or altogether. Not only is it not to be bought by | the wealth of the rich, or the power of the mighty, the penances of the self-righteous, or the alms of the charitable; but it is not to be bought by our faith or our repentance as many seem to think. In this way we would be making a Saviour of our faith, which is as dangerous and more subtle a delusion than making a Saviour of our works. "But, what! do not my faith and repentance give me a title to the Gospel ?" No; for then the Gospel would not be free. You would be buying it by your faith and repentance. "But are not good frames and feelings required before I am at liberty to lay hold on the Saviour?" No. Your liberty to do so is the free offer of Christ in the Gospel, which was the same before you had any such frames or feelings at all. "But am I not at least to wait till I find some such feelings wrought in me?" No. That would be buying it by your waiting. "But is it not necessary that I should remain some time, (perhaps a long time) in darkness and depression before I am warranted to take the gift?" No. That would be buying it by your sufferings, and the Gospel is as free to you this moment as it can be after months or years of waiting and sorrowing. There is no necessity for waiting, nay, there is guilt in every moment's delay. "But is not the preparatory process a long one?" How long was it in the case of the three thousand converted by Peter's sermon? No. It is just "believe and live; come and take; stoop down and drink." "I will give to him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." In conclusion, we once more take up the words of our text and proclaim them in the ears of all. Listen, O sinner, to this call as to the voice of Him who from heaven thus so lovingly addresses you. Hear the voice of Him who, in such solemn circumstances, in such a moment of awful suspense, such a crisis of unutterable interest, proclaims to the last of earth's rebellious children the latest words of grace uttered from the mercy-seat before he leaves it for ever, to ascend that throne from which issues, not the voice of mercy, but the words of righteous judgment, not the voice of compassion, but the sentence of final doom. Listen to it as the offer of God's best and richest gift, to you the thirsty weary sons of earth; as the free unrestricted offer of it to the weariest, thirstiest, most wretched of all! "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters!" Without delay, without doubting, without lingering. Come! you are a wanderer in a wasteful desert. Above you the scorching sun; beneath you the burning sand; around, the dreary wilderness. No pleasant verdure, no refreshing palm-tree, no sheltering covert, no shadow of a great rock in all this weary land! You have sought water and there is none, and your tongue faileth for thirst. Whither shall you turn? You have gone to the desert-fountains and found them dry, or filled with the salt and bitter water which only increased your thirst. Oh, turn in hither and see this great sight, a fountain opened in the de sert,-opened for you. Go no longer from one broken cistern to another. Draw near this living fountain which flows for you. Drink, yea, drink abundantly of this full, this free, this freshly-flowing fountain! It is truly a refreshing fountain from which the weary spirit drinks and thirsts no more. It is a living, life-giving fountain, and wherever its immortal waters flow, they send through the fainting dying spirit their stream of immortality. It is a pure river, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and he that drinks of it is at once transformed into its own transparent purity. Oh! then, poor sinner, for what are you lingering? Why should you tarry one moment? Not for invitation, nor for liberty, for there is no exclusion, no unwillingness, yea, all gladness to receive you, and the invitation is proclaimed most freely to you, to all. Not for entreaty, for now are you entreated, as often before you have been, to come and take the water of life freely. Do you wait till you can bring something along with you to purchase the offered blessing? I tell you again, it is without money and without price,— most absolutely free! Are you waiting till you are thirsty enough? I tell you that you are thirsty enough already, and that no one could be otherwise who has lived a single day in a parched land like this. And besides, if you think that your thirst is to qualify you for receiving Christ, you are miserably deluded. It makes you feel your need of him, but that is all. It cannot qualify you for receiving him. Nothing in you can do that. Do you wait till you have wrought some improvement upon yourself? If you tarry till you have made yourself better, you will tarry for ever, you will never come at all. Would the sick man think of making himself better before he came to the physician? You say, had I not been so guilty I might be received; that is to say, you suppose there is a certain amount of guilt which might be forgiven, but every addition to it casts the balance against you; and you are to be condemned, not so much because you have not believed on Christ, but because you have committed a few sins more than another, and that other is forgiven, not so much because