Wherefore, let us attend to the commandments he gave to his disciples, on leaving this world for a season. Verse 13," He called his ten servants, and delivered unto them ten pounds"—a definite number put for an indefinite, both as regards the servants and the pounds, or talents, delivered to them; and we are to understand this as generally applicable to the Church to the end of the dispensation, because these words follow: "Occupy till I come."

This charge I give, first of all, unto my own soul, in the presence of you all, and in His sight; for he has certainly committed unto me, at least, one pound, which, by his grace, I must employ better than heretofore, in warning, and rebuking, and exhorting, and inviting all of you, to give all diligence to make your calling and election sure, if so be that I may but present every one of you perfect in Christ Jesus at his coming. And, my brethren, conscious of inefficient labours, and weakness, and infirmities, and sins, I ask your forgiveness for the past, and prayers for the future. O pray, cry mightily unto God for your minister, that the Spirit may be given him whereby to crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts, to teach you by example as well as by doctrine; lest after having preached to others, he himself should be a castaway. I speak not this of fear, but because I desire to reap a full reward!

Secondly, I say to you also, speaking in the person of Christ, "Occupy till I come." Set Christ always before you as your object, in all the glories of his cross, and in all the coming glories of his kingdom. Let the business of the day be done in the day, and that which every day requireth.

Your closet duty. On no account neglect the Word of God and prayer for you own souls in private. Seek, O seek communion with Christ in secret, and be assured at his coming he will reward you openly.

Your domestic duty. Occupy your station, O bless your households! Parents and rulers attend to this; children and servants be thankful for it. Let all be consecrated to God by the sprinkling of the blood of the covenant at morning and evening sacrifice. O see ye to it: follow Job's example, let it be done continually.

And your church duties. Occupy the sanctuary" till I come." Brethren, we were falling into sad negligence; and though I bless God for some improvement, there is yet room for much more; wherefore, while I would on no account have any exceed their strength or health (for we are to have respect unto the body as well as the soul), yet, I beseech you, beware lest you fall into making vain and worldly excuses for neglecting the Lord's house; for if such be your case, he will surely requite it at his coming. I pray you rouse up yourselves, and call your best energies into vigorous exercise. Watch, pray, and worship, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

Lastly. Occupy in the sanctuary: "Show ye forth the Lord's death till he come." All ye that truly confess your sins, and seek pardon and peace in Jesus, shew your faith in his death at the supper, the feast of the Lord, this day! And here, let me ask, how is it that so many of you turn away, or partake with the faithful so seldom? Ah! my brethren, it is because the world makes such encroachments upon your time, and is allowed to occupy your minds. and engage your hearts. And O it breaks my heart! it is because I have served you so badly; have been cold and unfruitful as well as you; and have deep need, if I condemn you, to condemn myself much more, because we have not occupied or served as believers in the Lord's coming ought.

But, dear brethren, since we have cause to weep together, let us remember we have cause to rejoice. Our glorious King is gracious, and yet speaks peace. Our very convictions, as well as all other graces, are tokens of his love, for he gives repentance and pardons sin. Come then, as many of you as seek Jesus, as many as cry for pardon and grace, and desire salvation and glory! Show forth his death until he come. As always, so now, I testify that the efficacy of the cross, the merits of his death, are, and will be, deeply needed for every one of you up to the moment of the crown being bestowed.

Trust in him, then, and occupy to the end, that when Christ, who is our life, shail appear, ye also may appear with him in glory.

THE IMPORTUNATE WIDOW A TYPE OF GOD'S ELECT PEOPLE.

REV. J. STRATTEN,

PADDINGTON CHAPEL, DECEMBER 13, 1835.

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And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?"-LUKE, xviii. 7, 8.

Some of our Lord's parables are analogical, founded upon the simple principle of a narrative and story. This is the case with the parable of the prodigal son. The prodigal son represents the Gentiles going far away from God: the elder brother is the Jew, abiding in the divine house and family, and favoured with all the privileges belonging to that state. And when the key is given, we trace the resemblance in its various points. So also with the parable of the sower and the seed: when Christ represents himself as the sower, and the world as the field, every thing is clear and easy to the mind. So also in the parable of the tares and the wheat: the instant the interpretation is given, it is all plain, and obvious, and indisputable.

Some of the parables of Christ are constructed upon a two-fold principle-on analogy in some points, and contrast in others. In the parable of the unjust steward, his dishonesty and his infidelity to his trust are evidently to be discountenanced and condemned: nothing is to be commended but his sagacity, his prudence, his foresight. So in the parable which is now before us, there are some points in which the analogy is clear and palpable. The widow who is desolate and afflicted, crying for succour and for justice, beautifully represents the church of Christ amid the afflictions of the world and the oppressions of the wicked. Her importunity also, is the type and figure of the earnestness and the occasional vehemence with which God's people, so to speak, besiege the footstool of his mercy and the throne of his grace: and then, the succour in both instances opens before our minds in all its strength, and sweetness, and consolation.

