of that shaking of the earth was, the foundations “of the prison were shaken, the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed." And the jailer started from his sleep, and, seeing all things disarranged and in confusion, thought he had neglected his duty the previous evening-that he would suffer death as the consequence of his sin, and instantly, in his excitement, was prepared to commit suicide. But Paul, with all the calmness of conscious innocence, and with the quiet and self-possession of a man who knew that neither life nor death, nor earthquake, nor falling walls could separate him either from the love of God or from the duty that he owed to Him, said to the jailer, “Do thyself no harm; we are not fugitives, anxious to break out; we are all here, and ready to remain so." The jailer seized a light, sprang in, and, under the overwhelming impressions of the scene, recollecting too the prayers and praises of the men, witnessing the meekness and majestic calm with which they conducted themselves, inferred that with them was God; and, secondly, while afraid for his personal safety, yet more alarmed at the condition of his soul, he cried, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" What an important question-how absolute: "What must I do?" Anything upon earth I am ready to do, if it will save me. Not, "What may I do?" as if it were a matter of convenience, but "What must I do?" "What must I do to be saved?" is the great end and object of a preached Gospel. And then instantly the apostles replied-not as they would if they had been priests, "Kneel down, confess, do penance, receive absolution:" they were not priests; they were Protestant ministers, and therefore they said, "Believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." And it is said, "They spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway. And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God, with all his house." The house means the servants, the domestics; but when it speaks of him being baptized, it is very remarkable we read, "he and all his"—not house, but evidently his family; and the "house" seems here to comprehend the servants, or at least it comprehended persons capable of understanding the truth, because it is said, "he rejoiced, believing in God, with all his house." When the magistrates saw what had taken place, they were evidently excessively alarmed; and the keeper of the prison said to Paul, "The magistrates have sent to let you go; now therefore depart, and go in peace."

We have in the answer of Paul the case of a Roman citizen standing by his rights. He said, "No; you have treated us in a way inconsistent with our privileges and our rights. You want us to go away in the dead of night, as if we were thieves, robbers, plunderers. You must be prepared to charge us openly; we are prepared to refute the charge openly; and if we leave your city, we must leave it intact and free from every charge; for no crime can be proved to cleave to us; and we are resolved to leave this city, not as criminals, but as innocent and upright Roman citizens." What does this teach us? That you may, when aggrieved, appeal to your country; that you have rights as citizens, and those rights you may avail yourselves of. Many persons speak very severely of going to law,

which is just an appeal to your rights as a citizen. Well, I think going to law is a most undesirable thing, always a most expensive thing; and, generally speaking, those lawyers who are the most just, and honourable, and honest-and there are thousands of such-will do everything to tell you that the last thing you should do on earth is to incur the risk of a lawsuit. But still it is not sinful to go to law. The apostle speaks of it as being sinful to go to law with a heathen in a heathen land; but we assume that our land is a Christian one, our judges on the bench are Christians, our jury is composed of professing Christians generally; and to go to law is simply, therefore, to submit a quarrel that cannot be adjusted at home to a competent Christian public tribunal, which, in the exercise of impartiality and acquaintance with the laws of the land, will decide what is just, and right, and proper between man and man. It is not, therefore, wrong to appeal to Cæsar; it is only desirable, by private arrangement, the concession of every prejudice, the giving up of every paltry and evanescent ground of quarrel, to settle among yourselves that which is arranged more cheaply, more quietly, and with less pain, than what may be determined by a jury or settled by a judge at great expense, after much trouble and irritating experience in our own hearts.

CHAPTER XVI. 33, 34.

SALVATION BY GRACE-HOLINESS THE RESULT OF-INSTANCES-THE PHILIPPIAN JAILER-LYDIA-VARIOUS PROCESSES IN CONVERSIONDIFFERENT TEMPERAMENTS-LOVE-GRATITUDE-JOY.

I HAVE elsewhere explained the purport of that intensely interesting question, "What must I do to be saved?" I have endeavoured to show the deep anxiety felt by the jailer who asked the question for salvation. I showed the individuality of that relationship, "What must I do to be saved?" and the thorough submission that it indicated to any proposition that should be made by an apostle. "What must I do? Let me know; and at every sacrifice I am prepared to do it, whatever be the consequences, or whatever be the ordeal through which I am destined to pass. I am so humbled and prostrate in the sense of my sins, and in the apprehension of their penalties, that I need only to be told first what I must do; and at all hazards, and with all speed, I am ready, in the face of every difficulty, and in spite of every obstruction, to attempt to do it." I also explained the short, but the most beautiful prescription of the apostle, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Not, do something to deserve a place among the saved; not, suffer a penance, an expiatory penance, if such were possible, in order to get to heaven, or to propitiate God; not, wait till to-morrow, when you will be a little wiser, or till next

week, when you will be a little holier; but this very instant, just as you are, without a change, without a pledge, without a promise, without an alteration, rest, believe, trust on Christ the only Saviour; and the instant of your belief will be the instant of your reception-"Thou shalt be saved."

Now, facts in the Bible are not mere phenomena in the sky, that pass away, leaving no trace behind, but soon forgotten; whatever is recorded here as a fact is the nucleus, and meant to be the nucleus, of an instructive truth. If your heart and my heart be by nature what the jailer's was—and if not so cruel, it is not because you have more grace, but larger remains of your pristine constitutional humanity-if your heart be just what his heart was in its essential nature, till it be changed by grace, and if Christ be this day what he was in that day, eighteen hundred years ago—and we are sure that they are not altered essentially, however modified circumstantially, then why should you not be saved this very day, this very night, as completely, as perfectly as was the poor, profligate, abandoned, depraved jailer of Philippi? There is no more reason for his salvation than there is for yours-that is, there is the same reason for both. His history is recorded, just as the apostle Paul's conversion was recorded, as a precedent for all that shall hereafter believe, and as a standing and brilliant memorial of this blessed fact, that Jesus Christ came into the world not to save upright, honourable, moral men, but to save sinners-the chiefest, and the worst, and eldest of sinners in all the earth till the end of time. And, therefore, if any heart asks, in its anxiety, that question which you must one day ask, and which you may ask in