when the officers appeared before the magistrates in the morning they were obliged to own, "The prison doors truly found we shut with all safety, and the keepers standing without before the doors; but when we had opened, we found no man within." So that the very angel that opened the prison door was commissioned to shut it again against all beside. Sinner! that very power that shall open heaven to believers, shall shut hell upon you for ever. There is something remarkable in this. How did the prisoners get out? We are told that "the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth;" and they must have been shut again, or they would have been found open. What a wonderful consternation the council must have been in, to find that the jailers could not keep the prisoners! They could not tell to what it would grow. Just the case with the world in the present day. The world wonders at the growth of God's kingdom; but it shall grow till its completion. When they were taken before the magistrates they could not hold their peace; they had got their commission, and they must declare it. They were "brought without violence for fear of the people;" but when they had got them before the council, with all the guards about them, they thought they could do as they liked. So they began to speak sharply to them, "Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine." They were very zealous men, and would fill the whole world with the doctrine of God's grace; and so would I, in contrast to all the Popish nonsense that is abroad in the present day. What is the conduct of Peter and John? Do they immediately succumb? Do they lower their colours, and say, "If you forgive us this once, we will not do so any more?" The very stones would have cried out against them if they had done

So.

But theirs was a superhuman religion; they did not have it from schools, they did not have it from parents, they did not have it from national descent, but they got it from above, and they were filled with such a holy fire that it would have consumed them if they had not let it out. This is sometimes the case with me. What was their answer to the council? "We ought to obey God rather than men." And what was the result? They beat them and let them go, charging them that they should not speak any more in the name of Jesus. What did the apostles do then? "Daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ." It was of no use to charge them; when God sends His servants, the devil and all his agents cannot silence them. When the angel opened the prison and brought the apostles out, He gave them this command from above, "Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life."

The latter part of our text struck me with peculiar force, and led me to enter upon it. "All the words of this life." This was the subject of the apostles' commission. Mark, I beseech you, the authority with which the commission is given, "Go." There is no asking whether they would or could. Just in accordance with our Lord's direction to His disciples to pray, that the lord of the harvest would send forth labourers into his vineyard. When God bids a man "go," go he must to his work. "Son, go work to-day in my vineyard." And then, thirdly, mark the intention. What followed? What was the intention of the whole? A word or two upon each of these points, as the Lord shall give me strength. I call upon you to give him

thanks and praise on my behalf, that for the last forty hours I have been mercifully rallying from the distressing prostration which you witnessed on Tuesday last. We praise His name, what strength He gives shall be given out to Him.

I. First of all the subject of the apostles' commission, "Go, speak all the words of this life." This does not merely mean this mortal life—it does not mean merely this short life, which is but a vapour-it was of no use telling them to preach about that; the life that they were told to preach about was the life that they were living in the enjoyment of, the life that they had received from God.

Now let me observe, in the first place, that this life which God's sent servants are commissioned to preach, is the hidden life of godliness; and I want to distinguish this from that outside, skin deep, fair faced, deceitful thing that passes for Christianity in the day in which we live, which is manufactured by mortals, received by carnal caprice, consults only human reason, is dependant on man's free-will, and consists in nothing less than a clear rejection of God and the Bible. I cannot find language strong enough to express my abhorrence of this false, flimsy profession of the present day; I want my hearers to come to the life that the apostle was commissioned to preach, and which he did preach, when he said, "Your life is hid with Christ in God." Oh, what security! Oh, what secresy! Oh, what distinction between this and a false profession! A life hid with Christ in God from everlasting a life hid with Christ in God for me before I had a natural life-a life hid with Christ in God for me during all the antecedent periods of time, until Christ's incarnation-a life hid with Christ in God for me, when He who was that hidden life was manifest in the flesh, and the world knew Him not. It was hidden then from the eyes of the world, and it continues to be hidden, until Christ takes possession of the sinner's heart and goes in there to dwell.

