righteousness of God," should we not one and all endeavour to speak the truth in love? And seeing how futile have been all efforts at effecting an universal uniformity in Christ's church-how foolish as well as futile; (for within certain limits diversity may be beautiful, and to try and square all things in the church by one rule would be like trying "to comb out the tresses of the sky, and to put its jewels in order;") seeing this, should we not tolerate minor differences between our brethren and ourselves, and love them not the less, because, while following the same Master they follow not with us? And seeing, too, that God has never been a respecter of persons, and that the gifts and graces of the Spirit have in no age been confined to one sect or party, should we not be prepared to appreciate and recognise fully and cordially the virtues and excellences of those who may be without our own pale, and to believe that real conscientiousness may lead brethren to different conclusions from those we have arrived at, and that honesty and spirituality may be found under a surplice as well as a Genevan cloak,-in a cathedral no less than in a chapel? As we learn from the past that the dews of the Spirit are thus far like the dews of nature, that as the latter are not deposited on the earth during stormy nights, and when the sky is cloud-covered, but when all is still and the heavens are clear,-so the latter are not shed upon the church when the spirit of angry strife clothes its firmament with clouds. Let us by the cultivation of peace and love among ourselves, and with our brethren, put ourselves into the moral condition most likely to secure the fulfilment of the Divine promise: "I will be as the dew unto Israel." Happy day when we shall all be able to say of ourselves, and one another, as Archbishop Bramhall said of himself and Usher: "I praise God that we were like the candles in the Levitical temple, looking one toward another, and both towards the stem. We had no contention among us, but who should hate contention most, and

pursue the peace of the church with swiftest paces."

IV. AS TO WORSHIP. Is there no room for improvement in this department of religious service? Whereas our Roman Catholic ancestors ran to one extreme in this matter, have not Protestants, especially Nonconformists, gone too much to the other extreme? In attending to worship, at least the form of it, the Romanist neglected instruction; perhaps the Protestant Congregationalist, in attending to instruction, has thought too little about worship. Has not the sermon, in all things, had the pre-eminence, almost thrown into the shade the prayer and the psalm? Is sufficient time devoted to the devotional parts of the services, and due care taken to make them solemn, elevating, soul-inspiring? Has the method of prayer received due attention? Is it commonly so arranged and expressed, as to meet the wants of the mind as well as the heart, sustaining the interest of the one, while it professedly declares the desires of the other? Is it offered in such portions at a time as not to weary the attention? Are the parts of Divine service among us so varied and alternated as to kindle and keep alive an interest in the congregation generally? Have the people enough to do in the service to make them feel that the minister is not a priest saying prayers for them, but one who simply takes the lead, and with whom they are fellow-worshippers? Is our psalmody what it should be? Simplicity ought ever to characterize this part of religious service; but is not simplicity compatible with all that is sweet, soft, touching, tender, and sublime? Is not the music of the bird beautiful yet simple? And may not the music of praise be like the music of nature-simple, yet full of melody and expression ; —now heard in the plaintiveness of penitential lament, in the soft subdued tone of confession, and in the fervent and imploring strains of prayer; and then in the elevated and thrilling notes of Christian hope, in the rich copious flow of loving praise, and in the rapturous burst of

of our great Puritan poet

"In service high and anthems clear,

As may with sweetness through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,

And bring all heaven before my eyes."

What room for varieties in psalmody? What scope for nature's music, guided by knowledge and taste, and sanctified by piety? What ample range for the exercise of all the modulations of that exquisite instrument-the human voicethat God-tuned organ-are afforded by these manifold subjects and inspirations of the service of song? In this department a spirit of reform has sprung up which we gratefully hail. May it spread through all our churches, and be not confined to psalmody only, but be extended to all other branches of worship; for surely in the worship of God we should offer him our best, our very best, in all things.

