disciples after them :-lastly, commending them to God, and to the word of His grace, which was able to build them up, and to give them an inheritance among all them which are sanctified, and proving the sincerity of all these admonitions and prayers, by reminding them, not in the spirit of arrogance or vain-boasting, but in simple testimony of the truth, that, whilst he had not shunned to declare unto them all the counsel of God, he had coveted no man's gold, or silver, or apparel, yea, that they themselves knew, that his hands had ministered unto his necessities, and to them that were with him. "I have shewed you all things," he saith, "how that, so labouring, ye ought to support the weak; and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive."

These were the holy subjects of the Apostle's exhortations to the men of Ephesus,-these the constraining motives by which he sought to animate their hearts and his own to the work that was set before them. And upon these they pondered, not as we now ponder upon the written record of them, in an holy sanctuary of the Lord, with all the reverence of customary association hallowing the spot whereon we meet, and protecting those that worship within its walls, but upon the shore of an heathen province, with the rugged beach their resting place, the heavens their canopy, and the waves of the dark ocean rolling at their

feet. Yea, upon that very shore, "when he had thus spoken, he kneeled down, and prayed with them all, and they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more, and they accompanied him to the ship." See here, my brethren, the reality of Christian faith, and Christian love;-faith, which shrunk not from the toil, and love, which, amid the tears and prayers of gushing sorrow, still looked to the Redeemer in whose name, and to the brethren, for whose sake, that toil was undergone. What can more clearly demonstrate the power of divine grace, or delineate, in characters of greater loveliness, its active energy pervading and sanctifying the sympathies of man's heart? And what can furnish ourselves with a more encouraging motive to perseverance in every good word and work, and to pray that we may be followers of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, even as he also was of Christ'?

Mark well his closing words. It is not for himself that he asks his brethren's aid, nor yet for the might of the mighty or the wisdom of the wise, that he seeks to excite their zeal. He urges them, indeed, to labour, as he had done; yet to labour, not for the indulgence of their own appetites or the aggrandizement of their own interests, but "to sup

11 Cor. xi. 1.

port the weak :" and by " the weak" are to be understood not only, as some expositors would interpret it, the "weak in faith," the removal of whose difficulties, and the promotion of whose progress in the path of Christian duty, was manifestly a duty incumbent upon the overseers of the church; but more particularly (as the expression in the original means) the weak in body ',-those who had no strength to labour for themselves, the sick, and the maimed, and the poor. It is a precept of precisely the same import as that which is again enforced in the epistle to the Ephesians, where the Christian convert is commanded to "labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth 2." These were the men whom the Apostle, in his last words, consigned to the compassion of his brethren; their wants were the last object which filled his mind; and the relief of those wants the last duty which he enforced by the words of their common Master and Redeemer Jesus Christ. How mightily must this thought have sustained the spirits and encouraged the hopes of the Ephesian elders! How must it have led them back again to that busy and stirring city, eager to discover and to support the weak that lay there! It was no longer the instinctive impulse of humanity prompting them to lift up the poor out of the dust,

and to wipe away tears from the mourner's cheek; but the love of Christ, kindling and purifying their hearts, and chasing away every feeling of selfishness and indifference. It was His example that stimulated them, and His words that taught them to feel "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

It is worthy of remark, that these words of the Lord Jesus are no where recorded by any of the Evangelists. Many of His exhortations, indeed, resemble them in spirit and in force, and His works form one continued commentary upon the practical acknowledgment of their truth in His own mind;but still the actual record of the words themselves, (though doubtless they must have been oftentimes the subject of thought and recollection among His followers,) is not given in those pages which detail His ministry. It is, therefore, (as Tillotson justly observes,) " a particular endearment of this saying to us, that, being omitted by the Evangelists, and in danger of being lost and forgotten, it was so happily retrieved by St. Paul, and recorded by St. Luke 1." We recognize in it, at once, the traces of Him who spake it. Though brief and solitary the fragment which thus unexpectedly falls in our way, we feel that it belongs to the perfect form of Him in whom "dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily 2." Like the features of one whom we knew and loved, their faint but faithful outline brings to

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1 Tillotson, Sermon clix. vol. ii. p. 386.

2

Col. ii. 9.

our recollection the complete lineaments and character of the whole figure;-his voice, his look, his gesture; all the varied scenes of sorrow or of joy, with which our memory has associated him, crowd back upon the mind; and we cherish the object which awakens these thoughts within us as a precious and dear memorial of the truth.

The mere disputer of this world, indeed, the restless seeker after its wealth and glory, may think scorn of the seeming paradox which this saying of our Lord conveys. Absorbed in the contemplation of his own interests, busied in the work of his own advancement, and envious or indignant at the approaching or accomplished triumph of his competitors in the struggle, he knows not, for he cannot know, the truth of this sacred principle. And yet, that this saying is no paradox-nay, that it is consonant to the dictates of purest reason, and linked with the loftiest aspirations of our nature, is testified even by the conclusions to which some of the mightiest masters of philosophy, though unenlightened by the knowledge of the Gospel, have been enabled to reach 1. The heart of man has therein given spontaneous utterance to the truth, and He who "knew what was in man 2" has confirmed it. For is it not the very nature of goodness to spread

In the works of Aristotle, of Plutarch, and of Seneca, are found sayings which accord in spirit, and nearly in letter, with this declaration of our Lord.

2 John ii. 25.