shall man gainsay His will and pleasure? What saith the Word to the point? "Therefore hath He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth He yet find fault? For who hath resisted His will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus?" &c.

Again, we have said that the eternal Son has wrought by His doing and dying a perfect salvation for His Church, and that infinite love has carried out all that is necessary to procure her happiness. The Victim which Infinite Wisdom appointed for the sins of His people was no other than the co-equal Son of God. A body was prepared for Him that He might suffer, bleed, and die, the Just for the unjust. Oh, how wonderful was His triumph on the cross! Amidst all His sufferings, He bruised the serpent's head, overcame sin and death, and spoiled principalities and powers, bringing in an everlasting righteousness and complete salvation for His Church, and by His one offering perfecting for ever them that are sanctified. How completely, then, He finished the work the Father gave Him to do. Not a jot or tittle of it failed. When He said, "It is finished!" it was finished to all intents and purposes. There is no room for man's addenda here. And it is an act of the greatest presumption for him to pretend that he can do anything towards such a wondrous Godlike work.

"All glory to His precious name,

Who bore His people's guilt and shame ;
Who for them lived, and for them died,
The name of Jesus crucified.

"Herein we see eternal love,

And gain all blessings from above;

A sight of Jesus crucified,

Exalts free grace and humbles pride."

But, again, we have said that the Holy Ghost was engaged to bring out of an ungodly world all the elect of the Father, and that infinite power will accomplish this covenant work. To effect this, He uses irresistible grace, which is indeed "the power of God unto salvation,” as the Apostle Paul expresses it, exercised in the day of His power, when and where He pleases; and the first impartation of this wondrous grace produces life divine, so that, while the natural creation is the work of God's hands, the spiritual creation is the work of His almighty arm. "To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" How idle and unscriptural, then, is the constant cry, Come, come!". -as if nature could give a dead man life and action. But it may be said, "Do not the Scriptures, upon which you desire to ground all, say, 'Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest?'" They do; and who are the "weary and heavy laden" but the children of God themselves, who, having been made to feel the weariness of the world, and the burden of sin, do come to Him who has already been their Source of rest? But do not the Scriptures again say, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters?" And who are the thirsty souls but the living children of God, who, having drunk with thirst of the new nature, seek for a fresh supply of the water of eternal life?

Now, we rejoice as much as any at the Bible Comes, but let us place them as the Lord places them. He says, "Lo, I come to thee in the

thick cloud;" and again, "Where I record my name, I will come and bless you;" and again, “I have raised up One, and He shall come”—that One whom the Church calls her "Beloved, who put in His hand at the hole of the door, and her bowels were moved for Him." This is the coming we want, and in which we rejoice. The eternal purpose of God, then, is the beginning of our salvation, while the manifest beginning with us is not by us, but in us. The life of God in the soul is an inward creation, which is as much the work of Omnipotence as the outward creation. Hence is it written in those grand words of Scripture, "For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name; I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me; I girded thee, though thou hast not known me." And then, after showing how His omnipotency shall be exercised against the potsherds of the earth, who dare to dispute His sovereign will and power, He says, "Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me." "Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation; ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end." Can anything be grander than this? Before it let free-willers hide their faces, and the creature who boasts of being a co-worker with God feel his personal bankruptcy.

Oh, how clear, dear reader, are the doctrines of grace in the Bible! So suitable to such poor needy creatures as you and I. We have heard of a gentleman who, being greatly concerned for his soul, and bewildered by the multiplicity of man's opinions and thoughts upon salvation, determined to shut himself in his chamber with his Bible, and to read for himself, carefully and prayerfully, the Word of God; and, after many days of searching the Scriptures, he came out of his chamber, declaring that he could come to no other conclusion than that the doctrines of grace, as understood by the so-called Calvinists, were the doctrines of the Bible. Let us hope that, when shut up alone with the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit shone upon the sacred pages, and made him savingly acquainted with its glorious truths.

When Jesus saw the faith of the men who had uncovered the roof where He was, and had let down the bed wherein lay the sick of the palsy, He said, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." But, as usual, Scribes were sitting there reasoning in their hearts, and Jesus, knowing their thoughts and erroneous conclusions, showed the difference between a living faith and carnal reasoning, and the testimony of those around was, "We never saw it in this fashion." True, true, indeed, God works after His own fashion, and "His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways.'

Did you ever notice, dear reader, that during the forty days' tarrying of our Lord on earth, after His resurrection, He silently and significantly showed to His disciples the whole scheme of salvation, according to the will and working of the eternal Three? For instance, a number of them had entered a ship for the purpose of fishing, but, after a night spent in the work, "they caught nothing." But when the morning was come Jesus stood on the shore, but they knew Him not. Calling them by the endearing title of children, He asked them if they had any meat; they answered Him no. Bidding them cast the net on the right side of the ship, and they should find, they did so, and were not able to draw up for the multitude of fishes. But when they had dragged the net with

the fishes to shore, of what use would they be to hungry and weary souls had there not been prepared a fire of coals and bread? Do we not see, in the toiling of those disciples, their casting the net on the wrong side, and the catching nothing, the uselessness of human attempts apart from the Lord's presence and power? But when Jesus appears, and calls them by His grace, bidding them cast the net into the depths of His love and grace, then what a multitude of blessings is obtained! And, as He prepared the fire of coals, and fish, and laid thereon bread, so has He provided from His own fulness a supply for the spiritual need of His hungry ones. "It is the Lord," was their joyous exultation, as Jesus thus revealed Himself to them, and worked for them; "It is the Lord," will be the thankful acknowledgment of all His living people. God never will disown or desert His children in their pilgrimage; He will neither forget them nor forsake them. As He has proved Himself to be their Salvation, so will He show Himself to be their Succour and Support. "He who hath begun the good work in you will perform it." His elected and sought-out ones shall be brought into a city that shall not be forsaken. Convincing grace flows from the sight of God, and preserving grace from the might of God; and the man who can say, "The Lord is my Salvation," will have blessed cause again and again to add, "The Lord is the Strength of my life," too. Oh, how wonderful are these things! And, when we think of the mercy of God in revealing Himself as mighty to save one so unworthy, those words come uppermost, "What is man, that Thou shouldest magnify him, and that Thou shouldest set Thine heart upon Him ?"

