could invest a state of widowhood with energies of the female children were en more misery and wretchedness than even feebled, distorted, and crippled, by the married life. Widowhood was, in India, a cruel practice of confining their feet in proscribed and despised condition :- small shoes, from early infancy, in order widows were prevented by law from mar- to prevent their growth. It was known rying again after the death of their first that the Chinese had been accused, and husbands, and they were compelled to ob- not without foundation, of the fearful serve many severe and painful austerities practice of infanticide. This fact was es—and it was believed, that the misery and tablished by the testimony of Mr. Gutzbarbarity to which women in a state of laff, the well-known missionary, who widowhood were exposed, and the conse- states, that this crime, so far from being quent dread of that condition which was confined-as was supposed by some-to implanted in the minds of the native fe- the capital, or the more populous cities, males, was the only cause which prevent- was practised, to a dreadful extent, along ed an immense number of Hindoo men the whole coast. There were present, tofrom being destroyed by poison, by their day, two female children, who afforded insulted and degraded wives. They might, evidence, in their lacerated and crippled from these facts, form some slight idea of persons, of the cruelties of heathenism the condition to which females were re- These children, who were being educated duced by heathenism. But, if they found in this country, and who were being desthat women were thus degraded and de- tined, he hoped, to be useful in their nabased in the semi-civilized heathen coun- tive land, were sold by their heartless patries of the East―as, for instance, India, rents to an inhuman monster, who, in and China-they could not expect the sex order to excite compassion by their exhito occupy a more elevated position in bition, and thus to gain the contributions those parts of the world in which the light of the charitable, plucked out their eyes, of civilization had been more scantily dif- and rendered one of them a cripple for fused. He had recently perused a work on life, by severing the sinews of one arm New Zealand, by Mr. Polack, in which and leg. A lady who had been connected the author says, that he has frequently with the missionary station at Kishnagar, conversed and reasoned with the women had told him, that just before she left of that island on the cruel practice of India, forty native children had been murdering their female infants, and he brought to the Orphan Asylum at Calnever knew them to manifest any sense cutta, by a British officer. It was at a of shame on the subject. Mr. Polack fur-period when the country was desolated ther states, that he once heard a young by one of those dreadful famines which New Zealand woman, when accused of are of such frequent concurrence in that the murder of her female child, reply with quarter of the globe; and the children to a laugh, that she wished her mother whom he had alluded, whose parents had had shown her the same kindness when either deserted them, or had died, were she was an infant, and then she would not about to be sacrificed by the unhappy nahave lived to be a miserable drudge, ex- tives to propitiate their deities for the reposed to her husband's cruelty.' It was moval of the famine, when they were foramply proved, by experience, that, tunately rescued by the officer, who conthroughout the world, wherever man ex-veyed them to a place of refuge. From isted in his natural and corrupt condition, statements which had been made to him he invariably employed his superior by Mr. Moffatt, a missionary who had strength and power to tyrannise over recently arrived from South Africa, it apwoman; and it was only where the light peared that the situation of children among of the Gospel had been introduced, and the heathen in that portion of the world, where the civilization engendered by the was equally distressing. It was not unuknowledge of that Gospel prevailed, that sual, in Africa, when, in their predatory man became, as he ought to be, the pro-wars or excursions, one tribe had overtector and the friend of the weaker and come another, for the victors to collect more helpless sex. But the condition of female children in heathen lands, was more painful and miserable than even that of woman. It was impossible to imagine how, in China, the mental and bodily

the children of the vanquished, and to destroy them by casting them into a burning furnace, or by some other mode equally barbarous and inhuman.”

Redemption! O thon beauteous mystic plan!

Thou salutary source of life to man;

What tongue can speak thy comprehensive grace?
What thought thy depths unfathomable trace?

When lost in sin our ruined nature lay,
When awful justice claim'd her righteous pay,
See the mild Saviour bend His pitying eye,
And stop the lightning just prepared to fly !
(Oh-strange effect of unexampled love!)
View Him descend the heavenly throne above:
Patient the ills of mortal life endure,
Calm, tho' reviled, and innocent, tho' poor;
Uncertain His abode, and coarse His food,
His life one fair continued scene of good,

For us sustain the wrath to man decreed,

The victim of eternal justice bleed.

Look! to the cross the Lord of life is tied ;

They pierce His hands, they wound His sacred side;
See! Christ expires, our forfeit to atone,

While nature trembles at His parting groan.

BOYSE.

