Note 6 — CHRISTIAN DEVOTEDNESS, ETC.

"Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16. 15),--was the parting command of our Blessed Saviour; and it was on the literal reception of this command that the momentous alternative hung of our knowledge, or ignorance of the only Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved; for "how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent?", still is the order of God's government. Had there been the same doubt of the meaning and obligation of this precept in the infancy of Christianity, which these last ages have exhibited, it would scarcely have extended its influence beyond the confines of Jud?a. But, thanks be to God, the first Christians felt the gospel, committed to their trust, to be "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth"; and they felt it to be the mind of Him who had loved them with an everlasting love, and given Himself for them, that this great act of surpassing love should be published to every creature, for His own glory, and for salvation to the ends of the earth; and therefore they counted all things but loss, that they might fulfil His will, and advance His Kingdom. Why has this spirit for so many centuries been slumbering? Because men have been seeking, every one his own things, and not the things of Christ. Let any one ask his own heart, as in the presence of God, in which state he should feel most disposed to embrace the command, "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature"--whether, when he is labouring for, and enjoying the comforts and conveniences of life, and providing against the future possible wants of himself and his family; or when, like the Apostles and first Christians, he has laid aside every earthly encumbrance, and waits ready to go or to stay, as the Spirit of God may appoint. To the enquiry--"Who will go for us?"--can there be a doubt whose heart would be most ready to reply "Here am I, send me"? (Isa. 6. 8). The one, having the eye single, since to glorify his Lord is the only object of his life, will be ready to answer--"Here am I "; while those who are surrounded by the cares and comforts of this world, have so many earthly claims and relations to adjust, that the general result will be that of standing still, and the enquiry,--"Who will go for us? "--will sound unwelcome to the ear, will chill, not animate, the noblest sympathies of the heart, and set the seal of silence on the lips. It is not meant absolutely to say that every man should become a Missionary, in the proper sense of the term. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord" (1 Cor. 12. 4). While one has that ministration of the Spirit which leads him to go and preach the gospel in person, another shows that he is guided by the same Spirit in carefully supplying the wants of him who thus goes "taking nothing of the Heathen" (3 John 7), from the abundance yielded by devoted diligence in his honest vocation, and by rigid habits of self-denial.[6]