unbelief begins to operate, we neglect private duties, such as reading the Holy Scriptures, self-examination, and prayer; and then public duties, such as hearing the word, and divine worship, are given up. The omission of these duties produces weakness and weariness in our souls, and religion becomes a burden. To get rid of this, we stand in the way of sinners, imbibe their temper, and follow their example. Then we forsake the people of God, despise them in our . hearts, and are ashamed of their company and conversation. Thus we are prepared for open and scandalous sin; and when we fall into that, we secretly wish to believe that the Bible is not true. That wish is soon gratified, by the plausible but sophistical arguments of infidelity; and when we have embraced that horrid system, we are prepared for every evil word and work. Is it any wonder, when a man has gone to these lengths of unbelief and sin, that the HOLY SPIRIT Should be taken from him? Is it any wonder that the Devil should take entire possession of his heart? Poor Backslider, how far hast thou proceeded in this way of darkness, sin, and death? O stop, and consider thy ways! A few more steps in this evil course may place thee beyond the reach of mercy! 6. The bare possibility of such a fall should stir us up to "watch and pray;" and the awful state of these final apostates should be considered as a monitory caution to all professors of religion. No man can calculate the sad effects of one false step in life! One crime leads to another; and, as we advance, sin gains strength, and we become weaker and weaker. Then "stand in awe, and sin not." (Ps. iv. 4.) While we keep from sin we are safe; and if we avoid evil, we need fear no fall. But when we transgress, the hedge is broken down, we run out of God's enclosure, and wander far and wide in the paths of error. But the backslider argues thus: "I have fallen once, and am not lost. I may fall again, and repent before it be too late." Thus he goes on sinning and repenting, till he finds no place for repentance; and then nothing remains for him "but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries" of the LORD. (Heb. x. 27.) 7. That we may endure to the end, let us prize our privileges. They are infinitely more valuable than any thing the world can give. Wealth, honour, power, and sensual pleasures, are of no worth, when compared with the rich treasures of pure religion. The Apostle PAUL accounted all things but dung that he might win CHRIST; (Phil. iii. 8) and we should follow his example. He who does not highly prize his mercies, and esteem them more than gold and rubies, will give them up under the slightest temptation; while one who esteems them as the choicest treasure, will hazard all things, yea, even life itself, to keep them in his possession. There are many things which afford us comfort, as we pass through life, that we must give up in seasons of adversity; but we never need to give up our religion, whatever our outward lot may be, because as we took it up for eternity, we may carry it with us into the eternal world. Holy martyrs held fast the sacred treasures of truth and grace in the agonies of death. Their cruel persecutors frequently tempted them, in that awful hour, with offers of life and honour, if they would deny their God and Saviour; but, in their opinion, those offers were not worth that sinful sacrifice. 8. But, lastly, that we may avoid every approach towards apostasy, let us ever keep eternal things in view. There is a heaven of pure delight for all who persevere in holiness. Shall we give it up for the sake of a few momentary pleasures, which end in disappointment, and leave a sting behind? There is a dreadful hell for apostate spirits, who suffer the vengeance of eternal fire, without a ray of hope. Shall we apostatize, and expose ourselves to those torments of the damned? Let us meditate on these important subjects day and night, and, especially, in the hour of temptation, that we may pray for grace to help in time of need. Good men are exposed to many dangers, seen and unseen, in passing through the wilderness of this world; but " they that put their trust in the LORD shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever." (Ps. cxxv. 1.)-We conclude, in the words of the Apostle PAUL, "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong;" (1 Cor. xvi. 13 ;) which may GoD of his infinite mercy grant unto us all, through JESUS CHRIST Our LORD! Amen. ON THE DISCIPLINE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH: (From a Treatise on the Terms of Communion: By the REV. ROBERT HALL, A. M. pp. 138-142.) I AM far from thinking lightly of the spiritual power with which CHRIST has armed his Church. It is a high and mysterious one, which has no parallel on earth. Nothing in the order of means is equally adapted to awaken compunction in the guilty with spiritual censures impartially administered. The sentence of excommunication, in particular, harmonizing with the dictates of conscience, and re-echoed by her voice, is truly terrible: it is the voice of God speaking through its legitimate organ, which he who despises or neglects, ranks with "heathen men and publicans," joins the synagogue of Satan, and takes his lot with an unbelieving world, doomed to perdition. Excommunication is a sword, which, strong in its apparent weakness, and the sharper and more keenly-edged for being