addressed in terms of peculiar and unparalleled reprobation, when he demanded of them, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" We will rather direct our last warning to a much more frequent, but (blessed be God!) a much more hopeful character, and of which there may be some example among ourselves: I mean the undecided and unstable man; the man whose purpose is all for Christ to-day-to-morrow, all for the world; who thinks, while he is listening to the word of God's truth, the promises of mercy, the denunciation of God's wrath, he will never again doubt or disobey that word, never again trifle with those mercies, never again lose his hold of those promises; but who relaxes into his former state of indifference so soon as he inhales the corrupt atmosphere of the world. Let him, whose conscience has said to him while I am speaking, "Thou art the man;" let him remember-not only to-day, while he is reminded of the fact by all around him, but to-morrow also, when all will conspire to efface the remembrance, that his heart is before God. He sees, not only the impression made here, but he beholds that by which it is effaced elsewhere. And does it not, think you, enhance the guilt of every forgetful hearer, that the very wish is found sufficient to obliterate the most solemn characters, and one struggle strong enough to stifle in the birth, the most salutary convictions of sin? Yes, that the very aspect and vapour of the world will condense itself into a wall of partition between the sinner and his God! If, then, we would not add insult to ingratitude, and aggravate rebellion by contempt, we ought at least to seek something in exchange for the "exceeding great and precious promises," which is not altogether inadequate to their value: but O, brethren, if he waits till such could be found, we remind him, in the mean time, that his heart is before the Lord.

Here, however, we gladly reverse the picture; for it is not in the way of admonition alone that we would apply this memorable passage. There are some here, (blessed be God!) and, we trust, no small proportion, to whom it may be pressed home in the way of comfort and encouragement-some, whose only safeguard under all dangers, whose most effectual support under all sorrows, whose unfailing refuge under all trials of life, has been, and will be, imbued with the conviction, Thou, God, seest ine. Lord Jesus, thou knowest what is in man's heart-thou knowest what is in my heart-thou knowest that I love thee." Yes, brethren, when we cannot do what we would—when we are beguiled by the artifices of Satan, or depressed by the infirmities of the flesh, or surprised by the temptations of the world into doing what we would not-when, though we would do good, evil is present with us-when the motions of sin struggle powerfully in the members, and seem as if they were again bringing us into captivity to the law of sin and death-when even the means of grace seem to fail, and the channel of mercy seems to run dry, and we return from the reading of the Scriptures apparently without the fruit-when we go mourning in the bitterness of the soul, and walking in darkness, and seeing no light, we can yet support ourselves, and stay ourselves on the remembrance, "Hell and destruction are before the Lord: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?" He knows that we would serve him if we could, though we cannot serve him as we would. He knows that it is no more we that do it, but sin that dwelleth in us. He sees that the seed of grace is still in that heart which he has made honest and good,

and will yet bring forth fruit, to his glory and our own salvation. He knows there is still the vital principle latent; and to the enemy who would malignantly say, "Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" his answer is to him of disappointment, but to us of peace-"Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it.”

We know, indeed, and we knew from the beginning, concerning the heart, that all its depths of wickedness God could fathom, all its mazes of deceitfulness God could track: for when he himself asks, “Who then can know it?" he answers, “I, the Lord, search the heart." But it is from this very knowledge that our confidence is derived. He who loved us when sin seemed to reign without a rival, surely will not cease to love us now that sin has been displaced by himself. He who loved us when he first gave repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth, surely will not cease to love us now that he hath taught us to repel it. While he "knoweth our infirmities," he "remembereth that we are dust;" "In that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted."

Having, then, a High-priest over the house of God,who is touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and who knows them, let us, sinners though we are, and as sinners, let us seek and find continually access to the throne of grace. Let our only concern be to draw nigh and to keep close to Christ. Let the Word of God, though it be "a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart," become to us also, "the word of the Spirit," "casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God." And while we remember with reverence and with awe, that "hell and destruction are before the Lord," that there is no creature who is not manifest in his sight, but all things are "naked and open in the sight of Him with whom we have to do," let us rejoice and give thanks that we have to do with One who, "though he was a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things that he suffered," and who, having by himself purged our sins, is able "to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him;" for he hath wrested the victory from hell, and delivered the captives from destruction. Nor ought his servants to apprehend, while he keeps the keys of hell and death; and how long he will keep them he hath told us-" Behold I am alive for evermore. Amen."

