Fragments: Self-Examination — Letters — Sermons

AM If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”

1 Peter iv. 11.

Iff

If at this point we introduce some miscellaneous pieces of Mr Sandeman’s, it is not with the view of claiming for him great literary eminence, but with the desire of prolonging his usefulness. There is one chord in our heart which may be touched by the fine verses of the Latin poet:

u Ipsa quidem virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces. Dulce tamen venit ad manes, quum gloria vitas Durat apud superos, nec edunt oblivia laudem.”

(SiL Ital. xiii. 663.)

Thus Christianized:

M The Life of Faith is its own rich reward; It asks no praise of man, no song of bard. Yet even in him who stands before the throne, Glorying for ever in his Lord alone, Perchance it might awake new joy to know That he, though dead, still speaks to men below.”

Elisha’s bones were made means of life to the cold corpse of an Israelite (2 Kings xiii. 21). Would not this event at once recall the departed prophet to the memory of a people for whom he had lived, laboured, elisha’s bones.

and prayed? And without excluding the historical lesson, Elisha’s God liveth when Elisha himself is gone — or the typical lesson, The dead soul is quickened in the moment of contact with the death of Him who lay for us in that rock-hewn tomb — may we not view the incident as suggesting that it. may sometimes please the Lord to put power into the remains of His servants, to wit, into their deeds and words, recorded or recalled to mind when about to fade away from the survivors’ thoughts?

Here, then, are some fragmentary pieces. As it leads us farthest back, we begin with his inquiry into the rise and progress of his ideas of God.

ANALYSIS OF THE IDEA OF GOD IN CHILDHOOD,
BOYHOOD, YOUTH.

“Let me endeavour to find how, or by what process, I have arrived at my present state of belief.

“As a Child — How did I get the idea of God? First Period,,

“1. By Instruction. — As soon as I could understand anything of such a nature, it was told me that a great and good Being lived in heaven, and that He knew what was going on in the earth, that I must pray to Him, because He made me, and that He was pleased at what was good, and angry at evil. All this I never thought of doubting or questioning, as far as I can remember, any more than I did when I was told that there was a king in London. As to the amount of its operativeness, I do not pronounce. That it was operative, I have no doubt; and, for example, I would not retire to rest until I had made a prayer at my mother’s knee. All this was addressed to, and in a peculiar way responded to by, conscience, or the sense of right and wrong.

“2. By the Booh which, 1 was told was GocVs. This gave reality and correctness to the idea of God. The consideration in which it was held by those around me, communicated itself to me. A saying of my father’s heightened and verified my feelings toward it, viz., e When I tell you to do any thing, and you shew me that it is against what that Bible says, then I shall not ask you to do it/

“3. By the outward church, where God was praised and prayed to. This early excited my thoughts.

“4. By Sabbath, called God’s day. This, as often crossing my inclinations, was all the stronger on that account. Here, what I was told was the will of God thwarting my own, made the notion of God as a real Being all the more clear.

“In Boyhood. Second Period.

“1. Reproving swearing among my school-companions affected my spirit. It amounted, in some degree, to taking part with God. It was, I think,

IDEA OF GOD IN BOYHOOD.

one of the first independent and voluntary acts of an instructed natural piety, and had a corresponding effect in verifying the idea of God’s existence, whose name must not be profaned.

u 2. Lying. I disliked this, partly perhaps because of its effects in punishment. I don’t think I practised deception as many boys; yet again I am led to think this was in a large measure owing to the same cause. At least, I am not aware that the idea of God came in to enforce the right..

“3. Impressions of every hind more vivid, whether natural or religious. This told on character and convictions, and the notion of God was proportionally strong.

“4< A booh given me by my mother, 6 The way for a child to be saved’ had a considerable effect upon me. I believed in heaven and hell in a new way. I remember of risings of anger and enmity against these, and I suspect more or less against Him who was the Author of both, as I learnt especially, too, when His interests came across and interfered with my amusements. I remember also distinctly wishing to be a door-post, or something of that kind, rather than an immortal soul, because of the eternal realities. In a spiteful and rebellions spirit I wished to get quit of them all. But this, therefore, did not last long. No doubt, there were various other convictions of a similar kind. So far as appears to me, these were the natural workings of conscience upon the truth, and what are generality called the common operations of God’s Spirit, so frequently met with in young persons who have heard God’s truth. These were, therefore, both natural and supernatural, that is, in addition to and above nature. If I had not been possessed of these external advantages of education in the truth of God, I see little reason to think that they would ever have arisen within me. On the other hand, they do not seem to have (as far as I can consider the thing) contained any thing of a strictly spiritual nature. They were something more than natural, and less than spiritual.

“5. Vigour of conscience in proportion to advancement of age. It was an active monitor concerning good and evil.

“6. Duty was more a principle than the mere desire to please my parents or masters. I am much disposed to think that duty stood largely in the place of God to me. I believed in the existence of a Supreme Being, but the practical influence of this belief was of the faintest kind. Duty, whether owing to parents or teachers, was tenfold more powerful as a moral principle; and I am not aware that this at all involved any direct thought of God being connected in any way with the duties. Perhaps the height of my idea of morals reached this, that happiness was, in some way, related to the performance of these

IDEA OF GOD IN BOYHOOD.

duties. As far as memory aids me, there was little or nothing of a spiritual nature in these thoughts of God and duty, however transient. I never really thought of pleasing God, or of doing any thing to His glory, or directly to and for Him. I had no knowledge of Him as a Person, or real Being, with whom I had immediately and particularly to do. He was to me very much of a Mighty Abstraction, as distant from my ordinary life and feelings as I considered heaven to be from earth.

“7. True and spiritual convictions began (towards the end of this period) to visit me — of the existence of God; of a heaven and a hell; of God’s omniscience, omnipresence, &c, impressing my whole soul, and producing real practical results correspondingly. The idea of God came more fully and fairly across the horizon of my soul. I saw and was afraid, and repented and did good works. From that time my faith, I think, resembled that of devils — ‘I believed and trembled, But then they varied exceedingly as to intensity, dying away frequently, and for months together, to a mere notion, without any practical result.

“These, I doubt not, came by the operation of the Spirit of God, who was beginning to strive with me unto salvation. The chief means towards this result were, the faithful preaching of the gospel, reading the Bible, and social prayer-meetings.

“8. 1 now clearly felt that, in whatever way I might have believed in God, I had never truly believed in Christ for the remission of sins; that He was merely a man to me; an existing person, but one who had no manner of real influence over my actions.

“9. There was, also, a struggle between God and the world within me. Strange inconsistency existed, resolutions about duty and God, and yet the latter generally at an immense distance from my inward thoughts. God was utterly excluded from some of the most interesting and engrossing scenes of my existence.

“In Youth. Third Period.

tC I. The same as last period; only more confirmed in outward morality by leaving home, and so having principle strengthened through exercise. Still God was at an inconceivable distance from my ordinary daily life. I knew nothing of Him as a person, and loved him far less than father and mother, sister, and friend.

“2. Duty, conscience, and a desire to rise in life were my ruling motives to action.

<( 3. Convictions, as before; some spiritual. Knew that I had a heart and mind, but no real acquaintance with my soul.

“A thousand things had more real attraction for

IDEA OF GOD IN YOUTH.

me than God; love, but especially friendship, knowledge, principle, &c. Yet I used to hold prayer-meetings with the young men of the house in Glasgow, and held long conversations with one of the boarders on religious subjects. Read the word of God much, and used to rise early in order to do so. Strange anomalies!

“4 Up to this time the Being of God was held by me, and His attributes; His claims acknowledged, but in reality wholly despised, by loving the creature more than the Creator. Certain speculations and ideas in the mind, no true feeling (except during one season of spiritual conviction) in the heart. I believe I no more loved God with all my heart than does the most ignorant savage.

“Jesus Christ was an historical character as man; as God, He was as distant as that idea was. I no more walked in fellowship with Jesus Christ than the most ignorant coolie of Calcutta. The distinction of spiritual and carnal was utterly unknown to my moral apprehension.

“The true knowledge of sin, a sense of its inherent loathsomeness, either as it respects God or the conscience, wholly unfelt and wholly disregarded. I never, I believe, confessed sin from any sense of its own pollution.

“5. Then of God’s infinite mercy, as I trust, and, from all that went before, out of the most free love, He was pleased to send converting grace into my soul. From that hour all was changed. Jehovah assumed to Himself the throne of my soul. To adore, love, and serve Him became the ruling passion, as well as the most sober conviction, of my heart and understanding. My loftiest aspirations, and my most common actions, were alike directed unto God.

“Jesus Christ was the Redeemer of my soul from the curse of God’s law, and from hell. To adore, love, and walk with Him was all my desire, ever acting, efficacious — in short, my heaven.

“The Scriptures came to me as the word of the living God, expressing his present will and mind, declaring His character and glory.

“Sin was seen and felt to be the most hideous and abominable thing in existence — as against God’s law, and in its own nature, apart from entailing everlasting destruction, if unforgiven.

“From that time God has been at times indescribably near to my soul, dwelling with me, watching over and with me, day and night; in some degree restored to His place as my Creator, Preserver, and Governor. Friendship, honour, name, happiness, all secondary (I mean as to prevailing principle and feeling) to the glory of God. And all from beginning to end, wholly and altogether, to the praise of his grace, and mercy, and love; nothing but confession and repentance to this soul. All glory to God’s Spirit; nothing to

CORROBORATIONS.

free-will! Without Him I must have gone on as I did, in blindness, and darkness, and sin. I was arrived at the strength of my youth, and fairly entered on the business of life, without any trace of God upon my spirit. Therefore, all is of God, to whom, with Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be all the honour and glory, now and evermore. Amen! ‘*

“Manifold Corroborations, tending to strengthen and defend this Belief in the Being of God,

“1. The power of His truth on myself His truth given in the Scriptures is worthy of Him whose book it bears to be; both in illuminating the heart and understanding, and changing the dispositions; in supplying motives which overcame many sins at once, and mortified all known transgression; by the divine joys which it brought, far exceeding any earthly bliss previously or since experienced. In short, the Internal Evidence from the revelation of God.

