THE Spiritual Magazine; OR, SAINTS' TREASURY. "There are Three that bear record in heaven; the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY GHOST: and these Three are One." * Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." 1 John v. 7. Jude 3. MAY, 1831. (For the Spiritual Magazine.) THE LORD JESUS CHRIST; HIS SALVATION, BLOOD, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS, THE ONLY REMEDY FOR SINNERS, AND THEIR SINFUL CASES, BE THEY WHAT THEY MAY. The following remarks are designed to suit such persons as may be deeply distressed in their own minds, with a sight and sense of their sins and sinfulness; yet, are not sufficiently acquainted with the Lord Jesus Christ, so as to look off themselves, and to look wholly and only unto Him. He says, "Look unto me, and be ye saved," Isa. xlv. 22. BELOVED!-You, whoever you are, or whatsoever you may be in yourselves, who are weary and heavy laden, with a sense and feeling of sin-who are casting off all hope and expectation that you will ever be looked upon by the Lord Jesus Christ in mercy-who are writing bitter things against yourselves; and, hear what you may, your minds refuse to be comforted-it is to you, and as your servant, for Christ Jesus' sake, I take up my pen to address you in his most adorable name. May it please him to make the same effectual. Amen. My friends, you and I are most exactly alike, as it respects what we are as sinners, and as sinful in ourselves. Here, there is not one hair's breadth difference, we are equally fallen in Adam. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. And by the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified." Beloved! we want to learn from hence we are everlastingly undone, through the transgression of God's most holy law, which leaves us without all hope and help in ourselves: and this, in the true knowledge of the same, forms VOL. VII.-No. 85. 2 Z a most particular part in the experience of all such as are born of God. It is by the knowledge of sin. And we cannot receive Christ, but as we have the inward apprehension of our own sinfulness, guiltiness, vileness, and emptiness. If you are therefore crying out, in the words of Job, "Behold, we are vile"-I congratulate you, it being a real proof that the Spirit of God is within you. My beloved! there is no salvation for you or me, but in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Jesus Christ is suited to the cases of poor sinners; to all, and every sort of wound, stain, corruption, and malady, we can, any of us, be the subjects of. He is the one and only object we can look to with safety-he is the only subject which can do poor sinners good-he is the universal medicine, suited for every case, want, and misery, we can possibly feel, fear, or have the inward experience of. Our "Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners;" he bore our sins, and carried our sorrows; with his stripes we are healed. "His blood cleanseth from all sin❞—his righteousness is the garment of salvation-he is, by his divine Father, appointed to "preach good tidings to the meek; to bind up the broken-hearted; to proclaim liberty to the captives; the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord; to comfort all that mourn. Beloved! is there not in this, such an account of free, rich, sovereign grace, in the words quoted, as suits your cases? Are not your hearts broken with a sight and sense of your own vileness? Is it not sin, and the guilt of it on your minds, that which sinks you, and causes you to tremble at God's word? To whom then, but to such as you, and those who are, and have, the same frames and feelings with you, is Jesus Christ sent by the Father, and anointed by the Spirit to preach good tidings? Surely you are such as need Christ to speak to your hearts; to your cases; to your sins; to your feelings. The apostle Peter casts most blessed light upon this subject, in these words: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him," Acts x. 38. The glad tidings of pardon and peace, through the blood of the Lamb, cannot but be most acceptable to a sinner's ears, as it contains a joyful sound indeed! such as cannot be received, but it must make the heart dance for joy. The everlasting gospel contains the revelation of Christ he is set forth therein in the love of his heart; in all the bowels of his mercy. When it is given us to receive him, and believe him to be what he is therein declared to be; we then set up our whole rest in him, and find everlasting life in believing in his person, blood, and righteousness. It is Christ, and not our believing in him, is our salvation-his blood, sufferings, death, and obedience, is our everlasting discharge from all sin before the Lord, and in his sight. Do not you know what it is to see sin-to feel sin-to apprehend yourself to be lost and ruined in your fallen natures? Beloved! you never saw sin with your outward eyes; it is with the thought of your mind you have the perception of the same. So it is, by a spiritual thought let in upon your mind from the word of truth, and by the Spirit of the Lord, concerning Christ, you have that knowledge of him and salvation, which is all-sufficient to lead you to look unto him for the whole of it. You must look off yourselves, and out of yourselves, and from all your sins and sinfulness, to Jesus Christ only. If it be given you so to do, you will find enough in Christ to engage your thoughts and keep up your minds to all eternity-you will never need any other object nor subject, live in this our world as long as you may. And if you were ever so far advanced in christianity, you might, even then, be well pleased with the words of Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, who expressed himself to the saints at Corinth, thus: "I am determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified," 1 Cor. ii. 2. There is enough in the Lord Jesus Christ to give your soul satisfaction; and, as you receive the knowledge of the same into your understanding, you will be perfectly satisfied. And, remember, all this will not be in consequence of your feeling, or experience, or any enjoyment; it will be produced in you by a right apprehension of the subjecthow sin hath been removed from you by the sacrifice of Christ : that you are, in Christ, without all sin, as to the imputation of the same; he having loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, we are as pure as we ever shall be in the sight and before the presence of our heavenly Father. Beloved! it will be well for you ever to remember you must look for salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ only-you must look for no part of it in yourselves; it is not in your