original covenant. Apart, therefore, from spiritual relationship to Christ, no man is responsible for spiritual acts: his obligations are moral, not spiritual; are founded in the law, and not in the gospel. But if a man is vitally united to Christ as a spiritual Head, that relationship is most assuredly productive of corresponding duties and responsibilities in connection with it. This fact is most forcibly conveyed in such expressions as the following: "Men ought always to pray; "Ye also ought to wash one another's feet; "We ought to obey God rather than man; " "Ye ought to support the weak;" "Ye ought rather to forgive him;" "So ought men to love their wives;" "Ye received of us how ye ought to walk;' ""These things ought not so to be;" "For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in their carnal things." The frequent use of the terms ought and duty strongly indicate that there are obligations, the neglect of which is sin (even in a renewed state), and that as the Lord is our King, so the Lord is our Lawgiver and our Judge. This had been the case with the Old Testament Church, for, however sarcastically it may have been written, it was strictly true that he was "the King of the Jews," not merely as a nation, but as a Church of saints-a Ruler in Israel, whose goings forth had been from everlasting over those who were, not only Jews outwardly, but whose circumcision was of the heart and in the spirit. This is pre-eminently the case with the Gospel Church, or rather the saints under the gospel, who, though delivered from the forms and rites peculiar to the Jewish economy, are nevertheless "under the law to Christ." When the apostle uses the phrase, "under the law," it is no contradiction of his declaration, "Ye are not under the law, but under grace; " he simply intimates that Christ uses the same instrument to govern his Church as that by which he will judge the world. If we regard the Lord Jesus Christ as the Head of nature, the universal Governor, and the future Judge of all mankind, we observe the law in his hands as a covenant of works and a rule of justification, the language of which is, Do and live, transgress and die: "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them." Under this covenant no flesh living can be justified, for all have sinned; and, therefore, as many as are under the law, as a covenant, are under the curse. But when we look at Christ as the Head of the Church and King in Zion, there is a vast difference. Not in the Lawgiver, for he is the same: not in the law, for it is also the same: not in the persons who are his subjects, for they are the same who were once the children of wrath, even as others. All the difference is in the relationship in which each believer stands to Christ. The law which distinguishes right from wrong is immutable. That which was right in unregeneracy, and under the law as a covenant, cannot become wrong when the man is born again and released from the authority of the "deceased husband." On the other hand, that which was sin in a state of nature cannot cease to be sin, but rather becomes "exceeding sinful," when committed by a regenerate or spiritual man. But the believer views in Christ, as the Head of a redeemed Church, one who has fulfilled the law as a covenant, endured its inevitable curse, and brought in an everlasting righteousness, by the which all those for whom he acted are eternally justified from all things. To all such the law is no longer a covenant, but a rule of sanctification which proceeds from the mercy seat, and not from the judgment seat, appeals, not only to the will, but the affections: "If ye love me, keep my commandments." They are commandments nevertheless; and though for the reasons stated above, the breach of them is no longer connected with a penal curse, yet, "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth the law." Christ was made under the law to God as a covenant; the believer is under the law to Christ as a rule; the relationships differ, but do not disagree. The sensible and penitent sinner who approaches the law with "What must I do to be saved," is led by the Holy Spirit to see it fulfilled in the person of Christ, who, after relieving him of his burden, and speaking peace to his conscience, directs him back to the law in answer to the inquiry, "What wilt thou have me to do." Live and do is substituted for do and live; and the same law which sealed his condemnation as an unbeliever becomes a pleasure to him as a believer; and, rejoicing in his eternal deliverance from its curse, he is able to say, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man. With my mind I myself serve the law of God." It is to be feared that the objections raised against duty, and obligation in spiritual things have not unfrequently arisen from a consciousness that those obligations have been neglected, and those duties unperformed. The best christian must be conscious of this at times; but when that is the case, let us not seek to justify our shortcomings by disclaiming our obligations, but rather, confessing our frailty and infirmity, seek for grace to love our Sovereign more and serve him better. Thus shall we best do honour to him who sits in the midst of his throne as a Lamb that has been slain, but who shall henceforth reign for ever and ever, King of kings and Lord of lords. GEORGE W. SHEPHERD. ERRATA IN LAST PAPER.