Behold the fruit which you ought to reap from this discourse!  Live apart.  Think, without ceasing, that the great number work their own destruction.  Regard as nothing all customs of the earth, unless authorized by the law of God, and remember that holy men in all ages have been looked upon as a peculiar people.

It is thus that, after distinguishing yourselves from the sinful on earth, you will be gloriously distinguished from them in eternity!

SAURIN

PAUL BEFORE FELIX AND DRUSILLA

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Jacques Saurin, the famous French Protestant preacher of the seventeenth century, was born at Nismes in 1677.  He studied at Geneva and was appointed to the Walloon Church in London in 1701.  The scene of his great life work was, however, the Hague, where he settled in 1705.  He has been compared with Bossuet, tho he never attained the graceful style and subtilty which characterize the “Eagle of Meaux.”  The story is told of the famous scholar Le Clerc that he long refused to hear Saurin preach, on the ground that he gave too much attention to mere art.  One day he consented to hear him on the condition that he should be permitted to sit behind the pulpit where he could not see his oratorical action.  At the close of the sermon he found himself in front of the pulpit, with tears in his eyes.  Saurin died in 1730.

SAURIN

1677—­1730

PAUL BEFORE FELIX AND DRUSILLA

And before certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith of Christ.  And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.—­Acts xxiv., 24, 25.

My brethren, tho the kingdoms of the righteous be not of this world, they present, however, amidst their meanness, marks of dignity and power.  They resemble Jesus Christ.  He humbled Himself so far as to take the form of a servant, but frequently exercised the rights of a sovereign.  From the abyss of humiliation to which He condescended, emanations of the Godhead were seen to proceed.  Lord of nature, He commanded the winds and seas.  He bade the storm and tempest subside.  He restored health to the sick, and life to the dead.  He imposed silence on the rabbis; He embarrassed Pilate on the throne; and disposed of Paradise at the moment He Himself was pierced with the nails, and fixt on the cross.  Behold the portrait of believers!  “They are dead.  Their life is hid with Christ in God.” (Col. iii., 3.) “If they had hope only in this life, they were of all men most miserable.”  (I Cor. xv., 19.) Nevertheless, they show I know not what superiority of birth.  Their glory is not so concealed but we sometimes perceive its luster! just as the children of a king, when unknown and in a distant province, betray in their conversation and carriage indications of illustrious descent.