man may be a sinner, without being a hypocrite: no sinner will be there. Truth will be found in the inward parts of every one of them. Worship may be true, and yet not ardent; alas! it may be very much the reverse. And then, such are the changes and varieties of the human heart and life, that whatever of harmony there may be in sound, there may be sad diversities and contrarieties of feeling. In the Church below, one class are in joy and thanksgiving; one has obtained a victory, another has committed a sin; one is sighing and supplicating some mercy, another has just obtained one; one parent is mourning over the profligacy of a child, and another is filled with gratitude for conversion; one has cruelly injured another, and is smarting with remorse, and that other is wounded and sad; one heart is too heavy to sing, and another is bounding with rapture. It is difficult to conceive of anything more various than the state of the hearts of a great assembly on earth, or more unique than that of the hearts of the general assembly of heaven : "Ten thousand thousand are their tongues, They are unsusceptible of fatigue. Ah! how unlike us! Devotion will be the law of their being. Here everything is forced. We all know how arduous the process is of forcing water above its level, or moving heavy bodies up from valley to mountain. Our attempts at this is an opposition to the law which regulates these bodies. Cease to oppose the law, and let it take its course,-of its own accord the heavy body descends; without any aid from man, the water pours itself resistlessly along, till it reach its level in the ocean. So grace will have nothing to contend with in heaven, but will operate in all the spontaneousness of love. Oh, the humility of the worshippers! No spiritual pride here--no pride of any kind! They mention not their doings, or their sufferings, or their service. They remember nothing but sin and danger, and are taken up with nothing but Jesus and his salvation! But we have, 5. The perfection and perpetuity of blessedness." They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." Here is a statement which indicates the absence of all evil, of every kind and form. All such things will be removed to an infinite distance from us. We shall not know even the slightest cause of molestation. Everything allied to pain will be eternally excluded, and the habitation of the saints as perfect as the infinite power and wisdom of the Most High can make it. Our present light afflictions shall be forgotten. They will be to us as things that happened before the flood. They will be erased from the tablet of remembrance. There is here direct intercourse between them and the Saviour, in the reception of all good: "The Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of water." How expressive of tender consideration! How plainly is it here set forth that, in heaven, Jesus will be the centre of all affection, and the source of all blessedness! They will then be as dependent for their bliss as they are now for their food. Bread and water are the two elements of life; Jesus shall give them both. Thus will the union between him and us be perfected and perpetuated through eternity. Him shall we see for ever, and from him shall we receive for ever. Everlasting life will flow forth from Him who is the fountain of life. His happiness will consist in imparting; our happiness in receiving. On the ocean of his fulness shall we for ever rest. Of this water we shall never tire; it will become sweeter and yet sweeter as we drink it: and our hunger and thirst after righteousness will present the strange phenomena of being always satisfied, and yet always craving, thus will the demand and the supply go on augmenting eternally. Unutterable and everlasting consolation in the approbation and regard of the Father is strikingly indicated: "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' The hand of man can add nothing to this picture: "God shall wipe away all tears." How indicative of the misery of man! Oh, what tears have been shed! Your Parents understand the figure. babes and infant children are constantly shedding tears. When they weep bitterly, you cannot resist it: you take them up, and labour to pacify them. You wipe the tears from off their faces. Your heart yearns over them. You are relieved in seeing them relieved; and you are pleased in their pleasure. Now, as a father pitieth his children, who are dear to him, like pity hath the Lord to them that fear him. There was a time when weeping was not; and there will be a time when weeping will have an end. Yes! "Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted." "Woe unto them that laugh; for they 2 K 2 shall weep" they shall be in distress, and have no comforter. Many of us have wept before, and we shall weep again; but a day will come when the last tear will be shed, and our eyes be wiped, never to be moistened again. Let us, then, have and exercise patience under all trials, and commend our way to God. Heaven presents a most attractive and consoling prospect to the sorrowful and afflicted. Let us look out of this cloud, and mist, and thunderstorm of life, to the hallowed hill of Zion beyond it. Let us see that we possess a spirit in harmony with the exercises of this hallowed place Let us look well to this, for it is our life. This is no mean indication of such a heart, when we relish devotional employment here. Fearful is the condition of ungodly men! No preaching in heaven! Mind this! Reader! What views do you entertain of public worship? Public worship is intimately connected with private worship. What is seen is often an index of what is not seen. Let us learn, then, the character and source of heavenly happiness. Let us learn how indispensable a heart at one with God's heart is, to living in God's house. J. T. C. Oct., 1853. NO SALVATION APART FROM REAL CONSECRATION TO GOD. "For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it; but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it."