Galatians, when he is considering that question, "Wherefore then serveth the law?" (Gal. iii. 19.) The old way, or ordination to eternal life, is that of perfect righteousness and innocence: which prevailed originally upon earth, as it now does in Heaven: the new way, is that of righteousness renewed, or of renewed obedience; one the righteousness of the law; the other, the righteousness of faith: and both the same in substance, but differing in existence at least upon earth; as one may be found, but the other not. Yet for supposition's sake it may be said, that whoever shall be found in either way, is surely and ipso facto ordained to eternal life. Is any man a perfect doer of the law from his birth, or rather from his creation? that man is surely ordained in that way to eternal life:-or is any man reclaimed by Christone, perhaps, whose sins had been as scarlet, but who is now cleansed and regenerated by his precious blood? that man, ever praised be God for his mercy and goodness! is surely ordained to eternal life in this.-For "by their fruits ye shall know them." And he shall flow into the Kingdom of righteousness by faith, with his companions, by adhering to their faith and communion, as necessarily as a drop will flow, with its companions, into the sea, by the effect of gravitation. Therefore, if people could only believe two things,-1, that, being sinners, every one of them, they are as sure to perish without repentance, as those eighteen did who were buried under the ruins of the tower of Siloam; (Luke xiii. 4;) 2, that if they do repent, there is one who has laid down his life for them, (Rom. v. 6, 8,) with others willing to be spent for them also, (Cor. II. xii. 15,) if people could so believe, I say, they might think it better, to try the effect of repentance to salvation, than that of gratifying the evil or malignant spirit, to the temporary annoyance of their best friends, and, perhaps, to their own eternal perdition.

2, After that unsettled multitude, the scum of Israel, or no Israelites in fact, who were the chief agents, or

devil's instruments, in expelling Paul and Barnabas from Antioch, the party next to be considered, is the gentile persecutors, the rabble of the city, with those few honourable and devout women and chief men who condescended to set them on, and be drudges for the Jews-as the Jews were for the devil on this occasion: but who, or some of them, perhaps, might have scorned the part, if they had understood all its infamy, and only been worthy to know who it was that first set the Jews, and by the Jews themselves-upon it.

The sacred historian acknowledges this party to have consisted of some of the best people of the place for rank and outward devotion,-" the devout and honourable women," ""the chief men of the city." Which is a very candid acknowledgment for the historian, without being dishonourable to the apostles, whose rejection it commemorates. It may be thought dishonourable, even for apostles; "when men shall hate them, and when they shall separate them, (from places and useful offices,) and shall reproach them, and cast out their name as evil, for the Son of man's sake," (Luke vi. 22,) and especially men of such consequence with honourable and devout women conspiring against them: but when we remember, how often such persons are falsely incited and led on to religious persecution by the enemy of all true religion, through the agency of their inferiors, and sometimes without it, as there are cloaks of all prices,-that reflection will cease. Alas; how many a chief man is incited to persecution, and has his most precious sentiments abused through the agency of his own servants!-how many a devout and honourable woman, through the religious professor in whom she confides; some sanctimonious oracle, perhaps, or else some other who happens to be her inferior in learning, judgment, honesty, and every other requisite for a spiritual guide, and has nothing but his rank, proximity, or impudence to recommend him!Alas, too; I say, for such devout ladies and chief men

as some of those might have been who thought fit to persecute the beneficent apostles of our Saviour at Antioch, being themselves, for uncleanness and hypocrisy, comparable perhaps with the topmost of their class at Jerusalem *, and elsewhere in those days!

