which worketh repentance unto life," as contrasted with that "sorrow of the world, which worketh death."

2. "Sin revived." This is marked by the apostle as the direct and immediate effect of the coming of the commandment. One would be apt to suppose, that the coming of the commandment with power and efficacy to the heart would be accompanied rather with the checking and the subduing of sin. No; that belongs not to the commandment, but to the grace of the Gospel. "By the law is the knowledge of sin ;" and thus does the law "become our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." So long as a man remains in the state of Saul of Tarsus, before his conversion,-ignorant of the law in its spirituality and in its power,

to the law, he met with that Saviour whom he had been "wounding in the house of His friends." The Redeemer, while he covered his natural vision with a temporary veil, shed a benignant ray over the hitherto darkened recesses of his understanding and his heart. The eyes of his mind were opened; a new view of his state and character was presented to him. That law whose external forms only had hitherto attracted his notice, was now unfolded to him in its holy spirituality, in its universal obligation, and in its condemning power. Those sins, of heart and of speech, which he formerly held to be no sins at all, or, at he most, very venial acts of transgression, he now saw to be hateful in God's sight. He was .ow convinced that the law, in its spiritual import, demanded a total change of heart, as essen--he is insensible to the existence of sin within tial to the obedience of its precepts; and that nothing short of perfect conformity to these could satisfy its demands. The commandment presented itself to his astonished mind, and was received by him as a transcript of the character of its Author; and, like himself, "holy, just, and good:" and hence he felt himself to be a self-condemned criminal at the bar of infinite justice. The thunder-will sooner or later open before him. When the bolts of heaven seemed to be discharged against him by the agency of "the commandment," and of Him whose commandment it is. Terror and alarm took hold upon him; and all his former refuges of lies were dissipated into air.

It will sometimes happen that "the commandment" comes with great power to the conscience of a sinner whom, nevertheless, it leaves still under the burden of his sin. It comes to the hardened infidel, in his moments of solitude, and tells him, with a force which he cannot evade, that "Verily there is a God who judgeth in the earth." It comes to the victim of intemperance and of licentious indulgence, when stretched on the bed of self-inflicted disease; and "he mourns at the last, when his flesh and his body are consumed." Prov. v. iii. It comes at times to the swearer, the liar, the dishonest man, the Sabbath-breaker, the victim of criminal indulgence, in one or other of its forms; it stands up before them in the array of terror; it speaks conviction to their consciences; while, nevertheless, it leaves "the strong man armed to keep his palace in peace." The reason why the coming of the commandment, in these instances, is not accompanied with a permanent change, it is not difficult to assign. There is all the difference in the world between the alarm which is given by the dread of punishment, and the wholesome fear which is excited in the soul by a sense of the " 'exceeding sinfulness of sin." When the commandment came to Saul of Tarsus, it came indeed to terrify and alarm; but it came also to melt under a sense of sin, and to awaken in his soul the salutary feelings of contrition. It came to him in the plenitude of its power; but it came also in its pure and holy spirituality; and while by the one it called to wholesome trembling, by the other it touched the more tender sensibilities of the soul, and produced "that godly sorrow

him; he does not know that he is a sinner, and that he is obnoxious to the vengeance of Heaven every moment; he is not aware that there are lodged within his soul the active elements of a most destructive and wide-spreading desolation; he is not alive to the existence of sin within him, or to the awful realities of that scene which sin

commandment comes with power and pointed efficacy to him, a new view of sin is unfolded, and that internal foe, who had been charmed by the arts of self-delusion into a temporary repose, revives with new life, and stands forth to view in all the terrors of a most tremendous reality.

There are two ways in which sin may be said to revive under the ministry of the commandment.

1. By the solemn conviction of guilt which it produces in the heart. Saul of Tarsus was equally guilty before as after the coming of the commandment. But then it was the coming of the commandment to him in its spirituality and power that first brought him to see his guilt, and to confess it before God. Occasional convictions might be produced in his conscience; but these were soon and easily effaced. When the law entered into his conscience with light and force, and armed with a terrible denunciation of wrath, it showed him sins of which he had never before been conscious; and those of which he had been conscious, it brought to his remembrance with a fearful sting. Against both it pronounced the sentence of condemnation; and thus it appeared that "the strength of sin was the law."

