does not come too soon to prevent profitable exercise for His glory and our soul's good, and never comes too late to save. "Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood Till all the ransomed Church of God Be saved to sin no more. "How true is the Word and how blest is the will! Chelsea. And Christ the Lord lives, His Word to fulfil; 'These little ones perish! no, never! no, never!'"* ORIGIN OF THE WORD "TRIBULATION." THE Latin "tribulan," from which we derived our word "tribulation," was the threshing instrument whereby the husbandman separated the corn from the husks; and tribulation, its primary significance, was the act of this separation. Thus adversity (being the appointed means for the separating in men of whatever is light and trivial from the solid and the true) has been called tribulation." The following graceful composition, from the pen of George Withers, a poet of the seventeenth century, is quoted as being an excellent illustration of the expansion of this word "Till from the straw the flail the corn doth beat, OH, the waste of prayer for things not worth praying for! Abundance may be the worst thing for us spiritually and eternally. Give us all needs for our true good; only let all lead us to Thee and away from self. Raise us higher in the true scale-in Thy sight. Matthew xviii, 14. A BROTHERLY EPISTLE. MY DEAR FRIEND," The Lord be with thee, even the Lord who hath chosen Jerusalem.” I am glad that I do possess a place in the affections of your people, although I do not see why it should be, nor how, for I do indeed feel myself quite unworthy of such a tender habitation. I am also glad that the enemy is not allowed to put the glass of jealousy before your eye. I do indeed see no spiritual reason why we should be jealous in this respect. The holy angels feel no jealousy among themselves, and holy men have said, "I must decrease and He must increase." "He that hath the bride is the Bridegroom, and the friend of the Bridegroom rejoiceth greatly because of the Bridegroom's voice; this my joy therefore is fulfilled." If we are labourers together with God, and fully know that we can do nothing only as God useth us, we shall lose sight of our own honour, as coming from one another, and seek the honour that cometh from God only. If I could always work upon this principle, and act according to this rule, what a host of pains I should be spared; but, alas! I am often snared in the work of my own hands. "Meditation"-how this hinders my faith in Jesus! "How can ye believe that seek honour one from another?" You perhaps have long ago got a great victory over these things, yet you must bear with the simplicity of a child. I find it a very difficult thing to lean wholly upon Christ, to look singly to Him, and entirely away from every other object-to be indeed dead. How happy I should be if I could wholly cease from myself! I do indeed feel that I need Christ in His intercessory work at the golden altar of incense as much as at the altar of burnt offering, to bear the iniquity of my most holy things. Oh, for that living practical knowledge of Him which enables those who possess it to make that use of Him that God intends! ... May the Lord of hosts furbish and sharpen His sword, and teach you how to use it. Yours very sincerely, March 29th, 1881. J. W. W. HYPOCRISY. A true Christian and a hypocrite may both of them come to a stand in their course, through temptation; but there is this difference-the true Christian is like a watch that was going right, but some dust clogs its wheels. Directly it is removed, the watch will go right again. The hypocrite is like a watch which is so badly made that it stands, or goes wrong from its very nature; and the only cure is to give it a new inside.— Salter. EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT. [The following extracts are taken from a tract sent us by the author, a clergyman of the Church of England, who had it printed for private circulation only. We hope many deluded ones may feel the power of those truths which are here so plainly stated. -ED.] THIS doctrine, so plainly set forth in Scripture, is in these last days denied by many, and even by some who seem to be taught of God, and who profess to teach to others the truth of God, as revealed in His Word. One would think that, without any argument at all on the subject, some few plain passages of Scripture would prove the truth of "everlasting punishment" for sin, and therefore also the eternal existence of such as are punished. Perhaps there is no place of Scripture stronger to the point than that in Matthew xxv. 46 : "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." Here the eternity both of the "punishment" and of the "life" is expressed by the same Greek word, so that both must stand or fall together. Any argument to lessen the force of "everlasting punishment," as applied to the unrighteous, will equally lessen the force of "eternal life," as applied to the righteous. But this plain text as to the eternity of punishment is further strengthened by the Lord's solemn words in Mark ix. 43-48, where He thrice makes mention of "hell fire" as the portion of offending sinners, adding this, "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Again, in 2 Thessalonians i. 8, 9, the Holy Ghost tells us by the Apostle that "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" shall be the portion of such as "know not God, and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." of as Again, in Jude 7, the sinners in Sodom and Gomorrah are spoken "set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire ;" and in the same Epistle, after a solemn mention of sinners and their sins, it is added, "to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever" (ver. 13). It may be added that the parable of the rich man in the torments of hell (Luke xvi. 23) would lose all its force, all its intended instruction, if he were not in torments