or might not follow, it would not be what it is: it would not be man.

It was man, proper man, whom God created in his own adorable image. It was the compound being that sinned, and let in death. It was man. proper man, that died, and rose, and ascended the throne of Divinity. His soul and body were both offered up for the redemption of our souls and bodies. It is this blended being who sins, repents, believes, is converted, sanctified; who labors, suffers, dies. And, blessed be God! it is the same man, the concrete man, that rises. It is man, every man that shall give account of himself to God; and, by consequence, must undergo the restoring process provided for in the promised resurrection. His relations indicate this; we might almost say, prove it.

The close of time, co-terminal as it will be, as well with the period of human probation, as with that of the mediatorial government of his Son, cannot but constitute such an epoch in the annals of Jehovah's administration, as to render it most eligible for this great judicial proceeding.

But his own absolute determination of this point shuts out all question; for "he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness." That day, as we have seen, will be neither before nor after, much less, long before, or long after the close of time; but at that point where time melts into eternity. It will not be after; for, while it will awake the dead, it will overtake the living. It will not be before; for, while it will overtake the living, it will awake the dead. It will be at that point upon which the living and the dead will rally; upon which the tides of finite and infinite ages rush.

That is the day that unfolds the scene of judgment; a scene that borrows no light from the vivid conflagration of earth and heaven. It will bring its own light; a light from which the earth and the heavens shall vanish. That is the day that sees the judgment throne, and Him that sitteth thereon; that sees the dead, small and great, stand before God; sees the opening of the book of life and the book of death; hears the names that are written therein; listens to their sentence; looks upon the gloomy procession of the condemned on their dark way to the mansions of the second death; sees the coronation of the heirs of heaven;

hears the coronation hymn; sees the flash of light from the opened portal of the eternal city, and the triumphal entry of the crowned nation of priests and kings, heralded with songs and shouts, and led on by the chariot of the King of kings, and all his attendant chariots, which are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels.

Such, venerable brethren, was the past, and such the future, as they presented themselves to this faithful minister of the Lord Jesus, at the hour of his departure. The past pours its cheering light upon the present; the future pours. its radiance on it also; both reflow the past; reflow the present; and send the stream of their united effulgence on through the everlasting future.

Such be the hour of our departure. And thus, when that inevitable hour shall overtake us, may the past and the future unfold themselves to us! Amen.

SERMON XXVII.

The Wesleyan Reformation.

BY REV. B. F. TEFFT, A. M.,

EDITOR OF THE LADIES' REPOSITORY.

"I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast showed unto thy servant: for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands."-Gen. xxxii, 10.

THIS language is from the lips of the patriarch Jacob. He had served his time with Laban, his maternal uncle, and was returning with wealth and glory to the land of his fathers. His route led him near the north of Edom the country of his brother Esau. Being reasonably suspicious of the attachment of that brother, whom he had formerly supplanted, on reaching the borders of Edom he divided his flocks and attendants into two divisions; presuming by this means to save himself from utter extinction, should the wrath of his kinsman remain unabated. Sending large presents before him to appease the vengeance of his rival, he himself lingered in the rear of the company, to invoke

the interposition of Heaven by prayer and supplication. The language of the text is a part of his recorded devotions.

The feelings of the good patriarch may be more easily imagined than described. He had been twenty years from home. His success in a distant country had been the wonder of his new friends. It would be natural in Esau, who had had occasion for jealousy, and whose temper was probably less balanced than his brother's, to retain some unpleasant emotions. But the frankness and confidence of Jacob, in laying open to him his entire life and successes, perfectly removed or allayed them. With a generosity, which the founder of Idumea perhaps never wanted, as soon as he saw the force of his most fortunate brother, he ran to meet him, and, in the words of the inspired narrative, embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." And the two brothers wept.

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It would be difficult to decide which of the two deserved most for his conduct. Esau, with his four hundred men, perhaps warriors, could have taken summary vengeance for the loss of his birthright. Jacob, who might have entered Palestine at a point higher up, and thus avoided the danger, had the magnanimity to manifest a confidence little to be expected and seldom witnessed on such occasions. They proved by their mutual dignity of bearing, that the blood of a noble parent, at that moment coursing more proudly than ever in their veins, was a birthright which neither could relinquish.

