forbid. Let such as know what the love of Jesus, flowing forth in the rich purple stream of blood is, say, whether a sight of that blood—a conscious laying hold of the salvation it brings, does not humble him in the dust, and make him hate himself and his sin a thousand times more than he hates the devil himself. We are at a point about it—we are sure and certain that these are the effects of life in the soul. oh how precious these weeping seasons at the foot of the cross. what insignificance does self, and trial, and exercise sink, when favoured to sit there. Oh for a more frequent interview with Jesus; for clearer, and fuller, and more humbling views of the Lamb.

And
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We proceed to speak of the longing of which the apostle speaks; and this also is among the secret operations of the Lord the Eternal Spirit in the heart. The Lord's family may truly be said to be a peculiar people; for they see, and feel, and hear, what the world knows nothing about. They speak a kind of dumb language-a language incompresible to the world, but, blessed be God, fully to be comprehended by the fellow-members of that family. Be they ever so remote; were they born as far from each other as the poles; aye, did they speak in different tongues; yet let but the recognition of the Spirit be felt, and they become manifestively brethren, and claim relationship from everlasting. Nay, we go further; that as "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen; so, in its operation as regulated by its divine Author, the Holy Ghost, it will take into its armsfold within its embrace-those whom its possessor never has seen, nor can see, until time shall have ceased to be-eternity shall have dawned -and the redeemed from every nation, tongue, and people, shall have met around the throne in glory. Yea, more, the liveliest interest—the most fervent outgoings of soul and wrestlings of faith, on behalf of these dear unknown, yet well known, shall be experienced.

The little we have said would apply more to the apostle's lamentation of the absence of the fruits of his ministry, than the longing for evidences of it. As God shall enable us, we will now dwell briefly upon the latter.

Perhaps the most significant figure by which to set it forth, will be the parent. His child is absent-see how he longs for his return; he says but little, yet counts the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, when he expects him to come back. Be he really ever so distant, yet mentally he is always present. With each act and exercise in the daily operations of life, thoughts of his child are intermingled. Does he apprehend danger? Are tidings brought him of his child's being afflicted with a malady of any kind? his bowels yearn-his whole frame undergoes a secret, yet powerful convulsion, and he calculates but too in. cautiously of the distance which separates himself and his child. He flees upon the wings of affection to the sick chamber or the dying conch, only presently to fall back upon his own reflections with the greater suffering. Oh, a parent! a parent! who shall describe the tender tie? "My child-my child ill, and far away! Who tends his couch? Who smooths his pillow, and administers to his necessities? Perhaps even now the cold-the icy hand of death is on him, and I shall never see him more. Oh, my child! my child !"

Or may be he had fled, as another prodigal. Early self-will had grown into disobedience, and disobedience into acts of rebellion; and presently he flies a father's discipline. See at first he gluts himself in sin-debauchery of every kind; but his money gone-pretended friends withdrawn-penniless and homeless, he wanders through the land, envying the worm beneath his tread. "Yet still I have a father! Ah! but how can I return? Perhaps c'en now I've brought his hoary locks with sorrow to the grave! And my mother, too, that dear-that tender one, who watched, and nursed, and nourished me with kindly hand and eye-ah! what are her reflections on this cold, tempestuous night, as she thinks upon her former darling boy? But he is my father still, and she my mother. Misconduct has not cut in twain so dear a tie. I'll return-I'll beg my way towards my father's house, and at eventide will venture to his door to ask at least forgiveness-shelter-and a servant's pittance." He goes. Above the howling of the wind is heard a trembling knock at yonder door, and in another minute stands. within the hall the long-lost, greatly-mourned-for son!

Reader, behold the scene! "Who comes to this lone spot on such a dreary night?" the parent asks. "Thy son!" "My son! my longlost boy! Why, still he is my child-my child! Though reckless, dissolute, and bad, yet he is my child, my dearly-loved child still. I'll fly to his relief. I'll succour-aid him still. Rise-rise, my boy! Come, throw thine arms around me, let us once again embrace. I pardon-I forgive-forget the past. My boy-my dear boy still!"

