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you will find the ignorant and the labourer, and old women, who, although they cannot express to you in words the healing influence of our Christian doctrine, yet prove it both in thought and action." And even in these days, those who most easily surrender their minds to the truth are the poor, the untaught, and the lowly, who are not perverted or blinded by false wisdom. Their simple minds do not understand how to quibble and question: their hearts find all they are in need of in the gospel, and therefore they receive it willingly, and gladly follow that Saviour who refreshes them that travail, and are heavy laden. Such men are far happier in their simplicity than those proud witlings who, for very wisdom, are unable to come to Christ, who think themselves far too clever to embrace heartily a doctrine which they think is intended only for the common people. A single eye and a simple mind are indeed pearls of great price, and nothing is so clearly proved among us as that saying of the apostle, that "not many wise men after the flesh are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise." Let our highest wisdom, my brethren, be to acknowledge that of ourselves we know nothing of heavenly things, and to surrender ourselves with singleness of heart to His teaching, who hath revealed to us all things that make for our peace and happiness.

VI. We do not however mean, by any means, to assert, that only the uneducated and ignorant are fitted for the reception of the gospel, or that knowledge and education are, under all circumstances, a hinderance to faith. Did not Nicodemus come to the Lord, and was he not a doctor of the law, and a master in Israel? And does not experience teach us that the want of intellectual training often unfits men for the kingdom of God, because, with such a want, wildness and superstition are not unfrequently connected. We do not at all mean to encourage a state of ignorance, when we praise that simplicity of mind, which, free from pedantry, and that wisdom which darkeneth counsel, seeks

and finds contentment and peace in faith on the gospel, and we by no means reprobate true education and earnest inquiry after truth; nay, rather we affirm that this earnest inquiry itself is to many the appointed faith by which God's wisdom leads them to believe on His Son. This was the case with many highly educated heathens in the early times of the Church. They sought anxiously after truth, but their wisdom taught them nothing that could appease the cravings of their minds, or satisfy the yearnings of their hearts. They acknowledged the folly of their idolatry: heathenism failed to content, nay it even repelled them, but they had nothing to which they could cling amid their doubts, nothing with which to supply the place of their heathen faith; and the unsatisfied cravings of a heart and mind thirsting for knowledge and truth, for light and peace, must have been to them the source of much grief and uneasiness. Must not they in such a case, when the gospel was preached to them, have hailed joyfully a doctrine which promised fully to satisfy all their heartfelt wants and desires, and which not only promised, but which actually did so? Think you not that all the wisdom of this world seemed to them folly, that they might become blessed through faith in Jesus Christ. Yes! let these half educated men glory in their supposed wisdom, let them despise the gospel and thrust it from them in unbelief, as we may see many in these times doing; but earnest and honest inquirers will, doubtless, be led to Christ, and find full satisfaction in his faith and peace, feeling, as they do, that the wise of this world can offer them nothing which can stay their yearnings. Guesses, uncertain opinions, paradoxes, these are all that human wisdom can give them, and doubts, far from being removed by these are strengthened. In faith on Christ and his precious gospel we find light and truth, peace and health, and happiness. Let him, therefore, who would be wise, learn to become a fool in the world's estimation, and turn to Him, who alone hath the words of eternal life. In him lie hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Let, then, lowly faith

in Him be our wisdom, and let the end and aim of all we do be to become more firm, more stable, more joyful, and, above all, more like in all things to our divine exemplar. Happy is every man who is converted to Christ, by what path soever the wisdom of God has conducted him! he has found a ground in which the anchor of his faith will ever hold firmly; he may join in the glad song,

Joy! I have found the Saviour
Who only can preserve.

Amen.

Amen.

SERMON II.

CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.

HAVING on the last Sunday, my brethren, reminded you of the various and manifold ways by which the wisdom and love of God leads men to faith on Christ, permit me on this day to commence that series of meditations which I have proposed to myself during the present season, the subject of which will be the life of Christians during the first ages of the Church. How the lives of the converts (by whatever path they may have been led to Christianity through their various peculiarities and modes of thought) were developed; how the faith which they now acknowledged manifested itself in them, and what influence the plastic and sanctifying power of the Gospel exerted upon the hearts and lives of its professors, such considerations will, without doubt, prove to us an occupation as full of attraction as of wholesome instruction. It appears, however, needful, to the end that we may more easily conduct our contemplations, to bring them into a certain order, with which I must make you acquainted beforehand. Now, since every thing which presents itself to our attention in regard to the purpose before us relates to Christians, contemplated either as participators of a new religious society, or as members of a public community, or, lastly, as members of a family, it will be my endeavour to direct your thoughts, by degrees, to the life of Christians in the church, in the civil community, and in their families, during the earlier times of Christianity.

In order, however, that you may contemplate these early Christian times in the right point of view, I must commence by warning you, my brethren, not to expect

to find in the lives of Christians of those times only light without shade. Such an expectation were indeed far too bold. We must not dream of an ideal perfection, of a spotless purity, or a perfect undisturbed glory; we must look the reality in the face. In one, alone, was the spirit without measure, in Him who is the pattern to us all; but where among his truest and most devoted followers shall we find one who can be placed beside this pattern? In none hath all the brightness of the Godhead resided undimmed by any mixture; in none was the fulness of divinity, and there has been none among them who has not been compelled to exclaim, “I have not yet comprehended it, I am yet far from perfect." The early Christian church had its sides both of light and shade. Its beauty, its glory, and the fulness of the divine life which manifested itself in its bosom, will often compel our admiration, and inspire us with praises of the Lord. But neither must we suffer its shortcomings and its blemishes to remain hidden from us; we must not pass by the things which dimmed the brightness of its glory, that we may learn with shame and sorrow the power of sin which shews itself in every thing human, and often blights the most beautiful blossoms before they ripen into fruit. We shall thus most certainly escape the reproach of extolling the past at the expense of the present, and of exhibiting an untrue and distorted picture of the life of Christians during the early ages of the Church; whilst, at the same time, the conviction will force itself on us, that, in spite of its many and undeniable shortcomings and blemishes, the Christian life of those first centuries shines forth with overpowering beauty and brilliancy.

But before we pass on, my brethren, to a representation of the particular features of the Christian life, we must point to that which we have to consider as its peculiar foundation, the higher unity from which sprung its manifold relations and tendencies, and we must shew the grand and general points of distinction between it and the earlier modes of thought and life of those who were converted from Paganism or Judaism to the

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