their consciences. They might possibly, for a time, have screened themselves from the fierceness of this trial of their faith; but neither would their deeds have immortalized their memory, nor the special care of heaven in behalf of the persecuted have stood out with such instructive and striking prominence to future generations. An instance no less instructive occurs in the case of St. Paul. The affliction which for a time oppressed him seemed, to his apprehension, to be beyond endurance. Prayer, reiterated prayer for deliverance, he therefore considered as the only resource. To Omniscience, however, a method equally efficacious for the apostle, but abundantly more illustrative of the manifold wisdom of God, is at hand: superadded grace, up to the highest pitch of the exigence, is afforded, in contrast with his personal debility: "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weak-| ness;" which economy, far from exciting dissatisfaction in the apostle's mind, furnished him with an additional argument to extol the efficacy of divine grace: "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities; for, when I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Cor. xii. 8-10). Thus, whilst the endurance of the various trials of life renders them available to our best interests, it no less tends to advance the glory of God, by showing the sufficiency of grace to sustain the faithful under them, or the promptness of Omnipotence to effect their deliverance from them. GAL. III. 20*. Now the promise to Abraham was virtually a promise of God to Christ "to thy seed which is Christ" (ver. 16). There was a covenant of promise" confirmed in or to Christ "" εις Χριστον (ver. 17). Though Abraham was ostensibly a contracting party, yet it was rather as a type of Christ than in his own person. So in the covenant of royalty with David and his seed, and that of priesthood with Aaron and his seed, the contract was properly with Christ (Jer. xxxiii. 21, 22). So that the declaration holds good with respect to the covenant of grace in all its forms: "My covenant shall stand fast with him" (Ps. lxxxix. 28), even him who is God's "first-born, higher than the kings of the earth" (ver. 27). It was stipulated in this covenant to provide a sanctuary of righteousness for the ungodly, in which their forfeited lives should be saved. Then came the legal covenant 430 years after. Was there anything in the substance of the law contradictory to the promise? No, it was clearly subservient to it. "It was added because of transgressions," ""that the offence might abound" (Rom. v. 20), "till the seed should come to *From "A Mediator is not of One: an attempt to explain a hard text." By the rev. H. Verschoyle, M.A., Minister of the Episcopal chapel, Upper Bagot-street, Dublin. London: Seeleys, 1848. We cannot say that we are fully persuaded that Mr. Verschoyle has succeeded in placing beyond controversy the meaning of this text. But every attempt to explain the scripture is valuable; and the tone of piety throughout this discourse is so admirable that we cannot hesitate to introduce it to our readers.-ED, whom the promise was made." The discovery of sin and the threat of death would make men cleave the more closely to the promise of righteousness and life in Christ. The law, pursuing with the curse all those outside the sanctuary, would shut men up within its walls of salvation. There was nothing then in the original purport of the law at variance with the covenant of promise. It was their own perversion of it which set it in apparent contradiction to that gracious covenant. They resorted to it as a means of obtaining the promised blessing, and supposed that another sanctuary of safety for sinners was set up in it. But this wresting of it alone set it in opposition to the promise,For, if the inheritance (if the promised blessing of righteousness and life, for this is the meaning of inheritance) be of the law, it is no more of promise" (ver. 14-21). So, then, the law in its true intent and lawful use disturbed not the promise. But still less did it disannul it when, besides the substance, you consider the form of the legal covenant. It was entered into between different parties from the former. This is proved by means of a circumstance connected with the ratification of the latter covenant, "It was ordained in the hand of a mediator." The employment of a mediator shewed that there were two parties, numerically; but more than this-that they were not at unity, but at variance, one with the other. For, though the parties be numerically two, yet, if there be no dispute or difference, there is no occasion for a mediator. These parties were God and the people of Israel, between whom Moses acted as mediator, not God and Christ, between whom there is no variance, and therefore no room for a mediator. But the covenant of promise, as we have seen, be diverse Persons, are one in essence "God was between God and his Christ, who, though they is one"-and are also at unity between themselves, they are at one: "I and my Father are one.' (John x. 30). It is evident then that the legal covenant was between different parties from the first; and therefore, independently of there being nothing in the substance of it to subvert the former, it is still further removed from the possibility of doing so by its form, being a contract between God and man, partly divine and partly human; whereas the first covenant was between two Persons of the Godhead, purely divine. been This latter argument, indeed, is introduced