LECTURES.

LECTURE I.

THE DUTY OF PREACHING THE GOSPEL TO

THE SLAVES IN THE WEST INDIES.

(Preached at the Cathedral, Barbados, Jan. 8, 1832.)

MARK XVI. 15.

Preach the Gospel to every creature.

THE duty which is enforced in this brief command has for its object a greater change in the condition and character of mankind, and a larger production of good, both temporal and eternal, than any other in the whole range of Christian obligation. The command is peremptory, and imposes a solemn charge on all who pro

B

fess the Christian faith-on the ministers of Christ in its direct application; but indirectly, and in its more extended meaning, on all believers in Christianity—on the people as well as on the priest.

That the dispensation of the word of God is entrusted to the care, and charged on the responsibility, of the authorized ministers of religion, no one will dispute. They are under a distinct and especial call to preach the word-to be instant in season, out of season—to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. Necessity is therefore laid upon them to preach the gospel, and woe unto them if they preach not the gospel.2

But while the public ministrations of religion are confided to the duly appointed teacher, and it devolves upon him to preach the word openly and before the congregation; it is also an obvious inference from the text, supported by many a collateral passage in scripture, that it is

1 2 Tim. iv. 2.

2

1 Cor. ix. 16.

the duty of every private Christian to assist in enlarging his Master's kingdom, and in bringing home the wandering and neglected sheep, so that there may be one fold and one shepherd.3

6.6

Thy kingdom come," is a petition familiar to the lips, and I would hope to the hearts also of all our lay brethren, implying their earnest desire to have all men brought under the spiritual rule of Christ, so that "his way may be known upon earth, his saving health among all nations." Should any one use this petition, conscious at the time that he is hindering a fellow-creature from becoming Christ's faithful soldier and servant; or that when the opportunity is forced upon him, he refuses to afford encouragement to the reception of the gospel by the heathen in the land; or that he is even an unmoved spectator of the spiritual darkness, and unholy living of those around him, and dependent upon

3 John x. 10.

him that man practises hypocrisy before the searcher of the thoughts of men. He utters that with his lips which is opposed to the real wishes and intentions of his heart.

It belongs to the ecclesiastical historian to describe the progress of Christianity in the early ages of the church. Small was the number of the professed believers in the Messiah on the day of Pentecost. A few obscure and despised individuals, unsupported by fortune, or rank, or worldly attainments, were with one accord in one place. They were the seed (small, it is true, and unnoticed, and apparently even buried in the earth,) from which afterwards the church of Christ sprung forth, and became the tree in the midst of the earth, which grew, and was strong, and the height thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of all the earth."

PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREA 5 Dan. iv. 11.-Matt. xiii. 22.

• Acts ii. 1.

TURE, was the injunction which animated the first Christians in their dangerous service of conversion, and imposed on them the necessity of declaring to the world the doctrine of Christ crucified. During the first ages, they had many a trial of cruel mockings and scourgings; they were stoned, and tempted, and slain with the sword; they wandered about, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. " Yet, notwithstanding every worldly discouragement, the word of God mightily grew and prevailed. It is a strong, but not an unsuitable, or exaggerated figure, that the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church of Christ.

7

In the fourth century, the gospel was triumphant throughout the civilized world. But England was at this time, and to a much later period, in a state of almost complete barbarism. In some of its darker features it resembled the native shores of the negro in our own days. A

6 Heb. xi. 36.

7 Acts xix. 20.