and the good of his churches, to sweep with my eye the whole Evangelical horizon, and report to my readers how the conflict with the world of darkness was proceeding; and in doing this, at the opening of the present year, in due course I lighted on the realm of Methodism, concerning which I reported according to the facts of the case; and I appeal to every man who now hears me, whether the article comprising that Report was not framed by candour, and pervaded by a spirit of Christian kindness, not to say generosity. (Cheers.) Having exercised my judgment and delivered my conscience, I contemplated nothing further; I had not the most distant idea of following up the matter in the way of assault or controversy, and I submit there was nothing in the article aforesaid that ought to have given particular offence and that warranted such a tempest of clamour, such a flood of calumny, as that which has followed. (Cheers.) I confidently affirm there was not. Had the Methodists exercised a wise discretion, they would have taken my counsel for what it was worth, and endeavoured to profit from it. Hear, hear.) But they have judged otherwise. We, they and I, are now fairly in for it, and must go through with it. (Laughter and cheers.) I will yield to no man on earth in my love for all that is lovely among the Methodists. (Hear, hear.) For the proof I point to the labours of a lifetime. I have written more in praise of its better parts, many times over, than all the gentlemen united who now hear me. (Hear, hear.) But I intensely hate, I have ever hated, the despotism of the system; and, but for that, I might most probably not have been standing here this day. Methodism has become a great and important element in British society, and is now in a position powerfully to affect the best interests of the nation. Its government is essentially despotic, and as such, anti-popular. But the peril is not confined to England. The field of its chief danger is in the colonies. man, with a philosophical turn of mind, who can trace the operation of principles on the constitution of civil society, only look at the colonies, and contemplate the state of things I have set forth in a recent letter, which appeared in the Patriot newspaper, and say whether the working of the system of Methodism in the colonies is not a thing to be viewed with special alarm. (Hear, hear.) Against that system I will, I must contend. (Cheers.) Our oppressed and afflicted brethren in the colonies shall ever find in the WITNESS a voice to proclaim their

Let any

wrongs and defend their rights. Still, in the pursuit of this and kindred objects, like our brethren who act in remembrance of their relation to the Alliance, I will at all times studiously endeavour, to the best of my ability, to keep in mind my relation to this great community, whom it is my honour to serve, that, as much as may be, my proceedings may at all times comport with my responsible and honourable position. (Cheers.) This day, I repeat, has been to me one of extreme and unmixed gratification. Indeed, I think our Magazine Report is always a source of chief interest and excitement during the sittings of our Union. I rejoice in being able to say, that my position throughout the whole of the year now closed has been one of complete and intense satisfaction. (Cheers.) Whether, as to the Committee of Confidence, the Committee of the Magazines, or the Executive Committee of the Union, I am alike satisfied; I have not a syllable of complaint to utter. If the tone of the WITNESS be not always in keeping with that of the Alliance, I hope my friend, Mr. James, will have a little patience, and, in process of time, perhaps the distance between his views and mine on this one point may be lessened. (Laughter.) My friend, Mr. Ely, to-day has testified to my improvement. (Laughter.) My case is not wholly hopeless. I think I am just about where Mr. James was at my age, when he wrote his splendid and powerful pamphlet against the Established Church-(laughter and cheers)—which, by the way, I have some thoughts of publishing; he could not write it now. (Laughter and cheers.) Well, then, the matter just comes to this:-It is a pure question, not of truth, but of benevolence. I have now all his truth, but want his charity. He, without diminishing his truth, has added to his benevolence; some dozen years hence, I may perhaps secure the same accumulation; this is all. Till then, I must go on as I best can. (Laughter and cheers.) I heartily thank you, then, for all your kindness and co-operation, by which I am cheered, strengthened, and animated to go forth to the labours of another year. To you, to the deacons, to the teachers, and to multitudes of zealous friends, I ascribe nine-tenths of all the success which has attended these my efforts at the public good. For myself I claim very little beyond the praise of systematic industry, persevering attention, and an earnest desire to promote the welfare of the churches, and the glory of God. (Loud cheers.)

