After enlarging on these topics, Mr. Pearson closes his discourse with encouragement and exhortation, especially urging on his hearers the importance of exertion to supply the deficiency in the Society's funds, the receipts for the preceding year having been about Eighteen Thousand Pounds less than the expences. Dr. Duff's sermon differs very widely from Mr. Pearson's, and advances positions of a somewhat startling character. His text is, Ps. lxvii. 1,2. God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us. That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations. The Doctor thus commences bis discourse: The Royal Psalmist, in the spirit of inspiration, personating the Church of the Redeemed in every age, and more especially under its last and most perfect dispensation, here offers up a sublime prayer for its inward prosperity, and outward universal extension. All is in the order of nature and of grace. Knowing full well that he who has not obtained mercy from the Lord, cannot be a fit bearer of it to others,-that he who has obtained no blessings himself, can dispense none, that he who enjoys no light, can communicate none,-he first of all, with marked and beautiful propriety, begins with the supplication of personal and individual blessings,-"God be merciful unto us," forgiving and pardoning all our sins; and bless us," conferring every gift and every grace really needful for time and eternity; "and lift up the light of thy countenance upon us," cheering us with the smile of reconciliation and love, and causing the Sun of Righteousness to arise on our darkened souls with healing in his beams. But does the Psalmist stop here? Does he for a moment intend that he and his fellow-worshippers, as representatives of the visible Church of the living God, should absorb all the mercy, all the blessing, and all the light of Jehovah's countenance ? Oh no! having thus fervently prayed for evangelical blessings to descend upon himself, and every member of the Church, he immediately superadds, in the true evangelistic or missionary spirit, "That thy way," or, as it is given in our metrical version, "That so thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations." How significant the connection here established between the obtainment and the distribution of evangelical favours! "God be merciful unto us, and bless us.' -Why? only that we ourselves may be pardoned and sanctified, and thereby attain to true happiness? No. There is another grand end in view, to the accomt plishment of which, our being blessed is but a means. "God be merciful unto us, and bless us, that so thy way may be known on earth,"-that so-that thus-that in this way-that by our instrumentality that by our being blessed, and having the light of thy countenance shining upon us," thy way,"-thy way of justification through the atoning righteousness of the Redeemer,-thy way of sanctification by his holy Spirit,-" may be made known on earth, and thy saving health among all nations." Here the two grand characteristics of the true Church of God,-the evangelical and evangelistic or missionary,―are written as in a sunbeam :-the evangelical, in the possession of all needful gifts and graces out of the plenitude of the Spirit's fulness the evangelistic, in the instant and perpetual propension which that possession ought to generate and feed, instrumentally to dispense these blessings among all nations. As if to confound lukewarm and misjudging professors throughout all generations, these characteristics are represented by the Spirit of inspiration itself, as essential to the very existence and well-being of the Church, and in their very nature inseparable. The prayer of the Church, as dictated by the Divine Spirit, is directed to the obtainment of blessings, not as an end, merely terminating in herself, but as a means towards the promotion and attainment of an ulterior end of the sublimest description, the enlightenment and conversion of all nations! Hence it follows, that when a church ceases to be evangelistic, it must cease to be evangelical; and when it ceases to be evangelical, it must cease to exist as a true church of God, however primitive or apostolic it may be in its outward form and constitution ! If, then, in answer to such prayers, spiritual blessing should be conferred from on high; and if, instead of employing them for the promotion of their Divine Master's interest, by causing his saving health to be made known to all nations, believers should sit down in ease, and appropriate all to themselves and their own friends immediately around them,-what judgment must be pronounced upon them in the court of heaven? Must they not be condemned as guilty of a breach of faith-guilty of a derilection of duty to their Lord and Master-guilty of a dishonest attempt to embezzle the treasures of his grace? And if so, must not their sin, if unrepented of, bring down its deserved punishment? And what can the first drop from the vial of Divine wrath do less, than expunge from the spiritual inventory of such worthless stewards, all that they have already so gratuitously and undeservedly obtained? What a resistless argument does the Spirit of God here supply, in favour of the missionary enterprise! Who can peruse the words of his own inspiration, without being overwhelmed with the conviction that, in his unerring estimate, the chief end, for which the Church ought to exist-the chief end, for which individual church-members ought to live, is