proceeds to set forth (ver. 4) his experience of Gospel appropriation, from whence he had attained to his competency to bear a testimony to the Gospel, such as we have in the text. Hear his words, "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace are ye saved), and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus." Here was his competency. It was of God, and not of himself. God raised him up to be a witness to the Gospel. See his commission to preach the Gospel (Acts, ix. 15) and God rendered him competent to be a witness; "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. iii. 5, 6). Compare also what follows the text, in ver. 16, with what we have just directed your attention to, in his epistle to the Ephesians, chap. ii. 7; here, then, was the apostle's competency to bear the testimony of the text to the Gospel. He was one to whom such a real efficacious appropriation of it had been made, as a sensible sinner, and as sensibly the chief of sinners, that he could with power. proclaim, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

PASSING THOUGHTS.-No. IV.

THE PRACTICE OF WEARING HATS IN A PLACE OF WORSHIP.-I entered the dwelling-place of royalty, and no sooner had I trod the threshold even of an exterior lobby, than the attendant, uncovering his head, and respectfully turning towards me, said, "It is an invariable rule to take off our hats as we enter the seat of royalty." And shall these observances be paid to an earthly monarch; and yet we thoughtlessly enter the place "where his Honour dwelleth?" the "gates of Zion," which he "loveth more than all the dwellings of Jacob?" Surely those who do so, and who professedly attend the sanctuary, hoping to have an interview with the King of kings, forget the injunction given to Moses at the burning bush, "Put thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

REPENTANCE.-Reader, is your heart hard? Is not sin so burdensome as you could wish? Jesus has now, for nearly 6000 years, melted the most rocky hearts, and made sin appear exceedingly sinful.

MIS-APPLICATION OF WORDS.-I do not like the expression which I have frequently heard a good man-a minister-make use of in prayer. Praying for the offspring of his hearers, I have heard him say, "Make them thy children;' "Make them manifest that they are thy children," would be much more consistent with his belief in the covenant settlements of eternity. Indispensable as the regenerating work of the Holy Ghost is, it does not make sons; on the contrary, it is "Because you are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father."

COVENANT ENGAGEMENTS.-What should we say of the rich man-one of acknowledged integrity and honour-that said to his poorer neighbour, "Leave all your matters in my hands; don't be concerned about them; I will take care of them, and you too?" What has the Omnipotent Jehovah said concerning each object of his love? "He shall dwell on high; his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks; bread shall be given him, his waters shall be sure."

TROUBLE." How is it," said one person to another, "that I am more happy now under trouble than I used to be in the prospect of it?" "Because," was the reply, "there is a promise for real troubles, but none for imaginary ones."

A DREAM.-I slept-I dreamed that the object of my choicest affection had become the wife of another-I awoke in agony, and regarded this as another motive for bowing to a bereaving dispensation; but, when I recollected that the yielding to feelings somewhat similar to those with which I had awoke, had at that very time placed a poor fellow-mortal under penal condemnation, and that in all probability, in a few days he was to suffer an ignominious death, I could but exclaim,

"Oh! to grace how great a debtor!"

I never shall be able sufficiently to magnify it to all eternity.-Hypocrite! Pharisee! self-righteous professor! tremble; for if the Lord the eternal Spirit were once to lead thee forth into the chambers of imagery exhibited in thine own heart, then wouldst thou discover that thy nature is become as vile as the devil's, and sovereign grace alone could save thee from despair, and rescue thee from similar destruction.

A UNIVERSAL Providence.-"Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing (Ps. cxlv. 16). I never can contemplate the fulness of this passage without being lost in wonder and amazement. Believing reader, what a God is ours!

we shall

DARING IMPIETY." Well, please God," said two farmers to a third, have good crops this season." "Please God or not" was the reply, "I am sure of them; they are already so far advanced." The two former realized their expectations; but the grain of the latter absolutely rotted in the ground.

PERPLEXITY. And is your path any plainer in consequence of your having asked counsel of this, and sought the advice of that, friend?

"Were half the breath thus vainly spent

To Heaven in supplication sent,

Your cheerful song would oftener be

'Hear what the Lord hath done for me.'"

STRENGTH.-If the Lord were to give me, what I am constantly seeking, a little stock in hand of wisdom and strength, to save me the task of daily, hourly seeking it from Him, I should be sure not to use it aright.

