but he dwelt most on examples: "publish salvation," said he to all: "tell them to go to Christ as they are; wait not till you are grown better; Christ graciously receives all, however deep in guilt or lost and undone :" he brought forward in confirmation of this sentiment, the woman taken in adultery; was she not hurried into Christ's immediate presence in her guilt, and did he dismiss her with the sentence of condemnation and wrath? (John viii. 11.) then the manslayer, when did he hasten to the city of refuge: after moral improvement or delay? did he not flee, might and main, to the city of refuge, when the avenger of blood was close upon him? then Matthew the publican; did not Christ pardon him when sitting at the receipt of custom, at his work of extortion? Oh, the freedom of grace and sovereign mercy of God: he also instanced Zaccheus, and then himself, and concluded with this remark, which I hope always to treasure up in my memory as long as I live: "Can it be thought wrong to go to Christ," said he, "in the midst of our sins and feeling of sin? why the filth of sin has no relation to the Son of God in his glorified state: besides, it is no direct going to him in reality, but only believingly, and in looking at what he has done and suffered for sinners, of whom I am chief."

Moreover, it had pleased you well to have listened to the warmth of feeling and unreserved devotion of Dorcas and Barnabas; their whole soul was in the work of the Lord; they seemed to live only for the sake of doing good, and how animating their mutual converse! Can we refuse

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to cut down our superfluities, said they, when our brethren want necessaries? can we behold their miseries, their poverty, their affliction, their deep distress, and all the while maintain a coldhearted indifference?

"And why should we not do so?" replied Barnabas, "seeing the whole earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof; he need only open his hand, and all things are filled with plenteousness: moreover, all mankind receive the alms of the Almighty; the greatest men on earth should be but beggars at Zion's gate every day. But how difficult, thought I, for those who have no piety, but amplitude of wealth to realize this feeling; and to know that they are but stewards of the manifold mercies of God!

And had you listened to Stephen, enlarging on the work of the Spirit, how the grace of the Spirit opens the eyes of the understanding; unfolds the glories of heaven; how it leaves on the mind the impress of certainty; and how his instructions carry with them their own internal evidence and conviction, and enable us to rejoice with joy unspeakable: or could I picture to you the holiness and personal piety manifested in Enoch, the inward joy and holy triumph of Deborah; the zeal of Ezra, or the courage of Gideon; the gratitude of Naaman, or the tender-heartedness of Josiah, and the sympathy and brotherly love of many others; could you realize the whole scene, you would inevitably conclude with me, that you were indeed in the assembly of saints, in the society of personages of heavenly origin, and with souls still more, if possible, exalted.

Epaphras.-My dear Philemon, may you never have cause to alter your opinion; those you have mentioned are bright specimens of the true and spiritual church of Christ; but remember, there is a mixed multitude; (Exodus xii. 38.) meanwhile I rejoice in your joy, and more especially as you more and more perceive, that as guilt has caused our misery, and the sense of that guilt is full of sorrow, so it is the way of religion and the path of holiness that establishes our happiness for ever!

SECTION XV.

ZEAL FOR GOD.

PHILEMON.-DEMAS.

APOLLOS-A bold, successful Champion of Christ. Acts xviii. 24. BARNABAS—The Son of Consolation. Acts iv. 36.

Philemon.-When I contemplate the wonders of redeeming love, and lay to heart that it comprises, not the work of six days only, as in the first creation, but the work of more than six thousand years; and when I recollect also, that the Lord Christ gave, not his workmanship to finish it, but himself-not his resources, but his own body, what heart can be so insensible-what soul so dead to its importance, as not to desire to spend and be spent in profiting others, and in making it more and more his own by a personal and believing application?

Timotheus.-Though the believer's motto should be always" up and doing," still it is the motive and manner of doing a thing, more than the work done, which God respects and approves.

Demas.—Christianity requires zeal, but it must be zeal tempered with prudence.

Timotheus.-Undoubtedly; but a union of all the graces of the Spirit is needful, no less than prudence, to become a faithful soldier and servant of the cross; and graces, let me assure you, resemble individual members in the human body;

all of them are needed, and they have all enough to do; they have all their proper sphere of action. chalked out; and in order to exhibit a finished christian character, let no man imagine that he may venture upon all duties with any one grace, however distinguished in that grace he may appear: and, on the other hand, were all the other graces of the Spirit in your possession, yet they would not supply the place of that one, wherein any professed follower of Christ is really defective.

Apollos. It is easy to raise difficulties, and to throw obstacles in the way of usefulness; but I apprehend, that as soon as any soldier has been enlisted under Christ's banner, by the baptism of the Spirit, his whole soul should be fired with zeal for the glory of his name; he should instantly free himself from all earthly incumbrances, that he may be a more able champion in the open field of warfare.

Philemon.-Surely but for the want of zeal on the part of the church, and love to Christ likewise, the whole world ere this had been well-nigh evangelized; it is our indifference to the spiritual welfare of others that is the source of that flood of ignorance which still overflows the greater part of the globe for from what cause comes all the ignorance we see around us of Christ and his salvation, but from the want of evangelical teaching, even as darkness proceeds from want of light.

Demas. I am deeply conscious that every man has his allotted charge in the church, in the commonwealth, and in the world: but it is good to