companion of your's as it regards holding converse with each other, for truly the Lord has given us one heart and one mind. My poor body is very weak, and I still often think that ere long it must go to its Father; but when indulged with soul ravishing views of a precious Christ, and an enlarged understanding in his precious word, that I have to continue for some time upon this earth, and would gladly leave all, and follow my blessed Master. But then a sense of my ignorance soon says, Ah what a fool to think of this.

Dear brother adieu, and if I should not live to write again remember what I have said is my faith. I freely ascribe all the glory of my salvation to a glorious Trinity, yet one God. Amen and Amen. My love in truth to your Wife, Dear Mr. Fowler and those that love our Lord Jesus. My sister desires her sincere regards; your account just suits her; she has nothing else to boast of. Write again soon.

Yours, in truth,

W. H.

A LETTER FROM THE REV. THOMAS HENRY GODDEN, TO A SISTER IN THE LORD JESUS.

My very dear sister in the Lord Jesus, all grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied unto you, and yours, in the bonds of covenant love, from the inexhaustible fulness treasured up in him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily! And this I pray your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment: being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God." Be pleased, my right dear and well beloved Sarah, to accept my warmest thanks and best spiritual acknowledgments for your very sav oury and truly fragrant epistle; every line of which (more or less) from a tried experience in the furnace

of Jerusalem, is perfumed with the sweet and adorable name of Jesus. Truly, thought I, after being much refreshed in mind from its perusal, the kind writer, must be indeed what her name" Sarah" signifies, a“ princess of the blood royal: or a king's daughter, all glorious within, though by reason of sin in mortal body, is black as the tents of Kedar without! Well, dear sainted friend, this is just as it should be, coming as it doth from the Lord of hosts himself, who declares, by the pen of his servant, If Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of sin; but the spirit is life, because of righteousness." Hence the sweet invitation from the holy Three, and Almighty Recorders unto the spouse in her renewed condition," Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee: what will ye see in the Shulamite ? as it were the company of two armies!" Behold, kind friend, how great our privileges: Jehovah, in his trinity of Persons, will not only look upon us with love, complacency, and delight; but saith Jesus, "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." And that the Lord the Spirit likewise dwells with his people. What saith Paul, Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit which are God's. For whoso offereth praise glorifieth me; and to him that ordereth his conversation aright (saith the Lord the Spirit) will I shew the salvation of God."

Dear sister, it is of the "Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not: they are new every morning; great is his faithfulness." And peradventure, never in my existence, while given to

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preach the unsearchable riches of Christ from home, during thirteen years, was I so highly favoured in my own soul, as when with the Lord's hidden ones," in a large upper room at Portsea. Bless the Lord, then, O my soul, and all that is within me bless, praise, and magnify his most holy name:" for what have I that I did not first receive? Nothing! For by the grace of God, I am what I am! And thanks, again, to his dear and precious name, from the contents of your welcome letter; it appears his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain. "For I delivered unto you first of all, that which I also received; how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures: having ascended up on high, leading captivity captive, and is now entered into the holiest of all;" angels, authorities, principalities and powers all being subject unto him, who is Lord of all ! Sweet then the heart-reviving thought, in the power of the Spirit, to poor afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted children:

If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and is the propitiation (or plastering, or purple covering) for our sins!" Wherefore having been long since taught of God also, by "terrible things in righteousness," with your dear self, that Paul may plant and water, but God alone can give the increase: is the thing at once plain and easy to be understood, that if my late visit to the church has been a lift to the people, as you speak, so we speak, and so ye believed, Hallelujah! Yes, dear friend, believe me, the Lord's poor worm had not been many minutes preaching in his precious Master's name amongst the dear" distressed sheep" at Portsea: before I found where I was, even in the midst of some of the gracious sons and daugh

ters of Zion, whose names (although they were cast out by the high sounding professors of the day, as vile) yet were found to be among the living in Jerusalem. Oh! how the golden oil of the sanctuary came down into my earthen vessel, ran through the golden pipe, and by the direction of God the Eternal Spirit, emptied itself into the vessels of cups present, even to all the vessels of flaggons! And the full thought more than once on those sacred and interesting occasions, there passed over my exercised mind : "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon the Head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments: for as the dew of Hermon that descended upon the mountains of Zion, so the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for ever more. Where? But in our most glorious Christ: God in us, God with us, God over all blessed for ever more; who is the eternal life, blessedness, and happiness of his one spiritual, mystical church and people : "For ye are dead to the law, being married unto Christ, who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." Then again,

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Ye are dead to sin, being renewed in the spirit of your mind, that ye should live no longer therein." Moreover,

Ye are dead to the world, and all dead outward professions; having the mere form of godliness, denying the power thereof; which, as the dead flies, cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth an ill savor. And your life eternal is hid with Christ in God: that when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory!" Ps. xvii. 15: for,

"There is a land of pure delight.

Where saints immortal reign; Where endless day excludes the night, And pleasure banish pain!

