earth, and the sea, and all that in them 1s:" our God is the creator; it is he who hath made us, and he made our unconverted brethren, and he has power to save and convert them all. It is of great importance that we should pray; that we should pray fervently and constantly: "Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence; and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth." We ask, but we do not ask enough; we ask, but we do not open our mouths wide enough. When the disciples had met, as we have stated, they prayed thus: "Grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak THY word." This is just the prayer we should present; they had miracles, and yet they found that they needed a continual supply, or they could not go on. "And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness." They had the gifts of the Spirit before, but now new power came upon them, and they went on, and "with great power gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus; and great grace was upon them all." Brethren, if we would have a similar blessing, we must besiege God's throne, and not let him go until he bless us.

Thus we must go forth among our own countrymen using suitable means for their conversion. We must throw aside all carnal weapons, and proclaim the glad tidings of the gospel distinctly, boldly, affectionately, prayerfully.

How ought we to go on in our undertaking?

II. WEOUGHT TO AIM AT ITS PROMOTION, OURSELVES LIVING CONSISTENTLY WITH THE GREAT PROFESSION WE MAKE, AND THE CAUSE WE HAVE UNDERTAKEN TO ESPOUSE.

He will do no good who does not act consistently. And in what manner should this consistency be displayed?

1st. Our lives must be characterised by sincerity and uprightness.-We must have a new heart and a right spirit ourselves; we must first be renewed in the image of our own minds, before we can go forward with any hope of success in our great work. "Now when all this was done:" who did it? Hezekiah; and was he sincere and upright? Read the last verse of the chapter.-"Hezekiah wrought that which was good and right and truth,

before the Lord his God. And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, and in the law, and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart, and prospered." Would we prosper in our undertakings ? Then let us see to it, that we are sincere in our profession.

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It is to be remarked, with respect to this reformation effected in the days of Hezekiah, that their profession soon evaporated, and that the revival of religion which took place, was but transient. But we need not be surprised at this: the prophet Micah tell us, that this was but too much the case with that people ;'Truly, I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money:" all was done for profit, for the sake of filthy lucre; "Yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us.' They were inconsistent professors; they were not sincere ; and therefore, the work came to nought. Let us search our hearts, then, in the pulpit, in the pews, preachers and hearers, subscribers and agents, men, women, and children, let us all search our hearts, and pray to God, and then seek to act consistently. There can be no excuse for want of piety; and God will accept of no sacrifice, if our hearts be wrong.

2ndly. If we would go on well, and act consistently with our profession, our hearts and lives should be full of joy and praise. Thus shall we recommend the gospel of Christ to our countrymen. "When all this was done;"-what was done? 66 They kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days, with great gladness; and the Levites and the priests praised the Lord day by day, singing with loud instruments unto the Lord;" and they were not fatigued, for "the whole assembly took counsel to keep other seven days and they kept other seven days with gladness. So there was great joy in Jerusalem." True joy is that of the heart, spiritual joy. Tears may accompany it; but tears are not always an index of grief. If we would be abun

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dantly owned of God, we should go out as good king Jehoshaphat went out to battle. What havoc did he make among his foes! And it was when the singers that went out before the army, began to sing and to praise," that the enemy were smitten and none escaped." Your foes cannot stand against you, if you go on this way. We should act as did the angels: an angel was once, and once only allowed to preach the gospel; and

no

sooner had he preached it than other angels began to praise. The persons to whom the angel preached were poor shepherds, and at his voice they began to tremble; but when they heard the other angels praise, they immediately said, "Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass.' When Paul and Silas were cast into prison, the jailer treated them roughly, "and made their feet fast in the stocks." But when at midnight they sang praises unto God," the stouthearted jailer could hold out no longer; captivity was led captive; he brought his prisoners forth, treated them kindly, opened the door of his heart to them, and to their message, and rejoiced in the great salvation. David said, "Restore unto me the joys of thy salvation; then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee." If we truly desire the conversion of our countrymen to Christ, we shall have a strong incentive to consistency and personal sanctity, in the assurance that this will enable us to rejoice, as did these holy men of old.

