medium of reproof to the Jews. They had disobeyed God without any temptation, and persisted in that disobedience, notwithstanding every inducement to obedience, and repeated warnings and threatenings; but the Rechabites withstood the strongest temptation though there had been but one command given by a distant ancestor who had lived nearly three hundred years before the event.

Temptation is the great criterion of principle. A man may avoid actual sin, and attend to an ordinary course of commanded duty, whilst there is no inducement to commit the one, nor to neglect the other, but doing the same when a powerful temptation is presented, to act differently is a proof that his sense of obedience is grounded and fixed. There was no difficulty in the way of the Hebrew children to worship God in Babylon until the Royal edict commanded them to worship the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar the King had set up in the vale of Dura. Daniel's exercise of prayer was smooth and easy until the law of the Medes and Persians was signed and sealed by the king, binding that no prayer should be offered for thirty days except to himself. Those men proved their obedience to God by resisting the temptation. So have others done when the alternative of honour or death was placed before them. Many who live in neglect of God, and practise a course of wickedness, may attribute their delinquencies to a powerful temptation which they had not the resolution to withstand.

We shall briefly observe

II. The benefit awarded to the house of the Rechabites for their obedience. "Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever;" or, as it is otherwise read, "There shall not be cut off a man of, or unto Jonadab, the son of Rechab, standing before me all the days," intimating that either his posterity should not be utterly rooted out, but continue in being, and consequently before God, as are all things that have existence; or that they should be preserved in some peculiar station. The phrase "for ever" is to be taken in

two senses: first, it means during the state or dispensation then in existence; and, secondly, it means eternal existence. In both these respects it may be applied to the Rechabites, thus comprehending temporal and spiritual benefits.

Some have thought that the promise had a reference to a constant employment in connection with the sacred offices of the temple, because they were scribes. and were given to the study of literature. Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, asserts that by intermarriage with the daughters of priests and Levites some of them in the process of time were advanced to the office of priests, and that one of them (a priest) being present at the murder of James the Just, reproved the Jews for their cruelty in so doing. Others again suppose that they were the Essenes of our Saviour's time, and that many of them early embraced the Gospel, being alluded to by St. Paul in some of his epistles. If so, the promise of our text extended beyond a perpetuity in existence and honourable positions, including also a state of eternal happiness in the world to come.

Such a promise is not confined to any single branch of the human family, all who fear God and obey His commands are comprehended within its purport. The ground of obedience is a sure ground of success and safety-temporal success, eternal safety. "Salvation belongeth unto the Lord, (His) blessing is upon (His) people." Not that we can merit God's favour by our obedience, for having done all we are unprofitable servants; but in connection with our obedience He has vouchsafed to bestow His blessing. The merit is on the part of Christ, He has deserved that which God is pleased to give ; and He having deserved them for us, our obedience in imitation of the great examples placed before us is the condition of our receiving those benefits. Neither the change of dispensation The Rechanor the length of time has altered the condition.

bites received a promise of perpetuity and prosperity in conjunction with their obedience; we have the same promise continued on the same condition. Then, let no temptation induce us to swerve from the path of duty which will ever be the path of safety.

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The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity.

EVENING SERVICE.-Second Lesson: Rom. x.

Verse 17.-" So then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

It has been often asked, why all the expense and labour and trouble of sending the gospel to heathen lands? There are some hundreds of thousands of pounds collected annually in Great Britain, some hundreds of sermons are preached and speeches delivered; time is spent in going from town to town, from village to village, and from house to house; hundreds of persons are called upon to relinquish their dearest ties, to part from their friends and their comforts in life, to trust themselves to the contingencies of a long voyage, to settle down in a hut at the mercy of barbarous savages, to spend their lives amongst dangers and insults and persecutions, and then to sink into a forlorn grave without even a shrub to mark their resting-place; and what is it all for? There is no natural obligation to make such sacrifices; those devoted persons might have lived in ease and comfort and luxury at home, and the hundreds of thousands of pounds might have been appropriated to more selfish purposes. Why then do it? The answer is given in the text, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Those who feel for the salvation of souls that cannot be saved but by exercising faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, are convinced of their duty to make known the means by which that faith is to be obtained. Hence the reason why so many

efforts are made for the spread of the gospel.

St. Paul has already proved in this epistle that all men are sinners, and that the only way of justifying the sinner before

God is by his exercising simple faith in Christ as a Saviour without any reliance upon his own meritorious righteousness. The Judaizing portion of the Roman Church wished to mix up the law with the gospel, their own righteousness with the righteousness of Christ, the works of ceremonial observances with the works of faith, the merits of Sinai with the merits of Calvary. Not so, for the one being imperfect cannot save, whilst the other answers all the ends of salvation. But the question arises, how is a man to possess the necessary faith that he may be saved? Not by living in ignorance of God's will respecting man's duty. He must believe, but how can he believe in him of whom he has not heard? The apostle forcibly argues this point in the preceding verses respecting both Jew and Gentile. "For whosoever shall call upon name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent ?" From the whole of these arguments we may note that the only way to heaven is by Christ, the only way to Christ is by faith, and the only way to faith is by the gospel." "So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God."

the

In the text we are taught, first, that a Divine revelation is absolute for the foundation of saving faith; secondly, that such a faith is produced in the soul through the senses of the body.

I. A Divine revelation is absolute for the foundation of saving faith. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

By saving faith we understand something different from a mere belief in the existence and attributes of God. Creation and Providence reveal much of God in this respect. He is visible in all His works. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth know

ledge." When the apostle said that "the world by wisdom knew not God," he did not mean His existence and attributes, for thus the heathen are without excuse, inasmuch as the very construction of the universe, and the provisions made for the regulation of the whole, prove that a Being must exist who is powerful and wise, faithful and good. All this may be believed, and is believed by thousands who are utterly destitute of the faith intended in our text. Such a faith comprehends not only that a Supreme Being, by His power and wisdom, His justice and holiness, His faithfulness and goodness, governs the world for the universal benefit of His creatures, but also that that Being is willing to be our spiritual Benefactor, and our eternal Friend, on conditions which none of His works in creation and providence declare. Hence He has graciously supplied the deficiency by what is here emphatically called the Word of God, alluding to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, especially to the declarations made by Christ in revealing the way of salvation.

There are three things which prove the necessity of "the Word of God" for salvation.

How

1. This only reveals God to the world in His true character. How meagre and contracted must be the knowledge of God in the absence of a Divine revelation! This accounts for the wild notions of "gods many and lords many" which existed among ancient, and do exist among modern heathen nations. Even with the aid of tradition which those people. must have possessed, introducing into their theology much that is true and virtuous, their ideas of the object of adoration are full of the most absurd and cruel incongruities. Why is it that we can perceive the folly of their creeds? it is not that we are naturally endowed with brighter intelligence, but because we are blessed with a brighter light-with more extensive views of God as revealed in His Word.

When the beauty of His character is brought before us in Scripture, we are struck with admiration at the greatness of His Majesty and the purity of His nature, combined with