FROM "PENITENTIAL CRIES." (29).-For Universal Obedience. Lord, thou hast planted me a vine, Now tend and water me as thine- My Christ, I'm wholly thine,-direct I have observ'd thy sacred laws Let me not from the least of them, And let thy word and spirit guide, Shall Simon bear thy cross alone, And other saints be free? Each saint of thine shall find his own, Let it not drive me from Oh, happy Christians, be not loth, Support me with thy constant aid, Thy way is to the upright strength Lord, make it so to me, That never tiring with the length, City Press, 1, Long Lane: W, H. Collingridge, (Late D. A. Doudney). THE GOSPEL MAGAZINE. "COMFORT YE, COMFORT YE, MY PEOPLE, SAITH YOUR GOD." "ENDEAVOURING to Keep THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT in the BOND OF PEACE." "JESUS CHRIST, THE SAME YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER. WHOM TO KNOW VOL VII.] IS LIFE ETERNAL." MARCH, 1847. [No. 75. THE LORD'S PRESENCE IN THE WILDERNESS. "For the Lord thy God hath blessed thee in all the works of thy hand; he knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years the Lord thy God hath been with thee; thou hast lacked nothing -DEUT. ii. 7. How glorious is that expression in the 2nd verse of the 8th chapter of this same book, "And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no." Burdened as thou mayest be, dear reader, does it afford thee no comfort to look back ten, twenty, thirty-it may be fifty-years, upon the way the Lord thy God hath led thee? Consider how he hath fulfilled his promise in making his goodness to pass before thee; reflect upon "the great temptations which their eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles" (Deut. xxix. 3). To say nothing of the first displays of redeeming grace of the aboundings of mercy, as set forth in Žech. iii. 2; "Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" Hast thou no remembrance of special mercies, peculiar grace, since that ever-memorable period? Think a moment. The Lord enable thee, for that I 102 THE LORD'S PRESENCE IN THE WILDERNESS. moment, to lay aside as it were, thy present more immediate sources of sorrow and pain, whilst thou art reviewing his mercies past—yes, "and forgotten." Think of the snares in which thy unwary feet were oftentimes so well nigh caught, and out of which the Lord alone could deliver thee. How cunningly devised the enemy's plans for thy destruction; how subtle his approach; how readily didst thou hearken, and how well pleased wast thou with his proposals! Who took the scales from off thine eyes--discovered the plot-and snatched thee once again as a brand from the burning-causing thee in thy first calm moments, to exclaim with the Psalmist, (73rd Psalm), "As for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped." And who hath, in numberless ways and innumerable instances, preserved thy feet from falling, held up thy goings in his paths-guided thee with the skilfulness of his hands and kept thee ever as the apple of his eye? Who indeed but the Lord-He whom thou art now so ready to mistrust, and the propriety of whose procedure, thou art so disposed to question? Doth not the reflection cause thee any humbling sensations? Art thon still hardhearted, indifferent, possessed with an insensibility to everything but thy present inconveniences, perplexities, and annoyances? Oh, beloved, thou canst not soften thine own heart, or melt into submissiveness thine own feelings, we too well know; but we ask for thee-for ourselves— some sweet meltings of mercy-some dew-drops of divine LOVE―a fresh glimpse or two of a precious Christ-another of his always timely and most welcome "Fear nots." How sweet-how suitable-how cheering! Jesus speaking to his troubled bride; saluting her in the wilder. ness-this waste, howling wilderness; large, and broad, and tedious to the traveller's feet, but still the way-the right way-the only way— to heaven, and home, and rest; eternal rest! Beloved, we come now to speak a little of the fact, in connexion with the knowledge alluded to in our last Number, and that is the presence, or, in other words, the companionship of the Lord. "These forty years the Lord thy God hath been with thee." Ah! forty years may have appeared a long time, and the trials seemed to have no end; one following another in rapid succession; as Bunyan says, "The Christian man is seldom long at ease, When one fright's gone, another doth him seize;"' but when or where did the Lord leave or forsake? Hath he failed in any one instance, to fulfil his word, "I will water it every moment, and lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day?" Paul said, "Who hath delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver, yea, in whom our hope is that He will still deliver;" and the Lord says, (Psalm xxii. 8), as another fruit and effect of this divine companionship, "I will instruct thee, and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go, I will guide thee with mine eye." Now in these passages are included deliverance, supply, and guidance; one more will promise protection, (Zech, ii. 5), "I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her." Beloved, what can we want more? The Lord has covenanted, (Isa. xxxiii. 