A FEW

IN commencing the eleventh volume of THE EARTHEN VESSEL, the above precious words have followed us, go where we might. Very briefly, dear friends, do we, therefore, call your attention to them, praying the Lord to give you the full realization of the Twentieth Psalm, in any, or every part thereof, as your circumstances may require.

This twentieth Psalm appears well suited to us as a nation, at this very critical period. It anticipates a "day of trouble." Such, indeed, is the character of the present day. Our nation is in trouble: many of our churches are in afflicting circumstances: and individual believers in the LORD JESUS CHRIST most deeply learn the truth of these words, "it is through much tribulation ye must enter the kingdom."

The blessed Spirit, in this Psalm, comes forth to meet the poor afflicted church of Christ, as she comes up out of the wilderness, and with all the tender sympathies of a Merciful FRIEND, says, "the Lord hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee. Send thee help from the Sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion." Thus would we desire to meet thee, dear reader, on the morning of January 1, 1855, hoping thou art one of that despised band who pour out tears and cries to the God of our salvation; who worship HIM, and wait for HIM, in His Sanctuary; loving the gates of Zion; and choosing rather to suffer afflicVol. XI.-No. 120.-Jan., 1855.

the pleasures of sin for a season. If such be thy character, dear reader, we trust you will unite with us in the language of our heart at this time, saying, “We will rejoice in that perfect, that free salvation, which we have in Christ; and IN THE NAME OF OUR GOD WILL WE SET UP OUR BANNERS."

The setting up of banners is expressive of two things, which well bespeak the position we are determined-if spared and strengthened-to occupy, during the remaining portion of our pilgrimage on earth.

To set up our banners, is expressive of a preparation for war, in the first place; and of having obtained victory, in the second place. Against sin, satan, and every false and fatal form of professed worship, we must courageously fight. The enemy is coming in like a flood; coming into the very midst of our churches; but the night is somewhat dark; and the enemy approaches with such silent steps, that many do not see the progress he is making. They are crying "Peace! peace!" but it is a delusive peace; and they are boasting of prosperity, when it is much to be feared that that prosperity standeth not, in the power of God. O, men, brethren, and fathers, know ye then-and take heed to this-where God the Holy Ghost is not found in fastening conviction on the consciences of sinners; in quickening and alarming, and lifting up the once dead soul where God the Son is not found in pardoning guilty sinners, in redeeming captive souls, and in presenting true believers before the mercy-seat; where the sove

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against the truth. These are bands which the unregenerate have neither in life nor death; their strength is firm; they are not plagued as are those who are born of God; and you will meet with plenty who know not what this path is; that will tell you that you need not be in this state; you should come to Christ, and he would give you rest. But then, you have with you the stubborn fact of real experience, joining with the word of truth, to prove that you can come to the Saviour only as it is given you from above so to do. You can easily come in word and outward form, but this is a very different thing from coming in the power of God, and finding and realising rest from all that oppresses.

The reason that professors are so contented is, because they have never been made thoroughly discontented. They are soon pleased, and easily satisfied; and think the God of righteousness to be as easily pleased, and as easily satisfied, as they are; and thus the Lord says to such, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself." But, my good Theophilus, the Lord hath said unto you, "Be not thou like unto them." Norsince the living God has spoken life into your soul, can you be like unto them, either in life or death, or judgment, or eternity—“ And who maketh thee to differ?" "And what hast thou that thou didst not receive ?"

