earnestly; and we can no longer conceal the fact, that the result is, very considerable solicitude. Far, very far, is croaking from our taste and temper; we are by no means insensible to what is good among the Nonconformist Churches of the land. We see much, very much, to excite gratitude, and for which it becomes us all to glorify God. These things ought not to be lightly thought of; but they may be so dwelt upon, that other considerations, of the highest moment, are in danger of being lost sight of. This is our peril, and, we think, we see reason to fear that not a few have been already snared and taken. It is ever to be remembered that the true kingdom of God is not a thing of observation, although intimately connected with a multitude of objects and movements that are such-objects and movements which men are but too apt to confound with the subject of which they are but the accompaniments. The multiplication of our Colleges, with architectural and other improvements; better methods of Popular Education; and, as the result of these intellectual arrangements, the issuing of a more erudite ministry, and a more accomplished body of schoolmasters, -all these things, in their measures, are good, and furnish ground for congratulation; but these, in a much higher state than we have assumed, may co-exist with a downward path in spirituality. As the apparent kingdom rises and extends, the real kingdom may become weakened, and totter to its fall. The body that is adorned by purple and fine linen may yet be the subject of deep disease and rapid decay. A jewelled hand may yet be paralyzed. The great subject of inquiry is, the "kingdom of God which is within." What is to be ascertained is, the state of that kingdom throughout the Churches of these realms. Is it everywhere prospering, becoming daily stronger and stronger? Is "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," that which all professed Christians possess, and that of which they are seeking the hourly increase? Are tokens of this everywhere apparent? Is spiritual thirst and spiritual

hunger every where manifest? Is this seen in the family, in the school, and in the house of prayer? Are the Churches everywhere thirsting for the living God, and longing, from day to day, to appear before him? Is the Master of assemblies every where sensibly present? Are the channels of grace as flowing streams, full of refreshment to the saints of the Most High? Are the means of grace generally clothed with Divine power? Are ordinances as wells of salvation to the pilgrims of Zion? Are the servants of the Lord "clothed with salvation," and do "the people shout aloud for joy"? Is the piety of the day a power?

Notwithstanding the spiritual nature of the subject, it is by no means impossible to deal with it. Men have dealt with it, and they are dealing with it still; and in many ways their judgments are being declared. But there is another method of testing the subject of the presence of Divine power. Is "God going forth with our armies"? Is the Church being "increased with men as with a flock"? Is the Gospel everywhere coming "not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance"? Is it every where its own witness, rendering all literary bulwarks needless? Is the work of conversion advancing in families, in schools, and in churches? Is the glorious fact attested on every hand, and among all classes? Are the preachers of the Word everywhere made to triumph in the name of the Lord? Is that Word having free course amongst all ranks and conditions of men, and being glorified? Is the world ever and anon confounded by the arrest of the notoriously wicked, and the unwilling witnesses of their passing from death unto life, and from the power of Satan unto God? Are the churches cheered by constant accessions of spiritual subjects of his kingdom? Have they, generally, rest among themselves, and, "walking in the fear of God, and in the comforts of the Holy Ghost, are they being multiplied "?

We might extend these questions through successive pages; but let these

suffice, not to exhaust the subject, but to stimulate inquiry, that the Churches may be led to deal with the question as truth, evidenced by experience and observation, may require. In all this we have directly affirmed nothing. We have only submitted hints by way of interrogation. Is it needful that we should affirm? Is not the mind of the intelligent and reflecting portion of our readers fully made up on the general question? What mean the complaints which may be heard on every side of the deadness of our Churches, and the absence of Divine power from the ordinances of the Gospel? What mean those confessions of the Ministers of the Word that they are spending their strength in vain and for naught? What mean those agonizings of which they are the subjects, in secret places, over those men-to whom they are only as a lovely song, and one that hath a pleasant voice, and playeth well on an instrument-who hear their words, but do them not? What mean the complaints that issue from the pulpits throughout every community and locality of the land? What mean the lamentations which, from day to day, and from month to month, are issuing from the Press? What means the following language of one of the Heads of our Colleges-one of the chiefs of our Literature?

