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here, all my sins, passed, present and to come, made over to Christ in covenant, and charged to him on Calvary; so that law and justice have no claim upon me world without end. This is the love of God in his God-like act, made on the gospel record of this great fact, "For he was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." The Father beholds us with infinite delight in the perfection, glory, holiness and righteousness of our elder brother; takes an everlasting view of us as his spotless bride. Here are heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths of love that drown our thoughts, and sink us in an abyss of admiration. The infinite gift of Christ in all his personal glory, complex beauty, official greatness and mediatorial fulness, all that he is and has, to be our portion and inheritance for ever. "God so loved the church that he gave his only begotten son;" he bestowed all he had upon his church. The Apostle, contemplating God the Father's love, breaks out in inexpressible rapture, Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift he gave up his Christ from his bosom to redeem us from death and hell; yea, wonder, O heaven, and be astonished, O earth. "He delivered him up for us all." His justice to exact all his demands, and to the grasp of the law to honour her claims; and exhibits him in all the perfection of his sacrifice and glory of his righteousness for salvation to the ends of the earth. Herein is love that kindles ours into flames. Paper fails me to give vent further to the endless law of God our father. The Lord, the Holy Ghost daily direct our hearts into it, and the inlet will prove how little we know of its measureless fulness.

We take a glance of the love of Christ, which is coeval and coequal with the Father's. A sameness of love. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you, with an everlasting, immutable love. He embraced all the objects of his delight in his everlasting foreviews of them as the election of grace. He took them up in his bosom thoughts, and rested in his love to his own. He concurred with the will of the Father in all the supreme acts of his grace. As he was taken up into the bosom of divine majesty, so the church was taken into his warmest affections. Betrothed from everlasting, he took her from the hands of the Father in all her supra-lapsarian glory, and became her husband, head, brother, friend, and kinsman redeemer. Having of his voluntary love entered into the relation, he abided by the consequences. She has given much occasion for the display of his love in all its undeviating glory. We behold his love in all the office characters he has assumed for her redemption, recovery-in becoming her bondsman, entering into suretyship, and being responsible for all the sins of his mystic body. He looked through all the ages of time, and beheld the every spot where his people should dwell; he wore their names

men.

on his breast, and therefore his delights were with the sons of When Adam fell, and his among the rest, he flew to Eden's blighted bower, and proclaimed his determination to save, resolved in infinite grace to rescue the object of his heart's delight. He opened his sacred intention in prophecy, shadowed them forth in the Levitical dispensation, sent forth promises filled from the heart of love, and, at length, the fulness of time came to fulfil his ancient engagements. Behold, he quits the bosom of the Father, lays aside his God-like form, veils his majesty, and descends to our world of sin and wretchedness; for the glory of his Father, and the salvation of his spouse, conceal his grandeur in a shroud of flesh. Behold the great mystery of condescending incarnate love. Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he himself likewise took part of the same, that in his flesh sin might be condemned, made under the law that he might redeem us from the curse of the law. "For ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins and destroy the works of the devil." Behold his love shining in all its meridian splendour. What an exchange! from the bosom of the Father to a manger, from divine society to the company of satan, "being tempted forty days of the devil;" the lord of glory becomes the infant of days, and the theme of angels the song of the drunkards; he that was acknowledged by all heaven was here treated with contempt and scorn, and all out of love to the objects of his delight. Shall we enter the famed garden of Gethsemane, that divinely consecrated spot, and behold the unfoldings of indescribable love,-love in crimson form, dropping from his sacred brow; the contemplation of who he had to combat with, what he had to undergo, and the cost of the struggle threw him into agitation indescribable. "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." "And being in an agony," &c. What but love amazing and infinite, brought the spotless Lamb into an agony of spirit; what but love immutable buoyed up his heart in this perilous hour;-here was an exhibition of love divine. Shall we ascend the cliff of Calvary, and behold the burstings forth of his ocean love to Zion. Here was love grappling with infinite wrath,-all the iniquities of the redeemed meeting on him,-hell, in one general rise, making their desperate effort,-earth uniting in rebellion to destroy him,heaven frowning with indignation, the curse due to innumerable millions falling on him,-justice, in vengeance, seeking satisfaction. He yields his bosom to its sword, but never drops his church from his heart. Love holds with an undiminished grasp, even when he cries out "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" He gave up his life, but never parted with his Zion. Here we perceive the love of God in that he laid down his life for us. We shall live eternally, to dive into the unfathomable deeps of love unfolded here. The breakings of VOL. IX.-No. 105.] C

