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than a beautiful ideal, a Utopian | awakening within us a love for holitheory. But in Christ the law in all ness; for the first time in the history of its perfections became a reality. He the world virtue becomes an object of was "made under the law." If by his passion to excite the enthusiasm of the precepts he translated the old law into heart as well as the approbation of the Christian words, by his obedience he conscience. The fulfilling of the law translated it into Christian life. His is love; Christ therefore resolves his was a spotless purity of character, a summary of the commandments into faultless obedience of conduct; never this principle, "Thou shalt love the was there so perfect an embodiment of Lord thy God with all thy heart, and the "first and great commandment," soul, and strength, and thy neighbour and "of the second, which is like unto as thyself." The essential condition of it," of love to God, and love to man. obedience is freedom-not the rule of ex"He was the holy law impersonate, ternal precept, but the power of internal republished, and divested of its frowns;" | principle. There can be no obedience in him the law was demonstrated to be where there is no freedom; a man may not only perfect but human, for he yield to force he does not obey. Christ, obeyed it who was made like us, "in therefore, makes us free, delivers us all points tempted as we are, yet with- from the bondage of spiritual despotism out sin." from the helplessness of spiritual death; delivers us from the condemnation of law, fills us with grateful love, and asks us to be holy, and thus he brings us into the glorious liberty of love; and through the new heart which he puts within us, and the new motive whereby he constrains us, we attain to a holiness that we never dreamt of before. By teaching us that God is love, Christ quickened the power of love in our own hearts. He proclaimed his pardon, his pity, his help, that he loves the children of men as only God can love-watches over them with a tender solicitude and care with which even a mother's tenderest love cannot compare. Hitherto the heart of the man has been under the solemn influence of duty; now it feels the mighty inspiration of love; he loves God who so loves him. He is no longer "under the law but under grace." A law within has taken the place of the law without; his heart now moves instead of only his hands; he finds "Christ's yoke to be easy, his burden to be light;" his "service to be perfect freedom." He is constantly inquiring, "What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits;" he feels that he is "not his own, that he is bought with a price, and bound therefore to serve God with his body and spirit, which are his." Christ lives in him;

And yet, as we have said, he bore the penalty of the law as if he had been a transgressor. In his agony, on his cross, in the Father's curse, he was "numbered with the transgressors." While he consummated the law by his obedience, he endured the intensity of its penalty. The apostle explains this when he says, Rom. iii. 25, “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God; to declare I say at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of them that believe in Jesus."

Once more-Christ fulfils the law, in the spiritual grace or strength which he imparts to enable our obedience to it. It is not enough that the law be fulfilled by Christ, it must be fulfilled by us. Christianity recognises a substitutionary sacrifice to the penalty of the law, but it knows nothing of a substitutionary obedience to its precepts; it demands of each of Christ's disciples that he be holy as He is holy. It begins, therefore, by "creating within us a new heart, and renewing within us a right spirit." It deposits in our hearts a new principle of holiness, and adjusts our lives to a new practice of it. And this it does by

his life is transformed and made divine; the law is his delight; every possibility of expressing his gratitude is eagerly embraced; and as he needs strength for duty or suffering, Christ gives it; and thus is the law fulfilled in the Christian man, the outward precept is also an inward principle, from an admeasured duty to a boundless love, from a narrow letter to a pervading spirit. He is "a follower of God as a dear child; " he is under "a perfect law of liberty."

Finally, Christ fulfils the law, inasmuch as he has made it the standard of the final judgment. As the fundamental law of human life, all the awards of the judgment will be determined by it. Every forgiven man will be fully justified in the sight of the law, by "the righteousness of Christ in which he will appear;" and every impenitent man will be condemned for the lack of that righteousness; but the degree of reward and punishment will be determined by the gradations of personal moral character; according to our holiness, the "cities" will be "five" or "ten;" according to our sinfulness, "stripes" will be "few" or "many;" we shall be judged "according to the deeds done in the body;" and no higher honour to the moral law can be conceived of than this, that Christ should make it the law of Christian life, and the standard of Christian judgment.

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Such is our exposition of this great and profound doctrinal declaration, and it is its own application.

How much we owe to Christ for fulfilling the law by satisfying its penalty, and then by realizing it in his life, and

then by giving us grace to realize it too!

If

Have we then availed ourselves of his atonement ? Have we come to Christ by faith to obtain forgiveness? There is no other sacrifice for sins. we believe not in him, we perish. Christ alone fulfils in this sense the law; we can fulfil it only by our perdition.

And have we sought the renewal of his Spirit? Have we been born again? He will "give his Spirit to them that ask him;" and unless we have it to produce within us new principles and dispositions-"except a man be born again-he cannot see the kingdom of God." And are we studying and trying to imitate the example of his life? Have we "the mind that was in Christ ?" Do we "walk as he also walked;" for "without holiness no man shall see the Lord."

