him. He then kneeled down and prayed for him, and, in token of full forgiveness, even kissed the right hand that had been stained with blood. Afterwards, he brought the young man home, and having satisfied himself of the genuine character of his repentance, and strengthened him in the faith by many prayers and admonitions, he finally restored him to the Church. There is little reason to doubt the substantial truth of this story, which forms such a beautiful commentary upon the apostle's own favourite lesson of love. Another anecdote, told of him by Irenæus on the authority of Polycarp, his disciple, will not probably be so acceptable to the generality of readers. One of the false teachers he was obliged to oppose at Ephesus, a Jew named Cerinthus, taught a species of Gnosticism, having little in common with the principles of the Christian faith. He is also said to have been a man of grossly immoral life, though this has been disputed. There is, however, no doubt either of the tendency of his doctrines, or of the character of many of his followers. We are told that upon a day when the apostle entered one of the public baths of the city, being informed that Cerinthus was there, he hastily quitted the place, calling upon the friends who accompanied him to leave also, "lest," said he, "the bath should fall upon us while Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.” We find nothing inconsistent with the character of the loving apostle in the horror, thus strongly expressed, of what he considered dishonouring to his Lord and Master. For there is a kind of indignation which is only love under another aspect. Love-or zeal, which is love in motion-like fire, can burn as well as warm and cheer, and like fire is terrible to whatever opposes itself to it. Well would it be if, in these days of indifference, we kept this more in mind. What between our boasted toleration and liberality, and our perhaps unavoidable familiarity with many different forms of thought and opinion, we are fast losing the power to condemn or abhor anything with the whole force of our souls, and both Christian character and manly virtue suffer from the loss. The admonition is much needed and often for | gotten by us, "Oh, ye that love the Lord, see that ye hate the thing that is evil." Only, let us take care that our hatred of that which is evil, is in truth the love of that which is good reversed. It was the apostle who sought the lost sheep amongst the mountains at the peril of his life that fled in horror from the heretic. The two incidents stand side by side for our instruction. Let us learn the lesson they teach; taking however for our model, rather even than an inspired apostle, Him who rebuked the Pharisees in words of thunder, but prayed on the cross for his murderers. The life of the apostle John was prolonged until within two years of the close of the first century of the Christian era. He witnessed two persecutions of the Church by the heathen, and died in the reign of Trajan, a little before the commencement of the third. It is recorded of him that towards the close of life, when unable through age and infirmity to walk to the assemblies of the Christians, he was wont to be carried thither by his disciples, and there, with feeble faltering voice, to repeat often the short and simple exhortation, "Little children, love one another." And when asked why he constantly said the same thing to them, he answered, "Because it is the Lord's commandment, and if this only be done it is sufficient." Leaving this appropriate legacy to His Church, the disciple whom Jesus loved passed away from earth, the last of his apostles, and well nigh the last of all the generation that had seen the Lord's face in the flesh. Before the time of his departure, the Word of God was widely spread abroad. Through the agency of the apostles and others, the gospel had been preached in most of the countries of the "world," as it was then known-not only within the limits of the Roman Empire, but beyond it, amongst many of the nations called "barbarous." Multitudes, there is reason to think, believed and embraced the truth; but the faith of many was destined to be tried with fire, and "some of them of understanding " were to fall, "to try them, and to purge, and to make them white, even unto the time of the end." D. A. THE DECEIVABLENESS OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. else than what it is—a lie, and therefore devilish. Of such Paul speaks when he says: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables :" and because they prefer fables to the truth, “God shall send them strong delusion (literally, the effectual working of error), that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." HAT is a very solemn truth about ourselves | all his earnestness and sincerity can make it nothing which God's word teaches us, that not only are our hearts by nature deceitful above all things, but deceivable above all things as well.." Deceiving and being deceived" is the characteristic of the evil heart as well as of evil men. This is the only key to what otherwise would be so perplexing, namely, the multitude of strange delusions to which even earnest and sincere minds are subject; the ready reception all manner of errors about divine things meets with in the world. We say, errors about divine things, for it is not with regard to natural but to spiritual truths, that fallen man's understanding has received so fatal a warp. The Bible alone lets us into the secret cause of this, showing