sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."

go

Preaching and prayer, dear brethren, are to hand in hand in the Church of God; neither is the one without the other, nor is either to be exalted above the other. Let Jesus be preached as apostles preached Him, let his name be proclaimed as the one and only name given under heaven, whereby sinners can be saved:* let this faithful saying be brought home by the power of the Holy Ghost to the soul of a sinner; and the first utterance of that soul will be prayer. Faith, embracing "the record,"† will utter its cry, its supplication, and its praise: nay, more -the message believed and embraced-believed and embraced for self under the consciousness of the convinced sinner, and expressing itself as Paul does, "of whom I am chief," +-believed as reaching even to such a one as I am,-and if to me, why not to all?-believed and embraced as sent to all, needed by all; "for if one died for all, then were all dead," the message,

I

say, thus believed and thus embraced in all its freeness and fulness, must draw forth for others the cry uttered for itself. The enlightened view of the love of God in Christ as reaching to me,

*Acts iv. 12.

↑ John i. 15.

1 John v. 10–12.

constrains the man to whom it is given, not to live to himself, but to live to Christ-to carry out (as far as in him lies) Christ's high and gracious and holy purposes of coming into the world and dying for man, and therefore" to pray men in Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God," and to pray for men according to the mind of Christ, "who will have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth."

Thus, where there is gospel preaching, and where that preached Gospel comes in power, there, there will be effectual fervent prayer. The believing Church will be in the position of her Head, who ever lives to intercede. The believing Church sets no bounds to the love of her redeeming Lord no bounds to the power of his might. She knows that the one passeth knowledge-she knows that the other must "put all things under his feet." Her prayer therefore knows no bound. She feels that when her prayer is ended, that after all, "eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor heart conceived, the things which God has prepared," and which God will give in answer to prayer, "to them that love Him."§ Her language is, shall He not with Christ, whom He has freely given for all-"shall He not with Him freely give us all things?"||

* 2 Cor. v. 20. § 1 Cor. ii. 9.

+ Ephes. iii. 19.

+ 1 Cor. xv. 25. || Rom. viii. 32.

“I

Dear brethren, that tongue which is silent in prayer is the tongue of an unbelieving heart. believed, and therefore have I spoken: we also believe, and therefore speak ;"* and that not only for God, and as from God, but to God. Prayer is the utterance of faith. As therefore our faith is, so will be our prayer. A weak faith asks little; a strong faith asks much. That tongue which prays not for all men, does not fully believe the height and depth, and length and breadth, of the love of God our Saviour, "who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." O brethren! let us beware of limiting in our thoughts that which God declares to be infinite,-let us never conceive of any one as beyond the reach of Heaven's mercy. When Paul wrote to Timothy, there was not a king, Christian even in profession, on the face of the whole earth; there was not a nation which, as a nation, had embraced the Christian creed, and yet his exhortation-(it is more,) his apostolic, his inspired command is, "that first of all, prayers be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority."

The passage, occurring as it has done in the second lesson of this evening's service,t has come with the greater force to my mind, because of

2 Cor. iv. 13.

The Sermon was preached on March 19.

the present circumstances of the political atmosphere. Such circumstances seem to make it imperative on the Christian minister to impress on his hearers this Christian duty. The exhortation is indeed couched in words so simple and so intelligible to all, that it needs not to be explained even to the commonest understanding: at the same time the circumstances under which we read it this day render it most expedient to enlarge upon it, and especially to insist on the object which the apostle teaches the Church to keep in view, and the advantage he bids her expect as the result of her prayers for kings and for all that are in authority.

The first part of the direction has reference to all men; the second, to those that are in places of authority.

As regards the first, we are taught to exclude no one, but to include all men in our supplications at the throne of grace. Acting on the Saviour's most instructive reply to the question, "Who is my neighbour?" it teaches us to know no distinctions between nations, nor to suffer even difference in creed to stand in the way of this exercise of Christian love. There is to be no . calling for fire on the head of the opposing Samaritan; but the coals of love kindled at the altar are, by our intercessory petitions, to be heaped upon him, to the melting down of all that is

hard, the awakening of sympathies, and the promotion of unity. His heart and ours are to be brought beneath the same rays of divine love, that as ores which have been exposed to the heat, they may be amalgamated.

power of

This spirit of faith and love shines brightly forth in the collects of our Church appointed for the anniversary of the Saviour's crucifixion, and they will practically teach you all that could be taught in this matter. They are expressive of the very mind of Christ. At the foot of the cross of Him who was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death" for the salvation of his Church, at the foot of the cross of Him who there, if ever, manifested that "He would not the death of a sinner," the Church expresses the very language of his wounds and of his blood, that blood," which speaketh better things than that of Abel."* There, the Church teaches her members to pray for all men, for "the family" of believers uniting in that act of worship, "for all estates of men in the holy Church "-" all Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics." The allsufficiency of Him whom she contemplates, gives broad ground for her faith, and therefore largeness to her prayer.

*Heb. xii. 24.

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