God does love my guilty soul, and in Christ pardons all my sins, and justifies and blesses me if I can live in the light of this love, I cannot but love others, however bad they are: the reflections of God's love shining in my heart will shine out in love to them. And there is none occasion of stumbling in him.' Nothing brings so much scandal on religion as anything of selfishness or self-seeking in professing Christians and it is remarkable what sharp eyes the world has, to spy out inconsistencies in Christians; but when the world sees the real disinterestedness and self-sacrifice of a child of God, they can find none occasion of stumbling in him. It It was thus our blessed Saviour won the hearts of His people, and thus should His people win the unconverted to love and serve the Saviour whom they follow."—Bickersteth.

"What ought we rather, dear Bullinger, to correspond about at this time than the persevering and confirming, by every possible means in our power, brotherly kindness among ourselves? We see indeed of how much importance that is, not only on our own account, but for the sake of the whole body of professing Christians everywhere, that all those on whom the Lord has laid any personal charge in the ordering of His Church, should agree together in a sincere and cordial understanding. Indeed, Satan himself perceives that very clearly, who while he plots, by every method he can devise, the ruin of Christ's kingdom, plies none more earnestly with all his might, than to sow division and discord among us, or somehow at least to estrange the one from the other. For that very reason, therefore, it is our duty to oppose these sort of devices; and the more our adversary strives to rend asunder our connexion, so much the more ought we to strive against him with more determined resolution and intense anxiety to cherish and uphold it. Since, therefore, it is our duty carefully to cultivate friendly fellowship with all the ministers of Christ, so we must needs also endeavour by all the means we

can, that the churches to which we faithfully minister the Word of the Lord may agree among themselves.”—Calvin to Bullinger.

"The Lord first asks (John xxi, 15-17) what He knew, and that not once, but twice and three times, whether Peter loved Him; as often does He receive no other answer from Peter than that He was loved by him, and as often does He give no other charge to Peter than that he should feed His sheep. The threefold confession answered to his threefold denial, that his tongue might not be less in in the service of love than of fear; and imminent death seems to have drawn forth more from his voice than present life. Be it the duty of love to feed the Lord's flock, as to deny the Shepherd was the indication of fear. Whoever feeds the sheep of Christ with the desire of making them his own, and not Christ's, proves himself to be a lover of self and not of Christ; or that he is led by a desire of glory, or authority, or lucre, not by the love of obeying, and doing good, and pleasing God. This word of Christ, so often inculcated, keeps watch against those whom the apostle, with weeping, declares to be seeking their own and not the things that are Jesus Christ's."St. Augustin.

"God's wisdom acts diffusively-man's wisdom concentrically. The first produces many effects by the same cause-the latter employs many causes to produce the same effect. . . . The love of God-that omnipotent spiritual stream,—when it is shed abroad in the heart of the Church in millennial abundance, will move every spring which is necessary to turn the human race into a common brotherhood; but the spiritual, moral, social, and physical manipulations, by which this mighty revolution will be effected, must be apportioned among an infiniten umber of different operatives. From the complicated mechanism which constitutes a Christian church

and organizes a missionary or Bible society, down to the instrumentality that is employed to print a single tract, every part of the stupendous undertaking will be committed to different agencies, each producing, under the impulsive influence of the one great motive power, its own allocated part of the work."-Original reflections by J. E. Gordon, Esq.

389

JOY.

"I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation:'

What do we offer to

"Now what is faith without joy? God, when we offer without joy? What obedience, what service can He expect from a faith that is without joy? How can souls without joy adorn His sanctuary and contribute to His glory? How can God be honoured or pleased, how can His purposes be promoted, and His light diffused here below, by the man whose soul is depressed and benumbed by sadness? Attain once more, then, ye dejected believers, the joy of your salvation, in order to attain with it energy, zeal, life, and, in a word, love, which is all these in one-which is the accomplishment of your chief end, the crown of your happiness, your paradise on earth, and your all in all in heaven! Ask God to restore to you the fallen diadem; beseech Him to cause a ray of His glory to penetrate your hearts, and illumine your second night. From the depth of your present calamity implore Him to give you back the glory and the gladness of your first love. Ask boldly. He is expecting your petition. He is only waiting for it, to restore to you all you have lost. and to conduct you by a path of light to new progress,-to achievements greater and purer than those of the best days in the earlier part of your career.”— Vinet.

"It much honoureth God, when the hopes of everlasting joys do cause believers to live much more joyfully than the most prospering worldlings: not with their kind of doting mirth, in vain sports and pleasures, and foolish talking, and uncomely jests; but in that constant cheerfulness and gladness which beseemeth the heirs of glory. Let it appear to the world that indeed you hope to live with Christ, and to be equal with the angels. Doth a dejected countenance, and a mournful, troubled, and complaining life, express such hopes or rather tell men that your hopes are small, and that God is a hard master, and His service grievous? Do not thus dishonour Him by your inordinate dejectedness. Do not thus affright and discourage sinners from the pleasantness of the service of God."-Baxter.

"The Gospel imparts new joys and sorrows, new hopes and fears, new pursuits and prospects, and these are all characterized by holiness. Hence holy joys and sorrows, holy expectations and fears, holy pursuits and prospects, constitute a branch of regeneration. Previous to conversion, our joys and sorrows are awakened by temporal objects, at all events, if not by sinful ones. We never joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ; never rejoice in the light of His countenance; never mourn over the existence of depravity in our hearts, or on account of our want of conformity to the holy image of God. Such, however, are the mental exercises of all who have been born again by the incorruptible seed of the word.' Previous to conversion, we never longed for heaven because it is the abode of holiness, and though we might dread punishment, we never feared sin. But, if we have been made new creatures in Christ Jesus, it is the holiness of the world above that constitutes, in our estimation, one of the main attractions of the place and though sin were not to be followed by death, it would still be the object of unmingled abhorrence. Previous to our conversion, we