STORMY SABBATHS.

BY REV. THEO. L. CUYLER.

THE season for stormy Sabbaths is now on, and, as in all past winters, the patience of pastors will be sorely tired. We shall make ready the "beaten oil" for the sanctuary, and go ourselves through the pouring rain or driving snow; but the mass of our people will not be there to "fill their vessels" from the oil-jar. We shall prepare a practical discourse with especial reference to Mr. A; but he will be at home, " toasting his shins" by the fire. We shall have a sweet, comforting discourse for Mrs. B- in her bereavement; but, alas! the rain would damage Mrs. B- 's new crape veil, and so she saves her veil and loses her sermon. Perhaps, as Mr. C- has often told us of his difficulties about the inspiration of the Scriptures, we may preach the very discourse which we have carefully prepared to meet his difficulties, on some stormy Sunday; while Mr. C- is sitting in the chimney-corner, reading his INDEPENDENT. And so it will come about that a large number of truths, which are designed for particular individuals, will miss their mark-to the disappointment of the preacher, and to the sore spiritual loss of the wilful absentee.

Since it is practically impossible to get our congregations all out to their own churches on stormy Sabbaths, I have often felt inclined to make this suggestion: Let every one go to the nearest church. Three benefits would arise from this arrangement. 1st. Every pastor would have a large audience, even on the dreariest days. 2nd. People would have an opportunity to hear other preachers besides their own. 3rd. The edge of sectarian prejudice would be taken off, and a spirit of Christian harmony would be engendered among different denominations. For there is many a man who would lose his narrow prejudice or secret hostility to another denomination the moment he began to worship God in their company, and hear the blessed gospel from the lips of their minister. We recommend this suggestion for a practical trial on the first stormy Sabbath. It would save our churches from the disgrace that now belongs to them whenever the weather interferes with their comfort or the lustre of their Sunday silks and satins.

After twenty years of pastoral experience, I have come to divide all churchmembers into two classes-fair-weather Christians, and storm-proof Christians. This division holds good throngh all the routine of religious life. The first class is composed of those who rarely practice any self-denial for Christ. They not only dread a storm of rain or snow, but a storm of reproach or unpopularity. They are capital soldiers on parade-days, but are not worth a rush before the cannon's mouth. They are loud in profession before a battle, and loud in exultation after a victory, but during the fight they are always missing. Demas is the representative apostle of this class, as Paul is the representative of the storm-proof disciples. Fair-weather Christians are of no possible use, except to shame better men into better conduct.

Commend me to the Christian who, when the Sabbath bell rings, consults his conscience rather than his barometer. Commend me to the follower of Jesus who chooses death or defeat rather than desertion. Commend me to him who, when Duty sounds her trumpet, is always ready to answer, "Lord! what wilt thou have me to do?" He is Christ's minute-man. When at last the messenger of death shall call the roll, this man shall calmly and promptly answer here! And, after he has gone to his heavenly reward, his name, like that of the gallant young Huguenot captain, shall be kept on the roll of the regiment, and whenever it is called some comrade in the faith shall step forth and respond, "Died on the battle-field." In these days of self-indulgence, may God send us more religion that is storm-proof.

"FEAR IS NOT LOVE."

You say you cannot see what fear has to do with love. Perhaps enough was said on that point in a former article. If not we will look at it again, and try

to ascertain whether God, who makes our whole ultimate duty to consist in love, has made use of fear to produce and to perfect love. This is a question not of speculation, but fact.

We begin with the holy angels. Their whole duty consisted in loving God. Were their fears appealed to then while they were perfect in love? As we have no direct information, we must ascertain what we can learn from inference; and as that is but conjecture it may be merely suggested.

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It seems that they became devils, lost their primitive estate, and are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." Now our inference is, that if such were to be the consequences of their disobedience, a kind Being, who knew it, would have informed them. But if He did, it was well calculated to awaken fear in them even while they were perfect in love. Whether it was kind or wise to inform them, each must judge for himself.

