:

Neither shall there be any limit to his dominion, nor any end to his greatness, nor any measure of his effulgence. "Nations shall come to his light, and kings to the brightness of his rising; and all the kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of God and of his Christ:" peoples shall be divided for his prey; he shall spoil principalities and powers; and all shall see his triumph, when he shall make a show of them openly. Like lightning shall Satan fail from heaven; and the temples in which he has deluded mortals upon earth shall afford him no refuge; but in chains of darkness shall he be reserved, until the judgment of perpetual burnings shall be executed upon him. The hearts of men shall be subdued; and every thought that exalteth itself against Jesus (erewhile the persecuted and the murdered) shall be brought down; the looks of the proud shall be brought low; and all nations shall see it, and shall be confounded; and all faces shall gather blackness; and the Lord alone shall be exalted, and shall reign for ever and ever.

And all this glory shall the man Christ Jesus receive, because he poured out his soul unto death, condescending, for purposes of mercy, to be numbered even with transgressors; yea, to bear the curse of transgressors, both as that curse was blasphemously imputed by men, and as it was righteously exacted by God. For herein he bore the sin of many, and ascended to the heaven of heavens, with his own blood upon his breast, in token of a completed atonement; and there, in the presence of God, once for all, made intercession for sinners; and was heard by Jehovah, who had appointed all these things as means of reconciliation with a fallen world, and of the salvation and glorification of all who would by faith present the death of Christ as their sacrifice, and live to his honour and glory.

All this, my brethren, and more than this, is involved in the words of the prophet: and all this should be written, and more

the

"What, then," you may perhaps say, "have we, as individuals, to do with those parts of that prophecy which speak of the diffusive glories of Messias, and with the splendour of his reign? That is, what, except as a matter of sentiment, to affect us as we are affected by the history of some glorious enterprize, in which our nation or our prince was gloriously successful, but in which we, ourselves, had no part; and which has made us neither richer, nor better, nor happier as individuals; and which we may hear of, and that with pleasure, day after day, without becoming more loyal and more patriotic ?" I see, my brethren, as well as you, the difference between such a sentiment of national pride, and the possession of a character such as would sustain a nation's glories. I admit the possibility, and even probability, that the most pusillanimous may warm at the recital of glorious and perilous adventures; and that he who would betray his country to-morrow for a bribe, may applaud, to-day, with no faint voice, the virtues of a patriot; or boast, with real gratulation, the blessings and the splendour of a peaceful and well-governed state. I will admit this; and would even suffer the coward, and the heartless, and the selfish, to rejoice still, and to be warmed and excited at the recital of glorious deeds and virtuous counsels; and to declaim and exult at the splendour and prosperity which they dared not defend, and blush not to betray: I would permit all this, so long as the situation of such persons involved no duties which their weakness or villany would prevent their performing; and conferred no influence which their baseness and venality could employ to evil purposes.

But without a rebuke I would hear none profess a joy in the glories of Christ's kingdom, who has not, in his own bosom, the graces and the virtues, in the wider diffusion of which those glories are discerned; nor to exult in the safety of the army and polity of his saints, who does not personally partake of that safety, through faith in his Redeemer. In the army and the kingdom of Christ, it is not circumstances and positions that give importance to a character which would otherwise be unimportant. The traitor to his Lord is a traitor to his own perdition, though he involve the spiritual interest of no other being in his fall; and in the eyes of God, the kingdom of heaven, which is composed of individuals, is as much augmented or diminished by the standing or falling of one individual, as by the standing or falling of another, however different in our eyes their apparent situation. Christ

who will come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe, will be as much glorified and admired in a peasant as in a monarch, provided that their characters be as equal as their earthly positions are unequal. And he who ruleth supreme in the affairs of men, and determines the lot of each, will judge us, not according to the splendour of our actions, any more than according to the splendour of our situation; and if the character, the vital principle, the spiritual life was in us, which would have made us greatly virtuous in situations which give opportunity for the display of brilliant virtues, we shall stand together with the greatly virtuous, being rewarded, not according to the occasions which were withheld, but according to the characters which were given to us.

