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This communication was thus acknowledged :-" Your letter has made me weep much; but do not repent having written it, for the tears were the gentlest and kindest I ever shed. heart is rivetted to that one phrase, able to save to the uttermost.' I thank you, I thank you, for having shed a drop of balm on my wounds. I want to talk with you on my sorrows and my hopes; if you can believe that I ought to have any hope. O yes, yes; I have indeed hope, although it is mingled with sorrow. But mercy, mercy!"

Here terminates the correspondence, but not the intercourse. The Countess had an interesting interview with her friend. She found that the Spirit of God had indeed begun the good work, and was gradually leading her mind into all the truth. Grief and despair on the loss of her son, had given way to a strong anxiety to understand the Word of God. This new study absorbed the whole soul of the mother. She said she read it incessantly, but without knowing how far she properly understood it; but when she met with a passage she did not understand, she returned to the place where she had comprehended the sense, and continued her reading till she again encountered the difficulty; and then she uttered her first prayer: "O Lord, give me light, that I may know thee." She remained at that point, without attempting to proceed, until she had obtained a knowledge of the passage. "Then," said

she, "I often find more force, and beauty, and information, in that which had just confounded me, than in all I had understood before." She said also, "This book is my nightly comfort, as well as my daily occupation. When I cannot sleep, I desire my attendant to bring me my book, and place the candle at my pillow; and so the night becomes no more tedious nor gloomy."

Attempts were made by her sister to lead back this interesting woman to the darkness and despair of the infidel philosophy; but in vain. "The Lord was her keeper." She read the

soul.

Bible, and scarce anything else, and lived to adorn its doctrine. How rich a blessing, then, was adversity to her. The sorrow which bowed her spirit down, was permitted in mercy to her "God doth not willingly afflict, nor grieve the children of men," Lam. iii. 33. "He doth it for our profit," Heb. xii. 10. "He causeth us to pass under the rod, that he may bring us into the bond of his covenant," Ezek. xx. 37. Painful may be the discipline adopted in the school of affliction; but it comes from the hand of love. And when such lessons are taught as those which this narrative has recorded, is not the Scripture verified? "Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest

and teachest out of thy law, that thou mayest give him rest in the day of adversity," Ps.xciv. 12. Reader, art thou in trouble? Has the stroke of affliction fallen on thee? Is there not a cause? Is thine heart acquainted with God, as thy God? Knowest thou the riches of his grace, by a personal interest obtained through faith in Jesus? Then He would teach thee, more and more, the lessons thou hast already begun to learn. He would manifest himself to thee more fully, and lead thee, with increased feeling, to say, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee," Ps. lxxiii. 25.

But it may be, afflicted reader, that thou art yet a stranger to all but the mere name of Jesus; thou dost not know his preciousness to those who believe; thou hast not cast thyself at his feet, saying, "Lord, save me, or I perish;" thou hast not felt thy case to be desperate without him; thy heart to be exceeding sinful; and the scriptural delineations of the heart to be true of thine own: and yet thy troubled spirit needs rest. O, seek it in the way this narrative unfolds. Turn to the Scriptures. Read them as they may never have been read before-with prayer for Divine illumination. Adopt the petition, "O Lord, enlighten me by thy Spirit, that I may know thee." Offered sincerely, earnestly, through Jesus, it shall not be in vain. But turn not from the truth which the word of God reveals, however humbling to thy pride, however grievous to thy conscience. A man's true character is not his own opinion of himself, but that which God discerns. What must he not know of thee, who has read thy heart and watched thy most secret hours, without interruption, all thy life? Yet would He save thy soul; and thy very sorrow has come to soften thee and make thy need of salvation apparent. Yield, troubled spirit, yield to the hand that smites thee. He that has wounded, can heal. Thy need is provided for. unto me, and I will give you rest." "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," 1 Tim. i. 15

"Come

THE ENGLISH MONTHLY TRACT SOCIETY

20, RED LION SQUARE;

AND

J. F. SHAW, BOOKSELLER, SOUTHAMPTON ROW, LONDON.

J. & W. Rider, Printers, Bartholomew Close, London,

THE MISSION OF CHRIST.

THE MISSION OF CHRIST.

If we believe that Jesus Christ was with the Father before all worlds, that he was his true and proper Son, essentially partaking with him in the perfections of Deity, we shall not readily admit that he came into the world to accomplish a purpose which could be effected by other means, or by an inferior agent. Whatever objects could have been accomplished by inferior agency, we cannot suppose to be the only design of the incarnation of Christ. He who is frugal in the economy of creation and providence, would not lavish a superfluity of greatness and glory upon the work of our salvation. If the ends to be attained could have been attained by inferior instrumentality, those instruments would have been employed. If the Saviour came into the world merely for the purpose of instructing us, it is plain this could have been done by the agency of men. It was done by Moses, who rivetted the attachment of the Israelites to a burdensome and painful ritual; by the prophets, who attested their mission from heaven, and were regarded, by all the pious of the Jewish nation, with the profoundest deference. If, therefore, our Saviour came into the world only to reveal a fact, or enforce a doctrine, nothing more was necessary than that he should be a human being.

But if we consider him as the Redeemer of mankind; if we believe that he came not merely to exemplify a rule of life, but to satisfy its violation; that he came, not only to explain the statutes of Heaven, but to pay the penalty arising from the curse denounced against their transgression; that he came essentially to change the moral situation of mankind, to roll away that mass of human guilt, which lay, like the stone on the grave's mouth, entombing all their hopes, and rendering it impossible for them to recover themselves from the condemnation and ruin in which they were involved ;-then we shall admit, of course, that the end of his manifestation could not have been effected at less cost. Those who dispute the divinity of Christ, act consistently in endeavouring to explain away his atonement; the two doctrines

are inseparably connected, and must stand or fall together. But they who are not so taught, but believe, in deference to apostolic testimony, that Jesus Christ "was with God" and "was God," (John i. 1,) will admit, with the greatest readiness and gratitude, that he came for the purpose of redemption. And how is this effected? Jesus Christ who was not originally "under the law;" was made under it, for the purpose of producing a righteousness, and meriting a ground of acceptance, which, in the eyes of an infinitely wise and holy Being, should be imputed for the benefit of penitent believers, and thus, by his perfect obedience and propitiatory death, working out a justification, from which the spiritual wants of all mankind should be supplied, if they received his testimony and believed on his name. (See Gal. iv. 4, 5; Rom. iii. 21, &c.) The character in which he appeared was that of a substitute; it was also that of "days-man," a person who mediates between two contending parties for the purpose of reconciliation. He alone, being God, as well as man, and thus laying his hands on both, was capable of accomplishing this great object-of satisfying the claims of divine justice, and opening for guilty creatures an approach to the throne of Heaven. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." (Isai. liii.) "He was oppressed and he was afflicted." The vicarious nature of Christ's sacrifice, the vicarious character of his appearance on earth, run through all the statements in the New Testament. It is on this account that our warmest gratitude is challenged, and our strictest obedience required. "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." (2 Cor. v. 14, 15.) "He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." (Rom. iv. 25.)

It was undoubtedly for the wisdom of the Divine Majesty to determine whether the law should take its original course, or accept of such a satisfaction as should insure all the objects for which it was originally designed. It belongs, indeed, to the Divine Being to be just; but if all the ends of justice be obtained by the substitution of another in the place of the offender, shall we attempt to impose limits on the decisions of the Almighty, and say that the right of dispensing with the penalty attached to a law, as to the exact direction it may take, is not within the prerogative of Him by whom it was made and promulgated?

Believing, as we do, that Jesus Christ is a Divine

person, the

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