name of charity. According to these insufficient judges, to be charitable....is only to give some trifling alms out of our abundant superfluities, to tolerate the most dangerous errors, without daring to lift up the standard of truth, and to behold the overflowings of vice, without attempting to oppose the threatening torrent. Such would be the mistaken charity of a Surgeon, who, to spare the mortifying arm of his friend, should suffer the gangrene to spread over his whole body. Such was the charity of the high priest Eli toward Hophni and Phinehas; an impi ous charity, which permitted him to behold their shameful debaucheries with too favourable an eye : a fatal charity, which opened that abyss of evil, which finally swallowed them up, and into which they dragged with them their father, their children, the people of Israel, and the church, over which they had been appointed to preside. The good pastor, conscious, that he shall save a soul from death, if he can but prevail with a sinner to forsake his evil way, uses every effort to accomplish so important a work. And among other probable means, which he employs on this occasion, he tries the force of severe reprehension, rebuking the wicked with a holy authority; and, if it be necessary, returning to the charge with a spark of that glowing zeal, with which his Master was influenced, when he forced from the temple those infamous buyers and seilers, who had profaned it with their carnal-merchandize. Thus St. Paul, on receiving information, that scandalous errors had been discovered in the conduct of a member of the Corinthian church, immediately wrote to that church, in the following severe and solemn manner...." It is reported, that there is fornication among you, And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he, that hath done this deed, might be taken away from among you. Know ye not, that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump," and that the plague in any single member of a society is sufficient to infect the whole company ? "Purge out therefore the old leaven," and " put away from among yourselves that wicked person. If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, keep not company with such an one, no not to eat. Be not deceived: fornicators shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Know ye not, that your bodies are the members of Christ? Flee fornication" therefore, and avoid the company of fornicators. "For ye are bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." Further, “I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already concerning" the lascivious person, that is among you, "to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus." When the true minister has passed the severest censures upon sinners, and beholds those censures attended with the desired effect, he turns to the persons he lately rebuked with testimonies of that unbounded charity, that "beareth all things," and "hopeth all things." More ready, if possible, to relieve the dejected than to humble the presumptuous, after having manifested the courage of a lion, he puts on the gentleness of a lamb, consoling and encouraging the penitent offender, and never ceasing to intercede for him, till his pardon is obtained both from God and man. Thus St. Paul, who had so sharply rebuked the Corinthians in his first epistle, gave them abundant consolation in his second, and exhorted them to receive with kindness the person, whom he had before enjoined them to excommunicate. It is easy to recognize the tenderness of Christ in the following language of this benevolent Apostle. "I wrote unto you" my first epistle "out of much affliction and anguish of heart, with many tears, not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love, which I have more abundantly unto you. Great is my glorying of you, I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation. God, that comforteth them, that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus" my messenger, "when he told us your earnest desire, your mourning, and your fervent mind toward me. For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent. Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance. For ye were made sorry after a godly manner....For behold, what carefulness it wrought in you? what clearing of yourselves! what" holy" indignation! what fear! what vehement desire! what zeal! what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter." Moreover, "we were comforted in your comfort. Yea, and exceedingly the more joyed we for the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you all. And his inward affection is more abundant toward you, whilst he remembereth the obedience of you all, and how you received him," together with my reproof, "with fear and trembling. I rejoice therefore, that I have confidence in you in all things." And with respect to the perI son, who has caused so much distress, "Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inAlicted of many. So that" now "ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore, I beseech you, that ye would confirm your love toward him. To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also; nay, I have already forgiven him, for your sakes, as in the presence of Christ." Great God! appoint over thy flock vigilant, charitable, and courageous pastors, who may discern the sinner through all his deceitful appearances, and separate him from thy peaceful fold, whether he be an unclean goat, or a ravenous wolf. Permit not thy ministers to confound the just with the unjust, rendering contemptible the most sacred mysteries, by admitting to them persons with whom virtuous heathens would blush to converse. Touch the hearts of those pastors, who harden thy rebellious people, by holding out tokens of thy favour to those, who are the objects of thy wrath and permit no longer the bread of life, which they carelessly distribute to all, who chuse to profane it, to become in their unhallowed hands the bread of death. Discover to them the impiety of offering their holy things to the dogs: and awaken in them a holy fear of becoming accomplices with those hypocritical monsters, who press into thy temple to crucify the Son afresh; and who, by a constant profanation of the symbols of our holy faith, add to their other abominations the execrable act of eating and drinking their own damnation, and that with as much composure, as some among them swallow down the intoxicating draught, or utter the most impious blasphemies. AN OBJECTION ANSWERED. BEFORE we proceed to the consideration of another trait of the character of St. Paul, it will be necessary to refute an objection to which the preceding trait may appear liable. 'Dare you,' it may be asked, 'propose to us, as a model, a man, 'who could strike Elymas with blindness, and deliver up to Satan the body of a sinner?' Answer. The excellent motive, and the happy success of the Apostle's conduct, in both these instances, entirely justify him. He considered affliction not only as the crucible, in which God is frequently pleased to purify the just, but as the last remedy to be employed for the restoration of obsti nate sinners. Behold the reason, why the charity of the primitive church demanded in behalf of God, that the rod should not be spared, when the impiety of men was no longer able to be restrained by gentler means; determining, that it was far better to be brought to repentance, even by the sharpest sufferings, than to live and die in a sinful state. To exercise this high degree of holy and charitable severity toward a sinner, was, in some mysterious manner, "to deliver up his body to Satan," who was looked upon as the executioner of God's righteous vengeance in criminal cases.... Thus Satan destroyed the first born of Egypt, smote the subjects of David with the pestilence, and cut off the vast army of Sennacherib. St. John has thrown some light upon this profound mystery, by asserting, "There is a sin unto death :" and the case of Ahab is fully in point; for when that king had committed this sin, a spirit of error received immediate orders to lead him forth to execution upon the plains of RamothGilead. This awful doctrine is further confirmed by St. Luke, when he relates, that in the same instant, when the people, in honour of Herod, gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a God and not of a man; the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory and he was eaten up of worms, and gave up the ghost." The punishment thus inflicted, by the immediate order of God, was always proportioned to the nature of the offence. If the sin was not unto death, it was followed by some temporary affliction as in the cases of Elymas and the incestuous Corinthian. If the crime committed was of such a nature that the death of the sinner became necessary, either for the salvation of his soul, for the reparation of his crime, or to alarm those, who might probably be corrupted by his pernicious example, he was then either smitten with some incurable disease, as in the case of Herod; or struck with immediate death, as in the case of Ananias and |