time is short-the day of mercy is passing away,-oh! catch the hour as it flies, and seek peace with God through Jesus Christ.

(b) The offers are renewed and pressed on you.

"The Spirit and the bride say, Come," &c. (ver. 17,)— all now invite-all offer assistance-every circumstance combines to induce you to hear and live!

(c) But a time will come when it will be of no avail to seek him!

Fearful proclamation! "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still," &c. (ver. 11.) "The door will then be shut." "There is no repentance in the grave," &c. "As the tree falls so it lies." (Eccles. xi. 3.) God grant that all may be induced to take of this healing tree and live!

Let believers come again--and again, continually; so shall they find peace in present sorrows-and so shall they come at last to that land whose inhabitants shall never say I am sick. (Isaiah xxxiii. 24.)

d) All who have themselves experienced the efficacy of the leaves of this healing tree, will be anxious to communicate them to others.

Thousands, millions are perishing for lack of them: hundreds desire them, and anxiously ask them at our hands— but we cannot SUPPLY their need, because of the parsimony of British Christians.

In New Zealand-in North-West America-in Sierra Leone, and in the East and West Indies, the sanative power of this Gospel has been proved in thousands of instances: churches are formed, converts are made, all the graces of Christianity are exhibited,—how is it that, with every thing to animate and encourage, there yet appears such inertness even in those who have felt "the powers of the world to come"? Oh! that it would please God to awaken his Church to a sense of its duties! May our young men offer themselves willingly-may parents present their sons for the work of God-may mothers and sisters count it an honour to dedicate their sons and brothers to the Ministry in heathen lands :-and may the treasures of this wealthy land be poured into the treasury of the Lord-that so his word and Gospel may be sent to Jews and Gentiles-" the number of his elect may be accomplished, and his kingdom hastened!"

VII.

THE MINISTRATION OF MOSES

CONTRASTED WITH THE MI

NISTRY OF THE GOSPEL.

2 Corinthians iii. 7—11. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.

THE correct elucidation of this passage must be derived from an examination of its context. From the close of the second to the end of the fourth chapter the one topic of the Apostle is the Gospel ministry: its importance, authority, excellence, and wonderful effects. This he presents in the text in immediate contrast with the ministry of Moses. And an attentive consideration of the whole disquisition of the Apostle will convince us that he is not contrasting the Dispensation of Moses, or the Mosaic Economy, with the Dispensation of the Gospel, but rather the MINISTRATION of Moses with the MINISTRATION of the Apostles; not so much the two dispensations as the MODE of communicating them. Let us then investigate the passage with this clue. And, in entire dependence upon Divine teaching, let us consider

I. THE MINISTRATION OF MOSES.

II. THE MINISTRATION OF THE GOSPEL. III. THEIR PERFECT UNION AND HARMONY. I. THE MINISTRATION OF MOSES.

1. It was a glorious Ministration.

"That which was done away was glorious." (ver. 7, 11.) Trace the ministry of Moses from the time when God appeared to him in the burning bush, until the venerable saint ascended Mount Nebo to gaze on the land of promise, and say if it were not glorious! The mountain shepherd waves his rod, and Egypt is desolated; the Red Sea is a path to God's people, and the flower of the Egyptian army perishes! The manna, the quails, the smitten rock-all are wonderful!

Mount Sinai and its stupendous scenes-the Tables of the Law-the Ark-the Tabernacle-God's sensible presence in the midst of his people-the cloudy shade by day, the pillar of fire by night,-the whole ministration of this wonderful man Moses was stupendous-" glorious!" Yet see—

2. Its dimness and imperfection.

mi

(a) It was a Ministration of death and of condemnation. (ver. 7, 9.) These terms are not to be applied to the Decalogue merely, nor chiefly: in that sense they would have here no particular point: for the moral law (which was in substance in the world long before the time of Moses) never could give life-always wrought death and condemnation: no law was ever given to man which could give life." (Gal. iii. 21.) These terms denote rather the character of the entire " nistration" of Moses. He was emphatically a minister of death and condemnation. This was the general character of his miracles: judgment and wrath! Not to the enemies of God alone, as in Egypt, but among his own people: a few miracles of mercy were wrought-as the sweetened waters—the manna-the quails-the smitten rock: but even at the foot of Sinai, brother steeped his hand in his brother's blood-plague pestilence, fire, the yawning earth, the fiery serpents, and many other instruments of death were wielded by Moses. So that the people cried out, "We die, we perish, we all perish!" &c. (Numb. xvii. 12, 13, with Heb. xii. 18.) All the typical worship denoted the same thing: as the streaming blood and burning flesh of millions of innocent animals! God's wrath against sin-" a consuming fire," &c.