3rdly. As to our consistency while engaged in this work, there must also be much self-denial and sacrifice. "Now when all this was done;" what had been done? "Hezekiah did give to the congregation a thousand bullocks, and seven thousand sheep; and the princes gave a thousand bullocks, and ten thousand sheep." And were the citizens backward? O, no! As soon as the commandment came abroad, the children of Israel brought in abundance the first fruits of corn, wine, oil, and honey, and of all the increase of the field; and the tithe of all things brought they in abundantly. And those that dwelt in the cities of Judah also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of holy things which were consecrated unto the Lord their God, and laid them by heaps. In the third month they began to lay the

:

foundation of the heaps, and finished them in the seventh month;" they had so much to bring, that four months were required to lay them up. "And when Hezekiah and the princes came and saw the heaps, they blessed the Lord and his people Israel." Then the king questioned with the priest and the levites concerning the heaps. And Azariah said, since the people began to bring the offerings into the house of the Lord, we have had enough to eat, and have left plenty; for the Lord hath blessed his people and that which is left is this great store. Then Hezekiah commanded to prepare chambers in the house of the Lord; and they prepared them :"-they were obliged to pull down their barns and build greater. Oh! when shall our treasuries be so replenished! Surely, if they were so kind and generous under that legal dispensation, we who are so greatly privileged under the gospel should gladly bring our tithes to the service of the Lord! Thus have I endeavoured to shew you that we should engage in this great work, acting consistently with our profession, by the sincerity and uprightness of our lives, by having our hearts filled with joy and praise, and by much self-denial and sacrifice.

Again; how shall we carry on this work? In what manner shall we proceed? I answer,

III. WITH A DETERMINATION TO TAKE NO REST TILL THE OBJECT WE HAVE IN VIEW IS ENTIRELY ACCOMPLISHED.

"When all this was done :" what was done? The temple was beautified, but all was not done. The temple was cleansed, the people were collected, sacrifices were offered, the altars erected to idols were cast down; but the country and the villages were not yet purified. "When all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out to the cities of Judah, and broke the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and Benjamin, in Ephraim also, and Manasseh; until they had utterly destroyed them ALL." We have done much; but all is not done, and we must go forward till our object is accomplished. If a long row of houses were on fire, and all the inhabitants safe, except one, that individual must not be left; if a ship be wrecked, and all the crew be saved except one, that one must not be allowed to sink into a watery grave, if we can save him.

We must not stop in our career of benevolence: "there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed;" and we must still go on. Listen very cautiously to the voice which says, "Master, spare thyself:" Servant, exert thyself!" is much more likely to be the advice which will come from our Master's lips. We must never relax; we must leave no efforts untried till our object be perfectly accomplished.

This subject appeals to the servants of Christ individually and collectively, and calls upon all to exert themselves. None must think to say, "I pray thee, have me excused." There is not a soul in Britain that ought to say, "I pray thee have me excused." One may say, "I am an honest man, a good neighbour, I do my duty, and am I to be threatened because I do not exert myself for others?" Yes; you must exert yourself for others. Ask you for proof? behold it here! "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." If you do not care for your neighbour's salvation, you do not love him as yourself. If you do not seek his salvation, it is a melancholy proof that you have no wish for the salvation of your own soul. "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." If you consult the representation which Christ gives of the procedure of the day of judgment, you will find all the curses pronounced on negative sins: they were all regarded as positive crimes, and punished accordingly. Say not then, "I am a good man, I discharge my debts, I do no injury:" this is not enough, you must do all the good you can. And when we think on this, we shall all see how much ground we have for confession of sin, and for praying that it may not be laid to our charge.