With the individual it is every thing, that he himself, according to his opportunity, exemplifies the virtues that he admires, and possesses the privileges that he boasts. When the wrath of God had gone out against the rebellious Israelites in the desert, and thousands were falling before the plague; and when Aaron took a censer, and stood between the dead and the living, to make an atonement for them,- some might have occupied themselves (as some most certainly would have occupied themselves, had the deliverance been a spiritual and future, instead of a temporal and present deliverance) in boasting the privileges of a nation, whom God thus visited in mercy, in the midst of judgment, instead of hastening for their lives to that part of the camp which was before Aaron. Such persons would have been cut off in the midst of their rejoicing and boasting a meet a meet reward for their folly and infatuation! And what, then, will be the meet reward of the folly and infatuation of those, who in their own persons deny the power, or slight the mercies, of God in Christ, while they magnify his titles as a conqueror, and profess to rejoice in his office as a Saviour and Intercessor?

No, brethren; every consequence of Christ's death is a subject of individual feeling and experience; and as such it must be received, before its influence in the world in general, and through distant ages, can afford occasions of holy exultation. And as the justification of men is the fruit of Christ's death, and satisfies his soul for all his travail and sufferings; so it is the justification of himself as an individual, which is the proper effect, for which each should look, from the death of Christ. And having obtained this, he may indeed rejoice; and his rejoicing need not be limited by the contemplation of his own individual blessings; for," being justi

fied by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

And let us ask ourselves, brethren,—at the time when Christ shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him; when he shall say (I mean not in words-for I presume not to look behind the veil which is drawn before the details of the last great scene; but when, with the loud and appalling voice of circumstances, he shall say) to every nation and people, to every Church and communion, yea, to every individual soul," For your sins was I humbled, persecuted, despised, buffeted, spit upon, scourged, mocked, and crucified; and when thus I suffered, it was the chastisement of your peace that was upon me; and I looked to see of the effects of my sufferings in your salvation, in your repentance, in your love, in your obedience, in your glory: but where is the travail of my soul? Why are there so many myriads of myriads before me, who have never yet received one of these spiritual blessings; and who remain still to be reduced to obedience-an obedience no longer of love and of joy, but of force, of fear, and of horror?"

To such a question some may say, "Lord, we lived aliens by our birth from the Church in which these things were preached plainly, or in types represented; and never heard of thy name, and never knew that thou shouldst save us, or how we should seek thy salvation." And it is not past presumption, that such an appeal may be heard, as not wholly unavailing in remission of sins of ignorance. Some may say, "Lord, obscurely were those things that thou hast done and suffered shadowed forth to us; we understood not the meaning of the prophecies; and while we brought sacrifices, as the law required, we saw not in the type the shadow of the Antitype. We see our fault; we seek that remission from thy mercy, which thy justice, in its unmitigated severity, might withhold." And it is within the compass of possible surmise, that these too may be judged as having received little. Others may say, "O Lord, thou knowest our weakness, and what it is to suffer thou canst tell. Thy name was preached to us, and we recognised the voice of truth; but the fires were gleaming around, and the cries of martyrs were heard from amidst the flames; and the frequent roar of the wild beasts told of another victim to their fury; and the sword was wet with the blood of thy saints; and the air was tainted with their crucified bodies: but, alas, that we thought not how much better it had been to endure, as fearing Him who is invisible, than to seek

to save our lives at the expense of all that could make eternity endurable !" I dare not assert it, but mercy may plead for such as these. Once again: some may come reeking with the blood of sacrifices to an idol-god, or themselves bearing the wound of the priest's murderous knife; and may say, "Lo! our religion was no careless, no indifferent service; we were in bondage, and how did we long for a redemption! And when some came to us with tidings of a salvation which we might share, though the death had been borne by another, how did our hearts beat with joy! The messengers of such tidings were to us as ambassadors from God; but they came not alone, their companions too called themselves Christians, and we looked at their lives, and found them polluted with every crime; we saw into their hearts, and we heard their words, and there was malice, and calumny, and fraud, and blasphemy. Our children fell beneath their murderous hands, and our possessions were torn from us, and our kingdom was no longer our own, and our very persons were fettered and enslaved. And with such men were we to bend at one altar, and obey one Lord, and look for one heaven?" Shall such an appeal be heard at the bar of eternal justice? I say not that it shall be heard; but if it be not, what availing plea shall we make, if we be found among the outcasts from God's grace, because we died outcasts from Christ's kingdom?

Brethren, judge yourselves. Ye have the knowledge of God set before you in a thousand different ways: ye have his word and sacraments-ye have his ministers-the promise of his Spirit: ye have no obscure types to interpret ye fear no persecutions: ye know the fallacy of every attempt to malign the Gospel of Christ, through his unworthy servants. What, then, shall you say for yourselves, if Christ see not in you, every one of you, of the travail of his soul? If, having Christ manifestly crucified before you, ye yet count his cross a stumbling-block or foolishness, and reject his proffered mercy, and refuse your demanded allegiance?

