THE SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE, AND ZION'S CASKET. 1847. "For there are Three that bear record in heaven, the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY GHOST; and these Three are One."-1 John v. 7. Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."—Jude 3. 66 Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.-1 Tim. iii. 6. LONDON: E. PALMER AND SON, 18, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCXLVII. WITH the close of our Twenty-third Volume, we close a year of depression and difficulty greater than within our memories has ever been experienced. It may indeed be defined as having been a long "day of perplexity," almost unbroken by alleviation, and well nigh uncheered by hope. During its revolving months tribulation of one sort or other has been the lot of all classes. Every one has had his hand upon his loins, and his brow paled with anxiety by reason of personal cares. wealthy and the poor, the low and the exalted, have alike been partakers of an indiscriminating adversity. As a nation we have been shattered and brought down; as individuals, where is there one who by bereavement of either health, or wealth, or friends, will not mark down the year 1847 as a dark period in his history? The Statesmen and political economists, unable otherwise in any measure to account for so tremendous a visitation, have been compelled to acknowledge that it has been the hand of God; but, alas! statesmen and political economists pursue the investigation no further, and content in having assigned a cause, ask not for a reply to the wherefore. Let us with the fear of God in our hearts, and with the word of God in our hands, seek in a prayerful reference to Bible history, a solution of what statesmen cannot account for. It is admitted by all that literal Israel as a nation was the depository of the blessings and the privileges of the Mosaic dispensation; blessings and privileges which insured to them, while they prized them, an abundance of temporal good. Amongst literal Israel were many spiritual children of Abraham, who discerned the gospel through the types, realizing and rejoicing in the Saviour. With them we have not now to do; we are referring here only to the rising and wane of national prosperity, and the causes thereof. It is admitted, likewise, nay it is boasted by many who seek not however a personal interest therein, that England is and has long been the favoured country where abide most conspicuously the ark and the candlestick of the gospel dispensation. What was it brought upon literal Israel the sword, the famine, the pestilence? Idolatry! a setting up of the false gods of the nations around them, and a bowing down in worship to them, thus refusing Jehovah, a recognition of whom as the one true and only God was the distinctive mark and feature of that dispensation. Precisely as literal Israel nationally received or rejected the idol gods of their heathen neighbours, they were nationally prosperous or otherwise. Now what is the distinctive feature of the New Testament economy? Access to God by one only Mediator! This defines true Christianity. This, which is learnt only in the school where the Holy Ghost is the teacher, distinguishes the living church from the idolatrous systems around her; and we aver our belief that it is inasmuch as England is nationally forsaking and despising this the distinguishing feature of real Christianity, is she nationally bringing down upon herself the angry visitations of Him who is moral Governor of the universe, as well as the God and Saviour of his own elect family. With the personal adherence to the faith of the many who amid the national apostasy have not bowed the knee to Baal, we have not to do here; they in the munitions of the rock will be sheltered and preserved, so far certainly as that their eternal safety shall not be touched, however much they may hear the sounding, and partake in the temporal calamities of the coming scourge, which nationally, for national dereliction and wilful abandonment of her great privileges, England is inviting, and will assur edly receive, unless nationally she repent. Alas, for England! She hath lightly esteemed her christian standing amongst the nations! She seeks to remove from her brow, as if it were a mark of degradation, the name of Protestant, which like a sparkling coronet hath for so many ages adorned her! In despite of the one only Mediator between God and man, she is at this moment forming a political alliance with that hierarchy which promulgates and advocates mediators without number! Her name she assumes; her doctrines she embraces; her formularies she adopts; her absurdities she excuses; her superstitions she palliates; her tyranny she is imitating and all this so openly that Papists are anticipating and calculating the time when, in their phraseology, England "as an erring sheep shall return to the true fold," or in the language of consistency and truth, when England shall again acknowledge humble allegiance to that "scarlet whore" who in days bygone wantoned with the blood of our forefathers, and made merry with the sufferings of the saints. We trust we shall never be permitted to rail at dignities, or to speak evil of the powers that be, and which are therefore ordained of God. The laws of our Queen, and the statutes of our KING, alike condemn this. Allegiance to our Queen we profess equal to any; allegiance which nothing will lessen but the collision of her laws with those of Him who is the only Potentate and King in Zion. A people, however, act by their rulers, and suffer for the sins of their rulers; and therefore in the language of lamentation we fervently pray that God may be pleased to exclude from high places any evil councillors who, unmindful of the solemn oath taken by their royal Mistress, and altogether heedless of their own, may suffer themselves to become slaves and vassals to the god of this world, Expediency, and step by step conceding their monarch's prerogatives to the Beast, rob her crown of its brightest jewels, entail upon her people, calamities, which tremendous though they be, are only beginning, and call forth a storm, the end and extent of which cannot be foreseen! Oh that England may be preserved as a nation! Oh that she may be led to turn from the errors of her way, and that for the sake of the salt that is still within her, England may yet be maintained in her Protestant integrity, and may be preserved from an alliance with the Beast, and thus continuing to be the home and the abiding place of the ark of the Lord, may share nationally, national blessings, while God's spiritual Israel, quiet in their spiritual privileges, may, under their own fig-tree, grow up in knowledge and acquaintance with God until taken up of the Lord to dwell with him for ever. Reader, at such a time, when the foundations of the earth seem to be out of course, when every eye is outstretched as if foreboding some coming woe, how much it behoves each of us to ask ourselves, Am I right for eternity? Do I know anything of the secret of the Lord, which is with them that fear him? Can I, amid the cares and commotions of a troubled world, lift up to heaven a faith-invigored eye, and say, "My Father rules the helm!" Happy soul that amid the vicissi tudes of time, in every circumstance, and in every difficulty, can in the words selected by one of our esteemed correspondents, then look up! Briefly we must now thank our correspondents and subscribers for their continued favours; and commending them to God and the word of his grace, we close by beseeching for them and for ourselves every new covenant blessing. |