disapproving the repetition which arises from earnestness and intenseness of desire, set us an example, as we have seen, in his own case.

There is a remarkable abuse of this kind, a remarkable violation of this instruction of our Saviour, enjoined by the Roman Catholic Church: its votaries are directed to offer up multitudes of prayers; they heap up great numbers of prayers together, and these false teachers instruct their people to use them as penances; for thus, they tell them, they remove their sins, and at the same time bring on themselves God's favour. This is not only a direct violation of our Saviour's instruction, but it is a perversion of prayer which we could scarcely suppose it possible, if we had not proof furnished us, that any rational person could be guilty of. To convert prayer into penance, to call the soul's drawing nigh to God, the God of all grace and mercy, the soul's drawing nigh to him for pardon and eternal life, and the blessings he has to give, to call that a penance is absolutely such an absurdity, that one could scarcely suppose it possible it could enter into the mind of any rational being. But to such a degree of infatuation has that church proceeded, and so easy is it to deceive persons with regard to the things connected with their eternal peace.

In order to have a full view of prayer as our Saviour has set a full example of it, and as we are instructed to use it in the Scriptures, let me call your attention to a passage from the writings of the Apostle Paul: Hebrews iv. 14-16, "Seeing, then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and fiud grace to help in time of need." Now here, my brethren, all that is connected with prayer, as it is set forth by the Holy Scriptures, is most perspicuously and impressively presented to us by the Apostle. Here we see how it is that God can regard us, as our reconciled and heavenly Father, in the manner our Saviour instructs us in this passage; and here we see why it is we can come boldly to the throne of grace. The reason, the Apostle tells us is connection with this, is, that "we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens:" we have an advocate in the court of our God and King above, and, therefore, we may come to that court ourselves. The apostle calls him, "a great high priest," to remind us of the sacrifice which he had completed on earth, to remind us of his atoning death, by which he has cancelled sin, to remind us that he has passed into the heavens with his own blood to sprinkle it upon the mercy-seat above, that that is our reconciliation with our heavenly Father, that it is that which assures us we shall be saved and blessed, that procures our welcome, and brings down blessings from a God whom we have offended.

The apostle reminds us further, that he is touched with a feeling of our Infirmities. He knows we haye sinned-that disgusts him not: he knows we have weaknesses-that disgusts him not-"he was tempted," the Apostle says, "like as we are, yet without sin." He knows, therefore, what we are: We have his atoning sacrifice to remove our sins; and he has promised his blessed Spirit to them that ask him, to help and strengthen their weaknesses. A sense of sin, therefore, should lead us to him; and a consciousness of weakness should make us cast ourselves on his mercy and grace. We should come, then, remembering that he is touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and not concealing our sins, our weaknesses, our temptations, or our trials from him, but confessing them before him.

The Apostle adds, what it is we are to ask for. He says, we are to "obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." The two expressions appear to be synonymous: but in fact there is an important difference between them. As here used, the expression "mercy," is put for "pardon," we are to go confessing our sins, and asking the pardon of them. The expression "grace" is used to denote those blessings and gifts of guidance and strength, of peace and comfort, which we require while passing through this life. He directs us to ask for "mercy"—that is pardon-and "grace"-that is, all his various blessings to help us in our time of need; that is to ask for all we require. Our God has treasured up all the riches of wisdom and power and grace, in our Substituteand Mediator Jesus Christ, that out of that rich treasure he may dispense to us according to our necessities. Pardon we require every hour, and strength we require every hour also, as we pass through this vale of tears. We are to go,

then, remembering, that we have a great high priest who was touched with a feeling of our infirmities, that he was tempted as we are, yet without sin: we are to go and ask for mercy and grace.

But the Apostle teaches us also how we are to go. "Let us," says he, "draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace." Boldness warranted by our God's encouragement; boldness the result of an assurance that we have a Mediator and Intercessor before his throne; boldness resting upon his promise, that he hears, and answers, and blesses us.

