Sermons were written, primarily, for the Magazine that he published; and in these, though still conscientiously aiming at condensation of thought, and brevity of expression, all the leading subjects of scriptural theology are brought forward. He might so have enlarged on each as to leave the reader little to do; but then his range would have been more limited. He said enough to enable the reader who would think, to go into the very depths of the subject; and for him who would not think, even a fuller exposition would have been of little service. The memory might have had a greater quantity of words; but it is not by cramming and loading the memory, but by exciting the intellect, that the reader is truly profited. He who thinks out nothing for himself, is little benefited by the writings of another who thinks out everything for him. As it is, the Sermons of Mr. Wesley, in which his only aim was to state the all-important truths of the Gospel, might be a text-book for a lecturer on evangelical theology, as they are a mine of wealth for the industrious Christian student.

We earnestly recommend to all who would read Mr. Wesley's Sermons, first, very attentively to read the preface to them written by himself, and in which he states his object and plans. It is too long for quotation here, and the whole is such a complete concatenation of thought, that no separate extract could furnish a proper view of the argument. One passage, however, shall be given, showing both the spirit in which all his writings were composed, and the lofty and powerful feeling in which he could have engaged in the task of composition, had he judged it suitable to the design of which he never lost sight:-"To candid, reasonable men, I am not afraid to lay open what have been the inmost thoughts of my heart. I have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God ; just hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen: I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing,— the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri. Here then I am, far from the busy ways. of men. I sit down alone: only God is here. In his presence I open, I read his book for this end, to find the way to heaven. Is there a doubt concerning the meaning of what I read? Does anything appear dark or intricate? I lift up my heart to the Father of Lights :- Lord, is it not thy word, If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God? Thou givest liberally, and upbraidest not. Thou hast said, If any be willing to do thy will, he shall know. I am willing to do, let me know, thy will.' I then search after and consider parallel passages of Scripture, comparing things spiritual with spiritual.' I meditate thereon with all the attention and earnestness of which my mind is capable. If any doubt still remains, I consult those who are experienced in the things of God; and then, the writings whereby, being dead, they yet speak. And what I thus learn, that I teach.

“I have accordingly set down in the following Sermons what I find in the Bible concerning the way to heaven; with a view to distinguish this way of God from all those which are the inventions of men. I have endeavoured to describe the true, the scriptural, the experimental religion, so as to omit nothing which is a real part thereof, and to add nothing thereto which is not. And herein it is more especially my desire, first, to

guard those who are just setting their faces towards heaven (and who, having little acquaintance with the things of God, are the more liable to be turned out of the way) from formality, from mere outside religion, which has almost driven heart-religion out of the world; and, secondly, to warn those who know the religion of the heart, the faith which worketh by love, lest at any time they make void the law through faith, and so fall back into the snare of the devil."

No wonder that he who wrote with such objects, and in such a spirit, should likewise say," I design plain truth for plain people: therefore, of set purpose, I abstain from all nice and philosophical speculations; from all perplexed and intricate reasonings; and, as far as possible, from even the show of learning, unless in sometimes citing the original Scripture." But though his Sermons contain nothing like metal drawn into wire, beaten into thinness, and wrought out in beautiful filagree-work, they are pure, massive, and weighty ingots. To state important, but almost forgotten, truth, was his great object. And by him so urgent was the necessity of doing this considered, that he willingly sacrificed, as he had sacrificed ease, reputation, and gain, all the mere ornaments of literature. Rhetoric and philosophy alike had to yield to the simple Gospel. For persuasion, he took his topics, not from Aristotle, but from scriptural truth; and these he laboured to apply to the conscience. This was his preaching :-" "By manifestation of the" unadorned "truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." They who merely read for amusement, for gratification, will regard these Sermons as insipid: they who read to get good, will thank God for them. They will find in them lucid, though brief, explanations of essential truth, and solemnly earnest appeals to both judgment and heart. Let them be compared with those which had been printed when they were first published, and their true value will be evident.

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Nor let it be supposed that he could not have written in any other way. His poetic compositions, as well as some glimpses of the inner man, occasionally afforded by circumstances in his history, prove that he possessed deep and weighty feeling, and a taste far more lively and correct, an imagination far more rich, than many readers have thought. But he willingly, intentionally, sacrificed that of which he was perfectly capable, and which he well knew how to value, in order that his higher aims might be secured. There are many passages which might be quoted in proof of this. Let one be taken as a specimen. In his first Sermon on the Original," &c., "of the Law," these sentences occur:-" Now, this law is an incorruptible picture of the High and Holy One that inhabiteth eternity. It is He whom, in his essence, no man hath seen or can see, made visible to men and angels. It is the face of God unveiled; God manifested to his creatures as they are able to bear it; manifested to give, and not to destroy, life; that they may see God, and live. It is the heart of God disclosed to man. Yea, in some sense, we may apply to this law what the Apostle says of his Son: it is the streaming forth, or out-beaming, of his glory, the express image of his person. 'If virtue,' said the ancient Heathen, could assume such a shape as that we could behold her with our eyes, what wonderful love would she excite in us!' If virtue could do this! It is done already. The law of God is all virtues in one, in such a shape as to be beheld with open face by all those whose eyes God hath enlightened. What is the law, but divine virtue and wisdom assuming a visible form? What is it but the original ideas of truth and good, which

