to express her gratitude. Once more! It is not I, a poor sinner, a feeble creature, who speak this-it is Jesus Christ himself. This same truth is found in all the instructions of Jesus Christ, as we have seen it in all the words of the Apostles. Read the Prodigal Son. His father receives him, pardons him, saves him when he is covered with rags, before he has touched the threshold of his father's door, before he has done a single work: he receives him as soon as he cries to him, "I am not worthy to be called thy son." Read the parable of the labourer called at different hours, and you will find that the penny was given to those who only came an hour before evening, as to those who had come in the morning. What they receive then is not a reward merited, it is a gift, a gift of grace, it is the salvation of Jesus Christ. Read the parable of the king who receives at the marriage feast of his son not the great nobles who might pretend that they had some right to it, but beggars, the lame, the blind, collected in the high way, that is to say, men destitute of all right, of all pretensions, so that they enter to the feast by favour, by grace, without work, without merit; this is the salvation of Jesus Christ. See the thief upon the cross, saved after a life of crimes, before he has been able to do any thing to repair his crimes done towards God and man, saved from the very moment that he puts trust in the Son of God by his prayer: this is the salvation of Jesus Christ. Zaccheus is saved after his extortions -Saint Peter after his perjury-all the apostles after their cowardly desertion they are saved without having merited it, without having done any thing; it is after that they are saved that they begin to do good works. Salvation is then altogether of grace, solely of grace, and it is when we have received it that we are rendered capable of doing that which is good. You see then, my Brethren dearly beloved, that I do not any more than you reject good works. I believe on the contrary that my manner of viewing things, or rather that of Jesus Christ, is far better adapted than yours to the production, the developement and the ripening of good fruits in the heart of man. In one of the two systems, salvation is a recompense granted to the work of man; that is to say, in order to stimulate man to do that which is good, recourse is had to the allurement of a reward-in a word, to the motive of self-interest. In the other system, salvation is a gift granted to man, in order to produce and to cause to be fruitful in him, gratitude as a spring of good works; that is to say, that to stimulate man to do that which is good, appeal is made to the heart of man, in a word, to the motive of love. It is true that both self-interest and love are motives capable of leading men to action, but I ask, which of the two is most powerful? In the affairs of this world, which accomplishes the greatest things, self-interest labours with perseverance, but its efforts have a limit, it ceases when it perceives itself defeated. Love labours without limit, without reserve; it sacrifices itself, and even in that very sacrifice it finds its happiness. Tell me which should you prefer, the services of a man who would expect from you a reward, or the care of a mother who would expect nothing? Judge then, whether God must prefer mercenary servants or grateful children! 'But more than this. If love be a motive more powerful than self-interest, it is besides far more noble. In this world there is often but little care as to the nobleness or the baseness of principles which lead either to the performance of a duty, or the rendering of a service. Man looks at the result, and if that be favourable to him, it matters little to him as to the motives which have brought it about. But God regards the heart; it is the intention, it is the motive, it is that which affects the soul, that he especially considers, because that soul has to live eternally. Your motive of self-interest is nothing else but a negation of love. Not only is the one more noble than the other, but the one is noble and the other is vile: the one is of the earth, the other is of heaven: God is love, and all that he does for us, for angels, for the universe, all proceeds from his love. 'Well then, beloved Brethren! it is a spark of that love which animates me in your behalf, and with which I would inspire you in your turn, not towards myself whom you know not nor probably ever will know, but towards your God, your Saviour, who has so loved you, as to save you by mere grace, and who has said to you, That ye are 'justified freely by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." Rom. iii. 24. 66 'There are yet several points on which I had wished to speak, but I fear tiring your attention, and being thus no longer listened to, permit me then to conclude with a question. Since you have possessed the knowledge of what you are since you have taken account of what you believe, have you been happy? Have you peace in your conscience? Does the joy of the Christian fill your heart? Have you no fear of death? . . . . No. I think I may say it, you are not truly happy; your conscience is not peaceful; ennui possesses you; the thought of death terrifies you, and if you must die before the next hour, you would tremble as an aspen leaf, at the idea of appearing before God. Know you why this is? Precisely because you do not believe in this gratuitous and complete salvation, which dispels from the soul all sadness and all fear, which allows it to contemplate death and judgment, because it gives to it a certainty that it shall enjoy eternal life. Yes, the certainty. Yes, I know that I am saved, for it is not from myself that comes that salvation on which I trust, but solely from Jesus Christ, from my God; and on this account it is that I can say, I know-I am certain that I am already saved. On this account it is that I can be peaceful, rejoicing, without fear, and in happiness at all times, so that I can say with Saint Paul, “ I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love which God hath shown to us in Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. viii. 38, 39. 