painful question-why? humility meekly bows her head and responds, "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."

Once more are not the bounds of our habitation fixed (Acts xvii. 26)? For, what has the child to do in choosing the place and the circumstances of its birth? That choice is with God. And yet the impartial observer still admits, in two given cases, that one child is born to spiritual advantages of the highest kind; and the other to spiritual disadvantages which baffle all human calculations of the probability of a favourable issue in time or eternity. Is not the world full of such instances? How then can we escape the conclusion?

But here I stop. One side of the question has been exhibited; and, as human faculties are arguing it, so we must allow them fair play throughout. Preference or choice implies superior advantages in certain instances; but it does not imply the total absence of all advantages in the remaining instances. This point can never be given up, but at the tremendous sacrifice of myriads of human hopes. To refer to one of our former illustrations: it does not follow, because the child was born even in a workhouse, that the grownup man shall not live and die in a mansion. This case is by no means merely hypothetical; and we know the difference in point of moral grandeur between him who was born on a height, and between him who, overcoming many and disheartening obstacles, yet has reached that height. In this view the undeniable fact of preference or choice, in individual instances to superior temporal advantages, does not imply exclusion in all others. Admit then the analogy in spiritual advantages to be possible-or more, to be probable; admit that God has placed some half-way up the hill, some higher still, and many at the bottom of it, what is to be the conclusion? It is all in favour of that working, laborious, energetic, hoping spirit, which gives its tone to every page of the bible. The miraculous spectacle there of a character at all deeply imbued with its principles, would be that of indolence. To a mind accustomed to weigh moral causes and effects, the miracle of opening the eyes of a blind man would be a vulgar spectacle compared with that of seeing St. Paul-urged on and ruled by God's indwelling Spirit-unlaborious, unworking, unenergetic, for a day or a waking hour, in the details of praying, talking, exhorting, pushing every mental faculty to its utmost stretch in devising temporal means for the salvation of the souls of all within his reach-of his own first of all (1 Tim. iv. 16), and then of all that heard him. Certain is it then, that, whatever prominence is and must be given by every unbiassed reader of God's word, and spectator of his doings, to the doctrine of choice or preference to superior advantages in individual cases, that inference from it which shall encourage an idle, unworking, desponding, hopeless thought, is totally false. And we must not pass by the fearful conditions on which advantages are held; for those who, as in the parable, commenced with a capital of ten talents, will be required to realize, by a life of laborious spiritual husbandry, a fortune of corresponding magnitude; and he who began but with one talent has (it was our Lord's own conclusion), in his comparative poverty, the strongest of all reasons that could be urged upon him by God or man for making the utmost of it.

The sentiment, which I propose to draw from Christ's first miracle, has been partially illustrated in the foregoing remarks. At a marriage-feast in Cana, which Jesus Christ honoured with his presence, he desired the Jewish servants around him to fill some water-pots with water, and "they filled them up to the brim." They, in the use of God's own already given means, their hands, feet, &c., could do this just as well as Jesus Christ himself could have done it; but if, for a particular purpose, the water was to be

converted instantaneously into wine, man possessed not a faculty which could have enabled him to do it. He might have converted it into wine by the process of gathering the fruit of the vine, and expressing its juice, and mixing it with this water, &c.; but this was not what was wanted. The problem was to change, by no intermediate human process, the substance water into the substance wine: and the power of God alone could effect this.

Now it is easy to translate this into spiritual language. There are certain steps, preliminary to salvation, which a man can take in the use of God's already given means. These steps will carry him to a certain point, beyond which all human efforts are as vain to accomplish the object itself for which those steps were taken, as the preliminary step of pouring the water into the water-pots was to accomplish the object itself for which Jesus Christ desired the Jews around him to do it. For the purpose of miraculously converting water into wine, Jesus Christ asked for man's co-operation, and he assigned him the exact amount of duty required for the occasion. He asked them to fill the water-pots up to the brim; he did not then tamper with their weakness by such a speech as this "Now convert that water into wine, and, if you cannot, I will;" thus leaving it open for future discussion whether, if those Jews could not do it, others might. But, when their assigned task was performed, then he quietly performed his, leaving the obvious inference that the division of labour had been fairly made-man's part having been plainly marked out, beyond which he was not required to put forth his endeavours.

I will now proceed to apply this in a simple way to some of the ordinary cases of life.

I assume I am writing for persons baptized with the Christian faith, and such as have received by tradition from their fathers or friends the plain account of our condition in relation to God-that we are sinners against him, and as such exposed to future punishments; that there is a remedy provided by the death of the Son of God, and that the full account of these things is to be found in the bible.

