trying circumstances. But we hope that January 7th, 1866, was the beginning of brighter and better days for them. Mr. W. Leach on that day commenced a probationary term with a view to the pastorate, and on Tuesday, the 9th, the Annual New Year's Services were held. Mr. Anderson, of Deptford, preached in the afternoon; and in the evening, Mr. Leach presided at a public meeting, which was addressed by Messrs. Box, Bowers, Meeres, Frith, and Griffith. In these days of ministerial jealousy and division, such a meeting as this is a hopeful and peaceful sign. It will be remembered by our readers that "Plumstead Tabernacle" was built by a 66 split from Carmel," and that Mr. Leach became the Pastor at the former place. For reasons best known to himself and' the people, he resigned. Mr. Griffith was held in the highest respect and esteem by the friends at Carmel. But he now resigned also, and advised his friends to give his brother and neighbour an invitation; they did so, and he accepted it: and it really did our hearts good, on the 9th, to see the two brethren and the present minister of the "Tabernacle," Mr. Brunt, with good "Father Box," all in the table pew at Carmel, and to hear them speak so lovingly of each other. And what is more, we believe they felt it and meant it. We cordially agree with Mr. Box, who said it was impossible to speak too highly of the conduct of Brother Griffith. Now, O ye Carmelites the cloud is passing away, the sun is beginning to shine. We adjure you, be peaceful, be prayerful, be all in spirit and conduct toward each other that the Master bids you, and the cause will revive within the walls of your beautiful house of prayer will again be heard hundreds of voices singing, "Clamour, and wrath, and war begone! Amongst the saints, the sons of peace!" ZION CHAPEL, DEPTFORD. THE second anniversary of Mr. J. S. Anderson's pastorate over the church worshipping in the above place, was celebrated on Tuesday, Jan. 2nd, 1866. Mr. Bloomfield preached an important discourse in the afternoon, from the words "Ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." (Jude 3). The friends took tea in the new school-room at the back of the chapel, which was quite full, and all seemed thoroughly happy. We were favoured with the company of many friends from a distance, who have our hearty thanks for this kindly expression of their loving sympathy. He A public meeting was held in the evening, presided over by the pastor. The chairman expressed his great pleasure at meeting his friends on the interesting occasion. had enjoyed two years of uninterrupted peace with the church at Zion. He was not aware that there were any disaffected members, and between himself and the deacons there had not been an angry word, look, or feeling that he knew of. God had been with them; fifty-four persons had joined the church during the two years, and three now stood for baptism, and others are expected soon to come forward. The brethren Hazelton, Palmer, Flack, Alderson, and Wyard, delivered able addresses; Messrs. Griffith, Bloomfield, and G. Webb also took part in the proceedings, but there was not time for them to speak on given subjects. Brother Butterfield was present in the afternoon, but was compelled to leave before the evening meeting. The attendance was good, the people enjoyed the services, and gave a liberal collection for the "National Society for aged and infirm Baptist Ministers and their Widows," for which we thank them, and pray that the good work may still go on. We should not do justice did we not mention that the evening's enjoyment was greatly enhanced by the efficient services of Messrs. I. Porter and Clayton : the former ably presided at the harmonium, and the latter as ably led the singing. They have our thanks, and of Zion we say "Peace be within this sacred place, HOUNSLOW. THE Anniversary of this cause took place on the 26th December, 1865. Mr. Foreman preached in the afternoon from the words, "I am the First and the Last: I am he that liveth and was dead," &c. (Rev. i. 17, 18). The attendance was good, and the discourse refreshing. A public meeting was held in the evening, presided over by the newlychosen pastor, Mr. W. H. Evans. Mr. Bloomfield spoke on the Feast of Passover; Mr. Crowhurst, on the Feast of Harvest; Mr. Anderson, on the Feast of Tabernacles; and Mr. Wyard on the Jubilee. We believe it was a feast indeed to all present, and we hope the services may be followed by lasting good to the cause. We are pleased to hear that the labours of our brother Evans are being blessed, and that the church is hearty and unanimous in the invitation to the pastorate; Mr. E. appears to us the right man in the right place, and we wish for him a happy and useful career at Hounslow. There is a wide and important field, and so far as our line of things is concerned, Mr. E. may be said to have it all to himself. But then, as is too often the case, the chapel is set as much out of sight as possible, as though the builders thereof were ashamed to shew a bold front. When will our people cease to "be penny wise and pound foolish" in this matter? A much more educated class of young people are springing up in our churches than could be found in thern halfa-century ago; and unless we have decentlooking and comfortable places of worship, we shall lose them. We want also for the same class a more intelligent ministry. The educated sons and daughters of our prosperous trades-people are not so much offended by the truths they hear as with the rough, rude, and ungrammatical style in which they are in some places presented. We rejoice to know that the newly-chosen minister of Zoar Chapel, Hounslow, firm in the truth, and capable of presenting his thoughts in a manner so simple, that the most ignorant can understand, and so correct that the most fastidious would not take offence. And we pray that the present place of worship may soon be too strait for them, and that our friend may live to see rise a much larger and more conspicious house of prayer. Why not? "Is anything too