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in Christ is in His people, and is manifested in them as in Him, who went about doing good, and wept over lost souls.

When there is fire, there is heat; when there is light, it will shine; when there is a fountain, there is a stream; when there is life, there is motion. The grace of God in the heart produces fruit, according to its nature, in the life. As the tree is known by its fruit, a person saved by grace is known by his gracious or spiritually benevolent efforts to save perishing sinners.

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You may ask, Christian reader, what can I do? In one sense, you can do nothing; but in another, all things. Without me,' says Christ, 'ye can do nothing.' 'I can do all things,' says an apostle, 'through Christ, who strengtheneth me.' God is pleased to glorify himself in producing great results by feeble instrumentality; so that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings he has ordained strength. Is not the great globe itself composed of atoms, and the rain that revives and beautifies it of drops? Has not the coral insect by its persevering labours constructed rocks from the bottom to the surface of the ocean, and thus laid the foundation of many beautiful islands? As God has inflicted many of His direst judgments by means of insects, and fulfilled some of His greatest and most magnificent purposes in nature by a feeble agency, so does He in grace work salvation often by the weakest instruments.

THE EDITOR'S LIBRARY.

EARLY PIETY, illustrated in the LIFE and DEATH

of a YOUNG PARISHIONBR. By the late Rev.

JAMES MARSHALL. Edinburgh: James Taylor. 'THE Young Parishioner,' by the late Rev. James Marshall, formerly one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and latterly Incumbent of Christ's Church, Clifton, is now republished in a very neat and attractive form, and enriched by a preface from the pen of the Rev. Dr Tweedie, of the Free Church. This little work has our cordial recommendation, from the persuasion that it, like others of the same class, is calculated to interest and benefit the young, and also to stimulate parents, guardians, ministers, teachers, and others who may have control over and influence with children, to inculcate the important

lesson of remembering their Creator in the days of their youth, and leading them to the Saviour, who, while He sojourned on earth, took little children in His arms, and blessed them, and said, 'Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'

THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND'S DUTY TO THE MASSES. By the Rev. ANDREW R. BONAR, Canongate Church, Edinburgh. Edinburgh: M. M'Phail. WE like the spirit displayed by Mr Bonar in this pamphlet, which we have read with much satisfaction. It is redolent of Christian zeal, and reflects credit on his ministerial character. A good deal has been written and printed on the same topic; but the repetition of wholesome truths is fitted to impress the public mind, and bring about improvements which a solitary statement would fail to accomplish. Mr Bonar does not write from mere reading or hearsay. He has evidently been a personal witness of the dismal scenes he describes, and thus adds another most important testimony to the many we already possess, in proof of the spiritual destitution and moral degradation of the masses who den in the lanes and closes of our larger cities and towns. All parties—the Church, the Parliament, the Press, and the People— have been more or less remiss in their several duties, or the evil never could have reached its present magnitude: but a full and accurate knowledge of the painful subject has now been imparted to all ranks and orders of the community; and we would fain hope, that a strong and general attempt will be made, not only to arrest the moral pestilence, but to introduce a better and more salutary state of things. Indeed, the good work has been already commenced; and if the Church is not deaf to Mr Bonar's warning voice, she will redouble her efforts and put forth all her powers to second and accelerate the auspicious movement. If she is not first in the great race of social amelioration,—if she does not exert herself to the very utmost in so important a cause, she has lost her Master's spirit; she is unworthy of being called by His name; and her candlestick will be bedimmed in its light, or altogether removed from her pale. But we hope better things, though we thus speak.' We

wish this excellent pamphlet a wide circulation, and trust that the suggestions which are thrown out in its pages will be taken up by the influential classes, who are there more especially addressed.

name.

THE CABINET.

A HIGH PRIVILEGE.

AMONG men, it is universally esteemed an honourable distinction to be related by blood to some ancient family, whose founder signalized himself above his compeers in the history of his country, and, in an age far remote, won for himself an imperishable But what are all family distinctions on earth, what is alliance with the most ancient and noble blood among the sons of men, compared with the lofty dignity, the high privilege, of being of the very same humanity with Him who existed before Abraham, yea, before Adam, yea, before the worlds, whose name is the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace! Let others boast of their pedigree, of their heraldic distinctions, of their descent, if they will, from the most ancient of all the families of the earth; let them run up the genealogy of their forefathers, if they please, even to mighty Nimrod, but let the Christian consider it a higher honour far, that he is of the very same flesh with Him who is, and who was appointed to be, the Heir of all things.

