perpetual fountain from which they obtained all needed blessings. According to this explanation, the smitten rock was the type, Christ the rock of living waters, was the antitype; the rock was the spiritual, that is to say, the supernatural source of the stream at Horeb; so he is evermore the redundant fountain of blessings to his disciples; just as he is the vine, the bread of life; just as he is, also, the flesh and the blood, whereof "if a man eat and drink he shall never hunger nor thirst."

Lastly, the narrative presents instructive analogies between the temptations in the wilderness and those experienced by the Son of God. These parallels are not to be insisted on as a part of the essential meaning of the text, but as reflections which are naturally suggested by the history. Now, the temptations in the wilderness were of two kinds. The Israelites tempted God, and were themselves tempted. To tempt God is not merely to try his patience; it is the more presumptuous sin which men commit when they require the Almighty to prove his omnipotence by some instant and open display of his power. Soon after the exodus "the people did chide with Moses and said, 'give us water that we may drink."" Ex. xvii: 2. The tone of the complaint was offensive to God, therefore the place was called Meribah or Provocation. It was also called Massah, "because they tempted the LORD, saying, is the LORD among us or not?"" verse 7. The substance of their saying was, "we will not receive Jehovah as the true God, unless he shall instantly prove himself to be divine. Let him give us water in this waterless desert, and give it at once, and by an open miracle, and then we will believe him." This impious expression of doubt, this insolent challenge of the Almighty, was the precise form of sin by which they tempted God. In this sense the word temptation is used in Ps. xcv: 8; and in Heb. iii: 8, 9. The literal rendering of the Hebrew text is, "harden not your heart like Meribah (Provocation), like the day of Massah (Temptation), in the wilderness." Compare Deut. vi: 16. Nor was this a sudden or transient impiety; for God said, "they have tempted me now these ten times." Num. xiv: 22. Christ, in his turn, experienced this specific form of temptation. The Pharisees came forth and began to question with Christ, seeking of him a sign from heaven, tempting him." Mark viii: 11. These men

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intended to put him to the test. They required him to prove what had been already made manifest. It was a profane and reviling challenge, and was treated as such by the Master.

The other form of temptation was experienced by the Hebrews themselves. The sins into which they were seduced may be distributed somewhat roughly into three classes: the sins of inordinate appetite and passion, as in their clamor for flesh at the Graves of Lust and their whoredoms in Moab, the sin of idolatry at Sinai, and the sin of unbelief at Kadeshbarnea. In like manner Christ was tempted of the devil. The analogies are significant. Israel, in the lower sense, was God's son, his first-born, even as Christ, in the highest sense, was the only begotten of the Father, the Son of God indeed. Both were in the wilderness when they were tempted. Israel was tempted forty years, Christ forty days. The temptations which happened to both were threefold; to Israel, inordinate desire, idolatry, unbelief; to Christ unbelief, presumption, idolatry. Both were assailed by importunate hunger, and both were tempted to the most desperate of all acts of impiety, idolatry. And, as if to complete and to vindicate at once the soundness of the analogy, the evangelists show that in repelling the tempter Christ repeated passages of Scripture, every one of which is taken from the narrative of the wandering. The remarkable fact, therefore, is that Christ experienced temptation in both its kinds. The audacity of the Hebrews in tempting God was imitated by the Pharisees in their interview with Christ; and he was also tempted of the devil.

ART. IV.-A Practical Discourse on Christian Beneficence: the Bible Argument.

THREE principal divine institutions have been given for the government and training of mankind; the family, the church, and the state. Each of them derives its right of existence, and all of its authority, from God. Each of them has been

assigned, by its Divine Author, to a separate and peculiar field of operation. One specific and important department of man's relations has been committed to each of them; and all of them acting, each in its own sphere, but co-operating harmoniously together, embrace, and provide for, the whole of man's temporal and spiritual interests. In their combined action, they fully meet all man's necessities, and supply all his wants. From each, man derives peculiar blessings, which the others can not give; to each, he owes peculiar duties, which he does not owe to the others. And yet it is manifest that the existence and field of operation of these divine institutions, are so intimately connected, that the condition and circumstances of the one mutually affect those of the others. Operating in their appropriate fields, they were intended reciprocally to aid and support each other. Cicero has beautifully said, "The family is the seminary of the state." It is, to a greater extent, the nursery of the church. When the purity of the family is corrupted, and its sacredness disregarded, both the church and the state suffer in their dearest interests. If the church become corrupt, and lose her power over the minds of men, the state soon feels the effect, in the increase of crime and disorder among its citizens. If the state fail to accomplish its divine mission, and allow crime and disorder to prevail among the people, the church immediately suffers in the decline of piety, and the neglect of duty, of her membership. At times like the present, the people of God, who owe duties both to the church and the state, in yielding to the greater demands of the state, are prone to neglect their duties to the church. At such times, the state demands an undue proportion of our time and labors and substance; which our consciences readily construe into a good excuse for disregarding our obligations to the church. There is no part of duty which Christians are more easily induced to omit, than that which forms the substance of this discourse. No grace is more feebly developed in most Christians; none whose exercise is more easily obstructed than Christian beneficence. It is always, therefore, with great difficulty, that the ordinary benevolent operations of the church can be carried on in a time of trouble. like that which now exists in our country. Those who are benevolent from principle are compelled to give more liberally

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to make up the deficiency of others. Constant efforts have to be made by pastors and agents, by preaching and by writing, to prevent many members from falling sadly below their duty. No efforts, aimed at counteracting this downward tendency, are more likely to prove efficacious than the plain exposition .of the teaching of the word of God on this subject. All true and permanent motives for the discharge of Christian duty, must be drawn from the word of God. It must be very gratifying to all lovers of the Lord's cause, that all our benevolent operations have suffered so little during this civil strife. yet, it has required very great exertion, on the part of the managers of our various benevolent operations, and their friends, to prevent the appearance of much larger deficits in their balance sheets. Since the field for every benevolent operation is continually enlarging, and since the war itself is every day presenting new objects for Christian labors, and since the ability of many is very much weakened, it is manifest that still greater efforts must be made in the future to sustain all our beneficent labors, even at their present, standard. It is exactly in this view, therefore, that we have undertaken to present to the consciences of God's people, a plain and simple statement of the teaching of the Scriptures, on the subject of Christian beneficence. Our only design is to set forth, as clearly as we may, the teaching of God's word on this important part of Christian duty. And because our aim is purely a practical one, we propose to address ourselves directly to the enlightened conscience of our Christian readers; and to exclude from this article everything that does not conduce to such an end. No original discussion of the subject is attempted; only a plain presentation of the well-known scriptural argument is offered. And it is addressed, not to critical eyes, but to the hearts of the Lord's earnest and sincere people, who desire to know their duty, that they may do it. What we have to say on the whole subject is very naturally divided into two parts; the first part explaining the system of beneficence taught in the Scriptures; the second part setting forth the motives to beneficence, which the Bible addresses to Christians.

PART FIRST.

I. "The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." The final cause of man's creation was the glory of God. He was so created as to find his highest happiness nowhere but in God. The obligation to glorify God rests on all men alike, whether they have acknowledged or refused to acknowledge the obligation.

But, when a man has been brought to a sincere belief that the Son of God laid down his life for his soul; when he has obtained a strong hope, that he has passed from death unto life; when he feels the peace of God in his soul; when he has proclaimed his sense of duty to glorify his Redeemer by uniting with the visible church; the first question that such a man would ask, is "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Under a deep sense of gratitude, he makes a solemn and final consecration of himself, soul and body, of his time and talents, of his property and influence, to his Divine Redeemer. This consecration is real; and the professor of religion who has not made it, has not really accepted of Christ, nor truly given his heart to him. The want of completeness in their consecration of themselves and all they have to God, is the secret of much of that uneasiness and disquietude, which prevent even many true Christians from enjoying full peace of mind. Their surrender was never unconditional.

Suppose, now, a sincere Christian having, for the first time, made such a consecration of himself to God, and having already offered his children to the Lord in baptism, under the influence of his first love to his Saviour, to open his Bible for the purpose of learning his duty to the world, to the church, and to his God. He must feel that he is bound, by every consideration of duty and gratitude, to use all his substance, to engage in business, and to do all that he does in life, for the single purpose of honoring the Lord that bought him. In this serious perusal of the word of God, one of the points of most diligent inquiry will be what the Bible teaches as to the use to be made of his property. He opens and reads:

1. That God is the original source of all wealth. The Scriptures teach the sublime truth that God made all things out of nothing. Upon this firmest of all foundations, the