manner of life, the stewards may admit them, if the major part of the society allows of it, and not otherwise. And with the like joint consent they may exclude any member proved guilty of any misbehaviour, after due admonition, unless he gives sufficient testimony of his repentance and amendment before the whole society.

"It is hereby recommended to every person concerned in this society, to consider the dangerous snares of gaming, and the open scandal of being concerned in those games which are used in public houses; and that it is the safest and most commendable way to decline them wholly; shunning all unnecessary resort to such houses and taverns, and wholly avoiding lewd playhouses.

"That whereas the following duties have been too much neglected, to the scandal and reproach of our holy religion, they do resolve, by the grace of God, to make it their serious endeavor,

"1. To be just in all their dealings, even to an exemplary strict1 Thess. iv, 6.

ness.

"2. To pray many times every day; remembering our continual dependence upon God, both for spiritual and temporal things. 1 Thess. v, 17.

"3. To partake of the Lord's supper at least once a month, if not prevented by a reasonable impediment. 1 Cor. xi, 26; Luke xxii, 19.

"4. To practise the profoundest meekness and humility.

xi, 29.

"5. To watch against censuring others. Matt. vii, 1.

Matt.

"6. To accustom themselves to holy thoughts in all places. Psa. cxxxix, 23.

"7. To be helpful one to another. 1 Cor. xii, 25.

"8. To exercise tenderness, patience, and compassion toward all Titus iii, 2.

men.

"9. To make reflections on themselves when they read the Holy Bible, or other good books, and when they hear sermons. 1 Cor.

X, 11.

"10. To shun all foreseen occasions of evil; as evil company, known temptations, &c. 1 Thess. v, 22.

"11. To think often on the different estates of the glorified and the damned in the unchangeable eternity to which we are hastening. Luke xvi, 25.

12. To examine themselves every night, what good or evil they have done in the day past. 2 Cor. xiii, 5.

"13. To keep a private fast once a month, (especially if near their approach to the Lord's table,) if at their own disposal, or to fast from some meals when they may conveniently. Matt. vi, 16; Luke v, 35.

"14. To mortify the flesh, with its affections and lusts. Gal. v, 19, 24.

15. To advance in heavenly mindedness and in all grace. 1 Pet. iii, 8.

"16. To shun spiritual pride and the effects of it, as railing, anger, peevishness, and impatience of contradiction, and the like.

"17. To pray for the whole society in their private prayers. James v, 16.

"18. To read pious books often, for their edification, but especially the Holy Bible; and herein particularly John v, 39; Matt. v,

vi, vii; Luke xv, xvi; Rom. xii, xiii; Eph. v, vi; 1 Thess. v; Rev.'i, ii, iii, xxi, xxii; and in the Old Testament, Lev. xxvi; Deut. xxviii; Isa. liii; Ezek. xxxvi.

"19. To be continually mindful of the great obligation of this special profession of religion; and to walk so circumspectly that none may be offended, or discouraged from it, by what they see in them; nor occasion given to any to speak reproachfully of it.

20. To shun all manner of affectation and moroseness; and to be of a civil and obliging deportment to all men.

"That they often consider (with an awful dread of God's wrath) the sad height to which the sins of many are advanced in this our nation, and the bleeding divisions thereof in church and state; and that every member be ready to do what, upon consulting with each other, shall be thought advisable toward the punishment of public profaneness, according to the good laws of our land, required to be put in execution by the queen's and the late king's special order; and to do what befits them in their stations, in order to the cementing of our divisions.

That each member shall encourage the catechizing of young and ignorant people in their respective families, according to their stations and abilities; and shall observe all manner of religious family duties.

"That the major part of the society shall have power to make a new order, to bind the whole, when need requires, if it be approved by three pious and learned ministers of the Church of England, nominated by the whole society.

"That these orders shall be read over at least four times in the year by one of the stewards; and that with such deliberation that each member may have time to examine himself by them, or to speak his mind in any thing relating to them.

"Lastly, that every member of this society shall (after mature deliberation and due trial) express his approbation of these orders, and his resolution to endeavor to live up to them; in order to which he shall constantly keep a copy of them by him."

These rules explain with sufficient distinctness the nature of the societies in question. Such institutions, of course, would strongly recommend themselves to the anxious and inquiring mind of Mr. Wesley at this period of his life, especially as they were carried on in immediate connection with the Established Church, to which his attachment was inviolable.

