With every temporal blessing, I never reaped pure enjoyment, for my affections were never in due subordination. My eyes being turned to the channels of temporal blessings, instead of God their source, I was in continual anxiety, either to grasp more, or lest I should lose what I had already got. God had compassion upon me, and in mercy sent misfortune to lead me to him. I once had a son, the pride of my heart; a daughter, and she began to be the friend and comfort of her mother. Each was grown up, and began to yield us comfort beyond our fondest hopes; when we had to watch each through a slow and lingering disease. Blessed be God, who taught them to live the life of his saints, and gives them now, as the angels in heaven, to behold his glory, face to face! They were taught, but not of us; it was the work of God-of that God, whom as yet we knew not. Their deaths, but, oh! how unspeakably bitter did that pang seem, which came in mercy to call us to God, and give us spiritual life! Till we fainted under the stroke, we did not remember that our insensible hearts had never yet been thankful for the blessing, whose loss we were ready to repine at: we can now in mercy say, that we know afflictions do not spring out of the dust. Blessed be God, I can now from my very heart thank him, for uniting me for all the ages of a blissful eternity with those dear and blessed spirits, towards whom I only thought of the short intercourse of time. Oh! how short my views! how long his love! Surely his mercy, and the fruit of it, endureth for ever. This was our greatest affliction. Besides, I have, through a variety of accidents, lost my relations and my possessions; and I now, in my old age, serve in the house where I was once master. Yet, I find, indeed, that 'to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, is indeed life eternal.' A man's life does not consist in the abundance which he possesses, but in that peace which passes all understanding, and which the world can neither give nor take away. I desire to live by faith day by day, and trust in the Lord to provide for the morrow. In short, sir, I have found by experience, that every worldly good without God is empty, and that God without any worldly good, is, as of old, all-sufficient !" This discourse struck M. de Rance to the heart. It was a ray of light from above. He was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. From Lancelot's Account of Port Royal. THE GREAT DEBT. Q. WHAT is the moral law of God? A. The transcript of his own most holy nature, and the standard of human purity and obedience. Q. Will this law make any allowance for human infirmity, or admit any abatement of the perfect conformity which it demands? A. It makes no allowance for the former, nor will it dispense with a single grain of the latter. Q. How does that appear? A. It appears from the undeniable current of Scripture; where the language of the law is, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," Matt. v. 48. "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them," Gal. iii. 10. The indispensable requisition is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself," Luke x. 27. Hence in the eye of the law, and the estimation of the Lawgiver, the risings of wrath are tantamount to murder; the calling any man a fool exposes to the penalty of hell fire; an impure thought brings us under the condemnation of actual adultery, Matt. v. 22-28. Q. What is the grand inference from these alarming premises? A. That inference which the apostle terms an evident one, and evident indeed it is, namely, that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, Gal. iii. 11; for a single breach of the law renders us guilty of the whole, Jas. ii. 10; and one idle word lays us open to the vengeance of God, according to the tenor of the covenant of works, Matt. xii. 36. Q. Supposing a person were to break the law but once in twenty-four hours; to how many would his sins amount in a life of ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty years? A. If he were to fail in moral duty but once a day his sins, at ten years of age, would amount to 3650; at twenty years' end, the catalogue would rise to 7300; at thirty, to 10,950; at forty, to 14,600; at fifty, to 18,250; at sixty, to 21,900; at seventy, to 25,550; at eighty, to 29,200. Q. What if a person's sins are supposed to bear a double proportion to the foregoing estimate? That is, let us imagine him to sin twice a day, or once every twelve hours. A. In that case his sins, at the age of ten years, will be multiplied to 7300; at twenty, to 14,600; at thirty, to 21,900; at forty, to 29,200; at fifty, to 36,500; at sixty, to 43,800; at seventy, to 51,100; at eighty, to 58,400. Q. We must go further still. What if a man's sins keep exact pace with every hour of his life? that is, we will suppose him to sin twenty-four times a day. A. His sins will then amount, in a life of ten years, to 87,600; at twenty years of age, they will accumulate to 175,200; at thirty, to 262,800; at forty, to 350,400; at fifty, to 438,000; at sixty, to 525,600; at seventy, to 613,200; at eighty, to 700,800. Q. Is there a single minute from the first of our existence to the very article of death, wherein we come up to the whole of that inward and outward holiness which God's all perfect law requires? A. Most certainly not. Q. Of how many sins is each of the human race guilty, reckoning only at the rate of one sin for every minute? A. At ten years old, we, according to that method of calculation, are guilty of no