THE

EARTHEN VESSEL:

AND

CHRISTIAN RECORD & REVIEW;

FOR

1848.

VOLUME IV.

London:

PUBLISHED BY JAMES PAUL, 1, CHAPTER-HOUSE-COURT,

PATERNOSTER ROW; AND

GEORGE, JOHN & ROBERT BANKS, 6, PAGODA TERRACE,

BERMONDSEY NEW ROAD, SOUTHWARK.

of light and love into our souls that can | lasting year, where sin, sorrow, and death make us willing and pleased to drop this are never known. vile mortal flesh to be with Christ in open vision. A proof of this you may see in the last number of the Vessel, by the Obituaries from Wolverhampton and

Hull.

Well, beloved, the old year, 1847, is gone, gone for ever! and 1848 salutes our eyes. Thanks be unto God for the many mercies in the past; the Lord multiply his mercies in this which has Beloved, this is that precious faith appeared; and give us grateful hearts, wrought in us by the power of the Holy praying spirits, and a new year's song of Ghost, that can only fortify our trembling praise. Yes; the old man has lost ansouls against the fears of death, that other old year; but the new man's new terrible death now stalking round the year's day and year began on the day of world in various forms-sword, pesti- his new birth; and is eternal life, grace, lence, and famine. And now, ye dear and glory begun in the soul. 'He that rosy-faced youth, whose youthful blood sitteth upon the throne saith, and behold runs warm and swift through your veins, I make all things new;' a new birth, a and you dear brethren, who have arrived new heart, a new man, a new creature, at sober and refreshing manhood, should a new name, a new heaven, a new earth. you, by God's preserving mercy, escape When a woman marries she looses her old these things, death, in old resistless time, name; that is cut off; she takes a new brings on hoary headed winter and gal-name, the name of her husband; and lerous old age winds up her tale' on the name of the church's husband is earth. Therefore, we would not attempt called Wonderful, the Mighty God; to charm your souls with politics, vain and the bride, the Lamb's wife, is wonderphilosophy, worldly glory, and a fancied fully beloved, redeemed, and provided for; perfection, in this dying corruptible state, she is heiress of all things, and joint heirbut endeavour to point you to the dying, ess with the God-man. The Son is the rising, reigning glory of the Son of God. Father's delight; and the bride is the Brethren, though we have much here to Father's delight in the Man; and the cause thankfulness to God, there is no. woman is the delight of the Man for ever thing in this life worth soul-glory. This and ever, Amen. O, glorious bride! life is but a lingering sickness, termi-Thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and nating only in death. Disease and death thy land Beulah, for the Lord delighteth are in all things around us, and in our in thee, and thy land shall be married.' poor mortal flesh. If we look to the And as the bridegroom rejoices over the east, on the old continent, in Russia, bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.' there is pestilence, and thousands dying O holy church of God, rejoice in the of the cholera-in Switzerland, insur-Lord; and again, I say rejoice. Sing rection, blood-shed, and death by the hosannah, hallelujah! to God in the sword-and if we look to the west, to highest. Amen and amen. the American continent, in Mexico, there we hear of bloodshed, and wholesale death-and near home, in that poor, neglected, priest ridden, sister country, Ireland, there murder, pestilence, and partial famine have been seen-and at home, dis- ITS PRECIOUSNESS, PERFECTION AND PERPETUITY. tress, oppression, and crippled commerce. So that like Ezekiel's roll, lamentation, mourning, and woe,' is on both sides written. Still, amidst all this, no natural man, in the world with all his woes, saith, 'Where is God, my Maker, that giveth How truly blessed is it when the Holy songs in the night?" But, O, dear saints Ghost, the testifier and glorifier of Jesus, of the Most High, who know your God, is graciously pleased to cause us to reamidst all the death without, and heart-member the rock whence we plague of the old man felt within, Christ's hewn, and the hole of the pit whence we presence will give you a song in the were digged,' and is also pleased to enable night of affliction, and cause you to sing us to review the land through which we in the last night of death; and the new have travelled-to regard the hand by year's song of glory begins in the ever-which we have been conducted-to re

WILLIAM GARRARD.

Leicester, Dec. 3rd. 1847.

The Divine Faithfulness;

"Thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens.”—Psalm lxxxix. 2.

To all the loved and learned of the Father,

were

hearse the mighty and righteous acts of divine faithfulness then implies, that the Lord, in saving us from Satan's certain engagements have been entered snares, preserving our steps while passing through perilous places, and delivering our souls out of dangers, difficulties and distresses innumerable, and to recount the manifold proofs and matchless gifts of love bestowed upon us, in order that we may record his faithfulness who has followed us with favour day by day, thereby fulfilling that sweet and sacred promise, penned by Isaiah (58 chapter, 8 verse), Thy righteousness shall go before thee: the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward!