taught amongst ourselves. Its phraseology and point of view are not quite the same as ours, but it has a close connection, both historical and theological, with the theory of personal salvation held by the Evangelical Churches.. The preaching of Salvation by Faith is constantly in danger of a mistake which Wesley, in his noble sermon on "The Lord our Righteousness," admits, and says he was always careful to guard against, viz., "putting faith in the place of Christ." Since the great Wesleyan Revival of Evangelical doctrine in England, not a few preachers have, there is reason to fear, fallen into this error. With more or less of design, they have directed the attention of their hearers to faith, speaking largely on its character, kinds, and degrees, until in many cases the penitent has thought so much of his faith as to lose sight of its great Object. He has vexed himself with inquiries whether his faith is of the right sort, strong enough, or pure enough, plung ing into all manner of psychological difficulties. Too often he has become entangled in the hopeless dilemma, "Believe that you are saved, and you are saved." He feels that if he could only believe, Christ would save him, while at the same time he finds. he cannot believe in what will not be true till after he has believed. It is to such as these that the preaching of the obscured fact that the Redemption has long been 21 accomplished comes as the truth that makes free. The cry "It is finished," draws away the sinner's attention from himself and his faith, and fixes it upon Christ. He thinks no longer of what he has to do, but of what Jesus has done; and he finds, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, that the burden he could not remove for all his trying, falls off, as it were of itself, at the sight of the Cross. The strength of the Plymouth Brethren's preaching lies in their thus cutting the knot of the difficulty arising from too exclusive regard to the genuineness of faith in the sinner. This explains and is supported by the fact that their chief success has been, not in bringing the neglected and ignorant to religion, but in leading habitual attendants on an Evangelical ministry to a peace which they never found before they. heard the Brethren. Mr. Dewart charges this doctrine with making faith unnecessary. It only makes it easy by rendering it unconscious. It transforms it from a work to be performed by the seeker into an irresistible conviction, wrought, as Charles Wesley maintains, by the Holy Ghost, "Who did for every sinner die, Hath surely died for me." The language of the Evangelists' hymns, severely censured in this pamphlet, does not go beyond the expressions of our own Hymn-Book. "Your debt He hath paid, and your work He hath done;" "Acquitted I was When He hung on the cross." These and similar passages are far from containing a full theology of the Atonement, yet they present certain aspects of it which are invaluable to the preacher who has to dispel the cloudy confusions which often intercept the penitent's view of the Cross. The objections which Mr. Dewart urges against the doctrine that we have nothing to do to gain God's grace, are strangely like the familiar ones brought against Salvation by Faith in any form. They present no difficulty to one who has learnt to reconcile the teaching of St. Paul and St. James. The 'soul and kernel of the Plymouth Brethren's doctrine is then a part of the truth of God. The other tenets held along with it, and supposed to be logically deducible from it, are for the most part erroneous. Mr. Dewart deserves our thanks for exposing the absurd and unscriptural depreciation of repentance and prayer, the denial of the Spirit's witness to our adoption, and the purely Antinomian perversion of the Biblical teaching respecting Imputed Righteousness. That heresy has been often and exhaustively refuted, yet in connection with the theology of "the Brethren " it is instructive to see how it arises from concentrating one's thoughts upon deliverance from the penalty of sin. "The Brethren " are fond of speaking about an accomplished Salvation. It is more correct to say-the Redemption is finished. Christ's death set men free from sin's curse and wages. It is the work of this mediatorial administration by the agency of the Holy Ghost to perfect the salvation of believers from the power and taint of sin. To the last we are saved from wrath through the virtue of His atonement, offered once for all, and no merit of our own renders us acceptable in God's sight. But the Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil, and that purpose is not accomplished till in every individual case sin has been all destroyed from the heart of the believer. It is well to remember the Brethren's protest against there being any saving merit in works done even after justification. On the other hand, we will remind them that, in the words of one of their own advocates, "every child of the new covenant has the law written on his heart, and obeys it." Advice to the Bishop of Lincoln in his Trouble over a Methodist Tombstone, containing Reasons why the Wesleyans cannot accept the Invitation to Return to the Church of England. By the Rev. JOHN BREWSTER, Wesleyan Minister, Sleaford. Nottingham: John Howitt. London Whittaker & Co., Ave Maria Lane. Two Letters to the Bishop of Lincoln, in Reply to his Pastoral to the Wesleyan- Notes on the Bishop of Lincoln's Pastoral to Whatever good or harm Bishop Wordsworth's Pastoral may do to other people, it must surely prove an indirect but most effectual means of instruction and edification to himself. He will henceforth, we trust, be better qualified to write on questions of Church History than his productions have hitherto shown him to be. He has been obliged to look at Ecclesiastical matters from points of view quite new to him. Let us hope that he will not let slip this fine opportunity of raising himself in public estimation by a candid confession of his errors. All the pamphlets above named are able, spirited, and useful, and both as to instruction and interest will well repay