will be the chiefest, shall be the slave of all" (see the Greek, Mark x. 43, 44)

The slave of all the brethren, is the first in Christ's service. Lord, multiply thy slaves!

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Extensive efforts. Our Lord's command is, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." How have we heard this command? Will you tell me who are gone out from amongst us to preach the gospel at home or abroad? What churches, holding our views, have sent their messengers out to fully preach the word of God." Whose work is it to fully preach the word of God? Is it the work of the infidel? of the unbeliever? of the formalist? of the yeaand-nay gospelist? or is it the calling of those who are led into the full truth as it is in Jesus? It strikes me that we have no doubt on the subject; and yet all, except us, are actively engaged, far and wide, in advocating their views, and in sending out their messengers, whilst those whose high privilege it is to be blessed with the knowledge of a full Christ and a complete salvation, allow them the whole field undisputed, with the exception of two or three specks here and there. I do not mean to say that there are no churches or ministers who are zealously opposing error in their immediate neighbourhood. What I mourn over is, that we are not making united efforts to oppose false doctrines, and to more extensively preach the true gospel.

*

Listen to what one, who is good authority, says :-" Only open your eyes to the state of things as it exists in London now, and see if you cannot fix upon twenty or thirty places (I can, and tell you them all) in which salvation by grace was once proclaimed with more or less fulness, and where now the shriek-owl of Arminianism is insulting God and mocking the misery of man." I ask what has been done in London to oppose such a state of things? Is it London only that witnesses the activity of Arminians? We must do them this justice : they act like men who are in earnest. They have covered the face of the globe with their doctrines. Tell me, dear brother, how many members, or ministers of "free gospel churches," have gone forth during the last ten or fifteen years to preach in our native land the full truth. I will say nothing about distant parts of the earth. Do you answer, the Lord will send forth his labourers if wanted, and when wanted? bow in reverend submission to this truth, and say most heartily, "God: forbid that any one should run without being sent; but I would also say, "Let us not tarry behind when the cloud moves onwards."

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We have been put in trust, with the true knowledge of the true grace of God. Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? (Matt. v. 15; Mark iv. 21, &c.). With regard to this ministry, this trust, have we no reason to fear that the Lord "will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their

*Sermon by Rev. J. Irons, on "The Faithful from among the Children of Men." Thursday Penny Pulpit, No. 113, Vol. IV.

seasons" (Matt. xxi. 41). Dear brethren, have you ever looked at the matter in this light? We believe that those who preach a yea-andnay gospel are running without the Lord's sending them. None of us go forth to preach the truth, because the Lord has raised up no one amongst us to do so. Then the Lord has left himself without a witness to truth in almost all the world. Can we reconcile this with Matt. xxviii. 19, 20; Luke x. 2; Eph. iv. 11—14? Are not his people scattered abroad every where? and has he confined his faithful ministers to London only, or to three or four corners of it alone? Is the greater portion of his vineyard left without his labourers? I forbear pressing the conclusion; for I feel fully convinced "we are not straitened in God, but we are straitened in our own bowels."

I will mention one more fact before I conclude. It was stated a short time since, at a public meeting in London, that the number of infidel publications during the past year which were issued from the press in that city, was twenty-seven millions of copies, whilst the amount of religious publications, of all shades of doctrines, and of all sizes (the Bible excepted), was only twenty-five millions. What proportion of that number advocated a full, free, and unconditional salvation? My dear fellow-heirs of God, listen to my feeble voice. I trust the Lord has directed it, and that he will give it entrance into your hearts. I would fain call on several of you by name-you whom I have heard, whose "praise is in all the churches" (that love the truth, as set forth in the GOSPEL MAGAZINE). Forego every private interest, forget every personal feeling, assemble yourselves together, examine the matter, pray over it, wait upon the Lord about it, and then come boldly forth with a "Thus saith the Lord." Fathers, brothers, and sisters in the Lord, look well to the subject I have brought before you. Do so especially on your knees, both in the closet and in the assemblies of the saints. See what the Lord has committed unto you as his stewards. One has time, another has riches-one has knowledge, another has a word of edification-one can write, another can speak-one can print, another can distribute. Let not the eye say unto the hand, I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you (1 Cor. xii. 21). Speaking the truth in love, may we grow up to him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ; from whom the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, making increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. (Eph. iv. 15).

What has been done by the readers of this Magazine for the poor starving Irish has rejoiced my heart most fully. It has raised my hopes to the highest pitch. If you can do so much for the supply of the bread which perisheth, I am sure that a "famine of spiritual bread" will call forth every Christian affection, and constrain every Christian sacrifice.

Thanks, many thanks, to you, dear brother, for opening your pages to the discussion of this all-important subject. I trust we shall have to rejoice together over many hearty responses from town and from country-from home and from abroad. Commending you, yours, and your labour of love to our covenant God and Saviour,

I am, yours in the blessed bonds of gospel grace,

From a strange Land, May 17, 1847.

GERSHOM.

THE CHURCH-AND WHAT IT IS.

(Continued from page 218).

