We have indeed, as you will observe, dealt chiefly with the sowing and reaping of the wicked, and but just alluded to those of the righteous. It would not, however, be difficult to prove to you, that, inasmuch as holiness is happiness, godliness shall be reward, even as sinfulness shall be punishment. And it is clear that the apostle designed to include both cases under his statement: for he subjoins as its illustration, "He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." We can not indeed plead, in the second case, for as rigid an application of the principle as in the first. We can not argue, that is, for what we call the natural process of vegetation. There must be constant interferences on the part of deity. God himself, rather than man, is the sower; and unless God were continually busy with the seed, it could never germinate and send up a harvest of glory. We think that this distinction between the cases is intimated by St. Paul: the one man sows "to the flesh;" himself the husbandman, himself the territory; the other man sows "to the Spirit, to the Holy Ghost." And here there is a superinduced soil which differs altogether from the natural; but if there be not, in each case, precisely the same, there is sufficient vigor of application to bear out the assertion of our text. We remember that it was righteousness" (2 Tim., iv. 8) which sparkled before Paul; and we may, therefore, believe that the righteousness which God's grace has nourished in the heart will grow into recompense, just as the wickedness, in which the transgressor has indulged, will shoot into torment. So that, although it were easy to speak at greater length on the case of true believers, we may lay it down as a demonstrated truth, whether respect be had to the godly or the disobedient of the earth, that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

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And now, what mean ye to reap on that grand harvest-day, the day of judgment? Every one of you is sowing either to the flesh or to the Spirit; and every one of you must, hereafter, take the sickle in his hand, and mow down the produce of his husbandry.

We will speak no longer on things of terror. We have said enough. to alarm the indifferent; and we pray God that the careless among you may find these words of the prophet ringing in their ears, when they lie down to rest this night: "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." (Jer., iii. 20.) But, ere we conclude, we would address a word to the men of God, and animate them to the toils of tillage by the hopes of reaping. We know that it is with much opposition from indwelling corruption, with many thwartings from Satan and your evil hearts, that ye prosecute the work of breaking up your fallow ground, and sowing to yourselves in righteousness. Ye have to deal with a stubborn soil. The prophet Amos asks, "Shall horses run upon the rock; will one plow there with oxen ?" (Amos, vi. 12.) Yet, this is precisely what you have to do. It is the rock, "the heart of

stone," which you must bring into cultivation. Yet, be ye not dismayed. Above all things, pause not, as though doubtful whether to prosecute a labor which seems to grow as it is performed.

"No man having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven." (Luke, ix. 62.) Rather comfort yourselves with that beautiful declaration of the Psalmist: "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." (Psalm cxxvi. 5.) Rather call to mind the saying of the apostle: "Ye are God's husbandry." (2 Cor., iii. 9.) It is God, who by his Spirit, plows the ground, and sows the seed, and imparts the influences of sun and shower. "My Father," said Jesus, "is the husbandman" (John, xv. 1); and can ye not feel assured that he will give the increase. Look ye on to the harvest-time. What though the winter be dreary and long, and there seem no shooting of the fig-tree to tell you that summer is nigh, Christ shall yet speak to his Church in that loveliest of poetry: "Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land." (Cant., ii. 11, 12.) Then shall be the harvest. We can not tell you the glory of the things which ye shall reap. We can not show you the wavings of the golden corn. But this we know, "that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us" (Rom., viii. 18); and therefore, brethren, beloved in the Lord, "be ye not weary in well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap, if ye faint not." (Gal., vi. 9.)

DISCOURSE XXXVII.

JOHN ANGEL JAMES.

No minister in England is better known, and more beloved this side of the Atlantic, than the venerable James. He is now advanced in life beyond his threescore and ten, having been torn in Blandford, England, June the 6th, 1785, the son of Joseph James, a linen-draper and pious dissenter. He became a subject of renewing grace in the year 1800; and having completed his preliminary studies, mainly at Gosport, he was ordained in 1806 to the charge of the Congregational Church in Birmingham; which pastorate he has ever since held—a period of 51 years. Notwithstanding several colonies have gone out into the suburbs of the town, the Church now numbers about 1000 members, and is one of the most influential in Great Britain. With the help of a colleague recently chosen, the aged man of God still ministers to a happy and united flock.

As a preacher, Mr. James has long held a high place among the most able and popular ministers of the day. After the manner of most of the English dissenters, he generally speaks from a well-digested plan, leaving the language to be supplied chiefly by his thoughts and feelings, at the moment of utterance. His appearance in the pulpit is said to be imposing and dignified, and his manner is at once persuasive and commanding, tender and energetic, exhibiting a soul deeply impressed with its own bold and lofty thoughts, and forgetful of every thing else but the great end which the preaching of the gospel is designed to accomplish. His discourses are generally framed with much skill, and are adapted not less to arouse and quicken, than to guide and edify; not less to seize hold of the conscience, than to warm and elevate the feelings; not less to impress the careless sinner with a sense of his ruin, than to search the heart of the hypocrite, and build up the true Christian in the most holy faith.

