(8.) THE PRACTICAL USE OF THE DOCTRINE. We would now close with a few practical remarks. The personal, holy, and spiritnal use of a doctrine, is one great end for which the scriptures reveal it, and it is what immediately and especially concerns the children of God. All scriptural doctrines are practical, quickening, and sanctifying. If this be a scriptural doctrine, it is light for our paths, it is armour for our defence, it is food for our nourishment, and it is strength for our duties. (1.) But first, for the author's own sake, and for the sake of those readers who may have entered into these views, he would say, let us distinctly discern and be aware of THE DANGER OF MISTAKING KNOWLEDGE FOR SAVING GRACE: or of thinking that a discernment of the signs of the times is that preparation for them to which our Lord calls us, as the sure means of escaping those things which shall come to pass. O how easy it is to be filled with the interest of a great and exciting truth, and to maintain it intellectually and scripturally; and yet unless the Holy Spirit use it for our sanctification, bringing it home to the conscience, and by his inward teaching and energy making it really mighty to touch the heart and quicken the life,-the interest may but blind the mind, destroy spiritual sensibility, and leave us more hardened and unimpressible. True it is all scriptural knowledge is valuable and important, but happiness is not given till we join the practice with the knowledge. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. The apostle supposes the possibility of the highest attainments in prophecy and knowledge, and shews how vain they are without charity. 1 Cor. xiii. 2. Our Lord shews that those who have prophesied in his name may be workers of iniquity, and required to depart from him. Matt. vii. 22. God give then to us who know and believe his faithfulness to the literal Israel, and expect their restoration with all its accompanying momentous events, grace to be sensible of this danger, and to live in the spirit of humility, watchfulness, and holy obedience. May we ever bear in mind that knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth, and hence seek especially to be filled with love to our differing brethren. The practical lessons to be drawn from this subject are numerous, and we can only glance at a few. For (2.) GRATITUDE FOR THE PRESENT MERCIES OF THE GENTILE DISPENSATION is the first practical duty which the review of God's dealings to Jews and Gentiles should excite in our minds. So the apostle felt when he closed this review with, I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Romans xii. 1. what a lengthened period have the Gentile churches been favoured with the rich dispensations of God's grace! For 1800 years the gospel has been freely proclaimed, and we have been admitted to all the privileges of the favoured seed of Abraham. Eph.ii.13. Gal. iii. 28, 29. This is wholly from the grace and loving-kindness of God taking occasion, through the fall of the Jews to send salvation to us Gentiles. Rom. xi. 11. Acts xxviii. 26-28. O that we duly valued this inestimable goodness, and heartily prized this abundance of grace to us! (3.) REAL HUMILITY UNDER OUR ADVANTAGES is also enforced hence, by the apostle Paul. He charges us, Boast not against the branches; but if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The root was broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear. Rom. xi. 18-20. It is altogether owing to sovereign grace that we have been admitted to the covenant of promise, and we stand in this grace simply through faith in Jesus. We have none to glory in but one, our Divine Redeemer. All we have, we received through him. Deep, unfeigned, constant lowliness and humility, is our true and right state of mind. (4.) THE DILIGENT IMPROVEMENT OF THE PRESENT PASSING SEASON OF GRACE should be powerfully impressed upon us. How very near the truth came to the Jewish nation! The Lord Jesus Christ himself with mighty miracles appeared among them; the holy apostles were called from the midst of them, the first church in its beauty arose in Jerusalem, and yet they knew not the day of their visitation. Grace has been extended to us in a similar manner, for a season, under an example of just severity to the Jews for the abuse of it, and with a solemn warning of a similar issue to us if we neglect it. Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God! On them which fell severity, but towards thee goodness, if thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou shalt be cut off. Rom. xi. 2. How, awakening, then, are our motives to give all diligence to make our calling and election sure. 2 Pet. i. 10. How should we listen to the earnest entreaty not to receive the grace of God in vain! 2 Cor. vi. 1. God spared not, says the apostle, the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Rom. xi. 21. How extensively and how fearfully these plain and solemn warnings are neglected throughout Christendom is but too manifest in the present state of the Gentile churches! * O Christian reader, let us see * The testimony the Roman Catholic Dublin Review for November, 1840, gives of the impure character of the modern French Romances is very affecting. "We defy Lucifer himself to outdo the French Romancers of the present day. So great is the influence exercised by this portion of French literature in Europe, and it has so many readers in all countries, we will surmount our strong repugnance in order to forewarn the public against the moral cholera which our Gallic neighbours are spreading far and wide, aided as they are by the to it that we also are not like the Jews, among those who know not, in this their day, the things belonging to their peace. mercantile avidity of the Belgian booksellers. They it is who supply Russia and Spain, Peru and the Brazils; they propagate the moral gangrene engendered in France; and in the sordid hope of a paltry profit, they become the most active and dangerous allies in the crusade against all that is good and all that is holy. Even England has not escaped this commerce, which on the contrary has latterly become more extensive; in the leading ranks of our Socialists the majority are indebted for their present principles to these works." "If in every country literature expresses the true state of contemporary society, these novels afford a sad specimen of the present state of morality in France. Bonaparte felt the necessity of putting a stop to this torrent-the restoration gave to all parties the liberty of which they had been deprived under the imperial government." The Reviewer shews how these writers pander to the prevailing taste of the people (and thus illustrate their general character), their wretched bondage, and the miserable wages of their iniquity. There are happily a great proportion of Romanists and Protestants free from the contagion. In his 'Voice from the Alps' and 'Sermons on the State of France,' the author has endeavoured to direct his readers to the best means of diffusing pure Christian truth in these countries. On the 31st of December, 1840, the French King, in his reply to the Archbishop of Paris, expressed his hope that "respect for religion, morality and virtue is still the feeling of the immense majority." While the King of the French expresses this hope of his people, in the L'Espérance, published at Paris, January 1, 1841, there is a striking article respecting the newspapers of the previous fortnight, when there had been so large and general an excitement, and so much said respecting the obsequies of Napoleon; but it is remarked, “Not an article, not a paragraph, not a phrase, not a word expressing the hope that the higher part of the Emperor still exists. No where the doctrine of the immortality of the soul; an unbroken silence upon it....a manifest and fearful avowal of the most perfect materialism. In spite of the magnificent assertions of some priests who are in raptures on the religious awakening of France, materialism, complete, gross, selfsufficient, not deigning to dispute with spirituality, because this antagonist seems too feeble, too mean for its powerful arms-this is our present state, this is the moral condition of the country." The perilous times of the last days (2 Tim. iii. 1-5.) are too manifest on all sides. To the author the most affecting view of these obsequies has been, seeing in them the national accrediting and adopting of all the monstrous ambition, vanity, oppression, cruelty, hypocrisy and contempt of God, which marked the whole course of the destructive triumphs of that dreadfully subtle and wicked man. Truly the French have shewn nationally after all the misery thereby inflicted and endured and after a respite of judgments for twenty years, still it is true of h |