Then we have more positive knowledge in the case of Adam and Eve. They were holy, perfect in love. Yet God, our kind Father, said to them, "The day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." That was more awful to them than it can be to their children, who have never known what the fulness and perfection of life is. Then if fear is not love, it is not inconsistent with it; may have an intimate connection with it.

But now we come to enquire how it is with sinners under the reign of grace. If we take the most general view of it, we see that society cannot dispense with fear. God, who made man for society, and gave society to man, made the magistrate to bear the sword that he might be a terror to a certain class. Then, so far, benevolence can make terror one of its instruments.

Nay, the milder forms of fear are at the very foundation of the proprieties of life. He who in society most fears giving needless offence is the most of a gentleman. But it may still honestly be asked, what relation fear can have to the gospel, which is glad tidings of great joy.

1.-It checks the wicked. The awful words of the Bible remain there, working in silence on the consciences of desperate men, even without their knowing it is so.

2.-It awakens the insensible. Saul of Tarsus was terribly alarmed when he discovered whom he had been opposing. Peter's sermon cut to the heart, and awakened awful apprehensions of a coming day of reckoning. God tells his prophets, "Say to the wicked it shall be ill with him."

3.-It spurs on the enquirer who is tempted to shrink back from the difficulties of the way.

4.-It is a guard_to_the believer. Fear is a safeguard of love in this imperfect state. Hence Paul says, "I keep my body under, lest I should be a castaway." Hence he utters such awful warnings as are found in the sixth chapter of the Hebrews.

Fear goes with the believer clear to the end; and when he reaches heaven its mission is ended; and there "perfect love casteth out fear."

THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF BAPTISM.*
ROMANS vi. 1, 2, 3, 4.

WHILE Paul preached baptism of believers only, he was most anxious to assert and demonstrate the great doctrine of justification by faith in Christ. It would be anti-Christ to put any one even of Christ's ordinances in room of him. At the same time we have long been convinced that there would be more Baptists, were our Pastors more frequently to assert, on Scripture testimony, the duty and privilege of all believers to be immersed. We have in the text the one faith in relation to this one baptism, and, God helping us, propose to give to each its Scriptural place as enjoined in relation to the divine life.

* Substance of a Sermon preached in the Baptist Chapel, Drake Street, Rochdale, by Alexander Pitt, on the occasion of a baptism.

I. The occasion the gospel gives for the enquiry "shall we continue in sin." Such a question Paul knew his proclamation would evoke then, as it has done since, because,

1.-It offers a salvation completed by Christ-our ransom was all paid. Every claim of law he met; every atom of vengance due to our sin he endured. "It is finished." God was satisfied. Sinner, ought not you? It only asks poverty, rags, ruin, in exchange for life, acquital, pardon. All that was yours He offers to take; all that is His he presses on you to accept.

2.-It saves the vilest and the most moral on just the same footing. In man's sight there is a vast difference betwixt these two classes; in God's sight both are alike ruined, under the curse, lost-undone, dead in trespasses and in sins. Magdalene and Timothy, Paul and Peter, the vilest prostitute and the chastest daughter of virtue are alike saved by the same free favour. God's word declares this-his own people feel each—“God would have been just had he sent me to hell."

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3.-It raises believers to a higher and securer dignity than Adam enjoyed before he fell in Paradise. It makes us kings and priests to God; gives us the spirit of adoption; unites to Christ. "We are members of his body, of his flesh, and his bones"-a union which nothing can sever-eternal life. They shall never perish, and no man is able to pluck them out of my hand." It gives us a title to heaven which justice can never dispute, nor Satan set aside. It counts up thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, &c., and says to that pardoned malefactor, "All are yours." Does not this seem like a boon for sinning? for where sin abounded grace did much more abound. "Shall we then continue in sin that grace may abound?"

4-God often saves men in the midst of their rebellion to him-Saul of Tarsus-"I am found of them that sought me not," &c.

II.—What the carnal heart has to allege against all this,—“Let us continue in sin," &c.

