sickness and torments of body, or let loose horrors upon his soul; there is cause and advantage enough to be taken, if he will make a man an example-a witness of his power and severity; for the gospel hath that in it too; it is to be preached for a witness to all, as for salvation to some.

Now, God expects from his own, his "chosen generation," somewhat of love: "If I be a Father, where is my honour?" He expects fruit from you; he looks for sweet grapes from his vine; he expects better entertainment from them than from the world. And though it happens that they are the chief of sinners, and found the most ill requiting of all people; ay, but it is their shame and sorrow, and sin; he looks for other fruit, and for more, where he trusts with heavenly treasure. I said, They are my people, children that will not lie."

7. Things that are chosen are more looked after, and more carefully minded than other things; they are not scattered about, but frugally reserved. So doth the Lord deal with his chosen; he takes them into his bosom, hides them under the shadow of his wings. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." If their death be precious, if there be love in that work of bringing to death, then how much more love will be seen in bringing them again to life? He says of his vineyard, that he watches it night and day. There is no time he watches it not. In the light and in the darkness, in sorrows and in enlargements, he watches. Whether we sleep or wake, yet the Keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. If they are sent into captivity, it is for their good. If Daniel be cast into the den of lions, his God is there to shut the lions' mouths. If Joseph be sold into Egypt, God goes with him; if he be cast into prison, he is with him there, and finds favours for him. Wherever these go, a special eye is upon them. When they wander from one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people, yet there he suffered no man to do them wrong; yea, he reproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm." (1 Chron. xvi. 22.) His charge is given out to secure them; a guard is set about them, that nothing may harm them : He shall give his angels charge over thee, and they shall preserve thee in all thy ways.' This is his care of his chosen, and this is their safety and happiness.

66

66

66

Before I come to make use of this, I would speak something of the next words: "A royal priesthood." This "chosen generation" is intended for that to be a royal priesthood, to offer up prayers and praises to God. Hitherto," saith Christ, you have asked nothing in my name," because they were not brought to believe the words of Christ. They knew not they were a chosen generation;" till at the last, when he was about to leave them, he says to God, "And these have believed that thou hast sent me." There is no coming to your priesthood till you are first brought to know and believe you are a chosen generation."

(To be concluded in our next.)

66

A FEELING SENSE OF THIS WORLD'S AND OF MAN'S WRETCHEDNESS; AND OF THE GOSPEL AS THE ONLY BALM TO HEAL IT, AND TO PRODUCE THE ONLY, AND LASTING, AND GENUINE BLISS.

"Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.". (Eccles. xii. 13.)

Grace leads us to love the final appearing of the Lord, because it opens our eyes to see this world's universal wretchedness, and makes our hearts tender to mourn over it. Men speak of this world as a happy world; they praise it as if it were all but a Paradise. And once we too might be disposed to join in their praises, and echo back their joyous sentiments; once it seemed to us a peaceful, pleasant scene-a world of smiles and sunshine, with here and there only the passing shadow of a cloud to intercept the tranquil radiance, or tinge with momentary sadness the hour of mirth. Even disappointment could not dissipate the gay delusion, nor disenchant the bewildering spell. Cares and vexations thickened around us; coldness, desolation, and disease frowned upon us; broken friendships, severed relationships, blighted prospects, darkened our path and overshadowed our skies; but even all this could scarcely make us believe what a wild, waste wilderness we lived in--what a world of wretchedness and crime!

