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Grace and Glory:—What are They?

A BRIEF CONSIDERATION OF

THE SEVEN HELPS OF HEAVEN, WHEREWITH A WANDERING ISRAELITE RETURNED UNTO GOD. (Continued from page 5, vol. xxiii.)

"While I am in life's battle-field, Jesus, be near my soul to shield From every woe;

CHAPTER II.

O grant me grace to look to Thee,
That I may ever manfully
Resist the foe.

Dear Jesus, look down from above,
O look on me with tender love

And watchful care;

Melt Thou this guilty heart of stone,
And mould it, till it shall alone
Thine impress wear.

So that when Death shall take away,
My spirit from this house of clay,
With sins forgiven;

I may not fear His dread alarms,
But fall asleep in Thy bless'd arms,
To wake in heaven!"

THUS did the grace of God in the heart of Ann Amelia Serle pant for the heavenly glory; and thus will the grace of God lead every heavenborn child of God to look unto JESUS, to plead the merits of His sacrifice, and to rejoice, at times, in hope of the glory of God.

Some have complained that I have given no motto for the year 1867. The words I commenced the year with, is a motto for all the years of time, and for the boundless ocean of ETERNITY! "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself! But, IN ME IS THY HELP!! I WILL BE THY KING!!!" These words spoken by the Lord, through Hosea, (xiii. 9, 10), will be found true in every age of this fleeting time state; and when the ransomed church has passed over the Jordan for ever, then, (however some may dispute the correctness of our translation) JESUS will be their KING for ever.

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The words I have quoted comprehend the three conditions of all the vessels of mercy. As they lay in the fall, Jehovah saith, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself." A covenant of grace having been made for them, a full salvation having been accomplished in their behalf; the Spirit of the living God, proceeding from the Father, and from the Son, saith, "I will be thy help ;" and this help being perpetuated and perfected by the Lord himself in the souls of all His redeemed, He says, (of the better kingdom yet to be possessed), "I will be thy King!"

What awful illustrations and confirmations of the first sentence doth the past history, and present aspect of the world afford! On every man-on the very best of men, the marks of destruction, the lineaments of the fall, the features of ruin are clearly to be seen. The third verse of the 19th Psalm is terrible in truthfulness, and dreadful in reality-"Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men!" The words are as full they can well be of the evidences of THREE THINGS, the consequences of which can never be fully written on the earth. The first thing I refer to is—

THE COMMANDMENT IN EDEN.

Read the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of the 2nd chapter of

Genesis. There is heaven's first and great commandment :-" And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat: but," (ah! this is the first solemn "but" in the Bible), "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die ;"—the margin says, "dying thou shalt die." That was heaven's first great commandment; and being spoken by the Lord God unto man; and being spoken unto the man in his state of innocence and strength, would have been sufficient, as one might think, to keep the man for ever from the slightest approach to anything like a transgression of that one commandment. Was there not scope enough, freedom enough, fruit enough, trees enough, variety enough, satisfaction enough in the heavenly grant" Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat?" certainly, enough indeed; and how gloriously everything goes on. "The Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam, to see what he would call them ; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof."

Ah!

Here was honour conferred upon the man! Here was constant intercourse between the Creator and the creature! Here was a business carried on indeed; and really it is quite plain, that while there were none but the Lord God and the man, and while the Lord kept the man fully employed, all things went well; and how truly do I know, there is safety while with the Lord I am alone; and while He protects me by the exercise of His power, all is holiness and happiness indeed.

Adam, in having all the creatures brought to him, and in their being named by him, is said to be a lively type of the Lord Jesus Christ. But I will not run so much into the typical here, as to lose sight of the literal. We have seen the first thing: heaven's great commandment not to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; which the studious Bunyan calls a type of the law, or covenant of works. Let us pass on to the second thing; only before we do so, let me say one word to all. There is no safety but in the closest communion with the Lord. While He is coming to us, and while we are employed by Him, there is the soul's safe shelter from every storm, and a shield from every temptation. Often as I walk the streets of the great city, to myself I sing—

"He that hath made his refuge to God,

Shall find a most secure abode;

Shall walk all day beneath His shade,
And there at night shall rest his head."

What, now, is the second thing? It is

THE FIRST GREAT TRANSGRESSION.