out of which he could never pass from which he could never be delivered. And why had it been good for Judas if he had never been born (Matt. xxvi. 24), supposing there were any termination to the punishment due to the enormity of his sin? Now, these few Scriptures are more than sufficient to convince such as do simply submit themselves to the Word of God, laying *The Spirit of God always teaches sterling truth. aside all notions of their own, that there is an eternity of punishment for sin and sinners, and, therefore, that they who suffer it must needs themselves eternally exist. But since error, and prejudice through error, do so cling to our fallen estate, even while professing to be in subjection to what God has declared in His Word, it may be well to enlarge a little on this solemn subject of the eternal punishment due to sin. Man, at his creation, received a three-fold nature, not a two-fold nature only, like the beasts that perish. Man is made up of body, soul, and spirit (1 Thess. v. 23), though between soul and spirit the Scriptures do not clearly distinguish, nor can any do so but God Himself (Heb. iv. 12). Man thus created was made a “living soul" (Gen. ii. 7; 1 Cor. xv. 45), not subject to death so long as he perfectly obeyed the law, or commandment of God, and so retained the perfect image of God in which he was created. But man did not continue in obedience to the law of God. Adam disobeyed in one single command only, offended "in one point," and so became "guilty of all" (James ii. 10). Thus did he corrupt his whole nature, body, soul, and spirit; yea, thus did he corrupt the whole family of man, so that Adam and all his posterity, from the beginning to the end of time, did become, through one single sin, lost, ruined, undone sinners. Thus, too, the whole family of Adam were brought under that sentence of death, "Thou shalt surely die," and became subject to death spiritual, death natural, death eternal. Hence we learn what an infinite evil sin is-one sin alone corrupting the whole human race and hence, therefore, we are the more surely prepared to learn and to believe that such an infinite evil cannot but deserve an infinite or eternal punishment. * * * * It may here be asked, whence is it more difficult to believe in the eternal punishment of sinners of mankind, than to believe in the eternal punishment of the angels that sinned? But God, in His sovereign will and pleasure, has displayed the riches of His love and grace and mercy towards fallen man, so as He has not displayed them towards fallen angels. Of all the angels that fell it is written, "God spared them not." But, as to fallen man, the Scriptures show, what the seventeenth Article of the Church of England so clearly expresses, that "predestination to life [i.e., eternal life] is the everlasting purpose of God whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) He hath constantly decreed by His counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour." Thus did God, by His own purpose, and for His own glory, secure the deliverance from eternal punishment of a great multitude of sinners of mankind, a "multitude" such as no man can number, "out of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues" (Rev. vii. 9, 10). Yea, He did secure their eternal salvation, with eternal life in Christ. But at what a mighty cost was this deliverance and salvation of sinners secured! For this end Christ, who was very God, did become also very Man, taking upon Him the likeness of man's sinful flesh, and did, as God-Man, live a whole life upon earth-a life of sinless obedience and perfect righteousness, yet a life of temptation and sorrow, of grief, suffering, and sighing. For this end also Christ did agonize in Gethsemane, and die the accursed death on Calvary, shedding His own most precious blood; bruised, put to grief, and deserted of God Himself, and enduring in a few moments of time all the everlasting hell and curse and wrath and damnation due to the sins of that countless multitude of sinners whom He came into the world to save, and in whose place He stood, for whom He lived, and suffered, and died. Now, can it really be believed that all this sinless, suffering obedience of this eternal Person, even of Christ, very God and very Man, was paid and endured-all that agony and bloodshedding and curse and wrath and death was suffered-only to deliver sinners, for whom He was the Substitute or Surety, from some temporary imaginary punishment for sin, to be inflicted after the resurrection and judgment, and that then they should be annihilated, and death and suffering for ever cease? What a dishonour to God, who spared not, but gave His own dear Son, and "delivered Him up for us all," because it was impossible that sin, with all its malignity and deserts, could in any other way be atoned for! What a dishonour to Christ! What a depreciation of the necessity for, and the power of, His suffering life and accursed death! What a dishonour to the Holy Ghost, whose office it is so to convince sinners of the deadly, soul-destroying nature of sin that, being brought into bondage" through fear of death" (yea, unmistakably of eternal death) (Heb. ii. 15), they may, by His power, betake themselves to Christ, and find pardon, peace, and liberty through His everlasting salvation! What a dishonour to the law of God, which pronounces that dreadful curse (even everlasting fire with the devil and his angels"-Matt. xxv. 41) upon every soul that "continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them" (Gal. iii. 10). And may it not be added, what an encouragement to sinners to go on in their sins, neglecting both the terrors of the law and the everlasting mercies of the Gospel, when they are encouraged to believe, from the pulpit or through the press, that, whatever be the punishment for their sins after death, yet it is not everlasting, but shall end in their own annihilation for ever? 66 |