"Nonconformists, too, for the greater part, are far from seeing what manner of persons they ought to be, if the perils of these times are to be adequately met by them. Methodism, unless greatly changed, of which at present we see no sign, may be said to have done its work. Nor have we anything very flattering to say of Congregationalism. The educated, the energetic, the working mind of the community is becoming more and more lost to our churches, in common with all other churches. We scarcely touch the mass of the people beneath us, or the minds of reading, culture, and more free thought above us. We do something with the orderly, the well-to-do, and the comfortable people of our time, though even among these the proportion disposed to give heed to our doings seems to be

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gradually diminishing. Whence these many unsettled; disorderly, and sickly churches? Whence these heavy complaints about the feebleness and inadequacy of our existing ministry, and this small promise of improvement as regards the ministry of the future? The cause, in our view, is simple and apparenta leaven of scepticism has found entrance into the more instructed and energetic minds of the age, in all grades, leaving small space for thorough religious conviction of any kind, or for that thorough action that might proceed from it. We see this disastrous course of things coming over us so clearly, like a sweep of destiny, that had we the resources of what is called the religious world at our command, we should, we think, feel constrained to appropriate no small part of those means which are now expended, and with so little apparent result, on collateral and distant objects, to this life-struggle at our own door. But from whatever source the means may come, our aim should be to secure a more reasonable maintenance for our home ministry, a large increase of our home force, a much more varied adjustment of the means of instruction to the wants of the community, and a far more successful working of the press along with the pulpit."

Is the testimony here borne by the British Quarterly Review according to truth, or is it a fiction, an exaggeration, a false alarm? What man of intelligence, observation, and experience will deny its substantial truth? We know of no such man. A man of experience, acquainted with the affairs of religion in these realms, could, without exaggeration, draw pictures that would make the reader, of a tender spirit and limited views, stand aghast. But this is not our business: we aim only at setting all who are at ease in Zion upon inquiry into her real condition. This inquiry is absolutely indispensable to the true understanding of their duty in an hour which we must consider as one of imminent peril. From such investigations no evil can come, but the contrary. We shall no further pursue this strain at present, but close by tender

ing some counsels for the consideration of our readers. It behoves the Church, then, we think, to

Beware of Doctrinal Defection.

The Church must have the Gospel, the whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel. That, and only that, is "the power of God to salvation." We are ever and anon being told that this is a refined and intellectual age, and that the preaching which was all very well for our rude and untutored forefathers will no longer do for their enlightened posterity. They want, and they must have, something quite different and superior. As an intellectual age, they must, in the pulpit and everywhere, be met intellectually. Now, there is a limited sense in which this may be allowed; but as it is generally used and understood, in its relation to the Gospel, it is an error, a fatal delusion! It means a sort of ministration in which there is to be less of God, and more of man; a ministration in which the wisdom of man is to take the place of the power of God! Let this notion once fill our Colleges, and let it find a living type in all our pulpits, and the end will be at hand! But how shall this be prevented? This is the very thing we are anxious to render prominent, and to impress upon the minds of our readers. We hold, then, that the Churches, not the Colleges, are the conservators of the genuine Gospel of Christ. If the Churches determine that they will have the Gospel, -the full, free, pure, glorious Gospel, and nothing else,-they will assuredly obtain it; but if they shall deem it "light bread," and "loathe it,"-if they shall take up the cry not for true spiritual food, but for philosophy, falsely so called, for metaphysics, for learned discussion, and recondite disquisition, ruin will soon overspread the land, and desolation be stamped upon all its borders! This is the voice, not of inference, but of experience it is an established fact in the history of religion in our native land. The experiment has been made in England, and on a scale the most extended; and everywhere with the same undeviating and deadly results. What was it

but this that destroyed, that annihilated the powerful body of English Presbyterians, and converted their houses of prayer, once crowded with the intelligent and the faithful, into so many charnel-houses? In that dreadful day, the religion of the nation was solely preserved by the Independents. They were the salt of the earth, and the light of the people. Great and glorious was their distinction. Let them ever remember and walk worthy of the men who then preserved the truth of God in its pristine purity. But that Independents may do this, they must do more: they must

Beware of making light of their distinctive Principles.