“2. Power of God’s truth on others — either converting or powerfully influencing them, much in the way, I suppose, as miracles of old confirmed the faith of believers.

“3. The external evidence of the revelation of God, as having come really from Him. There could be no mistake in regard to the witnesses of that truth. Paley’s Evidences, and the thoughts suggested by them, contributed much to this. Lardner still more clearly, in supplying the grounds on which Paley rests.

“4. Argument from design, as affording a strong corroboration of the existence of a Supreme Intelligence; and generally the proof of the natural government of the Deity.

“5. Moral government of a Supreme Ruler, as set forth by that incomparable reasoner, Butler. This, by what means I hardly know, affected my understanding more than the previous head, at least in the way of its being most annihilating to all objections. Leland’s Deistical Writers finished this line of things. The fairness of both Lardner and Leland peculiarly tended to conviction.

“6. Philosophy: the results of high natural science, as given by Newton and the Calculus; these so universal laws corresponding with the idea of a supreme mind; the Baconian Philosophy, also; its method and splendid results, the style of its author’s thinking, and the intellectual trains of analogy suggested, have all tended to the same ideas of the Deity previously formed. The principle of all philosophy, causation, tended much to the like result. That disposition to rise from cause to cause insatiably, until the First Great Cause stands out in all the glory of His power and perfections.

* 7. The scenes of nature do in a very immediate way testify of God, They directly symbolise the

CORROBORATIONS.

Supreme to my spirit — I mean, those of high grandeur and beauty; also of absolute loneliness — Mont Blanc, the sea-shore where wild, as in Skye.

“8. Poetry has contributed much by its idealization of the external world; by the vision of things which rise before it, in which the Great Spirit frequently and rightfully blends. The poets, both as intensely alive to nature’s beauties, and as in some sort interpreters of her charms and glories, have been an exceeding boon to me,”

I cannot ascertain what year the above interesting review of his mental processes was written; but its mention of Mont Blanc and Skye towards the close indicates that it was when his studies were considerably advanced. It was noticed by his companions that his mind opened out largely in its intellectual development as he advanced in years.

We may appropriately subjoin to the above the following specimens of self-examination, which will show us how microscopically he often studied his own heart, even as at other times he closely searched into the word of God. The pieces are all fragmentary.

SPECIMENS OF SELF-EXAMINATION.

“Love to God. (20th July 1845.)

Exod. xx. 3, “Thou shalt have no other god before me f and Matt. xxii. 17,” Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord

thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy

mind.”

“Nothing whatever in earth or heaven ought to usurp the place of God in respect of the adoration and worship which are due to Him, and to Him only. Nothing under heaven ought to hold the place which God demands for Himself in the heart of a man.

“And has nothing held His place in my heart? My reason tells me that there must have been; my conscience tells me that it has permitted friendship to go too far. And yet the truth is, that I do not feel that I have been setting up idols against the living God. I must write according to my present feelings, and God grant that it may not long be with me according to this melancholy experience. I know that the world must have usurped the place of God, and yet I do not feel that it has. The more advanced Christians are, the more they feel that the world is one of their worst enemies; and yet here am I, not feeling that it is an enemy! It shews that I must be wholly ignorant of my own heart and of the snares of the devil. Here I am with a heart like the very flint 1 I feel how humble I ought to be. I feel that

LOVE TO GOD

— SELF-EXAMINATION.

God would be just to condemn me even now because of this unfeeling heart. O how terrible must be the state of my heart in this respect, that I stand up and say practically, that I have kept the commandment, that I have done what no descendant of Adam ever has done, or can do. God be blessed that I trust that I know it to be one of the most wretched states that a sinner can be in, knowing that he has broken the holy law of God, ‘Thou shalt have no other God before me, and yet that he does not feel it. Oh if any sight should teach humility, should it not be this?

“But again (praying that God the Spirit would enlighten my blind eyes), I would consider the other point, What is it to have the true God before me? No other must occupy His place. But how is He the God of His people? Is He contented with the bowing of the knee to Him, morning, noon, and night? with a gift now and then laid upon His altar? We have the answer in what Jesus said to the lawyer, e Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, The exposition Jesus gives of the commandment shews that it extends to the inmost thoughts.

“God is not satisfied with any kind of worship, but demands, in searching and succinct language, a particular kind of regard and worship, namely, to be loved by man with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind. First, with ’ all my heart, Perhaps the best way to try this may be, Have you never loved an earthly object with all your heart? Perhaps you know what it is to be away from home, and to have a heart-sickness to be there? You know what it is to long to meet a friend, to feel that it is the nearest wish of your heart to be near [that friend. You know what it is to feel that you would be ready to go through fire and water to save the life of a friend. And have you loved your God thus? ’ with all thy heart V To this I have to answer, that I know I have not; and I feel it too, and (the Lord be praised) I do desire to mourn over it. I feel that I have thus utterly failed in keeping the command of Him who is my Maker and my God. And remember what are the consequences of not obeying. They do not end when you say, that you feel that you have not obeyed. Nay, for the awful consequence is, I am under God’s awful curse because of this! Oh let me think what this means! Subject to the wrath of an offended Jehovah! deserving (while the pen is in my hand, while I write the words) the eternal curse of God. O my soul, wilt thou not turn now in deep contrition to the Lord on account of sin which calls for vengeance? Ah, thou canst not run from the fearful doom of hell! It clings to thee. Thou canst never of thyself shake it off. God hath spoken the word, and He is not a man that He should lie. And if convinced of the first part, scarcely need we

N speak of the two others. The heart is what would seem to be more easily affected than ’ the soul and the mind,3 For the instances of God’s kindness to me are so numerous and so apparent, that my heart should be ever drawn forth in love to such a God. God clothes me: that should make me grateful; God has every day supplied me with food to support my body: for this I should praise Him. The Bible — permission to pray to Him — an earthly father and mother — a friend, — all these, and how many things besides, should call forth love to God, and make me love Him with all my heart. But how seldom do I think of these things. For this, O Lord, I am condemned to my face! Give me, for Jesus’s sake, more lasting and deep impressions of my sin!

“‘With all thy soul.3 The soul of man is the highest, or the nearest to divine, of his whole nature. It seems chiefly to be the soul of man that is exercised in prayer. The soul of believers is often rapt in the contemplation of divine things. It is his soul, acted on by the grace of God, which discovers the beauty of holiness, and delights to dwell upon what, to his eye, is so lovely. This cannot be said to be the work of the heart; nor do I think it can be confined to the province of the mind. Thus, I think that ’ to love the Lord with all my soul3 means that kind of love which arises from the contemplation of God’s holy character. Seeing the love which is imprinted upon all God’s dealings with the sons of men, he is carried up from them to the wondrous First Cause, and thus his love goes forth to Him as the grand cause of all these. And this should be (according to God’s own words) not a half-felt love, not a dreamy kind of contemplative love, but a love 6 with all thy soul, an ardent love to God, different from the heart-love. Not that the one is less holy than the other, not that the one is less vivid than the other; they must both be holy, they must both be as vivid and as honest as the heart and soul are capable of; yet the love of the soul might almost be said to occupy a higher place. It is derived from what is more abstract, more refined, and, in one sense, may be said to be more pure.

“Have / this love of ‘the soul V Have I loved God in this manner? Have I adored Him because of His infinite perfections?

“Sins of Commission.
” Some of these are —

“Pride; vanity displayed generally more in connection with the body than the mind. Would you take all these pains about your looks if every person were blind? Envy; dwelling on people’s faults rather than vices. Censor iousness. Levity and slander. Lying; not the naked truth. Cheating;

SJNS OF OMMISSION.

not observing the Golden Rule. Hypocrisy; praying against sins which you don’t mean to leave off. Robbing God; of time. Bad temper. Hindering others from being useful; and thus being Satan’s instrument.

“Sins of Study. — First, mere acquisition of knowledge without reference to God or the ministry; second, for honour from man; third, mere bookish voracity: devouring without digesting; generally, want of the spirit of prayer, yea, of the Holy Spirit himself. Christless study is profitless study — 6 to the pure all things are pure, p

“Sins of Omission — Ingratitude.

Psa. xxvi, 1, 2. — “Judge me, O God,” &c. Psa. ciii. 2, 3.

“1. The first and greatest gift which should excite an ardent gratitude to God, must be the Unspeakable Gift of Jesus Christ. O my soul, I would seek to examine thee strictly. How often hast thou hastily thanked my dear, my kind, loving Father for this highest and most perfect gift which He has ever in His almighty power to bestow upon a creature born in sin? Eighteen months ago, when first made a partaker of it, I believe it was often the subject of deep and joyous thanksgiving. I felt that it came from God, and I thanked God. But, alas! for many a month the subject has been strange to me. I have

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been so engrossed by other parts of my state, that this has been almost wholly neglected. And yet M. warned me of it some time ago. Indeed, I am forced to admit that I have thanked God as little for this lately, as I did before I was called from sin to serve the living God! And more; I do not think that I even felt or acknowledged that I owed much to God on this account. It seemed rather as if I had cause to think that God was neglecting me, because he did not shew me more of my own sinfulness.

“And now, O my soul, I will be faithful to thee, and tell thee that discontent seals up the channel of thankfulness toward God. And is it matter of surprise that, in consequence, thou shouldst have been so dry and parched? On the contrary, would it not have been cause of surprise had it been otherwise with thy state? If God had blessed thee while filled with unthankfiilness, assuredly it would have been to thine own great harm. God abhors the thankless: therefore, in this thou hast most certainly offended thy Lord grievously.

