softening hand of afflictions drew furrows in my soul (as I humbly hope) for right doctrine to germinate. I have often thought how happy it is for those who have not to work their own way with God alone, but are surrounded with the "cities set on a hill," the saints of the living God; but as for myself, I scarcely knew one (if one). I had to travel the paths of learning right doctrine by myself on my knees in prayer to God, with the Bible alone nearly of books spread abroad before my eyes. But there is one advantage if we get our religion not through conduits, but from the Fountain-head, that it is likelier to be fresh. And I acknowledge that very much of the religion afloat tastes to my poor spiritual senses rather vapid. See, for instance, what pride there is among religious people. Now, I declare that at every fresh inlet of divine light (as I humbly hope) into my poor mind, the Lord at the same time seemed to be ever giving thrusts also at that glazed thing called pride in me. And in one word, I am disposed to measure a man's religion a good deal by his humility; but I know that measure is rather obsolete, and that a new yard-wand is much in vogue. But I must speak of what stands at the head of the paper. I shall not speak here concerning a law-work and a gospel deliverance, both of them indispensable before we can handle firmly our eternal perfectness in Christ; I shall chiefly speak in this paper of a few swellings of the amazing sea we are launched on by right religion; a few intricacies of the wood we are tangled in through the Spirit's work in the heart; a few of the gunshots from nature and Satan against the new man. Hid in the heart, the new man is of great price; for the roarings of Adam the first, whose fallen image we are by nature, are perpetual, through the offending tongue and in the carnal mind, to grieve this glorious personage. The image of the invisible God, yea, his express image, is Christ in the regenerate heart. The barkings, therefore, of the carnal mind, and the tongue "set on fire of hell," are wonderful against the perfect. And who of mortals are the perfect but those interested in Christ without works, who are on the rock of imputation, in an imputed blood and an imputed righteousness, both a free gift without money and without price? But it is a widely different thing to talk of and admire this rock through theory, and to have our feet actually upon it. Thus, over and above a law-work and a gospel deliverance, there is, thirdly, a gradual development more and more in saints indeed, as relateth to their perfectness in Christ. Now, I ask you that have been sick and healed, lost and found, do not you find a needs be all through your religion of soldiership? Have you found your perfection in Christ by faith alone, without works, and, therefore, have you sold your sword and musket as no longer necessary? Have you, therefore, as one said, got on the pension-list, and on half-pay, being no longer in service? Now, I declare, ever since I was made perfect in Christ by faith without works, the war has raged the hotter. A pretty perfection! say some of the contemplatists. But a contemplative religion will not do to die by; and if it does to die by, I am certain it will not do to be judged by; for "behold the day cometh, when God shall be as a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap." (Mal. iii. 2.) And I am sure that the earthly paste of an unfighting religion shall be scrubbed off by the Captain of salvation, and by the God of armies. If, then, firstly, we must be lost by the law, and, secondly, found by the gospel, before we feel perfection in Christ, then, thirdly, I say we shall have to fight, in order that the extent of the perfection may be more' and more unriddled to us. Thus, James says, "If any (quickened) man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man." And Paul says that the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through sufferings. And are not the soldiers to suffer too? Yes, say some, we suffer while under the law, but when we get delivered under the gospel, we are then discharged from warfare as old half-pay officers, as one said. It is to be feared that there are many theorists on this half-pay; for I (and the wisest people I know) could never find it out yet. How snug it is to be in winter quarters! no gun-shot sounds! no sounding of the great drum for battle! How pretty do some seem of our dry doctrinalists, speaking about sin, the old man, and the inward warfare! O, they are perfect in their head! their sin, they sneeringly say, is not their salvation. They like to hear Christ preached, but they do not like to hear the din whizzing about so concerning sin, self, and Satan. They seem to me to look as pretty as an image carved in marble, and as cold too. But the brisk vehemence of felt religion would moulder like fire these images of nonwarfare christianity to dust, I conceive. Paul declares he had not apprebended; "But this one thing I do," says he, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize." And "let us, therefore,” he adds, “as many as be perfect, be thus minded." Ah! Paul, I think you would (if you were living in our day) have Antinomian slinkers-back and fiery zealots in the head to contend with. But James makes a notable blow to stun some of us when he says, first, that be that bridleth not his tongue has vanity so far stamped on his religion; and, secondly, where he says, (as I have quoted,) "If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man." "O," say some, 66 we are not concerned so much as that comes to. We don't believe in the giving an account of every idle word in the day of the Spirit's judgment in the quickened conscience." It is certain James aims there a very lusty cut at some of our arm-hole pillows. For in answer, I say, if we are not careful about words, we shall next be not careful about thoughts or actions; if gnats go down, we shall have camels swallowed next. O the torturing anguish that thus besets living souls under a feeling sense that every thought, word, and work are cognizable to the divine judgment in the soul! And