And let us remember, that as our dispensation of Christian liberty has succeeded to the dispensation of Jewish precept, so our condition of perfect purity and blessedness in heaven will succeed to our condition of struggling sin and sorrow here. The everlasting moral law will have yet another development in the final perfection of Christ's glorious church: it will find its consummation in us, when we are delivered from the body of sin and death, and stand before the throne of God without inward corruption or outward temptation, holy in heart and in life, without taint of sin, or shadow of imperfection; holy as God is holy; the inhabitants of a pure, and blessed, and eternal world, wherein dwelleth only righteousness.

ON PRIVATE PRAYER IN PUBLIC.

"Some can superstitiously reverence and kiss the sacred dust of the sanctuary, as they call it, and express a great deal of zeal for the externals of religion, but little consider how small the interest of these things is to religion, and how little God looks at or regards them."-Rev. John Flavel.

Ar a time when error is mournfully rampant, and "consecrated" places are afresh extolled as holy, the attention of

Christians may well be awakened. For, surely it is important that the spiritual design of appointed religious service

should be so maintained, as neither to be confounded with the done-away or dinances of a "worldly sanctuary," nor subordinated to outward forms.

It is thought that nothing need be clearer in the New Testament, than that when the gospel dispensation commenced, the sacredness of places, as well as the rites and ceremonies once imposed, ceased. It was one evident intention of the Christian system to show, that God was to be worshipped under it, as acceptably elsewhere as at Jerusalem. Our Lord marked this in his discourse with the woman of Samaria. See John iv. 21-24. And was it not so with the Apostle Paul when he willed that" men pray everywhere"? 1 Tim. ii. 8. As if he had said, not in the temple only, then soon to be destroyed; and which, as the peculiar abode of God on earth, and the medium also of worship private and public, was sacred; but in all places. Hence the promise of the Divine Redeemer. "Where two or three are gathered to gether in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Matt. xviii. 20. "Jesus, where'er thy people meet,

There they behold thy mercy-seat; Where'er we seek him he is found, And every place is holy ground."

Cowper.

While prayer was thus encouraged anywhere, in contrast to worship in the temple, or when looking towards it, the Saviour rebuked the Scribes and Pharisees for loving to pray standing in the synagogues, and denounced the practice. Can it be reasonably doubted that he intended, not merely a warning against hypocrisy, but to teach that the synagogues, though proper places for public prayer, were not so for personal? Indeed, as if to prevent the possibility of mistake, his instructions were remarkably plain and pointed. "Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret." Matt. *This is recognised in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. Luke

xviii. 14.

VOL. XXXII.

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vi. 6. That is, as Dr. Doddridge paraphrases it-"When thou prayest, and dost not intend it as a social exercise of devotion, withdraw from the sight and intercourse of man, and enter into thy closet, or other retired apartment, and having shut thy door to prevent interruption, and exclude spectators, pray with a holy freedom of soul to thy Father who is with thee in secret."

It would be easy to make other quotations to the same effect. But I will merely select a few sentences from the pens of the venerable Philip Henry and Oliver Heywood. They were university men, one of Oxford, the other of Cambridge; and both of them, moreover, eminent for piety, and the deepest seriousness in the house of God.

"Secret prayer is that which is performed between God and ourselves alone, which no eye or ear is witness to. Mark i. 35; Acts x. 9. Of this our Saviour speaks, Matt. vi. 5, 6. From hence we derive a word of reproof to those who visibly address themselves to secret prayer in the public congregation. Such are so far from shutting the door, that they rather throw it wide open, which our Lord Jesus plainly condemns as savouring of hypocrisy. It is not only lawful, but necessary, to lift up our hearts to God in prayer mentally, for enlargement to him that speaks, for a blessing upon his ordinances to our souls; and yet so as to do it without those external expressions of worship, kneeling, &c., which, if we were alone, we might, and ought, indeed, to make use of; but before others we may and ought to forbear." Philip Henry, Life, p. 444.

The enlarged edition, 1825. "Circumstances are of great consideration in all our actions. The streets are proper places to walk, talk, buy, and sell in, but not so fit for prayer; the church is a fit place for public devotion, but not so for a solemn performance of the duty of secret prayer. Although mental ejaculations are fit enough in both, yet it is not convenient to kneel down, or use outward gestures of secret prayer there.

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Acts x., who were present at the beginning of the service, waiting to "hear.” And is the justice of the censure questionable?

But Mr. Heywood evidently regarded even them as more excusable than those who, besides being late, put themselve into the attitude of private suppliants after the exercises of social worship have begun. The excellent Mr. Angier thought the same, and in his "Help to Better Hearts in Better Times," comments upon the habit with some severity. A circumstance the more observable, because that great ornament of Christianity and the ministry was as noted for the sweetness and mildness of his speech, as for his devout awe in public worship.

