It was

Your brother gave out the hymns; and just to suit my case. good to be there. I was made at peace with the cross, and willing to bear it; and at peace with cross dispensations. Thine is the power, O Lord; and Thine shall be the glory for ever. Adieu! the God of peace, and peace of God be ever with you.

In our precious Surety, Who has promised to bring us safely back to His Father, or bear the blame for ever,

In Him and His love, I remain, yours affectionately,

RUTH.

Pure Gold from Puritan and other Mines.

CONSOLATION FOR THE LORD'S AFFLICTED.

How sweet must the following consideration be to a distressed believer. There most certainly exists an almighty, all-wise, and infinitely gracious God. He has given me in times past, and is giving me at present (if I had but eyes to see it) many and signal intimations: He never repents of it, nor withdraws it. Whatever comes to pass in time, is the result of His will from everlasting-Consequently, my afflictions were a part of His original plan, and are all ordered, in number, weight and measure. The very hairs of my head are every one counted by Him; nor can a hair fall to the ground but in consequence of His determination. Hence my distresses are not the result of chance, accident, or a fortuitous combination of circumstances: but the providential accomplishment of God's purpose, and designed to answer some wise and gracious ends. Nor shall my affliction continue a moment longer than God sees meet. He who brought me to it has promised to support me under it and to carry me through it. All shall most assuredly work together for His glory and my good. Therefore, the cup which my heavenly Father hath given me to drink, shall I not drink it? Yes: I will in the strength He imparts, even rejoice in tribulation; and using the means of possible redress which He hath, or may hereafter put into my hands, I will commit myself to Him whose purpose cannot be overthrown, whose plan cannot be disconcerted, and who, whether I am resigned or not, will still go on to work all things after the council of His own will. TOPLADY.

MINDFULNESS OF GOD.

If Jehovah in all His persons-of Father, Son and Spirit-are thus mindful of men, O let men, in return, be mindful of God-mindful of His truths, mindful of His ordinances, mindful of His love, mindful of His word, mindful of His providence, mindful of His commandments. I wish every one of you what I wish for myself; a clean heart, a warm heart, and a holy life; a mind enlightened into a judicious knowledge and perception of gospel doctrines, in all their purity, harmony, and extent; a heart warmed with the vital experience of grace, with the love of Christ, and the consolation of His Spirit; from whence will infallibly proceed a life practically devoted to God, and a conversation adorned with every Christian and moral virtue. To this end let the Psalmist's prayer be yours; "Be mindful of me, O Lord, with the favour that Thou bearest unto Thy people; O visit me with Thy salvation, that I may (for myself in particular) see the felicity of Thy chosen, and rejoice with the gladness of Thy nation, and glory with Thine inheritance." Psalm cvi. 4. TOPLADY.

ESSAYS ON HART'S HYMNS.-XXXV.

B

HYMN 31.
The Sabbath.

Y poetical critics there is nothing in this hymn which would be deemed worthy of commendation. The style is plain and matter-of-fact, without the slightest embellishment. But the subject of which it treats is not of that superficial nature which many persons deem it to be. The institution of the Sabbath, with all that was intended thereby, is of the greatest interest to every true believer. For the Sabbath is not more of Moses" than was circumcision. It dates back even a far longer period than does that Abrahamic rite.

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Its institution marked the crowning act in God's work as completed. To all His other mighty achievements of creative power, God had added that of the formation of mankind, male and female. Nothing more remained to be brought into existence. "The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all His work which God had created and made (or, more correctly, created for making)-creation-work being ended, but a daily making and fashioning of things going on ever since from the substance originally brought into being. Gen. ii. 1-3.

The "rest" which the Lord assigned to Himself on the seventh day, was not that which is needed by exhaustion of power: for "the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary." Isaiah xl. 20. It was simply the act of cessation from work. He had finished creating, He therefore left off, and calmly contemplated the wondrous whole: "and, behold, it was very good." This seventh day, the Lord called the Sabbath—a Hebrew term, which means cessation, a leaving-off and which is not of itself (as the use of the word in its verbal form in many places in the Original plainly shows) by any means identical with our English word repose. The apostle's words illustrate this; "For he that is entered into His rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His." Heb. iv. 10. There cannot, we think, be any doubt, with reflective persons, that the institution of the Sabbath was revealed to Adam, and that he and Eve spent the first in Paradise together, and in the full enjoyment of the presence and love of their beneficent Creator. A beautiful type this of the Second Man, the Last Adam (the Lord from heaven, even Jesus) and His spouse, the church, spending their eternal Sabbath together, when the mystery of God shall be finished, and the gracious work of the

Spirit of God on earth ended by the ingathering of all the elect. Nor is it scripturally inconsistent to believe that, as daily offerings do not appear to have been formally appointed until the time of the Mosaic dispensation, that the Sabbath was the regular day among the patriarchs up to that time for specially approaching the Lord and presenting sacrifices in the observance of His worship. This may have been (most likely it was) the day on which Cain and Abel brought their respective offerings, of the fruits of the ground and firstlings of the flock, before Jehovah, and in which God manifested His special regard for the faith of Abel.