-On page 78, fourth line from the bottom, and in page 79, third line from the top, for scapegoat read goat. THE SPIRIT-A GUIDE INTO ALL TRUTH. THE Spirit here spoken of is the true Spirit The Spirit of Truth bears title to teach us he is the enemy of all error, of which he cannot, does not, will not approve; but against which his own word has plainly, plentifully, and continually spoken. Error in the world, in the Church, the sinner or the saint, the mind or the mouth, deserves all the condemnation and punishment it receives. The Spirit of Truth guided the apostles in an extraordinary way, giving them wisdom and words infallible to write the New Testament, to understand the Old aright, and to preach according to them both, so that error should be excluded from their counsels, and their labours crowned with abundant success. For all this their qualification was very limited under the excellent ministry of Christ; but after the gift of the Spirit it was much enlarged, and they were led into all truth. The Spirit of Truth guides gospel ministers into all the doctrines of Christ and his apostles,-the doctrines of distinguishing grace, as election, adoption, redemption, justification, sanctification, salvation, glorification, and all that is contained in and connected with them. One, or some, of these truths only would not suffice to fulfil the promised guidance of the Spirit, or satisfy the advocates of all truth. All truth is too important and precious to be parted with; and, whoever would drop or deny it, the minister should hold it more fast than the miser would grasp his gold. The Spirit not only guides us into the doctrine, but also into a sound and saving experience of the truth, causing us to feel, believe, love, enjoy, and obey it. And this is followed by repentance, pardon, purity, peace, hope, humility, and all the fruits of the Spirit. And he leads into all the practice best agreeable to gracious principle, gospel preaching, and Scripture requirements. The Spirit says as much on practice as doctrine and experience; and this is good reason why we should not say less; "but let us be doers of the Word." All truth will take in all the promises, precepts, warnings, and encouragements. Other things may be most pleasing to merely moral persons, but Bible subjects are most profitable to spiritual minds. The Spirit of God guides the regenerate believer into all essential truth-all that is necessary to be known in some measure in this world, as the evil of sin, so as to hate and forsake it; the imperfection of his own best doings, so as to place no confidence in them for salvation; the excellency of Christ, so as to trust in him alone for life eternal; the glory of God, so as to fear and follow him; private prayers and public worship, so as to be often engaged in them. Whoever can take pleasure in such things has reason to believe he is led by the Spirit of Truth; and what he knows not now, he shall know and have hereafter. The Spirit in the act of regeneration works instantaneously and at once; but his after operations in guiding the regenerate into all truth are gradual and progressive, both in public preachers and private Christians. He guides by his grace and his word-by means of reading and hearing, meditation and prayer. And those who are most diligent in using such means are most likely to be safe, learned, and happy. The whole may teach us, all truth is necessary, or else it had not been given. No truth should be dropped, denied, or neglected. Truth should be held fast, especially the truth of distinguishing grace (2 Tim. i. 13), that it may remain, or return if removed. We should be thankful for so great treasure as the whole truth, the naked truth, and nothing but the truth. The Spirit of our God Be our unerring guide; That in the truth of all his Word In doctrines all divine, And sweet experience, too, With Jesus let us keep His grace and truth our stay; Or we shall act, as wandering sheep, In some forbidden way. We bless the bounteous Lord, And counsels of his love,Hoping to sound his praise abroad; In better songs above. CHURCHES ARE APOSTOLIC. WHEN BAPTIST A CHURCH may be composed of believers only, baptized in profession of their personal faith, and yet may fall very far below the New Testament ideal. No degree of conformity in external order to the primitive and apostolic churches can of itself make a primitive and apostolic church. No amount of zeal for theoretical correctness in the constitution of a church can make up the zeal which distinguishes and honours the true christian man. The existence of churches has not its end in church order;-church order is appointed to embody and organize christian principle and feeling, and to promote the spread and triumphs of the gospel. A Baptist church is a true church, therefore, not by the mere illustration of a New Testament organization, but by the power and the habit of doing work for Christ. Its zeal for God is a zeal according to knowledge only as it takes into account both these things, giving to both their due place and prominence. The weakness of human nature is always in danger of putting our biases at work in single or wrong directions. We may err by undervaluing the order, and so making our labours to promote the kingdom of Christ feeble, and but transient in fruit. We may err by overvaluing the order, and neglecting labours on the spiritual side of Christianity altogether. A church well balanced, exact in external order, and at the same time thoroughly at work for Christ organized to illustrate