Now what is the obvious inference? We know that, if the danger thus pointed out were temporal and immediate, no means would be left untried to extricate ourselves from it. But, admitting that all this eager ness is not to be expected in the case of a distinct and half-believed and scarcely-understood danger, yet, as there is danger, certainly that book should be consulted which speaks of it, describes it, and points out the remedy. As I am not assuming extreme cases, let me imagine that this book lies on your shelf; what then, my reader, is the share of duty in reference to it, which God may justly require of you? He requires you to use his means already given you; he requires you to read it. Suppose you do this; you find in it statements which, if true, make the strongest appeals to your self-love and self-interest. It clearly shows that you are in a most frightful position. You read all this, and you understand the word; yet the principal result remains to be accomplished-you feel not moved to take the requisite steps, to act up to your knowledge. Your head has been furnished with information; your heart scarcely feels it.

In reading on, you meet such a declaration as this"The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned”

Let not my use of this absurd and little-understood word be mistaken. We teach our children the meaning of scriptural terms before they could possibly discover it themselves; that is, they learn by tradition. Now this is either necessary, or it is not. If it is not necessary, then are we not acting most inju

riously to their best interests by not leaving them to find their

own way, as God shall choose to help them, to a knowledge of the gospel? If this alternative is rejected, then the necessity of tradition is admitted,

The whole of the Christian's life is capable of similar illustration. The promises in the gospel of "joy and peace" in believing, are unequivocal. They astonish some Christians, and present the book with a metaphorical aspect.

But the "peace" which is so deep in the Christian's heart as to "pass understanding," and the rejoicing" which is to be "evermore," are the wine; the water from which it was converted having been a series of endeavours, such as St. Paul used. He had filled his water-pots up to the brim, and therefore found every drop of it pure unmingled wine.

Enough seems now to have been said in illustration of the sentiment I proposed to deduce from the miracle. The sovereignty of God must be admitted in all its force; but we need not superinduce upon it the idea of tyranny. As a Sovereign, every course, and every means to an end, must be traced up to his contrivance and power. But love is that attribute by which he is best of all known to us in his works and his word; and to that our theory of his government should be adjusted as far as possible, and not to a disposition which, whatever our words may imply, we feel to be contrary to it. "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God; and not that he should return from his ways, and live" (Ezek. xviii. 23). Shall we come forward with a cold heartless theory, and destroy the hopes held out to all by this plain declaration of God's unbounded mercy? Admit, then, what with open eyes and ears we cannot deny-God's choice or preference in individual cases, to higher advantages. Yet let us not sweep from the heart of the vilest sinner the hope-it is his all-that this choice of others does not of necessity exclude him. Manifestly this is not the law of God's temporal administration; and why not extend it to spiritual blessings? If we do, it will land us at a practical point. The water-pots must be filled up to the brim; that is, every means which God has previously put in our power-what are called natural means-inust be used. The one talent--or if our wealth be only the fraction of a talent-must be made the utmost of; for God will ask no more at the great day of accounts than that you shall have filled your water-pots, whatever their capacity may have been," up to the brim." You can do no more; you ought not to do less. And the issue in that day will undoubtedly prove his power and his love, and realize two of the three wonders which a good man expected to see in heaven; one of which was, that he should miss many whom he expected to see there; the other was, that he should see many whom he never expected to meet there. These last may be those who, in silence and obscurity, had filled their little and shallow waterpots up to the brim.

Miscellaneous.

EXTREME OLD AGE.-We pray in the litany to be delivered from sudden death. Any death is to be deprecated which should find us unprepared; but, as a temporal calamity, with more reason might we pray to be spared from the misery of an infirm old age. It was once my fortune to see a frightful instance of extreme longevity-a woman who was nearly in her hundredth year. Her sight was greatly decayed, though not lost; it was very difficult to make her hear, and not easy then to make her understand what was said, though, when her torpid intellect was awakened, she was, legally, of sane mind. She was unable to walk, or to assist herself in any way. Her neck hung in such wrinkles that it might almost be likened to a turkey's; and the skin of her face and arms was cleft like the bark of an oak, as rough, and

