"Except a | through our Lord Jesus Christ." This, dear reader, is another portion of the now, or it may be never. man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 1. To enter heaven at death, you must be brought to hate sin in life.—Alas! by nature we all love sin, and roll it as a sweet morsel under our tongue. But the wages of sin is death, What! love that which works in us death? Yet such is human depravity. Nay, and to be rescued from this fearful destroyer, to have his charm broken, his power conquered, it is not enough that we resolve to reform. No! the heart must be changed. This is the work of the Spirit of God. To obtain the Spirit's agency, the way to the Father is open through the blood of his own dear Son; so that the vilest sinner who asks, receives. Then, when God's Spirit is given, sin is seen to be exceeding sinful. We hate it. We long to be freed from it. We are no longer happy in its ways. O to be saved from sin! becomes the sinner's cry. This is the first vital step in true religion, namely, to see sin so as to hate it. Oh! is it your state? Let conscience speak. For, indeed, if you are living in the constant practice of any known sin, you are yet without God and without hope in the world. You are on the way to hell. Only think of being on the way to hell! Repeat it to yourself, "I am on the way to hell." Repeat it when you sin, "I am on the way to hell." Repeat it as you neglect prayer, the house of God, the duties of religion, "I am on the way to hell." Can you bear the thought? Flee whilst the Saviour waits. O, hate sin, which brings death. Come to the Saviour and live! 2. To enter heaven at death, you must be reconciled to God in life.-"How can two walk together unless they are agreed?" Heaven is a land of love, where all hearts are united to each other, because all hearts are united to God. None can enter heaven but such as are fit to enjoy its harmony and participate in its peace. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, 66 new life." We are made to love. But being once changed from a love of sin to a hatred of it, to be saved, we must be led, in the appointed way, which is through Christ Jesus, to the love of the truth, and to peace with God. This is a portion of " new life," because, formerly, in loving sin we hated God. O how awful, yet how true! Now, in hating sin, we are led by God's Spirit to love God. Well, indeed, may this change be called "life from the dead." Reader, is this your condition? Do you love God? Have you made your peace with God? Can you say of the Saviour, "My Beloved is mine?" If you can, you are on your way to heaven. Nay; the very life of heaven is begun within you. Thrice happy state! Death has no sting for you. Beyond death, your home--your heaven, awaits you. But, oh! if you have not this reconciliation with God, you are on your way to hell. Yea, the very ele ment of hell is now within you. You are at enmity with God. Your continuance in sin makes Him your enemy. The Highest of all in the universe is your enemy. The wrath of God abideth on you. The continuance of this is hell. This is the wrath to come, and the wrath which is ever to come. Flee before it is too late; flee, or you die. The abiding wrath of God on the sinner is "the second death." Now, or you may never have the opportunity, turn to the Saviour, seek peace through his blood, believe and live. 3. To enter heaven at death, you must be prepared for heaven in life.—“ Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people." The converted sinner must be sanctified. The believer must be "made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light." The life of Christ in the believer's soul is at first the life of a "babe;" by degrees it is matured into manhood in the Lord. But to enter heaven, this life must be perfected. This perfected life is "new life" in the affections, loving the perfect God; is new life in the mind, adorably engaged in his reasonable service; is new life in the life, having foregone all attachment to sin, in perfect love to the Lord and to his truth, rejoicing for ever in his presence and worship; is, in one word, "the new creature in Christ Jesus," through the Spirit and by the truth, become "a saint made perfect." Then, ah then! there is a heaven in the soul, a heaven in the presence of God, and a heaven in the society of the blessed. O reader, is your state a growing conformity to the Saviour? Is the world loosened to you, and you to the world? Is the Saviour your all? Is heaven becoming a blessed hope in your soul, which you long to possess as a reality? Happy are ye. Soon everlasting blessedness will be yours. But, if this is not your case-if, instead of growing in likeness to Christ, you are growing in conformity to the world, in love to sin, in attachment to the society of the sinful and lost, your state is awful beyond all language to describe. You are living in a house that is in flames, and that will soon be burnt up. Flee! the fire is seizing upon you. Its flames smoke and kindle around your soul. O flee! or you