tion to this department of labour; or (which amounts to the same thing) by the peculiar fitness of the individual for another mode of exertion a due attention to which is incompatible with great devotedness to that of systematic visiting. It is stated in the word of God, and illustrated in every day experience, that the Head of the Church confers upon his servants a diversity of gifts. These gifts necessarily involve corresponding obligation; and for a minister to devote all his energies to a department of labour for which he is obviously unfit, and to neglect the one to which Divine Providence peculiarly invites him, is as criminal as it is absurd. But, if I understand T. C. A. aright, he does not claim exemption from the work of systematic pastoral visitation as the exception, but as the rule. The exercise is not merely not urgently incumbent on particular individuals—it is not obligatory on any.

It may facilitate an attempt to prove that the exercise before us is a part of pastoral duty, by alluding to the question of its practica bility. The point at issue depends with many on the solution of the inquiry, can it be done? I believe by the adoption of a good ar rangement it can. Let the pastor visit in regular rotation in certain districts; let him spend on an average ten minutes with each family; let him introduce religious topics, and propose direct questions without ceremony; let him keep a record as to dates and persons, of such visits, and with no very serious amount of self-denial he may accomplish all the important objects attainable by this department of ministerial duty. On such a plan of visiting most pastors might have private interviews with from twenty to twenty-five families in the week. The average number of visits, after making allowance for two months absence in the course of the year on various engagements, would thus be at least nine hundred: thus in the generality of congregations each family might be visited at least four times in each rear. This amount of visits might be paid by the employment of less than five hours in each of the forty-four weeks which we suppose the minister to spend at home. Could not this be done? Could not this amount of time in each week be safely deducted from that which is consumed in certain recreations, or even in commendable efforts at mental improvement?

My full conviction is that the above considerations decide the question of the practicability of systematic visitation by the vast majority of our ministers. The question of its obligation remains

to be considered.

This view of the matter must be determined by an appeal to scripture and to experience.

T. C. A. contends that the word of God is silent on the subject. If this statement were correct, I should deny the inference. Is nothing clearly obligatory but what is distinctly enjoined in the word of God? Was it absolutely necessary for the Divine Spirit to specify in minute detail every separate exercise of the ministry? If so, how can T. C. A. prove it to be the duty of the minister to be "generally resident among his charge,"-to" give his particular attention to the inquiring, the anxious, the distressed,"-" to meet such at all suitable seasons,"—" to be habitually studying for the benefit of his

flock," to "meet them for prayer and christian intercourse at appointed periods." Far be it from me to question the duty of the minister to attend to the admirable exercises which T. C. A. has thus and elsewhere so well described. I merely ask, can he point to explicit statements of scripture which clearly and unequivocally enjoin those particular duties? T. C. A. would allow, I am confident, that many other things are incumbent on the minister besides what he has here specified. He cannot doubt it his duty to conduct the devotional services in the sanctuary-to preside at church meetings-to be a strenuous advocate of Bible, Tract, and Missionary Societies-to appeal against the union of Church and State-to aid the great anti-slavery cause-and I agree with him, with all my heart, in deeming these things ministerial duties. Neither have I any difficulty in inferring these obligations from the general principles of the word of God. But scripture is just as silent in respect to distinct, separate, minute precept on these matters, as it is in relation to pastoral visitation from house to house. What, indeed, would become of our ministry in modern times, what could be said in defence of the largest portion of its daily detail, if we were not to be guided by general rules, and allowed the weight of a fairly deducted inference almost as much as of minute and direct command? T. C. A. can prove the propriety of the main part of his ministerial labours only from comprehensive injunctions; I appeal to the very same precepts in favour of systematic pastoral visitation. Whatever general rule enjoins the ministerial superintendence of an inquiry or Bible class, and I believe there are such general rules in scripture, equally admits of an application to the exercise of private systematic intercourse. Indeed, it is very remarkable that in the comprehensive list of directions given in the epistles to Timothy and Titus, if I am not mistaken, even preaching is not expressly enjoined. The word employed by the Apostle, dicaкTIKOV, "apt to teach," embraces a far wider range of duties than preaching--it is quite as applicable to private as to public instruction. When the Apostle meant preaching exclusively, he said Knpužov.+ If T. C. A. turn to the Epistles to Timothy and Titus to learn his duty as a minister to preach, from that general list of directions which those letters supply, he can arrive at his point only by inference, and an inference, too, drawn from a precept which equally enjoins private visitation.