his love, in all its infinite glories in this wonder of wonders, astounded angels, filled the glorified spirits with ecstatic admiration, and has since filled the hearts of millions with adoring delight. The further unfurlings of his love in his life of office above, &c. &c. I leave for you to range over, under the guidance of the revealer of his person and infinite beauties.

The love of God the Holy Ghost, who has the same infinite, equal, eternal, and unalterable love to the church, is manifest in all his divine acts towards and upon the church. He was the great witness for us in the everlasting covenant; he stored the humanity of Christ with all communicable grace for the church; he rested on Christ in all the fulness of his gifts, in his incarnate day, and was deeply interested in his accomplishing the great work of redemption. He is the sole author of the Bible; what a gift of love-a donation worthy of a God. What an act of his sovereign, immense love, is the gift of eternal life. It was infinite love that put forth omnipotent energy on our spiritual birth-day. We were sensibly lifted over the gulph of ruin by that act of almighty grace. He led us to Calvary, and opened the mystery of substitution; shewed the removal of all our transgressions in the sea of blood, and the acceptance of our persons in his unstainable righteousness; opened the high settlements of everlasting love, and blessed us to apprehend the outgoings of the Father's love; he has conducted us on under his divine care, and oft refreshed our souls beside the still waters of his sacred truth; these are the openings of his great love. His affection to Zion is manifest in the gospel ministry, his presence in ordinances, in all his soul establishing and confirming visits, and sealing us to the day of redemption.

Here I must leave the subject in his dear hands, and pray you may have a sacred inlet to this ocean of immensity, and swim in its unruffled waters for ever. Wishing you his smile

and covenant blessing, believe me to be, Ever your affectionate Brother

in the sacred ties of endless love,

Oct. 17, 1832,

Union Street, Southwark.

E. M.

AN ESSAY TOWARDS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PROFITABLE READING OF THE HOLY SCRIP

TURES.

BY SAMUEL EYLES PIERCE.

(Continued from page 588, Vol. VIII.)

I AM, in speaking, and taking a view of the garments of the high-priest, to notice, 1st, the ephod:

This was the outermost garment of all, and was put over the

robe. It was a short garment, reaching to the loins. The hinder part of it covered the back, and the fore part of it covered the breast and belly. It had shoulder pieces, and it was buttoned with onyx stones on the top of the shoulders, and was girt about the breast with a curious girdle. It had no sleeves, and was different from the ephod worn by the common priests. Christ's appearing with a priestly garment, and girded about the paps with a golden girdle, was declared thereby to be our high-priest, and it hath reference to this curious girdle of the ephod.

The two onyx stones on the borders of the ephod, on which the names of the twelve tribes were engraven, and which are styled stones of memorial, were four-square, embossed in gold. The names of six of the tribes were graven on the one stone, and six on the other, according to their births. And they wrote, as Ainsworth tells us, Joseph's name, "Jshoeph," as he is written in Psalm lxxxi. 6. So there were twenty-five letters on the one stone, and twenty-five on the other. And the stone whereon Reuben was written was on the right shoulder, and the stone on which Simeon was written was on the left.

