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alone there is nothing more needful to be prayed for, for all our churches in a day like the present, if the Lord would only lay it with solemn weight on his people's minds, than that they may be kept by the power of God, not only sound in sentiment and pure in doctrine, but from becoming a reproach in the eyes of the world through the follies and falls of any belonging to them. Neither do we make these remarks as if we thought the churches whose interests we espouse were fast sinking down. into the mire of Antinomianism. Indeed, we have no such thought; but knowing too well how every church, whether Baptist or Huntingtonian, that contends for the truths of free and sovereign grace, is scanned with critical and malignant eye by general professors who hate such truths; and knowing quite as much how the slips and falls of any who are connected with churches of that character are blazed abroad, and blabbed over a thousand times more among the enemies of truth than what the same inconsistencies would be in reference to persons connected with other churches of another faith; it makes us on this account the more to dread anything transpiring, either in our own denomination or the Huntingtonian, to give rise to scandal outside our walls. And for the same reason we can the more earnestly desire, and at times cry to God, that every church where discriminating truth is maintained may be kept from everything that would expose the cause of God to shame. O that all who are connected with the visible church of Christ, and especially our own section of it, ourselves and all, may be enabled to walk over the ground of our profession with "fear and trembling," and with a consciousness that because of the world around us, the flesh in us, and the devil watching us, nothing is too base, too ungrateful, or too destructive to the honour of God and our moral reputation for us to commit, should we be left to ourselves for a single moment. And with the felt consciousness of such weakness, may the cry be kept alive in our hearts: "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe."

That solemn exhortation of the apostle's applies to all of us who make a profession of Christ. We mean where he says, "For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end." (Heb. iii. 14.) If we are real believers in Jesus, then God sees us in our profession according to what his own grace has made us; he sees us with all that security and certainty of final perseverance on our side which pertains to all really gracious souls. But for all this he warns and exhorts us in his Word with as much solemn solicitude as if that final perseverance depended upon our compliance with his warnings and exhortations. The apostle, after speaking of the awful way in which so many of the congregation of Israel fell in the wilderness, and respecting whom God "sware that they should not enter into his rest," gives the following solemn warning to the Hebrews, and as much to us in our profession of Christ as to them: "Let us therefore fear, lest a pro

mise being left us of entering into his rest, any of us should seem to come short of it."

So it is with regard to the exhortations before mentioned. (chap. iii. 14.) God knows to a man who among us will be saved, or whether any will be left to turn back in their profession. He knows who have a root in them to keep them, and any that may have no root, and who for the want of it will wither away. But, says the apostle, "For we are made the partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end." Our professed confidence at the beginning of our profession was, at least with some of us, that if we were not saved as poor lost sinners by Christ's atonement, we must perish; we professed to feel what ruined and undone sinners we were, and that nothing but free and sovereign grace could ever save us. Suppose, then, after making such profession at the "beginning," any of us should be left to let our confidence go, and instead of continuing to go on professing as heretofore, that our salvation must be alone by the grace of God, we should henceforth be left to believe the lie that we could be saved in some other way, either by our own works, or partly by works and partly by grace. Well, such departure from the truth of God would be the most solemn proof that we could give that the confidence we professed at the "beginning," was a rotten thing, and not what we had ever received from the Lord through being taught the truth by his Spirit.

In order, then, that we may give continued proof that our first professed confidence was a divine reality, we need, by the Lord's gracious help, to go on holding it fast, to go on professing as much as we did the first day we were brought to cry for mercy, what poor guilty, weak, and helpless sinners we are, and that nothing but infinite, sovereign, and almighty grace can save us now, and keep us from falling, and enable us to endure unto the end.

May the Lord, then, ever keep his people steadfast in his own most blessed truth, and bless them in their church relationships with much real union and communion among themselves, and with much Christian forbearance towards one another, and especially in all those matters wherein little differences of judgment will sometimes exist, and may do so without in any way affecting any vital points of doctrine.

But then, again, many of our readers are not connected in the way of membership with any gospel church at all. Some, through a fear of acting presumptuously were they to join the same, keep themselves aloof; others are kept outside through other causes; and perhaps some, like the "strangers scattered throughout Pontus and Galatia," and other places, are so located in the order of providence, that they are unable practically to avail themselves of the privilege of meeting with the saints for divine worship, and in the "breaking of bread, and in prayers." So that, putting all our readers together, those that are members

of churches and those that are not, they form a wide circle; but so far as they are the real children of God, and hence spiritual readers of the magazine, we can desire, without the least partiality, the spiritual welfare of all such without exception, and can especially desire that our magazine may continue to prove, through the blessing of God attending its publication, a medium of spiritual edification, comfort, and blessing to all their souls.

And as for any that may occasionally look into this periodical, but may nevertheless be strangers to the saving power of the truths which it contains, we can only hope and pray that it may be the sovereign will of our covenant God to make a something in the magazine a means of their spiritual conviction, by causing it to pierce through "the joints of the harness" of their spiritual death-state, their darkness, ignorance, and unbelief, and bringing them unto "the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ."

