sphere, and touch and transform every trait.

When one is a Christian, he will find a thousand channels for carrying out his Christian feeling and Christian influence, without either preaching, or, what is most important, distributing tracts, or carrying Bibles. What is wanted in the present day is not less Christianity preached on Sundays, but far more Christianity lived and visible in living sculpture in the world, and on week-days; for depend upon this, worldly men, who will not come to hear your minister preach, will watch how his people live. When they see the people who go to church, and places of worship, and hear sermons which they praise, and a minister whom they admire, shuffle and cheat on week-days, and in business be dishonest, mean, and more than sharp, they will say, "Well, if that be the whole effect of that preacher's sermons on his people, they cannot be much worth; if these traits be the whole fruit of the preaching of this man whom you admire, he cannot be doing great good; and if your religion does not make you something better than all this, it is not worth having." You are Christians just in the ratio of the depth, and force, and fervour of your Christianity in common life and daily practice. I do not mean that you are to preach sermons on the Exchange, or from the counter, that when you receipt a bill in business you are to add a text, nor that when you apply for the payment of a debt you are to quote passages of Scripture. As soon as there is ostentation or parade of Christianity, all its power is gone; it is to be felt, not seen; it is a thing that quietly tones the character, not something that talks and chatters in the corners of the streets. If you be Christians, you need not say so-the world will feel it ;

if you are not, you need not say so, for the world will soon know you are not.

He appeals to them again; "Ye know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children." Words of exquisite pathos. And then he turns round and thanks them, and praises them for what is proper; "We thank God without ceasing, because, when ye received the Word of God, which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God."

"As the word of God, and chiefly the gospel preached by sent ministers, is the ordinary means of converting sinners to God; so they who would be converted by it must lend an attentive ear to hear it, and carefully wait upon such occasions of hearing it as God doth offer: for Paul, speaking of the means of their conversion and fruitfulness, saith, the word of God, which ye heard of us.'

"They must seriously ponder and meditate upon the word heard, and especially bring it to the proof, whether it be the word of God or not, otherwise bare hearing cannot profit: for, saith he, 'ye received the word which ye heard of us.'

"As the word of God delivered by his sent ministers, doth still remain God's word, speak it who will (Matt. xxiii. 2, 3), or let men think of it what they will (Ezek. ii. 4, 5), the nature of the word is nothing altered so the man who would have the word blessed with success unto him, must labour to settle himself in this persuasion, that the word delivered from Scripture is the word of the eternal God: and, indeed, after an accurate search, it will be found to be so, by the consent of all its parts, though written at divers times and

several hands, by the fulfilling of its prophecies, the majesty and simplicity of its style, and the wonderful efficacy of it in changing men's hearts, the malice of Satan against it in all ages, and yet the Lord's wonderful preserving of it, &c.; for Paul affirms it to be God's word, and that they after search had found it to be so : 'Ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.'

"When a man is thus persuaded that the word delivered from Scripture is no human invention, but the word of God, he may receive and entertain it as his word, trembling at threatenings (Isa. lxvi. 2), rejoicing at and embracing promises (Heb. xi. 13), yielding obedience to precepts (Acts iv. 6), and submitting with patience to sharpest reproofs (1 Sam. iii. 18), for that is to receive the word as God's word, and such a receiving is the ordinary consequent of the forementioned persuasion for they, being persuaded it was God's word, did receive and by faith embrace it: 'Ye received it,' saith he, 'not as the word of man, but as the word of God.'

“When a man hath thus received and embraced the word, he must labour to prove his so doing, by making it appear that the word hath wrought effectually, and over all impediments, a mighty and gracious change in him from sin to holiness: and the word so received by faith is always attended with such efficacy in those who receive it: it is the power of misbelief in hearers, which maketh so much preaching to so little purpose."

What does this suggest? That we are not always to indulge in blaming people, but sometimes to praise them to praise, by acknowledging the good you have

done, is the way to induce you to do more. To be always finding fault, is the way to destroy the good that you have done or desire to do. And therefore the apostle recognises the good that is in them; whilst, in other parts of this epistle, he notices also the faults with which that goodness is alloyed. He adds: "For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus "followers of them as far as they followed Christ; "and you have suffered of your own Gentile countrymen just what these Christians in Judea have suffered of the Jews." And then he says of these Jews, "They killed the Lord Jesus"and yet they did not kill him: it was actually the Gentile Romans that crucified Christ; but the Jews had the guilt, as they urged it, and clamoured for it. "And they also killed their own prophets."

"The apostle having occasionally mentioned the persecution raised by the Jews, in all places where they had power, against the gospel, doth see it necessary, not only further to comfort those suffering Thessalonians, by showing that Christ and the prophets had formerly suffered, and they the apostles did presently suffer no less than they, but also to prevent their stumbling at the gospel upon this ground, that the Jews, who in former times were God's only people, did so much oppose it; which he doth, first by taking off their deceiving vizard, or mask, of being God's only people, under which they lurked and made themselves terrible to all their opposites, and by making them appear in their own colours, while he reckoneth out seven horrid crimes, whereof the body of that people, made up of parents and children in several succeeding generations, were guilty as, 1. They killed, with great barbarity

and cruelty, as the word doth signify, Jesus Christ, who was the Lord of glory (1 Cor. ii. 8), and their Lord, to whom they owed subjection and homage. 2. They killed, with the same barbarity, the holy prophets, called here their own,' because they were of their own nation, and sent with a peculiar message to them. 3. They persecuted,' banished, and drove away, as the word doth signify, Paul and the rest of the apostles. 4. They pleased not God; they neither had his favour, nor cared much for it; their woful way displeased him exceedingly. 5. They were contrary, and enemies unto all men; to wit, in so far as they hindered the course of the gospel, by which alone salvation is brought to lost mankind (Tit. ii. 11; this is contained, ver. 15). Their sixth crime was their violent hindering, as the word rendered forbidding' doth signify, the apostles to speak or preach, to wit, the gospel, unto the Gentiles, and consequently obstructing, so far as in them lay, the salvation almost of all the world. The last crime with which they are charged is, that, however they did not intend any such thing, yet by committing those and many other such mischiefs, they did 'always,' and without intermission, 'fill up their sins'—that is, carry on their wickedness to such a measure and height, as God had decreed to permit them to come at, without stop or hinderance, before he did inflict deserved judgment. (See the like phrase to this sense, Gen. xv. 6 ; Matt. xxiii. 32.) And having thus reckoned out their crimes, he doth further prevent all stumbling at the gospel, that might arise from their opposition to it, by showing that as the wrath of God had already begun to seize upon them, by hardening them judicially in sin 'for he speaks in the preterit time, to denote that this