A Sermon

BY THE REV. GEORGE HUTCHESON, M.A., of Edinburgh
and Irvine (1674).

(Seventh Sermon of Series on Psalm cxxx.)

(Continued from page 42.)

“If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee: that thou mayest be feared.”—PSALMS cxxx. 3, 4.

YE have heard how the psalmist in the first and second verses, wrestling with plunging perplexities, expressed here under the name of deeps, gets guilt stopping his audience and success to wrestle with, in the third and fourth verses, wherein, as ye have heard, we have, first, a sensible confession concerning the desert of sin (verse 3). Next we have his refuge, when he is humbled with the sense of that; and it is pardoning mercy, forgiveness with God, to which he claims in the beginning of the fourth verse. And lastly, ye have the end for which God lets out and bestows pardoning mercy on sinners—that He may be feared.

For the first of these, in the third verse, I am near a close of what I purpose to say upon it, for besides the conjunction ye have heard ought to be betwixt the sense of sin and the sense of trouble, without which the sense of trouble is but brutish, ye have also heard that guilt will readily meet the people of God in straits, when they are made to cry out of the deeps unto God. Beside these (I say) I insisted the last day on that great point, that iniquity marked by God, according to the covenant of works and the rules of strict justice, is that which no man is able to stand under; and ye may remember how, at great length, I both explained and continued this truth, by several deductions from the text, which I shall not now repeat. I shut up the point with a general word of exhortation, that sinners that look for everlasting happiness, would learn to say over this text with application to themselves, “If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquity, I cannot stand,” and to do it sensibly. For the fixing of which, and bearing of it home, ye may remember what considerations were laid before you, as considerations concerning God your party,¹ considerations concerning the number of your sins and guilt; it’s called iniquities in the plural number; considerations concerning the nature and aggravations of your guilt, upon which account also it’s called iniquities; considerations also of the just threatenings of God, and of the infallible execution of them upon the sinner, or his surety; considerations concerning the sufferings of Jesus Christ, a glass wherein as in a mirror the desert of sin may be seen.

Now before I come to the next verse, I shall mark three or four particular inferences. And,

¹ Person against or opponent.

(1) Ye have here a clear discovery, that there is no justification by works, that a man by his works cannot think of standing before God. Justification by works is that only which we know by the light of nature, and that first covenant made with mankind in Adam, and therefore every man hath a natural propension to do his own turn that way. The Jews “being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and going about to establish their own righteousness, did not submit unto the righteousness of God” (Romans x. 3). Ignorant persons think to please God with their repentance, and the mending of their faults, and doing better. Papists plead with an open mouth for justification by works; some mongrel Protestants would mumble out somewhat that way; but ye are to consider that the covenant requires that which is now impossible, even perfect holiness, and that covenant, being once broken, is everlastingly broken. And for any evangelical paction the text leads us to, there is no medium betwixt God’s marking iniquity and forgiving iniquity; a man must either stand to his hazard of God’s sitting down on His tribunal, and marking his iniquities, to punish them; or he must lay aside all thoughts of complementing with God in this matter, or of patching up a business of grace and good works in his justification before Him. They that study the first part of the text well, that if God mark iniquity none can stand, they will easily be put from that conceit of justification by works, and plead forgiveness.

And therefore (2) I would have sinners considering that there is no standing under guilt, except Christ be fled unto for refuge. If ye have not taken sanctuary in atheism, that ye look upon all that is said in this preached gospel as cunningly devised fables, will you but look to it, and think with yourselves—What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the day of wrath, when the just threatenings of God shall be execute against sin, and all sinners that are out of Christ, when many will be ready to cry out for hills and mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb? O! consider it, if ye can be persuaded to be in earnest about your souls, what ye think to do in the day of God’s wrath for sin, in that day wherein the senseless sinners that made a sport of sin, will be made to sing that doleful note (Lam. v. 16), “The crown is fallen from our heads, woe unto us, for we have sinned.” Then ye will find it desperate folly and madness that ye went on in sin, and fled not in time from the wrath to come. Ponder that parable, Luke xvi. 24 (which is not to be stretched beyond the principal scope, as if there were charity for others in hell), and ye will find what a dreadful bargain sin is, when a drop of cold water to cool the tongue, would be an ease to the drunkard in torment, and he cannot have it; when his warning of others is a witness against himself, that he was a desperate man, that run such a hazard, that is now past remedy. Think I say, on these things, if ye look not on this word as fables.

