UNITED METHODIST FREE CHURCHES' HOME AND FOREIGN MISSIONS. SERMONS WILL BE PREACHED AS BELOW ON SUNDAY, APRIL 24TH, 1864. Addresses on Missions will also be delivered to the Sabbath-School Children in most of the Chapels, on the afternoon of the 24th inst. THE GREAT MEETING WILL BE HELD IN EXETER HALL, ON MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 25; FOR PARTICULARS, SEE THE ADVERTISEMENT ON THE COVER OF THE Brunswick, Deptford Sydenham... MORNING, BY Rev. Matthew Baxter Rev. Robert Lyon Mr. James Walton Rev. John Mather Rev. Joseph Kirsop Rev. Edmund Tebb ... Rev. Edmund Tebb Mr. John Wade Mr. M. Miller Rev. Thomas Newton Rev. Joseph_Butler Mr. Henry Fairfax Westmoreland Street, Pimlico Rev. Thomas Hacking Rev. Matthew Baxter A Collection will be made at the close of each Service in aid of the Mission Fund. ROBERT BUSHELL, THE United Methodist Free Churches' MAGAZINE. MAY, 1864. The Christian Pentecost. EVERY day which has passed into the by-gone eternity, since the grand drama of human probation began its development, has teemed with incidents of mighty import; incidents which have excited the interest of those bright intelligences who, as they looked upon this planet, fresh and beautiful from the forming hand of the Beneficent Creator, "shouted"-probably in ignorance of the dark scenes of which it was to be the theatre-" aloud for joy;" and the influence of which will be perpetuated in the eternal experience of myriads, whose probation will issue in their elevation to the honours and felicities of heaven, or their consignment to the degradation and miseries of hell. There are, however, some days which-like the cloud piercing mountain, seen from afar, and viewed by the side of which, other elevations, in themselves not to be, despised, appear insignificant-stand forth associated with events of transcendent moment, and mark the commencement of new eras in the history of mankind. The day when our first parents violated the law given to them by God, as the test of their obedience, was the commencement of many centuries of crime and misery to the race of which they were the predestined progenitors. The days when Christ, our great High Priest, offered Himself as an oblation for fallen humanity, and came forth from the sepulchre, in demonstration of His claims, were days of joyful gratulation to those benevolent beings, who having been the spectators of man's fall, had, during the intervening ages, desired to "look into" the mysteries involved in that scheme of redemption of which even they had but a partial knowledge, and who recognised in them the pledges of man's deliverance from the principle and consequences of moral evil, and the ultimate arrival of the world's jubilee. Of these days, that on U which the Spirit was poured out, with the fulness peculiar to the Christian Dispensation, was the fitting and glorious sequel; nor will there be another, having such an important bearing on human destiny, until the day comes, when the designs of Infinite wisdom, in connection with this probationary state, having been accomplished, the eternal condition of all will be determined by the Unerring Judge, and the world, in obedience to His fiat, vanish like a vision of the night. The Feast of Pentecost, kept in commemoration of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, was one of the most important of the Jewish festivals. It was observed on the fiftieth day after the celebration of the Feast of the Passover; hence its designation, Pentecost, from the Greek pentekonta which signifies fifty. The day on which the feast was celebrated was observed by the Jews as a day of rest. All the males in Judæa, not incapacitated by age or sickness, were required to attend at Jerusalem, to present the first fruits of their wheat-harvest on the altar, in acknowledg. ment of His goodness who had "covered their valleys with corn," and made their land to flow with milk and honey. The Pentecost was, also, accompanied by the offering of certain animals in sacrifice; connecting it with that grand oblation to which mankind are indebted for all the temporal and spiritual blessings which they enjoy. "Seven lambs, without blemish, of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams, with their meat-offering and their drink offerings," were to be presented as a sacrifice "made by fire, of sweet savour unto the Lord," after which "one kid of the goats for a sin-offering, and two lambs of the first year," as a peaceoffering, were to be sacrificed. (Lev. xx. 15-21.) These, and other observances, were obviously the "shadows of good things to come," and significantly pointed to that indispensable and all-sufficient atonement for human guilt, ordained "before the foundation of the world," and which, after having been long predicted and symbolized, was actually accomplished when "Christ offered Him. self once for all." Now it is extremely probable, from the traditions and observances of the Church, and should not be regarded as a mere coincidence, that as the Feast of Pentecost was celebrated on the fiftieth day after the Passover, observed by the Jews in commemoration of their deliverance from bondage in Egypt, so the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, in completion of the wondrous provision made by God for human redemption, took place on the fiftieth day after "Christ, our Passover, sacrificed for us," was raised from the dead, in attes tation of His mission as the Deliverer of the human race from the guilt and dominion of sin. The event, with which the day of Pentecost thus became associated in the history of the Christian Church, was one of transcendent importance. It crowned the mediatorial work of Christ; inaugurated