But then, on the other hand, the widow sustained no relation to the judge: but the people, whom the widow, and the type, and parable represent, do sustain intimate, close, ineffable relation to God; they are represented as "his own elect." The judge is declared to be "unjust ;" one might call him cruel and ferocious, for he "neither feared God, nor regarded man:" but God is infinitely just; God is gloriously kind and transcendently good; God is ever as disposed to show mercy, as to do justice, for those who come and claim it at his hands. The "importunity" of the widow is the trouble of the judge; she is ar. annoyance at his door; she is a torment in his ears; and simply to get rid of

his personal annoyance, he interposes to do her justice. The prayers of God's people are delightful to his ears; it is the incense which goeth up in fragrancy from this world to heaven; it is the acknowledgment of God's power and supremacy in this small province of his great empire.

So the parable, a passage of which I have selected for the text, is constructed on the principle of contrast; and it comes on us in all the power of that opposition. If the unjust judge do justice for the importunate widow, how much more shall the merciful, the righteous, and the holy God, ultimately-though there may seem to be long delay-hear the prayers of his people, and bring to pass that triumph of truth and righteousness over darkness and error and superstition, which his Church earnestly desires, and most importunately prays for.

In the passage there are many topics: I shall only glance briefly at a few of them, taking those that lie on the surface of the passage.

First: GOD HAS AN ELECT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, scattered up and down among men found in various places, and in almost all communities, as his chosen ones. Respecting this doctrine, I simply read out the sayings of the Scriptures. "Whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified." The various links of this great chain of salvation are incontestibly plain up to the mercy, the electing love of God in all eternity. "He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy; I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." "So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy." I could not invent language more strong or more decisive to affirm the sovereignty of God, his affirmation of his right, and his determination to do what he will with his own. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved." In another place we read, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." And so we are told of "the Lamb's book of life, written before the foundation of the world."

There can be no question, therefore, as to this principle among those who receive the Bible as an inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and as a revelation made from God to men: the only question that can arise is, in what sense the terms are to be understood. There are some who contend for an election which is personal, absolute, and unconditional; and others who contend for an election which is national, regarding churches, communities, and people in the mass. I should decidedly adopt that principle, and go into that theory, if it did appear to me to remove any difficulties, or in any way to interpret, or to shed new light on the great question. And I inquire, whether it be not the self-same principle which is involved, whether we admit the election to be of the individual or the community? Is it not the self-same doctrine (it seems to be so to me) when I say of that man that he is taken, and of his neighbour that he is left; when

I say that God chooses people whom he constituted into churches in Judea, but the people in Persia were left; that he chose people whom he constituted into churches in Asia Minor, when the people in Arabia were left; that he had churches in Macedon and Greece, when in Iceland and the regions of the north there were none; that he has churches in England, when in China he has none -that England is taken, and China is left? I simply inquire whether this election does not involve the same principle, as when I say of this man that he is taken, and of that man that he is left, only that this view of it, regarding it as the election of nations, takes it in a wider sweep and on a vaster scale: the one view receives the doctrine as it respects individuals, the other as it respects myriads. If I quarrelled with the doctrine at all I should quarrel with it on the large scale, rather than on the individual and personal application of it. But I quarrel not with it at all: I simply say, May not God do what he will with his own? and shall not the God of all the earth do right? And though I can say I never go out of my way to meet this doctrine, yet, when it comes fairly and fully before me, I never go out of my way to escape or to evade it : but I desire to look into the countenance of this truth; and I see it to be a countenance of beauty, to be a face of love, bearing an aspect most benign, gentle, and gracious. God's choosing mercy, God's electing love, is ever represented in the Scriptures as having the most favourable and complacent influence upon his universal church.

a son.

I wish to observe that this doctrine is illustrated and corroborated by facts. God took Abraham: might he not at the same period, and in the then existing condition of the world, have taken any one besides him? As Jeremy Taylor (who was no friend to this sentiment) beautifully expresses it-" There was an elect in the midst of the election:" for it is said, “Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, in Isaac shall thy seed be. called; that is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac (for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth), it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger." We see God choosing Moses to a work and officeJoshua to a work and office-David to a crown-Paul the apostle to the apostleship. Does God choose men to honour in his church below, or to dignity on the earth, and may he not choose whom he will upon whom to confer the throne and the coronet, the dignity and the honour, which are imperishable in a world which shall never fade away? We believe that he might, and we hold with the sentiment in the text, "Shall not God avenge his own elect, who cry day and night unto him?”

Men may take this principle in a light which does not belong to it, and affirm that they can deduce conclusions from it which in the Bible are directly and distinctly denied. With all such perversions and abuses of the principle we have nothing to do; and all I intend on this occasion is, to present it before your minds as I find it in this Book, in its own unshadowed and inextinguishable splendour.

There are, I might observe, two things which always make it appear to me.