olive branch of evangelical peace in her mouth; better far than the black raven who brings legal death pictured upon his dismal wings. Yet, notwithstanding, in wisdom there must be a mixture both of law and Gospel, to sing with the sweet singer of Israel, both of mercy and judgment. A true preacher should be like one of Ezekiel's cherubim who had two faces-one of a man, another of a lion; the one fierce, the other mild; the one the visage of the law, the other the countenance of the Gospel: he must as well bless on Mount Gerizim as curse on Mount Ebal; he must show the ark wherein there is as well the manna of consolation as the rod of correction. There is a blessed track between Bozez and Senah, for Jonathan and his armour-bearer to climb up into the garrison of the Philistines, and happy is that preacher who can find this golden

mean.

"The third sort is your Linnet, who make the pulpit a cage to sing in, and sing a lullaby to Solomon's sinful sluggard, who lies snoring fast asleep upon the downy bed of iniquity and security. Those are they that have a flexible tongue, as Nazianzen says, like those in the theatres, who, wrestling publicly, do not strictly observe the laws of valiant wrestling to win the glory and carry away the prize from those champions they contend withal, but only use such sleights as do steal away the eyes of the ignorant, and violently carry them away to admiration to extol their activity. Those are they that sew pillows under sinners' elbows, only singing to the sweet dulcimer: seeking for too nice tricks of invention, even as Saul sought for his father's asses. They do, in giving the bread of life, to use the words of Clemens, 'effeminate and sift out the wholesome strength from the wheat; or, as Paul speaks, they make merchandise, or, as the word signifies, play the crafty vintners with God's word.

"It is said of Solomon that every three years he had the ships of Tharshish come laden home with gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. I fear me the Great Solomon, King of heaven and earth, has some ships that do more than once a year bring into his sacred sanctuary little gold and silver, but a great deal of apes and peacocks, only delighting those who are called by the Apostle such as have itching ears. These bring to Jairus's revived daughter music but not meat. The best preacher should sometimes thunder like Boanerges-James and John, the sons of thunder, should blow the spiritual trumpet seven times against the walls of Jericho-the partition wall of sin that makes a separation between Jesus Christ and us-should cry aloud and spare not, should drum the march of Christ's coming to judgment attended with millions of angels and archangels into the dull and deaf ears of all impenitent libertines with the terrible thunderclaps of the blessed and powerful Word of God to rouse them up, who are almost like the Celts in Aristotle, who are, as he says, mad, and without passion or feeling, whom neither earthquakes nor fearful noise of inundation can ever move. Give me that blessed man of God, that truly anointed of the Lord, who like the lightning can pierce and wound the inward heart, make the hair to stand upright, the flesh to tremble, as Felix did, the joints of the loins to be loosed, the knees to knock one against the other, as Belshazzar, who can leave Pelatiah the son of Benaiah for dead; he, he is the preacher, and those his words in their suitable and right object are Solomon's pleasant words.

"The fourth sort is your Ostriches, who have wings, but fly not, so they have gifts peradventure, and tongues, but speak not. Of whose learning, being like concealed land, we may say as Ptolomeus Philadelphus in his letters to Elcazer, of the Hebrew Bible untranslated, What good can redound unto a man either by a treasure hid or a fountain sealed up?' Worthy Ernestus, Duke of Luneburg, caused a burning lamp to be stamped on his coin with these letters, A. S. M. C., by which was meant, Aliis serviens me-ipsum conterno '—' by giving light to others I burn out the lamp of my own life. If he thought this to be the duty of a secular prince, how much more should we think it the duty of a spiritual prophet, of one that is set apart for the holy function of the ministry, to spend his happy days in God's service, to preach in season and out of season, never to give over, but to run the race with cheerfulness unto the goal and end of his life, knowing that his labour shall not be vain in the Lord.

"We know the heifers that carried the ark, they went lowing continually; but these ostriches, these heifers, these fat bulls of Bashan, they never low, at least so low that none can hear them, or, if they do, it is but tanquam partus elephantinus, as elephants bring forth, that is, once in ten years. These men do not give that portion of meat in due season unto hungry, starved souls; they are mute as St. Matthew's fish with twentypence in his mouth; they have bought a farm, purchased possessions, bought a yoke, nay, a hundred yoke of oxen, and yet all their teams of oxen cannot draw them out unto the plough of the sanctuary, unto the solemnization of the marriage of Jesus Christ and his blessed spouse. Whom for their security and supine negligence, we may term,

as Athanasius calls the wicked that flourish like a green bay-tree in this world, 'hogs that are larded for the day of destruction.' The Lord Jesus open their eyes, that they sleep not in death, nor suffer the slumbering souls of Christ's flock committed to their charge to become as fuel for hell-fire; and that they may at length, after their long scandalous silence, speak Solomon's pleasant words."