-LUKE ix. 24. I. TRUE AND SOUL-SAVING RELIGION IS A PRINCIPLE OF REAL AND LARGE SACRIFICE. These words are not mere figures of speech, but weighty and unchangeable realities. Christ estimates man by his own impressive rule: "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it," &c. Life here stands for and is inclusive of everything most dear to man: whosoever will save station, friendship, influence, property, or even life itself, &c. Religion is a great and solemn reality. It is at your peril to treat it otherwise. You cannot realize its present joys and secure its eternal benefits, and yet indulge in a worldly spirit. If you follow a worldling's pleasures and cherish his selfishness, whatever your professions, you are at best a self-deceiver, and will certainly meet a worldling's doom. Christ obtained salvation for man by an entire self-devotion. Man realizes this salvation only in the surrender of himself and his all to Christ. He cannot demand, he cannot take less than all. Excuse himself as man may, gild over his pleas as he will, gain as many accomplices as he can, Christ never changes his terms. Those who have not his spirit, do not imitate his life, and comply with his requirements, are "none of his." But surely this interpretation of the text is not correct, or many professing Christians are too self-indulging, too money-loving, too ease-taking, to be saved, without a thorough change of heart and conduct. Do we desire know who are the approved of Christ on earth? Such as, like Paul, under a sense of sacred obligation, can say, "None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto me," Acts xx. 24. Would we know who of men are the glorified with Christ in heaven? "And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of his testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death," Rev. xii. 11. Should these statements seem to contradict the declared tendency of religion to bless and enrich the soul, it should be remembered that only the renewed heart can realize the joys of piety. A spirit in which God is enthroned experiences in his forgiving love and approving favour satisfaction and bliss attainable from no other source, and such as makes every pleasure of sin distasteful and offensive. Such realizations prepare for a life of sacrifice, and even for death itself, if the will and honour of God require it. The demand for this self-denial, and readiness for self-sacrifice for God and truth, arises from no mere arbitrary decision, or plea sure in man's pain and endurance; it originates in a solemn necessity connected with man's moral nature, his unlikeness and hostility to God. Without it he must be inevitably and eternally undone. There is no more certain way of man's terminating life in hopeless infamy and misery, than by being left free from moral restraint, destitute of spiritual feeling, and lawlessly opposed to the requirements and will of God. All disciplinary arrangements are irksome and grievous. A young horse delights to range the forest, free from restraint and labour. Bit, and rein, and break, are galling to his flesh and sensibilities; yet man deems them needful to make him useful. Youth would roam free from restraint and discipline, neglecting study and early preparation for the business and responsibilities of life. But early effort and constant training is exercised to secure obedience and service for the good of society. Endurance for Christ's sake, from loving obedience and cheerful submission, is true safety and bliss. To join the heavenly fraternity man must renounce his selfishness, and possess their benevolence. He must exchange his earthliness for their spirituality; he must be as they are, perfectly at the command of God in every power and appliance, and for every service required of him. The sacrifice demanded of man, on account of deep depravity and earthliness, is large and complete. It is to subject his will to that of God, and employ his being and faculties for the Divine glory. Its painfulness and sacrifice arises from man's natural perverseness and awful estrangement from this most noble and blissful purpose of his creation. It is absolutely necessary to safety and happiness. Its cheerful and vigorous pursuit should be his highest ambition; then it would prove his purest satisfaction. Once happy in willing and confessed subjection to God, man has made himself miserable by attempting independence of interest, and in seeking his own will rather than that of his Maker. Never again can he know safety and bliss, till God is enthroned in the soul, and man's will, action, and being become the grateful offering of enlightened and penitential love. By sin man sets up a rival interest and will to that of God and universal good. Infinite mercy allows of man's return to safety and happiness, on cheerful and unreserved submission and dedication. The brief and uncertain life of time is the only probationary existence, the only appointed period of submission and recovery. Should he now place his life, energies, and influence at the disposal of his Redeemer, for service, endurance, or sacrifice, as he may determine, all is well. The proof of his allegiance and love is beyond dispute. He stands for ever as if he had never fallen. Should he not so submit, he bears the character and woe of a rebel for ever. To each of the seven Apocalyptic churches is given the solemn exhortation of their Lord, "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." In each case it immediately attends a gracious promise to the spiritually victorious. The blessings themselves seem to rise in a gradation of worth and sublimity of welcome to a nobler Paradise and richer