never. Our feelings and moon-like graces fluctuate; but, blessed truth, Jesus within the veil for us is ever the same. "He soon again will come (His chariot will not stay) To take His children home To realms of endless day." Then sin will have completed its deceiving work—the follies and vanities of earth no more appear-no fading blossom can be seen-no link of love can ever snap asunder-Jesus is the glory and splendour of that happy land-the glorified saints, in strains of silvery sweetness, peal forth their happy hymn of pure redeeming love-the happy, glorious year of jubilee is fully come, and cares and doubts and fears are gone for ever. Happy New Year! when first we felt Happy New Year! when we no more Happy New Year! when we shall see Happy New Year of cloudless light, A widow lady, journeying from one part of London to another in an omnibus, had for her next neighbour a man of highly respectable appearance and manners. He got out of the omnibus shortly before her journey ended, when she found her purse was gone. It contained but little, but that little was of importance to a woman of slender means, with a fatherless family to provide for. It so happened she had put sixpence into her glove, which paid her fare; but on examining again the contents of her pocket, great was her surprise to find a sparkling diamond ring. She asked advice of a friend, who told her to advertise the ring without describing it, and wait the result for some months; at the expiration of which time she might consider it her own. She did so, and then sold it for £30. Her genteel neighbour in the omnibus, who had picked her pocket of a few shillings, dropped his stolen ring in exchange, which brought her this gain by her loss. Many thoughts may be suggested to the mind by this circumstance, which happened only a few years ago, the widow and her children being at the present time alive to tell the tale. Of the Lord's wonderful and minute care over the fatherless and widow we have constant proof; and the singular turns of Providence, whereby unexpected deliverance is oftentimes obtained, are well known to those who love to watch the dealings of God. Thus, the booty of the thief must be dropped into the pocket of the widow; and as Elijah was fed by ravens, even so the strangest circumstances often meet to bring about needed help for a child of God. When the German missionary Krampt was travelling through Central Africa, he was reduced to the last extremity of hunger and thirst. At this crisis he was attracted by the chattering of monkies, and he directly knew that water must be near. Following the dry bed of a stream, he came to a pool that had been excavated by the monkies. He drank of it with thankfulness, and laid in a supply for his onward journey. Going a little further, he found the best part of a fallow deer, which had been left by a lion after partaking of his night's meal. Krampt soon cut it up, and cooked enough to satisfy his hunger, and also provide him with food for the remainder of His journey. How slow are we to put to the proof this truth, "All power is Mine both in heaven and earth." The children of God know it from the word, and believe it as a doctrine; but when it comes to the practical use, verily we are all guilty. When pushed into a corner by Providential difficulties, how naturally we run to man with our troubles. "Earth to earth" is a living fact before it is repeated over the coffin of the dead. Our unbelieving hearts take refuge in human sympathy and creature help; it is the Spirit of God alone that teaches the soul to say with the Psalmist, "Shall I lift up mine eyes unto the hills? Whence should come my help? My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Psa. cxxi., marg. A little sound experience teaches us wonderful lessons in divinity, and the intuitive rush of the heart and eyes to man when trouble befalls, preaches a loud and solemn sermon upon total depravity, and the utter absence of a free-will to do good in the breast of fallen human nature. But by these losses experience is gained. The mercy is to know where to take our troubles and difficulties, and "this cometh from the Lord that made heaven and earth." The spirit of grace and supplication is as much a matter of gift and favour as deliverance; and the same power that gives the answer must give the prayer also. It is common in our day to speak of prayer and faith as if they were at the command of the creature, but God's people know that prayer is not language, and faith is not a mental act; but both must be tried, and then we learn our lesson, and find out how much we have got that came from above. Believers have to do with a silent God as well as a speaking God; but silence gives scope for prayer. Answered prayers are like receipts, filed and put away, and never looked at unless the bill is questioned, then the receipt must be looked up and produced. Thus is faith strengthened and hope encouraged by the remembrance of God's tender mercy in hearing and answering prayer given by Himself into the heart. But long-unanswered prayers have their blessing. God uses them to keep up communication with Himself; to shake us off from creature dependence; and to make us feel the want and worth of a throne of grace. Out of this loss God brings gain; and perhaps not a few of God's aged ones can place among their past merciesunanswered prayers. Faith, like prayer, must be tried; and this is often done through an empty purse and an empty cupboard-a silent God and a voiceless promise. When a child of God falls into such a spot, he wants the Almighty Power that created the world to speak faith and trust into his heart. It is very easy to tell Him to believe, and to bid him pray; but he says with the Psalmist, "Once have I heard this, yea twice also, that power belongeth unto God;" and power he must have before the promise meets his case, or the prayer springs up in the heart, or trust is communicated, that enables him to leave his case with God, and believe that out of his loss he shall have gain. And now a word to our Readers, without any other motive than love to the gospel of free and sovereign grace. If God has met you in your lost condition, sunk in the ruin of Adam's fall, and brought you to a better state in Christ than Adam lost, will you not be glad to spread and further the truths out of which your gain has sprung? The infidel publications are legion; the bulk of the professing Church is zealous in spreading Arminianism; will you not lend your aid to circulate God's truth, and support a monthly messenger that bears the tidings of a full, free, and finished salvation? But say some, "Our means are so small, our claims so many, and the lovers of truth so few, that we know not how to advance in this matter." Then lay it before the Lord. There is no case too hard for Him. He can open doors, and hearts, and purses; and the same God who in various