will be better for me in the next life that is another string; and a pretty strong one it is. But, sir, if you disbelieve the Bible, and on that account do not live as it requires, you have not one string to your bow. And oh, if its tremendous threats prove true, O think! what, then, sir, will become of you?" This plain appeal silenced the unbeliever, and made him feel, it is hoped, that he was not quite so wise as he had supposed.

THE REPROACH OF CHRIST, Or a few words to one who is purposing to be a thorough Christian, and an Evangelical Reformer.

You must not expect to escape reproach. It has been the lot of God's faithful people in all ages to be reproached, and it has especially been the lot of those who have been called to take a more active part than others in reforming errors and abuses.

The Redeemer teaches us that this was the case with the prophets that preceded him, in his Sermon on he Mount. "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." The history of the prophets and reformers of ancient times, is in agreement with the statement of the Saviour.

Moses was greatly tried in this way. Though he was armed with the power of God,-though he wrought such miracles as had never been wrought on earth before; yet the children of Israel, for whose deliverance and salvation he was employed by God, appear to have reviled him, or murmured against him at almost every step he took. And before the times of Moses, Enoch, the seventh from Adam, a teacher of truth and righteousness, appears to have been subject to similar treatment from the sinners and apostates of his times: hence Jude, in his Epistle, represents him as foretelling divine judgments against the wicked, especially on account of the hard and cruel speeches which they impiously uttered. Reproach was the lot of Elijah. When he saw the corruptions which prevailed among the

people, he could not be silent; his heart burned with zeal for the honour of God and of religion, and he lifted up his voice like a trumpet, and showed the people their transgressions. He not only cried out against the sins of the multitude; he carried his reproofs into the palace, and warned the guilty monarch himself of the coming judgments of God. He was accordingly denounced as a bold bad man; he was represented as the enemy of the King, and as the troubler of Israel; and attempts were made to take away his life.

And the lot of Elijah was the lot of the prophets generally. There are intimations in the prophecies_of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, that both they and those who hearkened to the word of the Lord which was preached by them, were the objects of general scorn and derision. The prophet Isaiah, in the twenty-ninth chapter, speaks of some of the great ones who lived in “the city where David dwelt," who scorned the prophets of the Lord, and watched for opportunities to do them harm; who made a man an offender for a word, and laid a snare for him that reproved in the gate. And in the fifty-first chapter he addresses the pious and faithful ones of his days as follows: "Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproaches of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation." the same with Jeremiah. "For thy sake," saith he, in an address to God, "For thy sake I have suffered rebuke." And on another occasion he says, "The word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision daily. I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed and we shall prevail against him, and we shall have our revenge on him." The priests were so enraged at his faithfulness, that they declared him worthy of death h; xxvi. 11, and the princes also demanded his death, "for he weaken

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eth the hands of the men of all war," said they," and the hands of the people, in speaking such words unto them; and he seeketh not the welfare of this people, but their hurt. Then they took Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon. And in the dungeon there was no water, but mire ; so Jeremiah sunk in the mire."

It was the lot of the Psalmist. "I am a reproach of men," saith he, "and despised of the people. All that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, he trusted on the Lord, that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. Many bulls have compassed me, strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouth, as a ravening bear and a roaring lion." Pslam xxii."False witnesses" on another occasion he says, "did rise up; they laid to my charge things which I knew not. They rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul. In mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear [my reputation,] and ceased not; with hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth. They spake not peace; but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land. Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me, and said, Aha, Aha, our eye hath seen it." They that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long." "Every day they wrest my words: their thoughts are against me for evil." "For thy sake I have borne reproach: I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children. The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee, are fallen upon me." The Psalms abound with such passages.

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Slanderous reports were sent to the king against Ezra, when he was engaged in rebuilding the city, and Nehemiah was laughed to scorn. The enemies of Nehemiah hired men to draw him to sin, that they might have occasion to reproach Ezra iv., Neh. iv, And

him.

this was the kind of treatment received by the ancient prophets and reformers generally.