CHRONICLE OF THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION OF ENGLAND AND WALES: OF THE THREE SOCIETIES FOR BRITISH MISSIONS: AND OF THE BOARD FOR GENERAL EDUCATION IN CONNECTION WITH THE UNION. PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNION, HELD IN CROSBY HALL, BISHOPSGATE-STREET, LONDON. MONDAY, May 10, 1847. Evening-The Distributors of the CHRISTIAN WITNESS and CHRISTIAN'S PENNY MAGAZINE Fund in aid of Aged

Ministers met in the Congregational Library. Their proceedings are embodied in the Report presented to the Assembly, which will appear at the proper place in this account.

TUESDAY, May 11. Morning.-First Session of the Assembly.

The Rev. Algernon Wells moved, and Benjamin Hanbury, Esq., seconded:

I. That the Rev. Dr. Hamilton be appointed Chairman of this Assembly, and of all adjournments thereof; which, on being put by Mr. Hanbury, was adopted with cordial unanimity.

Dr. Hamilton having taken the chair, and conducted the opening worship, delivered the following

ADDRESS.

HONOURED AND WELL-BELOVED BRETHREN,-I congratulate you on the revolution of this annual period, on the renewal of this holy gathering-both worthy occasions of grateful notice and praise. Not for the first time has the voice of Nonconformist supplication and thanksgiving been heard in these once regal halls. This palace, in which Shakspeare lays a scene, strangely became, amidst the changes from which the houses of kings are not reserved, a Meetinghouse where spiritual dissent and evangelic truth found a refuge and a sanctuary; these walls, erst hung with arras and tapestry, resounding with revel and minstrelsy-still retaining many a carving and enrichmentechoed the simple strains of our fathers: and "how beautiful" stood they here who "published the gospel of peace," while the pathos of a Grosvenor, commenting on the last charge of Jesus touching his murderers, lingers yet in these storied associations, and seems to hover over us with an undying influence. That sacred cause, for which they suffered the loss of all things, for which they perilled life and what was far more dear than life, we are not prepared to forsake. It possesses all its original truth, authority, and excellence; and these are only the more recommended to us by the nature of our circumstances and the spirit of our times!

There may be a kindlier feeling towards us: a truculent cruelty no more animates the rudest throng: we stand upon the ground of many enacted safeguards and rights: coarser persecutions are made ashamed: there is "a little reviving in our bondage." But we grossly mistake all that is passing around, if we suppose that our more powerful and more numerous fellow-countrymen are reconciled to our principles, or that they regard our advancements without a jealous dislike. The ancient ban still falls upon us-and from that which apostles bore we need not shrink-we "persuade men to worship God contrary to the law." We deny the right of civil legislation in the matter of religion. We disavow and denounce all force and fraud, all lure and menace, all gain and deprivation, all secular advantage and detriment, as means, motives, and sanctions, of promoting Christianity. We esteem them not only as unauthorized, but estrangements from its purpose and outrages upon its spirit. These things must be in every State-incorporation of it: we, therefore, abjure, however plausibly modified, however blandly

disguised, the idea, and the ideal, of religious establishments. But, holding these convictions, we are aware that they bring us into serious and painful conflict with our generation. We believe that they have vital power in them. We believe that they are strictly the principles of religion, not only accordant with it, but those which it attests as exclusively proper to it, and which it stamps with peculiar validity. We believe that the Divine complacency in them, that the divine assertion of them, secure their final victory. We believe that they are interwoven with all the essences of sound government, true polity, genuine liberty, social progress, and high civilization. We believe that a certain sympathy of the age favours them, and that the agitation of each public question gives them notableness, prevalence, and exaltation. The succours of heaven, the onwardness of every good principle and right tendency, forbid irresoluteness and distrust. But we hide not from ourselves that we have entered a conflict, whose term cannot be short, whose struggle must be severe. All interests are arrayed against us. There is an ambition which goes down to the humblest rank of life, and which incites by the honours of the highest. There is a wealth, untold in its sums, indefinite in its distributions, and complicated with every variety and tenure of property. There is a prejudice, deep-rooted in antiquity and usage, which shuts itself against inquiry and debate. There is a caste and a status with which our opinions cannot co-exist. There is not a carnal weapon but is turned against us, and there is not one by which we may arrest their points. With us it is only, can be only, a conflict of principles. Yet a war of opinions is not always gentle. Men contend stoutly, not rarely with bitterness, for theory. But possession, ascendancy, prescription, are with our opponents. And that which will give an earnestness to this strife in its present stage, an unwonted earnestness, is, that Nonconformists now most ingenuously and nobly take their stand upon their ultimate principle, while Establishments, abandoning many an outwork, flee to their last entrenchment and occupy their last defence.

