Saviour Christ says of denial: If we deny Him, He will also deny us; then for us there will be no admittance through the gates of Heaven. Let us carry into effect verse 32; to confess Christ, and He will confess us. "And a book of rememberance was written for them that feared the Lord." In Revelation, 20th chapter 12th verse, we have recorded the Book of Life, out of which all nations of the earth shall be judged in that great and terrible day of the Lord. The two last verses are in reference to the judgment; when God shall come to make up His jewels: "They shall be Mine," saith the Redeemer, and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him." So that to love, serve and fear God here, will be to us everlasting happiness hereafter; for Who would not be where Jesus is, And serve Him without fear? The last verse refers to God's Israel returning and discerning between the righteous and the wicked. In Matthew, 25th chap. and 32nd v.,. we are told that God shall separate them. The righteous shall He seat on His right hand, and the wicked on His left hand. Then shall He say to those who have loved and served Him faithfully, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom of Heaven prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Then, will He also say to those on His left hand, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Matthew 25th chapter 34th and 41st verses. It is certain if we trust in Jesus we need not fear the day of His coming. For those who do not yet know Jesus as their Saviour, I would entreat that they may be led to take heed to the last warning: "Depart from Me," and "Flee from the wrath to come," and to seek Him, the only Saviour, Who ever liveth to make intercession for us. 26, Senior-street, Harrow-road, W. London. THE LORD'S DAY. E. BOVINGTON. The Lord's holy day-the sacred memento of the risen Saviour's triumph over death, how grandly and calmly does it stand out in all its distinctiveness from Romish and pagan devices! Well is it said by George Herbert, "O day, most calm, most bright! The fruit of this, the next world's bud; Specially is this day honoured by its Appointer. The work of the Spirit by means of the preached gospel has doubtless been wrought more upon it than upon any other day. Witness the day of Pentecost. And how often has the sacred rest associated with the name of Sabbath been, by the power of the Holy Comforter, realized in His glorifying of the Lord Jesus in His people's hearts on this day. "His rest shall be glorious !" It is so. Have we not felt it, beloved readers? Not indeed limited to the first day of the week. No; blessed be our covenant God, He has many other holy days. Every time He visits, speaks to, and smiles upon us, it is a hallowed season-a holy day. Jesus is our Sabbath. And "we which have believed do enter into rest '-a rest that calms the troubled heart, and brings full vigour to the desponding mind, and even imparts strength to the weakly and prostrated body. For, in a thousand ways, He is "the health of our countenance" Who is " our God." No reaction follows the occupation which these holy days of heaven bring to the believer, while the worldling is nearly always the worse after his holidays. We go in the strength of the meal brought by each gracious manifestation of sovereign love, and "the joy of the Lord" becomes our "strength" for future toils and trials. For God in Christ Jesus has sanctified all His holy days, and blessed them to His people for ever; the earnest of which He has given in the Sabbath of the Resurrection, and the bestowment of His Holy Spirit. JOSIAH. GOSPEL CONFIRMATION. May 15th, 1880. To Mr. Geo. Oakshott and Mrs. Green, My dear aged friends and fellow pilgrims to the inhabited city prepared of God for a prepared people, grace and peace be multiplied. I wish you what I pray for on my own behalf, that you may grow in grace and in the knowledge and love of that same Redeemer Who became poor, though He was rich in everything-being the rightful possessor of Heaven and earth, that we poor worms, who had nothing but sin, might be rich through His poverty; putting us into possession of durable riches and righteousness. And astonishing as it is, yet is it true, for blessed Paul says: "For all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." And again: "If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ." What are bank notes, gold, or jewels, compared with these things, to which add an "eternal weight of glory?" Dear Lord, give us more precious faith, that we may "comprehend (or apprehend) with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." It is the promised Comforter Who testifies of these things, giving us to know and feel their Divine reality; and it is our privilege to pray for this blessed Teacher, that He would condescend to come and show us these things, as expressed in the 8th verse of the 4th chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians; the Lord help us think on these things." 66 to And now that our sand is almost run through, and our days on earth are drawing to a close, we want confirming,-not by a bishop on earth, but by our Lord Himself. Good Joseph Hart says: : "He is the Son to free; The Bishop He to bless ; The Lord our righteousness.". Well then, dear friends, let us try to comfort one another with these words. And, as we do not often meet face to face, may He Who can bless a word written be pleased to bless our correspondence, and put it into our hearts to pray for each other; for truly it is through much and varied tribulation that we must enter the kingdom; and we have His own blessed word on our side: "Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Wishing you an abundant entrance into the same, I remain your junior brother, NURTURE. Deut. xxxii. 