incidentally: it is not that on which the apostle mainly relies; for it is a technical one. This appears from his resuming the former in the 21st God? God forbid for, if there had been a law verse: "Is the law then against the promises of given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." Christ would not have been given to die had there any other alternative, otherwise he would have died in vain. For, if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain" (ii. 21). But, so far is the law from giving life, that it concludes all under sin, and thus makes it more necessary for men to embrace the promise (ver. 22). Yet even this technical argument, according to the law of human covenants, is available to prove that, though the legal covenant were substantially at variance with the former, it could not disannal it, as it is the deed of different parties. "walking in love," of seeking to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith the disciple has been called, We are now, I trust, satisfied by arguments which is the secret, as it is the staff and stay, of containing not only force of the reason, which the missionary spirit: it was cradled in that grace, regulate human affairs, but power and demonstra- it has expanded by it till it embraces the uttermost tion of the Spirit, that the covenant of promise parts of the earth; and it shall grow and increase made with Abraham was not disturbed by the law with the growth and increase of that kingdom, which came after it, and therefore that there is whose borders it was sent to enlarge, until every no shadow of pretext for men to forsake the foot-kingdom and nation and people shall call Jerusteps of Abraham's faith, and turn to the works | salem "the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy of the law. LOVE FOR THE JEWS. One of Israel, and shall worship before the Lord." True love deals not then with names or races or distinctions: all are equal in its sight, for all are equal in the sight of God: it knoweth neither Jew nor Gentile, where the soul of a fellow-creature THE greatest of mercies which the Creator can may be brought back to him, "without whom vouchsafe to his creature is "to be born again ;" was not anything made that was made." And to have implanted in him the incorruptible seed, how shall not that love burn within the true disthat the corruptible may die in him. The first-ciple, when he beholds the children of the kingfruits of his new birth are the love of God in dom cast out, the sheep of the fold wandering Christ, that love which was the first love of man, through all the mountains, and upon every high and must be the last, if he would have hope of hill, the dispersed and scattered upon all the face of rising to the life eternal; and the ripening of this the earth! Has he been brought himself to the true love is unto that peace with God, which he knows Light, and does he not know that their forgiveness to have been bought with the price of his blood, was sealed, when they were forgiven of him whom who came into the world to preach peace with they pierced? O there is no light in that breast God, and good will towards man. No sooner which beats not to the promise: "They shall be has the divine seed of love and peace been sown in as though as I had not cast them off." And his soul than the "new man's" breast expands which one of us can account himself as being not only with the reverential love of God, with the made wise unto salvation, whose heart continues love which casteth out fear, with the adoring and closed against Christ's brethren after the flesh, of thankful love of a pardoned and reconciled whom he hath declared, "Ye shall dwell in the sinner, with the love of one made of free grace a land which I gave to your fathers; and ye shall child of God, and delivered from the bondage who loveth them with an everlasting love, is that be my people; and I will be your God"? He, and service of the evil one, but with as intense a love for his brethren in the flesh. No longer a Jesus of Nazareth, still "King of the Jews," our child of wrath, he has grace given him by the hope and our deliverer. Spirit of love to love his neighbour as himself, to love him with a stedfast and forbearing, an active and indomitable love. He feels himself to be the liege-subject of a double, not a divided, allegiance; nay, more, the bond-servant of the law of love. He loves God because he first loved him; and, so loving him by whom he has been pardoned and justified, he sets before him the second commandment in the Christian decalogue, that commandment which he has received from his Redeemer's own lips: "That" we "love one another as he hath loved us ;" and it is by this love that Christ dwelleth in us, and the love of him waxeth strong, and is perfected in us. We obey because we love: we love because we obey. Charity is, as it were, become a master-passion of our hearts: it dieth not when they cease to throb, but shall fructify after faith and hope live no more but in the memory of the glorified, as the blessed ladder lent to them for their ascension to the mansions of their risen Lord. This law of love admits of no exceptions: it knows no bitterness, or wrath, or anger, or malice: the more degraded and outcast the brother, the more does the follower of Christ, as his dear child, weep over his fallen estate, the more of fervour, zeal, tenderheartedness, brotherly kindness does his heart put on, the more does he pray and work, that he may be used as the blessed instrument of turning his brother to the