It is probable, that at the time of the evening | connected with his illness and death. During the prayers, more time than usual would be spent in read- twenty-one years which had elapsed from the date of ing the Scriptures; and the reader, Mr James Smith, his conversion from Popery he had laboured with the who seems also to have been an exhorter, might enutmost fidelity and zeal to promote the cause of the large in suitable exhortations to the people. When the curfew-bell was rung, that is, at eight at night, Reformation in Scotland, and he was honoured of God it may be supposed that these good people, who, from very early hours had been so religiously employed through the day, would be all quietly resting in their own houses. "It is proper to observe, that no mention is made of the appointment of a fast-day, of a preparatory sermon on the Saturday, or of a thanksgiving sermon on the Monday. It was forty years after this date that these appendages to the communion were introduced by some ministers, who reckoned them expedient, on account of the peculiar circumstances of their people. In Mr Row's time, the minister of a parish, with the help of the reader, could administer the communion, without having any other minister to assist him. "I shall describe the form, which is contained in the old Book of Common Order,' and which, from the beginning, was long practised by the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. "On the Communion Sabbath, the minister was to preach as usual; but before he left the pulpit he was to read the account which the Apostle Paul gives of the institution. He was next to address an exhortation to the people, in the course of which he was to fence the tables, much in the same way as is now done. Having come down to the table, he was to take the bread into his hands, but before he brake it, he and all the congregation were to join together in a general thanksgiving. "Our reformers were afraid of seeming to give any countenance to the idolatrous use which the Papists made of this ordinance, which may have been the reason that, in the thanksgiving, there is no mention made of the bread and wine, and no petition is offered. It consists of an ascription of praise for redeeming love, and a profession of remembering the death of our Saviour, and of looking only through him for every benefit that we stand in need of What was deficient, however, in the old form, was afterwards supplied by the new Directory, in 1645. "The minister, after breaking the bread, was to give it to the people, enjoining them to distribute it among themselves, and also the cup,-himself partaking of both along with them. No exhortation was to be given by the minister to the people when they were at the table; but the book says, Such places of Scripture as most livelily set forth the death of Christ are to be read,' (which most probably was done by the reader, from the desk,) to the intent that our eyes and senses may not be entirely occupied in these outward signs of bread and wine, which is called the visible Word, but that our minds also may be fully fixed in the contemplation of the Lord's death, which is by this noly sacrament represented.' "When the action of communicating was ended, the minister and people were to pray, thanking God for the great privilege they had enjoyed, and praying that they might continue mindful of his saving benefits. Then the hundred and third psalm, or some other such psalm or hymn, was to be sung; and the blessing having been pronounced, (which was either the form anciently prescribed in Num. vi. 24-26, or that which is contained in 2 Cor. xiii. 14, for both were occasionally used,) the people were to rise from the tables, and to depart.' Mr Row did not long survive this his last celebration of the Lord's Supper. His death took place on the 16th October 1580, and, according to Spottiswoode, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. It is to be regretted that no account has come down to us of the particulars to do much for the advancement of "the truth as it is in Jesus." PRAYER. BY THE REV. J. A. WALLACE, THERE is an eye that never sleeps When darkness shrouds the light. When human strength gives way; There is a love that never fails When earthly loves decay. That eye is fix'd on seraph throngs,That ear is fill'd with angel's songs,That arm upholds the worlds on high,That love is thron'd beyond the sky. But there's a power which man can wield That eye, that arm, that love to reach, That power is prayer-stupendous boon! It moves the Mind omnipotent, That rules o'er earth and heav'n. THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM: A DISCOURSE. BY THE REV. ROBERT BUCHANAN, Minister of the Tron Church Parish, Glasgow. "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went."-HEB. xi. 8. "Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be," &c. -ROм. iv. 18-21. AT the simple bidding of the Lord, we behold Abraham forsaking his kindred, his country, and his father's house, setting out on a long and perilous journey, and that without so much as knowing "whither he went." And when at length, through many rugged wilds and dreary deserts, he had reached the land of Canaan,-the land which God had promised to show him,-and when, after the many hazards and hardships of his pilgrimage, it is but reasonable to conclude he was now fondly anticipating the rest and reward of his expected inheritance, we find his faith subjected to a new and severer trial than any it had been yet called to endure. We know that men will submit with some measure of patience to many present privations if you can but direct their eye to some point in the future, where ease and security are awaiting them. But when borne up by the hope of this prospective enjoyment they have been carried forward