lievers. We are warned by St. Peter, that it is possible to wrest scripture to our own destruction, and it appears to me a fearful thing to assert that man can make his God. The words of our Saviour, "Do this in remembrance of me," would not be appropriate if he were present in person, and our Lord had said that the words he spoke were spirit and life, not flesh and blood. In another scripture we find our Lord, in answer to the tempter, when requiring that the stones might be made bread, answering, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Here he surely speaks of spiritual food for as the body would perish without solid food, so will the soul perish that is not fed by the word of God and through his holy Spirit. Dr. C. next remarks, that if Dr. M. has proved the Roman Catholics to be Pagan, he has done the same to the Protesting Catholics; then he has proved us all sinners, and that I fear none can deny to be true. But as Christ is able to save to the uttermost all that come to him, let us all, as sinners, cast all our cares on the Lord who careth for us, and who has promised that those who come he will by no means reject.

Dr. C. ends by telling us, that Luther, notwithstanding his violent humour, could not help acknowledging that the Papists had the very kernel of Christianity: they most certainly have, being in possession of the word of God. "Are we blind also," was the question of the scribes and pharisees; and Christ says," you say you see, therefore your sin remaineth." Then the Roman Catholics having the word of God, it may be the witness against them that they rejected the free salvation offered in that blessed book. Having now spoken on all the points mentioned, let

us all, I would say, instead of proving each other to be in the wrong, pray earnestly, that all may be brought to the light, even to the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. He must increase, we must decrease: thus spake St. John to his disciples. That the Messiah would come with help and salvation they knew; but some seemed to imagine that the repentance which they professed, and the life of poverty and austerity which they led; that their fastings, self-denials, and prayers, if they did not possess some atoning power, had in them at least something, which was to outweigh sin and the curse belonging to it; but they had not yet been baptized unto Jesus Christ, baptized unto his death, But John their master would teach them that they must die more completely--that they must plunge deeper into free grace.' I must decrease all that I have enjoined: repentance, self-denial, fasting, and prayer, must lose all credit with you as any grounds of God's reconciliation to you: you must seek this in Jesus alone: he must increase. Then does any one ask, what must he do to be saved, the answer is, thou must decrease-Christ must increase; by nature we are great, Jesus little; we are strong, Jesus weak. We cannot allow Jesus to be the only Saviour, the Alpha and Omega: the excellency of the power is ours, not his: we take carnal reasoning for our guide instead of the simple word and Spirit of God: salvation is looked for in self-love, not in the Saviour alone. But when the word of truth in the gospel effectually penetrates the darkness of the understanding, the case is reversed, the strong man now becomes weak, and what appeared weak before now becomes irresistible; the Sun of righteousness now

arises with healing on his wings, and we learn more and more to rejoice in his light alone. Our own strength, virtue, and excellency are things we can no longer bear to hear of: we love to lie humbled before the throne of grace, and to wait for a renewed sense of divine love, even as they that watch for the morning. We now decrease; Jesus increases in us : it is natural to suppose that those who have been so thoroughly humbled in repentance and faith, are not likely to be again puffed up with vanity or selfrighteousness; but experience teaches us that it is not so: the old Adam is never entirely dead, though dying as a crucified malefactor: he can still revive, and do unutterable evil. Yes, many a one after conversion has suffered himself to increase, Christ to decrease; one by the enlargement of knowledge, another by his ascetic exercises, another in self-complacency, borrowed from his influential popularity, or the extent of his beneficent exertions; another thinks much of his own devotional feelings: in such things a man insensibly grows so pious and holy, that these things become gain to him, and are no more accounted loss, for Christ grew as he. Are we not then to increase in sanctification? Yes, grow as the palm-tree; but in self-estimation we must ever be as the hyssop on the wall; we must daily become less and less, weaker and weaker in our own eyes, feeling more and more in want of the Lord's staff for our support otherwise we have gone in a wrong direction. Children of God must grow up in him in all things, in him who is the head, even Christ: for those who are truly led by the Spirit of God are ever gradually descending in self-humiliation, for nothing can be accepted in the sight of God but the new creature in Christ Jesus. Amen.

LINES

WRITTEN ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF A SEVERE

AFFLICTION.

SEVEN years havé elapsed—I look back on the time Of youth's bounding vigour, of life's vernal prime; Some clouds had o'ershadowed my path, it is true, But the sunbeams were many, the clouds were but

few.

I thought that my heart to my Saviour was given, That, though wandering on earth, it was resting in heaven;

I deemed myself firm on the side of my Lord,

His name I acknowledged, his power I adored.

But he knew the vile sinner his heart-blood had bought,

He looked on the sheep that in mercy he'd sought;
He saw sin and self working wild in this breast,
And his voice in deep love said, 'Return to thy rest.'

In the chamber of sickness he spake to my heart,
He opened the stores he alone can impart ;
He shewed himself one that is "mighty to save,"
To triumph o'er death, and illumine the grave.

For weeks and for months, amid languor and pain,
He taught me that earthly enjoyments are vain;
And gently he whispered, in tenderest love,

That my heart should be fixed upon treasures above.

In mercy he weakened my strength in the way;
My step is still feeble-but he is my stay;
My frame has been shaken-but gladly I praise
The Lord of my life, and the strength of my days.

Seven years have elapsed, and I bend at thy throne,
Thy mercy, thy faithfulness, Saviour! to own;
Rebuking and chastening, thy love I can see,
For affliction hath drawn me more closely to thee.

Thou seest sin and self still at work in this breast,
And to earth cleaves the soul that in Jesus should

rest; Withdraw not thine hand then, but listen my prayer, Every trial thou sendest, oh help me to bear.

M. A. STODart.

June 17, 1838.

THE TRUE SPIRIT OF PROTESTANTISM.

ZEAL for the truth was a great feature of the early Protestant faith. The reformers knew the worth of the gospel by their own happy experience; they knew that they had the heavenly treasure, though in earthen vessels; they knew that error was fatal, and they honestly and unflinchingly testified that it was so. There was no spurious liberality; there was no treacherous truce with evil; the faithfulness of love made no merit of deceitful words of peace.

Far from this, their's was love inwardly and zeal outwardly. Called to Levi's work, to act decisively against idolatry in God's church, Exod. xxxii. they