This crisis imposes upon us other duties besides those of valour for truth, and zeal for freedom. The Christian temper will be grievously tested. Offences will come. Many worldly men will range against us; we cannot expect them, we would not seek them, on our side.. Then if offence cometh, let it not come from us. We shall expose and betray our cause by every railing accusation. Above all, let not insinuation against the rectitude of character and

motive be so much as named among us. Let us put away from us all wrath and clamour and evil speaking. Be assured that the boisterous partizan is not the most enduring soldier, and that he who is temperate in all things, and who striveth lawfully, will carry the triumph.

Maintaining our perfect congregationalismevery conceivable and practical independence of our churches-we find in the working of this law a warrant for its obligation, and an ensign of its divinity. It might be suspectedit might even be reasoned-that its effect would be general disunion. But though we have no symbol-creed, no community is better agreed in its theology. Though we have no ecclesiastical council, nor classis, no ministry lives and acts together in more amiable brotherhood. The commonwealths of earth, in their very independence, are often endangered. Their equality is rife with mutual fears. Since they cannot overawe each other, they exist amidst perpetual alarm. "It is no easy matter," says the philosophic Robertson, in his View of the State of Europe, "to render the union of independent states perfect and entire, even when the genius and the forms of their respective governments happen to be altogether similar." But, not giving a judgment what should be the form of civil government, thinking that no one, in all circumstance, is the best, we are restricted to that of Christian churches. In this there is no dispensing power, no allowance for expedients, no admission of exceptions: a law is promulgated without caveat or condition, salvo or proviso, margin or license. The kingdom of Christ endures none other law. He reigns not merely supreme, he reigns alone. His statute-book is wholly comprised in his word. By this we must abide, to the very scorn of tradition, subsidy, and intervention. Its administration is of ourselves. We are dreadly accountable how we keep it!

Our regimen is not, albeit, self-terminating, though self-inherent. It encourages, as well as admits, the largest "fellowship in the gospel." Though in this view we embrace "all saints," we now speak of the relationship of independent churches to each other. We maintain that this intercommunity is as native to them, as characteristic of them, as their individuality. We know of no dissocialized, fragmentary, churches. They are one, they are confessedly and formally one, where their faith and economy are one. The "great zeal" of Epaphras was not only for the Colossians as "one of them," but "for them that were in Laodicea and them in Hierapolis."

Such, Christian friends, is our union. We

merge and compromise nothing in it. It does not so much create as express our unity. It but elicits, combines, and directs, what did always exist. It doubtless imparts a certain strength. In addition to its fitness and orderliness, it prepares many facilities. It stamps, in a severelyassayed mintage, the opinions and counsels of our clearest and ripest minds. It is a mechanism for prompt and ready action. It is a great membership and instrument for missionary and scholastic purposes. It furnishes an encyclical vehicle for important information and impulse. Nor can we forget that there are common objects, dear and precious to us, which do not fall within our ecclesiastical constitution, or our separate ability. Their attainment demands our concerted deliberation, caution, and resources. Detached, our influence would be ineffective; combined, it must succeed. This is surely legitimate cause and honourable ground for banding our energies. What can the solitary reaper, or the straggling warrior, do ?

They singularly mistake the question of our principles, who would guage them by their general acceptableness to the minds of men, or by their rapid efficiency. We freely, mourningly, concede that we see around us many principles which would better agree with the general taste; we can understand that their adoption would win to us greater favour, and succeed in a more sudden result. Our simple question is, What are right principles ? What are they to which we are scripturally confined? Connexional, rather than independent, principles, might be more pleasant, and would suggest far more stirrings of certain activity and passion. Stateaid, rather than voluntary and spontaneous effort, would be far more easy, and would yield a large amount of convenience. But what owe we to the Eternal Son, who is over his own house? To us it is no calculation of means. To us it is no shifting of difficulties. We poise and balance nothing. We have no alternative. Only is it left us to obey. We "cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord, to do either good or bad of our own mind.”

