Church knoweth not how to promote such an object, but by the instrumentality of subordinate societies: even as the state sometimes administers the government of a remote branch of the empire by the same means. Two societies were instituted about a hundred years ago; but the period for great and successful exertion was evidently not then come. You are a Third Society established in more auspicious times; and others may follow.

It is not your duty, I say, to wait till the Nation, in its public capacity, begin to send forth preachers to the Gentiles. If that event should ever arrive, you prepare the way. If Individuals did not begin, the Universal Church would not follow. What measure of great public utility was ever executed by Church or State, which was not first proposed by Individuals?-which was not first resisted by the greater body; and, perhaps, defeated for a time?

Consider, finally, the example of the Great Author of our Religion. Draw your light from Christ. At the first promulgation of his Gospel to the Heathen World, he gave his commission to individuals. During three hundred years, the Ministry of the Gospel was committed to individuals: I mean they were not associated by any authority of temporal empire: and by them the

conversion of the nations was effected, under the direction of their respective Churches in Rome, Corinth, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. It may be the Divine will that the promulgation of the Gospel at this time should be effected partly by the same means.

Your object and that of the Bible Society is the same. It is to give the Bible to the World. But, as that Sacred Volume cannot be given to men of different nations until it be translated into their respective languages, it is the province

of

your Institution to send forth proper instruments for this purpose. Your Society is confined to Members of the Established Church. You do not interfere with the "society for the "Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," nor with that" for Promoting Christian Know"ledge:" for neither of these professes the precise objects to which you would confine yourselves. It does not seem to be possible to frame an objection to your establishment. When the design and the proceedings of your institution shall have been fully made known, you may expect the support of the Episcopal Body, of the two Universities, and of every zealous Member of the Church of England.

It has been objected to that Noble Institution to which we have alluded, the British and Foreign

Bible Society, that it is in its character universal; that it embraces all, and acknowledges no cast in the Christian Religion; and it has been insinuated, that we ought not to be zealous even for the extension of Christ's Kingdom, if we must associate, in any degree, with men of all denominations. But, surely, there is an error in this judgment.. We seek the aid of all descriptions of men in defending our country against the enemy. We love to see men of all descriptions shewing their allegiance to the King. Was it ever said to a poor man "You are not qualified to shew your allegiance to the King? You must not cast your mite into the treasury of your King?" My Brethren, let every man, who opposes these Institutions, examine his own heart whether he "be true in his allegiance to the King of kings."

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For myself, I hail the present unanimity of hitherto discordant bands, as a great event in the Church; and as marking a grand character of Christ's promised kingdom; when "the "leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the "calf, and the young lion, and the fatling to"gether, and a little child shall lead them." Isaiah xi. 6. I consider the extension and unity of the Bible Society as the best pledge of the continuance of the Divine mercy to this land; and I doubt not, the time will come when

the nation will reckon that Society a greater honour to her, as a Christian People, than institution of which she

any other

boast.

can

We shall now conclude this discourse with stating to you the cause why so few comparatively co-operate in these sacred designs. Many, it is probable, are ignorant of their existence : some may be supposed, without any culpable. motives, to question their expediency: but the greater part, it is feared, are restrained by a state of mind, which we cannot sufficiently condemn and deplore. It is not because they do not believe in Christianity, generally; but because they are strangers to Christ's spiritual religion. They have seen the light of civilization, but they have not seen the "Light of Life;" and this is the great and important distinction on which the happiness of the soul depends. This was the great distinction in the time of the Apostle Paul; for even in the day of HIS ministration, the Gospel was hid from some. "If our Gospel be HID," saith he, "it is "hid to them that are lost." 2 Cor. iv. 3. If then the light was hid from some when he preached, with a divine energy, and with the demonstration of miracles, shall we wonder that it is hid from some in our day?

There is nothing, my Brethren, worth living

for, of equal importance with the diffusion of this light. We must all meet again at a future day, in a larger Assembly than the present, when we shall behold HIM who has said, "I am the Light "of the world." Let every one of us, then, “BEAR WITNESS to the light;" by contributing, according to his ability, to its extension throughout the world: If the Christian Revelation be from God, to give that Revelation to the heathen world is the first duty of a Christian nation. If there be a majority of our nation who do not acknowledge this duty, the case is not different from what it ever hath been. When the Apostle Paul went forth to evangelize the world, men accounted him to be "beside himself." Now we have stronger encouragement to attempt the conversion of the heathen world at this day, than the Apostle had, in the first age; for we have seen that their conversion is PRACTICABLE. We only meditate to do that a second time which hath been once done already. And we know that the same Divine Spirit which was with him, "will abide in the world for ever." Men were not converted then, merely by the sight of a miracle: but by the Grace of God. And the same Grace is promised to us.

Do we not

But there is another consideration. hear the command of Christ? "Go ye and teach