VALUE OF A NATIONAL CHURCH AND CLERGY.

Ir is a great public convenience, independently of the question of religious instruction, to have in a nation a body of individuals of the station, class, and character of the clergy-safe men, upon the whole, to trust-intelligent from their education-pledged to good behaviour from their profession-known in their several districts from their functions-at hand from the necessity of fixed residence-universal in their presence From the Quarterly Review.

from the parochial divisions to which they are severally attached,--and so covering every nook where it is wanted, that a law or a regulation, public or private,

shall penetrate. And, accordingly, it is difficult to frame an act of parliament for any improvement whatever in our internal economy, without some appeal or other in it to the services of the clergy: services which they never undertook to discharge, but which, when required of them, they discharge cheerfully, distinction of creed, maintains a church establishunder a feeling that, whilst the nation, without any ment of which they are the ministers, they owe to the nation, without any distinction of creed, whatever services their favourable position in society enables them to afford. Thus, if the government is called upon to meet any emergency, any national visitation or distress, the clergy are the organs of which it avails itself to act upon the prudence, the energies, the benevolence of the people. If the government has occasion to ascertain the life, the identity, the character, the conduct of persons who have claims upon it, say soldiers or sailors, it resorts to the clergy for its information, as the readiest and most trustworthy it can procure. If the government has need of any statistical details, such as may conduce to the public welfare, the clergy are the quarter to which it chiefly looks for satisfactory intelligence. If, again, in private life, friendly societies have need of certificates of the bonú fide sickness of their members on their application for relief, the signature of the clergyman is that they insist on. If the soldier or the sailor has any communication on his part to make to the War-Office or the Admiralty, it is to the clergyman that he repairs for assistance and advice. If a poor man falls under any family disaster, his limb broken, his pig dead, it is to the clergyman that he goes for a testimony to the truth of his tale and the fairness of his fame, and that testimony secures to him the help of the district in which he lives. If the thrifty cottager wants his little earnings deposited in

the savings-bank, to the clergyman he confides it, to negotiate the matter for him. If he desires to have his frugal will made, that the trifle he possesses may be secured to the parties whom he loves best, it is the clergyman that he solicits to draw it out. These are but a mere sample of the little services of a hundred kinds which the clergyman renders to the country at large, as a free gift, quite independently of his ministerial duties, and without any reference whatever to creed, sect, or sentiment; so that none but the clergy themselves, or those who happen to be under their roof for a season, and witness the numberless calls of this sort that are made on them, know how very large a portion of their time is occupied in such vocations as these; and none but they, whilst they are so engaged, can feel the full injustice of the hard measure which is dealt out to them in these days by that very public for whose welfare they are spending themselves in unostentatious, but most effectual, toil. Yet their capacity to do all this, and the justice of expecting it at their hands, arise entirely and altogether out of their being ministers of a national Church; and sure we are that such good offices to the nation at large are far more than a set-off against the payment of rates, which in turn are exacted from the nation at large, the only pecuniary support the nation lends to the

Church for its endowments are of private origin as strictly as those of an hospital or an alms-house. We have sometimes amused ourselves with thinking what would be the amount of fees which the other learned professions would receive for the discharge of offices such as these-the time, the mileage, the material, all taken into strict account; the daily life of a clergyman, it should be remembered, being, in fact, the daily life of a professional man of the best education in great practice.

LITURGICAL HINTS.-No. XVI. "Understandest thou what thou readest?"-Acts, viii. 30.

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT.

