hath known and been taught. As the October, my wife seemed to recover the stupor she had been in and felt her pains; one had to sit continually to bathe her head, which the heat and inflammation dried up as fast as the lotion was applied. This evening she began to be restless, groaned and sighed so that she was heard in the street; she turned and plunged herself and twice threw herself out of the bed; this continued for fortyeight hours. We could not administer food nor physic, which harassed and grieved all. My cry to the Lord for her was without ceasing. On the night of the 8th of October, I sat up until morning that the others might rest; I was kneeling by her bed in prayer, she said, Bless the Lord. I was glad to hear her speak, though faltering. I asked her if she knew me? Yes. Do you know how you became so afflicted? No. Do you wish to be rose up again to health? No. What, do you wish to die? Yes. But are you not afraid to die? No. Is your hope centered on our Lord Jesus Christ? Can you trust your soul with him? Yes, I can; he hath paid a ransom for me. This was the first time she spoke so many words together. I said, Do you feel yourself fixed on Christ as on a rock, and view him as the Lamb of God that taketh away sin? Yes, I do. I said, Do not you feel guilt on the conscience? Oh, no, no, it is all taken away, I said, Can you from your heart bless the Lord for this affliction? Bless God, oh yes, I can, I can. I said, Do you remember how many times, in my affliction, after the sickness hath been over, that I have fell on my knees, and blessed God for that affliction? can you bless him? Yes, I do, I do. I said, then now with me bless the Lord Jesus Christ for this affliction, and pray that he may yet more sanctify it to you: and whilst I was speaking in prayer and praise, she repeatedly said, Bless his holy name. After I had finished remaining on my knees, I said, Hath this affliction brought you nearer in your feelings to the Lord Jesus and glorified spirits? Bless the Lord, it hath. I said, this life is but a gloomy night, the period is coming when light and immortality will burst upon your soul, which will be a most ravishing sight; then you will be capable of offering praise to our Lord for ever. That is a most blessed state; yet here we enjoy a taste of blessedness, for it is written. Blessed is the man whose sin is pardoned, and blessed is the man unto whom the Lord will not impute sin and when the sins of Judah are sought for, there shall be none, for whom the Lord justifieth, who can condemn: he hath opened a fountain to wash us from all sin, yes in the fountain of his own blood; he entered into the marriage covenant with us to cherish and nourish in sickness and health, as we did twenty four years since, we did not then so seriously consider this but when you were brought to the trial you performed it in love and sympathy, now again I am brought to the trial and I feel the weight of that engagement which I made before God, to you, and feel thankful that my mind is so happily disposed, and rejoice to think how much the love of Christ to us exceeds our affection. Thus I was in conversation with her until the nurse awoke and came in to relieve me; it was a refreshing time to me, which I renewed at every opportunity; but it was long before I could be persuaded that she would recover so as to be able to leave her room. She changed so often, that it was seldom she continued two days alike. One day I was standing by her bed-side, she was much composed, and I was speaking of the mysterious ways of the Lord: I said, about this time last year, I was by the bedside of my afflicted mother, you then was in health; then she was cheered by my presence and conversation, now it is my duty and privilege to cheer you on the bed of affliction, as my soul is cheered of the Lord. Being about to leave her for four or five hours, I stood and called on the Lord; as I was speaking, I had a most gracious view of God's mercy in Christ Jesus, with such liberty of spirit; my affection ran up to the Lord for my wife, that he would give her comfort in her affliction, and make a display of his mercy in restoring her to health. It came upon me so sudden, so full and so gracious, that I wondered at that which was come to pass. As soon as I had concluded I went out of the room, and felt a fulness of joy in his presence on earth. Yet, during her long illness, Satan did tempt and harrass me greatly. It was not only the affliction of my wife, my own weak frame, and the things that continued to flow from the misconduct of my son, whom we did not see for above a year; but evil tidings came from all quarters, until I became pent up with grief. I dared not tell my family all I knew, that they might not have too much sorrow; but one night after several days groaning in spirit, with reading and prayer, I was permitted to draw near to the Lord, to tell him all my mind. I confessed my own depravity and my belief in the enmity of Satan against me and mine. I saw, by faith, in Job, and Paul, and others, that his plan is to distress the soul, and fixing my eye on the precious blood of Christ, I said, in faith, it is on him I fix my hope, even in a precious crucified Saviour, whose atonement hath satisfied for me, and by the virtue of his death I shall overcome thee, thou enemy of my