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you, poor soul;) for we read further, "But he answered, and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs." No reply before; but now, what an answer! What! could she say anything more? Could she plead after this? Had she not better give it up now, and no longer trouble the Master? No, no; faith-real faith, that which is of the Lord's implantation, and which is summed up and specified in a deep sense of need, and a conviction of His power, who alone can rescue and deliver; this faith cannot thus be put off. It must haggle (excuse the expression, it is descriptive), contend, plead for its possessor. And she said, Truth, Lord." Acknowledge your demerit, poor soul; confess the truth of the charges brought against you," and plead with the Lord upon his own ground, of coming to save poor, lost, hell-deserving wretches like yourself, by which his own grace, majesty, and power, will be much more highly exalted and richly dis played. Truth, Lord; yet (oh, that blessed yet; faith seems to deal in brief language short phraseology; we had a but from the Lord's silence, and now a yet from the dear woman's pleading) yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table." I am a a dog," Lord; I do not attempt to hide it all that thou sayest of me is true, a poor, worthless, hell-deserving sinner; yet such feed upon and are nourished by the crumbs scattered by thee, the bread of eternal life."or

"Then Jesus answered (what a blessed repetition of this word and swer four times in six verses: scripture tautology, in our view, is most precious; it gives such dignity and adds such weight and imports ance to the subject) and said unto her, O, woman, great is thy faith be it unto thee even as thou wilt." Then she was to have it all her own way? Yes. And truly, when the Lord does come forth in his deliver ing acts; after long seasons of exercise and trial, when he does cause i his glorious voice to be heard, and make his mighty power known, it is so sweet, so manifest, so exactly what we wanted, that it is quité evi dent the Lord has been attending to us all the time we thought he had been utterly regardless of us, and paid no attention to our breathings d it becomes manifest that not one groan had been unheeded, not one sigh disregarded, not one tear but had been bottled up (Ps. vi.8);lt and now, by one gracious, kindly act, he answers the petitions which perhaps, had been weeks, months, and years-midst hope and fearyd weak faith and strong faith-presented unto him; and so delightful iss the answer-so comprehensive in all its bearings, that, in our finite conceptions, we feel as if the Lord's whole attention had been directed unto us, and as if it were impossible that there was another soul upon earth who had drawn so largely, freely, and suitably upon his bounty.

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"And her daughter was made whole from that very hour."Jehovahu Jesus, if it be thy gracious will, repeat this wondrous act, in the rich experience of such of our dear readers as, either in a personal or}/ relative point of view, need so kindly an interference. May the Eternal Spirit abide in them, as a Spirit of grace and supplications keep their eye and their heart steadily fixed on thee, as their only and all-suitable refuge; turning thy rebukes and seeming denials into prayer and fresh arguments for the communication of every needed favour.

Even so prays their willing servant in the Lord,

THE EDITOR.

ON TRIALS AND TROUBLES.

My mind has often been occupied in considering the different troubles that the Lord's people meet with, and the different ways in which they are met. It is too commonly the case that every domestic occurrence which happens contrary to our wishes, every pecuniary difficulty, and every sickness, is spoken of as a peculiar trouble. I think it is said,

"Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward;" so that it appears we (that is, God's children) have some troubles in common with the rest of the human race, and some troubles peculiar to us as the children of the living God. Those troubles which I consider peculiar to believers arise from these three sources: the temptations of the evil one; the sin which dwells within them; and the opposition of the world.

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Satan goeth about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour; he acts as a crafty fisherman, who conceals his hook with that bait which is palatable and agreeable to the sort of fish which he wishes to take. Thus our enemy has one bait for the young, another for the middle-aged, and another for the old; according to his knowledge of those lusts which, at different ages, prevail in the minds of men. has one temptation for the passionate, and another for the phlegmatic; one for the ardent, and another for the timid; and, the more determined a man is to "live godly in Christ Jesus," the more assiduously does Satan work upon that point which he knows to be the weakest. It is very distressing to have continually before your eyes, whether it be your natural or spiritual vision, an object to which your carnal nature is prone; this is a temptation.