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Under the New Testament dispensation, the friends of truth and holiness have suffered still more abundantly from the reproaches of their enemies. The Saviour himself was reproached. They charged him with being a glutton and a drunkard; a friend of publicans and sinners. They represented him as a Sabbath-breaker, as a seditious man, as an infidel, as a blasphemer, as a deceiver of the people, as in league with the devil, as possessed by a devil, and mad. They hired false witnesses to speak against him, and on their testimony they condemned him to be crucified. The Apostles met with similar treatment. The Redeemer had told them it should be so. "Behold I send you forth," said he, as sheep among wolves. Ye shall be hated of all men," said he," for my name's sake. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough that the disciple be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?" And so it proved. Apostles had no sooner set fairly to work to publish the Gospel, than the priests and rulers rose against them almost in one mass. Nothing that could be said or done against them was thought too bad for them. They charged Stephen with blasphemy against Moses and against God, against the temple and against the law; and when they were not able to resist the wisdom with which he spake, they gnashed on him with their teeth, stopped their ears, cried out with a loud voice, and ran on him with one accord, and cast him out of the city, and stoned him. The disciples generally were assailed with similar abuse and cruelty. They were reviled and persecuted both by Jews and Gentiles: they were a sect everywhere spoken against. They were represented as the filth and offscouring of all things, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter. They were represented by the Gentiles as Atheists, and as a class of lewd, disorderly, and loathsome characters. They were charged with making

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men idle, and rendering them unserviceable to the community, and they were actually charged with being the cause, by their impieties, of earthquakes, tempests, floods, and fires, and other public calamities. Nero charged the Christians with setting fire to the city of Rome, when he had kindled the fire himself. They were accused of the grossest sins, such as sacrilege, sedition, treason, incest, murder, with lewdness, in their private meetings, and with their children, and feeding upon their flesh, and with other filthy and abominable deeds without end. Lewd women were hired to declare that they had been Christians, and had witnessed the commission of those filthy abominations in their assemblies; and the statements of those lewd women were circulated in every direction. In short, though they were the best of the human race, yet all manner of evil was spoken of them.

The Reformers of later times have met with similar treatment. Jerome, and Huss, and Wickliffe, and Calvin, and Luther, and Melancthon, and Bucer. Luther was called a child of the devil, a lewd, incontinent, sensualist, a child of Lucifer, and was charged with learning his religion of the devil, and with being killed by the devil. It was published that Bucer had his bowels pulled out, and cast about by the devil. Calvin was stigmatized as a sodomite and sensualist. It was published in a book that Beza died a Papist, when at the same time he was still alive, and lived long after to write a refutation of the calumnies of his enemies. The godly Waldenses were represented as sorcerers and sodomites, as holding many false and damnable opinions, and as assembling together under pretence of religious worship, for the commission of all uncleanness, and abominable incests. Bax

ter was charged with being a Pelagian, an Arian, a Socinian, a Papist, a Heretic, and a Prince of Heretics. W. Penn was represented as a Papist and a Jesuit, and the slander became so widely spread, and so generally believed, that he could not be seen abroad without danger, and even the members of his own society began to be influenced by the slander at length.

The puritans were represented as liars and covetous persons, and as the enemies of the church and state. Wesley and Whitfield were assailed with reproaches on every hand. They were denounced as rebels and heretics, as vile impostors, fanatics, enthusiasts, and madmen. The early Methodists, like the early Christians and the godly Waldenses, were charged with meeting together under pretence of religion, for the vilest purposes, as blowing out the lights in their meetings, and mixing together in all kinds of loathsome and horrible abominations. Alexander Kilham was branded as a defamer of Wesley, as an enemy to the altar and the throne, as a follower of Paine, as an equivocator, a liar, a slanderer, a hypocrite, a child of the devil, an enemy of all righteousness, and as a perverter of the right ways of the Lord. Chillingworth, the great advocate of the right of private judgment, and liberty of conscience, was charged with being a Socinian. Hannah Moore also was charged with being a Socinian, and a report was put in circulation that she was already married to Dr. Priestley. In short, I know of none who have distinguished themselves by a strict regard to the truth and to the will of God, who have not been thus reviled and to expect that you shall escape, if you should tread in their steps, would be great folly. If you break loose from the power of custom, and lay aside the authority of the traditions of the elders,-if you cease to be the servant of men, and become the servant of God alone,-if you take the Gospel for your only creed and lawbook, and regulate your sentiments and behaviour by its teachings, without respect to the authority of the Chief Priests and Elders, you will as certainly bring upon yourself a flood of foul abuse, as ever you were born. I say not these things to discourage you, but I wish you to know what you are doing, I wish you, before you come out against the powers of darkness, properly, to count the cost.

