make him an ambassador of Christ. Ordination is not the creation of an ambassador, but only the recognition of one commissioned and consecrated from the throne of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence in every Christian church, before a minister is ordained, it is first ascertained, as far as man can ascertain, has this man a call from God? is his heart moved by the Holy Ghost to undertake this work? and if it be so, then he is already an ambassador; and all that he requires is the outward formality of a public consecration and appointment amid prayer and laying on of hands by those to whom it pertains in the congregation to do so. But whilst this illustrates the nature of Christian ambassadors by the institution that exists upon earth, we must notice a feature of contrast; and it is an extremely beautiful and striking one. All ambassadors on earth are sent from court to court; but Christ's ambassadors are-oh glorious thought !-not sent to kings, or to courts, or to princes, or to nobles, but to the people; and if the highest sovereign upon earth wants to get a blessing through the preaching of the ambassador, he must just sit and kneel, and stand, and pray, not as a sovereign, but as one of the people.

Here are the marks of the true apostolical succession:-"In perils of robbers, in perils by the heathen, in perils among false brethren; in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness; in weariness, in painfulness, in watchings, in hunger, in thirst, in cold, and in nakedness." These are the proofs of the apostolic succession. And what marks are these? How truly in keeping with the wreath of thorns that the Master wore before! How striking is it here that the marks of apostleship are not gems

and diamonds, but tears; not wine, but blood; not splendour, prosperity, pomp, éclat, earthly magnificence, but hunger, and nakedness, and perils, and want; and, if we have not these by necessity, we ought to take the duties that provoke these in duty; and, at all hazards, and in spite of all suffering, like Paul, glory in the cross, and like him preach only that cross, not in words that man's wisdom teacheth, but in words that the Holy Ghost teacheth.

In what manner are ministers to preach? What does the apostle say? "We beseech you"-not, we threaten you-not, we satirize you—not, we caricature you; but,

we beseech you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled unto God." Have you not noticed in the Gospel how exquisitely simple every statement is, in its phraseology how chaste? Nothing grotesque, nothing extravagant, nothing fitted to provoke ridicule, or to offend the most cultivated taste; yet a simplicity so intense and entire that the poorest and most illiterate man can understand it. The language here is, "We beseech ;” our pulpit, the cross; our mission, love; our message, salvation. And if men cannot be won to Christ, they never will be terrified to Christ; if men cannot be drawn to heaven, they will never be driven to heaven. "We beseech you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled unto God."

Now let me explain what your duty is-nay, not your duty, but your privilege; your unspeakable privilege: "Be ye reconciled unto God." What is this reconciliation? It is the acceptance of Christ's righteousness as our only title to everlasting joy; it is our submission to God. And to ask you to be reconciled to God is, to ask you to submit to be saved not in

your own way, but in God's way; and to seek admission into glory by the only path that God has opened; owning as you enter into it that it is a way that magnifies his justice, his holiness, his mercy, and his love to the very highest possible pitch. And if you reject this reconciliation, if you refuse to enter on this way, there is no other way of salvation. It is, "believe, and be saved;" or, believe not, and be lost. Such is the plain law; there can be no compromise; there can be no intermediate position. When you stand at the judgment-seat of Christ, you will not discover any one inch of ground that you can occupy, except either this, "He was made sin for me, that I might be made the righteousness of God in him ; and I accepted this in the church below, and I cling to it now, and cast all my eternal destiny upon it: or, "I refused the offer, I would not be reconciled, I rejected the Gospel; and now I perish, a suicide, self-slain, because I would not be reconciled unto God." There is no intermediate ground between these two; some are now hovering on the ground of Christ crucified, I trust many are now resting on it, and to those who are not yet reconciled I can take up the words of the apostle, and say, "We beseech you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled unto God."

CHAPTER VI.

PAUL'S EMBASSY-FELLOW-WORKERS WITH CHRIST-THE ACCEPTED TIME-APOSTOLIC TOILS AND PERILS-PRACTICAL PRESCRIPTIONS-VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY PERILS.

IN the last chapter, Paul gave a picture of the great lesson which the ministry is ceaselessly to teach; and of that relationship to God in which the ministry stands, as ambassadors from God, beseeching men to be reconciled to God, alleging that God is reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing unto them their trespasses.

Having told them the lesson that the ministry is appointed to inculcate, he quotes himself, because abused, misrepresented, and caricatured, as in his measure an instance of faithfulness in the midst of reproach, perseverance in the face of powerful obstuctions, and of a blessing vouchsafed to him, not because he was strong, but because God, in spite of his weakness, was powerful and faithful. First of all he says, "Ministers of Christ are fellow-workers with God." What a noble place! what a position of dignity! what a relationship of responsibility is here! God might have converted the world by a miracle, or he might have given it to men without his aid to convert it. But just as it is in vain that the seedsman sows, unless the rain-drops and the sunbeams come; and as it would be

useless that the sunbeams and the rain-drops should come unless the seedsman sow; so, in the work of the Gospel, God has so combined a terrestrial toil upon our part with a celestial blessing upon his part, that we must sow as if all depended upon ourselves, and yet pray with a deep consciousness that all depends upon the blessing of Almighty God. And then he beseeches them in this light, not to receive God's grace in vain; that is, not to hear the Gospel pressed,-its opportunities, its privileges, its blessings unfolded,—and put it off to what is called a convenient season. For, he says, "Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.” He that adjourns till to-morrow the duty that devolves on him to-day, so far receives the grace of God in vain ; he that hears privileges vast and unspeakable, such as Paul proclaims in every epistle, and yet tells the preacher, "Go for this time; I will send for thee at a more convenient season," receives the grace of God in vain. The apostle says, "I beseech you not to do so; for whatever your own passions may plead, whatever your own sophistry may press upon you, you may depend upon it, that not to-morrow, but to-day, is the accepted time; and now, not hereafter, is the day of salvation."

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He then proceeds to show in what respects he had approved and vindicated his ministry. He says, that we have done so as the ministers of God in patience under great afflictions; in afflictions ceaseless, without intermission, and almost unendurable; in necessities, hunger, nakedness, famine; in fastings not of choice but of necessity; in stripes inflicted on us for our faithfulness; in imprisonments, because we would fulfil the function which God had assigned us; in tumults, by riotous