DISCOURSE TWENTY NINTH.

JOHN FOSTER.

FOSTER was born in 1770 at a place called Wadsworth Lanes, in the parish of Halifax, Yorkshire; and at the age of seventeen made a public profession of religion by uniting with a Baptist Church; and soon after devoted himself to the Christian ministry. His studies were prosecuted with great assiduity, first at Brearly Hall, under Dr. Fawcet, and then, three years later, at Bristol College. Shortly after leaving college, in 1792, he settled at Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he remained only about three months. In 1793 he became pastor of a Baptist Church in Dublin, where, after about nine months, he ceased pastoral duties, taught a classical school less than a year, and became quite unsettled in his plans of life. The probable causes of his failure of success as a preacher were his recluse habits, peculiar style of preaching, and somewhat loose opinions respecting church organization. Until 1797 he appears to have devoted himself to literary pursuits, when he resumed the pastoral relation at Chichester, which ended in two and a half years, by a removal to Downend, where he preached four years. At the expiration of this period, through the recommendation of Robert Hall, he became Pastor at Frome, where he wrote his first Essays. In 1807 an affection of the throat compelled him to suspend regular ministerial duties, and he became connected with the "Eclectic Review”—a relation which continued, with an interval of a few years, till 1839, and in which he acquired great reputation as a reviewer. During his connection with the Review, he often preached in destitute places. In 1822 he commenced a course of lectures at Broadmead, Bristol, which were continued, with a slight interruption, until Hall's settlement at that place. He died in 1843, in the seventy-third year of his age.

Foster was one of the strongest writers, of whatever country or age. His sermon on "Popular Ignorance," preached in 1818, and enlarged and published in 1820, was pronounced by Sir James Mackintosh one of the most able and profound works of the age. His sermon on Missions," preached the same year, is not inferior in point of merit. The miscel· laneous productions of his pen hold a high rank among the most brilliant

English classics. All his writings are noted for remarkable comprehensiveness, the tersest strength, and great originality and majesty of conception. His eloquence consisted, not in pompous phrases or brilliant explosions, but the pure force of sense, adorned with the sweetest imagery, and an admirable neatness and compactness of style. Foster did not generally write his sermons, and with the exception of those above alluded to, with a few others, and his two volumes of Lectures delivered at Broadmead, his sermons are not preserved. The specimens that remain of his preaching are not remarkable for what is commonly called oratory, but yet they sustain the judgment of Hall, that "his writings are like a great lumber-wagon loaded with gold.”

The production which follows is not found in any of the common collections of Foster's writings. In Bohn's edition of his Lectures there is one on the same text, and with a similar title; but it is entirely different from this, of which, possibly, it might have been a rough sketch. The sermon here given was published in the "New Baptist Magazine,” without any signature, and reprinted, in the same way, in this country, by Littell, in his "Christian Magazine" of 1828. But there are several facts abundantly verifying its authorship. In 1837 a very few copies of a small volume were published by Rev. Mr. Mann, of the Maze Pond Baptist Church, made up of Foster's writings, but appearing without his name. A well-known clerical friend of the editor of this work informs him that he himself was associated with Mr. Mann in soliciting of Foster the privilege of publishing that little volume of his writings, of which volume this sermon forms a part. Its genuineness, from this circumstance alone, is therefore placed beyond question. Indeed, the many and obvious traces of Foster's exquisite genius sufficiently indicate its origin.

THE IMPRISONMENT AND DELIVERANCE OF PETER.

"Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the Church," etc.-ACTS, xii. 1–11.

The Church is sometimes called "the kingdom of Heaven," the "kingdom of God" on earth. It is called so by Him who knew whether it may be justly so called; whether there is any thing in common between earth and heaven; whether there is any thing good and heavenly in this world of sin and misery. It may very properly be called the kingdom of Heaven: nothing of heaven is brought or kept here, except by the force of heaven. There is a tendency in this earth to repel every thing that is good; an exploding quality,

that would drive off to millions of leagues all goodness and all good men. In some places it has actually driven off the kingdom of Heaven; there are some places where Christianity once flourished, but where it flourishes no longer. God has suffered the tensity of His kingdom in some places to slacken, that the power and tendency of the world's depravity might have scope for exhibition. The kingdom of Christ here is, therefore, unlike that which prevails in Heaven, inasmuch as it is subject to persecution. Some men, indeed, may have been so sublimely depraved as to wish to carry persecu tion into Heaven itself. Their hatred may have flamed away, in wish, far beyond the limits of the earth, far beyond the fires of a volcano, or the smoke of a volcano, or the rocks which are hurled from its crater. But they have never wished to die, in order to persecute, to attack the Sovereign on His throne; horribly evil as their wishes may have been, they have not dared to meet Him on His own ground, to pursue the saints into His presence. The angels who once dared to resist Him, are not inclined again to meet the Divine artillery,' and defy the Omnipotent. Heaven still retains its perfect and eternal tranquillity. The opposition of men can not excite fear in this region, it scarcely can excite indignation. It is not so, however, in the kingdom of God on earth. He will not let His saints live peaceably here; He would detach their affections from things below; He is determined they shall not love this present world; He has therefore made it an uneasy residence, He has excited even their sympathies against it. How can they love a world that is stained with the blood of their brethren, that is full of their sufferings, monumentally recorded? The time has been when His people were witnesses of the persecutions of which we behold only the monuments. They have had to say, this day, this morning, a servant of God will bear his last testimony for his master, we shall lose our friend, our father, our minister. The world has been unwilling to let the saints of God dwell on it; it has denied them air and light and space to exist in. Its history is emphatically the history of persecution, the history of martyrdom; one part of the agents have been persecutors and the others have been persecuted. The spirit of enmity still rages in the world, and is still indignant that the servants of Christ should execute His commission, that they should presume to carry this religion among the heathens, and attack the temples of idolatry. Not only in that land itself where Satan's seat is, but even here, where the kingdom of Christ is in some measure established, there are many who would not endure that a word should be spoken, though that word were sure to reclaim a