fewer than 5,256,000 sins; at twenty, 10,512,000; at thirty, of 15,568,000; at forty, of 21,024,000; at fifty, of 26,280,000; at sixty, of 31,536,000; at seventy, of 36,792,000; at eighty, of 42,048,000. Q. May we not proceed abundantly further yet? Sixty seconds go to a minute. Now, as we never in the present life rise to the mark of legal sanctity, is it not fairly inferable that our sins multiply with every second of our sublunary duration? A. It is too true. And in this view of the matter, our dreadful account stands as follows. At ten years old each of us is chargeable with 315,036,000 sins; at twenty, with 630,720,000; at thirty, with 946,080,000; at forty, with 1,261,440,000 ; at fifty, 1,576,800,000; at sixty, 1,892,160,000; at seventy, with 2,207,520,000; at eighty, with 2,522,880,000. Q. When shall we be able to pay off this immense debt? A. Never. Eternity itself, so far from clearing us of the dreadful arrear, would only add to the score by plunging us deeper even to infinity. Hence the lost will never be able to satisfy the justice of the Almighty Creditor. Q. Will not Divine goodness compound for the debt by accepting less than we owe? A. Impossible. Justice, Holiness, and Truth will and must have their own, even to the very uttermost farthing. God himself (with profoundest veneration be it spoken) must become an Antinomian, and renounce himself, ere he can forego his essential attributes, and repeal his inviolable law, by offering violence to those, and by making void the claims and the threatenings of this. Q. Who, then, can do us any good in this respect? A. Not all the angels in heaven, nor all the men that ever did or ever shall exist. Others cannot help us, nor can we help our ownselves. Q. If so, are we not lost, without remedy and without end? A. In ourselves we are. But (sing, O heavens!) God's own arm brought salvation. Q. How so? What is there wherewith to counterbalance such an exceeding and astonishing weight of guilt? A. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us," Gal. iii. 13. This will not only counterbalance, but infinitely overbalance all the sins of the whole believing world. Q. If the personal short-comings and misdoings of each sinner in particular amount to so vast a multitude, who can calculate the extent of the whole national debt, (so to speak,) the entire aggregated sum, which, abstracted from her union with Christ, lies on the church at large; that elect nation whom he has redeemed from among men? A. The arithmetic of angels would be unable to ascertain the full amount. O thou covenanting, thou incarnate, 'thou obeying, thou bleeding, thou dying, thou risen, thou ascended, thou interceding Son of God! not all the seraphs thou hast created, not all the innumerable saints thy love hath ransomed, will be able to comprehend, much less to display, along the endless line of eternity itself, the length, the breadth, the depth, the height of a sinner's obligation to Thee. Q. If, on the one hand, we are each constrained to cry out with the believers of old, Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight shall no flesh living be justified by works of human performance-who can tell how oft he offendeth? How shall man be just before God? If thou contend with him for his transgressions, he cannot answer thee for one of a thousand. My sins are more in number than the hairs of my head; forgive us our debts, and cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. What has faith to say? A. Faith, on the other hand, can reply in the very words which the Holy Ghost teacheth, The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin; and there is now no condemnation [ouden katakrima, not one condemnation] to them that are in Christ Jesus. So that we may sing, with Dr. Watts, 66 Believing sinners free are set, For Christ hath paid their dreadful debt." We may add in the words of another sweet singer in Israel, "Who now shall urge a second claim? Faith a release will show : The prison-house a whisper hears, Q. What return can believers render to the glorious and gracious Trinity for mercy and plenteous redemption like this? A. We can only admire and bless the Father for electing us in Christ, and for laying on him the iniquity of us all: the Son, for taking our nature and our debts upon himself, and for that complete righteousness and sacrifice whereby he redeemed his mystic Israel from all their sins; and the co-equal Spirit, for causing us, in conversion, to feel our need of Christ, for inspiring us with faith to embrace him, for visiting us with his sweet consolations by shedding abroad his love in our hearts, for sealing us to the day of Christ, and for making us to walk in the path of his commandments. A. M. Toplady. OUR MERCIES. THOUGHT. It is not a metaphysical definition of what thought is, but a consideration of the delight which its exercise affords, and the importance of it as a blessing, which it is interesting to contemplate. The delight which thought affords is felt by every rational mind; for the goodness of God has not confined this pleasure to the learned, but has annexed gratification to the simplest contemplation of his works. The rose in the cottage window, the child asleep in the cradle, the pet-lamb feeding in the porch, call forth admiring and tender thoughts, which are not unfrequently expressed with much feeling by the cottager. Nature has its own responses, its own sympathies and melody in every bosom; and though the hand of taste may touch some chords more delicately than the rude finger, yet |