genitor and federal head, after he had partaken of the forbidden fruit! But its fullest display was in the garden of Gethsemane, when on the mount of Calvary our Surety, in all the agonies of soul travail, went forth clad in a vesture of clay, to endure in our room and stead the dreadfully appalling curse, to which inflexible justice had doomed him, in order to render an infinite atonement for an infinite offence. Would we view sin in its true light? Its heinousness is discovered in the shades of the cross-its real nature is manifest in the amazing price, past all human calculation, which was demanded for a ransom! Blessed intelligence! the first glad promise of eternal life was made to our forefathers through the inestimable merits of the Lamb slain.

The holy patriarchs of old, being made the subjects of faith in the promised Messiah, participated in the blessedness of this promise; they lived upon it by precious faith; and looking through all the types and shadows of the ceremonial law, they saw the Redeemer of their souls as through a glass darkly, and tasted of the sweet streams of redeeming love. Their hopes for eternal life, and the hopes of every elect vessel of mercy, whether Jew or Gentile, alike center in Christ, and are founded on the same impregnable rock, namely, his completely finished work.

To say that the purposes and love of our great Jehovah are not eternal, would be to utter an assertion at variance with truth, and totally incompatible with the essential attribute of Deity, immutability. It is impossible that any after thought or second purpose should arise in the eternal mind of Jehovah, who comprehends in one survey things past, present, and to come. Every event must of necessity have been infallibly and irreversibly fixed by him from all eternity; and the purpose which was prior to its being must bear a correspondent date with the infinite mind conceiving it. The vast machinery of nature discovers to admiration the infinite perfections of its great original. The marshalled constellations, which emit their glittering light to guide the footsteps and gild the path of the weary traveller, all join in common concert to proclaim and confirm the inestimable truth, that there is none like unto their Lord." Nor are the revolving wheels of his providence, which exhibit their astonishing velocity of motion in the government of the world, less wonderful. They are ever rolling onwards, and as they move some new event is unfolded to the view; some hidden mystery is brought forth to excite the astonishment of the beholder. But be the purposes developed ever so dark and intricate to human comprehension; or let them assume whatever degree of mystery they may; the experience of the past, and the testimonies of divine revelation both affirm, that there is assuredly some important object to be accomplished by them, either in judgment to the sinner, or in love to the church at large; but most certainly the glory of God in the final issue.

There can be no doubt that the introduction of sin into this our world, might have been averted by the omnipotent power of the Most High, had such a course have comported with his hidden purposes,

and have been productive of the full developement of his glorious perfections. We must ever remain at a loss to account for this solemn event on any other principles. There is an immortal train of bless edness couched in the redemption of the precious body of Christ from the Adam fall; and such an infinity of glory is connected with the whole, beaming from the every perfection of the God incarnate, as will be hereafter more fully seen, when the ransomed of the Lord return with everlasting joy to their heavenly Jerusalem above, as shall surpass their utmost admiration.

It would be presuming far too much to charge our immortal Jehovah with the propagation of evil; and the aspersion would be an iniquitous calumny on his holiness. There is a vast difference in the infusion of evil, and the sufferance of its being and introduction, as injected by the craft and power and poisonous influence of the tempter. The state of peccability, in which man was originally created, rendered him vulnerable to the attacks of his enemy, and the result of a trial of his strength lamentably evinced that it was not proof against the preponderating subtlety and influence which assailed him. No controul could subvert the prerogative of God, who maintains an absolute right to do with his creatures as pleaseth him; nor can any charge be equitably founded on the subject of this formation at the expence of sovereign mercy. What though the developement of the most unspeakable and transcendant glories of the great I AM were inseparably connected with the fall of man; and the revelation of those glories were designed to succeed the abrogation of a covenant of works, in consequence of a departure from original righteousness, and the substitution of a better! still man was left to the prevalence of his own free will, and sinned by his own free and voluntary consent, without the constraint of any superior power; though out of this event arose the immortal flame of redeeming love, of which countless millions have participated in the past, and of which millions more shall still participate throughout eternity. The introduction of sin into the abodes of bliss before the creation of the world, is a subject much more mysterious and complicated, and fraught with infinite difficulty to trace. man! wouldest thou be wise, born as thou art like the wild ass's colt, bereft of understanding? It were a far better proof of wisdom to leave the impenetrable depths of infinity, which involve inextricable labyrinths and insurmountable difficulties; than endeavouring to penetrate so profound an abyss, surpassing all human research, with the eye of At the solemn bar of God it will be seen that none can justify themselves as transgressors from the womb, at the expence of sovereign mercy. There every tongue shall be constrained to confess the justice of the sentence passed on them; and to acquiesce in the righteousness of the decree, as it will be luminously conspicuous to every eye, whether it be to endless wrath, or to everlasting happiness through the inestimably precious channel of the atoning blood of the Lamb.