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Thus, beloved, have we seen that God's way of saving sinners is very different to man's calculation of the matter-"His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor His ways as our ways;" and that man's opinions, persuasions, and calculations must all be put aside before His mighty way of working; and that the salvation which we need to bring us to heaven is, from first to last, His work. Nothing more strikingly sets forth this than the Lord's description to Ezekiel of His mighty work with the Church, under the similitude of an infant lying in its blood. There are no less than thirteen almighty "I's" in connection with this work: I passed by, I saw thee, I said unto thee, Live, I looked upon thee, Ispread my skirt over thee, I sware unto thee, I washed thee, I anointed thee, I clothed thee, I girded thee, I covered thee, I decked thee, I put bracelets upon thee, the result of which was, thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty." This is the religion we love, which puts the little creature "I" nowhere, and the Almighty"I" everywhere. But it may be said, "You have dwelt upon the eternal origin, work, and manifestation of salvation, but the matter which preys most upon my mind is, but how may I know the Lord has saved me? I do not feel to have passed through what others have, or to have approached to anything like their assurance. I read of Manasseh driven by the Lord amidst the thorns, and with great urgency of soul made to confess his sins; of Mary Magdalene, out of whom He cast seven devils; and of Paul, brought to the ground by a revelation from on high. But I have not been led into such depths, and up such heights; I have not experienced the contrition of heart as they did." Possibly not, the operations of the Spirit are very different. But mark, it is the same Spirit. The Lord called Zaccheus down from the sycamoretree, and told him that salvation had come to his house that day; while to Andrew and Peter He simply said, "Follow me.” The whisperings of

Z

His love can work as wonderfully as the thunderings of His voice. may not have been led into the chamber of conviction so deeply as your fellow, or been thrust into the dungeon of despair, like some brother, but you may, nevertheless, be a child of God as truly as those who are exercised more severely. Satan tries some because they are so little exercised, and others because they are so deeply tried. To the former he insinuates, "You cannot be a child of God, because you are not in deep trouble on account of your sins." To the latter," You cannot be a child of God, because you acknowledge yourself how deeply you have fallen in to sin." Use against him in all his temptations "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." Tell him "it is written ;" and rest upon God's covenant, rather than your condition, upon His foundation, rather than upon your frames and feelings.

There is just another view of this subject we must not omit, but which space forbids us to enlarge; namely, God's thoughts and will relative to the discipline of the way.-Though very different often to ours, it is yet "ordered in all things, and sure," resulting in gain to us, and glory to Him. We know it is hard sometimes to think that all is for the best, when things are exceedingly crooked with us, and the very reverse of what we would have it; especially, too, when He snatches some specially dear one from our embrace. It is hard then to say, "It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him good." No, it is only grace that can make us submissive; it is only the Lord that can sanctify affliction, and bring us to acknowledge that "He doeth all things well." But we may depend upon it, "sweet are the uses of adversity.' For instance, it teaches us the will of our covenant God, and subjects ours to His, bringing us to the acknowledgment that "it was good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Thy statutes." It drives us near to the side of Jesus, ("I have borne chastisement," said the tried Job; "I will not offend any more"); and the Lord Himself tells us that He sent trouble upon the house of Israel, that they might go no more astray from Him.

Again, sanctified affliction brings us to see our true sinnership. The brethren of Joseph felt this when "they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when He besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us. It also puts our faith to the test. The Lord suffered the children of Israel to hunger, and then wondrously fed them, that they might learn that " man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

Again, adversity compels one to cry to the Lord for help. It was when Jonah's soul fainted within him that he remembered the Lord, and His prayer ascended into His holy temple. Then it humbles and crumbles us to nothing. Ah, said the afflicted Jeremiah, with whom the discipline of the Lord was peculiarly sharp, "remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me."

But this subject of the Lord's discipline with His children grows upon us, and we must reserve it for future meditation.

In conclusion, we would say, it does appear to us that, if in all matters that concern our eternal welfare, we could drop our own preconceived notions; indeed the creature, and all its attendants, and come in nothingness of spirit to the Word, we should, in the face of the fact that God's thoughts are not our thoughts, neither His ways as our ways," arrive

at a very different conclusion to what we otherwise do; and to our mind, if the Word is thus read impartially, "free grace" must supplant "free will." But the thing above all wanted is the Spirit's teaching, for "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can He know them, because they are spiritually discerned;" and the teaching of the Spirit must bring the creature to nought, and make Christ All and in all. That He, "the Spirit of truth," may "lead us into all truth," is our earnest desire; and may you and I, dear reader, possess a religion which, having its origin in the will of the Father, its fulness in the work of the Son, and its manifestation as the power of the Spirit, find its climax in an "eternal weight of glory."

HOW THE LORD SUSTAINS..
(Ps. lv.. 22.)

SIN is but a bitter-sweet at best; and the fine colours of the serpent do by no means make amends for the smart and poison of the sting. WHEN the flail of afflictions is upon me, let me not be the chaff that flies in Thy face, but let me be the corn that lies at Thy feet.