66 Cabinet. LOVING COUNSELS. 'LINE upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little,” are words that supply a principle, on which I shall act on the present occasion, which is intended to give to every one a portion of suitable instruction. FIRST CLASS.-The first class is composed of those who have discovered that they are lost, that instead of having a good heart, as vanity, and pride, and ignorance call it, they have a heart full of all uncleanness, a corrupt, a selfish, a malicious, a perverse, an atheistic, and altogether unholy heart! The law has come home to you with killing power; sin has revived, and you have died! Blessed be God for this work! It is a work that He alone hath wrought in you: you have to this extent obtained mercy! Yes, a mercy compared with which all other mercies are as nothing. But you must not stop at this point; for I am speaking to the man that has only been stunned, arrested, brought to a dead halt in his course of rebellion, but who, as yet, has not received the Gospel, "the love of the truth," who is only looking to the cross at a distance, without exercising faith in its work. If you stop here you are still undone! "Repentance towards God" only paves the way for "faith in the Lord Jesus Christ," the end of the law for righteousness. Let your happiness be rendered complete by receiving the Gospel salvation, by prompt and entire submission to the righteousness of God by faith in His Son, and the commencement of a heavenward course of Gospel obedience. Then, in the fullest sense, you will have "obtained mercy." SECOND CLASS.-There is a second class, to whom I would further speak; these are they who, through grace, have both repented and believed. Brethren, what are you to render to the Lord for all His benefits? He hath given you repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; you have been brought to the conviction that it is impossible to escape the consequences of a broken law, and the wrath of an angry Judge, except by submission to His righteousness. You have discovered the glory of Christ, the fulness of His grace, the perfection of His work; you have ascertained that He is able, and you have believed also that He is VOL. XIX. D willing to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. What discoveries! What lessons! On the strength of His invitations you have come, and He hath received you. You have obtained peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Ghost-peace that nothing in earth or in heaven can give but His blood, and a joy more precious than that of angels! You now perceive that He has satisfied the demands of the Divine law; and that what satisfies law, also satisfies conscience. Conscience now demands nothing more. You clearly see that He has, by His death, made full satisfaction for guilt; and hence He has laid a foundation for the hope of the world. Such is the foundation-stone that God hath laid; you are building upon it, and are happy. Is it not so? You never knew happiness till you knew God! You never knew happiness till you had peace in your consciences, were delivered from the curse, love, and power of sin, and brought into a new world, the possessors of a new nature, and a good hope through grace! Then, then only you were happy! Ye are God's witnesses. But I must not stop at you that have sincerely repented and believed the Gospel; I now pass, therefore, to the THIRD CLASS.-To a third class, among whom I trust you will all soon be seen,- a class that has not only repented and believed, but confessed with the mouth the Lord Jesus before the sons of men, acknowledging Him as their Lord and their God, their great Saviour, and determining, whatever others may do, that they will serve the Lord! Brethren beloved, I rejoice over you with exceeding joy; I congratulate you on having obtained ease to your hearts and consciences, by acting out your principles, following the Lord fully, and committing yourselves to His cause. Thanks be to Christ, you are now wearing His uniform, and bearing the banner of the cross! From this time forth you will ever be look ing back to the year -; "that great year," you will say, "when I was first brought to know the Lord; the year in which I was born again; the year which began my spiritual childhood; the year when God, in His infinite mercy, sought and found me, took away my heart of stone, and gave me a heart of flesh." Yes, you will for ever look back to it in these lights with grateful love. FOURTH CLASS.-But I am troubled in spirit when I think of another class among you, of those who have been spending many years past in making and breaking resolutions; of those who began the with resolutions that you would, in very deed, cease from sin, and give yourselves to God, but who are still standing out year against Him. You were, it may be, sincere at the time; but see how your heart has deceived you! You have acted out none of those resolutions you formed: in sincerity you formed them, but you formed them in ignorance of yourselves; you knew not your own real character, and you formed them in your own strength. Cease then resolving, and at once submit to the divine commands. The first is, with the whole heart, to repent, to forsake sin, and seek mercy. Away with these resolutions of turning to God at some future day! Well has it been said by one of our mighty ancients, “Hell is paved with good intentions." It is full of spirits that had an abundance of good intentions, but they were "resolving and resolving, till, at last, they died the same,” died impenitent, died unbelievers, and descended into hell! Beware, then, of following them. An hour will shortly come when you must decide, or the question will be decided for you. It is a fearful thing to be overtaken by death in the midst of indecision, and after a lifetime of barren attendance on the means of grace. A man may despise the voice of the preacher, but he must attend to that of the physician! The man who says, "I can do nothing, there is no hope; you have but a few days, or it may be hours, to live," is not to be trifled with. His words pierce like a dart! Now, then, now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation. Do not, then, harden your hearts; but return to the Lord, who will have mercy upon you, and abundantly par don you. FIFTH CLASS.