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Again nearly allied to these troubles is the sin which dwells within We have lived for years in ignorance that sin was in our constitution; we have been awakened to feel the guilt of it a sore burden; we have been enabled, by faith, to cast that burden on the Lord, and to rejoice in the pardon thereof. But now this indwelling sin troubles us in the way in which Paul speaks of it in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans; when we would do good, evil is present; there is a body of death, which makes me cry out, "O wretched man that I am!"

The other species of trouble is known also to none but the elect; the world hates them, annoys them, persecutes them; respectable men speak contemptuously of them; vile men slander them; pharisaic men watch for their halting, that they may proclaim it. We, happily, live in a day and in a land where these Herods and Pontius Pilates, these scribes and pharisees, cannot harm the persons of the Lord's family, or we should have the same troubles as the three Hebrew children had ; we should suffer with Daniel, and with Paul and Silas; we should be stoned like Stephen, or driven hither and thither like Luther; still, they have sometimes power over our temporal circumstances (I know a young man who was obliged to leave his father's house because he

declared his determination to hold fast the doctrines of grace), and they have power, by their insinuations, ofttimes to distress the mind. These are what I consider the troubles peculiar to God's children, as such. The devil never tempts his own, for he has them fast; sin is not a burden to an unconverted soul, it is his delight; the world loves its own, and never persecutes them for righteousness' sake. But some brother will say, "Why all this about troubles?" Beloved, I am only preparing the way for speaking to you of Him in whom and by whom all these things cease and lose their power. The Lord Jesus is the antidote, the remedy, the grand panacea, for these and all other crosses and diseases. How strangely some persons argue about divine things; one will say, "I am not God's child, I am so much tempted, and I feel so much the burden of sin ;" another will say, "I have my doubts whether I am the Lord's, I have so little temptation, and feel so little of the burden of in-dwelling sin." Now, the fact is, all these and similar persons look below Christ; they seek their satisfaction not in Christ alone, but in their evidences; which are the effects either of union or of the opposition raised against them, because they are united to Jesus, and therefore a mark for the devil's hatred. But it will be said, “We cannot raise our minds to Christ but by the Holy Ghost;" a most blessed fact; but the question is not whether you are able to look in the right quarter for help, but whether you are to look in the wrong. I speak not against "good works," the "fruits of the Spirit," the exercise of faith, or the tears of repentance; but against drawing arguments from these things either for or against your eternal state before God. If you are tempted of Satan, cast yourself down before Jehovah; tell him your temptations, tell him he alone can help; he knows how to help, he has promised to help all that call upon him. Are you overtaken in a fault, overpowered by Satan? Stay not to argue, "Can I be a child of God, and fall so foully, or fall so frequently?" but confess your henious transgressions, plead his promised forgiveness to all them that confess their iniquity, and ask him to remember that he has said, "He will subdue their iniquities." Again: do the world annoy you?" Marvel not;" but remember " ye are blessed when they speak evil of you falsely;""your enemies shall be found liars." I am often grieved and distressed when I hear the people of God calculating their "interest in Christ" by their worldly success or circumstances; as though temporal prosperity and prosperity in Christ were inseparably connected in any part of God's word. We are told to exhort one another; and may the Holy Ghost enable the readers of these few lines to see their calling, and to live above the trials and changes of this transitory state, so that they may have a consolation in all their personal and domestic afflictions which the world has not 4 namely, that they are meeted out by a Father's hand and love.

