To impress the Israelites with a dread of idolatry, the Canaanites were devoted to destruction; and to hinder them from forming connexions with their neighbours, which might prove injurious to their religion, various laws were given, for the express purpose of separating them from all the other nations; and God never failed to punish them severely whenever they introduced the worship of strange gods, however patiently he might bear with their other provocations, that they might be faithful depositaries of the truth for the benefit of the world, though they appear sometimes to have derived but little benefit from it themselves. The four great monarchies, by scattering the Jews over at least half the known world, served to inform the Heathen that an illustrious personage should be born, who would be a blessing to all mankind; and the translation of the Seriptures into Greek, which was almost a universal language, put them in possession of all the information concerning the Messiah that the Jews themselves had obtained. An expectation of the Messiah's appearance being thus excited, he was born in the fulness of time. The destruction of Jerusalem, the judgments which have pursued the Jews ever since, and the calamities which overthrew the Roman Empire, shew us the danger of opposing Christ and persecuting his people. The Roman Catholic and Mahometan apostacies demonstrate the necessity of the Holy Spirit's agency; for the gospel itself, though clear and luminous as a sun-beam, will be eclipsed and extinguished if unsupported by his almighty power; and the very extensive apostacy, after Religion had flourished to an unexampled degree (which appears to be foretold in the 20th chapter of Revelations) will furnish the last and most convincing proof of it; and then the general judgment will disclose every secret, and rectify every seeming defect. Redemption is an amazing subject! it exercises all the attributes of Deity at work! To atchieve it, the world was made; and all the wheels of Providence move in subserviency to it. How much are we indebted to the Bible! The very infidel who scorns it, owes to it the little knowledge that he has. Our forefathers were as barbarous as other Heathens; and we are indebted to the Bible for all the advantages we possess. Let us bind it to our hearts, and make it our chamber counsellor. Let us now examine the history of Joseph, which will convince us that God pays as much attention to the welfare of individual believers as to that of the church; that he has closely linked the welfare of the church and of private Christians together; and that he exactly adapts a person for the work he designs him to perform. The family of Jacob must go down into Egypt, yet not be incorporated with the Egyptians, and have a portion of land al lotted them, capable of containing an immense multitude of persons; and Joseph must go down thither to execute the gracious intentions of God: his brethren were therefore permitted to sell him. If he had continued in Potiphar's family, he might, indeed have been saved himself, yet could not have acted the important part which was allotted him. Such is the infirmity of human nature, that the amazing dignity and power to which he was suddenly elevated would have made him proud, and proved injurious to his piety, had he not been first severely disciplined in the school of Adversity. During his imprisonment in the dungeon, he acquired a large stock of true wisdom. The imprisonment, dreams, &c. of Pharaoh's butter and baker, were the means of delivering him from prison. Yet, had he been set at liberty merely by the butler's interest, he would have moved in an humble sphere, or risen to preferment by slow degrees. Pharaoh's dream, his interpretation of it, and the excellent advice which he gave, caused him to be looked up to as superior to the common race of men. The famine sent the Israelites to him; and he was now furnished with sufficient wisdom and power to dispose of them properly. We see that God makes use of the sins of men as well as of their virtues; yet this does not excuse the sinner. He is punished for the sin he committed; and God is glorified for bringing good out of it. Let us learn to be satisfied with our condition. Amidst all the numberless and important affairs of Heaven and Earth, God pays particular attention to the meanest of his people! Every one is in the best place for getting good. Wotton under Edge. W. W. arm! ON SEEING A REMARKABLE FUNERAL. O DEATH, how rapid is thy course! - how resistless thine Not a day, not an hour, passes in which thou art not brandishing thy destructive scythe, and mowing down hundreds of the human race! and so quick is the succession in which they fall, that we can hardly finish the recital of one tale of woe ere another claims the sympathetic tear! How oft hast thou separated those who were united by the strongest, tenderest ties, and, as it were, borne off in cruel triumph one half of a wedded heart, while the other was left to mourn the dreadful breach, and consume, in disconsolate lamentation, its solitary hours! This has been thy common practice; but, in the case before me, thou hast varied the scene, and presented us with a singular spectacle. Behold, those two sable hearses which, in solemn and slow procession, follow close upon each other, they contain the ashes of a neighbouring pair, who, like Saul and Jonathan, were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. Having spent many years together in the conjugal relation, they were, nearly at the same time, confined to beds of languishing; and, after a short period, fell, within eight hours of each other, victims to the unerring dart of the universal conqueror; and now the same sepulchral rite awaits them; and the same silent mansion, in "the house appointed for all living," has opened its doors to receive and to conceal their intermingling dust till the morning of the resurrection. What a numerous crowd of spectators are collected! all are interested, all are affected: silence reigns around; and even the manly eye can scarcely restrain the flood of sorrow which is impatient to gush forth! I hear some enquiring into the probable reason of this melancholy scene. "Had they lived to an advanced age, and sunk together in the ruins of natural decay?" By no means the elder of the two had not reached, by several years, his grand climacteric. “Had, then, some pestilential disease visited the neighbourhood, or some contagious fever infected their habitation ?" No, nothing of this kind existed; nor does it appear that the physicians could ascertain the immediate causes of dissolution in either: all must be referred to the sovereign pleasure of the all-wise Disposer of events. To him too we must refer their final state; nor do we presume to hazard a conjecture on the subject. To their own Master they stood or fell; and from his lips they have ere now received their irrevoc able sentence of acquittal or condemnation. We would only say, If they