MEMOIR OF THE REV. S. WHITEWOOD,

LATE OF HALIFAX.

BY THE REV. HENRY DOWSON, BRADFord.

THE excellent and lamented subject of this memoir, was born at Newbury, in Berks, in 1794. He was blessed with parents who watched over his morals, and he was directed by them to the house of God and the means of grace. His friends were by no means in affluent circumstances, for he has spoken of the privations which he endured when a boy; the high price of food rendering it exceedingly difficult for families in humble circumstances to obtain the common necessaries of life. These deprivations Samuel Whitewood had to suffer, and probably they induced the feebleness of constitution which afflicted him in after life. From a brief record of his early experience, kept by himself, it appears that he had convictions of sin almost from the dawn of reason, and a fear of God's anger, even during the period of childhood, deterred him from sinful ways. But as he advanced in years, his conscience became less tender, and he pursued the world with avidity, but not without the strivings of the Spirit, and the admonitions of conscience. Sovereign grace followed him through all his wanderings. He was at this time visited with affliction; worldly disappointment darkened his prospects, and the Holy Spirit moved effectually upon his heart, teaching him

"The emptiness of things below,

The excellence of things above."

He spent his leisure in reading and retirement, and under the ministry of the Rev. T. Welsh, then pastor of the Baptist Church at Newbury, the Gospel came with the demonstration of the Spirit, and he found peace in Christ. With such delight as young converts only feel, he united in the worship of God, and in the society of his people, and in 1815, he, with three others, yielded himself publicly to the Lord in the ordinance of Baptism. He was found at once actively engaged in the Sabbath school, and in the exercises of the prayer-meeting. The devout and judicious amongst the brethren soon discerned that he had gifts for special service in the Church of Christ. With other brethren he began to preach in the neglected villages around Newbury, and he was soon called to address the church with a view to the exercise of the ministry. His discourse, founded upon the words, "Unto you therefore that believe he is precious," was just the key-note of his subsequent ministry. Whereupon he was solemnly commended to God in prayer, and recommended to the college at Stepney, then under the presidency of the venerable Dr. Newman. Having passed through the usual course of academical training with profit and honour, he became pastor of the church at Andover, Hants, where he continued five years. Here his labours were abundant. He preached generally five times a week, not without tokens of his Master's presence, and he left amidst the regrets and affectionate regards of a people whom he had nurtured and increased.

The remaining thirty years of his laborious life were spent in Halifax. Here he lived to see a feeble cause rise to a position of strength and importance. He aided by his counsel and influence the erection of a new and commodious chapel, and subsequently of spacious school-rooms-the monuments of the liberality of the people and the assiduity of the pastor. Once only was the course of his ministry interrupted by dissension in the church. He quietly retired from the storm, until recalled by the voice of the people to resume his pastorate—a call

too solemn and earnest to be refused; and he lived to see that which he believed to be a calamity and a schism overruled for the furtherance of the Gospel.

The first and most obvious characteristic of this departed servant of Christ was his sincere piety and Christian life. Born of the Spirit, all the faculties of the new man were strengthened by habitual communion with God. His piety was at an equal remove from the moroseness that repels, and the frivolity that disgusts. He had the Spirit of Christ. He combined with gentleness and courtesy the rare endowment of unflinching integrity. Scrupulously exact in money matters, he kept separate and minute accounts of all funds which passed through his hands. To be in debt was to his mind a violation of Christian rule and principle; and so carefully did he guard against it in his own affairs, that when his papers were examined, a short time before his death, only one account of a few shillings was found undischarged, which was immediately paid.

