POETRY. TELL YE OF ALL HIS WONDEROUS WORKS. WHEN God Jehovah speaks, Come near all ye that fear his name, Obey his sovereign call, And with the ransomed tell. The mighty wonders, boundless love, Of our Immanuel, Tell how his sovereign love, Tell how his firm decree, Now in his word revealed; Was then, by the Eternal Three, Both ratified and sealed. Tell how his mighty power, Threw rebel angels down; To dwell in everlasting fire, Beneath his awful frown. Tell all the mighty works, He hath for Israel done; Tell how his promise firm, Tell how the bleeding Lamb, Hath triumphed o'er his foes; Tell how he lives above, The objects of his sovereign love Tell how he'll come to judge, Then shall proud sinners rise, Then ye despised and poor, Here, only, shalt thou taste The wormwood and the gall; What though his foes may scorn Then shall each mocker know, Though proudly now they boast; What 't is to fight against thy God, Against the Lord of Hosts. Though snares on every hand appear, We'll boldly take the field; By thee, our Captain, we shall stand And thy full glory know. Then shall we lay our weapons down At our great Leader's feet; Receive from him the victor's crown, Ard with him take our seat. Then in a sweet exalted strain We'll join the angelic choir; Shout victory through the heavenly plain, And never, never tire. Our Captain's praise we 'll then proclaim Nor cease to sound his matchless fame J. HARDING. DAMSEL, I SAY UNTO THEE ARISE." IN Holy Bible I have read In vain do Baal's prophets talk, S LINES WRITTEN IN TROUBLE. JESUS in his love arranges, All my tossings too and fro; But my Jesus knows them all; Yet, sweet mercy! I can never lose my all. Soon no changes will perplex me, I shall soon know cares no more; Disappointments no more vex me, When on Canaan's peaceful shore: Free from sorrow, I shall Jesus' love adore. ELIEZER. JEHOVAH'S EVERLASTING LOVE. Oh what a sovereign proof he gave, Was e'er benevolence so great, Whose love is everlasting, sure, THE SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE, AND ZION'S CASKET. "For there are Three that bear record in heaven, the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY GHOST: and these Three are One."-1 John v. 7. "Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.-Jude 3. Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience."-1 Tim. iii. 6. " DISEASED SINNERS HEALED BY THE STRIPES OF CHRIST. By whose stripes ye were healed."- JESUS CHRIST, in his sufferings and the glory following thereon, is the great subject of the gospel. He is the centre of all divine truth; to him gave all the prophets witness, and of him the apostles constantly testified. Thus in the words now under consideration, Peter having insisted at some length upon Christ as the christian's pattern and example of obedience, and patience under tribulation; lest any should imagine, from what he had said, that our Lord's death was designed only as an example of patience under sufferings, he adds, as the more glorious design and effect of it, Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin should live unto 66 his righteousness." These words own self," and "in his own body," are very emphatical, and necessary to show that our Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled all the ancient prophecies and types, and also to distinguish him from the Levitical priesthood, who offered only the blood of others, whereas "he by himself purged our June, 1842.] sins," Heb. i. 3. They also show that all others are excluded from any participation with Christ in the work of redemption. The primary cause of Christ's sufferings was our sins: "He bare our sins in his own body on the tree." He stood charged with our sins as one who had undertaken to put them away by the sacrifice of himself (Isa. liii. 6). And as he stood charged with our sins by virtue of the Father's appointment, and his own voluntary undertaking, he likewise bare the punishment due to us on account of them, and so satisfied the justice of God for us. He took up all the iniquity of all the sons and daughters whom God the Father engaged to bring to glory, that he might bear it away for ever from them. Hence he is called "the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world," John i. 29. 66 'By whose stripes ye were healed." In considering these words, we may first inquire to whom they are addressed. They are primarily directed to those servants whom the apostle had been exhorting to bear injuries with christian patience, from the example of their great Head. But they may be considered as applicable to all R true believers in every after period of the church. We have, secondly, the state implied in which these believers were formerly in, as well as their present happy condition declared. These were once in a dead state, having their whole body covered with the leprosy of sin: but now they are manifestively healed; their wound by the guilt of sin, is healed by the application of pardoning mercy; and the power and dominion of sin in them, is subdued and broken by regenerating grace. We may, thirdly, observe the sovereign remedy by which diseased sinners are cured. And by the stripes of Christ we are to understand, all that he did and suffered in the room and stead of an elect world; while the obedience of his life was as necessary for the recovery of our spiritual health, as his sufferings and death were. Jesus Christ was appointed to suffering work from eternity. He was set up from everlasting in the council of peace as the Head and Surety of an elect world, and appointed to bear those stripes which were due to them on account of their covenant violation in the first Adam, and their own personal provocations. God foresaw the whole race of Adam, the elect not excepted, lying in sin and under a burden of misery, from which none of them could by any means extricate themselves, nor was it in the power of any creature to do it; and he was graciously pleased to substitute his own Son in the room and stead of a certain number, and to