Contributions

In Aid of the Countess of Huntingdon's Missionary Society during the month.

Further Donations and Subscriptions in aid of the Turkish or African Mission will be thankfully received by Mr. F. W. Willcocks, 98, Goswell-street, London,

or by any Minister of the Connexion.

Contributions through the Rev. B. S. Hollis, towards the Repairs and Improvements of the Countess of Huntingdon's Chapel, Malvern.

N.B. If any errors or omissions are detected information of the same will be most thankfully received by Rev. Wood, the minister of the chapel, who will also be much obliged by any additional names as Subscribers.

NOTICE TO OUR READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS. Communications during the past month have been received from Revs. T. Roberts -T. Noyes-E. C. Lewis-B. S. Hollis-J. J. Eastmead-R. S. Short-J. Thomas, B, A,-J. Anderson-F. S. Hart, M. A.-G. Jones; and Messrs. J. B. Elliott-J. Mutter-C. T. Curtis-Wood-Myra—and E. H. Pizzy, whose poetry shall appear next month.

R. S. will find a reply to his inquiry in the second number of the Coronet and Cross, page 65.

A STUDENT is recommended not to seek admission to the Countess of Huntingdon's College, if he object to the Liturgy.

FREE CHURCHMAN is informed that most of the Free Churches formed in this country have become identified with the Countess' Connexion, there being but little difference between them.

FRIEND TO AFRICA will be pleased to hear that the Connexion Churches in Sierra Leone number about twelve or fourteen hundred communicants, besides large congregations.

We fear JUSTITIA's complaints respecting some of our congregations are too true, but New Trustees will shortly be appointed, then let drones and those who "lord it over God's heritage" beware.

MRS. B. will find a reply respecting the African arrowroot in the present number. The services of our friend in disposing of the same will be appreciated by our

Sierra Leone friends.

CHELTENHAM.-We hope to furnish a full account of the handsome testimnial to the Rev. L. J. Wake, in our next number.

THE HARBINGER.

APRIL, 1857.

"I WILL SPRINKLE CLEAN WATER UPON YOU."

BY THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D.

We are justified, or cleaused from the guilt of sin, by the blood of Christ. "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission;" and none, we may add, without its application.

Where do we find this doctrine in the text? By what process of spiritual chemistry can this truth be extracted from it? There is water, and clean water, and sprinkling of water, it may be said, but no word of blood; there is neither sign nor spot of blood upon the page. True-so it looks at first sight-but without the hand of Moses we shall see this water turned into blood. It may appear difficult, without Moses' rod, to repeat the miracle of Egypt; yet this is plain, that here, as elsewhere, water is but the sign of spiritual blessings. And a most expressive symbol we shall find it if we but think of the important part that this element plays in the economy of nature. It covers more than two-thirds of the entire globe; it is universally diffused through the ambient air; by the clouds it forms it tempers the force of a fiery sun; it drapés the heavens with curtains of the most gorgeous colours, dyed in the rosy tints of morn the or in evening's golden hues; and it fillsating reservoirs of the sky, to descend, when burst by lightening, breaking by their own weight, in refreshing showers on the thirsty ground. The circulation of water is to the world what that of blood is to the body, and that of grace to the soul. It is its life. Withdraw it, and all that lives would die; forests, fields, beasts, man himself would die. This world would become one vast grave. Water constitutes as much the life as the beauty of the landscape. It is true both in a spiritual and in an earthly sense, that the world lives because heaven weeps over it. It was Christ's choicest figure of himself, when, turning

on his own person the eyes of thousands, as on a perennial fountain, one never sealed by winter's frost, nor dried by summer suns,—free, full, patent to all, he stood up on the last and great day of the feast, and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." And in case any of you should be thirsting for eternal life, let me say, that thus Jesus now addresses you. Would God, he were as precious to us as water in the sight of him who is dying of thirst! With bloodshot eyes, his throat black as coal, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth, the desert reeling round him, oh! what will the traveller not give for one cup of water? Fill it with water, he will give it back to you filled twice ten times over with gold. Would to God that our thirst for Jesus Christ were as ardent; that in like manner he were all our salvation, and all our desire. The property of water, however, to which reference is made here, is a different one from any of these. It is not the property by which it sustains or revives life, yet it is one for which this element is as well known, and as universally used. All the world wash with water, as well as drink water; and the reference here is to that solvent power, by virtue of which water dissolves impurities-turning white what is black, and cleansing whatever is foul. It stands here, therefore, the figure of that which cleanses. The object to be cleansed is the soul; the defilement to be cleansed away is sin; and we now therefore address ourselves to the all-important question-Of what is this water the figure? The key to the question lies in the epithet clean water. Let us analyse this water. It is not water in the state in which it descends from the skies, or flows in rivers, or may be drawn from a common well; for, observe, it is not said, "Then will I sprinkle water," but "clean water on yon, and ye shall be clean." The water is such as the Jews understood by clean water,— not free from impurity, and in itself clean, but water that maketh clean, in the words of the ceremonial law, "water of purifying." This was prepared according to a divinely appointed ritual. Look how it was prepared, and you shall see it reddening and changing into blood.

Gathering the lowing herds from their different pastures, they sought up and down among them, till a red heifer was found,―red from horn to hoof, and mottled by no other colour,-one all red, and on whose free neck yoke had never been. Separated from the herd, she is led by priestly procession, accompanied by the people, outside the camp; and there, struck by a mortal blow, she falls under the hands of the priest. As the blood gushes to the knife, he catches it in his hand, and seven times casts it in a bloody shower towards the tabernacle. So soon as the victim is dead, it is heaved on the burning pile, and while the smoke of the sacrifice floats away to heaven, horn and hoof, skin, flesh, and bone, are all reduced to ashes. These ashes carefully collected, are mixed with pure water in a pure vessel, and that water is the clean water of my text. See how plainly, when understood aright, this expression refers to a vicarious sacrifice, and the merits of an atoning death. What was that heifer? Spotless and separated from the herd, she is a type of Him who was without spot or blemish, holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. With neck on which yoke had never lain, she is a type of Him, who said, "The prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in me.' Red in colour, she is

a type of Him, whose feet were dipped in the blood of his enemies, and as seen coming from Bozrah, was "red in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his might." And what is this public procession, which conducts the heifer without the camp, but a figure of the march to Calvary? And what is her bloody death, but a type of that which Jesus suffered amid the agonies of the cross? And what are these fires that burn so fiercely, and consume the victim, but a faint image of the wrath of God, under which his soul was "withered like grass?" And what was the water mingled with this heifer's ashes, but a type of the righteousness, which, imputed and applied to sinners, makes sinners just? For, as the Jew on whom that water was sprinkled became ceremonially clean, so guilt of original and actual sin-all guilt is removed from him (much the happier man) whom God sprinkles with the blood of Calvary, and to whom sovereign mercy imputes the merits of a Saviour's sacrifice.

Let me further illustrate this. There was another method of preparing this clean water, which although in some respects different, was the same in this, that it also implied the death of a vicarious sacrifice. The leper, a mass of sores from crown to heel, a banished man-banished from city, synagogues, the dwellings of men, and the house of God-the victim of a loathsome disease, which made his presence an offence to others, and his life a burden to himself, was a hideous, doleful, revolting emblem of a sinner. Now let us see how-when God was pleased to cure him-his ceremonial uncleanness was removed. On the happy occasion, which was to restore him to the arms of his wife, the sweet society of his children, the brotherhood of men, and the presence of God,-two living birds were taken. They must be doves or turtles-the gentlest of all God's creatures, and therefore the more fitting emblems of his Son. They are held over a vessel, already filled with running water. One is slain. The blood as it flows over the snowy plumage of the fluttering bird, falls into the water; and that, dyed by the crimson stream, now becomes "water of purifying' the clean water of the text. With this sacred lavation the priest sprinkles the man who had been a leper, and now ceremonially clean; that blessed moment he is folded in the embrace of his wife, kisses his children, and walks with them, a happy man, at the head of a happy family, into the house of God.

But there were two birds. We have seen one disposed of. What has become of the other? With beating heart it is still a prisoner in the hands of the priest; and the close of this ceremonial offers us a beautiful and most vivid picture of the removal of guilt. The living bird, type of a sinner to whom a Saviour's merits are to be imputed, is dipt, head, feet, wings, and feathers-plunged over head-into the blood-dyed water. It is "baptized unto death." And, brought out before the people-all crimsoned with blood-the priest opens his consecrated hand, and restores the captive to liberty. Image of a pardoned one on his path to glory, it spreads out its wings, and, beating the air with rapid and rejoicing strokes, flies away to its forest or rocky home.

You will now understand the nature of this clean water, and cannot fail, I think, to see, that although clothed in a Jewish dress, justification by faith in the righteousness of Jesus-that paramount article of our