only to believe and be saved, to eat and be satisfied, to ask and receive, to wash and be clean. And faith, simple faith, is the only thing required, in order that you may be forgiven. That we should come to Jesus as sinners with our sins, trust in him, rest on him, lean on him, confide in him, commit our souls to him, and, forsaking all other hope, cleave only to him,—this is all and everything that God asks for. Let a man only do this, and he shall be saved. His iniquities will be found completely pardoned, and his transgressions entirely taken away. Every man who so trusts is wholly forgiven, and reckoned perfectly righteous. His sins are clean gone, and his soul is justified in God's sight, however bad or guilty he may have been. Reader! let nothing move you from this strong ground,—that faith in Christ is the only thing needed for your justification. Stand firm here, if you value your soul's peace. I see many walking in darkness, and having no light, from confused notions as to what faith is. They hear that saving faith will work by love, and produce holiness; and not finding all this at once in themselves, they think they have no faith at all. They forget that these things are the fruits of faith, and not faith itself, and that to doubt whether we have faith because we do not see them at once, is like doubting whether a tree be alive, because it does not bear fruit the very day we plant it in the ground. I charge you to settle it firmly in your mind, that in the matter of your forgiveness and justification, there is but one thing required, and that is, simple faith in Christ. THE GOSPEL COMPREHENDED BY THE HEART. IT is with the height of the soul as it ravishing spectacle; while at his side, a man without talent or culture has only to raise his eyes, to embrace at a glance, and in some measure enjoy, all the splendours of the firmament, and, through his vision, to receive into his soul the impressions which such a spectacle cannot fail to produce. Another sky, and one as magnificent as the azure vault stretched over our heads, is revealed to us in the Gospel. Divine truths are the stars in that mystic sky, and they shine in it brighter and purer than the stars of the firmament; but there must be an eye to The shall you probably be astonished that you had never perceived, conjectured, discovered it; that previous to revelations, you had never found out that such a system was as necessary to the glory of God as to the happiness of see them, and that eye is love. Gospel is a work of love. Christianity is only love realized under its present form; and since the light of the world cannot be known without an eye, the Scriptures cannot be comprehended but by the heart. You may have exhausted all your powers of reason, and all the resources of your knowledge, to establish the authenticity of the Scriptures; you may have perfectly explained the apparent contradiction of the books; you may have grasped the connection of the fundamental truths of the Gospel; you may have done all this, yet if you do not love, the Gospel will be to you nothing but a dead letter, and a sealed book; its revelations will appear to you but as abstractions, and naked ideas; its system but a speculation unique in its kind; nay, more, whatever in the Gospel is most attractive, most precious and sweet, but an arbitrary conception, a strange dogma, a painful test of your faith, and nothing more. But let love-sweet, gracious, luminous, interpreting-come between the Gospel and the human soul, and the truth of the Gospel shall have a meaning, and one as clear as it is profound. Then shall your soul find itself free and happy, in the midst of these strange revelations Then shall those truths you have accepted, through submission and obedience, become to you as familiar and as necessarily true, as those common every-day truths upon which depends your existence. Then shall you penetrate, without an effort, into the marvellous system, which your reason dreaded, so to speak, to see too near, in a confused apprehension of being tempted into Infidelity. Then man. Even to those who receive Christianity as a Divine religion, and believe it intellectually, it is veiled, it is empty, it is dead, so long as they do not call the heart to their aid Among sincere believers, there are many who have gone around Christianity, as religion of their intellect, as around an impenetrable sanctuary, knocking in turn at all the doors of that asylum, without finding one open, and returning without success to those already tried many times; believing, and not believing, at the same time; Christians by their wishes, Pagans by their hopes; convinced, but not persuaded; enlightened, but not consoled. To such I address myself. Whence comes it that you believe, and have yet only the responsibilities, and not the blessings, of faith? How happens it that you carry your faith as a yoke that oppresses and weighs you down, not as wings which raise you above your miseries and the world? How comes it that, in the bosom of that religion you have accepted, you are strangers, exiles, and as if out of your natural atmosphere? How is it that you are not at home in your Father's house? Let us put the finger upon the wound. It is that your heart is not yet touched. The heart of Lydia must be opened, before she could understand the things spoken by Paul. So, also, your heart must be opened, in order to understand the truths which only the heart can understand. Or, to use the energetic lan guage of Scripture, the "heart of flesh" must take, in your bosom, the place of the "heart of stone." The very truths of religion, which are the joy of the hearts of believers, are sources of sorrow to the wicked.-It is pleasing to the righteous, but dismal to the wicked, to know that this life "MANY SORROWS SHALL BE TO will soon be over. It rejoices the THE WICKED." "THAT may be so," said one; "but I have often seen the enemies of God to be full of mirth for a long time together." "If they have many sorrows, they have at times great skill in concealing them," said another; "for I know some who hate God, and yet seem to lead a quiet life." "All that may be so," said a third, "while time lasts, and yet the words of the Psalmist may have a fearful fulfilment in eternity." Let us look at some of the sorrows of the wicked. Their consciences are ill at ease. This is true of all the wicked. There are tokens of coming wrath in the forebodings, and checks, and clamours of conscience within. The wicked are a source of sorrow to each other.-There are hundreds of aspirants for every post of honour, hundreds of rivals for pre-eminence in every profession, hundreds of haughty despisers of their fellow-sinners in misfortune. Both in this world and the world to come, the wicked often torment each other. It is impossible that any amount of success in worldly affairs should ever meet all the demands of wicked men.Their ambition, pride, covetousness, and revenge, are fires which burn the more vehemently the more they are gratified. To indulge them is to give them new power. They must kindle a vehement flame in every soul, and can only be extinguished by the grace of God. The wicked are not secured but plagued by the covenant, promises, and perfections of God.