he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done, and there is no respect of persons." (Col. iii. 25.) "O," say head-Calvinists, "we don't preach repentance; we have agreed to throw that over the wall; we preach Christ without works." Yes; but where Christ is preached by the powerful preaching of the Spirit in the heart, see how God works! "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ ;" (2 Cor. x. 5;) that is the religion; "and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience;" (2 Cor. x. 5;) it is confessed (by me at least), "who is sufficient for these things?" It is thus that we cannot sin cheap. It is thus that guilt treads fast at the heels of wrong. It is thus that a "fellowship in the sufferings of Christ" commences. It is thus we taste his cup and are baptized with his fiery baptism. It is thus that the evil of sin is felt, not talked of. It is thus that realities overtop notions. For see also how heart-sins clog the issues of life! It is thus that "suffering" commences. Every soldier of the Captain of Salvation is thus made perfect through suffering, not for self-righteousness. But to "Learn, in some degree, this is powerful teaching. This is to have the Lord's sword filled with blood. (Isa. xxxiv. 6.) This puts us out of conceit with the bell-like tinklings of a theoretical Christ. These things bring on a martyrdom within, though it seem less glorious" than a tongue-Christ to outward praters. O my dear friends, what tongue can adequately declare the vast scope of being made perfect manifestively and experimentally through sufferings! It is the bitter gate through which we enter manifestively the gates of grace and glory. And, for my part, I say of an easily apprehended Christ, that they may have it that like; for it came cheap. One farthing (and not even that) is the value of the Christ that is not fought, wrestled, and cried for. But they who have, through hope and faith, laid hold of perfection, run for it, as Bunyan says. The sunrise of felt faith and the dawn of perfection thus make the justified partakers thereof run; "In a race all run." (1 Cor. ix. 24.) When they cannot run, they groan; and when they cannot groan, they sigh; and when they cannot sigh, they fear; and when they cannot fear, black despair at times looks them in the face, and they each say, "Where have I got? I have no feeling at all." See the advance thus of perfection! O, say some, we go back instead of advancing. Yes; you take root downward, as well as grow upwards. Perfect men in Christ's perfection are sighing men. They cannot do what they would; "And the Lord said, Set a mark on the men that sigh." (Ezek. ix. 4.) Taking root downward, crying out about abominations felt, are a great index of our perfection in Christ; for we thereby, through the Spirit, are made more perfectly certified of our lost estate; and who are the found but the lost? Thus, perfection works in a backhanded as well as with an advancingly grappling valour. And are these the exploits of felt completeness through hope and faith in this present time-state? Does Christ's felt satisfaction in the soul thus work, through the Spirit of life, in these multifarious, circuitous, deep, and infinitely exalted ways, bringing glory to God, and humiliation to the sinner? Does perfectness thus exalt Christ alone, lay the whole stress of salvation, every tittle of it, on the Lord Jesus, and yet provide against licentiousness by groaning out against greater or lesser abominations? O marvellous deeps! Surely that thin skinny thing duty-faith, like an earthly lanthorn, can never penetrate into these hidden receptacles of stupendous excellency and perfectness. Surely faith framed by the letter and nature; surely a natural christianity must be drowned amid the vast bogs of error, and in the amazing night wherein nothing can shine but God's own candle in the soul. Surely the man-lit taper of man-lit faith, "born of the flesh," shall be put out in obscure darkness! O my soul, come not thou into their secret! And never may I be tickled with men that have " angel's tongues" (1 Cor. xiii. 1) in Christianity, but have not the "oil," the glow, the beaming life, the dazzling perfection, like a glorious lamp hung out, to guide their feet positively and actually into the path of experienced peace. "When One word concerning perfection finally and ultimately. shall I come and appear before God?" O ecstatic time! O transcendent moment! when the body is dropped, and all its stock of carnal endowments. "I am carnal, sold under sin," is the unhappy declaration of body-confined souls tasting perfectness in Christ, and, as the apostle says, going on like a vessel against wind and tide unto perfection; Therefore, leaving the principles" (or the beginnings and incompletedness) "of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection." (Heb. vi. 1.) O how few there are craning out their heads anxiously for the crown of life promised to overcomers! A Sardian and Laodi 66 The lot is cean state appears to be the present lot of the church; cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." It is true that we cannot have more real religion than what the Lord gives us; and it is as true that some good people shall be so saved as by fire, such a stack of stubble, hay, and straw of carnality is there permitted to be in them. Now these suffer loss. (1 Cor. iii. 15.) It is the will of God for it to be so, it is true. But I have been burnt so already, as it were, to a cinder, under the fire of God, that I quake again at times at stacking up stubble and hay of carnality. Straw and making Pharoah's bricks sicken burnt and illuminated souls, "who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” (Heb. v. 14.) "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?" sickens a wise soul concerning all his imperfections, as well as concerning his more glaring improprieties. Our felt imperfection makes us look with a steady and scrutinizing eye at last, as one said, to the time of our dissolution, when we shall shake off all these cleaving snakes, our daily shortcomings, which so barefacedly, in open day, testify that we are not perfect already. "When, when," says