instances recorded in the word, brought gain out of His people's loss, may make the exigencies of The Remembrancer an opportunity for proving the blessedness of prayer, and the power of that word which speaks and it is done. True, it may be said of saints now, as was said of ancient Israel, "They are the fewest of all people ;" and, as a class, they are still found and kept amongst the poor; but love is wonderfully elastic, and those who realize the blessedness of the Truth, will find their acts of self-denial a privilege, if thereby they can add their pence to their prayer. To the exceptional cases that enjoy easy circumstances we would say, God has helped you throughout the year, therefore see that you help His cause in the earth. The moth of adversity may soon be commissioned to consume the substance you are laying by in store for yourself or others. God will have His tithe, so to speak, from His Israel now; and they shall find the truth of the word which declares, "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." But there is in us all a very strong out-of-door tendency in these and such like matters; we fasten our eyes upon our neighbours, instead of upon ourselves. The nature and result of grace in every respect bears this stamp-it begins at home. It is a personal matter, whether it be in conviction of sin, sense of assurance, or fruits of righteousness, the Spirit's work is the same universally-it takes the eyes off our neighbours, and teaches us to look to ourselves, and see how the matter stands between God and our own soul. Will our Readers ask themselves the question, What they are doing for the furtherance of God's cause and the good of souls? The question is not, How much are you doing? but, What are you doing, whether it be little or much? No mortal can dictate to another in this matter. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;" and "If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not." "She hath done what she could," was our Lord's approving testimony of one whose means were small for service, but whose heart was warm in Christ's cause. Dear Friends, we commit The Remembrancer, and all similar means of spreading God's glorious and precious truth, into your hands, as your highest privilege while upon earth. Many of us this year may be numbered with the dead. Our few days of service in the wilderness will soon be over. Now is our time to testify for God by the power of the Spirit. In yet a little while He that shall come will come, when He shall be glorified in His saints, and admired in all that believe. Then shall He separate the precious from the vile, and "discern between him that serveth God, and Him that serveth Him not." A SERIES OF PAPERS ON THE PRE-EMINENCY OF CHRIST. NUMBER I. "That in all things He might have the pre-eminence." Col. i., latter clause of 18th verse. The text before us is short, but it contains volumes of divinity. May it please its Blessed Author to open some part, at least, of these very precious volumes to us. Inquisitive questions, touching points in doctrine, often mark the heady professor, who, like Talkative in "Pilgrim's Progress," avoids all conversation that would discover in him the lack of a healthful experience of the great truths of the Gospel. The words we are about to examine have often caused arguments of this character :-It is said "If our Lord is to have the pre-eminence in all things, surely He will have the pre-eminence in numbers at the last?" But this opinion is diametrically adverse to many passages of Holy Writ; take, for instance, that word of our Lord's, "Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." In other places of Scripture God's chosen people are called a "remnant," and certainly we always understand a remnant to be the small part of anything.* But to all these questions we may reply, as Jesus did to one who asked, "Lord, are there few that be saved ?" "Strive," said He, "to enter in at the strait gate, for many I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." Luke xiii. 22, 24. What signifies the number? Shall I be among them? Let each who reads, ask himself. Since many, according to the Scriptures, will be excluded "when the door is shut," shall I be among the favoured guests at the marriagesupper of the Lamb? Am I one of the little flock? If not, it matters not to me whether they are many or few. The word " thing," in New Testament language, often means persons, beings, or creatures, and is frequently used to denote the new creation, or Church of the First-born, with reference to whom we hope to consider the text in the sequel. It seems, evident, however, from the context, that the Apostle is showing the superiority of our Lord Jesus Christ over all beings; we shall therefore endeavour, by the help of God, to take two views of the text: I. Christ as pre-eminent over all things or beings. II. Christ as pre-eminent in all things. And may the same blessed Spirit who inspired these sacred words now "take of the things of Christ and reveal them unto us." 66 Open, Lord, our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things out of thy Law." First, then, we are to consider Christ as pre-eminent over all things; and this we would do under four principal heads:-1st, as to His Person; 2ndly, in the relations He bears to us; 3rdly, in His humiliation; 4thly, in His exaltation. 1st, His Person. Immanuel, God with us; God and man in one Person; the Second Person in the glorious Trinity, tabernacling in our flesh; 66 Equal with the Father, as touching His Godhead, but inferior to the Father as touching His manhood; perfect as God and perfect as man, yet forming one Christ." How wonderful this unity of natures! None could thus lay His hand on both parties, but one who partook of both natures. Our finite minds cannot understand this "Mystery of * There is a point of view from which we may look at the pre-eminence of Christ in regard to numbers, which our Author seems to have forgotten, but which, it seems to us, is well brought out by a good man now living. He says:-"The dispensation in which we are living is emphatically a dispensation of election. I do believe, and I do hold it as a very glorious and a very encouraging thought for the people of God. I do believe that at the last Jesus will have the pre-eminence in the number of the saved, as well as in everything else. But then this takes in the millennial dispensation, as well as the dispensation in which we are living. In that glorious dispensation, which is yet to come, we are told that nations shall be born in a day; we are told that the heathen shall be given to Jesus for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. Taking, then, the number of the saved, from the days of Adam down to the close of the millennial dispensation, I believe it will be found that Jesus, in this as well as in other things, will have the pre-eminence." |