We might set before you, who are spiritually dead, the odiousness of sin, and the beauty of holiness; the horrors of hell, and the glories of heaven; the extent of the law, and the doom denounced against transgressors; and these divine truths might be the means of stirring up persons to labour for this excellent meat; but there is no real life in the soul until it has heartily embraced by faith the grand doctrines of the atonement. There may be knowledge; there may be morality, in some sense; there may be a name to live; but all the while the soul will be dead, except it spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood.

Brethren, it must be so. By nature we are branches severed from the vine; withered, and dead, and destitute of life, of course, must we ever continue, till we are grafted into the true vine again. Now it is the hearty acceptance of this blessed doctrine that unites us to Christ; it is by feeding by faith thereupon, that we become one with Christ, and he with us; or, as it is said in the verse after the text, "we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us." This alone can avail to produce in us the spirit of dependence, which (as has been well observed) opens the veins of the branches, as it were, to receive the sap of the root, and repairs the decayed aqueduct that conveys the waters of life to the soul. Indeed, this is plain also from experience. Look at those individuals who deny, or that more numerous class who hold in a low and diluted form, the doctrine of the atonement; or look at those congregations where the due prominency is not given to this allessential truth,-and what do we see? A candlestick without a light; a lamp without oil; a branch without sap; a body without a spirit to animate it; the form of godliness, but nothing of its life and power. Leave out this doctrine, and the Gospel becomes a dead letter as devoid of all life-giving energy as the law itself. The doctrine of the atonement in the system of divine truth is exactly what the sun is in the solar system-all is darkness, dreariness, and death, without it.

adorable Redeemer, either at the table of the Lord, or in meditation in his closet,-whether it is not at such times that he feels the remembrance of his sins most grievous unto him? Then, again, what divine truth so strengthens faith as this? O, how are distressing doubts and fears of the soul dissipated in a moment, driven as the chaff before the wind, when the soul has been enabled to feed upon the full, perfect, and sufficient atonement which Christ hath made for sin! Or, would we become more dead to the world? this is the grand means for promoting it. Yes, "it is by the cross of Christ," says the great apostle of the Gentiles (Gal. vi. 14)," that the world is most effectually crucified unto us, and we unto the world." Or would we become more devoted? the keeping in mind this blessed truth is the prime method of becoming so. "What, know ye not," demands St. Paul of the Corinthians, "that ye are not your own, being bought with a price? therefore," says he, "glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are his"-language evidently implying that we know not, or at least feed not, upon this divine truth, who are not powerfully constrained thereby to live to Him who died for them, and rose again. It were easy also to shew how this blessed doctrine feeds the flame of unfeigned gratitude; how it strengthens the principles of Christian charity, holy patience, heavenly meekness, and, in short, all the graces of the Holy Spirit. Other blessed doctrines of the Gospel are suited especially to the support of one or more particular graces; but this supports all, yea, it is this that imparts to all the other blessed doctrines of the Gospel virtue and efficacy. In short, it is the staff of the believer's life; so that we may well apply to the body and blood of Jesus Christ the words of the pious Hey, "By these things do men live; and in all these things is the life of the soul." Moreover the soul finds the body and blood of Jesus Christ not merely supporting, but most satisfying, most grateful food; this verily is the wine that cheereth the heart of God and man. Never can a soul more fully enter into the experience which David records (Ps. xxxvi.) than when it has been feeding by faith on the body and blood of Christ; then can it in truth say, "I have been abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house, and thou hast made me to drink of the river of thy pleasures." Yes, it is satisfying, as well as supporting food; so supporting, so satisfying, that, as our Lord says, "He that cometh to me shall never hunger; he that believeth on me shall never thirst."

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suited to support, cannot perpetuate the natural life; nay, even manna itself could not do this. "Your fathers," says our Lord, a verse or two after the text, "did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead;" yea, it was incapable of even prolonging life beyond its usual limits. But this (as our Lord again and again asserts in the context) preserves the soul unto everlasting life" "this," says he (ver. 50), "is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die." "If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever." "He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." So that the partaking of this divine food not merely prolongs, but perpetuates spiritual life; yea, we may add, it not only perpetuates the life of the soul, but secures the revivification of the body itself to a glorious immortality. The partaking by faith of the body broken and the blood shed, will, according to that cheering language of our communionservice, "preserve our bodies, as well as souls, unto everlasting life."

And now, to pass by various other particulars--for I have confined my observations simply to those suggested by our context-to pass by, I say, other particulars in which the excellency appears, I ask, Since it imparts life, and supports life, and perpetuates the life of the soul, might not our blessed Lord well say respecting it, "My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed?" In conclusion, brethren, you must allow me to give you the exhortation which our Lord himself gives with respect to this heavenly food, and to say, "Labour for this meat."

Those that rise up early, and late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness, in eager toil after the things of this life, are spending their money for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not. It is to them, then, that I give our Lord's entreaty, and say, O, labour not thus for the meat that perisheth, but labour for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life." I have endeavoured to shew you, brethren, somewhat of its excellency; and let me remind you again of the indispensable necessity of your partaking of it. "Verily, verily, I say unto you," says our Lord (and that double asseveration marks not only the certainty, but the importance of the declaration) — "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." Brethren, is not this a solemn word? should it not stir up each to inquire diligently whether he hath truly partaken of Jesus Christ? And do you ask how you are to ascertain this?

I answer it by another question, How do you regard the doctrine of the atonement? do you hold it at all? do you hold it loosely? do you hold it to be of no great importance? do you hold it theoretically merely? Or, on the contrary, is it to you unspeakably precious-the one ground of your hopes, the daily food of your souls? This is what it should be, this is what it must be; and if it be not so with us, if we are not feeding on this divine food, then, as you have already seen, we have no life, and perish we must. I pray you, then, brethren, as you would not die, but live, labour for this meat; and be assured you shall not labour in vain, for Christ will freely give it to you; for him hath God the Father sealed, appointed for this purpose; yes, "though you have no money, come and buy without money and without price."

But, alas! men will not labour for it; men will not seek it, because they have no appetite for such food. Labour, then, I say, for an appetite. And do you ask how you are to acquire an appetite? Consider what the having of an appetite in regard to common food signifies. It implies a sense of our want of food. So, then, I say, labour to acquire a full conviction of your need of an atonement. Look well at the holy law of God, which says, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them;" look well at your hearts and lives, and you will see that you have broken the law times without number; look at your very righteousnesses, and if you have eyes to see, you will perceive that they cannot stand and answer for themselves, much less fulfil that law which cannot be broken, and satisfy that justice which must have compensation. Ponder on these truths, till, by the Divine blessing, your minds clearly perceive, and your hearts are duly impressed with, a sense of your undone condition; then will you no more despise this heavenly food than a starving man a loaf of bread; nay, then will you hunger and thirst after it; and feeding upon it, you will find it " meat indeed and drink indeed." To those that know what it is spiritually to eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, we say, Feed daily upon it.

This should be our daily bread; and there is something unhealthy in the state of that soul that does not relish this food. Brethren, if you would not starve your souls; if you would be spiritually fat and well liking, as the Psalmist speaks; if you would have your repentance deepened, your faith strengthened, your gratitude enlarged, your hopes lively, and your heart more devoted-the principles of your character, holy patience and holy

meekness; in short, all the graces of the Spirit to prosper and grow exceedingly ;-if you would not merely have life, but have it more abundantly, I pray you, brethren, feed daily on the Redeemer's flesh, which is "meat indeed," and on that blood which is "drink indeed." Come, as the seasons recur, to the table of the Lord, and partake of that ordinance, which is so especially appointed for the purpose of our feeding upon this most nourishing food; come in faith, and with an appetite; come with a deep sense of your need of an atonement, and you shall, in your own blessed experience, find the words on which we have been meditating to be true"My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."

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FRANCE A WARNING TO ENGLAND.* ALL nations may learn a solemn lesson in the history of Israel's Sabbath sins. When Moses declared the future woes of Israel, should they be disobedient, the prophecy began with a warning against two principal national sins, which, indeed, are to be found closely connected throughout all the Old Testament history: “Ye shall make no idols; ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord" (Lev. xxvi.), Ahaz, the first king who brought idolatry into the very temple, is also recorded as having publicly slighted the Sabbath, by" turning the covert for the Sabbath from the house of the Lord for the king of Assyria." About the same time God threatened Israel by Hosea, that he would cause to cease her Sabbaths and all her solemn feasts." Long after this threatening had been fulfilled in Samaria, and when the troubles of Jerusalem also had begun, God charged Judah thus by Ezekiel: "Her priests have violated my law, have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths." He further said by Jeremiah, If ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath-day, but hallow the Sabbathday to do no work therein, then this city shall remain for ever;" "but if ye will not hearken unto me, to hallow the Sabbath-day, then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces thereof, and it shall not be quenched." The word came to pass: the city was burned; the king dethroned, and carried captive with his nobles to Babylon; the people slain without mercy, and the land overspread with horror and misery. Observe how Jeremiah's lamentation over that national ruin connects the sin with its fruits: "The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised, in the indignation of his anger, the king and the priests." After the captivity was over, God's inspired servant Nehemiah still kept before their view the connexion between Sabbath-breaking and national ruin: "What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath-day? Did not our fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us and upon this city? Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath." We learn from history that afterwards, between the days of Malachi and the coming of the Messiah, at a time when the Jews were cruelly persecuted by the Syrian king, to force them to open idolatry, their reverence for the true God was joined with such veneration for the Sabbath, that many, mistaking the law, rather allowed themselves to be slaughtered than defend themselves by joining