he has believed on Christ, as because he has committed a few sins less than you. You say again, were I innocent, I would feel no hesitation in hastening to the Saviour. Were you innocent, you would not need a Saviour to hasten to, you could do without him. In short, were you really to have, before coming to Christ, the preparation which you are seeking, when you came to him you would find him to be no Saviour at all for you, for he came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance. The Gospel not merely offers itself to you, but it comes to you. It does not ask you to meet it half-way. It meets you all the way. It is not a voice which speaks to you from afar, but one which comes to your very ear and heart. All that it asks of you is just that you be willing to take freely what is so freely offered. Poor burdened sinner, hear this and be of good cheer! You would fain have the gift, the precious, the immortal gift, which is more to you than the wealth of worlds. Well, here is the Gospel, which announces the gift. It tells you that that gift is not more precious than it is free, free in itself, and free to you; free to you as you are, not as you hope to be after some weeks' or months' preparation; free to you this very moment, all impenitent, all unbelieving, all ungodly as you are; free to you as a sinner, not merely although you are a sinner, but just because you are a sinner! 66 at Cosenza, was conducted to Naples, from which he was transferred to Rome. His sufferings were great, and he bore them with the most uncommon fortitude and patience, as appears from the letters, equally remarkable for their sentiment and pious unction, which he wrote from his prisons to the persecuted flock in Calabria, to his afflicted spouse, and to the Church of Geneva. Giving an account of his journey from Cosenza to Naples, he says: "Two of our companions had been prevailed on to recant, but they were no better treated on that account; and God knows what they will suffer at Rome, where they are to be conveyed, as well as Marquet and myself. The good Spaniard, our conductor, wished us to give him money to be relieved from the chain by which we were bound to one another; yet in addition to this he put on me a pair of handcuffs so strait that they entered into the flesh and deprived me of all sleep; and I found that, if at all, he would not remove them until he had drawn from me all the "But my heart, my hard, my impenitent, my unbelieving heart, surely I must have it softened and subdued a little before I can venture to go to Christ." And who then, we ask, is to do this for you? Can you do it yourself? "No; not my-money I had, amounting only to two ducats, which I self." Can any created being do it for you? "No; needed for my support. At night the beasts were betnot any created being." Who, then, can do it? ter treated than we, for their litter was spread for them, Lord, to whom can I go but to thee? thou only while we were obliged to lie on the hard ground with hast the words of eternal life." It is plain, then, for nine nights. On our arrival at Naples, we were out any covering; and in this condition we remained that the first, the very first thing you have to do, thrust into a cell, noisome in the highest degree from is just to go to that Saviour who thus invites the damp and the putrid breath of the prisoners." His you, that he may deliver you from all that hard-brother, who had come from Cuni, with letters of reness of heart, from all that unbelief over which commendation to endeavour to procure his liberty, gives you mourn. The existence of these within you the following account of the first interview which, after is the strongest of all reasons for going straight great difficulty, he obtained with him at Rome, in the to him without delay, that all which you lament presence of a judge of the inquisition. may be taken away. Now, then, come! Come with nothing in your hands but your sins. Come freely, come fearlessly; come thirsty and weary, that your thirst may be satisfied and your weariness refreshed. Whilst yet the fountain is flowing, and the access unchallenged, drink and thirst no more! Thus with joy shall you draw water out of the wells of salvation, drinking not merely the water of life, but the wine of heaven. Thus shall JehovahJesus give you to drink of the river of his pleasures. He shall give you the upper as well as the nether springs, the very fulness of that living stream of which you have here but the earnest in the droppings of the sanctuary, "for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed you, and shall lead you unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes." LUDOVICO PASCHALI; THE ITALIAN Extracted from the "History of the Reformation in Italy." By LUDOVICO PASCHALI was a native of Cuni in Piedmont, and having acquired a taste for evangelical doctrine at Nice, left the army to which he had been bred, and went to study at Lausanne. When the Waldenses of Calabria applied to the Italian Church at Geneva for preachers, Paschali was fixed upon as eminently qualified for that station. Having obtained the consent of Camilla Guerina, a young woman to whom he had been affianced, he set out along with Stefano Negrino. On their arrival in Calabria, they