THE CHURCH. "Built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone."-Eph.ii.20. JANUARY, 1852. A QUESTION for the New Year. BY THE REV. CORNELIUS ELVEN. "What will ye do in the day of visitation ?"—Isaiah x. 3. Like a foundered vessel, which sinking into the ocean-depths, with its towering masts, its costly freight, and its perished crew, leaving but here and there a floating plank on the surface to admonish of the fatal wreck, another year is engulfed in the fathomless abyss of the everlasting ages past. And though fond memory may retain some floating memorials of the past, or history may rescue some of its events from oblivion, yet, the year of 1851 is gone! yes, gone, with its heroes, its scholars, its statesmen, its divines; in a word, with its saints and sinners where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest. The prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. "The small and the great are there; and the slave is free from his master." But, not to loiter in reflections on the past,-what say we,-what think we,-what' purpose we, with regard to the future? May it not be well to consider, concerning the three hundred and sixty-five days of this year, that one of them may be the "day of our visitation," in the most solemn and affecting sense?—that as the woodman goes through the forest and marks the trees that are to be felled, so upon us may that mark be set, and the axe of death this year laid to the root of the tree? And your first thought may be, a desire to know that secret; yet, should some accredited messenger from heaven offer to reveal it, you would probably, on more deliberate reflection, decline the revelation. You would not ask to have put into your hands an almanack, that should (not with the vagueness of an exploded astrology, but with the certitude of divine omniscience) have written against every day, the joys or sorrows, the health or sickness,the life or death, that would attend it; or, to put it in the words of one of the profoundest thinkers of his day, "On supposition that the GREAT Book should be placed before you, with the intimation that if you chose to open at such a page, you could read the year, the month, the day, ap pointed for your entrance on another world, could you forbear? Suppose that you had opened the volume where you would have only just to raise the leaf, would you touch its edge, and, deliberating, decide to leave it still lying flat, the portentous secret on the other side?" This would be an anxious moment, but still the right feeling for a christian would be to leave it there, and be content to say with the Psalmist, "All my times are in thy hands." The government is upon the shoulders of our best Friend, who alone is worthy to open the book of futurity, and "loosen the seven seals thereof." VOL. VI. B Leaving, then, the speculative, let us address ourselves to the practical; and, regarding the new era upon which we are entered as another 'day of visitation," permit us to make it the occasion of a few plain interrogations." And, first, What will you do with your TIME? The sands of another year are already running out. Eternity is God's, and, with measureless duration before him, he may fix on far distant epochs for the development of his vast designs. But only the present moment is ours; and that, suffered to pass without our impressing it with some holy volition or worthy deed, is not only irrevocably gone, but it is gone with all the abused or misimproved moments of the past, to swell the cloud of witnesses that, when the knell of time shall have tolled, will rise up against us. Remember, Reader, do you need to improve it for your conversion? the present is the only state in which you will have a visitation of mercy. Because you are young, are you saying, "Monitor, go thy way, and when I have a more convenient season, I will send for thee?" Alas, for the "lovers of pleasure more than the lovers of God;" they will lay their heads in the lap of Delilah, till, shorn of their strength, they will be left to unavailing regrets and remediless sorrow. Others, in the mid-day of life, may be saying, "We will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:" but think, "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" And will the aged sinner still trifle with his remaining inch of time? It is with you past eleven o'clock of life's day,-not the eleven which precedes the noon, but that which ushers in the midnight. Surely the exclamation of the prophet is as applicable now as in former days, “O that men were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end." We ask again, of our readers, What will ye do with your TALENTS? Ministers of Christ, what will ye do with yours? It is a quaint conceit, but a truthful one, that if an individual's watch keep bad time, it only deceives himself; but if the town-clock goes wrong, it misleads the whole parish. And, in rightly improving our talents, while laudably seeking to keep abreast of the age in its intellectual progress, let us not forget our "high calling." We may drink of the streams of literature; but, for the service of the sanctuary, we must fill our vessels from "the river of the water of life." There is floating in the moral atmosphere a miasma of error, so subtle as to need all the talents of discrimination we can command to detect and separate it. It has been