If the sincere ministers of Christ are to be persecuted wherever they may carry his name: if the real benefactors of mankind are to be expelled incessantly out of their coasts, how contemptible-how unlikely an instrument will serve to set the great ones in motion, and effect it by their means; while the friends and admirers of such characters with superior abilities, can hardly tell how to arrest the torrent of prejudice in their behalf! How small

a force or occasion will suffice to ruffle and inflame our passions! how great a one is required to allay them! How little eloquence it takes to animate us on the wrong side! how much more than eloquence to preserve us on the right! What can shew more decidedly the preponderance of evil in the world? And how very much are men generally in the dark with respect to the merits of the case, and the secret springs or motives by which themselves are really actuated, not only in religious persecutions, like that which we have been considering, but in almost every other!

As for that example; we see therein two religious parties, (as I suppose we may call them,) and either composed of contrary ingredients, being both of them raised, animated, and inspired by the apostles' preaching; which, to a simple observer, would appear to be,-one, a party of well disposed Christians, all breathing the same spirit of benevolence, and all equally animated by the word of truth; the other, an irreligious, good for nothing set, a foul party of unbelievers; breathing every evil spirit at once, envy in particular, and believing no one thing in the world, except that they do not believe any thing.

See Matt. xxiii. 27; Tim. II. iii. 6; and other places of the New Testament.

But supposing the world to have been constituted at that time nearly as it is at present, and human nature to be nearly the same at all times, a more exercised judgment would be apt to form a different estimate of the said parties. Assuming that among the good people of Antioch, as in other places, some might be better than their profession, and some worse, it would be apt to infer that some of St. Paul's followers might have been no better affected to him and his Master in their hearts, than were the persecutors of either; while, on the other hand, there should be among the latter some who really meant to be servants of God, though it were in an odd way; like St. Paul himself, when "he verily thought with himself, that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." (Acts xxvi. 9.) As for putting his disciples out of the synagogue, that was nothing, since the time had arrived when people might even be mad enough to think that they did God service in killing his servants: and all that because they knew not the Father nor the Son, (John xvi. 2, 3,) and had none of their blessed Spirit within them. There had been the same divisions respecting the Master himself among the people at Jerusalem; some saying, " He is a good man; others, Nay, but he deceiveth the people:" (Ib. vii. 12:) and both parties acting thereupon very piously and consistently; one in adoring him, the other in putting him to death. But the balance of public opinion would have been more in favour both of the Master and his disciples, had they been tried on that very just and obvious principle of experience which he and they proposed. "Which of you convinceth me of sin?-If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not." (Ib. viii. 46; x. 37.)-" Brethren, (says the excellent disciple of whom so much has been said,) I beseech be as I you, am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all." (Gal. iv. 12.) Every man, therefore, should be judged by his works, as well as by his pro

fessions.

But too great a conceit of their guardianship of the faith of the people is wont to mislead some of the well meaning quality; they are afraid, lest the people should be taught a wrong faith; and not that which they profess. For not only are the poor to have the Gospel preached to them, but to have it preached correctly too, that they may learn to say the same as their superiors; or, in other words, be circumcised as they are. "For (as St. Paul writes of some such in his epistle to the Galatians) neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh." (Gal. vi. 13.) Thus, looking upon the earth as a státe of perfection, and its most earthly tenants as the most perfect, they so do as if nothing was to be desired beyond it, if they do not so teach or profess. They entirely lose sight of the end of the institution which they uphold so resolutely, and cannot imagine any room for that endless reformation and improvement therein which, to the mind of others, must always keep pace with its success. They imagine, that what is really designed and calculated to promote general order, can never want ordering itself,-what is so admirably qualified to spread improvement, has no need to progress with the times: so they will hang back, stubbornly bent, as it were, on keeping one of the wheels of society, and that the very choicest, still, while the others were in motion! Nothing can be more inconvenient: for although new principles cannot be added to our faith, any more than new species to the earth, yet are they capable of improvement in delivery and application; as the earth's species, by good manage

ment.

But what I have now deduced from the forementioned acts or occurrences at Antioch is to be considered as an example of opposition to reform in its most favourable aspect. Another aspect of the same might be shewn, in which that same opposition would not appear so disinterested. The apostles aforesaid were rather good in grain