dition is better now, it is because the gospel has triumphed over human madness, and hath put the abettors of wickedness to shame.

Paul trod continually, not amidst vipers and scorpions, but, what is infinitely worse, the snares of hellish men. Every sermon furnished materials for a new conspiracy; every step a track for the bloodhounds. The cowards who shrunk from his eye, would yet venture to stab him from behind. It was only by lying in wait, that the Jews hoped for success. But all this was not to shake the resolution nor alter the conduct of Paul. Such as the grace of our Jesus made him, both the church and her adversaries always found him.

In the midst of these discouragements, nothing could arrest his zeal, nor silence his testimony: "he kept back nothing that was profitable to his Ephesian hearers." Neither the love of fame, nor the hope of gaining a party, ever called forth Paul's exertions. His anxiety was to be useful; popularity, at the expense of duty, had no charms for him. Wo to that preacher who makes his office subservient to the applause of his fellow-men. Whether his hearers approved or disapproved--whether the doctrines coincided with the popular prejudice, or were directly hostile to it, it was the same thing to this wise and gallant apostle. He had to do with God, who

searcheth the hearts; human opinions dwindled away into their native insignificance, before him whose judgment is according to truth; and therefore he kept back nothing that was profitable to those who frequented his ministry. He showed them that truth which admits of no compromise; he had but one doctrine, which he taught publicly, and from house to house. Be he where he might, in the solemn assembly or in the domestic circle, his instructions were the same. It is of the very nature of truth that it should be so. And it equally belongs to imposture to utter things unpleasant in public, and fritter them away in private; or to utter them in private, and suppress them in public. His discourses in the church he followed up with his explanations and applications at home. From house to house the apostle might be tracked upon this line.of life.

This passage has been used as furnishing a divine warrant, and proving a divine obligation, to what is termed parochial visitation. Highly important it is no doubt; but men must be careful that they do not convert the sound of words into a divine warrant, and not to require bricks without straw. To prove that apostolic example establishes a precedent for imitation, we must be sure that the circumstances to which it is applied are similar. But this is far from

being the case in the present instance. There are two things in which the state of the churches now differs materially from their state in primitive times.

In the first place, they had inspired teachers; who could, therefore, spend the whole week in exhorting, confirming, consoling their converts, without infringing on their preparations for the Lord's day. Our situation is quite different: close and habitual study are necessary for us. And if we cannot get time to attend to it, our ministrations grow uninteresting, and our congregations lean. As for those men who boast of working at the loom all the week, and then acquitting themselves well on the Lord's day, I shall say nothing but that their performances are such as might be expected from the loom; but as far as can well be conceived from the labors of a workman who rightly divides the word of truth.

In the next place, the primitive churches never permitted themselves to. suffer for want of laborers. Their spiritual advancement was, in their eyes, infinitely more valuable than all the pelf which the maintenance of their ministers required. Look over the Acts of the Apostles, and be astonished at the abundance of help which the churches then enjoyed. Our economical plan is to make the pastor do the work which was anciently done by three or four, and

the very natural consequence follows, the work is badly done, or the workman is sacrificed. In our own city, from the accumulation of inhabitants, and their very dispersed residences, if we were to visit as much, or any thing like it, as our people are good enough to wish, and unreasonable enough to expect, we should not have an hour left for our proper business; we could make no progress in the knowledge of the scriptures; and not one would be able to preach a sermon worthy a sensible man's hearing. The conclusion is almost self-evident: if congregations will stint themselves in workmen, they must have their work spoiled; and if the work be done at all, they must kill the mind or body of the workman; and sometimes both. Let them not deceive themselves. If they impose hardships which God never commanded, they must expect to go without his blessing.

The burden of Paul's preaching, whether to the Jew or Gentile, was repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

That their conceptions and feelings toward God were radically wrong; that these must be altered and purified; and that all their views must centre in our Lord Jesus Christ, as the way, the truth, and the life, in order to human happiness, his word constantly declares, and the experience of men as constantly confirms. This great

truth, Christ, the wisdom of God and the power of God, flowed alike from the tongue and from the pen of Paul, and was, in fact, "the head and front of his offending," with both Jews and Gentiles. This, however, must be the substance of his testimony. And so it must be still. All who hope to win sinners unto God, and to have them as crowns of rejoicing in that day, must, like Paul, determine to know nothing save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And cursed with all the curses which are written in this book, be that ministry of which Christ is not the all and in all. Such is a very feeble outline of the nature of Paul's ministry. O happy, thrice happy, the man who nearly imitates it! We have much reason to blush and be ashamed, when we compare ourselves with this prince of preachers; and have infinite need to address you, my Christian friends, the request of this glorious man of God, Brethren, pray for us.

II. We are next called to witness Paul's extreme devotedness to the cause in which he was engaged. He was bound in the spirit to go to Jerusalem. The Holy Ghost put forth a constraining influence upon him to go to that city. He had often heard, and well knew, the voice-had often felt, and well understood, the impression which signified his duty to go to the metropolis of persecution. Of the general nature of the