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gent, your submission will be unreluctant and uniform. Be holding in him the kindness of your Saviour, you will daily, according to the expression of the wrestling Patriarch, see your Captain's face, as though you saw the face of God." We hope to receive from him, on his return, such an account of your grateful, affectionate intercourse with him, your goodly order and subordination, your diligent improvement of time and opportunities, your acquiescence in his authority and counsels relative to your settlement in the islands, as will be "like cold waters to the thirsty soul," and will greatly establish our confidence, that you are persons whom "the King of glory will delight to honour." If there should be a revolting individual, it will become the whole body of Missionaries to set their faces against him.

Brethren, we cannot but be solemnly concerned that you may well understand the nature, and feel the weight of the service, to which our Lord calls you. "We live, if you stand fast in the Lord," if you quit yourselves like men, if you are faithful to your trust, if you shine as lights in the world, if you turn many to righteousness.

We, therefore, intreat you to revolve, in your frequent thoughts, the preciousness of that treasure which is commited to your trust. Into your hands we commit the great deposit, the glorious Gospel of the blessed God; even the mystery of love and salvation which came from the bosom and the bowels of Jehovah; that mystery which was the substance of God's earliest revelations, and in subserviency to which the laws of the Most High, obscured by human folly, were republished with such terrible majesty at Mount Sinai ; that mystery, the precious certainty and sweetness of which has been sealed by the testimony of such a cloud of witnesses throughout all ages; and, above all, which God the Son sealed with his own blood; this is the treasure which we request and require you to convey, unadulterated, to the heathen. If you are ashamed of this Gospel; if you add to it, or diminish from it; if you lose sight of its leading articles---the supreme and eternal Deity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the justification by his blood and obedience, the sanctification by his word and Holy Spirit, the sure promise and hope of eternal life, founded on his love and power; if you dishonour this Gospel by your spirit and behaviour, the crime will be great, the consequences will be grievous and mournful.

We send you forth, dear brethren, with this Gospel in your hands, as the rod of Jehovah's strength, to work wonders among the heathen; " to open their eyes, to turn them

from

from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified." This, and nothing less, is the object of our desires and endeavours. This, O beloved Missionaries, is your work, to rescue immortal souls from the endless burnings of hell, to raise them to the joys and glories of heaven. Meditate night and day on the unmeasurable importance of this work, in the most secret and unconnected instance of real success.

But behold, we beseech you, dear brethren, a whole world looking en, while you accomplish this great warfare. When we survey the connections of these endeavours, and their possible, yea probable consequence, our hearts are ready to fail, and to sink down overwhelmed, at the solemn view.

You know that the eyes of many thousands of the righteous in this island are upon you. How many righteous souls would be wounded, and made sad, how many closets covered with a cloud, how many public assemblies hung with sackcloth, should criminality on your part occasion a failure of this attempt! The wicked also at home are looking on; they watch for your halting. The unclean rebel, the haughty infidel, the scoffer, the adversary of the Lord, is ready to transmit your shame, fraughted with blasphemy, all over the country. In foreign European countries, amidst the crashing fall of Antichrist, the abomination of desolation, the defying flag of infidelity appears unfurled. Nations of infidels will strengthen themselves, and blaspheme the holy power of the Gospel, if, through your negligence, or perfidy, it should be baffled. Behold the immense crouds of the heathen who now cover South America, China, the East-Indies, and other Pagan countries, and their children, and children's children, prepared to pour their curses to all eternity on the men who, vested with the sacred character of Missionaries, disfigured the glorious Gospel by their folly and impurity, who excited fatal disgust at the alone medicine of perishing souls.

Dear brethren, we mention these things for your warning; but we hope better things of you, and gladly turn our thoughts to a brighter prospect. In connection with your humble, faithful, and persevering labours, we behold not only the im mortal fire kindled in many souls, under your immediate charge, but diffusing itself in all directions, and through all succeeding ages. The righteous at home will be comforted, enlivened, and roused to their work. The wicked will be astonished, and awake from their fatal slumbers. In foreign European countries, the ferocity of Atheism will be curbed,

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and the end of the desolations of Antichrist clearly understood. Other Missionaries already engaged in the work, inspired with fresh courage, will redouble their exertions. From region to region, in the Pagan world, the inquiry will pass, "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as doves to their windows?"

Consider, we intreat you, beloved brethren, in what light these things shall appear, when you enter the darkness of the valley of the shadow of death, and are sensibly approaching to the utmost point of time bordering with eternity; and, still more, when your separated spirits are appearing at the tribunal of Christ, and directly under his glorious eyes. "Knowing the terror of the Lord, constrained by his love, do your utmost, while it is day, to persuade men, that you may be made manifest to God, and also in their consciences.”