Our churches of old were set for witnesses. Theirs has been an unvarying testimony. It has partaken both of protest and rebuke. We speak not of the exiles of the English church, who sought our asylum under the second Charles. Our thoughts are with the Separatists,

Robinson, Ainsworth, Thacker, Penry, Barrow, Greenwood, Rough, Simpson. We celebrate, still later in this history, our pilgrim fathers. Yet later still, we recall "the Dissenting brethren,"-Stephen More, Joseph Caryl, Philip Nye. All this is anterior to the 24th of

August, 1662. We are not indifferent to that day, but it is not our day! Our commemoration is far higher! We ascend to a holier antiquity! And what is the testimony of the Tudor martyrs from whom we inherit? Unbrokenly, unfailingly, our own. The headship of Christ over his churches, their unearthly institution, their independence of civil dictation, their spiritualism, their distinctiveness, their union, their simple adhesion to Scripture, their self-support. We are not summoned to the sterner duties of martyrdom. We are witnesses unto this day. Witnesses cannot constitute majorities; we should not have forfeited that function were we fewer than we are. Witnesses wear not the wreath and robe of victory,-it is enough for them to prophecy, clothed in sackcloth, and in the dust; we may be assured that the task is painful and depressing. Witnesses, in opposition to public sentiment and maxim, “torment them that dwell on the earth;" we may expect irritation and resentment. Witnesses may be slain, and their very remains be dishonoured, yet for their more glorious resuscitation; we may be silenced and insulted, but our testimony can never find a grave; the spirit of life from God shall enter it, and it shall be exalted high as heaven. Let us be contented with this calling for the necessary season, whatever the length of its mystic days. We lay other churches under a debt to us. We confer a mighty blessing upon the world. Hereafter they will call us benefactors. Gratitude is often tardy. Men slowly learn who are their wisest teachers and truest friends.

Let it not, nevertheless, be dreamed that our descriptive principles are halting and inert among ourselves. Never were they more accurately understood. Never were they more consistently sustained. There is a brave fearlessness given to all their possible applications. We yield ourselves to them, whithersoever they will bear us. We surrender them to their issues. While we do not abandon the helm of our bark, we check not its prow. But it is not among ourselves that we can most truly ascertain the furtherance of our principles. This might be a partial judgment. Look into other spheres of thought and action. Explore the Established Church of England. It has caught the happy infection. What a munificence of offered gifts has she brought to her altars! At her free bidding what temples and schools have risen! If she were shamed into the emulation by us, she has shamed us by her example in return!

It tells much for principles when they take this quiet course; when they exercise this tacit influence; when they operate where they are

denied; when they enter the hearts of them by whom they are disavowed. This is a resemblance to light and to attraction-comparisons which can disgrace no cause. Movement is felt always as it recedes from the centre: there is more darkness immediately beneath the lamp than in the circuit of its irradiation. I can thank God for the usefulness of my denomination, even forgetting all its interior monuments, when I see how it has carried its principles into other communities, and how, at the same time, these have checked many of their own!

Certain events, which have occurred in the course of this year, affecting our history, cannot be overlooked.

A measure, most unconstitutional in its form, most ensnaring in its character, has been brought into the Legislature, and for the time has passed. Though we might not agree to an absolute unanimity on certain abstract and residuary points -as it was declared to be designedly and necessarily a scheme of religious education-we have, it is believed, with one voice, repudiated it. We, who object to all Establishments of religion, could not foster a new one. We, who refuse all Parliamentary grant for religious purposes, could not accept this. We have been overborne. But our resistance has not been in vain. Public inquiry has been aroused. Cognate questions have been provoked. Men begin to search more keenly into the scope of government and the province of legislation. An incredible extent of misinformation and prejudice has been detected, which has, at least, been surprised and shocked. All the symptoms of misgiving have been betrayed. Brilliant sophism was all that could be afforded in answer to statistics and facts. We have stood true. We have been found faithful among the faithless. Its mockery of fairness towards us, who could not defile ourselves with its benefits, we saw from the beginning: but State-craft and diplomacy had not prepared us for its ignoble shifts and its gratuitous wrongdoings, What concerns us now is our honour! In all our conduct, throughout this strife, this has come forth unstained. It must have been respected from the first, for none tampered with us. We doubt not that it is allowed in high places, however our opposition be deplored. A nobler passage scarcely does our history inscribe. It will tell our children that we, the foremost friends of education, would not make an idol of that charmed word; that, the warmest champions of justice and impartiality, we could not be deceived by their pretexts; that we held out where many trusted to see us in the van; that we saw, cowled in that scheme, a ghostly power ready to seize the universal mind; and that all

acknowledge that, while we felt defeat, we sank not under it; that we at no moment, not in the last reverse, despaired of our principles; that we left the conflict, and that only for a time, bating nothing of heart and hope; warped by no negotiation; corrupted by no bribe; soiled by no intrigue; disgraced by no coalition;-not having bartered our Protestantism; not having cashiered our Bible; not having strengthened the impugners of the glory and the atonement of our Divine Lord;-unconscious of the shame of abandoning our friends, casting off our confederates, or crouching to our enemies.

