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THE PITY OF THE LORD.

THERE is a great deal of the Bible which seems not to be believed even by those who profess and suppose that they believe it all. And this is true, if I mistake not, of what some would call the best parts of the Bible-those parts for instance, which speak of the kind feelings of God towards his creatures, and especially towards those of them who fear him. I suspect that even Christians read them with a sort of incredulity. They seem to them almost too good to be true. But why should not God feel toward us, as he says he does? Is he not our Father? Has he not nourished and brought us up as children? Why should it be thought a thing incredible with us, that God should feel as a father does toward his children? I never read the 103d Psalm, that I do not stop at the 13th verse: "Like as a Father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; and I read it a second time, and I find myself asking, not merely in admiration, but with some degree of unbelief, "Can it be that the Lord pities us, and pities us like a father his children! I know the Lord is good to all. How can he who is love be other than benevo

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lent? It were contrary to his nature not to be so. But pity expresses more than goodness-more than benevolence. There is an unmovedness in mere goodness. But in pity the heart melts, and the eye weeps, and the whole soul is moved from its seat. And this is especially true of a parent's pity. Can it be possible that God pities after that manner?" Oh yes, it is possible; and it has passed out of the limits of possibilities into the circle of facts. The Lord pitieth them that fear him-pitieth, as a father, you, if you fear him. His feelings toward you are fully up

to those which you can conceive, or from experience know to be those of the most tender parent toward his children. Yet God pities you. The nature, which is love, feels and exercises compassion toward you in your sorrows and trials. The great heart is affected by your misery and griefs as our hearts are when at the sight of suffering we weep. Yes, Christian, God is sorry for you. Oh what a thought this for an hour of trial! What a sentiment this to bear suffering with! What if thou dost suffer? Is it not enough that God pities thee? We should be willing to suffer, if he will sympathize. We should never know what divine sympathy is, if we did not suffer. This one consideration-that God pities, is worth more than all philosophy.

There is much that is interesting and lovely in pity, whoever be the object of it. There is, however, a peculiar tenderness which belongs to the pity felt for suffering children. Nothing goes so keenly to the heart as the child's tear and

tale of sorrow. And I suppose none can feel even for children, as those who have children of their

own.

And yet what is the pity they feel toward other children, compared with what they feel

toward their own when in sorrow? There is, there can be nothing to surpass this. And is the pity of the Lord like this? Yes. It is not said that he pities as man pities man; or as one pities children; but as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities,-" like as a father." Like as one who most affectionately loves, pities the dear object of his love, his child, his own child, when that child is sick, and he looks upon his altered countenance, and with a weeping eye watches over him day and night, and hears his

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moans and is imploringly appealed to by him for relief, which is not in his power to give,-like as he pities, so the Lord pities. So inexpressibly feels he toward them that fear him-such deep and undefinable emotions as a parent's heart is occupied with, when he says, My poor child!' So the Lord pities. Can it be? It is even so. Well, then, come want, come sickness, come sorrow, if such pity may come with it. The relief exceeds the suffering. The support is greater than the burden. It not only bears up, but lifts up the soul.

But how does a father pity? Does he pity so as never to chastise? Oh no! "What son is he whom his father chasteneth not?" He chastens out of pity. But he so pities, that he is infinitely far from taking delight in the smallest sufferings of his children, even when it becomes his duty for their good to inflict them, it hurts him more to chastise them than to be chastised. In all their afflictions he is afflicted, and more afflicted than they. Have you never corrected a child, and gone away and wept in pure pity for him? Have

you never denied him something, and found it a greater self-denial? Is such your heart toward your children? Such is God's toward his. He doth not afflict willingly."

Again, a father so pities that he would spare or relieve his child, if he could, that is, if he had the power, or having the power, it were proper he should exercise it. A parent sometimes has the power to relieve, and does not exert it. The principle of benevolence within him which proposes the greatest good of his child for the longest period, forbids that he should yield to the impulse of compassion, which calls for the rendering of immediate relief. He pities his child too much to relieve him. So the Lord pities. He has always

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the power to relieve; and often he exerts it. He always would, if it were in view of all considerations proper and benevolent that he should. He who for thee spared not his own Son, would spare thee every sorrow thou hast, and would relieve thine every pain, but "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”

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A father so pities his children, that he would, if he could, even suffer in their stead. More than one father has said, Would God I had died for thee, my son, my son!' And is the pity of the Lord like a father's in this particular too? Yes. So the Lord pities. So he has pitied. He could suffer in the stead of those

be pitied-and he did. "Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He has even died for us. Oh what pity!