THE view taken in the preceding essays of the present state of man as a fallen creature, although consonant with reason, revelation, and experience, is calculated to excite, in the minds of such as reflect and consider, apprehensions of a gloomy and terrific character. The awful fact that man is fallen from his primeval dignity, felicities, and prospects-is ruined, condemned, lying under the curse of a violated covenant or broken law, indisposed to seek and unable to make peace with God, (because the carnal mind is enmity against God, and he cannot remove his guilt,) -having been clearly proved: it is evident, that unless God either has interposed, or will interpose in our behalf, we must inevitably suffer the punishment justly our due as transgressors, and endure all the misery which necessarily results from separation from the Author and Giver of all good. But although our sins have separated us from God, (Isaiah lix. 2.), and constituted us His enemies (Col. i. 21.), and our case is bad, yet it is not desperate. The Lord in mercy appears in our behalf, and displays His love in the gracious appointment of a

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suitable Mediator, through whose intervention contracted guilt should be atoned for, sins pardoned, sinners justified, souls regenerated, and reconciled to God, and finally exalted to eternal glory. To illustrate these and kindred facts, the greater part of the sacred volume was penned; which, while it clearly describes our helplessness, guilt, and misery, as clearly discloses the tender mercy of our God in devising, appointing, and achieving our salvation.

I. That man in his lapsed state is an object of redeeming love, is seen in the gracious appointment of a suitable Mediator.

A mediator is one, who interposeth between two parties at variance, to make a peace or unity between the party offending and the party offended. There must be two parties, and the mediator is a middle or intervening person. This principle is recognised in the sacred volume, (Gal. iii. 20)-"A mediator is not a mediator of one." A mediator is required when the persons or parties at variance are, by the cause of the difference, prevented from treating directly with each other. A mediator should regard the interests of both the parties between whom he negotiates, and see that the peace made is injurious to neither. He should be the friend of both. A mediator should voluntarily undertake the office of reconciler, and work of making peace, under the sanction and appointment of the superior or grieved party, and be well acquainted with all the circumstances of the case.

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These pre-requisites are all found in our adorable Redeemer. He is a Mediator coming between two parties at variance with each other; namely, God and man. Man being the offending party, and God the offended. Our sins had separated between us and our God, constituted us His foes, and filled our souls with every evil desire. Our sins had brought us under the curse of the law, armed eternal justice against us, and rendered us worthy of punishment. Our sins had disqualified us for approaching God, and consistently with His majesty and holiness God could not treat (as far as we can judge) directly with us in our guilty impenitent state of rebellion otherwise than as a Judge. The difference made by sin justified the interposition of a mediator, but could not cause his intervention. Let us then be thankful for the merciful appointment of the Son of God, and rejoice because there is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus"(1 Tim. ii. 5). Upon the terms of the first covenant as based in the principles of inflexible justice, which were fully developed in the nature of the moral law that was given on Mount Sinai, through the agency of Moses as mediator (Gal. iii. 19), no reconciliation could be effected, because man could not of himself meet the demands of justice. Hence the necessity of another covenant, in which justice should be honoured before the universe, whilst mercy and grace descending pardon and restore to men the enjoyment of Divine favour in a life of humility and living obedience. Hence Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant" (Heb. xii. 24)—" is the Mediator of a better covenant established upon better promises"(Heb.viii. 6). Jesus, being both God and Man, is the friend of both God and man, and regards equally the glories of the Godhead and the welfare of man, in the discharge of his Mediatorial office. As man He is related to us, whose cause He undertook, and so qualified to make satisfaction for sin in the nature that had transgressed, by yielding obedience to the law we had broken, and suffering death for our sins according to the terms of the better covenant, which He, as the Surety of the covenant, had entered into with the Father in our behalf. The office of Mediator which our Lord sustains, and the work of making peace which He has done, were willingly undertaken by our Lord with the sanction and by the appointment of our heavenly Father. The willingness of Christ to effect a reconciliation between us and the Deity, is revealed in a variety of modes and various passages of Scripture. The following passages are sufficient to demonstrate this point:-"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old; I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was; when there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: while as ye He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there: when He set a compass upon the face of the depth, when He established the clouds above, when He strengthened

the fountains of the deep, when He gave to the sea His decree that the waters should not pass His commandment, when He appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and My delights were with the sons of men. Now therefore hearken unto Me, O ye children for blessed are they that keep My ways"-(Prov. viii. 22—32.)

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"Sa

crifice and offering Thou didst not desire; Mine ears hast Thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required. Then said 1, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God." —(Psalm xl. 6—8.) And this language was uttered with a perfect knowledge of His humiliation, sufferings, and death. Mortality with all its evils, and deathwith all its horrors, were disclosed to His view; but His love was stronger than deaththe waters of affliction could not quench the flame. And when the period was come for the fulfilment of His engagements, in which He was to atone for our sins and accomplish our redemption by suffering and death-when He cometh into the world He saith, "Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me." "Lo, I come to do Thy will"-(Heb. x. 5—7.)

