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SERMON XIV.

THE EFFICACY OF THE GOSPEL.

“Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men; and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver." -ACTS, xix. 19.

IT was the preaching and miracles of St Paul that moved the persons here mentioned to burn their books of sorcery, and abandon the curious arts by which they had their wealth. What was there in his preaching to move them to this? Did the apostle declaim against them and their arts? Did he denounce them as impostors? Did he invoke against them the indignation of the populace they had duped? Some later champions of Christianity, if in his place, would have had no scruple in resorting to menace or vituperation, or even outward force. But St Paul was of

another mind. He made no

direct attack on

either the persons or the books of the Ephesian diviners. He but preached the gospel. He but

proclaimed "the truth as it is in Jesus." He trusted to that as sufficient to turn them from their deceits and superstitions. And by that he triumphed. The act of giving the books to the flames was not the apostle's act, but their own. It was their own spontaneous act. And the motive which impelled them to so costly a sacrifice was not any dread either of the apostle personally or of his influence with the people, but simply the new-sprung conviction produced by his preaching and miracles—the conviction that their unholy books and arts ought to be foregone for the sake of Christ and salvation.

Now we have here a sample of several things which always accompany the preaching and spread of the gospel,—and to four of these things I now invite attention.

I. We have here a sample of the method which the gospel pursues.

Like its great preacher at Ephesus, the gospel abjures force, and employs only persuasion. It does not assail the evils it would put down with carnal weapons and coarse invective. It trusts to the diffusion and influence of truth. As it assumes that all the moral and social evils which afflict humanity are outgrowths of man's corrupt heart-exhalations engendered and fed by the foul swamp of a depraved nature-so it infers that

these evils are to be cured, these exhalations cleansed, only by curing and cleansing the source from which they spring; and it therefore directs its efforts exclusively to the cure, the cleansing, the renewal of the heart. It takes for granted that, after an inward renewal has been effected, an outward reformation will follow; and hence an inward renewal is what it aims at and endeavours

to effect. Let me but succeed, it argues, in draining the swamp, and the poisonous exhalations will cease to be emitted; let me but succeed in renovating the human heart, and man will as surely throw off his wicked habits as a tree, when quickened with new life in spring, throws off its withered leaves. So the gospel argues; and as it further holds that the inward man can be reached and rectified only by spiritual appliances -by argument, appeal, persuasion-so it is on these that it relies-it is to these that it resorts.

Nor can there be a doubt that in thus resorting, not to force, but to moral suasion, the gospel employs the only effectual method of reforming and removing the evils of humanity. It is indeed possible by means of physical coercion and penal restraint to compel men to forego for a time their wicked practices. It is possible, for example, by means of an armed force, to curb for a time an insurgent populace. It is possible by means of a crushing persecution to suppress for a time an

obnoxious sect. It is possible by means of a Maine law to restrain for a time the excesses of intemperance. But it is only for a time that such rough remedies prove effectual. Such remedies leave untouched the foul swamp from which the pestilential vapours rise. They leave untouched the corruption in the heart. And so, whenever the outward restraint is removed or relaxed, whenever the armed force is withdrawn, whenever the penal statute is repealed or but feebly enforced, the prohibited practices will come back— and probably with a mighty rebound and an augmented vigour. How different is it when, through the influence of gospel truth, men's hearts are reached, and a revolution is effected on their thoughts and feelings! Then the swamp is drained; then the mephitic exhalations are desiccated. Right thoughts and right feelings are the true reformers. Once make men think aright and feel aright, and it will not be long before they will cease to do evil and learn to do well. It is the inner life that shapes the outward. It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaketh, and the hand worketh. Let a man experience an inward renewal, and he will soon exhibit an outward reformation. Quicken the moulted, voiceless bird with fresh inward life, and it will soon again go singing up to heaven's gate, its wings covered with silver and its feathers with yellow gold.

II. We have here a sample of the spirit of selfsacrifice which the gospel inspires.

Mark what the Ephesian diviners did. They abandoned their gainful craft; they relinquished the eclat as well as the emolument which their curious arts brought them; and undeterred by the reproach and shame to which a confession of their previous artifices might expose them, they came forward and publicly avowed their change of sentiment-bringing their books of divination together, and burning them before all men. this they did, not by constraint, but voluntarily— not from legal compulsion, or out of deference to public opinion, but at the mere bidding of those new ideas and feelings with which the gospel had inspired them.

And

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Here was a signal instance of self-sacrifice for the sake of Christ and conscience. Was it a solitary instance? Quite otherwise. As with these diviners, so was it with the apostles who forsook all for Christ. As with these diviners, so was it with the primitive Christians who took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing that they had in heaven a better and enduring substance. As with these diviners so was it with the early martyrs, who, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus, went with exultant intrepidity to the bloody amphitheatre or the burning stake. Nor did this spirit of self-sacrifice die with the primitive Church. It lived on in the following