A father so pities his children, that to promote their comfort and happiness, he would spare no pains and no expense. How freely the most avaricious parent will spend, if the necessities of a child require it! The wants and sorrows of his child can open even his heart. Such is the pity of the Lord. He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. Having one Son, his only-begotten, he gave him even for us.

Let the child of God derive from these considerations inexpressible consolation. Oh think that he, in all thy sorrows, pities thee! Yes, thy God feels for thee. Thy sufferings go to his heart. There is one in heaven, who from that exaltation looks down upon thee, and the eye that watches over you, wept for you once, and would, if it had tears, weep for you again. He knoweth your frame. He remembereth that you are dust. "He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax." It was he who, when his disciples had nothing to say for themselves, made that kind apo.

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logy for them. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.' He can be touched with the feeling of all your infirmities. You may cast all your cares on him, for he careth for you. All through this vale of tears you may rest assured of his sympathy; and when the vale of tears declines into the valley of the shadow of death, not his sympathy only will you have, but his inspiring presence, and his timely succour. After that, what will not his bounty be whose pity has been so great? When there is no longer any occasion for pity, when misery is no more, and sighing has ceased, and God's hand has for the last time passed across your weeping eyes, and wiped away the final tear, what then will be the riches of his munificence? What then will he not do for you, having so felt for you ? You know a father feels a peculiar affection for a child that has been afflicted, and that has cost him a great deal. How will our compassionate Redeemer cherish and caress those who have come out of great tribulation, and for whom he went

through so much more himself! What must be the glory of that place to which he will take them, after he shall have made them perfect through sufferings! What exalted honours, what ecstatic joys must he not have in reserve for them, whom he came down here to weep with, and now takes up thither to rejoice with himself! And now that they have ceased to sin, and are perfectly conformed to his image, what will not be his complacency in them, when his pity toward them is so great in this imperfect state, in which their suffering is always mingled with sin!

Well, then, since we are the objects of such pity, let us be its subjects too. Let us pity, as we are pitied. Cared for ourselves, let us care for others. Let their case reach our hearts, as ours reached God's. Let us, for whom so many tears have been shed, be not sparing of our tears for other's woes. Nor let us give to misery merely the tear, but speak the word of consolation, and reach out the hand of help.

REMARKS ON ZECHARIAH III. 4.

M.S.

"Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angels. And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, Take away the filthy garments from him, And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment."

ARCHBISHOP NEWCOME, in his work on the Minor Prophets, explains the filthy garments to mean

the squalid and polluted garments of a captive," and the explanation has been adopted in the Commentary, published by the Tract Society. It is so far correct, as Joshua the High Priest had been a captive in Babylon; but the context seems to make the garments emblematic rather of sin. This view is supported by a passage in an old life of Alexander the Great, by Samuel Clark.* Speaking of the accusation of Phi

Lives of eminent persons, folio, 1675,

p. 63.

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lotas, he says, "He was brought forth in vile garments, and bound like a thief, where he heard himself and his absent father accused' As Philotas had been arrested only the night before, and that at a banquet, these could not have been the garments of a long imprisonment. It probably was customary to attire an accused person in such a dress. This view of the case agrees best with the context, where the clothing of Joshua with change of raiment is connected, not with his deliverance from captivity, but with the forgiveness of his iniquity.

S. E. L.

ESSAYS AND DIALOGUES ON POPERY.

No. XV.

THE INVOCATION OF SAINTS.

Inq. АH, my good friends, how many times, during my long absence, have I thought of our late discussions, and longed for their renewal; for you will remember that we had not, when we parted, advanced beyond the first step,that of an attempt to ascertain the RULE OF FAITH.

Prot. Yes, I am aware of that; but I am aware, also, that that point comprises more than one half the controversy. In fact, it involves the whole. The enmity so generally exhibited by the leaders of the Romish Church towards the Holy Scriptures, sufficiently proves that, in their view, the admission of the word of God, as the rule, must be fatal to their cause. And I am equally ready to admit, on the part of Protestants, that if the Bible be not our sole and sufficient rule-if we are under the necessity of having recourse to tradition, or the writings of the Fathers, or the decisions of the Church, in any matter essentially connected with the soul's salvation,-then I have little hope that we shall avoid being driven to take up with at least three-fourths of Popery.