the evangelization or conversion of the world? nity, implores the vouchsafement of spiritual treasures-the great end for which she has obtained a separate and independent constitution at all,-how can they, separately or conjointly, expect to realize, or realizing, expect to render abiding, the promised presence of Him who alone hath the keys of the golden treasury, and alone upholds the pillars of the great spiritual edifice? If any Church, or any section of a Church, do thus neglect the final cause of its being, and violate the very condition and tenure of all spiritual rights and privileges, how can it expect the continuance of the favour of Him from whom alone, as their Divine fount and spring head, all such rights and privileges must ever flow? The Doctor next refers to Church The Doctor then proceeds to support his position, by referring to the language of prophecy, and of History. the New Testament, which speak of the gospel as preached to all nations, and of the disciples, as lights of the earth and of the world. It thus appears abundantly manifest from multiplied Scripture evidence, that the chief end for which the Christian Church is constituted--the leading design for which she is made the repository of heavenly blessings-the great command under which she is laid-the supreme function which she is called on to dischargeis, in the name and stead of her glorified Head and Redeemer, unceasingly, to act the part of an evangelist to all the world. The inspired prayer which she taught to offer for spiritual gifts and graces, binds her, as the covenanted condition on which they are bestowed at all, to dispense them to all nations. The divine charter which conveys to her the warrant to teach and preach the Gospel at all, binds her to teach and preach it to all nations. The divine charter which embodies a commission to administer Gospel ordinances at all, binds her to administer these to all nations. The divine charter which communicates power and authority to exercise rule or discipline at all, binds her to exercise these, not alone or exclusively, to secure her own internal purity and peace, union and stability; but chiefly and supremely, in order that she may thereby be enabled the more speedily, effectually, and extensively, to execute her grand evangelistic commission in preaching the Gospel to all nations. If, then, any body of believers united together as a Church, under whatever form of external discipline and polity, do, in their individual, or congregational, or corporate national capacity, wilfully and deliberately overlook, suspend, or indefinitely postpone, the accomplishment of the great end for which the Church universal, including every evangelical commu And what is the whole history of the Christian Church but one perpetual proof and illustration of the grand positionthat an evangelistic or missionary Church is a spiritually flourishing Church; and, that a Church which drops the evangelistic or missionary character, speedily lapses into superannuation and decay! The most evangelistic period of the Christian Church was, beyond all doubt, the primitive or apostolic. Then, the entire community of saints seemed to act under an overpowering conviction of their responsible duty, as the divinely appointed evangelists of a perishing world. No branch or off-set from the apostolic stock at Jerusalem had, in those days, begun to surmise that, not only its first, but chief, and almost exclusive duty, was to witness for Christ in the city, or district, or province, or kingdom, in which it was itself already planted ;-in other words, to surmise, that the most effectual mode of vindicating its title to the designation of apostolic, was to annihilate its own apostolicity! For what can be named, as the most peculiar and distinguishing feature in the apostolic Church at Jerusalem, if not the burning and the shining aspect of salvation which it held forth towards all nations? No, no. In those days, the Church's prayer, as breathed by the inspired Psalmist, seemed to issue from every lip, and kindle every soul into correspondent action. The Redeemer's parting command seemed to ring in every ear, and vitally influence every feeling and faculty of the renewed soul. Every man and woman, and almost every child, through the remotest branches of the wide-spreading Church, seemed impelled by a holy zeal to discharge the functions of a missionary. All, all seemed moved and actuated towards a guilty and lost world, as if they really felt it to be as much their duty to disseminate the Gospel among unchristianized nations, as to pray, or teach, or preach to those within the pale of their respective Churches, as much their duty to propagate the knowledge of salvation among the blinded heathen, as to yield obedience to any commandment in the Decalogue. And were not those the days of flourishing Christianity? Has not the spiritual beauty and brightness of the primitive Church been the theme of admiration and praise to succeeding generations? But no sooner did the Church, in any of its subdivisions, begin to contract the sphere of its efforts in diffusing abroad the light of the everlasting Gospel,— -no sooner did it begin to settle down with the view of snugly en. joying the glorious prerogatives conferred by its Great Head-forgetful of the multitude that were still famishing for lack of knowledge, to all of whom it was bound by covenant to announce the glad tidings of salvation :-in a word, no sooner did the