soul. Thus I have had to combat with the world, the flesh and the devil to this day; with afflictions in body, mind and family. My wife hath never but in part recovered from her affliction, and during the last eight years hath been subject to severe fits, on which account she must never be left alone. Yet we have had cause often to be thankful, amidst the numerous trials COMFORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT. Dear sister in a family relationship which can never expire, because sons and daughters in Him, who was from eternity, and will be to eternity, God over all blessed for ever. I received your christian and very affectionate letters and am glad to hear that you are likely to have the pure unmixed gospel preached among you, a thing very rarely to be found in this day of awful departure from the truth. When there is scarcely any thing but Lo here, and, Lo there is Christ, a faithful, heaven-taught minister is a great blessing indeed; for unto such Christ has promised to be both mouth and wisdom, and enable them to come, in the power of the Spirit, with a Thus saith the Lord. And when he send a pastor after his own heart, it is to feed his people with knowledge by him; not with the knowledge acquired at colleges or at academies, but the knowledge which cometh from above, which knowledge does not puff up, but humbles the recipient in the dust of self-abasement. The soul, therefore, who is favoured with it, will exalt Christ as the altogether lovely, and the chiefest among ten thousand. This is what Paul, though highly favoured with divine knowledge, was pressing after greater degrees of: "That I might know Him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to June, 1843.] his death. Now if this is the knowledge Mr. T comes among you with, even the knowledge of Christ in his glorious names, characters and relations to his people; in his obedience, suffering and satisfaction; in his baving made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness to justify his people in all things, I wish him God speed. I am grieved to hear you are still drinking the cup of sorrow, but let this, which our precious Christ once said to his disciples, be thy comfort: In the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye shall have peace." Hence you see tribulation must come, but from what quarter we may expect it we cannot tell. Sometimes it will come from the nearest and dearest relations, aye and from them who are spiritual, to wean us from creatures. The brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child. child. Children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death (Matt. x. 21), and ye shall be hated of all men. These are sharp trials indeed, hard to be borne by flesh and blood: but such trials must be because the Lord has said it. May the Lord, in mercy, fortify our souls with overcoming grace, and strengthen us with all might, by his Spirit, in the inner man, for the trials and temptations which will most certainly come. Now if they are indeed of his sending, then are they most assuredly among the all things that work together for good, to them who are the called according to his purpose. And if the Lord calls us to endure them, he likewise will give us strength to support us under them, and complete deliverance from all of them at the last. JOHN RADFORD. IS THE WORLD TO BE THE CHURCH? WHY ask such a question? Simply because it is a fact that from many a platform and from many a T pulpit, the idea has been held out, that the time draws on when all the world shall be the church, and the church shall be all the world. Without doubt such an idea, when couched and expressed in all the beauty of rhetoric and all the glow of eloquence, will and does seem vast, grand, sublime and beautiful. To the writer it occurs, that to receive for doctrine any advanced idea, we have not an imperative need to ascertain how beautiful, how sublime, how grand or how vast that idea may be, but what decisive impress it bears of the seal of eternal truth. Therefore it is that the writer comes forth with the inquiry,-Is it true that the world is to be the church? The writer has asked the question, and will also assist to give the answer. And this he will do by asking two other questions: namely First, what is intended to be meant by the term, world ? Secondly, what is intended to be meant by the term, church? First, what is intended to be meant by the term, world? Is it intended to mean the material world, or the rational world, or the moral world, or the spiritual world the universal world or the elect world? I suppose that the term, world, is not in the sentence in question, intended to signify all and each of all these sorts of worlds. The inquiry therefore is, on which of these worlds are we to fix as being the world intended? Certainly not the material world; to suppose it would be absurd. It must be a rational, intelligent world of some description. Is it then all the rational, intelligent world? If so, then the devils will form a part of it. No, some will say, it means all the rational human world. Another will answer, No, it means all the living human world; that is, all the living human beings then to be found upon the earth, which earth is sometimes called the world. Another will answer, No, it means all the world of grace, all