will is in a state of transition from wrong to right, and therefore not exactly determined for sin or for holiness? Let him be welcomed upon our platform, provided that his own will has passed over this hair-breadth line of suspended morality, and become decided for God. Does he believe that sin is necessary or unnecessary for the highest good, that it can be prevented or cannot be prevented by a power extraneous to the created system in which it is committed? Still, if the theorist be striving to prevent sin in his own heart, let him sit down with us in our heavenly places. Does he fail to believe in election? We are sorry, but if he give evidence that he is elected to holiness, let him come, and we will rejoice over him as one ordained to eternal life, though he himself knoweth it not. Does he reject the doctrine of the saints' perseverance? We lament his error, but let him come, and we will strive to keep him from falling. Does he believe in immersion as the exclusive mode of baptism? Let him sit with us at our table, and we will give him of our bread; we concede nothing in giving it, for we adopt the principle that "our table," is the table of the Lord, and should be open to all his children. Does he believe in the imposition of a bishop's hands, as the only valid mode of ordination! Let him be invited to our feast of love; we will gird the linen towel around us and wash his feet. We make no concession in performing this act of service; he makes the only concession in allowing us, plebeians as we are so often called, to touch his feet with our unanointed hands. He be a may 66 taste man or a man of no taste; an "exercise man" or a man of but little exercise; he may have some ability or nothing but inability, and that by nature; he may be a sinner before he has sinned, or not until he has begun to sin; he may multiply his praises of the prayer-book, or he may esteem the Bible as far better than that; whatever he believes, if he adopt no fundamental error, whatever he rejects, if he discard no fundamental truth, and if his heart be in unison with the essential spirit of the gospel, then is he a Congregational Christian, and will unite with us in the congregation of the redeemed. This is American Christianity. It is in sympathy with the broadness of our lakes, the expanse of our prairies, the length of our rivers, the freeness of our government, the very genius of our whole social organization. A narrow-minded religionist is no true countryman of ours."

BY REV. DANIEL SHARP, D. D.,

PASTOR OF THE CHARLES STREET BAPTIST CHURCH, BOSTON. A Discourse intended as a Tribute of Respect to the Memory of Rev. THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D., late of Edinburgh, Scotland.

ELOQUENCE AN INSTRUMENT OF GOOD.

For behold, the Lord doth take away

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the eloquent orator. Isaiah, iii. 14.

THE works of God are great, sought out of all those that take pleasure therein. It is admirable how the Deity, without infringing on the freedom of the human will, or disturbing the natural order of causes and effects, "fulfils his bright designs, and works his sovereign will." He punishes the wicked, and rewards the righteous, and rouses the attention of communities to the importance of truth, and freedom, and goodness, without departing from the laws either of his providential or of his moral government. Could we comprehend the whole of his vast plan of governing the world, including both his judgments and his mercies, we should have the profound and delightful convictions of the poet, who represents, in regard to God's government—

"All discord harmony, if understood }

All partial evil, universal good."

This has been seen in regard to the selection and appointment of individuals for some important work. At different periods, men have been raised up, both in the church and the state, for the ac

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complishment of signally beneficent purposes of Providence. Among these many have exercised the greatest, the most benignant and durable sway, simply by the gift of speech, or the power of the pen, or by both these influences combined. They have been "eloquent orators." Mighty in speech, with the magic of their tongues, they have moved multitudes at their bidding, and have changed the current of a nation's thoughts. They have given a new and nobler direction to its purposes and efforts, and thus have raised its character. Born perhaps in obscurity and solitude, amid mountain scenery, where the sublime in nature, filled them with thoughts of the vast and the infinite,-with opportunities for contemplation, and with their minds not perverted by an artificial state of society; the 'spirit of humanity, of justice, of liberty, of patriotism and of Christian piety has been nursed, and has been like a fire pent up in their souls. And, so soon as circumstances favored, or as they made circumstances favor them, they poured forth the sentiments which had filled their souls.

Such an instrument in the hands of Providence was Luther. The love of mankind, of liberty, of truth, were elements of his nature; and through the grace of God he was deeply imbued with a spirit of piety. At first it was tinctured with the errors and superstitions of the church of which he was a monk. Then it was filtrated and made more pure, by the enlightening and sanctifying processes of scripture truth. Thus enlightened and humanized, he saw, every where, "man's inhumanity to man." He saw the religion of Jesus, which was intended by its precepts and doctrines to exert a direct influence over the character and hopes of each individual believer, transformed, by ambitious men, into a system of ceremonies; fitted to degrade and to subdue the multitude, by keeping them in ignorance and bondage to their professed spiritual guides. He saw a hierarchy who kept in their own hands the keys of knowledge from the ignorant multitudes, as they professed to keep the keys which unlock the gates of the kingdom of heaHe saw them throning and dethroning monarchs; and holding the purse-strings of all who had purses to hold.

ven.

