Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

At Leeds, September 25, Mrs. Margaret Stockdale departed to her appointed home in the 81st year of her age. The husband of our departed sister was one of the earnest members of the Church who became responsible for the obligations of the Society at Leeds on the purchase of Albion Chapel and the appointment of the Rev. R. Edleston as minister. He was, however, early removed from the scene of his earthly usefulness; and his wife, though sharing his love for the Church, was less able in her widowhood to render pecuniary assistance. She gave to the Church the sympathy of warm affection, and, as far as she was able, the encouragement of her attendance upon its services. Latterly she has been unequal to this attendance. Her range of movement has been confined within narrow limits; and at length closed entirely on earth. She has passed from our midst full of years, and warmly esteemed by those by whom she has long been known and loved.

Removed into the spiritual world,

July 31st, Elizabeth Emily, the beloved wife of Mr. Edmund Castle of Dalston.

She received the doctrines through the instrumentality of her husband and some missionary lectures in Dalston and Shoreditch during the years 1868-9.

In 1872 she accompanied her husband and father-in-law, Mr. Robert Castle, to the Buttesland Street Church, then under the leadership of the Rev. P. Ramage.

Having shortly after joined the Society, she felt it to be her duty to labour for its welfare. Those who knew her best loved her most deeply; and in their sorrow have the sweet assurance that the heaven she loved to contemplate is now her eternal possession."

At Snodland, Kent, Miss Eliza Mary Brace, aged 67, formerly of Park Street, Camden Town, was removed on the 16th of September into the world of spiritsthe world of causes. Her constitution, naturally feeble, had been giving way for nearly twelve months. She bore her distressing sufferings with Christian meekness and resignation, and in many ways exemplified the grandeur of Swedenborg's motto: "All religion has relation to life, and the life of religion is to do good." Miss Brace brought up an Unitarian, and in her younger days attended the ministry of the Rev. W. J. Fox in South Place, Finsbury, so celebrated as an orator and public teacher, and afterwards as a member of Parliament.

was

She was introduced to the doctrines of the New Church by the writer of this notice, and, after careful investigation, became a member of Argyle Square Society, then under the pastoral care of the Rev. Dr. Bayley. She has been residing in Snodland the last two years, and was chosen a deaconess of that Society, an office in primitive times of great importance in the admission of women as members within the pale of the Christian Church. And now that she has gone into more interior spheres of use amongst the spirits of departed ones, it is pleasant to hear from others of her kind visits and efforts to make them more easily understand the spiritual nature and the true Object of a Christian's worship.

May the removal of our sister remind us of the close proximity of the inner world; may we have understanding to perceive that it is the spirit that sees, speaks, and feels in the body, and that death does not deprive us of anything but the material covering. T. L. M.

[blocks in formation]

WE are approaching the time for commemorating that great event by which the Lord crowned the year with His goodness—the birth of our Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ. That grand event was the fulfilment of all the types of the law, and of all the predictions of the prophets. The daily sacrifice and the yearly atonement, the firstfruits and the ingathering of the harvest, the blowing of the trumpet in the new moon and the proclaiming the year of the jubilee,—these and all other shadows of good things to come, whose substance Christ was, were lost in the beams of the Sun of Righteousness, who arose with healing in His wings. The long succession of prophecies, commencing with the promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent, and ending with the announcement that the Lord should suddenly come to His Temple, was accomplished in Him who was born of the Virgin Mary, and who dwelt among men in the temple of His humanity.

The Lord God the Creator came into the world that He might redeem the human race from the state of spiritual bondage and sinfulness to which they had reduced themselves through the fall and the hereditary accumulation of sinful inclinations. No remedy for this doubly lost condition of mankind was possible but the manifestation of God in the flesh. This act of Divine condescension is in itself so

marvellous that the contemplation of it cannot fail to excite our wondering adoration. But when we reflect on its purpose, and the way in which that purpose was to be wrought out by the incarnate God, we find the most abundant cause for gratitude and love on the one hand, and for humility and self-abasement on the other, that the Being, the Father against whom we had so grievously sinned, should in His love and in His pity Himself come to seek and to save that which was lost. A true apprehension of the nature of the Lord's work in the flesh, by which He accomplished the redemption and provided for the salvation of the human race, is necessary to enable us to rightly appreciate and apply the blessings that have been brought near to us by the Lord's finished work. It is the more incumbent on us to connect the subject of Redemption with that of the Incarnation, since we are able, by the Divine mercy of the Lord, to see it in the clear light of the New Dispensation, a light which, while it transcends that of the early Christian Church, discovers and removes the unhappy errors and misconceptions which have arisen since the apostolic age. It may be profitable, as it is seasonable, to turn our attention to this important subject.