2. "Sin revived" in the more active agency of those sinful affections which the coming of the commandment called forth. We do not say that the coming of the commandment was the cause of those sinful passions or dispositions being called forth into a more restless activity; but we do say that, in consequence of the corruptions of human nature, it gave occasion to it. This is placed beyond all doubt by the apostle himself in the verses which immediately precede our text: "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking

Improvement 1. Learn the nature of genuine religion. "If any man be in Christ, there is a new creation." The apostle has instructed us by his writings, and by his own example, that genuine religion consists in the establishment of a new principle of action in the soul, even a principle of vital godliness, implanted by the Holy Ghost, and proving its reality by a change of character. There is a change of sentiment, of feeling, of

of lies in which the man was formerly inclined to trust are swept away, and the entire dependence of the soul is upon the love and grace of the Redeemer. How different is this species of religion from that which is too often dignified with the name !--a religion of empty forms, or of cold speculations, or of selfish and worldly morality!

occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead." The more the law with its authority, light, and terror reaches the heart, and sin in that heart, the more vehemently does sin exert itself in opposition to the law. The struggle, nevertheless, is salutary. By means of it, the awakened sinner is enabled to perceive and to feel more and more of the wickedness of his beart. At first, when he looks into "the cham-temper, of habit, and of life. All those refuges bers of imagery," he feels the emotion of horror indeed, but the vision is, as yet, indistinct, and the impression is undefined. By examining more narrowly the varied apartments, new scenes are opened. New, and perhaps far more hateful forms, rise up in sad review before him. Sins, by the desperate struggle which they make against the law, prove their strong hold of the heart, and demonstrate the necessity of a superior power to deprive them of their sway. Any little remnant of self-righteousness which may have been lurking unseen in a corner of the soul is extirpated; and the feeling of absolute dependence on mercy to pardon and on grace to help is cherished and maintained. The convinced sinner lies low before God, and gives thanks, at the same time, for the assurance that sin shall not have dominion over him, seeing "he is not under the law, but under grace." Two principles are now at war within him, whereas before there was the peace of death, the stillness of the grave. The flesh will lust against the Spirit till the victory be gained by grace over sin; and then the triumphant shout shall be heard, "Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

2. The subserviency of the law to the Gospel. The law, as a covenant of works, is now for ever at an end. But the law, as the rule of righteousness, still serves a most important function in subserviency to the Gospel. It shows us our guilt. It dispels all the vain hopes of conceited humanity. It probes the secrets of the heart and the conscience, and shows man to himself truly as he is. It thus leads the soul to Christ as the only foundation; and after it has led us to Christ, it furnishes the rule of duty in our adherence to him. The law condemns us; the Gospel rescues us from condemnation. The law points out the way of duty; the Gospel provides strength for duty. "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid : yea, we establish the law."

Lastly. The danger of self-deception. Paul, before his conversion, appeared to be a sober and well-behaved, and even devout professor. And how many satisfy themselves with a religion which comprehends nothing more! a religion of outward decency, of pious forms, and of regular habits! Spiritual views and feelings are set aside as savouring of enthusiasm; and an attempt is preposterously made to serve two masters whose interests are diametrically opposed. In nothing does the power of self-deception show itself more clearly than in this; and in no department are self-examination and self-jealousy more imperiously required.

3. "He died." The meaning is plain. He died to every self-righteous expectation. He became as a dead man-legally dead in the sight of God, and incapable of doing any thing that could satisfy the demands of the law,-morally dead, and therefore dependent entirely on grace to put into him a principle of new life, to cherish and strengthen it, to furnish it with new and daily required aliment, and to crown him in the end with life everlasting. All his vain conceits of obtaining justification by the law are blasted. All his presumptuous hopes are dissipated for ever. This is the solemn era of the death of legal hope and confidence; but it is the era also of that life of faith, that living hope which grace inspires. Death there is truly; but oh! how different from that "death in trespasses and sins" in which he lay before the coming of the commandment, and in which he vainly thought himself truly alive! SUPERNUMERARY, OR 151ST PSALM.