Rom. That is an honest admission; but how can you doubt that you must have recourse, at last, to the traditions of the Church, for many doctrines and practices which are generally held among Protestants. How, for instance, will you establish the doctrine of the Trinity, or the sacredness of the Sabbath, or the use of infant baptism, or the apostolic institution of epis

copacy, without having recourse to the writings of the Fathers, and the decisions of the Church?

Prot. The first two of these points are of far greater moment and importance than the other two. The doctrine of the Trinity, in my view, can be abundantly established by the words of Scripture; and, in fact, so high and vast is its dignity and its weight, that if it were not found in God's own word,. I could never venture to believe it myself, or to press it upon any other person's belief, on the mere ground that some ancient fathers held such a view. 2. The divine institution of the Sabbath is upheld throughout the whole Bible; and in the New Testament we have the clearest proofs that the day set apart, as the sabbath, by the earliest Christians, under the sanction of the apostles, was the first day of the week, to which we now adhere. 3. Infant baptism is not essential to salvation; though it is clearly deducible, by way of inference, from the tenor of the Old and New Testaments, gathering from the first the practice relative to circumcision; and from the second the substitution, by the early Church, of baptism in its room. 4. Episcopacy stands nearly in the same position. It is not commanded in the New Testament, but we may learn from various passages that it was instituted by the apostles. But neither in the case of infant baptism, nor of episcopacy, nor in any other, do we wish to throw the history of the

early Church out of view. We admit the value and importance of such records as exist; but we cannot accept such records as of equal authority with the word of God; nor can we consent to be bound by the opinions and practices of men who were as fallible and erring as ourselves. However, let us now look back to our former conversations, and endeavour to take up the question at the point at which it was, for a time, discontinued.

Inq. That point I will endeavour to recollect. It was, I think, our chief object, in all our past discussions, to ascertain the true standard or rule of faith, by which all questions in faith and practice were to be tried. You, on the Protestant side, asserted the Bible to be this rule; your opponent here, that the Bible formed, at most, only a part of the rule, and that the teaching of the Church was a necessary adjunct; or rather, that it was the practical rule, or standard for daily use; while the Scriptures were rather to be looked upon as the fountain or source from whence the Church drew her instructions. I hope I do not misstate this part of the argument?

Rom. No, I do not find fault with your mode of stating the question.

Inq. Well, after a large and rather discursive review of the whole argument, we came, I think, at last, to this conclusion: that the Protestant rule, the written word of God, was abundantly established, as to its authority, and was both available and sufficient, in its intrinsic character. On the other hand, however, the main objection to the rule of the Romish Church was not answered; to wit, that it was not available ; that it could not be taken hold of and applied by one in my circumstances. For, on a close investigation, the matter was brought to this, either that I must accept

'the teaching of the Church' at the hands of an individual priest, whom I knew to be fallible and liable to error, and in whom I therefore could not, with any satisfaction of mind, repose such implicit confidence; or else, if I hesitated to take his individual declaration as to what the Church decided or held, I was left to wander in almost utter darkness, amidst a maze of Church controversies, to find out, first, where the Catholic Church was really to be seen and heard ; and then, what she had said and done on all the controverted points. In this difficulty, then, I naturally felt that the Protestant rule was, beyond all comparison, the preferable one; for here, in this Bible, I have it, and I can consult it, with perfect ease, whenever I need its guidance, and with a feeling of perfect security that what I am reading is, truly and certainly, the unerring word of the Most High God.

Rom. But can you really feel, without having first submitted yourself to the judgment and instruction of the church, that you have any sufficient grounds for your certainty that that Book is really what you suppose it to be, a collection of the writings of the Inspired Apostles and Prophets, containing the whole of such inspired writings, and containing none other?

Prot. Allow me to interrupt you here, and to demand in return, whether you are not acquainted with the full and satisfactory arguments of Bossuet, Bellarmine, Huet, La Mennais, and divers others of your own communion, in proof of the genuineness, authenticity, and divine inspiration of Scripture, against infidels and sceptical objectors?

Rom. Certainly I am. But what have they to do with this question?

Prot. They have this to do with it; that your controversialists and

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