mising the authority of Jesus, or the principles and claims of "the truth."

Be gentle, yet firm and decided. In meekness instruct those which oppose themselves, if, peradventure, God may give them. repentance to the acknowledgement of the truth; but in maintaining the doctrines of the everlasting gospel; the sole and supreme government of the Son of God in the church; the entire spirituality of his kingdom, and the laws which he has given, be stedfast as the rock, which nothing can move; bold and courageous as the lion, whom nothing can intimidate. Thus you will display an excellence in your office which will command esteem, and be a blessing to many.

V. Finally, seek that you may excel in the example you set to others. The example of a minister of the gospel, has a most extensive and powerful influence; and it is expected, and very justly too, that it should be pure, like the truths which he preaches, and heavenly as the kingdom in which he professedly lives. May you be a burning and shining light, burning, with the heaven-enkindled fire of devotion, love, and zeal in the spiritual services of your ministry; shining, in your habitual conformity to Christ Jesus in your life and conversation. Seek to excel in the spirituality of your mind and temper. Shew to others that you are a man whose treasure is in heaven, and that your heart is where your treasure is, that you cannot mind earthly things. Communion with things unseen and eternal, will keep you apart from worldly associations, and make you think lightly of things which are seen and temporal. Let all your intercourse with men, and all your transactions in the world, be distinguished by integrity and uprightness. The sincerity of your motives should be transparent and above suspicion. And as the flock of God, over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseer, will look to you to go before them in every work of faith and labour of love, be vigilant in all things, and in labours, for Christ's sake, be abundant.

Such, dear brother, is the advice which I would affectionately submit to your consideration, and may grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied to you through Christ Jesus.

(To be Continued.)

A REPLY TO THE REQUEST OF J. LAWSON.

(Continued from page 404. vol. 10.)

The kingdom of heaven is heavenly, spiritual, and not of this world, nor after the fashions of this world. And so none of its appointments to the public ministry therein, by the King's

commission, are earthly, carnal, or after the fashions of this world; nor is the proper discharge of any of the ministerial appointments of the King of Zion, earthly, carnal, or after the fashions of this world; but heavenly and spiritual, according to the nature and character of the kingdom, both in principle and policy.

And therefore, this binding and loosing, are properly spiritual, and not natural; and immediately intend the apostle's work, in the ministration of the truth of the gospel of the kingdom, and of all their divinely appointed successors; the character of the work, and the effects that should follow to the end of the world, and how things shall stand in the judgment day of God, in regard to the effects of the solemn work of the ministry of 'God's truth now on the earth. This binding and loosing however, may be considered to have regard to persons, principles, and practices; and to be both miraculous and ordinary. Miraculous, as peculiar to the apostles in some things only, and ordinary, as common to all the appointed ministers of Christ, in all other things in their measure.

With regard to binding and loosing, it was common among the Jews to call persons who were afflicted with infirmities, bound persons, or persons bound; and healing them was accordingly called loosing them, see Luke xiii. 11, 12, 13, 16; and to inflict any thing, upon any person, was by the same manner of speaking, called binding them. And the apostles had the power of God peculiarly with them, to perform both these in a way of miracles; for they healed the sick and afflicted, Acts iii. 7, 8; Acts xix. 11, 12; and they also struck the presumptuous dead in the name of the Lord, by the word of his truth, Acts v.

To acquit, accept, or receive any person, or matter of any case, was also called loosing the same; while to condemn, disapprove, or reject, was called binding the same. "And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment, and he said unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having on a wedding garment? and he was speechless; and the king said unto the servants, bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness," Mat. xxii. 11, 12, 13. This was spoken in parable, and is not literal, but figurative, and not natural, but spiritual; and after this manner and order, and to this effect, are the discriminations and decisions of a faithful ministration of the truth of the gospel; for whatsoever is wrong in person, or principle, or practice, it opposes, rejects, and condemns, and so binds; and whatsoever is right,

it approves, receives, and pronounces blessed, and so looses. the same; as the apostle Paul says concerning the simple ministration of the gospel, saying, "For we are unto God a sweet savour in Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish; to the one the savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life," 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16. And the same thing is meant in other words, in what the Lord said unto the prophet, concerning the faithful ministration of the truth in old time, saying, "If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth," Jer. xv. 19.

