snare upon you; my aim is, that she may attend on the Lord without distraction. But she is at liberty to be married to whom she will, (with this proviso)" only in the Lord."

Marriage is honourable in all things, and was ordained to bring about the higher purposes of heaven; to be a reflection of the mystic union between Christ and the church, and to people the upper world; therefore, at the beginning, "male and female created he them." There are many comforts, as well as sorrows, connected with a married life; and, every child of God is at liberty to choose a helpmate; but they are bounded by the family. Can this ever be a grief to one who is born from above, and will for ever dwell in their society? but, awful to relate, it has been. O the worth of the atonement that could bury such a feeling! It becomes you, beloved, diligently to look into this matter, to beg counsel of your heavenly father, to tread carefully on the precipice of your future happiness, or woe, pertaining to this life. For the sake of the public honour of God, and the prosperity of your own soul, aim to comprehend the heart, and never be satisfied with the mere talk of the lips; how many have been deceived, and spent their lives in misery in this way. Mere professors generally turn out the greatest enemies to vital godliness: beware, lest ye fall into this snare of the fowler; but such unwary souls have not conscience, and the word of God, like the sword placed at the garden, to keep them from the tree of life. Only in the Lord is the divine command; listen, O ye children of the Most High, to the will of your Father, for in keeping his commands your greatest happiness is involved; to oppose his peremptory dictate, is one of the highest acts of rebellion and insults offered to his all-wise majesty. What does the man or woman attempt to do in violating it? Unite heaven and hell; the living God and idols; Christ and Belial; a believer and an infidel!

Further, consider what an affront it is to the Holy Ghost, whose work it is to separate you from the world. It makes the severest rod for the fool's back: it is the most unequal match heaven ever saw; earth ever beheld; or hell was ever gratified with. It was this brought the deluge on the world, Gen. vi. 2. the Jewish nation to the verge of ruin; which God prohibits, and threatens in the severest manner, Deut. vii. 2, 3. Exod. xxxiv. 14, 15, 16. I know of no act of disobedience that causes more smart; many have taken shelter under the decrees of God, which is awful presumption;

"Shall we from thence a license draw

To violate his holy law?"

God forbid! We have his revealed will, whereunto we do well to take heed. He that walks contrary thereto, the Lord will visit his iniquity with many stripes. In seeking a helpmate, see it is one that feels an abhorrence at sin, knows the plague of the heart; has a reverence for the character and word of God; a relish for divine things; VOL. VI. No. 62.

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not one that merely peels straws, and splits hairs in divinity; that only has a head well informed: beware liere, for this is the one thing needful, the grand essential of your pursuit; make sure ground here, whatever other qualification is deficient. This shews the folly of hasty marriages; weigh the matter well, for the devil is always in haste; make every enquiry into the character of the suitor, and aim to know all you can about him; hear again the voice of inspiration, “only in the Lord."

Another very desirable thing is, a oneness of mind in views of truth. When one strictly regards the law as a rule of life, and the other dislikes the mention of it; the one loves the doctrines of free and sovereign grace, and the other thinks they ought to be carefully preached, &c. this, with the devil's help, will create a distance: one will speak light of the other's minister, which will bar up spiritual communion, put a yoke on the mind at the altar of God," &c. as our Lord says, how can two walk together, except they be agreed?"

Another very essential thing is, a mutual affection for each other. This is of vital importance. Where attachment is wanted, a married life is a burden. Some marry for money; others are attracted by beauty, &c. These are good accompaniments, but when these are the chief objects, it is a woful case. "Love beareth all things; thinketh no evil;" makes serving a pleasure; poverty trifling; presses through difficulty; is satisfied in its object, &c.

