instant of eating, is left in undisturbed possession of the fallen species.

Although the continuance of the race appears not to have resulted from the fall, but merely to have been stamped then with sorrow, it would appear that not till the fall, nay, not till the address of God to the woman, did Adam contemplate Eve as the mother of all living. From this consideration he derived the name he gave her. And I cannot help regarding the work of God in providing the skins of animals as coverings to our first parents, not merely in its literal sense, but also as a demonstration to them, that though the nakedness of the sinner in the sight of God could not be concealed by any human device, there was a device, and that of God, whereby it could be concealed, even the clothing of the righteousness of Christ, the destroyer threatened to the devil; the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world; the gift of God's free grace.

The last subject of remark, is the expulsion from Eden. This, as we have seen, and as the twenty-second verse most clearly shews, was properly no part of the sentence on disobedient man, but a preventive measure devised in the eternal wisdom of God, whereby, on the contingency of disobedient eating, the tree of life might be still preserved from the unhallowed touch and taste of mere creatures. In Eden, our fallen parents, attaining the tree of life, would at once have defeated the prerogative of the Son, and destroyed that merciful purpose of God, which moved him to make life not the defiled privilege of sin, but the glorious privilege of righteousness. Therefore they were expelled from Eden, lest they should eat and live for ever, and so perpetuate the supremacy of sin for, in order to do so, they behoved to do no more than put forth their hands. The type proved unworthy of his office, was turned out of Eden to till the ground, from which he sprung, and to till it in sorrow. At the east of the garden, or in other words, in the gateway of paradise, of the third heaven, of the new Jerusalem, of the sole habitation of the Lamb, and his members from among all creatures, were placed the cherubim and a flaming revolving sword, indicative of the omniscient watchfulness of God through the Spirit, to guard the passage to the tree of life yet growing in Eden. The word of God, sharper than a two-edged sword, did reserve for the Son of God, in whose mouth that word ever is, the access to his own peculiar prize; that way which in the days of his flesh he should afterwards tread, through the valley of the shadow of death, to that life which the Father has given unto him alone; and from which all were debarred, save by entrance into the membership, and unity of him who alone is the way, the truth, and the life.

FIDUS.

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THEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT.

JESUS OUR EXAMPLE, THAT WE SHOULD FOLLOW HIS STEPS. BY THE REV. EDWARD IRVING, M. A.

(Continued from p. 117.)

IF love, then, be the door of entrance into sorrow-for how can a man grieve if he have no tenderness of heart to be wounded, no losses nor crosses nor widowed affections over which to weephow, oh how shall we be lifted up into love, that we may be able to go down into sorrow, and make common cause with our God over the present most grievous state of his church and his creatures! In no other way can the region of love be entered, but by escaping out of the region of fear, where dwelleth nothing but sadness, trembling, and the shadow of death. And how shall we escape out of this, the region of the horrible pit, in which the conscience of man doth bind him down under the guilt of sin, and the present oppressive sense of short-coming and transgression of God's holy laws? Oh! how otherwise, my brethren, but by receiving from the hand of Jesus the gift of a conscience cleansed by his blood, of a law satisfied and made honourable by his righteous life. Thou weariest thyself in vain, and dost but sink deeper and deeper in the mire, while thou seekest to clear thine own account with God, which Jesus hath cleared for all flesh, by that perfect righteousness which he wrought under the law, before his public acknowledgment in baptism as the Son of God, and entrance upon his free calling as a Son of God, to body forth the love of the Father, and all the Father's sorrow over his thankless children. If Jesus, though the eternal Son of God, and generated into flesh the holy child of God, must yet travel through thirty years of hard servitude under an earthly master, which is Moses, and acquit himself to the full of all the obligations and arrears which God had upon flesh, before he could be avouched the Son of God, and receive the Spirit of adoption, and enter upon the heart-breaking sorrows of a Son; how, I pray, shouldest thou expect, O man, to be brought into the same emancipation from bonds, the same commonness of heart with God, the same overflowings of sorrowful love, until thou shalt have acted faith upon the work of Christ, for satisfaction of all God's claims upon thee, and clearing away of all thy guilt in his sight? Thinkest thou to step up into the dignity of a son, without laying off the bonds of the slave, the chains of the guilty culprit? and how shalt thou do this, otherwise than by faith in the work of Jesus under the law, in that name

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Jesus which saveth his people from their sins. Therefore put away thy fears, O heart-bound sinner, for Jesus hath done justice to thine offended God: thy Creator is satisfied with all flesh, in respect of law-keeping its servitude is finished; it is come of age, and needeth not to be under tutors any more: your Father sendeth you your title of sonship, why take you it not up? He adopteth you into his family from the place of a servant, why go you not in? He openeth to you his bosom, why go you not forward to embrace him? He stretcheth you out the golden sceptre, as to his queen; why goest thou not forth to touch it, and seat thyself by his side in glorious majesty? What meaneth this burden-bearing bondage, these stripes of fear, this sadness, this despair? Be done with this grief on thine own account: thy account is settled, and thy burden is cast upon the Lord; come in, the Lord hath need of thy griefs but thou must first be assured that thou art his son, and as a son thou must lie in thy Father's bosom, and hear the whisperings of his love, the sighings of his sorrow, the heavings of his troubled heart; then go forth impregnated with the like generous disposition of loving and saving sinners, and begin to endure all things in order to bring thy God's love near to the ears of savage men. Thou must believe that Jesus hath made thy griefs his, and borne them all and now in thy turn thou must make his griefs thine, and bear them forth and sing them to the desert winds, if the hearts of men be too hard to hearken unto thee. To suffer is our calling, to have the full fellowship of Christ's sufferings, and to be conformed unto his death; but no one can touch with his little finger this mighty load, unless he do first believe himself to be a son, and get quit of his own guilty fears. Every particle of suffering which ariseth from the sting of past guilt, or from the rankling pain of abiding roots of sin, or from the shame of exposure, or from the actual exposure of our crimes, is not suffering for righteousness sake, is no fellowship of Christ's sufferings, but the punishment of unbelief and actual wickedness. Therefore believe thou, O sinner, that thy guilt is atoned for, and break off thy sins by repents ance, and lead a holy life by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost; and then shalt thou begin to suffer with Christ, and to bear the burden of the sorrows of God. But be not deceived, there is no selfishness in God, and as little must there be in thee, if thou wouldst be the image of God; therefore, thou must abjure thy fears concerning thyself, and put away all actings of thy self love, the service of thy self-will; for it is all rebellion, and lifting up of thyself against God. Thou must receive thy forgiveness, as thou receivedst thy creation, without any act of thine own, out of the pure goodness of God, served out to thee: by the laborious and painful work of Jesus.