But (3) if none can stand before God’s marking iniquity, then

the sense of guilt should make us justify God in all the troubles that come upon His people. When we consider that the Lord may for sin, not only, as in a solemn day, call our terrors round about, as the word is (Lam. ii. 22), but may everlastingly condemn us in hell, how dare a sinner murmur under lesser calamities or troubles! The language of a man sensible of the desert of sin is, that which ye have, Ezra ix. 13, “Thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve;” and that, Lam. iii. 22, “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.” A man that is sensible of sin and of the desert of it, ye will not find him a murmurer against any cross inflicted, but a wonderer at the moderation that shines in the sharpest trials. Therefore (as I said upon the first head) the sense of trouble, without the sense of sin, is ill company, and will breed many distempers, which the sense of sin, joined with the sense of trouble, will bear down and prevent.

And (4) if even the most godly man be thus liable to punishment (for who can stand, if God mark iniquity?) and even for his ordinary failings, consider what is the godly man’s case, when he falleth in grosser out-breakings. If when thou lookest upon thy daily escapes through ignorance, rashness, precipitancy, shortcoming in duty, thou art made to lament, and say “Lord, I cannot stand before thee, if thou, Lord, mark iniquity,” how may the lamentation be heightened, when thou fallest in gross sins and spots, and by them causest the enemy to blaspheme! And the truth is, were folk more frequent in laying to heart their ordinary escapes and infirmities, it would be a mean to caution them against out-breakings in grosser debordings,¹ but when these are not laid to heart, and mourned for, it provokes God to write it with some vile blemish. And I shall add, if the Lord mark iniquity, and a godly man cannot stand, what shall become of a wicked man, who hath no interest in Christ? If a David (suppose he hath been the penman of this Psalm) be trembling and sinking under the burden of iniquities, what a posture should monsters for profanity, who declare their sin as Sodom, be in! I confess they are not troubled with sin, because they forget that they have immortal souls, but their trouble is coming. They see godly men plunged and perplexed, under apprehensions of wrath, when they are free of gross out-breakings; and they are not affected with all their impieties, but O! what a witness is that against them, who walk as monsters among men, and are never troubled! Ponder that word, 1 Peter iv. 17, 18, “The time is come, that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall become of them, that obey not the gospel of God? and if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner and ungodly appear?” If godly men dare not think of standing before God, marking iniquity, how can these monsters for profanity and

¹ Excesses.

ungodliness think to look God in the face, marking their iniquities?

But now, I proceed to the second general in the text, and that is the refuge to which the psalmist betakes himself, when he is thus humbled, and abased under the sense of the dreadful deserts of sin: “but there is forgiveness with thee.” That is, Thou hast declared Thyself to be a pardoner of sin on gospel-terms, and this forgiveness is with Thee; that is, it’s Thy peculiar right, in opposition to all pretenders. None have a right to pardon but Thou, and it’s Thy right, when the law and our own consciences do condemn us, to step in and forgive; and, therefore, though upon account of the covenant of works, I cannot think of standing before Thee, I betake myself to the refuge, that “forgiveness is with thee.”

There is a general word that I might here mark, that is, that there is a remedy in God for all difficulties, under which the saints are humbled, and abased as insuperable, for when in the third verse, he hath said, “If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, who can stand?” there is a but, a reserve, an exception added, “Forgiveness is with thee.” There, indeed, is a hopeless case, but here is a remedy for it in God; so that there is no case (how hopeless soever it be) that is desperate, if folks go to God with it.

