at hearing professed believers in Christ disavowing all claim to the title of "Saints"? This horror and astonishment would indeed be much diminished when he came to understand that we use the word in a very different sense from his. But without denying our right to make such a change, I cannot but think he would have questioned the wisdom of doing so in this instance. Evangelists, and Prophets, and Apostles, I think he would consider as best distinguished by the very titles of "Evangelist" and "Prophet" and "Apostle," rather than by that of "Saint," which in Scripture is applied to every one of God's People-to every member of what is called in the oldest of the creeds, "the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints." For the saintship of the Apostles and Evangelists consisted (according to the language of Scripture) not in what was peculiar to them, but in what was common to them with others; not in their inspiration and other miraculous gifts, but in those gifts offered to Christians generally, which are of incomparably higher value. And of this, at least, I cannot doubt; that Paul would earnestly warn us against being misled by our own use of language;-against fall

ing into confusion of thought, and into serious error respecting things, through the careless employment of words. Most earnestly, we may be assured, would he warn us that Christianity is not two religions,-one for ordinary men, and another for Saints,-but one single religion, designed for all men alike, and not setting up several different standards of personal holiness for different persons. He would warn us against being led to imagine that there are among the number of Christians certain classes or parties, or orders of men, of whom a Christian life-a conformity of character to the Gospel preceptsis more required, or is less required, than of the generality. "They that are Christ's (says this Apostle) have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature." "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his." He speaks not, you observe, of what can be done, and is required to be done, by certain pre-eminent Saints, but of "any man" who has enlisted at baptism under the banner of Christ crucified. In the sense in which Paul accounted himself a Saint, in that sense he calls all Christians Saints.

As for the saintship which consists in the possession of inspiration from Heaven, or of any other miraculous gifts, great is the mistake of imagining that such gifts render the possessor necessarily acceptable in God's sight, and are to be regarded as a substitute for moral holiness of character; or again, that these supernatural gifts necessarily ensure personal holiness; or again, that the absence of such gifts renders a less degree of personal holiness sufficient. God enabled some to speak in new languages; of them it was required that they should use the gift to his glory, and the good of their fellow creatures, in preaching the Gospel throughout the world. To others was "given the gift of healing, by the same Spirit;" it was their task to heal the sick accordingly. To others is given only the knowledge of the Gospel, and the promise of Divine aid to help their infirmities, and to enable them to conform their own heart and life to the precepts and example of their Lord: and these also are required thus to conform, and to make the best use of their own advantages. No where are we told that a less degree of Christian virtue is requisite in one who does not possess miraculous endow

ments. For, these endowments were designed, not for the benefit of the possessor, but of his neighbours. Miracles were the instruments the Lord employed for the propagation of his Gospel among all nations; that men might glorify, not the man who exercised such superhuman powers, but God. The inspired preachers and writers were inspired for the purpose of instructing us in the Gospel of their Divine Master.

But would it not be presumptuous for any one of us in these days to pretend to be as good a Christian as Paul or Peter, or any other of those we call emphatically "Saints"?

Presumptuous indeed it would be to pretend to a high degree of Christian excellence—to "count oneself to have apprehended" but to aim at attaining that excellence, through divine assistance, is so far from being presumptuous, that there is more presumption in cherishing a hope of God's favor without it. It would indeed be a most impious presumption for one of us to pretend to inspiration; because we have it not. It would be presumptuous for one of us to expect to be as eminent an instrument in propagating the Gospel among all nations as the Apostle Paul; because

we are not so qualified by miraculous gifts as he was. But we are not less enabled, or less bound, each one of us, himself to perform his own Christian duties to lead a Christian life, and to have a Christian heart; and in short (as Paul expresses it) to "walk as becometh Saints," than the Apostles themselves. And there is great and dangerous presumption in the false humility of hoping for acceptance with our Great Master while we lower our own standard of personal Christian holiness, and claim an exemption from the duty of aiming at the highest degree of Christian moral excellence, on the ground that we are not gifted with miraculous powers.

These powers were given, as I have said, not for the benefit of the possessors, but of others, for their conviction and instruction. And the possession of these miraculous gifts neither proved any one to be personally pure and holy in heart, nor necessarily made him such. Judas Iscariot, we should remember, exercised, in common with the other Apostles, miraculous powers, during our Lord's abode on earth. Many of the Corinthians, again, are severely rebuked by Paul for their strange abuse of some of their miraculous