In discoursing about religion, especially about experimental religion, cautiously avoid everything quaint, everything ludicrous. What has that to do with religion? Laugh about politics and the affairs of this world; only do it with wisdom, do it with moderation. But never indulge in a spirit that borders on the ludicrous in anything which concerns the soul, and its sclemn relations to God and to eternity. It is pitiful to be sporting when you are referring to these momentous things. Religion, and the hope of heaven, may be joyous affairs to you. It is a very joyous thing to you to have a sense of pardon and peace with God, a delightful consciousness of communion with Him, and the full expectation of one day beholding Him; but let it be remembered that all this cost your Saviour His blood. You will, then, no longer talk lightly about it. All expressions of that sort are utterly unbecoming in religious matters; and my firm impression is, that they always lower more or less the character and tone of the piety of those who indulge in them. Some good men have fallen into this. snare; but they are not so good as they should be, and would have been much better if they had avoided it. Why is it that we, who are often favoured with great and genuine revivals, do not more fully profit by them, and that the fruit is not more abundant and more abiding? Is it not for want of what St. Peter here recommends,-for want of more holy "fear," more seriousness and reverence in everything connected with God and the work of God?

When there was a great revival in the primitive church, the effect was, that "fear came upon every soul," *—a solemn awe of God. They saw His hand, and they worshipped Him, while yet they felt grateful joy. Happy, if we too realized at such seasons the majesty of a present God! This is the temper we are commanded to cherish when we speak of religious experience. "Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you,

* Acts ii. 43.

with meekness and fear." Do not hide your light.

Do not be afraid or ashamed to bear testimony to the work of God: but, as you wish the testimony to be useful to others and safe to yourselves, in giving it maintain the spirit of meekness and fear, of humility and seriousness. May God grant His blessing! Amen.

SERMON XVIII.

OUR GREAT DEBT TO ALL MANKIND.

PREACHED,

ON BEHALF OF THE WESLEYAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY, AT CHINA-TERRACE CHAPEL, LAMBETH, 2D, 1824; AND ON SEVERAL OTHER OCCASIONS.

MAY

ROMANS i. 14.

I AM DEBTOR BOTH TO THE GREEKS, AND TO THE BARBARIANS; BOTH TO THE WISE, AND TO THE UNWISE.

ST. PAUL was the apostle, or missionary, of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. This was his especial honour; and he was remarkably endued with the spirit of his high vocation. It was apparent in all his actions; it still breathes and burns in all his writings. Hence his Epistles abound, in almost every page, with arguments for Missionary exertions, with examples of Missionary zeal, and, consequently, with texts which are adapted to the purpose of services like that for which we are now assembled.

In the passage selected as the subject of this evening's discourse, the writer has drawn a simple but touching picture of that unquenchable ardour for the extension of the Christian cause, and for the salvation of the souls of men, which glowed in his bosom, and ought to glow in ours; to which neither the vast distance of some of those for whom it cares, nor the interposition of tempestuous oceans between itself and them, presents any insurmountable obstruction; which is rather stimulated than discouraged by difficulties and perils; and which, in the true spirit of heroism, accounts nothing done while anything remains to be done, by which Christ may be

magnified, and His religion promoted. This Epistle is addressed to persons resident at Rome, the metropolis, at that time, of the Gentile world. That city Paul as yet had never visited; but he thus describes the fervour of his desire to find an opportunity of publishing to its numerous inhabitants the Gospel of the grace of God:-"God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers; making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto 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 as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

In stating the extent of his obligation, as entrusted with the ministry of reconciling grace, our apostle speaks in the text of the Greeks and the Barbarians, the wise and the unwise.

1. The Greeks and the Barbarians.—The Jews were wont to designate all other nations by the general term of "Greeks," as well as by that of "Gentiles."* The Greeks, properly so called, denominated all who differed from them in language. "Barbarians." And the Romans, when they had conquered the Greeks, adopted the same haughty style of expression toward all who spoke any other than the Greek or the Latin tongue. These two phrases, then, taken together, are of the

* See verse 16.

most comprehensive kind, and include all the Gentile nations of the earth. But the text mentions,

2. The wise and the unwise; that is, the learned and the unlearned; those whose minds and manners are improved by education and the arts of civilized life, and those who are yet in a state of untutored and uncultivated nature.

Behold the view which St. Paul had adopted respecting the places and the persons that have a claim on Christians for the communication of the light and blessings of Christianity. Where ought we to preach the Gospel? If possible, everywhere,-in "all the world." To whom ought the Gospel to be preached? "To every creature," as far as we have the opportunity; to Greeks and Barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise; to the most polished and to the most savage tribes; to those whose habitations are contiguous to ours, and to those who live on "the farthest verge of the green earth;" to those who speak in our own tongue wherein we were born, and to those who use some of the many other languages of mankind; to persons of every condition, as well as of every clime; to the erudite and the illiterate, to the rich and the poor, to the high and the low, to the bond and the free. For God "will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

Among men who are content to bow to the Divine authority, and lay their reasonings at the footstool of revelation, this assertion of the inspired apostle ought for ever to set at rest the question which has been sometimes raised, whether the civilization of a country should not always be considerably advanced, before we so much as attempt the work of direct evangelization; and whether, on this principle, we ought not to abandon all savage nations for the present to their fate, as far as Missions are concerned, and confine our Christianizing projects to those among whom arts, and sciences, and commerce, and enlightened legislation, and regular government are supposed to have prepared the way for religion. The scriptural answer to this question is, I think, plain. Inasmuch