[We can have no doubt, but that, however much they might delight in their stated labours amongst a people united to them in the bonds of Christian love, they gladly addressed themselves to the work assigned them, where they would find little but incessant labour, amidst the fiercest opposition. And from their perseverance in it under such circumstances, and from the pleasure which they expressed afterwards in record- ing all the dealings of God with them, and the happy effects of their ministrations, it is clear that one feeling pervaded the whole body ; and that all, both ministers and people, found their chief happiness in the service of their God. Nor can we doubt but that they all rejoiced in the sacrifices they had made, when they saw what benefits had resulted from them to the Gentile world. They had fasted and prayed when these two Apostles were separated to their work : and, that they abounded in praises and thanksgivings after their return, we may be well assured.]
Such being the habit of Christians in the first age, let us consider,
II. The instruction to be derived from it —
We are well aware, that the call of men to special labours, in this day, is not by any means so clear and determinate as in the case before us : nor do we in- tend to place any events of the present time on a footing with those which took place, under the parti- cular direction of heaven, in the apostolic age. Yet, from the dispositions evinced by the primitive Church, we may clearly see,
1. That the work of God is confessedly the greatest of all concerns —
[What is there that can be compared with it ? The govern- ment of kingdoms is little in comparison. The rise and fall of the four great empires would scarcely have been deemed worthy of notice, but for the influence they had in introducing the Messiah's kingdom, which was to supersede and survive them all. It is the establishment of this kingdom which God has had in view, from before the foundation of the world. All his eternal counsels have had respect to it : all his dispensations towards the whole world have been ordered in subserviency to it : all his perfections are displayed in it, and all his purposes completed: and every one that labours for the advancement of it is " a worker together with God." The first archangel in heaven cannot find a more honourable employment than that of helping forward God's designs in reference to it : much
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