20 NOTICE TO THE READERS OF THE TRACT MAGAZINE.

and watchful, to listen to his voice, that voice which tells us in the gospel, of what he has done for us, and how we should live to him; that voice which speaks in his providence, to reveal his will concerning us; that voice which speaks in our hearts to reprove and correct us, to encourage and console us; that voice which speaks so often, if we would only listen to it. Let us ask ourselves whether we know how to sit at the feet of Jesus, checking the folly of our own wisdom, laying aside all passion and prejudice, not conferring with flesh and blood, but listening silently and attentively to every word that proceeds from the lips of our Divine Master? Do we desire to increase the store of gifts and graces, of life and comfort, which we may already have received from him? Are we more anxious, like Mary, to receive from him than to seek, like Martha, to offer him something of our own? Do we hunger and thirst after righteousness? Do we feel that our reading, our meditations, our experience, our attendance on the means of grace, our labours in the name of Christ, our undertakings for his glory, the gift of prophecy, the raptures of angels, would all be useless without the love of God, the love of Christ, the love of souls, the love of the brethren, and the holiness which accompanies such love. If these are our desires, however weak and imperfect in degree, let us be humble and watchful, let us thank God and take courage; for the strength of the Saviour will be made perfect in our weakness; he will carry on the good work he has begun in us; and he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself." But if we have been hitherto mistaken as to the nature and design of true religion, let us now be awakened to hear the Saviour's voice, saying, “One thing is needful," and this one thing is to turn to God for faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and sanctification by his Spirit. O may we all, like Mary, choose the good part, which shall not be taken away from any who seek it, and who shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

From Sermons by M. Grandpierre, a French minister.

NOTICE TO THE READERS OF THE TRACT MAGAZINE. THE Correspondence and Intelligence respecting the Religious Tract Society, usually given in the Tract Magazine, will in future appear in the new periodical, "The Christian Spectator." The Tract Magazine thus will have more space for general subjects, and thereby be rendered still more suitable for general perusal and loan circulation. It is particularly recommended to Loan Tract Societies to include it in their distribution.

UZZIAH LEPROUS-ISRAEL CARRIED CAPTIVE. GOD will be in no man's debt. So long as Uzziah sought the Lord, "God made him to prosper." Even what we do out of duty, cannot want a reward. Godliness never disappointed any man's hopes, oft it has exceeded them. If Uzziah fight against the Philistines, if against the Arabians and Mehunims, the strength, the help of the Almighty is with him. The Ammonites come in with presents, and all the neighbouring nations ring of the greatness, of the happiness of Uzziah: his bounty and care make Jerusalem both strong and proud of her new towers; yea, the very desert must taste of his munificence.

The outward munificence of princes cannot stand firm, unless it be built on the foundation of providence and frugality. Uzziah had not been so great a king, if he had not been so great a husbandman: he had his flocks in the deserts, and his herds in the plains; his ploughs in the fields, his vine-dressers on the mountains and in Carmel: neither was this more out of profit than delight, for he loved husbandry. Who can contemn those callings, they have not such meanness, as sometimes furnishes the pleasures of princes?

The greatness of Uzziah, and the rare devices of his artificial engines of war, have not more raised his fame than his pride: so is he swollen up with the admiration of his. TRACT MAGAZINE, NO. 62. FEBRUARY, 1839.

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own strength and glory, that he breaks again. How easy it is for the best man to dote on himself, and to be lifted up so high, as to lose the sight both of the ground whence he rises, and of the hand that advanced him! How hard it is for him that has invented strange engines for the battering his enemies, to find out any means to beat down his own proud thoughts! Wise Solomon knew what he did, when he prayed to be delivered from too much; "Lest," said he, "I be full, and deny thee,, and say, Who is the Lord?" On this rock did the son of Solomon rum and split himself. Uzziah's full sails of prosperity carried himinto presumption and ruin. What may he not do? What may he not be? Because he found his power otherwise unlimited, overruling in the court, the cities, the fields, the deserts, the arms and magazines, therefore he thinks he may do so in the temple too. As things royal, civil, husbandry, military, passed his hands; so, why should not, thinks he, sacred things also? It is a dangerous indiscretion for a man not to know the bounds of his own calling. What confusion follows on this breaking of the ranks!

What religious heart could do other, than relent at so faithful and just an admonition as that of Azariah the high priest! But how hard is it for great persons to yield when they have offended! What is done rashly Uzziah would bear out with power, but public offences must have open shame. It is a dangerous thing to put ourselves into the affairs, into the presence of God, unwarranted.

