kindness and severity co-exist in the character of the Saviour. The kind and gentle eye that now quickens them that " are dead in trespasses and sins," will dart the arrows of death to the impenitent in the day of judgment. Now he is full of grace and truth, then will be manifested the "wrath of the Lamb." Now he invites in the winning accents of love: "Come unto me all that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” "The spirit and the bride say come, and whoever will let him take of the water of life freely." Abersychan. W. ALONZO GRIFFITHS. The Pith of Benowned Sermons. The sermons of some of the greatest preachers of England are lost to modern men through their verbosities; it is the intention, under this section, to give from time to time their pith and spirit. No. VI.-BISHOP HALL. Subject: CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live."-Gal. ii. 20. H E that once was tossed in the confluence of two seas, was once no less straitened in his resolutions betwixt life and death. Neither doth my text argue him in any other case here; as there he knew not whether he should choose, or here he knew not whether he had. "I am crucified," there he is dead; yet "I live," there he is alive again; "yet not I," there he lives not; "but Christ in me," there he more than lives, See here then both a Lent and an Easter; a Lent of mortification, "I am crucified with Christ;" an Easter of resurrection and life, "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." The Lent of my text will now be sufficient: wherein my speech shall pass through three stages of discourse. I. CHRIST CRUCIFIED.-Christ's cross is the first lesson of our infancy, worthy to be our last, and all. "Grande crucis sacramentum," as Ambrose writes; this is the greatest wonder that ever earth or Heaven yields. Ruffinus tells us that among the sacred characters of the Egyptians the cross was anciently one, which was said to signify eternal life; hence their learneder sort were contented to and confirmed in the faith. Surely we know that, in God's hieroglyphics, eternal life is both represented and exhibited to us by the cross. That the cross of Christ was made of the tree of life, a slip whereof the angels gave to Adam's son, out of Paradise, is but a Jewish legend; Galatine may believe it, not we. But that it is made of the tree of life to all believers we are sure. Had not our Saviour died, He could have been no Saviour for us; had not our Saviour died we could not have lived. But this, though the sum of the Gospel, is not the main drift of my text. From Christ crucified turn your eyes to II. PAUL CRUCIFIED. You hear of him dying by the sword -hear him speak of dying by the cross, and see his moral, spiritual, living crucifixion. Our apostle is two men, Saul and Paul-the old man and the new. In respect of the old man, he is crucified, and dead to the law of sin; so as that sin is dead in him; neither is it otherwise with every other regenerate. Sin hath a body, as well as the man hath. "Who shall deliver me from this body of death?"—a body that hath limbs and parts. "Mortify your earthly members," saith our apostle-the sinful limbs that are made of "corruption, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection," &c. The head of sin is wicked devices; the heart of sin, wicked desires; the hands and feet of sin, our wicked execution; the tongue of sin, wicked words; the eyes of sin, lustful apprehensions; the forehead of sin, impudent profession of evil; the back of sin, a strong supportation and maintenance of evil. All this body of sin is not only put to death, but to shame also; so as it is dead with the disgrace, "I am crucified." St. Paul speaks not thus singularly of himself, but in the person of the renewed. Sin doth not, cannot live a vital and vigorous life in the regenerate. Sin and grace cannot more stand together in their strength, than life and death. Every Christian is a crucified man. God is not mocked; you must either kill or die-kill your sins, or else they will be sure to kill your souls-apprehend, arraign, condemn them; fasten them to the tree of shame; and if they be not dead already, break their legs and arms, disable them to all offensive actions, as was done to the thieves in the Gospel, so shall you say, "I am crucified with Christ." III. CHRIST AND PAUL CRUCIFIED TOGETHER. It is but a cold word this, "I am crucified;" it is the company that quickens it. He that is the Life gives it life, and makes both the word and act glorious. There are many crucified, but not with Christ. Thus is(a) The covetous and ambitious man. He plaits a crown of thorny cares for his own head; he pierces his hands and feet with toilsome undertakings; he drencheth himself with the vinegar and gall of discontent, &c. Thus is (B) The envious man. He needs no other gibbet than another man's property. This man is crucified, but to Achitophel's cross, not Christ's. Thus it is with (y) The desperate man. He is crucified with his own