But this I leave, and pitch upon the main point in the text, that there is pardoning mercy in God for sin, and this is the only refuge to a sensible sinner oppressed with sin and guilt. It is here the psalmist’s only refuge and ease, when he cannot think of standing before God marking iniquity. It is Job’s only refuge, chapter vii. 20, 21, “I have sinned; what shall I do unto thee, O thou preserver of men? Why hast thou set me as a mark against thee, so that I am a burden to myself; (but all that will not make thee reparation.) Why dost thou not pardon my transgression, and take away mine iniquity?” And it is the happiness of fallen man, not that he is sinless, or able to satisfy justice for his sin, but that he is a pardoned man, Psalms xxxii. 1, etc., “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity.” This we would not need to insist on, to prove it, if souls were in the psalmist’s posture here, if souls knew what it were to be under the burden of the debt of sin, there would be no happiness like that, to have sin pardoned; God would be to them a matchless God upon this account, Mic. vii. 18, “Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage?” He would be a matchless God upon the account of His pardoning iniquity, whatever other proof of love He should give, or withhold.

Now because this is a most important, and weighty gospel point of truth, “The pardoning of sin” (and I know not, when I may fall upon it in a catechetical way, I purpose to quit my ordinary way, and to insist upon this head, “The pardon of sin,” which

would give me occasion to speak to several things, for information of judgment, and to set you to your duty), I shall reduce what I intend to say on it, to these heads.

1. What is pardoned?
2. Who they are that are pardoned?
3. What the nature of this pardon is?
4. When pardon passes in favour of the sinner, whether it be irrevocable?
5. What is the right method of the application of pardoning mercy? which will lead me to the last thing in the text, “That forgiveness is with God, that He may be feared.”

These and the like, through the determination of the Scriptures, may be of special use to you.

1. What is it that God doth pardon? It is sin or iniquity, so the former verse, and this collated holds forth. It’s the iniquities under which he is groaning in the former verse, for which there is forgiveness with God in this verse. So in that forecited place, Mic. vii. 18, “He pardons iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage;” and Psalms xxxii. 1, 2, it is sin, iniquity, transgression, that is pardoned, covered, not imputed, to intimate that sin, under whatever name it be expressed, is that which God pardons.

Now to prosecute this, I shall not fall upon many descriptions of sin, and its nature; it shall suffice us to know, that sin is the transgression of the law, and that of the law of God. Neither the crossing of folk’s humors will make a man a sinner, James iv. 11, 12. There are a number of rigid censurers, that would make their will a law to all, or have all to walk by their rash judgment, whereas there is but one lawgiver, who is able to save and destroy. Neither will the commands of men, obliging them in law, conclude men to be sinners, unless there be a superior command of God, obliging them to give obedience to these commands of men. But waving that, to the end I may resume, and follow forth something to your edification, I shall briefly speak to these four:—

1. That all men have sin to be pardoned.
2. That sin is a crime, and a debt, that needs a pardon, a burden that a man will not willingly lie under, if he look right on it, nor be at rest till he get it off.
3. That sin being a debt that needs pardon, and a burden too heavy for any, the unpardoned man looks upon himself (if in his right wits) in a doleful plight, till he be pardoned. And
4. That it is the chiefest of good news, to a man sensible of the debt of sin, that God is a pardoner of sin.

For the first of these, all have sinned, or done that which needs a pardon, I shall not need to repeat what I spoke the last day upon this, when I cleared the universality of that assertion, “That if God mark iniquity, none can stand before him” (verse 3). I shall only add two scriptural confirmations this day. One is, that,

1 John i. 8, where the Apostle, writing to the godly, says, as to original sin, “If we say we have not sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us;” and another confirmation, when as to actual sin, he says, verse 10, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” And another confirmation ye shall take from the pattern of prayer, Matthew vi. 12, where these who are allowed to call God Father, even the godly, are required to pray daily, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;” or as Luke xi. 4 hath it, “Forgive us our sins.”

I shall say no more of this, but briefly mind you of these four.

1. It serves to refute the perfectists, that pretend to sinlessness. It was the damnable error of the Pelagians, that they affirmed, that as we have no guilt by Adam’s sin, so men might live without sin, not only sine crimine, without any gross scandalous out-breakings (as we confess some sins, or some ways of committing sin, are not incident to the people of God, 1 John iii. 9). But they assert, that men may live sine peccato, without any sin at all; and when they are urged with that petition enjoined in the Lord’s prayer, where we are bidden pray for the daily forgiveness of sin, they answer, that men should say that petition humiliter, but not veraciter, humbly, but not truly, and in sincerity; which is both an imputation on the majesty of God, and a refutation of their error—an imputation on the majesty of God, as if He did require, that men should lie under pretence of humility, and a refutation of their own error: for if they should lie and pray hypocritically, and not sincerely, they prove themselves to be sinners, and not perfect, as they pretend.