the divine Hart, "will that blest day arrive," when we shall be delivered from the burden of corruption? A longing, panting, gasping desire after these things sufficiently warrants the conclusion that there is life in the soul. "Hold fast that which thou hast," says Christ. The tremendous passage from time to eternity shall by and by ravish the delighted longings of "the pure in heart." And when we are not only escaped out of the nets of mortality, but are encased in our Christ-like, spiritual bodies, at the triumphant resurrection of the just, our brilliant joy will be complete. "Who shall live when God doeth this?" say the Balaam-like head Calvinists and letter men. (Num. xxiv. 23.). I shall, I believe. And I am also well persuaded that every notionalist shall be confounded. "Alas! master, it was borrowed," shall, at the triumph of the Israelite indeed, be branded on the head of presumption. "Ape" shall be written on the simpering countenance of letter-faith. And "Tekel" shall be burnt in letters of fire on all weights and measures of christianity but those in the heart. And all doctrine shall be pronounced withered and dry but what is distilled thus from God's dewy "firmament of power" in the soul. Abingdon. OBITUARY. I. K. Dear Sirs,-As an encouragement to the poor, tempted, and tried child of God, who feels and knows the plague of his own heart, I send for insertion in your Feeble Christian's Support, another instance of the love, faithfulness, and mercy of our covenant God, in the electing, quickening, calling, comforting, justifying, sanctifying, teaching, holding, upholding, withholding, preserving and keeping "faithful unto death," one more of his own dear children, by name Mrs. J. H-, of Kingham, in the county of Oxford, who was called to her eternal rest on Saturday, the 15th of February, 1840, after a short but very severe illness of a few days, under which she was enabled to stay herself upon that God who had led her and fed her as a creature for 53 years, and as a new creature, born from above, for 33 years; and, though partly in darkness as to soul-ravishing manifestations, she was so far favoured by her heavenly Father with divine light, as to discover his dear hand in the visitation, which led her in a solemn moment to exclaim; "It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good,” praying for that sup port in death which she had experienced in life from the kindness of her loved and loving Lord. As she advanced nearer her end, divine light began more sensibly and comfortably to break in upon her mind, and she was led to exclaim; "Nothing less than Jesus, precious in life, will do in the article of death, when flesh and heart fail.” Finding her end drawing near, she wished her beloved husband to present her dying love to the ministers of the Lord's blessed truth whom she was in the habit of hearing, unto whom, as God's servants, she cleaved, "through evil report and good report," and with whom she was ever ready to sympathise and encourage in the midst of this truth-despising and God-dishonouring day of profession, and under the many castings down they must necessarily experience-bequeathing unto them, not only her dying love, but her papers, in which she had been enabled from time to time to testify of the dear Lord's dealings with her and towards her enemies; after which, she quietly and peaceably breathed her last mortal breath, being enabled to resign her spirit into the hands of that Lord whom she had loved, feared, and served in life, as willing and able to support her in death, and to take her to himself, and so be for ever with Him. I send you her own account of her call and spiritual change, written by herself many years since. "Being brought up in a profession of religion, I gained some knowledge of the doctrines of the Scriptures; and not being suffered to run into much outward sin, I was looked upon as a very religious person, and indeed I sometimes looked upon myself as such, though I was under great convictions at times, even when a child, that all was not right, and that if I died in the state I was then in, I should certainly go to hell. These convictions increased so that at times I was afraid to be alone, for fear the earth should open and swallow me up. I often wished I had died when an infant, for then, I thought, I should not have been accountable to God. One day, as I was at chapel, the minister quoted a passage from Jeremiah (vi. 30); "Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them." I thought that the words were immediately addressed to me, and most dreadfully did they wound my soul. I believed that I was reprobated from all eternity, and that it was impossible for me ever to be saved. The doctrine of election appeared dreadful to me, and I found enmity rise up in my wicked heart against God, and I pitied my hard fate. Thus I continued for some time, until I lost my burden, or at least grew insensible of it, and was set down short of the promised rest under the ministry of the letter. But, blessed be God, it did not last long. Satan sometimes tempted me to put an end to my existence when under these terrors. O, blessed be God, he was then with me as a preserver, and would not let me die until I had seen the Lord's Christ. In this state I believe I continued for two or three years. In the meanwhile, I believe the works of Mr. Hervey were in some measure blessed to my soul; but the great depths of wickedness which lay hid in my deceitful heart were not as yet broken up. However, through the persuasions of a friend, I now gave in my experience, such as it was, and became a candidate for baptism; but its being for a time deferred, my troubles began to come on me again, for I thought I was going to deceive the people with a profession of religion, while I was destitute of the power of godliness. I felt it difficult to stand my ground, and indeed it was a miserable day with me. About this time the Lord was pleased to send some of Mr. Huntington's books amongst us, which caused a dreadful outcry about his dangerous doctrine and bad spirit, so that I was rather prejudiced against them. One evening at our |