found the country in a state of agitation, and after labouring for some time to quiet the minds of the people and comfort them under persecution, they were both apprehended at the instance of the inquisitor. Negrino was allowed to perish of hunger in the prison. Paschali, after being kept eight months in confinement "It was hideous to see him, with his bare head and his hands and arms lacerated with the small cords with which he was bound, like one about to be led to the gibbet. On advancing to embrace him, I sank to the ground. My brother!' said he, if you are a Christian, why do you distress yourself thus? Do you not know, that a leaf cannot fall to the earth without the will of God? Comfort yourself in Christ Jesus, for the present troubles are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come.' No more of that talk!' exclaimed the judge. When we were about to part, my brother begged the judge to remove him to a less horrid prison. There is no other prison for you than this. At least show me a little pity in my last days, and God will show it to you.'— There is no pity for such obstinate and hardened criminals as you." A Piedmontese Doctor who was present joined me in entreating the judge to grant this favour; but he remained inflexible. He will do it for the love full,' replied the judge. They are not so full but that of God,' said my brother. All the other prisons are 66 a small corner can be spared for me.'-' You would in- friendly interest you have taken in my welfare. But as for me, God has bestowed on me that knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ which assures me that I am not in an error, and I know that I must go by the narrow way of the cross, and seal my testimony with my blood. I do not dread death, and still less the loss of my earthly goods; for I am certain of eternal life and a celestial inheritance, and my heart is united to my Lord and Saviour." When his brother was urging him to yield somewhat, with the view of saving his life and property, he replied, "O! my brother, the danger in which you are involved gives me more distress than all that I suffer, or have the prospect of suffering; for 1 perceive that your mind is so addicted to earthly things as to be indifferent to heaven." At last, on the 8th of September 1560, he was brought out to the conventual Church of Minerva, to hear his process publicly read; and next day he appeared, without any diminution of his courage, in the court adjoining the castle of St. Angelo, where he was strangled and burnt, in the view of the pope and a party of cardinals assembled to witness the spectacle. THE SHITTIM-WOOD OF SACRED SCRIPTURE. BY THE LATE REV. JAMES KIDD, D.D., Professor of Oriental Languages in Marischal College, and Minister of Gilcomston Parish, Aberdeen. THE tabernacle of Moses was, by divine appointment, wholly built of one species of wood, called shittim. Of this were formed, not only the boards and bars, or the outside of that edifice, but also its furniture, the altar of burnt-offering, the ark, the table of shew-bread, &c. Exod. xxv. An injunction so positive, and so frequently repeated, naturally incites the inquiring mind to seek for the reason of it: particularly when we reflect, that although Solomon employed a variety of kinds of wood in building the temple, yet we find not a single inch of the shittim among the whole. Cedar, olive, and fir found a place among the materials of that superb structure, but the shittim finds no place in the catalogue. Wisdom built both these houses; and wisdom must ever act upon such reasons as shall make her every measure justified by her children. Why, then, did she order her tabernacle to be built of shittim-wood only? The reason, I think, must be sought for in the design of the tabernacle, and of its appointed worship. Here it will be granted that the portable tent, called the tabernacle, was intended to be a figure of the humble and changeful state of the Church of God, during her march through the different stages of the present world, looking for a city that has foundations, wherein she may abide. It also represented the state of our Lord himself, when, being made flesh, he tabernacled in us, or in our nature. The great design of its ordinances of worship was to keep in memory the introduction of sin, and its stated connection with death; while, at the same time, the expiation of sin, by the death of a substitute in the room of the sinner, was vividly expressed before the eyes of the worshippers in the periodical rotation of the rites of sacrifice. Examining the tabernacle in this point of view, we may perhaps find the propriety of this measure of divine wisdom appointing this temporary tent to be constructed of shittim. It seems now to be admitted that this tree was not the cedar, as some have thought, but the black acacia, which grows in that part of the Desert of Arabia where the tabernacle was erected. Now, this species of tree being low in stature, only a small shrub compared with the lofty cedar, and far inferior to the latter in glory and durability also, was it not happily chosen to suit a structure that was only meant to be a humble, portable, and temporary habitation of God? The lofty, sublime, and durable cedar became the | temple, an