divested of all sensible and exterior envelopements, lights immediately on the spirit, and inflicts a wound which no balm can cure, no ointment can mollify, but which must continue to ulcerate and burn, till healed by the blood of atonement, applied by peni tence and prayer. In no one instance is that axiom more fully verified, "the weakness of GoD is stronger than men, and the foolishness of GOD is wiser than men," than in the Discipline of his Church. By incumbering it with foreign aid, they have robbed it of its real strength; by calling in the aid of temporal pains and penalties, they have removed it from the spirit to the flesh, from its contact with eternity to unite it to secular interests; and, as the corruption of the best things is the worst, have rendered it the scandal and reproach of our holy religion. While it retains its character as a spiritual ordinance, it is the chief bulwark against the disorders which threaten to overturn religion; the very nerve of virtue; and, next to the preaching of the Cross, the principal antidote to "the corruptions that are in the world through lust." Discipline in a Church occupies the place of laws in a state: and as a kingdom, however excellent its constitution, will inevitably sink into a state of extreme wretchedness, in which laws are either not enacted, or not duly administered; so a Church which pays no attention to Discipline, will either fall into confusion, or into a state so much worse, that little or nothing remains worth regulating. The right of inflicting censures, and of proceeding in extreme cases to excommunication, is an essential branch of that power with which the Church is endowed; and bears the same relation to Discipline, that the administration of criminal justice bears to the general principles of Government. When this right is exerted in upholding the faith once delivered to the saints, or enforcing a conscientious regard to the laws of CHRist, it maintains its proper place, and is highly beneficial. Its cognizance of doctrine is justified by apostolic authority: "A heretic, after two or three admonitions, reject." Nor is it to any purpose to urge the difference betwixt ancient heretics and modern; or that to pretend to distinguish truth from error is a practical assumption of infallibility. While the truth of the Gospel remains, a fundamental contradiction to it is possible: and the difficulty of determining what is so, must be exactly proportioned to the difficulty of ascertaining the import of revelation; which he who affirms to be insurmountable, ascribes to it such an obscurity as must defeat its primary purpose. He who contends that no agreement in doctrine is essential to communion, must, if he understands himself, either mean to assert that Christianity contains no fundamental truths, or that it is not necessary that a member of a Church should be a Christian. The first of these positions sets aside the necessity of faith altogether: the last is a contradiction in terms. VOL. III. Third Series. MARCH, 1824. THE WESLEYAN-METHODIST. (No. XIV.) A PLEA, ADDRESSED TO THE METHODIST SOCIETIES, IN BEHALF OF A NEGLECTED HOME-POPULATION. THE great work of GoD, called Methodism, from its commencement, nearly a century ago, in the University of Oxford, has been regularly advancing to its present state of prosperity. A year has never expired without witnessing the enlargement of the sphere of its operations; and rarely has it occurred that in the same period the number of its members has not increased. It had, how ever, in several of its early years, to encounter fierce and brutal persecutions from the world; and in later periods of its history it has suffered partially from internal faction and division: the former put to a severe test the sincerity and zeal of its followers; and the result of the latter has invariably been an increase of purity and affection in the body at large. Through the watchful care of that Being who is ever mindful of his own cause, every event has been over-ruled for the furtherance of the Gospel; and frequently has the wrath of man praised him, and the remainder of wrath been restrained. For a moment the operations of the great machine might be disordered by the obstructions thrown in its way; but immediately on their removal, it moved with superior harmony and effect. All who have made themselves acquainted with the history of Methodism, will, I think, readily allow, that it was never in a more flourishing state than at this time; that its Ministers were never more fully devoted to their proper work; and that there never existed greater harmony in its numerous Societies, or a more ardent concern for an increase of piety, and the enlargement of the REDEEMER'S kingdom. That beautiful description of a prosperous state of the Churches, given in Acts ix. 31, may, at this time, be applied to our Connexion, rest generally, with peculiar propriety; "Then had the Churches throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria, and were edified; and, walking in the fear of the LORD, and in the comfort of the HOLY GHOST, were multiplied." It has been justly observed that, in consequence of the success of our Fathers in the work, the character of the present Methodist Ministry necessarily differs from its original one ;it is more pastoral than formerly. Our venerable predecessors were specially called to go into the wilderness to seek the lost