(b) This Ministration was also "to be done away." (ver. 7, 11.) Most important to define accurately what was done away. Was it the Law? the Decalogue," written in stones"? No! "Which GLORY was to be done away;" What Glory ?—consult the original-a schoolboy can tell you the meaning-not the thing itself but the glory of it. What Glory? The glory of Moses' ministration! That is, clearly and grammatically, the special Glory, and the circumstances of wonder which accompanied the giving of the Law by Moses: there is not one word here of the abolition of the Law of God! The antinomian perverts this passage when he presses it into his service. Worthy of notice. The word law is used in three senses: THE LAW; the civil polity of Israel, and his national distinctions: this is done away. THE LAW; of ceremonies and typical observances: this is abolished by being fulfilled in Christ, but it may still be studied by Christians as illustrative of the person, work, and offices of Messiah. THE LAW; of the two tables: this is in no sense abolished,—Christ has fulfilled it; it cannot contribute to our salvation; but

by it is the knowlege of sin, and the knowledge of God's will.

Its nature is eternal: it existed before Moses-this is evident from the sacred history-the laws of murder, adultery, theft, and the law of the Sabbath, known from the beginning -recognised even by heathens-Pharaoh and Abimilech, &c. are now and ever will be.

Expounded by the Saviour in the Sermon on the Mountdefined by him under two heads, and "all the law and the prophets suspended on it." (Matt. xxii. 40.) Constantly referred to by the Apostles as the rule of life" under the law to Christ." (1 Cor. ix. 21.) Take one only: the Fifth. (Ephes. vi. 1-3.) This still further evident by considering

II. THE MINISTRATION OF THE GOSPel.

1. It is a Ministration of the Spirit " and surpassing glorious."

Here let us remember, that the Apostle speaks not of the Dispensation of the Gospel, but of the Ministration of itits ministry. It is indeed a dispensation of the Spirit-ushered in by the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost-by miraculous and spiritual gifts, and a " baptism of fire." It is a spiritual dispensation, by reason of its spiritual light, holy doctrines, and experience; but this is not what the Apostle speaks of here it is peculiarly of the Gospel Ministry, or Ministration-that as Moses was the Minister of the Law and bore God's will to men written in stones; so the ministers of the New Covenant bear the Holy Spirit; and by that Spirit write the law on men's hearts. See this foretold (Jer. xxxi. 31—34); twice quoted by St. Paul (Heb. viii. 8; x. 16); and applied to the Gospel,-proving beyond contradiction, that under Christ the Law was not only not to be abolished, but actually to be stamped on men's hearts! This is the peculiar excellence of the Gospel Ministry (ver. 2, 3): "Ye are our epistle, written. ... not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart!" Divine Lithography! By preaching, the Gospel is applied with power-men are convinced of sin, brought to Christ-and the impression of the Law is stamped on their hearts by the Holy Ghost, ministered by us his feeble and insufficient agents! And shall we break up the types? Destroy the Law? God forbid! -yea, we will establish it!

2. "It is a Ministration of righteousness," or of "justification," (ver. 9,) in every sense :

--an exhibition of the righteousness of God in the sufferings of the innocent substitute for man's transgression; in the perfect fulfilment of the law of God by the man Christ Jesus, for us, in our stead; and the gracious imputation of that

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righteousness to us: so that now "he that believeth in Jesus is justified from all things"-" there is no condemnation to him"-God can be just and justify the ungodly by that perfect righteousness which is to all and upon all them that believe." No man ever" was justified by the works of the law," nor ever can be," but only by faith:" as is proved by many passages of holy Scripture; and is set forth in Articles XI. XII. XIII. and XIV. of the Church of England. 3. This Ministration remaineth—

—(ver. 11): no further earthly ministration is to be expected until the Lord come: and therefore it is infinitely superior to that of Moses. That glory is passed-Sinai's thunders are heard no more-the shekinah-the cloud-the Urim and Thummim-and even the more splendid glories of the Temple ministrations have all vanished away, but the Ministration of the Spirit abideth until time shall be no more! III. VERY BRIEFLY; OBSERVE THE PERFECT HARMONY

WHICH SUBSISTS BETWEEN THE TWO MINISTRATIONS:

-the glory of the latter may have eclipsed that of the former, as the rising sun surpasses the glory of the stars-but their source and nature are one.

1. The malady is one in all ages;—

-sin, rebellion, disobedience-its symptoms identical at all times.

2. Never but one remedy: one true religion:

-externals, forms, ceremonies, modes, may vary-as Jewish Passover and the Lord's Supper, Circumcision and Baptismbut something analogous always has been. There never was but one way of access for a sinner to a holy God-Abel before his bleeding lamb, Noah offering his sacrifice, Aaron slaying the victim, and the Christian drawing "near by the new and living way;"-all approached God through the same medium, the shedding of blood-an atonement!

3. Every doctrine of the New Testament was comprised in the Old, though dimly revealed :—

-the unity, the trinity, the incarnation, sufferings, death, and resurrection of Christ; his offices, his personal glories, his first and second advent-the resurrection and judgment, all revealed in the Old Testament-though not fully discerned by the prophets themselves, and only brought to light. in the Gospel. (2 Tim. i. 10; 1 Peter i. 10—12.) 4. The experience of God's saints is identical in all

ages.

Read David's psalms, to which Christians often turn for deepest sympathy-St. Paul's epistles-the histories of converted sinners in modern times-study our own feelings