ANOTHER year is gone for ever. Nothing now remains, but its responsibility, which will meet us at the judgment seat of Christ, where we must shortly stand, and receive our destination for endless ages. Strange, that such an accountable creature as man, who treads every moment on the brink of the grave, should be so lulled on the couch of unsuspecting insensibility, as not to inquire with trembling anxiety, what will become of him the moment he has crossed the swellings of Jordan, and has reached the world of spirits. May we with the utmost concern, each one for himself, ask, as we begin a new year, the end of which we may never see, Am I ready for my departure hence to enter into the joy of the Lord ? What is the rule of my life, the ground of my hope, the principle of my actions ? What are my prospects beyond the grave, and the seed I am sowing for an everlasting harvest? The word of God is most decisive on the point. "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold all things are become

new.'

What then is it to be in Christ? Men may appear to be in Christ by visible profession. But unless we are in him by gracious union, our religion is vain. The branch that does not belong to the true vine, nor bears fruit to prove its life in it, and union to it, must be cut off. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away." Nor is there any evidence of being in him truly, but continuing in him, and bringing forth fruit to his praise. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and cast them into

the fire, and they are burned. Attendance at church, infant baptism, the receiving of the Lord's supper, are no proofs of our being in Christ. Ezekiel's hearers sat with apparent delight under the word, but their hearts went out after their own covetousness. Simon Magus was baptized, but he was in the gall of bitterness, and bond of iniquity. Judas Iscariot took the cross, but he was a devil, and it had been good for him if he had not been born.

To be in Christ really, is to be united unto him by God the Spirit, through faith of divine operation, as closely as the arm is unto the body, the body to the head, the bread to the eater, the building to the foundation stone, the branch to the vine. The union is closer still. The limb can be severed from the body, the body from the head; the bread can be taken from the eater; the building may be carried away from the foundation stone; the branch be cut off from the vine, but the soul once united unto Christ can never die. The believer may use the triumphant challenge of St. Paul; "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? I am persuaded, that neither life nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."

It is to be a partaker of him: forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself took part of the same. We are members of his body, of his flesh, of his bones. As man and wife are one flesh, so we and Christ are one spirit. We are partakers of him in the infinite merit

of his death, and in the prevailing power of his resurrection. What

he did he did for us, and therefore we are said to be circumcised with him, baptised into him, buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life.

"If any man be in Christ he is a new creature"—a new creation. Christ is formed in the heart by faith; the hope of glory is imparted; the man becomes the temple of the Holy Ghost; created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that he should walk in them; he is now the habitation of God by the Spirit, formed by and for himself, that he should shew forth his praise.

But what are the effects of this spiritual creation ? "Old things are past away, behold all things are become new." Old and carnal views of spiritual things, old principles, habits, customs, companions, pursuits, tempers, modes of acting, thinking, speaking, pass away; all things become new, the change is radical and internal, not merely superficial and external; abiding, not temporary; universal, affecting every part, and yet not universal, as it pervades no part completely: Here we see through a glass darkly, but soon face to face; now we know in part, then shall we know even as we are known.

Let us mention more particularly how this change proves its divine reality. The new creature has new views of God in Christ, Father, Son, and Spirit; of the Father, in his unchangeable love; of the Son, in his finished atonement: of the Spirit, in his boundless grace. His views of Christ are wonderfully changed. Once he saw no beauty in him that he should desire him; now he is to him the chief among ten thousand, and

altogether lovely. I see, says he, infinite beauty in his uncreated person, spotless purity in his perfect humanity, inconceivable sublimity in his doctrine, inexhaustible fulness in his grace, all-sufficiency in his righteousness, immutable faithfulness in his word, unbounded love in his heart; he is constituted of God unto me wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; his love is disinterested, without motive but what is drawn from the true benevolence of his nature, most free in its exercise, constant without change, eternal without end, higher than heaven, deeper than hell, broader than the sea, larger than the earth, better than life, stronger than death; that love softens the rugged brow of care, and smooths the thorny pillow of pain; it will irradiate the dark valley of the shadow of death, and open to my view through the dark unknown, an incorruptible crown, an everlasting kingdom. Christ to me is all in all; he has done all for me, he will do all in me, never leave me, never, forsake me, until I arrive at heaven.

The new creature has new views

of sin; once he thought little of it, except as it might injure his constitution, blast his reputation, hinder his secular interests, expose him to the punishment of human laws. Some of the darker crimes of his life may have drawn from his heart the conscious sigh, and from his eye the trickling tear. Conscience may have pricked him when the divine law has drawn up itself in battle array against him, but sin's evil he did not see, its filth he did not abhor. Now, in the Spirit's light, he sees sin to be exceeding sinful, deserving infinite punishment, that it is the transgression of God's law, that it stupifies the conscience, hardens the heart, ruins the body, destroys the soul; that it is that abominable thing which God hates, that it is the source of all the evils of this world, and all the unabating

torments of that which is to come. He laments it, not only in those practical transgressions in which his life has abounded, but in that original depravity in which he was born. Sin is now his sorest plague, not the sin of others only, or principally, but his own. One wandering thought from God, one wicked temper, however unobserved by man, gives him more real trouble than all the sins he ever committed in his unrenewed state: he cannot now in expectation of any secresy, profit, or gratification, be reconciled to sin; he hates it as sin, with a perfect hatred; he groans being burdened under it, longs for deliverance from it, and often utters that impassioned cry, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death." No prisoner can long more for deliverance from the heaviest chain, no child absent from home can sigh more for a return to his father's house, than he does for the bliss of eternal liberty, the sweets of the heavenly country.