edifice built by a great monarch, and meant to continue in one place, and that for a long series of ages; but the lowly, less showy, and less durable acacia was better fitted for the tabernacle. How properly, too, this humble appearance, and less durable nature, of the acacia expressed the appearance and condition of the Church of God in this world, as also of the appearance and state of our Lord's body when he dwelt among us, "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," the reader will easily discern. And not only did the appearance and quality of this tree suit these purposes, but its name strongly impresses the same thing. The Hebrews called it shittim, derived from a root which signifies hated, persecuted. And was not this the fate of Jesus? and has he not assured his followers that they shall be hated of all men, and persecuted for his name's sake? I add, the Church of Christ is not only connected with the cross, but is founded on it, yea, constructed, in a manner, of it. All her doctrines, her system of faith, are the doctrines of the cross. The preaching of the apostles was the preaching of the cross: "We preach Christ crucified." So they preached, and so we believe. Believers in Christ are believers in the cross, and must take up the cross and follow him. Thus, whether we consider the Church of Christ as a system of doctrines and ordinances of worship, or as a society of people, our tabernacle is still constructed of wood, of shittim-wood, the hated, the accursed tree. What tree more despised, hated, and abborred than the cross? Even the law of God has denounced it accursed. Yet in this despised, loathed, hated tree, and in it only, Christians are taught to glory; and God forbid they should glory in anything besides! So properly was the shittim, the black, the despised acacia, chosen to furnish materials for the figurative tabernacle, the shadow of the true. The true tabernacle has all its parts connected together by the faith of the cross, and the figurative one had all its boards joined and confirmed by bars of shittim-wood, some perpendicular, and some across, exactly in the form of a cross. The altar of burnt-offerings was also made of shittimwood. The great design of the offerings on this altar was to call up the remembrance of sin, and also to point out the means heaven had appointed for its expiation. Now, as sin and death came in by a tree, when the sacrifice was laid on the altar bearing the iniquity of, and suffering the death due to the sinner, did not this serve to put him in mind of the introduction of sin and death, as here he saw both still connected with a tree, the very name, as well as the use of which, was calculated to point out the divine hatred at sin, and the curse God has annexed to it? And when he saw the expiation of his sin issuing from the same tree, and the blood upon it, did he not see the greatest good educed from the greatest evil,-serving to explain the name of the original tree of which the shittim was the memorial,-the tree of knowledge of good and evil? CHRISTIAN TREASURY. How to find out what are our besetting Sins.—To find out our most beloved sin, let us consider what are those worldly objects or amusements that give us the highest delight; this, it is probable, will lead us directly to some one of our darling iniquities, if it be a sin of commission, and what are those duties which we read or hear of from the Word of God to which we find ourselves most disinclined, and this, in all likelihood, will help us to detect some of our peculiar sins of omission, which, without such previous examination, we may not be sensible of. As men have their particular sins which do most easily beset them, so they have their particular temptations which do most easily overcome them. That may be a very great temptation to one which is none at all to another. And if a man does not know I what are his greatest temptations, he must have been a stranger indeed to the business of self-employment. A man that knows himself is acquainted with his peculiar temptations and knows when and in what circumstances he is in the greatest danger of transgressing. Reader, if ever you would know yourself, you must examine this point thoroughly, and if you have never done it yet, make a pause, and do it now. Consider in what company you are most apt to lose the possession and government of yourself, on what occasions you are most apt to be vain and unguarded, warm and precipitant. Flee that company, avoid those occasions, if you would keep your conscience clear. What is it robs you of your time and temper? If you have a due regard to the improvement of the one and the preservation of the other, you will regret such a loss, and shun the occasions of it, as carefully as you would a road beset with robbers. But especially must you attend to the occasions which most usually betray you into your favourite sins, and consider the spring from whence they arise, and the circumstances which most favour them. They arise, doubtless, from your natural temper, which strongly disposes and inclines you to them. That temper, then, or particular desire, must be carefully watched over, as a most dangerous quarter, and the opportunities and circumstances which favour those inclinations must be most carefully avoided, as the strongest temptations. For the way to subdue a criminal inclination is first to avoid the known occasions that excite it, and then to curb the first motions of it, and thus, having no opportunity of being indulged, it will of itself in time lose its force and fail of its wonted victory.