to the point in question, you leave them | there to discover the object of their desire still far remote, like the weary traveller gaining, what he had imagined to be, the summit of the mountain range, across which his journey lies, but finding it to be nothing more than the screen which hitherto had hidden from his view the far loftier eminence which now rises before him,-it is then the hardest trial of faith and patience begins. It was much for Abraham to give up a present possession for the promise of a future inheritance, to abandon home and all that rendered it so dear in exchange for a country, distant and unknown; it was, in short, a sacrifice which nothing could have enabled him to make but "that faith which is the evidence of things not seen, and the substance of things hoped for." But it was undoubtedly far more, after the sacrifice had been made, when he had become, in obedience to the divine command, a voluntary exile from the land of his fathers, to find that, even in Canaan, the land which God had promised to show him, he was to have "none inheritance, no, not so much as to set his foot on;" that it was not for himself, but for his seed, God destined the land. The first great commandment of the divine law is, that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, and soul, and strength, and inind; and it was doubtless because Abraham, in accordance with this command, had taken God for the portion of his soul, feeling that his favour is life, and his loving-kindness better than life, that he obtained strength to surrender every thing else for his sake. He endured all the self-denying discipline to which he was subjected, "as seeing Him who is invisible;" and in the felt enjoyment of the love of that God who deigned to acknowledge him as a friend, he experienced a comfort far more than adequate to solace his mind under every worldly sacrifice he was called to make. But there is a second statute of the divine lawgiver like unto the first, and it is, "that we should love our neighbour as ourselves." While Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan, a striking opportunity occurred of showing how far, in this branch also of his duty, faith enabled him to triumph over that selfishness to which the interests of our neighbour are so often made to yield. It will be remembered that soon after Abraham's arrival in Canaan, Lot, his kinsman, attracted by the fertility of the plain of Jordan, and the prospect of worldly advantage to be derived from trading with the wealthy inhabitants of the cities of the plain, withdrew from the company of the holy patriarch, "and pitched his tent towards Sodom." The princes who ruled over the cities of the plain had been in subjection, it would appear, to Chedorlaomer, the king of Elam, or Persia. But growing in self-confidence as they increased in riches, they refused the payment of the custoinary tribute, and assumed the character of so many independent sovereignties. The king of Persia, unwilling to relinquish so considerable and profitable an appendage of his crown, summoned his allies, Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, and Tidal king of nations, and with these confederated forces proceeded to assert his authority over the cities of the plain. "And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim." In this insurrection against the king of Persia they were signally defeated and overthrown; and to punish what he regarded as an act of rebellion, he took "all the goods of Sodom, and all their victuals," and went his way. The cities of the plain being thus given for a spoil and a prey to the victorious army of Chedorlaomer, Lot was overtaken by the general calamity, his property was seized, and himself carried off as a captive. And no doubt God designed this event as a warning to him not to trust in uncertain riches. Seduced by that love of money, which is the root of all evil, he had separated himself from Bethel, the place of the altar of God, and from the edifying society of his godly relative, and now God would show him the folly as well as the sinfulness of the choice he had made. For not only had he put his soul in peril, in his anxiety to gain more of the world, but now he had lost in a moment all those worldly acquisitions, for the sake of which he had made a sacrifice pregnant with so many sorrows to himself, and with ruin to so many of his children. In this hour of his extremity, "there came one that had escaped, and told Abraham the Hebrew." How many are there who, in similar circumstances, would have contented themselves with moralising on Lot's conduct, conceiving that they had sufficiently discharged their duty when they had speculated a little, and with becoming gravity and seriousness, on the righteousness of that retribution which his greediness of gain had called down upon his own head! In the case of Abraham there were many temptations to indulge such a train of feeling, and many reasons wherefore he might hold himself acquitted of any obligation to interfere for his kinsman's rescue. had shown little gratitude for all the kindness and care he had received in his youthful years, and seemed to have been not much alive to the various advantages which the society and the friendship of Abraham had conferred. All these considerations, at least, he had made no difficulty of setting aside, so soon as a prospect of prosecuting his own secular interests had presented itself to his view. It is not to be conceived, but that Abraham must have been hurt and disappointed by this sordid and selfish conduct on the part of one on whom, from infancy, he had bestowed so much kind and affectionate concern. And now that providence was leaving Lot to reap, in the day of his sudden and sore calamity, the fruit of what himself had sowed, there