us how a guilty conscience and perverted affections, alienating us from the God of truth, have blinded our minds and darkened | our understandings, and made us such fools in spiritual things that we are ever ready to believe a lie. "A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" How plainly did he who is the Truth set forth this when he dwelt among us: Light hath come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil; there is no truth in him; he is a liar and the father of it; and because I tell the truth, ye believe me not; the lusts of your father ye will do." "Ye seek to kill me, because iny word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which you have seen with your father. He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God." The lusts of the flesh and of the mind-deceitful lusts as they are elsewhere called-turn men aside after folly. Because they have "pleasure in unrighteousness" is the real reason why men receive not "the love of the truth.” That is a remarkable expression. It is not simply the truth, but the love of it, that they reject; and so we find that where men have not been able to shut out the truth from their minds (intellectually), but have held it in unrighteousness, either the conscience becomes hopelessly seared and corrupt, or they succeed in veiling and changing the truth into something more in accordance with their own desires. It is easy to believe what we wish to believe, and it is an awful proof of the power of sin's deceit, when truths disliked and resisted take in our minds the mould into which we wish them cast. Many a so-called sincere man is quite sincere in believing a lie, and deeply in earnest under its influence; but All acknowledge the blinding, deadening effects of gross sin on the mind and conscience, but many seem to forget that the "lusts of the mind," more subtle and refined though they be, are as corrupting and as darkening as “the lusts of the flesh." 66 Pride of heart-the devil's own sin-is the grand deceiver, the grand blinder of the eyes and darkener of the mind. How often is this set forth in such passages as: The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee." "The wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God." "Woe unto those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight." "Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him." What a sad spectacle it is to see an earnest man, by the force of his own unassisted reason, endeavouring to take the kingdom of heaven, as it were, by storm, and speculating and dogmatising on subjects of which he knows really nothing spiritually, as a blind man might discourse on colours, or one whose ears have never been unstopped, on harmonious sounds. It can never be― "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." "The world by wisdom knew not God," and cannot so know him; all such efforts end only in baffling disappointment, and Pilate's question is put in vain by an unrenewed, deceived heart. The law of the kingdom laid down by the King before an inquiring Nicodemus, remains unrepealed, and to it the haughtiest head must bow in subjection ere there can be any real spiritual apprehension of divine truth. "Except a man be born from above he cannot see the kingdom of God." A divine nature must be implanted before divine words can have any place in the heart. Nay, it is through the entrance of God's word into the heart, by the mighty working of God's Spirit, that the soul is born again and made partaker of that divine nature, and then as a new-born babe it desires the pure milk of the word, that it may grow thereby. "Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you." "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." "Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth” (margin). "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of God." "Foolish, disobedient, deceived," is God's description of the unrenewed heart. "Thou knowest not that thou art poor, and blind; I counsel thee, to ask of me eyesalve that thou mayst see." How needful, therefore, that the very first step in the prodigal's return should be, "coming to himself”—to his right mind. To know that he is blind, and so to feel his need of having the darkened mind enlightened-the blinded eye opened, by the wisdom which cometh from above. "Man's just a distracted fool!" was the reiterated exclamation of one who was brought on his death-bed to sit at the feet of Jesus, in his right mind. He became a fool that he might be wise, and learned his blindness in time to apply to him for eye-salve, who came into the world "that they which see not, might see, and they which say they see, might be made blind." Far otherwise was it with one who but a few days since passed into a dark eternity. "He has not given me light. I cannot be to blame when he has not given me light," were almost the last words we heard him speak. But, alas! poor man, he had not sought God's light. He had all his life exalted the feeble spark of his natural reason above the shining lamp of God's revealed word, bringing inspired truth to the bar of his own carnal judgment, instead of judging all his thoughts by inspired truth, and in the greatness of this his folly he had gone far astray. It was unspeakably mournful to see his feet stumbling on the dark mountains, as, after a long life-time of religious discussions, reasonings, and vain speculations, he began to draw near the dark bourne from whence no traveller returns. Moral and upright, earnest and