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It was so in the instance before us. "David went in and sat before the Lord, and said, (verse 18,) Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto? And this was yet a small thing in thy sight, O Lord God; but thou hast spoken of thy servant's house for a great while to come; and is this the manner of man, O Lord God? And what can David say more unto thee, for thou, Lord God, knowest thy servant? For thy name's sake, and according to thine own heart hast thou done all these great things, to make thy servant know them.' And he concludes saying, "And now, O Lord God, thou art that God, and thy words be true, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant. Therefore now let it please thee to [or as it is in the margin, be thou pleased and] bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue for ever before thee for thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it, and with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed for ever." Here is such a sense of God's blessing resting on the mind, that he is very importunate for the blessing of the Holy Trinity to rest on him and his house for ever. It is more or less so with all the true and spiritual Israel of God; indeed it is a part of the blessedness and the effect of being partakers of it, to desire an abiding sense of it may rest on our, minds. To have the savour of Christ and heavenly truth rest on us, abide with us, so as for us to find and say "O how sweet are his words to our souls," is the prayer of all the Lord's called ones. would herein again interest myself on your behalf. As you have a relish of, a spiritual palate to taste, and have experienced the savour of Christ and salvation, may it go on and increase more and more, until you come to Christ's everlasting kingdom. It is It is a blessing, yea it is to be blessed in

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perception of the Lord's blessing. He has blessed you, and that to a great degree: look on yourself, wife, child, house, friends: what blessings! how great, how many, all flowing from the love of God, and God is love, and he hath bestowed himself upon you. He saith, I am the Lord thy God, I will be thy God." I have given my Son for you, I have given my Son unto you, with him I freely give you all things; take him, live on him, receive him into your heart, live on him for salvation: I am your sun and your shield, I have given you grace and I will give glory, I will withhold no good from you, for I will rejoice over you to do you good, with my whole heart and with my whole soul.

Mr. S., receive what the Lord God hath spoken, believe it to be spoken to you, and rest on his own faithfulress and immutability to make you blessed, in making you the happy partaker of all the grace and good contained in it. "O how great is his goodness." And it is an unspeakable blessing in the morning of life to be thus under the Lord's manifestative blessing. May you have a greater sight and sense of the Lord's blessing to you and your's every day. Sanctify the Lord God in your heart; set the Lord always before you; maintain family worship morning and evening; perfume your house with his praise; live as seeing him who is invisible. Look at Jesus as he shines forth in his word; believe him to be what he is there declared to be; live on him for every purpose of life and godliness. May the Lord give you some glorious views of his blessing. May he give you to see that he has called you to inherit his blessing. May his Spirit shew you that you are an heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ. To be the blessed of the God of heaven-to be blessed by the Lord-to have him to bless you continually-to have his eye on you

for good-his heart immutably fixed -he himself saying, "I will never turn away from you from doing you good"-what things are these! My God, look on Mr. S., give him proper views hereof, inspire his mind with thy Spirit, fill his heart with thy truth, his mind with thy love, his mouth with thy praise. Let the house of thy servant be blessed for

ever.

Thus Sir I present you with my consecration of your house; I wish it was more complete, but love hides a multitude of faults, and you must never expect a friend without them, nor a continuation of even real friendship if you are not disposed to pardon them in their failings: Christ's friendship only is perfectly free from every shadow of weakness and infirmity. I wish you a long and happy life on earth, spent in a close intimacy with Christ, in pouring out your whole heart before him, in exercising your utmost confidence on him. May he often visit you, bless your habitation, and every one under your roof. May your countenance shine as Moses' did when the Sun of Righteousness had shone on him, and admitted him to an immediate interview with his glorious majesty. May you enjoy so much of it in your private and public accesses to the throne of grace, as may give you to say, It is good for me to draw nigh unto God."

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I remain, your's in the Lord,

SAMUEL EYLES PIERCE. O thou most blessed and incomprehensible Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, thou God of all grace, the God of the families of thy people, look down upon and bless with thy covenant love and presence Mr. and Mrs. S. and the child thou hast given them. Take them under thy own care; make them truly blessed, happy and holy. Let the blessing of life everlasting be theirs. With thy blessing do thou bless their persons, their habitation, their friends, servants, and all their concerns. Bless

their bread and their water, and take sickness away from the midst of them. Bless them holy Father with an enlarged knowledge and enjoyment of thy love. Bless them holy Jesus with spiritual believing views of thy precious, precious, precious salvation; do thou dwell in their hearts by faith; may they comprehend with all saints the heights, and depths, and breadths, and lengths of thy love which passeth knowledge. Holy Spirit do thou dwell in them and fill them with all the fulness of God. Even so, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, do thou bless the house of thy servants for ever. Amen, amen, and amen.

THE PARABLE OF THE MARRIAGE FEAST
CONSIDERED.

