Page images
PDF
EPUB

meet again, the deceased may say, in heaven," I am, under God, indebted to you that I am here!"

15. Pray constantly. You need much prayer. Prayer will engage God on your behalf. His blessing only can make you happy in the midst of your mercies. His blessing can make even the bitterness of life wonderfully sweet. He can suspend all our joys. Blessed be his holy name! he can, and often does, suspend all our sorrows. Never pass a day without praising him for all that is past; glorify him with your present mercies, and trust him for all that is

to come.

The Cabinet.

RELIGION THE ONE THING NEEDFUL AT ALL TIMES.-We know what most men think on this point. "Religion," they say, "is very well in its place. It is right on the Sabbath. It is a good thing in trouble or sickness, and a better thing in death." And then they lay it aside till death, or trouble, or sickness comes. But have you found out that you cannot do go? Do you feel that you must make it an every-day concern? yea, an hourly concern? that you must take it with you into your business, or you will go wrong there? into your pleasures, or you will turn them into sins? into your families, or mischief will spring up in them? into company, or you will come out of it shamed and grieved? into solitude, into your chamber, and to your bed, or you will sin even there, and suffer? If so, if your religion be felt to be thus needful for you, then your judgment on this point agrees with Christ's; and the probability is that you are Christ's, and that your religion is of God. But if not; if, among the many things you are careful and troubled about, this occupies no place; if it seems to you the one thing superfluous or needless, rather than the one thing needful,-then your view of this matter differs totally from our Lord's; and you know the conclusion, I would not state it harshly; but I cannot state it too plainly,-you are none of his; you are no more Christians than you are angels. If any man be in Christ Jesus, he has the spirit and mind of Christ Jesus; he views things as Christ views them; he thinks and feels with him. If we think and feel altogether differently, it is as plain as any fact can be plain, that there is no communion between us and him. Rev. C. Bradley's Series of Practical Sermons.

SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.-There is not so much need of learning as of grace to apprehend those things which concern our everlasting peace; neither is it our brain that must be set to work, but our hearts. However excellent the use of scholarship in all the sacred employments of divinity, yet, in the main act, which imparts salvation, skill must give place to affection. Happy is the soul that is possessed of Christ, how poor soever in all inferior endowments. Ye are wide, O ye great wits, while ye spend yourselves in curious questions and learned extravagances. Ye shall find one touch of Christ more worth to your souls than all your deep and laborious disquisitions. In vain shall ye seek for this in your books, if you miss it in your bosoms. If you know all things, and cannot say, "I know whom I have believed," you have but knowledge enough to know yourselves completely miserable. The deep mysteries of godliness, which to the great clerks of the world are as a book clasped and sealed up, lie open before him (the pious and devout man) fair and legible; and while those book-men know whom they have heard of, "he knows whom he hath believed!"-Bishop Hall.

THE PART OF CHRISTIAN PARENTS.-Parents must give good example, and reverent deportment, in the

face of their children. And all those instances of charity, which usually endear each other, sweetness of conversation, affability, frequent admonition, all significations of love and tenderness, care and watchfulness, must be expressed towards children, that they may look upon their parents as their friends and patrons, their defence and sanctuary, their treasure and their guide.-Bishop Taylor.

PLEASING GOD.-If thou hope to please all, thy hopes are vain; if thou fear to displease some, thy fears are idle. The way to please thyself is not to displease the best; and the way to displease the best, is to please the most; if thou canst fashion thyself to please all, thou shalt displease him that is All in All.— Quarles.

Poetry.

THE SECOND ADVENT.

IT comes! it comes! that glorious day! Legions of light, in fair array,

Attend him down the sky:

No lowly manger waits him now,
No crown of thorns to pierce his brow,
No cross whereon to die.

See! where, in central heaven uprear'd,
His cherub-circled throne prepared

Rests on the void profound. Lo! he ascends the awful seat, The universe salutes his feet,

In prostrate crowds around.

He frowns! earth trembles at his name;
Hell kindles to her hottest flame,

As she receives her prey:
For ever still and e'er will rise
The smoke of the dread sacrifice

Of that tremendous day!