righteousness in which only he has himself the hope that his own soul shall be saved. It is this heaven-born grace of Can Such will be the godly reasonings of the man, to whom the Lord has vouchsafed " a new heart,' who hath the life which is in the Son. As the citizen of a Christian land, too, he will be stirred up to new striving by the promise unto the people, who shall be his instruments in cleansing Israel : "They shall prosper who love thee;" and he will tremble before the denunciation: "The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted." he search the records of ages, and will he not acknowledge how every kingdom and nation, that has violated this duty, has perished from the things that be? Where are Nineveh, and Babylon, and Chaldea, and Rameses, and Egypt, and Grecia, and Rome, and the mighty monarchies, where the outcasts sought a refuge, and found reviling, despiteful usage, stripes, and persecution?-Persia alone left, as God's witness unto Jew and Gentile, that "blessed is he that blesseth thee, O Israel, whom I will yet choose." And how can any one of us look upon the judgments that are pouring out upon the earth at this hour without discerning that, if the Lord be not slack concerning his promises, so he is not slack concerning his threatenings? What love have the nations, now bent low under the heavy hand of his displeasure, manifested towards the souls of his peculiar people? Have they sought to hasten the coming of Christ's kingdom among them? Alas! they have not; and, for the most part, they have not concerned themselves about the things which concern their peace: they have not bowed themselves before the Lord's Anointed, and taken him for their everlasting strength: they have loved darkness rather than light, and have stumbled and are fallen: the faith once delivered to the saints has been hidden from their eyes: men's inventions and old women's fables, the sufficiency of man and the majesty of man's reason have been their glory, but, in the Lord's dealings, are become their scourge, and their ruin. Thanks be to God, we live in the land where the saving truths of the book of life are the standards of our faith and the glory of our church; where the beams of the Sun of Righteousness shine with chastening effulgence and a healing light; where the message of peace and good-will to man is treasured up in the nation's heart, and sent through all its arteries and veins to the most distant extremities of its body politic; where the law of love is the spring and spirit and cement of every popular institution, whether in church or state. O let us pray and wrestle with a prayer-answering God, that that book, that Sun, that message, that law may be worshipped with increasing fervour of worship among us, and be established as the light and life of every nation under heaven! For it is righteousness, and righteousness only, which "exalteth a nation." THE BORN BLIND: A Sermon, S****. THE holy scriptures were not only written for our learning, and to instruct us in the way of salvation, but they refer to usages and sentiments which were prevalent at the time they were written; they point to errors which we should avoid, as well as to truths, which we should resolutely and piously maintain. It was apparent that the disciples of our blessed Lord, who followed him during his ministry, were by no means exempt from the errors of the times in which they lived. Their question in the text proves that the doctrine of transmigration of souls had reached Judea. This was an opinion that had been widely spread, and was indeed generally received among the philosophers of the day. They had too high an opinion of the value of the human soul to suppose that it was annihilated by death; but believed that it passed into some new body, and was transferred to some infant, who was born at the very time at which its former possessor died. And according to the conduct, the goodness or wickedness of its previous life, it was sent to perform its part in a body of a better or worse condition. This, I think, is the only rational account of the disciples' meaning when they asked their divine Master, "Who did sin; this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" This clears up the difficulty of their supposing that he could have sinned before his birth. It shows, indeed, in what deplorable darkness even the people of God were enveloped before the Sun of Righteousness had arisen and chased away the mists that, till dispersed by Divine light, always cling to the mind and nature of humanity. When they inquired whether his infirmity might not have been produced by the parents of the blind man, they manifested no ignorance, nor hazarded any preposterous conjecture; for our heavenly Father has declared that he will, and does, "visit the sins of the fathers upon the children." In this they said well; and, if this truth had not been declared by Divine authority, our own observation and experience in the world must have convinced us that the guilty lives of parents necessarily entail misery upon their children. Not only do the name and character of the wicked descend upon their offspring, not only are diseases perpetuated and their worldly inheritances lost by their unfortunate children, but the dispositions and tempers of bad men are frequently the only patrimony which their parents bequeath to them. The sins of the parents are seldom forgotten, even when their descendants have forsaken their vices and endeavour to regain the credit of their family. This is apparently hard; but