“2. Have I been grateful to God for counting me worthy, putting me in the way of serving Him in the ministry? for taking me from all the temptations of a merchant? for supplying me with the means of accomplishing the end in view of being a minister of the gospel? This has, perhaps, been oftener before my mind than the last; but yet, for some time, I

INGRATITUDE.

fear, it has been little, little in my thoughts. But when I see what is almost universally the case, that much attention to the one object of making money does interfere in some way or other with spiritual welfare, whether by its being the interest of the servant to give so much regard to his earthly master, that he runs a great hazard of offending conscience — whether by the common ways of trade — whether directly or indirectly — none can gainsay the statement that money is the root of all kinds of evil, and that the being very much wrapped up in acquiring it must bring upon the votaries of it, a,t the least, many severe temptations. O my soul, hast thou thanked the Lord for this? Alas! no. Thou hast been so engrossed with selfish present concerns, that past causes for thankfulness have been strangely laid aside. Thou who hast professed to be one of the Lord’s people, is this thy state? In respect to these reasons for gratitude, how hast thou differed from one yet in his sins?

“3. Another cause for continual thanksgiving I should find in the gift of the Bible. Whenever I take it up, I ought to remember how privileged I am in being born in a land where the Bible is recognised as a divine book; besides, how many have never seen it at all? And then, of those who have it, how many are practically taught that it is not God’s word, by the flagrant violations of it by the very persons who hold it up in theory as the fountain of truth.

“I have studied the Bible more than I used to do; but have I thanked the Lord for it? An implied thankfulness, a kind of taking-as-for-granted thankfulness, which some seem to think enough; an understood though unexpressed gratitude is a mere nothing, at best an empty speculation, though very characteristic of the natural man. Hast thou, 0 my soul, been thanking the Lord for His book? the book of books? Again have I to make the melancholy confession that the time has just slipped away without my even thinking of thanking God for His great mercy. O to be humbled on account of this likewise!

“4. Hast thou, my soul, been thankful for a pious sister? for a faithful ministry in Mr Miller, Mr Milne, and Mr Somerville, and for the preaching of Mr Burns? Have I been grateful for a Christian friend? for many external advantages? for good health and sound judgment, however plain and homely? for perseverance?”

We should have liked to have given in full u An Essay on the Ideal: its Source and End;” but it is more suitable perhaps for our purpose to satisfy ourselves with an outline of the essay, as given in a

ESSAY ON THE IDEAL.

letter to his brother, together with the closing paragraphs. It was written, not as the former extract, in the earlier, but in the latter days of his study and ministry.

“I wrote an essay for our Society, the other day, on The Beautiful, especially that of nature. I cannot say how sadly pleasant it was to meditate on the subject before writing.

“It was an attempt to say a thing or two, as C. used to say, on the Ideal — as to the process by which a student of the Beautiful might pursue that study so strangely attractive to the poor heart of man.

“He must wander, <3. g., through the distinctly apprehended forms of floral loveliness (as given among the flowers of earth); and allowing all these fragrant beauties of exquisite form and colour to be depicted through the sense upon his heart and sesthetic faculty, there would gradually arise upon his soul a truly-founded beginning of the Ideal of floral loyeliness.

“So with all other beauteous things in the various departments of nature. Each contributes fair and perfect specimens of the various forms of Beauty.

“Then the poets, painters, and sculptors, are interpreters of the beauty of nature, and delineators of what they have seen and heard, as they have gazed upon her fair face; for they tell us of something purer, richer, lovelier, which rose as a mystic dream of transcendent beauty, from what they beheld, and which in their works they give as a vision of the Ideal. (Kaphael’s figure of the cherub in the room of the Transfiguration, and Spenser’s poetry, might be given as specimens. )

“The latter part of the paper was an attempt to feel after whither all this conducts the mind, under the heading, Reality of the Ideal.

“There is, I know, much that is inexplicable about the power of beauty, and the feelings to which it gives rise; but two things are secured to our spirits as they restlessly search for the home of the Ideal — as fruitlessly they long after the revelation of that beauty, love, and tenderness which all lovely things seem to tell of. Some whisper it, some sing of it; it breathes from some; from some it rises as pure incense.

“First. Beauty tells of a Lovely Creating Being, as inevitably as design does of a Designing Mind. It comes from Him, it rests upon His works revealing Him, and does it not surely ascend back to Him? Press it one never would — nay, leave all earthly beauties and their fairest earthly counterparts, hanging all around the Beautiful in nature; but may we not fairly add to the source of all this deep power, the apparent revelation which is there of the Divine Beauty of that Being who made every form of that

ESSAY ON THE IDEAL.

Beauty, and apportioned all the parts of those exquisite colours which adorn it.

“iEsthetically, then, and apart altogether from Natural Theology, we may not exclude the Beauty of the Divine Being from the Ideal, which so strangely rises from and floats above and around all lovely things. The skirts of the garment of His infinite Beauty rests upon these summits of created excellence.

“Second. In these tendencies, these emotions of our nature, we have an aesthetic prophecy that, in the fulness of time (sin being removed), there is not one fair image of perfect loveliness, no dream of the true poet (over which you have been ready to weep when you awoke, and behold it was a dream!), but shall be fully realised — beheld and embraced, lived in.

“The subject is not one to speak dogmatically upon; but when it seemed to break upon me that the above was a pure aesthetic result, as well as a theological or ratiocinative truth, it produced a similar effect of joy to that I remember feeling on seeing Butler’s 1 Argument for a Moral Government of God, established on purely natural grounds; it was as if nature and the Bible truth were married into one.

The essay itself (as we have said) is too long for insertion in full. But we may, in some degree, e timate the taste, and feeling, and spiritual aspiration that breathe in it throughout by the following extracts — the one an illustration, the other the closing paragraphs of the essay: —

“The Sublime and Beautiful in combination form perhaps the most powerful effect in nature. The first of these is readily associated with the Divine Being; why not the other? It was once my lot to be wandering through a Swiss valley on a pilgrimage to her famed mountain. The path lay a little above the course of a pure hill-stream. The vine, twining amid trees of a loftier growth, clothed the sides of the sequestered vale. The verdure was of a softened, richest green; all was bright, and calm, and beautiful. Winding thus through the quiet depths, I happened once to raise my eyes, when one of those visions met them which are ineffaceable. Away through the vista of that lovely valley, so clothed in brightness and soft beauty, towered the sublime form of Mont Blanc. The sudden appearance of that majesty — all robed to the summit in the spotless purity of the driven snow, and resting in the brilliantly-contrasted deep blue heavens beyond — with all this beauty stretched at his feet, fell on the spirit with almost too much power, ready as if to overwhelm it; when, swift as a ray of sunlight, the thought came — 1 There is one who made that mountain monarch, who clothed him in these snow-white robes.

ESSAY ON THE IDEAL.

He built the azure firmament above him, and it was He who fashioned this tender loveliness spread at his feet V There was instant reassurance. And is the result not then inevitable? Beauty, alike with majesty and glory, in the works of creation, proclaims the Deity; that is, these works declare alike His majesty, His glory, and His beauty!

“And now, in conclusion, let us glance at the second part of the answer as to the reality of the Ideal, viz., the anticipation or aesthetic prophecy of its realisation found in the feelings, the emotions, the tendencies towards it of which we are conscious.

“There is no distinctly proved tendency of our nature but will meet with its fulfilment, the hindrances by error or sin being removed. This rests, we believe, on the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. He has made nothing in vain. As He has constructed no faculties, so he has called forth no feelings, nor implanted aspirations or longings, only to disappoint them of their legitimate ends. Our nature, as it came from His hands, was perfect as well as pure; every native or essential object of desire was either then bestowed or made attainable by the means of His appointment. Sin has come in and dashed all these fair hopes, as to man attaining the fulfilment of his desires or aspirations by merit, or unassisted by heavenly grace. But the divine Mercy hath devised a plan for the restoration of man to at least an equal elevation, in all respects, with the position from which he fell. Hence we reason that every genuine longing of his nature (which cannot in itself be shewn to be sinful), shall be abundantly satisfied. And this establishes for us a glorious reality to those thirstings after all that is good, true, or beautiful. Many of the poets have erred from the right way, both as to the truths of the revelation of the will of the Supreme, and as to the true principles of their own art; for swerving from purity or rectitude, they swerve from ’ the good’ and ‘the true, and therefore sin, so to speak, against the very Ideal they would extol, which is as perfect in Purity and Truth as in Love and Beauty. But these errors apart, there is not a fair dream of bliss, a region of purity, a land of entrancing beauty, love, and joy, depicted or sung by the poets, but shall be realise In God’s appointed way (now that sin’has entered) they must be sought; but found they shall be. Is this world so fair? does it breathe in nature still so much of joy and heavenly beauty, while the curse of its Creator is known to rest upon it? What shall we judge of the New Heavens and New Earth, which shall spring forth, when all the taint of sin has been removed, it may be by that baptism of fire which awaits it? What eye hath seen, what ear hath heard, what heart conceived, the scene which shall then open on he gaze of the redeemed? How7 shall the present man’s extremity.

highest conceptions dwindle into nothingness, before the effulgent realities of that hour. And as the sinpurged spirits of men, clothed in spiritual and immortal frames, rise through the bright worlds above, shall they not hear a music far surpassing that of the spheres fabled by the ancient poets; and at length they shall set foot in that region of pure ecstatic bliss, where beauty most perfect and eternal reigns throughout all that is beheld or exists; where is the sole Fountain of all beauty, love, and tenderness, where is the last home of the Ideal, and where those glorified spirits shall dwell for ever with the infinitely Lovely One.”

We may vary our collection of Fragments by extracts, some of them jotted down among his papers, others taken from Letters to Friends, written on the spur of the occasion. We begin with a remark on a well-known saying.