out any apparent suffering, she passed her time in a state between sleeping and waking, fortunate that she could thus beguile the wearisomeness of such an existence. Instances of this kind are much rarer in Europe than in tropical climates. Negresses in the ! West Indies sometimes attain an age which is seldom ascertained, because it is far beyond living memory. They outlive all voluntary power, and their descendants of the third or fourth generation carry them out of their cabins into the open air, and lay them, like logs, as the season may require, in the sunshine or in the shade. Methinks if Mæcenas had seen such an object, he would have composed a palinode to those verses in which he has perpetuated his most pitiable love for life. A woman in New Hampshire, North America, had reached the miserable age of 102, when one day, as some people were visiting her, the bell tolled for a funeral; she burst into tears and said, "Oh, when will the bell toll for me! It seems as if it never would toll for me! I am afraid that I shall never die!" This reminds me that I have either read or heard an affecting story of a poor old woman in England-very old and very poor-who retained her senses long after the body had become a weary bur den; she, too, when she heard the bell toll for a funeral, used to weep, and say she was afraid God had forgotten her! Poor creature, ignorantly as she spake, she had not forgotten him*.

THE DEAD SEA.- Lieutenant Symonds, royal engineers, son of our distinguished naval architect, has triangulated the country between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, and finds this latter extraordinary basin to be 1,337 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. To show the importance of this discovery, and the fallacious results of previous experiments, take a few words from Robinson:-" One of the most singular circumstances in the character of the Dead Sea is the deep depression of its level below that of the Mediterranean. This has been detected only within the last few years. Messrs. More and Beke were the first to notice it in March, 1837, by means of the boiling point of water; in this way they found the depression to be about 500 English feet. A month or two later the careful barometrical measurements of Schubert gave the depression of the sea at 598.5 Paris feet; that of Jericho being 527.7 feet. The very great descent which we found from Carmel to the cliffs over Ain Jidy, and the immense depth of the sea below, point to a like result; but so great is the uncertainty in all such partial measurements and observations (as evinced in the like case of the Caspian Sea), that the question can never be decided with exactness until the intervening country shall have been surveyed, and the relative level of the two seas trigonometrically ascertained." Lieutenant Symonds proceeded from level to level by two different routes, and the results of each differ by merely an insignificant fraction. By the same process the lake of Tabarick or Gennesaret turns out to be cighty-four feet below the level of the Mediterranean; taking, therefore, the valley of Jordan at seventy miles long, the mean depression of the soil must be very nearly eighteen feet per mile-quite sufficient to account for the rapidity of the Jordan, which preserves its course almost due south with very little winding.-Morning Paper.

It does not by any means follow that persons of such an age are necessarily in the condition described in the extract. We have personally known individuals above a century old, an i have found them perfectly capable of enjoying existence.-ED.

London: Published by JAMES BURNS, 17 Periman Street. Portman Square; W. EDWARDS, 12 Ave-Maria Lane, St Paul's; and to be procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country.

PRINTED BY

JOSEPH ROGERSON, 24, NORfolk street, STRAND, LON VOL.

THE GREAT SALVATION.

BY THE REV. C. RAWLINGS, A.B., Curate of St. Stephen's and St. Dennis, Cornwall. "How," asks the apostle with fearful and impressive energy, "shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" The form of interrogation here employed renders the negative doubly strong: it will be utterly impossible for the child of impenitence and unbelief to escape the avenging wrath which will overwhelm those who have been guilty of the enormous crime of rejecting the stupendous remedy provided for a sin-disordered world. The salvation of Jesus is a great salvation under every view and aspect that we are led to contemplate it: it is great in its origin, as planned in the counsels of infinite wisdom from the ages of eternity: it is great as actually wrought out and accomplished on man's behalf; that he who was Jehovah's fellow," the brightness of his Father's glory and the express image of his person;" that he, who was possessed of all the attributes and perfections of Deity, should stoop so low as to assume our nature, sustain all the sad variety of suffering and reproach, and at length submit to an ignominious and accursed death on the cross for the vilest of sinners; this exhibits a picture of moral grandeur which no language can adequately represent. But further-the salvation of Jesus is great in the blessings it communicates. When we are enabled by grace to exercise faith in the Redeemer we obtain remission of sins, peace with God as a reconciled Father, strength to carry us forward through the trials and difficulties of the spiritual warfare, consolation in seasons of trouble and distress, and at

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length, when the swellings of Jordan are crossed, the full and everlasting possession of the inheritance of glory. It is a great salvation. What a magnificent illustration of the greatness of Immanuel's salvation is afforded in the case of every redeemed and converted soul! Every redeemed and converted man is the subject of an astonishing moral change, pervading all the powers and faculties of his soul. Once was he darkness, but now is he light in the Lord: once was he the slave of sin and Satan, but now the chains of his captivity are burst asunder, and he tastes the true liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free: once was he conformed in spirit, in principle, and in practice, to a wicked world, but he is now "transformed by the renewing of his mind;" now he feels a holy joy and satisfaction and delight in running the way of God's commandments. It is of vast importance to bear in mind that the salvation of Jesus is a deliverance from the reigning power and love of sin, as well as the guilt and condemnation of sin: the latter blessing without the former would render the salvation of the believer fearfully incomplete. We are assured on the authority of an apostle, that "Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" In correspondence with this language is the declaration of the same apostle at the opening of the first chapter of his epistle to the Galatians: "Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father." The emancipation

