66 Jude, to the same purpose, says, v 21. "Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the "coming of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal glory;" and he concludes his short epistle in the following animating manner. "Now to him who " is able to keep you from falling, and to present faultless before the presence of his glory, "with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our sa"viour be glory and majesty, dominion, and powboth now and forever." you er, Except Matthew, the author of the Gospel which bears his name, no other of the twelve apostles were writers. They were not ambitious, nor indeed were those whose writings we have at all ambitious, to be known to the world, and to be celebrated, as such. They only wrote what their circumstances, and those of their disciples, required; being content to wait for every honourable distinction till the return of their common master. We cannot, how ever, doubt but that their disciples, being, whereever they were, in the same circumstances with those to whom the epistles of the other apostles were addressed, they exhorted them on the same principles, referring them to that great day when the wicked, will receive a due punishment, and the righteous righteous an ample reward, and teaching them, as the other apostles did, not to place their affections on any thing in this world, or to be disturbed at any sufferings to which they should be exposed here; since they could only be for a time, and would bear no sensible proportion to the advantage they would derive from bearing them as be. came christians, that is with patience, fortitude, and with meekness, and without any ill will to their persecutors; and at the same time contribut ing every thing in their power to lessen the sufferings of their brethren. How different is this disposition from that which is admired by the world at large, but how superior is it in the eye of reason, as it implies a greater command of temper, less governed by things present, and arising from a more extensive and enlarged view of things, the only proper evidence of our advance in intellectual above sensual life. With this we, as well as all other animals, necessarily begin our career of existence, and the brutes never in general get much beyond it; but experience and observation lead men to extend their views, to reflect upon the past, and look forward to the future; and in this progress we pass from selfishness to benevolence, and from the contemplation of nature to the veneration and love of the great author of nature, both in doing and suffering, without any regard to what may be the consequence in this life, assured that by such sentiments, and such conduct, we shall not finally be any losers; but that when we shall have done the will of God, and have seen his goodness here below, an abundant entrance will in due time be administered to us in his everlasting kingdom and glory. ON 75 ON THE CHANGE WHICH TOOK PLACE IN THE TER THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. And when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled, and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. ACTS IV. 13. IN the preceding discourse we considered the ve ry remarkable change in the views and character of the twelve original apostles in general, and especially of those whose epistles furnish the proper evidence of it, viz. those of Peter, James, John, and Jude. We have seen that from being men of worldly ambition, expecting honours and rewards under the Messiah in this world, they suddenly abandoned every prospect of the kind looking to nothing but a reward in heaven; and that in the firm belief and expectation of this, they bore them selves, selves, and exliorted others to bear, all the sufferings to which for the profession of christianity they could be exposed. The clearness and energy with which they express themselves on this subject is most interesting and animating, and deserves as much attention in our days of peace as in theirs of persecution. For if their situation required motives to patience and fortitude, ours requires constant admonition, lest the cares of this world should wholly exclude, as they naturally tend to do, all consideration of another. I shall, therefore, proceed to give as particular an account of the sentiments and exhortations of the apostle Paul on this subject as I did of those of the other apostles. The change in the conduct, though not perhaps in the character, of Paul was as great, and as sudden, as that in the other apostles. Since from being a most violent persecutor of christianity, he not only became a christian himself, but a most active and successful propagator of christianity, especially in countries distant from Judea; and he seems to have gone through more hardships, and to have suffered more persecution of various kinds, on that account, during the course of a long life, than any other |