more such sound, experimental preaching, and also if it were more sought after by those who feel the burden and oppression of death, sin, and the law.

In our day we meet with but few who are so ruined as to need the remedy as Dr. Luther sets it forth.

As twenty-five copies of the Exposition can be purchased for 28. 6d., we think that small sum would be well laid out upon them, and we should be glad to hear of a large demand for this little work.

'ABOVE ALL, TAKING THE SHIELD OF FAITH.'

Question. But how can unbelief be so great a sin when it is not in the sinner's power to believe?

Answer. By this reason the unregenerate person might wipe off any other sin, and shake off the guilt of it with but saying, It is not my fault that I do not keep this commandment or that, for I have no power of myself to do them. This is true, he cannot perform one holy action holily and acceptably: "They that are in the flesh cannot please God' (Rom. viii. 8). But it is a false inference that therefore he doth not sin because he can do no other.

First. Because this inability is not created by God, but contracted by the creature himself. God made man upright, but they sought out many inventions' (Eccles. vii. 29). Man had not his lame hand from God; no, he was made a creature fit and able for any service his Maker would please to employ him in; but man crippled himself; and man's fault cannot prejudice God's right. Though he hath lost his ability to obey, yet God hath not lost his power to command; who among ourselves thinks his debtor discharged by wasting his estate whereby he was able to have paid us? 'Tis confest had man stood, he should not, indeed could not have believed on Christ for salvation as now he is held forth in the gospel; but this was not from any disability in man, but from the unmeetness of such an object to Adam's holy state.

Secondly. Man's present impotency to yield obedience to the commands of God, and in particular to this of believing (where it is promulged) doth afford him no excuse; because it is not a simple inability, but complicated with an inward enmity against the command. "Tis true, man cannot believe; but it is as true, man will not believe: 'Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life' (John v. 40). It is possible, yea ordinary, that a man

may (through some feebleness and deficiency of strength) be disabled to do that which he is very willing to do, and this draws out our pity; such a one was the poor cripple who lay so long at the pool (John v. 5). He was willing enough to have stept down if he could but have crept thither, or that any other should have helped him in, if they would be so kind. But what would you think of such a cripple that can neither go himself into the pool for healing, nor is willing any should help him in, but flies in the face of him that would do him this friendly office? Indeed every one that believes, believes willingly; but he is beholden, not to nature, but to grace for this willingness; none are willing till the day of power comes (Psalm cx. 3), in which the Spirit of God overshadows the soul, and by his incubation (as once upon the waters) he new forms and moulds the will into a sweet compliance with the call of God in the gospel.—Gurnall.

EVERLASTING MERCY.

DEAR MRS. MATTHEWS,-I am always glad to hear of you, though grieved when I hear of your afflictions and trials, but I am sure what the apostle advises is right for us all to observe, 'Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial,' but you and I cannot help thinking so. I often in the dead of night fear I shall be left to lose my senses, and that I shall turn childish, as many old men do; but I perceive this is the snare of the fowler, laid for us to dishonour God, his work, and his sweet promises that he has, in many times that are past, made to us, that he will never leave us, nor forsake us. I cannot describe to you the desolation I often feel when the Lord hides his face. There is not an unkind thought that can be named, but the devil powerfully instils it into my mind against the best and only Friend I have, even the Lord Jesus Christ. The people of God here, find it as you do—that it is a terrible thing the Lord does when he turns out Satan to make room for himself. O what stripping work is needful, and what shame covers our faces, when he first says, 'O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?' Every fresh discovery of the Lord's love and mercy at such times as these, makes me to feel the sad condition to which sin has reduced me, as well as some increase into the sight of God's holiness. I often wonder how soon I am misled by Satan, and as Hart says,

'He was not readier to deceive,

Than I to be deceived;

But me he found, and always held,
The easiest fool he had;"

and though I have suffered so much for my backsliding, yet I perceive I am as prone as ever to it. I have been struck how often the Lord says, 'I will turn again;' and in another place, 'I will multiply pardons,' and this seems to me oftentimes the greatest of all blessings.

'His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him.' The Lord tells us to fear nothing else, but to let him be our fear and dread, and he will be a sanctuary; and so you found it, and I trust we shall both find it to the end.-From your affectionate Friend,

Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire,

Dec. 14, 1848.

BROTHERLY KINDNESS.

JAMES BOURNE.

MY DEAR, KIND FRIEND,-I have meant you should have my first epistle, to thank you for your repeated kindness to one so unworthy. 'Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all thy increase; so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses burst forth with new wine.'

