it, in his name and stead, till the end of time. "All power," said he, "is given to me in heaven and earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost-teaching them (i. e. all nations), to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo! I am with you always even unto the end of the world."

This is the grand charter under which a visible Church, directly holding of its divine Head, was at first constituted and designed to be forever perpetuated for the administration of gospel ordinances and the exercise of spiritual authority. These high functions in the royal Head were original and underived-as transferred to his body, the Church, they are, of necessity, derivative and vice-regal. As Christ, therefore, was proclaimed by prophets and apostles, as well as by himself, in his appropriation of prophetic announcements, to be the world's evangelist; in his personal absence during the present dispensation, he was pleased personally to appoint and constitute the Church to be his delegated representative as the world's evangelist; and, along with the evangelistic functions, he conveyed the power and authority indispensable for their exercise.

That this was the interpretation put upon this original gospel commission by the primitive disciples, is evident, not only from the whole tenor of their conduct, but also from the most express declarations scattered throughout the book of the Acts, as well as the apostolic Epistles. It thus appears abundantly manifest from multiplied Scripture evidence, that the chief end for which the Christian Church is constituted -the leading design for which she is made the repository of heavenly blessings-the great command under which she is laid-the supreme function which she is called on to discharge, is, in the name and stead of her glorified Head and Redeemer, unceasingly to act the part of an evangelist to all the world. The inspired prayer which she is taught to offer for spiritual gifts and graces, binds her as the covenanted condition on which they are bestowed at all, to dispense them to all nations. The divine charter which conveys to her the warrant to teach and preach the Gospel at all, binds her to teach and preach it to all nations. The divine charter which embodies a commission to administer gospel ordinances at all, binds her to administer these to all nations. The divine charter which communicates power and authority to exercise these, not alone or exclusively, to secure her own internal purity and peace, union and stability, but chiefly and supremely, in order that she may thereby be enabled the more speedily, effectually, and extensively, to execute her grand evangelistic commission in preaching the gospel to all nations.

If, then, any body of believers, united together as a Church, under whatever form of external discipline and polity, do, in their individual, or congregational, or corporate national capacity, willfully and deliberately overlook, suspend, or indefinitely postpone the accomplishment of

the great end for which the Church universal, including every evangelical community, implores the vouchsafement of spiritual treasures—the great end for which she has obtained a separate and independent constitution at all-how can they, separately or conjointly, expect to realize, or, realizing, expect to render abiding the promised presence of him who alone hath the keys of the golden treasury, and alone upholds the pillars of the great spiritual edifice? If any Church, or any section of a Church, do thus neglect the final cause of its being, and violate the very condition and tenure of all spiritual rights and privileges, how can it expect the continuance of the favor of him from whom alone, as their divine fount and spring-head, all such rights and privileges must ever flow? And, if deprived of his favor and presence, how can any Church expect long to exist, far less spiritually to flourish, in the enjoyment of inward peace, or the prospect of outward and more extended prosperity?

And what is the whole history of the Christian Church but one perpetual proof and illustration of the grand position-that an evangelistic or missionary Church is a spiritually flourishing Church; and, that a Church which drops the evangelistic or missionary character, speedily lapses into superannuation and decay!

The most evangelistic period of the Christian Church was, beyond all doubt, the primitive or apostolic. Then, the entire community of saints seemed to act under an overpowering conviction of their responsible duty, as the divinely-appointed evangelists of a perishing world. No branch or off-set from the apostolic stock at Jerusalem had in those days begun to surmise that, not only its first, but chief, and almost exclusive duty was to witness for Christ in the city, or district, or province, or kingdom, in which it was itself already planted; in other words, to surmise that the most effectual mode of vindicating its title to the designation of apostolic, was to annihilate its own apostolicity! For what can be named as the most peculiar and distinguishing feature in the apostolic Church at Jerusalem, if not the burning and the shining aspect of salvation which it held forth toward all nations! No, no. In those days the Church's prayer, as breathed by the inspired Psalmist, seemed to issue from every lip, and kindle every soul into correspondent action. The Redeemer's parting command seemed to ring in every ear, and vitally influence every feeling and faculty of the renewed soul. Every man and woman, and almost every child, through the remotest branches of the wide-spreading Church, seemed impelled by a holy zeal to discharge the functions of a missionary. All, all seemed moved and actuated toward a guilty and lost world, as if they really felt it to be as much their duty to disseminate the gospel among unchristianized nations, as to pray, or teach, or preach to those within the pale of their respective Churches as much their duty tc propagate the knowledge of salvation among the blinded heathen as to yield obedience to any commandment

V. By conversion man is ennobled.

Infidelity regards man as little better than an animated statue, living clay, a superior animal. She sees no jewel of immortality flashing in this earthly casket. According to her, our future being is a brilliant but baseless dream of the present; death, an everlasting sleep; and that dark, low, loathsome grave our eternal sepulcher.

Vice, again, looks on man as an animal formed for the indulgence of brutal appetites. She sees no divinity in his intellect, nor pure feelings, nor lofty aspirations worthy of cultivation for the coming state. Her foul finger never points him to the skies. She leaves powers and feelings which might have been trained to heaven to trail upon the ground; to be soiled and trodden in the mire, or to entwine themselves around the basest objects. In virtuous shame, in modesty, purity, integrity, gentleness, natural affection, she blights with her poisonous breath whatever vestiges of beauty have survived the Fall; and when she has done her perfect work, she leaves man a wreck, a wretch, an object of loathing, not only to God and angels, but-lowest and deepest of all degradation -an object of contempt and loathing to himself.