But, beloved Sarah, also such glorious things are verily to be shewn unto us hereafter, when, in the ages to come, God will make known unto us the exceeding riches of his grace; nevertheless, in the mean season, trials, afflictions, and suffering is our appointed lot: that the trial of our faith, being more precious than gold, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honor and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ." "Think it not strange then, beloved, concerning the fire trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you;" for I see where you are, in the path of tribulation, where the "least of all," has long since been before you, while travelling home to my Father's house; for

"I asked the Lord that I might grow,

In faith and love, and every grace : Might more of his salvation know,

And seek more earnestly his face."

'T was he who taught me thus to pray, And he I know, has answered prayer; But it has been in such a way,

As almost drove me to despair!

I hoped that in some favoured hour,
At once He'd answer my request,
And by his love's constraining power
Subdue my sins and give me rest.
Instead of this, he made me feel

The hidden evils of my heart,
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part.
Lord, why is this? I trembling cried,
Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?
"T is in this way, the Lord replied,

I answer prayer for grace and faith."

Did Sarah also ask the Lord to send the gospel amongst those favoured people of the Most High at Portsea, whom I so much love, and highly esteem in the bowels of Jesus Christ? Depend upon it, my sister, (as the event proves,) however disable such a thing may appear in our eyes, yet it is not so in the eyes of the Lord of Hosts, who will satisfy his poor with bread, and in the days of famine they shall have enough: other

wise it would be different than what it is. The good Lord, therefore, condescend to give grace, that ye may be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said "I will never, never, never leave you; I will never, never, never, forsake thee." So that we may boldly say, "The Lord (in his trinity of persons) is my helper, and I will not fear what man Thanks be unto shall do unto me!"' God, therefore, who" is our refuge, and strength, and a very present help in trouble!" This, beloved in the Lord, is a sweet and unspeakable mercy in the time state of the church; and more especially so, in the awful day of blasphemy and rebuke in which our humble lot is cast to live; when so many of the devil's servants, who are transformed into angels of light, with a religious shew in the flesh, are attempting to sap the foundations of our hope, and most holy faith. But here is our mercy, their labour of fleshly love, and their patience of self-mortification; together with the sounding of their bowels of universal charity, falsely so called; will avail nothing: "for as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth, being men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith." But they shall proceed no further than the appointed lines, God having an hook in their nose and bridle in their jaws : and who will by and by make manifest this their folly unto all, even as their's also was. Thus, however men may act, or whatever they may substitute, in their " yea and nay system of babbling and doing; yet the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: who will ere long laugh them to scorn, have them in derision, yea despise their very lineage." Truth shall spring up, and flourish out of the earth; righteousness hath, and will again look down from heaven, for our great and endless comfort! Mercy, moreover,

will be displayed by Jesus in gathering in his elect from the four winds under heaven! And Peace shall go before him who sits upon the white horse with the bow; having also the crown royal on his honoured brow, going forth in the power of his love conquering and to conquer! Hence, if our most glorious Christ wants servants to work, either at Portsea or elsewhere, (whether they be hewers of wood or drawers of water,) he will have them, and none dare say nay. For verily I declare unto thee, that Immanuel, the God-man, is able, out of the very stones in Gloucester or Frederick Street either, to raise up children unto God: and if he give a gift unto any whose names are not written in heaven, like another Judas, for the benefit of his own people, it shall answer his purpose, and be their's until the day of liberty or day of death, when it shall return to the prince again: while on the other hand, if he bestow a gift upon any of his sons, it shall be his son's inheritance for ever; for "the Lord God is a sun and shield, he will give grace and glory, and no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." Herein his sovereign will and pleasure is manifested, in "having mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardens." A bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, and Moab and Ammon are not to enter into the congregation of the Lord, until the tenth generation; neither is there any promise left of their entering in after that. But some must enter in, even the whole election of grace; the sheep of Christ; the purchased of his blood, from out of the hand of law, justice, sin, death, and condemnation (Rom. viii. 1-4).

By these things, beloved in the Lord, we are taught to know somewhat of his great love, rich grace, and distinguishing mercy, who hath made us to differ from others around: who are sporting with their own de

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ceivings, feeding on ashes, a deceived heart having turned them aside that they cannot deliver their own souls, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? Still, dear Sarah, of some have compassion, making a difference; and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh, much more the filthy flesh itself. Dear Sister, The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." Greet all the dear friends, your fellow worshippers, from me by name, with my kind love to the whole; and accept my dear wife's most cordial spiritual greetings, who is one with us in every sense of the word. Believing me to subscribe myself, the Lord's servant to his people, for his sake,

Your attached brother,
in eternal union,

T. H. G

RECOLLECTIONS OF MY PILGRIMAGE, BY AN OLD DISCIPLE.

No. 11.-To be Continued.

AMONG other things that were thrown at me respecting Mr. H. was this, that he did not believe the law to be the believer's rule of life, but, contrary to all good men, he taught his hearers to reject the moral law, and thereby he gave a licence to sin. Many were his opponents and enemies through this being so solemnly laid to his charge by the ministers of the day. To this charge I could not reply. I did not understand clearly the views that either Mr. H. or his enemies had of the subject: but one morning Mr. H. preached from Isaiah liv. 4, 5, Thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widow-hood any more; for thy Maker is thy husband:" he entered into the experience of that soul, who

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