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true and good religion, the things in themselves are true and good; but, subjectively, thou art of no religion at all; for if thou art not serious, hearty, and diligent in it, it is certain that thou dost not truly entertain it, and make it thine; but it is thy books that have the true religion, or thy tongue, or fancy, or brain, but not thy heart. And the best meat on thy table, if that goeth no further than thy mouth, will never feed thee, or preserve thy life. So certain is the salvation of every holy mortified Christian, and so certain the damnation of every ungodly, worldly, fleshly, sensualist; that I had a thousandfold rather have my soul in the case of a godly Anabaptist, yea, of a Monk, or Friar, among the Papists, that liveth a truly heavenly life, in the love of God and man, and in a serious diligent obedience to God, according to his knowledge, than in the case of a Protestant, or whomsoever you can imagine to be rightest in his opinions, that is worldly and sensual, and a stranger to the power and serious practice of his own profest religion, and void of a holy and heavenly heart and life. If ever such a man be saved, the principles of all religion do deceive us.-Baxter.

ANSWER TO INQUIRY. DEAR FRIEND,

A person in this neighbourhood lately got a fortune of three hundred pounds, and when a person called upon her for a subscription to a benevolent institution, she gave him three shillings. Would you be so kind as to expose such niggardliness in your Christian Investigator? A. B.

Ans. How does A. B. know that the conduct referred to in his note was niggardliness? How does he know but that the person referred to gave as much as she ought to give? And how should I be able to judge what the person referred to ought to have given in any particular case? I fear A. B. does not properly understand these words of the Saviour; "JUDGE NOT." We are not qualified to judge how much a person should give to any particular benevolent institution. We know that a person ought to employ all

that he has for God and for the good of mankind; but we do not know in what particular manner he ought to employ it. We know that a man should do as much good' with his money as possible, but how much he should give to this or that institution, and how much he should keep in his possession for other benevolent objects, we know not.

In subscribing to benevolent institutions there are several things which ought to be considered. We ought to consider 1. The merits of the inAll benevolent institustitution. tions are not of equal importance. Some are of infinite importance, while others are of comparatively little importance. The Bible Society is of incalculably greater importance than the Gateshead Association for Training Female Servants; and the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society is of far greater importance than the Newcastle Mechanics' Institute. And according to the merits of benevolent institutions we may, with propriety, regulate our contributions to their support. A man with a thousand a year may, with propriety, give to some benevolent institutions only three shillings or eighteen-pence, while to another benevolent institution he may be bound to give five or six hundreds a year. So in the case mentioned by A. B. So far from its being certain that the sum contributed by the person in the case referred to was too little; it might, for any thing I know, be two and elevenpence too much.

2. Again; in subscribing to benevolent institutions we ought to consider the circumstances of the institution. Some benevolent institutions are in great difficulties, while others are supplied with funds in abundance. Some benevolent institutions are very popular, so that almost any one will contribute to them; while others, of greater importance, perhaps, are not popular, and are supported by very few. When persons ask me for a contribution to a benevolent institution that is in easy circumstances, I may with propriety give him a small contribution, or perhaps no contribution at all; but if I were asked for a contribution to a benevolent institution that was in difficul ties for want of funds, it might be my

duty to give thirty or forty pounds. So in the case before us. The three shillings given by the person referred to by A. B., might be as liberal a contribution as the case required, for ought I know it might be much more than was required.

3. Again, the person referred to by A. B. might have other claims upon her three hundred pounds, besides the claims of public benevolent institutions. She might have parents, or children, or brothers or sisters dependent for support upon her. She might see it to be her duty to erect a Sabbath School,-to found a library, or to provide for some poor fatherless or afflicted children. She might see it to be her duty to keep the money in her possession for the purpose of publishing cheap good books; or she might think it her duty to lend it to some other person to be employed in some such way. She might have a hundred claims upon her, of which A. B. knew nothing, all stronger than the claims of the institution to which she contributed the three shillings.

In all such matters as these, we must leave people to their own consciences and to their God. We may preach the general doctrine that our inoney is the Lord's, and that we are not to lay it up for ourselves on earth, nor waste it in extravagance, but to employ it in his service, in doing good to the bodies and souls of men; but we must not attempt to judge for people in what sums, or in what particular way of beneficence, they should dispose of their money. We may offer them information, and give them advice on these points; but we must allow them to judge for themselves. We must not suppose that no way of spending or employing money is right, but that which seems right to us. We may be best able to judge how we ought to dispose of our own property, but we may not be able to judge how another man ought to dispose of his property. The various ways of doing good are endless, and one man may be able to serve his Maker and contribute to

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the happiness of mankind better in one way, and another man in another way. It is our business to endeavour to find out the way in which we can ourselves best serve God and benefit mankind, and to labour in that way with all our might; and we must leave our brethren to do the same. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." To call a man niggardly because he does not happen to contribute his money to the institution to which I contribute mine, or because he does not contribute to their support in the same measure as myself, is not right. Our business is to inculcate the great principles of the Gospel on this subject, and to leave the application of the principles to each man's own conscience. As we said before, we may offer instruction and advice as to the proper application of these principles, but we must judge no man; we must leave every one to judge for himself what mode of doing good is best, and to act upon his judgment freely in the fear of God. Is not this right, think you, A. B.?