He smiles! hosannas burst along
The ranks of glory's gathered throng,

As near the throne they fall:
In white-robed armies round they press,
His name of love for ever bless,
And crown him Lord of all.

Ah! will that day be hail'd by me,
And join me, gracious Lord, to thee,

To sin and weep no more?
Hope sweetly whispers, "All is well!
Thy lot is cast with him to dwell,
On heaven's unclouded shore."

REV. J. EAST.

THE BEAUTY OF THE SANCTUARY.*
PSALM lxxxiv.

How lovely are thy dwellings, Lord!
What heavenly peace thy courts afford!
'Tis for that sweet abode
My lonely soul within me sighs;
My heart, my pining nature cries

For thee, the living God.

E'en the poor sparrow there may rest,
There e'en the swallow o'er her nest

• From Grinfield's Sacred Poems.

(By me how envied!) sing;
Nor they with tenderer instinct yearn,
Than for thine altars, Lord, I burn ;*
My Saviour and my King.

Oh, happy they whose fix'd resort

Is the dear circle of thy court!

They ne'er forget thy praise:

Happy, whose hearts in thee embrace

Their hope, their strength; whose footsteps trace

Thy temple's hallowed ways!

As through the wilderness they go,†

Soft dews descend, sweet fountains flow,

Their thirsty course to cheer,

From stage to stage, from strength to strength, Till all on Sion's mount at length

Before their God appear.

Lord of all power, thine Israel's friend,
Oh, with indulgent ear attend,

And crown my heart's request;
Thou guardian of thy chosen race,
Look on thine own Messiah's face,
And see thy servant blest!

One Sabbath in thy courts is worth
More than a thousand days of earth;
And gladlier far would I
Thy temple's humblest office bear,
Than, Lord, a guilty splendour share
With those who thee deny.

Thou art a shield, a sure defence;
A sun, whose soul-felt influence

Doth heavenly peace restore :
Glory and grace dost thou bestow-
Grace, while thy people dwell below,

And glory evermore.

There's not a varied blessing, Lord,
But Thou, all-bounteous, wilt accord
To those who cleave to thee:
Then happy he, thou King of hosts,
Who in thy grace devoutly trusts,
And happy none but he!

Miscellaneous.

BISHOP BARRINGTON.-The pleasantest hours which I passed with my lamented friend were those which elapsed between the removal of the supper, and the entrance of the servant who attended him to his room. He was now ninety years of age, and he had long been accustomed to live in the constant anticipation of death. Every night he composed himself to rest, not expecting to live till the morning. The conversations, therefore, which we were accustomed to hold at this hour were always grave and serious, though uniformly cheerful. He regarded death as a man of sound judgment and Christian principles will ever do-without fear, and without rapture; with well-founded hope, though with undefinable awe; as a punishment decreed by the Almighty, yet as the introduction to a

His desire of frequenting the sanctuary resembled the instinctive attachment of birds to their nests; those birds which, during the captivity, were permitted to build about the neglected altars: the Psalmist uses the plaintive tone of a pious exile, as in Ps. cxxxvii.

The original expression seems to be equivalent with our own "vale of tears;" Bacah, mourning, similarly applied with Bochim, weepings; see Judg. ii. 1-5,

higher state of happiness than he could possibly experience (though he possessed every worldly enjoyment) in this state of being. The more frequent topics of our conversation were derived from the possible or probable approach of the period when the body should be committed to the ground, and the spirit return to its Maker. He delighted to dwell on these subjects. The questions which appeared to interest him more than any others, were,-Whether the soul slept in the grave, with the suspension of its facul ties, till it awoke on the morning of the resurrection; or whether (as he stedfastly believed) it passed in some mysterious manner into the more manifested presence of God, immediately upon the dissolution of the body; the nature of future happiness and misery; the continuance of the mental habits which are formed in this state, and which constitute, in some measure, our future condition; the extent of redemption; and the opposite opinions of Christians respecting the invisible state:these and similar considerations were alter nately discussed in those calm and silent hours: and he uniformly concluded by observing, "I know not, and I care not, what may be the solution of these questions; I am in the hands of a merciful God, and I resign myself to his will with hope and patience."Rev. G. Townsend.