viands than Adam lost, Rev. ii. 7; of freedom from every form and consequence of death, ii. 11; of covenanted and certificated enjoyment of true and heart-satisfying bliss, ii. 17; of conspicuous and glorious dominion, ii. 26-28; of recognition, emolument, and adornment in heaven, iii. 5; of fixedness, utility, and glory there, iii. 12; and of eternal rest, triumph, and rule, in resemblance to Christ himself, iii. 21. Such repeated admonition must invite attention to some most momentous truth. Such stupendous contingent promises must involve some most weighty condition. The one qualification for the attainment of all this dignity and blessedness bears this sevenfold expression and limitation, "He that overcometh," &c. Is not the irresistible conclusion that the safe and honourable life of earth is an earnest, vigorous, and persevering conflict with depraved nature, earthly influences, and Satanic malignity, in which man must overcome by Divine power, or himself be overcome and ruined for ever? The Apocalypse represents Christian life as, through the intervention of Christ, a severe spiritual travail, a keen conflict, and a sharp agony, issuing in the eternal rest, triumph, and felicity of those who otherwise had been irrevocably ruined. How severe the struggle thus indicated, and how glorious the victory thus animated by the great spiritual Warrior and Conqueror, the Son of God! "Hold fast that thou hast, that no man take thy crown." "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." II. UNPRINCIPLED SELF-INDULGENCE IS CERTAIN RUIN OF THE END PURSUED. No one would intentionally labour for loss and disappointment; yet Christ states that such is the issue of unfaithfulness to him. The sum-total of its largest gains is an infinite and irreparable loss: "What shall a man be profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" The end sought may be obtained in the outward object, -as, for instance, fame, or pleasure, or wealth, or life; but where is the real point sought,-bliss, safety, and peace? The gain is but an empty shell. The life retained for a few years of time at the cost of a glorious eternity! The pleasure and reputation of earth, and the ease and luxury of sense procured by the forfeiture of the dignity and felicity of the kingdom of God! What paltry gains for such unutterable losses! Such life is mere existence, such reputation the deepest infamy. "Such riches eat their retainer's flesh like fire." Nothing can benefit man by being withheld from God, after the demand of its surrender. A blight withers it; a worm at the root consumes it. Different ages and circumstances demand different forms of sacrifice and tests of devotion. In the Apostolic age the forfeiture of life was the frequently required attestation of personal consecration. But where the preservation of life has been procured by the denial of Christ, how dreadful is the loss of heaven for so trivial a gain! In some periods consistency has only been maintained by endurance of persecution, loss of station, and spoliation of property. Of thousands the cheering record is cherished: "They took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing that in heaven they had a better and an enduring substance."-" Others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea of bonds and imprisonments, not accepting deliverance.' Where liberty and influence have been retained by forfeiture of fidelity, who but must bewail such infatuation. Nor does the gain of time always turn in favour of unfaithfulness. The Emperor Constantine, having tested the fidelity of many of his officers by their refusal to deny Christ on pain of loss of their rank and emoluments, conferred special distinctions on the faithful, and loaded with merited disgrace the faithless. In the present general freedom from persecution, degradation, and death, as the test and sacrifice of Christian fidelity, do not the demands and organizations of the times clearly point to the consecration of labour and property as the test of our day? Previously unheard of facilities now exist, for personal exertion and pecuniary sacrifice, in every department of benevolent and religious operation, and the most urgent necessities and motives implore instant and large assistance. To withhold all except the merest pittance from the service of glorifying God and benefiting man, whether for luxurious enjoyment, fashionable display, or indefinite accumulation, is to lose it for ever, and thereby to seal our own infamy, and doom ourselves, unpitied and unbefriended, to eternal want and woe. To devote labour of thought, toil of body, and cordial heart-sympathy, in connection with appropriate offerings, is to embalm them for future enjoyment, and to treasure up in heaven an imperishable portion of honour and bliss. No folly of man in preferring a present transitory to a future permanent good of time, is to be compared with the infatuation of retaining the property, station, and life of earth, by the forfeiture of the treasures, dignities, and felicities of life eternal, in the presence of God and the Lamb. Yet such is the infatuation of those who are unfaithful in their stewardship! And is not their name Legion? III. ENTIRE AND SELF-SACRIFICING DEDICATION TO GOD IS THE ONLY TRUE SAFETY AND PERMANENT FELICITY. It is a universal rule that implicit trust in and devotion to God is right, wise, and advantageous. It was never found otherwise in the long run: "He that will lose his life for my sake, shall save it." The righteous and unchanging laws of Divine Providence, conspire to make it so. Even should the evidence of this fact be wanting now, through the limited range of human observation, its proof will be apparent in the unclouded vision of eternity. Instances to this effect abound in the sacred record, as well as under present observation of