“‘Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity? — When we have been taught how weak and helpless we are, then probably is the Lord near. At least, this seems to be the way which the Lord takes in his dealings with man. In this may be seen the knowledge which God has of the human constitution; for, perhaps, at no time is a man more ready to listen to the suggestions of a friend than when, baffled in his endeavours to accomplish some end, he sinks down dispirited and comfortless. He then must see the necessity for some higher power being exerted in his behalf, and is ready to take the way which his conscience before pointed out, though he did not then listen to its voice, the way of God’s appointment,”

The remark that follows on our appreciation of the works of God is no less just.

“I was just thinking again to-day, how dependent our appreciation of GocVs works is upon the state of our mind. I find that I have scarcely any pleasure, or at least any joy, in them unless my soul is at peace with their great and glorious Creator. They seem at times to be so insipid and dumb to me, that anything almost gives me greater pleasure than they: while at other times, each flower, each leaf, the sky, the sun, all tell the glory of God,”

Here is an important truth in regard to the Life of Faith.

“For myself, I feel that seven times a day I am ready to forget that it is a fight of faith, and begin to turn again to the carnal way of life; as if the path of God’s Elect could ever become a natural way to the old man within us. We are ready to ask continually, £ What! must we take another and again another step of faith and patience? And this recurring all the day, No wonder that the stony-ground hearers weary of such a way of it. But shall we be found complaining of it, when it is the very road, every foot of it, by which the man Christ Jesus went to glory Is it not all marked with the drops of the blood of the pierced One? When disposed, then, to complain of the length and trials of the journey, only look down and see the footprints of the Forerunner, and remember why there are marks of the nails that pierced his foot, and why his blood sprinkles the narrow way,”

In a letter to Mrs Bannerman, “Wootton Park, referring to what had passed in conversation, he writes: —

“The idea you express of that longing after perfection in external nature, and encountering in the search for it only that which is deformed, or imperfect, or deeply blemished, and the consequent pain, is one with which my spirit is but too familiar. This, indeed, is the first step toward the formation of that further idea or ideal of which I spoke in my last.... As you explained, what you long and thirst for is the mere perfection of the designs actually beheld around us; the filling up the vacancy in the petals of that otherwise so exquisitely-fashioned flower; the wiping out of the spots in that otherwise so spotless lily; the carrying out of the majestic form of that monarch of the woods, together with the entire removal of the cause of all these blemishes, and imperfections, and blights. Now that I love to dwell upon what sometimes pours itself upon the wearied spirit as the most delicious music, is the thought that these flowers, though all so sweet and fragrant, so full of grace, of beauty, even of love, only help us to form an ideal of loveliness, far surpassing what they could be, though ever so perfectly formed, though no blight had come on them, and no mildew had eaten of their silken bloom. Where I shall find that I feel, when it shall burst forth in all its beauty into an entrancing reality, I dare not say. But what I delight to dwell on, what feeds these fancy musings is, that He who planted in our souls these quenchless longings after a higher, richer, more ethereal beauty (though they be raised by force of beauty within present reach), will not leave them ungratified. Even as our bodies shall be changed, and become so much more fit for the presence of the King of glory, so may the scenes which shall greet our renewed minds and purged eyesight, far, far transcend all possible conception of earthly beauty as now seen. Methinks I could never now be satisfied with a scene such as Milton pictures Paradise, and I think that would comprehend pretty much what you would desire, would it not? No, I love and imagine the flowers, if flowers there be, will have the hues of heaven’s own beauty, they will be fit to grow beside, to kiss the streams of that river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of SATAN — STUDY — MINISTERS.

the Lamb. So with all other forms of beauty and of grace. I fancy they will have a counterpart in glory, or somewhere in the regions of glory, which will at last satisfy the restless longings after more perfect beauty, and far more exquisite grace than can be imagined by that is seen and handled,”

Here are some thoughts on several important subjects.

“Satan takes advantage to come back to some old temptation which I almost thought I had conquered, and then am I carried away. What need have I to watch at those parts of the wall which have been built up, but which were once a breach, as well as at the point which seems most open to the attack of these powerful and inveterate enemies,”

To a fellow-student: —” Oh that we may be enabled to make the growth of our souls in grace the first -grand concern of each day, to count a day lost unless spent in walking with God. When shall we study and live at the feet of Him who was pierced V9

“I find that intercourse with believers requires equal care as that with unbelievers, equal looking up continually to Jesus,”

Then, speaking of a minister shewing off himself in any way: —

“What should we think of the exhibitor of a painting who persisted in intruding his own figure between the canvass and the spectators? Stand aside, and let the Master only be seen,”

“I often feel it my greatest joy to go to Jesus, and speak to Him out of the fulness of my heart. And this too gives me, I find, more of a spirit of true independence of all upon earth, which, the longer I live, I see to be the more necessary to the believer.”

t( Let me be ever seeking to advance. My Father is divine. His resources are infinite. I have no right then to act as if He were only able to dole out a certain portion of faith, and of those spiritual blessings which enable the poor humble-hearted believer to set all temptations at defiance, to go into the world trusting in reality in God. How difficult is true perseverance in prayer. Prayer is never successful unless urgent, as if the soul could not bear to wait one moment without the answer, and yet is willing to wait all the day upon the pleasure of Him who is willing to do above all that we can ask or think.”

“I have sometimes felt how bitter, bitter, it is for the soul to be forsaken of God. Truly any bodily pain is far, far better than that. But what must the holy child J esus have felt, He, whose very meat and drink. it was to live for the Lord, whose every thought and

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word and deed had God for its subject and aim? What must He have felt when, after His Father’s countenance had been now and again partially hid, as the clouds of His infinite wrath against sin began to rise up around His holy throne; all at once these thick black clouds, the awful indignation of J ehovah against the sins of the whole body of the redeemed, of every age, and clime, and people, suddenly closed around Jehovah’s throne of mercy and love. O then, what must have been the state of the Lord of glory, the spotless child Jesus, the man Christ J esus, to be gazing up as His eyes had learnt to do, as if naturally made for that, so often had they been lifted to the throne of God’s glory, but, alas! to see nothing but wrath and indignation, yea, fierce stirrings of Jehovah’s wrath, which, like his love, in length, breadth, depth, and height, is infinite. O what oceans of holy wrath were then poured into the wide soul of the Saviour J O what a spectacle, Jesus the Son of God drinking the wine of wrath!”

But let us now give a few Letters in full, written in the easy freedom of friendship: —

Edinburgh, 24^ April 1846.

“My Dearest Mother — May the name of God be praised for the seemingly true work of grace which has been begun in Alexander’s heart. If God’s work, it cannot but prosper. It is indeed a great encouragement to you, my dear mother, in prayer for those who are still out of J esus. If God has, indeed, brought Alexander, so far away from all of us, to a knowledge of Jesus, what cause first to raise a song of great joy to the praise and glory of His glorious name, and then to make this an argument with the Lord, both for the bringing in of the other wanderers, and for more grace being poured out upon those who profess to have believed in Jesus.

“Have you thought, my own dear mother, of the joy which has already sounded through the courts of heaven, on account of the bringing back of your son to the Great Shepherd, if he be indeed one of the flock, and surely we cannot doubt this? Is it not a blessed thought that even the angels have been filled with new joy? Yea, with a joy greater than that which they have over the ninety and nine just persons.

“And then, when we think of the Saviour’s joy, O how blessed, how solemnising to think that the Lord J esus has actually seen, in my dear brother, the travail of His soul and is now fully satisfied. Long did he live in open rebellion (as he himself expresses it), but the loye of God in J esus passeth all understanding.

“Oh for hearts to praise the Lord for His wondrous mercy.

“But let us pray much for Alexander. The tempter will never allow such a vessel of mercy to go on in the paths of His God without many an effort to entrap him again. His disposition will soon, if not

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now, make him feel the cross of being despised by the world. But, blessed be the name of Jesus, His strength is made perfect in the weakness of His people, and ‘none is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.’”

“Edinburgh, 9th July 1847.

“My Dear Frederick — Thank you for the account

you give me of Mr ’s present strain of spiritual

thought. His manner of reading the word of the Lord, with the blessing of the Holy Spirit, will lead him deep into the things of God. And then there is one advantage which such reading has above all others — that it is mainly concerned about the pure, undiluted truth of God.

“It is there where the giant-moulds of men in Christ Jesus are discovered. But these, like the fossil remains of the former more powerful inhabitants of our world, do not lie strewn upon the surface; but as they are imbedded far down in the bosom of the earth, so these are found after many a night and day’s laborious work of prayer and deep meditation.

“But this analogy suggests another truth. Just as the skilful comparative anatomist, by the discovery of a single member of an antediluvian fossil, can picture to himself with ease, as well as truthfulness, the gigantic figure and proportions of the creature of which this is the memorial, so, he that is taught of the Spirit of God by one trait or mark of the character of a man in Christ Jesus, which his deeper investigation has discovered, is enabled to picture to the eye of faith one of these giant forms; which straightway, led by the Eternal Spirit, he takes with him to the throne of grace, and cries to the great Creator of such men of God, that he, for the glory of God, may be cast into a like mould.

“But it is easy to describe such perusal of the Scriptures: ’ how to perform, and especially how continuously to perform, I find not, Nothing can ever fill the place of the patient and prayerful study of the Word.

a I have lately been seeing how, in so very many respects, the man after conversion is the same as he was before. He is, indeed, in many of the leading features of his character changed — ‘a new creature; yet also, in a sense, he is the old creature made new; he is re-born, re-fashioned. The ends of his existence are changed, the manner of it changed; his hopes, his fears, all reversed; the crew, so to speak, is changed, the vessel has got a new pilot; her course is no longer irregular, or directed by each veering breeze. Christ J esus is the pilot; heaven, instead of hell, the destination. Yet the ship is the same; and if her timbers were well set, her masts tightly rigged, and her stores well found before, she is the sooner fit for active service, bends the sooner to her master’s will, and wings a quicker flight through her now stormy, dark and narrow seas. ...”