In a Letter to a Friend, by the Rev.
Joseph Irons.

Dear Sir,

YOUR letter should have had an earlier reply, but for the constant demands upon my time, which have left me no leisure until now.

The subject of your inquiry has often come before me, it being the common hacknied subterfuge of those semi-papists generally known by the name of arminians, who all seem as familiar with the usual perversion of the 22nd chap. of Matthew, as if they had been drilled in the school of jesuitism at Rome. It is a strong proof of the weakness of a theological argument, when its advocates are driven to one or two isolated texts, wrested from their connection as a forlorn refuge, and still worse, when those texts are of necessity perverted to afford them an intrenchment at all: and this is always the case with the poor carnal-minded freewillers.

The parable recorded in the above chapter, of the marriage feast, explains itself if we only observe its scope, and compare one part of its phraseology with another. Take a connected view of the first and last

verses of it: "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, who made a marriage for his son," ver. 2; "For many are called but few chosen," ver. 14. Now keep these two end links of the chain in your two hands, then all the intermediate links of the parable will be found in unison with them. The kingdom of heaven then means the gospel dispensation, or the visible church of Christ upon earth now make the proclamation which the king's servants are commanded to make, "All things are ready;" here is no arminianish, no half-way provision! no telling of poor sinners that God has done his part, if they will but do their's! but all things are ready," all that law and justice require, and all that poor convinced sinners need, and all in Christ." Then observe a fair specimen of human free-will," They would not come," ver. 3: this of course describes literally the conduct of the Jews in their rejection of Christ; but in them we see a full-length portrait of what every child of Adam is in a spiritual sense, while left to the decision of natural free-will. Moreover, free-willers are not content with rejecting Christ themselves, but we see in ver. 6, they turn persecutors of those who receive him, and especially of his faithful servants who are determined to proclaim, All things are ready." If you read the history of the church, you will see that the whole list of persecutors with scarcely a single exception have been freewillers; nor can it be reasonably hoped that in the coming persecution, which is rapidly advancing upon the true church of God, the modern freewillers will be less cruel than their ancestors, for the carnal mind is still enmity against God, and will vent that enmity as soon as it can.

The second commission given to the servants in the parable (ver. 9), send them to the gentiles with the same message, "All things are ready," to bid them to the marriage, which is March, 1840.]

like the last order which the Master gave before his ascension, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” Mark xvi. 15; and in executing this commission there are no conditions mentioned, no qualifications required, for the servants gathered together all, as many as they found both bad and good in man's esteem, moral or immoral; and so it is to this day, Christ's servants wish to gather in the means of grace all they can find,' however bad, and preach to the very worst the one grand truth, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." But in all this there is not one word about offers and overtures, it was and is a simple proclamation of the fact that " all things are ready," a full, free, finished salvation, of God, in Christ, and by the Holy Ghost.

Now all these guests (save one) were furnished with a wedding garment, which it was customary for the bridegroom to provide, and present to every guest, and having that garment on there was no question asked how bad or how good they were in themselves; the bridegroom's robe was the bridegroom's sanction, and all who had it on were welcome guests. But there seems to have been one arminian there (ver. 11), who was too proud to accept of the. bridegroom's garment (imputed righteousness), and ventured to meet the king in his own linsey-woolsey filthy rags, and the fatal consequences are recorded by the Holy Ghost as a warning to all self-righteous freewillers who should afterwards be daring enough to reject the imputed righteousness of Christ the heavenly Bridegroom, and venture to trust in creature merit.

Now that this is the express design of the Son of God in the whole parable, is manifest from his own words by way of inference summing up all with " For many are called but few are chosen," that is, many hear the

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outward proclamation of the gospel, but few are chosen of God in Christ to eternal salvation.

The servants call many into places of worship, and into visible profession of christianity, but the Bridegroom gives the wedding garment to those only whom he hath chosen. And this is the key to the whole parable: the servants make the public proclamation that all things are ready," and this proclamation is to every creature, and the Master gives imputed righteousness to as many as he hath chosen to eternal life.

Before I lay down my pen I would just remiud you that free-willers are very fond of jumbling detached texts together, and hence they generally steal a phrase from Luke xiv. 23. to add to this parable," Compel them. to come in." But it may fairly be asked, did ever any human efforts compel one sinner to come to Christ? and it may be triumphantly asserted that no sinner ever did or could come

to Christ, spiritually and savingly, until compelled by omnipotent grace. May the Holy Ghost deliver you, dear Sir, from all these Egyptian task-masters who are always urging impossibilities upon the true Israel of God, and may the Son of God make you free that you may be free indeed, is the prayer of your's to serve in the gospel of Christ, and through grace the Lord's freeman,"

JOSEPH IRONS.

Camberwell, Feb. 1840.

THE MYSTICAL PALM TREE AND THE BRANCHES THEREOF.

