darkness! There will be no reserve, no concealment, no escape from the most searching scrutiny. Parents learn a lesson from the past, and if you have not hitherto lived to glorify God, by the surrender of your hearts to his service, and neglected the spiritual welfare of your beloved children, retire, on the opening of this new year, to your closets, give yourselves to solemn meditation, reflect on the past, consider your position, think of the forbearance and long-suffering of God, in having spared you, trifle no longer with his warnings and his threatenings, and wrestle hard in prayer for the outpouring of his Spirit on your souls and the souls of your children, that all may be saved in the day of his power, and finally meet as one family in heaven, to cast your crowns before Immanuel's feet. And to the young I would say, Time is rapidly passing; another year has sent up the account of your history before God; the days of your sojourn here are numbered; the present is the only time to serve the Lord. You may never see the close of this year. No learning, no attainments, no rank, honour, wealth, will avail you at the hour of death. Only one thing is precious in the sight of God,-the soul washed in the blood of Jesus, justified by faith in him, sanctified by his Spirit; and unless you now possess these evidences of salvation, you are unfit to die, and unprepared to stand before the judgment-seat of the Great Eternal. May you take up the resolution individually, “I will begin this year with prayer, and from this time forth yield myself to the Lord a living sacrifice." Dec. 1850. F. S. G. HEZEKIAH'S SICKNESS, AND ITS LESSONS. WHEN death knocks at the door, whether of prince or peasant, he must be attended to. As the minister of Divine Justice he brooks no delay. The frivolous and the busy must alike give ear, as is strikingly exemplified in the case of Hezekiah; who, the moment he heard the awful words, "Thou shalt die and not live," was moved to the lowest depths of his heart. Court, palace, crown, and sceptre shrunk into nothingness, and in the agony of his soul he cried unto his God, and was heard in his earnest supplication, and obtained an extension of the lease of life. Among the lessons we are taught by the history of Hezekiah is the following: 1. Neither men's greatness nor goodness will exempt them from the arrests of sickness and death. Hezekiah, a mighty potentate on earth, and a mighty favourite of heaven, is struck with a disease, which without a miracle will certainly be mortal; and this in the midst of his days, his comforts and usefulness. It should seem this sickness seized him when he was in the midst of his triumphs over the ruined army of the Assyrians, to teach us always to rejoice with trembling. 2. It concerns us to prepare when we see death approaching. Set thy house in order, and thy heart especially; put both thine affections and thine affairs into the best posture thou canst, that when thy Lord comes, thou mayest be found of him in peace with God, with thy own conscience, and with all men, and mayest have nothing else to do but to die. Our being ready for death will make it come never the sooner, but much the easier: and those that are fit to die are most fit to live. ance. When we pray in our sickness, though God send not to us such an answer as he here sent to Hezekiah; yet if by his Spirit, he bids us be of good cheer, assures us that our sins are forgiven us, that his grace shall be live or die we shall be his, we have no reason to say that we pray in vain. "God answers us if he strengthen us with strength in our souls, though not with bodily strength," Psalm cxxxviii. 3. 3. Is any afflicted with sickness? "Let him pray," James v. 13. Prayer is a salve for every sore, personal or public. When Hezekiah was distress-sufficient for us, and that whether we ed by his enemies he prayed; now he was sick he prayed. Whither should the child go when any thing ails him, but to his father? Afflictions are sent to bring us to our Bibles and to our knees. When Hezekiah was in health, he went up to the house of the Lord to pray, for that was then the house of prayer. When he was sick in bed, he turned his face towards the wall; probably towards the temple, which was a type of Christ, to whom we must look by faith in every prayer. 4. The testimony of our consciences for us, that by the grace of God we have lived a good life, and have walked closely and humbly with God, will be a great support and comfort to us when we come to look death in the face. And though we may not depend upon it as our righteousness, by which to be justified before God, yet we may humbly plead it as an evidence of our interest in the righteousness of the Mediator. 5. God has a gracious ear open to the prayers of his afflicted people. The same prophet who was sent to Hezekiah with warning to prepare for death, is sent to him with a promise that he shall not only recover, but be restored to a confirmed state of health, and live fifteen years longer. As Jerusalem was distressed so Hezekiah was diseased, that God might have the glory of the deliverance of both; and that prayer too might have the honour of being instrumental in the deliver 6. A good man cannot take much comfort in his own health and prosperity, unless withal he has the welfare and prosperity of the church of God. Therefore God, knowing what lay near Hezekiah's heart, promised him not only that he should live, but that he should "see the good of Jerusalem all the days of his life," Psalm cxxviii. 5, or otherwise he could not live comfortably. Reader! are these things even so? Then inquire how far they concern thee, since thou too must die! How are you now living! Were the summons to reach you to-night would it be convenient? Would it be safe? How are you now walking? Could you in the event of a summons like that to Hezekiah, appeal to the Most High, and say, "Remember now, O, Lord I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and hath done that which is good in thy sight?" If so, fear not! If otherwise, consider without delay "the things which belong to thy pea, before they are hid from your eyes," and may God give thee understanding: GLORY. Dismission from the body. Desiring to depart and to be with Christ. Zeal to do good. Delight in walking with God. Deadness to the world by the cross of Christ. Communion of the death of Christ. Love of God shed abroad in the heart. Love to the people of God. Love of God's word established in the heart. Frequent attendance on the means of grace. Alarm. Conviction. Concern for the soul. INDIFFERENCE. Family worship