But grace opened our eyes. We saw first that we ourselves were sinners; and then, looking round us, with what a world of sinners we were surrounded. We felt that we were in wretchedness, and we began to see what a wilderness of misery encompassed us on every side. The dazzling veil was lifted up, and beneath it we saw scenes that made our hearts bleed at every vein, and heard sounds of lamentations, mourning, and woe arising from myriads of dying sinners, who were living without peace, and perishing without hope, and passing into eternity without a pardon and without a Saviour. It was as if there stood before us some goodly fabric, built with costly magnificence, and decorated with most inviting architecture. We went round and round it, admiring it on every side. It seemed so fair and goodly, so peaceful a sunshine rested. on it, we thought we should like to dwell within sight of it for And though now and then a shriek was heard within, or a funeral passed out, yet we heeded not these interruptions. But at last we were taken in, and the whole dismal interior lay before us and around us-a vast hospital of the dying and the dead—a mighty"lazar-house of many woes." Then, when we saw how the whole creation groaned and travailed, we felt how infinitely valuable was an interest in its deliverance from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. How blessed was the hope! He died "to deliver us from the flesh, and from this: present evil world." (Gal. i. 4.)

ever.

Finding an echo in my own breast to what is above, I only add that they who are quickened by the new birth into Christ find in their own breast a lazar-house internally-an echo inwardly to what is justly described above outwardly of this world! Happy are they who are brought to know their own hearts! Happy are they who are brought to be mourners and poor in spirit through a sense of their inward misery before God! Happy are they who are brought to have a bleeding Christ to stanch the festering sores of a bleeding heart-bleeding from present imperfections, and from in-dwelling sin and from guilt, from a sense of outward sins in past times, now set in memory in the light of God's countenance! Happier still is he who has the tranquil sense of sin's utter cure and forgiveness sealed up of God in his conscience, and who, through God's grace and Spirit, has also a tender conscience inwardly, and can also, like Paul, say truly, "Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe," walking worthy, in the eyes both of sinners and saints, of the vocation wherewith we are called; being rich, gospelly, in good works, as fruits and effects, to the praise and honour of God, for as Hart says,

"A barren tree brings no great glory to its root,"

though men deceive themselves with vain words that cannot help nor deliver in the day of calamity, for it is the gospel doers of the word, and not the hearers only, who "are blessed in their deeds." Wherever the imputed righteousness of Christ is felt inwardly and experimentally, thus as made over, reckoned, and put to our own account personally, we are enabled not only thereby feelingly and joyfully to submit to and receive in our souls the active and passive. righteousness of Christ imputed to us as our Wedding Garment -complete; but, through the same Spirit, who thus gloriously reveals Christ to us as ours, are enabled to keep and love all Christ's commandments through love and gratitude. Here is the arduous and only happy, victorious, triumphant road between self-righteousness and licentiousness; between pharisaism and making a cloak of grace for sin; between depending on works before God, and, on the other hand, carelessly taking an occasion from grace to sin; a road too fine for any either to see or follow, except the elect of God, as the day of judgment will tremendously substantiate. "Ye are my disciples, if ye thus do, and not merely talk of it, whatsoever I command you,' says Christ to the elect. "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

"He is a freeman whom the truth makes free,

And all are slaves beside."

People have but little or no idea either of the terrors or of the sweetness of God. It is experimentally knowing these which makes us bend our necks to be not only "persuaded by his terrors,"

but to..receive, also Christ's easy burden and pleasant yoke. Pleasant! for when the world to us and we to it are crucified; when the flesh with its affections and lusts are crucified, when our earthly members are mortified, when the deeds of our body are mortified, through the sweet Spirit of grace, lo! we then become partakers of a better resurrection, and begin to breathe a heavenly air. This I can well witness to! Compared with this, I: sensibly feel that money is sordid clay. The riches of this world, with its cares, pleasures, and lusts of other things, are the four things that choke thorny-ground hearers. While, on the contrary, I can truly say, that the sweetness of Christ eclipses, and makes like mere child's toys to me, whatever the world calls good and great.. Partaker, sensibly, of the heavenly calling, builded with my religion, in strict accordance with every tittle of the Scriptures, I can' laugh at the enmity of both devils and men! While, on the one hand, I sincerely desire and strive to live a holy life, on the other hand I am a sensible partaker of the finished work of Christ, made over by imputation to me. Thus a partaker of grace and its effects, I can by this twofold cord" swing the world and the flesh to a sensible crucifixion.

