you weak? He will strengthen you. him, and plead the call in our text.

Turn to

You do not

not be sent

come without an invitation, and shall away without a blessing. Christ is a free refuge, and a safe one. When your spirit is overwhelmed, lift up your eyes, lift up your voice, lift up your heart to heaven, and cry with the psalmist, "Oh lead me to the rock that is higher than I!" Beware you do not take up with any rock but that on which God hath built his church: let Christ and him crucified be your only hope. If the law should find you out of Christ, it will pour all its curses upon you. If divine justice find you out of Christ, it will deliver you to the tormentors. And if Satan find you out of Christ, he will seize you as his lawful prey. But if you be found in him, all will be well: the law cannot condemn, Satan cannot injure, and justice will be your friend, the guardian of your rights, and the avenger of your wrongs. Eternal life depends on your being found in Christ; but if you have not believed in him here, you will not be found in him hereafter. And then, where will you be! You are now prisoners of hope; but then you will be prisoners without hope. Christ will be a covering and a strong hold to all his people in the last day: then, though assaulted, they shall not be overcome; though distressed, they shall not be destroyed; for God himself will be their defence, and the fury of all their enemies will only be like a storm against a wall. Happy for those who can adopt the language of the apostle!, What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ: yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him! Phil, iii. 7-9.

VOL. III.

The Persecutor.

SERMON XII.

ACTS ix. 4.

Saul, Saul, why persecutest thon me?

WHILE Saul, armed with a commission from the high priest, is breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of Jesus, in his way to Damascus, a light from heaven brighter than the meridian sun shines round about him, and a voice louder than thunder penetrates to his very soul-" Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ?"

We shall offer some general remarks upon the text, and apply the subject to ourselves.

I. It is the general character of unconverted men to be of a persecuting spirit.

"Cain," says Luther, "will kill Abel to the end of the world." He might indeed with great propriety make this observation, for few men have been more cruelly harrassed or more wonderfully preserved from their enemies than he. Speaking of Ishmael and Isaac, the apostle observes, "As then he that was born after the flesh, persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now; and so it will be as long as a spark of the old hatred to God and godliness continues in the world. The more zealous believers are for the truths of the gospel, the

more conformable their lives are to the precepts of the law, the more circumspect they are in their walk, and the more holy in all manner of conversation, so much the more will the rage and malice of wicked men be levelled against them; for whatever they may pretend, it is not this or the other mode of worship, nor any of the appendages of religion, but religion. itself that they hate, and against this it is that all their enmity is directed. "Ye have killed the just," said an apostle. And wherefore? Because they are just. "Cain was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. not, my brethren, if the world hate you." 29. James v. 6. 1 John iii. 12, 13.

Marvel

Gal. iv.

There are however different kinds and degrees of persecution. Some have persecuted with the tongue, by slanders and reproaches, endeavouring to stain the character and hinder the usefulness of Christ's servants. "The words of their mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in their hearts: their words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords." Others have shewn their enmity by their doings, as well as by their words. "I persecuted this way unto death," says Paul, "binding and delivering into prisons both men and women." And what could he do more? The existence of human laws has done much to restrain these excesses, so that now we sit under our vines and fig-trees, none daring to make us afraid. But though we are not in danger of bonds and imprisonments, of banishment, and the spoiling. of our goods; yet the enmity of the wicked will shew itself, either by injuries, unneighbourly treatment, vulgar abuse, or by one means or another. The church of Christ has always been as a lily among thorns, or like a bush on fire, but not consumed. Some of the Lord's people have been " tortured, not accepting deliverance; and others had trial of cruel

mockings and scourgings, yea moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder; were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented: they wandered in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." But" of whom the world was not worthy;" and though evil spoken of by men, they "obtained a good report through faith." Psal. lv. 21. Acts xxii. 4. Heb. xi. 35-$9.

II. Christ has his eye upon persecutors, and is acquainted with all their ways.

"No

He who knew not the day of judgment as man, or had no commission to reveal it as mediator, knows all things as God. He also views things in their proper light, and calls them by their proper names. What Saul called doing God service, he calls persecution. Omniscience and omnipresence are attributes peculiar to Deity, yet both belong to Christ: he is therefore truly and properly God. He was in heaven, when speaking to Nicodemus on earth; and is now on earth, while interceding for the saints in heaven. man," says he, "hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man. who is in heaven." And as he is every where present, so he knows all things. He knows our thoughts before they are conceived, our words before they are expressed, and our actions before they are performed. He is intimately acquainted with all the good or evil that is in us, or done by us. He knew Saul's bloody designs, and his own gracious purposes towards him; what he was, and what he should shortly be. He knows the persecutor and the persecuted: there is not a step which his enemies take but he marks it well, nor a pain his servants feel but he beholds it with an eye of pity. His eyes are as a flame of fire: they are

firmly fixed, and always fixed; never closed, and never wander. Our father, our master, our minister may not see us, but Christ always does: he looks into all our actions, and into all our souls. Saul is on his way to Damascus, unobserved by the disciples, who were now accounted as sheep for the slaughter: but the shepherd of the flock who watches around them, sees the enemy coming to devour, gives the alarm, and stops him in his wild career-" Saul, Saul, why perse

cutest thou me!"

III. The kindness or injuries done to his people, Christ considers as done to himself.

When the righteous answer him, saying, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee; or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in; or naked, and clothed thee; or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? Then the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." And as he graciously notices all the kindnesses shewn them for his sake, so he will resent the injuries that are offered. "Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm," is his language to their enemies; "for he that toucheth them toucheth the apple of mine eye." Thus the Saviour addressed the enraged Saul: "Why persecutest thou me?" These poor people at Damascus, however mean and despised, and whom thou followest with unrelenting rage, thirsting after their blood, are my people: I acknowledge them as part of myself, bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Their miseries I account as mine: in all their afflictions I am afflicted, and am touched with the feeling of their infirmities.