has ordained as specific distinctions can be neither destroyed as to their being, nor amalgamated with heterogeneous masses. We, therefore, seek to maintain the ancient land-marks in doctrinal, experimental, and practical religion; leaving every person who differs from us the same freedom,—the same right of enquiry we claim for ourselves, ever remembering, that however far others differ from us, they differ no farther from us than we do from them-the angle being the same length from whichever end it is measured. We believe that while the gospel of God is adapted to spiritual minds of every complexion and degree, being analagous to natural light, which is suited to the eye of the smallest insect and the most extended vision of man,—that churches, as such, can operate only on a denominational basis; and our object has been to make the Voice of Truth a Strict Baptist Denominational Organ: an organ belonging to that body, representing its interests, and sustained by its influence. Thus far we have every reason to be satisfied with the steps we have taken, and the course we have pursued. Though we have devoted much time to this periodical, and done more for it than we shall be able to accomplish in coming years, should our breathing frame be spared, we cannot but feel our insufficiency for so onerous a task. We have used our judgment in the best way we could, and have sought to oblige our correspondents to the utmost of our ability. Wherever we have failed, perhaps they will pity our frailty. Cordially do we thank our friends for their kindness, patronage, and support. Let them try and obtain fresh orders during the present month, that we may commence the New Year with new vigour and prospects, and at its end have a surplus to vote for the relief of necessitous widows, as described on the covers of this Magazine. Our object is to further the interests of true religion by a simple, full, and harmonious exhibition of Divine truth. Our text-book is the Bible; our standard, the Divine law; our expediency, obedience; our plan of salvation, the gospel; our hope, the Divine promises; our strength, an Almighty arm; our panoply, the whole armour of God. THE EDITOR. THE VOICE OF TRUTH: OR, Strict Baptists' Magazine. 66 SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE." IN ESSENTIALS, UNITY; IN NON-ESSENTIALS, LIBERTY; IN ALL THINGS, CHARITY. JANUARY, 1863. Actuated by these views, and desirous of promoting the welfare of the Strict Baptists as a body, holding fast by the truth, without compromise or equivocation, a number of gentlemen have resolved to bring out a Christian periodical as the organ of the Strict Baptist denomination, which, in point of taste, talent, truth, and general utility, shall be second to none of its kind. With this view, an executive Committee has been formed of gentlemen whose known integrity and earnestness guarantee the well-working of the business department. The periodical issued under these auspices will be called "The Voice of Truth; or, Strict Baptists' Magazine." Besides original essays, select pieces, experimental divinity, and faithful reviews, it will record such transactions, and embody such intelligence as will be generally useful or interesting to the denomination it professes to serve. TO THE STRICT BAPTISTS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. BELOVED BRETHREN,-Up to the present present age, the importance, and indeed time your denomination, although large the necessity of a denominational Magaand influential, has been without any peri-zine are manifest. odical to bear its name, or to represent its interests in their complexity and fulness. Whenever the principles, policy, or property of the Strict Baptists suffer from attacks, or decline from other causes, you have no recognized organ by which you can speak, around which you can rally, or through which you can put forth your strength, and make your rights and principles respected. You have no coherence -no bond of union-no common standard, nor any means of ascertaining either your actual or supposed strength. Facts and incidents proper only to your denomination, instead of being duly chronicled or stored up in your own Magazine, are scattered and lost, or at best have but a fugitive existence. You have no statistics -no combination-no public funds-no united action. Hence, in part at least, the separations, defections, and various feuds which have scarred and maimed the Strict Baptist body, whose faith and practice proximate more closely, we believe, to the apostles', than the faith and practice of any other denomination. On these grounds, and others of a similar nature, as well as the magnitude of passing events and the characteristics of the VOL. I.,-NO. XIII., NEW SERIES. To render this periodical more acceptable to the Strict Baptists, and attach them more closely to it, the Committee have coupled with it a charitable object, on behalf of the necessitous widows of deceased ministers, who have held by the principles and practice advocated in this A due Magazine, and prior to it by Gill, Brine, Blackheath. Vice-Chairman J. MOTE, Esq., 33, Bucklersbury, London. Treasurer-T. PILLOW, Esq., 16, Water- Hon. Secretary—Mr. J. C. Kemp, 205, P.S.-Names of subscribers and donors, also donations, and subscriptions when due, should be forwarded to the Treasurer, at his office, 16, Water-lane, Tower-street; or to the Secretary, 205, High-st., Boro'. The Pulpit. No. I. CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH. Outline of a Sermon by Mr. J. E. CRACKNELL, of Blackheath. IT is a comforting thought, that we cannot study the person and work of Christ, without at the same time being led into a study of the privileges and glory of the church of Christ. All that Jesus did in his mediatorial character, he did as a representative person. He represented God on the one hand, and his church on the other. How faintly does the Christian realize the position of dignity and exaltation to which he is raised by virtue of his union with the Lord Jesus! In consequence of this covenant and inseparable union, believers are crucified with Christ, are raised with Christ, ascend with Christ, and with Christ will reign in glory as "kings and priests" unto God for ever. I. The Resurrection Glory. The Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead on the ground of what he had done, the work he had accomplished; and his people, regenerated and preserved, will at last be raised to eternal glory on precisely the same ground, not their works but his. And in whatever character he rose, his people are seen in the Scriptures in sweet oneness with him. In his resurrection, he is the rising Sun, with healing on his wings. The disciples mourned for him; his crucifixion deeply wounded them, but when Jesus rose from the dead, he healed all their wounds, and made them supremely happy. Did Christ, then, rise as the Sun of Righteousness? we see the oneness of his people with him. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father." "Let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might." Again; he rose from the dead as the Son of God; and to the rejoicing and delighted Mary did he make known the oneness of his people with him thus: "Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." Precious tidings! Go and tell them that God is as much their Father as he is my Father; that as long as he is my God he will be their God. And as he is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to all eternity, so he will never cease to be the God and Father of his people. he Once again, he is spoken of as the "Rose of Sharon." Other roses are mentioned only twice in the Scriptures, once in relation to Christ, (Sol. Song ii. 1) once in relation to the church, (Isa. xxxv. 1). When Christ was crucified, the "Rose of Sharon" was cut down. Men, blinded by sin, saw not its beauty, recognized not its fragrance; but when arose, it appeared again in all its freshness, and oh how fragrant to his disciples, when they beheld him in his resurrection glory, and heard him saying, "Peace be unto you!" And where is the oneness of the church with him in this? If we take the 1st verse of the 35th of Isaiah, and connect it with the last verse of the 33rd chapter, it will read, "And the inhabitants shall not say, I am sick; the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the Rose ;” that is, be like Christ, partake of his fragrance, yea, they shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. II. The Ascension and Exaltation Glory of Christ. The ascension of Jesus to glory involved the greatest blessing to the church. His resurrection was the Father's public seal to the acceptance of his work, but his exaltation to glory was an evidence of the Father's delight in that work. Now it is a great mercy to be established in the truth of the Father's perfect satisfaction with, and his infinite pleasure in his Son, because all that which he is to his Son, he is to the people accepted in his Son; and to that state of glory to which he is raised they shall all finally be brought. When the Apostle had given an affecting description of the humiliation of Christ in the 2nd chapter of the Philippians, he draws aside the veil of his exalted and glorified state, and says, (ver. 9), “Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name." Surely in this also we are reminded of the name given to the church. In Isa. Ixii. 2, we read: "And thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name..... Thou shalt no more be termed, Forsaken; neither shall they land any more be termed, Desolate: thou shalt be called, Hephzi-bah, and thy land, Beulah: for the Lord delighteth in thee." The church therefore, has a name given to her, expressive of God's eternal delight in her by Jesus Christ. Again, of Christ we read in Jer. xxiii. 6: "This is the name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness!" and in chap. xxxiii. 16, it is said of the church, "And this the name whereby she shall be called, "The Lord our Righteousness." Thus Christ and his church are seen to be one. What a sublime and comprehensive prayer did Christ offer on behalf of his church! "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given unto me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." He asks it not as a gift; he claims it as a right. In virtue of his covenant engagement with the Father, his perfect obedience to the Divine law, his full satisfaction to Divine justice, and his finished redemption of his people, he utters his desire, Father, I will that they who have fellowship with me in my sufferings, may have fellowship with me in my glory. Who can tell what that glory is? What power can grasp it? What tongue can describe it? But we shall behold it; yea, 6. we too shall be glorified, for the Holy Spirit has declared by the apostle, If children, then heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." Expositions and Essays. Christian! Doubtless you will remember that almost overwhelming trial out of which you feared you should never come. Whose arms surrounded? whose hand supported? whose power there strengthened? and whose eye there guided you? And that fiery furnacewho walked with you through it, and so shielded you that you sustained no injury? It was Jesus; even he who, while billows rolled and tempests raged, said, "Peace," and all was still and he who, while flames roared fiercely, spoke words of sweet significance, of far greater power than waves or flames-"I, even I, am he that comforteth you." CONSOLATION FOR TRIED ONES. "I, even I, am he that comforteth you:" Isa. li. 12. CHRISTIAN! lowly weeping one, around whose heart the iron hand of trouble seems to press, as though it must break the fragile ties which bind it to the body, listen to the words of Jesus-of God your Maker, and may you find in them a consolation far beyond all human sympathy; inasmuch as they contain a balm to heal thy wound, a medicine peculiar to thy case, which God himself searched out, and which none but him can fully know. "I, even I, am he that comforteth you." Sorrow may come in the night of his absence, but joy will attend the morning of his presence; and though sickness approach in the gust of adversity, sweet healing shall come on the wings of his comfort. Oh, "fear not," you who have God for your Friend; for though earthly ones pass away, and human aid, however willingly offered, falls short of your necessity, Jehovah is a present help in every time of trouble. You, little lamb, who have begun to bleat for Jesus' consolation, and to mourn your distance from him, the joys of whose flock you are longing to share, who gave you those new desires, without which you would have preferred still to wander from him? Ah! even he, who said, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." And you, old We mortals sympathize, but (without the Spirit's influence) our words convey no power; but where the Almighty speaks, it is the actual accomplishment of some deeply laid plan, some sovereign covenant of good to man. And he ceaseth not to comfort. For longer than this world shall last, when heaven shall be peopled by the ransomed millions, where "the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes," will be one grand continuous illustration of the text—“ I, even I, am he that comforteth you." A. THE CITY OF GOD. "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God:" Psa. lxxxvii. 3. JERUSALEM was exalted and fortified by nature and art, but much more by the favour and protection of God, who loved the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. What Jerusalem was, that the Christian church is. Built by God upon his own foundation, he loves her beyond the kingdoms and empires of the earth, which rise and fall only to subserve his purposes concerning |