are ruined. Hear a warning voice. Dear reader, seek the Lord, and live. commanded by Joab, he carried letters from the king to the captain of the host. These letters, Uriah imagined, were for his promotion to rank and honour; but, in reality, they conveyed a command for his death, ordering Joab to place him in the first rank, and where he was certain to fall. Uriah thus carried his own condemnation—a letter of death. To the despiser, every sermon, every religious tract, every Christian advice, will be such a letter. Solemn thought! Your very privileges now will increase your punishment hereafter. "Your good things" now will add to your deprivation and sorrow hereafter. Think of the value of your immortal soul; reflect on the fearful price, in tears, and agony, and blood, paid by the Saviour, to redeem the soul. Think of the loss of the soul, and what you would give in exchange for the soul. Think of everlasting torments, as the fate of a lost immortal soul. And then, O then, in an agony of earnestness, fice to the Redeemer, seek the blessings of the "new birth,” be not hindered by aught the earth can offer, remember all in time must perish, remember you are born for ETERNITY. And oh! may this little messenger, at the day of judgment, in your blessed experience, instead of proving a letter of condemnation, turn out to be a "Lesson of Life." You remember, doubtless, when Uriah | was sent by David to join the army AMEN. ORIGINAL LETTERS OF THE REV JOHN NEWTON TO A No. III. SIR,-The remembrance of the anxieties of my own mind formerly, with respect to the point which at present exercises yours, awakens in me a sympathy for you, which will not suffer me to delay answering your letter. It is very desirable to have a comfortable and clear sense of our call to the ministry. It is a service full of trials and difficulties; but if we see ourselves engaged in it by the will of our Lord, then we are encouraged to hope for his presence and support to bear us through. But if we are dubious upon this head, the enemy will try to persuade us that the trials we meet with are scourges which the Lord appoints to punish our presumption for breaking through the lines of his providence, and venturing upon a service for which we were not designed. I would premise, that full satisfaction in this case, or in any other case, which concerns the peace of our minds, can only be obtained from the Lord. I trust you wait upon Him for it by prayer. Whenever He pleases, He can make it plain to you. He can do it by a single glance of thought. And if you had the approbation of a thousand casuists, and were to read folios upon the subject, you could not attain the confirmation you desire, any farther than He is pleased to affix His own seal upon your spirit. And though He could do this, as I said, in a moment, yet ordinarily He leads his servants on in a gradual and progressive manner to certainty. And even the fears, doubts, and temptations, they pass through for a time, do in the issue tend to their establishment, and to give them the stronger conviction that it was He himself who wrought in them both to will and to do. And though the persuasion itself must come from Him, yet as he works by means, he often helps us by the advices and observations of others. I shall be glad and thankful if He puts a word in my way that may assist you. you have of your own views. It should seem, as things are in this day, a person influenced by the love of gain, might be expected to turn his thoughts almost to anything sooner than the ministry. But a desire of reputation or popularity, though not usually deemed mercenary motives, equally proceed from, and terminate in self. Thoughts of this kind may occasionally intrude themselves upon any person, but they who are worthy of the ministry abhor and renounce them, as most abominable, and are able to appeal even to the Lord himself, that their highest and only allowed aim is, to be instrumental to the promoting of his glory and the good of souls. From the strain of your letters, I am persuaded this is your desire. If so, you may with comfort look upon it as a further evidence of your call. It is probable that at different seasons you have a very different feeling with regard to the ministry; at one time, perhaps, much encouraged, at another fluctuating. Now if you find that when your frames are lowest and languid in other respects, you are most perplexed about your call, but that in your golden hours, when you can get nearest the Lord, are most humbled before him, and are favoured with most liberty at the throne of grace, your desires are then the most fervent to be employed in his service, this you may reasonably consider as a further evidence that the desire is from Himself, for at such a time you are in the least danger of being under the influence of your own spirit. The very doubts and fears you speak of are rather favourable than otherwise, as I suppose and hope they in a great measure proceed from a sense of the importance, honour, and difficulty of the work, compared with the feeling