little, when he would cry out, "Do not leave me; do bring me to thine everlasting kingdom." And then he would begin again to bless and praise the Lord, and encourage his friends to pray for one another, to meet together as a little band, and to do one another all the good they could, and cease from trifling conversation, which always galls a tender mind, and burdens a tender conscience. Nor can I forbear to mention what a sweet spirit he breathed after his deliverance, manifesting love, meekness, gentleness, in a word, the spirit and mind of Jesus. There was truly a reality in his case, both as respected his bondage and his deliverance. When in the former, misery was visible in all his expressions and in his countenance; but in the latter, joy and peace in believing; and with this he went to glory. Truly the memory of the just is blessed. I cannot think of it without feeling my heart leap within me, and desiring to die the death of the righteous. Manton, near Oakham, Rutland. -- INQUIRY. H. H. Messrs. Editors,-I just thought that I would take the liberty of again begging the favour of you, and also of your able correspondents, to show me your views on "The soul that sinneth presumptuously shall die," as in Numbers xv. 30; Deut. xvii. 12, 13; Ps. xix. 13; and 2 Peter ii. 10. In this last case, is it possible that God's children can be intended? for I do sometimes feel, through love, blood, and grace divine, delivered from the curse of the broken law, and also from any union in my soul to legalizers of gospel doctrine and gospel ordinances. And, although the writer is oppressed, distressed, and afflicted in his own soul, under a feeling sense of ignorance, presumption, and impudence, there seems to be pride at the bottom of all my writing, preaching, and praying; yes, and shame to me, Biblereading too. In preaching, I want boldness to own the ordinances of God's house; in praying, an awful sensation of my empty lipservice distresses me; and in my Bible-readings, I am troubled with as lewd, vile, and presumptuous wanderings, as if all hell was let loose upon me and in me. Therefore, I wish some one to tell us plainly what all this presumption can mean; (for I do not know how to call it by any other name;) and to show whether those who have it are included in God's family; and how we are to distinguish those who have the election of God's grace from those who are dead in sin or mere empty professors. If you oblige me by inserting the above query, I hope that God will direct some one of my Lord's stewards to enter into the subject as becomes the oracles of God. Yours affectionately in Christ Jesus, REJECTED ONE. POETRY. "HOLD THOU ME UP, AND I SHALL BE SAFE." "THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD; I SHALL NOT WANT.” My Shepherd is the Lord, Supplies he daily grants; Psalm xxxiii. 1. From what he 's done I plainly see Such mercy rich and free "For, verily," he said, These words with power came And, melting down my frame, While in my heart then flow'd his grace. My fretfulness was gone, Bedworth, Warwickshire, Oct., 1812. A workhouse seem'd my doom, For in it very soon I did expect my lot; For I was left, my wife was dead, This was my very case And murmur'd at the same, K. But when the promise came with power, Behold! in sovereign grace I did go to the place, But quick return'd from there, One year is almost up His word he would not break, Nor has his promise fail'd me yet, His promise he 's not broke, Sometimes I've thought that sink I must J. C. THE GOSPEL STANDARD, OR, FEEBLE CHRISTIAN'S SUPPORT. "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled."-Matt. v. 6. "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."-2 Tim. i. 9. "The election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded."-Rom. xi. 7. "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.-And they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.-In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."-Acts viii. 37, 38; Matt. xxviii. 19. No. 88. APRIL, 1843. VOL. IX. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN JAMES AND SAMUEL. (Concluded from page 69.) J. I believe the Lord will teach his children that it is through much tribulation they must enter the kingdom of God. (Acts xiv. 22.) The Lord brings his children through the fire, and tries them as gold is tried, (Zec. xiii. 9,) and sits himself as a refiner and purifier of silver; (Mal. iii. 3;) and when for a season there is a needs be that they should be in heaviness through manifold temptations, for the trial of their faith, they will to a certainty feel the heat of the fire and the force of temptation. (1 Pet. i. 6, 7.) Yet, bless the name of the dear Lord, they have their rejoicing seasons too; but their sorrows and their joys are felt realities, and when the blessed Spirit brings some sweet branch of the glorious truth of the blessed gospel with divine power to the conscience, and thereby delivers us out of some deep trial, or prepares us for one, we have a measure of the glory and blessedness of the glorious gospel of the blessed God, and in the end we are enabled to see and feel that all spiritual blessings flow to us from the everlasting electing love of God, in and through the person, blood, and obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. S. That is true, I am sure; for after I was blessed with a free and full salvation, I had true peace in my conscience. But I well remember being brought into a most dismal frame of mind, the awful workings of which I never can describe. The devil, and unbelief, and reason, yea, and conscience too, all appeared to witness against me; and I really was horror-struck in my feelings, and feared that I must sink into some dreadful crime and condemnation. D While thus at my wit's end, I cried aloud for the Lord to appear; but the enemy suggested that the Lord would hear me no more, and that I had so repeatedly insulted him that he had given me up for ever. I felt my poor soul sinking in the horrible pit and the miry clay, with scarce a gleam of light, except to behold the horrors of my cell, in which I was groaning and crying for mercy, help, and deliverance, for a considerable time, till I really concluded that the Lord had given me up, and entirely shut out my prayer, and that he would not hear me any more; when, lo! that blessed text came to my soul, by the power of the blessed Spirit, with such light, life, power, and glory, that I never shall totally forget it: "And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (Luke xviii. 7, 8.) This reached my case, raised me up out of the horrible pit, put a new song into my mouth, and I began to bless and praise the Lord for his everlasting, electing love. This blessed portion of scripture then came with equal power, "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Rom. viii. 33-37.) Every sentence told a sweet tale of electing love to my soul, and the blessed doctrine opened with such glory and beauty to my mind, that electing, discriminating love, in union with the glorious person, work, obedience, sufferings, death, resurrection, exaltation, and intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ filled my soul with indescribable joy; and let men say what they will, it was a feelingly blessed sealing time to my soul. J. Then can any person dispute you out of eternal election? S. They may out talk me, but they cannot make me give up that blessed truth which holds me so fast, nor make me forget what I then felt in my conscience. I have been brought to believe eternal, absolute, unconditional election by feeling necessity; yea, and in feeling glory too. I have in some sweet and solemn measure been made to feel the blessedness of being chosen in Christ, and of being made complete in him, and this, I have experienced, is "to the praise of the glory of his grace;" (Eph. i. 4-6;) and my soul has at times felt these realities with such power and glory, that I have been almost swallowed up in wonder and amazement. 66 The J. This, my brother, is the way to get at the real blessedness of the truth, and whatever men may say against God's election, he will maintain it and reveal it in the hearts of his own people. election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded." Now, to me appears that the whole world is composed of the election and the rest; and the elect of God shall, sooner or later, be brought feelingly it to say, "who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." (2 Tim. i. 9.) S. I believe it, my brother; for it is given unto the people of God "to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but unto others it is not given." (Matt. xiii. 11.) I have often been shocked to hear men boldly assert that the doctrines of election and predestination are damnable doctrines, and lead to all manner of licentiousness. J. You may well be shocked, for if such men excel in anything, it is in having the infernal impudence of boldly giving God the lie; for thus saith the Lord: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and withont blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved." (Eph. i. 4-6) Here the people of God are said to be chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, not that they should be encouraged to live in sin, but that they should be holy and without blame before him in love; and also, that they are predestinated unto the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to himself, and are made accepted in the Beloved. And again: "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will;" (Eph. i. 11;) and this is "that we should be to the praise of God's glory." (i. 12.) Again; they "are predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ." (Rom. viii. 29.) The living children of God are God's workmanship, "created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that they should walk in them." (Eph. ii. 10.) Now when conformity to the image of Christ, and being holy without blame before him in love, and walking in good works can be proved to be licentiousness, these glorious truths may be proved to have a licentious tendency; but till that can be proved, those who make such bold assertions must stand before God as daring, presumptuous liars against his solemn Majesty; but when they have done their best and. worst to hold up these truths to contempt, they will have a place still in the word of God, and in the conscience of all who receive the truth in the love and power of it; and when the glorious doctrine of election has been sealed in the conscience by the power of God the Holy Ghost, it will appear, as it really is, a God-glorifying, sinner-humbling, and Christ-exalting holy doctrine; and those men who deny it must so far be infidels, for they deny the plain revealed will of God. S. I believe such men shine in nothing more conspicuously than in their own self-righteousness, vain glory, and pride. But since the Lord so blessedly opened the glory of election to my mind, I have been solemnly and pleasingly amazed to find the word of God so full of it, and I really do wonder how any man professing to believe the Bible to be the word of God dares to deny it; and yet I have |