the injustice and uncharitableness of the world will, in another life, be amply recompensed. There every man shall receive according as his works have been. No one there will be subject to slight from the insignificant, or scorn from the haughty. There the proud and the high-minded will sink to their proper level; and the poor in spirit will be blessed. There will be discovered who were spiritually blind in this world, and who best could see. It is indeed lamentable to be assured that "blindness in part hath happened to all Israel." Even the sons of God can but partially and dimly see. They know that redemption has been purchased for every true penitent, for every meek disciple of Jesus Christ. But every humble believer fears that he has been blind to his own errors; that sin has blinded him; that he may not have proved and felt that true, genuine, and | spiritual blindness are innumerable. We need deep repentance, which will not "be repented not go out into the world to observe this: we of." Assuredly nothing hereafter will produce need not look into our neighbour's eye to more real and lasting remorse to the guilty discover the mote that occasions his blindthan the recollection of bare and formal re- ness we may, if we look into our own hearts, nunciation of sin; an expression of sorrow and examine strictly our consciences, easily and shame for that of which the repetition detect the clouds that darken our own. would be pleasant; the indulgence of which "We is looked for with secret appetite, and the inclination to which is continual, though avowedly abhorred. This is that professed bat imperfect repentance which must be repented of; if ever true repentance be admitted into the heart; if ever the sinner be sincerely converted, and shall live. Well does it become every one to bear in mind that we are all naturally blind, blind from our birth; and that our faculty of perception must be improved; our vision must be cleared; the medium through which our eyes can penetrate must have been rendered pure and transparent before we can discern clearly and perceive unerringly the things which belong to our eternal peace. The manner in which this is effected is often hid from our eyes. "The wind bloweth where it listeth; and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth." But let no one accuse himself of blindness who sees his own errors; who confesses his own weakness; who acknowledges that he continually wants assistance; and who, meekly yet expectingly, who humbly, yet hopingly, prays for that assistance from the Lord. These apprehensive feelings are evidences that the Lord has opened his eyes; and, until the Lord does this, it is impossible to perceive "the wondrous things of his law." It is by the operation of God's grace, and through faith in Jesus Christ, that we can ever recover from the blindness which characterises every carnal man. Though we may deny that we ever committed sin before our birth, and the sins of our parents need not give us pain; yet we are all of us naturally blind to our faults, careless of past transgression, and forgetful of our duty. When God's judgments occur in our path through life, we turn away our eyes and will not see them: when his providences, especially those of mercy, are exhibited, even when exercised towards ourselves, we are too often blind to their effects, seldom sufficiently observant of their propriety. When we cannot but acknowledge them to be mercies and benefits, how rarely do we confess that they tend to promote our eternal good! And still less frequently do we with sincerity admit that we have not deserved the blessings of our Heavenly Father. The instances which men afford of But who are they that do not say, see"? Who does not pride himself on mental discernment? Who does not think that he knows himself? that he is sensible of his own failings? that he needs not further light to guide him through danger? that he can depend upon his own good sense and vision? We may confidently affirm that every one who harbours such thoughts has been blind from his birth: he has never clearly seen or penitently felt the obscurity which surrounds the unawakened sinner's soul. It is indeed this boasted faculty of intellectual sight that occasions the far greater part of all hardness of heart. It is this pretence of discernment that eclipses spiritual light, and causes our heart-searching Judge to say, "Your sin remaineth." Do we duly consider what will be the consequences of this continual adherence to sin? what the result if our guilty habits should remain to the end of our lives? Though the seducer of our souls may have rendered them blind to their everlasting interest during their continuance in this ensnaring world, yet eternal objects will burst upon their sight as soon as they have quitted this body, and are consigned to that place of bliss or woe which will retain them till they are summoned to hear their irrevocable doom. The eyes of all men are never more widely open, they are never capable of seeing more clearly, than when they perceive that the blindness which they inherit from their fallen parents would have kept them in darkness if they had not been enabled, by God's grace, and by a knowledge of the gospel, to see things which belong to their peace. He, who is satisfied with the light which is afforded merely by human reason, may, perhaps, be able to judge well of worldly matters: he may be, and often is, wise in his generation; but his mind is spiritually dark, his heart is incased with the crust of infidelity; and