The new creature has new apprehensions of God's law. Once he regarded it as noticing only the gross violation of its preeepts; now he sees that it reaches the heart, is holy, just, and good, infinitely spiritual in its tendency, universal in its requirements, awful in its sanctions, demanding that obedience which fallen man cannot yield, and denouncing that punishment which cannot be endured: he now loves it as holy, and because it is so; "I delight," says he, "in the law of God in the inner man." "What love have I unto thy law." He sees it perfectly fulfilled in the person of his Surety, he uses it lawfully, he obeys it unreservedly, he knows that he is under it as a rule of life, but freed from it as a covenant of works; he has respect unto all the commandments, his obedience is not by constraint, but willingly, not in the oldness of the

letter, but in newness of life; not for heaven, but because he is in the way to heaven; he knows that the law requires, in order to his justification, complete obedience; and as he cannot yield it, he flies to the righteousness of Christ, which is unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference : that as Christ hath fulfilled all righteousness for him as his Surety, he is justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses: he reverences the law, it acts as his schoolmaster to lead him unto Christ: in Christ, he sees it as a very charter of the highest privileges, and by the righteousness of the law fulfilled in Christ, he hopes to stand with eternal acceptance before Jehovah's bar.

The new creature has Scriptural views of the covenant of grace: with David he can say, "He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, for this is all my salvation, and all my desire." He sees that the tenor of this covenant runs thus, "I will be their God, and they shall be my people," I will never leave thee," "I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me." He triumphs in this covenant, these sure mercies of David : he sees it to be absolutely sure, in reference to the Divine Persons who engage for its fulfilment, to the characters from among men who are interested in it, to the great and endless blessings which flow from it, that pardon, and peace, grace and glory are provided in it: and sure to all the believing seed, through it. This he knows is the vessel which carries him with infallible safety, and with a glorious speed, over all the raging billows of this tempestuous world, until he reach the top of the everlasting mountains.

He has new views of the depths of Satan, and the crafts of the devil. Once he either did not credit the existence of the devil

and his angels at all, or speculatively believed the existence of both; he has now painful experience of the power, malice, and craft of Satan; he is not now altogether ignorant of his devices, he knows that sometimes he is as a roaring lion, sometimes as a hissing serpent, sometimes transformed into an angel of light; that he has many strings to his bow, many an arrow in his quiver, that his power is most formidable, his wiles profound, his malignity insatiable, his accomplices numberless, his exertions incessant. The new creature has need often to cry unto God, that when the enemy cometh in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord may lift up a standard against him. He knows that there is not a spot on which he treads, a thing which he does, an object which he sees, but may become a snare unto him he therefore watches and prays that he enter not into temptation; he takes heed to his ways, suspects danger in every thing, knows his safety is only in the Lord, and that he will be always liable to Satan's darts, until he gets to heaven. He knows that he must take unto him, put on, keep on, and use while on, the whole armour of God, that he may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil; and having done all, may stand firm upon the Rock of Ages, and attain to the Mount Zion.

;

He has new views of the world. Once he admired its honours, adored its treasures, gloried in its pomps, and loved its gratifications: now he sees that it is a deceitful world, transitory, unsatisfying, and dying. That not possessing the three grand properties which are essential to constitute the power of making man happy, unchangeableness, allsufficiency, eternity, it cannot fill the capacities, or satisfy the unperishable soul of man. He weighs all its pretensions in the balance of the sanctuary, and finds them and it lighter than vanity. He wishes ever to hear the awakening chal

JANUARY 1832.

lenge of his Master, "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Through grace he is unallured by its smiles, unawed by its frowns. He knows that all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life, are not of the Father, but are of the world; that the friendship of the world is enmity with God; that, with all its pretensions of friendship, it is the enemy of all righteousness, the perverter of the good ways of the Lord; that under the whitest garb it conceals the blackest heart; that its bait is gilded, but its hook is barbed; that as it crucified the King of Zion, its character is well known to the Christian, who treads in his Saviour's steps here, and will follow him to glory hereafter.

He has right views of the importance of time. When he considers to what little purpose most men live, he is ready to say, "Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain ?" But when be contemplates this world as only the first step of being; a theatre upon which God displays his infinite perfections, for the preservation, sanctification, and final glorification of his redeemed; a school in which he trains them up for glory everlasting; a stage as it were upon which man must act a part, and support a character; that time is intimately connected with, preparatory to, and terminating in, eternity; that here we must build for a long hereafter, here the dialect of heaven must be learnt, and its happy, happy work begun ; he is led to say, How important is life, how momentous is time, how invaluable the soul! He wishes to be always engaged for God, passing the time of his sojourn here in fear, and to be so taught to number his days, as to apply his heart unto wisdom. He says, The time past, how short-the time to come,

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