well remarked, that "the whole tribe of error is parasitical, and can only grow by hanging its envenomed weight on the plants of truth." We may therefore find work enough for our talents in the coming year, in separating between the precious and the vile, that our households may be fed only with 'the finest of the wheat;" for there is some danger in the present day of blending the speculations of philosophy with the "true sayings of God," and the meretricious ornaments of oratory with the "truth as it is in Jesus," '-so as to incur the ingenious but cutting rebuke, that "some sermons are like church windows, which have so much beautiful painting, that instead of admitting, they keep out, the light of heaven." The question, however, What will ye do with your talents? should be entertained by all! The day we hope is gone bye when christians had little idea of their duties, beyond, as it was called, "sitting down to enjoy their privileges." A celebrated admiral, so far from considering that all the conflict of the day devolved upon the officers, caused it to be proclaimed through the fleet, that "England expected every man to do his duty." And it will be ill with the cause of Christ this year, if the soldiers of the Cross do not imbibe and appropriate the spirit of this proclamation. A church should be like a hive of bees, without a drone, like the stars of heaven, however differing in glory, all shining to their Maker's praise; ever remembering that no comparative feebleness of talent will excuse" that wicked servant" who should bury it in the earth. But we have another form of our interrogative to submit: What will you do with your MONEY? Will you continue to hoard it up? then "the rust of it shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire." You must not, in this year of your gracious visitation, make the contributions of others the measure of your own: they may give less than they ought to do; but because an Ananias or Sapphira "keep back" that which is the Lord's, will you, also, put yourselves under the same condemnation? Others may have less to give than you,-it would therefore be contrary to the righteous law of proportion, for your name to stand in any list with the same sum appended to it as theirs. "To whom much is given, of them much is required." Neither must you be satisfied with giving just as you have given. The past may not be a righteous measure for the future. Other writers have declaimed against "the monotonous guinea"-and not unjustly. Ignorant of the facts, on looking over a list of guinea subscriptions, it might be supposed these subscribers were all possessed of exactly the same means; but we know it is not so: on the contrary, God knows that while the one guinea may be a generous contribution for some on that list, ten would be but a just offering from others. At home and abroad, the calls on our liberality are increasing, and should be responded to with a willing mind. India calls aloud,-Africa, with her tears, is crying, "come over and help us,”—Jamaica, in her adversity, appeals to our abundance, and Ireland, poor, bleeding Ireland, is asking the "balm of Gilead" at our hands. We ask, therefore, What will ye do with your money? Once more, we ask, What will ye do with your LIVES? Will you make them exemplary? Oh, begin the year with a renewed and prayerful consecration of your lives to Him in whom " you live, and move, and have your being." Ask, with every morning's dawn, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and that prayer, offered with sincerity, will induce the earnestness and force of character which distinguished the great apostle, and "make you that you be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." We entreat you, then, daily to ask, Lord, what wouldest thou have me to do with my time,-my talents,-my money,-my life? and then you will not only bless the church and the world, as you are passing through them, but you will leave the legacy, when you die, of a holy example to others; and ". your good works," like the refractions of the setting sun, will invest your memory with a halo of mellow glory that shall induce others to follow you, as you have followed Christ. We would not inculcate a thirst for posthumous fame, but for posthumous usefulness. will be spoken of, when you have passed away from the present scene; and shall it be said, "They are gone, but not missed"? or will your memory be blessed, and your name pronounced with grateful affection, by those who have witnessed your "works of faith and labours of love"? "Lives of all good men all remind us, Footprints which, perhaps, another, Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother- You Failing all this-how fearful a "day of visitation" will that be when we are summoned to our last account. The unconverted,-the indolent, -the covetous,-the unholy professor-despised now, will be condemned then. Oh, the thorns of that dying pillow! Oh, the scorpion stings of conscience in that dread moment! and for ever, at the recollection of unfaithful stewardship, will memory pour its burning lava over the lost soul, scathing it to the very core ! But of the mass of our readers we hope better things-and "things which accompany salvation." Onwards, then, be your motto, till the approving voice of the Master shall pronounce, in the day of final "visitation,"—"Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Bury St. Edmunds. SPIRITUAL SLEEP. BY THE REV. JOHN FOSTER.