infallibly result from the neglect of them, we should engage with incomparably greater zeal in the work of our salvation ; we should make it our meat and drink to do God's will ; nor would life with all its joys, or death with all its terrors, be suffered to divert us from the prosecution of our purpose.]
Rom. ix. 1 — 5. I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my con- science also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could ivish that myself were accursed from Christ for my bre- thren, my kinsmen according to the flesh : who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the cove- nants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises ; whose are the fathers, and of ivhom as concern- ing the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
FIDELITY in ministers is absolutely indispens- able. Without it we cannot approve ourselves either to God or man. Yet in the exercise of it we should maintain a tenderness of spirit, " speaking the truth" indeed, but speaking it " in love." When at any time, as frequently we must, we bring painful truths to the ears of our hearers, we should convince them, that we are not actuated by any thing but a spirit of love. St. Paul was especially careful upon this head; as may be seen in all his epistles, but especially in this which is before usa. He is constrained to declare to the Jews, God's determination to reject the Jews from being his people, and to admit the Gentiles in their stead to those privileges which the Jews had hitherto exclusively enjoyed. But, as this was a topic which must of necessity be most painful to their feel- ings, he labours to convince them, that, in all which he should declare respecting it, he was actuated only by a sense of duty, and not by any unkind feelings towards them ; and that, so far from wishing them
a See in Paley's " Horse Paulina?" what he says on the Epistle to the Romans. It is pre-eminently deserving the attention of ministers.