After the death of Joseph, the deplorable subjection of Israel to their Egyptian tyrants may have led to the abandonment by them of all open recognition of the seventh day as holy unto the Lord. In private some of them, in whom dwelt the faith of Abraham, may have paid homage to it in spirit, but as their oppressors permitted them little or no relief from arduous work, the Sabbath, as a distinguished day of rest, must have been wholly beyond their power to keep, according to that law of the fourth commandment in which its observance was afterwards so strictly stipulated. It was therefore necessary that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their fathers, should break their yoke and burst their bonds. And from heaven did the Lord look down, to hear the groaning of the prisoners, and to loose those who (seemed to be) appointed unto death. The language which describes this is most expressive: "And the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God, by reason of their bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them." Exod. ii. 23-25. The result was their deliverance by His great power and stretched out arm, that they being delivered from their enemies, and from the hand of them that hated them, might serve Him without fear-as a people typical of His own spiritually chosen and redeemed, who are emancipated from the thraldom of world, sin, and Satan. It is at this point of Israel's history that Mr. Hart's hymn on the Sabbath opens :—

"God thus commanded Jacob's seed,

When from Egyptian bondage freed,
He led them by the way:
Remember, with a mighty hand,

I brought thee forth from Pharoah's land,
Then keep My Sabbath day."
no comment.

These lines need institution of the day of rest :

Verse 1.

He next adverts to the original

"In six days God made heaven and earth,

Gave all the various creatures birth,

And from His working ceased:

The transition that follows is sudden, and, as it were, unanticipated. There is no explanatory intervening link. From the old, the poet enters upon the new dispensation. Moses is left for Christ; the national Israel, the children of the flesh, for the spiritual Israel, the children of God. In this style Mr. Hart follows Paul in his 4th chapter of the Hebrews. Before the ordinary reader is aware the apostle has quitted the literal for the spiritual, and an earthly sabbath for the true rest in Jesus, and in final glory. Mark the words of our poet :

The poor

Here the glorious completeness of the work of redemption by Christ is blessedly portrayed: as it is written, "My Father worketh hitherto (creatively-though in this also shared the Son) and I work"-redemptively, John v. 7. And His toils being ended, His flesh in the tomb was to rest in hope, and His final rest was to be glorious," Isaiah xi. 10. Thus in the fullest confidence that He was the Sabbath for all His weary ones, He could, even before His actual triumph over death and hell in the death of the cross, say, "Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," Matt. xi. 28. We here, indeed, use the term rest in the sense of repose; but we do so because the Sabbath is associated with this idea in its relation to man. sinner toiling in the bonds of legality, and working for eternal life by the deeds of the law, is brought to end this by finding Christ to be His Sabbath. When the Holy Spirit works faith in him to trust alone in the Saviour's finished work, he then ceases from his own works, and in that cessation finds repose. Nothing can the soul realize in this respect without the Holy Spirit's power. And, often as the spirit of a believer may become involved in slavish frames, and his soul sink amid the depressive effects of temptation, corruptions and trials, the Holy Comforter can bring relief by leading him when overwhelmed to the Rock that is higher than he. And when David prayed, "Be Thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort," he apprehended the sweet repose that was to be found in his Saviour Lord, and felt his heart drawn out for the possession of it. Mr. Hart touches on this point very sweetly :

"To this, by faith, he oft retreats,
Bondage and labour quite forgets,
And bids his cares adieu;

O happy they, who are thus kept looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith! Well may God's spiritual Israel mourn their lack of these sabbath seasons. This Egyptian world, with its wretched slavery, has too much influence over and too many attractions for us. How oft are we, also, as when Israel, in after captivity in Babylon, lamented the loss of her holy day and solemn feasts. Without being brought to experience the consolation that abounds by Christ and the comforts of His love, we fail to apprehend our new covenant Sabbath.

We have no time to discuss the alteration of the day of rest from the seventh to the first day of the week, which latter distinguishes our so-called Christian Sabbath, or Lord's day. The same precious truth of rest, in and by Christ alone, was taught by the institution of each. Doubtless we have now the first instead of the seventh day, as that proper for observance, in honour of the Son of God's arising from the tomb on the former, to enter on His everlasting rest, and to show forth the truth that, To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Bearing this in mind, the last verse of the hymn speaks for itself:

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-

How utterly impossible, then, for language to express the miserably destitute state of those tens of thousands who, by a formal attendance at some so-called place of worship (church or chapel), assume to do their duty, without the slightest apprehension of the substance of the Sabbath. On the other hand, happy they who, while giving all due reverence to the Lord's appointment of a special day for worship, find no true Sabbath save in Jesus only!

MEDITATIONS

UPON

THE EDITOR.

THE

GOSPEL

ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN, Chap. i. 14.

"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory-the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth." HE first clause of this verse darted with great sweetness into my mind as my eyes opened this morning early; and, as I lay musing a little, I began to feel that "surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold where they fine it," and, in a moment, felt my mind going out in desire that the Lord would enable me by His good Spirit to dig a little therein,