in the principle which led to it, subservient to his own system of politics, the abuse which he has made of it, cannot alter in any matter the uprightness, and the piety of the intentions of Alexander. Happy would princes and nations be,. if, after the pious example of Alexander, they received Jesus for the Christ, the Saviour, given by the Father; like him, they would realise heavenly pleasures, and an eternal joy such as the world cannot understand: but all men have not faith. The most astonishing instances of conversion are daily on the increase, the men of this world see them, and remain in their unbelief. And thus is fulfilled that which is written 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4. "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this animated so as to consider the whole as but members of one and the same christian nation. The three allied princes do not consider themselves as separated but by Providence for the government of three branches of one and the same family, to wit, Austria, Prussia, and Russia; thus confessing that the christian nation of which they and their people form parts, have really no other sovereign than Him, to whom alone, properly speaking, power belongs, because in Him alone are found all the treasures of infinite love and knowledge, and wisdom; that is to say, God, our divine Saviour Jesus Christ, the Word of the Most High, the Word of Life. "Their majesties, therefore, recommend, with the tenderest solicitude to their people, as the only means of enjoying that peace which is the result of a good conscience, and which alone is permanent, to strengthen one another each day more and more in the principles, and the practice of the duties, which the divine Saviour has taught to man. Art. 3. All the powers which may really wish to confess the holy principles that have led to the present manifesto, and recognise how important it is for the happiness of the nations, too long agitated, that these truths should henceforth exercise upon the fortunes of man all the power which belong to them, will be received with as much readiness as affection into the Holy Alliance. world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them. I close this memoir in again bringing to light the decree which Alexander caused to be published in his empire in 1817. "During my journey thro' the provinces, I have been forced to my great regret, to listen to discourses preached by different members of the clergy containing praise very little suitable to myself; praise which belongs only to God. "To attribute to me the glory of events in which the hand of God shows itself, is to give to man the glory which belongs to the Almighty. I regard it, therefore, as a duty to forbid praises so unsuitable, and 1 recommend to the Synod to give the necessary instructions, so that all abmay stain from pronouncing praises so disagreeable to my ear." "ALEXANDer. Emperor of all the Russias." Note. Before sending you this memoir, I asked an English clergyIman who had had interviews with Alexander at Moscow, at Aix-la-chappelle and the Crimea, to read it. These are the notes which he has added, with a permission of publication. "The Emperor, reading for me the 91st Psalm, related to me the whole history of his conversion, with the same details. "He told me that I ought to speak to him with all the frankness possible; adding that when two Christians find themselves together, they ought to communicate together as equals. "In all the times I conversed with Alexander, never did he speak to me of politics. "He showed me a sheet, on which he had arranged his reading of Scripture for each day. "The Emperor described the origin of the Holy Alliance in just the same manner." 3 I THE INQUIRER. OCTOBER, 1840. What saith the Scripture?-ROм. iv. 3. THE DEATH OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. WHAT ARE ITS USES AND APPLICATIONS IN THE SCRIPTURE. Part IV. 1. DEATH, the terminus of suffering, as in the Lord, so to each saint (2 Tim. ii. 8).-2. Death, the object proposed in the humiliation, was the result of God's grace, and is presented for the Church's admiration, as that by which Christ united the two extremes, viz. the Divine glory which he saw, in God, to be the Church's, and the abject thraldom in which she lay under the devil; thereby redeeming the Church from under the hand of the devil, destroying his power, and bringing her into the liberty of that divine nature which, in God, he saw to be hers (Heb. ii. 9-14).-3. Death, the especial subject of the Lord's fear (Heb. v. 7).-4. The redemption of transgression under the first covenant, and the ratification and confirmation of the second (Heb.ix. 15, 16). 5. That from which our Lord Jesus, as the great Shepherd of the sheep, was brought by the God of peace, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, as the security to us of all power of obedience (Heb. xiii. 20). -6. That, his victory over which, through the grace of God, was the begetting of us to a lively hope (1 Pet. i. 3).-7. That deliverance from which into glory, was God's claim upon the Church for her faith and hope to rest in himself (1 Pet. i. 21).-8. The death of Christ, God's sentence, and the believer's plea against the sins of the flesh (1 Pet. iii. 18).9. The Lord in victory over death the strength of the saint amid the wreck of apostacy (Rev. i. 5, 18; ii. 8).-10. The leading thought of heaven and its hosts, and their measure of the worthiness of the Lamb (Rev. v. 6, 9, 12).-11. Death, the Lord's title in connexion with the book of life, and the exoneration of those who worship not the beast (Rev. xiii. 8). 