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2.18.32

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of "An Inquiry concerning Spiritual Gifts; " by the Rev. W. W. Pym 222

of "A Word of Testimony; or, a corrected Account of the Evi-
dence" and "Defence" in the Trial of the Rev. E. Irving
before the Presbytery of London

Mr. Irving's Church the Sign of the Times....

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The Binder will place the Tabular View of the relative Antiquity of the

several Classes of Brick Almanacks found in the Ruins of Babylon to face

page 405.

THE

MORNING WATCH.

SEPTEMBER 1832.

ON THE SONGS OF HEAVEN.

LANGUAGE, the vehicle of thought, is commensurate therewith copious, where thought is abundant and diversified ; accurate, among those who think with precision. Reasoning could not proceed, nor could reason itself exist, without language; wherefore reason and its utterance are both expressed, in almost all dialects, by the same word. Affection and emotion may be expressed by look or tone, and these are possessed by the lower animals; but reason is peculiar to man, with language, its accompaniment: by these he exercises dominion over the world beneath, and exhibits the glory of the Creator; and by these he holds communion with the heavens above, and is wrought into conformity with the mind of God, whose image he bears. Before the creation of man the counsels and designs of the Blessed Trinity were expressed and carried into effect by the Eternal Word. Anterior to all created things, from all eternity, in the beginning, was the Word; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: and the same Word was wisdom, or reason, possessed or established by the Lord in the beginning of his way, before his works of old; "set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was" (Prov. viii. 22; John i). And by the same Eternal Word have all the communications of the will of God been made, and all the deliverances of the people of God been wrought, in times past. Every one of which several communications, and single deliverances, points to and typifies the recapitulation of all things in Him from whom they emanated, and for whose pleasure they are and were created, at the times of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began; when the heaven shall be opened, and the FAITHFUL AND TRUE ONE shall come forth, whose name is called THE WORD OF GOD, and who " hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords."

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And when the mystery of God is unfolded, shall it not be declared? when the deliverance is completed, shall it not be commemorated? Let it not be thought! The new name of Christ and of his people is then revealed, and the new song begins, which they alone can learn; for they are the only participants of that otherwise incomprehensible mercy and love which the song records; they only can truly feel and fully understand the mystery of Godliness, God manifest in the flesh. As a fact done it was seen of the angels, preached as a fact to the Gentiles, may be believed on in the world, and was openly manifested when Christ was received up into glory. These are but the external forms of the mystery, and not the mystery itself. It can only be understood by those who are themselves its recipients, and not merely spectators; who have God manifested in their flesh, as he was in the flesh of Christ; whose bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost; to whom Christ hath given the glory which God gave to him (John xvii. 22); who, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image (2 Cor. iii. 18); and who shall at length_ be received up into the same glory which the Word had with the Father before the foundation of the world (John xvii. 24). These, and these only, will understand the whole mystery of godliness; these, and these only, can learn the new song; these, and these only, can fully feel and truly express before the throne the praises of the Lamb, saying, "Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation."

The song of these redeemed ones has three ingredients,-its origin, its purport, and its end; the love, the grace, and the glory of God. The love of God is boundless; shewn to all his creatures in the course of providence, where he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and his rain to descend on the just and on the unjust: declared in His word, calling upon sinners to repent, saying, "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner: turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die, O sons of men." The grace of God is boundless too; shewn in the gift of Christ, to die for all, when all were dead; to offer salvation freely to all, when they lay under the same condemnation. And the glory of God shall be boundless too, when the round of his purpose shall be completed; when God shall be all in all; when, from the dark contrast of its opposite, the dire alternative, now preached, to be then realized; when, from comparison with the black abyss of woe, the glories of redemption shall radiate in all its splendour: those who partake of the inheritance acknowledging that it is of free grace alone, and giving God all the glory; those who are cast out being constrained to declare that God is not the author of their

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