In the case before us, confusion was created by the wish to introduce a foreign and uncongenial element into apostolic union. In a moment the result was manifest; the power of adhesiveness was diminished; there was revulsion, strife, separation.*

On the entire passage, take the following hints :—

I. THE APOSTLES WERE NOT GOING FORTH AS THE DELEGATES OF A SUPREME, CENTRAL, LEGISLATIVE, ASSEMBLY. The churches were self-existing-independent. (1). There was union between the churches, but that was purely spiritual. Any other union is cold, mutable, and secular. (2). The visit was perfectly natural. Great labor had been expended. The little saplings had been planted amid tears, tortures, blood, &c. (3). A second visit of the apostles was calculated to shew, that they were not ashamed of their principles, nor afraid of their opponents, &c. (4). A young struggling

church is encouraged by the sympathy, and counsel, of wise and experienced christians, &c.

II. STABILITY OF CHARACTER WAS NECESSARY TO USEFULNESS IN SUCH MISSION. (Verses 37, 38.) The man who has failed once, may fail again. He must be tried in less responsible circumstances before he is elevated to such a dignity. If he has committed himself by his cowardice, he must prove his manhood by subsequent courage. (1). Friendship is no reason, in itself, why a man should be promoted to office. Remember, that John Mark was the nephew of Barnabas. Piety, worth, intelligence, are the only qualifications

*I am perfectly aware that εγένετο οὖν παροξυσμὸς, does not necessarily imply that malignity or ill-will existed between the two apostles; and also, that the word wapovoμòs, is often employed by inspired writers and classical authors in a good sense: yet I do not imagine that the term in this connexion conveys the idea that Paul and Barnabas were influenced by the best of feelings. The entire context contradicts this view. The incident does not depend for a character on mere verbal criticism; it is susceptible of a broader and more intelligent exposition.

that should be recognized in God's church. (2). Fickle men are not to be trusted in the service of truth, when there is difficulty in the way. John deserted the apostles, and would not go to Pamphylia to brave the dangers common to all.

III. DIFFERENCES IN OPINION SHOULD NOT LEAD TO THE ABANDONMENT OF PRINCIPLE. (1). Some wreak their vengeance on the cause of truth. (2). When two men cannot agree to toil in the same corner of the vineyard, let them honestly divide, and betake themselves to other departments. (3). "The best of men are but men at best." The holiest men may have their tempers ruffled sometimes. "Be ye angry, and sin not." (4). The apostle received John into fellowship, in after years. "Take Mark and bring him with thee, for he is profitable to me in the ministry." (2 Tim. iv. 11.) The errors of youth should not be perpetually visited on a man's head. Age brings penitence, and penitence leads to reformation. "To err is human-to forgive divine!"

Brother, be admonished! Differ from, but not with thy fellow servants. Avow conviction, but employ the accent of love. Change thy colleagues, but thy master change not. There is only time to combat the adversary: there is none to wound or exasperate thy brother. (Col. iii. 12-14.)

JOSEPH PARKER.

SUBJECT:-The Present God.

"Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord."—Jer. xxiii. 4.

Analysis of Homily the Hundred and Twenty-sixth.

VERY note-worthy are these words. The language is sublime; still more sublime are the truths which the words convey. Three interrogations are here proposed; but these questions do not imply doubt, nor ask for information, but

are intended to assert and confirm the truths which are implied in them. The questions are three, and the truths as

serted are three.

First: The wonderful fact of God's omnipresence is here asserted. "Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?" No! God is near at hand, and He is present afar off. He is present with every creature, in every scene, of every world, in every moment of time. no more escape from the circle of God's presence, than from our own souls. How well the ancient sage exclaimed, “His centre is everywhere, His circumference nowhere!"

We can

Secondly: Another truth which the text asserts is, the omniscience of God. "Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord." There are no secret places to God. The deep valley is to him as the lofty mountain; the abysses of the ocean are as visible to Him as the surface of the earth. What Hagar said in the desert, every creature, in every world, at all times, may truthfully say; "Thou God, seest me." "He searcheth the hearts and trieth the reins of the children of men." "All things are naked and open before him with whom we have to do."

nature.