EMPLOYMENT OF SAINTS IN GLORY.

It is owing to the richness of grace, and stability of love, that I do not forfeit my title to the heavenly inheritance, by taking so little delight in divine things, and being so captivated with the perishing creature! O fool that I am! to be busied about dust and ashes, and to delight in a thing of nought; for the whole creation shall at last be set on fire, and deceive for ever all the votaries of sense. Then, when admitted into Thy unclouded and beatific presence, what a strange change shall take place in my pursuits! I shall feel a frame of mind superior to the claim of my faith, and my soul shall be filled with raptures never felt, never known below. My soul shall largely open to the sacred emanations of the Deity, and exert all her ravished powers in searching the divine perfections, and through eternity pursue the blissful theme. Then, and not till then, shall I know what it is to see God, to have communion and fellowship in their perfection with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ, and, with saints and angels, to enjoy Him in all His inexhaustible fulness. There shall not be an unemployed moment, nor an idle thought

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there. Crowns and kingdoms shall not excite one wish there; (why then should lesser things excite so many wishes now, since I self shall be my all in all through eternity! am to be so soon there?) but God's infinite

NO HAPPINESS BELOW.

NEVER shall I attain to happiness, while I seek it in the creature, or expect it out of heaven; and O how little concern have I with the things of time, who am so far on my journey towards eternity! When the world gets into the affections, there is nothing but tumult and disorder there; this I have long found; but when heaven dwells within, the heart becomes a little heaven, and all is peace and serenity, composure and joy. O! then, to keep the heart barred against enchanting trifles, and to live above every thing below. At the hour of death, I shall make my triumphant entry into the New Jerusalem, and from the walls of the holy city I shall bid defiance to all the cares of life, the pleasures of sense, the armies of corruption, and the legions of hell.

THE BEST EMPLOYMENT.

To prepare for a world to come may well employ me while in this world, and the sweet hopes of the heavenly paradise may well support me while travelling through there, it shall not diminish my bliss, that this earthly wilderness; and when I arrive and tempests in my face, clouds and thick in my pilgrimage I had sometimes storms darkness around me, troubles and dangers in my way, aliens and enemies as my companions by the way, and that I was often walking without any company at all, or with

When I arrive

there, I shall get such a view of the wisdom company worse than none. that conducted me along, that I shall not only approve of it, but admire, adore, and sing of it for ever.

PROSPECT OF FUTURE BLISS.

How soon I shall mingle with the inhabitants of the invisible world, I cannot say; but I assure myself it cannot be long. Why, then, converse I so seldom with the unseen world? why daily strike my roots deeper into this world, like an old tree, when, like an old tree, I must shortly be cut down! By kind providences, and gracious promises, I am hired to be heavenly-minded, and by afflictions am I chastened for my carnality; but could my faith get one sip of the heavenly banquet, I would long to sit down at the marriage-supper of the Lamb. What a rich feast is found in the kingdom of God, which entertains thousands and ten thousands of happy souls through eternity; and shall my immortal soul feed on the refuse of creation? I tread under foot the flowers of this footstool, and rise in my

ambition to the bliss of heaven, to the fruition of God. O what beams of glory shine on me! what treasures open in my view! the all-sufficient good enjoyed through everlasting day by all the powers of my expanding, wondering, ravished, and enlarged mind.

PARADISE.

HEAVEN is the proper place where all excellency dwells. Should we not then dwell mentally there? As the fields are most pleasant, fertile, and beautiful, which lie nearest the perpendicular rays of the sun, so the more nearly we approach the Sun of Righteouness, the more vigorous and lively shall our condition be: how shall we bloom and flourish like a tree planted by the rivers of waters! Oh! how beautiful shall we become in the eyes of God, angels, and saints! Worldings, you dwell in a cold climate; can any thing befall you except withering and decay? Come hither, this is the sunny side of the world; were ye here, ye could not but cry out, The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places, yea, I have a goodly heritage.'

FRIENDSHIP, LOVE, AND TRUTH. THREE sunny islets on life's river, Three golden arrows in life's quiver; Three stars that never fade or dim, Three notes that angels love to hymn; Three charms that guard the heart from

sorrow,

Three whispers of a brighter morrow;
Three links that bind with silken bands,
Three words whose might should rule all
lands;

Three watch-towers on earth's stormy strand,
Three harbours 'mid earth's treacherous sand;
Three life-preservers on Time's ocean,
Three voices 'mid the heart's commotion;
Three fragrant flowers most fair to see,
Three garlands twining round life's tree;
Three gems of pure, ethereal light,
Three paths, all lovely, smooth and bright;
Three rays of light from heaven's throne,
Where nought but happiness is known.

