It is the unregenerated wicked that know no changes. I would rather infinitely so know these things, in a heart-felt experience, with all the bitters, than be in a dead faith, satisfied with a cold assent: the mere form, devoid of its saving, unctuous power. Not the mere letter will do for living souls, but the power, the Spirit, the marrow, the sweetness. Our almighty Head is substance, and Jehovah the Holy Ghost will not allow his pupils to rest in shadows. Hs is the Bread of Life and Water of

won

Life; and thirsty souls that have been scorched in their feelings by Sinai's fire, must drink or die. The lip of eterhal truth has pronounced them blessed, that spiritually hunger and thirst after righteousness, and declares such shall be filled. Vessels of mercy are never satisfied, but as they are filled out of his fountainfulness. And what is that fulness for, but to supply their need: it is communicative. His grace, oh. derful! it drowns, pardons, and removes all their sins; his blood cleanses all, his righteousness covers all, his dear, his mystic self. Let not my friend indulge in a despairing spirit; there is infinitely more merit in the atoning blood of God's dear Son to save, than demerit in all your sin to damn. If the Holy Ghost will open a little of this through the word to your mind, and give you precious faith to take it in, you will exclaim, "With him is plenteous re

Oh! dear brother and sister, what a precious Christ have you and I to believe in, love, and serve; Jesus, God and man in one great and glorious person, adored by angels, admired by the church, hated by the world, frowned at, yet feared by devils, yea, despised by his professed worshipers, nevertheless, praised and delighted in by all his saints. "I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." His glorious train of attributes and perfections, gifts, graces and heavenly blessings; his Glorious Person as the eternal God, equal with the Father, gloriously shines forth in all his decrees purposes, determinations, and final settlements in counsel and covenant, and on his church's behalf. In doctrine of the cross he is sweetly to be seen by every enlightened heir of promise. Jesus is indeed precious, yea, I repeat, Jesus is indeed glorious in every doctrine of the cross, Gal. vi, 14; in every promise of the Fatber, 2 Cor. i, 20; in every grace of the Spirit, Eph. ii, 1 to 11; in every particular of divine truth, John, xiv, 6; in every blessing of the covenant, Eph. i, 3 to 12. in every precept of the gospel, Col. ii 6; and in every consolation brought home to the soul, by God the Holy

Ghost.

every

S. L.

WHO IS THE HEIR?

"Heirs of the kingdom promised,"-Rom. viii. 17; Gal. iv. 7; James ii. 5.

WHO's this now lying at the gate,
Of yonder mighty man of state,
That only for his crumbs doth wait?

It is an heir of heaven.

Who's this that 's bowed with grief and care,
Whose sunken eye pourtrays despair,
While none with him their mercies share?
It is an heir of heaven.

Who's this that trembling at your door,
But spurned away because he's poor,
Still greater conflicts must endure?
It is an heir of heaven.

Who's this in yonder cot I see,
With all his little family,
Bow'd down with want and misery ¿
It is an heir of heaven.

Who's this that oft with pleasure trod
The paths of sin, and lov'd the road
But now through grace seeks after God?
It is an heir of heaven.

That shoes of iron and brass, to suit the road,

Are for each one provided, soon the feet
Would be unable to support the frame.
The path marked out for christians in the
word,

Is very narrow, thick beset with foes:
'T is full of traps, of snares, of gins and
baits,

Dazzling or latent as may suit the mind
Of each poor traveller. At the end extreme
Stand blissful mansions, heavenly homes and
thrones,

On which the eye by faith is sometimes fixed;

And when thus favoured, to behold from far
The rich inheritance of old prepared,
The weary traveller gathers up his strength,
And with new vigour presses on his way,
Through brake and briar, o'er hills of steep

ascent,

Through dire corruption, and infernal foes, Who stand unnerved and silent for a time.

THE GOSPEL PULPIT.

PRECIOUS PROMISES.

own burdened spirit in the hour of trial, and made my soul to rejoice in the Lord her Redeemer.

