want of fulness in the atonement. This is ample for the salvation of the whole world. The invitation is universal. "Ho every one that thirsteth, come up to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, and buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price." "Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely."

2. Neither do they perish for any want of benevolence on the part of God in the application of the atonement. After God gave his only begotten Son to die for sinners, men never had occasion.

to doubt his readiness to save them.

3. Neither do they perish from any inability to accept of the provisions of the atonement. The terms of salvation are adapted to the very nature of the corrupt and ruined sinner, and are such that if he will, he may look and live. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so has the Son of Man been lifted up.

4. Neither do they perish for want of sufficient evidence of any truth which God requires them to believe. God has furnished us a fullness of testimony. Unbelief itself implies a sufficiency of evidence; and the very iniquity of unbelief consists in rejecting that evidence.

5. Neither do they perish by reason of any old decrees of God. God could never make any decree clashing with his present purposes of mercy. His purposes are ever fresh and vigorous like himself.

6. Neither do they perish on account of any necessity in the government of God, except such as is created by the sinner's unbelief. This pours contempt upon his character and authority. In Jesus Christ his justice, truth and righteousness, can all be honored. In him, "mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other."

II. It must be admitted that none of the above-mentioned things are able to destroy the soul without the intervention of the damning sin of unbelief. This only removes the soul beyond the possibility of cure. Faith appropriates the gift of grace through our Lord Jesus Christ. Without it, it is impossible to please God. If he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him, how can he come acceptably whose heart is full of unbelief? If faith is the only key which opens Heaven, how will he gain an entrance who is destitute of this saving principle? The sick man who locks the door of his chamber because he distrusts the physician's skill, may perish in his bed, although the physician, once admitted, might bring remedies that would effect a cure. So the sin-polluted soul may perish within the reach of the Balm of Gilead, through distrust of its saving power.

REMARKS.

1. We see that sinners may be be immediately sent to perdition. of Israel lived nearly forty years should not enter into his rest.

ruined by unbelief, and yet not Some who perished in the camp after God had sworn that they

2. Every sinner perishes a suicide. Nothing bars the gates of Heaven but his own wilful unbelief, the sin for which he has the slightest shadow of apology.

3. We see why unbelief is placed in the van of those sins which damn the soul. It is a sin against the remedy. It is an attempt to destroy the very life-boat which is sent out to save the shipwrecked multitude. It shuts, and holds to, the only door and hope of mercy.

4. God's glory will be untarnished in the ruin of the lost. It will appear that he did everything to save sinners that needed to be done; yea, more-he gave them more power than they needed. They had the Spirit's agency to resist, they had evidence to trampel upon. They perished because they would not believe. Their verdict will stand throughout eternal ages. Ye would not come unto me that ye might have life. And when at last the earth shall have opened and swallowed up the multitudes of the ungodly, it will be seen written in capitals of fire on the clouds that overhang the pit:

"They could not enter in because of UNBELIEF."

BY REV. JOSEPH P. THOMPSON,

PASTOR OF THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE CHURCH, NEW YORK.

THE USES OF AFFLICTION TO THE MINISTER OF CHRIST.*

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.—2 Cor. 1., 3, 4.

How precious is comfort! It is not joy; it even admits of grief; it may not stay the flood of tears; but it takes away the bitterness of sorrow; it moderates pain and distress; it soothes the aching heart; it makes the soul appear calm and serene in all the weakness and the tribulations of the flesh, even as the sun smiles most sweetly when fringed with clouds, and tinges with his warmest hues the falling drops.