THE COLLECT for this Sunday is one of that class which were retained from ancient liturgies at the Reformation, and is a prayer for deliverance from, and support under, afflictions. The original Latin collect is found in Gregory's Sacramentary, and stands as follows: "We pray thee, Almighty God, mercifully regard thy family, that, by thy bounty, they may be governed in body; and, by thy preservation, may be kept in their souls." This prayer bears a very near resemblance to the collect for the second Sunday in Lent. We there implored Almighty God to keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls.' Here we beseech him mercifully to look upon his people, that, by his great goodness, they may be governed and preserved evermore both in body and soul.' Notwithstanding, however, the apparent similarity in the two collects, there is in this an allusion to the situation in which we stand towards God, as a people toward their king and governor, which gives it peculiar force, and opens to us a field for much instructive and comforting meditation. We make our appeal to God as being his people; We beseech thee, Almighty God, mercifully to look upon thy people.' It was this plea which the Israelites of old, God's special and peculiar people, urged in their petitions to him: Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people.' And it is this plea, which the Christian is privileged to present in a sense as strict as that in which the Jew offered his: Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God.' The petition which, as his people, we present unto God is, that by his great goodness we may be governed and preserved evermore both in body and soul. The great stay of the soul is the 'goodness of God:' upon this it falls back with perfect confidence that he will give us all things that are profitable for us. The goodness of God endureth continually :' 'Gracious is the Lord and righteous, yea, our God is merciful.' The blessing which we seek is, indeed, a comprehensive one; but not too large for the goodness of God, or, rather, for the good God to bestow. will govern and preserve his people evermore, both in body and soul.' He has promised to 'govern' them. Obey my voice,' he said to his ancient people, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you' (Jer. vii. 23). He has promised to preserve' them too; as the apostle knew, to his great comfort, when he said, 'The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom.' His government and preservation of his people shall extend to all their wants, temporal and spiritual, for it is both of their body and soul.' The prayer of the Church in this comprehensive form is precisely that of St. Paul for a Church he had planted,-the Church of Thessalonica,

He

-to whom he says, I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Surely, in contemplating such blessings bestowed upon God's people, we have abundant cause for earnestness in ascertaining whether we be of that number. Assuredly, in time past,' by nature and practice, we were not a people :' are we now the people of God? If so, we are happy; for blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance; and he himself hath said, 'My people shall never be ashamed.""

The Church is now drawing near to that period when she commemorates the death of Christ; she has, therefore, appointed for this day's EPISTLE a passage from the epistle to the Hebrews, where the apostle shews that "Christ's body is the antitype to, and therefore excels, the tabernacle of the old dispensation." "Christ being come an High-Priest of good things to come,-that is to say, of all the spiritual and eternal blessings of the Gospel-covenant, has, by a new fabric, even that of his own body, entered into heaven, the real holy of holies, and this by his own blood; which was, indeed, typified by the blood of bulls and of goats, but was infinitely more precious. This he did, not for one year only, but "once for all;" and has made an annual entrance for ever unnecessary, since he has obtained eternal redemption for us." For if the blood of the Old Testament sacrifices extended to "the purifying of the flesh," that is, freed the outward man from ceremonial uncleanness and from temporal punishment, how far greater must be the efficacy of the "blood of Christ," who, being without any sinful blemish, either of nature or life, offered himself, through the power of the Holy Ghost, as a propitiatory sacrifice to God! This blood cleanses the conscience from the defilement, not of touching a dead body, which made a man legally unclean, but of dead works, --works proceeding from a state of spiritual death, and tending to death eternal, and enables us to serve the living God in a lively manner. "And for this cause" Christ "is the Mediator of the new testament," for these two purposes: to redeem those spiritual debtors who have forfeited their liberty by the transgressions they have committed against the law, or "first testament ;" and to qualify those who are "called" to receive the promise of an eternal inheritance.

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The GOSPEL is a part of our Lord's discourse with the unbelieving Jews, in which he asserts his authority and dignity. "Which of you convinceth me of sin ?" asks our Lord. "If I have done any thing that makes me unworthy of belief, why do not some of you convict me of it? And, if my doctrine itself be worthy of belief, why do ye not believe me?" "If your claim of relation to God were not groundless, ye would hear his words; but your being thus deaf and dead to the words of God, is a plain evidence that ye are not of God. Enraged at being thus convicted of obstinate unbelief, they accused him of being a Samaritan, and having a devil;' ill-affected to their church and nation, and in league with Beelzebub. Jesus mildly clears himself from their wicked imputations, asserts the sincerity of his intentions, and shews the wrong they did him by their calumnies: he further tells them, There is one that judgeth,' who will vindicate my honour, and reckon with those that trample upon it. Our Lord then lays down the doctrine of the immortality of believers (v. 51), which they understanding of an immortality in this world, accused Jesus of being governed by a lying spirit, because Abraham and the prophets, who had kept the word of God, were dead. He yet solemnly persists in appealing to his Father, and his Father's testimony of him; and asserts that their father Abraham, in whom they boasted, had a prospect of him, and respect to him. When the Jews

• James on the Collects.