—I speak to another, and the last class; I know not their number. The class of whom I speak are those who have not had even so much as good resolutions; who have had no thought at all about the matter of life or death. Your course has been most irrational, and it is most dangerous. Throughout the whole of your life, you have never had one anxious thought about eternity! Is this worthy of a creature endowed with sound reason, and under solemn accountability? Wherein does the life of such a man differ from that of a beast in his lair, from the lion in his den, or the ox in his stall? Is it for the man who rises as a beast, who rests as a beast, who eats and drinks as a beast, without a thought of his Benefactor, or of the end of his existence, is it for such a man to boast of reason? God is not in all his thoughts! His life is one of unmixed atheism! Who can estimate the folly and madness, the guilt and danger of such a man? But such men are to be found in myriads in our public assem. blies! There may be found in such assemblies no small portion of the very worst infidelity; the infidelity of men whose hearts have become as hard as a nether mill-stone! On the brink of perdition they go on perfectly secure, insensible to all spiritual considerations, and impending danger. Do, therefore, let me speak to you with affectionate faithfulness, since before another year shall have ended, your eyes may have been closed; your graves opened, and you have gone into eternity, and your destinies have been fixed by the Judge of all the earth! Our message must be to you one of two things, "a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death." Oh! let it not be the savour of death unto death. Make us not the ministers of damnation! Let us be the instruments of life to all! "Do yourselves no harm." Commit not spiritual suicide! It is not enough that we are free from your blood, that these hands are pure from it, while it rests upon your own souls! Come then, we cannot, we will not give you up! Will you not through the tender mercy of God, now repent, and receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ? "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come: and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Amen, and Amen! London, Feb. 1864. RULES FOR GIVING. IF individuals and families attend to the following, they will do right: 1.-GIVE GRATEFULLY.-"What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?" This is a question which we cannot too often or too seriously consider. As gratitude is a practical principle, it will always manifest its existence in the heart by the fruits of the life. Let a man but cherish this feeling towards God for temporal and spiritual blessings received, and it is impossible to withhold from Him what, at best, is but a feeble expression of it. "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" is the inquiry which such a soul will instinctively present. And not only should they who receive a gift feel thus thankful for it, but those who have wherewith to give, should, if possible, be still more thankful. The blessings of which we are in the possession and enjoyment should, undoubtedly, fill us with gratitude to Him who is the great and bountiful Author of them all; but, more than this, they should remind us of the solemn duty we owe to those to whom these same blessings have been denied. We should remember how much God has bestowed, and how little we have deserved, that we may not be deaf to the cry which is so loudly sounded in our hearing," Come over and help us." And, above all, we should seek that every rising of selfishness in our bosom may be effectually checked by the remembrance of the " grace of Him who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich." "Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small : Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all." 2.-GIVE GENEROUSLY. -"The liberal mind deviseth liberal things." "As God hath prospered us," is the scriptural rule for giving, as stated by St. Paul, and as anciently enforced by the prophet Moses. We should give, therefore, not only cheerfully and liberally, but as providence has blessed our store. This is the standard which God himself has erected, and it will not do to limit our contributions to the missionary cause by any other. It will not do to limit our gifts for God, while God has not limited His gifts to us. In short, it will not do to drop mites into the Christian treasury, while we keep the gold and the silver to ourselves. In the Koran of the Turks it is said, that if men knew the blessedness of distributing alms, they would, rather than withhold, give of their own flesh to relieve the necessities of others. Will the Turk put the Christian to shame in the cheerfulness and liberality with which he contributes to a reli gious cause? or, shall not the Christian prove that the precepts of Scripture are indeed superior to the maxims of heathenism? It is the voice of the Saviour himself which hath declared, "It is more blessed to give than to receive;" but how little is this blessedness regarded by the great majority of those who bear the Christian name! Let such read and ponder these expressive words: "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." "Wealth, labour, talents, freely give, Yea, life itself, that souls may live. What hath your Saviour done for you? And what for Him will ye not do ?" 1 3. GIVE SELF-DENYINGLY.— "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself." It is clearly the duty of every one to practise self-denial, in order that he may have wherewith to give to the Redeemer's kingdom. The idea of making what are called sacrifices for Christ, is one which will never enter the Christian's mind. If we had the true love of Christ dwelling in us, we should feel that all the sacrifice was on His part, and not on ours; nay, we should feel that the sacrifice consists, not in our giving, but in our withholding. But, after all, how few contributors to missionary schemes have ever experienced what a sacrifice for Christ really is! Is it not the fewest number who in any circumstances are found, in the scriptural sense, denying themselves for Christ? Do not the great majority of those who give, give out of their abundance, |