Reader, this is relationship-these are the moving of the bowels of compassion, sympathy, and love. Do you know anything of these feelings spiritually? After conscious departures from the Lord, when ashamed and afraid to return, do you know what it is for the Lord to come in his own covenant character as your Father, saying as he did of old in the 31st of Jeremiah, "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my bowels are troubled for him I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." Do you know what it is for the Lord to pass by your sin-to cover you with a mantle of love; and to make himself, after all your hard thoughts of him, a thousand times more precious than he was before? You know them to be sweet seasons, if thus the Lord has ever indulged you :—

"Sweet the moments, rich in blessing,
Which before the cross I spend ;
Health, and peace, and joy possessing,
From the sinner's dying Friend."

Oh how precious is the Lord, then; how right his ways-how just his dealings-how wise his counsels-how great his love; and how little are the trials, and how few the enemies, and how certain the bliss at the end of the race. It is then father and child-Jesus and his bridewithout a fear or a doubt.

Now, in intimate connection with these exercises stands that travail of soul-that deep concern-which the really sent servants of God feel

on behalf of the flock over which they are made overseers. "They rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep." They have to go down into the deeps in order to find out their hearers; and to precede them in the experience of delivering mercy, in order to point out to them the power, and the grace, and the faithfulness of their great Deliverer. Made acquainted themselves with the snares and pitfalls into which the tempted believer is ever liable to fall, a holy concern is awakened in their breast as they contemplate the character and the standing of their hearers. They tremble as they see them engrossed in the world-entrapped by Satan-or led away by the treachery of an evil heart of unbelief, ever prone to depart from the living God. They travail in soul, too, for those who are in legal bonds, who, feeling themselves sinners-knowing their lost estate and condition-are not yet led to behold Christ as their salvation. They long after, and beseech the Lord to graut, freedom to such captive souls; and wish for that gracious deliverance to be spoken from the Lord's own mouth as shall at once establish the validity of the work, and bring joy and peace in believing. They long also for fresh light to be vouchsafed to those who walk in darkness; wherefore to point out that darkness, and give demonstration that it is not unto death, they are left to grope in the dark themselves, that thereafter they may likewise point out the power and dominion of Him who is the light of life. Moreover, they enter into the trials and the exercises which, in a way of Providence, the children of God are called to meet with in the way to the kingdom. Of these bitters, in some form or other, they must also taste in order to sympathize with, and speak a word unto, those who are called to experience the same. And when the shades of evening begin to close around some, or the sun goes down at midday, with other of their hearers, here also a fresh vein of anxiety is opened; new travail comes on that the Lord may kindly vouchsafe his presence-grant support-and give a final victory over the last enemy, Then a yearning over departed friends-bosom companions-will succeed; and perhaps a jealousy that they were taken, comfortably housed, and themselves still left in the field of warfare. Thus the really faithful ministers are in a state of servitude; they labour at once in a glorious yet a momentous cause; and though at times they feel assured that they serve a good Master, and are content to trust him for payment-satisfied to wait till his promissory note shall have arrived at maturity, a date with which the Lord alone is acquainted; yet there are seasons-and these neither few in number nor short in their duration-when they feel a faintness by the way, and an indescribable sinking and sorrow of heart. And surely with all this, the really Spirit taught and Spirit-sent ministers are entitled to some amount of sympathy from their hearers; but how little do they get! They must look higher, if they would have peace and establishment. He looks too low who looks to creatures for his coinfort. Hence the Lord will often let the dearest friend take the part of an enemy. "For it was not an enemy that reproached me then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him; but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance."

Reader, contemplate again the apostle's language, "in the bowels of Jesus Christ." It implies such a union-such a oneness of interestsuch an inexpressible share of concern and amount of sympathy. And this really and truly exists between Christ and all his members. To our want of a more fixed and abiding conviction of this may be attributed so much of our wavering, and fretfulness, and rebellion under trial. Could we more clearly see that whatever trial, or sorrow, or temptation, we were under, there the Lord as our Head and Husband was also, and that too for our support, our succour, our protection, and our ultimate deliverance, we should sit down more passive under the cross, aye, and that cross would be the sooner removed.

