from reality. Ask your people and your own con

science what that is.

PROFITABLE REFLECTIONS FOR MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL.

THE opportunities a christian minister enjoys of preaching Christ to the people will seem to vie in importance and value as they decrease in number. Every returning sabbath which he faithfully forewarns his hearers may be the last to them, he will deeply feel may be the last to himself. Under such an impression he will aim to preach each sermon as from his dying couch, and as departing to his Lord's tribunal. This will subdue the risings of vanity in his own heart, preserve him from wandering into extraneous subjects, and protect him against the injurious influence of inconsiderate and officious adulation. He will learn to account every opportunity lost that is not made available for advancing the glory of his Master, and every sermon more than thrown away that is not simply directed to spiritual usefulness. Let then each returning sabbath morn bring to his solemn reflection the immortality of all his hearers, and the certainty of their existence in eternal bliss or woe. It will be profitable often to trace our hearers to their sick and dying beds, and there to inquire whether they have any impeachment to prefer against our fidelity, simplicity, and affection. From their dying beds let our thoughts track them to that all-exposing, and all-searching tribunal, where it will be of the utmost importance to be able to face alike our people and our Master, and to stand before him pure from the blood of all men.

That we may so appear, it will be necessary often to send forward our thoughts to the great issue of all things, and to contemplate the solemn results which may depend upon our exertions. Nothing can be more

perilous than to drop into a mechanical and perfunctory style of fulfilling the duties of our ministry; as void of right feeling in ministers as it is likely to be of good effect upon our people. There must be a constant freshening up of our own hearts; a constant trimming of the flame of affection for souls; a constant feeding of our strength for fresh efforts; a constant sharpening of the edge and spirit of our addresses, a constant watching to deal the blow at the joints of the harness. These ends will all be most directly and effectually attained by connecting in thought what we now do in the ministry with the immeasurable results that must follow. These sermons of ours, too often delivered as unfeelingly as they are heard; these thoughts from the book of God, which do indeed breathe, and these words which do truly burn, must either be a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death. We cannot be a sweet savour unto God alike in them that believe and in them that perish, unless we have thrown our whole soul and heart into the work, and have besought all for Christ's sake to be reconciled unto God. But if such have been our uniform course, though some slips and oversights may have attended us, yet our great and merciful Master will look with pleasure and approbation upon the course we have run. He will not withhold his pardon from our deplored imperfections, the blood of unbelievers will be upon their own heads, and we shall deliver our souls.

Nor should we fail to consider that the day which assures us of his approbation, will bring to light the full and blessed and immortal effects of our labours. And how solemn, how almost overwhelming to a susceptible heart is the reflection, that what we may deliver in the course of our ministry, will then be shown to have contributed to the salvation and happiness of some, or to have aggravated the condemnation of others! What weighty, well-chosen, well-ordered words, should ours be, since they are pregnant with consequences so sublimely momentous! Let, then,

these consequences in all the vastness of their magnitude, in all the intenseness of their legitimate emotions, in all the endlessness of their duration, be ever present to our minds. The thought will be ennobling as well as stimulating; it will inspire earnestness as well as awe, it will quicken love as well as fear.

Let the last day of our ministerial career be often in our thoughts, and let us labour with it, whether in the pulpit or out of it, always close at hand. Let us never dismiss it-no, not for an hour-from our hearts. Think, beloved brethren, of closing your commission, shutting up your bible, uttering your last sentence, offering your last prayer, pointing the last time to the ark of gospel safety, and pronouncing the final Amen to all the labours of your ministry; then, descending from the sacred desk, and retiring to your closet or your dying bed, think of the last echo of mercy that shall be heard from your voice, within the walls where you have ministered, and then, O then, a solemn silence fills the place; they will attend your remains to an honourable burial; they will drop their tear in your sepulchre; another will take your place-but those you leave behind-O they will follow you at brief intervals-they will all follow you to the same grand audit-you, to give account to the eternal Judge of the manner in which you have discharged the duties of your high commission, and they to receive either the reward of their faith, or the fruit of their unbelief—some to find in you a swift witness against their impenitence or hypocrisy-others to be your crown of joy and rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Two points you will feel on your dying bed to be of vital importance to your peace-the one to have preached the cross of Christ in the true scriptural sense of that phrase-and the other, to have been faithful alike to saints, in admonishing and reproving to sinners, in warning and inviting. Without something like a solid and satisfactory conviction that we have made these the master principles, the guiding lights of our

ministry, we shall look back with bitter regret and forward with appalling fear; we shall feel that we have betrayed the highest and most sacred trust-committed on souls the deepest of injuries, and reduced ourselves to a state of the most imminent peril. He that walketh amidst the golden candlesticks, and fills them with the living light of his own ineffable brightness, has placed us in the midst of his church, to burn and shine and consume to his glory. May nothing ever occur to dim our brightness, to defile our light or to diminish the cheering and vital influence of our beams; but like the natural sun, may our setting radiance in one sphere, prove but the harbinger of a more glorious rising and a higher zenith in another.

ATTENTION TO THE BIBLE AND ITS REAL
MEANING.

Christ is more indignant at injuries done to his truths than even to his saints; for the truth makes saints, and the husbandman is more careful of his seed corn than of the increase.

MATTHEW xvi. 19.

EXPLANATION OF THE KEYS.

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

IN some remarks* on the 18th verse of this chapter, the following things were established, and they are repeated here, in order to introduce what may be said on the passage before us. We have seen that Peter was the sole person addressed-that he was not spokesman for the rest-that his confession of faith contained the leading doctrines of the New Testament—the deity of Christ, and his suffering in the flesh, as a sacrifice for sin that the name of Peter is an appellative, given to the apostle, in consequence of his uttering an * No. II. p. 112.

immutable truth-that on this truth or rocky thing, and not on Peter, Christ declares he will build his Church and that the blessing pronounced on Peter, was the consequence of his having borne this scriptural testimony to the Messiah.

In the verse before us, our Lord continues his address to Peter. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The phrase kingdom of heaven very often occurs in the New Testament, and very often, perhaps in the majority of instances, it means the gospel dispensation. It means so here, without doubt. A key is often a sign of authority, an indication of the deposit of some valuable trust, an instrument of power to confine or let loose. The apostles had the power of forgiving sins in the name of Christ, and healing diseases, and casting out devils. But they had this in common, one with another, there was no pre-eminence in this respect assigned to Peter. The keys therefore do not mean this power which they all exercised, for the keys were given only to Peter.

The kingdom of heaven is God's church on earth. It was once the Jewish church ;-it is now the church of Christ. At the time these words were uttered, the Gentiles had no admission into the kingdom of heaven in this sense. This kingdom is represented by various images, such as a city walled around, having gates, through which alone entrance into it can be obtained. The keys agree with this imagery, and hence to Peter is assigned the temporary custody of the church, as far as the admission of any Gentiles into it is concerned.

When the Saviour died, a vision appeared to Peter, just before he was summoned by the messengers of Cornelius. This vision unloosed him from the requirements of the Mosaic economy, and when he heard a voice saying Arise, kill, and eat, he was instructed that now the distinctions and ceremonies of the Jewish church were abrogated. He went to Cornelius,—- the meaning of the vision was seen in a moment, he put in the keys, unlocked the gates, and opened the church to the whole Gentile world. To this circumstance,—