an atom!

Vain

The effects of grace are sovereignly distinguishable in its subjects;

for, while sin is the natural element of man, it is the bane of the man of God. The former loves and cherishes its influence, and delights to wallow in its contaminating streams, as the sow in the mire. Not so the trophy of eternal love: true he is born in sin, and is shapen in iniquity; and cannot boast of a better heart than his fellow, though less favoured sinner; but whenever sin gains an ascendancy over him, its effect is made sooner or later as a fire in his bones. The commission of evil by the believer in Jesus is succeeded by the most sensitive grief. Many are the stripes resulting from his disobedience, which are exceedingly painful to endure, but they are all" most needful, not one is in vain." There is a needs be for heaviness through manifold temptations, (or trials, as is here rendered) and yet, as the rod of affliction to the children of God administers stripes of love, they are messengers of peace, sent to remind him of the true value of that amazing sacrifice justice required for the expiation of his guilt, and the forgiveness of his transgression. The sweet consciousness that every affliction is working for our good, has produced a divine stillness under the most distressing circumstances; and it has been a source of joy to the afflicted, that as his heavenly Father sits at the furnace, he tempers the heat and the continuance of the heat of the furnace by his wisdom, so as to accomplish the sanctified end he has designed on their account; and his declaration is ever fulfilling in their experience, "when thou passest through the water I will be with thee, they shall not overflow thee; and through the flames, they shall not enkindle upon thee."

What a striking illustration to this effect does the chapter containing the narrative of Peter's experience afford! Peter was a man eminently endowed with a conspicuous love to his Master in every point of view; and it is evident that he was, more than some of his brethren, peculiarly favoured with an ardent zeal for his glory. He was one of the favoured three who had witnessed his ever memorable transfiguration on the mount, when in an ecstacy he exclaimed, "Lord, it is good to be here!" But his after solicitation evinced his ignorance of the tenor of Solomon's declaration, that "too much honey is not good." Doubtless it would appear more delightful and profitable to be always on the mount; but such a station does not comport with a state of tribulation; and it is evident that though Peter's trial was not so pleasant, that it was equally and more profitable in the end to him, than the exalted station he had desired the continuation of. The reality of Peter's attachment to Jesus was fully evidenced by his whole conduct throughout all the subsequent stages of his career, up to the very period of his fall. His courage in his cause, and his zeal for his glory, perhaps were never surpassed by any. They may have been too much prompted by natural affection, misdirected in its course, and ill-timed in its exercise; yet they were nevertheless fully exemplified by the lifting up his sword and smiting Malchus, in the ever memorable garden of Gethsemane, as well as in following him to Pilate's bar. Who could have then concluded, from

these events, that so sombre a veil would so soon be drawn over Peter's vision-that such ardent valour would have fled at the voice of a silly maid; and that in the season of a trial so apparently trivial, he would have so awfully denied, with imprecations and curses, the very object of his best esteem? We learn from hence, that trials are only trivial as they are made so by grace counteracting their influences; we learn also, that the best way to keep an enemy at bay, and to achieve a victory over him, is not voluntarily to thrust ourselves into the heat of a contest to try our strength; but rather, distrusting the feeble powers of nature, to stand aloof from the appearance of evil; and even when forced into the battle, to go into the field as David did, with a stone and a sling, relying on the help and strength of the God of Jacob.