men. The oil and meal of the confiding and hospitable widow lasted through the famine, and till needful supplies could be obtained from natural sources. The stored provisions of the Jews, of whose tithe they had wronged God, shrunk through his withering curse to half its original quantity. Jonah, in seeking to evade the painful task of faithfully wit nessing for God in profligate Nineveh, by flight in a ship bound in another direction, was vomited out on the shores nearest Nineveh by a fish, and was com pelled through fear to perform the work he endeavoured to decline. Paul, on the contrary, went forth trustingly, courageously, and joyfully, to a far more difficult, laborious, and dangerous service; and though in perils, shipwrecks, and deaths oft, how safe his life, how bene ficent his career, and how blissful and triumphant his end! The three Jewish captives braved the wrath of the haughty Nebuchadnezzar, and the prey of the devouring flames, rather than dishonour Jehovah, and endanger their souls by denying him. Their signal constancy and devotion obtained for them the equally signal honour of the tyrant's proclamation of the fact and distinguished source of their deliverance: "Did not we cast three men, bound, into the midst of the fire? Lo, I see four men, loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." It remains for eternity to disclose the doom of those who, to extend the life of earth, have lost that of heaven. Το keep, for self-enjoyment, the treasures which the required proof of his piety demanded he should surrender, the rich young man, it may be feared, lost heaven and bliss. The cheerful forfeiture of station, friends, and emoluments, by Paul, for whatever might attend the career of a herald of the Cross, ended in honours and successes which an archangel might envy, and in happiness the very consummation of Divine benefaction, and of the capability of human enjoyment. Ananias and Sapphira perished miserably in seeking reputation for Christian beneficence and trust, while indulging secret distrust, selfishness, and falsehood. Is there no fear of the frequent imitation of their conduct by others bearing their profession; and though less signal in time, of its equally awful termination in eternity? It is an extensive present practical belief, that a man can serve both God and Mammon,-its denial by Christ notwithstanding. At least, many whose most palpable element of character to others is their devotion to Mammon, avow themselves the servants of God; though any evidence of the same, in the form of vigorous service and real sacrifice, they are utterly unable to adduce. The line of separation between the world and the Church, in pleasure and fashion, is constantly diminishing. Christians refrain from rebuking sin, and annoying men with the irksome subject of religion; and sinners, in return, cease from ridiculing and persecuting them. Neither contempt, torture, nor death await profession now; and religious men generally prefer to retain and enjoy property for their personal and family benefit. Meanwhile, the lesson of the great Teacher has lost none of its truth or force: "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever will (or is willing to) lose his life for my sake, shall save it.' APPLICATION. 1. On how many now uselessly and ingloriously bearing the Christian name will that solemn, foretold sentence of Christ be pronounced: "I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Know them as men he could but do; he never knew them as devoted, faithful, self-denying servants. Reader! do you know your own sincere effort to be such? or is this hitherto entirely true of you? May the Spirit of truth help you to see and feel this, here and now, and to rectify it before it be too late! Consider, thoughtful reader! Christ himself says there will be many in that fearful case! Will you be among them? The army of Gideon, to succeed, must contain only faithful and devoted men. The wrong-minded multitude would only weaken and discourage the right-minded few. It is not a question of numbers, but of true and earnest-heartedness; quality, rather than quantity. Thirty thousand must shrink to ten thousand, and then to three hundred; for Jehovah was with them. What they lost by this reduction in numbers, they gained in moral power. It were immensely gain ful, in every respect, if some process were to reduce the professing Church of God to the truly faithful, where every one would tell for a zealous, valiant, devoted man. Such a Church would have power with God and man, and must prevail. The mistaken, also, would learn their error while yet it could be rectified. 2. Faithful, earnest Christian! take courage, exercise faith, animate your soul with hope! The conflict, toil, and sacrifice are but for time! He who has made you faithful in little can, and will also, in all the requirements of the future, in answer to faith and prayer. Like your Divine Lord, ever keep heaven in your eye, and earth under your feet, and conquer you must! JOHN ROSS. Woodbridge, May, 1853. SPIRITUAL SLAVERY. He is the free man whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside.-CowPER. DURING the last thirty years or more we have heard a great deal about Slavery, and the horrors of Slavery; and it may be, after all, that the half has not been told us. Something like twenty years ago, Slavery, as it existed in the West Indies, was the subject of most intense interest. The public mind was thoroughly roused upon it; the most eloquent tongues and the most powerful pens were employed in pourtraying its character, and protesting against it as one of the greatest enormities practised under the sun. length, Britain, convinced that it was a sin, a sin of a most hateful and execrable character, thus to trample on the natural rights and liberties of men, determined At |