had never given us any charge respecting them ; or rather, as if his charge had been, " Into any city of the Jews enter ye not:" when, in fact, the command has never been repealed, " Preach my Gospel, to the Jetvs first, and also to the Gen- tiles." Indeed, my brethren, great guilt attaches to us on this account. What would you yourselves say to your steward, if^ when you had committed to him a sum of money for the relief of your distressed neighbours, he had withheld from them your bounty, and had expended it altogether on himself? Yet that were no crime, in comparison of that of which you have been guilty ; because the loss occasioned by his dishonesty could, at the worst, only issue in the temporal death of those whom he defrauded ; whereas the negligence of the Christian world has issued in the death of men's souls, yea, of millions of immortal souls, who, if the means which God has put into our hands for their good had been duly improved, might have been saved with an everlasting salvation. Let there be an end of this neglect, my beloved brethren ; and now begin, with all assi- duity and diligence, to redeem the time that you have lost. Truly, you owe much to your Jewish brethren : and I call upon you to pay your arrears ; (" for their debtors ye are" to a vast amount1;) and now, by your personal efforts, or through the instrumentality of others, impart to them the mercy which you yourselves have received. Nor do I suggest this as a matter of advice merely, but as an absolute command from God himself. It is not a thing left to your option. You have a trust ; and you, must discharge it. I call upon you, then, if you have any sense of the mercy vouchsafed to your own souls, to act as faithful stewards to your God, in dispensing mercy to his " beloved," though suffering and out-cast people.]
1 Rom. xv. 27.