stirring affections, were preached to the senseless and seared in heart. For they sought it in pride, in vain and insolent curiosity. The love of God and his truth was not in their bosoms, there was no place for the key of the Gospel to enter and unlock them —“knock, and it shall be opened to you,” said our Saviour, but these knocked merely from an impertinent curiosity to know what sight would present itself, as soon as the door was open, and therefore the door was not opened. "Ask, and ye shall receive," he has said; but they asked not for the truth, and therefore they received not. Itching ears are full of disease, which clogs their channel against the voice of truth. This was the first time, but it has not been the last, that the great of this world have commanded the Gospel to be preached to them; alas! the event has ever proved that it can be preached effectually to the poor only, that is, to the poor in spirit, to the humble and meek, to the selfdenying, the self-abasing, to the conscious of their own ignorance, to those, who from inward uprightness, pursue those virtues which poverty compels in others. Let the proud first command their own hearts. What had the hearts of this iniquitous and adulterous pair to do with the purport of the Gospel? how should it mix with any thing which was in them? in one point however, in one single solitary point, it reached the heart of Felix-the inestimable love of God shown in the redemption of the world through his Son Jesus Christ touched him not-the innate corruption of man, which required the sacrifice, past by him as empty air-he recked not of its causes or consequences, for he loved it, he clung to

it the peace and the bliss of the spirit, which has been cleansed and renewed by the Holy Spirit for Christ's sake, were things which he neither understood, nor cared to understand. Hitherto he was completely armed against every shaft of the Apostle's eloquence. But when to this tyrannical extortioner, to this unprincipled adulterer, to this foul assassin, who could not with all his good will and might shake off the notion of future retribution, which even his corrupt religion had impressed upon his childhood', whose early fears had been constantly kept alive, and notions of punishment practically quickened by the lashes of his master's whip; when to this vile slave, bound in body and in mind, St. Paul preached of righteousness and temperance, and the judgment to come, he trembled. He recognised his old familiar terrors, and the Gospel which could not reach him as a man, came rudely home to him as a slave, and whipped this gilded image of royalty upon his throne. His torture was intolerable. "For this present go, and when I have an opportunity, I will call for thee again," cried the shrinking and affrighted culprit.

Frequent has been the application of this celebrated scene. On slavish minds, and such are all worldly minds, it is only the threats of the Gospel which have any effect. Its love speaks but to the ingenuous and free. They must be compelled, and not invited, must be frightened from evil before they can be turned to good. Hell must open his mouth to devour them, before they will flee heavenward.

1 Juvenal, Sat. ii. 152.

But this wholesome fear is often too short-lived to produce its good effect. And as by the worthless slave of man, the thought of future punishment is wilfully cast out of mind, through a reckless determination to gratify his present desires, so by the slave of this world, the threats of the Gospel are purposely forgotten, and put away as intruders upon the enjoyment of his lusts. When held up before his eyes by its preacher, they create a momentary uneasiness, even as the sight and shaking of the whip does to the slave. But he will stop his ears from hearing further. His terrified imagination has already gone beyond the preacher, he ejects the tormenting thought, and dismisses him, as far as his attention is concerned, even as Felix dismissed Paul. Alas! there is many a Felix. To all hearts, which are subjected in devoted subserviency to the world, the words of the Gospel are an empty sound. Its threats, however terrifying, are ineffectual. And what sense have they of its promises? What is another world to them who have staked their all on this? What is the freedom from the slavery of sin to them who fondly hug the chains of that slavery? What is its bliss and joy of spirit to them who know not the Spirit? As long as a man has not utterly sold himself under sin, as long as he has left himself any liberty, there is hope. Through that liberty he can communicate with the liberty of the Gospel, and apprehend it. Here it was that principally lay the difference between Felix and Onesimus, as hearers of the Gospel. Perhaps Onesimus, no less than he, had been first roused by the threats of the Gospel. But the chains of the world hung somewhat loose upon

him, and he had still left command of will sufficient to throw them off. Hunger, nakedness, and destitution had rendered him, under God, less dependent on the world. He had still some freedom left, wherewith to meet the freedom of the Gospel, still some love unsquandered, wherewith to meet the love of the Gospel. But Felix was bound hand and foot, and irrevocably sold under sin. His understanding was quite darkened, and alienated from the life of God. He was past feeling 1.

The subsequent conduct of Felix proves how utterly lost upon him was the warning of the Gospel, how incurable was his profligacy. The pang of guilt was forgotten, and he often sent for Paul, and conversed with him, but not to hear the glad tidings of repentance and forgiveness of sins, but to endeavour to extort money from him as a bribe for his liberty. This money too, of which he thought Paul was possessed, he knew to be not his own, but put into his charge by different Churches for distribution to the poor brethren in Jerusalem. Thus he endeavoured to prevail upon Paul to be a sharer in his own iniquity of peculation and robbery, and probably often pretended a desire to hear the Gospel, when he only wished to sound him with regard to the quantity of the sum of money which he had, and his reluctance or readiness to part with it. He ranks with Ananias and Simon in insulting the Spirit of God, and making the hearing the Gospel an affair of money. For two whole years he thus detained Paul, although he knew his complete inno

1 Ephes. iv. 19:

cence of the charges brought against him. And when he quitted the province, he left him still a prisoner, because he wished to gratify the Jews, whom his extortions and rapine had so justly enraged. He did not, however, succeed thus in allaying their anger, and owed his safety to the interest of his brother Pallas, and not to their mollified indignation.

Thus from first to last this wretched man maintained his consistency of guilt, and to him the Gospel of innocence and truth was the continual occasion of crime and fraud. Not a redeeming point appears in his character. He seems to have been an irreclaimable son of perdition. There can surely be few like him in the Church, however the bad be mingled there with the good. Yet all, bad and good, may take warning from him. All may take heed, and beware in what spirit they hear the Gospel of Christ. They may guard against those carnal motives which sometimes bring men to hear it. Such may be the itching ear of selfish curiosity, or the mere worldlyminded compliance with the decent habits of society. Upon such hearing the blessing of God cannot be expected. At the very outset they are not in the proper state of mind, and run the risk of hearing and not understanding, and of seeing, and yet being blind. The Gospel may then harden rather than soften, and inflict a curse where it had otherwise imposed a blessing. If the heart be open but through the channel of fear, there is danger of even this closing up, in the moment that it is touched. Every careless hearing too is succeeded by one more careless. The heart grows more and more insensible to appeal. The threats of the Gospel may not merely