This engraving in precious stones, and that like a signet, with the names of the children of Israel, signified the firm and perpetual love, memorial, esteem, and sustentation of the church by Christ. In this,' says Ainsworth, Aaron was a figure of Christ; Heb. vii. 28. The sons of Israel, of all saints, are called the Israel of God; Gal. vi. 16.'

The two beryl stones (for so he translateth it) square, and of equal bigness, on the shoulders of the high-priest, on which the Israel of God were borne, signified the power and principality of Christ, which he hath and doth exercise over the House of God, the church, presenting his people pure and holy, by his mediation, before the Lord, and causing them to be had in perpetual and everlasting remembrance. Their being square, and of equal size, signified the like precious faith and dignity, which all saints have obtained before God in Christ. The beryl being also the stone mentioned in the description of Paradise, Gen ii. 12, and the stone of Joseph, Exodus xxviii. 20, who figured Christ in his sustaining Israel, Gen. xlv. 7, 11, and xlix. 24, served to be a lively pre-figuration of Christ, who upholds, feeds, and strengthens his people.

The next thing I am to speak of, is the breast-plate.

It was made of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen. It was four-square. And in it were set four rows of stones in sockets of gold. There were rings of gold at the ends of the breast-plate, and chains, or gold wires twisted, by which means the breast-plate hung from the shoulder-pieces of the ephod, on the fore part of it, upon the breast of the high-priest.

As the twelve tribes encamping about God's tabernacle were in four quarters, east, west, north, and south, three tribes in

every quarter, see Numbers ii., so there were four rows of precious stones in the breast-plate.

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In the first row was a sardius, a precious stone of a bloody colour. On it the name of Reuben was engraven. And it foreshewed,' says Ainsworth, the warlike state of that tribe who frontiered upon the enemy in Saul's time, conquered the Hagarites, 1 Chron v. 10, and went armed before their brethren at the conquest of Canaan.'

The second precious stone was a topaz, of a glorious green colour. On this stone Simeon's name was graven: ' of which tribe', as the above-mentioned writer says, 6 there was little glory till Hezekiah's days, when the Simeonites smote the remnant of the Amalekites: 1 Chron. iv. 42, 43.'

The third precious stone was a carbuncle, or emerald, which is said to be of a most goodly and glorious green colour, that the eye of man is delighted, refreshed, but never filled with looking at it, or, rather, upon it. On this glittering stone was Levi's name engraven, which foreshewed the glory of that tribe, who should teach Jacob God's judgments, and Israel God's laws", Deut. xxxiii. 10, whose lightnings do illuminate the world. Of Levi came Moses and Aaron, and all the priests, and John the Baptist, who shined as emeralds in the church. The covenant of grace is resembled by a rainbow of an emerald colour, in Rev. iv. 5.

The second row of precious stones were, an emerald or carbuncle, a sapphire, and a diamond.

1. The carbuncle shineth clear, like a star, but somewhat purple coloured. It hath the name of fire, like unto which it shineth. On this stone Judah's name was engraven. In Caleb, Othniel, David, and Solomon, this stone shewed its glory; but above all in Christ, who came of this tribe, according to the flesh. Heb. vii. 14.

2. The sapphire is a precious stone, transparent, very hard, of a blue and sky colour, most pleasant and comfortable for the eye to look upon. On this the name of Issachar was engraven.

3. The diamond, or adamant, is a stone which pierces, cuts, and breaks other stones, but cannot be broken itself. On this gem, the name of Zebulun was engraven.

The third row of precious stones were, a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.

1. The ligure, hyacint, or jacint, is of a bright purple colour. By the Greek it is translated the ligure, but some copies have for it, the hyacint, and so the Holy Ghost translateth it in Rev. xxi. 20. In the Hebrew, it is named leshem. Upon this stone the name of Dan was engraven; and a city called Leshem did afterwards fall into unto the tribe of Dan: see Joshua xix. 47.

2. The agate, or chrysoprasus; which latter word is said to signify a golden green. Agate, which is a precious stone; of

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