demons in the name of Jesus, whom he had forbidden, because he did not, like them, join Him. Jesns, instead of commending, reproved his zeal as mistaken; Forbid him not; whoever is not against us, is for us. This admonition teaches us to respect those, who, by their preaching, bring sinners to repentance and faith in Christ, though not sent forth, as we conceive, by the proper authority, and to leave them to pursue their course unmolested, instead of attempting to silence them. God, the Author of the ordinary vocation, acts when He pleases in an extraordinary manner; but this extraordinary call must be ascertained to be authentic by its effects; for this man did not merely call upon demons to leave the possessed, but actually expelled them. Jesus then pronounced a woe upon those who cause weak believers to stumble, declaring that it is better to part with every thing most precious to us, represented under the image of an eye, a hand, and a foot, than to incur eternal punishment by

• This doctrine is so odious to the carnal mind, that even divines, well acquainted with the Scriptures, have maintained the final Happiness of all mankind after a sufficient period of suffering. It is easy for ingenious men to render plausible what their readers wish to be true; but in order to convince, they ought to be able to show, that (as poets have feigned, and philosophers have imagined) punishment has a reforming and purifying tendency. The effect I apprehend will be found to be the reverse; and that as the spirits cast down to hell and reserved to judgment, instead of being drawn by their long sufferings to admire the perfections of the Deity, and to grieve that they have disobeyed Him, only hate Him the more for His very excellence; there seems reason to believe that the wicked of our race who shall depart into the fire prepared for the Devil and his angels, deprived of restraining grace, and left to themselves and their evil companions, will sink from depth to depth of depravity. But, without engaging in the philosophical question, I observe, that no philological criticism can lower our Saviour's language. It has been attempted to explain «iáwes, the Greek word we translate eternal, as if it did not mean a strict eternity, but a period of long and indefinite duration; but even if this meaning could be established, it is plain that the words of Christ, unquenchable fire, declare its eternal continuance; and the refuge of annihilation will not remain, for the doctrine-that though the fire be itself eternal, it will destroy those cast into it--is overturned by the expression, the worm

causing others to draw back. Lest pride should tempt them to despise the least of those that believe in Him, however weak their faith, or however great may have been their failings, He declared not only that the most exalted angels disdain not to minister to these little ones, but that the Son of Man Himself has come to seek and to save that which is lost; and illustrated His Father's desire for the conversion of sinners by the conduct of a Shepherd, who will leave his flock, to go in search of a single sheep that has strayed.

Having spoken of those who injured their brethren, He treated of the case of those who are injured, and laid down rules for their behaviour, which, if honestly followed, would seldom fail of producing reconciliation. The advantage of agreement He enforced by assuring them, that whenever even two of them should agree in making the same request to His Father, it should be accomplished; for, said He, wherever two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them. There cannot be a stronger encouragement to social and family prayer, nor a more effectual admonition to its reverent performance, while it necessarily implies His omnipresence, which cannot be predicated of a creature; and as He spoke to Jews, they must have thus understood Him; for it is a saying among them still, that where ten are assembled to study the Law, there the Deity is present.

dieth not; from which we also learn, that, exclusive of eternal sufferings, the damned will have to endure the anguish and gnawing, as it were, of a self-reproaching conscience. The words themselves are borrowed from the conclusion of Isaiah's prophecies, and refer apparently to the two methods by which the dead are disposed of, burning and interment. If eternal punishment be threatened to the impenitent offender, the veracity of God, who cannot lie, and will not change His purpose, assures us, that the threat will be fulfilled; and it follows, that though it be more congenial to the spirit of Christianity to draw men by the cords of love, there are some who are to be convinced only by the terrors of the Lord. How awful then is the responsibility of those who not only neglect but oppose God's own method of awakening hardened sinners!