But are we confined on this question to mere inference from scripture precept? I think not. I cannot give up the argument derived from the example of the Apostle Paul at Ephesus. T. C. A.

surely occupies a very questionable position in excepting this part of the Apostle's public example, as obligatory, on the ground of his miraculous gifts. What had miraculous gifts to do with the christian exercise of visiting from house to house? Even allowing that these gifts rendered certain other exercises easy of accomplishment, which to those unblessed with miraculous powers consume a large portion of time, still what pastor can say with Paul, and in the Apostle's sense," the care of all the churches cometh upon me daily."

* 1 Tim. iii. 2.

+ 2 Tim. iv. 2.

If we have less power than Paul, so have we less work. Whatever saving of time he gained by miraculous aid, he consumed in the extraordinary multiplicity of public duties. His miracles did nothing for him in visiting from house to house. If T. C. A. had appealed to miraculous gifts as an explanation of the Apostle's preaching, I might have admitted its force; but of all occasions in which such supernatural aid would have been unnecessary, and in explanation of which we are the least obliged to resort to such a fact, surely it is the humble, plodding, obscure, self-denying exercise of visiting from house to house for the purpose of religious conversation. I cannot, then, yield the position that Paul's conduct at Ephesus, considered in connection with the use that we, as Dissenters and Congregationalists, generally make of his example when nothing strictly miraculous and exclusively apostolic is involved, renders it obligatory upon every settled minister, not merely to preach in public, but to visit and instruct in private.

A few words on the obvious advantages of the practice in question. That it will consume valuable time, and involve perhaps the largest amount of self-denial which the ministry in the present day occasions, I readily admit. I will not, however, do T. C. A. the injustice of supposing that the difficulty or irksomeness of the exercise constitutes in his judgment any valid argument against its adoption. The only weighty objection with him arises from the serious consumption of time which the habit of visiting from house to house seems to involve. This circumstance would perhaps determine the question, if its advocates were unable to specify as its result an amount of benefit which fully compensated for the amount of time.

Proper visiting operates very advantageously on the pastor himself. It constitutes an appropriate diversion from the laborious and, in some respects, deadening pursuits of continuous secluded study. It directs his mind to topics of meditation that would otherwise escape it. It affords him the finest opportunity of enlarging his knowledge on the most profitable subject of ministerial attainment-human nature. It checks the excessive tendency to theorize and generalize, which much reading is calculated to promote. It enables him to decide many theological questions, by a frequent reference to facts. It supplies him with a great variety of experi mental information, which he may introduce with the greatest advantage into his public discourses. It will fit him to adapt himself to the perpetually changing aspect of his flock, and hence will give to his public instructions the very attractive charm of strict correspondence with the reality of things, and practical direction for their improvement. Nor is the natural tendency of such personal inspection to promote a lively interest in the welfare of the flock, and to throw around the address of the preacher the attractive influence of parental counsel rather than of professional dictation to be forgotten. The inquiry and the Bible class may yield some of these advantages, but as these assemblies are generally confined to only a small portion of the congregation, and as the intercourse on such occasions is less free and minute than that which the private interview promotes, the benefits derived from such opportunities of

personal conversation cannot be fairly deemed to supersede that of visiting from house to house.

Is not such visitation equally beneficial to the people themselves? How easy is it to parry the public appeal-how difficult to resist the personal and private inquiry? How many have been converted by the one who have for years resisted the other? What difficulties, too, some of our hearers are labouring under, which, in many cases, ten minutes' conversation might remove. How many are sometimes waiting to enrol themselves as the professed followers of the Redeemer, but whose preparation many pastors would never learn without a private interview? Such visits tend, moreover, greatly to endear the minister to his hearers, and in proportion to this circumstance will be their readiness to profit by his public instructions.