what a church should be, and organized to illus trate what a church should do-is the church which we seldom see, but certainly is the one which all churches should emulate. There are at the present time many signs of a re-awakened denominational life in our churches, signs of a higher regard among us for those views of church-order which make us a distinct and peculiar people. There is occasion for congratulation in this. By the very form of our organization we imply that religion is a personal business between the individual soul and God. Baptism is profession of personal faith, and infant baptism, therefore, an impossibility, otherwise than by a corruption of the design of the ordinance. We cannot admit it, or those who practise it, into our churches, because Christ is King in Zion, and we are his subjects by a voluntary allegiance with which this figment of an hereditary religion can never be consistent. We stand by the law and the testimony, and exclude the authority of ecclesiastics and of tradition as an im pertinence. We exclude a hierarchy, because the New Testament has none of it. We accept a Christian democracy, because the primitive churches were democratic. We stand on these foundations; we lift this standard, and the more because of the dangers which now threaten Christianity from rationalists and ritualists, from wealth and from material prosperity.-American Examiner. UNION WITHOUT UNITY.-UNIFORMITY WITHOUT VITALITY. "LET the time past suffice for the wretched jealousies of conflicting sects. If any man thinks by adding over and above to that which the Church of England has insti tuted councils of perfection, such as I firmly believe John Wesley intended to institute, don't let us of the church find fault with them, but let us rather adopt them into the common bosom of a loving christian unity, and bid them God speed. I do thoroughly believe the great religious differences which now divide and weaken us, that these things exist more in the memory of past evils than upon present necessity; and I believe if churchmen and dissenters would unite together to exalt the one name of Christ, and for the love of that name seek heartily and thoroughly for brotherly communion in our mother Church, I believe that England might have it, and, that having it, she might be first in things spiritual, and then in things material be more than a match for the divided world around her."-Vide BISHOP OF OXFORD. Fervent and glowing aspirations of the Anglican bishop! Come to our bosom all ye conflicting sects. Our common parent is ready with open arms to receive us all. From Wesleyanism to Anglicanism-one short step; from Anglicanism to universal Catholicity-another step. Who would have conceived that our dear brethren of the Wesleyan body were but two steps from the great apostacy? Who would have thought Wesleyanism, with its "councils of perfection," should be so near to the realizing that ideal of universal brotherhood as is exhibited in the union of Anglican, Roman, and Greek churches into one vast confederation? How very kind of the elder brother not to pass over the claims of this young stripling. The great family property is to be divided or held in jointure. Oh! perilous honour to the Wesleyan body to be so cordially invited to join in the business. Let the fathers and brethren of methodism awake to the danger when an Anglican bishop looks over the wall and so lovingly invites to universal brotherhood. But how is this fond dream to be realized? Oh! subtle are the ways of the serpent; "churchmen and dissenters must unite together to exalt the one name of Christ, and for the love of that name seek heartily and thoroughly for brotherly communion:" where? "In our mother church!" This being done, what then? Churchmen and dissenters united in one-in other words, the dissenter merged in the churchman-then, "she," that is England (or in other words, the National Church) might be first in things spiritual; and, “she," that is England (or "mother church") in things material be more than a match for the divided world around." I think there is little question about it. But I am inclined to think that there is little need of such change in the face of the country to ensure the peace and tranquility of England. There is a strong spice of priestly wisdom about all this. It is little short of Cardinal Wiseman, revised: Erratic England, Heretical England, England the lost sheep in the wilderness. Brethren, see that these two great parties are working as one, just as two sets of artificers begin their work at two ends of a piece of tunnelling; though they seem to work in contrary directions, their work is one and the same. Rome works from her point, and the Church of England from her point; and when finished, behold the work! Universal brotherhood-one church. But look again, and behold it is "our mother church." It is Rome, nothing short of Rome. Now waken up your memories of past evils, "On whom were they inflicted? Did the loving ever strangle her own children? Oh no, it was the children born of schism -it was the heretic, who, after the first and second admonition, was "rejected nigh unto cursing, whose end "was to be burned." So literally does this affectionate, "all mother," interpret the oracles of God. How grand must such a view be from the Anglican bishop's stand point! Behold, there comes an army from the North, these are dippers! "turn thee behind me", says this prancing Jehu. So yonder comes