this will be impenetrable until he is enlightened by a ray of that glorious light which issues from God's throne, and which is directed by God's Holy Spirit. No one, I think, will deny that this is true doctrine. What does it teach us to do? What impression does it make on our own hearts? Does it not teach us to distrust ourselves? To fear lest we should be led into error and into sin by obeying the first impulses of our hearts, by yielding to angry feelings, to seducing lusts that war against the soul? The feelings of nature are often pleaded as an excuse for the commission of crime; still oftener for the ebullition of improper expressions. But we cannot too early confess, or too deeply lament, that the natural man is at variance with God; that the light which our reason supplies is mixed and confounded with darkness; and, if this be relied on and used as a guide to our conduct, our opinions, or our conversation, how great is that darkness! The darkness of our minds is not owing so much to the infirmity of our nature, as to the impurity of our thoughts. Though we be born blind, yet we are able to see our way through the mazes and difficulties that obstruct our path in this lower world. And some of us attain such knowledge in discovering the good things of this life, that they fancy they possess a keener sight than those whom in the race of worldly activity they leave behind. Light and wisdom, and a superior knowledge of the world, are often boasted by those whose minds are darkened, whose views are bounded by scenes which with the splendour of the morning sun will pass away, will set, and be forgotten. How ever busily men may be employed, and how ever important may be the events which now pass before their eyes, in a very short time they will be succeeded by other scenes and other people, to whom the present generation of men may appear as insignificant as the characters that gave impulse to the machine of society three or four centuries ago. When men feel themselves superior in intellect, or in the advantages of education, to many of those with whom they associate, they are very apt to give themselves credit for an enlightened mind. They conceive every thing to be dark: they often deem every thing absurd which does not agree with their own opinions, or may seem bright and useful by the rays of that light which is reflected by vain conceit; by that glare, in fact, which the scripture has compared to darkness, and which can never lead any man to the knowledge of the truth, to the study of those spiritual objects which pass man's understanding. St. Paul speaks of men, who, "professing themselves to be wise, become fools." Not that they appear foolish in their generation. To all who measure the human mind by the scale which civilized society has set up as the standard of refinement, they appear, as they seem to themselves, wise; superior in the knowledge of the world, and whatever men in general agree to call useful; and to those who have attained the character of wisdom in the ages that are passed. These men are ever learning, always presuming that they are advancing in the path of knowledge, but are far from attaining a knowledge of the truth. They do not attribute the light that is in them to the Disposer of all blessings: they seek not for light or instruction from the great luminary of the human mind: they despise every thing that is humble: they scorn him who was meek and lowly they believe as far as they can see, and, though born blind themselves, they never pray, they will not condescend to petition, as did the meek disciple of our Saviour, for a knowledge of him who has given them light they are too ready to say without a reference to gospel truth, or any spiritual improvement of their corrupted nature, "One thing I know, that, whereas I was born blind, now I see.” Such are the opinions, the avowed sentiments of too many in the present day. Though they are invited to know their Saviour; though his precepts be plain, and his admonitions most mild and proper for every man's wants and station; so far are they from asking for further information with respect to him and his law, that they make it their boast to be indifferent to every thing concerning him. Though we are all of us indebted to Jesus Christ for every thing we possess here, though on him alone must we rest our hope of every blessing hereafter, yet how frequently do we see men affect a negligence of the word and ordinances of God, an indifference, nay, a repugnance to their Saviour! It is not till we have experienced a want of the bounties commonly bestowed on human life, or a positive infliction of calamity, that we feel our need of One who is mighty to save, and prompt and willing to pardon. Some, if they were asked, as was he on whom the blessing had been miraculously bestowed, "Dost thou believe on the Son of God?" would feel a doubt in their minds whether it were expedient to profess a belief on him or no. Still more numerous is the class of those who would not be aware of the extent and importance of the question, and who think it quite sufficient for them to avow their belief in Christ as far as history may go. For this purpose, indeed, of little importance is the declared wish for information: "Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him"? for no history is more clear, no narrative is so plain and simple as that which the evangelists have recorded. But the knowledge of the Saviour which improves the heart is gained not by contrary means, but still by other means than those |