Now begins Uzziah to be confounded in himself; and shame strives with leprosy, for a place in his forehead. The hand of God hath done that in an instant, which all the tongues of men had attempted in vain. There needs no one farther to advise him to depart; the sense of his plague sends him forth alone. How easy it is for the God of heaven to bring down the highest pitch of earthly greatness, and to humble the stubbornest pride!

Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, comes up against Hoshea, king of Israel, and subdues him, and puts him to his tribute. This vanquished prince was neither able to resist, nor willing to yield: secretly therefore he treats with the king of Egypt for assistance, as desiring rather to hazard his liberty by the hand of an equal, than to enjoy quiet in sub

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jection under the hand of an overruling power. taining of his yearly tribute, and the whisperings with new confederates, have drawn up the king of Assur to perfect his own victories. He returns therefore with a strong power; and, after three years' siege, takes Samaria, imprisons Hoshea; and, in the exchange of a woful captivity, he peoples Israel with Assyrians, and Assyria with Israelites. Now that abused soil has, on a surfeit of wickedness, cast out her perfidious owners, and will try how it can fare with heathenish strangers. Now the flourishing kingdom of the ten tribes is come to a final and shameful end; and so vanished in this last removal, that, since that day, no man could ever say, "This was Israel."

Oh terrible example of vengeance, on that peculiar people, whom God hath chosen for himself out of all the world! All the world were witnesses of the favours of their miraculous deliverances and protections; all the world shall be witnesses of their just confusion.

Neither were these slips of frailty, or ignorant mistakings; but wilful crimes, obstinate impieties, in spite of the doctrines, reproofs, menaces, and miraculous convictions of the holy prophets, whom God sent amongst them. Thy destruction is of thyself, O Israel! What could the just hand of the Almighty do less than consume a nation so incorrigibly flagitious! a nation so unthankful for mercies, so impatient of remedies, so incapable of repentance; so obliged, so warned; so shamelessly, so lawlessly wicked.

The Israelites are carried captive into Assyria. Those goodly cities of the ten tribes may not lie waste and unpeopled the wisdom of the victor finds it fit to transplant his own colonies thither, that so he may raise profit thence, with security.

The brute creatures are sent to revenge the quarrel of their Maker, on worse than themselves. Still has God left himself champions in Israel; lions tear the Assyrians in pieces; and put them in mind, that, had it not been for wickedness, that land needed not to have changed masters. The great Lord of the world cannot want means to plague offenders: if the men be gone, yet the beasts are there; and if the beasts had been gone, yet, so long as there were stones in the wall, in the quarries, God would be sure of avengers. There is no security but in being at peace with God.

The king of Assyria is sued to for remedy. Even these pagans have learned to know, that these lions were sent from a God: that this punishment is for sin. How much worse than Assyrians are they who are ready to ascribe all calamities to nature, to chance! that, acknowledging but one God of all the world, are yet careless to know him, to serve him!

Vain politicians think to satisfy God by patching up religions. I know not how their bodies sped for the lions; I am sure their souls fared the worse for this medley. Above all things, God hates a mongrel devotion; if we be not all Israel, it were better to be all Assur: it cannot so much displease God to be unknown or neglected, as to be consorted with idols. From Bishop Hall.

FEBRUARY.

"The Most High giveth snow like wool; he scattereth the hoar frost like ashes. He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow," Psa. cxlvii. 16, 18. HOW delightful is that feeling which the lover of nature now experiences, when the snows are melted from the fields, and a soft spring-like breeze is felt for the first time after cold east winds, and a tedious confinement to the house. The sun-beams, too, that break through the driving clouds, and brighten the landscape with a rapid radiance, are welcomed, perhaps, with more delight than at any other season of the year; and even the mists that rest upon the hills, or, as the country people call them, the smoking of the woods, seem an earnest of much that is verdurous and joyful. But many cheerless days must elapse, before these promises are realized: clouds will return surcharged with rain, and rest with a settled gloom on the horizon: yet they are full of hope, for the heaviest showers answer a double purpose in the great economy of nature: they loosen the soil, and enable the roots of plants to expand; they also supply the fluid that is received through the roots into the stem.

That propensity which Paley justly describes as prior to experience, and independent of instruction, is now beautifully manifested in the tender maternal care with which the parent sheep selects a sheltered spot for the accommodation of her young. The weak bleatings of these helpless