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Two ARE COMPANY, BUT THREE NONE, is an old saying. Reader, are you seeking to walk in company with Christ, and the world? Then you are playing the hypocrite one side or the other; for the word of God distinctly says, If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him;" and again, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon.'

DANGER.—Dr. Watts spoke to the purpose when he said,—

"We should suspect some danger nigh,

When we possess delight."

AN OLD CHRISTIAN.--As consistent a man as any with whom I am acquaintedone who has nearly reached the goal, said to me some time since, "I feel that I am as bad as ever; and have more and more cause to be sick of self."

SELF-DISTRUST.-I see more reason day by day for distrusting self, from a conviction of my constant liability to err; and yet never felt so prone to follow the dictates of my own carnal heart.

FEAR IN THE PROSPECT OF TRIALS.—Reader, you have had a great many troubles, and a great many fears that, under some one or other of them, you should assuredly sink; but has the day ever dawned, or the trials ever come, in which you could say that sufficient strength was not afforded to enable you to surmount the difficulty? Though with Job it has been with the "skin of your teeth," have you not escaped? and though it has been "upon boards and broken pieces of the ship," have you not, like Paul, got "safe to land?" Eh! Dare you deny it? And is not He that hath delivered, still as able to deliver?

ALFRED.

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THE BELIEVER'S LAST PLEA-VIZ. "ONE THING I KNOW, THAT, WHEREAS I WAS BLIND, NOW I SEE." SUCH was the answer of the man who had been cured of blindness by our Jesus, to the rulers of the synagogue, who, not willing to acknowledge the miracle that had been wrought, tried to puzzle the man with various questions, and to throw out many doubts as to what had been done but this man was not to be reasoned out of the great change that had passed upon him, and he cut short all their subtilities and cavillings, by those memorable words-"One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." It mattered not what they said or what hard questions they might put, he was conscious of the change that had taken place, and could not be persuaded out of it. And is it not the same with those who were some time darkness, but now are light in the Lord? The devil, the world, and their own carnal hearts, may start many hard questions, difficult to be answered, and throw out many doubts as to what has been done, and bring many proofs against us of a life unbecoming the children of God, and may show us the insufficiency or uncertainty of this or that evidence; yet still there is this last plea, from which the true believer can never be driven-" One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." A few words as to these two states. God made man upright, with faculties unimpaired, and capable of seeing the glory of God; but he did not long remain in this state; for he soon fell by transgression, and became spiritually dead. The state of man at the time of the deluge, is thus set forth: -"The thoughts of the imaginations of man's heart are only evil, and that continually;" and certainly no improvement has since taken place. The Holy Ghost testifies, in the time of Jeremiah, that "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately (incurably) wicked:" and it is farther added, that none but God can know it. So blind is man, that he cannot himself know the depravity of his own heart; neither can he know God, or the things belonging to God; for it is written, "The natural (soulical) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither indeed can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned." In fact, man being under the curse of a broken law, God hath blinded his eyes, and permits the devil to be the instrument in accomplishing this; as it is written, "If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not." The truth, then, is, that man is very far gone from original righteousness, and hath no good whatever left in him. Everything belonging to him is diseasedeven his common-sense or reason, which, together with everything else belonging to him, partakes of the fall; and yet so blind is he, that he knows not that it is so, and that the devil worketh in him (see Eph. ii. 3). Reader, can you put your seal to this, and say, "It is so; for I am of my own nature inclined only to evil?" If not, you are still blind, and the language of the prophet may be applied to you-" He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?"

(Isa. xliv. 20). On the other hand, what is it to see?