HOUSE OF THE DEAD.-While walking out, one evening, a few fields' distance from Deir el Kamr, with Hanna Doomani, the son of my host, to see a detached garden belonging to his father, he pointed out to me, near it, a small, solid, stone building, apparently a house; very solemnly adding, "Kabbar, beity," "the sepulchre of our family." It had neither door nor window. He then directed my attention to a considerable number of similar buildings, at a distance: which, to the eye, are exactly like houses; but which are, in fact, family mansions for the dead. They have a most melancholy appearance, which made him shudder while he explained their use. They seem, by their dead walls, which must be opened at each several interment of the members of a family, to say, "This is an unkindly house, to which visitors do not willingly throng but, one by one, they will be forced to enter; and none who enter ever come out again." Perhaps this custom, which prevails particularly at Deir el Kamr, and in the lonely neighbouring parts of the mountain, may have been of great antiquity, and may serve to explain some Scripture phrases. The prophet Samuel was buried" in his house at Ramah” (1 Sam. xxv. 1): it could hardly be in his dwelling-house. Joab was buried in his own house in the wilderness (1 Kings, ii. 34). This is "the house appointed for all living" (Job, xxx. 23). Possibly, likewise, the passages in Proverbs, ii. 18, 19, vii. 27, and ix. 18, may have drawn their imagery from this custom. "He knoweth not that the dead are there; . . . her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again."-Rev. W. Jowett.

GEORGE THE THIRD.—The king and queen have suffered infinitely from the loss of the sweet little prince, who was the darling of their hearts (Prince Octavius). I was charmed with an expression of the king's: Many people (said he) would regret they ever had so sweet a child, since they were forced to part with him that is not my case. I am thankful to God for having graciously allowed me to enjoy such a crea ture for four years." Yet his sorrow was very great.— Hannah More.

LONDON:-Published by JAMES BURNS, 17 Portman Street, Portman Square; W. EDWARDS, 12 Ave-Maria Lane, St. Paul's; and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country.

PRINTED BY

ROBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLYN, 46 ST. MARTIN'S LANE.

[merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

TO AID THE EXTENSION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT-THE DUTY OF CHURCH

MEN.

OUR Saviour and his inspired apostles have told us, and warned us, of what all human experience has only tended to confirm, of the natural indisposition of man to seek the truths of the Gospel, though for his highest good. From this unerring account of the actual condition of mankind, we gain our first great principle on which to base the argument for national establishments of religion; that, inasmuch as men, from the corruption of their nature, will not come to the Gospel, the Gospel must, by the constituted authorities of the land, be presented to them.

We may affirm, indeed, of Christianity itself, that its every working proceeds upon the native indisposition of the human heart to the truths of its message; and all its attempts for the establishment of itself in the world are made upon this principle. Taught the real truth of the case by its divine Founder, it never expects that men, of their own accord, will approach it; therefore, instead of waiting till they shall move towards the Gospel, it has provided, from the first, that the Gospel shall move towards them.

After this example have the guardians of our faith, both ecclesiastical and civil, uniformly acted.. It is no where supposed, either in Scripture or in the history of God's Church, that, like the articles requisite for the body, a demand for the things of the soul should emanate from the people; and hence our rulers have, on the other hand, gone forth, and offered to them

YOL, I. NO. XXVIII,

PRICE 1d.

the word of life. It is, alas! a feature of

[ocr errors]

the infidelity of the present age it is a most daring assertion made by those, who, we fear, have not the grace of the Gospel in their hearts, that spiritual concerns are to be put upon the same footing with commercial exchanges and the affairs of the body. It is an axiom with such men, shrewd and sagacious as they are in the transactions of ordinary business, that the supply of any article should not be much, if any, more than equal to the demand; that, in fact, the demand will generally regulate and settle the supply and hence, if of any kind of merchandise the supply be not large, it commonly shews that the demand is not great, and therefore they argue that the supply is not needed. This may be true with regard to the articles of the body--they are judges, and I leave it in their hands; but I most decisively oppose regulating the affairs of the soul by the same rule. Upon the authority of Scripture I assert, that the supply of Christian instruction must not be regulated by the demand, but must precede and create that demand. For there is, in fact, an utter diversity between the article of Christianity and the articles of ordinary merchandise for the latter there is a demand, to which men are spontaneously urged by hunger and thirst, by cold and nakedness, or by the love of money and power: but for the former there is no demand, no natural appetite. It is just as necessary first to create a spiritual hunger, as it is afterwards to afford a spiritual refreshment; and accordingly, from the very first do we find, that for the spread of Christianity in the world we are indebted, not to any seeking and searching on the part of

2 F

:

mankind, but to a systematic obtrusion of the Gospel on the part of its guardians, commanded and provided by its Author.

