Let us take heed, then, my Christian brethren, to this exhortation of the apostle, lest our hearts be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin-lest there should be in any of us an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God-lest the things of this world have a greater hold upon us than the things of God and eternity, and we come short of His rest and perish for ever! For such will not only be shut out of heaven, but cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth; and they have no rest day nor night, but the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever! Knowing these things, as we do, we pray you to listen to our earnest solicitations; and be not offended at the importunity of your minister, if, in season and out of season, he presses upon your attention the unspeakable importance of the things of eternity.

Remember that your Christian calling is that of rest of that rest which the stillness and quietness, the joy and peace of the Sabbath-day ever remind us. As God, speaking by the Psalmist, says, "Hold thee still in the Lord, and abide patiently upon Him." And again, in another Psalm, "Be still, and know that I am God." In like manner does Isaiah speak, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." How little of this is known by the generality of professing Christians! What care and feverish anxiety-what haste and restlessness, do we not see everywhere! But it is your privilege to be "still," and to "rest in God"-to take "no (anxious) thought for tomorrow"" casting all your care upon Him, for He

careth for you," and to "rejoice in the Lord alway." Thus resting in God, and in everything seeking help from Him by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, you secure unto yourselves "the peace of God which passeth all understanding," and your heart and mind are kept, through Jesus Christ, in quietness and assurance for ever. Blessed-yea, thrice blessed, are they who thus "continue in the faith"-"grounded and settled in love"-who "hold fast the beginning of their confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end." For confidence is faith in action-it is that rest in God into which the believer enters through faith in His great name. Our confidence is according to the measure of the estimate we form of the trust-worthiness of Him in whom we confide. There is a confidence we place in a friend-there is the still greater confidence of a brother-and there is the confidence of a SON which knows no bounds ;—and such should be our confidence in God. He is worthy of all confidence; and in proportion as we confide in Him will be the rejoicing of our hope, and in patient assurance we shall wait for it. Let the exercise of such faith, manifested in your daily walk and fulfilment of all your duties, be the exponent of the Lord's-day kept by you; and thus bearing witness to the truth and reality of that rest unto which we are now brought, through our Lord Jesus Christ, you shall enter into that rest which remaineth for us at His appearing and kingdom, and keep an eternal Sabbath unto the Lord your God.

W. E. Painter, 342, Strand, London, Printer.

No. XIII.]

[Price 6d.

THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST

IN

HIS BODY THE CHURCH.

Ir should ever be borne in mind that the Church is the body of Christ-His mystical body--the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. St. Paul, speaking of the Church of Christ, says, "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is the Christ" (xpotos)—i. e., the mystical Christ. The comparison which is here made, is between man's body, and the mystical body of Christ, the Church. And herein is seen our union with Him. Man's body does not exist apart from its head, but is united to it and one with it; and all its members, though many, are one body, and have communion and fellowship, in the body, with its head; so also is Christ. This is a true figure of the Lord Jesus Christ and His body the Church, as one. Moreover, the truth and reality of this mystery of godliness are declared by God's own acts. in the constitution of His Church: for the Scriptures inform us, that this great purpose of God was accomplished by the incarnation of His Son and the gift of the Holy Spirit. That the Son of God

He took our nature

might become one with us, upon Him, and was made man; and that we might

S

'be united to Him and made one with Him, God gave unto the Church the Holy Ghost; and by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body.

Now these are fundamental truths-truths which lie at the very foundation of our religion—and they are truths which must be realized and manifested in our lives, by our continuing in that state of salvation into which we were brought at our baptism. For it is only by our abiding in Christ by faith, as members of His body, as partakers of His grace and of His Spirit, that we can have "the mind of Christ." But where the mystical union which exists between Christ and His Church is practically and experimentally known-if we are indeed no more twain, but one-members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, being indwelt by His Spirit-we shall participate, in a measure, in the things of Christ. Thus maintaining, as I trust you are, your high and holy calling in Christ Jesus, you will be able to follow me in that most interesting and truly practical subject set forth in holy Scripture, concerning the sufferings of Christ in His body the Church.

There are sufferings peculiar to the Church, and of which the world knows nothing. St. Peter expressly declares, that the type of Christian baptism was the waters of the deluge, which, whilst they brought judgment upon the world, safely bore up the ark, in which were God's elect. They were instrumental to the bringing in of a new dispensation distinct from the former, in that God declared that whosoever should shed man's blood, by man

should his blood be shed-in that He gave man flesh for meat-and in that, also, the creation came into a condition of suffering which it had not known before, through the disorder which so great a physical convulsion had brought into the elementsthe fountains of the great deep being broken up and the windows of heaven opened: it is certain that the years of man's life were at once shortened; and not to carry out the resemblance of type and antitype too far, it is clear, that whilst baptism does give to the Christian a meat to eat which the world knows not of, it does also involve a fearful condemnation upon him who shall crucify his Lord afresh, and bring the Christian, of very necessity, through his fellowship with Him who is "the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," into a condition of spiritual suffering, of which the heathen cannot be a partaker, and which he cannot experience. If there is an eminence in privilege and hope, there is also an eminence in suffering; whilst assuredly, to all who are faithless, there is an eminence in condemnation. And, first, there are the sufferings which Christ endured in His own body for us, in which all must participate who would follow Him and partake of His glory. The work which our Lord came especially to accomplish was a work of reconciliation-" God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself;" and it is the blessings which flow from that finished work that the Church is called continually to minister to the world: for the ministry which she has received is "a ministry of reconciliation”-in other words, a