Epistles, a clear, complete, consistent view of primitive Christianity, without acknowledging that systematic social intercourse formed a large and essential element of church organization and church life.

The services in the Jewish synagogues and places of prayer* were eminently social; and the Christian meetings in private houses were an improvement on that principle. That there was from the very beginning a system of registration, of ascertaining "the number of the names," and also of collection for the poor and church expenses, is undeniable. The word translated "fellowship" implies mutual recognition, counsel, and help. It would, doubtless, be very interesting to possess fuller and more detailed information as to the system of finance, (eleemosynary, ministerial, and missionary,) combined with the means of reciprocal edification, which obtained in the apostolic churches. But it is quite enough, for practical purposes, to have ample evidence that such a system did exist. It is left to the good sense of the successive generations of Christian people, under the ever-ready guidance of the Spirit of God, to form its own. The cashbook of the deacon Stephen and the register of Philemon, by whom the saints were 66 refreshed," would be most precious relics; but they are not necessary to assure us that the "fellowship" of saints was not merely nominal, but a palpable and living fact. If such monuments of Christian antiquity were extant, they might be obstructive; being regarded as authorities from which there would be no appeal.

As to subsequent ages, every one who has read church histories with his heart open, must have felt that their great defect is this,-they tell us next to nothing of the church's inner life. One class of facts, however, those learned books do plentifully supply; they enable us to note the rapid growth of evils, against which such meetings, as a recognised and regular part of the church's organization, would have supplied the most effectual check. The assumption and absorption by the priesthood of all spiritual functions in the church, thus constituting ministers a priestly order; the non-requirement of church-life in order to church-membership; the sufficiency of the opus operatum; the magical theory of the sacraments, as if they acted like some fetish charm; solitary confession to the priest, to the repealing of the apostolic rule, "Confess your faults one to another," ‡ &c. ; religious life compelled to strike out eccentric orbits for itself; the formation of monkish societies and fanatical brotherhoods; the abandonment of the laity to spiritual imbecility and impotence: these and a thousand other evils have, in the inevitable succession of sequences, resulted from the substitution of a church organization based on clerical functions rather than growing out of the individual life of the members of the church. In short, the disjunction of the church organism from the church life was the consequence of the discontinuance of the primitive gatherings for mutual edification. The real life was obliged to find for itself nourishment, if not apart from, yet supplen ental to, the recognised ordinances of religion. † ̓Αλλήλοις.

* Προσευχαί.

† Κοινωνία.

"Through the greater part of the Middle Ages, we can trace a succession of free spiritual associations, which were often oppressed and persecuted by the hierarchy, pertaining rather to the life of the people than to the framework of the church, but which all emanated from a fundamental endeavour after practical Christianity."* On this dissociation of "the communion of saints" from "the catholic church," there followed, as a matter of course, in the great body of the church, a mischief like that which in medical science is termed degeneration; an inferior and less vitalized material was formed, a lower type of piety, incapable of resisting the action of the outward world, the manifold miasmata of secular influences. On the converse, the great work which we just now quoted conclusively shows that experience-meetings were amongst the first stirrings of the revived spiritual life which issued in the Reformation. "The means available for working out the effect were the public, free, and extraofficial preaching of the Gospel; private edification in these confined religious societies; circulating among the people the Scriptures and other useful books; rigorously exciting among all ranks a spirit of morality by open and brotherly communications on moral subjects; and mutual improvement by the free confession of sin. By these means Christianity recovered a deep seat in the heart, from which at the Reformation it was, as it were, born again." The writer also shows that "the proximate and most influential precursors of the Reformation" were "sent forth" from these societies. And the modern revival of primitive Christianity, if it is to be continued, must be on its guard against "the very appearance" of those evils, by the stealthy growth of which apostolic Christianity was corrupted into Popery; the stealthy growth,— for the spiritual, like the temporal, "Rome was not built in a day.”