Church, in contravention of Heaven's appointed ordinance, begin to relax in the exercise of its evangelistic function towards the world at large, than its sun, under the hiding of Jehovah's countenance, and the frown of his displeasure, began to decline, and hide itself amid the storms of wrathful controversy, or sink beneath a gloomy horizon laden with freezing rites and soul-withering forms! Again, we say, the field of Divine appointment is not Scotland or England, but "the world," the world of "all nations." The prayer of Divine inspiration is, "God bless and pity us,"-not that thy way may be known in all Britain, and thy saving health among all its destitute families,but, "that thy way may be known on all the earth, and thy saving health among all nations." The command of Divine obliga. tion is not—" Go to the people of Scotland, or of England," but, "Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." And if we take our counsel from those blind and deluded guides that would, in spite of the Almighty's appointment, and in derision of our own prayers, persuade us, altogether, or for an indefinite period onwards, to abandon the real proper Bible field, and direct the whole of our time, and strength, and resources, to home: if, at their antiscriptural suggestions, we do thus dislocate the Divine order of proportion: if we do thus invert the Divine order of magnitude: if we daringly presume to put that last, which God hath put first; to reckon that least which God hath pronounced greatest :--What can we expect but that he shall be provoked, in sore displeasure, to deprive us of the precious deposit of misappropriated grace, and inscribe "Ichabod" on all our towers, bulwarks, and palaces? And if he do-then, like beings smitten with judicial blindness, we may hold hundreds of meetings, deliver thousands of speeches, and publish tens of thousands of tracts, and pamphlets, and volumes, in defence of our chartered rights and birth-right liberties;and all this we may hail as religious zeal, and applaud as patriotic spirit. But if such prodigious activities be designed solely, or even chiefly, to concentrate all hearts, affections, and energies, on the limited interests of our own land: if such prodigious activities recognise and aim at no higher terminating object than the simple maintenance and extension of our home institutions-and that too, for the exclusive benefit of our own peoplewhile, in contempt of the counsels of the Eternal, the hundreds of millions of a guilty world are coolly abandoned to perish-Oh! how can all this appear in the sight of heaven as any thing better than a national outburst of monopolising selfishness? And how can such criminal disregard of the Divine ordinance, as respects the evangelization of a lost world, fail, sooner or later, to draw down upon us the most dreadful visitation of retributive vengeance? These observations of Dr. Duff are weighty and important, and they might to a considerable degree be strengthened, by observing that the modern revival of our own church has been intimately connected with, and materially promoted by the formation and extension of Bible and Missionary institutions. But still we conceive the Doctor has assumed a position not strictly correct; the evangelization or conversion of the world is the duty of the church, is an object ever to be kept in view by the church collectively, and by all its individual members; but this conversion of the world implies not only the sending forth of missions, but also the provisions for home instruction; and these two grand features of the duty both of the church in general, and the individual Christian, should never be confounded or lost sight of. "He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Some of these divinely-appointed agents are here especially required for 66 ye home, and others for foreign service; and this distinction appears to have been intimated in the apostolic commission, Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature, beginning at Jerusalem," and Titus was left in Crete, to set in order things that were wanting, and ordain elders in every city, while the apostle proceeded on the missionary service to which he was more especially designated. The duties, the obligations, the authority of the church, are often spoken of in a loose and indefinite way; and considerable confusion has arisen from losing sight of the immense difference existing between the state of the church, when all the disciples were collected together in one place, and when as at present, they are extensively dispersed throughout the world. In those primitive days, the apostolic missionaries might move east and west, or north or south, as they were either divinely led, or themselves thought fit without danger of interfering with other men's labours; those who were driven from Jerusalem by the persecution arising about Stephen, might thus go every where preaching the word; but a widely different state of things now exists; and the national, provincial, and parochial church, desirous of evangelizing the heathen, will need wisdom to direct, that they may secure the greatest practicable degree of benefit from the funds, and the instruments placed at their disposal. It is indeed deeply to be regretted, that the cause of missions to the heathen, has never been taken up by our own church; and that the voluntary efforts of those clergymen and churchmen who are endeavouring to send the gospel to heathen