were so.' In plain language, they used their common sense in this matter; they acted fairly and honestly'. When Paul came among them armed with the power of miracles, and preaching to them remission of sins through Jesus Christ, they perceived that he had no selfish nor base motive; he had no wish to rouse their passions, nor excite them to tumult; -his words were grave, his motives benevolent, his object virtuous; they perceived that the matter which he proposed to them was worthy their best consideration. They appealed therefore to those Scriptures which they acknowledged as the rule of their faith, and sought whether the character and history of our Saviour corresponded with that train of prophecies which announced the expected Messiah. Searching with calm and unprejudiced minds, they could not err, nor be deceived. They could not

The reception given by King Ethelbert to St. Augustine, when he came to preach the Gospel in this country, may be quoted as a parallel instance. Serm. xix.

See

but perceive that Jesus, whom Paul preached, was indeed the promised Messiah; and when they learnt the history of his life and death, and when they heard the tenor of his doctrines, they could not but acknowledge that his life was irreproachable, his death glorious and triumphant, and his doctrine holy, just, and pure. "Therefore many of them believed;" and so by their honest and noble conduct, they received through their Redeemer the mercy of pardon and salvation; which the pride and prejudice, the sordid interest and blind obstinacy, of others, prevented them from obtaining.

May God grant us his grace, my brethren, to be partakers with the Bereans in their honesty, their faith, and their salvation may he guard us against the snares of wicked men and the treachery of a dangerous world. May he enable

"to prove all things, and to hold fast by that which is good;" and especially under every trial and temptation may he give us grace to preserve unshaken our

faith in Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Redeemer.

NOTE. The following are extracts from the splendid opening of Mr. Melvill's ninth sermon.

"The argument which may be drawn for the truth of Christianity from the humble condition of its earliest teachers is often and fairly insisted on in disputation with the sceptic. We scarcely know a finer vantage-ground on which the champion of truth can plant himself than that of the greater credulity which must be shewn in the rejection, than in the reception of Christianity. We mean to assert, in spite of the tauntings of those most thorough of all bondsmen, free-thinkers, that the faith required from deniers of revelation is far larger than that demanded from its advocates... We are persuaded that no candid mind can observe the speed with which Christianity overran the civilized world, compelling the homage of kings and casting down the altars of long-cherished superstitions; and then compare the means with the effect; the apostles, men of low birth, and poor education, backed by no authority, and possessed of none of those high-wrought endowments which mark out the atchievers of difficult enterprise ;- -we are persuaded, we say, that no candid mind can set what was done side by side with the apparatus through which it was effected, and not confess that, of all incredible things, the most incredible would be, that a few fishermen of Galilee vanquished the world, upheaving its ancient idolatries, and mastering its pre

judices, and yet that their only weapon was a lie, their only mechanism juggling and deceit.

"And this it is which the sceptic believes. Yea, on his belief of this he grounds claims to a sounder, and shrewder, and less fettered understanding than belongs to the mass of his fellows. He deems it a mark of a weak and undisciplined intellect to admit the truth of Christ's raising the dead; but appeals to it as proof of a staunch and well-informed mind, to believe that this whole planet was convulsed by the blow of an infant. He scorns the narrow-mindedness of submission to what he calls priestcraft ; but counts himself large-minded, because he admits that a priestcraft, only worthy his contempt, ground into powder every system which he thinks worthy his admiration. He laughs at the credulity of supposing that God had to do with the institution of Christianity; and then applauds the sobriety of referring to chance what bears all the marks of design; proving himself rational by holding that causes are not necessary to effects.”

SERMON IX.

ON COURTESY.

1 PETER iii. 8.

"Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous. Not rendering evil for evil, nor railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing. Knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing."

WE cannot, my dear brethren, too often. dwell on passages like this, which are almost peculiar to the New Testament, and contain the spirit and essence of our Christian duty, so far as regards our disposition and behaviour towards each other, as we travel onward together through the journey of life. It was in