being furthered by it. A "seven years'" apprenticeship to the work, would make us all far wiser "to turn many to righteousness." At the end of the "seven years "what numbers would have been gained for Christ; and those who by God's blessing had gained them, in what a far more efficient condition would they be for carrying on the work!

We cannot, however, prolong our remarks. Let those who feel alike on the subject, "speak often one to another;" let them speak yet oftener to their God and Saviour. Fitting measures, if any can be necessary beyond doing our simple duty, will spontaneously suggest themselves. In working christians we have great hope and confidence. God is with them. In plans and schemes we have next to no confidence. It is "the spirit, in every sense, which profiteth, the flesh profiteth nothing.' If we do but "muse on the subject," each one apart, we shall combine without formality, for each will bring to the common stock a heart anxious to act, and to act by the means open to every being endued with reason and with speech. Probably not one member in any of our churches, according to his varied connections with his family or society, but will have, or can make, some opportunity this year for using the means now suggested, of leading some ignorant, or careless, or obstinate, or procrastinating sinner to seek a "registration" in the Lamb's book of life.

FRAGMENTARY NOTES OF VILLAGE SERMONS.
BY THE REV. JOHN FOSTER.

(Taken by one of his hearers.)

No. 1.

"He being dead, yet speaketh."-Hebrews xi. 1.

This you know was said of Abel, the first man that ever died. His history suggests the consideration, that the ancestors of mankind made some serious experiments, very new and awful. They had not lived long before they made an experiment on sin, a thing before unknown in this part of the universe; a very dangerous experiment, of which the consequences will not be removed to eternity, and whose predominance we experience all over the world,-so terrible are its effects.

A total change necessarily followed. Those who made the experiment on the first thing were forced to make another, and the whole race were forced to follow. We may perhaps feel indignation at the first persons, because we are involved in the consequences of an act for which we pay, and solemnly too. But we must needs feel compassion, no contempt or indignation, but a just solemnity, at the striking sight of the first human sacrifice in the world so solemnly offered up. This was the first example of a passage from a world we do know, to a world we do not know; the first movement in a wonderful train of circumstances.

The first family would wait, probably, with habitual awful attention for the first to die. They would sometimes converse about which member

would first see Death. They would see animals die-there was something in that very terrible; but when a soul was in the case, there was something more strange. Every thought of this, and especially that they were the persons concerned, must have been very striking. How strange must have been the conversation which of them should die first! It is not often the subject in families at present; it is considered as too awful, though so common for men to die. But if the first family did so, to whom it was, in some respects, a more serious thing than to us, you may imagine what emotion and solemnity of feeling they must have had; certain that the doom must be,-uncertain when.

They would never think that the first would die by the hands of one of themselves; they would constantly think the Divine hand would effect it; they would never dream or think of a human agent, much less that he would enjoy the sight with malignant pleasure.

They did not see how much evil sin had brought into the world. This never has been seen yet, nor will be seen till the last day-that will shew; yet perhaps not even that; there are awful regions for sinners, and not till it is reported to the universe what they suffer, shall we know what are the effects of sin.

It would not change the clearness of the stream, nor make the sun less resplendent; the flowers would still bloom, and the spring return; there would be many circumstances conducive to happiness; but, then, with all this, there would be one fact more-DEATH; this would attend on all; this battered and blasted the character of felicity in the world whatever was adapted to give it or allow it, and though many things seemed adapted to promote it. As the homage of millions could not satisfy Haman while Mordecai bowed not nor did him reverence, so what avails? We may pursue this or that enjoyment, but while so doing, one of us may fall down dead; this throws a chill on all. And if you say, It is not so; it is a fact that men do pursue these things with satisfaction,we answer, This is too true; but it throws a melancholy gloom over mankind that they should be able to prevent this circumstance their liability to death-from mingling with all their enjoyments. If, then, happiness can be so little impaired by the thought of death, yet a dwelling in the world is like a beautiful mansion on the brink of a flood, furnished, perhaps, with every luxury, but the waters may come ere morning and sweep all away. It is like being in paradise; but beware of that bed of flowers or that walk; serpents and scorpions lie concealed! There is no chasing out this deadly spectre. It is the quality of Death not to die; he waits for the next blooming race; not that he wants work meanwhile he has plenty of victims, and is appointed to take all away.

Of what a train of deaths was Abel's the commencement! Like the first signal of a battle, ominous to the parties concerned; a signal for the transactions and havoc of Death. Like the first drops of the forty days' rain at the flood, which swept all away; how ominous to Noah! A signal that Death would come as fast as Life should.

The first man that died was a good man; good therefore the fittest. There is some consolation in this. It would be the mere sport of fancy to conjecture what the last man may be. It would be some alleviation to think that the first and the last man were good. But how desirable that this first good man should be the leader of a vast train of followers, and, as it were, stand at heaven's gate ready to receive them.

Abel died as a martyr; he reversed the principle of death. Men die because they displease God; that is the grand cause; but the immediate cause of Abel's death was, that he pleased God; his piety, or rather God's testimony to his piety, was the occasion of it. He in some measure gilded and transformed death itself.