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cavilled at this, and reproached him for it, Jesus solemnly asserted his seniority to Abraham: Before Abraham was, I am.'"* "Had the existence of our blessed Saviour been measured by time, as is that of all created beings, he must have said, Before Abraham was, I was; but his words are, Before Abraham was, I am; thus using the same expression of himself which the eternal God does at Exod. iii. 14, and hereby demonstrating himself to be the same God who there said, I AM THAT I AM."

BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATIONS.-No. I.
The Latter Rain. ↑

"Ask ye of the Lord rain, in the time of the latter rain."
Zech. x. 1.

"THE latter rain" is an expression which occurs frequently in Scripture, and appears sometimes to be used in a literal, and sometimes in a spiritual, sense. First, in a literal, it signifies that periodical return of showers which took place in the course of nature, and by the dispositions of Providence, immediately before the time of harvest in the regions of ancient Palestine, as the first or former rain fell about seed-time in spring seasons which, in the eastern parts, are nearly transposed-for the former rain fell in the Jewish month Marchesvan, which nearly answers to part of our September and October, their seed-time; and the latter rain fell in the month Nisan, the first month of their ecclesiastical year, answering to part of March and April, some time before their harvest; and it has been remarked by Dr. Shaw, and other travellers in the East, that such rains continue still nearly periodical, as of old.

Amongst the temporal promises made to the Jews, as blessings which should follow their obedience, a very remarkable one is recorded concerning this distinction of the land of Canaan, and the grant or promise of this rain to the Israelites: "The land whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt from whence ye came out, where thou sowest thy seed, and waterest it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: but the land whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven; a land which the Lord thy God careth for; the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments, which I command you this day, to love the Lord thy God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your land in due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil."

(Deut. xi. 10-14.)

A denunciation was added, that, in case the people turned to idolatry, the heavens should be shut, and there should be no rain; and thus, when the prophet Jeremiah speaks of the adultery of Judah, it is written, "Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain." (Jer. iii. 3.)

Rain is used in Scripture in a spiritual or figurative sense, for the communication of the word of God, and

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the gracious influences of his Spirit to the Church, called by the apostle "God's husbandry." Thus by Moses, My doctrine shall drop as the rain; my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass" (Deut. xxxii. 2). Again (Psalm lxviii. 9), "Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance when it was weary:" and most distinctly in Is. lv. 10, "As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall my word be, that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." The chapter closes with a figurative declaration of the blessings attendant upon, and the change produced in, those who receive the word.

The latter rain, however, seems to be that which, in a spiritual sense, was most esteemed, as the former, in a literal acceptation, without the latter, would be deficient and unproductive.

The Cabinet.

THE INTERCESSION OF CHRIST. It is indeed a blessed and glorious thing to know that there is an unseen temple, not made with hands, wherein the work of intercession is perpetually carried on for us who are but sinful dust and ashes. But still more blessed is it to be assured, that the Priest who ministereth there, though, unlike the sons of Aaron, he was free from any taint of sin, is yet like them in this, that "he can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way;" for that he himself hath also been compassed with infirmity. He knew the anguish of being assailed by our temptations, though he knew nothing of the dishonour of being defeated by their power. He went through more than all the bitterness of our struggles, though he went through them always with victory. Here then is the ground on which the Christian loves to take his stand. Here is the prospect which reveals heaven unto him as indeed the dwelling-place of love. We know that we have a Mediator at the right hand of the Father, who in his own person unites all the sympathies of man with all the purity and perfection of God. Where then is our dread, and where our failure of heart, when we behold in the form of a brother Him who was the only begotten of the FaYes; ther, the express image of the invisible God? the fulness of the divine grace and truth hath shone upon us; but it hath shone upon us in the mild aspect of a human countenance; it hath spoken to us with a human voice; it hath even wept human tears, and hath felt and suffered, if we may so speak, with a human heart. And thus it is that all the tenderest emotions of carth and all the most exalted attributes of heaven seem to have made a blessed league for our consolation. If it were given to man to look on uncreated majesty and brightness, instead of lifting up the voice of praise and thanksgiving, he would be unable even to whisper out of the dust, in the accents of penitence and prayer; for who shall behold the face of God, and live? But to look upon God in Christ is a privilege which giveth life instead of death. It is this, and this only, which can enable us fully to understand the mind of the apostle, who saith that God is love; yea, that loving-kindness and compassion form, as it were, the very essence of his nature.—Rev. C. W. Le Bas.