I am

But some will be ready to say, not so thoroughly convinced of their dangerous state; I am ready to believe that. my neighbours are on the road to heaven." We hope that many are; but are we to consider, that this is the case with swearers, with sabbath breakers, with drunkards, with unclean persons, with thieves? Look at this city! how many places of worship does it contain? scarcely enough to contain a fourth part of the population, and those not all filled. There is reason to fear that the majority are living "without God and without Christ in the world." We must judge of men by their fruits; look at the

taverns and theatres; see how the Lord's day is profaned! and is their no danger? There is one passage which you have no doubt often heard, but you must hear it once again, if you do not act with zeal for the reasons which we have stated: If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we know it not;" for this is our grand excuse; we did not know they were in such danger; but we should have known it; we should have examined; we should look "not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others;" we should act as Christ did, look down on the perishing and aim to save them: "If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?" Yes, your neglect is a work in the sight of God; there is a positive agency put forth in this very omission, in the sight of God.

Perhaps you will say, "It is true this is a very important work; but many are zealously engaged in it, and I shall leave it to them." I wish you to consider attentively what was said by Mordecai to Esther: "If thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed." We firmly believe that our countrymen will be saved; but if you do not engage in this work, if you do not aim by every possible means to save their souls from perishing, deliverance shall come to them from another place, but you yourselves will come to danger.

"But I contribute to foreign missions, to missions to the heathen abroad; and am I bound to do this also?" Yes, you are; you must do it; you are not at liberty to excuse yourself thus. See how Paul did he came to Corinth; there "he reasoned in the synagogue, and persuaded the Jews," He was specially sent to the heathen; but did he pass by his own countrymen? did he say, "I have no commission to you?" No; he was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ:" the Holy Spirit urged him to do this. "And when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook his raiment, and said unto them, your blood be upon your own

heads: I am clean;" plainly intimating that, if he had not spoken as he did, their blood would have been upon his head, and he would have to answer for it at the last day.

An opportunity will forthwith be given you of shewing your love to this great object. You who have the power, and consider it to be your privilege to engage in this work, will gladly avail yourselves of this opportunity. You ask, perhaps, in what spirit shall we give? how much shall we give? what shall be the magnitude of our heaps? In one part of the country where I had been pleading the cause of the heathen, of the Hindoos, a poor man of colour came to me the next

morning: he said, "I was born in India, on my way to this country I became acquainted with my blessed Saviour;" here his countenance brightened, "I came as a servant, but I have a master who is very kind to me, who places confidence in me, and treats me with liberality. I want to give something towards sending the gospel of Christ to my own countrymen." Then, with tears starting into his eyes, he put a five-pound-note into my hands as his offering, regretting that he could do no more. Here then we have an Indian teaching us what we ought to do. Let us go and imitate this converted Mohammedan!

SUCH, my friends was the expressive declaration of Paul the great apostle of the Gentiles, respecting the interest which he felt for the situation of the Jews.

They were his brethren according to the flesh. By birth he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He had been brought up among them from his infancy, and his habits were formed on theirs. He had sat at the feet of the most learned and respected teachers. In every department of their literature and theology, he had improved above many. His earliest, his dearest and his most valued earthly recollections were thus associated with his relationship and obligations to this ancient and once peculiar people of God. But he had now come out from among them. His bond of union, formerly so interesting, was now completely broken. They counted him an enemy; they thirsted for his blood, and laid snares for his life just as he, when a Jew, had acted towards the Christians. Miraculously converted to the faith of the gospel, he had laboured for the conversion of his brethren to the same faith; but being rejected by them, he had now, under the influence of the divine Spirit, turned away from them, and with inexpressible