Neither can we restrain giving a little vent to our feelings in the concern we bear towards the eternal welfare of the host of little ones, youths, and maidens, that constitute the families of our godly readers and friends. O that the Lord our God may condescend to hear and answer the many prayers of godly fathers and mothers for their children, by putting his fear into their hearts in early life, that our churches which are so wasted in numbers by death, may be as fast replenished with living souls, called out by divine grace from the rank and file of the rising race of the present generation. May the many Sunday-schools connected with the various causes of truth, and where so many of our young meet on a Sunday, have the blessing of Almighty God resting upon them. Whilst it is most desirable that the children in our Sunday-schools should grow up to be good in the morals of life, yet O that it may please God to make numbers of them good in the best sense, by giving them a spiritual knowledge of his Word in their own souls; so that our Sundayschools might prove more than ever to be sources from which God takes many of his elect, for the lengthening of the cords and strengthening the stakes of Zion.

Well; after such matters as we have already touched upon, and in reference to which this magazine seeks to wield an influence for good, we may ask again, in coming to the last part of our address, "Who is sufficient for these things"? Who is able to make the magazine answerable to the particular ends for which it is published? We answer, None can do it but the Lord; and if he use such poor "weak things" as we to bring it about in any measure, it must be nevertheless through his power and grace alone that we serve him and do his work to any good purpose. Neither the editor nor those who assist him in his work have so learned Christ, as to think that their sufficiency is of themselves, but can say, and often with a deal of burden on their spirits, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God." But so far as the

Lord may be pleased to enable them to do the work of conducting the magazine for his own honour and glory, and for the spiritual advantage of the many gracious souls who read it, so far will their one object in undertaking such work be attained. But nothing is more important, than that their object, and motives, should be fairly recognized, that misunderstanding may as much as possible be avoided. When it is known that the different writers in the same religious periodical are not only agreed in sentiment between themselves, but that they are as much agreed with the particular sentiments which that periodical has always been an organ of advocating, and hence that their one object in contributing to its pages is, with the Lord's help, to maintain those sentiments in their purity, and because they believe them to be God's truth and nothing else, then such little differences of mere words and phrases, and modes of speech, as a plurality of minds, and distinct gifts, will be sure to give rise to, ought never to be made an occasion for contention, either between themselves, or among those who read their writings. The best of men, and the best of saints, are nothing but poor fallible creatures; and so much do we feel our own fallibility, and liability of inadvertently allowing mere inaccuracies in word and expression to creep into what we write or preach, that if we knew that a detection of defects of that kind in this poor address would make it a justifiable reason for any to start up and resound against us the cry of heresy, then we should have no confidence in suffering it to go forth. But, knowing that we write the address, not for the amusement of critics, but simply as being willing to drop a few practical hints and kind words to the children of God whom we love in the bowels of Christ, and having reason to hope that they will bear with the much weakness and deficiency, which we deeply feel are traceable in it, we let it leave our hands, much more in the way of throwing ourselves on the kind sympathy and forbearance of our brethren and Christian friends, than with any other feeling pervading our mind.

We desire, then, dear friends, in closing our remarks, to "commend you to God, and to the word of his grace." We trust whether it be ourselves or others that, in the providence of God, shall occasionally speak to you through these pages, that the Lord will teach the writers what to communicate, and make the same a word in season to your souls. Especially do we desire that "Jesus Christ, and him crucified," may be the burden of the magazine, that whether what is published be sermons, or experiences, or obituaries, or letters, or whatever else, yet that the substance of all may be for the exaltation of Christ, and your own real spiritual edification. We have but few more years at the most to abide in the flesh; and as there is nothing which as children of God we shall more need for our peace of mind in a dying hour than a sweet felt reliance upon the atoning merit of the sacrifice of Jesus, so neither is there anything in our life, and in the prospect of our departure

out of the world, that can bring more solid comfort into our minds, when applied by the Spirit, than that same most precious sacrifice. And for this reason above all others, we particularly desire that our magazine may, through the blessing of God, savour much of Christ and little of the creature. "The Lord of peace Himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all."

A VISION OF GLORY,

REV. XXI., XXII.

A VISION I had of a scene most bright.
Language must fail to describe it aright;
Of a fair city bathed in unearthly light,
Through which a pure river ran.

Its mansions sparkled with glistening sheen,
Of amethyst, topaz, and emerald green;
Such dazzling rays never surely were seen
Since the world and time began.

There were trees with fruit and foliage rare
Full of healing balm for the nations. There,
On a radiant throne all bright and fair,

Sat One like the Son of man.

Its streets were of gold like a molten sea;
Its walls were of jewels most rare to see;
And its gates of pearls shone gloriously,
In light from the jasper throne.

In the quivering waves of the ambient air
Flew ethereal forms of angels fair,

Who encircled the steps of the throne; and there
Bright burning seraphim shone.

Now a countless multitude caught my sight,
Who walk'd in those realms of infinite light,
In robes which were wash'd and perfectly white
In the blood of the Lamb once slain.

And now, in this paradise safe shut in,

They are free from pain, and sorrow, and sin;
And the terrible burden of guilt within

They never will feel again.

They are those who were chosen by sovereign grace
From the number of Adam's fallen race,

To behold in glory that Saviour's face

Who was crucified for them.

How I long to be there, in that land of the blest,
In the glorious robe of Christ's righteousness drest,
To spend an eternal Sabbath of rest

In the New Jerusalem!

J. W.

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