world. Consider your work-serving divers lusts and pleasures. Consider your reward-death; for the wages of sin is death. Consider your destiny-if you are not admitted to the presence of Christ, you must be banished for ever from him, under the malediction of that dreadful sentence, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." O, reflect, I beseech you, reflect on these things! Inquire, whether you could not be more happy and more honourable by entering the service of Christ. Will you relinquish all hope and idea of going to heaven? Will you reconcile yourself to the idea of endless perdition? Begin to meditate from this hour. It is not yet too late. Christ's service is still open to you. The owner of the vineyard is now going out to the places of resort to engage servants for his work, and is saying to you, "Why stand ye here all the day idle? Go, work in my vineyard." Comply with the admonition. Follow Christ. Go to him as a penitent, believing in him for salvation. Go to him to be taught, to be saved, to be governed, to be formed after the example he has set. He waits to rescue you, to employ you, to save you, to conduct you to eternal glory.

2. If such be the rich though gracious and unmerited errand of Christ's servants, let them continue diligently in their work, with whatever of self-denial and suffering it may be attended. Obedience and self-denial should be not only the characteristics, but the pleasure of a Christian. With such a master as Christ, with such a service as that of the gospel, and with such a reward as being for ever with the Redeemer in heaven, we should find a pleasure, not only in doing, but suffering, for his dear sake. There should be, I was going to say, almost a chivalrous delight in sacrifices for the cause of religion. We ought not, I admit, to ask for a heavier cross than that which Christ calls us to bear; but then we should neither complain at, nor shrink from, that, as too heavy. In all cases of doubtful propriety of conduct, how readily and how cheerfully, should we give up the gratification rather than do any

thing, in the smallest degree at variance with our profession. In order to exercise self-denial, there is no need of resorting to unprescribed services, uncommanded severities, self-imposed penances; for instances enough of mortification and painful endurance, for conscience sake, will occur in the path of obedience, to bring this duty into performance. If we follow Christ fully, by acting up to the precepts of his holy word, and conforming in all things to his spotless example, our separation from this world, and in many things also from the visible church, will be sure to expose us to such opposition, contempt, and reproach, as will amount to a kind of persecution for Christ's sake. But then, beloved, "be stedfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know your labour is not in vain in the Lord." Your work may often be hard to flesh and blood, and amount to the full import of the expression, "taking up the cross;" but, remember, you serve a good and gracious Master, who takes notice of all you do, and especial notice of all you suffer for him, and will richly and eternally reward you; and who has also promised you his Holy Spirit to help your infirmities. On that omnipotent Agent depend. Let every effort be made in reliance on his grace, be sought by prayer, and looked for in faith. To sum up all-this is religion-deliberately, fully, conscientiously, to follow Christ according to his word and example, at all risks and costs-and this is heaven, to be with him in glory-and this heaven will be the possession of those, and those only, who follow him.

NO. IV.

BB

MISCELLANEOUS DEPARTMENT,

CONSISTING OF

ORIGINAL PAPERS, UNDER THE FOLLOWING HEADS:

Criticisms on the different styles of preaching.

Interpretation of difficult and mistaken passages of Scripture. The best and shortest methods of confuting the sophisms of infidelity and scepticism.

Occurrence of remarkable incidents connected with hearing or reading the word of God, or illustrative of its particular passages. Occasional accounts of the lives and writings of some of the best of our old divines.

A concise and chronological epitome of the rise and progress of the Papacy; in a series of papers.

PREACHING.

A preacher should be faithful to three things: faithful to the word of God, as Samuel to Eli,-faithful to his own conscience, as Peter and John before the rulers of the Jews,-and faithful to the case of his hearers, as Nathan to David. His aim should be to have it said to him with truth at last, by THE FAITHFUL AND TRUE WITNESS, "Well done, good and faithful servant.

TO THE EDITORS OF "THE EVANGELIST."

DEAR BRETHREN,

You have invited contributions to the Miscellaneous Department of your publication; and, though the enclosed papers will not perhaps exactly fit either of the six divisions, they will, I apprehend, so far harmonize with the general intention of our new "Minister's own Book," as to secure a place among its valuable pulpit helps.

One design of "The Evangelist"-if I correctly understand it is to assist us all,-pastors, evangelists, teachers, and helpers, to become better preachers of the gospel of Jesus Christ; and with this intention, to present us, in the various modes by which such instruction can be conveyed, with the best practical answers to the questions, WHAT IS IT to preach the gospel? and in what MANNER can the truth be most profitably presented ?

We live in an age in which "IMPROVEMENT" is the watch-word; and though, in our science, the best march we can make will be BACK to the simplicity, purity, and power of our ancestors of the first century, it will yet be possible, under the divine blessing, that you should, now, so direct us in the better methods of doing that, as to afford to the students of the present age some more valuable helps than were permitted to ourselves in former days.

Yet the present century has not passed without affording us some useful aids; and if the rising ministry have had no contemporary Claude, or Ostervald, or Campbell, they have yet been favoured with numerous and efficient helps as a result of the advancement of the kingdom of God.

You have no room for multiplied illustrations; but will not refuse a few lines-even in your "original" miscellany-to that blessed passage of Robert Hall, when addressing his beloved Carey. "PREACH THE GOSPEL, my dear brother. Preach it with a constant recollection of its character and aim. Preach it with a perpetual view to eternity, and with the simplicity and affection with which you would address your dearest friends, were they assembled round your dying bed. While others are ambitious to form the citizen of earth, be it yours to train him for heaven, to raise up the temple of God from among the ancient desolations, to contribute your part towards the formation and perfection of that eternal society which will flourish in inviolable purity and order, when all human associations shall be

dissolved, and the princes of this world shall come to nought."

In contemplating the mental process by which the understanding and the affections of this venerated minister might have been directed to the production of this and similar passages, I detected, or thought I detected, one circumstance which was not unlikely to have produced results of such a character. I marked the peculiar force with which he frequently introduced a scripture passage on the subject; and concluded that I had found the mine from which the treasures had been-not stolen, but-bought and digged by diligent and prayerful effort. I thought I would go to the same mine, and though unskilled to make so valuable a use of the treasures of truth, when I should discover them, I would endeavour at least to have them in my possession, collected and arranged for myself, or for the service of any brother who could better appropriate them for the benefit of the church. Such is the history of the collection with which I now present you. It is not perfect. There are plenty more such specimens yet remaining in the mine, and many of as interesting a character, which I have not detected. But these will serve for the beginning of a cabinet; and we must rival the oryctologists in our endeavours to possess complete collections of the treasures of the ancient times.

The purposes for which I suppose the following scripture extracts may be employed, will include the following.

1. They remind us that the Bible, from which we instruct others, presents also the most ample directory for ourselves.

2. They teach that the art of preaching the gospel, includes an infinitely wider range than many of the sincere followers of Christ have in every case contemplated.

3. They tell the preacher how imperatively he is bound so to preach our Lord Jesus Christ, that neither doctrinal, experimental, nor practical instructions shall be omitted in his discourses.