POETRY. THE RAINBOW. THE bow of promise gleams I love to view thy span, For thou art owned most fair; And ponder on thy birth; I view in fancy's glass, The patriarch bending low; And God, with reconciled face, Erecting yonder bow. I hear the words he told When storms are threatening high, My covenant bow I will behold, And bid the tempest die. SOVEREIGN GRACE DISPLAYED. To me who am less than the least Deserving the grace of the Lord; Thus humbly I lay at his feet, And glory alone in His word. Ah! who of the ransomed race Can fully his worth ever know; At least, I can say for myself, Adoring I wonder and bow. My heart is a sink of all ill, More brutish than any beside; And yet by the help of his grace, In Jesus I'm led to confide. A refuge in times of distress, Is welcome when terrors pursue; In Him we can quietly rest, And bid all our fears adieu. For by the sweet cov'nant of grace My name in the Lamb's dear book. Thus led to believe He is mine, All self-righteous deeds I detest; And while I lay hold of his armı I feel myself happy and blest. Essex. DELTA. Ah! angels with wonder admire The change that God's Spirit effect, Within the dead soul of a sheep That laid in his bosom elect. This mystery there's none can explain, Or fathom the depth of his will; Who saves by his grace whom he will, And others sends quickly to hell. But when in the face of my sin, Though black as the pit of despair; No longer a sinner would be. And fill me with grief as I go. The Lord is my buckler and stay; He never his people will leave, Though trials stand thick in the way. J. G THE Spiritual Magazine; OR, SAINTS' TREASURY. There are Three that bear record in heaven; the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY GHOST; and these Three are One." "Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." 1 John v. 7. Jude 3. NOVEMBER, 1835. ON THE PLAGUE OF LEPROSY. EVERY precious doctrine of grace is directly or indirectly hinted at, or broadly stated in the Mosaic dispensation. The Bible begins with stating a plurality of Persons in the Godhead. Christ and salvation is revealed, is set forth in the 3rd of Genesis, " as the seed of the woman." Much of the church and her safety in, and through all storms, may be seen in the history of Noah. Abram saw Christ's day, and was glad: his only son devoted to be a sacrifice, the cord to bind him, the knife to slay him, the fire to consume him, with the wood in order; all were powerful preachers to the eye of faith to this venerable patriarch. But, Moses wrote of me," said the blessed Redeemer; and in the plague of leprosy, we have that awful, frightful malady, sin, set forth. It was so loathsome a disease, that every thing a leper came near was polluted and defiled; the unhappy patients were driven out and separated from all society, as unfit to be seen and conversed with; a striking representation of sin. How obnoxious it has made us all to God! and what a separation it has made from him, many are brought to know by daily and painful experience. There are but few saints but what are continually bewailing the separating and contaminating nature of sin. Although they are effectually brought nigh by regenerating grace, and no sin can finally separate; yet in the experience of their souls, they find a disposition to live at a distance from that God who has loved them, and given himself for them. 2. The leprosy was a spreading malady; a few spots at first, then other sad symptoms, then the whole frame became infected. So with sin; it appeared but a small spot in Eden, an apple, one woman, then the man, then the children; and so it spread through VOL. XI.-No. 141.] 2 T : all mankind all over creation; "the whole creation groaneth," the apostle says it has filled the world with millions of miseries, hellwith millions of sinners, saints with millions of sorrows; it made the Son of God to sweat blood, to groan, to weep, to be cursed, to endure the most exquisite torment, to be bound and scourged of men, to die a most horrible and a most shameful death; his holy head to be harrowed with thorns, furrowed with tears; and to have filthy spittle thrown at his blessed face; to be cursed and scoffed at by ungodly men, to be made a burnt-offering, but a sweet sacrifice unto God and man. But no sorrow was like unto what the Lamb of God experienced when he was made an offering for sin. We may see in the wounded, ploughed, bleeding body of Jesus, the true spreading nature of this woeful malady, sin. 3. We do not find there was any human remedy; the patient did not resort, or make any application to an earthly physician, but was brought to the priest, Lev. xiii. 2. Here we are led into a large experimental field. No human skill can compound a medicine to cure this complaint, and yet vain men would be wise, and many prescriptions have been written, and human drugs mixed, but all in vain. It has been the work of antichrist to counteract this deadly malady, by one creature-means and another; prayers and pilgrimages, and fastings. Some have recommended a peculiar cut and colour for our clothes. The receipts are almost endless; but all have failed but one, that God Almighty in his infinite wisdom has contrived; and it is the person, blood, righteousness, and intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ, the result of the grand and glorious discussion in the council of peace, secured by an everlasting covenant, exhibited in the glorious gospel, and sweetly applied to the souls of sinners by God the Holy Ghost; and the many myriads in glory are loudly applauding the merits and mercies of Christ, the great and good Samaritan, who came where they lay all over leprosy, and cured them, and cleansed them, by his blood. O precious, precious blood! O precious, precious blood! 