The woman is formed, and given to Adam. The serpent is subtile, and beguileth the woman. The very thing which God hath forbidden, to that the serpent tempteth the woman; and so effectually did the temptation succeed, that the woman took the serpent's eyes into her own head, so that she might look at things as he said; and hence we get that dreadful blow at the root of all Adam's primeval happiness, which is written in Gen. iii. and the sixth verse-" When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant”—(a desire)" to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise: she

took of the fruit thereof, AND DID EAT; and gave also unto her husband with her, AND HE DID EAT.”

There were three in the conspiracy; there were three amazing wonders in that second thing. We wonder how the serpent could dare to enter upon such a piece of business as this; and we wonder how the woman could be thus overcome; but we wonder more than all, that Adam should so soon drop into the snare; yet, so it is. That old serpent the devil, had been watching with malicious jealousy the creating hand of God. He had been cast out of heaven because of his enmity against THE SON OF GOD when He was set up as the Covenant Head of all that the Father gave unto Him, and now Satan beholdeth the power of God in creation. The garden, the man, the beasts, the fowls, the trees, the fruits, the planets, the rivers, the woman, and the dignity and glory which rested upon our first parents. Can he endure all this, and

not aim to strike a blow? He could not endure it. He enters into the serpent; he attracts the attention of the woman; through her the man is overcome; the end, as the serpent thinketh, is accomplished!

Oh, the dark deeps of that dread day,
When Satan stole man's heart away

From his Creator-God!

What streams of sorrow since have flown,
What crowds of errors since have grown;
How terrible the rod!

What is the third thing? We have seen the first great commandment. We have sighed over the first great transgression; now

comes

GOD'S GREAT SENTENCE UPON THE TRANSGRESSION.

The serpent is cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; he shall have neither feet to walk with, nor wings to fly with, nor hands to work with: " Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life;" and between the serpent and the woman there is enmity for ever. The woman's sorrow is to be multiplied, and in subjection she is to live; but, now comes the sentence which afflicts us all so dreadfully:

"And unto Adam (the Almighty now in terror) said,
"Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife,

"And hast eaten of the tree,

"Of which I commanded thee, saying,

"Thou shalt not eat of it:

"Cursed is the ground for thy sake;

"In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

"Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee;

"And thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,

"Till thou return unto the ground;

"For out of it wast thou taken:

"For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

Here in distinct lines is man's portion since the fall; and from hence, with all the subsequent evils, ariseth the sad lamentation: "Oh! Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself." On every page, this dreadful line is written. In every man's biography; in the annals of every section of the

globe, in every city, hamlet, and street; in every colony, and on every continent, the perpetual groan is heard :—

"Poor man! weak man is born to die;

Made up of guilt and vanity;

Thy dreadful sentence, Lord, was just;
'Return, ye sinners, to your dust!'
Death, like an overflowing stream,
Sweeps us away, our life-a dream;
An empty tale; a morning flow'r:
Cut down, and wither'd in an hour."

The grave is signalized by CRUELTY! The grace of God delights in VICTORY!! The glory of the FATHER'S HOUSE is noted for its BLISSFUL

PERPETUITY.

Let not despair fasten upon thy spirit, poor fallen sinful, and selfcondemned man. There is a second word which comes down from the eternal throne; its notes are few, but they are full of truth and grace. They are the words of Jesus Himself; He says, "IN ME IS THY

HELP."

I cannot quit this first section of my paper without remarking that, while I do not believe preachers of the Gospel are to confine themselves too much to THE FALL OF MAN, and its most lamentable consequences, still, I am persuaded that God honours that minister much who faithfully expounds, and enforces the dreadful state and danger of the man who lives and dies in his sinful condition. I will here give two different illustrations.

The first is as dark as it is melancholy. ander Paterson, the following leaf is found:

In the memoir of Alex

One night about nine o'clock, two young men called at Mr. Paterson's house, asking him to go and see a man in St. John street, who was in great distress. Our missionary had been out seven hours that day visiting in the wynds, and had just come home very much worn out with his labours.

"I'm very tired," he said, "and not very able to go. Is the case urgent?" "Yes; he is very anxious about his soul-it's cholera, and he is very ill." "Well, I'll go.'

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"But are you not afraid ?”

