excellent of his creatures. St. James now gives directions for the profitable reading of the word, and exhorts them to the practice of it.

2. He cautions them against worldly respect of persons either in their church-courts or their religious assemblies, by despising the poor, and showing a servile partiality to the rich, as such. This would interfere with their integrity, lead to the violation of the divine law, the incurment of guilt, and condemnation at the tribunal of God.

3. Virtuous practice inseparable from true faith. A man's expressing his assent to the truth of revelation, and saying, "I have faith," is not of itself a realization of the scripture character of a believer. True believers have been always known by their obedience, [it being of the nature of genuine faith to work by love]. A mere theoretic credence which has no hold upon the heart, and no spontaneous and operative manifestation in the conduct, is no more the faith with which the gospel connects the promise of justification than a corpse is a man.

4. Be not too prompt to undertake the office of the public teacher. Exercise habitual control over the tongue. The bitter words of invective and contention can never come from a heart imbued with Christian dispositions. Where the latter are not found, a profession of Christianity is a lie against truth. The good man, under the inspiration of a celestial wisdom, makes peace in others, and enjoys it in himself.

Factious strifes in the church, as well as wars in the world, are the fruit of human depravity. They shut heaven against the voice of prayer, and perfect the alienation of the mind from God. [There is, probably, a strong allusion here to the distracted condition of Jewish society at that time, both in and out of Palestine. Compare JOSEPHUS, Wars, book ii. chap. 17, 19, 21.] The

humble and devout have so much the greater cause to adore the grace which has made them what they are.

5. Exhortations founded upon the foregoing precepts. A reverential acknowledgment of the divine will must give a tone to all our plans of action, for a futurity of which we are so entirely ignorant. The duties here enforced are so plain, that they who neglect them are without excuse.

An alarm to those of the rich who were living disregardful of the laws of equity and temperance, the slaves of sensuality, and the persecutors of the righteous. The persecuted fortified in the patience of hope, and cautioned against tempers which would not only tend to mutual discouragement here, but bring condemnation at the coming of the Judge. Remember the trials and victories of the ancient saints. Not only avoid profaneness of speech, but cultivate a truthful and religious simplicity in conversation. Advice to the prosperous, and to the sick. Members of the church are to avail themselves of mutual counsel, and the privilege of intercession, keeping in mind the power of prayer, and the mighty interests involved in the conversion and salvation of the soul.

THE (FIRST) EPISTLE OF ST. PETER.

THOUGH an extensive tradition regards the " Babylon" from which this epistle was dated, (sect. 7,) as Rome itself, under a figurative appellation, yet weighty considerations render it more likely that the place whence St. Peter now wrote was no other than Babylon in Assyria. This celebrated city, immensely fallen indeed from its ancient grandeur, was, nevertheless, at the time (about A.D. 60) the home of a lingering population, of whom a large portion were Israelites. (See JOSEPHUS,

Ant. lib. xv. cap. 2.) Hard by Babylon were the cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon, where Christianity won some. of its earliest victories. The "apostle of the circumcision," who was probably labouring in those days among the people on the banks of the Euphrates, wrote this circular to the persecuted believers, whether Hebrew or Gentile, in the various provinces of the Lesser Asia.

1. While the terrors of persecution were thickening around these followers of Christ, they are called to look heavenward. The world was a scene of hostility; but they had an inheritance on high. Their tried faith already enabled them to triumph. They would find in blessed experience the great salvation which the Redeemer had procured by his sufferings, the prophets had been inspired to announce, and angels intently survey. They were, therefore, to hold themselves in immediate preparation; to seek to be sanctified; to live in the spirit of sojourners cherishing the faith and hope of the divinely redeemed, and loving one another as partakers of the same regenerate nature.

2. Hence it would be necessary to divest themselves of all remaining dispositions of the carnal mind; and having already tasted the beginnings of salvation, to aspire to the perfection to which they had been called in Christ, as the priesthood and church of the living God.

3. They were to rise above the dominion of sensual passions, which are always incompatible with the true welfare of the soul; and, being surrounded by the Heathen, who regarded them with eyes of prejudice and hatred, to look to it that nothing in their conduct or conversation should warrant the calumnies and accusations of disloyalty to the government, and vicious practices of life, which they so commonly circulated against them. On the contrary, they were to make manifest the beautiful morality of the gospel in their social rela

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tions, bearing up under their unjust sufferings with a temper like the Divine Martyr himself.

4. Counsels to wives and husbands, and to the members of the church in general, on unanimity, sympathy, kindness, gentleness, and patience. In returning good for evil, the Christian is blessed. He has the benediction of a special providence, and is happy even if called to suffer.

5. Having shown how the believer is to comport himself with the adversaries of the faith, St. Peter, to encourage them in the hour of trial, refers again to the example of Jesus, who suffered in the flesh, and was then exalted at the right hand of God; and also to the case of Noah, who was saved with his household while the world of the ungodly perished; (compare 2 Peter ii. 5, 9;) in connexion with which topic he affirms, that it was Christ who, by his Spirit, preached to the antediluvians in the years preceding the deluge; and that the waters on which the patriarchal family were saved were a type of baptism, which, to caution us against trust in it as a work, he reminds us is not a mere external washing, but the exponent of a genuine self-consecration to God.

Reverting to the example of Jesus, he exhorts them to become imbued with the mind that was in him, and to be willing to die for the truth. For he who has attained this state, accounting himself dead, is emancipated from the tyranny of sin, and henceforth lives to God. The sensual world has already had too great a portion of our life. It becomes us now to be finally separate from those who are dead in sins, regardless of the opinions they form of us. As for them who are thus passing without thought to their last account, they had been left without excuse by the gospel which had now been preached. Wherever this has been done, men who persist to live after the flesh will meet with a more condign

judgment; while they who obey it shall live for ever with the Lord.

6. But, whether saved or unsaved, the end comes to all. Let us be prepared: and let the interval be sanctified by charity, beneficence, and the improvement of the various gifts and graces we have received to the glory of the great Donor. Now, again, the apostle, in yet more serious terms, addresses himself to fortify the courage and enduring power of a people over whom the thunderclouds of persecution were gathering blackly. He lifts up their view to the glory and blessedness which await those who suffer for Christ, and with him. But if an all-just God appoint or permit even his servants to suffer now, what woes are in reversion for his enemies!

7. A charge to the presbyters: their duty and their reward. To the flock to cultivate a teachable disposition, the spirit of meekness, and a tranquil dependence on the care of the Almighty; to be vigilant against the tempter, and steadfast in the faith. He combines and concludes these admonitions with the expression of his confident hope of their final salvation.

THE (FIRST) EPISTLE OF ST. JOHŃ.

THE First Epistle" of St. John is not, in the usual acceptation of the term, a letter addressed to some particular community, but an inspired treatise, theological and practical, intended for the edification of the Christian church at large; yet, with the special design of warning the disciples of that early time against those incipient heresies which were soon after classed under the common

name of Gnosticism.* The date of the composition is

* See MOSHEIM, "Commentaries," cent. i. sect. 60; NEANDER'S "Church History," sect. iv.; GIESELER, div. ii. cap. 2; HAGENBACH'S History of Doctrines," vol. i.