were lodged in the uncreated mind from eternity, now drawn forth and clothed with such a vehicle as to appear even to human understanding? If we survey the law of God in another point of view, it is supreme, unchangeable reason; it is unalterable rectitude; it is the everlasting fitness of all things that are or ever were created. I am sensible, what a shortness, and even impropriety, there is, in these and all other human expressions, when we endeavour by their faint pictures to shadow out the deep things of God. Nevertheless, we have no better, indeed no other, way, during this our infant state of existence." Whole volumes might be written only by expanding these few, but most weighty and just, sentences, opening to us, as they do, the very depths of the profoundest moral philosophy. The man who could thus write, might have been the very Plato of England, had he not rather chosen as his models St. Paul and St. John. We therefore see what is undoubtedly true, in a preface to a new collection of his Sermons, written in 1788, when he was eighty-five years of age, and when, considering both that, and the position which he had so long occupied, the appearance of somewhat of an honest egotism and garrulity may be more than pardoned. He says, "Is there need to apologize to sensible persons for the plainness of my style? A gentleman, whom I much love and respect, lately informed me, with much tenderness and courtesy, that men of candour made great allowance for the decay of my faculties; and did not expect me to write now, either with regard to sentiment or language, as I did thirty or forty years ago. Perhaps they are decayed; though I am not conscious of it. But is not this a fit occasion to explain myself concerning the style I use from choice, not necessity? I could even now write as floridly and rhetorically as even the admired Dr. B- ; but I dare not; because I seek the honour that cometh of God only. What is the praise of man to me, that have one foot in the grave, and am stepping into the land whence I shall not return? Therefore I dare no more write in a fine style than wear a fine coat. But were it otherwise, had I time to spare, I should still write just as I do. I should purposely decline what many admire, highly ornamented style. I cannot admire French oratory : I despise it from my heart. Let those who please be in raptures at the pretty, elegant sentences of Massillon, or Bourdaloue; but give me the plain nervous style of Dr. South, Dr. Bates, or Mr. John Howe: and for elegance, show me any French writer who exceeds Dean Young, or Mr. Seed. Let who will admire the French frippery, I am still for plain sound English. I think a Preacher, or a writer of Sermons, has lost his way when he imitates any of the French orators; even the most famous of them; even Massillon, or Bourdaloue. Only let his language be plain, proper, and clear, and it is enough. God himself has told us how to speak, both as to the matter and the manner. If any man speak' in the name of God, let him speak as the oracles of God;' and if he would imitate any part of these above the rest, let it be the First Epistle of St. John. This is the style, the most excellent style, for every Gospel Preacher. And let him aim at no more ornament than he finds in that sentence, which is the sum of the whole Gospel, We love Him, because He first loved us.'"

Yes; not by what is human merely, is the great work of saving souls to be effected; but by that which is divine: by the clear and earnest statement of that glorious truth, in all its branches, which is so significantly declared to be "the power of God unto salvation," the instrument fitted for its work by divine wisdom, and accompanied, in its faithful employment, by divine power, the very energy of God, the influence of "the Holy

Ghost sent down from heaven." By the admirers of human literature the meed of praise may not be given; but the blessing of God, giving success, shall not be withheld. It was no ordinary critic who said, " Compared with the conversion of sinners, propriety and elegance are less than nothing." (Dr. Johnson: Idler, No. 90.) And when, in reference to his writings merely considered as literary compositions, what he did is compared to what he might have done, and the voluntary character of the sacrifice is distinctly remembered, the remark of the same eminent man, speaking of Dr. Watts as "at one time combating Locke, and at another making a catechism for children in their fourth year," will be seen to arise as naturally from the conduct of Mr. Wesley :-"A voluntary descent from the dignity of science, is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can teach."