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“Westfield, 23d August 1848.

“My Dearest Mother — You say a blessed truth in your, to me, soul-refreshing letter — ( There is none like Him! None like the lovely, the glorious, the spotless Lord Jesus Christ. And if my seeming carelessness but give me another opportunity of commending the love of the e Altogether Lovely ‘One, I can glory in this my infirmity; for my not writing sooner, I think I may say has proceeded from the infirmity of my spirit. I have felt ever since coming to this place much of that ’ fear and trembling ’ and 1 weakness ’ of which the Apostle speaks, 1 Cor. ii. 3. And being, as it were, for the time, set to watch over souls here, I have been afraid to give time to many other duties, which at other times it would have been very wrong to neglect. I have felt also much that you were safe in the Lord; and that if at any future time I could tell you of new jewels being gathered by our glorious and matchless Lord Jesus, to adorn His blood-bought crown, you would not grudge the time seemingly taken from yourself. First, I must tell you that your letter gave me a blessed errand of thanksgiving to our Father’s throne, for all His mercy and kindness to your soul and body. Thanks and praise be unto Him for recovered strength of the earthly tabernacle, and for His kindness to us all in sparing you yet amongst us, But, above all, praise be unto our Covenant God and Father for His free mercy and grace to your soul, in shewing you more of the everlasting and infinite love which flows in His bosom towards His afflicted but chosen people in Jesus. Blessed be his name for all the -portions’ which it pleased Him to give you, my dearly beloved mother, during your passage through one of the valleys of humiliation.

u But perhaps your soul longs to hear if the goings our glorious Captain have been seen amongst us since last writing. I trust and believe that they have: yet only sufficient to make our souls to thirst after the latter rain, for as yet our eyes have but seen drops of the former rain moderately. Crying for the guidance and blessing of Him who is promised to be always (for Immanuel’s sake) with the children, the Great Comforter of a Church mourning the absence of her Lord, I desire to tell of Christ. I often ask and marvel why the Lord should have given me a mother in Christ While thousands and thousands of other men in the land have had godless mothers, and lived and died as they did — yet the Lord, of His unsearchable electing love, has ordained it otherwise with me, Not to thee, my own dear mother, but to the Lord, the Lord God, be all the praise and glory. The Lord has been gracious in sending you a fellow-pilgrim to stay under the same roof under which the Lord has put you. The meetings of the children of the kingdom have some-LETTEKS.

times reminded me of travellers in the desert, whose paths have happened to cross. They look upon one another — recognise, however obscure, the blessed family likeness, even the image of glorious Christ; each hears the other pronounce, however stammeringly, that name which is above every name, for each has been taught of God the family language, and they are one! The elder, then (it may be), raises up the pilgrim-^wi, and they rest under it together for a night. But they have not long been here when a voice, well known and better loved than that of man or angel, whispers, with sweet, persuasive gentleness, ‘Ah, this is not thy rest V — when they arise, strike the tent, and separate to their different paths, singing as they go, ‘Heaven is our home — heaven is our home V What a marvellous saying is that, ‘To me to live is Christ, When the Lord gives you access to His glorious throne, O pray, my dear mother, that I may know, in all its depth and extent, that saying, to the glory of God the Father, and for that end alone. In heaven we cannot glorify God in the same way that we can do here, O then to live as those who may so shortly be summoned on high! In heaven, though under grace — yea, under Jehovah’s grace — we shall be asked, not ‘What hast thou felt for Christ?’ nor even ‘How much hast thou loved Christ?’ but ‘What hast thou done for Christ 9 or What hast thou suffered for Christ V”

To a fellow-student, now Rev. William Hunter, Chester.

“Edinburgh, 9th August 1850.

a I cannot say how much I feel the thought

of your being so near the ministry of the Lord Jesus, one with whom I have so often taken counsel, and so frequently called on the name of the Lord, to think that you will soon be an ambassador of Christ, lifting up your voice in the great congregation, beseeching of men to be reconciled to God. We have been together at a most important stage of our preparation, learning, as it were, the use of our weapons in the same school, taught how to wield (as far as man could teach us) that sword which is two-edged; but now you are about to be summoned forth to the field. Your name is about to be called by the Great Captain, and you must follow Him, to fight these battles which are ever continuing in that war which is ever raging between Christ and Satan. And, of His love and grace, you have got a time of quiet in view of the work. As a brother in Christ and friend, how do I desire and pray that the Lord our God would indeed draw near to your soul at this time, to give you much of His Holy Spirit, open up much of the evil in your own heart, that sin may indeed appear exceeding sinful, but above all give you, my beloved brother, fresh and soul-ravishing views of the glorious Lord

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Jesus Christ. Doubtless, it is in the chamber that the Lord our God reveals His glory. It was there that He prepared the prophets of old, in their closets when the doors were shut; and, in modern times, the Whitefields were chiefly prepared in secret, and then did they declare on the housetops what God had done for their souls.

“Ah! ought we to be satisfied with anything short of the New Testament description of the ministers of the Lord J esus — ‘Men full of faith and of the Holy Ghost1? ‘How apt are we to set such aside as belonging only to apostolic times; but this is clearly unwarrantable. See that beloved man, Thomas Spencer of Liverpool; was not he of such a mould, through the rich grace of God? But I believe we are quite agreed as to such qualifications being still granted, but the all-important concern is — how is it actually to be obtained? Is it not in Jesus Christ that this and all other spiritual blessings are found? Eut as it is a special blessing, so it needs a special beseeching of our heavenly Father that He would do it for us. Ah, yes! it is at the throne of grace that we must receive this anointing of the blessed Spirit for this great work. And shall we not, my beloved brother, seek for this: e Ask and it shall be given you, And as your time is drawing near, shall we not unite together in crying for this, as well as Reginald. It is the glory of Christ, and not our own, that we would seek, and this is ever infinitely dear to the God and Father of all. Do write soon, and tell me what you think and feel But I find I must close. England is ever near my heart, and though I do not at present think of any particular field, I am thankful for your warm appeal. Wherever we may labour, I trust we shall be enabled to strengthen one another’s hands by the grace of God. Kindest remembrances in Christ to Reginald, and right glad I am to hear of his zeal and love for souls, and with the same to your kind mother and sister when you write. Your most affectionate friend and brother in Christ,

“P. Saxdeman.”

Geneva, llth Nov. 1850,

My Dear Mother — By the kindness of Him who guideth all things, I have been brought to this ancient seat of the Reformation, and as soon as I could find a little leisure I gladly devote it to writing to you, my beloved mother. It was rather a long journey from Cannes to this. From Monday to Saturday last, almost constant travelling, two nights, and another from one o’clock A.M., were spent in the diligence. Some parts of the scenery were very fine. The road, as you may know, passes through the commencement of the Alps. At one point there is a magnificent amphitheatre of mountains, and as they were lighted up by the setting sun, when we passed

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the effect was very striking. This was not diminished by their grey tops here and there being streaked with snow.

“12th. — Dr Malan I saw on Saturday. Almost immediately, as his custom is, he asked me what was my hope for eternity; and whether I really knew that I was a child of God. I answered him perhaps more cautiously than I would have done in former days, and he told me that I had too much of the subjective. I had not, he feared, that simple assurance of faith that is required, ‘Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, So, he said, if you have believed that Jesus is the Christ you are born of God, for you may know assuredly that it is God who has enabled you to believe. The instant that a man believes that Jesus is the Christ, then is he born of God. And knowing this, he knows that he is a child of God, and should immediately rejoice in God as his heavenly Father. I was thankful for all that he said, an d though I could not but feel what a small thing it was to be judged of man, and that, when the soul can say to Immanuel, c Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee, it cannot be much moved by the voice of man. Yet I was grateful to the Lord for the question being so directly put to me, and I admired the faithfulness of this honoured servant of Jesus. It was singular that his manner so put me constantly in mind of my beloved father. Afterwards he asked me to pray, and he also did so. I have a kind invitation to go to-night to take tea with him. but am sorry that a previous engagement will prevent me.

“Dr Gfaussen you would delight in. He is a man that loves souls. He had heard lately, I think, from a Chinese missionary, of William Burns, and the tears were in his eyes as he spoke of him, and asked me a good deal about him. He says that there is good doing among the young, especially in Geneva, and that there are conversions.

a D’Aubigne I have also seen, but not in private as yet. The Christians here are more separate from the world than in Scotland, and God seems to bless that. I am living at a ‘Pension, where there are a o;ood many of the students of the Evangelical Church. Two or three also from the Waldenses, who seem to be true men, though I have not had much close conversation with them. One of these is going to preach the gospel in Italy, where the door is more open to them among the Catholics, than to other Protestants.

“I leave this (D. Y.) on Saturday for Lausanne, where I stay for a day or two, then to Bale, and from that to Strasbourg, and down the Rhine. I hope to be in London by about the 25th, to which you might kindly address me a letter (uncle Hugh’s care).

‘A, and I had some pleasant time together at Cmnes, where I trust we knew something of the fel-LETTERS.

lowship there is in Christ Jesus. How mercifully the Lord has dealt with him and with us all in sparing him in health and in life, while so many of those around him in India have been cut off. With kind love and remembrances to all at Springland, not forgetting Peggy and Janet,

“Your ever affectionate Son,”

“Genlva, 15th November 1850.