-MASON. (On Self-Knowledge.) Useful Hints. A proud man hath no God, for he has put God down and set himself up. An unpeaceable man has no neighbour, for he has driven them all away. A distrustful man has no friend, for he has disobliged all. Who will befriend him who hath no good opinion of another? A discontented man hath not himself, he has lost himself, because things are not as he would.-WHICHCOTE. The evils of Disunion among Christians.-In our present condition, our disaffection towards each other contributes greatly to deaden our perceptions of the glory of our Redeemer. We do not" with open face behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord," and are not "changed into the same image from glory to glory.” Our spirit being so sadly at variance with His, we value not at all, as we ought, his transcendent excellencies, and love him not at all as we ought to love him; for persons love those who resemble them in tastes, dispositions, and aims-they are kindred elements that unite and blend. Then, resembling and loving him so little, we take little pleasure in intercourse with him-we feel little desire to enjoy communion with him, and thus we continue imperfectly acquainted with his character and his will, and consequently must continue to yield him but a very defective obedience. Thus there springs from our alienation of spirit from his, in regard to our brethren, a circle of evils, which, firmly concatenated, support, aggravate, and perpetuate each other. On the other hand, the more that we imbibe of the spirit of Christ-the spirit of forbearing and compassionate love-the more will the feelings of our hearts harmonize with his; and, in proportion as they do so, the more our love to him will increase; and, as love increases, we will desire the more intercourse and communion with him, and the enjoyment of these will in turn tend greatly to increase our knowledge in regard to all Divine things; for we could not have frequent intercourse with an intelligent individual of our own species, without gaining great accessions to our knowledge. How much more then shall we gain in this respect by daily intercourse with "the only wise God!" Then, the knowledge of all Christians will possess the greater identity, the more that in each it is increased and extended, and speculative differences will proportionately diminish, for it is owing to the limitation and imperfection of our knowledge that we entertain conflicting opinions. Errors will be corrected, misconceptions will vanish, and we will regard and esteem each other as we ought;-beholding in each other the bright and lovely image of him who is "fairer than the sons of men," we will love one another "with pure hearts fervently." For why is it that there is so little love among us now, but because the lineaments of the Divine image are in most of us so faint! A man of peculiarly pure and elevated character, commands the admiration, and wins the hearts of all who are not dead to every Christian feeling. In the presence of such a man the profane are struck with awe, and the unholy hand raised to assail him falls back paralyzed. An odour of sanctity is diffused around him wherever he goes; his " garments smell of myrrh," and of the incense of that inner sanctuary in which he dwells." In time of trouble," such are hid by God" in the secret of his tabernacle," they are kept "secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." THE AUTHOR OF HOURS OF THOUGHT. (The Christian Church Considered in Relation to Unity and Schism.) us. Besetting Sins.As in the humours of the body so in the vices of the mind there is one predominant, which has an ascendant over us, and leads and governs body of our nature; it begins to live first, and dies last, It is in the body of sin what the heart is in the and whilst it lives it communicates life and spirit to the whole body of sin, and when it dies the body of sin dies with it. It is the sin to which our constitution leads us, our circumstances betray, and custom enslaves us, the sin to which not our virtues only, but vices too, lower their topsails and submit,-the sin which, when we would impose upon God and our conscience, we excuse and disguise with all imaginable artifice and sophistry, but when we are sincere with both, we oppose first and conquer last. It is, in a word, the sin that reigns and rules in the unregenerate, and too often disturbs and alarms (ah, that I could say no more,) the regenerate.-LUCAS. (Sermons.) The Divine Origin of Christianity.-It has been well said that the Apostles of Christ could as soon have created a world as have originated Christianity. A combination of fishermen to form a new religion is scarcely conceivable, that rude, unlettered men, engaged in the most laborious drudgery should have invented Christianity, would be as great a miracle as any which ever fell under human observation. The Gospel, even on the admission of its enemies, has carried away the palm from all philosophy; the Author of Christianity, on the admission of infidels, was more successful than all the great spirits of antiquity, who turned their attention to moral subjects.. Could this glorious system of faith and practice have come from the fishermen of Galilee? If the apostles are to be believed, it did not originate with them, they felt honoured above measure in being the servants and disciples of its Author,-of him whom they styled Master and Lord, whom they confessed to be Christ the Son of the living God. "If the Gospel be not from God," says Dr Whately, "it belongs to men to give some other account of its origin. Infidels have had now nearly two thousand years to make discovery; and their silence proves they can give no other account of the matter which would not be open to stronger objections, than they can bring forward against Christianity."JAMES STEELE. (A Manual of the Evidences of Christianity.) SACRED POETRY. THE STILL, SMALL VOICE. HE cometh, He cometh, the Lord passeth by; He cometh, He cometh, the tempest is o'er; There's a home for the homeless, prepared in the skies; Shall be changed to the anthem and chorus of heaven. THE PROGRESS OF TRUTH. On through desolation wide, When its streams the desert cheer, Eden's charms again appear, Till, blending with the sea of sin and woe, Praise the Lord of life and light! See! His triumphs are begun : Earth's dark places hail the Sun, Bursting on their lengthened night. Ye that mourn for Zion, rise! Thither turn your raptured eyes. Who are these that cloud-like come, Or like doves when flocking home? Judah's returning exiles: hark! they sing Hosannahs to their own, their long rejected King. Say not, "This is Fancy's dream:' No: the reeling nations shake, And all his foes, in anguish and dismay, Or meek submission, soon shall own His righteous sway. On, then, soldiers of the cross, Spread afar your Leader's fame, More than victors through His name, Earthly gain account but loss, Every cumbrance cast away; To sound, in higher, holier strains, His praise, MISCELLANEOUS. The Christian places of Assembly in early ages.The Christian places of assembly were, at first, in the rooms of private houses; it may, perhaps, be the case, that in large towns, where the number of Christians was soon considerable, and no member of the Church had any room in his house sufficient to contain all his brethren, or in places where men did not fear any prejudicial consequences from large assemblies, the Church divided itself into different sections, according to the habitations of its members, of which each section held its assemblies in one particular chamber of the house of some wealthy member of the Church; or, perhaps, while it was usual to unite on Sundays in one general assembly, yet each individual part of the Church met together daily in the rooms which lay the most convenient to it. Perhaps the passages in St. Paul's Epistles, which speak of churches in the houses of particular persons, are thus to be understood. The answer of Justin Martyr, to the question of the præfect, "Where do you assemble?" exactly corresponds to the genuine Christian spirit on this point. This answer was: "Where each one can and will. You believe, no doubt, that we all meet together in one place; but it is not so, for the God of the Christians is not shut up in a room, but being invisible, he fills both heaven and earth, and is honoured every where by the faithful." Justin adds, that when he came to Rome, he was accustomed to dwell in one particular spot, and that those Christians who were instructed by him, and wished to hear his discourses, assembled at his house. He had not visited any other congregations of the Church. The arrangements which the peculiarities of the Christian worship required, were gradually made in those places of assembly, such as an elevated seat for the purpose of reading the Scriptures and preaching, a table for the distribution of the sacrament, to which, as early as the time of Tertullian, the name of altar was given, and perhaps, not without some mixture of the unevangelic Old Testament notion of a sacrifice or at least, this idea might easily attach itself to this name. When the Churches increased, and their circumstances improved, there were, during the course of the third century, already separate church buildings for the Christians. In the time of the external prosperity of the Church, during the reign of Diocletian, many handsome churches arose in the great towns. Neander's History of the Church during the Three First Centuries. CONTENTS.-The Power of Conscience, Exemplified in the case Published by JOHN JOHNSTONE, 2, Hunter Square, Edinburgh: J. R. MACNAIR, & Co., 19, Glassford Street, Glasgow; JAMES NISBET & Co., HAMILTON, ADAMS, & Co., and R GROOMBRIDGE, London; W. CURRY, Junior, & Co., Dublin; and W. M'COMB, Belfast; and sold by the Booksellers and Local Agents in all the Towns and Parishes of Scotland; and in the principal Towns in England and Ireland. Subscribers in Town, will have their copies delivered at their own residences regularly, by leaving their addresses with the Publisher. Subscription (payable in advance) per quarter, of twelve weeks 18. 6d., and the other periods in proportion, |