a new era in the Divine. government in relation to our fallen world; and rendered the issue of the long-pending conflict between truth and error, virtue and vice, heaven and hell, no longer doubtful. The Holy Spirit, then so signally and abundantly bestowed, is the third personality in the one undivided essence of the Eternal Godhead. Attempts have, indeed, been made, by some self-styled rational Christians, to reduce Him to a mere Divine influence; but in vain have they laboured to harmonise the Scriptures with their theory. Texts which, taken in their plain, common sense meaning, explicitly teach His divinity and personality, are made by them to speak unintelligible jargon, reminding us of Coleridge's somewhat severe, but not unmerited, rebuke of such interpreters, or rather mis-interpreters, of Holy Writ,-" I know enough of their shifts and quibbles, with their dexterity at explaining away all they dislike. and now hesitate not to affirm, that Socinians would lose all character for honesty, if they were to explain their neighbours' will with the same latitude of interpretation which they do the Scriptures."* of The Into the proofs of the Spirit's divinity and personality our limited space does not permit us here largely to enter; we may, however, remark, that the frequent application to Him of personal pronouns, in such connections as forbid the supposition that they are only used with poetic license; and the ascription to Him of various personal acts striving, searching, witnessing, sealing, convincing, comforting, teaching, judging, &c.-plainly prove that He is not a mere influence: while His Divinity is attested in language too explicit to admit of being successfully explained away, even by the well-practised ingenuity of Unitarian disbelievers. words of rebuke addressed by Peter to Ananias, if they stood alone, would demonstrate the Holy Spirit to be God, to the satisfaction every man not "wise in his own conceit." "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whilst it remained, was it not thine own? and after that it was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men but unto God." (Acts v. 3, 4.) How lying unto the Holy Ghost could be lying unto God, unless the Holy Ghost were God, is difficult for ordinary minds to conceive. The trinal unity of the Godhead, involving the Divinity of the Spirit, is, indeed, a doctrine which human reason cannot comprehend, any more than it can understand the unity of the two natures the material and immaterial-in the person of man; but this is not a sufficient reason for rejecting it. Explicitly enunciated in the oracles of God, who only has a perfect knowledge * COTTLE'S Reminiscences of COLERIDGE and SOUTHEɣ, pp. 315—16. of His own nature, it should be received with implicit and adoring acquiescence. But, though the three personalities in the Divine Unity are co-equal and eternal, they are represented in the Scriptures as sustaining different official relations in the mediatorial economy. The Father is said to have given His Son, and the Son to have given Himself, for human salvation; while the Spirit is uniformly recognised as the Agent by whom men are convinced of sin, and led to trust in Christ for salvation, and by whom the work of grace is carried on in the believing soul. The reasons for this arrangement are among the "secret things" which "belong unto God" the fact, however, is clearly revealed, and, when viewed in the light of eternity, will, doubtless, be seen to be, as it is now declared to be, the highest expression of Divine wisdom and love. Now the gift of the Spirit is not to be regarded as absolutely peculiar to the Gospel economy, or as not having been imparted to the world until the first Pentecost of the Christian era. Like other blessings of the New Covenant, He was bestowed, in some measure, on our race, in prospect of the sacrifice of Christ by which He was to be secured for them in richer plenitude. Apart from His quickening influences, the soul of man has no moral consciousness or power; it is, as Paul teaches, "dead in trespasses and sins:" the fact, therefore, that in every age prior to the Pentecostal effusion, there were splendid examples of spiritual life and devotedness, proves that He must then have been, to some extent, bestowed. Without Him humanity must have remained in hopeless moral corruption, an abhorrence to God, and the pest of a world designed to be the abode of purity and joy. "The great cloud of witnesses," mentioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews, shews that the mediatorial scheme began to exercise its ameliorative influence from the moment of man's fall; and that the same Spirit, who on the morning of creation "moved on the face of the waters," and brought order out of confusion, began even then to rectify the moral disorders which sin had introduced, and continued, under the Antediluvian, the Patriarchal, and the Mosaic Dispensations, to carry on the New Creation which He was appointed to realize. If this had not been the case, the Almighty could not have said to Noah, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man" (Gen. vi. 3); David could not have prayed "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me" (Ps. li. 11); nor could the Jews be said to have "rebelled and vexed His Holy Spirit." (Isaiah lxii. 10.) These, and similar statements, obviously imply that the Spirit was then given, and strove powerfully with the human conscience; any other interpretation is absurd and inadmissible. He was then, as now, the Great Source of moral illumination, and enlightened every man that came into the world. Hence we find that all men-even the most ignorant and depraved-had some |