16), "Bread shall be given him, his waters shall be sure;" He has engaged, (Isaiah xlv. 2), "I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and will cut in sunder the bars of iron;" and again, as a climax, or blessed summing up of the whole, (Ps. lxxxiv. 11), He "will give grace and glory and no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.' Oh, thou, our adorable Head and Lord, we are looking to thee for the fulfilment of thine own precious word-a word so free, so suitable, so cheering. Here we are, a little band of poor sinners, wending our way across this vast desert-this wilderness waste; but we have Canaan, our heavenly and eternal inheritance, in view. By faith we now and then catch a glimpse of it in yonder distance, and it gives alacrity to our weary feet. Now, dear Father, grant us one mercy, even thy precious visits on the road. We want the cheering words of Jesus, as we travel onward and homeward. Let "I am with thee," "fear not, it is 1," often drop with mellowness upon the anxious ear. We want no more! Ireland, Feb. 6, 1847. THE EDITOR. A SERMON BY REV. R. HALE, HAREWOOD. "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah ? how shall I set thee as Zeboim ? Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee; and I will not enter into the city"—Hosea xi. 8, 9. Ir occurred to me while musing over this text in order to preach upon it to you, that as the Lord here speaks of his people, first, by the name of Israel, and then by that of Ephraim,and as these names, with others in the Old Testament, have particular meanings, it might be edifying if I gave you the meaning of some, from the work of the learned John Cruden. The congregation is no doubt aware, that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New in Greek,-and as this John Cruden made himself master of the Hebrew language, he was enabled to give us in his learned work, the meaning of the various names in the Old Testament, a few of which I will give before I come to to those applied to the church and people of God, in my text. I will begin with the name of Adam, applied to the first individual of the human race, who, though formed in the image and likeness of God, soon sinned it away by transgressing his law, according as it is written, "Sin is a transgression of the law, and where no law is, there is no transgression :" from whence it is clear, that God gave Adam a law for the regulation of his conduct, as a rational creature (1 John iii. 4; Rom. iv. 15). Now, as God had decreed that the wages of sin should be death, spiritual and eternal, when Adam sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, he exposed himself and all his posterity, to this awful curse; hence it is written, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Rom. vi. 23; Gen. ii. 17, iii. 12; Rom. v. xii; 1 Cor. xv. 45). Christ, the second Adam, so called because Head and Representative of a spiritual offspring, in the world, given him of the Father, who engaged to save them by his obedience, and by the shedding of his blood for them, and thereby to satisfy at once, the law and justice of God for them, and who in the fulness of time, came and did the work which the Father had given him to do, has redeemed and delivered them from the curse of the law-death, spiritual and eternal. Hence, the name given to Christ at his birth at the instance of the angel of the Lord, is most appropriate, being beautifully expressive of the work which he was sent to do, and which, with his dying breath, he proclaimed a finished work (Matt. i. 21-25; John xix. 30). But to return from this digression to the name Adam. Now God gave to the first man, the name of Adam, and when it is considered of what materials he made this wonderful creature, that he made him out of the dust of the ground (Gen. ii. 7), you will acknowledge that a fitter name could not be given, when I tell you that Adam means earth. Doubtless it was God's intention that Adam should read the meanness of his original in his name, and see that it became not him to boast, or be proud of his extraction, as fools who are void of understanding are. As it was not conducive to the comfort of Adam, even in Paradise, that he should be alone, God, of his bounty, gave him a companion, meet for him, having made her out of one of his ribs, to set forth the endearing relation in which she should stand to him. Moses tells us in Gen. ii. 23, that Adam said on receiving his wife from the Lord, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,-she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man." And we read, that after their apostacy he called her Eve, because she was the mother of all living (Gen. iii. 20). But the learned Cruden tells me, that the word Eve has another meaningthat it means enlivening. What a blessing to Adam such a companion must have been, and what a blessing it must be to a poor man, who is doomed to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow, to find after his |