and mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." (Isa. vi. 5.) And another also; "My comeliness is turned into corruption, and I retain no strength; neither is there breath left in me." (Dan. x. 8, 17.) And again; so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake." (Heb. xii. 21.) And again; “ When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead." When a man's eyes are open, the holiness of God will turn all his comeliness into corruption. Now let me ask you if you do not feel the necessity of going over some of this trembling ground for the poor, quaking, broken down man, before you dare cry peace, and talk so much and so sweetly about electing love and redeeming blood, and placing it to the account of those who do not know how to value it, and who never were in debt. Again; let me ask you if it does not appear preposterous, and quite incongruous, to attempt to apply glad tidings to any but those who are ready to perish. But alas! alas! behold the shoals of doctrinal preachers and men-pleasers of the day,-men who mistake the word of the kingdom for the power, and the flesh for the Spirit, and talk of Christ by the hour to those who never felt their need of such a Daysman, nor Meeting-place, and who cry, Peace, peace, where there should be no peace! and what a perversion of sound wisdom, to force the peaceable doctrines of the gospel where there has never been the least trouble nor travail of soul, and calling out, "Salvation, salvation, without money and without price," to those who have never yet had a bill brought in but what they were able to pay, and to be trying to effect a mighty cure where there is no complaint, and to be so anxious to apply a remedy where there is no painful disease. I wish to ask you, also, whether you can make an unneeded Christ a precious Christ, for I cannot to my soul, neither can I believe it in the souls of others. When any person is making a noise, like the noise of strangers, (Isa. xxv. 5,) I could plainly say, What is thy hope, or what has the Lord done for thee? David praised the Lord with a loud voice, but then it was for something done or something hoped in; "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!" But what for? "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases. Here was a good cause to bless him. "Who redeemeth thy life from destruction, and crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercy." To feel the fire, and to believe that Christ has snatched me as a brand from the burning, will make him precious. To believe that it is the Son who makes me free from the wrath to come, and free to all the blessings of my Father's house, (John viii. 36,) will make him precious. To believe that it is his blood only that brings me nigh to God, and that after I have discovered myself to be a long way off, even as far as hell is from heaven, this will make him precious. To see that it is he alone, Immanuel, that stamps my dignity, will make him precious. But without something of this, I would rather with the prophet, say Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? There is no beauty in him that we should desire him." None to be seen naturally; and, to tell the truth, the poverty of my faith in the Son of God forms one of

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my chief trials; and for a living soul to be sifted about upon this ground, this tender, blessed standing-place, it will make him groan, and send him to the house of God sometimes with only a strong desire, which David says, and I have often been glad of that, is not hid. But it is not merely calling out, Lord, Lord, that will satisfy life, any more than calling out, Bread, bread, will satisfy me at dinner time without eating.

Now if a man's hips are touched with a live coal from off the altar, and his iniquity purged, (Isa. vi. 9, 10,) and he is called to go and take his stand among some of the high doctrinal assemblies of the nineteenth century, carrying this live coal, and not a lie, in his right hand, and the treasury of a fiery baptism in his earthen vessel, with his face harder than a flint, to speak all the words that are in his heart, (Ezek. iii. 9, 10,) accepting the person of no man, neither giving flattering titles unto men, (Job xxxii. 21, 22;) feeling for the circumcising work, without hands, of God the Holy Ghost in the heart, and Jesus Christ, and him crucified, in the soul, together with the faith which stands in the power of God, and not in the wisdom` of men, (1 Cor. ii. 5,) he will soon find there has been some daubing with untempered mortar, (Ezek. xiii. 10,) and the hay, wood, and stubble must either burn or fly; that is, if he begins at the bottom instead of the top of the tree, and lays the axe at the root, and is determined to find out the wound that caused the man sickness and death; and this before he comes to say anything about the top boughs of God's everlasting love, or the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations, "for except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish;" and if he goes into some of the intricate paths of his own repentance, and winds about into the unseen ways of his own experience; he will soon lose some of his hearers, for they cannot follow him, and he will find that this prophecy stands good yet, Hear ye, indeed, but understand not; see ye, indeed, but perceive not. the heart of this people fat, and their ears dull of hearing." The hearts of strangers are made fat with the prophets prophesying straight and smooth things, who cover with a covering, but not of God's Spirit, by not drawing the line of demarcation, but taking all into covenant who will come and hear them preach. And they fatten upon the green pastures of the promises of God, while the heart of the children is made sad, who are writing hard and bitter things against themselves, fearing that it would be presumption in them to conclude that they are the people of the Lord.