I may proceed to illustrate in another way the Scriptural character of Christian Establishments. The duty of legislatures to provide religious instruction, arises from the relation they bear to the people. When prophecy became in some measure fulfilled in the Church, and "kings became its nursing fathers, and queens its nursing mothers," it then became necessary, that as a father of a family provided for the religious instruction of his offspring, or as a master of a household for his dependents, so the state should provide the means of bringing all her children to the knowledge of the truth.

In our own favoured land the nursing guardians, in ages past, took care that every spot throughout its length and breadth should hear the glad tidings of salvation, and be within reach of the means of grace. They did not wait to be called on for their aidthey knew better. They did not presume upon such a taste for the Gospel, inherent in the land, as that the people should travel in search of it; but they brought it to the doors and fire-sides of the people. This taste, I repeat, they did not expect to find, but they set themselves down anxiously and laboriously to create it. This it was their bounden duty to do; and it is now their bounden duty still to continue the process.

It was, indeed, from the beginning ordained to be the duty of every master of a family to bring up his household and train his dependents in the fear of the Lord; and this duty is manifestly in no wise affected by the magnitude of the family; it grows out of the actual relation between the head of a household, and those committed to his care; it will therefore remain equally valid, whatever be the numbers placed under his authority.

Accordingly, in the case of Abraham, whose domestic servants were so numerous, that, upon a sudden emergency, he could call out "three hundred and eighteen" persons trained for defence, this very attention to the religious state of his dependents, is mentioned by the Almighty as a reason for a blessing upon him" For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him" (Gen. xviii. 19). Would, then, Abraham have been blameless, if he had left those persons to find a religion for themselves? Or would he have acted an improper part, if, in the event of being unable in person to instruct so large a number, and to guide their devotional services, he had provided

that they should not be left without suitable

teachers?

From speaking of the master of a household, or the head over a large body of persons, let us proceed to consider the case of a ruler of a nation.

Now, is the obligation to be felt less cogent, because the means and opportunity of usefulness in a religious sense are greater? Did the Almighty, when he instituted laws for the good government of the Israelites, forbid the civil authorities to interfere with religion? On the contrary, we find in his ordinances for that people, a direct and most potent argument in favour of a national establishment. In the only instance upon record in which God ever vouchsafed to legislate for a community, this was the system he adopted. Here was a religious establishment most intimately connected with, and even incorporated into, the state; and therefore, unless it can be shewn that the adoption of such a system, under the new dispensation of the Gospel, contradicts some positive command, or is opposed to some moral principle, the question has been here settled by Jehovah himself. Further, the religion of the Israelites was supported on the very same principle under the kings, as under Moses and the Judges; and an honourable testimony is given in Scripture to those pious rulers who exercised their authority in promoting the spiritual welfare of the people.

Hence, if any should dispute the lawfulness, or the expediency, of a national establishment of religion, or of uniting Church with State, our only reply need be a reference to the fact, that the first Church Establishment was formed by God-that, the first time the Church was united to the State, the union was performed by the hand of Jehovah himself.

From this example, then, we conclude that the legislature of every country is most assuredly bound to provide suitable means of conveying religious instruction to the people. And blessed be God, there has been, among the authorities of our land, every desire to act in perfect accordance with this Scriptural sentiment; and hence, in great measure, her eminence and her prosperity; possessing an Evangelical Established Church, guaranteeing nevertheless perfect liberty of conscience to all her population.