His stedfastness and fidelity as a minister of God was as manifest as the reality of his religion. He held a firm grasp by a living faith and an enlightened experience of the truths of the Gospel. His preaching was neither a half-hearted Calvinism, nor had it the slightest tinge of Antinomian presumption. He never veiled the cross in the obscurities of modern conceptions and carnal reasoning. He preached an atonement as well as a Saviour; the work of the Spirit as well as the work of the Son; and a power in the Redeemer's death which not only illustrates the Divine compassion, but vindicates Divine justice. Doctrine, practice, experience, beautifully blended in his faithful ministrations; and though he never rose to popularity, he shed a clear light in the circle in which he moved, and many rejoiced in that light. The region of controversy was not his domain, and new phases of truth neither allured nor deceived him; but he never shrank from the defence of his principles as a Nonconformist and a Baptist. The faith once delivered to the saints" was never compromised by his cowardice. His afflictions were manifold. Death, many years before his own departure, removed from this world his amiable and Christian wife, and he was left to pursue the pilgrimage of life widowed and alone. He was also chastened by long-continued personal affliction. Carrying about with him a disease of the heart, which any moment might have terminated his life, he preached as if standing upon the verge of the grave, and with the realities of a future world ever before him.

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All that knew our departed friend must have remarked his disinterestedness and benevolence. His ear was ever open to the complaints of others. When he was a boy, if his parents turned a beggar from the door without relief he would shed tears, and not be able to eat anything at the next meal. That sensitiveness in connection with the sufferings of others marked his character through life, and led him to continued acts of self-denial, that he might from his limited means communicate to the necessities of others. He watched the liberality of his people in successive erections and enlargements without grudging the channel in which it flowed. With his increasing infirmities, and after such a period of lengthened and faithful service, he might have retired from the pastorate, and appealed to his church to provide for his future comfort and supply; but a spirit of generous independence, as well as love for his work, kept him at his post until the last particle of physical energy was wellnigh exhausted; and when he retired it was not to repose but to die.

The last and somewhat prolonged affliction of our departed friend was eminently alleviated by the consolations of those Divine truths which had so long been the subject of his ministry. Deep humility, combined with Christian cheerfulness, patience, gratitude for any acts of kindness rendered to him, with a calm reliance upon his Father's care, and his Divine Saviour's work, marked his experience. It was observable how quickly and anxiously he turned from his own afflictions to the circumstances of the Church. His affectionate solicitude reminded the writer of the Apostle's language to his converts, We were gentle amongst you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children." He referred with all tenderness to some who needed admonition, to the sick and aged whom he could not visit, and to inquirers who needed

instruction and encouragement. The Sabbath school, the Missionary Society, were all cared for, even with the hand of death upon him, and any instance of neglect filled him with grief and wounded to the quick his gentle and sensitive spirit. His mind, although not always free from those harassing doubts which often disturb the dying experience of believers, was generally kept in peace. To his affectionate son, he said, "Religion is everything, and Christ is everything, and I hope to bear my dying testimony, as I have done my living one to that." In repeated conversations with his attached friend, the Rev. J. Pridie, Independent minister, he referred to the work of Christ, as the great subject of interest to his mind, and remarked that, as he approached eternity, he saw the subject more clearly and in a variety of aspects. The last Christian minister that saw him was Archdeacon Musgrave, the Vicar of Halifax, who, in a note addressed to his friends, writes as follows: " Nothing could be more simple or scriptural than his dying testimony to the great truths of the Gospel, and whilst he was humble as the very humblest, in his estimate of himself, the assurance of the faithfulness and all-sufficiency of the Redeemer was precious to his soul." I only add to this testimony that he met death with calmness and confidence, and gently fell asleep in Christ, Oct. 31st, 1860.

His funeral sermon was preached by the writer to a crowded congregation, from Rev. xiv. 3.

Whilst this servant of the Lord was not distinguished for those fascinations of genius or of eloquence by which some are marked and eminent, he was gifted with solid endowments rarely surpassed. His name will be fragrant in the remembrance of those who knew him best, and to sovereign grace we ascribe the praise.

CHRIST GIVING HIMSELF FOR HIS CHURCH.

BY THE LATE REV. J. H. EVANS.

