say, that Christians ought not to meet for worship in any place, where the public resort for other purposes. That is just the very thing we contend for-that there ought to be a building set apart for that purpose alone. We retire within our consecrated buildings, because they are the most private places, where the church can meet together for prayer and praise which Mr. B. dcclares it is the church's duty to do. His cbjections therefore to public worship, to be at all consistent with his own theory, must be confined to camp-meetings, or practices of a similar kind.

Mr. Barker's second objection is to Christians inviting unbelievers and worldlings to join them in prayer or praise. Pray who does invite them? Why he tells us, that ungodly persons are often employed as clerks and singers. No doubt they are; and an abominable disgrace it is to any church where such is the case. But what has that to do with the system? Is it any argument against a system to say that some people abuse it? Mr. B. however quotes a passage from Robert Hall, to the effect that the Church of England is guilty of inviting the ungodly to join in Divine worship, inasmuch as her ministers address the whole congregation as "dearly beloved brethren," &c. Robert Hall may have used such an expression; but it sounds rather odd from the man who pronounced the Prayer Book to belong to "the very first class of uninspired compositions" If he ever did say so, he must have forgotten at the moment the church's 19th article: "The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same None but the "faithful,” therefore, are considered as part of the " congregation" at all, although from the very fact of their presenting themselves to join the congregation in prayer and praise, the church charitably concludes that "as many as are present" are penitent believers. If any are not so, of course they are not included in the invitation, which is addressed only to "the congregation of faithful men." That only believers are invited is also evident from their being called upon to join "with pure hearts;" for it is only "faith" that "purifies the heart."

"

Nor

This objection, then, when examined, turns out to be very much like the first. In fact, the whole of the 48-page tract is as much ado about nothing as any one could wish to see. should I have noticed it at all, but for the practical effect it is likely to have on the unstable; namely, to make them averse or indifferent to public worship. Voltaire, as you heard just now, confessed that be despaired of crushing Christianity as long as people would meet together every week for religious

worship and Mr. Barker knows very well that he will not effect his objects, until he has made the people stop their ears to all the teaching of Christ's ministers. And whether this is done by giving them a disgust for God's house, or by holding up the clergy to them, which he does in his lectures on the Prayer Book, as almost universally a set of habitual liars, murderers, thieves, and idolaters, seems to be of very little consequence to him indeed. If any confidence can be placed in our Lord's axiom, "By their fruits ye shall know them," this man's writings must surely stamp his father's name upon his forehead, and proclaim him to all but the wilfully deceived as a special emissary of him who is emphatically called "the accuser of the brethren." Nor can I see any reason, except it be the want of the miraculous powers possessed by the Apostle, why the minister of Christ should shrink from addressing him as St. Paul addressed Flymas the sorcerer, "O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?" But The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment, to be punished: but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise governments. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not." 2 Pet. ii. 29.

Should these lectures be blessed by God to the deliverance of any who have fallen into the pit, or to the preservation of any who may have been standing on the edge of it, they will not have been written in vain. For "If any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins." James v 19. That others may rise from them only hardened and embittered against the truth, is of course quite possible. It was this very feeling, even with regard to his preaching, which made St. Paul exclaim, "Who is sufficient for these things? And yet he could preface it by saying, "We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish to the one we are a savour of death unto death, to the other a savour of life unto life." He had only to give his message, and leave God to make all the results work out his own glory. He well knew that, while no preaching or argument could of itself reach the unbeliever's heart, yet

Some extracts from this production are given in an appendix.

Divine grace was all-mighty, and the Spirit sovereign in his operations; and therefore that it was his duty "in meekness to instruct those that oppose themselves, if God peradventure would give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the TRUTH, and that they might recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who were led captive by him at his will."

And now I "cast my bread upon the waters," in humble dependence upon God's mercy that I "shall find it after many days," nay, after a very few days; "for the night is far spent, the day is at hand." All the lines of prophecy are converging to a point; and that point but a few years distant. All the foretold signs of the last days are threatening around us, and uttering an emphatic warning-Sinner repent, believer rejoice, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The scoffer may ask, as St. Peter long ago said he would, "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." But he little thinks that he is himself one necessary sign of what he despises. For it is just at such a time as this, “in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of," nay, perhaps, "in such an hour"

as even

some of his disciples "think not," that "the Son of Man cometh." For, as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken ('caught up to meet the Lord in the air'), and the other left" for the desolating judgments which will be poured upon apostate Christendom. For "the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed."

Reader, where will you be on that day? With Noah in the ark, or perishing with the unbelieving world? With_Lot_at Zoar, or in the city of destruction? Believer, remember that "there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." Unbeliever, answer for yourself the solemn question," How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" and "What shall the end of them be that obey not the Gospel of God?" Ob, hasten to plunge in that fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness;" fly "for refuge to the (only) hope set before" you; "to-day, while it is called to-day, harden not your hearts;" tarry not a moment, lest the tempest overtake you; lest the storm burst upon you ere you reach the covert, and you be compelled to utter that bitter lamentation, The harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."

APPENDIX

CONTAINING A FEW EXTRACTS FROM MR. BARKER'S LECTURES ON THE PRAYER BOOK.

ten".

"Low as is the standard of duty (the ten commandments) which they (the clergy) set up, they still fall fearfully short of it. They do in fact break every commandment of the "The priests (by which he means throughout the church of England clergy) are plunderers at all ends. They rank among the principal thieves in our land"-"Whatever the Queen or her successors may demand, this catechism requires us to do. If they should command us to turn Papists, this catechism teaches us, that it would be our duty to do so. If they should command us to take arms, and kill the Papists, or to kill the orthodox Dissenters, this catechism requires us to obey them. If they should require us to burn our Bibles, and take the Koran in its place; if they should require us to swear, to kill, to rob, or to lie, the catechism assures us, that our duty to our neighbours, as laid down in the ten commandments, would require us to obey their bidding." Numbers of them (the clergy) are ignorant, proud, covetous, self-willed; and all of them are teachers of the grossest errors, of the most palpable absurdities, of the flattest contradictions, of the darkest blasphemies, of the most horrible misrepresentations of God's character and works, that ever the world contained. All of them are hired by Government (!!!) to teach the most foolish and absurd fictions, to go through the most useless and ridiculous ceremonies, and to support whatever forms of oppression and wrong the Government who employs them may choose to exact ""Here then we have in this small catechism, not only some of the worst forms of theological error, but some of the vilest and most mischievous principles of political tyranny and universal slavery as well. I say the doctrine taught by this part is most atrocious and infernal." The men that can hire themselves to teach such errors I can regard in no other light, than as the greatest rebels against God, and the worst and most deadly enemies of our race

think that these men could assume such airs of self-importance, could look so lofty and assured, if they knew that you were searching their book and sifting their notions? Nothing of the kind. They would hang their heads like convicted impostors and deceivers. They would seek out some lonely hermitage far apart from society, or shut themselves up in solitary confinement in their own houses, and never dare to look abroad again by daylight, till they had thrown their follies and blasphemies aside."—"I wonder the priests are not ashamed of themselves. I cannot imagine how it is that they can look people in the face."-"They are all pure fictions; they are all ignorant ravings or wicked impositions"-" Here is another cluster of ungodly falsehoods."-"The priest stands like a black infernal deceiver, to pour forth his blasphemous falsehoods, * * (he) stands like a devil, to libel humanity, to throw horrible reflections upon the divine character, and to breathe a pestilential vapour over the fairest and loveliest productions of heaven."-"I say the priests must be dreadfully ignorant of what Christ taught, or else they must be the most reckless and wholesale liars, that ever dishonoured human nature, or burdened the creation of God"-" What wicked reckless wholesale lying. A greater regardlessness of truth, than is manifested in this book of common prayer, or in the priests and the people who use it, could not be found among the most profligate and unprincipled of men"-“They (the clergy) are the veriest cormorants, the most greedy and unprincipled extortioners, that ever God Almighty allowed to live""They are hired and employed by the government for this purpose-to endeavour to justify to the people whatever the government may do."-"They, (the government) have made it illegal to do right, and have enjoined men by law to do wrong. Yet in none of these things have the priests of the Church of England opposed them."-"They (the clergy) aided and countenanced the plunderers and corrupters of the nation in their ungodly and unnatural work."-"Iniquity has been their regular business. They have preached error and immorality." They teach, that we should worship wealth, however wickedly gotten, and spurn poverty, however virtuous and honourable it may be."-"These men are to be regarded, therefore, as the hired perverters and corrupters of the nation; as the everlasting advocates of error, and blasphemy, and sin; as the sworn eneinies of truth and righteousness, of Christ, of God, and of humanity; as the allies of thieves and murderers; "The blindness and senselessness, or the craft and villany of these men (the clergy) can go no further. We must either

charge them with the vilest craft and the most censurable of all villanies, or be allowed to declare, that they are blinder ihan bats, and as senseless as stocks or stones."-" Do you