But, readers, we are fancying ourselves alone under the trial-we feel the weight of the cross, as if it were exclusively upon our shoulders; whereas if it were so really and truly, it would presently crush us to death beneath its weight. Were it not for the Lord's sustaining us, and bearing off the pressure of the cross with his own kind hand, we should either go mad-break out into awful blasphemies and deny the Lord who bought us; or we should sink down into despair-die by our own hand -or be seized as a ready prey by the great enemy of sou's. But the Lord, in very faithfulness and mercy, prevents all this. He watches the effects of his own trials-we mean the trials which he himself, in his fatherly love, kindness, and compassion, is pleased to lay upon us; and when that cross or that trial has had its due weight and appointed end concerning us, then, and not till then, will the Lord take it off. So we may as well sit down quietly under it first as last; for into this submissive frame we must be brought before the trial shall be removed.

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Mark, however, the compassions of the Lord under the exercises of his children, as expressed by the apostle in his participation of them— "In the bowels of Jesus Christ; and take in connexion the language of the Holy Ghost by the prophet Isaiah, "Can a woman forget her suck. ing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before (Isa. xlix. 15). Imagine for a moment a mother's love. Ere the child is born, see how various the feelings she labours under. Made to partake reciprocally with her child, of a new existence- -a life sepa rate yet one with herself a life that hangs upon her. Mark also the struggling of the child-the yearning of the mother-ere the child sees the light. Go to Solomon's judgment-seat to see what the mother's bowels of compassion are. There behold the yearning of a mother's love; then take your stand by the dying couch of a child. Did you ever watch the mother as she looks with anxious eye upon her child? Though 'tis weaned, the mother fain would bug it to her breast, and again supply its native nutriment; how scrupulously she watches. every movement, and how quick to wet the parched lip, and give some soothing cordial. See her responses to the speaking eye-the plaintive moan-the gentle yet the long-drawn sigh; and, when death comes, mark how absorbed she is. The dying babe appears to stretch almost t snapping e'en the inother's chords of life; and, when 'tis dead, the

mother feels as if herself were gone. If she speaks, she speaks with absence-if she walks, it is as though she were inhabiting another world. But oh above-beyond all this, the keenest sympathies of man-of womankind, Jehovah-Jesus is possessed of majesty and power to grant relief and give deliverance, when they are absolutely needed. Man's sympathies fall short for want of power, but Jesus can and does vouchsafe deliverance in each and every juncture where we need his special care and brotherly solicitude. Oh! for a steadfast looking to, a more abiding resting on, him, 'mid the trials, the sorrows, and perplexities of this vain, fleeting world.

Eternal Spirit, thou dear Testifier of Jesus, we beseech thee grant us, with thy whole church, to see more clearly our perfection and comeliness in Christ lead us away from the so frequent pouring over self and sin, to the contemplation of Christ, as the sin-bearer, the strength, the consolation, and the hope of his Israel; so that, whatever we may find lacking in ourselves—and truly in us, that is in our flesh, there dwelleth no good thing-we may be led by the self-same Teacher to discover all that wisdom, righteousness, and strength, which are treasured up in Christ for and on the behalf of his redeemed. Be it so, O Lord. Amen and amen.

THE EDITOR.

EXTRACT FROM THE STATUTE BOOK OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

P. 301, CAR. 11. REX.

"VICE CHANCELLOR AND GENTLEMEN,-Whereas his Majesty is informed that the practice of reading sermons is generally taken up by the preachers in the University, and therefore sometimes continued even before himself. His Majesty hath commanded me to signify to you his pleasure that the said practice, which took its beginning from the disorder of the late times, be wholly laid aside, and that the said preachers deliver their sermons both in Latin and English by memory without book, as being a way of preaching which his Majesty judgeth most agreeable to the use of all foreign churches, to the custom of the University heretofore, and to the nature and intention of that holy exercise. And that his Majesty's commands in these premises may be duly regarded and observed, his further pleasure is that the names of such ecclesiastical persons as shall continue the present supine and slothful way of preaching, be from time to time signified to me by the Vice Chancellor for the time being, on pain of his Majesty's displeasure.

"Oct. 8th, 1674."

"MONMOUTH."