As to Mr. Wesley's "Journals,” the same reference to the man and to his circumstances is indispensable, both that they may be clearly understood and properly appreciated. He had resolved, with somewhat of mystical severity, almost like another Gregory Lopez, to be as brief as possible, both in writing and speech. Even in this respect, his language to his brother, quoted with merited approval in the "Article" some portions of which have suggested these observations, is perfectly applicable,"Brother, when I devoted to God my ease, my time, my life, did I except my reputation?" He also believed, and he would have been unfaithful and blind had he not seen this,-that he had a providential designation, such a one, for instance, as all true-hearted Protestants ascribe to Martin Luther, to do one of the greatest works ever effected by an agency merely human. He was deeply-we had almost said, oppressively-convinced, that to this work God had called him, opened his way, given him success, placed its movements under his superintendence and direction, and thus, by concurring circumstances, made him responsible for its continuance and extension. He claimed no right of interference with other churches. His mission was to sinners; to call and gather them, and, when gathered, to watch over them for their preservation and establishment. With the constitutions, with even the doctrines, of other churches, he never pretended to have any concern. Strictly speaking, he preached neither. discipline nor doctrine, as understanding by the expression the proposal of any new form or system of either. Nor was his object to raise up a sect of which he should be the head. Deeply convinced of the truth and excellence of religion personally, believing it to be the only and the sufficient remedy for all the ills of mankind, and fully persuaded that never was there a period in which its revival, in its personal influence and characteristics, was more necessary than when these convictions and feelings moved and governed him; to this one work he devoted himself without reserve, and went everywhere, as opportunity was afforded him, preaching that men were sinners, that Christ had died for them, and was ready to save them, and exhorting them to flee from the wrath to come, submit to the righteousness of God, and accept the free, full, and present salvation of our Lord Jesus. This is the central idea of Methodism at any given time, from which the whole system is developed, as it is the source from which the system proceeded. No one can understand Methodism who either overlooks this, or does not view it in its relation to the whole. Neither Mr. Wesley nor his writings can be understood in any other way. And especially is this the case with his "Journals." He who would either relish or understand them, must begin by recalling to his mind what Mr.

Wesley considered as his own position, in connexion with the objects at which he aimed, and the means which he employed. His Journals are not to be taken as the records of the speculations of some talented, but visionary, day-dreamer; nor of the observations made by some cultivated scholar, some gentleman of taste, having nothing to do but to go through the world, seeing all that was to be seen, and noting down all that he saw, and all that everything suggested. Such Journals might be very amusing, and even not without some instruction. But such was not the writer of the Journals on which we are now remarking: such, therefore, are not the Journals themselves. Whether Mr. Wesley was, or was not, right in his conceptions of his position and work, such his conceptions actually were; and as he was uniformly consistent with himself, to the standard thus suggested must these Journals be brought, and a judgment of their character formed according to its principles.

Now, taking this as our starting-point, that he believed that his mission was to sinners, and that his work was to preach to them, and then to gather them into societies thus awakened to a sense of their need of salvation, thus desirous of fleeing from the wrath to come, thus inquiring "the way to the kingdom," and to watch over them when thus gathered; let us look at his "Journals," as the records of his proceedings in this work, given to us by himself. He thus, in the Preface to that which he first published, describes the general character of the whole :— "It was in pursuance of an advice given by Bishop Taylor, in his Rules for Holy Living and Dying,” that, about fifteen years ago, I began to take a more exact account than I had done before, of the manner wherein I spent my time, writing down how I had employed every hour. This I continued to do, wherever I was, till the time of my leaving England. The variety of scenes which I then passed through induced me to transcribe, from time to time, the more material parts of my diary, adding here and there such little reflections as occurred to my mind. Of this Journal thus occasionally compiled, the following is a short extract: it not being my design to relate all those particulars which I wrote for my own use only, and which would answer no valuable end to others, however important they were to me."

We thus at once see that the "Journals" are not elaborate compositions, designed for the amusement, or the instruction, or both, in various degrees combined, of the reader, and to which this particular form is intentionally given they are true records, actually compiled by the man himself, "of the manner wherein he spent his time, employed every hour." What any true journal would be, when thus written, there would be no difficulty in deciding à priori, provided that, for the solution of the problem, we had the previous data of,—the man himself,—his work,-and his objects in devoting himself to it. In the case of Mr. Wesley, these data we possess; and by those who are capable of understanding them, just such a production would be anticipated, as, in the printed volumes we really find; just such a production, neither more nor less. The exact consistency between what may be termed the theoretic working out of the problem from the data previously furnished, and the matter-of-fact production given to the world, is an evidence of the perfect truthfulness of the latter. Out of those preliminaries would its characteristics be developed, and whatsoever of value it possesses, by the same preliminaries will that value be given. It is not the semi-fictitious Journal of the man of letters, aiming at the graces and fascinations of literary composition; it is not the Journal of the student, or philosopher, in his study, noting down his cogitations, and mental