The matter may finally be viewed in relation to the prosperity of the great interests of Congregational dissent. Never were the ministers of the Establishment more active in private attempts to build up their system and to undermine ours than now. Many of the clergy seem to do nothing but visit. We all know that they can afford to visit much more than the dissenting and unauthorized preachers of the day. As we do not believe in baptismal regeneration and sacramental redemption, we cannot compete with them in the neglect of private study and pulpit preparation. But, still, is this a time for us to relax our efforts to do good out of the pulpit? Shall dissenting ministers, in the present day, subject themselves to the charge of neglecting the people? Shall we encourage the invidious and, to us and our cause, most injurious comparisons that will then be made? If the advice of T. C. A. be generally taken, while a few of our most popular and long established ministers may retain their congregations, the great mass of us will find ourselves almost deserted.

Westbromwich, Nov. 5th.

J. C. G.

ON THE PROMISE, "LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAY, EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD."-Matt. xxviii, 20 end.

(Concluded from page 540.)

If the interpretation of this promise which has recently been proposed may be regarded as demonstrated, the refutation of objections to it might be omitted as superfluous; since, whether plausible or otherwise, they cannot in that case possess any real force. It may, however, be more satisfactory to disprove them by direct argument, which need not be prolix or elaborate, as most of those hitherto adduced have been ably answered by the Reviewer of Faber. These objections may all, perhaps, be reduced to two, namely ;—First, that the promise in question cannot be confined to the apostles, because it involves conditions which they were unable to perform; and, Secondly, that it must be applicable to ordinary ministers and missionaries, because they really fulfil its principal conditions, and if not included in this promise have, it is said, no other on which

they can rely, and are thus left, not only without encouragement, but even without authority for the exercise of their office. The design of the following remarks is to show the fallacy of each of these assertions.

I. It has been contended with much confidence that the apostles could not preach the gospel to the whole world, that the thing was absolutely impossible, and that to put such a construction on the words of Scripture is injudicions, at least, if not worse. It may be replied that such a construction, subject of course to reasonable interpretation, is actually put on them by Scripture itself, and ought therefore by all who respect its authority to be admitted without hesitation as the true one. That the command,-"Go forth throughout all the world, preach the gospel to every creature," &c,-was addressed by Christ to his apostles in their peculiar capacity, as his chosen witnesses and ambassadors, has already, it is hoped, been proved. That it was really executed by them, is affirmed at the conclusion of the same passage,-"They went forth, and preached everywhere," &c.-In his Epistle to the Colossians, written probably about A. D. 60, the apostle Paul declares that even then-"the gos pel had gone forth throughout all the world, and had been preached to every creature under heaven."-The world to whom they were sent consisted of Jews and Gentiles; and, in reference to both classes, the same apostle states in his Epistle to the Romans, written at a still earlier period, that even then their mission had been substantially accomplished. Mark, xvi, 15, 20; Coloss: i, 5, 6, 23.

After explaining that "faith [cometh] by preaching, and preaching by the command of God,"-he puts the question respecting the Jews," But, I say, have they not heard?"-and, adopting the sublime description given in the nineteenth Psalm of the heavenly bodies, as the universal religious instructors of mankind, promptly replies," Assuredly, their sound went forth into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world."-In accordance with this view, the vast multitudes of Jews and proselytes who went up to Jerusalem at the first Pentecost after the Ascension, listened to the discourses of Peter, and witnessed the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, are said to have included-" devout men of every nation under heaven; . . . Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites,"-from the east," and strangers of Rome," from the western hemisphere. On their return to their respective countries, they doubtless reported what they had seen and heard in Judea, and thus prepared the way for those coextensive missionary labours of the apostles, which in due time ensued. The Epistle of James, written it is probable not long before the final destruction of Jerusalem, was accordingly addressed" to the twelve tribes scattered abroad;”—meaning

The common version,-" every creature,”—which in order to avoid prolixity is here admitted, makes this declaration appear more absolute and compre hensive than it truly is. The author has long considered it to be limited to the people of Israel; who, as the peculiar people of God, seem in several parts of the New Testament to be termed, Kris, the institution.-A full exposition of this view would require a separate dissertation, which, whenever it may be acceptable, he is ready to offer.