INDEPENDENT of Augustine's more immediate labours over his flock at Hippo, he was engaged in defending the doctrines of the gospel against different heresies. His contests were chiefly with the Donatists, Manacheans, and Pelagians; he confuted with powerful arguments many of the Donatists, and much lessened their number and authority. Had he confined himself to argument alone, we could have much more rejoiced at his success; but if not guilty of invoking the secular arm directly, he certainly did so indirectly. Probably amongst these persecuted Donatists there were some real disciples; but of this we cannot speak with any certainty, from the scantiness of the records. Augustine himself, having formerly imbibed the Manachean heresy, was well qualified to ferret it out, and he seems to have succeeded in doing so to a great degree; but the most important controversy which also occupied the greater part of his life as a bishop, was with the Pelagians. As this heresy has not become extinct, but continues to be modified and amplified up to the age in which we now live, it may well call for some little attention at our hands. John Wesley seems to have been the great reviver of it in the last century, and Toplady, like another, but more powerful Augustine, was raised up to counteract the mighty flood of error sent forth by this champion of man's divinity. Wesley is, indeed, gone to render an account of the lying words uttered in the name of the Lord; but he has left a brood behind him more mischiev-. ous and crafty than himself, and these modern Pelagians have the impudence to arrogate to themselves the title of Evangelical, but in reality they show themselves to be much greater enemies of God's truth than those who make no profession of religion. In giving an account of Pelagius and his doctrines, I shall chiefly quote from Waddington, the

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dean of Durham, whose account certainly seems to be impartial, although he is well known to be himself no friend to what is called Calvanistic truth.

"Pelagius was a native of Britain, probably of Wales; the associate of his travels, his heresy, and his celebrity, was Celestius, an Irishman: both were monks; both, too, were men of considerable talents, and no just suspicions have ever been thrown on the sanctity of their moral conduct. They arrived at Rome in the very beginning of the fifth century, and remained there in the undisturbed, and perhaps obscure, profession of their opinions till the year 410, when they retired, on the Gothic invasion, the former to Palestine, the latter to Carthage, Here the peculiar doctrines of Celestius did not long escape detection; they first attracted the attention of the deacon, Paulinus of Milan, who arraigned and caused them to be condemned in a council held at Carthage in the year 412. The errors here charged against Celestius were comprised in seven articles-1. That Adam was created mortal, and would have died whether he had sinned or not; 2. That the sin of Adam injured himself alone, not the human race; 3. That infants at their birth, are in the condition of Adam, before his sin; 4. That neither the death nor the sin of Adam is the cause of man's mortality, nor the resurrection of Christ of his resurrection; 5. That man may be saved by the law as well as the Gospel; 6. That before the coming of Christ there had been men without sin; 7. That infants inherit eternal life without baptism. Though these were partly disclaimed or explained away, still enough remained to show the real nature of his opinions : we may observe that the words free-will and grace do not yet appear in the controversy.

"It does not appear that Augustine assisted at this council, as he was still engaged in pursuing his advantages over the Donatists; however, he did not delay to enter the field against the new adversary, and very soon afterwards assailed the infant heresy, both by his sermons and writings. Dissatisfied with the easy triumph which attended his exertions in his own Church, he followed the fugitive into the East, and having ascertained that Pelagius maintained the same errors in Palestine, he occasioned him to be accused before two councils; the one at Jerusalem, the other at Diospolis. John, bishop of Jerusalem, was favourable to the cause, perhaps to the tenets of Pelagius; and thus, partly by his influence, partly from the absence of any fixed rule of orthodoxy on those particular subjects in the Eastern Church, partly from the very modified statement of his own opinions delivered to the council by Pelagius, that sectarian, in spite of the violent opposition of Jerome, was acquitted in both. This event took place in 415; and in the year following, Augustine, undaunted by this repulse, again assembled councils in Africa and Numidia, and again condemned the offensive doctrines.

"The scene of action was then transferred to Rome, on the appeal, as it would seem, of the two heretics, and with the hope, perhaps (not

a reasonable hope), that the authority of the Church of Jerusalem would have as much weight at the Vatican, as that of the Church of Carthage. Zosimus had been just raised to the pontificate; to him the controversy was referred, with great show of humility, by Celestius; and whether deceived by the artful composition of the creed presented to him for approval, or overlooking the importance of a question to which his attention had not previously been much directed, or flattered by the personal appeal to his justice and the acknowledged submission to the chair of St. Peter, or influenced by all these reasons, Zosimus pronounced the innocence of the disputed doctrine.

Augustus was not even thus discouraged; and his ardent religious feelings, as well as his reputation, were now too deeply interested in the controversy to allow him to rest here. Once more he assembled his bishops, and after the public renewal of former declarations, he proceeded to inform the bishop of Rome more clearly as to the real nature and importance of the question; as to the errors which had been actually professed by the heretics; and those which, though disingenuously disavowed, followed of course from them. Zosimus does not appear to have been much moved by these representations; but in the mean time a more powerful avenger had been roused by the perseverance of the Africans. An imperial edict descended from Constantinople, which banished both the delinquents from Rome, and menaced with perpetual exile and confiscation of estates all who should maintain their doctrines any place. This decisive blow was struck in the March of 418; in the May following, another and still more numerous council met at Carthage for the purpose of completing the triumph; and then the Bishop of Rome was at length prevailed upon to place, in conjunction with his clergy, the final seal of heresy on the Pelagian opinions, The opinions themselves did not, indeed, expire from these successive wounds, but have frequently re-appeared under different forms and modifications; but no further attempts were made to extend them by their original authors.

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"The sum of those opinions was this:-1. That the sins of our first parents are imputed to themselves alone, and not to their posterity: that we derive no corruption from their fall; that we inherit no depravity from our origin; but enter into the world as pure and unspotted as Adam at his creation. 2. That our own powers are sufficient for our own justification; that as by our own free will we run into sin, so by the same voluntary exercise of our faculties, we are able to repent and reform, and raise ourselves to the highest degree of virtue and piety; that we are, indeed, assisted by that external* grace of God which has

* Pelagius artfully perplexed the subject, by his assertion of six different kinds of grace; and if there be any of his expressions which may seem to imply more than we here can give them credit for, they are, at least, so vague, and we think purposely so vague, as to make it impossible to attach any definite meaning to them,