It is as great a sin against the moral principle of the understanding thus to abuse its intellectual powers, as immoral conduct is a sin against the moral principle of the will. Both ought to be shunned with equal diligence and conscientiousness, as sins against God and our own souls. (To be continued.)

66

TIMES OF REFRESHING.

Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord."—(Acts iii. 19.)

EVERY attentive reader of the prophetical writings of the Divine Word, must be well aware how full those writings are of promises of the moral and spiritual renovation of the state of mankind, when He who is emphatically styled “the Desire of all nations,” should come. Three times, within the limits of a few verses, in the discourse of Peter from which the above quotation is made, does he affirm that the times of refreshing of which he speaks, were those which God had foretold by the mouth of all his prophets, namely, the fulness of the times when Jesus, who had before been preached unto the world,—to whom all the prophets bare witness, should actually come into the world to seek and to save them that were lost.

In harmony with the sublime language of the prophets, the apostle here denominates those days “the times of refreshing," for then, according to the prophets, the wilderness and the solitary place should be made glad, the desert should rejoice and blossom as the rose;-water should be poured on him that thirsted, and floods upon the dry ground;-the heavens should drop down from above, the skies pour down righteousness, the earth open and bring forth salvation ;- -a MAN be as an hiding place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

And this revivification, or recalling of dead things into life, health, and vigour, is said to come from the presence of the Lord, plainly intimating that HE is the sole author, the efficient cause of the whole. The word here used by the apostle is πроσоv (prosopoce) which literally signifies the face or countenance. Now the face or countenance of Jehovah (an expression of very frequent occurrence in the Old Testament) signifies all that is included in the terms mercy, peace, good, love, grace, favour, benevolence, &c. in short, all that is implied in the term bliss, or the highest degree of human happiness. Hence indisputably it was that

Aaron and his sons were commanded to bless the children of Israel in the words prescribed by Jehovah. "On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, the Lord bless thee, and keep thee; the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.' (Numbers vi. 23-26.) No higher degree of felicity than that which these words imply was ever entertained by the church of old, even in its most prosperous states; nor can the most capacious mind conceive of any felicity not included in "the peace of God which passeth all understanding."

In confirmation and illustration of this, we might quote numerous passages from the Old Testament; one or two will be sufficient. The universal pursuit, the unvarying aim of man is felicity, though sought in innumerably diversified ways. These cannot all be right. There can be but one source of real, lasting, eternal good; and that source must be in Him who alone is good; and there is none but ONE that is good, and that is God. Such was evidently the deep impression on the mind of the inspired Psalmist when he said "There be many who say Who will shew us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. (Ps. iv. 6. 7.) So again, when, in his representative character, David was moved by the Spirit of Christ which was in him to pray for the universal extension of the kingdom of his Lord and God, his prayer was brief, but comprehensive; it was simply this:God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us." This implied all that follows in the psalm. (Ps. lxvii.)

It is, however, of the utmost importance that we should most carefully consider the terms or conditions on which these times of refreshing from the presence of God are said to be realized. These terms or conditions are distinctly stated by the apostle;-they are repentance and conversion; repentance signifying a change of mind, and conversion signifying a change of conduct or course of life. Without these no times of refreshing from the presence or face of God can possibly be experienced. This is clear from the words used by the apostle. He says "Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out," oлws (opos) so that, in order that, or to the end that, or that so the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

Many, indeed the majority of Christendom, so called, object to this mode of expression. Terms or conditions in the matter of salvation they utterly repudiate ;-grace, free and sovereign grace, they tell us, knows nothing of conditions. It would be a very difficult matter to define what they mean by grace; and certainly, from all we have met with in their

most approved treatises on the subject, we are constrained to conclude that they who have talked most about it have taken the least pains to verify from Scripture the views which they hold of it. The grace of God, the apostle Paul informs us, is something that has appeared to all men; it is that which brings to all men salvation. (Tit. ii. 11. 14.) And what is salvation but deliverance from evil in every form which it assumes, and the practice of all that stands opposed to evil? It is the determined denial of all ungodliness and worldly lusts; and instead of such indulgences, living soberly, righteously, and godly. This is salvation ;this is the grace of God;-this is the salvation which forms, by God's own appointment, the very walls and bulwarks of the strong city in which dwells the righteous nation which keepeth the truth, (Isaiah xxvi. 1. 2.) the real, substantial, visible grace of God which Barnabas saw existing among those in Antioch who had believed and turned unto the Lord, the sight whereof is said to have gladdened his heart. (Acts. xi. 21, 23.) To him it could not have been otherwise than refreshing, for he was a good man, and full of the holy spirit and of faith, and therefore he could have had no greater joy than to see a great number" of men who had turned from idols to serve the living God, walking in the Truth, living as they had received "commandment from the Father."

