SELF-INVESTIGATION. 3. The ground of our confidence. 4. The state of our affections. 5. The line of our deportment. II. THE RULE OF THIS INVESTIGATION. 9 Since the point necessary to be determined is-" Whether ye be in the faith," the Word of God constitutes, of course, the GRAND CRITERION. By this Rule let us examine ourselves 1. Rigidly. 2. Seriously. 3. Impartially. 4. Habitually. III. THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS INVESTIGATION. Self-Investigation— 1. Detects error. 2. Checks presumption. 3. Induces humility. 4. Promotes circumspection. 5. Excites Christian diligence. 6. This investigation is acceptable to God. Lam. iii. 40. Ezek. xviii. 15. 1 John, iii. 20, 21. 1 Tim. ii. 15. Tit. i. 13; 1 Cor. iii. 16. Jam. iv. 4. John, Eph. ii. 20—22; iii. 17—19. With such advantages before us, let us no longer neglect this duty. Such negligence will expose us to imminent peril; whilst a strict attention to the state of our hearts will promote our wisdom, honour, and influence-will be pleasing to God—and will issue in everlasting safety and happiness. Let our prayer be that of David: "SEARCH ME, O God," &c.—Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24. THEOLOGY. THE GLORY OF GOD.-We all speak much of the glory of God; and entertain a common belief of that being the only end for which we were all made; and I wish we were all more inwardly moved with a true and lively sense of it. There can be nothing else that either God could propound to himself, or that we ought, if it be rightly understood. But we must not think that God, who is infinite fulness, would seek for anything without himself: he needs neither our happiness nor our misery, in order to make himself more illustrious; but, being full in himself, it was his good pleasure to communicate of his own fulness; for, as Proclus hath well observed, "How can he look without himself, seeing he is a pure 10 THEOLOGICAL EXTRACTS. mind, always encompassed with his own glorious brightness?" But the good pleasure of his will being filled with bounty, and the power of a most gracious Deity proceeding from it, liberally dispensed themselves, and distributed those gifts of grace that might make all created being the more to resemble the archetypal idea of themselves. Accordingly, Timæus Locrus represents the Creator of the world in the same strain that Moses did-" delighted, as it were, in himself to see that all things that he had made were good, and some things exceeding good." God himself being infinitely full, and having enough and to spare, is always overflowing; and goodness and love issue forth from him by way of redundancy. When he made the world, because there was nothing better than himself, he shadowed forth himself therein, and, as far as might be, was pleased to represent himself and manifest his own eternal glory and perfection in it. When he is said to seek his own glory, it is indeed nothing else but to ray and beam forth, as it were, his own lustre.— God does then most glorify and exalt himself in the most triumphant way that may be-when he most of all communicates himself, and when he erects such monuments of his own majesty, wherein his own love and goodness may live and reign. And we then most of all glorify him, when we partake most of him, when our serious endeavours of a true assimilation to him, and conformity to his image, declare that we think nothing better than he is, and are therefore most ambitious of being one with him, by a universal resignation of ourselves unto him.-Smith's Select Disc. FAITH IMPUTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.-This is fully consistent with our being justified, that is, pardoned and accepted by God upon our believing, for the sake of what Christ hath done and suffered. For though this, and this alone, be the meritorious cause of our acceptance with God, yet faith may be said to be "imputed to us for righteousness," as it is the sole condition of our acceptance. We may observe here, forgiveness, not imputing sin, and imputing righteousness, are all one.-Rev. J. Wesley. CHRIST'S VOLUNTARY SUBMISSION TO DEATH.-Our Lord made choice of that, which to all others of human form is a necessity. He called to him all the snares, and pains, and terrors of death. He bade the monster strike him with its sting, but not until it had been compelled to couch waitingly at his feet. He commanded the grave to open, and make a passage for his march. He had "power to lay down his life, and power to take it again." He delayed not, and hurried not, to die. He told each pang, and deliberated each gasp. And at his prefixed moment, and by his perfect authority, resigned his life, gave up the ghost. There, then,-he bowed himself in conformity to that dying which he had espoused for the salvation of a dying race. And are we required to tell how it was that he could suffer the stroke of death? How even that nature, which was so mysteriously bound to the Divine, could be the subject of passion and dissolution? How we can believe in the possibility, and set forth the necessity, of such a decease? How that ill could befall him whom we profess as Immanuel, God with us? Our reply is instantaneous, "He became obedient unto death.” -Rev. R. W. Hamilton. ABEL'S SACRIFICE. As the sacrifice of Abel is the first on record, and has given rise to some controversy, it demands particular attention. It was offered, says St. Paul," in faith," and it was "a more excellent sacrifice" than that of Cain. Both these expressions intimate that it was EXPIATORY and PREFIGURATIVE. 66 66 As to the matter of the sacrifice, it was an animal offering. "Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof;" or, more literally, "the fat of them”—that is, according to the Hebrew idiom, the fattest or best of his flock; and in this circumstance consisted its specific character as an act of faith. This is supported by the import of the phrase used by the apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews, when speaking of the sacrifice of Abel. Our translators have rendered it, a more excellent sacrifice." Wickliffe translates it, as Archbishop Magee observes, uncouthly, but in the full sense of the original, a much more sacrifice;" and the controversy which has arisen on this point is, whether this epithet of "much more," or "fuller," refers to quantity or quality; whether it is to be understood in the sense of a more abundant, or of a better, a more excellent sacrifice. Dr. Kennicott takes it in the sense of measure and quantity, as well as quality; and supposes that Abel brought a double offering of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fruit of the ground also. His criticism has been very satisfactorily refuted by Archbishop Magee. The sacrifice of Abel was that of animal victims, and it was indicative, not of gratitude, but of "faith" a quality not to be made manifest by the quantity of an offering, for the one has no relation to the other. 