I am glad the Lord has been bountiful to you, and given you a heart to be kind to others; these are the two things the Lord is well pleased with, 'To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices the Lord is well pleased;' the other is the finished work of his Son on behalf of poor sinners, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' I felt these words much in my affliction :

'Where can such sweetness be,

As I have tasted in thy love,

As I have found in thee?'

I am certainly better; but owing to my age, I gain strength but slowly. I hope to be able to speak again on December 1st; this is the longest holiday I have ever had. Death hath made a gap in our congregation since we last met: 'Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.'

Most of the Lord's people are kept in a waiting, hoping state; it is a trial to them to enjoy so little of his favour:

'Scarce enough for the proof

Of their proper title.'

'But to him the weakest is dear as the strong.'

And, 'He will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom.' It is a consolation to me, that for many years I have endeavoured to encourage poor sinners to hope in God's mercy, through Christ, and

I am kept sensible of my deserts, and his great mercies humble my soul in thankfulness. I am glad your son R. is restored, and I hope to have a good account of your daughter K. next month. Many people's cares and trials are mine; it is a poor thing to live and die a lump of self. I should be glad to hear that the Lord had visited you with his favour, which is better than life; and what sweetens life like it, though we get so little of it! I should be glad to look in upon you, but there are many hedges and ditches between us. My thoughts fly from point to point, like the wind, and it is a mercy to prove that the Lord thinketh upon us, and those are encompassed in his blessing who 'feared him, and thought upon his name, and they shall be mine in the day when I make up my jewels.' May the Lord bless you in every sense, is the desire of —Yours gratefully and affectionately,

Cranbrook, Nov. 18, 1878.

Julia and Anna desire their love.

D. SMART.

OUR HELP COMETH FROM ABOVE.

MY DEAR FRIEND,-I just drop you a line, to remind you of your promise to write to us concerning what you could do for us in our supply list for 1885. If you could let me hear by Sunday, it would very much oblige us.

We are still going on about as usual; I feel to have much cause to abase myself, much cause to groan beneath a body of sin and death, and a carnal mind almost continually running after forbidden things, which makes me feel myself the chief of sinners, and dare not call myself a saint at all, though I dare not say but there are times when I feel my heart and affections going after the Lord Jesus Christ more than anything else, and I feel to desire him and love him and fear him, and to live, walk, and act under the influence of his blessed Spirit, in all the concerns of this life, but sin in some shape or form soon rises up and takes the place of these better feelings, and as regards peace of mind seems to spoil it all, and would entirely do so, were not his life stronger than my death, and were not his grace

to superabound over the aboundings of my sin; but it is a mercy to know from whence our help must come, and a far greater mercy to experimentally realise that help in the soul,

The friends at R. are about as usual. Mr. C. is still a great sufferer, but he is not without some consolation, and the comfortable presence of the best of friends, this makes amends for all the afflictions which are so grievous to the flesh.

I now close, with kind love to you and all the living children of God around you.-Yours sincerely,

Mark Cross, T. B. Wells,

May 7, 1884.

THOMAS POLLINGTON.

EXPOSITION BY JOHN CALVIN.

(Continued from p. 151.)

Has been revealed. It was no better than an old wife's fable that was contrived respecting Nero, that he was carried up from the world, destined to return again to harass the church by his tyranny; and yet the minds of the ancients were so bewitched, that they imagined that Nero would be Antichrist. Paul, however, does not speak of one individual, but of a kingdom, that was to be taken possession of by Satan, that he might set up a seat of abomination in the midst of God's temple, which we see accomplished in Popery. The revolt, it is true, has spread more widely, for Mahomet, as he was an apostate, turned away the Turks, his followers, from Christ. All heretics have broken the unity of the church by their sects, and thus there have been a corresponding number of revolts from Christ.

Paul, however, when he has given warning that there would be such a scattering, that the greater part would revolt from Christ, adds something more serious-that there would be such a confusion that the vicar of Satan would hold supreme power in the church, and would preside there in the place of God. Now he describes that reign of abomination under the name of a single person, because it is only one reign, though one succeeds another. My readers now understand, that all the sects by which the church has been lessened from the beginning, have been so many streams of revolt which began to draw away the water from the right course, but that the sect of Mahomet was like a violent bursting forth of water, that took away about the half of the church by its violence. It remained, also, that Antichrist should infect the remaining part with his