transfer their guilt over upon him, that he might bear the punishment which they deserved, and that so they might be healed by his stripes. The person who thus voluntarily bare these stripes, is God's dear Son, his own Son, his well-beloved Son; the man who is God's fellow; the same in substance, and equal in power and glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit. His human nature, it is true, was the subject of suffering; Christ only did and only could suffer in his human nature; but the Person who suffered, and by whose stripes sinners are healed, is God. Hence the blood of Jesus is expressly called the blood of God, and God is said to have laid down his life for us. It was only as man that he could suffer and die, but the person who suffered being God, whatever he did and suffered in the human nature, derives an infinite value and efficacy from the dignity of his person. divine nature of Christ was the altar which sanctified the gift of the human nature, and gave an infinite worth and excellency to the sacrifice which he offered to God. The Our The stripes which Christ endured, and by which his people are healed, were very heavy; they were such as no creature could have stood under; they were stripes of a penal nature, embittered by the law curse. Jesus was made a curse for us. God made him to be sin (or a sin-offering) for us; that is, God subjected him to the penalty of the law, and dealt with him, in all respects, as if he had really been the violator of it in his own person. Christ suffered both in his soul and in his body; and his soul sufferings were, if we may so speak, the very soul of his sufferings. We had sinned both in soul and body, and it behoved him, as Our Substitute, to suffer in both. endured sufferings from many hands: he suffered at the hands of man; he suffered much from Satan, the Prince of this world; and he suffered most of all by the hands of his heavenly Father acting towards him as an offended Judge. He All these stripes however our Lord endured with great patience, cheerfulness, and resignation to the will of his heavenly Father. He was led as a Lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He offered himself as a free-will offering to the justice of God for the sins of his people. It is true all his sufferings were obediential, hence he is said to be" obedient unto death, even the death of the cross:" but for one to act obediently, and to act voluntarily at the same time, is in no way inconsistent. Our Lord Jesus undertook and went through with the work of redemption, at the desire and by the appointment of the Father; and this was necessary in order to his being accepted in it; but he acted at the same time in the most voluntary manner. Accordingly we find him asserting both the obligation he was under to lay down his life, and the free and unconstrained manner in which he did so (John x. 17, 18). These stripes were necessary stripes. As the Substitute for his people, his sufferings were all necessary. As their Surety he ought to suffer these things; as their Representative it became him to fulfil all righteousness. After he had given his consent that the chastisement of our peace should be laid upon him, then to accomplish the healing of his people, it was necessary that he should suffer, the just for the unjust. Without shedding of blood is no remission, and no blood was of sufficient value to procure the remission of our sins, but the precious blood of the immaculate Redeemer. These stripes of Christ are medi. cinal: many diseased souls have been healed by these stripes already, and they retain their healing virtue and efficacy still. These stripes have an infinite worth and value in them to heal, and they are under a divine ap. pointment for the healing of the nations. They have a virtue in them for the healing of all manner of diseases among the people. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." Sinners being healed by the stripes of Christ, implies that law and justice admitted of another being smitten in order that they might be healed; al though the covenant of works provi ded no remedy in case of it being broken, yet it did not forbid or exclude one from stepping into the law room or stead of the transgressor. Indeed the penal statute annexed to the law-covenant appears, at first view, in such an awful light, as if it behoved for ever to exclude fallen man to entertain the least hope of being again restored to the divine favour; but when we view this matter in a gospel light, we see that God, who is the best interpreter of his own law, did so order all things, in the covenant of works, as to leave room for a surety to interpose on the behalf of sinners when that covenant should be broken, an event which God foresaw would shortly come to pass. Sinners being healed by the stripes of Christ, implies his having assumed their nature; for although the sovereign Lawgiver admitted of a change of persons, that is, a surety in the room of the principal debtor, yet satisfaction to law and justice could not be accepted but out of the hands of one who was really "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." Law and justice could have found nothing in Christ had he not been found in fashion as a man. The human na ture was, so to speak, the horn whereby our glorious Surety was caught in the thicket of justice, that he might be offered a sacrifice in our stead. Sinners being healed by the stripes of Christ, implies his actual substitu. tion in their law room and stead; his having had their sins reckoned to his account, and his having borne the punishment due to them on account of these their sins. All sufferings pre-suppose sin, either imputed or inherent; without this there could be no suffering, no death. Now although our Lord Jesus was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and so knew no sin, yet the sin of a whole elect world was laid upon him by imputation, and he really bare the punishment due for the whole weight of their transgression. He endured |