Joy to a wounded spirit is unseemly. Mirth and song grate on the bleeding heart, and break the tender strings that grief has strained; but Comfort lays her hand upon the quivering chords and hushes them to peace. Comfort, sweet comfort! it almost renders grief a luxury; it takes the sting from death. Blessed be God for comfort! He, "the Father of mercies," is most merciful in this, that he is "the God of all comfort," and comforteth his servants in all their tribulation. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though

This discourse was occasioned by the recent sudden death of a sister of the author, at Philadelphia. As he was summoned to her death-bed on the day of his weekly lecture, and was detained from home over the Sabbath, the peculiar circumstances of his affliction became so generally known among his people, and awakened so much sympathy, as to call for some allusion to the event in public after his return. He felt bound, moreover, as a preacher of the Gospel, to bear his humble testimony to the value of its consolations in the hour of trial.

the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." There is comfort. The storms come-we cannot stay them; they rage with violence; they spread desolation around; God does not interpose to prevent it; he who commands the winds and the waves, now leaves them apparently without control; he even suffers us to be scathed and prostrated by the sudden blast; but as we recover from the shock, he offers us a refuge; he leads us to a place of safety; he gives us help; he does not keep trouble from us, but he is present as our help in trouble-and that is comfort. "In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock. The Lord is my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort; he is my rock and my fortress." The billows may roll over me, the "proud waters" may go over my soul, but I cannot sink, for God shall set me upon a rock. I may wander in a desert, in a dry and thirsty land; my earthly comforts may be gone, and I may seek in vain for any solace; but God will not suffer me to perish thus: he will be "as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." This is comfort. The causes of grief are not removed, but consolation is brought in. Trials are not taken from us, but we are strengthened to bear them. The winds still howl, the billows still roll, the waste and burning sands still lie around; but there is a refuge from the wind; there is a rock above the waves; there are water and a shade in the midst of the desert. "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (through whom all mercy comes), the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us"-yes, that is the word," who comforteth us in all our tribulation."

This outburst of gratitude was from the heart of the Apostle Paul, than whom no man ever experienced greater afflictions. He was "in deaths oft," in stripes, in shipwreck, in imprisonment, in bonds, always "bearing in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus," always carrying upon his person marks of violence which showed his liability to the same violent death which his master had endured. He thus blessed God for the comforts of the Gospel; and this he did not only for his own sake, but for the sake of those to whom he ministered. The trials and consolations which benefited him were to benefit them also through him. "For whether we be afflicted," he says, "it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation." Paul had special reference here to sufferings endured in the cause of Christ, in which those whom he addressed had a common interest with himself. They were partakers of his sufferings by sympathy and by exposure to the same, and thus they became partakers of his consolation, rejoicing in his deliverance

with renewed confidence in the Lord. And as his perils and afflictions far exceeded theirs, he could with great propriety engage to comfort them in their trials through that same grace by which he had been sustained. He regarded the trials through which he passed almost daily, as a part of his discipline as a teacher of the Gospel; as a needful qualification for an important part of his work-the office of consolation.

"Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."

It is to the topic suggested by this latter clause that I propose to direct your attention in the present discourse, viz:

THE TRIALS OF A MINISTER OF CHRIST VIEWED AS QUALIFYING

HIM FOR HIS WORK.

I. The personal afflictions of a minister of Christ bring him to a deeper sense of the value of that Gospel which he preaches to others. I speak now of the value of the Gospel as a whole, and in a general way. This impression is among the first and the most powerful that are made upon the mind of a Christian by afflictions. Religion is seen in the hour of trial to possess attractions and to yield consolations which the world cannot offer. Afflictions spread a gloom over all the pleasures of the world, or produce in the soul a disrelish for them and a sense of want which these cannot satisfy. Scenes long pleasant and familiar become distasteful when one who has always moved with us among them is taken away, or they yield only the melancholy pleasure of reminding us of the dear departed. We value them for their associations and not for themselves. The house is desolate, though filled with friends, when the chief tenant has departed; the table is empty, though surrounded with guests, when the chief seat is vacant. A feeling of vacuity is produced in the mind which nothing earthly can relieve. Then it is that the fullness of the Gospel is seen; then it is discovered that the heart, though torn open as by the hand of violence, canot be opened too wide for the grace of God to fill.

The experience of a minister of the Gospel under affliction does not differ in this respect from that of any other Christian. But as with every Christian, a conviction of the transcendent value of the Gospel is necessary to growth in grace and to extensive usefulness, so with the minister it is important to give fervor and unction in the preaching of the Gospel. Whatever, therefore, goes to strengthen that conviction in his mind gives him a new qualification for his work, or at least a new impulse in it. He believes, indeed, in the preciousness of the Gospel, from his own experience