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THE question whether the apostolical succession is essential, manifestly affects the state of others rather than our own; yet I venture to call it a practical question, because it is intimately blended with our duty towards others-and towards how many millions of our brethren at home and abroad? Doubtless, if we have good grounds for believing that foreign churches or our dissenting brethren are in imminent peril, we are bound to lift up our voices, and loudly and earnestly proclaim their danger. But, if we rather suspect than know the danger, if we only repeat the opinions of others, and have no settled belief of our own upon the subject, then let us consider carefully whether it falls within our province to condemn our brethren upon grounds which we have not ourselves ascertained. But this by the way; for, awful and mysterious as it will be, if indeed so many millions of men, so many national churches, are without a ministry and without sacraments, still we are surrounded with awful mysteries; and their condition, however perilous, will not disprove the truth of the most rigid doctrine of the apostolical succession. Nor again will the doctrine be disproved by its being utterly powerless to produce its supposed effect. If no one can be secure that he receives the eucharist, except at the hands of a priest episcopally ordained, and the commission must have been transmitted without any defect in the chain from the apostles themselves to this individual presbyter, who is there, after all, in any church of Christ who can attain to this security? It is no act of Christian faith to believe a point of ecclesiastical history which cannot be proved. How many are there in Engiand who have heard the traditionary rumour of an objection to the succession of the bishops in this reformed church, who know not, and cannot know, any thing of its refutation? And if, many centuries hence, the tradition of the objec

But with us a much stronger presumption against it, although still only a presumption, ought to be the silence of the church of England. Declaring in the clearest terms what she judged right for herself, she carefully abstains from asserting that the apostolical order which she preserved is essential to the being of dination are complete, and not ungodly; that all her ministers ordained accordingly are rightly ordered and consecrated, she maintains modestly, but without reserve. That none but those who are thus ordered, or who have formerly had episcopal consecration or ordination, shall be accounted lawful ministers in the church of England, she explicitly declares. She both "that these orders may be continued," and that is distinct and precise as to the method to be pursued, they "may be reverently used and esteemed in the

a church. That her services of consecration and or

church of England." And all this definite and unreserved declaration of what she accounted right for herself, renders the contrast so much the more marked,

when her statements concerning "the church," and concerning "ministering in the congregation," and "the unworthiness of ministers," are so framed and cautiously guarded, that, excluding indeed the ministry of self-appointed teachers (which would be destructive of all order, and overthrow the very nature of a Christian society), they apply to any church, and the ministry of any church-nay, might even apply to congregations of separatists who had conscientious grounds for their separation. And this we are wont to ascribe, perhaps, to the great charity and moderation of the church of England. Yet would it really deserve these excellent names had the great and good men to whom we owe her articles and her polity, been indeed convinced that her orders were essential to Christianity, and episcopacy necessary to the very efficacy of the blessed sacraments? Rather let us say, that they did not declare this doctrine, because they did not believe it to be true; or, at the least, that they could not declare this doctrine, because they had no scriptural warrant for asserting its truth. "Christ's gospel is not a ceremonial law;" that was a position clearly before the minds of our reformers. But, even had the gospel been a law of ceremonies, or so far as it has any ritual or ceremonial, or any other positive institution, still, before we may assert that any positive institution is essential, we must have some clear warrant of revelation for our assertion. This appears to be the true reason why the necessity of any apostolical succession cannot be maintained. If it be admitted that the whole doctrine of the succession relates not to an eternal truth, but to a positive institution, in its own nature alterable, nothing less than the clearly declared will of its founder can make it unalterable and essential. . But we look in vain to holy writ for any clear warrant for this doctrine. As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Were the doctrine clearly warranted by the inspired scriptures, would divines rely upon texts like these to prove it? As if, because our Lord undoubtedly sent forth his apostles as the Father had sent him, therefore he gave them a commission altogether like his own, and a similar transmission, and no other, of the same authority must be continued for ever; or as if, because it is justly argued that the abiding presence of Christ is not promised only to his apostles, but to the church through them, therefore it is promised only

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only, way to a portion of the apostolie office. Untal