perusal; but the "Letters of the Gainsborough Ministers," being in such a cheap and handy form, are the best suited for wide and speedy circulation. The tract is a grave and merited rebuke and a triumphant vindication of Methodism. It should be sown broadcast over the land. Mr. Brewster's is the most eloquent and humorous production, and contains some very fine passages, but at times his eloquence is that of the platform rather than of the press, and his humour a little too broad and grim for the occasion. Though profoundly deferential, he locks up the Bishop, like a convict in the pew of a prison chapel, and lectures him roundly. Mr. Posnett's pamphlet is the most learned. Mr. Hudson's unites the gravity of the "Gainsborough Letters" with something of Mr. Posnett's research, and Mr. Brewster's force. Certainly the power of reply with which our fathers were so richly endowed is not withdrawn from their successors. Here is a specimen of Mr. Brewster's robust eloquence : "You ask, 'Would John Wesley acknow. ledge Wesleyanism as his own work?' (Page 7.) No, my Lord. Most certainly he would not. But lifting up his hands, as he did when he surveyed Methodism a short time before he died, he would exclaim, 'What hath God wrought!' "You ask, "Would John Wesley be a Wesleyan?' (Page 7.) Most certainly! And would give vent to the outgushing of his own devout feelings, similar to those of that bright moment when his spirit took its flight to glory, and exclaim, "The best of all is, God is with us!' * * "That you have 'need of us* I can readily understand. But, my Lord, could you bear our presence? Would not our 'new wine' be apt to 'burst you old bottle,' and 'mar' you worse than ever, and we lose our wine also? "Your appeal, on page 4, deserves important notice. You ask, In how many things are we united with you, and you with us? You have the same Bible with ourselves, and in many respects the same Prayer-Book. Your Service-Book is devised from our Liturgy. We have the same creed. In how many things are we with you, and you with us? And why not in all?' It is a great source of gratification to many of us that we are so nearly allied, in doctrine and observance, with the Church of England. Our doctrines are those drawn from the same fount of plenary inspiration. We embody, in our religious experience, the devout feelings and the holy fervour of those gems of experimental truths-the Collects. And often, when the language of our own lips fails to express the state of our soul, we roll the full tide of devotional feeling, whether in prayer or praise, through the channels of the incomparable Liturgy. Your Creeds, planted in our soil, and watered by the copious showers of blessings' from on high, have blossomed with us like Aaron's rod; and we stand exultingly by your side in these days of Arian blasphemy, to swell the grand old chorus, 'Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen!' "You invite us, a large, living, peaceful, prosperous brotherhood, to return to you. I must ask, to which sect within your borders must we be joined? Shall we bow down with Bennett and his disciples to the sacramental host? Or shall we learn to 'despise Moses's law' with Colenzo?" WATSON AND HAZELL, PRINTERS, LONDON AND ATLESBURY. CITY-ROAD MAGAZINE. OCTOBER, 1873. MEMORIAL SKETCH OF THOMAS DUGDALE, ESQ., OF PARKHILL, NEAR BURNLEY. BY THE REV. J. G. COX. THE readers of the City-Road Magazine will probably remember a beautiful and touching "Memorial Sketch" of the late Mrs. Dugdale, of Park-Hill, from the pen of her respected medical adviser, Dr. Brumwell, which appeared in the Number for October, 1872. It pleased God, in a few short weeks after her decease, to take to Himself the soul of her beloved husband, and thus, after a brief separation, to knit them together in the blissful fellowship of eternity. It seems fitting that a record of his useful labours should be inserted in the serial in which the memory of her quiet worth is enshrined. THOMAS DUGDALE was the son of William Dugdale, Esq., one of the original proprietors of Lower House Mills. He was born at Padiham, December 22nd, 1815. In some brief notices of his religious life, Mr. Dugdale ascribes his "first religious impressions" to the instruction imparted by his pious mother. This is a suggestive fact; it shows how enduring is the earliest maternal influence. That valued parent was removed by death when her child was only seven years old; but even then she had effected a good work in his young soul; she had laid the basis of all his subsequent piety and usefulness; she had sowed "good seed," which, under the fostering grace of the Divine Spirit, brought forth fruit, “first. the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." Consecrated to God, like Samuel, by a godly mother, like Samuel in early life he heard the Divine voice, received the oracles of Eternal Wisdom, and was soon marked out for Christian service. His education was thoroughly Scriptural. He states it might be said of him, as of Timothy, "From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." He was somewhat delicate in health; of a thoughtful disposition; not inclined to the rough sports and mischievous tricks of youth, but attentive to the duties of religion. A mind thus furnished with that truth which is the Spirit's chosen instrument in His saving operations, and thus disposed to yield to these influences, could not fail to be led to Jesus. Hence Mr. Dugdale remarks that, while yet young, he " was awakened to see and feel himself a sinner," "to seek the salvation of his soul," and to "see that salvation was attainable only through faith in the atonement of Christ." Having been preserved from gross sins, possessing a gentle and amiable disposition, and having long been under the drawings of the good Spirit," he did not experience the pungent convictions and overwhelming remorse which those who have spent many years in flagrant and daring sins feel; but he was the subject of a "gradual" work of grace. But though "gradual," the work was deep and abiding, resulting 2 F VOL. IIL FIRST SERIES. |