There are many, who for a time, through self abhorrence, condemn themselves, whom truth in spirit all the while really acquits, approves and justifies, and so looses. And there are many, who, like the Pharisees of old, justify themselves, but whom truth all the while disowns, and rejects as unrighteous, and so binds them. And whatever the truth of God on earth pronounces good and blessed, the God of truth in heaven pronounces good and blessed. And whatsoever the truth of God denounces bad and cursed on earth, the God of truth denounces bad and cursed in heaven. For God's truth is no less than a representation of himself, and is truly his own mind and will, told out in words to man on earth, by his own appointed gospel ministry. And his word on earth is as infallible as his will is in heaven; as it is written, For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven," Psalm cxix. 89. "Thy testimonies are very sure," Psalm xciii. 5. And the infallible inspiration of God upon his first ministers of the gospel, was the very same in nature, and differing only in degree, from the ordinary appointment, qualification, and power of God upon all his own ministers to the end of the world, with the same solemnities entailed, according to the measure of their appointment and ministration of the same truth of the gospel of God.

As it was under the apostles' ministry in their days, so it is under the gospel now; "He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not, shall be damned," Mark xvi. 16. 66 He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him," John iii. 36. The very same that truth bound then from the lips of the apostles, truth equally binds now from the lips of God's ministers; and the very same that truth loosed then from the lips of the apostles, truth equally looses now from the lips of God's ministers, saying, "To them who by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life; but to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey

unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish upon every soul that doeth evil, to the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, honour and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel," Rom. ii. 7, 8, 9, 10, 16. That this is the truth of our text, and the divine mind and meaning in it, concerning binding and loosing, especially as to the spirit and temper of the commission, is evident to me,

First. From all that is recorded in the New Testament as to how the apostles fulfilled their ministry, saying, "Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears and temptations, which befel me by the lying in wait of the Jews; and how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you; but have shewed you, and taught you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ," Acts xx. 18, 19, 20, 21.

Second. From the life and ministerial conduct and character of our Lord himself on the earth, who left his disciples an example that they should do as he did, John xiii. 15; and that they should follow his steps, 1 Peter ii. 21. And he was as harmless as he was undefiled, Heb. viii. 26; who when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, 1 Peter ii. 23.

nor

Third. From the charge our Lord gave to his disciples, viz. That they should be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves, Matt. x. 16. Our Lord never put a man to prison, nor confiscated any part of any man's worldly goods, nor arrested literally, by any law, any man for any natural property, because he did not believe and receive the gospel unto salvation, because he did not pay some rate, tax or tithe, to support a religion, however good in itself, in which he did not believe. Nor did the apostles ever imprison any man, nor do any thing in the nature thereof, because he did not receive the gospel unto salvation, nor because he did not pay for what other people believed. For on one occasion, when they talked about calling for temporal punishment from heaven upon some who did not follow with them, the Lord rebuked them, and said unto them, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of; 'for the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save," Luke ix. 53, 54, 55, 56. This clearly shews what the

spirit of the gospel commission and ministry is, and that every thing contrary to the above, done under professed authority from the gospel commission of our Lord to his disciples and succeeding ministers, is from the bottomless pit, and the actors thereof are awfully accountable for their abuse of the truth, and corruption of the sacred text, for world, pomp, pride, and gain.

And as this whole text concerns the New Testament, and the whole order of things therein to the end of the world, whatever Old Testament ceremonies the apostles excluded, as having had their end in the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ, is bound, and has no place by divine authority in the church; and whatever has not one single text from the ministry and pen of the apostles, as that of infant sprinkling, the baptism of any but believers, or persons on a personal profession of faith in Christ, or the communion of unbaptized persons with the church at the table of the Lord, are all without truth and authority from God, in the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ; for our Lord commanded his disciples to teach all things that he commanded them, and they taught no such things by the evidence of one single passage for such purposes in all the New Testament.

And in regard to the commission for binding and loosing, I beg most respectfully here to subjoin, in reply to Joseph Allen's request in the Gospel Herald, October, 1842, page 323, that my views of the remitting and of the retaining of sins, stated in John xx. 23, are immediately the same as on the loosing and binding, which I have now written on these papers, as being but the same subject in other words.

Having now written so much in reply to the respected request of our esteemed friend, J. Lawson, I shall proceed to a close, by very briefly and in few words noticing our Lord's charge to his disciples, as it is written, "Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ." Whatever might be the extent of our Lord's real meaning by these words here, and similar ones elsewhere on other occasions, the following things may be concluded on as implied-1. That he made himself personally as a visible man of no reputation. 2. That he did not seek the vain admiration of all men as a man of wonders. 3. That he did not use universal invitations, nor do all he could to persuade individually the whole human race by all means to go to heaven. 4. That he did not come to be an object of natural sight, but of spiritual faith through the truth of him as the Christ of God according to the scriptures. 5. That natural sight is not