Methodism has no advantage over apostolic Christianity, excepting that of reading its history and tracing its decline. It must likewise pass through successive stages of spiritual deterioration and decomposition, if that marvellous system which began in religious inquiry and experience be suffered by degrees to become another word for good preaching, comfortable and sightly chapels, an orderly and regular partaking of the sacrament,-if the claim of membership be admitted on this last ground alone, notwithstanding an avowed distaste for and habitual disregard of the highest obligation of church-membership, the contributing one's own experience, light, faith, zeal, comfort to the building up of one's brethren, and the receiving from them the like help in return. In every age in which a revival of godliness has been experienced, and a consequent multiplication of converts taken place, the necessity for something resembling the classmeeting has been felt and acknowledged. Whenever an awakening ministry has been owned of God, in daily additions to the church, the advantage of such meetings has been realized, or the want of them admitted and deplored. It may be said that these are very good things as the appliances of revivalism, the adjuncts of aggressive evangelism; provisional expedients,

Ullmann's "Reformers before the Reformation," vol. ii., p. 11.

most sensible and serviceable in the infancy of a church, but not to be insisted on when that church has conquered its position in the land, with a trained ministry, intelligent and tasteful congregations, and a complete ritual; that, even now, in country places and Home-Mission stations, they ought to be encouraged, and, indeed, kept up everywhere to meet the tastes of the enthusiastic and more zealous members of the congregation; (so that there may be no demonstrative irregularities in public worship, a sufficient outlet being provided elsewhere ;) but that devout people of a more sedate and chastened mood should not be pressed into such uncongenial exercises. The answer to this is short,-Should revivals ever become a mere matter of history, the interesting traditions of a less civilized age; should our church cease to be an aggressive evangelism, that is to say, should it reach that stage of its development in which the necessity for such meetings ceases and the demand for them comes to an end, then it has reached its period of spent power. It may long hold its ground as a respectable fixture in the land, may long present a fair frontage to the public eye; its pulpits may glow with eloquence, its places of worship be crowded and multiplied, its colleges become illustrious for scholarship and authorship; nay, more, the purity of its doctrine, the uniform and out-spoken orthodoxy of its teaching, the superiority of its pulpit ministrations, the propriety of its psalmody, and the absence of everything either in ceremonial extravagance or eccentric zeal which could shock the most fastidious taste,—all these may even draw largely from other churches; but the powers of Pentecost will force for themselves some other channel, and the world will be converted by some other agency.

"But are not the positive institutions of the Christian religion public worship, preaching, and the administration of the sacraments?" Yes; and so also is Christian fellowship, the confidential intercourse of believers, and the reciprocal education of believers by believers. No member of Christ's church is at liberty to decline, or to question, or not to see and feel the necessity of the fourth of these institutions of Christianity, any more than that of either of the other three. It may be said that we have no express directions as to the mode in which Christian fellowship is to be enjoyed. Nor have we a whit more express direction as to the mode in which public worship is to be conducted, the preaching-gift to be exercised, or the sacraments are to be administered. Yet we are not at liberty to neglect any of these ordinances, because we are permitted to carry them out in that way which seems to the best of our judgment to be the most proper, most edifying. Nor are we at liberty to neglect the great institute of Christian fellowship, because God has not only made it our duty to observe it, but also allows us to observe it in the best way which good sense and experience may suggest. Even during the lifetime of the apostles, the church of Christ was not able to build itself up in love without such gatherings as these. The preaching of St. Paul was utterly insufficient for this, even in the most intellectual and highly-educated church which he ever formed,—that of Corinth. We distinctly gather, moreover, that the apostles were wont

to classify their converts with reference to the various states and stages of the spiritual life. How they could be dealt with by any other process than that of arrangement into classes, it is not easy to conceive. It is plain from the tenor of the second and third chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, that the apostles supplemented their public preaching by private instruction, with a view to ascertain accurately the exact state of individual disciples, and to adapt their teaching to that state. They formed inner circles of more advanced believers, among whom they spoke "wisdom-the deep things of God." Assuredly, the public and promiscuous preaching of the word-the present style of average and even of popular preaching, as adapted to the present state of our congregations-is not sufficient for the formation of a full-grown, manly, robust, and high-toned Christian experience. The churches of the present day are kept to a large extent on a milk diet,—are treated as infantile, invalid, or convalescent.

