Cossey Let heaven wonder, earth surprised Nor left for man one straw to move, He came to save, and not propose Who'd heedless choose the ways of death He came to save-most blessed sound He came to save my soul from hell, To him be all the praise For I, nor thought, nor spake, nor done He came to save—proclaim abroad When Christ the hearing ear impart, He came to save (but who believe) The Gospels grand report: The fount is free-come, wash, be clean, By blood thy ransoms bought. He came to save and seek the lost, Provision great indeed; And is it possible that they Should ere be damned and cast away? He came to save, he strech'd his hand, And held it up to Satan's view, 'Ive brought 'its full discharge His mercy if for ever built, Nor can it fall, his blood is spilt, Here yonder blood bought race, And shout victorious grace! A HEWER OF WOOD THE GOSPEL MAGAZINE. VOL. IV. No. X. Of a FIFTH SERIES, for OCTOBER, 1839. "In doctrine shewing uncorruptness." "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees which is Hypocrisy,” "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday to-day and for ever. Whom to know is life eternal." THE GOD OF REVELATION. THERE was much wisdom in the conduct of Simonides the philosopher, when he was interrogated by the tyrant of Syracuse to solve that deepest question, What is God? The judicious heathen required a day to deliberate; at the expiration of which, he desired yet two more; and still, as he was pressed to give in his reply, continued to demand double the time he had already expended in studying the subject; alledging, that the further he pursued the inquiry, the more he found himself involved in obscurity, and more deeply confounded, reaching after that satisfaction which the most exalted wisdom of humanity must for ever despair of attaining; and, since that revelation has been closed, we may perceive that they who were mostly favoured with the wisdom of inspiration, who had the revelation of ages before them, and were themselves made the subjects and recorders of further revelation, were ever astonished and overcome at the magnitude of the Godhead; one confounded in the pondering of one attribute, another equally affected by the survey and contemplation of a second. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his ways, and his judgments past finding out!" exclaims the admiring Paul in regard of the judgment of God toward Israel after the flesh, who have already continued many centuries under the veil of unbelief; but are most strikingly reserved to some period of future illumination, known to him only who has the times and seasons in his own power, when the glory of Israel shall to all the Israel of God be revealed. And again, St. John the Divine, in the blissful perception of the certainty and glory of salvation, with astonishment cries out, " Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that VOL. IV. No. X. 3 K what we should be called the sons of God! it doth not yet appear we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." But to define the holy existence, to demonstrate in what consists the complete similitude thereunto, surpassed the most exalted conception of the beloved apostle. In the word of revelation, the sacred scriptures of truth, God hath so discovered and revealed himself, that we may attend to the knowledge of the nature, the delight and approbation, the cognlzance, the mind, the sovereignty, the purposes, and the final arbitration of God, and of what is most essentially important to man, the way whereby we may be brought to that favour of God which is better than life itself; without which, better had it been for us had we never been born. When we consider the heavens declaring the glory of God, the firmament shewing his handy work; the moon and the stars which he hath ordained; all which continue to this day according to their original institution, as the apostle judiciously expresses it, a warta σux-reason and observation of fact should constrain us to acknowledge, that great are the works of the Lord; worthily indeed sought out by them that have pleasure therein; but deplorably gross, earthy, and sensual, must be the state of that mind which cannot find pleasure incomparably great in them. Most worthy of regard, as most awful in its nature, is the conduct of God toward the whole human creation; turning men to destruction a state which must be imposed by a superior powerfor man submits to it involuntarily and of necessity; usually with reluctance, dread, and horror. The fatal sentence he hath indiscriminately executed for six thousand years; and yet continues to execute it with every mark of sovereignty, man knowing neither the time nor mode of dissolution: daily and hourly does he demand his myriads, without respect of person, rank, ability, or qualifica tion; already hath he amassed in the bowels of the earth numbers which baffle all computation, yea, even conception itself: some hath he consigned to the cavern of the ocean, and other secret re· positories known only to himself, whose eyes are in every place; yea, he reserves them in a mode which may appear annihilation but to him who calleth things that are not, as though they were. From analogy also, as well as from divine information, we know, that man that is, and man that shall be for generations yet to come, shall, as their father, be turned into corruption, and lie down to awake not till the heavens be no more. Now the cause or this common havoc of the human race, God himself affirms to be sin; God hath set our sins before him, and our secret sins in the light of his countenance. The necessity, turpitude, and criminality of our nature, are therefore summonses to us to regard the power of his wrath; anxious to inquire how they may be averted, and we obtain peace, joy, and salvation for ever: for of an everlasting existence there can be no durable doubt in a' reasonable mind; it may indeed be wished