66 This will more fully appear if we consider the import of the words of the apostle,- By FAITH Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained 'WITNESS' that he was RIGHTEOUS, God testifying of his gifts; and by it, he, being dead, yet speaketh."-Abel had faith, and he expressed that faith by the kind of sacrifice he offered. It was in this way that his faith "pleased God;" it pleased him as a principle, and by the act to which it led, which act was the offering of a sacrifice to God different from that of Cain.-Faith, in this chapter, is taken in the sense of affiance in God, and, as such, it can only be exercised toward God, as to all its particular acts, in those respects in which we have some warrant to confide in him. This supposes revelation, and in particular, promises or declarations on his part, as the ground 12 PREPARING THE WAY FOR A PRINCE. of every act of affiance.-If, then, we refer to the subsequent sacrifices of expiation appointed by Divine authority, and their explanation in the New Testament, it will be obvious to what doctrines and principles of an antecedent revelation the faith of Abel had respect, and which his sacrifice, the exhibition of his faith, proclaimed confession of the fact of being a sinner,-acknowledgment that the demerit and penalty of sin is death,-submission to an appointed mode of expiation,-animal sacrifice offered vicariously, but, in itself, a mere type of a better sacrifice," the Seed of the woman," appointed to be offered at some future period,—and the efficacy of this appointed method of expiation to obtain forgiveness, and to admit the guilty into the Divine favour.-Rev. R. Watson. PREPARING THE WAY FOR A PRINCE. It is usually understood that the Prophet Isaiah (chap. xl. 3) alludes to the custom of sending persons, as we might say, labourers, pioneers, before a great prince, to clear the way for his passage. As the thought therefore is not new, we content ourselves with transcribing the following extract, which affords, we think, a happy comment. The following is from Sir Thomas Roe's chaplain :"I, waiting upon my lord embassador two years, and part of a third, and travelling with him in progress with that king (the Mogol) in the most temperate months there, 'twixt September and April, were in one of our progresses 'twixt Mandoa and Amadavar, nineteen days, making but short journeys IN A WILDERNESS, where (by a very great company sent before us, to make those passages and places fit to receive us,) A WAY WAS CUT OUT, AND MADE EVEN, broad enough for our convenient passage; and in the place where we pitched our tents, a great compass of ground was rid, and made plain for them, by grubbing a number of trees and bushes; yet there we went as readily to our tents, as we did, when they were set up in the plains.”—Calmet's Dic. Frag. by Taylor. GUIDE IN THE DESERT. IGNORANCE is a kind of blindness, often no less fatal than privation of sight; and partial, or deficient information, is little better than ignorance: so we find Moses saying to Hobab, "Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we ought to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes." Num. x. 31. The necessity and propriety of such a guide, will appear from considerations easily gathered from the following extract; and the des VISIT TO BETHLEHEM. 13 cription of a person of this character will be interesting, though it cannot be equally interesting to us who travel on hedge-bounded turnpike roads, as to an individual about to take his passage across the great Desert. If it be said, in the case of Moses, the Angel who conducted the camp might have appointed its stations, without the assistance of Hobab; we answer, it might have been so; but, as it is now the usual course of Providence to act by means, even to accomplish the most certain events; and as no man who has neglected any mean, has now the smallest right to expect an interposition of Providence on his behalf; so we strongly query whether it would not have been a failing, of presumption, in Moses, had he omitted this application to Hobab; or indeed, any other, suggested by his good sense and understanding. "A hybeer is a guide, from the Arabic word hubbar, to inform, instruct, or direct, because they are used to do this office to caravan travellers through the desert, in all its directions, whether to Egypt and back again, the coast of the Red Sea, or the countries of Sudan, and the western extremities of Africa. They are men of great consideration, knowing perfectly the situation and properties of all kinds of water to be met on the route; the distances of wells; whether occupied by enemies or not; and if so, the way to avoid them, with the least inconvenience. It is also necessary to them to know the places occupied by the simoon, and the seasons of their blowing in those parts of the desert; likewise those occupied by moving sands. He generally belongs to some powerful tribe of Arabs inhabiting these deserts, whose protection he makes use of, to assist his caravans, or protect them in time of danger; and handsome rewards are always in his power to distribute on such occasions; but now that the Arabs in these deserts are everywhere without government, the trade between Abyssinia and Cairo given over, that between Sudan and the metropolis much diminished, the importance of that office of hybeer, and its consideration, are fallen in proportion, and with these the safe conduct."-Calmet's Dic. Frag. by Taylor. VISIT TO BETHLEHEM. (DR. E. D. CLARKE'S TRAVELS IN THE HOLY LAND.) THE temptation to visit Bethlehem was so great, that, notwithstanding the increasing alarms concerning the ravages of the plague as we drew near the town, we resolved, at all events, to venture thither. For this purpose, calling all our troop together, we appointed some of the party to keep a look-out, and to act as guards in the van, in the centre, and in the rear of the cavalcade, to see that no person loitered, and that none of the inhabitants might be permitted to touch of any our persons, or any of our horses and camels. In this |