:

Thirdly The text asserts the spirituality of the divine "Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord." The phrase, "heaven and earth," signifies the universe; and this oracle means, not only that the universe exhibits proofs of God's wisdom, power, glory, and beneficence, but that He fills it personally—fills it with His essence. "God is a spirit;" and one of the wonderful properties of God's nature is, that He can and does fill with it every portion of the illimitable universe. This, then, is the three-fold, wonderful, truth contained in the energetic words of the text. Let us now glance at a few practical inferences which naturally result from the admission of the solemn and sublime facts of this verse.

I. THE TEXT PROVES THE FOLLY AND SIN OF EVERY FORM OF IDOLATRY. When Pompey, the Roman general, had conquered Jerusalem, his curiosity prompted him to enter the temple; and finding no image there of any divinity, he

was filled with astonishment, and would fain have called the Jews Atheists. The presence of an image seemed to him an essential part, or at least an important pre-requisite, of divine worship. As Pompey thought, so all Pagans think; hence we term them Idolaters, (from edwλov, an image,) because they either worship an image as God, or adore their divinities through the instrumentality of an image. This practice both reason and revelation condemn, as being exceedingly senseless, and exceedingly sinful. (1). Idolatry is exceedingly senseless. We should think that artist beside himself, who would undertake to draw a likeness of something which he had never seen, nor ever could see ;—to paint a portrait of the air, the wind, the fragrance of the flower, or the human soul. We are necessarily as ignorant of the form and nature of invisible things, as the blind man was of the colour of scarlet cloth, when he said, that it resembled the sound of a "trumpet." Then how preposterous the folly of supposing that the spiritual nature of the invisible and infinite God can be represented by "Gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device." (2). Idolatry is not only senseless, but sinful. How plain and how philosophical the divine precept, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image," &c. The probability is, that in the first ages of the world men made idols, not as objects of, but as stimulants to, worship; thus, thinking to be wiser than God, mankind have become "fools." They have changed "the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." If Paul's spirit was stirred within him. when he saw the inhabitants of one city given to idolatry, what holy indignation should pervade our hearts, who behold the majority of the human race-six hundred millions of rational beings-degraded in intellect, polluted in heart, and miserable in life, through idol-worship; and how fervently should we pray for the time to come when the Lord I will famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the heathen!"

II. THE TRUTH OF THE TEXT SHOULD STIMULATE US TO THE CULTIVATION OF AN INCESSANTLY DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT. It has pleased God, in the kindness of His providence, to consecrate certain times and places for his especial worship. He has given us the sabbath day, during whose sacred hours we are to adore His divine perfections, to study His infallible word, and seek the blessings of the gospel of His grace. There are, also, certain places which are sacred to the divine worship; the public sanctuary, the family altar, and the closet of secret meditation and prayer. But these are not the only times and places in which we are to engage in acts of worship. God is everywhere present, and therefore everywhere we can adore Him. The whole universe is but one vast apartment filled with the divine presence, and everywhere, therefore, we may be closeted with God. Isaac worshipped Jehovah in the fields, Jacob on the sands of the desert, Ezekiel by the river side, Nathaniel under the figtree, and Peter on the house-top. A good man may carry his oratory with him, wherever he goes; and thus, at all times realize the blessings of intercourse with the Infinite. “Pray always" is, therefore, to the devout man, no hard saying.

III. SEE IN THE TEXT A SOURCE OF SURE CONSOLATION TO THE CHRISTIAN, AMIDST THE SORROWS TO WHICH HE IS EXPOSED.

"Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward." And the christian forms no exception to the rule. As every

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sky has its dark clouds, and every sea its stormy waves, so every christian, like his master, is, more or less, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Just as the ocean-storm tries the strength of the vessel, and the wintry wind the strength of the forest tree, so sorrow tries the strength of the christian's confidence in his God. In times of trouble he is tempted to say, "All these things are against me." "My way is hid from the Lord, my judgment is passed over from my God." He ought to say, though "clouds and darkness are round about Him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne." "Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord." God