In the neglect of this, nothing can save them; not all the Apostles of Christ, nor all the angels in heaven! If they shall part with the great doctrine of the wholly spiritual character of the kingdom of Christ, their doom is sealed! Destruction awaits them, as surely as the rising of to-morrow's sun! Let the Churches get mixed up with the kingdoms of this world, and there will be a speedy end of them! Let them surrender, and cease to act upon the doctrine, that the Church of Christ is a body of persons who have been created anew by his Almighty Spirit, and the beginning of the end is come! The waters of the deluge are admitted, and destruction will follow apace! When distinction shall cease to be made between the righteous and the wicked, between those that fear God and those that fear him not, the righteous will well nigh have ceased to be, and the wicked will have the seat of empire. Whatever plague overtakes the flock will be sure to smite the shepherd, and the effect will be reciprocated with terrible increase of force and virulence. A mixed fellowship is always attended by a mixed ministry, and the reverse. The progress

of both is to diminish the good and to augment the evil, till the good cease to be, and the evil take its place. For a season, form may subsist in the absence of power; but in the end,-like a tree whose root is destroyed, while to the eye all is yet life above ground, but destruc

tion is at hand, it will speedily become a scene of desolation. Let the bulk of the ministers of a denomination become carnal men, and the work of death will advance at a rapid rate. Such men may, for a brief season, continue to proclaim, to some extent, the form of sound words, but they will no longer be "spirit and life." The little will become continually less, till a negative ministration assume a positive character, and error, in its deadliest form, be allowed and defended. Truth will cease to be heard, and the Spirit of the Lord to be either felt or seen in his gracious operations upon the souls of men; and winter, with its death and gloom, will set in, and none can hinder it! Here, again, history comes to our aid, confirming and illustrating the dreadful truths which, on this subject, pervade the page of both inspired and uninspired religious history. A carnal Ministry and a carnal Church cannot be separated.

Under these circumstances, and others which might be mentioned, it surely becomes the Church of Christ to take counsel, to review their position, their tactics, and their prospects; and that they may the more effectually do so, it will, we think, be well to call in the aid of experience and the wisdom of the past. With a view to furnish such help as we can in this serious matter, we have been revisiting a field to which we could wish that thousands would repair,—" The History of Dissenters," by Drs. Bogue and Bennett. From that valuable storehouse of facts and lessons we have brought away a portion of precious instruction, which will be found in the following Articles.

IRRELIGION IN THE COLLEGES. IT was manifest, however, that if the external form of piety was generally preserved, from many the animating spirit had fled. The influence of habit, the sense of duty, or the hope of merit, for some time seemed to supply that incentive to the exercises of the closet, which was formerly furnished by the Spirit of Christ, inspiring a pure delight in secret

communion with God. In the family, also, morning and evening prayer were often practised; because they had been so indentified with the forms of a Dissenter's house, that breakfast or supper could scarcely be eaten without the accustomed sacrifice; while the general use of a form, and the coldness with which it was read, led the sagacious observer to remark, that the fire was going out, and the altar itself would soon be overturned. Where visits or amusements were not tolerated on the Lord's day, it was often, not because, like their forefathers, they were too full of more sacred and delightful employment to need or to relish them; but because they had not yet cast off the ancient reverence for the day, which could embitter the pleasures of the world, though it could not impart sweetness to the exercises of religion. The public assemblies of the Presbyterians often presented a melancholy contrast to the awful seriousness, the ardent devotion, the preference for the most important truths, which distinguished the first Dissenting churches. That indifference to orthodox sentiments and experimental religion in the admission of members, which destroyed the distinction between the church and the world, prevailed in the general Baptist as well as the Presbyterian congregations, where the ministers, who were often the first to abandon the truth, kept the keys, and employed them to fill the churches with those who were like themselves.