are many feelings in every human heart which might have prompted Abraham, if not to enjoy, at least Lot not greatly to pity his distress. At all events, the circumstances of the case were such, as to furnish a very ready excuse for declining to interpose in his behalf. Lot was in the hands of a powerful monarch, surrounded by a numerous soldiery accustomed to war. Abraham was a man of peaceful habits, at the head of a small and peaceful household. And had he listened to the plausible suggestions of selfish interest and selfish fear, doubtless Lot might have lived and died a slave to the Persian king. But it is a far nobler and more generous spirit which is generated by the love of God. If we love him, whose goodness and mercy we ourselves have so largely and unmeritedly shared, we must love the benignity, the forbearance, and the compassion which in all his dealings towards us have shone so conspicuously forth. If we venerate and admire the divine love which has borne so patiently with all our unthankfulness and evil, which has forgiven us so many aggravated sins, and poured out into our cup so many undeserved blessings, we cannot but desire ourselves to cherish and exercise a principle to which we owe our all. It is thus involved in the very nature of things, that the love of God should beget the love of man; and exactly in proportion as we are enabled "to comprehend with all saints what is the length, and breadth, and height, and depth; and to know the love of God which passeth knowledge," shall be enabled and disposed to love our brother also. This feature of the divine image was already brightly reflected from the father of the faithful's heart. Accordingly, without one ungenerous recollection of his kinsman's former conduct, when he heard that Lot was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and with this inconsiderable force, confident of divine aid and protection in the discharge of what he felt to be an imperative duty, he pursued them unto Dan. And coming upon the enemy by night, when the slender nature of his force could not be so readily perceived, they fled in terror and confusion before him. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. And as Abraham had no selfish end in undertaking this warlike expedition; as he had fought, not from the lust of conquest, and much less from any delight in the cruel and fiend-like game of war, but simply for the rescue of his kinsman; he would accept of none of these rewards, which are so often employed to hire men's mercenary swords, and which the king of Sodom was eager to have heaped on his unexpected deliverer. "I have lift up mine hand to the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth," said he solemnly to the king of Sodom, "that I will not take from a thread, even to a shoe-latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say I have made Abraham rich." But I must hasten forward to the great incident in the patriarch's life, to that incident in which, unspeakably above all others, faith gained its most signal and glorious triumph. In tracing the great outline of his memorable history, you will remember, that the first trial of his faith was involved in the command he received, while he dwelt in Ur of the Chaldees, to relinquish every present possession, and to cast himself, for his future inheritance, on the naked promise of God. The next signal step in the series of conflicts through which he was led up to that high eminence on which, for more than three thousand years, he has stood as the father of the faithful, was the revelation made to him on his arrival in Canaan, that not to himself, but to his seed, the land should be given. At this stage of his progress, then, we can easily imagine how deeply the desire of an offspring must have taken possession of his heart. He had given up his country and his kindred in exchange for a divine promise,the fulfilment of this promise had not only been deferred, but its fulfilment was held out as a blessing to be realized only to his posterity. In all this he had cheerfully acquiesced; but still, though now far advanced in years, he had been suffered to continue childless. Were it not then,-as unbelief was no doubt many times ready to whisper in his ear, like a cruel mocking to hold out an empty promise, cherishing expectations which, to all human appearance, were destined to terminate in bitter disappointment. But still strong in faith, "he hoped against hope that he might become the father of many nations. And, therefore, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded, that what he had promised he was able also to perform." It was not merely that he might have a son to close his eyes, and render to him the last offices of humanity in that strange land, when at length he should be ready to go down to the grave. Nor was it the natural and most legitimate desire, to be the founder of a race who were destined to take a prominent place among the nations of the earth, and to possess, in perpetuity, the good land in which he was himself sojourning as a stranger. These temporal blessings, doubtless, entered into the covenant which God had made with him; but the spiritual blessings of that covenant were, we may rest assured, what directly occupied his thoughts. "For the Scripture," as saith the Apostle Paul, "foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ." And however dimly that blessed and glorious truth may, in that remote age, have been revealed, there is a conclusive evidence, that, in its spirit and substance it was not hidden from the patriarch: seeing we find our Lord himself testifying, as it is written in the eight chapter of John's Gospel, "Abraham rejoic ed to see my day, and he saw it and was glad." It is when we contemplate the promise made to Abraham in this