66 ‘Yes. This is the secret of happiness, here on earth and in heaven, the assurance of salvation. Without it we are slaves. Without it we are men of good will." Without it we can only creep along on the way of servile works. With it we run in the commandments of God. Without it, you will be always miserable. With it, your heaven will commence on earth. Adieu, my dear Brethren! we shall probably never see one another in this world may we see one another, and love one another in the next. Your affectionate brother in Jesus Christ, 'How enormous the guilt of the Church of Rome in her attempts to obtain universal domination over the conscience! how cruel the tortures inflicted by her on those who, at the sound of the sackbut and psaltery, would not bow down to the golden image which she had set up, or receive for doctrines the commandment of men, or admit as infallible her interpretations of the Word of God! How deep our debt of obligation to those martyrs who, having sacrificed all for the truth's sake, witnessed at the stake a good confession; and by their uncompromising steadfastness, and their bold avowal of the pure doctrines of the Gospel, were the instruments in the hands of a gracious God of emancipating our forefathers from the thraldom of Popery, and dissipating that gross darkness, in which for ages our country had been enveloped!' T. BISSLAND. NOVEMBER, 1839. 31 Review of Books. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY for Africa and the East. Thirty-ninth year 1838-9, containing the Anniversary Sermon, by the Rev. JOHN NORMAN PEARSON, M.A. late Principal of the Society's Institution; the Thirty-ninth Report, &c. MISSIONS the chief end of the Christian Church; also the Qualifications, Duties, and Trials of an Indian Missionary, being the substance of services held at the Ordination of the Rev. Thomas Smith, as one of the Church of Scotland Missionaries to India. By the Rev. ALEXANDER DUFF, D. D. Church of Scotland Mission, Calcutta. 18mo. Whittakers, 1839. THE cause of Christian Missions assumes increasing importance in proportion as it is seriously contemplated; and those periodical meetings which are held for promoting the claims of different missionary institutions, are of incalculable value, by continually recalling attention to this interesting topic. When we consider how large a part of the world is still enslaved in Pagan or Mahomedan darkness and superstition, to say nothing of the prevalence of corrupt and nominal Christianity, which so extensively prevails, we cannot but feel, that after all the exertions of the last half century, little has yet been done in comparison with the grand object, namely, THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD. This idea indeed forms the exordium to Mr. Pearson's discourse. The text is, Mal. i. 11. In every place incense shall be offered unto my name and a pure offering: and he justly observes— There are two phenomena of the moral world which severely task the faith of religious minds. One is, that so large a proportion of the globe should not even be nominally Christian: the other is, that Christendom itself should be so corrupt, and so scantily endued with vital godliness. That a scheme so admirably contrived, as the scheme of Christ's pacification, to exhibit Jehovah in the brightest glories of his goodness, should not yet have been even reported to millions of the human race; and that so much impurity should cleave to that Church, which is the body of Jesus Christ; is among those hard problems, the solution of which will probably be deferred, until mankind have reached a higher stage of religious proficiency. After suggesting some suitable reflections resulting from these painful phenomena, Mr. Pearson proceeds to explain. In discussing our text, I shall, with divine help, explain, I. THE PREDICTION, THAT INCENSE II. THAT A PURE OFFERING SHALL BE PRESENTED TO IT. And, III. shall APPLY THE WHOLE TO THE FUTURE AND PRE-DESTINED GLORY OF MESSIAH'S KINGDOM. To those who have bestowed any serious thought on the peculiarities of the Levitical institutes, the observation must be familiar, that those sacrificial rites, by which Christ, the great head of the church, is eminently typified, do likewise parabolically instruct us in the character, duties, and privileges of his mystical members. Thus the animal sacrifices, which were carefully inspected, to see that they were sound both without and within, carry a subordinate allusion to imputed and to inherent righteousness, to that which is upon all, and to that which is in all them that believe; while they point, in their first design, at the perfect satisfaction of Jesus, the lamb without blemish and without spot. The like double interpretation applies to the perpetual fire upon the altar; and to the rites of purification through which the healed leper was restored to the congregation of Israel; and the principle will be found to hold good in numerous instances. Our present concern, however, is with the frankincense, a precious perfume, curiously compounded, after instructions from God himself; and which, besides being always poured upon the meat-offerings, was daily burnt by itself, on the golden altar. Thither it was brought by the officiating priest, after being kindled at the fire of the altar of burnt-offering; a fire (be it remarked) which came down from heaven, and was never allowed to go out. The altar upon which the smoking censer was placed, stood just before the vail; through which its fragrant fumes would be wafted into the holiest place, the antitype of which is the heaven of heavens; and into this most sacred chamber, the censer itself was taken by the High Priest alone, and only once in the year.Leaving it to your private thoughts to adjust these particulars with the points of correspondence in the evangelical scheme, I would merely remark, that this rare incense, which it was a capital crime to imitate, denotes, primarily, the intercession of the Saviour. He hath given himself for us-as St. Paul declares, in allusion to this ordinance-an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savour :-and what can we substitute in place of his merits, without incurring fatal hazard ? In elucidating the phrase "offered unto my name," Mr. Pearson ob serves If we take this expression in its most superficial sense, as indicating a sacrifice acceptable to God, because offered with such apprehensions and feelings as became the worshipper in relation to the great object of worship, we must still admit it to point at God, regarded in Christ Jesus. For since the Gospel was promulged, no service can be grateful to the supreme Father, but such as is presented on the basis of the Covenant established with mankind in the second Adam. There is, however, strong presumptive evidence for believing that this denomination of Jehovah is no meagre expletive, but conveys a direct and explicit allusion to Christ the Mediator. To offer prayers and praises to the Name of Jehovah seems to imply, in many passages of Scripture, not merely the presentation of worship to the Triune God indefinitely, but the honouring of him by a definite, though more or less distinct- recognition of Christ, as the only way of access to the Father. That this appellation of God is strictly associated with the character he sustains in Redemption, may be inferred from a passage in the Sixtythird of Isaiah, compared with one in the Twenty-third of Exodus. For Isaiah, in that solemn commemoration of the mercies of God to his chosen people, evidently alludes, under the name of the Angel of God's presence, to the extraordi. nary Being sent of God before the pilgrim Israelites, with an assurance that His Name was in Him. After declaring that JEHOVAH was their Saviour, the Prophet immediately follows up this declaration with ascribing their salvation to the Angel of his presence; and then studiously repeats, that it was He, Jehovah, who redeemed them. Thus is the supreme God identified with that pre-eminent Angel in whom His Name was, and who came forth from him for the very purpose of completing the redemption of Israel from its slavery in Egypt. Accordingly, we shall hardly seem precipitate, in concluding that this form of speech, the name of the Lord, is a designation of the Godhead, with particular reference to the undertaking of the second Person in the blessed Trinity to emancipate his Church from the yoke of sin and Satan, of which the Egyptian bondage was a figure. Again, in Deut. xii. Jehovah directs some specific place to be consecrated to Himself, wherein he engages to cause His Name to dwell;-an expression which strongly corroborates our opinion, that the name of Jehovah implies some great and singular manifestation of himself, as to his nature, his proceedings, or his purposes. In no other place, no house but this, which is set apart for the habitation of His Name, were sacrifices and offerings permitted;-a house, be it remembered, all glowing with symbolical emblazonry of the salvation by Christ, and in which the worshippers' devout attention was particularly directed to the Ark, with its mercy-seat, that pregnant emblem of Him who is given for a covenant of the people. In this dwellingplace of the Divine Name abode the Shechinah, the radiant token of the incarnation of the Word, and his tabernacling among men,-the mystical effigy of the only-begotten of the Father, whose glory was recognised by John and the other apostles, as appertaining solely to the Mediatorial source of grace and truth. And our Lord himself seems to authorise the explanation we are proposing of the phrase in question, when he declares himself to have manifested the Name of the Father:-"I have manifested Thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world;"-that Name, so mysterious and holy, so long enshrined in the imagery of the Tabernacle, and so earnestly inquired into by prophets and righteous men of old, to whom it was partially disclosed, as fraught with saving virtue ;that name (and be it ever blessed!) is secret no longer, since God hath revealed his counsel in Christ of reconciling the world unto himself.