But I have now to remark, that, though the government, in former times, was enabled to make adequate provision for the religious instruction of the people, yet, of late years, population has received so amazing, and, in some places, I may say, so unnatural, an increase, as to out-grow altogether the means hitherto employed. In every neighbourhood

how many are the families which are in a state of practical heathenism! dwelling, morally and spiritually, at as wide a separation from the Gospel, and all its ordinances and means of grace, as do the barbarians of another continent; leaving the Christian teacher to have as much to do with them as the missionary among the heathen.

issued an appeal to the community at large for means to build at least fifty new churches or chapels in the suburbs of the metropolis, each to have its district, its clergyman, and its local charities." The statement will ere this have been in every hand; it were therefore needless to extract from it. Suffice it to say, that it will surely be felt incumbent upon every member of our Esta

The legislature, therefore, must increase its efforts, and all the members of the Establishment, in proportion as He, "in whose blishment must labour in concert, in order to keep pace with the rapid strides of the population. In vain is it, we have seen, to expect that, by an impulse originating with themselves, these aliens from Christianity will go. forth on the inquiry after it; the messengers of Christianity must go forth to them. In every suburb of our metropolis, dense with human life, and therefore dense of immortality-among the streets and lanes of our towns, teeming with human souls, to an extent far beyond the eye of the unobservant passenger-must churches be erected, and ministers appointed, and free-sittings allotted, and that by the nation itself, if we have at heart the salvation of our fellow-men: and these edifices must be set up, not only in places where the neighbourhood is able, either wholly or in part, to pay for and support them this would be meeting but in small measure the requirements of our people-but they must be set up, and paid for, and supported, in places where the population is too poor to do it of itself. The richer neighbourhoods must contribute to the necessity of the poorer, that all may hear the sound of the Gospel, that all may approach "the fountain opened in Judah for sin and uncleanness," and wash and be cleansed. In the poorest suburbs especially must buildings for worship be thickly planted; and therefore must the nursing guardians of the faith call on all and every one to aid them in protruding the Gospel into all the waste portions of the community, cultivating the moral deserts, and filling up the numerous and peopled vacancies that yawn within the borders of our Israel; so that the knowledge of the truth may pervade the whole land, "even as the waters cover the sea."

To this end, a few years back, our legislature formed one association, and patronised another; the former, consisting of a body of commissioners, who should, out of the funds entrusted to them, give or lend sums for the building of new churches; the latter, of a body of voluntary contributors associated for the same object. These societies, however, have been of late felt to be quite inadequate, utterly unable to respond to the urgency of the call. The Bishop of London, therefore, (other prelates following the example,) has

hands are the silver and gold," has blessed him, to lend prompt and effectual aid to the promotion of an object of such paramount importance as this. Let each individual reflect prayerfully on the subject. What is the topic in hand? It is concerning the human soul, the spirit, that never dies. Who can fully estimate its value? and of what amount either of happiness or misery is that soul capable? and for what was it originally intended? I say to every one, Reflect on such questions as these; and I implore them, by the worth of that immortal soul, by the loss which every soul that perishes must sustain, by the misery which the soul that perishes must endure, by the mercy which we ourselves hope to obtain, by the love of the Gospel, by the character and sufferings of the Saviour, by the appalling spiritual exigences of our native land, and lastly, by their own deep responsibility as members of the community and of the Established Church; by all these motives do I implore them to render, to the utmost of their ability, prompt aid to the cause. What is done must be done at once; the powers of darkness are all on the alert; this is not a time for neutrality; and all who would not be included among the traitors to their God, and involved in the curse of Meroz, must come out "to the help of the Lord against the mighty." The contest is awfully great; Satan is to be wrestled with; the hungry are to be fed, and the dead in sin are to be awakened from the destructive lethargy they are in, so that they may feel the sensations of hunger, and may come to the fold, and be fed.

Oh! what is the message that the ministers who are to fill these new churches will bear on their lips? It is to sound forth the “glad tidings of great joy;" it is to proclaim that, by virtue of a blood which cleanseth from all sin, and of an obedience, to the rewards of which he is freely and fully invited, there is not a guilty creature in our world who may not draw nigh. Christ died for all; the Gospel of salvation is offered to all: shall we not, then, do our best that all may have an opportunity of receiving it?

The message is to be preached to all; and it has a friendly aspect for all; it has a boon

« PreviousContinue »