Now, to what does this experience of your helplessness lead? Does it set the truths of the gospel at a distance from you? Does it make you sorry that salvation is all of grace? Does it make the dear Mediator, in the completeness of his atoning death, a stumblingblock to you, and rock of offence? Does it lead you to despise electing grace, or to look at eternal election as a non-essential, or of secondary importance? Does it lead you to think lightly of the Holy Spirit of God? Does it make you feel at home, either in an ungodly or empty professing world? O, with what real sincerity, with what truth can you truly say, that but for the experience you have had, and increasingly have, of your own helplessness, the gospel of the blessed God never had been to you what it now is! You can see that the gospel is that gift which is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it: withersoever it turneth, it prospereth. (Prov. xvii. 8). It will clear your way in all directions-in life and death-in judgment and for ever. By it you can agree with your adversary-that adversary being the law of God. This is righteously your adversary, as a sinner; but the gospel shews the way in which Jesus, the Surety of the new covenant, met this law; and which law delivered him up to God, as the Judge; and how Justice, the officer, cast him into prison-not literally, but spiritually-and that prison, that low dungeon, was the prison, the hell of God's wrath. What awful waves and billows rolled over him! Nor did he come out thence, until he had "paid the uttermost farthing." Matt. v. 26. "And now, by faith in him you become free; and if the Son make you free, then are ye free indeed."

The gospel of God, then, I say, withersoever it turneth, and withersoever you are

called to turn with it, or by it, will prosper, and you will prosper with it. All things work for your good; even "working for you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

But we must not go on too fast: we must come back again to a little more heartsearching work; for thus saith the Holy One, "All the churches shall know that I am He that searcheth the hearts, and trieth the reins, to give unto every one according as his work shall be." That is, whether his work be the work of a living faith, or of a dead faith; or whether his work be a work of love to the truth, or of hatred thereto; for all his enemies must perish; but them that love him. shall be as the sun, when he goeth forth in his might.

Now, if you have not yet come into the deeps of inward temptation, then you have this part yet to come; there is the all manner of concupiscence to be brought to light; and there will be the messsenger of satan to buffet you. Yes, you will know what it is, perhaps, to curse God in your heart, and even worse than that; and have the worst possible thoughts of him, together with the most abominable infidel besetments; calling everything in question; despising the Most High, as though he were your bitterest enemy, and be ready to ask why he suffered you to come into existence, seeing it is only to make you miserable. Why you will ask-is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in? (Job iii. 23). While, perhaps, all kinds of temptations concerning the dear Saviour will beset you, trying to persuade you that Christ is not God, or that his sufferings were not real; or that it is all delusion together; and that better go away at once into the world, for that there is no hereafter; and if there be, there is nothing but hell for you; and that one religion after all is, perhaps, as good as another. You will, like Jeremiah, try to cry and shout, and the Lord will shut out your prayer; and just the very things you strive most against, shall gain the most mastery over you. Your heart will fret against the Lord, and think he deals so hardly with no one else as he does with you; he will indeed

"Blast your gourds, and lay you low."

You will be ready to say, Well, I would not mind all this, if I were sure that it was the hand of the Lord with me. Ah, my good Theophilus, here lies the difficulty; you will see sin and satan distinctly enough; the transgression of the wicked within your heart will say, and that in a way that you cannot deny it, that after the flesh there is no fear of God before your eyes. Sin in you will revive again and again; and when you go to the Word of God, to see if you can get a little help, and get somewhat away from self; here, just where you hoped for a little holiness of feeling and thought, you will be beset more than any where, and you will seem as though you can read almost anything easier than you can read the Word of God; and in even the house of God, it will seem as though the enemy reserved all his worst suggestions and vilest dregs to hurl at you and upon you

there; and thus you will, as saith the wise man, "behold and see, that in the place of righteousness that wickedness is there;" and thus, like the leper of old, you will be shut out from holy things, and all you can say is, "unclean, unclean!" with, "Owretched man that I am!" your life will draw nigh unto the grave, and your soul to the destroyers; and you cannot be a pharisee, a free-willer, or a low, or an high, dead letter calvinist, nor a gaudy intellectual professor; you cannot be any of these without being the vilest of hypocrites, and you see and feel quite sin enough in you without adding sin to sin, by joining with the multitude to cry down the testimony of God.