“My Deak F. — Here I am at the ancient seat and centre of the Foreign Churches. Leaving Paris, with all its gaiety and beauty; its inhabitants bent on pleasure, politics, and vain-glory; its awful Sabbath desecration; and the whole people seeming by their life to say, with mingled taunts and effrontery, ‘There is no God! ’ — leaving that city, the scene of so many revolutions and massacres, the fruit of these ways of iniquity, we passed first to Fontainebleau, where Napoleon abdicated; and then, by railway, diligence, and steam, to Lyons. A and I

went by diligence, a tedious conveyance compared to our old mail-coach, but comfortable enough. An early start, stop for dejeuner a la fourchette at eleven or twelve, and off again with the lumbering, lurching motion, and the bells on the horses’ heads with their incessant jingle; every now and then the guttural cry of the driver as he encourages his tardy steeds. Table d’hote at seven, with its endless succession of dishes and grapes, figs, chestnuts, &c, fresh from the trees. The French character comes out at table; they laugh, talk, and eat with great vivacity and rapidity, and yet lightly after alL The instant dinner is over every one rises, and the gentlemen adjourn to a cafe, where they take a single cup of coffee. We went down the Rhone to Avignon, the seat of the Popedom’s seventy years’ captivity! The river scenery was at some points very fine. It is a noble stream, shooting down its broad and rapid waters between two ranges of hills, clad to the top with vines.

“At Nismes there is a Roman amphitheatre iti remarkable preservation — a magnificent monument of what that people were. We stood where the Emperor used to be to see the fights, and saw where the signal was dropped to save the life of any unfortunate gladiator. A sort of temple, the Maison Carrie is also exactly as the Romans left it; also the old baths. We met our friends at Marseilles, and went on to Cannes. The country on that coast assumes a new aspect. You seem to have been transported to Palestine; the air is soft and mild as in June with us. To read for hours (in November) in the open air, sitting on the sea-shore, or among the vines, olives, fig-trees, pomegranates, and orange-trees of the hills, was my delightful occupation. The magnificent blue expanse of the Mediterranean lies stretching away before you, reflecting back a brilliant sky which poor

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Scotland never knows, or only for two or three brief weeks at her summer solstice.

“I arrived in Geneva last Saturday, and saw Dr Malan the same day. He was most faithful to me; warning me that it was not enough to be a student of theology, and that people might talk a great deaJ about religion, without its being in the heart; and then asked what ground I had to hope that I was a child of God. He is a faithful minister of Jesus Christ; a grave and venerable-looking man, one who is full of love for Jesus and for immortal souls. Gaussen I have also seen and heard lecture; he also is a true-hearted man, living much in the realities of divine things. The question of inspiration naturally engages a good deal the attention of professors and students, after the affair of Scherer’s dismissal from the Professorship. Their lectures are full on the subject of the canon. If Dr Cunningham’s lectures were published, they would be very serviceable. I have also seen and heard D’Aubignd His information, his true religion, his fearless declaration of the truth of God, and his pictorial faculty, none can deny.

“Everywhere I find that Christ alone is sufficient for me. What is country, climate, or man, unless we find Him in them or through them?

“Your ever affectionate Brother,
“David Sandeman.”

To Mrs Miller, Islay, he writes: —

“Edinburgh, 2d February 1850.

“My Dear Mrs Miller — Your letter was made, I trust, a means of blessing to my soul, and the truths it contained dwelt with me for many days. Truly, that prayer which comes from God by His own eternal Spirit is that alone which prevails with Him who sitteth between the cherubims: ‘That which is born of the flesh, whether prayers or praises, ’ is flesh, I have found this to the spiritual cost of my soul. 0 may the divine Spirit, for Immanuel’s sake, be given you and others who love Zion, to continue and increase in pleading with the great Lord of the harvest that he would raise up and qualify, and in due time thrust forth, true labourers into His vineyard.

0 my dear friend in Christ, as you are enabled of God, ask for me that I may know of a truth something of that praying in the Holy Ghost, which will lead to an asking for things agreeable to Jehovah’s will. My ignorance of divine things, of the great God who has created all things for His glory, of the Son of His infinite and everlasting love, of the nature and distinguishing characters of the operation of the eternal Spirit, and oftentimes even more than all these, my ignorance of my own heart’s vileness and pollution, fill me with a kind of spiritual amazement.

1 could say of myself, Let shame and confusion cover

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me, let me be ashamed and confounded, and never open my mouth any more for my sins and mine iniquities. I trust it is the cry of my soul —

“‘Let thy sweet mercies also come
And visit me, O Lord;
Even thy benign salvation
According to thy word.

“It was the Communion season last Sabbath. I cannot at present say much about it, for my suit at the Court of the Great King is still pending. By faith I desire to be looking for the answer to the cries which my soul, I trust, through infinite grace, made in the ears of Him who spread that table, and was Himself the entertainment thereof. I saw that it was also the Supper of the great God, a wondrous manifestation of the perfection of the mighty God of Jacob shining forth upon the Person of the Son of His love; the glory of His justice, and holiness, and yet toward sinners (by the same mysterious spectacle) the wonders of his mercy and compassion, and the multitude of his lovingkindnesses. 0 for the spiritual eye, and ear, and understanding to know these unsearchable and glorious attributes of Him who is Almighty, even Jehovah.

“At the table, my mouth was at length opened to plead for the brethren of Zion; certainly without any premeditation, you were the first I could plead for.”

M London, August 1851.

“Beloved Mothek — You would enjoy ’ the Alliance’ meetings much. J. Angell James addressed it to-day. His address related to the gathering of all the saints unto Christ. He said, ‘What would the gathering of a court be without the King; the preparing of the bride without the Bridegroom V The Exhibition has not so greatly astonished me; perhaps I had received an exaggerated account of it; but, my own mother, what will the grand exhibition of grace at the last day not be? What will it be to see and hear the wonders of the divine skill in fashioning hell-deserving sinners into the sweet and lovely image of Jesus! Then will there be far nobler trophies brought from every people and tribe than the flags which now flaunt over these works of art, or these boasted products of the industry of the nations themselves.”

“Edinburgh, 23<Z April 1852.

“My own Beloved Mothee — Many thanks for your and my father’s kind wishes for this day. Next to the approval of my God is the desire of my heart to please my beloved parents, and to have their approval. May I obtain grace and help to render this poor recompence (it is all a child can) for your trouble and care for me.

u The time was when I could have wished rather to have been a piece of wood or stone than an im-LETTERS.

mortal being; to think of eternity was dreadful. I remember this well at the time when you gave me ‘Way for a Child to be Saved, It shewed me enough of the way to let me know that I had never trodden it. But what a blessing is life if thereby we are taught of the infinite mercy of God, made conscious in any degree, however small, of that love to the children of men which prompted the gift of His only begotten, His beloved, His well-beloved Son.

“And then, what a prospect (if we have such through free, sovereign grace) is that, of spending an eternity with Christ! 0 for grace and faith to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, through the pilgrimage journey, that our life might be entirely devoted to Him who gave it, ’ who is Lord both of the dead and of the living,”

“Edinburgh, 9th January 1853.

“Many thanks for all your kind wishes of

the season. May the prayers among them, indeed, enter into His ears who can alone accomplish the desires of our hearts.

“You seem to have had trials within, as well as storms without. The wind and the floods of darkness and unbelief are certainly as real as those in the outer world. We are apt to think, at the time, that they only proceed from our own sins, that we have ourselves raised all the clouds of darkness and confusion; but often we may see that a higher power was in the storm, and that the Almighty One did ride upon the blast, upon the wings of these winds also; all accomplishing the purposes of His deep love and mercy.

u How great were the troubles of the soul of our ‘Beloved, when He was forty days and nights tempted of the Devil in the wilderness, and then it says, ‘He was with the wild beasts/

“By these troubles, do we not learn something

more of the heart of our Beloved One? If the few

drops that sometimes His poor and afflicted people

have to drink are so bitter, what must His sufferings

have been who had to drink the full measure of the

cup of His Father’s wrath? And then, my beloved

mother, in J esus let us sing —

“1 Eor yet I know I shall Him praise,
Who graciously to me,
The health is of my countenance,
Yea, our own God is He.’

“Your affectionate Son.”

Though we are thereby anticipating his days in China, we may insert here a letter to one of his Christian friends at Edinburgh; it looks back as well as forward —

Amot, August 1857.

“My Dear Friend — I trust that your prayers on my behalf are not unheard. Our kind and loving Master kept me from sea-sickness during the whole voyage, while I used to be sadly troubled with that

LETTERS.

ailment. The 139th Psalm was my daily meditation, I could not well get out of it, together with some other Scriptures. Deprived of the companionship of all my familiars, and for the most part of the journey having no one with whom I could hold fellowship about divine things, to whom could I go but unto Jesus? Often, early in the morning before many of the passengers had risen, I got a seat in the very front of the ship, and read (as we travelled fast from my native land and over the bright blue sea), 6 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me! ‘These words also came as we passed down the Red Sea, and so across all the tracts of ocean, till landed in safety on this shore. Read this psalm in prayer before the throne of grace, and may it prove to you, as it was made to me, a gift from the hands of Him who was crucified for us. I know, alas! of no souls saved during the voyage. Some may have been impressed, but that is all. And now here I am in this mighty empire, surrounded by millions upon millions of poor perishing heathen, but can say nothing to them, not knowing their strange tongue.

“And how is it with your soul, my dear friend in Jesus? I can fancy that we are talking together in

your little room, in Street, and after prayer and

the word, we speak of Jesus. When saw you Him whom our souls love? What was your last meeting with Jesus? Have you had any meditation on the sweetness of His words? The words which drop balm into the wounds which the worldly spirit from without, or the carnal fleshly mind from within, have given us. But while He heals, how He loathes these unsightly wounds!

“It was the Communion Sabbath to-day, and I sat next an old Chinese believer. It was long before he could be prevailed on to cast away the family tablets, which are also idols, for they sacrifice to them; but at length he did cast them, it is trusted, out of his heart and hands, and turned to the living God, and to wait for His Son from heaven. There are several old men and women who in their old age have been born again. Tell your mother, that some of the old women remind me very much of those of our own country. Some of the Christian women are good drawers of their heathen neighbours to hear the gospel, and so c faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, Boo-a, the nurse who took Dr Young’s child home, and whom you may have seen in Mr Brown’s church, is well and goes on steadily.