We hope, dear brethren, you will believe us, when we say that the difficulties and dangers of your work lie near our hearts. Be assured you shall not go through the waters and fires alone. We, and many others, will be with you in the Spirit. You will be borne up in the arms of thousands to whom the God of Jacob hath not said, "Seek ye me in vain ?" In your weakness we will be weak, in your fears we will tremble, in your distresses we will suffer, in your consolations we will rejoice. Therefore suffer the word of exhortation, and let these sayings sink down into your ears. Contemplate those everlasting arms that are underneath you. In the hour of embarrassment, fainting, and alarm, "take heed, and be quiet, fear not.” "Enter into your chambers;" go into the sanctuary of strength, even into the inner recesses of divine power and love. Remember that the battle is the Lord's. Dishonour not your glorious God by unbelieving timidity. «Glorify ye the Lord in the fires, even the Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea." And when you are become strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might, and are walking on your high places, cast back a look of supplicating compassion towards your brethren at home, then weak in comparison of those feeble, "who, according to the promise, are as David, and those Davids that are as the mighty angels of God.”

When your path is doubtful, look upwards for the counsel of him who hath said, "I will guide thee with mine eye; I will bring the blind by a way that they know not." Discouraged with the delay of success, stir up yourselves to take hold of God. Look into the everlasting covenant of pro

mises,

mises, which is mighty, and shall endure when the mountains depart, and the hills are removed.

In these distant lands make the Lord himself your habitation. In him you shall be at home. The mountain, the stream, the shore, the wide-spreading tree shall become sweet by his presence. From the scene of death you will point to them, saying, "There God Almighty appeared to me, and blessed me."

We address to you the heavenly salutation, "O men, greatly beloved, fear not: Peace be unto you, be strong, yea, be strong." Remember them, "who, through faith, have subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens; of whom others were tortured not accepting deliverance, were stoned, were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented." Your victory is, "not to fear them who cruelly kill the body, but to love them with a love strong as death." This victory you obtain, abundantly, through him that loved you. For we trust that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

Dear brethren, what shall we more say? That you may be cheered and revived by the presence of the high and lofty One, you must be of a contrite and humble spirit. The inscription written in your hearts must be, "The chief of sinners,---less than the least of all saints." Many of you are now drawn forth from obscure situations, and in the early period of life, and are placed conspicuous in the view of the world. The Lord forbid they should prove such novices, as being lifted up with pride, fall into the condemnation of the devil!"

Sorrowful and ashamed we will hear the report, if any of you fall by those enticements," which have cast down many wounded, and by which many strong men have been slain." Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation; lest you should appear before the heathen "as fools in Israel," and be found lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." "Exhort one another daily, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness VOL. IV. springing

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springing up, trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." An austere negative purity, however, is not enough: You must convince the heathen that the commandments of the Lord," which exclude "fornication and all uncleanness from being once named among saints, are not grievous;" that you enjoy liberty and delight in renouncing the impure pleasures of the flesh; and that, like the angels of God, you behold sinners with abhorrence and compassion, not with envy, while they eagerly drink these polluted and empoisoned waters.

Such virtue as this cannot be maintained, amidst continual temptation, without the presence of the Lord in a great degree. And that presence will forsake you, and leave you a prey to the adversary, if you should indulge discord and discontents. When the Corinthians had "muttered perverseness of this kind, soon the cockatrice-eggs of infamous impurity were hatched among them;" and the' sweet spirit of Paul, wounded by their debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults," feared lest his God" should humble him among them, and he should bewail many that had sinned, and had not repented of the uncleanness, and fornication, and Tasciviousness which they had committed." In a band of Missionaries, however, a cold negative union is not sufficient; there should be that powerful melting of love, which the apostolical exhortation demands, when it pronounces that Christians ought to lay down their lives for their brethren," and which that glorious couple exemplified, who for the life of Paul laid down their own necks."

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we point the denunciations of divine anger against the man who shall first prove wilfully false to his cause; against the man who shall obstinately cherish the aspiring of vain ambition; against the man who shall sink into the arms of a harlot ; against the man who shall fan the latent sparks of discord and contention ; against the wicked and slothful servant; saying to such a man, if he continues impenitent, in the words of the great Missionary Apostle, The Lord reward him according to his works." If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maran-atha!"

Finally, dear brethren, we give you in charge to convey to the people of Otaheite, and other islands whither you may come,

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