At the weekly meetings of these societies the members united in acts of prayer and praise, forms of which were printed for their use, and also exhortations to piety. These appear to have been generally read by the stewards, as well as the Holy Scriptures and other good books. When Mr. Wesley obtained "the pearl of great price," the faith of God's elect, the man who conducted the religious services was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. It is remarkable that none of Mr. Wesley's biographers should have referred to this document, which is singularly adapted to the state of his mind at that particular period. It proves that Luther was not only a powerful opponent of ecclesiastical abuses, and of those theological errors which the Church of Rome has invented and maintained; but that he was also well acquainted with the work of God in the human heart. The preface in question was published in VOL. IX.-July, 1838.

42

English during the latter part of Queen Elizabeth's reign; and it is probable that it was a reprint of this translation that was read in the meeting which Mr. Wesley describes. This book has long been extremely scarce, so that I have never been able to get possession of a copy: I should otherwise have had great pleasure in laying before the readers of the Wesleyan Magazine the exact words to which the venerated founder of Methodism was listening when the Son of God was revealed in his heart. In the absence of that tract I have no alternative but to give the passages from Luther in an original translation. They occur in the fifth volume of Luther's Works, in folio, A. D. 1554. The small treatise from which they are selected bears the title of Prefatio methodica totius Scripturæ in Epistolam ad Romanos. It was, like many other of Luther's valuable productions, originally written and published in the German language, and translated A. D. 1523, by the famous Justus Jonas, into Latin. Each paragraph, according to the usage of the learned in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, has a distinct heading, descriptive of the subject on which it treats. The following are a few specimens; and they contain that part of the tract which Mr. Wesley mentions, as "describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ."

"THE LAW IS SPIRITUAL.

"THEREFORE the apostle says, in chap. vii, 'The law is spiritual;' as if he had said, If the law were only carnal and moral doctrine, it might be fulfilled by outward works. For since it is spiritual, that is, as it requires all our spirit and affections, then no one fulfils it unless he performs those things which the law commands with a cheerful heart, and with a certain ardor of mind, and with entire affection. But thou obtainest such a new heart, and these ardent and cheerful affections of the heart, not through any strength or merit of thine own, but solely through the operation and afflatus of the Holy Spirit. For he alone renews the heart, and makes a man spiritual; that, thus being spiritual, he may love spiritualem legem, the law of the Spirit; and not through fear, or through desire of any advantage, but with a cheerful and free heart, may fulfil it; and may be borne on by quodam impetu, a sort of divine impulse, spontaneously and without constraint, to do those things which belong to the law. 'The law is spiritual,' must therefore be thus understood: The law is not fulfilled except with a spirit and heart renewed by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, wherever this spirit and renovation of heart through the Holy Spirit are not, so far is the law from being there fulfilled, that, on the contrary, all the [natural] repugnance to it and hatred of it remain there, although the law of itself 'is holy, and just, and good.""

WHAT IS MEANT BY FULFILLING THE LAW.

"BUT to fulfil the law is to perform those things commanded in the law, with hilarity, uprightness, and cheerfulness of heart; that is, spontaneously, and of one's free choice, to live to God, and to perform good works, even though the law had no existence. But non contingit cordibus, our hearts have not any such hilarity, cheerfulness, favorable inclination of the will, and ardent affection, except through vivificatorem, the life-giving Spirit, and his lively

impulse and agitationem, motion in the heart: as the apostle says in chap. v. But the Spirit is bestowed solely through faith in Jesus Christ. In like manner, at the commencement he has said, Faith cometh by hearing the gospel, or the word of God; by which Christ is preached as having died for us, as having been buried, and raised from the dead, as he declares in chap. iii, iv, x. Our entire justification, therefore, is of God; faith and the Spirit are likewise of God, and not of ourselves."

"FAITH ALONE JUSTIFIES.

"HENCE, also, faith alone justifies, and it alone fulfils the law. For faith, through the merits of Christ, obtains the Holy Spirit. This blessed Spirit renews, exhilarates, excites, and inflames the heart, so that it spontaneously performs what the law requires. And then, at length, from the faith thus efficaciously working and living in the heart, freely fluunt, proceed those works which are truly good. The apostle wishes to convey this meaning in the third chapter. For after he had, in that chapter, utterly condemned the works of the law, and might almost seem, by the doctrine of faith, about to destroy and abolish the law, he at once anticipates the objection by asserting, 'We do not destroy the law, but we establish it; that is, We teach how the law is really fulfilled by believing, or through faith."