'Tis this has made my peace with God, And bought my liberty. My argument in prayer, And will be my delightful song, 4. Another peculiar feature in the leprosy, was, that when the leprosy covered all the flesh of the poor afflicted person, he was pronounced clean, Lev. xiii. 13. So with all the patients in the Lord's hospital; they see themselves all over disease within and without; nothing that we think, say, or do, but is defiled. This lesson is not learnt suddenly: many good men have commenced preachers with slight sensations and views of sin, and consequently have preached a mixed gospel, a limited salvation, and not a full Christ; but the day that has dawned has ushered in greater light. The fall of man, in its fearful and frightful consequences, has been discovered. Nothing now do such dare preach, but a great Saviour, not only suited to the leprosy of sin, but a Saviour and salvation above and far beyond all the disease and malady of fallen nature. Be not discouraged, then, poor sinner; although thou seest thyself all over sinful spots, covered with filthy stains, Jesus' blood can make thee whiter than an angel. To him look for peace, and purity, and pardon. He saves freely and fully, cures and cleanses effectually; you may venture wholly on him, and he will not send thee away without a blessing. Hampstead. JAMES. CONTEMPLATIONS ON PROVERBS XVIII, 16. (Concluded from page 210.) It is hoped that by the divine blessing, we have made the eternal truths of the ever-blessed Jesus abundantly plain, suitable, and strong, from the word of the Lord, the work of the Spirit, and christian experience. Now, if this be our happy case in the former piece, we proceed, humbly imploring the same Almighty teacher, Jehovah the Spirit, to guide, seal, and comfort us into the truth in the love of it, as it is in Jesus: for sure I am, nothing short of his divine energy will make and keep his dear children free from legal bondage, and the awful aboundings of error and heresy in the times we live in. O may our daily prayers ascend unto God the Holy Ghost, for the prosperity of our Immanuel's righteous cause and interest. The sweetest, and most glorious feature in the gospel, is, that Christ, the great Author of it, is a gift of Jehovah; compreliending all other gifts; and his believing children love and adore him as such, and at times they feel him to include (as he most assuredly doth, Ps. 72., with Ephes. i. 3-12.) every other gift, for where the dear Lord Jesus is, (in the delightful manifestations of his smiles) there. all gifts of blessedness abound; where he is not, it matters not to them what else is; for all besides is death. Well, therefore, might the apostle exclaim, "Now thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift." Oh! it is unspeakable indeed to all created intellect, the glories of Christ, Zion's king, Immanuel. But now, thirdly, we are to endeavour to shew the room, &c. Now, as Son of God, and God the Son, he is a person in the divine essence, therefore, God over all, blessed for ever; co-equal, co-eternal, co-essential with the persons of Jehovah the Father and Jehovah Ruach, one God everlasting. This the faithful have believed and rejoiced in, in all ages of the church, both in the antedeluvian and postdeluvian generations of the world, and will to all eternity. 66 Our most blessed Lord Christ, speaking to God the Father, in Ps. xxxi. 8., saith, "thou hast set my feet in a large room;" which, I humbly conceive, hath respect to the subject of our precious Immanuel's temptations (see Matt. iv. 1. &c. compare Luke xxii. 53.) Here was a large room indeed! but his almighty feet were in it: yes! that he might tread down, tread under, and eternally triumph over all his and his dear people's enemies, with all his redeemed ones' sins and fears, that they might divide the spoil and everlastingly participate in his glorious conquests, being members of his mystical body the church. Thus did Jehovah hear and enlarge Christ, as our suffering surety, when he was in distress, agonizing under the ponderous load of our sins, Psalm iv. Luke xxii. 44. Yes, my dear brother in the Lord, this is that almighty everlasting bridegroom of his elect spouse, that went forth for the salvation of his chosen and redeemed people, even for salvation with thine anointed. Precious Jesus! thou hast in thy redemption-work, wounded the head, even the prince of darkness, out of the house of the wicked; by making naked, discovering the foundation unto the neck. Selah. O, precious Lord Jesus! cause all the feeble members of thy mystical body, by virtue of eternal union with thee and by gracious communications from thee,our life-giving head, to see, believe, worship, and adore thee; as did thy servant, the prophet Habakkuk, for thou art God and Man, which came from Teman" (or the south, the substance of thy gospel) and Jehovah's, and all thy people's "Holy One, from mount Paran; Selah," for ever. Let thy glory cover the heavens, and the earth be full of thy praise, O Immanuel! for thy brightness, and thy smiles infinitely surpass the light of noon. O Lord, I have heard thy speech out of thy holy law, and was afraid, because of my sins, pollution, and guilt; and of thy holiness, justice, and terrible majesty therein revealed: but glory be to thee, my God and covenant Father, in thy dear Son Christ Jesus, that now, through his atoning blood, rich grace, and justifying righteousness, witnessed in my heart and conscience by the Holy Ghost, I come to thee, the Abba of all grace and mercy being brought nigh by the precious blood of his cross; knowing and feeling, as I do daily, that in him, thy soul delighteth, well-pleased for his righteousness' sake, and with all thy children in him. Here, they feel thy pardoning love that casteth out fear. O Lord! revive thy work in the midst of these years of darkness and shadow of death; while passing through this valley of Baca, make all thine ordinances of grace living springs of water to all thy dear thirsty people. In the midst of our pilgrimage here below, make known thy everlasting loving-kindness, in all the ancient purposes of thy love and grace; in wrath, remember mercy; for thy mercy (Christ) is great above the heavens. And Lord! though our sins are said to cry unto heaven, they cannot cry above the heavens, for : |