Whereby are given unto us ex

Gloucester, on Lord's-day Morning, January 14, 1844.

BY REV. J. RAMSEY.

"Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."-2 Peter i. 4.

WHEN I commenced preaching, now these many years gone by, envy and jealousy cried aloud, Oh, he has the preaching fever; let him alone, he will soon be tired of it. Time, however, has rolled onwards, multitudes of stumbling blocks have lien in my way, Satan has vented his sharpest spleen, and all his legions have roared, yet still the preacher has not grown weary of his work, nor has his fever abated; and if our gracious God always deals with him. as of late, in the visitations of his love and mercy, he is not likely to become weary, nor can his zeal grow cold. Truly my soul longs for the Sabbath's return, to tell out to my fellow sinners of those divine realities which have proved the solace of mine April, 1844.]

Here the Holy Ghost, in his infinite mercy, has been pleased to exhibit the precious promises of the gospel to the eye of our faith, that our hope and confidence may be strengthened, and our desires the more firmly fixed upon eternal things. We had reason to look for denunciations of wrath, yet we found promises of present and of eternal blessedness; we well deserved curses, instead of which we receive blessings; eternal misery and agonies beyond the conception of mortals might have justly been our lot, but we receive present grace, with everlasting felicity and unfading glory. Oh, boundless Love, how can we sufficiently adore thee, or render unto thee all thy praises! Oh, ye distres. sed ones, filled with anguish, cast down with a guilty conscience, and overwhelmed with a flood of sorrows, listen to the voice of consolation. That God, before whom you sometimes tremble, whose frowns are your greatest terror, has made unto you, yes, unto you, hath he made exceeding great and precious promises;

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promises, which comprehend in their sentence, your deliverance from present corruption, your escape from future sorrow, and an abundant entrance upon immortality and life. We have to notice,

First, The promises: and these, made by the Author of all existence, the Fountain of all goodness, the Source of all excellency, on behalf of wretched mortals. Here to enumerate all the promises, or to point out the whole of their excellency, would be impossible. And this is a thought which should strike us as a great and inexpressible mercy. Oh, thou Father of the fatherless, and Judge of the widow, we bless thee, that however numerous our trials, or however great our distresses, still thy sweet promises out-number and outweigh them all. The promises of the all-bountiful Jehovah are the pledges of heaven to guilty man, the voice of mercy to the miserable and undone. Threefold, are they, in their character, as expressed in the records of love.

.

help you, in all times of distress, to do the same, to the comfort of your souls.

as,

2. Promises of grace. As a wheel

was within a wheel in the vision of Ezekiel, so these are sometimes comprehended in the promises relative to the blessings of providence. first, let us speak of Jesus, who is so frequently distinguished in holy writ, "the promise." No gift to equal the gift of God's dear Son : no promise to equal the promise of the Messiah. As Aaron's rod swallowed up the rods of Egypt's magicians, so does this one all-glorious promise appear to swallow up all promises of smaller mercies. It was first given in paradise, when our guilty parents were arraigned for a moment at the tribunal of the Almighty. This promise took in the whole length and breadth of time; it stretched itself forth into eternity, and told, in comprehensive language, the final result of all the changing scenes of this lower world, the outwitting of the active intelligences of fallen angels, the overturning of human projects. the final salvation of the elect, and the unfading glories of our dear Redeemer. There is a feature in this first promise should never be overlooked: it was a blessing to the righteous, it was a curse to the wicked. So may it be said of all the promises. For every affirmative promise implies a contrary negative, and every negative promise implies a contrary affirmative. For instance, I will not leave you comfortless," John xiv. 18, implies, likewise, that the wicked shall be left comfortless and wretched in the end.

Again, the Holy Ghost is set forth to us as the promise of the Father: implying, that as in the person of the Father the whole divine majesty was to be honoured, so in the gift of the Holy Ghost, there is abundant proof, for the consolation of the contrite, that the Son of God, clothed in our nature, had, in the huge depths of his