"Oh, no; as he is anxious about his soul, I'll go with you instantly." They soon were at the house. As they entered, a dismal spectacle presented itself. There was no fire in the room-all was in confusion; the man's wife and daughter, the latter a woman about twenty-five years of age, lay in one corner in a state of intoxication-in another corner, lay a man and his wife in a similar condition-in a third corner, stretched upon a pallet of damp straw, was the cholera patient, already in a far advanced stage of the disease. Two doctors were there, but they immediately left.

"You're very ill?" said the missionary, going at once to the dying man. "Oh, yes," he replied, stretching out to him his hand, which was already as cold as death, "I'm very ill."

"Do you think you are dying?"

"Yes, yes."

"What is your hope?"

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'Oh, Sir, I have no hope. I'm going to hell-I have been an awful sinner-I have lived without God and without Christ, and I've no hope. I've neglected the holy Sabbath, and the house of God, and the Bible. Oh! I'm a great sinner!" Then, looking up to the missionary, and grasping his hand more firmly, he added-"Oh, Sir, do you think there is mercy for such a sinner as me ?"

Mr. Paterson spoke of the blood of Jesus, but the man's agony only grew

deeper and more harrowing. "Oh! when I look back at my ungodly life," he cried, "I see nothing before me but hell! Oh! my sins deserve hell, the hottest place in it! Oh! what shall I do to be saved!"

By this time the missionary, in the depth of his concern for the poor man, had lain down beside him on the damp straw, beseeching him to be reconciled to God. When he rose to go away, the man clung to him with a convulsive energy. At last, after again praying, he left the house, accompanied by the two young men who had come for him. He went back early next morning to see him, but he was gone-he had died about ten minutes after they parted during the night. It was on 10th September, 1849.

The next illustration is of a different hue. How far it was genuinely better-better in eternity, I cannot tell. Here it is :—A man, in 1866, actually hung his own son in a cellar. He fled; but his guilty conscience so stung him, that he flung himself into the hands of justice. He was tried, condemned, executed. A Missionary-one M'Cree, zealously and charitably, and with great perseverance, visited and conversed with him in his cell. After the wretched man was gone, Mr. M'Cree preached a sermon, entitled, "THE LAST HOUR." It is published by J. Paul. the very commencement of that sermon, Mr. M'Cree says

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At

Sitting in the condemned cell with John Richard Jeffery, last Sunday afternoon, he said to me, Sir, what will be your text next Sunday night ?"" I opened the Bible, and read to him the words which I have just read to you, Thou hast destroyed thyself." He was silent for a moment: his breast heaved with sorrow; his eyes filled with tears; and then, taking the Bible from my hand, he turned to the 34th Psalm, and said, "These words comfort me-This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles;' and these words-'O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him."" And then, pointed to the 18th verse, he said, "And these words comfort me-"The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit."" "Well," I said, "when I have announced my text, 'Thou hast destroyed thyself,' I shall tell the people who will be present at the Mission Hall the words which have been a comfort to you." Thus, have I fulfilled my promise. The text was chosen, because it teaches the solemn lesson which I often sought to impress on the mind of John Richard Jeffery, and which I know he felt so bitterly during the last days of his life, viz: that he had destroyed himself, that he had brought himself to judgment and to death by an awfully and abominably wicked life. This he confessed to God on his knees with many tears: and this he confessed to me, time after time, as he narrated, not only the history of the crime for which he was executed, but as he unfolded the story of his life. To this impressive theme, then, I entreat your devout and earnest attention, viz:-Self-destruction by sin.

Thus far, I think the Missionary dealt faithfully with the criminal: the issue of his ministrations in the condemned cell would lead to the hope that Jeffery found forgiveness in the precious blood, power, and intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ; but I enter not into that now.

The seven-fold help of God's grace in the Gospel shall be next commenced if spared. Meanwhile, let us not forget "the fall is entire," it has so marred and crippled the flesh, that not one man liveth, who is, or can, in himself, be perfect. We are all spoiled, and cannot fully recover until the resurrection of the just. Remember, also, GRACE is called 66 HELP." Perfect victory over every fault, and over every fear, is not here obtained. An antagonistic warfare between grace and the great giant of the grave has continued for six thousand years; it still continues, it will continue, until the glorious God and Saviour of His

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