"WHAT IS TRUE FAITH.

"BUT true faith is the work of God in us, by which we are born again and renewed, through God and the Spirit of God, as we are told in John i; and by which the old Adam is slain, and we are completely transformed per omnia, in all things; as the apostle declares, 'We are made new creatures in Christ through faith;' ubi, in which new creatures the Holy Spirit becomes vita et gubernatio cordis, the living and ruling principle of the heart. But faith is an energy in the heart; at once so efficacious, lively, breathing, and powerful, as to be incapable of remaining inactive, but bursts forth into operation. Neither does he who has faith moratur, demur about the question, whether good works have been commanded, or not; but even though there were no law, feeling the motions of this living impulse putting forth and exerting itself in his heart, he is spontaneously borne onward to work, and at no time does he cease to perform such actions as are truly pious and Christian. But whosoever from such a living affection of the heart produces no good works, he is still in a state of total unbelief, and is a stranger to faith, as are most of those persons who hold long disputes, and give utterance to much declamation in the schools, about faith and good works, 'neither understanding what they say, nor whereof they affirm.'"

' WHAT FAITH IS.

"FAITH, then, is a constant fiducia, trust in the mercy of God toward us; a trust living and efficaciously working in the heart; by which we cast ourselves entirely on God, and commit ourselves to him; by which, certo freti, having an assured reliance, we feel no hesitation about enduring death a thousand times. And this firm trust in the mercy of God is tam animosa, so animating as to cheer,

elevate, and excite the heart, and to transport it with certain most sweet affections toward God; and it animates this heart of the believer in such a manner that, firmly relying on God, he feels no dread in opposing himself solum, as a single champion against all creatures. This high and heroical feeling, therefore, hos ingentes animos, this noble enlargement of spirit, is injected and effected in the heart by the Spirit of God, who is imparted [to the believer] through faith. And hence we also obtain [the privilege] to be impelled to that which is good, by this vital energy in our hearts. We also obtain such a cheerful propensionem, inclination, that freely and spontaneously we are eager and most ready to do, to suffer, and to endure all things in obedience to a Father and God of such great clemency, who, through Christ, has enriched us with such abundant treasures of grace, and has almost overwhelmed us with such transcendent benefits. It is impossible that this efficacious and vital principle of faith can be in any man without continually operating, and producing fruit to God. It is just as impossible for a pile of dry fagots to be set on fire without emitting flames of light. Wherefore use watchfulness, ibi, in this quarter, so as not to believe the vain imaginations of thy own mind, and the foolish cogitations and trifles of the sophists. For these men possess neither heart nor brains: they are mere animals of the belly, born only for these solemn banquets of the schools. But do thou pray to God, who by his word has commanded light to shine out of darkness, that he would be pleased to shine into thy heart, and create faith within thee; otherwise thou wilt never believe, though thou shouldest spend a thousand years in studying to fabricate such cogitations about a faith already obtained or to be hereafter acquired." While the great German reformer thus "described the 'change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ," the English clergyman, who had gone to the ends of the earth to convert the heathen, and returned in a penitent state of heart, having there learned that he was not converted himself, tells us, "I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation: and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."

It is worthy of remark, that the principles which Mr. Wesley recognized in this most solemn and momentous transaction he steadily maintained till his spirit returned to God. He regarded the natural state of men as a state of guilt and condemnation, and of depravity and helplessness. They are under the sentence of eternal death; and they are at the same time under the power of sin, so as to be unable either to offer to God acceptable worship or acceptable obedience. They cannot atone for any of their sins; nor can they escape from their evil nature by any devices that they can form, or any efforts that they can put forth. The salvation which has been merited for them by the death of Christ, and which the gospel reveals, fully meets their case. It comprehends two great blessings, justification and sanctification, by which we understand deliverance from the guilt and from the power of sin. This salvation is obtained by the simple exercise of faith in Christ crucified. Whatever may be the depth of a man's penitential sorrow, the correctness of his moral conduct, the intensity of his desire to please and enjoy God, or the earnestness and importunity of his prayers, he is not