for what God has already aforetimes done for me; for answering my prayers in past distresses; especially, for his tested and proved present readiness to help me. We are grateful to others for doing what we cannot do for ourselves. As certainly, therefore, as we embrace the theory that God does not now interpose to relieve our wants, must we lose this powerful incentive to gratitude. At all events, if gratitude be excited according to this theory, it must needs be gratitude merely for those general laws which were set in motion six thousand years ago, and by the action of which prayer effects so much good. Now general laws can only excite general gratitude; and laws ordained centuries before I was born, demand of me the same gratitude on one day as on another, in sorrow as in joy, in trouble as in deliverance! But whether this be the special gratitude usually supposed to be cherished by prayer the spontaneous outgushing of thankfulness that starts afresh on every new deliverance, let those judge who really know the worth of prayer, But, indeed, gratitude that has to be fired up by such a circuitous train of reasoning is not the gratitude promoted by prayer, as a matter of fact, nor even as a matter of possibility; simply because such complex reasoning is inconsistent with the simplicity, and reverence, and engagedness of true prayer. The very thought of having, while in Jehovah's immediate presence, to reason ones-self into a grateful spirit, is revolting to correct christian feeling. Unless the very form of our prayer be hypocritical, the immediateness of our address to God must effectually prevent our falling back, meantime, on such formal argumentation as the following: When I pray, I am blessed by the action of general laws [the merest assumption to begin with, by the way!] those general laws originated in God's benevolence ages since; hence it becomes me to be grateful to him for then putting them into operation!' Being based on a sheer assumption, this reasoning is rotten at its foundation. But waving this, and granting, for argument's sake, its solidity,-what then? Clearly it is the reasoning and not the praying that excites our gratitudereasoning, moreover, that cannot form a part of our prayer; and, still more to the point, reasoning that does not harmonize, as above shewn, with the exercise of prayer, and cannot accompany it. Hence it appears that if the direct meaning and advantage of prayer be given up, entirely and to the consciousness of the worshipper, prayer does not and cannot

promote even gratitude. It may, it is true, be followed by reasoning which-if the mind can remember to go round the circuit of it, and if it can assure itself of its truth, that it is not the baseless fabric of a vision,-may excite a general gratitude for general laws. But as this is not the gratitude understood in association with prayer, and, such as it is, is not promoted by prayer but by reasoning, it is wide of the mark, and stands for nothing in this argument. No such difficulty attends what we regard as the true view of prayer. To feel grateful emotions towards one of whom we are asking an addition to untold past favours, does not require a circuitous course of mental argumentation, but is instinctive.

ways.

True prayer, then, exerts a most delightful reflex or reactionary influence. It promotes humility, fosters faith, encourages gratitude, besides benefitting in other strictly similar But it does this because it is true prayer, direct, heard in heaven, answered by God, believed to be so by the petitioner. What we call false prayer, if it does not itself acknowledge that it is no more than devout soliloquy, is powerless even for reflex good. We hope it is most happily true that some get good in prayer who say they hold the condemned theory. So suggests love that thinketh no evil, without cause. But in such cases, the good is obtained_in spite of the theory, through a gratifying inconsistency. But truth demands a hearing when she condemns as untrue any theory that freezes or blasts as soon as consistently carried out. The pernicious nature of the view of prayer condemned in this essay appears from the circumstance, that as soon as I really and consciously fall back on it, I have every reason to say to myself Now this praying seems to be a literal asking of God to do something, but in reality it is no such thing; it seems to be based on the expectation that my heavenly Father will interpose, in some way, to give me what I ask, but it is really nothing of the kind; on the contrary, all there is in it, is, on my part, and by my will and skill, my aim and endeavour, a coming under general laws ordained centuries prior to my birth!' Queer thoughts these to bless the soul-unless, indeed, as may be hoped, their repulsiveness, when thus consistently pursued, arouses their possessor from bis delusion, and compels him to exclaim with horror-Is here not a lie in my right hand?

Thus the secondary benefits of prayer fall completely to the ground unless they are strictly based on the primary.

This we believe is conclusively proved against every gainsayer by the preceding thoughts, which therefore may not be without their use. Nevertheless it must ever be abundantly sufficient for every teachable disciple, that the Scripture undeniably, clearly, and emphatically extols, in every conceivable manner, the direct, the primary advantage of

prayer.

Since, then, prayer is a reality so reliable; since it is the confident approach of the child to its parent; since it is not the tedious kneading of our own spiritual bread, but the getting it from our Father's store for the asking,—it remains only to enquire of the accepted in Christ, the Christian priesthood-do you betake yourselves with all diligence and constancy to a privilege so rich in blessing for yourselves and others? Prayer is a reality; oh! let us make it a practical power!

