[A. merely speculative knowledge of Christianity expands the mind, and leads it to high and heavenly contemplations. But no tongue can utter the benefits arising from an experi- mental acquaintance with Christ: What just views does it give us of every thing in the world ! What peace does it bring into the conscience ! How does it disarm death of its sting ! And what bright prospects does it open to us in the eternal world ! O let a desire after the full blessings of salvation animate us in our inquiries after truth ! Let us seek to have more enlarged views of Christ, and of our interest in him ; and thus shall we be prepared for that complete vision of his glory, in com- parison of which our present knowledge is but as a taper before the sun.]
a minister's chief joy.
3 John, 4. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children
■walk in truth.
THERE subsists between a minister and his people a relation which may not unfitly be compared with that of a father and his children. The meta- phorical expression of a father is more strictly appli- cable to those whom a minister " has begotten through the Gospela:" but it needs not to be re- stricted to this sense : it may be used with greater latitude in reference to those over whom a minister watches, and for whose benefit he labours, with parental anxiety, especially where the person to whom the paternal relation is ascribed is somewhat advanced in years. It should seem that Gaius, to whom St. John wrote this epistle, was converted to the faith by the ministry of PauP: yet St. John pro- perly includes him amongst his children, because he felt the same regard for him as for those who were the more immediate seals of his own ministry ; the whole body of his people being in his different epistles frequently designated by that favourite appellation0.
Respecting the state of Gaius' soul, the Apostle had heard the most satisfactory account ; so that he
* 1 Cor. iv. 15. b 1 Cor. i. 14. c 1 John ii. 1. and iii. 18.