Apostles, are unquestionably of Divine authority; and, being God's word, what they have taught and written is in the same sense the foundation of the house of God that the teachings of Christ Himself and the writings of the prophets are.

The history of the Acts of the Apostles relates more of Paul individually than of any other of the apostles. Fourteen out of twenty epistles are written by Paul. Paul's own claim to be regarded as an apostle is frequently alluded to in his writings; and in the opening salutation of nine of his Epistles, he declares that he was called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. The apostle Peter, however, whose testimony is sufficient, bears witness that the Epistles of Paul are of equal authority with the other Scriptures. "Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless : and account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things: in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction." (1 Peter iii. 14-16.)

The writer of the Epistle of James was a near kinsman of our Lord. He seems to have presided over the Assembly of the Church, spoken of in Acts xv. 13— 29; and Paul speaks of him in Galatians ii. 9, and associates him with Cephas or Peter, and John, as seeming to be pillars. Jude was the brother of James, and wrote the epistle which bears his name. The preeminence of James the brother of John, is that of being

the only apostle whose martyrdom is recorded in the Scriptures. Peter and Paul were both forewarned that they would require to seal their testimony with their blood; and although their death is not recorded in the Scriptures, it is foretold, the former by our Lord, the latter by Paul himself. To John was given the Revelation of things to come; the fulfilment of all which, in their appointed time, will be an additional testimony to the truth of all he has written. There is an agreeable harmony noticeable in all God's procedure, and the statements of all Scripture are remarkably consistent with each other. It is abundantly clear that Jesus Christ is the only foundation of the house of God; while at the same time the house is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone.

The Great Architect of this spiritual house is God. The particularity of the instructions given to Moses in founding the Jewish church, was meant to typify the minuteness and exactness of God's purpose in relation to His spiritual house. God has a fixed plan, predetermined in the counsel of His own will before the foundation of the world; and according to this plan the whole building, in every part, must be framed. The Great Master-Builder who superintends and carries on the work is the Holy Ghost, through whose almighty power Jesus was raised from the dead, and by whom the apostles and prophets were inspired; so so that through their teachings and writings He has laid the foundation of the spiritual house, Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone. All the stones are "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of

66

the blood of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter i. 2.) The natural condition of those chosen, and the change necessary to fit them for their place in God's house, is thus described by Paul:-" And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." (Eph. ii. 1-3, 10, 19-22.) These passages are sufficiently plain, and need no comment; their evident scope being to prove, that the work of redemption is begun, carried on, and completed in every individual believer, and in the whole family of the saints, by the might and resistless energy of the Holy Spirit. Men are represented as dead; He quickens and sanctifies them, and through Him they are built up together.

Man is an intelligent and responsible agent, and in all His procedure the Holy Spirit deals with him as such.

The work is carried on in each individual as if

human agency.

he alone were the whole building; but the Holy Spirit works by the man, not without him. It is impossible to speak of the Divine agency without including the The Divine agency imparts and sustains the energy. The human agency acts by the energy so imparted and sustained. The Divine agent quickens, and at that very moment the human agent lives. The Divine agent imparts faith, and the human agent believes. The Divine agent opens the understanding, and the human agent understands the Scriptures. The Divine agent makes willing in the day of His power, and the human agent is made willing. The believer works out his own salvation with fear and trembling; for the Divine agent worketh in him, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. If men would confine themselves to practical views of christian doctrine, there would be great gain to the christian religion; and a consistent daily christian practice would teach a man experimentally the truth, which no amount of human argument could persuade him of theoretically. "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." (John vii. 17.) The study of God's word in a controversial spirit, and for purposes of controversy, is a dangerous and most unprofitable occupation. Some men may imagine they do God service by their strifes and contentions about christian doctrine; but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering. Men would do well to try themselves in regard to this matter, for assuredly, it is a grievous reproach to the christian cause.

The work of preparing a lively stone for the house of God, is one of infinite magnitude. It exceeds in importance all that is known to man of God's other works.

Man possesses an immortal soul, in a state of alienation from his God and Creator. He is depraved, miserable, and wretched in time. Wo is his eternal doom, because of sin. So incurably obstinate is his heart, that no finite power can prevail against it. Promises and threatenings, persuasions and remonstrances, are resorted to in vain, in order to effect a change. In whatever stage of existence, in whatever state of society, and in all circumstances, the unrenewed heart of man is one and the same enmity against God. In such a state, man is loathsome in God's sight; and every human being is born into the world with a depraved and sinful nature. Angels and men are powerless to change man's wicked heart. A man cannot change his own heart. This inability, however, so far from being any palliation or mitigation of the sin of his state, is, in its origin, the very offence of a carnal mind in the sight of God. Man is free; his freedom of choice is entire and unrestricted, in the most absolute sense of the term, free and if a man cannot change himself, it is simply because, as a free agent, he will not. In other words, the very essence of sin, is the opposition of man's will to God's holy, just, and good law; so that man's so-called inability to cease to do evil and learn to do well, is just the result of the fixed determination of his will to do evil. Although the foundation of the house is laid, the atonement of Jesus having satisfied the claims of Divine justice, enabling God to be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly; the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, being able to cleanse from all sin; still, without its application to the heart of a man, not only through himself, but by himself, he can form no part of God's house. This no man can do; and yet it must be done, and in this precise way, before any man