"I said I will go up to the Palm Tree; I will take hold of the boughs thereof." -Song. vii. 8.

The divine Book out of which this text is selected, was composed by Solomon, under the immediate influences of the blessed Spirit, who set up this character as a figure of the true Solomon, the Lord Jesus-his very name (Peaceable) shews him to be the Prince of Peace. in the character of Solomon we have a striking

figure of him, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and know

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ledge. His wealth, power, and dominion were only figurative of the glory that excelleth-while the building of the Temple reminds us of him of whom the Father declared, he shall build the Temple, and shall bear the glory. His speaking in Proverbs, a figure of him who spake in Parables-while his heart glowed with love to the church, an emblem, though but a faint one, of him whose love is from everlasting to everlasting. Led by the Spirit to understand the secret of the Lord, though couched in metaphor, there is not a syllable but hath a great treasure at the bottom-it holds forth to our wondering view, the glories of his Person, with the love of his heart; the power of his arm, and the wisdom of his infinite mind-in fact we may write upon it this motto-" The unsearchable riches of Christ.' In this chapter, out of which the text is taken, the Redeemer, viewing his spouse complete in himself, highly commends her spiritual beauty, in ten particulars -and this same honour have all the saints. He commends her ministers, her affections, the actings of faith on himself, and her outward conversation-" How beautiful are thy feet with shoes," the preparation of the gospel of peace. Then he commends the holy principles from which she walked, as precious jewels, the eyes of faith, the spiritual bond of union, the covenant head, the fulness of grace communicated to her, the excellency and fruitfulness of a gospel ministry: all these are intimated in the connection. Then the kind Redeemer adds, Thy stature is like a Palm tree;" to shew her regal majesty and greatness-while her breasts set forth the ordinances of the gospel then makes use of the resolution in the text,

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I said I will go up to the Palm tree; I will take hold of the boughs thereof." As this song is designed to set forth the mutual love of Christ and the church, the holy

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Spirit has given the same name to both, to point out the eternal union and happy communion between them; that without any violence to the connection the passage will apply to both the one and the other; in this view we shall first, point out, the spiritual Palm tree-Secondly, the resolution, I will go up-Thirdly, the design, take hold of the boughs thereof. This subject will appear clear and very precious to the believer, under the idea of that inseparable union which took place in eternity; this is made known to us in time, when we are put in posession of the same spirit that was on our elect head, typified by the holy anointing oil, poured on the head of the High Priest. To this union of Christ and the believer, the Psalmist alludes, when he says, Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." This makes us one spirit with him; nor shall this union ever be dissolved"who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" By virtue of this union, we having the same nature or spirit, bear the same name, I will go up to the Palm tree." Christ is so called the righteous shall flourish as the Palm tree; and in the verse preceding the text the church is called, This thy stature is like to the Palm tree." This metaphor, so well known, is taken to represent Christ and his church. In Solomon's Temple there was carved on the walls of the house, round about, and on the doors of the oracle, Palm trees, to shew us that none but saints can have admittance there. In Ezekiel's Temple, which he saw in vision, were Palm trees and a Cherub-a Cherub and a Palm tree engraved on the walls— which some have supposed to point out that the elect redeemed were to fill up the places of the fallen: but I humbly conceive it to represent the guardianship of angels, who are ministering spirits, sent forth to the heirs of salvation. But the leading feature

of this subject arises from the account naturalists give us of this tree-first, it is tall, straight, and upright; it grows so, though many weights may be on it; it bears much fruit, of a delicious taste, and beautiful aspect; the vital force or sap, is not in its root, like other trees, but in its top, which if lopped off it becomes barren ; its leaf is always green; it is a tree which never rots; it is long lived, and always bears fruit; it flourishes best in sunny places, and is generally used at feasts, as a token of victory and joy.

This was used at the feast of Tabernacles; and when our Lord made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem they cut down branches of Palm trees-an emblem of his future victory and triumph. In these views of the Palm tree do we not see a variety of very interesting circumstances, justly applicable to our Lord, and his church? which as they are one, we shall consider them together. The metaphors, in references to God our Saviour, among many other ideas, fairly includes the following: First, His essential and eternal divinity, as the most high God, Secondly, in the Eternity of his existence. Thirdly, in the mediatorial fulness of his grace. Fourthly, in the benefits of his Cross. Fifthly, in the progress of his kingdom. And sixthly, in the victories he has obtained. With the believer's interest in him.

First, in his essential and eternal divinity, as the most high God. This is one of his glorious titles. which reveal him God over all, and blessed for ever. This is he whom we admire and adore. While Arians, human Pre-existarians, and Socinians deny this grand fundamental truth, angels bow before him, and worship him as God over all, without enquiring into his mode of existing; but fools rush in, where angels fear to tread! This term includes all his divine perfections-for in him all the fulness of the Godhead dwells, bodily or substantially. It shews he is