(For the Spiritual Magazine.)

LETTER TO A BROTHER IN CHRIST.

My beloved Brother,

I received your's of January 16th. and sincerely thank you for remembering me in so much trouble. Pure, fervent, mutual love, is the grand characteristic of the disciples of Jesus, and the expressions of it refresh the bowels of the weary pilgrim; they are the foretastes of that eternal feast, which the society of glorified saints and the innumerable company of angels shall afford. My song must still be of mercy, of mercy enduring for ever, and compassions which fail not. The well-ordered covenant, consisting of the sure mercies of our spiritual David, extending from everlasting to everlasting, is still all my salvation, and all my desire. I am still learning by painful experience that salvation is of the Lord, not of ourselves; not of works, but freely by grace, through the plenteous redemption that is in Christ Jesus; not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God, our offended judge, who sheweth mercy: and that, not at the instance of works, but solely in conformity to his own purpose and grace, given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.

But 'ere we can know and unreservedly approve these humiliating truths, most bitter experience must convince us, that our hearts are above all things deceitful, and desperately and inconceivably wicked. Alas! for our feelings, this most abasing lesson, which we are daily compelled to review. For my own part, I can with truth aver, that no portion of the oracles of God does more adequately express my general feelings, than that pathetic exclamation of the apostle, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" It is, say the learned, an allusion to an ancient custom in pagan Rome, of punishing criminals, by attaching to their bodies the corpse of one who had been executed, till it was consumed by putrefaction! And truly it is a most lively similitude of the case of the believer, groaning beneath the oppressive load of his inbred corruptions; turn which way he will, spiritual senses are assailed with the loathsome appearance, and noisome stench of this putrid body of sin. Oh! how often has my hope sickened, and my faith staggered, beneath their powerful influFrom the recesses of this sinful flesh, what numberless and varied evils proceed: "Hence," says the Searcher of hearts, and we are constrained to be testimony to the humbling truth, "proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, an evil eye, pride, foolishness," and, we must add, every other evil for which the longest catalogue of iniquity can furnish a name.

ence.

his

This, properly speaking, is all the greatest saint can call his own, the whole of his present possession. For that divine nature, (2 Peter i. 4.) which renders him sensible of these evils, he is most deeply indebted to the sovereign grace of God; for these exceeding great and precious promises, which have made him a partaker of it; and to that washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, shed

on him abundantly through Christ alone. Under this intolerable burden the believer must groan; with these treacherous inmates, a world in alliance with them, and the inconceivable power, malice, and subtlety of Satan, working upon them by an endless variety of artifices, he must wage an unceasing war to the end of his mortal existence. Times without number must he be foiled, and again and again be seduced to iniquity; anon, puffed up to presumption, and then plunged to the verge of despair. Every day shall surely bring its temptations and its troubles, and present still stronger evidences of the total depravity, and total inability of the creature to help himself. But though he fall, and though his hope be daily brought to its last gasp, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord of Hosts, even the Lord mighty in battle, upholdeth him with his hand, hath engaged his eternal truth, his almighty, everlasting strength, and infinite wisdom, to bear and deliver him, and bring him to glory.

Oh! how such exercises endear the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. How precious that blood which can cleanse such aggravated guilt. How invaluable that righteousness, which can constitute so grievous a sinner perfectly just, before a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. How dear that electing love, which chose such a wretch, and which only intends the mortification of the sinner's pride, and to render and prove itself more conspicuous and glorious, more sure and immutable to the soul, by all these trials. The sinner is sure that if God will not save in a way thus cross to human reason,-will not have mercy because he will have mercy without a single motive from the creature for so doing, but only for the glory of his own grace,there is no hope for him.

By these trials he finds his faith to be real, the gift of God, and thus he is taught to stay on his promise in times of darkness; thus is sin exceedingly embittered to him, and the necessity of unceasing watchfulness and prayer effectually enforced. The chastisements of his gracious Father, and the hidings of his face, are far more powerful with him than the cant of creature conditions and co-operations. Except the Spirit of his God do incessantly keep him, and perpetually work in him to will and to do of his good pleasure, he can only live to multiply transgressions:-such at least are my feelings, and I have not borrowed this rough sketch from another, for it is a transcript of my own experience.

You talk of a heart full of fretfulness and unbelief: mine I assure you frequently runs over. But I commonly find after the sharpest temptations, and sorest conflicts with unbelief, the richest consolations and the fullest assurances of my acceptance in the Beloved. The testimony of the Spirit alone, coming how and when it listeth, sets the matter beyond a doubt; then I triumphantly sing with one of old"I will complain, yet praise, While I bewail, approve; And all my dark, bright days, I will lament and love."

But the author of our faith is the sovereign Lord of all its actings: as well can we stop the sun in its course, as command these refreshings at our pleasure. Luther says, "Prayer, meditation, and temptation, make a minister," Sure I am, they mightily confirm and strengthen a believer. The blessed Spirit enable us to meditate, and pray without ceasing; the word of God is the word of the Spirit, and prayer is a most effectual weapon in our conflicts with Satan, the world, and the flesh. The Lord enable us without ceasing to bow at his mercy seat, fully assured that our compassionate High Priest, Jehovah-Jesus, hath fully obtained our eternal redemption, and that all the attributes of the Most High are most deeply engaged to supply all our wants, and safely instate us in glory.

Where

Should this be the last time you hear from me, this is my most confident persuasion, that the single possession of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, is an unsearchable and infinite treasure of the highest good; and that every other good of which man may be possest, or admire without him, is but vexatious vanity and a disguised curse. his grace falls not, the heavy wrath of God against the dreadful fall of man must light to all eternity. What praises are due to that distinguishing love, which translated us out of the kingdom of satan into that of his dear Son. May he, even our Father, who hath loved us, and given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, establish our hearts in every good word and work, and enable us to walk in all godliness, righteousness, and soberness, in all things worthy of the vocation whereunto we are called.