lands, have been exposed to much unmerited suspicion and obloquy. Thus the Church Missionary Society is continually reproached with assuming a title to which it has no claim; and its coustitution is accused of being alien from that of the Church of England. This latter charge is ably repelled in a valuable paper inserted in our Number for May, p. 188, and which also appears in the Appendix to these proceedings, while the former charge will appear equally unfounded by those who consider that this society was founded by churchmen, desirous of employing clergymen as missionaries, at a time when no Missionary Society was in existence, which sent out clergymen to preach to the heathen. We are aware that assertions of this nature are not unfrequently called in question. But our appeal is to facts and documents. The Church Missionary Society was instituted about the year 1800. At that time the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge supported some Danish and Lutheran missionaries in the East Indies, but no clergy in our church. While the Society for propagation of the Gospel employed clergymen and schoolmasters in our North American possessions, but sent no missionaries to the heathen. A churchman therefore had no means at this period of promoting Christianity among the heathen except by supporting agents or societies not strictly accordant with his own communion. The institution of the Church Missionary Society removed this difficulty. It has however been said, that this Society ought in the first instance to have been placed under the control of our diocesans, and that now when the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel is extended from being a mere Colonial institution, to be also a missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society should retire from the field, or unite with and merge itself in the more authorized institution. But here again what was the fact? From the very first, before the plan of the Society was definitively adopted, the project was submitted to the then Bishop of London, and to other leading Diocesans, by whom the projectors were encouraged to proceed in their pious undertaking; and were from time to time favored with countenance and advice. More than this could not be expected at a time when the missionary feeling was scarcely in existence, though the original founders of the Society would gladly have hailed some more public recognition, and cheerfully placed themselves under the control of episcopal authority; we firmly believe that every measure was then adopted which appeared at all likely to secure the countenance of their ecclesiastical superiors. It may indeed be said, that the infant Society might have adopted a rule constituting the archbishops and bishops patrons or presidents of their institution; but certainly the Society could not with any consistency have promulgated such a rule without the previous permission of Our diocesans; and if the applications made to individual bishops were only productive of private encouragement, the enrolment of the whole order into the new-formed society, would have been a very unwarrantable proceeding. But there is another and still graver question which must not be lost sight of; namely,-Is there any reason to conclude that a society placed under the control of our archbishops and bishops would be more efficiently conducted than under a differently constituted board? A very large proportion of persons will at once reply-unquestionably. The interests of religion-the propagation of the Gospel-the cause of missionscan never be entrusted in safer hands than to the divinely authorized and appointed rulers of our NOVEMBER, 1839. church. An opposite idea is most absurd and presumptuous. And yet we cannot but feel strong doubts as to this matter; and as it appears of some importance at the present moment, that the real state of the case should be clearly understood : we would hazard a few observations which have been forced upon us by the arguments and assumptions which have recently been in some quarters very confidently advanced. The interests of religion, the propagation of the Gospel, the cause of missions, can never be entrusted to safer hands than to the rulers of our Church! True; provided that they are able and willing to undertake the responsibility. But what is the fact? Every one of our diocesans has certain primary and important duties devolving upon him, which Occupy so much of his time and his attention, as leaves little leisure or inclination for other services. The consequence is, that episcopal superintendence in charitable institutions is little more than nominal. The business in all such cases is really transacted by a few individuals, by whom the plans, the resolutions, and the proceedings of the Society are previously arranged. The business of a great institution, cannot be conducted by the occasional attendance of an hour or two at a monthly board. Yet such attendance is all that our diocesans can give without neglecting other and primary duties. Farther, the oversight of the Church at home is perfectly distinct from the establishing of religion in our colonies, or its propagation in heathen lands. An individual may be well qualified for the former, who has never turned his attention to the latter ; nor is it too much to say, that the early education of our diocesans, and their avocations in riper years, are such as to prevent them from giving that attention on colonial 3 K |