with sinful man. His Gospel is so called from the very cir- cumstance of its being a message of mercy, or, as the word means, good tidings from God to man : and ministers are am- bassadors from him, sent to beseech you in his name to accept reconciliation with him through the death of his Son. Indeed this ^message contains the substance of all that we have to speak to you in God's name ; and from hence it is called by God himself, " the ministry of reconcihation." Behold then tliis day we come unto you and say, " We have a message from God to you ! " He sends us this day to invite you to come to him for all the blessings of salvation, and to receive them freely at his hands, "without money, and without price*." 1
2. That, by whomsoever his messages are deh- vered, we should attend to them with the profoundest reverence —
[Though Eglon was a king, and Ehud an oppressed ser- vant, yea, though Eglon was a heathen that did not worship the true God, yet, the very instant that Ehud announced that he had a message from God vmto him, he rose up from his seat, that he might receive it with the greater reverence. And does not this idolatrous heathen reproach us, who, when God's servants are deUvering messages to us in his name, scarcely pay any attention to them, or perhaps fall asleep m the midst of them ? Behold, how Israel listened to the reading of God's
word in the days of Nehemiah ^ that is the way in
which we should read or hear the word of God at this time. We should not come to the house of God as critics, to sit in judgment; or as curious persons, to be entertained; but as sinners, to " hear what the Lord God will say concerning us." Beautiful is the example of Cornelius and his family^ : they did not regard Peter as a man, but as a messenger from God : and in like manner should we also " receive the word, not as the word of man, but, as it is in truth, the word of God'^." O that the spirit of Samuel were more visible in us', and that we sought instruction from the word, only in order to obey it''!"]
3. That we should ever be prepared for what- soever message he may send —
[Wlio can tell but that as his message to Eglon was a message of death, so he may send to us this day, saying, " Set thine house in order ; for thou shalt die and not live." He needs not the aid of an assassin to take away our lives : there are millions of ways in which death may seize upon us. As
e Isai. Iv. 1—3. f Neh. viii. 3, 5, 6. s Acts x. 33.
^ 1 Thess. ii. 13. > 1 Sam. iii. 1 0. '^ John ix. 36.