THE GOSPEL MAGAZINE AND " ENDEAVOURING TO KEEP THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT IN THE BOND OF PEACE." JESUS CHRIST, THE SAME YESTERDAY, AND TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER. WHOM TO VOL. VIII. NEW SERIES. LONDON: W. H. & L. COLLINGRIDGE, ALDERSGATE STREET, E.C. 1873. THE closing month of the year calls for our usual word, in a way of Preface. It gives us another opportunity of congratulating our readers upon the great fact, and the comforting consideration, that, "having obtained help of God, they continue unto this day." Hence it behoves them and ourselves again to set up our Ebenezer, and to testify to the mercy that "hitherto the Lord hath helped us." To His great and adorable name be all the praise! During the year which is now closing many of our beloved readers have " gone the way of all the earth." Some who read our Preface of last year are now (blessed be God!) before the throne! They are now "for ever with the Lord!" They have done with all trouble, and all trouble has done with them. They "see Him as He is," and, as well they may, are perpetually praising Him. "Their sun shall no more go down, nor for brightness shall their moon withdraw itself." "God, even their own God, wipes all tears from off all faces." "There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." "The city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it: for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." Such, beloved, is the blessed estate of those who, "through faith and patience, inherit the promises;" but, privileged and enviable as their position may be, there is one fact which is ever a source of consolation to our own mind: it is that recorded in regard to them in the last verse of the 11th of the Hebrews: "That they without us should not be made perfect." If "the Lord had need of them," He hath, likewise, equal "need of us," beloved, if so be we feel our need of Him, and are simply looking to and leaning upon Him as "all our salvation and all our desire." He cannot "see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied," until His one body, the Church, in all its varied members, are with Him where He is. This He distinctly expressed in His "I will" to His Father, in His last memorable prayer, prior to all the agonizing scenes of Gethsemane and Calvary. Now, this blessed verity, beloved, of Christ and His people-He the Head and they the members of His one mystic body-being at home and glorified together, is indeed calculated to raise our thoughts and contemplations above the beggarly elements of this poor world, with all its distracting scenes! -its troubles, its strife, its afflictions, its sin, its death! We repeat that that "Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory," may well raise our thoughts and cheer our drooping souls amid all the sorrows of the way. Moreover, how stimulating and encouraging is the thought of the rapid flight of time! Oh, when we think of a whole year having passed since we last addressed you by way of Preface, how cheering is the reflection that it is not simply, as we often sing, "A day's march nearer home," but that day multiplied by 365! Hence we may triumphantly sing, "A year's march nearer home!" Oh, the satisfaction of those words: "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." |