1.-"If this be true, no use my trying to be good." It will be useful and more comfortable to yourself here, but no qualification before God whatever. Our goodness extends not to Him. The Red Indians trade with cuts of red cloth as we do with money, and with them buy timber, land, &c. These cuts of red cloth may answer there, but would not pass here; moralities of the unregenerate may do on earth, but will not be recognised in heaven.

2.-"If God arrest men in the act of rebellion, no use my seeking." But He bids you seek, ask, enquire hearken. Had you lived in Christ's time, and been blind, the best plan would have been to do as Bartimeus did-lie in the way where Christ was, and call lustily after him. Are you content to be damned while life is offered in the gospel? It is in, and not for enquiring after Christ; He reveals himself to the soul. The consciously lost one can never rest content till salvation be secured.

3.—“ After all, is it not more likely that God will reveal his love to the moral than to the profane?" Likelihood or unlikelihood has nothing to do with the case. Judging from the past, the self-righteous, the Pharisees of our day, are the most hopeless class. Two men are bankrupts; one stands before us a complete wreck, and the ruin adversity has wrought excites our sympathy, and rouses our benevolence: we yearn to help him. The other forges some bank notes, or circulates base sovereigns, and thus robs honest industry with a sham currency. Which of these two will fare the harder in courts of justice? And what will be the doom of the man who attempts to cheat the Eternal God with the base alloy of his own doings, and enter heaven in the rags of his own righteousness. "Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having on the wedding garment? "Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness." In Christ we have no need to fear our sins, but are ever in terrible danger from our, righteousness.

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4.- Then I'll sit still, and do nothing at all." Through fear of people saying this, some ministers have been afraid to publish a full gospel. Let us

Men

be faithful to Christ's truth, and leave him to take care of its results. may say that and not mean it, but to feel it is just the turning point in a soul's salvation. It is doing that keeps them from Christ. When a soul says "I'm undone, I can do nothing, all my strivings leave me worse than before," verily has the light dawned within, and salvation has come. For no man gives up self, but as he accepts the Saviour.

III.—The triumphant refutation of all this, furnished in believer's baptism as adduced by the apostle. His argument, urged with all possible energy, is,1.—Believers are dead to sin by faith in Christ. They have seen Him delivered for our offences; bearing our guilt and sin. How can they love the precious Lord that bought them, and love sin that crucified and cost him his blood?

2.-The Holy Spirit works in each believer's experience Christ's actual history. They are born of God. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee;" therefore, also, "that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God," is, in a measure, true of every Christian. There is that holy nature in them which "cannot sin." They are crucified with Christ experimentally; risen with Christ-ours is now a resurrection life: as heirs of God we live far more in heaven than on earth. "We are come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God," &c. "And hath raised us up together, and hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." These are the alone fit characters to receive Christian baptism, and all such owe it to Christ as a profession of these inward facts of experience.

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3.-That baptism symbolises all this. "It is an outward and visible sign of this inward and spiritual grace." Baptised into his death-into the faith, profession, and obedience of Christ, into a conformity to his death unto sin, and into a communion with him in all the benefits it secured, and the designs which in dying he contemplated. He was buried, that as our representative he might descend to the deepest depths of our degredation, and prove the reality of his death. We are figuratively buried with Christ by baptism, laid under water-no burial but by immersion-then raised up out of the water, at once emblematic of Christ's resurrection, and ours spiritually with him, that as Christ was raised from the dead, so we also should walk in newness of life." We, then, who have experienced this inward change, can fearlessly preach a full, free, finished salvation through Christ; can invite and assure men, on God's authority, that character previous to conversion-goodness or badnesshas nothing to do with salvation. “It is all of faith, that it might be by grace." That conversion is a change of nature, tastes, and desires; a death to one side of our being-sinward; life to the other side-Godward; and illustrate all this visibly, plainly before their eyes. Our friends to be baptised, avouch to night before God, angels, men, and devils,—“ We have experienced the whole gospel in our souls; we have the witness of it in our own hearts more real and more satisfying than all that ever reason grasped, or intellect apprehended of external evidences, and as to our living in sin 'God forbid! we are dead to it,' it is alien to our nature. Look at Christ's death the cause of ours, and our public baptism the proclamation of all this."

