thee, understanding shall keep thee." But, it may be asked, what are we to understand by wisdom and prt dence finding out knowledge of witty inventions, when they take possession of the hearts of God's elect? To solve this question will bring me to my third and last particular which I intended to notice. I have said above that it was a witty or wise act of the great Jehovah in appointing the Lord Jesus Christ to be the propitiation for the sins of his dear people. But this wise scheme of infinite love is not appreciated by them until sin is felt in the heart as a heavy burden grievous to be borne. One of our forefathers, being confident of this from heart-felt experience, addressed the Almighty thus: "The entrance of thy words giveth light, it giveth understanding unto the simple," Psalm cxix. 130. Here we find the very work of God the Holy Ghost set forth, in bringing the lost sheep home to the fold. First, here is God's words, not man's, spoken of. Secondly, its power; for it enters into the dead sinner's heart. Thirdly, its effects; it gives light to see the dreadful state sin has involved us in, and life to feel and in godly sincerity to lament over the same before a heart-searching God. When the Holy Spirit, who is a wise Spirit, has sufficiently stripped the poor sinner of his own ragged righteousness, which is a painful work to feel, then he finds out that he stands in need of that spotless vest, namely, the righteousness of the Christ of God, which is freely imparted to all them who are taught by this blessed Spirit to be. lieve in his dear name. We read of the word of the Lord being quick and powerful (Heb. iv. 12); and so the heaven-taught eoul finds it, for it drives all before it when it enters, and its recipients often tremble for fear it will drive them where mercy can never come. Such find they have no strength of their own wherein to stand against one temptation. No foundation devised by human art will do. No false props will serve to bear them up under the furious storm that has fallen upon them. No voice but that which formed the vaulted skies, can speak the turbulent waves that beat upon their little bark into a calm. Such souls are made to prize the holy doctrines of grace, and the blessed Spirit prompts them to seek after a blessed knowledge of interest in the same; nor can they rest satisfied without it. I have the witness in my heart that the wounded spirit wants the Lord himself to proclaim liberty to the soul, to open the prison doors, and bring the poor captive out into a large room of gospel liberty. I would ask, Can the bare letter of the word Relieve a soul thus taught of God? "') Electing love how sweet to feel; And is my reader one who knows these wise inventions, by first being taught his need of them by the blessed Spirit; or is he or her one,' who has learnt them by merely hearing them proclaimed from the pulpit, or from reading God's word? if so, if you have got no further, this knowledge will do thee no good in the hour of death it is by heart-felt experience that the Lord's family find them precious. Again, by the words Bless'd be the Lord, I know 't is so, I wish to live whilst here below Dear Jesus, near to thee. W. WESTHORP. Great Wakering, Essex. ORIGINAL LETTER OF THE LATE REV. I Do not know any one to whom I would more freely communicate myself unto, than yourself; therefore you must not conceive other wise, though it may be that I do not reply to you immediately. It is very seldom I get my work under, so that I have a good deal in general upon my hands. You are exceedingly welcome to draw out of me all I know, or can impart unto you, of the love of our Lord Jesus Christ; so far as the same has been imparted unto me, you have my free assent and consent. I am truly sensible of all you say of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the total corruption of nature, and am most solemnly compelled to set my seal to all you have written. Yet I want to look above it, beyond it, and wholly away from it, to Christ, who, by his one offering, hath perfected for ever the putting away of sin, and washed the whole election of grace in his own blood, and made them clean from all sin. We have in our most precious Lord Jesus Christ a most complete salvation: it is a present salvation; it is a spiritual salvation; it is an everlasting salvation. We are as truly saved in Christ, as we are lost in ourselves. We are in Christ: one in him; we are one with him. It is in him we are the beloved of God; loved by the Father with an everlasting ever expected a blind man to judge of colours? No one I believe ever yet did. The Lord Jesus Christ is essentially and truly Jehovah. He is the living God, the true God, the only wise God. In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. He is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen. He says, "I am Alpha and Omega; the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord; which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." Rev. i. 8. I would not believe otherwise of him for ten thousand worlds; for there can be no salvation in a mere creature. As Christ is true and very God, co-equal, essential, and