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Make

To preach about free grace is easy enough; to preach about a full salvation in Christ for the Lord's own people is easy enough (the Bible is full of it); to talk by the hour about the Lord's vineyard being enclosed and kept night and day is pleasant enough, to those who like to preach or pray, standing in the temple receiving their reward at the time, even the approval of men; but to describe the pathway and strait gate into Christ (into Christ, I say, for he is the way), and the translation from the power of Satan into the kingdom of God's dear Son, and to carry the importance of being a mouth for God stamped upon his soul; this, this is something more than just

telling the people that Christ loved the church, and that every member of his shall be in heaven, which is a truth, but the chain of evidence in my soul makes that truth good to me.

My brethren, I was once asked this death-like question, and that by respectable Calvinists, of long standing, who passed for Christians, indeed: "Sir, do you not think that if a person can hear the doctrines of free grace and God's election, it is a proof they are of the number of his elect?" Now, such a question would naturally lead to the inquiry, what sort of a ministry had such people been in the habit of sitting under? I will answer, some of the soundest doctrinal men in England. Then may I not say, how long shall the blind lead the blind with the golden chain of God's electing love, borrowed or plundered from the poor weeping, labouring, heavyladen, broken-spirited church of Christ ?

But perhaps it may be said, "Give some further account of thy stewardship, and the effect of a live coal from off the altar in thy own soul." Well, brethren, I cannot, I dare not be so inconsistent as to cast the pearly and golden doctrines of predestination, justification, and glorification before swine; for they appear then in my view like a jewel of gold in a swine's snout. (Prov. xi. 22.) But we read that calling comes in after predestination, (Rom. viii. 30,) and it is the first link that lays hold of the poor sinner, and the second link is justification, and the last link is glorification; two hold the man on earth, and two hold fast in heaven; for predestination and glorification are in heaven, while calling and justification are let down into the soul. Now it is this high calling, this heavenly calling, that appears to me to be left out, and then the chain is broken, and with me it is the chief link in the chain, and without it I have nothing to do manifestly with the others; and it is this holy calling that makes all the disturbance in a man's soul, and distinguishes him from the many who are called outwardly, but who are not chosen; for many are called, but few chosen. Now, this work appears to me to be let down from heaven like the sheet Peter saw, and all drawn up again into heaven. It seems like a double chain, calling and justification meeting in the sinner. Justification takes him into heaven, and glorification crowns him; and at each fastening the same man, the identical person, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, &c. It appears to me to be the work of a minister to trace out the called of God before he says anything about justification. And he will find that not many wise men, not many noble, not many mighty are called, but that God hath chosen the foolish things of the world and weak things of the world; and things that are despised hath God chosen; and to pick up these he will have to wander about in his own experience; sometimes in a sheep skin, sometimes in a goat skin, sometimes on a mountain, and sometimes in a den or cave of the earth. He will be tempted, and tormented in his mind with temptation; for if temptation is no trouble, it is because the streams all run one way. He must go out into the lanes, highways, and hedges in the travail of his soul. I do not mean taking a comfortable walk when the sun shines; but in a long wintery night, when the

storms rage and the winds howl, and the beasts of the forest do move, and the best friend is from home, and that to meet the called of Jesus Christ, that his house may be filled; that the man who has fallen among thieves may get a little kindness rendered him; and that he may be feet to the lame and eyes to the blind, that they may ride upon his experience into the green pastures of redeemed love, given them in Christ Jesus before the world began. (2 Tim. 1. ix.) “I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment." (Ezek. xxxiv. 16.) Stotfold, Beds.

SPIRITUAL CORRESPONDENCE.