an army from the South, these have been the favoured ones, the men who have "instituted councils of perfection." (Oh, what an admission!) "turn ye behind me." From the East there comes a mighty host disciplined and strong, full of the "memory of past evils" which they have suffered at the hands of the State Church. The Anglican now to be, universal brotherhood; see! they come with huge tomes which they have called history "memories," 66 get thee behind me," says this redoutable captain. Thus rein-forced, "the age of universal brotherhood is proclaimed." Mother church sits enthroned, and gives laws to the world! We can scarcely help drawing a comparison! Is this the "Woman" of the Revelations, who has on her forehead written, "mystery?" Is this "Babylon," which is in the midst of many waters? Is this the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication? The likeness is striking! And, is this the tendency of all this Ritualism, Rationalism, Spiritualism, Irvingism, and Universalism? I think it is, and the end will be that Great Babylon will be destroyed, but not yet. The earth has yet to drink-and deep draughts too-of the cup of her fornication, and to be drunken therewith. There will in these days to come be small space left for the people of the Lord. While men are dreaming of universal peace and brotherhood the enemy is preparing for universal distrust and war, and God is treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath-the day of perdition of ungodly men." The Wesleyan body may accept the kind invite of the bishop, and go over. The Baptists may accept the kind invite of the Congregationalists (hardly kind either), and go over. And all together may accept the kind invite of the Romanists, and go over. Yet there will be the Samuels, who will not turn again and worship; the Shadrachs, who will not bow down to the image; the Daniels, who will not refuse to worship God, after the manner called heresy. There will still be the valiant men of Israel, who will be ready to die for that truth they can no longer preach. And in the end there will be peace in Israel, joy to the righteous, triumph for the godly, glory-eternal glory, on the head of him who is Lord of all, who knows how to avenge his slaughtered saints, whose bones lie bleaching on the Alpine mountains cold. The Church may forget the evil in the past;-Christ does not forget. Nor can he have pleasure in the church which has made herself drunk with the blood of the martyrs. What of all the "material" advantages? The Church of Rome has had her fill of them. What Christ refused the false church readily devoured,-the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them! The same adversary is tempting Anglican bishops, and through them Wesleyan, Unitarian, and other dissenters with the same bait. Primacy in things spiritual; primacy in things temporal; the Church the nation, and the nation the Church! Here we are landed in the ages from which we long ago emerged. We know well by "memory of past evils" what it means-the priestly and the secular power joined in one. God forbid it should ever so be again in England! Rather let us be split into ten thousand sects, each having an open Bible, than to have a dominant church, with secular power, to shut that blessed book; in other words, "to shut up heaven," and substitute its own teachings. Blackmore. WILLIAM. OLD TRUTHS IN A NEW FORM. GOD of his sovereign grace has chosen men to salvation.-We believe this to be a revealed fact. We believe it to be historically evident. We believe it to be philosophically necessary, as alone giving sufficient cause for certain divine results in the soul. But the fact, absolute and apart from every spiritual and moral change, of any man's election, is neither revealed to that man nor to any other. The fact is absolutely known to God alone. It could only be known by any man, of himself or of another, by a miracle of knowledge. It is not, then, this revelation to a man of his own election which separates him from all other men, and fits him for membership in a Christian church. Verily, on such terms the membership would be small! What, then, is our doctrine? Faith in Christ assures salvation. If a man believe, he has eternal life. This faith is conscious and personal. It involves the recognition of, and trust in, Christ as the deliverer from sin, as the Lord of the will. Faith accordingly involves the pro foundest moral convictions, and implies a great moral change. In trusting Christ as the deliverer from sin there is involved the consciousness of sin in its curse and power; there is involved the sense of the righteousness and love of God in requiring and allowing the sacrifice of his own son, and in giving his son, the treasure of his grace, for our redemption. In trusting Christ as the Lord of the will, there is involved a perception of his authority and worth, and a sympathy with his law, which imply surely a quickened moral sensibility. So great is the moral change in this conscious act of faith, that it is a new birth of the soul. So great, moreover, that whilst man acts in this trustful acceptance of Christ more freely and spontaneously than in any other act of his life, yet God's heavenly Spirit alone could quicken him and produce this change. Such faith may be dim and weak, and will grow through life; but its growth is by the nurture of God's grace, as its beginning is of his quickening. This faith in Christ will seldom be attended |