Then saved before baptism, it can have no part in saving us. Then whatever of the Holy Spirit's operation you have experienced, not immersed in this faith, you are neglecting this divine and eloquently expressive ordinance, attesting what great things God has done for you. Then if all this be true (and nothing on earth is proved true if this be not) those of you who have not been immersed have not been baptised at all; have not been buried with Christ by baptism. Nor can the appeal of our text be made to your experience. "Know ye not that so many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ, were baptised into his death." Infant sprinkling having no authority in God's word, and no such Christian significance, can yield no answer to this appeal.

I entreat you to take God's word apart from human glosses and educational

prejudice, constrained by his loving example and command. Die to this sin of neglect in the request "See, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptised." Brother, "why tarriest thou here; arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins" emblematically, and thou shalt know, by blessed experience, that that act of service is a means of grace, and that “in keeping his commands there is a great reward." You will thus publicly and triumphantly refute the calumnies, which man's proud heart heaps daily on the free grace of the gospel. "Shall we continue in sin." God forbid, we have died to it. And in proof, “are buried with Christ by baptism unto death.”

Fragments and Choice Sayings.

THE CROSS OF CHRIST.

THE Cross of Christ is the sweetest burden that ever I bore; it is such a burden as wings are to a bird, or as sails to a ship, to carry me forward to my desired haven. Those who by faith see the invisible God and the fair city, make no account of present losses and crosses. Truly it is a glorious thing to follow the Lamb; it is the highway to glory; but when you see him in his own country at home you will think you never saw him before. I find that when the saints are under trial and well humbled, little sins raise great cries in the conscience; but in prosperity conscience is a pope that gives dispensations and great latitude to our hearts. The cross is therefore as needful as the crown will be glorious. -Ruthford's Letters.

STATIONARY CHRISTIANS.

sea

OFTEN from my window on shore I have observed a little boat at anchor. Day after day, month after month, it is seen at the same spot. The tides ebb and flow, yet it scarcely moves. While many a gallant vessel spreads its sails, and catching the favouring breeze, has reached the haven, this little bark moves not from its accustomed spot. True it is that when the tide rises, it rises; and when it ebbs again, it sinks; but advances not. Why is this? Approach nearer, and you will see. It is fastened to the earth by a rope. A cord, scarcely visible, enchains it, and will not let it go. Now, stationary Christians, see here your state, the state of thousands. Sabbaths come and go, but leave them as before. Ordinances

come and go; means, privileges, sermons, move them not yes, they move them; a slight elevation by the Sabbath tide, and again they sink; but no onward heavenward movement. They are as remote as ever from the haven of rest-this Sabbath as the last, this year as the past. Some one sin enslaves, enchains the soul, and will not let it go. Some secret indulgence drags down the soul, and keeps it fast to earth. O snap it asunder; make one desperate effort, in the strength of God. Take the Bible as your chart, and Christ as your pilot, to steer you safely amid the dangerous rocks, and pray for the Spirit of grace to fill out every sail, and waft you onward over the ocean of life to the haven of everlasting rest.

SUNDAY RELIGION.

A

MANY professing Christians put off their religion with their Sunday garments. They attend church, rent a pew, and listen to a sermon on the Lord's day and think they have served God for that week, and the remainder of the time is their own to devote to politics, pleasure, or uninfluenced by religion; thus living, six days in the week, a life incompatible with the principles which they profess. writer has said, if the history of such a man were written, the full long chapters would show a record of activity and energy, of tact and industry, and their results; of toil, ambition, and success; their object, the man's own comfort, advancement, honour, credit and glory, or those of his family and offspring; while the religious part would be found in a foot note in fine print on every seventh page, and