What to us can be a subject of greater interest than the redemption of the world by the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! The Lord was the Second Adam come to restore the human family from the effects which had been brought upon them by the disobedience of the first: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” "Sin having entered into the world, and death by sin, death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." The reign of spiritual death could only be arrested, as death itself can only be finally destroyed, by Him who is the Life as well as the Light of men. "For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bare witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." That Saviour who was and is the Life, is the Source of life to those who are dead by reason of hereditary corruption and actual evil. The Lord came that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. In Him only can we have life. When He came in the flesh the world lay in darkness and in the shadow of death. He came as the Light and Life of the world, to enlighten the understandings of men by His truth, and animate their hearts with His love, to bring them out of darkness into His marvellous light, and from the power of Satan unto God.

So great a manifestation of Divine mercy demands a corresponding

exhibition of human gratitude. And true gratitude will lead to a practical appreciation of the benefits which the Lord's Redemption has provided. How great the benefits of Redemption must be may be inferred from the fact of its coming forth from the love of God, that pure and inexhaustible fountain of tenderness, compassion, clemency, forbearance, forgiveness. God is Love, and what comes from His love comes from His very nature, and must be consistent with all His attributes. We cannot conceive of God performing a work in which all His attributes do not concur, and in which they are not all satisfied. In Redemption, as well as in any Divine work, love and wisdom, mercy and justice, holiness and truth, must be perfectly united, and in the result they must all be equally honoured. In that blessed work, "mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." A work which is in harmony with the moral attributes of God must be in harmony also with the moral nature of man, the purpose of Redemption being to reconcile the Divine Being and the human race. The reconciliation of God and man must result from the establishment of harmony between the Divine and human nature. Redemption must have been designed and must be perfectly calculated, to effect this harmony and reconciliation. Only so far as it is seen to be designed and adapted to effect this end can that Divine work be seen in its true light. That the purpose of Redemption was the reconciliation of God and man is universally admitted; but difference of opinion exists as to the manner in which this purpose was effected by the Lord's incarnation.

To understand the nature of Redemption we require to know the state and condition of man which rendered it necessary. What was the ground of the disharmony between God and man? and what was required to reconcile them?

According to the prevailing opinion the ground of disharmony is partly moral and partly legal. The corruption of man's nature is justly believed to form one principal obstacle to reconciliation with God; but the legal obstacle is much more dwelt upon. The legal ground of man's separation from God, and the legal obstacle to his reconciliation with Him, may be stated in few words. God gave man a law, and annexed the penalty of death to disobedience. Man disobeyed, and became subject to the sentence which had been pronounced against sin. The whole human race was under the sentence of condemnation; and as Divine justice must be satisfied, there seemed to be no alternative but universal damnation. In this state what was to

be done? The Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, offered Himself as a substitute for sinners, that by His death He might satisfy God and save men. By suffering the punishment due to the sins of mankind, He became their deliverer from condemnation, or from the curse of the law, and thus provided for them the means of escape. This, we believe, is an unexaggerated statement of the prevailing faith on this subjeet. And it will be perceived that the leading if not the only, element which enters into it is the satisfaction of God's justice, and sometimes the appeasing of His wrath. The reconciling effects of the Lord's work in the flesh are therefore spoken of as various, consisting in the reconciliation of the Divine attributes amongst themselves (as of mercy and justice), the reconciliation of God to man, and the reconciliation of man to God. On each of these we may offer a few remarks.

Regarding the reconciliation of the Divine attributes, this assumes that the attributes of God are capable of so far coming into conflict with each other that the operation of one may interfere with that of another. Thus it is supposed that, in the case of fallen and sinful man, the justice of God prevented the exercise of His mercy: it was not till His justice had received full satisfaction that His forgiving mercy could be extended to sinners. If such an idea as this were true, it might be expected that it would be plainly revealed in the Scriptures, and would be found to commend itself to our understanding and conscience. In the Scriptures we find nothing that can sanction the opinion that the mercy and justice of God are or can be at variance; nor is there any ground for believing that God cannot forgive sinners without full satisfaction in the sense in which this language is employed. Is there anything in Scripture, either expressed or implied, which can sanction the opinion that God cannot forgive sin, or that He cannot forgive it till the full penalty has been paid? The only sanction which such an opinion has in the Word of God is in the institution of sacrifices, which are understood to have originated in the principle that sin cannot be remitted without the shedding of blood as the price of guilt. The sacrifice is therefore supposed to have been offered, or rather slain, as a substitute for him who offered it. And in conformity with this the Lord Jesus Christ is believed to have been the Lamb slain as the great Substitute for sinners, and with the sins of the whole human race upon His head. Now the whole of the argument in this case turns on three points— first, that the sacrifice of the offering consisted essentially in its death;

« AnteriorContinuar »