sincere, he was satisfied with himself, and never having measured himself by the exceeding broad law, nor known the holy God but by the hearing of the ear, he acknowledged no need of the Saviour's atoning blood, and imputed righteousness, and renewing spirit. And yet he confessed that the death to which he lay so long looking forward was to him "the King of terrors," and the unknown beyond "a dark secret." I have not got the victory," was his dying testimony to the support which mere rational religion gives man's soul in that dread hour. For the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, and only in virtue of union to him who hath for ever put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and fully satisfied the claims of that everlasting law of righteousness, can any dying sinner exclaim: "Thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." How gladly would those who watched by his dying bed, earnestly hoping that at eventide there might yet be light, have hailed any confession of sinfulness, weakness, or ignorance; any sense of that deep and utter poverty which constrains the appeal to him who will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer! But the edge of the sword of the Spirit was blunted and turned aside by the sceptical doubts so long harboured by that deceived heart. He had rejected so much of the true and faithful word, that at last there seemed nothing left by which to lay hold of him. Like some crazed castaway on a rock in mid-ocean, labouring to undermine and destroy what alone lifts him above the reach of the billows; so had he spent his days denying and casting aside, now this and now that portion of revealed truth which did not accord with his own inner light, and the few isolated fragments which at length he admitted to be inspired, afforded him but an uncertain foothold when the waves of death were compassing him about. The great Deceiver has many wiles for ruining souls, but his great aim in them all is to blind the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ-who is the image of God-should shine into them. His wile, at present, seems to be to persuade men, Judas-like, to betray the Son of Man with a kiss, and to profess great love to his person and his words, whilst they are enemies to his cross, and rejectors of that law, and these Scriptures he came to fulfil. Now, as in apostolic days, "The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching (Christ crucified, ver. 23) to save them that believe" (1 Cor. i. 18, 19, 21). A. B. C. DANIEL ROWLANDS AND HIS TIMES; OR, ENGLAND A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. (Continued.) BY THE REV. J. C. RYLE. N taking a general survey of the minis- | famous preachers of their respective eras. Yet try of Daniel Rowlands of Llangeitho, the principal thing that strikes one is the extraordinary power of his preaching. There was evidently something very uncommon about his sermons. On this point we have the clear and distinct testimony of a great cloud of witnesses. In a day when God raised up several preachers of very great power, Rowlands was considered by competent judges to be equalled by only one man, and to be excelled by none. Whitefield was thought to equal him; but even Whitefield was not thought to surpass him. This is undoubtedly high praise. Some account of the good man's sermons will probably prove interesting to most of my readers. What were their peculiar characteristics? What were they What were they like? I must begin by frankly confessing that the subject is surrounded by difficulties. The materials out of which we have to form our judgment are exceedingly small. Eight sermons, translated out of Welsh into English in the year 1774, are the only literary record which exists of the great Welsh apostle's fifty years' ministry. Beside these sermons, and a few fragments of occasional addresses, we have hardly any means of testing the singularly high estimate which his cotemporaries formed of his preaching powers. When I add to this, that the eight sermons extant appear to be poorly translated, the reader will have some idea of the difficulties I have to contend with. Let me remark, however, once for all, that when the generation which heard a great preacher has passed away, it is often hard to find out the secret of his popularity. No well-read person can be ignorant that Luther and Knox in the sixteenth century, Stephen Marshall in the Commonwealth times, and George Whitefield in the eighteenth century, were the most popular and no one, perhaps, can read their sermons, as we now possess them, without a secret feeling that they do not answer to their reputation. In short, it is useless to deny that there is some hidden secret about pulpit power which baffles all attempts at definition. The man who attempts to depreciate the preaching of Rowlands on the ground that the only remains of him now extant seem poor, will find that he occupies an untenable position. He might as well attempt to depreciate the great champions of the German and Scottish Reformations. After all, we must remember that no man has a right to pass unfavourable criticisms on the remains of great popular preachers, unless he has first thoroughly considered what kind of thing a popular sermon must of necessity be. The vast majority of sermon-hearers do not want fine words, close reasoning, deep philosophy, metaphysical abstractions, nice distinctions, elaborate composition, profound learning. They delight in plain language, simple ideas, forcible