The state of the academies painfully manifested the irreligion of the rising generation. A great proportion of the students, who filled the Presbyterian seminaries during the former part of this period, were most lamentably destitute of the Apostolic spirit of the Puritans and Nonconformists. Instead of aspiring to resemblance to the father of believers, who was "strong in faith, giving glory to God," they seemed ambitious only of proving how cordially they adopted Voltaire's maxim, that "incredulity is the foundation of all wisdom;" so that these destined preachers of the Christian faith, far from entering the seminaries because they wished to acquire the utmost skill in diffusing sentiments to which they were ardently attached, went only to determine whether they should believe anything or nothing. Hence, instead of the fellowship of Christians in edifying conversation and mutual prayer for the cultivation of their own religion, that they might be fit examples to their flocks;

they employed themselves only in what they called free inquiry, converting the academy into a gymnasium to try the strength of their speculative powers in disputatious contests. The complaints which were made of the disorderly state of the academies by the more serious Dissenters, too often were levelled against the conduct, as well as the principles of the young men, which loudly proclaimed that those who were preparing to teach religion to others, had yet to learn it themselves.

This false candour was the crying sin of Presbyterian Dissenters in the early part of George III.'s reign, and it polluted their churches by sending forth Arians and Socinians to preach in the pulpits of the Nonconformists, at a time when Racovian theology had no academy of its own. The indifference to sentiment and to vital experimental religion which this manifests, was dishonourable to many who still profess d orthodox principles; for who that considers how many preachers they educated to oppose their own creed, can acquit them of culpable neglect? The open apostacy, which was thus introduced has justly punished the indifference that opened the door for its admission; for the strenuous advocates for what they term Unitarianism now pronounce Evangelical doctrines no innocent errors, but pour their anathemas on them as forming a pernicious compound of idolatry and blasphemy.

INFLUENCE OF THE INDEPENDENTS.

THE decided heterodoxy of some, the latitudinarianism of many, and the formal coldness of more, began to render the Presbyterians, who had been "the salt of the earth," despicable as "salt which had lost its savour.' But the strenuous Independents, who have ever been the glory of the Dissenters, were now their life. The pure decided sentiments expressed in such works as Dr. Guyse's commentary, were maintained in the pulpits of the Independent churches, which were composed of members admitted by the vote of the body, upon a declaration of their faith and their regeneration. The sentiments of the pastors and the progress of religion were here watched with a jealous eye. Meetings for prayer and religious conference, both in the places of worship and at private houses, fanned the flame of religion where it existed, and kept alive a zeal for its diffusion in the world. In many

of these churches, the pure and faithful preaching of the unsearchable riches of Christ was attended with such displays of the Divine power and blessing, as constantly increased their numbers and their religion. Those of their members who are still living, acknowledge, indeed, with gratitude, that the present zeal of the churches for the propagation of the Gospel is far superior to anything they ever witnessed in early life; but still they look back with regret at former days, when they saw the success of the Gospel by the labours of those whom they first heard with edification and delight.

In London, not a few churches were then increasing as rapidly as they have since decayed. It would be easy to mention the names of ministers which are still dear to the hearts of those who duly appreciate fidelity and usefulness in the Church of Christ. Nor would it be difficult to point to those churches in the country, where very considerable revivals attested the Divine approbation on the labours of the pastor. The late publication of some volumes of sermons by Mr. Lavington, of Bideford, furnishes a specimen of the kind of preaching which many Dissenting churches enjoyed at the commencement of the present reign, and those who have watched the effects of sentiments, will acknowledge that the hearers of such sermons were likely to have been worthy successors to the first puritans.

Many letters written by Christians at commencement of the present reign, though not published, contain so much instruction and devotion, as to fill the mind with a high esteem for the generation which is just gone down to the dust. In these, indeed, as well as in the sermons of the same period, there is a more rigid attention to form and method than would suit the present fashion of the churches. But if they were tardy in yielding to the taste of others, it was often because they had thought more for themselves. Their closets were kept warmer than those of many modern Christians. In these secret retirements, the elder generation read the Scriptures, meditated, and prayed with such effect, that they were entitled to retain with some firmness what they had acquired with so much diligence. They had not so frequent social meetings in the church as at present; but they had more religion at home, where their superior knowledge of the Scriptures and of theology enabled them to conduct devotional ser