This latter point is what I wish chiefly to dwell upon for a few moments-that real godliness, such as will take you to heaven-real godliness, such as the apostles possessed, is wholly in Christ; and that Christ must dwell in the heart before there can be a single spark of real godliness. Hence, when the apostle Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live," no, no, “not I," says he, "but Christ liveth in me.' So that Christ's taking possession of the poor sinner's heart by the power of the Spirit, setting up His throne there, going there to dwell, gaining the victory there, and ruling and reigning over all the powers and faculties of that man's soul, is the beginning of his life. He was dead till then; he is "dead in trespasses and sins," until he hears the voice of the Son of God and begins to live. But when that hidden life comes in, it is not only Christ Himself our life, but the Holy Ghost, as the life-giving unction of the power of God Himself, who says, "I will dwell in them and walk in them;" so that the plain matter of fact is, the life of godliness is nothing less than the Holy Trinity in unity, taking possession of a man's heart. Now all the religion that falls short of that will only deceive you; the Holy Three in One entering into thy heart in the most solemn manner, without asking the sinner's permission or consulting his will and caprice, but creating for him a will, so that he shall receive Him, and the eternal self-existent Jehovah, fulfilling His promise to dwell in him and walk in him, and making him constitute visibly and manifestly one of His people.

Now when vital godliness thus commences in the sinner's soul, it is not only hidden from the world, as regards the mighty power that put it forth and communicated it, but in its after stages it is also hidden. Your fellow-Christians may understand what it is to be anointed with fresh oil, but the world knows nothing about it; you in whom Jehovah dwells, may personally understand to some extent what it is to have Christ dwelling in your hearts by faith, and being in you the hope of glory-to have the love of God shed abroad in your hearts by the Holy Ghost-but the world knows nothing about all this-it is hidden from them-nay, it is counted as enthusiasm by them, and reprobated as dangerous doctrine. It is astonishing to what a fearful extent the god of this world has blinded the hearts of those who believe not, to despise the truth of God.

This hidden life must have supplies—it must eat and drink, and it cannot always be kept quiet. It will work, and it will walk, and it will run, and it will fly. "Wonderful exploits," say you. Yes, this hidden life must eat and drink, and nothing is good enough for it but the body and blood of Christ, the bread of life that cometh down from heaven, and the water of life sent down from the throne of God. And it cannot be kept quiet; it will be sure to speak, to cry, to rejoice, to exclaim in many instances, "Come, ye that fear the Lord, and I will tell you what He hath done for my soul." Even among the children it cried out, "Hosannah, to the Son of David." The disciples you know, wanted to quiet them, but they could not do it; if they had held their peace the very stones would have cried out. This showed that they were alive. There are no such things as still-born children in God's family; they may appear to be deaf and dumb sometimes; the devil tries hard to stop their mouths, but they will cry out in secret, if they do not in public. They will walk-believers walk by faith and not by sight. The world cannot tell how they walk-they walk with God by faith. It will work too; even the work of faith and the labour of love. It is not an external exhibition, but a constant effort to glorify God. Moreover, it will fight, and it will never surrender. It will fight with and vanquish the powers of darkness, repel temptation, make the devil flee, and it will continue to do this till every corruption is crucified, till every privilege is obtained, and till it is declared "more than conqueror," through Christ who loved it. This precious hidden life is what we are to preach. Peter was sent of God to preach it. Moreover, it can run and fly. It "runs with patience the race set before it." It follows the example of David, “I will run in the way of thy commands, when thou shalt enlarge my heart." It is hidden. Where does the man run to be hid? Just where the prophet Isaiah describes, "A highway shall be there and a way "—a secret way, a way that the vulture's eye hath not seen, that the lion and ravenous beast have not trodden-a way peculiar to the ransomed of the Lord. And the same prophet, you know, is commissioned to tell us, that “they that wait on on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles." So that this hidden life can fly too. It is very blessed to have this lively and active disposition, so as it may be manifest in its possession, and appear before God conspicuously as His own gift.

But let me just pass on to mark, that the apostles were to preach an orthodox life; that is, they were to preach the truth in all its fulness, to constitute the orthodoxy of the lives of the people, as well as of their own. I do not wonder at all that so many congregations have little or no

liveliness of a spiritual kind among them. It is for want of orthodoxy. Say you, "What are we to understand by orthodoxy? there are so many opinions about it." Take your Bibles and you will find that you will get information from the preaching of Christ and His apostles, and all whom He sent forth. The orthodoxy they were commissioned to preach had this prominent feature in it, that it gives equal honour to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and none to the creature, except what God puts upon him. It gives honour to the Father, in the predestinating enactments of His love, and this must constitute the very foundation of the existence of the Church, and without it the Bible is not worth a straw; it gives honour to the Son, in His glorious Headship over His Church, as set up from everlasting, or ever the earth was, entrusted with all the affairs of Zion, agreeable to the declaration, "I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion;" it gives honour to the Holy Spirit, in His invincible operations and constant ministry in the Church of Christ, as well as His registrations in the Book of Life above. Now these distinct Personages must have had equal honour in the preaching of Peter and John, and must have in all men who are like them, or else they do not preach the gospel. Whatever may, or may not be, preached instead, it is not Bible gospel, it is not the truth of God, it is not orthodoxy, for thus runs the decree of heaven, "This is the will of Him that sent me, that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father," and "He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which sent Him," and no honour can be ascribed to either, but by the third Person of the glorious Trinity, and therefore He shall have all the honour of efficiency, for "no man can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Ghost."

