The Almighty cannot create intelligent beings without manifesting, by the very act, wisdom and power; and after they are created, their happiness as well as his own glory, require that he should govern them according to the unchangeable principles of justice, truth, and goodness. In the case of moral defection, the criminals naturally fall under the weight of punitive justice; what the law of their creation denounces, that, of course, they are doomed to endure; and all that they can possibly know of the character of God, as the good and righteous Governor of the universe, can only induce in them "a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation." | Hopes derived from the general notion of the goodness and placability of God, as they are certainly contradicted by his justice, and may be altogether repugnant to his wisdom; may be, and if the Divine veracity is regarded, must be utterly fallacious. Whether mercy will be exercised or not can only be ascertained by a special revelation. It is altogether beyond the province of reason, and, à priori, it would be utterly impossible for the most exalted beings who are best acquainted with the Divine character, even to imagine, from the moral system of the universe, whether mercy would follow upon the rebellion of any race of creatures, and if it should follow, how or in what manner it would be exercised. Reason tells us all, that this must be a matter of direct communication from God, and that sinners can have no rational ground to expect pardon and acceptance from an offended Deity without a specific revelation from himself announcing the glad tidings.

Now it is the peculiar glory of the gospel that it is such a revelation. Its sacred records unequivocally assure us, that "God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing to men their trespasses." They moreover proclaim: "Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." They even go farther still,

and demand for the scheme of mercy, which they develop, the high distinction of being the brightest display of all the moral attributes of the Divinity: "It became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." And throughout, they distinctly and fully maintain, that the salvation they reveal is through the medium of atonement, by the vicarious death of an illustrious Victim provided by God, devoting himself, and receiving in restored life, the throne of the universe, and the inconceivable happiness of millions of redeemed sinners, a full compensation for all the shame which he despised and the cross which he endured. To whatever objections this statement may be liable, and however sinners who now refuse to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, deride this provision of mercy, there is no other that pretends to the least certainty; there is no other that affords the slightest intimation of pardon; and if this is to be rejected there remains no other to be embraced,-there is no more sacrifice for sin. But what is there in this great redeeming sacrifice, the best gift of Infinite love to a guilty world, to call forth the scorn and contempt of unbelievers? Is it because it declares that to be certain which reason could only conjecture?— that it offers to relieve the direst misery of man, where all other specifics had utterly failed?-that it furnishes an invariable ground of hope, where all before was mutable?—that it upholds the rights and prerogatives of the eternal throne, while it displays and imparts all the treasures of infinite love?-and that it has proved a divine and all-sufficient source of comfort to the penitent sinner, while at the same time it has cleansed his heart from moral pollution, and raised him to enjoy the communion and the felicities of

heaven?

5. In the last place, allow me to introduce the doctrine of immortality, of future rewards and punishments, that

grand palladium of piety and virtue, as the crowning evidence in proof of the Divine inspiration of the record which makes it known.

The ideas of accountableness and futurity are part of that intuitive religion which is interwoven with the constitution of our nature. Yet we know that the apprehension of them was very obscure and feeble under the reign of Paganism; by the most numerous and popular sects of the ancient philosophers they were rejected; and the best and wisest could rise no higher than to a fond if or a timid conjecture. Yet is there a circumstance of daily and hourly occurrence, which must deeply impress us, and render it infinitely desirable, that if anything can be known of an hereafter, it should be imparted. That circumstance is death. Whether death is an eternal sleep, or whether it introduces us to another state of existence, it is an awful thing to die. It is very certain that reason is not able to demonstrate an immortal state of happiness or misery beyond the grave. The probabilities are all in its favour; but we want more decisive evidence; and the want increases to agony as we apprehend the approach of death to ourselves. What mankind are indebted to the ancient philosophers, to Jesus Christ, and to modern infidels, will appear from the following allegory, and which is no fable:

There is a country whose shores are perpetually haunted by a mysterious ship from some far-distant and unknown land. Its arrival never fails to inspire the inhabitants with dread and terror; for an armed band on every visit ravages the whole territory, and seizes innumerable victims of all ranks, of every age, and of each sex. Such was the case for ages, before any effort was made to repel the invaders. All submitted with silent awe; one generation was taken away, -another, and another, and no one

Those who may be disposed to question the originality of this conception, are requested to compare it with the first suggestion in "Trcmaine."

knew whither the reluctant voyagers were bound; for no one ever returned to report to his fellows his own or their destination. Yet the ship was ever and anon anchoring in the harbour, and always departed with the spoils of humanity. The noble, the youthful, the wise, the witty, and the gay; the rich and the poor, the tyrant and the slave; the mother and the tender infant at her bosom. During a succession of ages, curiosity was intensely excited; the profound speculated; the benevolent searched, and searched in vain, for hope; the wise, the grave, and the learned, all strove to allay the universal anxiety and to soothe their own hearts under the appalling assurance, that they too must obey the inexorable mandate, and be launched upon that ocean, where, for ought they knew, their entire species would, sooner or later, be engulfed. As these venerable sages retired, unable to solve the enigma, or to tell anything satisfactory, either of the ship or of the fate of those it was daily and hourly forcing from their native shores, A MILD FORM OF HUMANITY, meek in wisdom, with the light of heaven radiating his brow, and the tenderness of the softest compassion touching and animating his features, was seen advancing; his voice of majesty hushed all the wailings of the bereaved and the sorrowing. He allayed every fear. The ship, he said, belonged to the country from whence he came, where he had long dwelt; that the multitudes which had been for so many generations the captives of its power, were removed to permanent habitations, where they were happy or miserable, according to the characters they had formed and sustained in the society from whence they had been taken; that the happiness of the good and virtuous was inconceivable, and the misery of the vicious and the bad was just in proportion to their guilt; but that both were placed in an unchangeable state; that he had the power of so preparing them all for that mysterious voyage; that if they would place themselves under his

