permanent renovation.

We who have been permitted to

enter on the privileges of this last economy of grace, must hold fast our interest in them in the service and

fear of a holy and sin-avenging God.

Hospitality. Contentment.

Practical exhortations; fraternal love. Sympathy with the afflicted. Chastity. Confident trust in Divine Providence. Imitation of the saints who have finished their course. To us Jesus is what he was to them, the immutable Saviour.

22. Be steadfast in the truth. Do not tamper with the ceremonies of an abrogated Judaism. Let us be willing to suffer shame for our fidelity to Jesus, and, while aware that our soon-to-be-ended pilgrimage is bringing us to an imperishable inheritance, we shall cherish a cheerful spirit of faith and hope which ever offers its eucharistic sacrifices of praiseful words and beneficent acts to the Father through the Son.

They are counselled to avail themselves of the instructions of their stated pastors, and to be conscientiously observant of the discipline of the church. Both pastors and people are living for a great account. In conclusion, the writer entreats their prayers, and pours forth the ardent wishes of his soul for their welfare in a benediction of impressive grandeur.

THE EPISTLE OF ST. JAMES.

THIS is an encyclical letter, intended at first for Christian believers of the Hebrew nation who were living out of Judea. There was a propriety in this design arising from the relation sustained by the writer to the HebrewChristian mother-church at Jerusalem. For though there may be some uncertainty as to the author of this epistle, it is difficult to arrive at any other conclusion than that in which most men who have examined the subject have

agreed, that he was James or Jakub bar Halphai, surnamed Zuro, the Minor, also Ahui da Moran, the brother of our Lord, and the first president or bishop of the Christian community in Jerusalem. Notices of him will be found in Matt. xiii. 55, 56; Mark vi. 3; xv. 47; compared with John xix. 25; 1 Cor. xv. 7; Acts xv. 13; Gal. i. 19; ii. 9, 11; 1 Cor. ix. 5.

The epistle is supposed to have been written by him shortly before his martyrdom, which took place at Jerusalem, about A.D. 62. The character of this discourse is ethical and axiomatic; it elucidates and enforces the moral virtues, and will be always valued by the church as an inspired exposition of some of the leading duties of human life.

1. He, who was himself approaching martyrdom, here exhorts his Christian brethren to the maintenance of a cheerful submission to the divine will in their present trials, and a steadfast regard to the perfection which was before them. He points them to the source from whence, through believing prayer, the grace they needed would be bountifully conferred. The poor are bidden to rejoice in the dignity to which salvation had raised them, and the rich reminded of the instability of worldly greatness; while such of them as had suffered the loss of their possessions for the gospel's sake, are told of the crown that awaits the confessors of the Lord. He then cautions them against an error to which some had been exposed from intercourse with heretical Jews, or Heathen sophists, that the Deity is the author or instigator of sin; showing them, on the contrary, the real origin, the tendency, and the doom of sin, in any man. As for God, his way is perfect. So far from being the author of sin, he is the Father of lights, the cause unchangeable of all good. He can sanctify, but not deprave. The regenerate have been renewed by him, to be made the most

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. 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

G