From "Five Tracts on the Sabbath." By Rev. A. W. Brown.

in battle with their enemies on the Sabbath-day. Nor had the nation ever been so prosperous and mighty since the days of Jehoshaphat, as it was immediately after that persecution passed away.

But some perhaps will say, that God deals not thus with nations now. This is an error, for he still deals with nations according to their ways, even as regards the Sabbath-day. About forty years ago, the ungodly and the infidels in France gained the mastery over the nation; and having destroyed their king and lawful rulers, openly set at nought the God who made them. They first put down Christianity; not to set up a better form of it than the popery which they had before, but to do away with all national religion. A law was next made to abolish the Sabbath, and to appoint every tenth day a season of bodily rest and of recreation. Mark what followed. They soon made a decree that there was no God;" and passed a law that no worship should be allowed in the nation, that the churches should be shut up, and that the clergy should be forced publicly to abjure and give up Christianity. It was death to any one to be found to have a Bible. Festival-days were fixed in honour of the goddess of reason; and a profligate woman was chosen, to whom they gave that name, whom they shamelessly exhibited and openly worshipped. Then was it in France as it had been in Israel just before their ruin, when God had said of his people, "They despised my statutes, and polluted my Sabbaths, and their hearts were after their fathers' idols." The same connexion of sins appeared, the like marks of God's wrath followed in the history of modern France as had happened two thousand years before: "The fool had said in his heart, There is no God;" he had set at nought God's Sabbaths, and was therefore, notwithstanding his boasted philosophy and science, instantly permitted to fall into the most debasing and despicable idolatry. God turned and gave the French up to their own heart's lusts; he poured his vengeance on the guilty nation, until they had drank the dreadful cup of wrath to the very dregs. The festivals to their impure goddess became scenes of the most scandalous and unheard-of abominations. They murdered each other by thousands, until no man could count upon his life for a day. Self-chosen judges and juries put to death all who were brought before them; their only question was not," Are they guilty?" but, "Are they suspected?" nor did the accused know the crime for which he was to be executed, further than that he concluded the parties in power that day suspected him to differ from them in politics. Single murders were too tedious, and therefore numbers were tied together and blown to pieces by cannon, were driven into rivers, were crowded into boats and drowned. The murderers of to-day were themselves butchered on the morrow, and "blood touched blood" through that great kingdom; until those that remained were glad to obtain safety, by throwing themselves under the iron tyranny of Napoleon. Thus did God avenge the honour of his "holy day," in our own part of the world, in our own times.

Let not Britain slight such examples as these. Judgment began at the house of God, and his chosen people were driven from their land for neglect of the Sabbath. He "brought evil on the city which was called by his name, and shall others be unpunished?" We have seen that they shall not. France braved the Almighty to his face, pouring contempt on the Sabbath as a thing of nought, and she too "became an astonishment to the nations that were round about her." And shall England escape, if she despises or dishonours the Sabbath? God could easily give England up to scenes such as France knew in 1793. Things insignificant in themselves are yet sufficient to shew that elements exist among us, which could bring this about, were God to leave us to judicial blindness. Are there not to be found among some of those who

desire to remove all Sabbath-restraints, the wildest political principles-principles which, if the statements in the public prints be correct, go so far as to avow that the majority of a nation have a right, if they see fit, to put to death the minority who differ from them in politics? Nor is this all: who would expect to find undisguised idolatry in this land of light and learning, of intellect and science? Yet late disclosures respecting the St. Simonians in London have shewn that even Englishmen are capable of bowing down to stone idols, images of heathen gods and goddesses; of praying to them and trusting in them; that there are places in our proud metropolis where the gods of Greece and Rome are regularly worshipped, and where the profligacies naturally resulting from such idolatry openly prevail. It is true that at present the common-sense of society views with disgust and treats with contempt such political extravagancies, such pagan absurdities. Yet the simple fact, that such things can find place for an hour, and to the most trifling extent, among natives of enlightened Britain, is enough to shew how soon God could let loose among us folly and madness, horrors and atrocities. Do we boast ourselves highly favoured as a nation?-the greater is the danger from our national sins. The Lord said to Israel of old, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." Let this be a warning to you also. By the same prophet, he described their prevailing wickedness, one chief feature of which was, that men said, "When will the Sabbath be gone, that we may set forth wheat?" Is there nothing of this spirit in the opposition which the due observance of the Sabbath meets with in our own great commercial nation? He then threatens their civil blessings, on the one hand, saying, “I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day." And next, on the other hand, he threatens their spiritual privileges: " Behold the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord; and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it" (Amos viii.). Let England fear, for her civil blessings and her spiritual privileges are far greater than those of any other nation; and He who gave them, who preserves them, and who can at once take them away, is Lord of the Sabbath, whose day she so much slights.