The menda sé disagreement, led Peter to enquire how aden he was bom i to forgive an offending brother. Three times was inferred to Aus i. 3. by some of the Jewish doctors: bus Frander the teaching of his heavenly Master, va dwunded with this restriction. Still he thought some Imitation necessary to guard the doctrine against abuse, and proposed seven times, in conformity, it is said, with the opinion of the most liberal of their casuists, and as he might think of Jesus Hizse, who on another occasion required a penitent to be forgiven so cften; bat He now said, seventy times seres; and He assigned a reason for such indulgence in a Parable, which shows that this large number is to be taken indefinitely, and that there is no other limit than the disposition of the offender who must sue for forgiveness. The mercy of God and the cruelty of man are then finely contrasted, under the figure of a Sovereign forgiving, on his petition, a debtor who owed him, on the lowest computation', near two millions sterling; the latter, under that of the same debtor, demanding, and in a fierce and brutal mauner, of a fellow-slare, about three pounds he owed him, the instant after he had been himself forgiven six hundred thousand times as much. The first, which we may consider as the revenue of a Province, it was impossible to discharge; for none can make satisfaction to God for sin. The latter might have been paid, for our obligations to our fellow men are comparatively small. The Sovereign puts on the appearance of severity, but it is only the appearance; for though he orders him to be imprisoned, and his wife and children to be sold, no sooner does the slave worship him, exclaiming, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all, than he forgives him, though he could not fulfil his promise. The forgiven

P That is, if we reckon by the Greek talent: the Jewish would make it more than double.

4 Talent, £193 158. Denarius, 8d.

debtor is unmoved by the petition of his fellow servant, though urged in his own words, and easy to be accomplished. The other servants are grieved, the master is justly angry, and reproaches him not for his debt, but his want of mercy. His implacability causes his master to revoke his pardon; and we learn out of the mouth of Him who taught us to ask for forgiveness, on the condition of our granting it, that God will never bestow it on the unforgiving. Every reader must perceive the strong opposition between the characters of the merciful lord and the cruel servant, and the amount of their respective debts. It silences whatever justification, or palliation of revenge, can be drawn from the nature or number of the offences committed, or the dignity and merit of the injured party.

79. Jesus sends forth the Seventy. Luke x. 1—16.

As Jesus in an earlier period of His ministry had sent forth the Twelve Apostles, He now commissioned Seventy Disciples, in imitation, probably, of the seventy elders appointed by Moses to assist him. The appointment is recorded only by St. Luke; but the tradition that he was himself one of them is probably not true; since the preface to his Gospel seems to declare, that he did not write from personal knowledge. The twelve had been allowed to go where they pleased, provided they confined their ministry to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; but these were sent in pairs to prepare for their Master in the several places He intended to visit on His way to Jerusalem. Both commissions were ushered in with the remark, that the Harvest was plenteous, but the Labourers few; and the instruction was nearly the same; only the Seventy, as the time assigned to them was short, were not to waste it by saluting any on the way. Their commission also, unlike that of the Twelve, was temporary; but as the Temple service was divided between Priests and Levites, under the

superintendence of one High Priest, so here the Ministry of the Church seems to be set forth under two divisions, the one subordinate to the other. The Acts and the Epistles show us the Orders of Priests and Deacons expressly established; while it appears from those to Timothy and Titus, that the Apostles limited to themselves and those they specially selected, though not without the sanction of the Congregation, the keeping up of the body by Ordination. In one most important point the Christian Ministry differs from the Jewish Priesthood. The bond of Jewish unity was a Priest, who presided over a system of sacrifices which were continually offered from year to year. The bond of Christian unity is the High Priest after the order of Melchisedec, whose one sacrifice of Himself perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Their principle of unity was visible and material, ours invisible and spiritual. The remark unhappily cannot be extended to Romanists, as in their Pope or Father they acknowledge a visible universal Governor of the Church, who while he claims an Aaronitic Priesthood, assumes the pagan title of Supreme Pontiff.

80. Jesus attends the Feast of Tabernacles, and teaches in the Temple. John vii.

Jesus had not visited Jerusalem for eighteen months'; and some of His brethren, who did not as yet believe in Him, taunted Him with His continued absence, and His preaching and performing miracles in places of comparative obscurity. Another opportunity of visiting the capital was offered by the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus would not accompany them, that He might not give needless offence by the attendance of a multitude of followers, but He went up, as it were in secret, neither preaching, nor working miracles by the way. About

In this and in the other portions of St. John's Gospel I have derived much instruction from the translation of Tittmann's Commentary.