Art, I know, has sometimes unbecomingly intruded itself into the house of God. It has introduced pomp and display in worship utterly at variance with Christian simplicity. But because art has sometimes put on offensive airs in God's temple, is that a reason why it should be altogether banished from it? Is it not possible to subdue, chasten, and sanctify it? Before the Reformation art made worship and everything about it theatrical; and the spirit was lost in the elaborate form. Since the Reformation, men have been prone to the other extreme; and have too much neglected the form under pretence of preserving the spirit. In old time men ministered to the taste, the imagination, the feelings, in worship and in everything else; and neglected what was needful for the reason, the understanding, and the spiritual aspirations of the soul. Have not we moderns too much forgotten that human nature has two sides; that people have sensibility and taste-a longing for the beautiful as well as the true-a perception of the elegant as well as the rational? Is not the time come for us to revise these matters; to see if we cannot improve our worship, and the places, too, in which

which in some quarters we gladly hail, in the attention paid to chapel architecture? Surely we ought to have wisdom enough, after the experience of centuries, to guard against the abuses of art, while we seek to consecrate it as a chaste and holy handmaid to the service of piety.

And allow me to add, that in matters of doctrine, discipline, worship, and form, it is time for us to remember that the extreme opposite of an error is not always a truth; that error is often opposite to error; and that truth frequently lies midway between.

But I cannot refrain from observing, in connection with those hints and inquiries respecting Congregational reform, that, after all, an improvement in our systems of theology, in our mode of government, in our form of worship, would be but a poor measure of improvement if not connected with a revival of the true

spirit of evangelical religion. Time has taught us that the best systems will not work well save as they are instinct with the soul of piety. If we depend on creeds,-on Congregational order,--on any form of worship, elaborate or simple, we sink they will all prove too weak to hold us up. 'Tis God's own truth wrought into the heart; God's own love quickening the soul; God's own will guiding the conduct; God's own Spirit sustaining and blessing every operation, that alone can make us stand as individuals, or as a denomination: "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me."

Finally, I would remark that a review of the past connected with the contemplation of the present, should rouse and animate us to action. Is not our Congregationalism, which in its essential features is as old as the time of the apostles; especially is not our Christianity as a whole, of which the former is only a part, though an important one,— worthy of our reverence and honour, our love and service, our energies and our all? Have we not here a cause deserving

The past is now beyond recall. Nor should we dare to summon before any tribunal of ours the departed heroes of evangelical Puritanism and Nonconformity. We love and honour their names too well to bring any indictment against them. Peace be to their ashes! With reverence we gather round their tombs! But for ourselves, there are voices addressing us in solemn tones. From the infinite ocean, the unfathomable caves of time, there rise and come forth in august procession the shades of departed days and years, and pointing first to the divinely-written records of our faith and duty lying there, and then to Christ's spiritual kingdom, shining yonder as it descends from heaven, like a bride adorned for her husband; they go on to unfold, on the one hand, the blessings which have attended a faithful adherence to those records, and a hearty obedience to the spirit and laws of that kingdom; and then to unfold, on the other hand, the corruptions, and evils, and mischiefs which have ensued from the neglect of the former and forgetfulness of the latter; after which startling revelation, they proceed, with a voice louder than the sound of many waters, more solemn and awful than the deep thunders of heaven, to conjure us, in the name of the God of truth, to maintain and diffuse those evangelical and spiritual principles, which Christ has taught, and the value of which time has proved,-to deem it our special calling in these days to proclaim them far and wide, to regard it as the mission of our age, to press them, in the spirit of

love, upon the minds and hearts of our fellow-mortals, with the one intent of saving them and glorifying God.

Thus we are exhorted to serve our generation according to the will of God. The multitude of men who have passed over the stage of our world are now beyond the reach of our influence. They dwell where no prayers of ours can help them,-no efforts of ours can reach them. Their condition is fixed for happiness or woe for ever. None, therefore, can serve them. And as to the future. Men, it is true, in coming days will look back to our times to learn from some who are living now lessons of wisdom and truth, even as we look back to some among our ancestors as instructors still; but the privilege of eminently serving a succeeding age,-of shining as lights, whose rays dart onward through centuries,-of being examples, to guide remote generations,— of being oracles, to whose voice unborn millions will listen with reverence,—that is a sublime privilege awarded only to a few. But while none can serve the dead, while few can thus serve the unborn, all can serve their own generation according to the will of God.