guidance and protection, he would secure their cordial reception in those realms of blessedness from whence he had come, and to which he was about to return; that he had absolute authority, both over the ship and the ministe of destiny which were so often making their incursions among them; that before their eyes he would go and return the veritable being he stood before them; and that his principal object in visiting them was to make them ardently desire and long for the voyage they had hitherto contemplated with so much dismay. At the close of his address heaven opened, and a voice from the excellent glory, said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." All manner of diseases fled at his bidding; the dead were raised; and evil spirits at his rebuke vanished into the outer darkness. From the voyage which he said he would take he did not shrink; and on a tempestuous night, when such a storm as earth nor ocean ever witnessed before or since, raged with a fury which threatened the wreck of nature itself, he embarked, and on the third day returned, while a thousand harmonies rolled along the glorious anthem which hailed the Deliverer of men, under the endearing character of "the Resurrection and the Life."

But what means the rabble rout who have grotesquely assumed the toga of philosophy, while, in their moral qualities, they betray their affinity to the

fabled satyrs of an exploded superstition? Hurrying forward to meet the ship at its next visitation, who is it they insult with their ribaldry? Can it be the great Teacher who has calmed the fears and inspired the hopes of so many millions of our race? Is he, and the light which he has poured upon the dark ocean of futurity, the object of their contumely and scorn? Is it the star by which this ship of heaven tracks its way over the pathless deep and arrives so surely at its destined port, which provokes the hootings of these birds of night? Is it their ambition to extinguish every light in the great cemetery of human nature, and to leave nothing radiant but their own inscription on its portals proclaiming death to be "an eternal sleep;" but which the moanings, and fitful sighs, and the groans of agonised spirits coming from out the darkness, contradict and belie, and which find their echo in those bosoms in which there is "a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation ?" another touch be added to this scene? Philosophy without the Scriptures is no guide into futurity. Infidelity against the Scriptures is not merely a mistaken guide, but a desperate and malignant foe. On all these grounds, therefore, we claim for the Scriptures a Divine origin. They are the inspiration of the Most High;-the glorious revelation of his wisdom, purity, and love. Foleshill.

Need

J. S.

WHAT is prayer? It is not a devout attitude; it is not prostration of body, or uplifted hands, or a set form of phraseology. There may be all these without prayer. "Prayer," says the excellent Hannah More, "is the application of want to him who alone can relieve it; the voice of sin to him alone who can pardon it; it is the urgency of poverty, the prostration of humility, the fervency of penitence, the confidence of trust; it is not eloquence, but earnestness; not

the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not the figures of speech, but compunction of soul; it is the Lord save us, we perish!' of drowning Peter; the cry of faith to the ear of mercy. Prayer is desire: it is not a conception of the mind, nor a mere effort of the intellect, nor an act of the memory; but an elevation of the soul towards its Maker,a pressing sense of our ignorance and infirmity,-a consciousness of the perfections of God, of his readiness to hear, of

to prayer! God has never said to the seeking seed of Jacob, "Seek ye me in vain." He has never failed those who have called upon him in faith. Former deliverances should encourage us to trust in him. "His arm is not shortened, that he cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that he cannot hear." He is not, like Baal, talking or pursuing, or on a journey, or asleep. "He that keepeth Israel, neither slumbers nor sleeps." Think of his ability: "He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think." Consider his willingness: "Prove me now herewith, and see if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room to contain it." "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Wherefore, ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you; for every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." What encouragements parents have to pray for their children! Samuel, Timothy, Augustine, Doddridge, had each a praying mother; and what eminent characters they were? Manasseh had a praying father; and though an answer to those prayers was

long delayed, it came at last: "Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God." Prayer can be heard from all places: Jonah prayed in the belly of the fish; Daniel, in the lion's den; Paul and Silas, in prison; the psalmist says, "From the ends of the earth will I cry unto thee." How numerous are the objects of prayer: our beloved country, the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom, the conversion of the Jews, the ingathering of the gentiles, our civil and religious institutions, the afflicted, our friends and relatives, and ourselves; but in all our approaches to the throne of grace, we should remember that Christ is the medium: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me." "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, believing, ye shall receive."

While there are thousands who never bow the knee in prayer, it is the Christian's highest privilege. He knows what it is to exclaim with the psalmist, "It is good for me to draw near to God." Prayer is the very life and soul of the Christian the element in which he breathes.

"Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air;
His watchword at the gates of death.
He enters heaven by prayer."

I. Is the blood of sprinkling which cleanseth from all sin signified in baptism ?

after truth. Much has been said on the mode and subjects of baptism, but we wish more to be said on its vitality-on its spiritual signification-on its present and everlasting advantages. By meditating on these, we shall not be less concerned to understand, and to value, and to improve by God's blessed Spirit the outward and visible sign. Many of our young friends need instruction on these points, and are anxious to receive it. Let us then inquire,

is vital. "Without shedding of blood there is no remission," Heb. ix. 22. And without an application of this blood by the eternal Spirit, our consciences cannot be purged from dead works, to serve the true and living God, Heb. ix. 14. "Let us, then, draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water," Heb. x. 22. But is this blood of sprinkling signified in baptism? Is baptism