2. We might here put papists to mind what they say, when they plead for the sinlessness of the blessed Virgin Mary, though in this they do not agree among themselves. The Franciscans and Jesuits, they assert, that she was conceived immaculate; others, as the Dominicans, assert, that she was conceived in sin, but she was immediately cleansed from it; but both of them agree, that she lived without actual sin. We are for to declare her blessed above all women, and highly favoured of the Lord, but we dare not contradict Scripture, which concludes all under sin, Romans iii. 23; nor her own confession, Luke i. 47, where she owns God as her Saviour, which imports her acknowledging that she was a sinner; nor yet contradict our blessed Lord, His taxing of her as culpable, John ii. 4, when she would enjoin Him by her motherly authority to work a miracle, “Woman (saith He), what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.” He owns her as a woman, not as His mother, in the acts of His mediatory office; and reflects upon her as one culpable, that would require of Him to work a miracle.

3. But I would from this recommend to all of you to grow in acquaintance with your pollutions, sinfulness, infirmities, and manifold daily failings. And for this, alas! we need not light

candles, there is not need of any secret search, as the word is, Jer. ii. 34, the skirts of our garments tell what we are; to us may be applied that word, Isaiah iii. 9, “The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.” But were we as spotless as Paul, it is our duty to be exercised with the root of sin, with the body of sin and death, with that law which is in our members, rebelling against the law of the mind, with that will that is present with us, when we delight to do good, after the inner-man (Rom. vii.) Ye would drive this trade, and mourn for your secret sins, lest God be provoked to give you up to scandalous outbreaks, which the world will read. When ye are not exercised with secret sins, ye provoke God to give you other work a do, little to your advantage. Learn to be at that work, which the people are at, Isaiah lix. 12, “Our transgressions (say they) are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;” and at that trade David was at, Psalms xl. 12, while he saith, “Innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me.” Estrangement from our sinfulness is an impediment to our humility. All the crosses in the world will not humble, or bring a man so low, as acquaintance with his own pollutions, and sinfulness of his nature. Estrangement from sinfulness is a great obstruction to repentance; he cannot be a penitent that is not a daily student of his own failings and infirmities. And estrangement from our sinfulness is an impediment to pardon; for sin must be taken with, and confessed, before we can expect pardon, and that cannot be while we live estranged from it. Thus you see the losses that follow the neglect of acquainting ourselves with the sinfulness of sin, our daily pollutions and infirmities.

But the fourth and last word I shall give you from this (and I shall go no further for the time) shall be this, that the consideration of the universal sinfulness of all mankind should excite folk much to commend God. It commends God, as upon many accounts, so particularly upon these two; one is, that He spares the world daily, though there be so much sin both of saints and others abounding in it. Who would sit with so many wrongs as God gets every day, and yet He destroys us not? How often might He say, as He said to Moses of Israel, Exod. xxxii. 10, “Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them, that I may sweep them away from off the earth;” and yet He doth it not! How often might He do with us in this world as He did with Sodom, and the old world, and yet He bears with us! How often might He make the visible Church a terror to itself, and all the world! And how often might He make the saints a burden to themselves, and yet

great is His goodness, that He spares a sinful world, and sinners in it. And upon another account it commends God, and that is, that He lets not the sinfulness of His people make void their interest in Him, but notwithstanding their sinfulness, allows them to call Him Father; that though they be daily, by their repeated provocations, iniquities and transgressions, drawing rods forth from His hand, yet that doth not make void the covenant, Psalms lxxxix. 32, 33; “That he will visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes, nevertheless his loving kindness will he not utterly take from them, nor suffer his faithfulness to fail.” O! but the study of our sinfulness would make daily a new wonder to us, it would not be common news, “but a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. i. 15). And as we grow in the study of our sinfulness, the sweeter should these truths that hold out the remedy of sin grow and continue.

(To be continued.)

