of them, who does not previously inquire into the doctrine of the New Testament on the subject of human salvation, and apply the principles which he may find there, authenticated by infallible inspiration, to the examination of such cases. If it be there declared that the state of man by nature, and so long as he remains unforgiven by his of fended God, is a state of awful peril, then the all-absorbing seriousness of that concern for deliverance from spiritual danger, which was exhibited by the Wesleys, is a feeling becoming our condition, and is the only rational frame of mind which we can cultivate. If we are required to be of "a humble and broken spirit," and if the very root of a true repentance lies in a "godly sorrow" for sin, then their humiliations and self-reproaches were in correspondence with a state of heart which is enjoined upon all by an authority which we can not dispute. If the appointed method of man's salvation, laid down in the Gospel, be gratuitous pardon through faith in the merits of Christ's sacrifice, and if a method of seeking justification. by works of moral obedience to the divine law be plainly placed by St. Paul in opposition to this, and declared to be vain and fruitless, then, if in this way the Wesleys sought their justification before God, we see how true their own statement must of necessity have been, that with all their efforts they could obtain no solid peace of mind, no deliverance from the enslaving fear of death and final punishment, because they sought that by imperfect works which God has appointed to be attained by faith alone. If it be said, that their case was not parallel to that of the selfrighteous Jews, who did not receive the Christian religion, and, therefore, that the argument of the apostle does not apply to those who believe the Gospel, it will remain to be inquired, whether the circumstance of a mere belief in the Christian system, when added to works of imperfect obedience, makes any essential difference in the case; or,

in other words, whether justification may not be sought by endeavors to obey the law, although the Judaism necessarily implied in it may be arrayed in the garb of Christian terms and phrases. If, indeed, by "works of the law" St. Paul had meant only the ceremonial observances of the Jewish Church, the case would be altered; but his Epistle to the Romans puts it beyond all doubt, that in his argument respecting justification he speaks of the moral law, since his grand reason to prove that by the works of the law no man can be justified, is, that "by the law is the knowledge of sin." That law is recognized and embodied in the New Testament, but its first office there is to give "the knowledge of sin," that men may be convinced, or, as St. Paul forcibly says, "slain" by it: and it stands there in connection with the atonement for sin made by the sacrifice upon the cross. Nor is the faith which delivers men from the condemnation of a law which has been broken, and never can be perfectly kept by man, a mere belief in the truth of the doctrine of Christ, but reliance upon his sacrifice, in which consists that personal act by which we become parties to the covenant of free and gratuitous justification; and which then only stands sure to us, because then only we accept the mercy of God, as exercised toward us through Christ, and on the prescribed conditions. If, therefore, in the matter of our justification, like the Wesleys before they obtained clearer light, and the divines who were their early guides, we change the office of the moral law, though we may still regard it as in some way connected with the Gospel, and call it by the general term of Christianity, of which it, in truth, forms the preceptive part, and resort to it, not that we may be convinced of the greatness of our sins, and of our utter inability to commend ourselves to a holy God, the requirements of whose law have never been relaxed, but as the means of qualifying ourselves, by efforts of

obedience to it, for the reception of divine mercy, and acquiring a fitness and worthiness for the exercise of grace toward us, then we reject the perfection and suitableness of the atonement of Christ; we refuse to commit our whole case in the matter of our justification to that atonement, according to the appointment of God, and as much seek justification by works of the law as did the Jews themselves. Such was the case with the Wesleys, as stated by themselves. Theirs was not, indeed, a state of heartless formality, and self-deluding Pharisaism, aiming only at external obedience. It was just the reverse of this: they were awakened to a sense of danger, and they aimed, nay, struggled with intense efforts after universal holiness, inward and outward. But it was not a state of salvation: and if we find a middle state like this described in the Scriptures a state in transit from dead formality to living faith and moral deliverance-the question with respect to the truth of their representations, as to their former state of experience, is settled. Such a middle state we see plainly depicted by the apostle Paul in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. There the mind of the person described "consents to the law that it is good,” but finds in it only greater discoveries of his sinfulness and danger; there the effort, too, is after universal holiness"to will is present," but the power is wanting; every struggle binds the chain tighter; sighs and groans are extorted, till self-despair succeeds, and the true Deliverer is seen and trusted in: "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. The deliverance,

"All the time I was at Savannah I was thus beating the air. Being ignorant of the righteousness of Christ, which, by a living faith in him, bringeth salvation 'to every one that believeth,' I sought to establish my own righteousness, and so labored in the fire all my days. I was now properly under the law; I knew that 'the law of God was spiritual;' 'I consented to it that it was good. Yea, I delighted in it after the inner man.'

also, in the case described by St. Paul, is marked with the same characters as that exhibited in the conversion of the Wesleys: "There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death;" Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Every thing in the account of the change wrought in the two brothers, and several of their friends about the same time, answers, therefore, to the New Testament. Nor was their experience, or the doctrine upon which it was founded, new, although in that age of declining piety unhappily not common. The Moravian statement of justifying faith was that of all the Churches of the Reformation; and through Peter Bohler Mr. Wesley came first to understand the true doctrine of that Church of which he was a clergyman. His mind was never so fully imbued with the letter and spirit of that

Yet I was carnal, sold under sin.' Every day was I constrained to cry out, 'What I do, I allow not; for what I would I do not, but what I hate, that I do. To will is indeed present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good which I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. I find a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me: even the law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and still bringing me into captivity to the law of sin.'

In this state I was, indeed, fighting continually, but not conquering. Before, I had willingly served sin; now it was unwillingly; but still I served it. I fell and rose, and fell again. Sometimes I was overcome, and in heaviness: sometimes I overcame, and was in joy. For, as in the former state I had some foretastes of the terrors of the law, so had I in this of the comforts of the Gospel. During this whole struggle between nature and grace, which had now continued above ten years, I had many remarkable returns to prayer, especially when I was in trouble: I had many sensible comforts, which are indeed no other than short anticipations of the life of faith. But I was still under the law, not under grace, the state most who are called Christians are content to live and die in. For I was only striving with, not freed from, sin; neither had I 'the witness of the Spirit with my spirit.' And, indeed, could not; for I sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law." (Wesley's Journal.)

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Article in which she has so truly interpreted St. Paul as when he learned from him, almost in the words of the Article itself, that "we are justified by faith only;" and that this is "a most wholesome doctrine." For the joyous change of Mr. Wesley's feelings, upon his persuasion of his personal interest in Christ through faith, those persons who, like Dr. Southey, (Life of Wesley,) have bestowed upon it several philosophic solutions, might have found a better reason had they either consulted St. Paul, who says, "We joy in God, by whom we have received the reconciliation," or their own Church, which has emphatically declared that the doctrine of justification by faith is not only very wholesome, but also "very full of comfort.”

CHAPTER V.

FROM this time Mr. Wesley commenced that laborious and glorious ministry, which directly or indirectly was made the instrument of the salvation of a multitude, not to be numbered till "the day which shall make all things manifest." That which he had experienced he preached to others, with the confidence of one who had "the witness in himself;" and with a fullness of sympathy for all who wandered in paths of darkness and distress, which could not but be inspired by the recollection of his own former perplexities.

At this period the religious and moral state of the nation was such as to give the most serious concern to the few remaining faithful. There is no need to draw a picture. darker than the truth, to add importance to the labors of the two Wesleys, Mr. Whitefield, and their associates. The view here taken has often been drawn by pens unconnected with and hostile to Methodism.