zeal and unparalleled success, was preaching to the Gentiles, "the unsearchable riches of Christ." Thus rejected and held in disdain by his countrymen, as an apostate from their system, and an enemy to their God, and thus engaged in preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, whom the Jews rejected as outcasts of the Divine favour, it would not have been surprising, if his affection for his countrymen had greatly cooled, and he had retained but a subordinate interest for their spiritual welfare. But coolness had no place in his breast, far less resentment for the wrongs he had received from his brethren. The sympathies of nature and of country still bound his heart to them, and instead of being weakened they were strengthened, and rendered more constraining by those bowels of compassion for all mankind, which the love of Christ had stirred up within him. The Jews were as a people to be deprived of that sacred distinction with which Jehovah had for ageblessed them. The mark of their declens sion in the determinate rejection of the gospel was becoming every day more evident to the apostle's eye, but nothing could shut them out of his heart. Wherever he met them, his bosom heaved

with unutterable anguish on their account. He would willingly have done, and suffered anything even to the extent of parting with his life for them, if by such a sacrifice he might have won them to the faith and obedience of his master. Hence the emphatic language in which he breathed out his feelings for them, at the commencement of the preceding chapter, and in the words of the text, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh." "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved."

Such was the spirit of the great apostle, and though we cannot follow him in his labours, we both may and should follow him in his sympathies and prayers. It is not indeed for Jews, but for Gentiles that we at this time solicit your prayers. But are not the Gentiles our brethren according to the flesh? Whether we have descended from Japheth, or dwell in the tents of Shem, or whether we have descended from the servant of servantsthe servant both of Japheth and Shemwith the Gentiles we are more peculiarly connected, and for their conversion we may consequently be considered more peculiarly bound to labour and pray. But think not that I would exclude from your benevolent regards the children of Abraham, the father of the faithful, and friend of God. Oh, no! to that distinguished and interesting patriarch, we may look with affection and love, as being in one sense the father of all who under the gospel have ever believed or shall believe, whose days Abraham saw afar off, and was glad. And if in this respect we are his spiritual descendants, it will be impossible for us not to feel for the long benighted and deserted, yet blessed be God, by no means hopeless, condition of his natural seed.

But with more peculiar reference to the state of the Gentiles, whether heathen or Mohammedan, let me request you to consider,

I. That they all need the salvation which the gospel reveals.

II. That they can be saved only by means of the gospel.

III. That it is our duty as Christians to employ every means in our power for im

parting to them the knowledge of the gospel that they may be saved. Consider then,

I. THAT THEY ALL WHETHER HEATHENS OR MOHAMMEDANS, NEED THE SALVATION WHICH THE GOSPEL REVEALS.

The salvation which the gospel reveals, is that of complete deliverance both from guilt and depravity. If the gospel restore to the favour, and image, and enjoyment of God in time, and throughout eternity, and if these blessings be comprehended in salvation, shall it be doubted that it is needed by all to whom it has not yet been proclaimed? The Scriptures tell us that guilt and depravity are the sad characteristics of every descendant of the first transgressor; affirming of Jews and Gentiles together, that without the exception of a single individual, they are "all gone astray;" all "dead in trespasses and sins;" all "by nature the children of wrath," without strength, and ungodly. What says this inspired and invaluable testimony to the real moral condition of every human being? We really require no other evidence that all men need the salvation which the gospel has promulgated to our fallen world. Man, who does not believe the scripture, may fancy that there exists, or pretend that there may be found in some favoured spot of the globe, a race of men who partake not of these general attributes of mankind, but are models of virtue and piety, innocence and holiness, and are ready at death to render their spirits into the hands of their Creator, pure as angels among whom they are about to mingle and dwell for ever. But by us, if we really give credit to the word of God, every such statement will be pronounced a chimera, and every such description the effect of a bewildered imagination, or a woefully deceived mind.

We might thus a priori without any previous examination of the condition of man, assert his uniform depravity, but the result of every such examination has left the matter indisputable, there has now been an investigation of almost every part on which these deists were accustomed to dwell with such delight, and whether we turn our attention to the desolate scenes of the north, or the rich and luxuriant plains of the east, or the islands of the south, or the mountains of the west, we find all their gilded hopes are disappointed, and we are no longer exposed to the danger of doubting the