(To be continued.)

THE PENTECOSTAL HYMN :-DR. HENRY MORE AND JOHN WESLEY.

THE first Hymn-Book published by the two Wesleys, with their names affixed, appeared in 1739, and is a small duodecimo, of two hundred and twenty-three pages. It is distinguished from several others which bear a similar title ("Hymns and Sacred Poems") by the small amount of original matter comprised in it. The first part contains sixty-four pieces, of which forty-nine are either translated, adapted, or transcribed entire, from other authors; the second part, seventy-five, of which thirty-five are similarly borrowed. The range of writers from which these numerous selections and adaptations are made is not very wide; for, though it is evident that the newly-converted brothers were willing to find the aliment and stimulus of their devotions wherever it could be found, it is certain that up to this time they had not become extensively acquainted with writers not belonging to their own ecclesiastical school.

Among those who did belong to it, none appeared to be better acquainted with "the life of God in the soul of man," than George Herbert; and no less than forty-two of his poems appear in this volume in a more modern dress, and better adapted for collective use. Their saintly author, we know, did not contemplate this; for, though he is recorded to have sung one of them himself upon his death-bed, he speaks of his volume as containing "a picture of the spiritual conflicts which passed between God and his soul, before he found perfect freedom in the service of Christ." As such, it was invaluable to the Wesleys; and we need not wonder at the pains they bestowed upon it. By their means, the writings of this good

*

man were kept before the public during a large part of the last century. Since the present century began, they have been frequently reprinted, and are not likely to remain neglected for so long a period again; the spread of Tractarianism in the Established Church of England having created a great demand for them. Let us hope that all those who are so justly glad to make his ecclesiasticism clear and prominent, may be able to appreciate and sympathize with his experimentalism also. "Heartwork and heaven-work," says Richard Baxter, "make up his books: " and this it was that commended them so much to the Wesleys, in the first stages of their religious life; while the unquestionable churchmanship of the writer was a defence both against their own early fears and the impu tations of others. How far they succeeded in their attempts to modernize and adapt Herbert's Poems, may perhaps be considered at a future opportunity.

Another distinguished son of the University of Cambridge is named in the index to this first volume of "Hymns and Sacred Poems." Like Herbert, Dr. Henry More was conversant with true Christian experience. One of his eminent contemporaries (and he had many) pronounced him "the most holy man he ever knew." But his predilections were for a life of contemplation; and he both resigned and refused preferment, that he might devote himself to the study of " Divine philosophy" in the Holy Scriptures, and in those heathen authors whom he believed to be substantially agreed with, and, indeed, to have derived their views from, the sacred writers. Cudworth, John Smith, and Henry More, are noted among us not merely as Cambridge Platonists, but as practical divines, of the first class; for, as such, they all find places in the "Christian Library " of John Wesley.

There is much more to be said for More's practical divinity, than for any other class of his compositions. His philosophical and prophetical writings are not now held in great esteem; and he will be indebted to the Wesleys for preserving the memory of him as a poet. What he published himself is neglected: what they (or, one of them, most likely Mr. John) have adopted and adapted from him, has become justly famous, and has wrought itself into the memories and affections of hundreds of thousands of Christians. What may be in the future we know not; but, unless we are much mistaken, the noble strains to which we refer will be more admired and sung in the next century than they have been during the last. We do not forget the admonitory fact, that Bishop Henry

*The late Mr. Pickering, in the preface to his beautiful editions of Herbert, gives a list of preceding editions, from the first, in 1633, to the thirteenth, in 1709. There then occurs a blank space of ninety years, in which no edition seems to have been published; the next dates being Bristol, (14th,) 1799; and London, (15th,) 1805; both which editions were probably published by Methodists. But, in those ninety years, Wesley had published, (1.) His Adaptations of Herbert (1739); (2.) Extracts from him, in his Collection of Moral and Sacred Poems (1744); and, (3.) Select Parts of Mr. Herbert's Poems, in a separate tract (1773).