INTELLIGENCE.

THE Mossley friends have separated from the Conference, but we have not yet heard what particular course they intend to pursue. We hope that amidst all changes and excite> ments, they will remain fixed in their attachment to Christ, and in their determination to God, and for a better world. Times of excitement and change are dangerous times, and require more than usual watchfulness, and more than usual recourse to God in prayer. By all means let our dear friends seek heavenly help and counsel from God, and live and move in his fear all the day long. Let them guard against every thing violent, and against every thing rash. But let them not be afraid. they are faithful, God will make plain their way.

If

We have received very cheering intelligence from many places, but we have not room for the communications at present.

NEWCASTLE: PRINTED BY J. BLACKWELL AND CO.

THE

CHRISTIAN INVESTIGATOR,

AND

EVANGELICAL REFORMER ;

For the Promotion of sound Religious Knowledge, and the Inculcation of Temperance and Peace, and of the whole Religion of Christ.

No. 8.

OCTOBER 30, 1841.

ON EVANGELICAL PREACHING,

PREACHING CHRIST, &c. WE are desirous that our friends should read the following letter from John Wesley with very serious attention: we think it calculated to do great good. There has been a great deal of talk for many years past about the best way of preaching. The principal part of those who have talked and written on this subject have contended that that kind of preaching is best calculated to do good, that consists principally and almost entirely in stating and urging the divinity of Christ's person, the personality of the Holy Ghost, the atonement made by his death, justification by faith, and one or two other doctrines of the Gospel. It has been declared a hundred and a thousand times both from the pulpit and the press, and it has been ten thousand times repeated in conversation, that this is the only kind of preaching that can convert sinners, and that this is the kind of preaching that God has always honoured in bringing about revivals of religion. That kind of preaching which, while it proclaims the divinity of Christ, the atonement, the influences of the spirit, and justification by faith in Christ, goes forward to inculcate the whole Christian system, both of doctrine and duty, has been represented as tending to harden men in sin, and to turn the followers of Christ into cold and miserable self

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righteous pharisees. We have long been of a very different opinion. It has been our conviction for years, that the most useful preaching is that which unfolds and inculcates, in a spirit of Christian fervour and affection, the whole Gospel of Christ. Every passing year has tended to strengthen this conviction. more we study the New Testament, and the more we learn of the history of the religion of Christ, the more evident does it become to us, that all partial preaching of the Gospel is of hurtful tendency, and that if either sinners are to be converted, or believers established and perfected, on a large scale, it must be by the plain, the faithful, and the full exhibition of the whole counsel of God. We have not time at present, or we might show that the preaching which God has honoured from age to age by making it the means of great revivals of religion, is not the partial preach ing which has so long and so loudly been extolled, but such preaching as consisted in the statement and enforcement of the whole Christian system. We might begin with that wonderful revival of religion which took place in the days of Christ and his Apostles in Judea,-we might trace the revivals which took place at a little later period in various countries of the Gentiles,-we might give the history of the Waldenses, of the Lollards, and the history of the reformation,we might trace the revivals of religion which have

taken place in our own country from the days of the earlier Puritans to this day, we might take in the history of revivals of religion in America for several ages past, and show that in all cases the kind of preaching which has been rendered most useful both in the conversion of sinners and in the improvement of churches, has been the free, the faithful, and the zealous inculcation of the plain full Gospel of Christ.

The letter which follows, gives us some very important information respecting that vast and glorious revival in which John Wesley was so great an instrument. Those who are acquainted with John Wesley's sermons, know that they are exceedingly practical, and that they exhibit and enforce the religion of Christ without any partiality. He does not pass over the atonement, the divinity of Christ, and justification by faith; but he never stops at these doctrines. While he lays them down as the foundations of Gospel truth, he takes care to rear on the foundation a complete and well-proportioned building. While he proclaims a free, a full, and a universal salvation, he takes care to insist on the established conditions of salvation, and to enforce upon all who believe in Christ, the whole round of Christian duties. He goes through Christ's Sermon on the Mount from beginning to end, and enforces its long catalogue of precepts with all his might. He does not stop here. He exhibits the Saviour's example, and presses home the truth, that all who believe in Christ, ought to walk as he also walked. He explains and applies the Saviour's parables, and urges on the conscience the practical lessons they were intended to inculcate with all his might. short, he preaches with the utmost simplicity of which he is capable, and with the greatest faithfulness and fervour conceivable, the whole round of Christian duty. Such is the character of Wesley's preaching, and such is the character of his writings generally. He was a faithful, thorough-going practical preacher of the whole religion of Christ. Now it will be seen from the following letter, that it was to this impartial, thorough-going, wholesome kind of preaching, and especially to the ex

In

planation and enforcement of Christian duty, as laid down in Christ's Sermon on the Mount, that John Wesley himself attributed, under God, his great and wonderful success in saving souls. It will also be seen, that John Wesley regarded the introduction of what was then so undeservedly called Gospel preaching, and which is still unjustly honoured with the name of Evangelical Preaching, or Preaching Christ,-that kind of preaching which dwells principally and almost exclusively on a few leading doctrines, while it leaves the precepts and example of Christ almost unnoticed,-it will be seen, I say, that to the introduction of this spurious kind of preaching Christ, this misnamed evangelical preaching, into the Methodist congregations, he attributes the decline of true religion in the Methodist societies. And we do not entertain a doubt, but that to this mangling of the Gospel, this partial way of preaching Christ, this perpetual dwelling on a few first principles of the doctrine of Christ, to the neglect of other portions of Christ's doctrine, is to be attributed the present feeble, fallen, and perilous condition of SO many churches, and the low and languishing state of religion generally at the present day. We have published a brief statement of our views on Evangelical Preaching before, towards the close of the first volume of the Evangelical Reformer; we feel great pleasure in being able to prove that on this subject, as well as on most other subjects, the doctrine of the Evangelical Reformer is in accordance with the doctrine of John Wesley, as well as in accordance with the Gospel of Christ.

We would further observe, before we introduce the letter itself, that though we consider the sentiments in this letter to be correct, we do not consider that in every instance the words are quite correctly used. We refer to the sense in which the writer of the letter uses the two phrases, Preaching the Gospel, and Preaching the Law, He tells us in the second and third paragraphs of the following letter, that by preaching the Gospel, he means "preaching the love of God to sinners, preaching the life, death, resurrection, and intercesison of Christ, with all the blessings

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which, in consequence thereof, are freely given to true believers :" and that by preaching the law, he means, explaining and enforcing the commands of Christ, briefly comprised in the Sermon on the Mount." We consider that preaching the Gospel means, in the sense in which the phrase is used in the New Testament, preaching the whole religion of Christ, its doctrines, its facts, and its precepts, without exception, and without partiality. We consider the phrase, Preaching the Gospel, as it is used in the New Testament, to mean the same as preaching Christ, and what John Wesley understood by preaching Christ, will be seen by some extracts from his works which come after the following letter. It will be seen from those extracts that John Wesley understood preaching Christ to mean, preaching the whole religion of Christ. We now introduce John Wesley's letter.

London, December 20, 1751. MY DEAR FRIEND,— The point you speak of in your letter of September 21, is of a very important nature. I have had many serious thoughts concerning it, particularly for some months last past, therefore I was not willing to speak hastily or slightly of it, but rather delayed till I could consider it thoroughly.

I mean, by preaching the Gospel, preaching the love of God to sinners, preaching the life, death, resurrection, and intercession of Christ, with all the blessings which, in consequence thereof, are freely given to true believers.

By preaching the law, I mean explaining and enforcing the commands of Christ, briefly comprised in the Sermon on the Mount.

Now it is certain, preaching the Gospel to penitent sinners "begets faith;" that it "sustains and increases spiritual life in true believers." Nay, sometimes it "teaches and guides" them that believe; yea, and “ convinces them that believe not."

So far all are agreed. But what is the stated means of feeding and comforting believers? What is the means, as of begetting spiritual life where it is not, so of sustaining and increasing it where it is?

Here they divide. Some think

preaching the law only; others, preaching the Gospel only. I think neither the one nor the other; but duly mixing both, in every place, if not in every sermon.

I think, the right method of preaching is this:-At our first beginning to preach at any place, after a gene ral declaration of the love of God to sinners, and his willingness that they should be saved, to preach the law in the strongest, the closest, the most searching manner possible; only intermixing the Gospel here and there, and showing it, as it were, afar off.

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After more and more persons are convinced of sin, we may mix more and more of the Gospel, in order to beget faith," to raise into spiritual life those whom the law hath slain; but this is not to be done too hastily neither. Therefore it is not expedient wholly to omit the law; not only because we may well suppose that many of our hearers are still unconverted, but because otherwise there is danger, that many who are convinced will heal their wounds slightly; therefore, it is only in private converse with a thoroughly convinced sinner, that we should preach nothing but the Gospel.

If, indeed, we could suppose a whole congregation to be thus convinced, we should need to preach only the Gospel: and the same we might do if our whole congregation were supposed to be newly justified. But when these grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Christ, a wise builder would preach the law to them again; only taking particular care to place every part of it in a gospel light, as not only a command, but a privilege also, as a branch of the glorious liberty of the sons of God. He would take equal care to remind them, that this is not the cause, but the fruit of their acceptance with God; that other cause, "other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ;" that we are still forgiven and accepted, only for the sake of what he hath done and suffered for us; and that all true obedience springs from love to him, grounded on his first loving us. He would labour, therefore, in preaching every part of the law, to keep the love of Christ continually before their eyes; that thence they might draw fresh

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