You will (for this will be another part of your experience) be brought to tremble at the Word of God, and yet have some moments of sweet softenings of heart before God; your spirit will make diligent search; you will feel a hope spring up in your heart; you will begin somewhat to reason with God; you will begin to remember that Jesus came to save the lost; that while you are brought down as a little child, yet that he does not despise the little ones; and that, although you are a great sinner, he is an infinitely greater Saviour; and who can tell, but he may yet shew mercy to you?

The Saviour, when on earth, turned not one poor creature away who came to him; and is he not "the same yesterday, to day, and for ever?" Here you will say, ແ yes, but he was on earth then, and he was man, and therefore sympathized with men.' True: but that which he did in the exercise of those sympathies shews also that he was God as well as man; for he forgave sins, and even his enemies had light enough, as many of the enemies of his truth now have, to see that none but God can forgive sins, but Jesus did forgive sins, and is God, our enemies themselves being Judges.

And while he came in the name of the Father, he himself as one with the Father, was also the I AM; and by this power wrought the wonders recorded of him; therefore he did not hear the cry of the poor and needy merely as man, but also as God; nor could the deepest agonies, nor can the highest exaltation, remove his heavenly and listening ear from the feeblest cry of the soul that seeketh him: this the thief on the cross, and Paul, and Silas, can witness; who, when worn out with labour and evil treatment, cried in the Philippian prison, and he heard them. He is then, the same now as when on earth; and although his bodily presence is removed from us, he is still as nigh as ever unto his own, and that unto the end of the world.

Now, he is the way to God; but before we can rightly walk in this way, all other ways must be closed up; and, like Israel by the Red Sea, have but one way of escape; and every one before he can possess the kingdom of God must become A LITTLE ONE.

London, Dec. 13, 1854.

WEEPING MARY.

LINES WRITTEN BY MR. THOMAS POOCK, OF IPSWICH.

YONDER, see poor Mary weeping,
Running, though she's in the dark;
Love intense prevents her creeping,
Though of light there's not one spark.
Something surely has inspired her,
Or she never could thus run,
She's in search of her rich treasure,
Which was laid beneath a stone.
Ointment costly she intended,

To anoint her Saviour with;
But alas! her love is blended,

With the most exquisite grief.
"The stone is moved, my Lord is gone,
But where? O! where is He?
Who all my sin and guilt hath borne
For me, for wretched me?

"O! tell me where, I must away,

To find my absent Lord :-
Up! Peter, John, do not delay,

Come ransack every horde."
They came, they looked, but all in vain,
Their buried Lord to see;
Proposed to go home again,

To this they did agree.

But Mary could not leave the ground,
To love and weep inclin'd;

She stoops, and looks, more close around,
If she her Lord may find:

The shining ones are seen to sit,

Where once the Saviour lay, The grave is now a place most fit, When we are called that way:

"Woman," they say, "Why weepest thou?” She instantly replied,

"Because I cannot find Him now,

Who for my sins hath died.

"They took away my Lord, they have,
Where have they laid Him? say!
Though but a woman near the grave
I'll bear him hence away."

She spake, and turned herself about,
Her unknown Lord to hear,-
"Woman, why flow thy tears so out,
Whom seekest thou in fear?"

"O! Sir, my Lord is stolen away;
Say have you borne Him hence
However far you did Him lay,

I'll go and fetch Him thence."

Her risen Lord His love displays,

She little thought 'twas He;
He speaks, she hears, her spirits raise,
""TIS ME, MARY, 'TIS ME!"

She quick calls out "Rabboni, Lord!
My Master, Jesus, All,
My soul is melted at thy word,
Here I adoring fall.

"O let me cling close to thy heart,
Let me embrace my Lord;"
"No Mary, from this sight depart,
Come take me at my word.
"You to my brethren now I send,
Go fill them with surprise,
Up to our Father I ascend

To meet you in the skies."

She told them that she had seen the Lord, And what He did as well;

May Mary soon the same record

Through our Immanuel.