* "Now it is high time to awake out of sleep."-Rom. xiii. 11. This is often a very proper call, with respect to sleep in the natural sense. As a general rule, when there has been sleep enough, 'tis time to awake; sleep being a kind of suspension of existence. As when, in the morning, it is necessary to arise to the regular business of the day-the proper hour come :-in seasons of the year when the fields, or the gar dens, require the husbandman's early diligence: when some particular undertaking (as a journey) is to be entered upon-awake! too late else— time to be off-sun is up-companions are waiting :-it has too often been a very necessary alarm, on account of some danger threatening the house -its being on fire-attempted by thieves. But it is not this natural sleep that our text speaks of. There is another kind of sleep-that of the soul-an inactivity, a slumber, of its best faculties. And, in this sense, the waking man may be in a deep sleep -and may thus sleep days, and weeks, and whole years-nay, a whole life-the case with many busy, active men (early and late). "Sleep"-of soul. No sense of even having a soul-no deep serious thought of there being a spirit in us. -No sense of what there is that concerns it-and belongs to its welfare. A great deal to be thought of for it-done about it. -No serious thought and feeling about the almighty God-that made it can do for it what it wants-has a sovereign right over it-sends commands to it looks after it. -No right sense of what our life in this world is for. A plain, sober question "What for are we here? in other cases a man can tell-in a hospital-in a situation to learn a business-in a seaport to emigrate. -No grief, or shame, or fear, for neglecting the great chief business of life. Long sad inattention to it "well, never mind." It should not have been so- -"well, don't care.' -No sense of any harm-any grievous mischief-that is done to the soul by sin within it, and sin in the world all around it. Most truly may sin in the soul be called a mortal disease-sin all around an infectious plague. Think, then, of the insensibility! -No anxiety to "flee from the wrath to come." The threatenings of *Rev. John Foster's own Notes of a Sermon preached at Frenchay, July 31, 1836. that wrath have been heard-"no doubt that God means what he sayswe are exposed unless we flee." Yet, sleep! -No care about the offered mercy and salvation. There is deliverance from all this, if earnestly sought the great work of Christ-no other way of escape. No deep concern about this-Sleep! -No concern that life is passing away, and the end continually nearer -and the great account-what every returning season-week-dayreminds us of. -Is not this a sleep of the soul? But what will this sleep come to, or end in, if men be not awaked out of it ? Plainly it will be all wrong-if there be something for which it ought to be awake-and which none else can do for it. "It is high time to awake." None can say, on being disturbed by the call "let me alone-not enough yet." -"High time." Or, is it better that the sleepers should sleep onperhaps dreaming amidst their slumber? Is it unkind to rouse them ? (sleep ending in death, by frost, or opium). "It is high time"-for, as to some, the voice of God has been calling a long while "awake, thou that sleepest"-sometimes in a kind and gentle voice-sometimes a threatening one. Body sleeps by hours-soul by years. But, also, as to those in earlier life, it is high time as soon as God calls-unless he call too soon. But does he? When 'tis a call to awake amidst danger? to awake to the highest duty-to be early in his work on the way to heaven. -"High time" for, while men sleep, they are losing what is most precious. "The thieves have just got into your treasure-what, not rouse ?" -"High time”-for, the longer they sleep, the more are they falling under the power of the Great Enemy, who is soothing, and soothing-gently administering sleepy draughts-in order to bind them fast, and hold them in his power-(Samson). -"High time"-for, the season of mercy is fast going away-and there is no assurance to any one that it will be lengthened out. Must be high time when there may be little more time. "High time"-those say so that do awake-when they find what they have neglected-and what they have to do. "That fatal slumber! why did not thunder awake me ?" "High time!" lest they awake too late. For all will certainly awake some time. But, it may be just at the end of life-and to end it in de spair to have to say, "The day is all gone-the great work all undone and now no time." It may be not till the soul enters another world. For, some do seem to go out of this world asleep. But what an awaking that! Happy to see any signs of souls awaking-begin to feel a disturbance -sounds and movements-to open their eyes-find where they are-to see something quite different from what dreaming of (or stupor)—spiritual realities and important! -When there are some rousings and alarms, do not go to sleep again. Heavy propensity to this. It is an awaking to unpleasant feelings, and unwelcome sights-would rather turn round and sink again into slumber. But, a perilous thing-imagine the case of a man awaked with informa tion that there are signs the house is going to fall! Frenchay, Frampton. |