THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL.

We hope our dear and honoured friend, the Rev. Hugh McNeile, will not charge us with piracy: but we cannot shorten this extract from his recent important and truly valuable address to the Irish clergy without weakening its force. Mr. McNeile was representing the great end of preaching as being that which the apostle describes our Lord as having died for, " To bring us to God." He then proceeded to illustrate the advantages to be derived from steadily keeping in view that end, the consequence of which is to make men holy and happy.

IT will, in the first place, directly and powerfully affect our preaching: it will guard us against the mistake very commonly fallen into, of presenting the doctrines of the cross as if our ultimate object for our people was, that they should embrace those doctrines; it will teach us that those doctrines are not the end, but means towards an end; that they are not the sinner's rest, but as it were steps of a ladder, graciously let down to sinners in the lowest state, that they may by it ascend into rest, which is the bosom of holy love. When I say that this mistake is fallen into, I do not imply, because I do not think that it arises from any intentional disregard of Christian character in the minds of such preachers: on the contrary, I believe they are cordially desirous of cultivating Christian character, both in themselves and in their congregations. My judgment is, and I submit it with unfeigned diffidence in such an assembly as this, that the mistake arises from an idea into which the minds of such persons are ensnared,

that sound principles, where received, must produce all needful, sound consequences, and that the habit is confirmed in such persons by a jealous apprehension, lest while they dilate on the details of Christian practice, unconverted hearers should flatter and strengthen themselves in their self-righteousness. I believe further, that the mistake is perpetuated, through a secret dread of the evangelical portion of the congregation, who would begin to think that their minister had forsaken the scriptural ground of Christian privilege, if he had the boldness to dilate frequently and largely, and in detail, upon Christian practice.

I would, in reply, affectionately suggest, first, that while we entirely agree that there is a sense in which sound principles will produce sound consequences, the tree being good, the fruit will be good,-still that it is not in such a sense as to render unnecessary the detailed exhibition of Christian character: and in proof of this, I would simply refer to the practice of the sacred writers themselves, who do not content themselves with announcing doctrines, although with infallible accuracy, but proceed into reiterated exhibitions of the minutia of Christian character. And with regard to the apprehension lest an evil use or rather an abuse of this, should be made by the unconverted hearer; I would remind my dear brethren, that whatever the individual character may be, there exists in man generally, a deep-rooted, unconquerable conviction, that true religion is practical, and that what is not practical cannot be true; and consequently, if we fail to present to them the practical workings, in detail, of gospel principles, we leave them armed with strong prejudices against those prin

ciples, because they do not see their practical operation, and because they cannot do such violence to their nature, as to receive any thing as truth from God, which does not go to form a right character in man, therefore they do not believe that such views of the gospel are correct. They have strong convictions that the reiteration of evangelical doctrine, not being followed up in the way I am venturing to recommend, is unworthy of the comprehensive majesty of revealed religion. In point of fact, there is nothing which tends more to confirm men of the world in opposition to evangelical religion, than the conviction that the common mode of reiterating evangelical doctrines gives a partial and inadequate, if not actually an inaccurate view of Christianity. I would further intimate, in connection with that argument, that it is to be borne in mind that such persons occasionally read their Bibles; that they occasionally read certain religious books of a different character, in which there are quotations from scripture. Both in scripture and in such books, they meet with passages such as they do not hear explained by evangelical preachers, and which passages by themselves, may have a prima facie tone of opposition to evangelical doctrine, and because they are not enlarged upon by evangelical preachers, not placed and exhibited in harmony with other scriptures, and with the doctrines of the grace of God, they become stumbling-blocks in the way of the very men we desire not to stumble. I think, then, the remedy for this evil consists in bearing in mind the distinction already alluded to, between the end in view and the means adopted-not for their own sakes, but for the sake of that end. By this we shall learn not to move men for the sake of being

moved, without shewing them where to move to; neither shall we call on men to believe, for the mere sake of believing, without telling them what they are to believe for-for Christ did not die in order that we should believe on him, for the sake of the mere act of believing; but in order that, believing, we should come to God, that is, have eternal life.

The distinction between the end so proposed and the means to be used, will guard us, if I mistake not, from another error. It will keep us ever in mind that the end in view can be accomplished only by the principles of the gospel. Man's malady does not consist in a series of outward transgressions, but in the inward principle of alienation from God. The produce of that principle is outward transgression of various descriptions in various cases. The cutaneous eruptions of the leper were of different colours, and of varied degrees of malignity, but the source was the same in all; the blood, the circulation of life, was diseased; it is so in the moral constitution of man; his evil actions do not constitute the diseasethey are but symptoms of it. The pulse that beats in the wrist is not the state of bodily health, but the index of it to the finger of science. The unhealthy beat of the pulse cannot be rectified by any direct local application to the pulse itself; but by some alterative process put in operation upon the general functions. And so it is here; man's evil conduct cannot be rectified by any direct application of commandment to it, but by an alterative process operating on the affections, in order that those alienated affections may be brought back within the attraction of holy, happy love, which is God. It is of much consequence to consider this, that the commandment

cannot, in the case of fallen man, secure obedience : "The law is weak through the flesh;" but the law itself is "holy, just, and good." An unfallen creature gives back a ready response to the commands of the law; and when "thou shalt love" proceeds from the throne of God, the echo of the angelic host is "loved!" Not so with fallen man: "Thou shalt love," sounding with authority, only makes him detect the more his want of love; "by the law is the knowledge of sin," and by the law, man cannot be recovered from sin-love cannot be forced, it is a spontaneous action in, and emanation from, the heart, and when it ceases to be spontaneous, it ceases to be love. It may be conscience, it may be a sense of duty, it may be fear; but it cannot be love.

So the commandments cannot secure the end in view, which is to bring us to God; neither can this end be obtained by dwelling upon the knowledge and the conviction that men have, that it is right to turn to God and to love him. Knowledge cannot touch the affections, the name of the tree of man's transgression is knowledge, and in the day he eat of it he imbibed, cotemporaneously with knowledge, enmity against God. Philosophy in all its branches has from that day to the present been but an eating more plentifully of that tree; it has no tendency whatever, in any stage of it, or in any of its operations, to touch the turning point of man's affections, or to lodge one spark within him of the love of God. Nay, my reverend brethren, on the contrary, it is but a respectable mode of keeping him among the trees of the garden, that he may hide himself from his God, and from the consciousness that he is without God. It is, I think, of much importance, that this subject be fairly looked JULY, 1838.

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