and everlasting contempt 1:" and they were contented, yea, resolved to subdue their evil propensities, and, like the blessed St. Paul, to forsake this world and every thing it can bestow, if by any means they might attain unto the resurrection of the dead 2. What was it that supported the patience of the early Christians, and gave an unconquerable determination to their spirit? It was the love of their Lord and Master. 'It was the hope of seeing Him again, and being received by Him into the kingdom of His Father. They believed, they knew that their labour was not in vain in the Lord3. They believed that, though despised, persecuted, and afflicted now, the day of His appearing was at hand, when "they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever."

My dear brethren, is not Jesus Christ our Lord and Master too? Have we

1 Dan. xii. 2.

2 Phil. iii. 11.

214 BREVITY OF APOSTOLICAL HISTORY.

stooped our necks to any other yoke? Surely His Spirit is as powerful to sanctify and purify our hearts, as when He first descended on His Apostles His "blessed hope "" is still as animating, and invigorating, and purifying a principle as ever. The promises of God are still unchanged and unchangeable. to prove to ourselves and to all around us, the power and the value of our religion. The Church, at least, has taken care to remind us that there were once Christians in the world. May we be enabled, by the same Spirit that washed, and sanctified, and justified them, to follow their blessed example, and to share their everlasting crown. "Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people; O visit me with thy salvation; that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance 2." Amen.

May His grace enable us

1 Rom, viii. 24. Titus ii. 13. 1 Pet. i. 3. 1 John iii. 3. 2 Ps. cvi. 4, 5.

SERMON X.

THE BREVITY OF THE APOSTOLICAL HISTORY.

66

PART II.

DANIEL Xii. 2, 3.

They that be wise, shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever."

IN a former discourse on these words, we took occasion to notice the remarkable fact, that the New Testament contains scarcely any particulars of the lives and sufferings of the Apostles of Christ. We observed also, that such a fact cannot fail of proving eminently instructive, on account of the light it throws, not only on the character of the Apostles themselves,

but also on the spirit and design of the New Testament. The former of these points we have already examined, and have seen, that the disregard of posthumous reputation manifested by the founders of the Christian Church, is a clear and irrefragable proof of the sincerity of their belief in the religion which they taught, of the singleness of purpose with which they pursued the object of their mission, and of their freedom from the vanity and selfishness of a sectarian spirit.

We now proceed to the second part of our subject: namely, to inquire what light this fact throws on the spirit and design of the New Testament.

Our subject naturally divides itself into three particulars.

First, What is the general spirit and design of Holy Scripture?

Secondly, Whether the quantity of information which the New Testament affords regarding the apostolical history, is in harmony with the general spirit and design of revelation ?

Thirdly, Whether the quantity of in

formation we possess on this subject is sufficient for the purposes for which it is professedly given.

I. Our first inquiry is: What is the general spirit and design of Holy Scripture.

1. In discussing this question, I shall observe, in the first place, that the Holy Scripture was not intended to satisfy curiosity. Designed by God to communicate knowledge on a variety of subjects, it does not profess to give us perfect and complete information upon any one of them. Satan brought sin into our nature, by persuading our first parents, to intrude into the knowledge of what God had concealed from them, and what they could not know without the loss and forfeiture of their original innocency. It has pleased God, in his infinite wisdom, to frustrate and disappoint the devices of our enemy, in this instance, as in all others, by the very same weapons with which he worked our mischief. It is by the knowledge of what God had originally concealed from us, and by the apprehension of mysteries impenetrable to the