launching into the great deep, or drawing their net to the shore, we should reflect not only on the lowly condition and humble occupation of the blessed Apostles, before our Lord called them to follow Him, but also on the analogy and resemblance which exists (as His own expressions intimated) between their lowly employment and those high and honoured services to which they were thenceforth to devote themselves. "Follow me," He said, "and I will make you fishers of men.” And in one of His parables, He has compared the Gospel preached in the world to a net cast into the sea, and gathering of every kind.

As the sea is a frequent type or emblem of the world,' so "the fishes of the sea," which take their course at will, and so often prey upon one another throughout that waste of waters, represent the vast numbers who know not God, and walk in the way of their own hearts, without any sure guide or rule of conduct, and, too often, only envying and provoking, hating and devouring, one another. Into this broad sea of the whole world a net was to be cast; and instead of their lowly labours on the little sea of Galilee, the Apostles were to be employed in gathering men out of every clime and country into the Church of God, and in drawing them unto the blessed restraints and holy discipline of "the obedience of faith." A net will indeed gather of every kind; and when it is drawn to the shore, a separation is made of the fishes which are worth the pains of taking out of the sea, and such as are nothing worth, and may be cast away. And thus we are reminded, that among those who are gathered into the visible Church of Christ, there are good and bad," many false

1 Dan. vii. 3.

professors as well as sincere servants of God; nor will the good be separated from the bad until the net is drawn completely to the shore, which will not be till the end of the world. In this world there will ever be an admixture of the evil with the good, even in the Church of Christ; but the time will come when the final separation shall be made; and those only who have willingly been drawn by the bands of love,' and have lived under the blessed restraints of pure and undefiled religion, will be gathered into the heavenly kingdom.

2

This similitude, then, should lead us to reflect how far this is as yet the case with ourselves. It reminds all those who are called to the ministry of the word and sacraments, how high and noble is the work to which they have devoted themselves, and with what a single mind, and unswerving purpose, they should labour in drawing souls to Christ, catching them, as it were, with blameless guile, and even compelling them with holy earnestness, and gentle violence, to come in.3 And it should suggest to all persons the duty of examining whether they have suffered themselves to be drawn to God, and the restraints of real religion, out of the troubled sea of this world; and whether they are so living, that when the good shall at length be separated from the bad, they may hope to be gathered to a happy eternity.

' Hos. xi. 4.

22 Cor. xii. 16.

3 Luke xiv. 23.

XXX.-THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF THE TRUTH. "These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly; but if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground (stay, marg.) of the truth."1 Tim. iii. 14, 15.-See also Matt. xvi. 18; Gal. ii. 9.

WHEN the Apostle calls the Church "the house of God," and "the pillar and stay of the truth," it is supposed that the language he uses contains an allusion to the temple of Diana at Ephesus, which was the pillar and support of falsehood, idolatry, and vice. The Church was thus to be the visible support and witness for true religion in the world, and, as it were, the great rallying point of its disciples; or it has been supposed that he may have intended to allude to the two pillars which Solomon placed in the porch of the temple, and to which, it is said,' the prophets affixed their

prophecies in writing that they might be read by those who came to the temple to worship; or there may be an allusion to such stones or pillars as Joshua was commanded to raise,' as a perpetual memorial of the passage of the people over Jordan ; or the stone which Samuel set up, and called Ebenezer (the stone of help), saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.

2

The visible Church of God is thus a perpetual memorial of invisible things, in a world that walks by sight, and a constant witness from age to age, even before the eyes of men, of the great facts and truth of our holy religion. The mere material "houses of God," 3 that are raised everywhere through the length and breadth of our Christian land, answer this blessed purpose in no inconsiderable degree. The spire or tower which shows itself above the trees or clustering houses, testifies silently of the things of another world; and the mere sound of "the church-going bell" breaks in upon the current of worldly thoughts, and suggests the things which concern our peace. And this is one reason why every house of God should be distinguished in style and character from common buildings, that it may the more strikingly remind us of holy truths. In like manner the presence of a clergyman or minister of God in every parish, is itself a continual memorial or memento for God, and for the soul; and every minister of God should, on this account, (among many other reasons,) keep himself disentangled, as much as possible, from the things of this world, that he may the more singly and continually be a witness for unseen things, among those who are so eager for the things of time and sense.

1 Josh. iv.
4 Ps. lxxiv. 8.

21 Sam. vii. 12. 4 2 Tim. ii. 4.

P

our

The creeds and ordinances of the Church, are, however, the great pillars and monuments of Divine truths. The creeds which have been recited in the Church for so many generations, are standing witnesses for the great fact, that faith in all the mysteries contained in them has ever been professed in the countless congregations of Christendom. The great ordinance of the Lord's day is a monument of the fact, that God in six days created the heaven and the earth, and rested on the seventh; and of the other glorious truth, that, "as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week,' Blessed Lord rose from the dead. The other festivals of the Church are monuments from year to year of the events which they severally commemorate. The Sacrament of Baptism is a visible sign or emblem of the great truth, that a Christian must die to sin, and rise again to righteousness. In the Lord's Supper, as often as we eat that bread, and drink that cup, we show forth the Lord's death, till He come. Thereby also we visibly declare our faith in the necessity of feeding on that flesh which He gave for the life of the world.3 And thus the two holy Sacraments (independently of the more high and mysterious benefits which they convey to us) are standing "pillars" or monuments of the chief truths of our holy faith.

2

They know little of human nature, and are little sensible of the benefits which they have derived from the Church of God, who do not habitually bless Him for having thus set up in the world a visible "pillar and stay" for the truth, and who do not earnestly strive that that pillar may stand as plainly and fully before the eyes of their children, as it has stood before their own. It is

1 Matt. xxviii. 1.

21 Cor. xi. 26.

8 John vi. 51.