27. Paul was a preacher of free grace-a doctrinal, argumentative, earnest, practical preacher. He brought logic and rhetoric and philosophy and the heathen classics, and a well trained and powerful mind to the cross of Christ, and baptized them all into his blood. The prominent, the chief topic in all his discourses and in all his epistles, is free grace. How often do we hear him acknowledge his indebtedness to redeeming love. He seems 'never to weary of the theme, nor to have been ashamed of his obligations. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, was with him a sort of stereotyped address. He exulted in the obligations laid upon him as a sinner saved by free grace. He speaks of it as undeserved, unexpected, and when first revealed to him undesired. He says it came to him from the highest Heavens, arrested him in his career of impiety and persecution, and made known to him a saviour. Free, sovereign grace is the affecting theme that melts his heart, elevates his powers, and tunes his tongue to praisewhich dissolves his whole soul in tenderness and pours out the deep emotions which heaved his bosom. He could say by experience: It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. The grandeur of his mind; the amplitude and strength of his intellect; his moral courage; his heroic devotion, his patience in suffering; his powerful genius; his decision of character; his fixedness of purpose; his eloquence and zeal-all give him a prominence in the ministry of God's dear Son, that well entitle him to the study and careful imitation of all Christ's preaching servants. Who more powerful, massive, clear and overwhelming in argument than Paul with the subtle and vain philosopher Who more terrible in dealing out the thunders of Jehovah and sounding forth the trumpet-tongued curses of Sinai against gainsayers and all the ungodly tribe, who refuse free grace? And yet never was there a more tender and affectionate son of consolation in his discourses to the timid disciple. He knew better than any other man how to wind his way into the human soul-" how to coil around its most sacred affections-how to explore the secret place of tears, and to put in motion all its kindest sympathies." But, it is when he speaks of the fullness, depth, length and breadth of free grace, whereof he was a minister, and an Apostle both to Jew and Gentile, that he looms higher and shines more gloriously than on any other subject. Here all his powers of intellect, and all his feelings are concentrated. He declares unhesitatingly that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was exceeding abundant and that he had obtained it for this end, that in him, first the Saviour might show forth all long suffering to them who should believe on Him, to life everlasting. He regarded himself as a monument inscribed with: THERE IS FORGIVENESS WITH GOD. He tells us, moreover,

that his ministry was marked with many tears. I have often thought of the Apostle in tears. I have tried to imagine how he must have looked when preaching free grace in tears. There is something peculiarly affecting, tender and sublime in the tears of an Apostle. But wherefore, O thou man of God, these "many tears?" Did he weep before the Jewish Sanhedrim or before the Roman Governor? Did he weep when he was shipwrecked-when he was put in prison-when he was scourged-when he was stoned and taken up half dead-or when he was in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, or in perils of false brethren, or when he was carried to Rome and appeared before Nero, and under sentence of death, or when taken to the block to be beheaded? No, my brethren, there is no record of any tears from Paul on any of these occasions. But he does tell us expressly, that none of these things move me; nor do I count my life any thing, only that I may finish with joy the ministry of the Lord Jesus. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of right

eousness.

The fountain of his tears was sealed up too deep to flow on his own account. But the great deeps of his heart were broken up, when he saw his countrymen rejecting the only Messiah-when he saw his fellow-men rejecting free grace-putting away from them the only words of eternal life. Having a full view of the completeness and glory of the Gospel, and of the terrors of the Lord, and the awful destruction that awaits the finally impenitent from the presence of the Lord, he could not refrain from tears. Now the eyes that knew no tears while he stood in chains before a Roman governor, nor when he was sentenced to death by the bloody Nero, are suffused and overflowing. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. He was willing to be accursed after the manner of Christ, for his brethren's sakes. Like the prophet, he was ready to exclaim, "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people." Whitefield and many other eminent servants of God have not been able to refrain from tears when pleading with sinners to be reconciled to God.

5. For a minister of the Gospel to stand on the platform of knowing nothing but Christ and Him crucified, is, as the dying Rutherford said to his fellow presbyters: "To do all for Christ; to pray for Christ, study and preach for Christ; feed the flock committed to your charge for Christ; to visit and catechise for God, and out of love to the souls of men, and to beware of men-pleasing." In a word, it is to make Christ the all in all of his ministry-the soul of all Christian graces, ordinances and sacraments. Psalms and hymns, spiritual songs, prayers and sermons, baptism and the holy supper are nothing without Christ. He gives them all

