Scripture phrase that I am aware of, that furnishes me with language, in a figure, adequately sufficient or strong to convey to another what I believe the evil nature of man to be: "The bottomless pit!" The language is true, and carries this evidence to our senses, that it is unfathomable, immeasurable, incomprehensible; and, though awful it may sound in our ears, the reality or truth of it will be fulfilled in the damnation of the soul. In such a curse, the simple but momentous truth conveyed to our minds, is neither more nor less than this, that the powers and faculties of the spirit of man are immortal and never-dying; endued with a capability of grappling with, and groaning under, the wrath of almighty God for ever and ever: under which curse, new species of sin and guilt will arise, as eternity rolls, without bottom and without shore. This will beget increased apprehensions of, and terrors from, the wrath of God. The prince of darkness, and his infernal powers, will spend their utmost strength, as their only solace, in tormenting damned souls; and the sinner himself, whose spirit, in the horrors of hell and the curse of damnation, can only be prolific, or fruitful, in that which is evil, will to himself be the womb of conception to spectres unnatural, prodigious, monstrous, and horrifying-to phantoms of imagination most terrific and appalling. In these dread abodes, the inexorable justice of almighty God, in a broken law, will never cease its iron grasp in this righteous requirement: "Pay me that thou owest!" yet not a shoe-latchet of help can or will it afford thereunto. The inevitable consequence will be, black despair, whilst a hopeless reprieve will madden and fill the spirit with desperation, that they shall curse their King and their God, and look upward. (Isa. viii. 21.) In this present evil world, bad as it is, a bank is cast by the almighty fiat of Jehovah, against the foaming inundations of sin; that in its worst operations, and surely its fruits, in manifold instances, have been most revolting to all the tender and social feelings of nature; but in the world of endless ruin, the Lord's preventing and restraining hand of power will be removed, and all the infernal, fiery, and burning passions of an evil nature,-envy, pride, covetousness, lasciviousness, uncleanness, wrath, cruelty, blasphemy, revenge, &c. &c., will rage with the fury and violence of a hurricane, ceaseless and endless, replete only with misery and woe. In a word, all things, and everything, that can consummate misery, and banish rest and peace, will incessantly rise and bubble up to view, that, in very deed and in truth, the last of the evils unto which a damned soul shall be heir, shall never, never, no never, be known! Language

fails, and imagination, in its most glowing conceptions, disappears like a shadow, in giving a righteous pencilling to a picture so gloomy, so black, and so utterly destitute of a single ray of cheering light. How dreadful, then, to be an eternal inmate of this bottomless abyss!

Are these lines of expression too strong and severe, in the features I have drawn? Before you condemn, seriously reflect and meditate upon the Scripture texts which follow: Isa. xxxiii. 14; lxvi. 24; Mark ix. 44, 46, 48; Matt. xxv. 41; viii. 12; xiii. 42, 50; xxii. 13; xxiv. 51; xxv. 30; Luke xiii. 28; Rev. xx. 10, 14; xvi. 10, 11; Isa. xxx. 33; 2 Thess. i. 7-9.

I would just add here my witness from experience, in two particulars, as a confirmation or corroboration of the weighty and awful truths I have touched upon. One evening in the winter season, as I was sitting by a bright coal fire, and, in moody silence, smothering my wretchedness, unable to open my feelings to any soul living, I pondered silently upon the fire before me, and thought to this effect: Well; how could I endure? how should I roar and rave, in agonizing torture, were it possible my poor body could eternally exist in the frying embers before me! Spiritualizing the thought, I rove upon some of the Scriptures I have above referred to, and there I learnt this lesson, that what fire and brimstone would prove in excruciating torture to the body, could it be sustained alive therein for ever and ever, even so, in reality, not in supposition, must damned souls torture and agonize in hell, beneath the eternal, inextinguishable flames of the wrath of almighty God. This I then believed to be my portion, as verily and truly as that I had an existence; but how I felt under the belief of it, language cannot describe.

At another time, this Scripture came with terrifying power upon a guilty conscience: "Vessels of wrath, fitted to destruction." In deed and in truth, not in distraction, but in perfect composure of soul, I really believed that I was one of that description of character-a vessel of wrath; and that almighty God, in the inflexible justice of his wrath against me as a sinner, was strengthening, enlarging, and preparing, with his own hand, the immortal powers of my spirit, to endure the agonizing tortures of his almighty indignation, to the countless ages of an eternal world. This was death indeed! And has such a wretch found mercy? What other wretch, feelingly so circumstanced, need despair!!!

Does my reader think that under this head I have been too particular? Let the vast importance of the truths brought forth be a plea in my behalf, taking also into account, that in

the professing periodicals of the day, the church of Christ is but little burdened with truths so homely. They are unpalatable to man in his natural state, whether professor or profane; so that we may safely affirm, "All men cannot receive these sayings, save they to whom it is given." (Matt. xix. 11.) (To be continued.)

ON THE LAW OF MOSES, AS THE MINISTRATION OF DEATH AND CONDEMNATION.

(Concluded from Page 71.)

Notwithstanding all that has been said from the pulpit and the press, upon the law, as the ministration of death in the experience of an awakened sinner, one half has not been told us, nor ever can it be in this time state. When the law first enters the conscience, we know but little of its meaning. Of this I am convinced from my own experience. When the Lord first charged me with my own guilt, I had not the least knowledge of his methods of stopping the mouths of the ungodly, but in my ignorance I concluded the Lord was doing me an injury. I tried long and hard to pursue my former ways, till united circumstances, and repeated convictions, brought me to a stand. Dear readers, as the regenerated children of God, you will know something of my wretched standing place, when in this condition; yet it was far better for me to be thus brought to a stand, than to run on in a course of fleshly religion. Bless the Lord, O my soul, for what he has made me know of my state as a guilty sinner, and of the precious person of Christ as my salvation. Bless the Lord, I can say from my very heart, that however far the law, in the hends of the Holy Spirit, has ministered death upon my conscience, the gospel of the grace of God has been brought, in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, for my deliverance, and my soul has been raised in a moment to an experimental enjoyment of that sweet and precious statement, "There is therefore now no condemnation;" and I feel thankful at this moment, before God, for the least knowledge I have of these important things. It is as the Lord the Spirit leads us into the life, love, and liberty of the gospel, that we are enabled experimentally to say with Paul, "Seeing we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech, and not as Moses, which put a vail over his face." (2 Cor. iii. 12, 13.) Here the law and gospel are contrasted by the apostle, as they have been known upon the heart of every one that loves our Lord

Jesus Christ. I have frequently heard the vail here spoken of, mentioned by ministers as being the vail of ignorance; and with this view of the subject, they will cry, in a way of prayer, "Rend the vail of ignorance." But, determining the meaning of the passage from the connexion in which it stands, which we ought always to do, I can see nothing of which the apostle has here been speaking, but death and condemnation, as ministered by the law. So that, if it be the vail of anything, it is the vail of death and condemnation. What I mean is this, that it is the vail of the signification of death and condemnation. As it is written, in the book of Esther, in reference to the condemnation of Haman, that when the word went out of the King's mouth, they covered Haman's face; so that the King condemned the criminal, and the King's servants minister that condemnation, signifying it by a vail; and Haman went mourning, having his head covered. And so it is when the King's commandment enters the conscience, and is followed up by his ministers of the law, the poor sinner goes mourning, having his head covered. Yes, when the commandment comes, and sin revives, the Lord's family feel their criminality as much as they see their ignorance. The figures, emblems, and representations of the law, are no longer figures, emblems, and representations of ignorance, but of just condemnation before a righteous and a holy God. Here the poor sinner is in prison, under sentence of death, and never can he forget the horror of his mind, as he descended into this gloomy cell. Here he is accused unto the Father by Moses, in whom he trusted. Here he sinks where there is no standing; till, in the horrible pit and in the miry clay, the pains of hell take hold of him, and he finds trouble and sorrow. Here he waits

the hour of execution, without the least ray shining upon his mind, until the Holy Ghost visits him in his dreary abode, and speaks of the wonderful thing,-of Christ Jesus, who came into the world to save sinners; and as the blessed Spirit unfolds the mysteries of redemption to his mind, he finds that the vail, that is, his condemnation, is done away in Christ.

The Holy Ghost, by the prophet Isaiah, says, in reference to the feast of fat things, full of marrow, of wines on the lees, well refined, that he "will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations." Bless his precious name, Christ hath swallowed up death in victory; and though the criminal may have made his bed to swim with his tears in his condemned cell, the Lord God will wipe away the tears from off his face, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. This is not the mountain

that might not be touched,-of blackness, and darkness, and a horrible tempest: no; but it is Mount Zion, the place where the Lord God reveals himself, "gracious and merciful;" and as the Holy Ghost glorifies Christ in the heart of the child of God, he cries, from the feelings of his soul, "Lo, this is my God, I have waited for him: he will save me; I have waited for him: I will be glad and rejoice in his salvation." Here his deliverance begins; for the Holy Ghost calls him forth, as a prisoner of hope, to fly to the strong hold, this exhortation being brought with power to his mind, "He having learned of the Father cometh unto me;" and then, for his encouragement, the Redeemer says, "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." No matter what is the cause of his imprisonment, if his mouth is stopped, if his conscience is pricked, if his heart is opened, God will glorify himself in his full pardon and complete acquittal. Not one shall ever be lost that he brings into this place of sighing and crying, of weeping and mourning. Come, then, feeble, trembling, guilty sinner; let us ponder over the character of him who is given as the covenant Head of his people, that he should be for salvation to the end of the earth, and that he should say to the prisoners, Go forth, and to them that are in darkness, Show yourselves for the Lord looked down from heaven from the light of his sanctuary, to hear the groanings of the prisoners, and to loose them that are appointed to death. As God the Spirit speaks of these things in the sinner's experience, he is blessed with the spirit of prayer, and from the feelings of his soul he cries out, "O Lord, let the sighings of the prisoner, the groanings of the criminal, come up before thee: according to the greatness of thy power, preserve thou those that are appointed to die."

How very evident it is, that the Holy Ghost works in the experience of the children of God the everlasting purpose of the Father, when he, the Spirit of truth, blesses them with discoveries of his rich grace. What a union there is between the promises of God and the prayers of his people. Whatever state or situation the promises of God refer to, there the child of God must be brought. There is one passage in Psalm cxlvi. which is pregnant with the love of God, and descriptive of the state of his people: "The Lord looseth the prisoners." So God's family are not only cast into prison, but fastened and bound in it, until their redemption price is brought forth. As it is written: "By the blood of thy covenant, I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." Thus, when Jesus is made manifest as the prisoner's salvation, he is