Page images
PDF
EPUB

some ray of divinity emanating from his

countenance.

3.

"What know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you?" 1 Cor. vi. 19.

“If any man defile the temple of God him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." 1 Cor. iii. 17.Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died." Rom. xiv. 15.

[ocr errors]

4.

"Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men. Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink but with the spirit of the living God." 2 Cor. iii. 2, 3.—What need have the good of letters of recommendation to the good? The open countenance recommends itself to the open countenance. No letters of recommendation can recommend the perfidious countenance, nor can any slanderer deprive the countenance, beaming with the divine spirit, of its letters of recommendation. A good countenance is the best letter of recommendation.

5.

I shall conclude with the important passage from the ninth of the Romans.

For the children, being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of him that calleth, it was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then, Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee; and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then, unto me, Why doth he yet find fault, for who hath resisted his will? Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest againt God? Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus*? Hath not

* Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own? Is thine eye evil because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last, for many be called but few chosen." Matt. xx. 15, 16.

the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured, with much long suffering, the vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction, and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory?" Rom. ix.

11-23.

To this I shall add nothing but—“ God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.-O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or, who hath been his counsellor? Or, who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever. Amen." Rom.

xi. 32-36.

G.

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS FROM KÆMPF'S ESSAY ON THE TEMPERAMENTS, WITH REMARKS.

1.

"WILL not physiognomy be to man what the looking-glass is to an ugly woman?". (Let me also add to the handsome woman. The wise looks in the glass, and washes away spots: the fool looks, turns back, and remains as he was.)

2.

"Each temperament, each character, has its good and bad. The one has inclinations of which the other is incapable. The one has more than the other. The ingot is of more worth than the guineas, individually, into which it is coined; yet the latter are most useful. The tulip delights by its beauty, the carnation by its smell. The unseemly wormwood displeases both taste and smell, yet, in medicinal virtue, is superior to both. Thus is it that each contributes to the perfection of the whole."

I add, from St. Paul.

"For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same. office, so we, being many, are one body, and have various gifts." Rom. xii. 4. "Shall the foot say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee." "And these members, of the body which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour." But God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another." 1 Cor. xii. 15-25. "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen; yea and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence." 1 Cor. i. 27, 28, 29.-" Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called." 1 Cor. vii. 20.-The carnation should not wish to be the tulip, the finger an eye, nor the weak

« PreviousContinue »