Our Lord came readily, but with the sanction and appointment of the Eternal Father. When the fulness of time was come God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law-(Gal. iv. 4,5). And prior to His coming, calls on us by the voice of inspiration, to regard His Son with earnest attention. (6 Behold, My servant whom I uphold; Mine elect in whom My soul delighteth. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles"—(Isaiah xlii. 1.)

II. That man in his lapsed state is an object of redeeming love, is seen in the dignity of the Mediator and the antiquity of His appointment.

The Mediator appointed to repair the breach made by sin between our souls and God, wears the honours of Divinity. "He is the brightness of the Father's glory; the express image of His person;" "the Creator of all things visible and invisible." "The Word that was with God"-and was God. "Having life in Himself." The co-equal and co-eternal Son of God the Father-(1 Pet. i. 2). God, who is love, unto whom the past, the present, and the future are fully known, foresaw eternally the apostacy of our first parents, and provided for the reconciliation of men to Himself through faith in the merits of His Son, prior to the creation of the world. Hence we read of "eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began”—(Titus i. 2.) "Of God who hath saved us

and called us with an holy calling; not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." (2 Tim. i. 9.) Of "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the fonndation of the world"-(Eph. i. 3, 4.) III. That man in his lapsed state is an object of redeeming love, is seen in the reconciliation effected by the appointed Mediator.

First. This reconciliation, although not so decisively ascribed to the obedience of our Lord while living as to His death, is nevertheless to be traced to it, and was effected by it. In order to yield obedience to the law, our Lord was made under the law(Gal. iv. 4.) "He took upon Him the form of a servant"-(Phil. ii. 5.)—“ and as Mediator became one”—(Isa. xlix. 3.) As a servant He obeyed the will of God, as revealed in the laws of nature and of Moses. His obedience was rendered willingly.—(Psalm xl. 6.) It was perfect in nature and extent, for He was without sin—(1 Pet. ii. 22); and rendered in behalf of such as believe, that being clad by faith in it as by a robe, they should be accounted righteous. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, to every one that believeth"--(Rom. x. 4.) In this respect Christ is the very opposite of Adam. Adam is a cause of condemnation ; Christ of justification. "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous"-(Rom. v. 19.) The obedience of Christ, rendered in our nature to the law of God, magnified and made it honourable; condemned sin in the flesh, and proved "the commandment holy and just and good." His righteousness being perfect, accepted in our our behalf, and the possession of believers, we may desire with Paul, to be "found

in Christ, not having our own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of God by faith."-(Phil. ii. 9.)

Second. This reconciliation is effected through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, the appointed Mediator, who suffered for our sins to sustain the glory of God in our everlasting welfare. The death of Christ was an astonishing event. The dignity of the sufferer, the prodigies attendant on His crucifixion, and the wondrous results of His passion, all prove it wonderful. Well might the sun refuse to dis perse the darkness which diffused itself over the land, the veil of the temple be rent in two from top to bottom, the earth tremble, the rocks split, and the graves burst open to allow the saints to rise after His resurrection. The death of Christ was a reconciling event; "When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son"-(Rom. v. 12). "Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world: but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby; and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God"(Eph. ii. 11-19. See Col. i. 20.)

The death of Christ was a reconciling event, because it realized the types and fulfilled the predictions of the Old Testament in taking sin away, the cause of separation or of variance between us and our God. Daniel had left it on record, that the Messiah should be cut off, but not for Himself; that He should finish the transgression, make an end of sins, make reconciliation for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, &c.-(Dan. ix. 24-26.) Isaiah had said, "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed." He had glanced forward to the future and said, "It pleased the Father to bruise Him, He hath put Him to grief; when thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed." The services of the Mosaic ritual faintly shadowed forth the figure of Him that was to come. That economy was an economy of blood, and by a succession of sacrifices taught us the necessity of a more dignified Victim, and richer blood than theirs, to take away sin. Hence the force of our Saviour's appeal to the desponding disciples, who were sad, dejected, and cast down on account of His crucifixion"Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory”— (Luke xxiv. 26.)

The death of Christ was a reconciling event, because He, according to the eternal purpose of God, took away sin, the cause of the difference between God and His people, as revealed in the predictions of the prophets and signified in the prescribed services under the Old Testament dispensation, in the discharge of His Mediatorial office. The death of Christ was pre-determined; hence He is called "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world"—(Rev. xiii. 8). Hence it is said, "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain"-(Acts ii. 23). And hence we are said to be " redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb, without blemish and without spot, who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who by Him do believe❞— (1 Pet. i. 18-20.)

The death of Christ as Mediator was predetermined. "And for this cause He is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance" (Heb. ix. 15). Sin was in the way-sin was the cause of variance; but the death of Christ takes away sin. "The blood of