ance to Christ for such a mind as his to allow any selfish consideration to be in competition with it; and that glory would redound to God as the Author of this gracious scheme which he came to execute, must afford him the greatest joy. God's manifold wisdom, his unbounded goodness, his mercy, and the riches of his grace, are gloriously displayed in it; nay, the whole is represented as originating in God; whose will and purpose, in this divine plan, the Son came to publish and fulfil. God is in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing unto men their trespasses; and we are ambassa dors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us.' What glory is due to God, and what glory and praise shall be ascribed to him who remembered us in our low estate! for his mercy endureth for ever! Whether then we consider the plan of redemption as originating in God, or whether we consider the issue of it, the glory that redounds to God, it was a joy inspiring object which Christ had in view; in the prospect and certainty of which he patiently endured the cross, despising the shame. When we reflect on these things, we have reason to admire the love of Christ. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend; and there was nothing to which Christ refused to submit on our account. He cheerfully laid down his life for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and deliver us from going down to the pit.With what love to our race must he have been actuated, when under the agonies of erucifixion, and under the vengeance of heaven, he endured with patience, animated with this joyful prospect, that by these sufferings he should procure salvation to sinful men! Oh, the height and the depth, the length, and the breadth of the love of God!' The example of Christ, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, is set before us for our imitation.'Let us consider him who endured such contradiction of sm ners against hin:self, lest we be weary and faint in our minds. The sufferings we have yet to endure in the world may be many and severe, yet we know not in what depths of adversity and sorrow we are to be overwhelmed before we leave the land of the living; those evils of which we are least apprehensive, or which we are least able to endure, may come upon us at a scason when we are not prepared to withstand them; or when those comforters, who would have relieved our souls, are far away; but, under all our sufferings, let us learn patience of Christ, and let the joy in which these sufferings shall issue, encourage us to endure to the end. For though no chastiseinent is for the present joyous, but grievous, it will yield to us the peaceable fruits of righteousucss. These light afflic tions, which are but for a moment, shall work for us a far more exceeding and an eternal weight of glory.' ADJUTOR. AN ORIGINAL LETTER FROM THE HON. AND REV. W. B. CADOGAN, M. A. Vicar of St. Giles, Reading, and Rector of St. Luke, Chelsea, My dear Sir, TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON, Rector of St. Mary, Woolnoth. Reading, Nov. 16, 1782. I HAVE acknowledged my debt to you, by a note of hand, as it were; and I now sit down to discharge it by a letter, hoping that, when you have been in some measure repaid for your trouble, you will be inclined to trust me with your correspondence again; and indeed it seems to me peculiarly needful, that Christians should converse together as much as possible in the house of their pilgrimage. The communion of saints is a source of their improvement here, as it will, no doubt, be of their happiness hereafter. What more encourag ing, what more edifying, than the mutual faith of you and me! The communication of that experience and exercise in the ways of God; by which it appears how the same afflictions are accomplished in our brethren who are in the world, -how the same comforts are held out to them,-how the same truths contained in the same Bible are applicable to the great and numberless exigencies of those that receive and embrace them, how the same Jesus, revealed and formed in them by the same Spirit, and dwelling in their hearts by the same faith, is able to save them for evermore, and to inake them every whit whole! I often think of the day when Jesus shall come to be glori fied in his saints, and admired in all who believe, when he alone shall be exalted among the thousands and ten thousands who surround his throne, - redeemed by his blood, sanctified to God by his Spirit, and gathered together in one by his gospel. How glorious, how admirable shall he be!. His name shall be called Wonderful! As to myself, I am all wonder and astonishment. I must add another line to yours: Oh, to grace how great a debtor To think that I should ever be led to heavenly pursuits, is marvellous! to think that I should be kept in them is more so! I cannot say, like you, that I have been preserved from blots in my outward profession. It was but last year, after having escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that I had well nigh been entangled therein, and overcome. I was enticed from the cure of souls into Suffolk, with my worldly friends: got into their habits, entered into their spirit, and found how truly it was said of the faithful, That if they had been nindful of that country from whence they came, they might have had opportunity to have returned.' I was received, caressed, and, I may say, that I had almost been even as they. My treadings had well nigh shipped.' But, marvellous to tell! thy mercy, O Lord, held me up; or rather, by a severe fit of illness, he brought me down. I called my own ways to remembrance; I felt the vanity of worldly confidences, and the wretchedness of those who have not Christ to trust in; and, O how bitterly we weep when Jesus, whom we have denied, looketh on us again! Oh, the agonizing look of Him whom we have pierced! It causeth mournings as for an only son, and bitterness as for a first-born; so that here I stand a second Judas almost, and yet alive, to adore the long-suffering of God, and enabled to count it salvation! I seek no more the friendship of the world; but count myself blessed when men separate me from their company, and cast out my name as evil; and when I hear of their reproaches, it is my study, by well-doing, to deserve them. Indeed, my dear Sir, I agree with you in seeing the wide difference be tween setting out and holding out. It seems with the graces that are given us here, as with all other blessings and ordinances for our support, that they perish in the using, aud that a Christian must perish, unless his inward man be renewed day by day. How emphatical the petition, 'Give us day by day our daily