DISCOURSE THIRTY THIRD.

PHILIP JACOB SPENER.

SPENER was born in 1635, at Rappolsweiler, in Upper Alsace, and pursued his theological studies at Strasburg, where he was made Doctor of Theology in 1666. In the year 1670 he instituted his celebrated Collegia Pietatis, or School of Piety, which, contrary to his will, became the origin of pietism. From this time Spener's history is connected with the great religious movements in Germany to which his example and writings gave rise. From 1686 to 1691 he was preacher to the Court at Dresden. From 1691 till the year of his death, 1705, he resided in Berlin, where he took an active part in the foundation of the University of Halle.

Spener has been compared to Fénélon for his sweet and devoted spirit, and his pure eloquence. He occupied, in his time, the first rank as a preacher, and was an excellent Oriental scholar. His published works are somewhat numerous, among the most important of which are sixty-six sermons on Regeneration, and a learned and able work on the Divinity of Christ.

The following condensed discourse is translated from his three sermons on "Temptation; Especially on the Suggestion of Evil, Wicked and Blasphemous Thoughts, with which the Faithful Children of God have often to Contend." Frankfort, 1673, 4to.

THE TEMPTATIONS OF SATAN.

"And when the tempter came to Him, He said, If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."-MATT. iv. 3.

This passage may serve to show how the devil commonly seeks to entice us, as often as we are in distress, to resort to unlawful means of relief. Let us dwell upon this point. I consider for our

principal theme, how the devil tempts us to feelings of distrust; 80 that when things go ill with us, when we are in distress, peril, and want, we should lose our confidence in God, and fall into distrust. The devil is wily in these assaults, and does not make an open attack, at once betraying his aim, but leads men into such distrust imperceptibly.

1. He persuades men, or rather strengthens them in the false impression natural to them, that, from the degree in which we are prospered in the world, we can best judge how God regards us. If all is prosperous, God is favorable to us; if adverse, it is a sign that He is against us and is our enemy. Thus the devil fills the heart with the love and high estimation of worldly things, so that all depends on these, and the most important consideration is, how we are situated in respect to outward things. It is saying, Happy is that people that is prospered; whose garners are full, affording all manner of store, so that there is no injury, no loss, no complaining in the streets. With such a conceit Satan has already gained much, and has prepared the way for the temptation.

2. He makes our distress, danger, and poverty, greater and heav ier than it really is. Even when there are natural means which might bring relief, he hides them from our view. We are left to see no way to escape from distress, but merely to perceive that there is no help for us, and that we must perish.

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3. When distressing fears come upon us, the devil stirs up our minds, and instills into them the conceit that all this is contrary to God's promises. God has promised that He would help us and protect us, and now we find in our experience just the opposite. this way the devil seeks to make us doubt the word and promise of God, to see for ourselves that with us it is not fulfilled, and that, therefore, the ground of our faith is futile, and that we find ourselves deceived in our expectations. To this state others help to bring us, when they chime in, as David complains, and say, "Where now is thy God?" If a man do not resist this temptation, but yields to the devil by allowing his faith to sink, all is lost: for,

4. He carries him further. Hope in God being lost, other reliances, not to be trusted in, are resorted to. Such hopes are innumerable. We see them of all descriptions. Some give themselves up to the devil, and consult familiar spirits, and seek thereby to gain something, and to ward off poverty. Others apostatize from the faith, and embrace any religion which best promises to give hem bread. Others make way with themselves by strangling, stabng, or drowning, out of fear that they must otherwise perish of