by the wretch whose heart is godless; he may seem to himself to doubt, but that is all, for he cannot possibly confirm the desired creed, nor establish himself in the wished-for faith: the same word that says, there is a natural body" (which all believe, because they see), says also, "there is a spiritual body:" and indeed it is no more strange that man should live for ever, than that he should live at all. But the greatest master-piece of God-head demonstrable in holy writ, is the plan of salvation; this the angels themselves desire to look into devised before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth or the world were made. This salvation, he who cannot lie confirmed by oath; swearing by himself because he could sware by no greater, that so, by two immutable things, the counsel and the oath, the certainty of it might be established; in consequence, at the appointed time, and predicted period, that which was from the beginning, The Word which was God, was made flesh, caine and dwelt among us, was heard, seen, and handled; was and is preached on, that every one that believeth on him may be saved: he being the propitiation for sin, the justice of heaven is satisfied; he being the gift of God, grace is established, and by grace only cometh salvation. Yet though the Saviour is proclaimed, by the great majority he is despised, rejected, the scorn of the philosopher, the ridicule of the reprobate and profane, the abhorrence of the vain and self-conceited. But the rejectioni of the ministry of reconciliation, is the rejection of God altogether: this is to deny the immaculate purity of his nature, as demonstrated by the law; to disclaim his love, as exhibited on the cross; to frustrate (intentionally) his purpose; to falsify his word, and make him a liar; yea, to render ourselves independent of him, to exalt ourselves against him, and, trusting to human ability, bid God de fiance. Such of us as are thus disposed, must become the subject of endless vengeance, or God must change; must cease to be, that which he declares himself, the God that changeth not: either we cannot escape, or he must belie his word, and abdicate all pretensions to Deity. Since such is the God with whom we have to do,-confessedly great; stupendous in his works; inexorable in the execution of the sentence of death; immutable in the matter of salvation, of which salvation he hath given assurance, in that he hath raised Jesus from the dead :-yet is disbelieved, disregarded without fear; unsought, and wilfully unknown; it is just, it is reasonable, that the state of this present evil, God offending world, should be no more; that there should be a period, when opposition shall no longer prevail with impunity; when the great ends of God shall be advanced to maturity, the plenitude of his attributes fully known and experienced by all the subjects of his power in their own proper order; his holiness and justice magnified in the endless destruc tion of his enemies; his grace fulfilled in the perfected salvation: of the redeemed. Such an expectation is consistent with the right view of God, as he hath made himself known; and this expectation is absolutely confirmed by the word of God, which hath thus defined the great end: "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, all authority and power; for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet: the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death, for he hath put all enemies under his feet: but when he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted who did put all things under him; and when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject to him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." The person predicated, as the agent of these reductions, is the Lord Jesus, in the discharge of his office as the head of the church, on whose shoulder is the government thereof. The disciples of revelation are taught, that the Godhead is Triune: that there are Three, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; that these Three are One,-self-existent, independent, supreme,—each absolute, authoritative, all-powerful: but such is the mysterious unity, that there is one supremacy, one fate, one power; the mind of each purposing one and the same; the result is, of necessity, one also. "No man (saith the Saviour) can come to me, except the Father which sent me, draw him ;" and again, " No man knoweth the Son save the Father, and he to whom the Son will reveal him" (Biλntai that is, of his own will and power ;) and again, the wind bloweth where it listeth ;-so is every one that is born of the Spirit, acted on by the supernatural, therefore free inspiration of that blessed agent. On this great subject, one who searched deepest into the things of God, hath taught us this acknowledgment, most worthy. of imitation to wise and simple, philosophical and unlettered: "without all controversy, great is the mystery of godliness! GoD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH." The sacred oracles declare also, that to IMMANUEL is committed the procuring of salvation by the offering of himself; in which bleeding work he pacifies offended justice, and introduces offending man to life eternal. Connected with this his undertaking, there is also committed to him the administration of judgment, the dissolution of the universe, the resurrection of the dead, the immediate glorification of such as shall be living at the second advent! for indeed it seems most equitable that the Personage, in whom the love and wisdom of Godhead are scorned, should reveal, and in his own person pronounce, the sentence of righteous judgment: his it is, to put down all rule, authority and power, terrestrial and infernal; it is perceptible, that some of the most capital and conspicuous empires that ever occupied this globe, were exalted and brought down not without reference to the spiritual kingdom of grace and |