While, then, hell is naked before Christ Jesus, and while destruction hath no covering, never shall one of the children of men be forgotten in the one, or engulfed in the other, whose heart he knows, and that, notwithstanding all its imperfections, and all its errors and infirmities, it is (for he hath made it so) it is all his own; and God grant that each of you may rise triumphantly from the grave, and escape the abyss of destruction by hearkening in his strength to the voice that calls to you as to children; and not only in general terms, as a body bearing the name of Christ, but that calls as to each one of you, each one as though he were a dear son and a pleasant child"-one over whom the Father's bowels are yearning, and to whom the Redeemer is waiting to be gracious-that calls, I say, to each one of you, "My son, O my son, give me thy heart."

THE CAUSE AND DESIGN OF AFFLICTION.

REV. J. LEIPCHILD.

CRAVEN CHAPEL, REGENT STREET, NOVEMBER 30, 1834.

"I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord."JEREMIAH, Xxxi. 18-20.

EPHRAIM was not a single person, but a tribe of the Jewish nation. The families of that tribe had grievously departed from God by idolatrous practices: they were threatened therefore with the captivity of Syria. It was foreseen that some of them would repent, that they would form just views of their afflictions, and would return to God, and he would have mercy upon them, and would recover them to their own land, or encompass them with his favour there, preparatory to his favour for ever. Now all this is individualized in the passage that I have read: it is represented as the affliction, the repentance, and recovery to the favour of God, of a single man; and that not merely to render it more striking, but to render it more easy of application: for the passage is universally applicable to every individual of the human race in a degree, and in its fulness to every individual of the people of God. It furnishes us for this purpose with two general observations, to discuss and to enforce before you.

The first is, THAT GOD IS TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED as the AUTHOR AND DISPENSER OF ALL AFFLICTIONS. Thus Ephraim was to be brought to recognize, and to say in captivity, "Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised." God is the Author of all the causes of affliction that are in the world: they were not the first work of his hand, but demanded afterwards by his justice for the sin of man. He consented to all those disarrangements of the creation that inflict numberless ills and distresses, that he might have materials ever at hand for the affliction of the children of men for sin, in a state of probation, and for urging them to use the means provided for their recovery. He is the Author of that general dispensation of affliction under which all our race are born: he is the Author of those particular appointments and operations-all those evil effects which follow from certain sinful courses, which necessarily are fastened to them as by an adamantine chain, so that sorrow from sin no power can separate. These are the result of his appointment, and own him for their Author. The particular evil or

evils in any one's lot, have been inserted there under his superintendence; they are the mixture of God, and were according to his prescription; they are a texture woven according to the pattern in his own mind. He dispenses all the particular causes of affliction, in their movements and operations: they are all his servants, and obey his orders, however complicated their movements, however long or short the series in which they are connected with each other, and made dependent the one upon the other: they are all a large army, whose movements, individually and collectively, are according to his plans and his will.

This truth approves itself to our reason. It follows from the fact of his sustaining care over the world, as necessary for its provision: for all create l things depend on him; and therefore, if your afflictions came from the wings of the wind, they could not move without him; if they came from your fellowcreatures, in him they all live, and move, and have their being; he is privy to every purpose of their mind, and every operation of their hand, and therefore they could do nothing without his permission. Whatever be the immediate cause of your afflictions, however dependent they may be on another, and that upon another, you must go through the whole series of second causes, till you come to that without which not one of them could act, and which sets all in motion-the will of the Great God. So that God is ever present with us by his will, in the operations which he permits.