11, 12. ALFRED HAMMOND. 'Mid the desolate crags of this sin-riven world, Jehovah has chosen to cradle and rear His offspring, ordained to a happier sphere. But fear not, confessors, stand fast in His name : To live in His life, and abide in His love. But warms them, and feeds them, yet callow, with blood, The Saviour will cherish, defend and renew, C. H. M. Letters by the Household of Faith. LETTER BY THE LATE MR. STEDMAN. Robertsbridge, February 13, 1880. AM sure that they who knew the truth of the gospel under the late Mr. Vinall, sen., find "that which is wanting cannot be numbered" in almost all Calvinistic preachers. 'Tis not what is said, but what is not said that is wanting. How deficient is the ministry of the day in what is the hardest part of it, as appears by Paul's solemn charge to Timothy, (2 Tim. iv. 1, 2), namely, reproving, rebuking, exhorting with all longsuffering and doctrine. Our times bear the features of the times portrayed in the history given in the four last chapters of Judges. The key to the whole of the said scenes is the word-the significant word, "There was no king in Israel in those days, but every one did that which was right in his own eyes." In chapter xviii. 7, it is said, "They were quiet and secure, and there was no magistrate in the land that might put them to shame in anything." Thus they lived careless as to maintaining good works, which none are concerned about but those who truly believe (Titus iii. 8). Many will preach nothing but the cardinal doctrines of the Gospel, and they have hearers determined to hear no other: but as to rebuke, reproof, and exhortation to holiness of life, as a natural consequence of union to Christ, it is laid aside by preachers with the good liking of the hearers. But what the scriptures assert as sound doctrine (2 Tim. iv. 3,4) these spurn and sneer at as legal. Are not these a terrible sort of "blind leading the blind" into the pit, without halting and fearing, and in the security of a false confidence, which Satan encourages the poor deluded ones to believe is mighty faith, which admits of little (if any) doubt at all, in some cases I have met with. This was not the character of Mr. Vinall's ministry. It did not lack these condiments (rebuke, reproof or exhortation) to needful vigorous and faithful self-examination, prayer, and diligent painful labours to be right and found right, coupled with an inward principle of love to God and His laws, to walk worthy of His high calling-which they profess before men for their profit (Titus iii. 8); but first and specially that God may be glorified and honoured, and His name hallowed in their body and spirit. These, at times, they hope are His, by choice, purchase, conquest and their own voluntary surrender; though often, nay, more or less daily, assaulted by sense, reason, unbelief, and Satan's temptations, as to the reality of their faith, hope, or love. Hence they are kept alive by the feelings of death in their souls. Awake by the burden of sinful sleepiness. Safe by the felt sense of danger from enemies seen and felt. Strong by felt and absolute weakness. Bold by the felt timorousness and fear: as Hart says, "Let the danger make thee bolder: War in weakness, dare in doubt." Their joys come out of sorrows-Mercies out of miseries-Riches out of poverty-Blessings out of cursing-Salvation out of destruction, and Heaven out of hell. At least I find it so, which makes a daily cross, and the great and much tribulation through which the highway to God's kingdom lies; which in God's mercy is made a maul to my pride, destruction to my wisdom, strength, knowledge, and self-sufficiency: and these judgments of His, in the way of which God's children wait for Him, like Jordan's waters, clean and pure, rapid and irresistible, wash away all the fleshly confidence they have into the Dead Sea and would carry their souls to hell, did not the ark appear with those who bear it with feet in its waters, and arrest its course with a "Deliver him from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom.” Hence the poor sinner goes through the judgment and comes out of the terrible ordeal blameless, unreprovable, without spot or blemish, or any such thing. Thus "the just lives by his faith-We which live are always delivered unto death "-"Bow down sense and reason. Faith only reigns here." Hence the soul struggles for life in the feeling of death-for faith in the feeling of unbelief (where it feelingly at times sinks in miry clay where there is no sensible standing)—for hope, in the midst of desponding_doubts and dismay. Yea at times one has to go into hell to find Heaven (as to our feelings). In all these things is the life of the soul. We often ask the Lord to feed us with "knowledge and understanding," as He has promised to do. The former, if unaccompanied with the latter, is dangerous in the extreme. "Naked knowledge all is vain." God's people are fed with both. The unscriptural notion of sinless perfection by justification from before time, or as some say, from the time He arose from the dead,-which He did for our justification, and which is a glorious truth, affords no proof that I am justified any more than if you prepared a dinner for me do I benefit by it, unless I eat it. "O taste and see.” None can understand the sweet soul-satisfying dainties God has spread but they who taste and see: (i.e.) understand by experience either the terror of God in his law, or the love, good will, compassion and favour of God in His Gospel, but by believing which is tasting, eating and drinking to satiety. "Notion's the harlot's test By which the truth's revil'd. |