But the trial has not past. There glitters still the bait. We may after all recant. Retreat is still open. Can such things be supposed? Shall there go forth from us, after our disclaimers, a stooping mendicant? Having said, before the Great, lavish with their gifts, "As the Lord liveth, before whom we stand, we will receive none"-is there a Gehazi who will regret that we have "spared" them in not "receiving at" their "hands that which" they brought," is there a Gehazi who will "run after" them "and take somewhat" of them?

Our Union has assumed during this year of famine a truly philanthropic rank. Apart from what all have been required to give as citizens, apart from what has flowed into other religious channels, it has contributed towards wretched Ireland the sum of thirteen thousand pounds.

Intent as we are to raise the literature, and especially the Biblical erudition, of our body, I have high satisfaction in announcing that the great desideratum of criticism is realized, and that a perfect transcript of the Vatican Codex of the New Testament has been obtained. Signor Muralto availed himself of the golden opportunity of copying it, well prepared as he was with other collations; and this month it is issued in its fullest size, a smaller edition having appeared in February, with prolegomena, symbols, and authorities. This MS., it need not be remarked, has long supplanted the supposed priority and weight of the Alexandrine, being the very hoarded treasure of Rome, and leaving all it lent to Alcala a comparatively worthless heap. We may never hope for, incomplete as it is, a higher authority or a purer text.

It is the glory of our ministry and pastoracy to inherit the richest theology which any community could ever boast. I am confident that we are faithful to it. We are not ashamed of fixedness of belief. In the idea of God, Christianity can only be one, invariably the same. In the human reading of it, we hold that there may be, and ought to be, certitude and precision. But the art of studying it may constantly

improve. Its own applications to new forms of society, and new conditions of mind, may be as unexpectedly new. We may have much of which to disabuse ourselves, as that which we thought was taught by Scripture, but of which Scripture is utterly unknowing. Our very frenzy would be to dispute any facts of science, from a jealous regard to revelation. The facts of science are the works of God; their phenomena are a species of revelation, they are proved by the evidence of our senses; and though false theory, raised upon them, may contradict proper revelation, the things themselves never can. I pray that we may alike stand aloof from a pseudo-liberalism of theology, and from a morbid suspicion of philosophical investigation.

Of all men we are bound to show that we are "not of the night, nor of darkness." We predict that our principles will advance, because we believe that they are those of both Testaments. But we do not depreciate other auguries. We confide that these principles will gracefully coalesce with the most refined state of things in this world, and as powerfully help and hasten it. We have no fear that our church-polity will stand as an uncouth anomaly amidst any reign and triumph of mind. We have no desire to keep back the intellect of men, that it may not exceed our polity. We have faith in all truth, in all knowledge, and in all inquiry. The growing light of the age, the augmenting power of opinion, the distrust of prescription, the love of freedom, the tendency of research, the very oscillations of the popular mind, all yield us encouragement, and all inspire us with hope. We can anticipate no high condition of secular knowledge, no palmy period of civil liberty, to which our form of polity might not commend itself. No extending intelligence, no coming event, can we dread. Men cannot be too wise for its guidance, nor too free for its restraint. It has always been in advance of the times; it is still; it yet marshals the way; and let human progress be what it may, this will, after all, be the forerunner. It is so rational, it is so natural, it is so self-balancing-the best characteristics of any law-never forgetting that it is to the letter, how much more in its spirit, scriptural -that we cannot doubt its success, nor misread its hereafter! We court the light which pierces it! It thrives best in those beams!

I will do my utmost to preserve the order of your proceedings and the impartiality of your discussions; it depends upon you to give them their fitting weight, seriousness, and dignity.

"And this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more, in knowledge, and in all