by fasting and prayer.-Extraordinary cases require the use of extraordinary means. When a great army was coming against Jehoshaphat, it is said, he feared, and SET HIMSELF to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. But the loss of the soul is of more account to you than the temporal overthrow of a country was to him. When Judah, for its backslidings, was under the frowns of God in Babylon, and had been so for about seventy years, Daniel says, I SET MY FACE unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplication, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. The apostle Paul plainly intimates that there are times wherein we are required to give ourselves to fasting and prayer. And surely there can be no times in which these means are more necessary than when we have got out of the way, and desire to recover it. There is much meaning in the words, He SET HIMSELF to seek the Lord; and I SET MY FACE unto the Lord God. They denote something more than the ordinary exercises of prayer; even a special fixedness of the thoughts, purposes, and desires to a particular object: and God has usually honoured those extraordinary approaches to him, when influenced by a pure motive, with success. true, we may attend to duty in a superstitious, or self-righteous spirit; resting in it as an end, instead of using it as a mean; but this is not setting our face unto the Lord God, or seeking him. A day devoted to God in humiliation, fasting, and prayer, occasionally occupied with reading suitable parts of the holy scriptures, may, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, contribute more to the subduing of sin, and the recovery of a right mind, than years spent in a sort of half-hearted exercises.

It is

It

Sixthly: To prayer it is necessary to add watchfulness.-Our Lord unites these together as an antidote against temptation. has sometimes been one of the devices of Satan, after a backslider has been drawing near to God, and strongly soliciting for mercy: yea, after a time has been set apart for this particular purpose, to ply him afresh with some powerful temptation; and while his mind has been unsuspicious, and, it may be, thinking itself to be somewhat secure, on account of having so lately been engaged in earnest devotion, he has been surprised and overcome! The consequence as might be expected, has been a future neglect of prayer, under the idea that it must have been mere hypocrisy before, and would now be

adding sin to sin. Instead of depending upon spiritual frames for preservation, and especially when they are over, perhaps we ought to expect that our comforts should be succeeded by conflicts. We know it was so in several cases recorded in the scriptures. Immediately after drinking at the smitten rock at Rephidim, Israel was called to fight with Amalek. Paul's thorn in the flesh succeeded to extraordinary revelations. Our Lord himself went up from Jordan into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil.

Seventhly In your approaches to the Saviour, let it be under the character in which you first applied to him for mercy, that of a SINNER. If you attempt to approach the throne of grace as a good man who has backslidden from God, you may find it impossible to support that character. The reality of your conversion may be doubtful, not only in your apprehension, but in itself. Your approach, therefore, must not be as one that is washed, and needeth not, save to wash his feet: but as one who is defiled throughout, whose hands and head, and every part needs to be cleansed. Do not employ yourself in raking over the rubbish of your past life in search of evidence that you are a Christian. You will not be able in your present state of mind, to decide that question: nor would it be of any service to you if you could decide it. One thing is certain; you are a sinner, a poor miserable and perishing sinner : the door of mercy is open; and you are welcome to enter in. Let your past character then have been what it may, and let your conversion be ever so doubtful, if you can from this time relinquish all for Christ, eternal life is before you.

The Laodiceans, who, though composing a Christian church, were doubtful characters, are counselled to deal with Christ in the same manner as sinners deal with him, for riches, for righteousness, and for heavenly wisdom.

Lastly: In all your supplications, be contented with nothing short of a complete recovery-It is possible you may obtain so much ascendency over your evil propensities that they may seem to be slain before you; or at least, that you are in no particular danger of yielding to them any more; and yet you may not have recovered that holy rest in God, that sweet peace which arises from VOL. IV.

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confessing our sins upon the head of the gospel sacrifice. But while this is the case there is no security against their revival. The first temptation by which you are assaulted may afford lamentable proof that they are yet alive. Nothing will serve as a preservative against the risings of evil propensities short of walking with God. There is much important truth in that declaration of the Apostle, This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. Sin is not to be opposed so much directly as indirectly; not by mere resistance, but by opposing other principles to it, which shall overcome it. It is not by contending with the fire, especially with combustible materials about us, that we shall be able to quench it; but by dealing plentifully with the opposite element. The pleasures of sense will not be effectually subdued by foregoing all enjoyment; but by imbibing other pleasures, the relish of which shall deaden the heart to what is opposite. It was thus that the Apostle became dead to the world by the cross of Christ. Do not, therefore, reckon thyself restored till thou hast recovered communion with God. David, though the subject of deep contrition, yet was not contented without gaining this important point. Till then the poison would still, at times, be rankling in his imagination. Hence arose the following petitions :Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right Spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free Spirit. Make these petitions thy own; and if God grant the thing that thine heart desireth, go and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee!

EXPOSITORY REMARKS

ON THE

DISCIPLINE

OF THE

PRIMITIVE CHURCHES.

WHEN the Apostles, by the preaching of the word, had gathered in any place a sufficient number of individuals to the faith of Christ, it was their uniform practice, for the farther promotion of his kingdom in that place, to form them into a religious society or Christian church. Being thus associated in the name of Christ, divine worship was carried on, Christian ordinances observed, holy discipline maintained, and the word of life, as the light by the golden candlesticks, exhibited. Among them our Lord Jesus Christ, as the high priest of our profession, is represented as walking; observing the good, and applauding it; pointing out the evil, and censuring it; and holding up life and immortality to those who should overcome the temptations of the present

state.

We

Let us suppose him to walk among our several churches, and to address us as he addressed the seven churches of Asia. trust he would find some things to approve; but we are also apprehensive that he would find many things to censure. Let us then look narrowly into the discipline of the primitive churches, and compare ours with it.

By discipline, however, we do not mean to include the whole of the order of a Christian church; but shall, at this time, confine our attention to that part of church-government which consists in

A MUTUAL WATCH OVER ONE ANOTHER, AND THE CONDUCT WE ARE DIRECTED TO PURSUE IN CASES OF DISORDER.

A great part of our duty consists in cultivating what is lovely, but this is not the whole of it; we must prune as well as plant, if we would bear much fruit, and be Christ's disciples. One of the things applauded in the church of Ephesus was, that they could not bear those that were evil.

Yet we are not to suppose, from hence, that no irregularity or imperfection, whatever is an object of forbearance. If uniformity be required in such a degree as that every difference in judgment or practice shall occasion a separation, the churches may be always dividing into parties, which we are persuaded was never encouraged by the apostles of our Lord, and cannot be justified in trivial or ordinary cases. A contrary practice is expressly taught us in the Epistle to the Romans; (Chap. xiv.) and the cases in which it is to be exercised are there pointed out. An object of forbearance, however, must be one that may exist without being an occasion of dispute and wrangling in the church. It must not be to doubtful disputations. (ver. 1.) It must also respect things which do not enter into the essence of God's kingdom, the leading principles of which are righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. (ver. 16, 17.) That which does not subvert the gospel of the kingdom, nor set aside the authority of the King, though it be an imperfection, is yet to be borne with. Finally It must be something which does not destroy the work of God, or which is not inconsistent with the progress of vital religion in the church, or in our own soul. (ver. 20.) In all such cases we are not to judge one another, but every man's conscience is to be his judge. (ver. 23.)

:

In attending to those things which are the proper objects of discipline, our first concern should be, to see that all our measures are aimed at the good of the party, and the honour of God. Both these ends are pointed out in the case of the Corinthian offender. All was to be lone that his spirit might be saved in the day of the