"CHRIST also loved the Church and gave himself for it." Observe WHAT IT WAS THAT HE GAVE. It was not his mere tears, nor groans, nor sighs though the Lord Jesus was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." His couch was "wet with his tears ;"" his tears were his meat day and night;" we read of his "strong crying and tears." Yet this was not what he gave for his Church. He did not give the blood of bulls or of goats, that could never take away sin. He did not give angels nor archangels, nor all principalities and powers, for his Church. He might have created as many millions of them in one moment, as there are grains of sand upon the sea-shore. It was not worlds which he could have created with a breath, and with a breath have annihilated. No, this would have been too low, and poor, and mean; he gave himself-his whole self. He gave his deity and his humanity; the whole of his person as God and man; all that was in man to suffer, and all that was in God to merit. He gave a whole obedience to God's holy law; he gave the most awful endurance of its penalty; he gave his whole life-even unto death. And this he gave most freely. Never did the water gush from the springing well so freely as his love flowed from his heart; never did the ray fall from the sun so freely as this love shone from him; never did the dew fall upon the earth, nor the shower water the ground, so freely as he in his own unbounded love gave this proof of ineffable affection. It was no sale, it was no exchange, it was no loan; it was a gift, a free, irrevocable, eternal gift. "I lay down my life," he says, "no man taketh it from me.' The Jews and Romans thought that they put him to death by their own power; they were the instruments, but he laid it down of himself. We know that in the ancient sacrifices among heathens, if the victim did but struggle, it was considered an unhappy omen: my brothers, my sisters, if our Victim had struggled, we had been lost. But

"he was brought as a lamb to the slaughter; as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." It was his meat and his drink to do the will of Him that sent him, and to finish his work.

And now observe for what it was that he gave himself. We find it in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians, he "gave himself for our sins." It was not for our worthinesses, our duties, our excellencies; but it was for our bad deeds. Look at the posture of the Church, see her in her true position; see her in her prison house. A debtor?-more than that; a criminal. A criminal ?-worse than that; a rebel. A rebel ?-more than that; a traitor, professing the name of Christ, yet hating his authority :-that is the case with you, who call yourselves Christians, and yet know not what he is, nor what you yourselves are, nor what you soon shall be. Behold the Church in this position, and even this does not come up to the reality: she was a rebel in heart, and hated the authority of God, she hugged her chains, and despised the threatenings of the Lord. Now see this blessed Jesus evidencing his love by giving himself for our sins. He stands forth as the great Mediator of the covenant, our great Surety and Daysman. Behold the Head of that covenant now fulfilling all his engagements. Behold the glorious Husband of the Church, taking her liabilities, and cancelling her bonds, delivering her from the hands of justice by the paying of her debts, and from the power of Satan by his own Almighty power; giving all satisfaction to every perfection in God, and giving her a will to love God, and serve God; taking her from her state of present sorrow and the dread of eternal woe. Behold for what he gave himself; it was for sin.

How gloriously was this idea set forth in the old dispensation, when Aaron laid his hand upon the scape-goat, confessing over it all the iniquities and sins of the people, and transferring them from Israel to Israel's substitute. Here was not only his bearing the punishment, but taking the sin itself; here was his being "made sin." I do acknowledge, great man as Luther was (it is the fashion with half-protestants and half-papists to decry him, but you shall ever find, as Luther goes down, Protestantism goes down too), yet I cannot like his expression, that the Lord Jesus Christ was the greatest of all transgressors, because he had all our sins laid upon his head; it is an unwise expression, because it is unscriptural, and whenever we use unscriptural language we may be sure we have some unscriptural ideas. But still, I am exceedingly jealous as to the transfer of sin. If our Lord had been legally innocent, he had never been punished; for justice knows not what it is to punish an innocent man. There must have been a real transfer and a real imputation of sin to our blessed Lord; otherwise he had never endured the awful curse and penalty. If you have any doubt upon the point, I would desire you to consider two passages of Scripture. Observe in the second Epistle to the Corinthians, the fifth chapter, "He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Observe, again, in the first Epistle of Peter, the third chapter, "Christ also hath suffered for sin, the just for the unjust." In both these passages, the personal innocence of our Lord is maintained; and why is it insisted upon, but to meet the possibility of an erroneous conclusion from the real imputation of sin to him?-to mark distinctly, that while there was a legal guilt, there was a personal innocence?" He who knew no sin;"" the just for the unjust,"—if there had not been a real imputation of sin to our blessed Lord, these expressions, I think, had not been found in God's Word.

And now, I would direct your minds to the fact that the death of Christ was a manifestation of his great and ineffable love to his Church. This was the object of his death-so I read the Word of God. I can rejoice as much as any man in the broad declaration, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Knowing, as I do, full well, that the Jew ever esteemed the Gentile as the world, and the Jews as the only Church of God, one glories to see "the middle wall of partition broken down," and a broad