While infidelity regards man as a mere animal, to be dissolved at death into ashes and air, and vice changes man into a brute or devil, Mammon enslaves him. She makes him a serf, and condemns him to be a gold-digger for life in the mines. She puts her collar on his neck, and locks it; and bending his neck to the soil, and bathing his brow in sweat, she says, Toil, toil, toil; as if this creature, originally made in the image of God, this dethroned and exiled monarch, to save whom the Son of God descended from the skies, and bled on Calvary, were a living machine, constructed of sinew, bone, and muscle, and made for no higher end than to work to live, and live to work.

Contrast with these the benign aspect in which the gospel looks on man. Religion descends from heaven to break our chains. She alone raises me from degradation, and bids me lift my drooping head, and look up to heaven. Yes; it is that very gospel which by some is supposed to present such dark, degrading, gloomy views of man and his destiny, which lifts me from the dust and the dunghill to set me among princes-on a level with angels—in a sense above them. To say nothing of the divine nobility grace imparts to a soul which is stamped anew with the likeness and image of God, how sacred and venerable does even this body appear in the eye of piety! No longer a form of animated dust; no longer the subject of passions shared in common with the brutes; no longer the drudge and slave of Mammon, the once "vile body" rises into a temple of the Holy Ghost. Vile in one sense it may be; yet what, although it be covered with sores? what, although it be clothed in rags? what, although, in unseemly decrepitude, it want its fair proportions? that poor, pale, sickly, shattered form is the casket of a precious jewel. This mean and crumbling tabernacle lodges a guest

nobler than palaces may boast of; angels hover around its walls; the Spirit of God dwells within it. What an incentive to holiness, to purity of life and conduct, lies in the fact that the body of a saint is the temple of God!-a truer, nobler temple than that which Solomon dedicated by his prayers, and Jesus consecrated by his presence. In Popish cathedral, where the light streamed through painted window, and the organ pealed along lofty aisles, and candles gleamed on golden cups and silver crosses, and incense floated in fragrant clouds, we have seen the blinded worshiper uncover his head, drop reverently on his knees, and raise his awe-struck eye on the imposing spectacle; we have seen him kiss the marble floor, and knew that sooner would he be smitten dead upon that floor than be guilty of defiling it. How does this devotee rebuke us! We wonder at his superstition; how may he wonder at our profanity! Can we look on the lowly veneration he expresses for an edifice which has been erected by some dead man's genius, which holds but some image of a deified Virgin, or bones of a canonized saint, and whichproudly as it raises its cathedral towers-time shall one day cast to the ground, and bury in the dust; can we, I say, look on that, and, if sensible to rebuke, not feel reproved by the spectacle? In how much more respect, in how much holier veneration should we hold this body? The shrine of immortality, and a temple dedicated to the Son of God, it is consecrated by the presence of the Spirit-a living temple, over whose porch the eye of piety reads what the finger of inspiration has written "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

warmness and treasonable neglect, at once the scourge of the faithless professor, and the unhappy instrument of the Church's distraction and decay.

We have comparatively little or no guilt, in this respect, to charge home upon the Reformers. The great work assigned to them by Heaven, they executed in a manner that far exceeds "all Greek, all Roman fame." It is at the door of their successors-for whom the battle had been fought, and the victory won-that the blame must be laid, for which we can find no palliation.

When, after the Reformation, the Protestant Church arose, as by a species of moral resurrection, with new-born energies, from the deep dark grave of Popish ignorance and superstition, then, was she in an attitude to have gone forth in the spirit of her own prayers, and in obedience to the divine command, on the spiritual conquest of the nations, and, in the train of every victory, scatter, as her trophies, the means of grace, and as her plentiful heritage, the hopes of a glorious immortality. But instead of thus fulfilling the immutable law of her constitutioninstead of going forth in a progress of outward extension and onward aggression, with a view to consummate the great work which formed at once the eternal design of her Head, and the chief end of her being, the Church seemed mainly intent on turning the whole of her energies inward on herself. Her highest ambition and ultimate aim seemed to be, to have herself begirt as with a wall of fire that might devour her adversaries; to have her own privileges fenced in by laws and statutes of the realm; to have her own immunities perpetuated to posterity by solemn leagues and covenants.

All well, admirably well, had she only borne distinctly in mind that she was thus highly favored, not for her own sake alone, but that by her instrumentality the glad tidings of salvation, through a crucified Redeemer, might be made known to the uttermost ends of the earth. All well, admirably well, had she only borne in mind, that her candlestick was not rekindled solely for her own use, but that the light of the Gospel might largely emanate therefrom, and be diffused throughout the nations. All well, admirably well, had she only borne in mind, that she possessed no exclusive proprietary right to the blessings of the covenant of grace, but that, like every other branch of the true Church of Christ, she held these in commission for the benefit of a whole world lying in wickedness. Ah! had the Church of these lands, in the days of her glorious triumph and undivided strength, gone forth in accordance with the letter and spirit of her own heaven-inspired prayers, as the almoner of Jehovah's bounties to a perishing world, how different might have been her position now! Instead of being compelled to act on the defensive-instead of being reduced to the necessitous condition of a besieged city, around which the enemy is drawing his lines of circumvallation, threatening to demolish her towers, dismantle her bulwarks, and erase