G. M.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE GOSPEL STANDARD. My much esteemed Friends in our most glorious Head Christ,— Being satisfied that you are the servants of the Most High God, I do the more cheerfully write to you, having been a reader of your precious little Standard from the commencement of the last year, and having found it good and precious to my soul. I had been a reader before of the Trumpet and Herald; but when, as God would have it, your Standard was put into my hands, I was like the woman of Samaria when Christ opened her heart, and let a little living water into it. She left her old water-pot, and went and said unto the people of the city, "Come and see a man that told me all things," &c. I am happy that God has spared a few faithful servants in this dark day to publish the truth as it is in Christ. Before your Standard appeared, I thought, much like Elijah, “They have digged down the altars, and I only am saved, and they seek my life;" but God said, "I have reserved to myself seven thousand men that have not bowed the knee to Baal." May the dear Lord raise up many men, and send them out into his vineyard to defend the faith in spite of all the awful lies that are advanced in almost all churches and chapels in the kingdom. May God keep you faithful and upon your watch-tower, and may be enable you, as his watchmen, to give the time of night when any of the citizens ask; for "if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall be prepared for battle?" When I learned that the circulation of your Standard spread so wide, it made my soul rejoice, for it found its way into many dark towns and villages, where there is nothing but "do and live," and scarcely that. It has, to my knowledge, been made a blessing to many; and thousands more, no doubt, by God's blessing, will be blessed. I hope that a few dear servants, through God, may be enabled to furnish your pages with a little matter which otherwise would have been buried from most of God's people, had it not appeared in your Standard; but God has enabled them to drop a handful from their own stock in the field of our spiritual Boaz, to the poor returning Moabites, who are driven, from necessity, to come and glean in that blessed field. Those God-taught men that the professing world is ashamed of, my soul rejoices in, namely, Mr. Warburton, Mr. Philpot, Mr. Gadsby, I. K., and many more; for my soul is united to them in the dearest ties; and the former, Mr. Warburton, was, more than two years ago, made very useful to my son, as I had been for many years sitting under those wretched taskmasters

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calling the people idle, when, by God's goodness, I was directed to hear him at Studley, when he so blessedly went in the footsteps of the flock, that my soul was from that moment knit to him, like Nathan and David, and from that time that love has still been strengthened to him; and when I have had the honour of being favoured with hearing one of those blessed men whom God sends, I can say, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that bring good tidings.” I have for some time been thinking of sending you a few lines by way of encouragement; but my littleness so appears before me that I think I am not worthy to write to such men of God. It fills my soul with pleasure to see that God is supplying you with a little matter for your Standard, for about the conclusion of last year I read your thoughts of discontinuing the work, and it was like a thunderbolt to my soul, as the devil immediately set on me, and said, "Well, it is all over with the Standard you so much boasted of; it will be printed no more; then, what will become of you Antinomians? you will all come to nothing!" This drove me to God by prayer, and, blessed be his name, he helped me with so great a help, that before I arose from my knees I was led to believe that God would enable you to continue it. I went to bed, but could not sleep, and in the night, the devil began at his old work with, "It is all over; the Standard will come out no more." "Lord," said I, "make him a liar." This followed me for days and nights till I saw your determination in spite of all difficulties to go on, the Lord enabling you. "Well," said I, "devil, you are a liar, and the father of lies." This is not the first time he has been in my house, for he has a friend in one part of the dwelling; but, blessed be God, the Holy Ghost says they shall have dominion over him or them, which is the devil and his family, in the morning.

I have merely written this, hoping God may make my feeble effort of use to encourage your hearts and hands in his work. May God supply all your needs out of his own hand, which is in Christ the Head, and give you patience to stand in your lot, for that which meets with no opposition is not of God.

I conclude these few feeble lines with my very kind love to all those that love our Lord Jesus Christ, for none but God's elect have this honour conferred upon them.-I remain, yours for Christ's sake.

AN OUTCAST.

Dear Sirs, Will you excuse an obscure character in troubling you with an account of some of the strange workings of my mind. I have been until of late sitting under a minister that perhaps preaches the doctrines of truth pretty correctly; and although I did not enjoy much, if any, of the manifestations of the love and mercy of God to my soul, neither was I altogether satisfied with such a ministry, yet I enjoyed, as I thought, a comfortable assurance from past experience of interest in the finished work of a dear Redeemer; but having, of late, been brought to sit under the ministry of a man that preaches up a particular experience, and that draws a line of distinction between the doctrines of truth in the head and the doctrines of truth wrought in the soul by God the Holy Ghost, I have been truly brought to call all my past experience into question. I have experienced what I thought amounted to death and life, for well do I remember the place where convictions, strong and powerful, first seized my mind, when that passage of scripture was quoted, “Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire;" and truly I left the place with that curse following me, loud as thunder, "Depart, ye cursed." I strove to amend by prayer and fast