Another excellent qualification necessary to make life comparatively happy is, a sameness of disposition. A person light and frothy, united to one that is solid and steady, is a bad fit; this will not excite an high opinion of each other, nor promote mutual benefit, &c. I would say to the dependent sex, see that it is one able to provide for you to be always drenched in poverty is miserable indeed. And to the other (in these perilous times) see that ye are able to meet the claims of such a relation, lest your life be swallowed up with anxious care. A union founded with these excellent requisites will smooth the rough pathway of care; will make you fellow helpers of each other's joy; and, as fellow-heirs of the grace of life, you will travel on to the kingdom in sweetest harmony. Let me once more repeat, it is "only in the Lord." Let me entreat you to read Ezra ix. and x. and Neh. xiii. 23, to the end. Much more might be said, but I close with the apostle's affectionate entreaty, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean, and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

Golden Square, London,

Feb. 13, 1829.

C. M.

ORIGINAL ESSAYS.

XLIX.

CHARACTER OF CHRIST, COMPARED TO A FIRE.

WHAT an unspeakable mercy is it to be included in the covenant of grace! We are therein secure from Sinai's terrors, the gnawing pangs of a guilty conscience, the fiery darts of hell, and the malice of ten thousand furies waiting for our destruction. The happy result is peace-peace which surpasseth understanding.

In no age has the Redeemer of sinners left himself without witness, in whose minds the Holy Ghost has diffused abroad the lustre of supernatural light, whereby they discover the immense grandeur and dignity of their Lord, so as to excite their highest admiration of his endless perfections, to inspire their devotion to him, and to beget the deepest humility of soul. Superior-infinitely so, to the full dawn. of human intelligence, is this illumination, which, while it heightens and adorns, rises immeasurably above the soar of finite understandings. If Jesus be not the centre of attraction, if he is not the magnet which attracts the soul, and animates and cheers her powers, it is obvious that such cannot know their need of him, be conversant with their wants, or possess a due estimate of his suitability to their case, nor of his all-sufficient fulness of grace to supply them. But, where sin is felt, and the Redeemer's grace is known, Jesus must, and will be supremely precious to the soul; and none but him will satisfy the desires produced within, which, like "a well of water," will ever be springing up unto everlasting life. Happy, past expression, is the

man in such a case!

The character of Christ, which is represented to our attention by fire, is of double interpretation. He consumes the wicked by his judgments, and shuts up the finally impenitent in unquenchable fire; but he purifies his children by fiery dispensations, in loving kindness, by purging away their tin and dross.

He whom the ungodly despise, is a just God and a Saviour: just and righteous is he in all his ways. Inflexibly just in his retributions, and all merciful in his dispensations; he divides his favours, severally, to whom he will, without violating a single principle of perfect rectitude, or tarnishing the splendour of his glory. Let the ungodly remember, that the day is hastening, and is perhaps nearer its dawn than is generally expected, when he will no more be reviled and set at nought by men; for, at his second appearing, it is said, Behold he cometh in clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." How little do his enemies contemplate this great and terrible day,

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which, from present appearances, seems fast approaching, and preparatory to which the nations of the earth shall be shaken, as with a rushing whirlwind, In measure, this has been accomplished; and, even now, the undulating rumbling of subterraneous commotions are rolling along in terrific thunders, which will still more increase as they roll, and in the issue terminate all things. But, in vain do holy men exhort, in vain do they admonish the ungodly, all their labour is returned with invective, and if they are ever listened to, it is to heap on them ridicule and scorn.

The events recorded in sacred and profane history, though admitted facts, produce nothing more than human credibility. The very raising up of the Persian, Grecian, and Roman monarchies, together with their subjugation and overthrow, all of which in turn were ministrations of the glory of God in the person of his Son-these wrought no spiritual impressions on the benighted minds of those who were the engines of this mighty work, for even while their footsteps were marked on the wreck of splendid desolations, so dark are their minds, and so lost to the truths of spiritual prophecies-nay, so totally insensible are they of the cause, design, and end of these spoliations, that, while walking on the burning ashes of ruined empires, they forget the very end of their existence, and are satisfied with the mere transient honours achieved by the battle-axe and spear, regardless of a more exalted or dignified bliss.