February 17, 1825.

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you.

(For the Spiritual Magazine.)

T. H,

OBSERVATIONS ON A SERMON PREACHED BY A POPULAR EVANGELICAL' MINISTER.

Sir,

I Agree most heartily with your able correspondents, who have written on the manner in which theological disputation should be conducted; and, whenever called into the wide-extended field, I consider it incumbent on me to conform as closely as possible to their excellent advice. On the present occasion it is my design to act on the same principle, and yet I would yield to none in plainness of speech,' nor in the respect which is specially due to age and superior talent. The effect anticipated by the force of sound argument is too often foiled by means of these appendages-asperity of temper, and insulting epithets: my object now is to place the false doctrines of this popular minister before their numerous approvers, and the readers of the Spiritual Magazine, simply protesting against them, and directing attention to their pernicious and fatal tendency.

The discourse under consideration was delivered from Rom. viii. 14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Before I proceed further, it will be proper to remark, that there are no new points of doctrine observable in this minister's public labours; for the same that will now be brought forward, have been a leading theme with him before the same congregation, several years since; and yet the mode he adopts to establish his unscriptural theory, prevents many of the weak in faith from detecting the error.

In opening the subject it was stated as an undeniable principle, which the speaker attempted to establish by scripture quotations, that by the fall the whole family of Adam became the children of the devil! yesand in the most marked terms repeated, and endeavoured to prove the assertion—" The whole family of Adam became by sin the children of the devil!!" It were in vain to argue on gospel-principles against this daring hypothesis, with one who dragged into his service the language of the apostle, Eph. ii. 3. The believer who is grounded in truth will perceive that it aims a deadly blow at the vitals of true christianity; and that though it affects not him-save to grieve his very soul-it at one stroke tends to destroy the ground of his feeble brother's hope, and―more than all-to desecrate the mighty transactions of the eternal covenant.

Having included the whole family of Adam-the elect and the nonelect-in the progeny of satan, he proceeded to inform his hearers, that the change of relationship is effected by the operations of all the persons in the Trinity: hereby, with an apparent honour done to the glorious Jehovah, attributing to divine power and grace, that which not one passage in the bible sanctions, and which the meanest spiritual understanding is capable of refuting. His language was to this effect :— that by the spirit of adoption they who are led by the Spirit are translated into the family of God,-and are therefore called sons of God. But neither is this doctrine of recent date; for the genius of arminianism has long reigned pre-eminent in the British churches, and the majority of their ministers holding the anti-scriptural notion, with the plea of avoiding the Scylla of high doctrine and the Charybdis of licentiousness, do boldly and unceasingly stand forward in defence of the dogmas of which it is the basis.

One of the numerous sad consequences of such rejection of the counsel of God is an open denial of the present perfection of the church in Christ so that the believer is constantly urged to an expectancy of hereafter attaining to a meetness for eternal blessedness, when, (according to this minister) he shall become "modelled after the moral image of Christ !" Another effect of the ministration and reception of doctrines not according to godliness, was fully exemplified in the preacher's own terms, when dilating on the subject of death. It will be sufficient to observe, that his description of the summons, and the near approach of him who is

"No more the king of dread,

"Since our Immanuel rose,"

was only calculated to inspire fear in those who possess a good hope through grace, and to prove the incertitude of his own mind on a

subject so grateful to those who are established in the truth. It augurs ill of the spiritual knowledge of a professor of the gospel-much more so of one who bears the name of a faithful minister of Christ-who laden with years and the applause of the multitude, approaches the house appointed for all living without joyful anticipation of 'ere long exclaiming, O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory!

Ramsgate, August 19, 1825.

THE CHRISTIAN'S CONFIDENCE.

W.

THROUGH vast afflictions, and amazing woes! through terrible and prodigious storms! my soul is struggling to the heavenly shore! over fiery billows, and the backs of most furious temptations, am I walking to my Jesus! But in the midst of all my agonies and conflicts, there is secretly lodged in my soul, a firm and unbroken hope of glory, founded on the veracity of the eternal Jehovah, and revealed to my soul by the blessed Spirit of all truth, which is ready to break forth into triumphant shouts, at the first approach of my Redeemer! O then the joys that will overflow my soul ! what tides of glory will run to my heart in that hour! What a blessed exchange from conflicts and storms of sorrows, to happiness indescribable! to bliss eternal, unutterable!

FRAGMENT.

gar

THEY that put on the Lord Jesus are clothed with a four-fold ment:-first, with a garment of Christ's imputed righteousness; second, with a garment of sanctification;-third, with a garment of protection;-fourth, with a garment of glory.-The first garment may be called a winter's garment, because it covers us ;-the second, a summer's garment, because it adorns us ;--the third, a coat armour, because it keeps us safe;-the fourth, a wedding garment, because there is no admission to the supper of the Lamb without it. The first three may be called our work-day suits, because we must put them on all the days of our lives; but the fourth our holiday-suit, because we must not put it on till the week of our pilgrimage in Baca be ended, and the sabbath of our eternal rest in the new Jerusalem begun.

GOSPEL TRACT SOCIETY.

We are happy to hear that another Auxiliary Tract Society was formed at Norwich, the latter end of August, under very favourable and auspicious circumstances. The Rev. Mr. Burton was called to the chair, and the proceedings of the meeting was conducted with great order. We hope to have the pleasure of announcing the formation of auxiliaries 'ere long in many other parts of the British dominions.