INATTENTION.

WHEN Bishop Aylmer observed his congregation inattentive, he used to repeat. some verses of the Hebrew Bible, at which the people naturally stared with astonishment. He then addressed them on the folly of eagerly listening to what they did not understand, while they neglected instructions which were readily comprehended.

IDLE COMPANY.

I HAVE often thought that, in the day

when the eternal state of man is to be determined, the greater part of those that are lost will perish, not through any gross and scandalous iniquity, but through a deadness

to God and His love, an ignorance of their own sinfulness, and, in consequence of that, through reigning pride and self-sufficiency. Now, the one great source of all these miserable disorders, or at least by which they are maintained and strengthened, is keeping much company with those whom the Scripture marks out as engaged in talk without sense; company, not with near relations or chosen friends, not with those for

whom we have any real or sincere regard, but with those who come to see us, and we go to see them, only because the providence of God has brought us into one town. It is this that devours infinitely precious time, and engages us in mere trifling, when we otherwise should be drawing nigh to God, and growing rich in divine knowledge and grace.

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THOSE preachers wretchedly mistake their office, and abuse their hearers, who spend all their discourses in recommending virtue to their notice and esteem, without leading them to the root of their disorder, and pointing out the cure.

NOTHING can be our happiness in this life, but what is to be the foundation of it in the next. If I cannot serve God and my Saviour with delight, and make a kind of heaven of it here, they have no other heaven for me hereafter.

HEAVEN is wherever God is; in my heart, if I desire it, and delight in His presence.

HEAVEN is rather a state of exemption from sin than from suffering. We must die for perfect conformity to the will of God; and it is worth dying for.

I MAY conscientiously take the wages for the work, when I have a distinct con

sciousness that I would do the work without the wages.

THOMAS GRANT, PRINTER, EDINBURGH.

OUR LORD'S CRUCIFIXION BETWEEN TWO THIEVES.-PART I.

ISAIAH delivers, in his 53d chapter, a full and clear prediction of the death of Christ. He dwells at considerable length, and with much tenderness of feeling, on its propitiatory nature; and while speaking of its attendant circumstances, he mentions it as one of the peculiar marks of the event, 'that He should be numbered with transgressors.' Although our blessed Lord would do no violence, and no deceit would be found in His mouth; though He would lead a life of perfect innocence, and preserve through the whole of it the strictest regard to truth and justice: yet it is foretold by the prophet, that notwithstanding His good and excellent character, He should meet with the fate of the most hardened criminal; or, as Isaiah expresses it, that He should be cut off from the land of the living, and make His grave with the wicked.' When an innocent man is condemned to death, he considers the imputation of guilt the worst part of the sentence: he dreads the whisper of reproach more than the pain of dying; and the agony of his shame continues to increase, if he is punished along with those who are really guilty. Now every element of evil, in its bitterest degree, was infused into the cup of suffering, which was poured out of the justice of God, and which our great Mediator had engaged to drink. Not only every species of violence that can injure the body, but even every kind of indignity that can afflict the mind, were heaped upon the 'Man of Sorrows" in the dark hour of His passion. When He was led to the Mount of Calvary as a criminal, and nailed to the accursed tree, the Holy and the Just One' was even then associated with sinners; for, as we read in the correspondent text of St Matthew, 'there were two thieves crucified with Him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.'

In our present Article on this interesting topic, we shall direct the attention of our readers chiefly to the two following points: -in the first place, to the crucifixion of the two thieves; and, in the second place, to the conversion of one of them.

First, We shall offer some remarks on
No. XIII.-THIRD SERIES.

the fact, that two thieves were crucified along with Christ.

We are not informed by the Prophet or the Evangelists, of the names or previous history of the two malefactors. Neither is it said when they committed the crimes for which they suffered, nor how long they had remained under sentence of death. It is probable, however, that they had, a short time before our Lord's trial and condemnation, been convicted like Barabbas of a capital crime, confined in the same prison with him, and sentenced like him to the punishment of death. On comparing their guilt with his, you may think it somewhat remarkable, that one of the thieves was not fixed upon by Pilate, to stand the chance of the popular acquittal at the Feast of the Passover. A regard to justice, we should reasonably conclude, might have led the Roman Governor to select one of them in preference to Barabbas, who had added the crime of murder to that of robbery. There can be little doubt that Pilate would have decided in this more equitable manner, had he wished our Saviour to be condemned. But, on the contrary, he wished Him to be acquitted; and in choosing his competitor for the favour of the people, he took care to fix upon a criminal of a character so notoriously depraved, that, averse as the Jews were to pardon Christ, they would yet, he hoped, prefer to have Him discharged before a man who had committed deeds most destructive of the peace of civil society, and most abhorrent to the feelings of human nature. Barabbas may have owed his life, therefore, to the opposite sentiments of the Jews and Pilate; and one of the thieves might probably have been set at liberty, if his crimes had been more aggravated than those of Barabbas.

