will be short; "for the elect's sake," he says, "it will be short." But we know that during it, or at the end of it, he will come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and God's people will then say, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him: this is our salvation." The bound-line of the preaching of the apostles was Christ upon the Cross, and Christ upon the Throne. The subject of their sermons was Christ that suffered; the object of the hope they taught was Christ that was to come again. These are the two outlines of what is implied in teaching and preaching Jesus. This truth was not an incidental thing in their teaching. Christ was not an incidental topic: it was not a doctrine, but the doctrine; it was not a truth, but it was the truth that they taught. Many a preacher gives Christ a place in his sermons; but only the preachers that have the apostolical succession,-that is, the true succession of doctrine, not the absurd and false one of personality,-give Christ the place in their sermons. Notice, in the next place, how plainly they preached. In the apostles' language no grandiloquent, no splendid display, but terse, simple, direct to its object. "Whether it be better to obey God, or man, judge ye; for we cannot but preach that which we know." "Careless, as a dying man Of dying men's esteem; Though all beside condemn." And they preached, in the next place, prayerfully. They prayed in the temple, they prayed in the upper room, when a hundred and twenty were assembled together; and they felt, what every preacher should now feel, that even a divine truth cannot change a fallen heart. It needs a divine power to apply that divine truth to the human heart to make that heart new. We must not put even God's truth in the room of God the Spirit. The truth is the instrument in his hand; it is not the substitute for his power. And we can never expect a Pentecostal blessing, unless we have a Pentecostal spirit. Let us pray, therefore, that God the Spirit would bless what we preach, and what you hear, that the Gospel may be to us the savour of life unto life. And why should not results similar to those that followed the preaching of the apostles follow our preaching still? We have the same truths, we have the same Holy Spirit, we have the same throne of grace. Souls are not worse, sinners are not more inveterate; God's arm is not shortened, God's ear is not heavy. Why then have we not all five thousand added to the church at one time, and five thousand at another? Why has Christianity made so slow and tortuous a progress on the earth? Not because heaven is yet full; not because God is weary with forgiving; not because Christ's blood has lost its efficacy; not because the Holy Spirit will not sanctify; but because we have lost our confidence in his word,—the divine habit of praying for a blessing on its preaching. And when the whole Church, believing in all its simplicity God's simple word, shall begin to pray with all fervour for God's almighty blessing, then God, our own God, will bless us, the earth will yield her increase, Christ will come unto them that Look for him, and all things shall be made new. Oh, may this be our happy and blessed experience, for Christ's sake. Amen. CHAPTER VI. MURMURING OF PARTIES-REMEDY-DEACONS, THEIR DUTY-STEPHEN A CONTROVERSIALIST-OUR WEAPONS. THOSE days, that are here referred to, are evidently allusive to the days of prosperity and great progress that accompanied the preaching of the Gospel and the acceptance of the truth amid the multitudes of Judea. You will recollect, that in the previous chapter, and in the chapter before that, we have intimation indeed of the persecution to which the apostles were subjected; but no less clear and decided information that the cause of Christ, the claims of his Gospel, the power of his truth, prevailed and spread amid the great masses of Judea. Well, in those days, when all was real prosperity, though not unaccompanied with persecution to them that preached the truth; and the number of the disciples-that is, true Christians-was greatly multiplied, there occurred a quarrel, a murmuring, between the Grecians and the Hebrews, "because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration." That is to say, all the Christians of that age, of their own free will, and not by a law obligatory then, or obligatory now, brought their goods, and laid them at the apostles' feet; and distribution was made, we are told, unto every one, as he had need. But the multitude were suspicious, uncharitable; and the Grecians that is, those Jews who spoke the Greek tongue, and who read the Scripture in the Greek Septuagint; not the Greek people, the natives of Greece, but the Grecised Jews, or Hellenists, as they were called, who were born probably in distant lands, and used the Greek tongue, but in their religion Hebrews of the Hebrews,-fancied, or thought, or were told, at all events they believed, that because they were not born in Jerusalem, their widows and relatives were overlooked in the distribution of the goods; and that the Hebrew widows and Hebrew orphans, that is, those born in Palestine, -had a precedence, which they thought, in a matter of charity, did not justly belong to them. Now this suspicion may have been correct, or it may have been incorrect; in all probability it was incorrect. The apostles sought to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God; but instead of arguing upon the matter, they proposed a scheme that was fitted to crush controversy in its egg, and to bring matters to a quiet and a happy issue, as was actually and in fact the result. The twelve,—that is, the twelve apostles, -hearing this charge made against them, instead of arguing, and quarrelling, and fighting, and protesting, as modern ecclesiastics would probably do, called the multitude of the disciples unto them,—that is, the Christian congregation, the Christian people,-and they said, "Well, we now see that by temporal affairs being entrusted to our hands, suspicions are entertained of us which we are conscious we do not deserve. The best way, therefore, is not to weigh our character against your suspicions, but to adopt a plan that will put an end to your suspicions by rendering them absolutely impossible." And therefore they called the multitude, and they said to the multitude, "It is not reasonable that we ministers of the Gospel should leave what is the minister's function, preaching the word, and should engage in what is properly the layman's function, attending to distributing money at tables for the use and benefit of the poor. That is an admitted fact." And this sentiment has been shown to be true and weighty in the history of Christendom. The least impartial men in all temporal matters have been ecclesiastics. It is their duty to preach the word; to illustrate in their life, and embody in their sermons, God's holy word; but it is the duty and the privilege of laymen, whether they be elders or deacons, to take charge of, and administer impartially, the temporalities of the Christian church. The worst administrators of temporalities have been ecclesiastics; and the less of such ministrations placed in their hands the better: and the reason is, that if they are minding their own duty, which is to preach the word, and study to preach it with effect, they will have no time, and no head, and no tact, to spare for minding your duty, which is to attend to the temporalities of the church. The apostles, therefore, with consummate good sense, said, "It is not meet that we should be troubled by this matter. We have enough upon our heads, upon our hearts, upɔn our consciences, independent of this. And as laymen can do this well, and do it better than we can, and do it with less suspicion of partiality than we can; let you, therefore, select seven men,"-that is supposed to be the perfect number, a competent number,-" seven men of honest report;" that is, having a good character, not men of damaged character-" full of the Holy |