-If God is almighty, he can destroy them; if he is righteous, he will mark iniquity; if he is kind, they have provoked his displeasure by despising his mercy; if he is faithful and true, his threatenings will as certainly be fulfilled as his promises. Verily, "many sorrows shall be to the wicked." They are against themselves. They hate life, and refuse good. They are against each other. Nature is against them. The stars in their courses fight against them. God is against them; and if God be against them, who can be for them? Oh, wicked man, thou shalt surely die! Turn, that you may live! THE PLEASURES OF SIN. YES, there are the pleasures of sin, there are enjoyments in transgression; for we have tasted and known them, and can speak with confidence as to their true nature. And what are they? They are impure in their origin, mean and low in their character, pernicious take their pleasures and perish? It in their tendency, and awful in their need not be. There is a power which results. Yet do men generally pursue can newly create the soul, and rectify sin for the sake of its present enjoy- its tastes, and guide it into peace now, ments; caring not for the reproaches and to the pleasures which are at the of conscience which follow it on earth, right hand of God for evermore. nor for the awful pains it brings eternally. There is something unutterably awful in the thought that men, even those who are reputed as able, and learned, and wise, pursue these pleasures. In this view, indeed, men sin worse than even the fallen angels have ever done. The infinite Jehovah has declared that "there is no peace to the wicked;" devils believe it, and seek for none; but man gives God the lie, and pursues happiness in transgression. He attains pleasure, but is this pleasure happiness? Where is the man who will declare himself really satisfied? Who has comfort in the hour of affliction, and peace in death? Has the pleasuretaker? Can he live in joy, and die in triumph? When and where has he done so ? Who ever recommended on his death-bed a life of pleasure to his friends? Who, of all the millions who have worshipped at the shrine of worldly pleasure, have, in that solemn hour, recommended the same course to their families or friends? The infinitely blessed Jesus, respected reader, invites you to enjoy his love, to enter into his residence, and sit down to the highest and holiest enjoyments. Oh, come, come now, to the feast of the Gospel. Renounce inferior pleasures for heavenly ones, which shall ever be pure, substantial, and eternal. PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER AND THE INFANT MOSES. To all human appearance, it was an unimportant incident that an Egyptian princess, while bathing, should find the child of a Hebrew bondman secreted in an ark of bulrushes, yet there were connected with that event many of the grandest exhibitions of power that are to be found in the pages of sacred or profane history. What moved the compassion of the princess? Simply the falling of a tear from the eye of the babe. "Behold, the babe wept; and she had compassion on him." Donbtless she was in sympathy with her father, who had devoted the males of the Hebrew children to death; but the tear-drop on the infant's cheek moved her heart, and she not only spared, but adopted him. And why is this? Why do men "feed on ashes ?" The prophet shall tell us: "A deceived heart hath turned them aside." Men are guiltily depraved, their moral taste is perverted, and they call good evil and evil good, A peculiar trait of character in this and put bitter for sweet and sweet for princess also attracts attention. It is bitter. Each man is himself deceived, her ignorance of the power and durability and aims to deceive others. Thus is of infantile education. Had she been the race of man destroyed from gene- acquainted with the power of maternal ration to generation. training, think you that one of the And must it be so? Must men mis- daughters of Levi would have been allowed to make first impressions upon the mind of him who was to fill a most important place in the Egyptian court? Notice also the concluding act of the mother. When her task was completed, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter. Now she can retire in solemn dignity to her servitude, for with the power of a mother's love she has made indelible impressions on the mind of her child, which the temptations of Pharaoh's court cannot erase. How glorious the conclusion of this wonderful transaction! Little did the princess think that weeping infant, under the hand of God, was to make the very throne of Egypt tremble! Little did she think of adopting the amanuensis of the Holy Ghost! What an engine of power was weeping there! He lifts his rod to heaven, the waters of Egypt are blood, darkness that can be felt envelopes the land, and all the first-born of Egypt die, "from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill." The weeping babe is now the hero and lawgiver. Israel is free. Pharaoh, his chariots and horsemen, are lost in the sea, and the fiery cloudy pillar is conducting the Church to the land of promise. BE STILL. IT is often easier to do than to suffer the will of God. There is a pleasureable excitement in the employment of one's active powers in the service of Christ,-a satisfaction in the consciousness of doing good. A little grace, with favouring Providence, may make a Christian hero; while abounding grace alone will suffice to make a Christian martyr. Be still when persecuted or slandered. If unjustly accused, you may regard every epithet of abuse as a badge of discipleship. Your divine Master and his Apostles and witnesses were marked in the same way. Then, too, every lie has the seeds of death within it. Let it alone, it will die of itself. Opposition may look very formidable; it may seem as "though the mountains were carried into the midst of the sea; the waters thereof roar, and be troubled; the mountains shake with the swelling thereof;" but the voice of wisdom cries, "Be still, and know that I am God." Be still when thwarted in your plans and disappointed in your hopes.-You are not responsible for results. If you have sought trustworthy ends by lawful means, and have done your utmost to attain them, the issue is of Divine ordering, and should be no more the subject of murmuring or repining than the changes of the seasons or the rolling of the spheres. The purpose of God in your loss or disappointment may not be obvious. You may have to content yourself with the thought When all these things come before my mind, I think of what impressions that mother made before she gave her Moses back to Pharaoh's daughter. Oh, ye mothers in Israel, ye know not what you press to your fond heart. It may be a Moses, it may be a Pharaoh. May God direct you in making impres--"These are but parts of his ways." sions there which shall be felt for good when you are gone to your eternal rest! But the fact that they are his ways, must hush the soul in quietude under the most trying and mysterious crosses of life. Faith will take Cowper's song, |