But there is a peculiarity in the phraseology of this commission, with which I must detain you a few minutes. All the words of this life." Mark, the apostles were not to pick and choose, rejecting some words and proclaiming others - -they were to have but one darling theme, and that was, glory to God, Father, Son, and Spirit; and in order to do this they were to speak out goodly words, and fit words, and suitable words. I might detain you here by almost reading a vocabulary to you, but that will not answer our purpose this morning; I will therefore select three words only. They are very offensive ones, but we must have them; they are a fair sample and blessed specimen of "all the words of this life," which we are called upon to speak. The first is election, the second is substitution, and the third is operation.

In coming before you to preach, I begin to publish election-sovereign, free, personal, discriminating, irrevocable, as an act of the infinite wisdom and love of Jehovah, and hence the apostle is commissioned to say, "We were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." He does not reverse things as our modern mock Divines do, by telling us that we must be holy and without blame before Him, and then in all probability He will take us to heaven. This is reversing God's order with a witness. No, it is all according to the good pleasure of His goodness, according to the counsel of His own will, emanating entirely from Him, and therefore I feel disposed to join with the beloved John, "We love Him because He first loved us." How sweet it is to my soul to follow God's order, and to have my soul brought to bow down to it!

Moreover, while we preach the doctrine of election, if we preach it

scripturally, we must come to this one conclusion, that the choice must rest somewhere. Either I must choose God, or God must choose me. Well do I know that it will come to both ultimately, but I know He must be first, for if God had never made choice of me till I had made choice of Him, there would never have been a choice on either side. But further, only imagine the foolish nonsense to be correct which speaks of God's after choice. Is He a God, then? Is He not a mutable being? Is He worthy to sit on the throne? Why, brethren, the rejection of the doctrine of election, in its distinction, and personality, and sovereignty, is absolutely embracing Atheism, and denying the existence of a God altogether.

Moreover, we not only preach the doctrine of election-its distinction, and personality, and sovereignty, rejoicing in what Peter says, “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ," but we go on, and among "the words of this life," we select the word substitution. "He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Everything in the Book of God pertaining to sacrifices, offerings, oblations, temple service, together with all the songs of the Psalmist, and all other predictions of the prophets, and all the preaching of Jesus Christ, and all the epistles of the apostles, with one consent, without variation, set forth to our view the doctrine of substitution. Then we view in the Person of Christ the satisfaction in the responsible Suretyship of the glorious covenant Head of the Church, and must incessantly set it forth. Then some would say, "What have we more to do, but to advise poor sinners to accept of it?" Aye, you may advise them till Doomsday, and they will laugh at your advice, and not one of Adam's posterity would accept of it. The cry of all of them is, "We will not have this man to reign over us."

Therefore, I choose as a third word, operation. Do not mistake me. I do not say offer, but operation, for the Holy Ghost comes forth not to offer to the sinner, but to operate on His soul, to strike the arrow of conviction, to bring him down to the ground, to create a new life in him, to impart spirituality, to work a wonder of grace in him—in a word, to make him a new creature.

Now, these are "the words of this life;" and if I might sum them up in one word, really and positively I think all the doctrines of the gospel, all the promises of the word, and all the privileges of the people of God, and all that relates to covenant and redemption, may be summed up in one word. What is that? say you. Relationship. It is because God is my Father that He loved and chose me; it is because God my Saviour is my Brother born for adversity, and stands eternally related to me, that He undertook my cause; it is because the Holy Ghost is the awakener, and comforter, and quickener of God's family, that His own work goes on. Every mercy received flows from relationship; every deliverance vouchsafed is the consequence of relationship; the very preaching must be of relationship-to go and publish the name and fame of Jesus, in order that Jehovah's sons and daughters may be gathered from the ends of the earth.

II. Let us pass on, in the second place, to say a few words about the authority with which they were sent forth. Here is an imperative "Go." "Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life." There is no hesitation, no scruple in the apostles'