Now we are very far from saying, that because a person might allow the truth of what has been stated, that therefore he sees, at the same time, he cannot see without allowing it to be true. Felix trembled under the word, but never saw. There is no seeing without faith, "which is the evidence of things not seen; and Jesus is the author and finisher of it. When we have the faith of Christ, then we are brought to believe in Christ, and can join with Peter in saying, "Whom, having not seen, we love; in whom, though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Have you been brought to see the plague of your own heart, that it is altogether leprous and incurable? If not, we must pronounce you unclean-i. e. if you consider yourself to have only spots of sin, and that you are not altogether incapable of doing good; but if you are enabled to see yourself as altogether bad and hopeless, without a single spot of good, then we pronounce you clean* (see Lev. xiii. 13); for such a discovery of the real state of your heart can only be from the Lord having discovered it to you, who does not leave his people in this state of hopeless despair, but will direct them to that fountain which is open for sin and uncleanness-even to the blood of Jesus, which hath already purged away our sins in the sight of God, and will purge our burdened consciences when sprinkled on the heart by the eternal Spirit of God: "For the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin (Heb ix. 14). It is very important to bear in mind the distinction between what the blood of Jesus has done, and what it now does. It hath put away sin; so that the sins of the church shall be sought for, but shall not be found, for God does not behold iniquity in his people. beheld it laid on Christ, but he no longer beholds it on him, for he hath purged it away. The child of God knows nothing of this his standing in Christ, until the Spirit reveals it to him; but when the Spirit shows us what the blood of Jesus hath done, then our consciences become freed from their pollution: but since we are not permitted to live here without sin, we have continual need of the fresh application of the blood of Jesus, to give us the renewed assurance of our redemption through his blood- -even the forgiveness of sins. Our Saviour set forth this, when he refused to wash Peter, save only his feet. That therefore which a child of God is brought to see is Jesus; for it is written in Heb. ii. 9, "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour; Jesus-i. e. Jehovah the Saviour, who is the very and eternal God; for he thought it no robbery to be equal with God. He took the body prepared for him, and so became God manifested in the flesh, the Father's righteous Servant.

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* If the reader will refer to Leviticus xiii. he will find that whenever a person had spots of leprosy, he was to be pronounced by the priest to be unclean; but when from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot the person was entirely covered with leprosy, then the priest was to pronounce him clean. This certainly must be intended to represent what is stated above-viz. that when any are brought to acknowledge with the prophet, "We are as unclean things, and all our righteousness is as filthy rags," then we pronounce such to be of the number of those for whom Christ's blood was shed, and that they are therefore clean; "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

And why

Why did he thus become man? For the suffering of death. for the suffering of death? The next verse answers this; "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 suffering. Here, then, is the needs-be why Christ should become man, that he might suffer; since in no other way could the many sons be brought to glory, for God will, by no means, clear the guilty. Jesus, having received the church as a gift from the Father, married her unto himself, and so became answerable for her guilt, the atonement for which the Father required at his hands; he therefore suffered, the just for the unjust, that he might bring them to God. The Father accepted the one sacrifice for sins which Jesus offered, and showed his acceptance of it by sending an angel to roll away the stone from the sepulchre, and by raising him from the dead; "He appeared the first time to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself; " and he hath done it, and is now exalted, having a name given him which is above every name.

But he is not exalted alone, for the wife partakes of the glory of her husband, and bears his name and titles; "This is the name wherewith she shall be called, the Lord our righteousness" (Jer. xxxiii. 16). We see Jesus then, not merely suffering for sin, but we see him beyond this-viz. as crowned with glory and honour. Reader, have you had any such glimpses of Jesus? have you beheld him triumphing over sin and death, and accepted by the Father as having done it? if so, be of good courage; your sins may have been of the blackest dye, but we would say to you, as Paul did to the Corinthian church, "But ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." The devil, the world, and your own carnal heart, may bring railing accusations against you, which are perfectly true; but your answer is, "It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again" (Rom. viii. 34). Your mother's children. may try to persuade you that you must do something to render yourself acceptable to God, but your answer will be, "The Father hath made me accepted in the beloved, whom I see crowned with glory and honour."

It is impossible that those who thus view Jesus, can continue in sin, as they be slanderously reported; for the Holy Spirit, who hath given them this view, dwells in them, and will enable them to bring forth fruits unto God. Again, if we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour, we shall see him not only exalted as a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins unto his people, but also as the Head over all things to his body the church; having consecrated for them the new and the living way through his flesh, and still as their High Priest living for ever; "Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Heb. vii. 25). It is such a view of Jesus that supports and cheers the soul when struggling under various difficulties and trials, and thus Christ's strength is made perfect in our weakness.

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What ground for consolation and comfort in those words, "Kept by power of God through faith unto salvation." The cause of our standing is Christ's power, and the means whereby he exerts his power

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