From the past we turn our attention to the present. Let that scene be the type of another. As the old Jewish father, by the inheritance of the Abrahamic faith, became the head of the spiritual, not less than of the real, Israel; so, like him, Christianity has met with frequent occasions for giving to the world an account of its wonderful successes. Although prosperity in the church is always to be traced, in the last analysis, to the influences of the Holy Spirit, yet it is both Scriptural and consistent to speak of the secondary causes employed to produce it. And since, not only such distinguished men as Hume, Gibbon, and others, have attacked Christianity with some show of argument, on the side of these visible causes, but ordinary people are now every day thinking, if not reading, the very

same things so sophistically uttered by their superiors; it may seem proper for the friends of true religion to call public attention occasionally to this subject. But each branch of the Christian church can do this most effectually for itself. At this time, therefore, we shall speak for ourselves and our doctrine. The text shall fall from the lips of the patriarch of Methodism, who, though long since gathered to his fathers, speaks through his descendants with a voice to be silenced only by the rejoicings of the millennium.

Whether the speaker possesses the moral qualifications to do this work with suitable impartiality and candor; or whether the age in which we live is prepared rightly to receive and profit by such efforts, are questions to be determined chiefly by the degree of heavenly charity resting upon the parties. As we shall endeavor not to trespass on the rules of courtesy, nor go further in our freedom than he whom we have chosen as our model, we expect to be met with the same magnanimous charity which we have seen manifested on a more invidious occasion. While we are speaking and hearing, may the sweet influences of our holy religion, and all the light and love of the holy gospel, surround and pervade us!

I. THE FIRST GREAT SECONDARY CAUSE OF THE RAPID PROGRESS OF THE WESLEYAN REFORMATION WAS THE MEANS EMPLOYED IN ITS PROPAGATION. THE BODY OF MEN WHO BEGAN AND PROMOTED IT WAS OF THE RIGHT COMPOSITION AND CHARACTER.

There are three general methods of establishing new opinions. The one, presuming on the influence of birth, education, and position, employs, as its only instruments, men of the highest consideration with the public. The second, distrusting the capability, perhaps the sincerity, of men in so many ways liable to be swayed by the prejudices of study, habit, and powerful connections, makes use of persons in the lowest walks of life, whose characters have at least the plastic virtue of being susceptible of any shape required by their office. The third and last, desirous of making the entire public its tribunal, takes its servants indiscriminately from all the orders of society, and as near as possible according to their respective civilization and numbers.

Each of these methods has its good features. The first is certain to acquire the respect of the higher classes; but it is also equally calculated to rouse the hereditary jealousies of the lower. From the earliest ages-from, and long prior to, the days of Greece and Rome-the plebeian has dreaded the insidious movements of the patrician. The prejudice is inherent in his position; and his suspicions, so universally felt and acknowledged, have obtained, in a variety of forms, at once the triteness and validity of a proverb:

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!"

The second, by encouraging new men to stand up as public instructors, though it may secure the attention of those not led by the authority of names and reputation, is liable, oftentimes, to awaken the levity of the lower, while it is sure to call down the sovereign contempt of the higher, classes. Common minds, shut up by jealousy against their superiors, by envy are more perfectly sealed against the unseconded and unguided efforts of their equals. The third method, being a combination, includes the virtues, while it neutralizes the bad tendencies, of the two former. No class of men can possibly object to it. Each one has its representative in it. It has enough of common life to reach and control the sympathies of the masses; and there is in it just enough of sound, sterling intellect, to give it that stability and discretion so much esteemed by the few thoughtful and well-educated people.

This was the method of Mr. Wesley. The new theology, taking its origin in the halls of the most aristocratic university in the world, and at first supported only by men bred up in the schools, ran the risk of imbibing a spirit too far above the reach of ordinary men. This may sound strange to some ears. But it is historically true; and had the young reformers, with nothing but real learning and the starch of a college life to recommend them, gone forth on their mission, they might have obtained the ear of a portion of the aristocracy to their speculations, but could never have touched the warm heart of a single poor man in his cabin. Their leader had the sagacity to foresee this embarrassment. From several facts it would appear, that, prior to all compulsion, he had meditated a plan by