hand of a sermon on Matthew xiv. 22; the doctrine of which is, "The Lord Jesus sometimes makes use of a kind of merciful violence with his people for their good."-Your account of our dear little Mary's alarming illness is to our natural feelings very afflicting. Yet this is the hand of Him who bringeth down to the grave, and raiseth up again. And perhaps God, who heareth prayer, may, in love to her soul and yours, release her from her present confinement, and mercifully raise her up again. Yet, if our Heavenly Father sees that a different procedure would be the occasion of greater advantage, "let him do with us as seemeth good unto him!" "His ways are all judgment," mercy, truth, and love. Blessed Leader! how shall he bruise Satan under our feet, and make us meet for heaven, without resisting our creature-love, and emptying us from vessel to vessel, and leading us about to shew us the character of vanity inscribed on whatever our hearts are prone to cleave to below the skies? How shall he open his heart of love to us, but by those dispensations which not only excite our more, earnest desires for his presence, but which are the channels through which his choicest gifts are most richly conveyed?-My dear children, let not your hearts be troubled at the appearance of the dark cloud that hovers over you. Let a Saviour come when he will, and how he will: he never comes but on a design of love; he ever brings a blessing incomparably greater than that which he takes away. away. Could

you look into the cloud and see who has made it his chariot; and beyond it, and realize the issue of this visitation; you would chide the murmurings of flesh and blood: you would hail his approach with, "Even so come, Lord Jesus!" You are called upon to bring presents unto him who ought to be feared. You have a flower in your garden of peculiar beauty and fragrancy; and to whom can you present it with so much grateful pleasure, as to him who gave himself for you! Where can it be so safe, receive such honour, and bloom so bright and fair, as in the bosom of a Saviour's love! Reluctant nature cannot suffer the separation without many a parting tear. But, remember! "be shed a thousand drops for you, a thousand drops of richest blood." I trust, my dear children, He who causeth you to pass through the fire, will be with you to preserve and purify you, and bring you to the enjoyment of the fuller manifestations and endearments of his love. You are not called with Abraham, to offer your only child unto the Lord; or, with Aaron, to hold your peace when two together are wrathfully driven away in their wickedness. It is a child of the promise; a child once dedicated to God, whose grace, and greatness, and promise, unite to encourage your expectations, that he will do for her incomparably beyond all you could either ask or think. Under these circumstances, it is no calamity to have a child, however dear, removed from the evil of the present world. But it is the offering of your first fruits that your God seems to

expect. Nor can you withhold it. You will present it with your own hands and heart, and then you will have to expect a more abundant blessing. The offering of the first fruits is the consecration of your whole harvest. May the Lord proclaim, "From this time will I bless you," and make all your's his own! Yet we will entertain an hope of our dear Mary. May the Lord, in the

love, be with you!

power of his grace

and

LETTER V.

TO MR. AND MRS. B

MY DEAR J AND M,

Tooting, Jan. 26, 1809.

PROBABLY, before the arrival of these lines, your dear child will have dropped mortality. You will have resigned your tender charge to the will of Him who would, that he in early life should be with him, where he is, to behold his glory. It was his Heavenly Father's pleasure. Your dear child has lost the parting tear, and all the agony of separation and dissolution, amidst the delights and glories of a bet"It was good," he cries, "to be there; praise everlasting to the God of my salvation, who provided for me the benefit of spiritual instruction, and the fostering care of Christian affection: but it is far better to be here."

ter home.

You, my dear children, while suffering from wounded nature, will find the anguish relieved by consolations which carnal minds know not of. Precious faith, the principle of spiritual and heavenly life, will furnish occasion for sweet resignation, complacency, and praise. Sense must not, cannot, destroy or interrupt the harmony of the song you have to raise. Mercy, covenant mercy, gave you this child-a precious gift, still your's, but removed to an inheritance, which your Saviour has purchased, and is preparing for you in the better country, even the heavenly; his mercy counted and made you faithful; and his mercy, whatever sense would suggest, has recompensed your faithful care, even a hundred fold.

Others of your dear children you have still with you. The hand of the Lord, I trust, is on them, to prepare them for the same honours. It may be his pleasure, by your means, in connection with others, to prepare them to serve him, with faith, and zeal, and love, here upon earth; and to shine in Christian affeetions and habits, as lights in the world. They may follow you, and those already arrived, and increase— I will not say complete-the happy band, now gathering. Even children's children, in successive generations, may still follow, proclaiming the truth and grace of a covenant God. Precious covenant! what a cord of love, let down from Heaven, to raise thither, from the wreck and ruin of man's fallen estate, every poor sinner, made willing in

the day of the Redeemer's power! Precious encouragement given to believing parents, in their efforts to rescue their offspring from the sin and misery of the fall! Blessed parents, who are not faithless, but believing; who feel the constraints of love Divine, take hold of the promise, and labour and pray for the spiritual life of their dear children, the Lord working with them! Your labour, you have reason to assure yourselves and one another, will not be in vain in the Lord: and this expectation, on the ground of covenant mercy, is enough to silence and to satisfy. The Lord bless you with great grace and fatherly consolation ! tender affection, your father,

I am, in

J. BOWDEN.

LETTER VI.

TO MR. AND MRS. B

MY DEAR J AND M—,

Tooting, January 25, 1805.

I REJOICE in your consolations.

My soul hath magnified the Lord, who hath put a new song into your mouth, even praise unto your God; yet, while our mercies are great, we cannot wonder that the cup of salvation given us here should have a mixture of bitterness. When sin, that worst of evils, that vile leprosy, which has polluted our