This truth is further confirmed by the considerations of the meritorious cause of affliction, which is sin. For sin is originally committed against God: it violates his law, contemns his authority, and despises alike his favour and his frown. Who, then, is to dispense affliction as the punishment of sin, but He who is its supreme avenger? Who shall take God's place in punishing sin by affliction, since against him it is committed, and from him demands the vengeance? Moreover he is the Judge of the whole world: that is his character: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Now, among men, and under a human government, no private individual is allowed to take the law in his own hands; the judge must inflict the punishment: who then shall ultimately superintend the punishment of sin by affliction, but the Great Judge of all?

This is a truth, which when once confirmed by our reason, is recognized throughout Scripture. There you find that the afflictions of the children of men are dispensed to them in number and in measure. Job says of his afflictions to the Almighty, "He performeth the thing that is appointed for me:" he not only appoints it, but he performs it: "and many such things are with him." The Apostle blamies the Corinthians for their abuse of the sacramental table. he calls it, " cating and drinking unworthily." What he there says, does not apply to any among us; he alludes to a practice which is not found amongst us: therefore the condemnation in that chapter need not terrify weak minds. He refers there to receiving the sacrament in a drunken and disorderly manner : "For which cause," says he, many are weak, and many are sick, and some have fallen asleep, and are dead." He alludes there to the bodily plagues and afflictions, which issued in the death of some. Now, from whatever quarter those plagues, or sicknesses, or deaths came, it is evident they were sent by God, because they were a punishment for an offence peculiarly against him. And even of the Saviour himself, it is said in prophecy, It pleased the Lord to

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bruise him; he hath put him to grief." What! did not the Jews put him to grief? Was it not Pilate and the Romans that bruised him, by the scourge, by compelling him to bear his cross, by nailing him to it, by piercing his side? But what did our Lord himself say to Pilate, proclaiming his power over him? "Thou couldst have no power over me, except it were given thee of my Father." And what did Peter and the Apostles say of the Roman soldiers, and the Jewish rulers, the priests and the scribes? They were gathered together, at the crucifixion of Christ, to do "what the counsel and hand-writing of God had before determined to be done." And therefore "it pleased the Father to bruise him;" he "put him to grief," and made "his soul an offering for sin." And but for the hand that God had in his sufferings, exacting the sacrifice of his death, it would have had no efficacy as an atonement.

Away, then, with the Manichean heresy, which ascribes all the affliction in the world to an evil principle, equal in power to God, and opposing his will. They do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor ever attending to the dictates of sound reason. For how can there be two supreme wills? If there be one supreme will, there can be no other equal to it. How can there be two infinite beings? If there be one infinite being in every place, what room can there be for another? How could two opposite beings, and of opposite characters, agree in the construction of this world, so as that the perfectly good being should consent to so much evil, and the perfectly evil being to so much good? It is plain that the evil principle, which is Satan, is an inferior agent; otherwise the world would be deluged with evil, and otherwise evil would not have been overruled, as we see it to have been in so many cases, for the accomplishment of important purposes in the fulfilment of divine prediction.

Away, then, with the Stoical hypothesis, that there is no difference in pain or pleasure but what is arbitrary, or what we choose to make ourselves. What if a few individuals, under the pride of philosophy, attained to an insensibility that rendered them equally insensible to pleasure or to pain, could that alter the law of our nature? Could that prevent the rest of the world from being wrought to rapture by pleasurable objects, or afflicted with anguish by painful ones? The dicta of philosophy effects no change in the constitution of human affairs.

Away, then, with the Epicurean notion, that the Deity does not trouble himself to attend to the minute concerns of the children of men, and inflict petty scourges upon them. It is very true it is a mark of great condescension, and it struck the inspired writer: "What is man," said he, to God, "that thou shouldst magnify him? and that thou shouldst set thine heart upon him? and that thou shouldst visit him every morning, and try him every moment?" But once admit that God made the world, and all things in it, and their movements, and you must confess that what it was not beneath him to create, it cannot be beneath him to superintend; and having created them, he is bound to superintend their movements, that they may answer the end which he designed, and not frustrate his intentions in their existence.

And yet there is a great disposition in every human heart to exclude God out of his own world. There is a marvellous unwillingness to go out of the regions of sense, and to adopt the conclusions of reason, confirmed by revelation. This is especially the case with regard to affliction; and therefore it is that afflictions