If by any of these means experience of Christ's love, power, wer and faithfulness be brought into the soul, the believer shall rejoice; but his rejoicing will not be in the trouble but in the Deliverer. Lad did

Is there any one saying, "These things will do me no good they

do not meet my case; you are always on the mount?" I would reply, Dear friend, pause; it is always good, and a means of doing good, to speak good of his name, to testify of his love; and as to my state, if by being on the mount you mean always in a state of joy, always in an ecstacy of delight, you are much mistaken. God be praised, I know the light shines when I do not see it; and I know that my God reigns when I do not feel it. It is this keeps out despondency, checks murmurings, says "Trust in your God," and makes my soul say, “I will trust." I find that the holy men of God who wrote the New Testament were dealt with in a similar way; they had their troubles; they knew that thereunto they were appointed; they knew they would work together for good. The Holy Ghost revealed Christ in his all-sufficiency, and they rejoiced, and sometimes rejoiced in tribulation; but they never argued from sense, or from anything less than this-Christ died and rose again; he died to sin once, he liveth unto God; so I reckon myself dead to sin in him, and alive to God for evermore; yea, even now sitting in heavenly places in him.

ALFRED HEWLETT.

THE ONENESS OR SOUL-UNION OF THE CHURCH IN CHRIST JESUS

Considered, in a Sermon preached on behalf of the "Aged Pilgrims' Friend Society," at St. Mary Somerset, Labour-in-vain Hill, on the Afternoon of Sunday, May 1, 1842.

BY THE REV. ROBERT PYM.

That we be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.-Eph. iv. 14, 15.

THE subject of which this chapter treats, is the unity or oneness of the church, her soul-union. It opens with an exhortation to the members of the church of Christ duly to regard this in their conduct. "I therefore," says the apostle, " (the prisoner of the Lord) beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace" (ver. 1-3). It is to be observed, that this exhortation is drawn from the concluding matter of the second chapter; the apostle was about to introduce it at the commencement of the third, but his mind was led to speak first of his having been appointed of the Lord a minister of the Gospel to the Gentiles; having shown, in the second chapter, how the Lord had made both Jew and Gentile one in himself, by removing the middle wall of partition that prevented their union. This subject occupies the whole of the third chapter, from the second to the last verse; when he commences the fourth, that of which the text forms a part, by taking up or repeating the same words with which the third is opened. In the second chapter he had been treating this subject by showing, as we have already noticed, how the Lord Jesus Christ had done away with those distinctions which had precluded union between Jew and Gentile as the people of God. Having set forth at the eleventh and twelfth verses the condition of the

Gentile world previous to Christ's coming, he, at the eleventh verse, says, "But now in Christ Jesus, ye who were sometimes afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." At the nineteenth verse, he describes the effect produced by this, as it regarded the elect of the Gentiles, who, through the preaching of the Gospel to every creature, according to Christ's command, to Gentiles as well as Jews, had been added to the church. 'Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together, for an habitation of God through the Spirit." Upon these truths respecting the union and oneness of the church in Christ it is that the apostle founds the exhortation to which we have directed your attention in the opening of the fourth chapter; the third, from the second verse, being to be read as included in brackets. He follows up this exhortation at verse 4, with a description of this union of the church, where he says, "There is one body, and one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." The oneness of the church is kept up by, or depends upon, the pre-ordained connexion existing amongst her members; what the apostle calls the fitly framing together of the building, or, the being builded together in Christ. This is effected by the grace bestowed upon each out of the fulness of Christ, of which he speaks in ver. 7, where he says, "But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." He then introduces what had been spoken prophetically by the psalmist of the Lord Jesus Christ, that at his ascension he should receive gifts for men; and further shows that these gifts are bestowed for the special purpose of carrying out God's design in the existence of the church in her oneness as "the body of Christ," a perfect man-the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," or, as he describes it in the second chapter, "the one new man," made of twain, i. e. of Jew and Gentile, who, of God's providence in carrying out his purposes concerning the church, had been separated by a sovereign act of Jehovah's grace towards Abraham and his descendants.

In the words of the text the same subject is continued, in which the apostle shows that these gifts are bestowed upon the church, that her members should not continue in a state which would militate against that designed union which is to be a chief characteristic of the church as she is of God's predestination in her existence and ends. This, I think, is the apostle's design, if we read the words in their connexion with the preceding context. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." This is the context, that which introduces the words of the text, which read as follows: "That we be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ."