Less of all god things in ; we set corselves to grow stronger-io antain the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" This, too is accomplished; the time of welizes.—the time of stumbling, the time of childieb belplessness, has passed away. We have attained our growth and are armed with anzel's strength.

word.

Like His rest in this-that the thing done is a creation. It was no working up of old materials, the making of this noble world: He called it out of nothing by His Tous also, the new heart that enters Heaven is no old heart refitted or repaired. Love to God does not ripen out of self-iove, or obedience out of wilfulness, or lovalty out of rebellion, or tender affection out of a hard and carnal wickedness. Behold, I make all things new; old things have passed away" and vanished forever. In their place come trust, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost. So, now the new man is created, and the old nature swept away into oblivion and darkness, we enter into divine, eternal rest.

Likest God's rest in this-that order and beauty, and glory are the continual outcome of this work,-our immortal inheritance. When Jehovah finished his creating work, all was faultless, happy, glorious. He look ed down from his lofty throne and rejoiced in his admirable and perfect deed. Yea, and though sin has marred God's excellent handiwork, the glory and the bliss enure to him as of old; it is the same revelation, though Satan and rebel man contradict or pervert it. When Christ our Lord returned to Heaven, he beheld the work of mercy finished,-his reign begun, his people assured to him, the heavenly mansions built and ready to receive the ransomed multitudes. His foes were vanquished, his travail ended, his kingdom established. "To him," therefore, "shall the gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious." When we lay down these fleshly bodies in the grave,-when faith has triumphed over both life and death,-when the last temptation has been met and overcome,-when that "last enemy" shall have been "destroyed,"-there shall remain for us an immor tal body, an eternal victory, an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance that fadeth not away. Then shall we sing with Paul-"I bave fought the good fight, I have

finished my course, I have kept the faith! Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the Righteous Judge shall give me."

Return, then, unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee! Let the sweetness of what surely shall be, quench the bitterness of what is. Look patiently across these lengthening shadows to that momentary night, which alone parts the evening from the "perfect day." Shall thy entering into rest fail "because of unbelief?" Remember, it will not fail for any other cause.

Lean heavily upon the Lord's arm! Fear not,—try its strength by the large burden rolled off upon it. He who talked with Adam while the twilight wind blew softly, will talk with thee, if thou walk with Him; and His words shall be of welcome and of rest. Return then, my soul! Hasten out of all these thy wanderings into the King's highway. Shake off these vile companions, sloth, passions, and worldly wisdom. What though, in that pure air, that arduous beginning of bliss, pain and toil beset this gross body? What though the outward man perish? It is enough that thou art renewed in His image day by day; the life also of Jesus shall be manifest in thee!

ARTICLE VI.

EARLY HISTORY OF PRESBYTERIANISM IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

"Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father and he will shew thee; thy elders and they will tell thee. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of bis inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he inVOL. VIII.-No. 3.

8

structed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye." So sang the aged Lawgiver of the Jewish people, in one of those sacred songs, whose strains of sweetness, of holiness and love, were repeated by inspired and hardlike prophets for ten centuries, in which the spirit of prophecy was continued in the ancient church. He had conducted the tribes of Israel through the Red Sea and the waste howling wilderness, and had seen all the men that came out of Egypt, except Caleb and Joshua, die for their sins. To those then on the stage of action, he repeated the law heard by many of them in childhood, at the foot of Sinai, and to all he points out the deliverances of the past, the struggles, the defeats and the victories, as ground of instructive meditation. As long ago as the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, in the dispersion of men at the tower of Babel, when he separated the sons of Adam, he had this chosen race in view, and he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. This central land of Palestine, looking forth upon three quarters of the globe, and upon a sea which was the thoroughfare of ancient civilization, he committed to an energetic but doomed people, to be subdued, cultivated, and filled with cities, for them to occupy; that from it, one day, night go forth the law, and the sceptre from Jerusalem. It was through a period of servitude in foreign clime, that Israel had been trained. When rescued from it, he was found in a desert land and in the waste howling wilderness; but there the Most High was his miraculous protector and guide. He led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

In every age may the true Church of God, or any fragment of it, see, in what happened to the Israelitish people, what has also happened to themselves, for He, our Maker and our Husband, has lifted up this one nation before the world, as an example of what He is, has been, and will be to all those whom he has chosen to be his. In how many instances in the Psalms of David, does the worshipper of God rehearse the history of his own people, and in the special providence which shaped its

fortunes, find themes of praise to the King of Zion, or instruction to his own generation. Beckoned on by such examples, and by that of the dying Stephen in Gospel times, we invite you to turn your eyes back over the way the Lord has led you, and consider the years of many generations.

In the first place, then, let us look at the gathering of the Church of God. It is by the effectual calling of the Holy Ghost. But this is accomplished through the preaching of the Word, and the general tender of salvation in Christ. "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Around this central truth do the chosen of God cluster, embracing the salvation offered, and rejoicing in a Saviour found. Hitherto they were hidden, and not distinguishable from the mass of men, but, as the particles of iron in the sand, which no eye can separate from their fellow particles, cluster around the magnet that approaches them, and by it are discovered and lifted forth, so are these by the offer of Christ the Saviour, through the efficient action of the Holy Ghost. They are the true ecclesia, called forth thus from the indiscriminate mass of men. They are born of God by a new and heavenly birth. They have the spirit of adoption by which they cry Abba Father! The family tie is felt among them, the bond of fraternal love, and by virtue of their new and heavenly relation, they constitute a new community, in this world as yet, but distinct from the world of the ungodly. To them are also gregated by motives of self-interest, or through self-deception, some who profess faith in Christ, or believe themselves to have experienced the renewing of the Holy Ghost, but to whom it will be declared by the Master, in the end, "I never knew you."

ag

As this Church came into existence, it received a form and order under the apostolic hand. All were not teachers, because some were appointed expressly to teach; all were not rulers, nor was the Church a democratic body, because some were appointed to rule, and the rest are commanded to obey. The Churches were not independent of each other, because it is plain, that in Jerusalem, where they consisted of many thousands, too

many to meet in one congregation, or be instructed by one pastor, they are yet addressed as one Church and appear to have submitted to one and the same control, and because also, the whole Church is spoken of as having a visible unity, which is realized in our own alone, of all Protestant forms of ecclesiastical polity. Three orders of officers are found among them, besides the extraordinary office of apostle, which was temporary; the one taught, as his especial function, and in common with others that performed the office of rulers chiefly, participated in the power of government; while a third took from the shoulders of the other two the burden of pecuniary affairs, and the care of the poor, that they might devote themselves to spiritual duties, and more especially to the word of God and prayer. This Presbyterian government pre-supposed, the departures from it, on either hand, are easily explained by the modifications which human wisdom preferred to add, for various reasons, to the apostolic scheme. From time to time by one Church father, or enlightened man, or another, has this been acknowledged as the earlier form, even when corruption had buried from the common view God's pure truth, or pomps, ceremonies, and mitred and stoled dig nitaries, drawn the attention away from the simple but significant and efficient order of the house of God.

To us too, it is matter of satisfaction, that when the stream of pure doctrine which had run beneath the ground for so long a time, burst forth at the Reformation, and God's true Church showed itself again, creeping forth from the corruptions by which it was oppressed, it re-organised itself throughout Christendom, with but few exceptions, on that model which we ourselves retain. With the apostolic truth, came also, in Switzerland, in France, in Holland, in Bohemia, in Germany, and in Scotland, the apostolic form of ecclesiastical order; which, though we acknowledge it less important far, than the essential, life-giving truth of the Gospel, has still a venerable and excellent beauty in our eyes.

Of the Ante-American History of the Presbyterian Church, before its several branches sought an asylum on these shores, we have time only briefly to speak. They came from their native soil, from whatever quarter gath