only on Sabbath evening. Fashions, however expensive, adopted. Free association with carnal company. Delight in taking God's name in vain. Theatres, Balls, Fairs, Races, Circus, Concerts, &c. House of God forsaken. Much wine, spirits, &c. Fornication. Deistical company prized. Private prayer neglected and thrown aside. Parties of pleasure on the Lord's day. 60 Masquerades. Drunkenness. Adultery. Profaneness. Lewd Songs. Infidelity. Scoffing at Religion. Persecuting the godly. PERDITION. The reader must peruse this from the Middle, upwards or downwards, until he perceive the degree at which he now stands. And let him be careful of the first advances of sin, for it is as the letting forth of waters; we see the beginning, but not the end, it is hid in darkness: but "the path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth brighter and brighter unto the perfect day." THE LORD'S SUPPER A MEMORIAL OF CHRIST DYING. A SERMON BY THE REV. MATTHEW HENRY. (Communicated by Sir John Bickerton Williams, Knt.) "This do in remembrance of me."-LUKE Xxii. 19. CONCERNING the Lord's Supper, ob- drinking. God's commands are so far serve: I. How it is enjoined. "This do." This. What? why? This that Christ and his disciples were now doing. Do these sacramental actions. Take bread, and break it. Take wine, and drink it. Christ took occasion, at the close of the Passover supper, to make these appointments. Eating and drinking are the great sacramental actions; no other are appointed. Eating and drinking are natural actions; therefore they are plain and easy. "The word is nigh thee," in your "mouth and in your heart." The institutions of the ceremonial law were not 80. It was an odd thing to kill a beast, and sprinkle the blood, and then burn it on the altar. The Gospel law is written "in the heart;" the nature of it is agreeable to man. Eating ruined us in the first Adam; eating saves us in the second Adam. Eat and live. It was, eat and die. Well may we say, "The yoke is easy." Eating and drinking are necessary actions; there is no living without them. Christ is to our souls as our necessary food to our bodies. Here is no other burden laid on us but these "necessary things." See Acts xv. 28. We have Christ to preach for daily bread. Bread is the staff of natural life; Christ is the staff of spiritual life. "I am that bread of life." John vi. 48. Eating and drinking are pleasant actions. See Ps. xiv. 4. The greatest pleasures are represented by eating and from being grievous that they are pleasant. Christ has in this ordinance consulted not only our ease but our delight. "I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting-house, and his banner over me was love." Canticles ii. 3, 4. Eating and drinking are proper actions to signify that which is intended, namely, our participating of the merits of Christ's death. Nothing could be more significant to set before us Jesus Christ, as exhibited to us in the Gospel, than bread and wine,"Wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart." Ps. civ. 15. Strength and joy are the two great things that our souls stand in need of. This bread and wine is not only to be looked at, but to be eaten and drunk, "This do.” If this be so, what reason have we to be thankful that Jesus Christ has made this institution so plain and practicable! It "is a highway and a way." Isa. xxxv. 8. Hold fast the institution, then, in its native purity and beauty. And if this be so, then they are much to blame that live in the neglect of it. "If he had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it?" Had it been to go to a prison, to a dungeon, wouldest thou have stuck at it? But behold, he lays on thee no such burden. His institutions are very plain and easy. 2. How it is explained," in re membrance of me." Consider Christ He is our Father, our Brother. Heb. ii. as now entering on his sufferings. 11. Surely the faithful, loving, tender This was "the night in which he was wife cannot forget her absent husband; betrayed." A particular regard is had thy Redeemer is thy "Husband." Thou to Christ's sufferings. The bread must art espoused to Christ. Remember thy be broken. contracted Husband. He that is thus by faith joined to the Lord is one spirit;" and canst thou then forget him? Doctrine. That what is done in the ordinance of the Supper, is and must be done in remembrance of Christ, especially of Christ dying. "When this you see, remember me." "Do this"-1. In remembrance of Christ as a friend that is now absent. It is usual among friends to keep something or other in remembrance of a friend at a distance; perhaps a thing of small worth, but as a love-token it would be laid up choicely. The Lord's Supper is a love-token. We come there to eat and drink, remembering Jesus Christ as we do an absent friend. He is now in heaven. John xiii. 1. "He knew that his hour was come." "I came forth," he says, "from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and go to the Father." John xvi. 28. There he is personally present within the veil. We do not see him. 1 Pet. i. 8. It is a great thing to consider Christ as he is in heaven. Remember him as a friend that is at a distance; this is the design of the ordiWe do this in token of thisthat though the blessed Jesus is out of sight, he is not out of mind. Faith looks on Christ as he is in glory. Heb. xi. 1, 27. The sensible memorial of this ordinance is designed to help our faith in its actings on the unseen Jesus. Let this be a continual memorial by which he may be remembered. There is a deal of reason why we should remember Christ now he is in heaven. nance. He is not only a friend, but a near and dear relation-" bone of our bone." He is a friend that has done us special kindness. Gratitude obliges us to remember one from whom we have received favour. Christ's undertaking for us, and what he did in pursuance of it, obliges us to keep him in remembrance now he is in heaven. He is absent, but he is transacting our business. The "forerunner is for us entered." He is in heaven, but he is interceding for us, and preparing a place for us. John xiv. 2; Rom. viii. 34. Remember him where he is. He is there suing our pardon; we must be here repenting. He is a friend who, though he is now gone, yet will come again. Consider what we expect from Christ at his return-namely, that he will receive us to himself. Our sacramental remembrance has a special regard to his second coming. We "show the Lord's death till he come." The spouse parts with this prayer, "Make haste, my beloved,” Cant. viii. 14; and the church, "Come, Lord Jesus; come quickly." Rev. xxii. |