-And who, my Brethren, who should be competent to explain that Name, but the wondrous Being, whose person and offices are its true interpretation? On this interesting topic I have further to remark, that we have no slight ground for supposing that the elder patriarchs used this phrase, the name of the Lord, with the same reference to God in Christ reconciling the world to himself. They appear to have understood the Name as a sacramental term, by which Jehovah exhibited himself conversing with guilty man through the promised Intercessor, the word made flesh. Under the second head, a pure offering, Mr. Pearson proceeds: We have considered the offering of incense to imply the benign effect of our Lord's pacification, in rendering the worship and service of mankind acceptable to Jehovah. And surely the pure offering will express the sanctification of the Church, and of each individual believer,and the consequent purity of those offerings which are brought near to Jehovah by the spiritual household. I shall consider this thought under two aspects. In the pure offering which is everywhere brought near to the name of God, I see, first, the enlargement and amelioration of the collective Church, together with the purification of public worship from those defects which now adhere to it. And, secondly, the improved character of individual Christians in that golden era into which the prophet carries our minds. First Let us fix our thoughts on the future and extraordinary extension and purity of the Church.-And here we are led to contemplate the entire extermination of the lewd and sanguinary rites of Paganism. Nor is it altogether unlikely that this passage insinuates the abolition of bloody sacrifices, through the oblation of that one great Victim, who, by actually putting away sin, hath annulled all symbolical immolations. Henceforth we are to render unbloody offerings,-the sacrifices of thanksgiving, which Hosea emphatically styles, "the calves of our lips." Even material incense, and the minchah, are superseded by the spiritual oblations of Christianity. Prayer is appointed for incense; and instead of the evening sacrifice, is "the lifting up of holy hands, without wrath and doubting." Moreover, that we are warranted to contemplate the catholic Church as one magnificent offering to Immanuel, is plain from Ephesians v. 25,; wherein Christ is said to have "loved the Church, and given himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word;-that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish." Many now are Churchmembers, attached to the visible body, without being in union with the invisible Head. The Church teems with nominal Christians, self-deceivers, and hypocritical pretenders. But from these it shall hereafter, even within its visible pale, be wholly or extensively purged. What an august edifice will that be, my Brethren, which shall not only possess a corporate and federal holiness, but shall be intrinsically holy in all its component parts! How excellent must be that com munity, of which every member is washed, and justified, and sanctified! I can well believe that the heavens will bow down to unite themselves with such a Church; that angels will resort to it delighted; and that God himself will make it his rest, and joy over it with divine complacency. What an epoch will this Church have reached, when, in telling the members of its several congregations, you enumerate none but such as belong to "the Church of the first-born, which are written in heaven; and when these congregations will be "in every place," and will include in their countless rolls all the rational creation ;when there shall, in a transcendant sense, be neither Jew, nor Turk, nor Gentile; no scoffers and unbelievers ; no hollow mercenary adherents, with Christ on their foreheads, and mammon in their hearts; but the whole world shall constitute one temple to Jehovah, and every heart be an altar. Contrast this sublime picture with the spectacle now presented by the world; and you will sigh to find yourselves separated from its realization by a gulf which the eye of faith can hardly traverse. In many vast regions of the earth the name of Jesus is unknown, and not a third part of its inhabitants has been baptized into His religion. From that scanty portion deduct those whose Christianity is all comprised in the act of baptismal dedication, those who are totally ignorant of the religion they profess, and those whose knowledge is unmixed with faith,-the bold blasphemer, the flippant sceptic, the froward heretic, the punctilious Pharisee, the Sadducean rationalist. Subtract these multitudes from the Church of the Redeemed; and along with them, all sensual, covetous, and careless livers-those who, by a mournful emphasis, are "children of this world; "-and how few remain to Christ!-Almighty Saviour, where are thy Redeemed? Oh where are those whom thy Spirit hath renewed-the scattered remnant, who keep Thy word, and do not deny thy name,-and who shall walk with thee in white, among the "chosen, and called, and faithful?"-On surveying this dark scene, my Brethren, our hearts would sink within us, were they not supported by the prophetic assurance, that in due time, this disproportion, between the friends of our Lord and his enemies, shall be reversed. "For then," saith the Lord,-in the time appointed for the solemn assembly,—“ will I turn to the people (it should be peoples) a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent. In that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one." God in Christ shall alone be adored with an uniform and unanimous worship; and "there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts." |