their value. Christ, my brethren, is the subject of all our preaching the ground of argument, the magazine of arms, and the great motive of persuasion. He is all that we want to give peace to the conscience, strength to the feeble, patience and courage to the suffering. He is all that is wanted to purify the affections, and loosen us from earth, and lift us up to Heaven. Christ formed within us the hope of glory; will be followed by the setting of our affections on things that are above. If we preach the law, it is that it may be a schoolmaster to bring our fellow-men to Christ, the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. If we preach repentance, it is because Christ is exalted to the right hand of God, to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance unto Israel and forgiveness of sins-that repentance should be preached everywhere in his name. Do we preach faith? It is because Christ is the author, object, and finisher of faith. And if as faithful men, who cannot shun to declare the whole counsel of God, we preach the torments of Hell, it is to warn men of the wrath to come, and induce them to flee to Christ as a glorious refuge. And when we preach the joys of heaven, it is to allure to that bright world-to encourage sinners to fly to Christ, who is the way to the inheritance of the saints in glory. As ministers we are without occupation, commission, authority, subject or hope of success, except as we realize the presence and authority of Christ. One is our master, even Christ. It is his commandment to "go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain." All our strength as ministers of the Gospel is from Christ. Paul and Apollos, Calvin and Edwards, are nothing without him. He giveth the increase. As the clouds from which the rain descends have not that rain in themselves, but derive it from the sea and various moist places of the earth, and then disperse it abroad; so all the efficacy of the Gospel which is preached, is derived from Jesus Christ, who is the overflowing fountain of all that is good and holy. The treasure is committed to earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God.

With two remarks, I close this discourse.

And the first is this, that to be a minister of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, is to bear an awful and fearful responsibility. No man should take this office upon himself unless he is called of God to it. And then he should ever bear in mind that he is set to watch for souls as one that must give an account to the Judge of quick and dead in the light of eternity. Christ's ascension gift is not nuncios, popes and cardinals; nor clergymen, nor assemblies, nor vicar-generals, nor rabbis, nor Ulemans, nor reverend, nor right reverends, but bishops or pastors to feed the people with knowledge and understanding. Of all things clerical,

pride and pomp and hypocrisy are the most contemptible. What can be more melancholy than to see a man who is set between the living and the dead-a mouth for God-himself a poor sinful man, converted and saved by free grace, and honored with the ministry of reconciliation, so far forgetting his high calling as to compliment himself in the pulpit, and be far more anxious to show himself off, than to win souls to heaven by preaching Christ and Him crucified?

The second remark is, that in proportion to the divine authority attached to the living ministry of the word, is the responsibility on the part of the hearers of preachers of the Gospel, to take heed how and what they hear. As men sent of God to preach the Gospel of His grace, their authority is from heaven. In preaching Christ and Him crucified, they speak not their own words, but the words of God. If you receive their message, you shall inherit eternal life; if you reject it, you reject the offer of pardoning mercy from your eternal Judge. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that believeth not shall be damned.

May the ever blessed Head of the Church multiply grace upon grace to you, my beloved brethren, and enable him whom you have called to be your pastor, and who is now set over you in the Lord, so to live and labor and preach from the glorious platform of the prophets and apostles, and of the noble army of martyrs, and of saints, that he may both save himself and those that hear him. May he be a burning and a shining light among you many years. May he be full of faith and of the Holy Ghost-mighty in the Scriptures-showing unto you the way of salvation; and when he stands before you at the judgment seat of Christ, may his sentence be: Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou with this thy flock into the joy of thy Lord.

AMEN, AND AMEN.

CREDULITY.

Infidels scoff at the credulity of the Christian. But let us fairly state the case, and see whether of all beings in existence the infidel is not the most weakly credulous. What is the infidel's creed? He believes, that the whole world united in a conspiracy to impose upon themselves about the era of the introduction of christianity; that they invented an universal persuasion of the coming of some great personage, and that by mere accident their conjecture was verified in the birth of Christ; that verses or poems, the productions of men who lived several hundred years before, accidentally happened to apply to that extraordinary person, and things the most contradictory did accidentally concur in him; that

he was a deceiver, and an enthusiast, and a false claimant to a divine commission, and yet, that he was, without exception, the purest and most amiable of beings; and that he succeeded in his object without any of the means usually employed by similar characters; for without money, without troops, without power, he convinced multitudes of his divine authority. He believes, that after Christ was openly crucified as a malefactor, twelve illiterate fishermen took up the extraordinary tale that he had risen from the dead, although these fishermen must have known the contrary if he was a deceiver, and without any assignable motive, in the face of danger and death, they formed the bold design of converting the whole world to a belief of this strange story; that although aware of the calamities which they must thus occasion to mankind, and therefore men of unfeeling and cruel disposition, their writings and actions exhibit the purest morality and the most benevolent spirit; that without education or literature they composed several works, in which the leading character or subject of their memoirs, if a fictitious personage, is unquestionably one of the most wonderful creatures of imagination that the range of literature can furnish-a character altogether unlike that of any being who ever dwelt on earth-sustained throughout with the most exact consistency, and the most minute and apparently unnecessary particularity of dates and times and places; that they travelled over the greater part of the world, every where successful, though every where persecuted; and that they were eventually the means of subverting the religious establishment of the most powerful nation on earth. Yes, and the infidel believes that all this was CHANCE; these men impostors; the whole story a fable and a forgery!! If it be so, then the case is without a parallel in history; and the man who receives the creed of the infidel, betrays a credulity so capacious, a faculty so prodigious of overlooking difficulties, that we cannot but suspect there is something wrong in the ordinary powers of his understanding. But the case is otherwise. Infidelity is not so much a derangement of the head as of the heart. Believing as we do, that the words of Christ are words of eternal truth, we maintain that it is impossible for any man to disbelieve the Bible, who searches it with a right spirit. "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."