“Tell me about souls, if you have heard lately of any pressing into the kingdom of heaven. The glory of God and the salvation of precious souls are the only objects worthy of the solicitude or deep affections of the heart. I long, with all my heart, to hear

SERMON.

of the Lord’s work prospering, and being revived mightily at home. Never give up pleading for this.

“I trust your dear mother doth cleave to Jesus’s righteousness, forsaking utterly the filthy rags, and walks not after the flesh but after the spirit. Is

J to allow Chinese mothers and their families to

press into the kingdom of heaven, and take her seat at the marriage-table of the Lamb? I feel as if I were supported by prayers of believers at home. It is all needed to maintain the life of God during the long season of study of the language. Commending you entirely to the love and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, “Tour friend in Jesus,”

We cannot furnish any fully written out specimen of his sermons; but the following may give some idea of the matter of his preaching, and his mode of applying his subject: —

“Philippians iii. 7-9.*

“* But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. And be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.*

“There is brought before us, in this passage, a man in two very different states of mind. There is

* For his own use evidently, there is attached to these notes a Said, the well-bom of the stock of Israel, the peculiar people of God, the circumcised man, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; and there is Paid, counting his lineage, his circumcision, his learning, his all, but loss. There is Saul, uttering the prayer, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are: extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican! ’ — and there is Paul, uttering the exclamation, ‘This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief, In a word, we have here Saul rejoicing in himself, and Paul rejoicing only in Christ Jesus.

“Let us endeavour, looking up to the Lord for the guidance and blessing of the Holy Spirit, to consider —

“I. What things are gain to the man who is in his natural and unconverted state.

w II. What it is to count them loss for Christ.

w III. Why they must be counted loss for Christ.

“L What things are gain to the natural man?

“I answer, in Scripture language, ‘All that he hath 1 (Matt. xiii. 44); that is, all that men account of value. But to be more particular: — 1. A man’s

memorandum — “‘Jesus answered them and said, My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me.” He that speaketh of himself, seeketh his own glory; but He that seeketh His glory that sent him, the same is true and no unrighteousness in him.’ If the Lord of glory so spake in His ministry, how much more thou, O hell-deserving sinner! A child thou art. 0 wait thou upon God for every word,”

SERMON.

house is gain to him. Be it small or large, whether he has inherited it, or at last, after years of toil, purchased it; whether it is his own or not, if only he tenants it as his house; if its roof protects him from the blasts of winter, and shields him from the wind and rain, affording the man comfortable rest and sleep — such a house to the natural man is c gain, And the more does he feel this when he looks abroad, and thinks how many wander on the face of the earth without a house to cover or a home to welcome them. Still more is a man’s house ’ gain ’ to him, when he takes what men call 6 a pride ’ in keeping and garnishing it. 2. Again, what a man has of this world’s goods is ’ gain ’ to him. Has he wealth? Thai he counts gain? Has he by diligence acquired what men call a sufficiency or competency? That is counted c gain, Have you gathered together a little, however little, of this world’s goods? Do you begin to think of it? Does your heart stay with it? The Scripture saith, ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also, (Matt. vi. 21). When called upon to give to some poor child of Adam, do you give of your earthly treasure, but with a grudge? Or when there is an opportunity of helping forward the preaching of the gospel, do you give, but not willingly? The worldly possessions or goods of such are counted ‘gain’ to them. 3. But farther, have you good health and strength? These, too, are ’ gain ’ to the natural man, as I shall afterwards explain. These things, indeed, are to be counted blessings, even to the children of God; but in an especial manner are they i gain ’ to the unrenewed man. When a man is in health, he finds it difficult to believe that the evil day of sickness will come upon him. He rises refreshed and vigorous, and goes forth to his labour, saying in his heart, 1 The evil day has not come yet, nor those years drawn nigh when I shall say, I have no pleasure in them, 4. The Apostle had great knowledge. His learning was great: he had been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel. He profited above all his fellows. This Saul counted ‘gain;’ and so with the wisdom which long experience of this world’s affairs often gives. One possessing this may be often consulted about worldly affairs. He has been enabled to conduct his own affairs with discretion; and he reaps the fruit of it, respect and influence among his fellow-men. 5. This leads us to a still more important subject under this head, a good name. Ah, my friends, many poor souls have been ruined by means of their good name. They have, to the eye of man, conducted themselves well. They have acquired, by outwardly respectable conduct, by paying every man his debt, a certain credit and name; and if asked to do anything contrary to what is right, they may even answer, ‘That would destroy my name, Saul, my friends, before he knew

SERMON.

Christ, thought that he had a blameless character, a spotless name. He thought within himself, I am not like that tax-gatherer, like that publican; I have wronged no man; I never refused to pay my debt to the last farthing; I attend to all outward duties; who can say anything against me? So thought Saul before Christ met him on the way to Damascus. So, my dear friends, do many of you. A poor sinner would tell you so from the Lord. O be honest with your own souls! Are none of you now trusting in your good name? Is it not c gain’ to you? But 0 if the evil of this stopped here, it would be less dangerous to your never-dying souls. But, alas! it goes farther. It extends to what is referred to in the chapter before us, i having confidence in the flesh,3 that is, toward God. And thus we have what Paul points to in the 6th verse, ‘Touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless, This may be explained as blameless in the eye of man; performing so well his outward duties to man, which are required by the law, that he is accounted by other men, and he accounts himself, blameless. But, alas! almost every natural man, every unrenewed man, goes much farther than this. The Psalmist of old, who knew God with whom he had to do, said, ‘My goodness extendeth not to thee, but the man who has not been brought down as a guilty, undone sinner before Ood, has no such thought. He thinks that the Lord is altogether such an one as himself. He has passed through this life quietly and comfortably enough; he has wronged no man; no man has aught against him; and so, whether he is expressing it to his fellow-men or no, he is in fact ’ trusting in himself that he is righteous, This was the crowning 6 gain’ that Saul had, when he went in and out among his people; this might have been read in his countenance, as he went daily to learn of Gamaliel; and still more so when he was respectfully saluted in the streets of Jerusalem, as the straitest of the ’ straitest sect’ of religious men, as they were accounted, and when his opinion was listened to with respect. And then Saul made prayers; he was regularly at the temple at the appointed hour. He brought the sacrifice, he paid the tithes, he gave his alms, he strictly attended to every external ordinance. And among men, for all these things, Saul had his reward.

“But, alas! are there no Sauls in our day? It may not take such an open self-righteous form, but is it the less real, the less deadly? You, too, my friends, it may be, have wronged no man; you are accounted blameless in your outward conduct. You, too, come to the house of the Lord; you join in the praises; you stand up and are seen to take pari in the prayers; you listen to your minister; you give, shall we say liberally? to the poor; and as the different schemes of the Church are brought forward, you are not behind,

SERMON.

with your subscription. You do not, on the other hand, altogether neglect private prayers at home. You kneel in the morning and at night; you also, it may be, hold or attend family prayers. You really cannot see that you are as bad as some people say. You think that after all you will not be so hardly dealt with in the next world as you have been told. And, last of all, though you are ready to admit that you do not always feel so kindly to your relations or to your neighbours as you might, and do sometimes shew a little unkindness of disposition in speaking of the faults of neighbours, yet that after all you cannot see that your heart is so very bad as some tell you. Ah! my friends, to you it must be said, that you are in ’ the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity, For you do esteem as ‘gain’ your outward conduct — you have ’ confidence in the flesh, You do trust in yourselves that you are righteous. You do not feel that had not Jesus died your doom was for ever fixed. All such, the word of the living God, the God of eternal truth, declares to be ‘dead in their sins, They are lying under the wrath of God, they are subject to be destroyed every moment. The eternal and mighty Jehovah has but to utter His sentence, and their fate is sealed for ever. It specially Gon+ cerns such to hear the voice of the Lord speaking in his word, to hear the salvation of God. The inspired Apostle says, in the passage before us, that he counted those things of which we have been speaking as ’ loss for Christ/

“II. What, then, is it to count those things loss for Christ?

u The word 1 loss’ seems to be taken from the loss which those on board a ship sustain, when, on account of stress of weather, they are compelled to throw their goods overboard. But, as one well remarks, there is this difference: those who throw what they possess overboard because of the storm, do it reluctantly — do it because they are obliged; but as we shall see afterwards, and as ver. 8 shews, the Apostle counts all these things as utterly worthless in comparison with Christ.

“And now we have to consider —” III. Why the Apostle counted all these things but loss.

u These things are seen to be ‘gain’ to the natural man. Many of them are real blessings in themselves, and only received from God and through His Son. Why, then, does the Apostle count them all as * loss V

“And here, my friends, mark closely the last words of this sentence, which seems at first so forbidding to the natural man: f What things were gain to us, these I counted loss for Christ, It is all loss for Christ’s sake. Art thou a child of God? Then thou needest no more to be said to thee to induce thee to consent SERMOK

to give up all that thou hast — to 6 count it all but loss, when it is added, ’ for Christ/

“(1.) But some of you may say, Why give up all for Christ? Why cannot I come to Christ without giving up all that I have? Now, my dear friend, let me say, first of all, that this question displays thy ignorance of Christ; and O remember what this means, and the Lord give thee a heart to feel, and a willing mind, by His Holy Spirit, to attend to what a poor fellow-sinner would desire to say from God’s word concerning this. Believe me, if the word of God be true, you have a disease which no physician on earth can heal. You are of the children of the first Adam; and the record of the living and true God concerning thee is Psa. xiv. 1-3, and Bom. iii. 10-19: 6 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity. There is none righteous, no not one.’ Such is thy state, the state of those who are yet out of Christ.