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Now, my brethren, we see on comparing this instruction of our Saviour with the Apostle's instruction in this passage, what an important privilege prayer what blessings we are to derive from prayer and supplication offered up to God; how it is our prayers are offered up-through our great High Priest who has passed into the heavens; and what it is we are to ask for-mercy and grace. We are to ask it not with vain repetitions, as if our God knew not what we require, or as if our God were not willing to dispense it. We are to ask it not to be seen of men, but that we may be seen of our heavenly Father, and with a view to the promise of our Saviour, that He "who seeth in secret will reward us openly." Oh, yes, many a prayer which was offered up when no eye but the eye of God saw the suppliant, will before the assembled universe receive its blessed answer and reward-the grace of our Gracious and Heavenly Father. May it be so with respect to us! May we pass through life, habitually in our seclusion and privacy offering up our prayers to God! And may he pour down upon us day by day that grace which we all need!

THE CHRISTIAN'S DEBT TO THE WORLD.

HON. AND REV. G. T. NOEL, A. M.

PERCY CHAPEL, FITZROY SQUARE, APRIL 10, 1831.

"I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians; both to the wise and to the unwise." Rom. i. 14.

THE man who wrote these words felt very deeply the force of those obligations under which the Gospel had placed him; he felt the obligation in no ordinary manner. God had laid upon him a weighty charge; and to the accomplishment of the work assigned him, he desired to bring all the powers of his mind, all the faculties of his body, and all the feelings of his heart. He desired to be a living sacrifice, yielded up unto God as a reasonable service.

I propose, my brethren, on the present occasion, to make some remarks upon the nature, the grounds, and the extent, of the obligations to which the Apostle here refers. May the Spirit of that God under whose direction the Apostle wrote, imprint upon our hearts such impressions of his own truth and grace, that we may find it good to have listened to the exposition of God's word; and that that blessing which maketh rich may rest upon every one of us. I. The Nature of the Obligation to which the Apostle refers. debtor."

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The debt to which he alludes was one of a peculiar kind: it was a debt which none but God himself could justly estimate, but which the Apostle Paul was enabled to value in a very considerable degree. He felt himself to be a debtor to all mankind. What was the debt? Love-" Owe no man anything, but to love one another." This was a debt which the Apostle delighted to owe a debt he desired to contract every day more and more deeply, in order that he might by every successive view of the extent and character of that debt, be enabled to rise by the power of God to discharge it.

This debt was to carry the gospel of Christ to mankind. He owed to them the manifestation of that truth which God had entrusted to his charge. We find the nature of this trust described in his own language. Descanting upon the history of his conversion to Christianity, he declares, that when he was cast to the earth by the splendour of that vision with which God encircled him, he heard a voice saying, "Rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me." These expressions mark out the nature of that debt, under the pressure of which during

the rest of his life he felt himself to live. He was never hereafter free from the pressure of that obligation; it clung to him with a tenacity which could be relaxed only by death. His determination henceforth was to realize in his own mind the continual presence of that obligation; that he should no longer esteem himself to be his own, but God's; and for God's sake, and by God's power, he was to belong to others, and not to himself. He was to live to God as his motive; he was to live to men as his action. This was to be his pursuit-to search out the sheep of Christ scattered through the wilderness of this world; and to bring them, as an instrument in the hands of the Great Shepherd, to that mysterious but secure fold where they were to find goodly pastures, where their weary feet were to lie down beside the still waters of comfort, and where they were to know the actings of that grace which is in Christ Jesus, out of whose fulness they were to receive.