The late Miss Bella MacIver, Stornoway.

“S MATH dhoibhsan a fhuair dhachaidh!” (It is well with those who have got home, i.e., to glory) is a remark often met with in the home which Bella MacIver has now left for ever. It is expressive of the complacency of mind and of the elevation of soul which enables the pious bereaved to think of the pious deceased as no longer dead but sleeping, as not gone beyond, but gone before. Bella MacIver is now lost to the world; the world suffers, although the world, steeped as it is in death-like unconsciousness, rolls on not a whit the wiser on that account. We who knew her, and, if we might so say, who loved her, cannot but mourn, for we feel, to some small extent at least, the loss of her companionship, which, we have reason to hope, has been transferred to the glorified society above.

Bella, popularly known as “Bellag Dhànaidh,” was the second oldest daughter of the late respected Mr. Donald MacIver, missionary, of Laxdale, and a sister of Maggie Ann MacIver, a sketch of whose interesting experience appeared in our issue of January, 1912. She had been born and brought up in an atmosphere well known to many in the Church as one of true Christian piety. From her youth she showed a marked teachableness of disposition, which lent itself well to the endeavours of her parents in the direction of bringing her mind to bear upon the great questions of life, death, and eternity. So much so, indeed, that it would appear that she was more or less religiously influenced, although not perhaps savingly, at an early age. Her accounts of her exercises of mind at this period, the recollection of which in later life added interest to experience, tended to show that, even as a young girl, she had deep convictions of her sinful state, and of the evil of transgressing God’s law. On occasions, such convictions as these would force her to leave her playmates,

and seek forgiveness from God in private. She used to relate how the dread of hell fire, “the big fire,” as she would childishly name it, haunted her at times, and how she would speak to other girls about it, when rebuking them for their extreme indifference and frivolity.

It was when she was nineteen years of age that her convictions, so mysteriously initiated in childhood, expanded into real spiritual enlightenment. She had at that time been assisting at the manse. On a particular Sabbath evening, when gathered for family worship, in pursuance of the custom of questioning the household, Mr. Macintyre asked Bella to repeat the text from which he had spoken that same evening at church. Bella had always been an attentive and interested hearer, but, some way or another, she had difficulty in recollecting the words of the text that night. It appears that, after retiring to her room, the circumstance of her failure to repeat the text laid strong hold upon her mind, not in the light of time merely, but in the light of eternity. She was brought to reflect upon the awfulness of being unable to answer at the Judgment-seat of Christ, and this reflection ushered her into the view of herself as a lost, already-condemned sinner, which remained with her more or less sensibly, until finally she was lost to herself in the glorious revelation of Christ as her Saviour. For two long years she wandered through the maze of legal conviction, deploring how she was, how she had been, and how she feared she should be throughout eternity, and yet all the while earnestly seeking a way of escape. She was much given to weeping in private; her mind was often charged to overflowing with feelings of consternation and alarm, and at last the strain had so worked upon her that her bodily vitality fell to an extent from which it was never properly recovered.

But, although Bella’s body was permanently and seriously affected, and although it finally succumbed, as the bodies of all of us must do sooner or later, yet the Great Physician had salutary respect unto her soul. It was her soul that troubled Bella; her body gave her even less concern than was proper. Her soul thirsted after salvation, and her body, already greatly enfeebled, was made to carry her about, in fair weather and in foul, to “the wells” from which others had drunk of “the water of life freely,” and to which the Spirit of God was now directing and leading her. Nor was her waiting upon God in His appointed means in vain. The great and happy experience of her life, to which she afterwards testified, stands out veritably as a proof, one of many, of the faithfulness of Him who promises that those who seek Him with their whole heart shall find Him. It was while in the exercise of private prayer that Bella appears to have been enabled to close in with Christ as her Saviour, and with His finished work as “all her salvation and all her desire.” The words by which the Holy Spirit was pleased to enlighten her savingly were: “He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no

sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him,” words from which Mr. Macintyre had preached a sermon in her hearing some time previously. It were more than useless for us to try to describe the joy with which the sense of reconciliation through the Atonement was accompanied in her soul. This is more readily understood by those who have had any similar experience, than expressed—a joy unspeakable. She used to say herself that her elation was such, that she felt at the time as though everything in nature should rejoice with her.

