are we to listen to you, who are not only men of like passions, like infirmities with ourselves, but men of whom it may in some instances be said, that their passions are still more irregular, their infirmities even more apparent? Why are we to lend an attentive ear, when you, being such, admonish us that we receive not the grace of God in vain,' or 'beseech us, in Christ's stead, that we be reconciled to God?""

66

To this natural question there can be but one answer, which is suggested by the text-because we are workers together with Christ." All our claim must be based upon the simple fact, that we are His ministers, and employed in His work; that we are His ambassadors, representing Him our Sovereign; that we are labourers together with God in the field of the church, in the erecting of the spiritual temple; ye, the husbandry and the building, being His. The preaching of the gospel is His appointed ordinance; and being ordained, authorized, accredited, aided, and prospered by Him, is of peculiar utility and efficacy: it becomes the means of bringing many to a knowledge of the truth, who were previously ignorant of it; and of retaining many more within the pastures of the gospel, who would otherwise go astray like sheep that are lost. To not a few Christians indeed, their weekly attendance on the

public service of God is a spiritual nutriment, without which the soul could no more thrive than the body can retain its vigour when deprived of its daily food; and the full value of which can perhaps be appreciated aright only when it is totally withdrawn. While the benefit, however, such as it is, cannot be affected or impaired by the weakness of those through whom it is conveyed, many a Minister of the gospel, there is reason to fear, has himself become a cast-away, who has yet effectually preached to others. Many have warned their hearers from the path to perdition, which themselves have never forsaken; and persuaded others to enter the way of life and immortality, in which themselves have never walked. Deprecating for ourselves this awful destiny, we would, on the present occasion, apply the impressive language of the text to your most momentous interests; and asserting our claim to be regarded, in the discharge of our pastoral duty, as "workers together with Christ," we would

I. BESEECH YOU, THAT YE RECEIVE THE GRACE OF GOD; and

II. ADMONISH YOU, THAT YE RECEIVE NOT THE GRACE OF GOD IN VAIN.

I. The act of BESEECHING, it may be said, implies a degree of inferiority on the part of

the person by whom the entreaty is employed. And even if it be so, the minister of Christ does not depart in any degree from his proper place and condition; for our great model, the apostle Paul, was contented to be made a servant unto all, that he might gain the more; and he would, to adopt the prophet Isaiah's forcible expression, "have given his body as the ground and as the street to them that passed over;"—he would have readily submitted to be trampled in the dust, could he, by this act, have opened to any the path to life and immortality. Perhaps, however, the same devoted minister of the gospel will convey to us a correct idea of the mingled authority and humility which become his brethren in the ministry, by the words which he employs in addressing Philemon, “Though I might be much bold in Christ to ENJOIN thee that which is convenient, yet for love's sake I rather BESEECH thee;" and thus ought we to adopt the tone of entreaty, and to beseech our hearers for love's sake-for the love of their own souls, of the Saviour who hath redeemed them, of the church which he hath purchased with his blood. No language can be too earnest, no persuasion too forcible, no supplication too frequent and importunate, by which individuals, however humbled, however erring, however debased, may be induced to listen to our

remonstrances, to awaken to a sense of their danger, to receive and to retain the grace of God. All considerations of personal dignity, all feeling of official privileges or distinctions, should give way to this one great object; for when the praise of learning and of eloquence, of authority and of honour, has passed away, the souls who have been won over by the exhortations and entreaties of the Christian Pastor are the jewels that shall sparkle most brightly in his eternal crown. Never was St. Paul more usefully and therefore more honourably employed than when he was preaching the word to the Philippian jailor within the gloomy walls of a dungeon; and it will be remembered of the second Indian bishop, long after his marble monument shall have crumbled into dust, that he was frequently to be found in the hospital or in the transport-vessel, at the sick bed of the diseased and wounded soldier, discharging there the office of an Ambassador for Christ, and praying them in Christ's stead that they would be reconciled to God.

Seeing then that the utmost earnestness and urgency of entreaty alike befit us, whether we address high or low, rich or poor, prince or peasant;—that we are alike to beseech them by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, since their danger is and their deliverance must be the same; -the OBJECT also

of our entreaty is plainly defined—we are to "BESEECH them, that they receive the grace of God." This expressive phrase, "the grace of God," is used in many and various senses throughout Scripture, but there is none which does not consist and cohere with the meaning of the passage before us. If however there be one more appropriate than all the rest, it is "the grace of God that bringeth salvation."

To tell men that they are sinners, in the common acceptation of the term, is a mere waste of their time, if not an insult to their understandings; it is virtually a libel on their powers of reflection, observation, and comparison. No one in a Christian country, however imperfectly instructed, can possibly have arrived at maturity, without being fully aware of the fact. The great world around him, like a troubled sea that cannot rest, is continually heaving up the mire and dirt of sin; and it is well if there be not an accumulation of both within his own breast, that renders external demonstration altogether superfluous. He could as soon, in defiance of the evidence which every sense and faculty bears to the fact, deny that man existed, as that, existing, he is "very far gone from original righteousness;" is, in a word, the enemy of God; alienated from him by contrariety of nature, and not only so, but actually and actively