co-eternal with the Father and the Spirit in the incomprehensible essence, he is also true and very man. Perfect God and perfect man in one Christ; he is God-man; as such he was set up from everlasting. You have an account given of it in the eighth chapter of the Proverbs; yet I do not believe this great mystery as some do. I will very freely give you my statement of it, which you may reject, or receive as it appears clearly revealed in the scriptures, agreeable to the same, or reject as you may not conceive it rightly stated; for surely you are not to pin your faith on my sleeve. I assure you I do not wish you so to do; but, at the same time, I would wish you to attend particularly to the statement of the same. I apprehend in the eternal councils of the Trinity, the second person was set up to be God-man; the head of the whole election of Grace; the foundation and corner-stone of the whole creation. That in him the elect were chosen and blessed, accepted and predestinated unto the adoption of children; that he was God-man from before the foundation of the world, and had a glory with the Father before the world was. This most adorable Person was pleased to lay aside his glory, and he took on him the form of a servant, and became incarnate, that he might, as the surety of his people, live and die in their nature, law-place, room, and stead, and thereby obtain eternal redemption, and bring them nigh to God. Now as Christ, God-man, was before the world, and was predestinated to be the Lamb that was to be slain for sin, so he was set up from everlasting. He was revealed imme. diately upon the fall. He appeared as God-man to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron and his sons, and seventy of the elders of Israel: to Joshua, Manoah, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others. Be pleased to observe, I am not writing about the human soul of Christ, nor of the preexistence of the human soul of Christ; I am expressing myself concerning the person of Christ, who is truly God, and truly man. Who, as Godman, had a glory with the Father before the world was; who emptied himself, and laid aside his glory, and took upon him the form of a servant. Now the question is, what is that glory the Lord Jesus Christ laid aside when he came into our world? It could not be the glory of his Godhead: this was impossible; the essential Word and Son of the living God could no more lay aside the glory of his Godhead, than he could cease to be God. If you read John xvii., you will hear Christ speaking of a glory which he had with the Father before the world was. He begs this glory may shine forth in him again, and that he might be fully invested in it. Now this is a delegated glory; a glory which belonged to his person as God manifest in the flesh; not his essential glory; not the glory of his Godhead; but the glory of the Godhead as it shone forth in the human nature of Christ; which was in union with the Son of God, so as to be so united unto him, as to be one person. Now when I say the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to the patriarchs, prophets, and saints, I mean that our Lord was pleased to take on him a human form, thereby giving an evidence that his delights were with the sons of men ; that he would one day become incarnate, and dwell amongst them for a season, to finish the work which the Father had given him to do; after which, he would ascend up into Heaven, and sit at the right hand of God. If you read my sermons on John xvii. you will have all my views on this subject; and as with this you will have them, I will here say no more on this subject. May the Lord give increasing light into the mysteries of his grace, and may he keep from every error, and heresy, and false apprehension of any truth and doctrine set before us in the glorious gospel of the blessed God. The essential glory and eternal God head of Christ is an immutable truth; it is this must be laid as the foundation of the personal glory of Christ as God-man; and it is better to leave some truths alone, rather than be bewildered and lost in them: We can cleave with full purpose of heart to our Lord Jesus Christ for spiritual life and salvation, without being led into every truth which relates to our Lord's person. You believe he is truly God and truly man, or he could not have suffered the just for the unjust. Why this is the very sum and substance of the doctrine; the other is but an explanation of the same. You will, as I said before, in my sermons on the prayer of our Lord, have the whole substance of my thoughts on this deep and most profound subject. You most assuredly know Christ: that's enough; don't you want in any case to go before the Lord; follow him never go before him, Many know more than the Lord ever taught them. Yea, some truths, too, which they never received from the divine teachings of the Holy Spirit. And what does it do for them? Nothing; unless this be something, to have their heads stuffed full of notions and opinions which lead them off Christ. There are many in the present day who can be so nice as to distinguish every point in doctrinal divinity who by no means are disposed