Some people imagine that Christian reformers might accomplish their objects without reproach if they were sufficiently prudent. They are disposed to think that it is

the errors and imperfections of reformers that subject them to so much reproach, and that if they were as perfect and as prudent as they ought to be, they might carry on their reforming operationssmoothly and peacefully. But this is a great mistake. Christ was prudent enough, and he was free from all faults and imperfections as well, and yet he was reproached. We have reason to believe that the Apostles were very prudent, and that they were very exemplary in their conduct also, yet they were reproached. I am not aware that there was any particular lack of prudence in Luther or Wesley, or that their characters were disfigured by any considerable blemish, and yet they were exceedingly reviled. The truth is, the more perfect and prudent reformers have been, and the more abundant and violent have been the reproaches poured forth against them. It is not the imprudence or imperfections of reformers that bring down reproaches on them, it is their plain and bold declaration of the truth, and their faithful exemplification of it in their own lives. It is their virtue and fidelity that subject them to reproach. Let virtue take what form it may, it will still provoke the wrath of the profligate and let truth be accompanied with what measures of prudence it may, it will still offend such as are wedded to corrupt interests and institutions: to expect the profligate to be peaceful when they are reproved, and to expect the earthly and selfish to be quiet when their evil interests are endangered, is absolute folly they will be no such thing. Let virtue take what form it may, it will still call forth reproaches from the ungodly, if it be manifest and decided virtue. This is remarkably proved in the history of the Saviour. The Jews at first went out to be baptized by John in great multitudes, and they regarded him as a prophet of the most High; but when they found how strict and unbending his virtue was, they fell out of love with him, and said he had a devil. When the Saviour made his appearance, all eyes were turned to him, and the whole country round went out to follow him; but when they found what was the

nature of his doctrine, and discovered the purity and strictness of his life and precepts, they were soon offended, and reproached him as bitterly as they had reproached John. And what is the more remarkable, John the Baptist and the Saviour were reproached for things which were in manner directly opposed to each other. In other words, John was singular in his dress, and exceedingly abstemious in his living, carrying things to what some would call an extreme, while Jesus in his dress and living conformed to whatever was innocent in the common mode, and yet the Jews were pleased with neither. "John came neither eating nor drinking," says the Saviour to the Jews, "and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of Man came eating nor drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." Matt. xi. 18, 19. Whether we give men occasion or not, we shall be reproached, if we declare the truth, and by our doctrine and example urge men to a strict conformity with the laws of Christ.

But we have no need to be afraid of reproach. While the facts which I have laid before you prove that, if we are faithful to God, reproach will come upon us; they are calculated also to afford us support and consolation under reproach. They teach us, that when we are reproached for the sake of truth and righteousness, we are in the noblest company. Who would shrink from sharing the lot of God's ancient prophets, or from drinking out of the same cup as Christ and his Apostles? Shall we think it an intolerable hardship to be treated as Wickliffe, and Luther, and Baxter, and Penn, and Wesley, and Whitfield, were treated? The thought of standing in such company ought to inspire us with joy and exultation, We ought rather to regard it as an honour and a blessing, than as a great calamity. Hear what the Redeemer says.

"Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake: rejoice and be exceeding glad, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." If the followers of Christ were to rejoica and be exceeding glad when reviled