Mr. James is a voluminous author-most of his works being of a particular class— not learned or critical, but practical in the highest sense of the term, and designed, either to guide in Christian duty, or awaken the ungodly. Some of his principal works are "The Church-Member's Guide," "The Christian Father's Present to his Children," ""Christian Charity," "The Family Monitor," "The Anxious Inquirer," "Christian Duty," "The Church in Earnest,' “The Church in Earnest,” “An Earnest Ministry,” and “The Course of Faith."

It is remarkable that one who writes so much should write so well. The productions of Mr. James are models of their kind. The style is so simple as to be transparent to the mind of a child, yet so beautiful as to attract the man of cultivated taste; moreover, they always breathe a heavenly spirit, are deeply imbued with the evangelical sentiment, and an evident earnestness to do good.

The following discourse, forwarded by the author for this work, and never before published in this country, was prepared with reference to a controversy which has been carried on with considerable warmth, of late, in the Congregational body in England, on the subject of evangelical truth, and which was originated by the publication of a volume of poetry, called the "Rivulet." It was intended to be preached at the regular autumnal meeting of the Congregational Union; but that meeting having been postponed for various reasons, the discourse was not delivered. Its peaceful, conciliatory spirit, its sound Christian views, its timely counsels and weighty warnings, give to it a value which is not limited to any particular country or time A few allusions, principally of a local character, are omitted.

THE UNION OF TRUTH AND LOVE.

Speaking the truth in love."—EPHES., iv. 15.

I PASS by the magnificent context, and at once take up the text as an abstract proposition, complete in its own isolation, and imposing upon all, and especially upon ministers, a most incumbent and momentous duty. "Speaking the truth in love," does not refer primarily, if at all, to veracity between man and man, but to our expression, and our mode of expression, of the truth as it is in Jesus, whether in the way of didactic teaching, defense, or controversy—whether by the pen or word of mouth-or whether by ministers in their public ministrations, or by other persons in the ordinary intercourse of life. It is a general rule, commanding and directing us, that whenever truth is upon our lips, love shall be in our hearts, and upon our tongues, so that our faith and I shall apply our charity shall be equally conspicuous in all we say. this rule on the present occasion to the ministerial enunciation of truth, whether from the pulpit or the press. And I think these few beautiful words give out to us the subject and the spirit of our ministry.

FIRST.-The SUBJECT of our ministration.-We are not only the teachers of truth, but of the truth; and not only of religious, but of Christian truth. We minister, of course, at the altar of the God of nature and providence; but this stands only in the vestibule of the temple of truth, and our chief service is at the altar of the God of redemption, which points and leads to the mercy-seat in the holy of holies. Ours is "the ministry of reconciliation" between God and a revolted world: than which there is nothing higher for the highest ambition to seek, or possess.

All that is put forward as ruth, and claims to be such, must appeal And what is the to some standard by which its claims are to be tried. standard of Christian truth? Not our own intuitional consciences, for objective Christianity is a collection of facts to be tried by their own evidence, and not by the evidence suggested by our own reason, for

they are themselves facts of which reason can know nothing but as they are revealed to it, and for which it can find no vouchers in itself. Not the authority of the church, for the church is composed of fallible men, and, multiply fallibles as you may, they can never make infallibility. Not creeds and articles, catechisms and formularies, for whatever may be the value they have as exponents of opinion-discriminators of systems-bases of communion-and subordinate breakwaters against the waves of error, they must all themselves be tried by the word of God, and can not be the test of truth. The only infallible truth is the word of God. The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion, not only of Protestants, but of Christians; and when men can be brought to gather round this fountain of truth, and there "purify their much-abused vision from the scales of prejudice and passion," a better understanding and a more general agreement of the meaning of the word will be arrived at. Angry controversies and legal restraints will do little for this object, "for unless an angel were to descend for that purpose, the spirit of strife is a disease not to be healed by the troubling of the waters."

"My

But what is it that gives the Bible its authority as the standard of truth? Its inspiration: and the main object of the father of lies, the center of the policy of pandemonium, in this day, is to prove that inspiration in its higher sense falters before a rigid criticism. brethren," says the venerable Archdeacon Law, in an admirable charge to his clergy, "unless we are content to fall before the insidious errors of the day, we must take our stand upon the rock of an inspired Bible. When final and irrevocable appeal to this fails, we lose our vantageground. Our noblest victories in the great fight of faith can then only win the palm of probability. Nothing in theology is certain, if the inspiration of the Bible be not so. If texts be disputable proof, our whole ministry is but a doubtful argument." Not only are the nerves and sinews of our strength dried up, but our shield is lost, the point of our sword is blunted, and truth is exposed defenseless to the weapons of error. When inspiration is gone, the hedge around the sacred vine of Scripture is broken down, and the boar out of the wood will waste it. We must, for the adjustment of controversy, and the settlement of religious truth, have infallibility somewhere, and if we can not find it in the Bible, it is no matter of wonder that some go and seek for it in the church. Take away inspiration, or reduce it to the level, or to an approximation to the level, of Homer, Milton, and Shakspeare, as modern theorists would do--and what have we left in the Bible, but the opinion of men fallible as ourselves, with better information it is true, but still fallible men, whose dicta being liable to be wrong, we are at liberty not only to sift, but also to reject?

But we now go on to ask, not whether the Bible is true, but what is the truth in the Bible? Never was a more important question asked than that which Pilate proposed to the illustrious prisoner at his bar: