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no tuition on this vital point was required. All seemed in a moment to understand the economy of redemption. They looked on His name as the only name given under heaven amongst men whereby they could be saved, and acted accordingly. The doctrines of His Divine nature, vicarious sufferings, and justifying righteousness, were instantly and everywhere understood, confessed, and relied on. Even the Popish converts at once, and without prompting, uniformly and immediately renounced all the peculiarities of the Roman creed, and embraced the simple Gospel of the sacred Scriptures.

The Book asserts, that penitents find peace only and always through believing the Divine testimony concerning Christ, and reposing on the Divine mercy through His blood. The Irish converts most strikingly exemplified the declaration. They were filled with peace and joy through believing. Their very countenances, like mirrors, reflected the gladness of their hearts. They emphatically rejoiced in the hope of the glory of God. The contrast between their two states excited the wonder of every beholder.

The Book asserts, that "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away, and all things have become new." The Irish converts proved and illustrated the truth of the statement; everything about them but existence was not merely changed, but renovated. They were filled and fired with love to God and man. Nothing could exceed the glow of their spiritual affections. They loved, with a pure heart, fervently, their God whom they had not seen, and their brethren whom they saw. It was not the love of sect, but the love of Christ in His people, by which they were animated.

The Book asserts of all that believe, that they receive the Spirit of adoption, and become temples of the Holy Ghost. In the Irish movement, the presence of the Spirit was everywhere demonstrated by the visible effects of His Divine power. It was displayed in knowledge, in affection, and in devotional exercises. His in dwelling presence could alone explain the attainments of the converts in these matters. Nothing like it had been seen by the oldest man living, or even heard of, in the province, since the era of the Reformation.

The work, then, viewed as a whole, illustrates the Book, and the Book demonstrates the heavenly origin and character of the work; and thus they mutually support each other. So far as

the mighty movement has gone, it has been, notwithstanding any imperfections which may have mingled with it, essentially, and eminently, the fruit of Divine power. "Glory to God in the highest! Peace on earth! Good-will to men!" Amen.

ANDRONICUS.

COME TO JESUS.

BURDENED soul, come to Him who invites thee. Whatever be thy need, and however great it may be -whatever stings may be in thy conscience, and however sharp they may be. however weighty thy guilt, and keen thy remorse, and sore thy chafed and troubled heart, there is healing, and deliverance, and peace for thee. Bring thy burdens, thy stains, thy deeply-polluted soul, thy fears, thy very doubts of God's mercy, bring them all, and come to Jesus."

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Come, as you are. Linger not, to put on the Pharisee's cloak, or the moralist's robe. Come in your rags. Come with your sins. If you do not bring them to Jesus, and lay them upon Him, you will never get near Him at all. He must bear them all, or you cannot be forgiven of the Father. Come with them all, and you will find that He can save from all sin.

Come, with a simple plea for mercy. What can you ask for but mercy? You have forfeited everything-life, happiness, and hope. You are guilty, wretched, and lost. You are condemned already, and walk ever under the shadow of an impending doom. The cross of Christ is your last and only hope. Come to it, but let no plea be heard other than the plea which came from the burdened

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Thou hast bidden me come." Surely, that plea must avail with that tender and faithful Saviour.

Come humbly, but hopefully. A sinner can have nothing whereof to boast, and much of which he must be ashamed, but this must not keep him from Jesus. Bow low in the dust, but let it be at the foot of the cross. Condemn yourself, and confess your vileness, but remember, Jesus has removed the condemnation, and will wash you clean in His own most precious blood. Presume not, but despair not.

Come, now. It is both folly and sin to delay one moment. Now is the accepted time-now is the day of salvation. "To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." Hasten, while the ark is open-while the storm and fiery tempest are restrained-while Jesus

stands entreating, and the Holy Ghost is striving. Come now, lest the cross be withdrawn, and Jesus cease to call you to salvation. Come now, lest to-morrow you be found where the Holy Ghost gives no warnings, and God's mercy is clean gone for ever.

DELIVERANCE TO SATAN. "To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus."-1 Cor. v. 5. "To deliver such an one unto Satan." There have from the earliest times been two prevalent interpretations of this expression. According to one view, it simply means excommunication; according to the other, it includes a miraculous subjection of the person to the power of Satan. Those who regard it as merely excommunication, say that "to deliver to Satan," answers to "might be taken away from you," in verse ii., and, therefore, means the same thing. The Corinthians had neglected to excommunicate this offender, and Paul says he had determined to do it. Besides, it is argued that excommunication is properly expressed by the phrase, "to deliver to Satan;" because, as the world is the kingdom of Satan, to cast a man out of the church was to cast him from the kingdom of Christ into the kingdom of Satan. Compare Col. i. 13. In favour of the idea of something more than excommunication, it may be argued

1. That it is clearly revealed in Scripture, that bodily evils are often inflicted on men by the agency of Satan.

2. That the apostles were invested with the power of miraculously inflicting such evils.-Acts v. 1—11; xiii. 9-11; 2 Cor. x. 8; xiii. 10.

3. That in 1 Tim. i. 20, the same formula occurs probably in the same sense. Paul there says he had delivered Hymenæus and Alexander unto Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme.

4. There is no evidence that the Jews of that age ever expressed excommunication by this phrase, and, therefore, it would not in all probability be understood by the readers of Paul in that sense.

5. Excommunication would not have the effect of destroying the flesh, in the sense in which that expression is used in the following clause. Most commentators, therefore, agree in understanding the apostle to threaten the infliction of some bodily evil, when he speaks of delivering this offender to Satan.

"For the destruction of the flesh." This is by many understood to mean, for the destruction of his corrupt nature; so that the end contemplated is merely a moral one. But as flesh here stands opposed to spirit, it most naturally means the body. "The man was delivered to Satan that his body might be afflicted, in order that his soul might be saved."

"In the day of the Lord Jesus." That is, the day when the Lord Jesus shall come the second time without sin unto salyation. It appears from 2 Cor. vii. 9-12, that this solemn exercise of the judicial power of the apostle had its appropriate effect. It led the offender himself, and the whole church, to sincere and deep repentance.

PAUL'S PRE-EMINENCE, AND

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THE SECRET OF IT. "I LABOURED more abundantly than they all." This was his preeminence. This he regarded as among the greatest signs of an apostle."-And well he might; for even his Master and Exemplar said, แ 'My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." "I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day. The night cometh, when no man can work." Must Christ work, who created all things (John i.), and "upholdeth all things by the word of his power (Heb. i.), and who by that simple word expelled diseases and demons, and raised the dead; and must not we? Work, therefore, "abundant labour," stands high among the "signs of an apostle," and not only so, but among the signs of a Christian, for our highest distinction and purest glory, as well as our clearest evidence of Christian character, lies in our resemblance to Christ. We follow a working Redeemer, and we must be working disciples. The more "abundantly any man "labours," if he work the works of the Father, the more nearly and manifestly does he resemble Christ, to whose "image it is the glorious dignity of the child of God to be "conformed." Rom. viii. What, then, was the secret of Paul's pre-eminence? Howbeit, not I, but the grace of God which was with me." This reveals the whole secret of that wondrous activity which, "from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum, fully preached the Gospel of Christ." If

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Paul was eminent, it was grace"
that made him so. And that grace
is just as free to you, and to me.
"He giveth more grace." Let us
then "
come boldly to the throne of
grace, that we may find grace to
help us," and then pour out that
grace in "abundant labours" for
God and the souls of men. Is not
this the sweetest life on earth, and
the surest path to heaven?

NEGLECTING THE GREAT
SALVATION.

MOST of the calamities of life are caused by simple neglect. By neglect of education children grow up in ignorance; by neglect a farm grows up to weeds and briars; by neglect a house goes to decay; by neglect of sowing a man will have no harvest; by neglect of reaping the harvest will rot in the field. No worldly interest can prosper where there is neglect; and why may it not be so in religion? There is nothing in earthly affairs that is valuable that will not be ruined if it is not attended to; and why may it not be so with the concerns of the soul? Let no one infer, therefore, that because he is not a drunkard, or an adulterer, or a murderer, that therefore he will be saved. Such an inference would be as irrational as it would be for a man to infer that because he is not a murderer his farm will produce a harvest, or that because he is not an adulterer therefore his merchandise will take care of itself. Salvation would be worth nothing if it cost no effort; and there will be no salvation where no effort is put forth.

The Convert's Corner.

THE SALTED WAFER.

POPERY consists of too many falsehoods to permit of their being always well fitted together. A system of truth is consistent in its most minute details, but fiction must be invented with consummate art, or it will be found often at variance with itself; and striving to satisfy close scrutiny upon one point, it will surely be betrayed into some glaring contradiction on another.

Some time ago, in the west of Ireland, a Romish priest had to ride across an estuary of the sea, and in doing so had his clothes saturated with salt water. Arriving afterwards at an inn, it occurred to him that the water might possibly have injured the consecrated "wafer" which he carried in his pocket; so he carefully opened his " pyx," and discovered to his dismay that the sacred wafer had been reduced into a shapeless mass of moistened dough.

He was a man of tender conscience, and was greatly agitated by the thought that a mortal sin had been committed, and the "body and blood of God" destroyed. With trembling hands he turned to the books of his church to learn the weight of his offence, and the penance to be imposed for the commission of it. Behold, the crafty fathers had long ago made provision for such a case! They had decided for him that "the wafer ceases to be the body and blood whenever it is so injured that corruption has set in."

The priest's worst fears were for a moment calmed. Mother-church had anticipated his awkward position. But his perplexity was redoubled when he looked again upon the doubtful piece of incarnate divinity still in his hand. "How

shall I know," said he, "whether corruption has set in or not? How shall I know whether this wafer is, indeed, the flesh of my Creator, or a lump of wheaten flour ?" And as he paused, looking into the fire before him in the coffee-room, he asked, "Can it be possible that God's presence in this bread depends on such uncertainties, and that my soul hangs in peril on such a doubt? Pshaw!" he said, and pitching the box and wafer into the fire, "from henceforth I disbelieve it all." That priest is now the active Protestant clergyman at Ballycouree, and our informant had this story from his own lips. It may be added, that simultaneously with his coming to this resolution, he received an offer of promotion from the Popish bishop.

The foregoing is one of those instances in which the web is so finely spun as to become entangled, and the plot so intricate as to defeat itself. Great ingenuity must be employed by the Romanists, who are continually adding to their creed, to prevent palpable contradictions from being foisted upon the people who are bold enough to say that they put faith in all the church

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