It is very evident that Peter's fall was foreknown by the Lord, from his case having been made a matter of prayer and intercession by him; as is clearly inferrible from the charge delivered to him previous to it, (Luke xxii. 32.) as well as from the final issue. The ever blessed Jesus knew full well that Peter would give occasion for the powers of darkness momentarily to triumph; yet, how superabundant are the riches of his sovereign grace! that sad catastrophe was, with reference to its end, connected with the production of the most gracious fruits, both to Peter, and the church in all its succeeding ages, and will doubtless be so till the end of time.

What abundant matter does this otherwise distressing event supply for the exercise of our gracious Redeemer's mediatorial plea! and the reflection that the trial and its issue, both painful and gracious, the operator and the instrument, the sifter and the sieve, are not only appointed by the Lord, (who is intimately acquainted with the secret imaginations of the human heart) but that they are ever subjected to his guidance and controul, and can only execute the special purposes allotted to them:-these are grand truths, which, when under their influence, will produce peace and serenity amidst the raging storm; and will ultimately bring forth the divine consolation with which they are so sweetly fraught. How do the enemies of Christ hate the standard of the cross, and despise the riches of his grace. Notwithstanding all their professions to the contrary, they are ever in league with satan, plotting and contriving their ruin. Their every action serves but to illustrate the awful drama; what was exemplified in the conduct of the Jews who slew the Lord of life and glory, may be read in every gentile heart; and those who were never blessed with a gracious and predominating principle of heavenly birth, even though born under the luminous planet of gospel day, imbibe the same malevolent designs towards Jesus and his mystical body, and entertain, equally with his favoured race, secret pleasure in their works of darkness The context supports the assertion to demonstration; (verse 31.) but in the ultimate consummation, when the matter shall become finally summed up, ample repayment of every injury, and a full measure of vindictive wrath, shall be awarded to them by that God who is ever jealous of his honour and glory.

No meed of praise is due to the tempter that his designs are frustrated, that his projects are erased and blighted ere they reach their zenith, that his expectations are baffled, and that he is foiled in his attempts to annihilate the precious grain but infinite praises, surpassing the sublimest anthems of a celestial state, are richly due to all conquering love and grace, whose almighty power averts the allimpending ruin, and extracts good from the evil, in such a gracious way, that even the acutest temptations sent for the trial of faith, which frequently operate with all the afflicting pungency of thorns in the wounded side, shall become the means first, of humbling the soul, and bringing down the heart with labour and soul travail, and of teaching the value of an eternal refuge in the munition of rocks; and then of exalting him, through the riches of his mercy triumphant over them; thereby proving blessed channels of communication, which shall call forth transporting songs of gratitude and praise throughout an endless eternity. Precisely such was Peter's case; his trial was of a peculiarly painful nature, but it was appointed for him by infinite wisdom, and none other would have been so adapted to bring about the hidden purpose to be accomplished. The cross to which his dis tressing aberrations subjected him, was ponderous and weighty, and its effects wrought the most grievous bitterness to his spirits ;-but that very cross was doubtless specially sent by his heavenly Father to check the pride and legality of his heart, and to counteract the selfcomplacency and carnal confidence which he had too vainly cherished, as to the unwavering nature of his attachment to his Lord, in spite of every obstacle; while the abundant grace which effected his recovery most richly redounded to the glory of his covenant God, the comfort of the weaklings of his flock, and especially to the support of the humble penitent, and contrite backslider: and it powerfully admonishes that no flesh should glory, save in the Lord. How effectually was this dear disciple taught, that the self-confidence he had fostered as to the ardour and strength of his love to Jesus, was capable of being suspended in the absence of his alluring visits and captivating influence; and, notwithstanding he had emphatically uttered his firm declaration to follow his glorious Master even unto prison and to death, how affectingly the hour of trial proved his utter incapability of watching even one solitary hour, during the last agony and conflict of his glorious Surety, much less to endure with repelling force the buffetings of the enemy in nearer combat!

(To be concluded in our next.)

(To the Editor of the Spiritual Magazine.)

A FEW LORD'S DAYS IN LONDON.

Dear Sir,

HAVING been a constant reader of your publication from its commencement, and most cordially approving of the sentiments it contains, I have thought that some of your valuable correspondents could explain a subject that the much perplexed me, if you think proper to