soul from the darkness of paganism, or the corruption of perverted Christianity.

It is a fatal thing, however, to persecute the Church of Jesus Christ. The history of the world abounds with recitals of His vengeance. Many proud monarchs have demolished their own thrones in attempting to subvert His kingdom. There is something very corrosive and deadly in a drop of a Christian's blood spilt upon a throne; it will inevitably sap it to the foundation; it is a lure that never fails to attract destruction. How many tales are recorded of the dreadful deaths which princes and ministers, and even obscure individuals have suffered, whose enmity had been signalized against the kingdom of God! Many are the states that have fallen with a mighty crash beneath the stroke of his vengeance; and those which still subsist, and oppose the authority of the Supreme Governor, will easily be crushed into a heap of monumental ruins.

If a saint is smitten on earth, a sensation, I might say a commotion, is felt in heaven. When Saul was going to Damascus, only intending to persecute the saints, he was struck to the ground, and interrogated by Christ Himself: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" Thus God identifies Himself with His people, in literal conformity to those impressive figures which He adopted while on earth; He is still the head and they are the members; He is the vine and they are the branches. An insult against them, He feels as against Himself. What they can not avenge, what they will not avenge (for He has forbid them, saying, "Vengeance is Mine"), He will. Among all the hosts of His angels there is not one, perhaps, that would not promptly come down to act out the vengeance of his great Lord; who would not gladly take the quarrel on his own hands, when an insult is committed on the saints. Next to serving Christ Himself, they love to serve His people. They will follow the individual who is committed to their charge with patience; slow as he is, they would gladly invite and encourage him to proceed faster; they will not wander from him, faltering as his steps are; they become friendly by habit and attention, and anticipate in him a companion for eternity in better regions. There are two accounts of the descents of angels in this very chapter; the one to deliver Peter, the other to destroy Herod. The same angel was probably commissioned on both services; the same angel would be equally ready to execute a duty of mercy and a duty of vengeance; he would have so distinct an idea of the reasons and consequences of both, of the entire consistency of both with the honor of his Master and the universal good, that he would perform the office of punishment with

the most lively feelings of complacency and general benevolence. Some of the enemies of God may be overcome in the ordinary methods of His operation, others are hardened against all conciliation; it requires a miracle of Divine power to change their hearts. Some of them must be consigned to extinction and extermination. "Now about that time," says the historian, "Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the Church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews he proceeded further to take Peter also."

The Jews were worthy to have a king like Herod. Their love of persecution must have been intense, if it could induce them to applaud his cruelty in spite of the conviction that tyranny gains strength by exercise, and that to encourage cruelty in a monarch against others was finally to invoke it on themselves. It was remarkable indeed that God's chosen and supported people should be the leaders of persecution against His own servants. It was a proof of their extreme and utter degradation, that they must set on their king to destroy the messenger of their God—that they must show him the way, as if he could not take the scent of blood himself— that they must be his jackals-that they must hunt the victims for his cruelty. Perhaps this was their way of taking vengeance on Jesus Christ for having presumed to rise from the dead-for having despised their seal on his sepulcher, and their soldiers to guard it. He had ascended beyond their reach, and they would take their vengeance on his disciples. They were delighted to have a minister, a devil, the fiercest spirit Satan could send them, on their throne— the throne of David; so that he would indulge them with the blood of the saints; so that they could but see the Church of Christ afflicted, and James put to the sword.

A certain degree of success in wickedness usually makes men daring and confident. This prince, after killing James, had no fear or hesitation in laying his hand on Peter also; he consigned him as a victim-animal to his cage, perfectly sure he could bring him forth. to death whenever it suited his leisure and the piety of the Jews; he felt no terror from the reflection that he had slain a servant of Jesus; he had no suspicion that the spirit of James had ascended to the throne of God to bear witness against him. He fell into the common mistake of men concerning the delay of Divine vengeance, they think Him altogether like themselves: if He does not strike in anger as soon as He is offended, they think He will not strike at all; if His thunderbolts sleep, they think He hath forgotten the affront, and they try to forget it themselves; they give it up to a dark cor