To advert to later periods-events which come immediately under our own cognizance-events which must have rang a din peal within the conscience of the gayest auditor; for who can have read of the majesty of God displayed in shaking whole provinces manacled and chained by the iron fetters of the papal monarch, who breathes forth a melancholy existence across the huge Atlantic Ocean, and by the power of his almighty arm opening up wide chasms in the earth, and swallowing up whole communities within her labyrinthian gulph. Surely if any external catastrophe tended to rouse the mind from its torpor, and create spiritual alarm for personal safety, so afflicting an event as this must be highly productive of that end; but we have it on indubitable record that true spiritual life is not the offspring of human power, but of God. Every terrific vision, every fearful reality will fail of producing a change of mind from evil to good. The sun, by refusing the lucid transmission of his beams, may gather in the horizon the darkness of midnight gloom; the moon may assume the appearance of blood; but these omens will only affright into slavish obedience, and a concatenation of horrors past human conception can but produce torment, till divine light shine into the mind to chase away the clouds of Egyptian night. The extreme anguish of irremediable woe, and whatever may constitute suffering intolerable, and even the infliction of infernal torments would utterly fail in producing on the carnal mind a salutary and saving change.

In the contemplation of the Redeemer, it should be remembered that the character he sustains to his children is essentially love. Some

of his little ones are often afflicted with dismay on a review of his greatness and holiness as contrasted with their demerit, but then they do not entertain right apprehensions of his character; they view him abstractedly, without fully comprehending the nature and extent of his mediatorial work. A consistent glimpse of Jehovah is only derivable through the medium of the propitiatory sacrifice of Jesus, and an acceptable approach to his footstool can only be obtained through faith in this constituted way. From the darkness and confusion which in the primitive stages of his experience often prevail, the mind becomes bewildered; and in seeking for rest and peace the young convert supplicates for mercy with his eye more directed to his own demerit than to the Redeemer's grace; and he labours to obtain the blessing he requires in a way opposed to its appointed source, and hence results a continuation of his misery, and weight to his sorrow.

God out of Christ is indeed a consuming fire. Such he has ever been, and will continue to be to the relentless impenitent, to endless duration. He will utterly consume with the breath of his mouth, as in a fiery furnace, the wood, hay, and stubble of the ungodly, to which their deeds are fitly compared. Their penances and duties, alms-deeds and charities, benefactions and liberalities, which are performed from mistaken principles, and are solely intended to embalm their memory in the esteem of men, these are vain oblations, which Jehovah will consume on his appearing.

But to recur to a more pleasing view of the subject: while the Redeemer, who is compared to a fire from the terrible lustre and awful grandeur of his person as the eternal God of heaven and earth, darts forth the irresistible rays of his omniscient eye, surveying with an all-penetrating glance the inmost recesses of the heart, to the dire confusion and defeat of his enemies, he beholds the purchase of his blood, his beloved children, with the same omniscient eye, but with an inexpressible measure of affection.

How often have the fathomless deeps of his love and wisdom engaged their highest admiration. In this blessed personage, this assemblage of attributes shine in full perfection, and never cease to unfold their consummate blessedness. The wisdom of man borrows its lustre from this center, and is subordinate to it. We admire the skill of the industrious artizan, and wonder at the vastness of his plans; but the glorious plan of salvation outvies them all. If we do not view divine operations through an inverted medium, we shall perceive the boundless nature of the love manifested in his eternal purposes of grace, in the choice of his vessels of mercy in the furnace of affliction, which in the fulfilment of their end produce marks of sonship which cannot be mistaken. The openings up of his providential dispensations have evinced the consummate skill of their divine contriver, who has ordained every trial and its issue so as to produce lasting benefit to his church, and great glory to his name. Well might Watts sing of him,