the elect world; that is, all the beings of human kind who were before time embraced in the counsels of original love: by sovereign good pleasure chosen to salvation; in eternal cove nant given to the great Redeemer, to be the purchase of his sufferings, the trophies of his power, and the diadem of his glory. If this elect world, be the world intended to be meant, then the writer answers at once, I doubt not, yea more, I stedfastly believe that all such a world shall be the church, and that the church shall be all such a world; and that for the bringing about such a glorious event, the covenant of grace was compacted, the Son of God was made incarnate, the ministration of the Spirit was vouchsafed, and the great machinery of gospel preaching set to work, and is being made efficient by the influence of power divine. This brings me to the second point, namely, What are we to understand by the term, church? A papist would say, the Romish communion; an episcopalian would say, the Anglican communion; a dissenter would say, the general communion of professed christians; a spiritual man would say, the company whom no man can number, whose names are written in heaven." The writer would answer, If by the church be meant the Romish comm.union, the Anglican communion, or any other earthly communion, as a visible, ostensible, and universal communion; then it is not impossible for all the world to become the church. A vigorous system of proselytism, carried on by the mighty energies of mammon and law, pomp and policy, sword and faggot, may even accomplish the business, with as much ease as Mahomet made all the east the mosque, and the mosque all the east. With this one exception, that even then the Lord would still have unto himself reserved seven thousand men, all the knees which have not bowed to Baal, and all the lips which have not kissed his image. The writer would call that seven thousand, the church. But if by the church be meant the assemblage of heaven destined, grace chosen, blood bought, Spirit regenerated souls, in whom dwells the love of God, shed abroad by the Holy Ghost, whereby they are empowered to worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and abandon all confidence in the flesh: then the writer begs leave to consult the oracles of truth, before he takes up the theory that all the ungodly world is to become such a church. Some correspondents of this Miscellany may perhaps be ready and welcome to answer yet more plainly. T. T. R. SEN. LETTER FROM REV. GEORGE HENRY GODDEN TO A FRIEND. My very dear Sister, whom I love in the adorable Lord Jesus, grace be with each of you, beloved in the Lord, in whom we live, and move, and have our being; and through whom we both have access unto the Father by one Spirit. Eph. iv. 4-6. Kind friends, believe me, I often look back upon the way the Lord our God hath led me during my late pastoral visit to Portsea with much real spiritual pleasure. When, dear sister, the least of all received such marked attention from those I love much in the bonds of an everlasting covenant; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; hungry, and ye fed me: therefore, saith Jesus, "inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of my brethren, ye have done it unto me." And again, my Lord elsewhere declares ; Whoso receiveth a prophet in the name of the Lord God of the prophets, shall receive a prophet's reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of the right eous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward; which I trust you did, as, believe me, I often found my heart burning within me while speaking unto Aquila and Priscilla of the things that make for our everlasting comfort. This, my kind christian friend, it was that made me so anxious of spending as much of my spare time at, knowing, feeling, and experiencing, that man did not live on bread alone; but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, doth man live. Mal. iii. 16; and Ps. cxxxiii. Again and again, therefore, beloved and disinterested members of the royal household of faith, do I thank you in the adorable name of Jesus; and only pray continually my God to supply your every need, according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Dear Mrs. M- likewise, how friendly to put her dear self to any inconvenience on the part of one so utterly undeserving: the Lord reward her with seven fold blessings into her own bosom, by returning her afflicted husband home, and her fond daughter to health of both body and mind, in the Lord's appointed time, way, and manner. Hab. ii. 3. last, though not least. dear brother And and family, be sure and remember me most kindly to them all; and just say, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is, that the Lord our God may still be merciful unto them, bless them, and cause his face to shine upon them. Col. ii. 2-3 In a word, suffice it to add, dear friends, (for ingratitude my soul abhors,) that what from the frequent manifestations of the Lord shining into my own heart when preaching his word lately at Portsea, and also from the unbounded kindness from many of the Lord's people sojourning in Meshech, such lively actings of spiritual affection will not be easily effaced from my memory. "And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye may approve |