J. B. R.

THE GLAD TIDINGS.-No. 1.

As the sun does not burst on our globe in one sudden overwhelming glare, but gradually indicates its rise by the successively brightening rays of the day-dawn, so the Sun of Righteousness shone not upon our darkened world by an unheralded, unexpected, bewildering appearance, but beamed gently and fully forth, only after having been preceded by the day-spring of promise and of prophecy. God, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past unto the fathers. No sooner was our race involved in the ruin of the fall, than the voice of mercy proclaimed a coming conqueror and friend in the seed of the woman. On this word of promise the patriarchs trusted, till on the trial of the faith of Abraham there was given to him the word of the oath: In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' Referring to this illustrious fact, the apostle, writing to the disciples at Galatia, said: The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.' In the context Paul says, explanatorily, 'Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one. And to thy seed, which is Christ.' Conform to this are the words of Peter to the men of Israel, Acts iii. 25, Ye are the children of the pro

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phets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first, God having raised up his Son, Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.'

According, then, to this primitive proclamation of the gospel, we have the following four cardinal ideas: 1, The blessing of the nations in the seed of Abraham. 2, Christ the seed in whom the blessing is vouchsafed. 3, The sending and raising of Christ thus to bless by an individual conversion of each person from his iniquities. And 4, The actual enjoyment of the blessing in justification through faith. To these four thoughts we solicit attention.

1. The blessing of the nations in the seed of Abraham. The fact and extent of the blessing alike demand consideration. That happiness is here promised requires no argument, and almost as little is argumentation needed to shew that the blessing is world-wide in its extent. The two words, 'nations,' and 'kindreds,' are employed in the proclamations, and that with their widest possible reference. It is not merely said that the nations or peoples of the earth-that the kindreds or families of the earth-but, that all the nations and kindreds of the earth shall be blessed in the promised seed. This does not amount to a prediction that all the individuals of all the families and peoples of the globe shall be rendered happy, but it is the most express intimation possible that every nation and kindred shall participate in the Messiahmic blessing. No nation nor kindred but shall enjoy the benefit, though many individuals of all will come short of it.

2. Christ the seed in whom the blessing is vouchsafed. There are three different acceptations in which the seed of Abraham is spoken of in Scripture, first, his seed according to the flesh; second, his seed, the Messiah; and third, his seed by the faith in Christ. The Jews gloried in having Abraham for their father. To a great degree their hope of participation in the promised blessing rested here. Most unwelcome therefore to them were the apostolic announcements, that they were not the children of the promise, because they were the seed of Abraham-that the children of the flesh are not the children of God-that thepromise that Abraham should be the heir of the world was not made to him, or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. While the apostles thus shewed that it was not lineal descent

from Abraham that constituted men his seed in the sense of the promise; and while they evinced in contrast with this, that they who are of faith the same are the children of Abraham; they showed likewise, as the necessary corollary of these two all-important positions, that the Messiah was exclusively the seed specified in the promise, as that in which the nations were to be blessed-that the law, or institution mediated by Moses was added after the promise, not to render it null, but simply, on account of transgressions, to remain in force only till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles, or nations through Jesus Christ, so that those who are Christ's are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. The merely lineal, legal, and fleshly descendents being thus disabused of their proudly-cherished conceit of their being alone the seed, and its being also shewn that the believing, whether Jew or Gentile, participate in the blessing only through Jesus Christ, he alone is presented as that seed in whom the promised blessing is to be found.

3. The sending and raising of Christ thus to bless by an individual conversion of each person from his iniquities. It was in verification of the promise to bless the nations in the seed of Abraham, that Peter said to his countrymen, 'Unto you first, God having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.' Of like tenor were Paul's words to the Jews in Antioch, We declare unto you the glad tidings, that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again.' In the mission unto death, and in the resurrection unto glory of the Lord Jesus, the promise was fulfilled. This sending and raising of Jesus had for their object the blessing of mankind. And the manner of blessing contemplated by God through his Son was the turning away of each beneficiary from his iniquities. The whole arrangement thus contemplated man as a sinner; sin as the cause of man's misery; and conversion from it the means of cure or of blessing. Most significant therefore was the command of Peter, 'Repent ye, therefore, and turn, that your sins may be blotted out.' God promises no blessing in sin; Christ is not the minister of sin; those therefore who would be blessed in him must repent and turn, that their past sins may be remitted; must be turned from their iniquities, that they may receive