hard for the Lord ?" O for the faith of a Dr. Carey, whose well known motto was "Expect great things from God; and attempt great things for God." We have not, because we ask not. Lord teach us to pray, "Lord increase our faith." Amen. WHITTLESEA. ON New Year's-day, a meeting was held in Zion Chapel, in commemoration of the twelfth anniversary of our much esteemed pastor, Mr. D. Ashby. In the afternoon, the members of the church met to listen to addresses from our pastor, and Mr. Wyard, of St. Neot's; after which they partook of tea. In the evening a public meeting was held, and after an earnest prayer by Mr. Williams, of Peterborough, Mr. Foreman, of March, presented to our dear minister a purse of £12 88., as a new year's gift from the church and congregation, as a token of the best wishes of his people; after which addresses were delivered by SALEM CHAPEL, RICHMOND, the friends held their annual new year's BRISCOE, Printer, Banner-street, Bunni-row, risoury THE VOICE OF TRUTH; OR, Baptist Record. "SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE." IN ESSENTIALS, UNITY; IN NON-ESSENTIALS, LIBERTY; IN ALL THINGS, CHARITY. MARCH, 1866. Expositions and Essays. THE BLESSED MAN. "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!" 99 66 THIS is an unquestionable truth-it is a truth which the Psalmist knew by experience, and of the preciousness of which the godly are fully conscious. There is no true happiness in a condition of contrariety to God. Sin is a walking contrary to God. It is a transgression of God's law. It is a want of conformity to his moral image. It is the act and spirit of rebellion against God's authority. The Greek speaks of sin as "a departure from a right line," ". a want of moral harmony, a discord within ;" he would say also, "the music of the soul is out of tune." It is not a foreign evil, but a disease in the very centre of our being. It is not an enemy without the walls of the city, but a powerful enemy in the citadel itself. Sin is the source of all our unhappiness. It robs the present of consolation, and darkens the prospects of the future. It separates the soul from God, and makes the man odious in his own eyes, when he is brought to a consciousness of it before the Lord. He knows by bitter experience that sin and misery are twins. "It biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” The text saith, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven," whose transgression is "blotted out," "put away," ""cast behind God's back," "buried in the depths of the sea," or forgiven through a divinely accepted atonement. The man is a blessed man who is brought into harmony with the Most High, who enjoys the Divine favour, who bears the moral image of God, and who lives in a blessed oneness with Jesus Christ, the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. This is a representation of things not at all in accordance with the ideas of the pleasure-seeking, gold-grasping, and God-forgetting men of the world. The ideas of men under worldly influences are widely different from those of men taught by the Spirit of God the importance of experimental and practical religion. They are exceedingly limited in their range, and confined to the visible and the perishable, while they are criminally unmindful of the unseen and eternal. The man of thorough religious principle will say, "Blessed is the man of godliness, for godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." The worldling says, " Blessed is the man of pros VOL. V. NO. LI., NEW SERIES. E perity," and, therefore, he strives perpetually and unweariedly to amass wealth, forgetting that it is only useful for this life, and only useful in this as it is wisely used. It may be converted into a great curse, and has been so in thousands of instances;-at all events, it is a most uncertain possession, for riches take to themselves wings, and fly away sometimes. "Blessed," says another man, "is the man of high station and princely titles," forgetting or not knowing that there is not enough in all the material grandeur of the universe to satisfy the cravings of man's spiritual nature. "Blessed is the man of power, swaying his sceptre over millions," though nothing is more uncertain and brittle than the life even of crowned heads. "Blessed is the man of lofty intellect, who standeth not in the aristocracy of blood, but of mighty minds and noble spirits," forgetting the loftiest minds have sometimes become enfeebled, and the proudest intellects have been made low." The fact is, there is no real happiness in opposition to God; for happiness, to be our portion, we must be brought into harmony with God. There must be a knowledge of our interest in God's infinite love-in the covenant of grace-in the mediatorial work of Christ, and the heart brought to know the constraining power of the love of the Saviour. "He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." Let a man experience this, and he will be a happy man. He will rejoice in the utterance of the Psalmist, "Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." He is a blessed man who is saved in the Lord, with an everlasting salvation-who has the righteousness of Christ imputed to him-who possesses the Spirit of Christ Jesus, and who is induced by the grace of God to imitate all the imitable excellencies of the Son of God. This is the only true blessedness, as it is the only true dignity. In the first Psalm it is recorded, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful: but his delight is in the law of the Lord." In the 119th Psalm we are told, " Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart." See also Romans iv. 6, 8. There are a few things we have to say on the text. I. The mediatorial ground on which the forgiveness of sin is granted.