We may next inquire, while treating this first part of the subject, why our Lord was crucified with two thieves? It may be considered as having been appointed for

two reasons.

First, it was a fulfilment of a Scripture prophecy.

Isaiah, as we have seen, had predicted that the promised Messiah, the future Saviour of the world, should be 'numbered

VOL. I.

with transgressors, and make His grave with the wicked.' This is a remarkable prophecy, and forms part of a very remarkable chapter. And being dictated by inspiration, it could not fail of being fulfilled at the proper time. The veracity of God was pledged for the occurrence of the event, or for the truth of the prediction. The sacred writers are not answerable in their own persons for a single sentence in any chapter of their writings. They are merely the reporters of Divine truth. All the things they reveal to us, were revealed to them. They never require us to believe anything they assert on the ground of their own wisdom, knowledge, or ability. They propose no doctrine to us, because it appears to them suitable to the nature of God, or to His relations with His creatures. They deliver no precept to us, because they can prove it graceful in itself, salutary to ourselves, or useful to mankind. We should have little confidence in the soundness of our faith, or in the correctness of our virtue, if the principles of which they are formed, or on which they depend, had no better foundation than the weak and uncertain authority of human reason. And we should have still less cause to rejoice, either in the consolations of the present, or in the hopes of the future, if they were not drawn from a heavenly source; if they were not inspired by a divine Comforter; if they were not founded on the Rock of Ages. Yes; how cheering the reflection, that the words of Scripture are not the words of man, but in very truth the words of God! They were 'written by holy men of old as they were moved and inspired by the Holy Ghost.' 'All Scripture is given by inspiration of God; and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.' Hence every prediction, with respect to the country, the parentage, the birth and birth-place, the name, the miracles, the discourses, the sufferings and death, the burial, resurrection, and ascension of the Saviour, is clearly foreshown in the histories of the Old, and exactly fulfilled in those of the New Testament. All things written of Christ, as He Himself informed the disciples, 'must come to an end. There is a necessity in the Divine counsels, which nothing can oppose or resist. They shall all meet with their accomplishment, whether men will or not.

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The heathen may rage, and the people imagine a vain thing against what God hath decreed; yet in spite of their fiercest opposition, every purpose of the Divine providence or grace shall be executed to its full extent, and at its proper date. And when we look into the history of the world, and observe so many of them fulfilled in the ages that are past, we may well rejoice that the Lord reigneth, and feel the most perfect assurance, that all of them that are yet future, will come to pass in their appointed times.

But, beside being a fulfilment of a Scripture prophecy, our Lord's crucifixion between two thieves was also a part of His humiliation.

A good name may be considered as the most valuable part of a man's possessions. When it springs from true faith, it would be difficult to over-estimate its value. If the rich lose it, they may be called poor; and if the poor gain it, they may be accounted rich. No man of sterling integrity, or of honourable feelings, can view an unjust attack upon his character without the liveliest resentment; and should he be pronounced guilty in a court of law, when he is really innocent, he considers this act of injustice as the cruelest of possible mistakes, as the greatest of earthly calamities. Now, our Saviour was exposed to this unjust treatment in its highest degree, to its very fullest extent. Every part of His character, every action of His life, was assailed by the vilest and most shameful misrepresentation. When He endeavoured to reform the lives of the dissipated and the profane, His enemies, the Jews, accused Him of being the friend of publicans and sinners. He came into the world eating and drinking, probably with the Divine intention (as one of His reasons) of showing the great example of using the good things of the present life with moderation and thankfulness; they no sooner observed Him, than they called Him a 'gluttonous person and a wine-bibber;' and had He acted a contrary part, and gone, like John the Baptist, to the extremity of temperance, they would have rudely jeered at Him as a man of strange habits, or even impiously said, 'He had a devil.' Though His miracles were of the most beneficent kind; though He made the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, the lame to walk, and even the dead to rise again,—

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