you have of your own unworthiness, weakness, and insufficiency. Besides, if the Lord has called you, Satan will doubtless be at your right hand to discourage and resist you; whereas, if you were rushing into the ministry of your own A call from the Lord will be always head, the enemy would not, as I appre- accompanied with a suitable competency hend, disturb you; for he would have of ministerial gifts; for He sends none little to fear from you. He knows that without a message, and some ability to no unsent minister can greatly shake deliver it. But perhaps you will not his kingdom. Nor would you in this find much help from this, particularly at case have such a sense of the greatness present. For, in the first place, you are of the work as to make you tremble. not, nay, you never will be, a proper For what we undertake in our own judge of your own gifts: this must be spirits, we generally think ourselves referred to the judgment of others. And, equal to, and are not apt to say with secondly, what you may hereafter know the apostle, "Who is sufficient for these of your own gifts, will be hidden from things?" you till you come to exercise them. You Much depends upon the consciousness may deem yourself unable before the VOL. XXXII. T trial, and then find yourself happily mistaken; for the Lord will not, perhaps, give you a stock beforehand to depend upon, for that would lessen your dependence upon him. As your day is, so your strength shall be. Therefore, when the day of service arrives, you will hardly think yourself possessed of the strength it will require. If you thought you had a sufficiency now, I should fear your meeting with a disappointment then. Time, and the openings of Divine Providence, will be necessary to satisfy you fully. Hitherto the Lord has led you. He has owned your desire, by putting you in the way of its accomplishment. Wait for the rest. When you have finished your studies, when you enter on the work, when you shall see a place prepared for you, when you shall find His word from your mouth blessed to the edification of his people and the awakening of sinners, then all your scruples will be answered. Till then, perhaps, you may be more or less harassed by them. Remember it is said," He that believeth shall not make haste." I could have enlarged farther, had my paper allowed more room. I hope this may suffice. I commend you to the Lord's blessing, and remain, Sir, Your affectionate Servant, HINTS TO THOSE DISSENTERS WHO NEED THEM. MR. EDITOR,-Allow me through the medium of your valuable Magazine to make known to your numerous readers, with a view of eradicating it, an evil existing at the present time in almost every Christian congregation in the land; I allude to the position of persons in our chapels during the time of divine prayer. For instance, in visiting some sanctuaries, I find a part of the congregation standing with their backs turned to the minister, and others standing with their faces to him. At other places I have seen, during prayer-time, some persons sitting with their faces to the minister, whilst others have been sitting with their backs to him. Some I have seen kneeling, others bending down with their heads on the pews, whilst others have actually been talking and sitting cross-legged at ease during the interval. Now, is not this state of things wrong, and is it not calculated to bring a disgrace upon the Christian character? Surely it is wrong; and the sooner it is obviated the better, for both pastor and people. I would suggest that, during the time of prayer, one uniform position should be observed by the whole congregation. I am, Mr. Editor, Yours obediently, Kent. RICARDO. But here a blessed balm appears, To heal the deepest woe; And those who seek this Book in tears, Their tears shall cease to flow. LINES WRITTEN ON THE FLY LEAF OF A CHINESE TESTAMENT. Go, little book, across the belted main, To where a kingdom lit by eastern skies, From peopled city, unto teeming plain, In darkness lies. Go as an advocate, the cause to win ; Go as a child, to call the stranger in, For not within the compass of their state LINES WRITTEN BY A NAVAL OFFICER, ON HIS BECOMING TOTALLY BLIND, FROM EXPOSURE IN HIS DUTY. LORD, in thy wisdom and thy might, Thine hand hath closed these orbs of sight, No more to see the sun. And let thy will be done. O wean my heart from earthly care; Let ill or weal betide. Pardon, O God, by grace divine, They have no prophecies that speak of Those debts for which my plea alone Him, Is, Lord, I have nought to pay. And when the appointed time shall come, Then may my spirit mount on high; Go, with the types that through all ages And stand and bow among the throng, Join in the high angelic song, And worship with them there. Burning with love's celestial fires, The loftiest hymns aloud declare, And then, O God, these darken'd eyes Shall cloudless see, amid the skies, The Saviour's form divine: With Him a sinless life to live; Blessings which thou alone canst give, And all the praise be Thine. BARTIMEUS. Greenwich, 14th March, 1854. |