This whole system of spiritual despotism he attacked, not with the sword, but with the "breath of his mouth." With large sentiments, in the truth and power of which he had confidence, he had a corresponding eloquence-and urged reasons and stirring appeals, which made the papal power in several kingdoms totter

to its fall. At his voice, the strong in place were weakened; and the weak in faith were strengthened. The eloquence of Luther awoke Germany from its dreams of superstition. And his pen, in translating the Scriptures into his native language, as well as by his own dissertations, effected the memorable Protestant Reformation.

So Whitefield and Wesley accomplished great moral effects by their persuasive eloquence. England had rarely, if ever, been in a lower moral and spiritual condition than it was in the early part of the last century. The fanaticism of several religious sects during the period of the Cromwellian commonwealth, was followed by the wide spread libertinism which had gone out every where from the court of Charles the Second. To this there was but little check. For the clergy of that period, appointed to their livings chiefly by secular, if not bad men, for the most part, resembled, in character, those who gave them their livings. In this state of things, six or eight young men, students at Oxford, became truly pious; and, being more sober than their fellow collegians, and more zealous God-ward, they were treated with great derision by their equals, and with marked contempt and reproach by their officials.

Their persecution, however, did them good. It increased their zeal. It gave firmness to their faith, and resoluteness to their purpose. Although Whitefield and Wesley received orders, yet as they were shut out from the pulpits of most of the Established Churches, they went every where preaching the word. In fieldson wide moors-and sometimes in the outskirts of large citiesthese men of God, with a freedom, a manliness and pathos of utterance, almost pentecostal, warned sinners to flee from the wrath to come, and made known the exceeding riches of the grace of God in Christ Jesus. The effect on multitudes was electrical. More and better than this; it was enlightening, sanctifying-saving. The lower classes received an intellectual impulse and elevation of character, such as they never before experienced. They were trained to think and inquire; and were lifted up to the knowledge of the true God, and of Jesus Christ, whom he had sent. The drunkard left his cups; the licentious his haunts; and the profane ceased his oaths. Many who had been like the Corinthians, were, like them, "washed, and sanctified, and justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God."

"Lions and beasts of savage name,

Put on the nature of the Lamb."

The eloquence of George Whitefield and of John Wesley was of a very different character each from the other. But each was suited to win attention, to secure confidence, and to accomplish the grand purposes of preaching,-by rescuing men from the paths of sin, and restoring them to the obedience of the truth.

Whitefield, overflowing with the strong and tender sensibilities of his nature, exhibited his whole soul in his features and in every movement of his body. His very tones, even without words, assisted by his countenance, would touch the cords of fear, and terror, and hope, and sensibility, in the vast crowds that always assembled to hear him. And when these tones conveyed the awakening, peace-giving, and hope-inspiring truths of the gospel, with God's blessing they produced their appropriate effects.

Wesley was an eloquent man, but of a very different order. His undoubted piety, his purity, his abstemiousness, and his observance of clerical propriety in his costume and deportment, inspired his hearers with confidence and reverence. No one heard from him the bursts of eloquence which distinguished Whitefield's preaching. There were no sudden thunderings and lightnings from Mount Sinai, taking his hearers by surprise, and making them quake with fear and terror. But there was an even, a gentle flow of truth, like a clear and refreshing, but almost noiseless stream-varied with facts and narratives suited to fix attention, and to illustrate the subjects of his discourse. His hearers were overawed and yet captivated, by the sanctity of his appearance, as though he were a gentle and yet authoritative visitor from another world, whose messages, though calmly and mellifluously uttered, were not to be doubted.

The eloquence of Whitefield was like the drops of rain coming down copiously and with audible noise. The eloquence of Wesley was like the falling of the dew upon the tender herb, known more by its effects than by its fall. And then, if Wesley was inferior in direct power of speech to Whitefield, he was far superior as to the power of his pen. With the latter instrument Whitefield could do nothing. His whole strength was in his oratory. But while he was unsurpassed in the pulpit, Wesley far transcended him in ecclesiastical government. One was a child as to his capacity to organize into a well-arranged religious body, the converts he had