faith. Salvation is the object and subject for the faith of a believer to be exercised on; yet, the exercise of the enlightened mind on it, adds nothing to it. Yet faith, as the eye of the mind, being enlightened by the Spirit to perceive Christ as revealed in the gospel, receives Christ, with the virtue of his blood and righteousness into the heart, so that Christ dwells therein, and sheds his balsamie virtue and influence in the court of conscience; so as that we really are brought under such an influential sense of the same, as to enjoy an inward peace, such as passeth all understanding-a gospel sense of pardon and free justification, upon the footing of the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ; it is hereby we know that our sins are pardoned. You may hear how the Lord himself is pleased to address such as you are in his most holy word, and may it be the good pleasure of his will, to encourage and draw your hearts by the same unto him, who is, in his office, and also on his "throne of grace, able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." See Heb. vii. 25. Beloved! he is most truly and exactly what you and I need him to be. He says, "Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David," Isa. lv. 3. Again, he saith, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life," John v. 24. Again, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live," ver. 25. Beloved! what does the Lord then say further to them? "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else," Isa. xlv. 22. Again, "him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out," John vi. 37. It may be, that you are going to say, we are sinners, and sinful beyond our own conception and expression-be it so. If you are not, I am. Yet, admitting all this, will not this address from Christ suit you? It does me, why may it not you?" Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool," Isa. i. 18. Will not this suit you? May the Lord himself make his word spirit and life unto you-may it please him to look on you: he has on thousands and tens of thousands, whose sins, cases, and frames and feelings, were just like your own. He is as allsufficient for you, as for them; therefore, be not faithless, but believing. I have, myself, approached Christ, with all sin within me, and with all my uncleanness upon my conscience, and received from him health and cure. I have found his blood exceed all my sin-his righteousness hath covered the whole of my deformity—he hath saved me in himself with an everlasting salvation. To recommend him to you, and to speak a word from him to encourage and comfort you, I thus step forth with this short address to you. May you consider what is set before you, and accept the same in love; and, may it please the Lord Jesus Christ to make it a blessing to you, whoever you are who may read it. Beloved! such is the Lord Jesus Christ, in pity and compassion, that in him the fatherless and friendless findeth mercy. He delighteth in mercy-his blood, like a boundless and bottomless sea, swallows up all our sins. The prophet says, "Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depth of the sea," Micah vii. 19. May the Lord follow with his blessing these remarks. Amen. SAMUEL EYLES PIERCE. (For the Spiritual Magazine.) THE BELIEVER'S PEACE. "For he is our peace."-Eph. ii. 14. NOTHING is more truly blessed to the grace-taught mind, than to see and experience grace blessings flowing to sinners on solid and unchangeable principles; principles totally independent of our crea ture acts and creature feelings, so that while we feel ourselves the subjects of continual changes and fluctuation in spiritual experience, we may be comforted with the assurance of faith, that the realities of life, light, and comfort to Zion, stand on a base immoveable by all creature circumstances, and which are designed to be displayed to believers in and by them, to the glory of Jehovah, who worketh all things in us to our edification, by the Spirit of God. And nothing can be upon more certain ground than that which rests on the faithfulness of a covenant Jehovah in Christ, who being of one mind, and none can turn him, must of the necessity of his own divine perfections, continue to display the blessings of that covenant, which originated in his own divine mind, was fulfilled by his dear and well-beloved Son, and is made known to the Lord's family and perfected in them by the Holy Ghost. The carnal mind is not only an enemy to God, but it is absolutely "enmity against God;" so that its principle can never be changed; and under such a sense of the guilt of the human heart, as the believer is made to possess, by the convincing power of the Holy Spirit working in him mightily; and when after repeated trials of the law, and various other methods to heal the malady of the soul, the convicted sinner is driven almost to despair, how precious is the communicaion of the Spirit of God, "He is thy peace." Let us attempt to notice a little of the blessedness of this declaration, by enquiring, 1st, into the nature of spiritual peace; 2nd, the author thereof; and 3rd, the persons to whom it belongs. 1. Spiritual peace is a holy and heavenly tranquillity implanted by Jehovah in the heart of a sinner, by which he is raised above the trials and distresses arising from the inbred corruption of the carnal mind, the fear of death, or the assaults of his spiritual foes. It is divine satisfaction flowing from an experimental acquaintance with the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ made over to the soul, in which the guilty sinner appears perfect in the sight of God, and from a sense of the fulness of grace provisions laid up in Christ to answer all his needs in the wilderness. Jehovah is pleased, by the special communications of the grace of faith in Christ made to the awakened sinner, to bring the soul to the enjoyment of a sense of union to Christ, and consequently, to a knowledge and enjoyment of all the perfections of his accomplished work for poor sinners; and by a faith's view of what he has accomplished by his sacrifice and death, and that for the guilty, the ignorant, and those who are out of the way, the sinner receives that divine peace which enables him to triumph over sin through Christ, who is his righteousness and strength. It is a sense of sin that fills the mind with terror and dismay; and although all the Lord's family are not let into the same depths of grief, yet they all experience the same principle of grief, on account of their guilt and transgressions, which arises from a communication of spiritual life from above enabling them to see and feel the deadly malady of sin; and being thus awakened to a sense of |