Activity is our special duty in these times. While the whole of our country, indeed the whole world, is in a state of excited action, busy enterprise, energetic movement, if we do not fall in thus far with the spirit of the age, and workonly on higher principles, and for nobler ends—what can be expected but that our cause will be trampled on and crushed by the march of mankind, intent upon their own secular schemes? We must display a banner because of the truth, and rally round it, and fight under it, and make our holy war, not merely defensive but aggressive, till, through God's blessing, we have made the world feel the power of heavenly truth. Our duty, I repeat it, is activity. We are not called to resist unto blood, as our fathers did. 'Twas theirs to suffer; 'tis ours to serve. Their lot was tears; ours toil. They had to take joyfully the spoiling of their goods; we are required to employ our

selves joyfully in the bestowment of our goods. They had, in the gloom of the dungeon, to weep over the corruptions of their age, and to pray for better times; we have, in these days of liberty, to testify, on the very housetops, to the whole truth of God, and to pray that God will speed and bless the message. They had to suffer the degradation of the pillory, to stand on the scaffold, and have their noses slit and their ears cut off; but our destiny is to act-to employ all our energies of body, soul, and spirit in propagating the principles once sealed with blood. They had to serve the cause of truth by dying for it; on us rests the obligation of serving the same cause by living for it.

Oh, let us not prove ourselves the unworthy descendants of these noble-minded men! Let us in action display the same zeal, devotedness, and self-denial which they did in suffering. Let all work in the diffusion of spiritual, scriptural Christianity. Let us work together. Let us join hand in hand in supporting this Association. Let us direct our special regards to our immediate vicinity. Let us consider the spiritual destitution of the western part of Middlesex, and exert ourselves to supply what is needful. Let us resolve to work this society, and prevent its proving a failure. Let us determine that this shall be a channel of blessing to many, "whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them and all men."

To one important means of usefulness the providence of God seems particularly to direct us-I mean the erection of structures for his worship, and the ministration of his gospel. Chapel building in London, and its vicinity, is one of the great wants, one of the great duties, of the age. What has been done in this way has been wonderfully owned and blessed of God. This place bears witness, the pastor bears witness, the church bears witness. From this sanctuary there goes forth a voice to our bre

thren of the metropolis and the neighbourhood, saying, "Arise and build, and God be with you!"

But while I would strenuously commend and support associations of this order, I would guard against an evil to which, in these days of union, men are prone-(for all advantages have over against them some corresponding dangers)-I allude to the habit of leaning too much upon one another, instead of standing upright, if we have strength enough, and working alone. I hail the men of our day who have sufficient means and sufficient energy to arise, and at their own cost and charge to erect a sanctuary for God. Blessed be his name, we have examples of this close by! And next I would mention with honour those who are disposed to take the lead in such enterprises, to contribute largely, and to stimulate others to the work.

To be consistent, we ought, according to our resources, to do more in these matters than our brethren of the Establishment, because they regard it as the State's business to provide the means of religious instruction. According to their theory, what they do of themselves is only to help the State in doing its duty. On the other hand, the Dissenter denies that the State has anything at all to do with it, and contends that the Head of the church has devoted the entire obligation of this work upon his people. As Dissenters take this view, and justly, I conceive, then clearly they ought to be more zealous, more active, more liberal in such enterprises, than Churchmen ;--but are they so?

In conclusion, days should speak, in yet another sense than that already noticed. As they pass by us in their rapid flight, they tell us of mercies more numerous than themselves; they tell us of the salvation of our own soul, which they are increased in number to subserve; they tell us of the personal duties of faith, repentance, prayer, holiness, and love, without which no orthodoxy of opinion, and no zeal for the spread of Christianity will avail; they tell us of God, from whom they come, and to