"It is a common practice of some persons to perform their secret devotions in public places. For you will see some, at their entrance into a church or chapel, whatever public worship is in hand, fall down upon their knees, or put their hats or hands before their faces, and so begin to pray. I will not call this the sacrifice of fools, but I judge it very unreasonable; for we should join with God's people in the public ordinances, and prefer them before anything we can then undertake. The original of this practice was a conceit that the place was more holy than their own houses, and that their prayer would be heard there rather than at home: it is too sad a sign that they had not prayed before they came thither. I am sure it savours rankly of a pharisaical spirit; for the fault which our Saviour here rectifies, was that of the Pharisees pray-graphies in print. ing individually in public places; and, in opposition thereunto, he directs his disciples to the duty of the text, namely, to pray in their closets."-Oliver Heywood on Closet Prayer. A Treatise on Matt. vi. 6. Chap. 1, sect. 3. Chap. 3, sect. 1. Works, vol. 3, pp. 8, 44.

Many good men have noticed the conduct of such as habitually come late into the public assembly. They have condemned it as disorderly and disturbing; observing, too, the unlikeness of such persons to those mentioned in

Mr. Angier died, September 1, 1677. His life is one of the most precious bio

The foregoing extracts have not, of course, been placed before the reader as if of binding authority; but in proof of the conviction of the writers, that secret prayer should be performed secretly. And every student of the Bible, having before him the same inspired records which guided the renowned authors cited, will judge whether the sentiments so deliberately expressed by them are not in harmony with infallible truth.

Z.

REV. MATTHEW HENRY TO REV. FRANCIS TALLENTS.
(To the Editor of the EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE.)

EVERY relic of the great and good
Mr. Matthew Henry is precious.

The following letter, transcribed from his own hand, was addressed by him to the worthy Mr. Tallents, not long after the venerable Philip Henry's death. It has not been published.

The "kind and honourable testimony" mentioned in it is an allusion to the funeral sermon Mr. Tallents preached at Broad Oak, on the day of the burial, before the removal, of Mr. Philip

Henry's corpse. It was printed in 1816, as a prefix to Mr. Henry's "eighteen sermons," then for the first time made public. The text was Rom. viii. 23: "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." And see P. Henry's Life, chap. ix. The enlarged edition, 8vo., 1825,

p. 280.

Having found the following memoranda by Mr. Tallents relating to the funeral service in question, they will be no unsuitable introduction to Mr. Matthew Henry's letter. And they are the more interesting because written merely for private circulation with the sermon in manuscript.

"Being informed," Mr. Tallents writes, "on Wednesday in the afternoon that the Reverend Mr. Philip Henry, of Broad Oak, near Whitechurch, my dear friend, was deceased early that morning, June 24th, 1696, and was to be buried on Saturday, I determined, God enabling me, to preach his funeral sermon, out of the true love and honour I had for him; and because I believed I knew something more of him by his letters than others did; and thought I might more freely, if it were only by reason of my age, [his seventy-seventh year,] speak some things to the people which others perhaps would not, or at least might come better from my mouth than theirs. Accordingly on Friday, after I had preached at the public Fast, I went over, though it be fourteen miles from Shrewsbury, and having had some suitable discourse with his dear wife and son, and rested that night, I preached as I could the next morning in his Meeting-place, close by his house, where multitudes of people filled with love and sadness (the like seldom seen) were; and many of the gentry also thereabout, who showed the esteem they had for him on that occasion.

"A little while after, that I might profit by it, and that sad meeting, and not forget it as I am apt, I wrote over my hasty notes fair, and filled up many sentences that were imperfect. Some words, it is like, were changed in the delivery; some things left out; others pressed more fully; and others added in the stream of the discourse that I cannot well recall; but for the main it is fully the same.

"Nothing dries up sooner than tears; and sadness uses to pass away quickly, and leave us nothing better. But if

these papers shall prove useful to myself, or my dear wife, Mr. Henry's old friend, or to any others that may possibly see them, I shall be glad. That if I or any have in some, though a low, measure, the things in these three doctrines, and in the life of this our beloved brother, we may be greatly thankful, and take heed of losing them (that happy groaning and waiting, which, alas! we are wondrous apt to do) by pride, or unbelief, or carelessness; and if any of us fear we are quite short of them, that we may go on carefully to seek after them, and to obtain them through our blessed Lord Jesus Christ.

"However, it may remain as some memorial of that holy man's great kindness to me, and of my unfeigned love and honour for him.”

The "three doctrines" Mr. Tallents refers to above were,

"1. Every one that is in Christ, that believes in Christ, hath the first-fruits of the Spirit in him-hath the Spirit of God and of Christ in him in some measure; the first-fruits of the Spirit, though not the full harvest of it.

"2. They that are in Christ, and have the first-fruits of the Spirit, and suffer for Christ, have a right to the greatest blessings here and hereafter for evermore.

"3. They that are in Christ, and have the first-fruits of the Spirit, and suffer with Christ, and know the things that are freely given to them, groan within themselves, and wait for the redemption of their bodies."

Wem.

I am ever, Rev. and dear Doctor, Truly yours,

JOHN BICKERTON WILLIAMS.

"TO THE REV. FRANCIS TALLENTS. "Broad Oke, Aug. 8, 1696. "DEAR AND HONOURED FATHER,For so I have now more reason than ever to call you-more than to call any man father upon earth. I am ashamed that I have not before now by letter returned you thanks for your great kindness and respect to us in the day of

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