“But you ask, Why must we give up all for Christ? Hear the word of the Lord God of Sabaoth, Acts iv. 12: ‘Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.9 That, my friends, fixes us down to Christ. And then, hear the words of Jesus himself, Luke xiv. 26: ‘If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple, Again, on this very account we are told that it is a ’ strait gate and a narrow way’ that leadeth unto life.

“And then, my friends, to count all things but loss for Christ is just to say, 1 1 count all my righteousness as filthy rags f and this is what the God of all truth declares them to be. Do any now present hope, somehow or other, to get to heaven as they are in themselves, and on account of anything they have done, or can do? This, alas! is one of these awful delusions by which Satan ruins souls for ever and ever! Ever since the law was promulgated from Sinai, men have sought to save themselves by means of it. And have they succeeded? Has any one soul so succeeded! Examine and see the word of everlasting truth, Rom. iii 19, 20, 1 Every mouth is stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. By the deeds of the law there sha.ll no flesh be justified vti His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin, And why have men not so obtained it? Because the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Yes, and if the law is holy, then is the Lawgiver of necessity holy. My friends, Jehovah the Lawgiver is infinitely holy; nothing that defiles is suffered to enter His presence, and yet you and I have to do with this holy God. We are born His creatures, we are born under the law, and yet are

SERMON.

utterly incapable of keeping that law. “We and all men must inevitably be judged by the law, and our consciences bear witness that we ought to be judged by the law; yet have we the witness of our conscience that we keep not that law, and the plain word of Jehovah declares that ’ by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh living be justified, 0 my friends, can you or I stand before the Holy One? His throne stands on immutable justice; justice and judgment are the foundation of his throne; He cannot look upon sin. And this is the God with whom we have to do. Even now is He searching e veryheart here. He knows, O sinner, every thought of thine. He sees thee, and He sees me, to be full of every iniquity. At any moment, His almighty hand may descend upon us.

“Would you then escape J ehovah’s justice? Would you be saved from everlasting ruin? Then listen to the voice of Jesus. Hear Him cry, ‘If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink, This hour, it is declared from the word of God, that Christ has made satisfaction for every poor sinner who will but cease from his own works. He has made full atonement for the very chief of sinners. He now proclaims a full, free pardon to every sinner who will but accept it. The sole condition is, Thou must forsake every refuge of lies, thou must cast away every shred of thy filthy garments. They cannot cover thee, 0 sinner, from the Father’s wrath now, more than the miserable fig-leaves which Adam and Eve tried could prevent them from being driven out of Paradise, or shield from the descending curse of the Eternal, the effects of which thou art now, 0 sinner, bearing every day, and wilt bear, if thou awake not, to all eternity. Oh how the apostle, who was once in your case, who even vainly imagined he could meet the living God face to face as he was, tells the desire of his soul when the Lord had savingly taught him by His Holy Spirit, i For whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness.9 Ah! he had seen something of the glory of the Lord God of Hosts. The beams of the glory of Immanuel had shot forth upon bold, spirited Saul, and he was struck blind. He was suddenly shewn in what a horrible pit and miry clay he was rolling, how he was denying the all-glorious and spotless Son of God, and he submitted to the Lord of glory. From that hour, for him 6 to live was Christ, and to die gain! By the immutable justice of God, and by your lost and ruined state, since there is indeed no other way of escape, O be persuaded to submit yourselves to the righteousness of Jesus Christ, forsaking all that you have that you may win Christ.

“2. But again, Let the ( Excellency of the know-SEKMON.

ledge of Christ Jesus’ persuade you to cleave only to Him. For the sake of this, O do you, with Paul, ’ count all things but loss, To tell you of Jesus Christ, my friends, in adequate terms, is what no angel, and no archangel can do; no, nor even the cherubim who are over the mercy-seat, and who behold something of the marvels that are transacted there. They cannot do it now; they never will do it throughout all the endless ages of eternity. No, nor even the glorified spirits. These have a new song, which angels cannot learn, and that song every child of God knows must be about Jesus; yet they shall be for ever lost in the contemplation of the divine glory, the spotless beauty, the never to be comprehended height, and depth, and length, and breadth of Immanuers love. Yet it becomes us to set forth something of what is in J esus, that by the good and Holy Spirit of God, who takes of the things of Christ and shews them to sinners, you may be taken with admiration of this glorious One.

“First, then, let us look (as the Lord Jehovah gives us grace) at the glory of Immanuel. It becomes rather to see what is written in the blessed Book of God. Thus, Psa. xlv. 1-6, ‘My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips, &c. O see the glory of Immanuel, God with us! From all eternity was He in the bosom of the Father, before the world was. The holy Lord God the Father loved with a vast, infinite love the Lord Jesus Christ. Hear the words of Jesus Himself shortly before he was offered up a sacrifice for sinners: ‘And now, 0 Father, glorify me with the glory I had with Thee ere ever the world was,’ (John xvii. 5). Yes, the Lord Jesus was the object of the Father’s immense and everlasting love in the past ages of eternity; and when He dwelt on earth, with nowhere to lay his head, thrice came forth the voice from heaven, c This is my Beloved Son! hear ye Him, And now, my friends, He is the same. Yes, while the Great High Priest, once bleeding and dead, but now exalted to the highest heights of heaven, while He stands at the right hand of His Father’s throne pleading for the rebellious (and He never pleads in vain), the Father loves Him with an everlasting love. Yes, and He shines with the added majesty of His Mediatorial crown. Would you hear what is daily and hourly transacted in heaven in regard to the Saviour who is now proclaimed to even the chief of sinners, and would you learn something of His glory in heaven?

then turn to Rev. v. 6-14, 1 1 beheld Worthy

is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing, &c.

SEKMON

“Three men, sinners by nature as we are, were made eye-witnesses, and permitted to get one partial glimpse of the glory of Christ, when they were on the Mount of Transfiguration. Little as they saw of it, it is said, they feared, and Peter desired to be always there. Paul likewise saw something of His glory. But, my friends, all the natural displays of His glory cannot be compared with the spiritual glory — the glorious and holy majesty of His Person. And then, think how, in the midst of the glory of His Divinity, He is also Man. He is God over all, blessed for ever; yet is He man likewise. He knows your every feeling, your every temptation, for 6 He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.’ He bears the same heart in heaven that He had upon earth. He is the glorious Man Christ Jesus. Oh, while angels and archangels bow before the Lamb, shall you, shall I, refuse to do homage to Him? While heaven now rings with the praise of His glory and His grace, will ye hold back from Him? Will poor sinners here wrap round and round them their own rags of self-righteousness? Will they say within themselves, We are rich and have need of nothing, while they are poor, and miserable, and destitute, and blind, and naked; and while Immanuel stands by, saying, ‘I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, and fine raiment, that thou mayest be clothed V What a spectacle to devils and angels! Oh, cease to clutch your gains; they are like gold to you, bat they are the devil’s chains. 0 cast them from you, and embrace Jesus Christ as He is freely offered in the glorious gospel of grace. Whenever you have beheld any thing of the glory of the grace of Christ, you will be able to cry out with Paul, 4 What things were gain to me, those I count loss for Christ!

u 3. Let us think of the love of Christ. This is part of the 6 excellency of the knowledge of Christ, The most that can be done on this subject also, is to try and catch a few of the beams of the love of God-man Christ J esus. The marvellous love of J esus to perishing sinners was manifested in His leaving the bosom of the Father, leaving the courts of infinite holiness and everlasting peace, leaving the Father’s house, leaving the throne of His glory, and coming down to the earth! — the accursed earth! — and to the unholy, accursed children of men! We know not what the holy child Jesus suffered in His soul when He had to go out and in among men — men who had departed from His Father, who had set all His laws at defiance, and wTho (He well knew) were about to consummate all their guilt by putting His Well Beloved to a cruel and ignominious death. We know that He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; there is reason to believe, that while still in the full strength of early manhood, he seemed like

SKETCHES OF SERMONS.

one far on in years. And why all this? Ah! it was part of that ‘bearing of our iniquity, and carrying our sorrows,’ which he came to endure, and to which His incomprehensible love impelled Him. For our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich. But what was all this to His bearing His Father’s wrath for us, the rebellious,”

As we said before, we have no fuller specimen than the above in his manuscripts; but it may be interesting to add a few sketches of sermons which he preached.

“Psalm xlv. 2. — c Thou art fairer,’ &c. The subject may be distributed as follows: — I. The exceeding beauty or fairness of Christ. As God; as man; as the Bridegroom of the Church, the Divine Lover of souls. II. The grace of his lips. As to the matter of his speech; as to the manner; as to the effusion of the Spirit of grace into and from his lips.

III. The eternal blessedness of the Lord Jesus!’

“Luke xiii. 34. — * When he beheld the city,’ &c. I. The City. Its circumstances and previous conduct.

II. The Person and Attitude of Him who addressed them. It was He who had dwelt with Israel, &c. His attitude of expostulation, compassionate long-suffering, tender love.

III. Their attitude toward Him.

IV. The sudden issue”

“Hebrews vl 5. — * The powers of the world to come.’

I. God.

II. Immortality. Unceasing existence. III. The Eternal Judgment. Endless bliss; endless woe.”

“Ephes. v. 14. — ‘Awake, thou that sleepest,’ &c.

I. The Sleep and Death brought on by sin. II. Who arouses from this state, and His manner of do ing so. III. The summons to the sleeper and to the dead,”

“John in. 14, 15. — 4 And as Moses lifted up the serpent, &c. Let us consider the Type and Antitype in their resemblance.

I. As to the manner of their lifting up, and the place.

II. As to the purpose, or end, of their being lifted up.

III. As to the means by which that end was accomplished.

IV. The necessity of this lifting up.”