illustrations, direct appeals to heart and conscience, short sentences, fervent, loving earnestness of manner. He who possesses such qualifications will seldom preach to empty benches. He who possesses them in a high degree will always be a popular preacher. Tried by this standard, the popularity of Luther and Knox is easily explained. Rowlands appears to have been a man of this stamp. An intelligent judge of popular preaching can hardly fail to see in his remains, through all the many disadvantages under which we read them, some of the secrets of his marvellous success. Having cleared my way by these preliminary remarks, I will proceed at once to show my readers some of the leading characteristics of the great Welsh evangelist's preaching. I give them as the result of a close analysis of his literary remains. Weak and poor as they undoubtedly look in the garb of a translation, I venture to think that the following points stand out clearly in Rowlands' sermons, and give us a tolerable idea of what his preaching generally was. The first thing that I notice in the remains of Rowlands is the constant presence of Christ in all his addresses. That his doctrine was always eminently evangelical is a point on which I need not waste words. The men about whom I am writing this series of papers were all men of that stamp. But of all the spiritual champions of last century, none appear to me to have brought Christ forward more prominently than Rowlands. The blood, the sacrifice, the righteousness, the kindness, the patience, the saving grace, the example, the greatness of the Lord Jesus, are subjects which appear to run through every sermon, and to crop out at every turn. It seems as if the preacher could never say enough about his Master, and was never weary of commending him to his hearers. His divinity and his humanity, his office and his character, his death and his life, are pressed on our attention in every possible connection. Yet it all seems to come in naturally, and without effort, as if it were the regular outflowing of the preacher's mind, and the language of a heart speaking from its abundance. Here, I suspect, was precisely one of the great secrets of Rowlands' power. A ministry full of the Lord Jesus is exactly the sort of ministry that I should expect God to bless. Christ-honouring sermons are just the sermons that the Holy Spirit seals with success. The second thing that I notice in the remains of Rowlands is a singular richness of thought and matter. Tradition records that he was a diligent student all his life, and spent a great deal of time in the preparation of his sermons. I can quite believe this. Even in the miserable relics which we possess, I fancy I detect strong internal evidence that he was deeply read in Puritan divinity. I suspect that he was very familiar with the writings of such men as, Gurnall, Watson, Brooks, Clarkson, and their cotemporaries; and was constantly storing his mind with fresh thoughts from their pages. Those who imagine that the great Welsh preacher was nothing but an empty declaimer of trite commonplaces, bald platitudes, and hackneyed phrases, with a lively manner and a loud voice, are utterly and entirely mistaken. They will find, even in the tattered rags of his translated sermons, abundant proof that Rowlands was a man who read much and thought much, and gave his hearers plenty to carry away. Even in the thin little volume of eight sermons which I have, I find frequent quotations from Chrysostom, Augustine, Ambrose, Bernard, and Theophylact. I find frequent reference to things recorded by Greek and Latin classical writers. I mark such names as Homer, Socrates, Plato, Æschines, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Carneades. Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, Nero, the Augean stable, Thersites, and Xantippe, make their appearance here and there. That Rowlands was indebted to his friends the Puritans for most of these materials, I make no question at all. But wherever he may have got his learning, there is no doubt that he possessed it, and knew how to make use of it in his sermons. In this respect I think he excelled all his cotemporaries. Not one of them shows so much reading in his sermons as the curate of Llangeitho. Here again, I venture to suggest, was one great secret of Rowlands' success. man who takes much pains with his sermons, and never brings out what has "cost him nothing," is just the man I expect God will bless. We want well-beaten oil for the service of the sanctuary. The The third thing that I notice in the remains of Rowlands is the curious felicity of the language in which he expressed his ideas. Of course this is a point on which I must speak diffidently, knowing literally nothing of the Welsh tongue, and entirely dependent on translation. But it is impossible to mistake certain peculiarities in style which stand forth prominently in everything which comes from the great Welsh apostle's mind. He abounds in short, terse, pithy, epigrammatic, proverbial sentences, of that kind which arrests the attention and sticks in the memory of hearers. He has a singularly happy mode of quoting Scripture in confirming and enforcing the statements he makes. Above all, he is rich in images and illustrations, drawn from everything almost in the world, but always put in such a way that the simplest mind can understand them. Much of the peculiar interest of his preaching, I suspect, may be traced to this talent of putting things in the most vivid and pictorial way. He made his |