II. Consider the grounds upon which he specially rested this obligation.

It is very evident that the command of God was the first and prominent ground of this obligation. He received the charge, not from man, not from the conjectures of his own mind, not from any fancy or any taste which he might have for that Christianity into which he had been marvellously conducted; but he had received this charge, and had come under its obligation, by the direct command of God his Saviour, (Acts xxvi. 13—20.) This was the source of the obligation to which the Apostle referred: it rested on a direct command from God his Saviour-a command that he was not at any time authorized to invalidate—a command which was henceforth to be operative to the end of his life—a command of which he was never to lose sight, from the obligation of which he was never to escape. He was to identify life with this debt of obligation. In after times when, in the execution of his trust he anticipated the most disastrous trials to which human fortitude can be exposed, he declares, “None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." This was the source of the obligation. If he proclaimed the message of salvation to a lost world, it was because the dispensation was committed to him to preach that gospel; it was because he acted and went forth under the direct mandate of heaven: and he could not be disobedient to that vision which broke upon his astonished soul, by God's effective interposition; and which made him hereafter to be the man he was-bold as a lion in the cause of truth-uncompromising before Jew and Gentile-and yielding up himself willingly to all the consequences of his embassy, and ready to take his station in the grave when God should please to place him there.

But there are other sources accompanying this paramount ground of obligation. One of them I find in the experience which the Apostle had of the worth and efficacy of that gospel with which he was put in trust. We find him declaring, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God to salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith." Do you wish to know whether, while expressing his sense of the value of that gospel, he had applied it to his own soul? Witness his declarations to the Galatians:"God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved

me and gave himself for me." Witness his declaration to Timothy :-" I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." He was personally interested in the gospel which he proclaimed to others; he had felt its value to his own soul. It had healed the diseases of his own heart: it had blunted the arrows of conscience, or, rather, had drawn them out; and had poured in the balm of a Saviour's love. It had opened to him bright and glorious truths, casting their radiance upon the darkness of time, upon the obscurity of the grave, and upon the uncertainty of the future. It had opened to him a view never to be closed again -Christ placing a crown of glory upon his head, Christ having already been formed in his heart the hope of glory, and having made him a joint heir with himself in an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.

Another source of this obligation was the love which his union with the gospel had been instrumental in effecting in his own mind, which Christ had imparted to his spirit. "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature." There is a special character of this new nature to be found in love. "Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." "Beloved, God so loved us as to give his own Son to die for us." If that atonement has been applied to our spirits-if it has been life and peace and strength to our souls― "if God so loved us, how ought we to love one another." God is love; and it is the nature of the gospel, when received in the heart, to produce a conformation to the mind and will of God. It is stated by the Apostle Peter, that, by the exceeding precious promises among which the Christian is placed, he is made partaker of the divine nature; and that divine nature is manifested in love. God is love. Whatever other characteristics may be proclaimed of God, this is the most descriptive, and stands forth in a manner the most astonishing. We have heard in the annals of human creatures that love can produce love. We have heard of those who were willing to part with life to save the life of a friend; but we have never heard, except in the annals of the gospel, of divine love clothing itself with humanity, in order to become the subject of suffering and death for enemies. God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet without strength, yet enemies by wicked works, Christ died for us. Now, in the manifestation of this love in the gospel, while the Apostle felt he was to act under the direct commission he had received from his Master-while he felt encouraged by the experience of the gospel, with which he was put in trust, as to its efficacy upon his own heart to heal the wounds of sin, to raise the degra dation of man, and to open to his view the bright prospects of eternity-he added to these circumstances by which he was impressed this likewise—that "love worketh no ill to his neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." There are no declarations in Scripture so forcible as those contained in the negative. When it is said, "the Lord will not hold him guiltless," it means it will hold him very guilty. When it is said, "love worketh no ill," it signifies “love worketh all good to his neighbour." Love is an active principle, pressing forward to its object, that object being the happiness of others. Therefore, the Apostle Paul, having by the gospel become a partaker of the divine nature, through the influence of the Holy Spirit upon his heart, now acted beneath that influence, and longed to be the agent of communicating happiness to others. And perhaps I am not wrong in saying, that if the Lord God had repealed the direct charge under which he bore his commission, and said, "You have carried the message of mercy to many nations; you may now rest, and enjoy in solitary