We regret that the lack of space will not permit us to trace, even briefly, the trend of Bella’s experiences from this time onward. Suffice it therefore to say that, although she had such a glorious deliverance at the outset, the period intervening between this and shortly before her death was one almost of incessant struggling. Her sense of inward corruption was such that, while, so far as outward relations were concerned, her bearing bespoke all that is commendable in disposition, yet her view of herself was so contrary that she was often heard to exclaim, “I am as black as the devil himself!” Towards the end of her life, the thought of death, which was often present to her mind, added much to her discomfort. She felt herself unprepared to meet God. On one occasion she remarked to a friend that she feared she should die in abject despair, that her very reason would forsake her on her death-bed. These and other discomfiting considerations which, for the reason already stated, we cannot meanwhile enumerate, had the effect of keeping Bella in humble subjection to and dependence upon the Saviour of sinners, and also of making her diligent in the use of means, private and public, as appointed by Him.

By the mercy and goodness of God, in whom she had trusted, and to whose promise she clung throughout, Bella’s fears in regard to her death-bed were never realised. Her experiences there, particularly during the last few days, were little short of the reverse of what the tempter would have her believe. She found herself certainly in very deep waters at times, in respect of an intense and abiding consciousness of indwelling sin, but her Beloved seemed always at hand to hear her cries and speak comfortingly to her. On such occasions as these she would speak very freely of the wonders of grace, making no secret of all that the Lord had done for her. Her ardent attachment to the public means of grace was never more evident than when, on account of the advancement of her trouble, she was for ever cut off from them. She looked forward with delight to the evenings on which, by arrangement, meetings were being held in her home. On one such occasion, some hours previous to the meeting, a friend asked her if she felt hungry (i.e., spiritually speaking) in view of the approaching meeting. “Yes,” she replied, “I feel very hungry. I am heart-sick of the War-bread I have been feeding on for the past few days, and long for a morsel from heaven.” We shall

never forget the last occasion on which Mr. Macintyre attended at her bedside. It was on Wednesday evening before her death—she died on the Sabbath. He spoke from the words: “The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up and passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them” (Micah ii. 13). Bella seemed to have been greatly uplifted in mind, and when he concluded she spoke richly of the blessedness of the saints and of the glories of heaven.

As we have already indicated, Bella departed this life on the following Sabbath. Her frame of mind immediately previous to her decease, as we understand it from her utterances, appears to have been one of steadfast hope and perfect resignation. Death could now no longer terrorise her; she felt herself more than conqueror through Him who loved her. Her spirit had already been reaching forward to the pleasant land beyond Jordan, and she waited expectantly to pass over. Nay, she longed for the transition from life temporal to life eternal. “Would that this same were the day!” she exclaimed in the early morning; and that was the day—the Lord had so ordained it. “What is your frame of mind now?” asked her mother some time after. “The sacrifice is there still, mother”; she replied with ardour. “He had made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him!” At noon she passed away quietly.

We feel we have nothing to add. Bella’s life is of itself an epistle easily read and understood without the aid of comments. We are inclined, however, to take the opportunity of urging upon young and old who may chance to read the above short and very imperfect account of a Christian’s career and death, the principle so manifest throughout. Many in this generation have fallen victims to the impression that there is no such thing as true religion, or that all religion is shadowy and unreal. It were well for such to set aside vain prejudices and ponder the facts and experiences of such a life as we have been endeavouring to delineate, in the context of death and the hereafter. For any thinking person, experience should be the ultimate test, and we have here the record of experience sufficient to convince us that God is, that religion is, and that “whereas the wicked is driven away in his wickedness, the righteous hath hope in his death.”

M.

REMEMBER thy sins and Christ’s pardonings; thy hell-deservings and Christ’s merits; thy weakness and Christ’s strength; thy pride and Christ’s humility; thy many infirmities and Christ’s restorings; thy guilts and Christ’s new applications of His blood; thy fallings and Christ’s raisings up; thy wants and Christ’s fulness; thy temptations and Christ’s tenderness; thy vileness and Christ’s righteousness.—Wilcox.