Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto mė, These are the true sayings of God."

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SERMON XXIV.

CHURCH BUILDING SOCIETY.

LUKE, vii. 4, 5.

"And when they came to Jesus, they besought him instantly, saying, that he was worthy for whom he should do this: for he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue."

THE person of whom such honourable mention is made in the text, was none other than a Roman centurion, a foreigner to the Jewish nation, and the commander of a hundred soldiers stationed in Capernaum for the purpose of suppressing any commotion, or any act of rebellion which might arise prejudicial to the authority of his government. Before we proceed further, it may be as well to recite the whole of St. Luke's narrative which relates to the character and conduct of this truly liberal and noble-minded individual.

The passage in question runs thus: "Now when he,” that is, Jesus, "had ended all his sayings in the audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum. And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear

unto him, was sick and ready to die. And when he heard of Jesus, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they besought him instantly, (that is, pressingly and urgently,) saying, That he was worthy for whom he should do this: for he loveth our nation, and hath built us a synagogue. Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof: wherefore, neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And they that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick."

It is worthy of remark, that the circumstance here alluded to occurred at an early period of our Lord's ministry, before he had incurred the hostility and hatred of the great men among the Jews, the chief priest and elders of the people. It is not, therefore, difficult to conceive why, at such a time, the elders of the Jews," alluded to in the two

verses of our text, were induced to ask a favour of our Divine Lord. The centurion being an idolater by birth, was undoubtedly such when he arrived in the land of Canaan; but after having resided a certain time among the Jews, in all probability, degenerate as the Jewish faith had become, he had seen enough to induce him to transfer his conceptions from a belief in a number of false gods to a belief in the God of Israel. However such a supposition might seem to bear the semblance of truth; certain it is that the heathen centurion evinced his friendly disposition to the Jews by building them a synagogue, and they, in return, displayed their gratitude towards him by interesting themselves in his behalf on the occasion before us, and requesting our Lord that he would add one to his numerous other wonderful works, by healing his servant, who, being sick of the palsy, was at the point of death! Of the most wonderful faith, (for

wonderful it was when we consider the circumstances of the case, and the peculiar situation of the Roman centurion,) of the wonderful faith of this exemplary individual, and of the success which attended the application of the Jewish elders in his behalf, enough has been said in the sequel of our text to convey to us a correct idea. And by reversing the order of the facts, as it is narrated in the portion of the gospel already recited, we shall perceive that a miraculous act of mercy and favour was conferred on the centurion because he had such unshaken faith in the God of Israel as induced him equally to believe

in the divine mission of his Son, and at his own cost to erect a synagogue or place of worship, which ac corded with the new faith, which if not openly, yet at least secretly, he had adopted. It must not be forgotten, that the Jewish faith continued to be the true faith from the moment of its first establishment until that of the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, after which the true faith consisted in the belief that the Lamb of God had been actually slain, which, in a manner, had been previously slain from the foundation of the world, inasmuch as it had been typified or represented not only by the paschal lambs which had been offered in sacrifice by the Jews, but likewise, on different occasions, in retrograde direction up to the time of the fall, of which the ram slain by Abraham in the place of his son Isaac, and the firstlings of his flock offered by Abel, are instances. Therefore was it that our Lord was not only born a Jew, but continued in the Jewish faith and practice from the moment of his circumcision up to that which immediately preceded his crucifixion, when he partook of the passover with his disciples.

If, therefore, and the supposition seems indisputable, one who had been an idolater was induced, by what he had seen and heard when resident among the Jews, to believe in the God of Israel, such an one must have possessed as perfect a belief as it was possible to possess at the period in which he lived, and there can be no doubt that the miracles and doctrines of our Lord would have been sufficient to convince such an one of the truth of