bread! But it is some comfort that, if we were born again, it is of incorruptible seed, the seed of eternal life; and that he who liveth and believeth in Jesus, however he may languish, faint, and fade; however he may be without fruit, and without leaves, for a season, yet that he shall never die. 1 lament much that my situation is so far distant from you as to prevent that frequent intercourse which I should other wise cultivate; but however absent in body, I trust we are present in spirit; and however separate here on earth, according to the work assigned us, yet that we are partakers of the same grace, heirs of the same hope, members of the same body, and shall one day join the blessed and innumerable company which rest not day and night, singing salvation to God and the Lamb. You see how large a letter I have written to you. I had left a place for the seal on the other side, meaning to conclude; but how can we conclude when the Lord Jesus Christ is our theme? There is no end of his greatness! But there must be an end of a father's patience; when little children, or young men in the gospel, intrude too much upon his time, &c. A CONCISE VIEW OF THE PRESENT STATE OF EVANGELICAL RELIGION NO. XII. THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. [Continued from p. 424] AMERICA. THE West India Islands only remain to pass in review, with their white and black population. Providence, for their good. I hope, hath brought them all of late, under the dominion of Great Britain, and afforded thereby greater facilities for the introduction of evangelical religion among them. The Abolition of the Slave Trade is also a circumstance highly favourable. The value of the subsisting Negroes in the islands, and the necessity of preserving and increasing their population, will probably assure them kinder usage and greater care; and the evidence before their eyes of the superior moral ex-: cellence of Christian Negroes, will surely operate, even on the wicked or infidel, to encourage, at least not to hinder, their slaves from attending the labours of those men of God, who. haye devoted their lives to this self-denying service; and all whose instructions tend to make them more trusty and dili gent servants, in proportion as they learn they have a Master in heaven; and that to fill their station in life with fidelity, is among the principal obligations they owe to him who hath. made small and great, the slave and his master; and will bless and reward them as they are found doing their duty in that state of life in which it pleases God to call them. It is matter of great thankfulness to observe what hath been of late done, with considerable success, to evangelize the, islands under the British government in America. Missionaries from various denominations of Christians among us, have carried the glad tidings of salvation, more or less, into every island of the Caribbean Sea; a growing attention has been paid to the religious instruction of the poor slaves; and many thousands of them have been called out of darkness into marvellous light, and assemble with their ministers for regular worship, and exercise devotion in private as in public. That this should not excite universal delight, must be an awful proof of the depraved state of society in the islands;-and depraved indeed it is! With shame it must be confessed, that the white inhabitants too commonly are the corrupters of their slaves, by their examples and influence, and averse to their improve ment in religious knowledge and practice; and though in all the English colonies, parishes, with ample provision, have their established ministers, it is greatly to be lamented that so little can be said in praise of their zeal, diligence, example, and success among the thousands and tens of thousands of 30 XIX. the poor of the flock under their several charges. Indeed, I understand, a kind of awful distance is too generally preserved between the men of different colours and stations in life; and all the black population left destitute of those tokens of fra ternal intercourse which the gospel enjoins, without respect of person or colour. The slaves are rather excluded than led to worship, and HE to whom the care of their souls is committed by the state, never thinks it a part of his obligation to pay the least attention to these degraded beings in the scale of humanity, but who claim peculiar care from the very destitute situation in which they are placed. The zeal of Methodists, Moravians, and others, hath however attempted to supply this awful neglect; many times, indeed, they have met with the most brutish treatment, where they deserved the highest encouragement and commendation; but, as becomes true Evangelists, they suffer as Christians, and persevere in their work; and the Lord rewards them in the gain of immortal souls, who will be their joy and crown in the day of the Lord Jesus: every individual of more intrinsic worth than all the islands contain beside. Many, indeed, of the proprietors and masters, some who have themselves tasted of the grace of God in their own souls, and others from conviction and evidence of the happy effects produced on converted negroes, have encouraged the different preachers to visit their plantations, and pay attention to their slaves. In Antigua, St. Kitt's, Jamaica, Tobago, Barbadoes, and other islands, many blessed congregåtions of black brethren have been collected under these men of God, of different denominations, who have sought those whom no man cared for. In Berbice, Essequibo, Demerara, also on the southern continent of America, like efforts have been made among Negroes and Indians, by the good Moravians, Methodists, and some zealous labourers from the London Missionary Society; and the Reports encourage confidence, that the seed sown hath taken effectual root, and will bring forth fruit, thirty, sixty, and an hundred fold. That these faithful witnesses should have been often crossed, impeded, persecuted in their Christian and zealous efforts, is no more than might be expected, especially considering the generally too corrupted state of the white inhabitants, particu larly in Jamaica; but thanks to the wiser and more enlightened policy of the British government, they have hitherto checked the aim of abused power, and vindicated the rights of Toleration where they have been grossly infringed. "Blind, indeed, inust those colonists be to their own interests, who thus impede the efforts of men who teach obedience not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake; but the least aversion to vital Christianity bears down even the strong motive of selfadvantage. The word of the Lord, however, still runs, and is orified. |