Then, there was really death, while the poor unhappy man thought he lived. Now, there is death to the law as a covenant of works, and to all hope of acceptance on the ground of merit. But there is a noble principle of life from on high implanted. It is cherished and sustained by grace, and it gradually increases in vigour, till it ends in the full effulgence of light and of life in the beatific vision.

"Man looketh on the outward

appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." Gal. vi. 15.

METRICAL VERSION OF THE

BY PROFESSOR TENNANT.

I fed my father's sheep; my hands
The shepherd-organ made;
I strung with strings the psaltery,
And on it sweetly played;

Who shall report my name, my praise,
Unto my Lord on high?

The Lord himself on high;-he heard
My gentle vow and sigh.

He sent his angel down; he took
Me from the flocks I fed;

And with his own anointing oil

He did anoint my head.

My brothers were of valiant strength,
And goodly-fair to sight;
But not in Jesse's elder sons
Th' Almighty took delight.

I to the war went out to meet

The heathen-champion proud;
The Philistine looked down, and cursed
Me by his idols loud.

My sword I drew in God's own might;
His head I took that day;

And from the hosts of Israel
Removed that stain away.

seeing what is said, without going any further. Re view and attention, and even forming a judgment, be come fatigue, and to lay any thing before them that requires it, is putting them quite out of their way.BUTLER.

"I am the Resurrection and the Life."-Behold our remedy for the misery of the grave! Though it be dark, a beam of light is let into it; here is comfort for a dying bed: not the lying comfort of the atheist, the moralist, or the philosopher who tells us, "It is the debt of nature." What consolation does that thought yield? But here is the Prince of Life saying, “Though thou art dying, though there is a bottomless pit, infinitely more dreadful than the grave, yet come ye unto me; why will ye die?"-CECIL.

Avoid Anger.-Do nothing in a moment of wrath. Would you put to sea in a storm?-Religious

Monitor.

Consider your latter end.—My earnest desire to you is, that you would, in the fear of God, compare your hand-breadth of time with vast eternity, and your thoughts of this now fair and blooming world with the thoughts you shall have of it, when corruption and worms shall eat your flesh and make your body dry bones. What thoughts will you then have of idle pleasures? what would you then give for the Lord's favour? and what a price would you then give for pardon! Death and judgment will make men lament that ever their hearts carried them to lay out their love upon false appearances and night dreams. O how pititully and miserably are the children of this world beguiled! and what wonder that hopes built upon sand should fall and sink! It were good for us all to abandon the forlorn and withered hope we have had of the creature, and henceforth to come and drink of the fountain of living waters, and build ourselves and our hopes upon Christ our Rock.-RUTHERFORD.

Cast thy burden on the Lord.-No burden is too great or too little to be cast upon the Lord. A cheerful looking to Jesus, an assurance that he ever loveth and careth for us, will bear us through many petty annoyances, which sometimes wear health and spirits much more than real and great grievances.-M. J. GRAHAM. (Memoir.)

IN THE CAUSE OF THE JEWS.

in 1834, by the late Rev. Charles Simeon, at a meeting THE following is the substance of an address delivered for promoting Christianity among the Jews, held at Cambridge :—