-The Scriptures make known this notable fact, that God forgives sin through the sacrifice of Christ. This sacrifice was ordained from the foundation of the world, and was prefigured in the Jewish sacrificial services long ages before the coming of Christ. It is a sacrifice which shows God's intense and immutable abhorrence of sin. It vindicates the honours of God's moral government, and makes known the infinite love and deep compassions of Jehovah. Some learned men have supposed this Psalm, out of which the text is taken, was composed to be sung on the great day of atonement; if so, how expressive the type of God's forgiving sin, through Christ, and for the sake of Christ! Observe what is brought before us. 1. In the Levitical dispensation.-The priests had to offer sacrifices for the people. They had to instruct the people, and declare God's blessing. "The priest shall make atonement for them, and it [sin] shall be forgiven them." The priests, their sacrifices, and altars, were shadows of good things to come: "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually, make the comers thereunto perfect." Quaint old Trapp says on this verse, "When the sun is behind, the shadow is before-when the sun is before, the shadow is behind: so was it in Christ to them of old. This sun was behind, and, therefore, the law or shadow was before. To us under grace the sun is before, and so now the ceremonies of the law-these shadows are behind, yea, vanished away." "The anniversary sacrifices of the day of expiation where special figures of Christ's sacrifice." The more closely we examine the sacrificial services of the Jewish economy, in the light of New Testament facts, the more fully shall we be convinced that they were pictorial and symbolical representations of the priesthood and sacrifice of Christ, through whom is preached the forgiveness of sins. 2. The sacrifice of Christ is the sum of all Levitical shadows.-Christ, in his mediatorial doings, was the perfect fulfilment of that typical order of things. The sacrifices of the Jewish priests were shadows or instructive adumbrations, but Christ's sacrifice was real, vicarious, and accepted of God. It was the substance which answered fully to all its shadows and prefigurations. He appeared once, in the end of the world, to put away sin, by the sacrifice of himself. The end of the world means the end of the age- the end of the Jewish polity-the end of the Jewish nationality-the sacrifice of himself is in contrast to all Jewish priests, for they offered up the blood of bulls and goats. He appeared, not to remember sin once a year, but to put it away. Isaiah, the evangelical prophet as he is termed, saith, "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." "He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities." The apostle saith, "He was made sin for us, though he knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Another says, "Who gave himself for our sins." Also, "He is the propitiation for our sins "—that is, "He is the atonement for our sins." There are two or three other texts of Scripture which we shall bring before you, which correspond with what we have said, and which fully corroborate our statement, that God forgives sin through Christ, and only through him. (See Acts xiii. 38, "Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins." Paul speaks to the church at Ephesus, and saith in the 4th chapter and 32nd verse of his Epistle," And be ye kind one to another-tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you." Christ's propitiatory sacrifice is the only ground on which you can build your hope of pardon. Here we find a solid rock. There are some trusting in their repentance, which needs to be repented of. Others are trusting in vague views of the mercy of God. Others are trusting that they shall be forgiven because of their observance of certain religious ceremonies. How vain and delusive are all these grounds! There is no ground for a sinner's trust for pardon and justification but the blood and righteousness of Jesus. When we are stripped of all our fancied righteousness -when we are brought in ten thousand pound debtors-when we are brought to the place of stopping of mouths, and feel a storm in our conscience, and despair working in our minds, what a blessed truth to have made known to us in the everlasting gospel, that there is one safe ground of trust, and that is the sacrifice of Christ. There is no forgiveness of sin but through Jesus. God doth not forgive without a full vindication of his violated law. He never, in the exercise of his sovereign mercy, forgets the claims of justice; hence his salvation is as just as it is merciful: it is honourable to God, and safe to man. In God's way of pardoning sin, "Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other." In salvation through Christ, Divine equity is maintained, and Divine sovereignty is exercised in bestowing the inestimable blessings of the everlasting covenant. II. The nature of that forgiveness which the believer enjoys.-There is forgiveness with God that he may be feared. There is none who can forgive sins but God. It is a Divine right, and none can exercise it but God. Christ, when on earth, forgave sin, therefore Jesus Christ must be God. "To 1. It is a Divine forgiveness.-There is none that can forgive sins but God. He does forgive sins according to the good pleasure of his will, through the intervention of his Son Jesus. It is an expression of the riches of his grace, and in perfect harmony with every right and perfection of his moral government. the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him" Dan. ix. 9. "I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins:" Isa. xliv. 22. The people of God can sometimes, with admiration of God's methods of grace and mercy, exclaim in holy triumph, "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage!" Micah vii. 18. The word declares God abundantly pardons-he multiplies pardon. Pardon comes like the waves of the sea-wave after wave. Pardon is a settled thing with God from all eternity, but our experience of it is through faith in the blood and righteousness of Christ. Pardon may have passed the king's seal, but not be put into the prisoner's hand. It may be known to the king long before it is known by the |