Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Come Jesus, come quickly, I long to depart,

To gaze on thy fulness of love; How blest will the day be to dwell where thou art,

And all thy rich glories to prove.

Prepar'd for departure when thou shalt see fit,

In readiness daily I'll wait; And when thou shalt call me I'll gladly obey,

And fly unto yonder white gate. Abundant admitance I there shall receive, With angels, and saints, and the Lamb; To leave this vain world then I never would grieve,

But trust in the mighty I AM.

I'll trust him till death, and then soar to the sky,

To mansions prepar'd by his hands; Ascended to chambers of glory on high, I'll join with the angelic bands.

I there shall sit down with my Saviour and King;

My soul with full ecstacy fir'd; Adore him for ever, and constantly sing Nor e'er of the music grow tir'd. Deptford, Kent.

LINES

J. HARDING.

Written after a Sermon preached by Mr. E. at W-

The faith that is to Israel given,
Is God's free gift sent down from heaven;
And does the matchless grace display
Of Christ the Truth, the Life, the Way.
What though I am defiled with sin,
And born unholy and unclean;
Through grace I'm taught on God to call,
And at his footstool humbly fall.
My cry at first may seem in vain,
But faith is taught to call again;
And for this cause the gospel saith,
"T is for the trial of your faith.

The Father, the Son, and the Spirit to greet, Though 't is not meet that I should take For ever the chorus to swell.

All hail! Hallelujah! new praise to our

King;

All hail! holy Jesus to cry; With rapture encreasing as constant they sing,

And rend the blue vaults of the sky.

No sorrow, no sighing, no sickness, or pain,

No Satan our peace to annoy :
No loss to regret, nor a state to regain,
How boundless will then be our joy!

The children's bread, my food to make;
Yet grant me, Lord-though this be all-
The crumbs which from the table fall.
The meanest of thy saints, O Lord,
Shares in thy tenderest regard;
And though my cries seem from thee cast,
The promised good will come at last.
Have mercy, then, O Lord, on me,
May I thy great salvation see;
And praise, with all thy saints above,
Redeeming grace and dying love.
Surrey.

J. JENKINS.

PREFACE.

TWENTY years the Spiritual Magazine has now been a monthly visitor to the Lord's spiritual Israel, and having had, year by year, during so lengthened a period, to address annual salutations, it becomes now no small difficulty to vary expressions which have chiefly to convey similar wishes and the same acknowledgments.

At the conclusion of each year, when from the summit of its accumulated and sepulchred moments, we have surveyed the history of its transactions, we have had generally, too generally, to lament the falling away of some whom we had esteemed brethren: sad declensions on the part of some for whom we still desired to cherish affection as God's dear children: and often, if not always, to weep and yet rejoice over the departure of faithful men, who have been called from the wilderness, the battle-field, and the gloom, into the presence chamber of the Lord who bought them. At the conclusion of each year, also, in our own personal history, we have often had occasion to sigh in the remembrance of moments of both spiritual and temporal anxiety; but we have never-and we would speak it to the praise of our long-suffering and gracious Jehovah-never have we surveyed the history, for a single year, either of the church of God in general, or of ourselves in particular, but, mingled with every source of despondency, side by side with every difficulty, and encircling as with a rainbow the sable aspect of every cloud, we have always been encouraged with the joyful recollection of some precious mercy, some momentous deliverance, some abundant blessing. In our own history it hath, during the past year, been so in an especial manner; and when, in surveying the year's history of the militant church, we turn our eyes to Scotland-name always associated with animating and honoured remembrances-when we dwell upon the unadorned fact, that above four hundred of her ministers, have, avowedly for Christ's sake, as King in Zion, quitted their homes, their stations and their maintenance, rather than submit to what they deem an invasion of their Lord's prerogative-though, it may be that some of the more prominent were stimulated thereto from the love of domination and patronagewe cannot but exult in the conviction, that still among the myriads of Baal worshippers, there are yet some, and they not a few, who have not bent their knees, and will not now sacrifice their consciences to what they believe to be an idol shrine.

We enter not here into the subject of the controversy. It is enough for our argument, that it was ostensibly an invasion of Immanuel's rights, and that, avowedly to support these, so many of his ministers were to be found prompt to dissever themselves from all earthly comforts, rather than to retain them at the expense of their Master's honour.

Valiant and faithful men-all ye who were actuated only by a godly jealousy-we hail you, and love you, in our Lord's name and for our Lord's sake. May the Lord be with you, as most assuredly he will, and make your labours now, whether in the hired room, the temporary erection,

iv

or on the hill side-pre-eminently conducive to the conversion and encouragement of his elect church. May the trumpet of the gospel, sounded thus wide and free over the length and breadth of the land, by these the Lord's scattered ministers, cheer, invigorate and restore, so that again it may be sung, as was sang by one of our Correspondents, in a retrospective view of the times of the Covenanters,

"Harp, which on Scotia's hills,

In Scotia's hour of gloom,

Taught Scotia's peasants how to fight,
Defending King Immanuel's right
With an endurance and a might,

Which gild with coruscations bright

Their bleak and barren home."

Alas, when we turn our eyes from the north country, and in our own England look at the unholy and irreligious agitation against laws and against dignities, and recognise foremost therein, one long eminent as a great man in Israel; we cannot wonder that the ministry of such men should become stunted and barren, and that juveniles in the vineyard should be permitted to depopulate their congregations and vex their age. Brethren, the Lord is not in these agitations. The Corn Laws will exist so long as he pleaseth, and their repeal will never be hastened by all the toil or ribaldry of good men, who turn aside from their proper work to join in a league with oppressing task-masters and infidels, to further designs they do not understand. Let ministers of Jesus exhibit to the spiritually hungry the Bread of Life, and leave to statesmen, and to our God who governeth statesmen, the making and the unmaking of laws regarding the bread that perisheth.

Our space will scarcely permit our alluding to the continued progress of what is termed Puseyism. It has sustained a temporary check in the ecclesiastical censure passed upon its leader: but the snake is not killed; again it will revive, and is reviving; again it will coil around the mystical Babylon, and gathering renewed venom from its embraces with that mother of abominations, again seek to poison and to restrain the current of God's unadulterated truth. But the Lord liveth. The times in which we live are portentous, awful times: we stand as it were on the brink of a tremendous precipice: what is before us, the future only will develope, for our God retaineth to himself the times and the seasons: happy is that man, who amid the vicissitudes which seem approaching, hath been enabled to shelter himself in the munitions of the Rock, and hath made the God of Jacob his refuge.

Brethren, farewell. May the Lord, even Israel's Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be with you and bless you; lift up the light of his countenance upon you, and give you peace. Our motto to you for the ensuing year shall be, WATCH! Again we say unto you all, WATCH! for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh.

THE EDITORS.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small]
« AnteriorContinuar »