CHRISTIAN TREASURY. "Understandest thou what thou readest?"-Though it is scarce possible to avoid judging, in some way or other, of almost everything which offers itself to one's thoughts, yet it is certain that many persons, from different causes, never exercise their judgment upon what comes before them, in the way of determining whether it be conclusive and holds. They are perhaps entertained with some things, not so with others-they like and they dislike; but whether that which is proposed to be made out, be really made out or not,-whether a matter be stated according to the real truth of the case, -seems, to the generality of people, merely a circumstance of no consideration at all. Arguments are often wanted for some accidental purpose; but proof, as such, is what they never want for themselves, for their own satisfaction of mind or conduct in life. Not to mention the multitudes who read merely for the sake of THE CHRISTIAN'S OBLIGATIONS TO LABOUR talking, or to qualify themselves for the world, or some such kind of reasons, there are, even of the few who read for their own entertainment, and have a real curiosity to see what is said, several (which is prodigious) who have no sort of curiosity to see what is true: I say, curiosity, because it is too obvious to be mentioned, how much that religious and sacred attention which is due to truth, and to the important question, What is the rule of life? is lost out of the world. For the sake of this whole class of readers,-for they are of different capacities, different kinds, and get into this way from different occasions,-I have often wished that it had been the custom to lay before people nothing, in matters of argument, but premises, and leave them to draw conclusions themselves; which, although it could not be done in all cases, might in many. The great numbers of books and papers of amusement, which, of one kind or another, daily come in one's way, have in part occasioned, and most perfectly fall in with and humour, this idle way of reading and considering things. By this means, time, even in solitude, is happily got rid of without the pain of attention. Neither is any part of it more put to the account of idleness, (one can scarce forbear saying, is spent with less thought,) than great part of that which is spent in reading. Thus people habituate themselves to let things pass through their minds, as one may speak, rather than to think them. Thus, by use, they become satisfied merely with

Religion, I observed, in its first rise in the heart, is a personal matter between God and a man's own soul. A man desirous of obtaining mercy from God, and peace in his own conscience, reads the Scriptures in order to find out the way of salvation, and marks with special care those passages which assure him of acceptance with God through the merits and mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For a considerable time, it is his own eternal welfare which engrosses all his attention, and almost exclusively occupies his mind; and even the salvation of the world is of chief interest to him, as warranting a hope, that he himself may be a partaker of the blessings so freely offered and so extensively diffused.

"But when he has obtained peace with God, then he searches the Scriptures, to find how he may adorn his holy profession, and render to the Lord according to his stupendous benefits that have been conferred upon him. He sees that love in all its branches is his bounden duty and his highest privilege; and he accordingly determines, with God's help, to live in the most enlarged

burial-place of Jonah. It is partly covered by a village of about three hundred houses. Its antiquity is well ascertained by the remains found on digging into it very deep; when fragments of bricks, whole bricks, and pieces of gypsum, covered with inscriptions in the cuneiform character, are found." But the largest mound is near the centre of the western face of the wall, and is of a pyramidal form, with steep sides and a level top. It is termed Koyunjuk Tepè, and has a village on its north-east extremity. It is, in perpendicular height, forty-three feet, with a circumference of seven thousand six hundred and ninety-one feet; and the interior construction manifests unburnt bricks without reeds. In a part higher and broader than the rest was found, some years ago, an immense bas-relief, representing men and animals, covering a grey stone to the height of two men. It was dug up from a spot a little above the surface of the ground.

of Sardanapalus, Nineveh was taken by the Medes and solidity. At the south-west angle is one called Nebbi Babylonians, under Arbaces and Belesis. The inhabi-Yunus, so termed from an idle legend that it was the tants, trusting to the strength of their position, were overtaken in the midst of festivities and luxurious indulgence; "while they were folden together as thorns, and drunken as drunkards, they were devoured as stubble fully dry." Nah. i. 10. The immediate cause of the destruction of the city was an inundation of the Tigris, which overthrew the wall for a space of twenty furlongs, upon which the king set fire to his palace, and perished with his household in the flames. "The gates of the rivers were opened, and the palace was dissolved: with an overrunning flood he made an utter end of the place thereof." Nah. ii. 6, 8; i. 8. Nineveh was subject to a second overthrow about a century after, under Astyages and Nabopolassar; since which time it has never recovered itself, but is recorded by an eye-witness, Lucian of Samosata, to have been a heap of ruins in the second century after Christ. A city built upon or near the site by the Persians, at a latter period, was destroyed by the Saracens, A.D. 632. And what is Nineveh at the present time? Even what Jehovah declared he would make her: "a desolation, and dry like a wilderness." In the second century some ruins of habitations might probably remain, and the Word be fulfilled: "The cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it: their voice shall sing in the windows: desolation shall be in the thresholds: for he shall uncover the cedar work." Zeph. ii. 14. But now, cedar work, thresholds, lintels, and windows have long passed away; "the Lord has made an utter end thereof-she is empty, and void, and waste." Nah ii. 10.