sheep, and bring them into the fold; those now in the work are required to feed the sheep thus gathered with knowledge and understanding, in addition to their "doing the work of an Evangelist." But still the call to the Methodist Ministry is a missionary call; and the time is very remote indeed when there will not be an abundance of what may, in a certain sense, be called missionary work to be done, even in our own country. This kingdom is far from being favoured with a Methodist Ministry, to the extent which many persons suppose, or even so fully evangelized as they fondly hope. Judging of the state of the nation at large, from what they see in their own highly-favoured neighbourhoods, they are not aware that there are populous and extensive districts of country unvisited by Methodist Preachers. A person who finds a chapel in almost every village and hamlet in his own county, will be surprised to hear, that in other parts of the kingdom there are large villages, and even market-towns, without either a regular or an occasional Methodist Ministry;-that a person may travel on the public roads in various directions, for a distance of forty miles, and in his route pass through large villages and towns, without meeting with one Methodist Society;-that one county, nearly as extensive as Lancashire, and having upwards of 233,000 inhabitants, has only seven Methodist Preachers stationed in it, and three years ago had only three Preachers stationed in it; -and that another county, with a population of nearly 400,000, has now only three Preachers stationed in it. Strange as these things may sound to some ears, they are facts which may be depended upon. And there are other counties, not here referred to, or very large portions of them, equally destitute of our help. The religious state of many of these places is truly deplorable. The majority of persons, especially in country-places, are ignorant of, and indifferent to religion, to a degree almost incredible to a stranger; and many of the rest are lost in the detestable and polluting errors of Antinomianism. It is scarcely necessary to add, that the scale of morals, and the tone of religious feeling, are, in such places, necessarily low. Our evangelizing work at home is, therefore, far, very far from being accomplished. It is true, we have encompassed the land, we have encircled its shores, and some parts of its surface are thickly covered with our stations; but there remains much land to be possessed. And we may occupy a large portion of it without any infringement on the rights or usefulness of any other body of Christians. Our visiting these places, in the true spirit of Christian Ministers, will prove a blessing, indirectly and eventually, to the Churches already established, as well as to the world lying in the arms of the wicked one. Nor is it presumption to say, that every part of the country needs our help. The truly evangelical doctrines of the Gospel, as preached by us, being equally removed from Pharisaism and from Antinomianism, afford a powerful antidote to these two prevalent and most destructive errors. The land, then, lies before us. Let us, in the spirit of our venerable Fathers, go up and possess it. We are well able to do this. Zealous, pious, and well qualified men are every year offering themselves to the work We of the ministry amongst us. only want an increase of pecuniary aid. And let earnest appeals be made to our Societies and Congregations upon this subject; let them be told of the great destitution of religious means in many parts of our country, and of their inadequacy to the wants of the growing population in every part; let them be informed of the success which has attended the visiting of new places, and that recently several new Circuits have been formed on what is to us new ground ;-and we shall, this year, witness a very considerable augmentation of the Yearly Subscriptions of our Members to the Contingent Fund. This will enable the next Conference to send additional labourers into those Circuits which border upon the neighbourhoods hitherto most neglected by us, who will publish to tens of thousands, now dead in sin, deliverance from its guilt, its power, and its defilement. Our Dissenting Brethren are laudably interesting themselves, with more than usual ac tivity, in behalf of our ignorant home-population, and the members of their Churches are coming to their help with handsome subscriptions. May they provoke us to abound more than ever in love and good works! We have hitherto taken the lead in what is sometimes called Home-Missionary work, though we have not adopted the name. From the first, ours was a Missionary system; and our Ministers were, and in most of our Circuits still are, Home-Missionaries. May the glory never depart from us! But we have not done all that ought to be done, or all that can be done. And the present season is favourable for extraordinary exertion, and for making up old arrears. Our Connexion enjoys a profound peace; and there is nothing to preyent the united energies of Ministers and People from being simultaneously summoned to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty. There is also given to the Churches an unusual spirit of prayer for the promised out-pouring of the HOLY SPIRIT; and GoD, in answer to the prayers which he has inspired, and as a pledge of still greater blessings, is watering his inheritance with |