hunger. Others resort to theft and plunder. Others run away, if they are unsuccessful in their undertakings, and go into the army without a proper call, and, for want of occupation, serve Satan. Thinking, as they say, to make their fortune, others forsake their wives and children because they think they can not support them, and leave them in wretchedness. Others, because they see that, by honest and industrious lives, they have not been able to accumulate much, begin to practice all kinds of fraud and deception for the sake of gain: receive bribes if they are in office, sell places of trust, where they ought to appoint only the most competent, and sell justice against their consciences, and in all things seek nothing but their own profit: neglect official duties, if the performance of them would prove prejudicial to their interests: show no zeal in public service, but turn all things to their own account, to win favor and advantage, and to keep off poverty, and to deliver themselves from want. All this is, so to speak, making bread out of stones, or seeking the means of support in an improper way. As the devil often tempts pious Christians to do such things, but finds no listening ear, so, on the other hand, all is lost to the man who allows himself to be overcome of the devil, and to be induced to use such means. For it is thus made certain that his faith is gone, inasmuch as he will make provision for himself contrary to the will of God. He must have surrendered his trust in God, although he will not allow it, but thinks he was driven by necessity, and did it from extreme want. And yet faith shows that distress should not turn us from God, but lead us to Him. Such a course is, therefore, an apostasy from God.

5. The devil has such a man now in his snare to destroy both body and soul; the body in regard to worldly things, because the curse of God generally falls upon such a use of unlawful means. And because a man has chosen, against God's will, to make bread out of stones, that is, because with all such evil practices to which he has suffered himself to be enticed by the devil, he nevertheless has failed of his object, he is even in his worldly circumstances, a poor, wretched, and undone creature. If such persons gain any thing, it slips again out of their hands, and they know not which way to turn. A present misfortune will take by dollars from former success, what was in an unjust manner saved by pennies. That is, they have bread provided, indeed, but it turns to stones in their mouths, as Solomon says in his Proverbs, "Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterward his mouth shall be filled with gravel." That is, it does not answer its purpose. Even when one has suc

ceeded and scraped something together, he can not enjoy it; it be comes, as it were, stones. Bread itself is turned to stone; as liter ally, by the wonderful providence of God, it is said, that the bread which was once refused to the poor became stone. Figuratively it often happens that bread becomes stone. God often orders it so that he who, in an unjust way and contrary to His will, aims at getting something, not only fails of his object, but by the course of God must see that which he before had, glide from his possession. And it is right that this should happen to them. But when God of His long-suffering looks on, and delays His judgment, a worse thing is yet to come. For when God sends temporal punishment, it is sometimes a means of reforming one and bringing him back to Him; while others pass securely on, enjoying their worldly things —their bread made of stone-but are thereby still more in Satan's power; and because they will be his here, and be seduced by him, they shall be always his, and forever lose the right they once had of being the children of God.

This is the way, my beloved, in which the devil brings many through poverty and distress to distrust and to condemnation-a temptation by which he also here assailed Christ.

DISCOURSE THIRTY-FOURTH.

GEORGE JOACHIM ZOLLIKOFER.

THIS eminent preacher was born at St. Gall, in Switzerland, August 5th, 1730. His studies were pursued at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Bre men, and Utrecht. In 1754 he became a clergyman, preaching first at Morat, Switzerland, then at Leipsic, Germany, where he died in 1788. The genius of Zollikofer was of a superior order; and for his accomplishments in oratory and real eloquence he has been likened to Cicero. His sermons contain many luminous and beautiful conceptions, a happy artlessness of expression, a cautious use of metaphors, great felicity in the shaping of his periods, and are fraught with lofty and inspiring sentiments. That which is here given will do justice to his reputation. A brief prayer precedes it in the original.

THE ENNOBLING NATURE OF CHRISTIANITY.

"Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor."-PSALM viii. 5..

Certain as it is, that man possesses a great intrinsic dignity, and that the attentive observer can not fail of perceiving it; yet it is no less certain, that error and vice, superstition and slavery, have greatly obscured its luster; and that there have been times when the prerogatives and the nobility of man, when his relationship to God, and his destination to a higher perfection, were scarcely discernible. Into what a state of weakness, of debility, of degradation, have not many nations formerly been, and are still sunk! And how much deeper yet would not mankind have fallen from that dignity, if God had left them to themselves; if He had put no check to their progressively increasing corruption and misery! But how much has not God done in this respect for mankind in every age, and in every nation! How often has He raised up, from among them, souls of a