The site of ancient Nineveh is supposed to be on the eastern bank of the Tigris, opposite the modern town of Mousul. Lines of artificial embankments, with an occasional sculpture and inscription, are all that remain to attest the existence of a city on the spot; but whether it be the city of Ninus, or one of the later erections, cannot be determined. Nothing has yet been discovered sufficiently distinct to enable a traveller to announce with certainty, "this is Nineveh!" "Nineveh is laid waste, who will bemoan her? Nah. iii. 7.

Mr Rich, the late English consul at Bagdad, who, on several occasions, examined the ground with great care, describes the principal enclosure as of a rectangular form, corresponding with the cardinal points. This area he considers, on a rough guess, to be from one and a half to two miles broad, and four miles in length. On the river, or west side, as on the north and south, there are remains only of one wall, but on the east, of three. The first, or innermost, is a line of earth and gravel, out of which large hewn stones have been dug. A ditch intervenes between this and another similar embankment, under which is the well of Damlamajeh, and beyond it still, what Mr Rich considers, the largest wall. Between the west wall and the river, the ground is subject to frequent inundations and changes; but it has not interfered with the area."

It will be at once seen, that in the dimensions of this area could not have been admitted a city of the size of Nineveh. Mr Rich therefore conjectures, that "the enclosure formed only a part of a great city, probably either the citadel or royal precincts, or perhaps both, as the practice of fortifying the residence of the sovereign is of very ancient origin. From what we are told of the Babylonian palaces, and see of that of the Seffiviyahs, and of the Sultan of Constantinople, this extent would not be too much to assign for the residence of the Assyrian kings." Attached to the walls, and in its line, are several mounds of greater size and

Rich's Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan, &c., it. pp. 33-35. "In this place I cannot help remarking a passage in Jonah. The prophet suffered grievously from the casterly wind. This is the sherki so much dreaded in all these countries, which is hot, stormy, and singularly relaxing and dispiriting."

The top of the mount," says Mr Rich," does not wear the appearance of ever having been greatly higher than it is at present; but it evidently has had building on it, at least round its edges. Stones and bricks are dug or ploughed up every where. There were also other buildings farther in the mount; and at a place where they had been digging into it, we saw the same coarse stone and mortar masonry, and a piece of coarse grey stone, shaped like the capital of a column, such as at this day surmounts the wooden pillars or posts o. Turkish or rather Persian verandahs; but there was no carving on it. We also saw, in many parts, a flooring or pavement, on the surface of the mount, of small stones rammed down with earth. Pottery was also found, and other Babylonian fragments; also bits of brick, with bitumen adhering to them. A piece of tine brick or pottery, covered with exceedingly small and beautiful cuneiform writing, was found while we were looking about the mount. It is of the finest kind, yellowish, with a polished or hard surface, and apparently belonged to one of the large cylinders. Some part of the surface of the mound, probably where the buildings were either less solid or entirely wanting, is ploughed over."

Similar lines of walls, mounds, and artificial embankments are seen on every side without the enclosure above described. Upon a close inspection of the materials of which these masses are composed, from which large stones, frequently with bitumen adhering to them, are dug out, Mr Rich concludes, that "but very few bricks were used in the building of Nineveh." There is, however, great difficulty in determining "what are ruins and what are not; what is art converted by the lapse of ages into a semblance of nature, and what is merely nature broken by the hand of time into ruins, approaching in their appearance to those of art." "One thing is sufficiently obvious," observes this intelligent traveller in another place, "which is, the equality of age of all these vestiges. Whether they belonged to Nineveh, or some other city, is another question, and one not so easily determined; but that they are all of the same age and character does not admit of a doubt.”* Such is "the rejoicing city, that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! Every one that passeth by shall hiss, and wag his hand!" Zeph. ii. 15.

Rich's Narrative, &c., ii. pp. 29-64.

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