large and comprehensive sense, involving not only the temporal prosperity of his own house, but the spiritual and eternal welfare of unborn millions of the human race, that we learn to understand with what deep and intense anxiety of desire he must have longed for the appearance of that seed through which this mighty promise was destined to be fulfilled. Sharing in the same profound anxiety, Sarah sought to reach the object of their mutual desire, as the impatience of our nature is ever prone to do, by a shorter path, than was consistent with the plan and purpose of Him whose ways are not as our ways, neither his thoughts as our thoughts. By hearkening to the voice of Sarah, Abraham indeed obtained a son, but not the child of promise. While the domestic jealousies and heart-burnings to which his birth so speedily gave rise, together with the divisions and animosities connected with his subsequent history, most clearly prove, that we can never gain true happiness except when we ask it in accordance with the divine will; and that we are never more sure of losing it, than when ceasing to trust in God, we think to secure it by some device of our own. God has given many great and precious promises to us all, and they are every one of them, yea and amen, in Christ Jesus." But if we would obtain the comfort of these promises,-if we would make sure of the blessing they are designed to convey, we must take them and trust in them simply as they stand, without either doubting their faithfulness, or attempting to bind them into an accommodation to our own views. We must be contented thanking him as the destined channel through which fully to accept the blessing when and how it seemeth good in his sight. |-in a word, when he had lived to become a son, eminently fitted to be the depository of those great truths that were to be intrusted to his care, and to fill that high place in the Church of the living God he was destined to occupy,-at the very time of all others when the trial would fall with the most tremendous force, did the Lord appear unto Abraham, and issue this dreadful command, "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt-offering, upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." O what a trial of Abraham's faith was here! He had been commanded to leave his country, his kindred, and his father's house, and he had instantly obeyed, although "not knowing whither he went." He had come through many toils and dangers to the land God had promised to show him, and at the very moment when he expected to receive possession of it, it was revealed to him, that not to himself, but to his seed, should the land be given. Empty as such a promise, to an old and childless man, might seem, he was fully satisfied; and though its fulfilment was delayed during many long years, every one of which, as it passed over his venerable head, might have appeared to render his prospects more dark and discouraging, he staggered not at the promise through unbelief, resting implicitly in this,-that what God had promised he was able also to perform. At length "the Lord visited Sarah, as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken; for Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him." The child, the desire of their eyes, grew up before them; and now, perhaps, like just and devout Simeon, having seen what they had so earnestly longed to behold, they were ready and willing to have been dismissed from this earthly scene; but great blessings are seldom to be gained without great trials,-not that the gracious God grudgingly attaches these trials as a penalty to his own gift, but that he wisely appoints them as the needful discipline, without which we should lack the capacity to enjoy the gift he had bestowed. When Isaac had reached the verge of manhood,-when he had lived long enough to imbibe under the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit, a goodly measure of his parents' piety and faith, and to exhibit, in his temper, and speech, and conduct, the budding graces of that godliness which adorned his parents' character and life,-when he had begun thus to realize all his father's fondest hopes and most fervent prayers, and had entwined himself around all the strongest and tenderest affections of his heart, And now, when, contrary to all common probabilities, a son had been born to him in his old age, when that son had grown to maturity, and when his aged parent was now fondly regard heaven's choicest blessings were yet to descend, not only on his own immediate posterity, but on all the nations of the earth,-to be commanded to offer up this son in sacrifice, and so to dry up, as it were in the very fountain-head, the stream which had just begun to flow, was such a withering of all his fondest hopes, and such a piercing to the quick of all the deepest and tenderest affections of his heart, and such an apparent confounding and contradicting of the very promise of God itself, our only wonder might well be, that it did not either drive him into open rebellion against the Divine authority, or crush him, in utter despair and misery, to the earth. The Lord had often tried the faith and patience of Abraham before, but it is only in reference to this last and sorest trial the strong and emphatic expression is employed," And it came to pass, after these things, that God did tempt Abraham." True it is, that as God cannot be himself tempted of evil, so in one sense, (that is in an evil sense,) "neither tempteth he any man." They are tempters in this evil sense, who, in the spirit and after the manner of Satan, present excitements to the sinful lusts and passions of the human heart, with the design and the desire of leading the victims of such temptations into the commission of sin. Not so is any man ever tempted of a