to live Christ; neither do they. I would rather live Christ than preach him. 1 am well persuaded the best way of preaching Christ, is to preach him agreeably to what I know of him, by the revelation and teaching which I have received of him, from the teaching and revelation of the Holy Ghost, from the written word to my own soul. It will be well to keep close to the revelation male of Christ in the scriptures, and never to swerve from the same, though we shall never fully come up to it. Our Lord says, Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.” ་་་ I would have in every sermon the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity, the person and undertakings of our Lord Jesus Christ - his incarnation, life, and death with the complete salvation wrought out and finished thereby. I never omit the substance of these. Yet I am sometimes more and sometimes less enlarged. I never preach so as to be pleased with my own preaching, nor do I ever desire so to do. I care nothing about what I am in poverty of spirit, if Christ may be exalted in me; nor by what means this poverty of spirit is promoted and increased, so this end be obtained thereby. I do not want in earth or heaven to be anything in my own view, aims, or ends, I want to renounce myself everlastingly, to look only and alone to Jesus, to trust in him alone, to live out of myself and off myself on him only, to triumph in him, to make my boast of him, to live in him, to die in him, to enter into heaven in him, and to be glorified in him for ever. I would not if it were possible be anything in myself, no, not in heaven. This is my very inside: you have herein my heart. It is so much my heart, that death nor glory will ever make any alteration here. Christ is my all, in the views of glory, as truly as he is my all in the views of salvation and life everlasting. I am getting on very slowly, yet very surely, for Christ is my way; I am in him, he is my end, I cannot do without him. I have some communion with him, and by it I am quickened, refreshed, revived and encouraged. It is from Christ I receive all good; it is from him alone; he is my life and light; he is in every sense my complete salvation. My fallen nature is sin; there is nothing but sin in it: I am in Christ, there is therefore no part of it imputed unto me. It is because I am in Christ there is therefore now, this moment, notwithstanding all I am in myself, no one condemnation in the high court of heaven against me. The Lord fix it in my heart for ever to glory in him alone, without the least confidence in the flesh. I have nothing in the flesh to glory in, the Lord be praised for the same. Nor shall I have any thing in heaven to glory in but the ever-blessed Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Lord my righteousness; in whom, not in myself, but in him, I shall be found everlastingly righteous, and without all spot of sin. Thus you see, my good friend, you may by my writings see the whole inside of me. As to my outside, I by no means conceal what I am-nothing in myself, except sin can be something, which I think is most certainly worse than nothing, for it is what makes me fit fuel for hell-flames, which is my desert; and it would have fallen upon me had not the Lord Jesus Christ been made sin and a curse for me: it is the life of Christ is my perfection, it is the blood of Christ is my purification, it is the death of Christ is my everlasting deliverance and discharge from all sin in his sight, and before the Lord. Glory be to the Lord for what he hath taught me, from his word, and by the Holy Ghost, concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, and May the I shall, if the Lord please, leave London on the last Monday in June, and I hope to be in Chard on the first Lord's-day in July. If you write to me there I shall safely receive it. I cannot say by what coach I shall come, but should I pass through IIchester, I shall call on you. My heart is glad the Lord is pleased to bless you to some individuals. My christian regards to your wife. Lord's blessing rest most evidently on you both. May you be both as most truly happy in the enjoyment of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as you can be out of heaven. wish nor pray for any thing beyond this on your behalf. I hope you will remember me at the throne of the heavenly grace. I conceive there are some expressions and mysteries in the everlasting gospel, better meditated on than explained. I would never wish to darken counsel with words without wisdom. These words of the apostle are vastly important; he says I can neither "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given unto us of God; which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth: comparing spiritual things," 1 Cor. ii. 12, 13. The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. I am your's, in Christ Jesus, SAMUEL EYLES PIERCE. London, May 20, 1818. ; DID JUDAS PARTAKE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER? Dear Sirs, SHALL I trouble you to insert the following remarks in your Magazine respecting Judas not partaking of the Lord's Holy Supper. I never believed that he did, but could |