In confirmation of this view of the subject, how numerous are the passages which might be cited from the Sacred Word! They form indeed the very burden of the testimony of Moses and the prophets--of the Lord and his apostles. They all teach the same truth, namely, this,— that in order to the possession or enjoyment of good from the Author of all good, man must cease to do evil,-must put away from himself the evil of his doings,-must break off his sins by sincere repentance, and learn of the Lord, who is ever ready, waiting, willing to teach him to do well.

And this it is in the power of all men to do, to whom the glad tidings of salvation are published. With God there is no respect of persons; he has commanded all men every where to repent, because all men have sinned. But has he commanded man to do that which is impossible? Certainly not. To suppose such command coming from God, would be, to say the least of it, to view him as an austere task-master,— as one to be dreaded for the injustice of taking up that which he laid not down, and of reaping what he had not sown; it would be to contradict the testimony of the apostle, who, from much experience of the truth of what he said, affirms that the commandments of the Lord are not grievous; it would be to contradict the Lord himself, who assures us that his yoke is easy, and his burden light. His grace, his mercy, his

favour flows alike unto all without exception; the gift is universal; no man can say, "It is not to me." It is the wicked man, the unrighteous, the evil doer, who is commanded to forsake his way, or that evil course of life to which he has become habituated; and such command would never have been given had obedience to it been impossible.

Such is a very brief outline of what appears to be the scope of Peter's address to the Jews on the occasion of the miracle of healing the lame man who lay begging at one of the gates of the temple; and the writer's object in throwing these few remarks togeth s to shew how broadly they stand in contrast with those almost take place in the religious world, and v specious epithets, "great awakenings," "r Spirit," "revivals of religion," and not unfr from the presence of the Lord."

Of the scenes that are enacted on tho nor would it tend to edification, here to eruptions of frenzied enthusiasm may h they are sometimes, perhaps more approp but they can never be subservient to th of God upon earth, saving in as fa operations of the Divine providence, always educe good from evil. The teachers of Christianity have to act up of John the Baptist, who, in the nan axe to the root of the tree, command the kingdom of heaven was at hand; consistent with, repentance; and to confidence which would not stand the fire of the divine love, which, by the Gospel, was about to try every mar

iii. 7-12; 1 Cor. iii. 11-15.) Evil

"prepared the way" for the coming of JEHOVAH; and it is pro

in the most unwarrantable degree, to expect that the Lord should ever act at variance with his own all-perfect and unalterable order. Even the conversion of the apostle Paul could not have been contrary to that order; and it might be of no small service to the cause of truth, if some one of your talented correspondents would furnish an article on that subject, since the case of that apostle is so often adduced in modern theological works, as sanctioning the doctrine of instantaneous conversion.

ΙΑΚΩΒΟΣ.

THE REAL EXISTENCE AND NATURE OF THE

SPIRITUAL WORLD.

THE Society of the New Jerusalem Church, of Cross-street, London, held its seventh annual friendly meeting at Highbury Barn Tavern, on the 15th of June. The Rev. S. Noble presided. After the withdrawal of the refreshments the subject at the head of this paper was discussed. The following is a slight sketch of the ideas presented by the gentlemen who addressed the meeting:

A belief in the existence of a spiritual world is professed by all religionists. Yet without the information afforded by the doctrines of the New Church, our subject would be barren, even in the hands of the most intelligent. Indeed, rational ideas respecting it could not be realized, unless truth had lifted the veil and displayed its sacred realities. Such, however, is the nature of spiritual truth, that when once revealed it adn of innumerable confirmations from the facts of science and the deductions of reason, which, although they are demonstrations of its reality, would never, of themselves, have led to its discovery. Hence, although we are not permitted to hear and see the objects of the spiritual world ourselves, yet we can receive, with full conviction of its faithfulness, the wonderful information communicated by the more favoured Swedenborg. With perfect clearness we can now perceive, in the words of Professor Bush, that "if we are what we feel ourselves to be, then the ritual world must be what Swedenborg says it is." The direct testimony to the existence of a future state, afforded by Scripture in the records of the appearance of supernatural beings, and the action of supernatura1 ›ncy, ought, one would think, to be sufficient to carry conviction of real existence of a spiritual world to all those who admit the authority of Holy Writ; and those who reject this authority may be referred to the testimony drawn from the facts of Mesmerism, most of the phenomena of which, if not regarded as produced by man's spiritual powers, are altogether unaccountable.

A most convincing proof of the existence of the spiritual world may be drawn from its effects as manifested in that wonderful faculty, memory. It is well known that every incident, however trivial, and every thought and idea, however apparently transient, is indelibly inscribed on this tablet of the mind, and thus that the memory contains a perfect record and history of its possessor through all time to eternity. It is, in fact, the book of his life! Now, can it be admitted that all this array of treasured knowledge is, at death, to end in oblivion? Is it like a