Gentiles around them, to be called the "Israel of God."

For the mere Jew, the worldly unconverted Jew, though he might be, and of course was, nationally separate from those among whom he lived, yet lived amongst them almost wholly for this world. It is true that he might be considered a stranger in a Gentile city, because his true home, i. e., the home of his race, was in Palestine, but he could hardly in any religious sense be considered a stranger and pilgrim; for his heart then, as now, was in the acquisition of money. If it suited his purpose as a trader to live in any city or district, he continued there so long as the authorities would allow him; if, on the contrary, it was more profitable to migrate and live elsewhere, he had no strong ties to snap asunder if he removed himself and all that he had.

If he was a Christian Jew, who had found in Jesus of Nazareth the hope of his fathers, it would be, after all, his Christianity, that Christianity which he shared with his purely Gentile brethren, which would make him consider himself a stranger and pilgrim in any religious

sense.

So that we may safely ignore all national reference in this exhortation, and consider it addressed to the true circumcision; the seed of Abraham by faith, the "Israel of God," which was then, as now, the Church of Jesus Christ.

It takes some effort for us living now in this nineteenth century in a state of security, having our religion established by law, to realize the state of things in which our forefathers in the faith lived in the Apostolic days, when the religion by which we hope to be saved was contrary to law, in fact, proscribed by the law of the land. Consider, for a moment, you who are Christians because it is respectable to be a Christian, you who desire to conform yourselves to the tone of society in which you move, what would you have done if you had lived in a city where all the magistrates, all the chief men and women, all the best society, were heathen; all frequenting the heathen temples, though only for form's sake; perhaps, in their secret souls all atheists, with the hearts, and morals, and hopes of atheists; whilst the catacomb, or hollow tomb, or court-yard, or upper room where the Church of Jesus Christ assembled— that Church in which you profess your belief every time you say your creed—whilst that court or tomb, I say, was crowded mainly by the poor, the uneducated, with a fair number of converted Jews amongst them, so that the public in general classed the worshippers at the best as a sect of Jews; Jews being then held in pretty much the same estimation in society as they are now? Or again, consider, you who think that whatever is enacted by the law and sanctioned by our most gracious sovereign must

be right, what would you have done in a country where the national religion was the worship of false gods; where all the institutions of the country were based on the recognition of these false deities; where power-crushing powerwas all in the hands of those whose public duty it was to see that due honour was paid to the national religion? It is well, my brethren, that we should put these questions to ourselves; for they will assist us to remember that Christianity—I mean, the outward profession of the faith of Christ—was not always the matter of course which amongst us, at least, it is now. A very great part of the Christian religion-all, in fact, that is outward about it-its nominal belief, its outward profession, its sacraments, its public worship, all its civilizing influences, and much of its morality, comes natural to us. We are almost born, and we are certainly brought up, Christians; and the most of us would not like to reckon among our friends professed unbelievers, though, from the way in which infidelity is permeating what is called good society, God knows how long any horror of open infidelity will last.

Well, in this nineteenth century, and in Christian England, we are now born and brought up Christians. Our parents, our rulers, our neighbours, have chosen for us in a great measure. But, my brethren, if we had lived in the first century, in the times when St. Peter wrote this

Epistle, we should not have had Christ in any sense whatsoever chosen for us, we should have had to have made our own choice. And, I put it to you, if you have ever looked into yourselves, if you have ever had to choose between God and the world, would not this have been a fearful liberty of choice?

You will say, Why should it have been? Surely we should have chosen Christ and His Father, and the fellowship of the Saints, rather than the worship of the unclean and devilish gods which our fathers would have worshipped. Stay. It was not so simple a choice. If you had chosen Christ you would have had to count the cost, and the cost in numberless cases would have been home-home, the word and thing so dear to a Christian Englishman-home, for according to the Saviour's prophecy, "your foes would have been those of your own household.” You would have experienced, as you cannot now, the force of the terrible words, "The brother shall deliver the brother to death, and the father the child, and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death."

Yes, there would have been evil eyes always upon you, perhaps those of your own flesh and blood, certainly of your servants, taking note that you never went to the heathen temple, never bowed down or sacrificed to the household gods: they would dog your steps as you went

out at the times of the Christian assemblies, they would report to the magistrates the contempt that you expressed in your secret chambers for the gods which your fathers worshipped.

Again, the cost would have been respectability; you would have lost caste by becoming a Christian. Again, you would at times have been in daily peril of your life, for some decree of the Emperor had gone forth that all Christians should be compelled to sacrifice; or if the decree had been suspended, and there was some tranquillity and safety for the followers of the Saviour, yet there was no certainty that it would not be revived to-morrow, so many enemies of the truth were there around the supreme ruler.

And all this lasted for three hundred long years; and the last of these years the severest of all. During all these years the faith of Christ was under the ban of public opinion. During all these years the professors of the faith were marked men, marked as dangerous to the laws, customs, and religion of their country, and whose existence in the eyes of the heathen drew down the wrath of the gods upon the empire.

But some one may ask, Have you not omitted to remind us of the consolations? Did not those thus persecuted experience, as none since have experienced, or, we may say, have had a right to experience, the consolations of the Gospel? As the very sufferings of Christ abounded in