meaning appears to be, that with such a faith, namely, a belief that he who was the Son of God humiliated and crucified, as well as the Son of man exalted and glorified, the Author of our eternal salvation, the Beginner and Finisher of our faith, he must be the supreme Lawgiver and Pattern of our life; with such a faith, it would be perfectly incompatible "to have respect of persons," to make a difference between one person and another, in the kingdom of God, on account of their outward appearance, or the station they might occupy in society. He points out the injustice of such conduct by an example, and shows how foolish it is from experience.

"For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: : are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?" In this passage there is a reference to the assembling of christians for public worship, when as at the present day, the word of truth was published; but the outward order was very different, nor was the exact mode and arrangement as precisely defined as they are among us. These assemblies were of a very mixed character, since the addresses of the ministers of the Divine word were listened to, not only by those who had already believed and were baptized, but also by per

sons who stood altogether without the pale of the christian community, or were only favourably inclined to the new doctrine; so that on these occasions many unbelievers, heathens as well as Jews, assembled with the christians. It is also to be remarked, that, as may be inferred from the language of the text, the seats in the christian places of worship, were not then appropriated with the same exactness as among us; the regular frequenters of the same, the professed believers, might perhaps have seats which they regularly occupied, but new-comers or occasional hearers wanted such accommodation, and it was necessary that a place should be pointed out to them by those who were already (so to speak) "of the household of God," Eph. ii. 19. Now the apostle puts the case of two persons, very different in their outward appearance, of whom the one might at once be recognized as a rich man, by the ornaments and splendour of his attire, and the other as a poor man, by his mean and sordid raiment; they both enter a christian assembly together, which perhaps they had never yet attended; and immediately one and another rise up, probably with the thought, How desirable it would be to gain over to the faith, a man of wealth and influence! and invite the rich man to take one of the best seats; while the poor man, whose conversion to the faith would be of no worldly advantage to the christian cause, is contemptuously told to stand or to sit below their feet. If such things take place among you, says the apostle, "Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are

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become judges of evil thoughts?" that is, you make an unjust distinction.

And what distinction? It is true, my brethren, that God himself has made a distinction among men. That one should be rich and have abundance, and another should be poor and needy, is an arrangement of the Almighty, just as it is his arrangement and appointment, that all the ears of corn should not contain the same number of grains, and that all flowers should not be arrayed in the same gay or splendid colours, and that all the stars should not shine with the same brilliancy, but one star differ from another star in glory. In the same manner it is agreeable to God's will, that we should recognize a similar distinction in human affairs, in our civil and social relations; that we should pay to those in higher situations, men of wealth and influence, a greater measure of external respect and honour, than to those of inferior stations: in acting thus, we acknowledge the difference which God himself has made between the rich and the poor, and which must therefore be a good distinction. But, my friends, we make an evil distinction, when we carry that which is of value only in earthly relations, in civil and social intercourse, into a sphere where, according to the appointment of God, poverty and riches are both of the same value, or rather of no value. For let us only ask ourselves, for what purpose do we assemble in the house of God on appointed days? Is it not, that we may feel the importance, and attend to the concerns of another life,

far different from our earthly and every-day one? Is it not, that we may know and enjoy the life eternal, that we may taste the powers of the invisible world? But all the pre-eminence which riches can procure for us, is as transitory as riches themselves; the rich man fades away amidst all his affluence, as completely as the poor man perishes in his state of destitution; for as the apostle Peter declares, "All flesh," that is, all mankind, "is as grass;" and if there be any difference among mankind, and we may be allowed to speak of earthly glory, it is only the difference between the grass and the flowers which spring from it, and rise higher than the surrounding blades. "The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away." rich and the poor share the same fate. "The word of the Lord alone endureth for ever;" even the "word which by the gospel is preached unto you." How iniquitous and perverse is it then, to distinguish the rich as such, and to slight the poor as such, in a place where all are on the same level before God, where all assemble with an equal need of heavenly grace and gifts, and all have a right to rejoice in the same riches, even the fulness of the Divine love in Christ. Let us not then "be partial in ourselves," and make an unjust distinction.

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And do we not, by the conduct which the text condemns, constitute ourselves judges? And for what purpose? Our Lord said to his disciples, "Ye know that the princes of the gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon

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them. But it shall not be so among you; but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be servant." Does not the Saviour, in this passage, completely nullify the distinction between princes and subjects, between persons of a higher and of a lower station, and consequently between rich and poor, as far as the kingdom of God is concerned, of which all his disciples are members? And does he not point out that principle from which mutual good offices must proceed, namely love, as the one thing by which he wished any difference or gradation to be discernible among his followers; so that in his kingdom, he who most willingly served the rest, who was the most full of humility and love, would be the greatest and most distinguished. On another occasion, the Redeemer declared, that when he shall sit on the throne of his glory, and all nations shall be assembled before him for judgment, and he shall divide from one another those who shall enter into everlasting life, and those who shall go away into everlasting punishment-then will the love wherewith we have served him in the persons of his needy brethren, be adduced as the decisive test of character; so that whoever has thus loved and served him, shall inherit the kingdom of God; but whoever has not thus loved and served, shall be consigned to the kingdom of Satan, which he represented under the fearful image of everlasting fire. How iniquitous and perverse then is it, my brethren, to overlook what the Redeemer lays down as the dis