were the happy subjects of divine grace, and of that change of heart, without which Christ has declared, no man shall enter into his kingdom, how favoured, how enviable was their lot! To be excused from all the pangs which are felt by widowed hearts; and saved the bitter lingering death which, to borrow Dr. Young's beautiful thought, the survivor is left to taste, and together to enter on their final rest, To receive at the same moment their blood-bought crowns from their smiling Saviour, and hand in hand to fall prostrate at his feet, lost in wonder, love, and praise! If, on the contrary, they knew only the form of religion, while they remained strangers to its divine efficacy on their hearts, and lived as without God in the world, how awful must it have been to be driven at once from all the comforts and elegancies that affluence could procure, and sink in sad associa tion down to the regions of dark despair; there to be companions in misery, and, by mutual reproaches, add more poignant bitterness to the dreadful cup of woe! But let not our reflections terminate here. With the final state of the deceased, we have indeed, comparatively, little concern; but there is another event which is of infinite importance to us, we mean our own. The spectacle we have been contemplat The ing, is singular in its circumstances, but not in its nature. writer and the reader of this article will most probably descend into the gloomy cham' ers of death alone; but descend into them they must. Here is no room for doubt or uncertainty; for in this respect, 66 one event happeneth to the righteous and the wicked; to him that serveth God, and to him that serveth him not;" and if Scripture, reason, and observation all unite their testimony to assure us that we must die, it is, undoubtedly, of the greatest consequence for us to enquire, Whether we are prepared for death? The manner and the time of our change is indeed altogether uncertain; but this circumstance makes a timely preparation for it so much the more necessary. We may be removed by a lingering illness; but should this be the case, we know not that we shall remain in possession of our intellectual powers; and if we should, we shall then need the consolations of true religion, instead of having them to seek: but, on the other hand, we may be snatched away as in a moment; and those who have seen us one hour in health and strength, may the next look for us in vain; and learn, with surprize, that we are gone to "that bourne from whence no traveller returns.' Events of this kind are by no means rare:-every neighbourhood has witnessed them, and almost every newspaper records them. - In Three remarkable instances have fallen under the immediate notice of the writer: A near relation, having sat down in his accustomed health to a well-spread table, and eaten a hearty meal, was about to cut a piece of cheese, with which to conclude it; he raised his knife, but ere he could effect his purpose, Death had employed a keener weapon: he sunk back in his chair, and breathed no more! An industrious neighbour had been home to his frugal repast, and having finished it, he took an affectionate leave of his wife, and hastened to resume his work. two minutes he arrived at the place of his usual occupation, when, in descending a saw-pit, his foot slipped, he fell, and dislocated his neck; and although a gentleman of the faculty flew on the wings of Humanity to his assistance, he came too late, the impatient spirit had escaped from her clayey prison, and was gone to her final audit. The third is far more awful: A clergyman, not far distant from the spot on which these lines are written, was spending an evening, not in his closet, wrestling with his divine Master for the communications of that grace which is so peculiarly necessary for the faithful discharge of the ministerial functions, not in his study, searching the sacred oracles of truth for materials wherewith to prepare for his public exercises, and feed the flock under his care,nor in pastoral visits to that flock, to enquire into the state of their souls, and endeavour, by his pious and affectionate conversation, to conciliate their esteem and promote their edification, but at the In his card-table! He left the room for a few moments, desiring his wife to deal his cards, by which time he should return. This she had done; but he did not come back. The cards waited, the conversation was kept up, still he returned not. At length, surprized at his absence, his wife withdrew to seek him. chamber she found him, indeed, but she found him a lifeless corpse! The die was for ever cast, and he was gone to the tribunal of his Judge, to give in his account of the charge com mitted to his care! How sudden, how unexpected a transition! and it is worthy of remark, that within a very few years, this was the third character in this neighbourhood which had been suddenly taken from the pleasures of a card-table to the bar of God! O my friends, let us beware how we trifle away our precious moments! Are any of my readers in love with such idle amusements? Let them seriously ask their consciences, Whether they should be willing thus to be hurried from them into the presence of the Almighty? A question of this kind was the mean, under God, of leading the writer to relinquish the vanities, and fly from the allurements of the world. O that it may have the same happy effect upon some of those whom she now addresses! Providences like these we have noticed, cry to survivors, as with a voice of thunder, "Be ye ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." O my dear readers, let not the kind admonition be lost upon any of you! That it may not, may the Spirit of God so sanctify his providential dispensations, as to lead you in the time of health to consider your latter end, and seek the pardon of your sins and reconciliation to God, through the peace-speaking blood and finished righteousness of the dear Redeemer ! These will prove the best preparatives for death, in whatever form it may approach us; and, possessed of them, we may safely leave the rest to the disposal of that God who cannot err; for "if we are found in Jesus' hands, our souls can never be lost." Should we be called speedily hence, sudden death shall to us be sudden glory; and we shall close our eyes upon a world of sin and sorrow, to open them immediately to the glorious vision of uncreated beauty and unfading felicity; or, should the wise decrees of Heaven ordain our departure by a slow and lingering disease, we shall have an opportunity of honouring our heavenly Father, by making known to others the riches of his grace, and proving the efficacy of his religion in supporting the mind when every other refuge is vain and unavailing; and in either case, we shall have an abundant entrance adminis tered to us through the blood of the Lamb to those realms of glory, one hour's enjoyment of which would more than compensate whole ages of pain, affliction, and distress! Sandwich. E. T. |