distrust, he pierceth his own heart with a deep killing sorrow. This is Judas's cross, not Christ's. Thus it is with (8) The superstitious man. He is professedly mortified. He useth his body as an enemy. He lies upon thorns with the Pharisees; little-ease is his lodging with Simeon; the stone is his pillow with Jacob; tears his food with exiled David; he lanceth his flesh with the Baalites. Another not crucified with Christ is (e) The traitor and the felon. Such have the cross of Barabbas, or the two malefactors. The true crucifixion is with Christ. There is no benefit where there is no partnership. St. Austin gives all the dimensions of the cross of Christ. The latitude, he makes in the transverse; this pertains to good works, because on this His hands were stretched. The length, from the ground to the transverse; this is attributed to His longanimity and persistence; for on this His body was stayed and fixed, &c. The first Adam brought in death to all mankind; but at last actually died for none but himself. The second Adam died for mankind, and brought life to all believers. Bristol. URIJAH R. THOMAS. Variations on Themes from Scripture. No. XX. Subject: DIVERS WEIGHTS AND DIVERS MEASURES. "Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord. Divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord; and a false balance is not good."-Prov. xx. 10, 23. WICE in one chapter of the Book of Proverbs is it de TWICE clared that divers weights are an abomination to the Lord. The term is an emphatic one, and the iteration is emphatic. "Divers weights and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord." "Divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord; and a false balance is not good." A stone and a stone-as the Hebrew has it-of unequal weight; an ephah and an ephah, of diverse capacity; these are branded as the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked. Trade tricksters are not called highly respectable in Scripture, whatever they may be called in police reports, or in the trade. "A serious Toyman in the city dwelt, Who much concern for his religion felt; " is not the tale told by Crabbe in the "Struggles of Conscience ?" and how this "professing" tradesman sought to justify to himself his trade trickeries, without essaying to be very much better than his fellows, the highly respectable and worthy among them, at least : "Worthy I mean, and men of good report, And not the wretches who with conscience sport. And so it is, for he contrives to give A drachm to each-'tis thus that tradesmen live: 66 A caustic censor some time ago took to task the cotton lords, so called, in respect of their art and practice of Leicester and Manchester measure-singling out, for this purpose, a firm whose "Persian thread" had come under the scrutiny of a ViceChancellor's Court, and who were said to be rather model men than otherwise, and enjoying a name for strict and scrupulous honesty. "Scripture says something about giving serpents for fish, and stones for bread; but we daresay that many tradesmen sleep through these wholesome lessons, utterly disregarding their moral force, and the Vice-Chancellor's denunciation of selling wood for cotton." "A Persian baker is nailed by his ears to his own door-post, for a system of trade which we own ourselves unable to distinguish in morality from that of the proprietors of the famous Persian thread." In answer to this, the maxim caveat emptor was applied by apologists for the trade; the real fault, they allege, is in the consumer, who will have a cheap article. Populus vult decipi, et decipitur,"—on which showing, the whole charge of adulteration, and of the wickedness of selling worsted and silk for silk, shoddy for broad-cloth, and sloe-juice for vine wine, is held to amount to nothing. But Cicero's rule is, that every thing should be disclosed, in order that a purchaser may be ignorant of nothing which the seller knows: "Omnia patefacienda, ut nihil quod venditor norit emptor ignoret ;" and then the maxim, caveat emptor, holds good. Few people have leisure for investigating the real quality and quantity of their purchases. It is truly said, that if a man wants quietly to go about his day's business, it is as well for him, at breakfast time, to abstain from examining the tea-leaves. "The tavern-keeper considered that if the liquor he sold were black, and made people drunk, it answered all the essential conditions of port-wine." So, it is added, the baker might say that his loaves are white, and fill the stomach; and if this argument be not quite conclusive, there is the irrefragable fact that he occupies the corner-house in the street in which we live, and that other bakers are further distant, and, besides, sell a composition of about equal merit. Swift, in the Drapier Letters, urges a plan-Utopian in effect-by which the confidence of customers might be ensured; “ so that if I sent a child for a piece of stuff of a particular colour and fineness, I should be |