1. "Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel" (2 Tim. ii. 8). The leading thought of the Spirit's mind in this epistle seems to be the hardships to which the followers of Christ must expect to be subject, see chap. i. 8, 12, &c., &c.; ii. 3.; iii.; iv. 5, &c., accompanied by exhortations to patience therein. The citation is in harmony with this, the stress being, I conceive, laid upon the resurrection being from the dead. And if the Captain of our salvation had to suffer even unto death; if even he, who was of the seed of David, to whom all the promises in connexion with Israel's glory belong, could only come at them by being rejected in death; if the blessedness of the gospel, Paul's joy, and Timothy's joy, and the joy of every saint, is the Lord's victory, though VOL. III. 3 к gave slain, surely suffering must be a most integral part of Christian experience. And Paul did suffer trouble, even as an evil doer, unto bonds, though the word of the Lord was not bound. Surely we greatly fail herein. Some few of us see it so far clearly as to be able to talk about it, though not all the saints, for many seem rather to think that ease and comfort here are our proper portion; yet of the few who can see that suffering is our portion here, how few have the loins of the mind girt up so as patiently to abide therein. Yet it is written, "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him." It is blessed to see the cause of our suffering and the rationale of it-the cause, says Paul (verse 10), "I endure all things for the elect's sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory,"-the rationale of it, "It is a faithful saying, for if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him." And I would just notice, that while, in the context before us, Jesus' passage through death is his way into the possession of the promises of David, and the place of the testimony, death is likewise clearly marked as the extreme bourn, the terminus of suffering. The looking a little carefully at this, and at the blessed rest which to sleep in Jesus is to the believer, might give many a poor, weak, shrinking one, nerve and boldness to endure hardness as the good soldier of Christ; for our sufferings are not like Jesus', nor are ourselves like him as to our capability of suffering; His sufferings were infinite, even as his capability for suffering was infinite; and death came to him, not simply as by the exhaustion of nature's powers-for then to him it never could have come at all-but having fully accomplished his Father's will, He bowed his head, and up the ghost. In nature little suffering drains all our strength, and we sink into blissful sleep through exhaustion and weakness, though not without the direct permission of Him, without whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground; and the greatest suffering the greatest saint can bear is in truth but as nothing when measured aright, that is, when compared with Christ's. It is true our sufferings may seem to us great, and I believe all suffering does so while we are occupied with it; but this is owing to our inability to bear any in ourselves, and to the fact that as the Lord's object in sending suffering is to exercise us in dependance upon and submission to him, He apportions the measure of strength for the suffering, to the measure of suffering; often, too, giving more sensible support under the greater than under the less afflictions, that we may learn in the little ones the nothingness of our own strength and competency, and in the greater and more trying scenes the grace of His love present with us, and how his strength is made perfect in weakness. Surely His ways are lovely, and gracious, and perfect; may we learn to mark and understand them more and more; and may this be the abiding thought of each saint, beloved of God, that he has a debt of love and gratitude to pay to God and Jesus, even the life which is left to him. owe our life, our all, to Jesus, and his love covets earnestly the testimony of love from us; His love, I say, longs to receive from us the pledge and proof of our love to him, and to see us hold life itself as something due to him. His love is a jealous love; it cannot, because true love, rest without a return-yea, and that return of love from us is bound up in all the most holy associations of the Lord's mind. Where did he learn his love toward us-was it not in his intercourse with the Father? There he saw love to the Church; there he learnt to love her. But his jealousy of love to the Father makes him heedful that there should be reciprocity of love We in us-else would the Father's love be dishonored. Moreover, his own love, though, if we may so say, guided to the Church by the counsel of the Father, is a genuine, true, and personal love. I speak of Christ's love; and true love, as I have said, rests not till it sees the response of love awakened. And it has been taught us-how? By the Holy Ghost shedding it abroad in our hearts, a sure and mighty and unfailing way. May we watch against the flesh and the world, and see that body, soul, and spirit are sanctified, wholly set apart for the Lord; and may we, in the sense of his love, and the way in which it was shewn, through death, be strong and faithful in the purpose of our souls to him-not loving our lives unto the death. Father! for Jesus' sake, strengthen by thy Spirit the purpose of our souls to suffer all things. 2. "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage" (Heb. ii. 9–14). We cannot rightly understand the various parts of this context without looking at it as a whole; for it gives us a very beautiful summary or outline of the gracious purpose and work of God in behalf of the Church, with the way wherein it has been accomplished. And there is much to be admired in the way in which it is first presented to us-for first of all is presented to us that which does in fact first of all meet our notice in the world, the object above all others worthy of attention, the humiliation of the Son, made a little lower than the angels; but why thus humbled? Why is he (of whom it is written, "Thy throne, O God! is for ever and ever," and again, "Worship him, all ye angels") made lower than the angels?-for the suffering of death. And what is the needs be for that? Was not God's blessedness and felicity perfect in itself? Was it not enough for him to enjoy that which he had and was? Nature, man's nature, poor fallen nature may have such thoughts as these; but they are far removed from God's thoughts, as well in connection with others as with himself. As to himself he never has been, nor can as God, be contented to rest, as it were, either in himself or in his own; he lives to display his own glory, and loves to do so; and again as to others, his creatures, he cannot rest without displaying to them, which can be done alone in works, that blessed character, and grace, and wisdom, and power, and goodness, the knowledge of which is enjoyment and delight to those who, being in dependance upon him, enter into the understanding of that which he has ministered to them. But while this shews us why he acts (surely the very desire to act in him is most blessed and gracious, for it is the desire of presenting, ever more and more clearly, that One, whom to glorify and to know is blessedness), the needs be for the humiliation in connection with his action, if for blessing in this world, is found in our sadly fallen state. For man to be met by God, as God, with his glory, |