And if thou wilt not, thou mayest not, thou canst not come near as a son: stand back, and make way for them that are humbler than thou, who will not bandy words with their Redeemer; who are not too proud to receive his gifts, but will come unto the fellowship of his sorrows, and of his joys, by his own way of free grace and undeserved bounty. Down unto the dust, O sinner! and confess thyself a debtor who hath nothing to pay; and thy Master will freely forgive thee all, and make thee one of his stewards to go forth and communicate his stores unto the rest of men, But, if thou thyself wilt not take promotion by the way of another's deservings, how shalt thou be a minister of that Gospel of promotion to others, by the same way of forgiveness for the merit of another? Oh! it is pride that shutteth the door against natural sorrow; the child is too proud to confess its fault, which the Father longeth to forget, and so there is no room for tears and sorrow. We can express no repentance in the sight of the world, until we have put away our unrelenting pride, bowed ourselves in the dust, and received full and free absolution. Then the sorrow floweth in by the door of love, we become weeping Magdalenes, because we have been forgiven much. Love looseth the cords of the heart, and openeth therein the fountains of the depths of sorrow, which are locked up by pride; and rivers of tears run down our eyes, because men keep not the law of God. Repentance hath no place in that soul which hath not tasted of forgiveness. And when forgiveness is felt, then the soul hath liberty to discover the depth of its sin; for what is sin when not seen in the light of God's love? We wist not it was the High Priest against whom we spake, the merciful and faithful High Priest; and now that we know it, we grieve to have so spoken: we wist not it was our aged venerable Father, the Ancient of Days, against whom we dealt those blows; and how that we know it, we weep bitterly to have wounded his heart as we have done. O sinner, thy words are against thy Father; Him it is whom thou cursest, Him whom thou fightest against. When the Father entereth into the heart by the door of Jesus Christ, his gift to us, then we can confess our sin, and all sin, for sin is one; then we can feel how grievous sin is, and repent with continual repentance, and mourn with incessant mourning. But till we know a Father's love, by knowing that we are forgiven of him for our infinite transgressions, we have no word of love to carry out to men. We see them not as the dearly beloved of God; our mouths are shut by our unbelief; we have nothing heartfelt to present to them, and we have nothing rejected to mourn over. But Jesus mourned because he was rejected, and the Father rejected in Him. He knew whom he bore, what a gracious benefactor, what a loving God, what a gift, what a salvation,

what a deliverance, what an escape from perdition, what a promotion, what a blessedness, what a glory he bore in his heart, in his words, in his hand; and to see men so mad, so wicked, so ungodly as to reject all this, did indeed grieve his soul, and bring him into utter abjectness, hopelessness, and almost despair. Methinks I hear him say, on the eve of the agony, And is it come to this? are all my Father's labours of love, and all my self-devotedness come to this? and must I go out of the world rejected, must my Father's love be fruitless, must my brethren perish? is there then no more hope, no more salvation, and are men utterly undone for ever?' The thing that loosed and enlarged the sorrows of his heart, was the knowledge of his Father's love to the children of men, and their rejection of the same; he felt the shame of it, the sin of it, to be all his own. He had taken our cause upon himself, and it proved heavier than he had thought it to be; he was ashamed of us; our sins, or, as he saith, his sins, for he maketh them his own, took hold upon him, and shame covered his face, and he was unable to look up to God. He was not unprepared for it, he had oft spoken of it; and before he became flesh, when he stood as the Word, he had often foretold it by his Spirit in the Prophets and the Psalms; but the experience of it surpassed all anticipations and premonitions, and it broke his heart. Oh, how the love of God openeth the floodgates of the heart! The church shall never know sorrow, till she know love; she shall never go forth with him bearing the precious seed, until she know the love of the Father; and she shall never return with joy, bringing her sheaves along with her, till she hath sown in tears. Every thing standeth still for want of the faith of the love of God unto ourselves, and to all men. This is not a work but an act of faith; yet is it the beginning, the continuance, and the consummation of all work. Wherefore I do beseech you, oh all of ye who are hoping and desiring to see the salvation of your God, that you would be filled with the love of your heavenly Father, and have your hearts full of it always. Oh! I cannot reach the depth of these things, my heart is so hard, my mind is so shattered, my tongue is so fast bound. I wait for the anointing of the Spirit, in order to utter what the Lord hath given me to discern, yea and to understand; for the Lord hath made me to understand the mystery of his truth in certain disjointed fragments, for I know nothing as I ought to know it.

How closely love and sorrow are linked together in this the estate of the church in flesh, is by nothing so apparent as by the life of the Son of God, who embodied the fulness of the Father's love; concerning whom it is written, that " his visage was so marred, more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men; that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted