God can not enter into any gracious engagement with him, without a purifier. In the gospel covenant, Christ is the Lamb slain and atoning purifier. The gospel system is a purifying covenant, a medium of saving intercourse with man.

A covenant implies a treaty between two parties. When the parties are equal as to character and position -are on equal footing-they may counsel together, and recognize their mutual relations. When the character and relations are not equal, the superior may make conditional proposals, and the inferior by complying, may enjoy the advantages of them. In the new and better covenant of grace, as a medium of divine communion with man, the parties are wholly unequal. Man is sinful and a sinner. God is holy, and sinned against. Man is condemned, God the condemner. Man is wretched and undone. God is the provider of mercy, and ready to forgive. Because of this infinite disparity, man of himself can do nothing, can make no proposals suitable to his condition, nor adapted to his relief. For the same reason, God, in the exuberance of his grace and infinitude of his love, has planned a way of escape, and earnestly calls upon man freely to accept pardon and salvation on certain necessary conditions-conditions arising from his moral agency and responsibility. To save man from sin, and to bring him into alliance and communion with himself, God has spared no efforts. "What could have been done more to my vineyard," says God, "that I have not done in it." The covenant of salvation, as a medium of special divine intercourse with man, is "full of grace and truth.”

"This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." In these words we have set forth the ways and

means of God's intelligent intercommunion with man, and the consequent covenant-relations and duties. We see that God takes three things upon himself, and requires only one of man. Let us dwell briefly upon

the terms of this covenant of grace.

“I will put my laws into their mind." By this, I understand God to say, that he will clearly make known to man his will, requisite to salvation; that he will make the essential principles of his spiritual and moral government clear to the intelligence and judgment, so that men may know the divine pleasure, and their duty. He will influence them by law, truth and holiness, and enlighten them in reference to the obligation of law, the value and agency of truth, and the beauty and importance of holiness. This eminently important work, God most certainly accomplishes:

1. By the instructive influences of universal nature; by her laws and movements. "The heavens declare

the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work." "One day uttereth speech to another day, and night showeth knowledge unto night." Intelligible divine instructions are given continuously, from day to day. from night to night; so that "there is no human speech nor language, where their voice of instruction is not heard." Their line" of truth, or their doctrine, "is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." The heavens are not voiceless, but thousand-tongued, making even the deaf to hear them. The earth is not a blank, but written all over by the finger of God, with instructive lessons. "The law of the Lord," one branch of which is traceable in the material and spiritual worlds, "is perfect, converting or restoring the soul." By these communications, even the heathen are a law among themselves.

2. God puts his laws into the minds of men, makes

them clear to the understanding, by the world-wide influences of his Spirit and grace. The Holy Spirit “convinces the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judg ment." "The grace of God, that bringeth salvation, hath appeared unto all men, teaching them," &c. As certainly as the morning breeze or the evening zephyr rustles every leaf of the forest, fans every flower of a wide-spread prairie, and fills every canvass on the wide, wide ocean, so certainly the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, touches, and sweetly influences every soul of man peopling the green earth.

3. God accomplishes this spirit work by the silent and yet effective influences of general intelligence, general morals, and the prevalence of gospel truths. These pervade all Christian lands, and noiselessly enlightens the minds of men. Who, indeed, has been omitted, who are uninfluenced, and who are unenlightened by some of these means of communicating the mind of God to man?

These divine instructions once put into the mind, and made clear to the understanding, "enlightening the eyes," they are then written upon the heart. "I will write them in their hearts." This is another item or step in the intercourse of God with man. The order of God, is to reach the heart through the understanding. Hence, he first makes known his laws to the intellect, and through it impresses or engraves them upon the heart, upon the emotional and affectionate nature of man. Such impressions are more permanent, such incitements more enduring, and such feelings more deep and effective. The heart is the seat of responsible feeling, and the source of effective action. When once the laws of God are written upon the ever-present and conscious tables of the heart, its desires and feelings, its affections and hopes may be rectified, so that we may love God with a pure heart, fervently, and obey his words cheerfully.

Such a divine spiritual intercourse is not complete, until the purposes of the mental illumination and heart impressions are realized. Thus, "I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." The sustaining of these very gracious relations between God and man, is the ultimate purpose to be secured in the church, from the world-wide mental illuminations and heart impres sions by the laws of God. O, endearing relations! O, blissful state!

1. “I will be to them a God." "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," in my presence, nor in my stead. "The dearest idol I have known,

Whate'er that idol be,

Help me to tear it from thy throne,

And worship only THEE."

“Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee."

"My God, the spring of all my joys,

The life of my delights,

The glory of my brightest days,

And comfort of my nights."

In this clause of the communing covenant, God promises all that is requisite for spiritual prosperity and happiness.

2. "They shall be unto me a people." This, and only this, God enjoins on man, in order to make the divine influences effectual and saving. While God promises so largely, he requires that we give to him the affiance, love and worship of the heart. God desires a people on earth. He has taken all commendable means to secure them. Are we among them? His laws have been put into our minds; are they written upon believing and obedient hearts? "Blessed are the people whose God

is the Lord."

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here's my heart, O take and seal it;
Seal it for thy courts above."

This gracious intercourse of the soul with God, is opened and continued through grace, by the prayer of faith. "Let us, therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

HOW CAN GOD BE JUST AND MERCIFUL, AND CREATE MEN WHOM HE KNEW WOULD SIN, AND IN CONSEQUENCE BE MISERABLE FOREVER?

BY REV. CHARLES DEVOL, M. D.

There is no power or causation in knowledge. And this is equally true of knowledge human and divine.

This is the key to all the difficulties which have arisen in some minds, by confounding the foreknowledge of God with his decrees.

It is evident that if divine prescience be identical with divine decrees, and whatever God foreknew was therefore decreed, no power is requisite to the accomplishment of any act or result, within the circle of divine government. Nor can there be any other divine attribute, since Omniscience alone absolutely secures all the events which can ever possibly transpire in the history of our race.

God, then, is foreknowledge, and foreknowledge is God. Then is there not only no other perfection of deity but foreknowledge, but no other God besides foreknowledge.

But if there be no power or causation in knowledge, then, instead of every thing being caused by it, nothing is caused by it. It may be asked, will not, and must