I used to think religion to have a tincture of melancholy in it; and so thinks every one, in the same degree as he or she is ignorant, of the sweetness of God.

If we love the final appearing of the Lord, when the heavens, and the earth, and all that is thereon, will be burnt up, how great. must be the sweetness of Christ thus to make us willing to forego and give up the pleasures of the world and the flesh, after which the non-elect are mad idolaters!

The tender tranquillity, the sweet quietude, the peaceful calm, the happy, serene joy, the intense delight, the overcoming charms, the joyous frames, the comfortable satisfactions, the blessed condescension of God and. Christ and the Holy Spirit to me, the fiery love and gratitude awakened in me to them, the happy solace, the secure abodes, happy resting-places, and quiet dwelling-places in spiritual experiences, with unutterable views for the future, flaming gratitude for the past, and genuine satisfactions and satiations for the present, these and thousands of other experiences, while they endear Christ to me, show me the sickliness of religion in the present day, and make me have a due sense of the vanities of the world, and an increasing willlingness, when my time comes, to bedelivered from its vanities and lying baubles.

66

Genuine religion tends to free us from the world and the flesh; and I am persuaded from my own experience, that the world and the flesh will overmaster us, if God does not overmaster them in us by his terrors and his sweetness. Knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men.' Persuaded by his terrors, and melted by his joys! As I have the solid experience of the things I have written in my own soul, so I have scribbled this letter.

I. K.

BY IT HE, BEING DEAD, YET SPEAKETH.

No. IV.

My very dear and kind Friend,-Whom (if my heart deceive me not) I love in the truth. As I intend, if spared till Wednesday, to fulfil my promise, you will no doubt expect a line from me, which I now with much weakness attempt.

Since I last wrote to my friend I have had a return of my complaint, which continued for five days; but through the Lord's mercy and blessing on the means used, the haemorrhage again subsided, and has to the present moment. I did not feel the sensible enjoyments of the Saviour's presence as before; but was supported, and my mind kept from sinking. But, O! my dear friend, the case is now altered, the scene is changed. I am now a poor, sorrowful man. The dew is dried up from off my branch; the fleece once wet with the sensible refreshing dew of heaven is now dry: "My moisture is turned into the drought of summer." At times I am well nigh casting away my confidence through the power of unbelief and the roaring of Satan. My affliction of body is slight compared to that of mind.

I can hardly refrain mentioning a circumstance which impressed my mind much at the time. On Friday I had been contemplating two portions of Scripture, which appeared applicable to my state and feelings, viz.: "My knees are weak through fasting;" and, But the days will come when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them; then shall they fast in those days." I took up the Bible, turned it over; when my eyes settled upon the first portion. An interval elapsed; I again took it up and opened at once upon the other; and not knowing the place, neither chapter nor psalm, it struck me; surely this is a special circumstance; the hand of the Lord is in it. You may perhaps think it simple, but I had never experienced the ( like before. Ah! dear friend, it is a fast; my harp is hung upon the willow. Oh! when shall I take it down, and sing once more a song of deliverance to the Lord. Oh! that it were now with me as in days so lately passed away; but now I am learning the value of them by their absence. Oh! then, do not say, you are behind me, a long way off, &c. No, no; you have strong faith, and can trust him when you cannot see him. Mine, indeed, is very weak; and I faint as soon as he lays his afflicting hand upon me, and fear all is wrong. But at times the sweetness and loveliness of Jesus for a few moments are enjoyed in a way that I cannot express.

It is fifteen weeks this day since my health first began to decline. The dear Lord only knows whether it may continue till death close the scene or not. I feel, if spared, in every way unfit for my occupation, which sometimes presses upon my spirits; yet I cannot mourn on that account, nor has the state of my health the weight on my mind which I feel from the sensible withdrawings of Jesus's love, and when the cloud rests upon my tabernacle. Oh !