holy and Isaac his son, (how forcibly does this affecting incident remind us of his great antitype, even Jesus bearing his own cross,) and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife, and they went both of them together." And, oh, who can tell what unimaginable feelings must then have agitated the patriarch's soul! And when absorbed in his own awful thoughts, he was suddenly arrested by the voice of his son, addressing to him the artless inquiry, "My father, behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering;" what but the mighty power of divine grace supporting his burdened and breaking heart, could have enabled him with, at least, outward composure to reply, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt-offering." Are we forbidden to conclude, that a hope, in accordance with these words, had been lurking in the recesses of Abraham's heart?—a hope, that ere the dreaded hour arrived, a divine messenger should interpose to stay the execution of the command. But now he was drawing near the spot where the sacrifice must be made, and heaven continued silent. He has ascended the Mount Moriah; he has built with his own hands the altar; he has laid the wood in order upon it. But where is the lamb for the burnt-offering? Is it, indeed, the patriarch's own son whom God has designed for the sacrifice? Yes; the command remains unrepealed, and Abraham has bound his son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. The last struggle of human nature, strong and rebellious in that hour of unalterable agony over, and faith has triumphed. Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son." The trial and the victory are alike complete; and ere his uplifted hand can strike the fatal blow, the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, saying, " Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me." merciful God; but that God does often tempt his | the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it upon own servants, in the sense of proving, and thereby perfecting those graces he has himself implanted in their hearts, as the refiner casts his ore into the furnace that he may purge away the dross, and beats and polishes the precious metal till every blemish being removed, it shines with heaven's own lustre, and reflects the refiner's own image. But while in this sense he tempteth his saints daily, "that the trial of their faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honour, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ;" while I say in this sense he tempteth his saints daily, he knoweth at the same time "how to deliver the godly out of temptation," for, "with every temptation he maketh for them a way of escape." As God suffereth not any of his people to be tempted above that he enables them to bear, so did he strengthen Abraham according to that promise, "as thy day is, so shall thy strength also be." But though there was no murmuring and no opposition, we cannot imagine it was without a struggle, strong and terrible, that faith obtained the mastery over all the scepticism of natural reason, and over all the dark fears and fond yearnings of his own shrinking heart. Doubtless, when he "rose up early in the morning" to execute the divine command, the language of David might have appropriately described the preceding hours, "all the night made I my bed to swim: I watered my couch with my tears." But the same hand that cast him down under the pressure of that stern command, "take thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt-offering," now upheld him by the power of that blessed promise previously obtained, "in Isaac shall thy seed be called." When he attempted to sound the mystery of God's ways, he felt himself as if lost in an unfathomable abyss. When he struggled to reconcile and harmonize the explicit commands with the proclaimed purposes of God, he was tormented with endless doubts, and anxieties, and fears, and could find no rest for his soul. But when he cast himself into the citadel of faith, and reposed on the omnipotence and faithfulness of God, cleaving to this one truth, that what God had promised he was able also to perform; light broke in upon his darkness, and comfort upon his sorrow, and again he found that "this is the victory that overcometh, even our faith." Leaning on this only sure stay, he saddled his ass in the morning, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt-offering, and rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him. On the third day, for it was a long journey, and who does not know, that the longer the suspense, the more severe the trial, "Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, abide ye here with the ass, and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again unto you. And Abraham took is My brethren, does the contemplation of this scene touch our hearts, and overwhelm us with astonishment and awe? It was but the faint shadow and emblem of another scene as unspeakably, infinitely more amazing. God the Father, the Maker and Possessor of heaven and earth, so loved the world,—a world of rebellious sinners,— that he spared not even his only begotten Son, but freely gave him up to the death for us all! When his holy child Jesus, in the unutterable agonies of the garden of Gethsemane, cried, “if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" it could not be. When he went forth without the gate, bearing his cross amid the cruel mockeries and savage exultations of his enemies, he was allowed unrelieved to faint beneath the load. When the soldiers, with sacrilegious violence, seized him at the cross of Calvary, no voice from heaven arrested their inhuman hands. He was nailed to the accursed tree! It is not for us, assuredly, to pry into those mysteries of the Godhead, which |