The Cabinet.

CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP.-If the regions of eternal woe may be emphatically described as "the place where all hate all," while heaven may be truly designated as "the place where all love all," it must plainly follow, that the more the Christian's heart is enlarged to embrace all, of every age and every clime, who have been "led into the way of truth," and have "held the faith in unity of spirit and in the bond of peace," the more will he experience within himself, what he may indeed regard as an earnest and a foretaste of that blessed state where God's people shall no more be exposed to be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine," but where they shall "all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Disunion in every shape and degree must be the work of that "old serpent," who first tempted Adam and Eve to depart from the only fountain of their happiness, and who has ever since been engaged

From an excellent little work, "The Book of Common Prayer a Manual of Christian Fellowship." By Rev. Robert Anderson, Brighton. 12mo, pp. 34. London, Hatchards. 1839.

in "deceiving the whole world," by endeavouring to separate its inhabitants from God, and from one an other. But the love which subsists between the members of Christ's body, proves that they are citizens of heaven. And if, therefore, when Satan came against the Captain of our salvation, he prevailed not, because "he had nothing in him," it is equally certain that he shall not prevail against the soldiers of the cross. For by being made one with Him who is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever," they participate in the strength and the perpetuity of all his adorable perfections. And happy indeed are they who are thus continually meeting together in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the centre of all holy fellowship; and who, by thus "dwelling together in" that "unity," which is as "the dew that descendeth upon the mountains of Zion," are enabled from their own experience to set their seal to the apostle's declaration, and say, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." Now it is when viewed in the light of the foregoing considerations, that we are enabled to understand the full blessedness of Christian brotherhood, as embracing, all in every age and every country, who have belonged to the blessed company of God's faithful people. And the man who habitually regards himself as being enrolled among the members of this "one communion and fellowship," will find himself raised, not only above all the trials and all the vicissitudes of human life, but also above all those petty jealousies, all those unhappy divisions, and all those bitter strifes, which make this world the wilderness it is. And as he walks by faith amidst the inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem, he will hear the accents of that still small voice, which hushes into repose all the angry elements of this unquiet world; and he will experience through all the faculties and all the affections of his soul, a joy with which "the stranger intermeddleth not," and a "peace which passeth all understanding." Such, then, is the nature, and such the extent of that Christian fellowship which is inculcated in all the services of the Church of England. And it is evident that such a practical consideration of this important subject must tend, on the one hand, to guard us against one of the strongest and most injurious tendencies of our corrupted nature; and on the other hand, to strengthen and encourage the growth of that heavenly grace of love to God and man, which will prove that we have been "renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us."

DEATH DEPRIVED OF ITS STING.-It would be to handle most unfaithfully the gracious word of God, if we were to speak of the sting of death, and yet to remain silent touching that merciful provision which the Lord of life hath made to deprive it of its bitterness. For, in truth, the secret is not to be found in the storehouses of ancient wisdom. There is much, perhaps, to be found there which may gratify and elevate an awakened understanding, but nothing, literally nothing, which can assuage the pangs of an awakened conscience. The sages of old could tell us, and tell us most truly, that vice and moral turpitude, in all their varieties and degrees, pollute and degrade the nature of man, and liken him to the brutes. And cold indeed must be our hearts, if they kindle not within us at the words of flame in which their indignation breathes against the lusts which, thus far, war against the soul. But with all their powers, these mighty masters are speechless as to that wherewith a sinful being shall come before the Lord, or bow himself before a holy God, who cannot look upon uncleanness or iniquity. Now, here it is that the oracles of God pour in a flood of light upon the darkness that is around us; for they not only tell us that sin is the disgrace and torment of life, and that it is the sting of death, but they likewise speak to us of a way more excellent than was ever thought of in the days of