fear until he believes his sins are all pardoned. We are not to serve him like a slave. This is the way to serve God: Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgressions of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion on us." Instead of taking license to sin, he will subdue our iniquities, and then will cast all our sins into the depth of the sea.

In the early part of our christian experience we were favoured by a kind providence in going up together to the mountain of the Lord's house, and there have beheld the glory of the Prince of the kings of the earth in the midst of his sanctuary; the re-, membrance of which semetimes fills my soul with joy and peace in believing, causing me to give vent to the feelings to my heart, and say, Oh that it was with me as in months that are past, when the candle of the Lord shone round about me, and when in his light I walked through darkness." Since those happy seasons, years have rolled away, and providence hath widely separated us, so that we have now no other means left us, but in the exercise of our pens, to tell to each other the cares and the conflicts that so often afflict our minds, as well as the spiritual joy and delight which we sometimes feel whilst sitting under

the tree of life, and experiencing the fruit of the Saviour's sufferings and death, as sweet unto our taste.

As I am now, my brother, favoured with a few spare moments from the busy concerns of this dying world, I cannot spend them better than in endeavouring, by meditation, to refresh my soul with the wonders of redeeming mercy and dying love, as made known to a guilty world in the proclamation of the everlasting gospel, and which have, in some happy degree, been revealed to my soul by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I have occupied much of my time, I hope not too much, in my communications with you, in endeavouring to make out the chequered path of Zion's pilgrims, with his numberless conflicts, numerous misgivings, and sad departures from the fountain of living water in life and conversation : as well as the many gracious revivals he experiences in the house of his spiritual bondage. And never let it be forgotten, the many deliverances from the fiery darts of that wicked one, who like a staunch murderer, steady to his purpose, pursues the poor seeking sinner through every lane of love, nor misses once the track, but still presses on, that, were it not for the ever watchful eye and almighty power of Zion's King, we should at once become the unhappy captives of his infernal grasp, and hurried away with legions of despairing spirits into blackness and darkness for ever. But, oh, the riches of divine love, as manifested through the channel of a Saviour's blood, for as it is sprinkled upon the guilty conscience, so it conveys to the soul a sense of interest in eternal life, causing it to rejoice in the hope of the glory which is yet to be revealed at the coming of the Lord Jesus with all his saints. My brother, I would endeavour on all occasions to make the Lord Jesus, and him crucified, the sum and substance of all my communications with you; for that experience

However I need not tell you, for you have long known the fact, that the implantation of grace in the heart, translates a sinner from darkness into light, and from the power of sin and Satan unto God. This is the commencement of a life that sin, death, nor hell can ever destroy. It is true it will be violently assaulted, and our fears may rise so high that we may conclude, in depair, that there is no help for us in God, and that in the end it will be made manifest that we have never tasted the Lord to be gracious. Sometimes we have wondered at the awful impiety of the unbelieving Jews, in despising the Saviour and rejecting the counsel of God against themselves; but what is this when compared to the wretched fits of unbelief we have evinced, when the beloved of our souls has for a moment withdrawn himself, that he might prove to us what was in our hearts. Oh, what a mercy it is, that although we believe not, he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself; he hateth putting away, Again, sometimes in moments of despondency, arising from an inward struggling of sin for the mastery, or from a direct temptation of the enemy, who still vainly supposes in every attempt made that he may prove successful, and so triumph in our everlasting destruction. I say, when passing through this fiery ordeal, how ready we are to take part with him who was a liar from the beginning, and by cruel suspicion of the Redeemer's loving kindness, increase our misery, strengthen every bond, and dishonour the name and character of him upon whom all our hopes for life and salvation entirely

depend. But, my dear friend, have we, as many say, in consequence of such marked rebellion, sinned away the day of grace, made shipwreck of faith, and put ourselves into the hand of our spiritual adversary, and that beyond the possibility of recovery? No; blessed be God our security does not depend upon our watchfulness, and upon our improvement of grace, but upon the mighty arm and unwearied love of him who hath said, "Sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine; I the Lord do keep it, I will water it every moment, I will keep it night and day, lest any hurt it."

It has been my mercy to observe how graciously my precious Jesus hath silenced my unbelief, put to flight my spiritual adversaries, and placed again my feet in a way of sweet apprehension upon the Rock of eternal ages, and that not by any outward, powerful expression of his majesty, but by the still small voice of the love of his heart, unfolding and conveying to my mind, as with the sweetness of the summer's breeze, this declaration, My thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are my ways as your ways: for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts," Need we wonder, then, at such gracious and very seasonable interposi tions on our behalf, when our Father and our Friend has laid himself under his own promise and oath, that he would not turn away to do us good. If, then, the bestowment of his mercy was the free, unsought for, unmerited gift of his love, then I am sure we have the most powerful reason to conclude without fear or distrust, that

he who hath begun a good work in us, will carry it on until the day of Jesus Christ." Oh, it is truly blessed to contemplate the rise and flowins of that river proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb, the streams whereof bear away the curse for ever, and convey to the immortal

spirit of the believing sinner an imperishable salvation :

"Rivers descending, Lord, from thee,
Perpetual glide to solace me:
Their varied virtues to rehearse
Demands an everlasting verse.

"And yet there is, beyond the rest,

One stream-the widest and the bestSalvation; lo, the purple flood,

Rolls rich with my Redeemer's blood."

My brother, you were noticing in one of your letters, how awkwardly you were placed in hearing the gospel, having to go more than four miles to chapel, and that at an uncertainty whether you should hear the gospel of the blessed God; this is almost an universal complaint among the living in Jerusalem, who are longing and panting for the pure word of eternal life. Indeed, when I compare the sentiments of a large proportion of the professing church, with those that dropped from the sacred lips of him who spoke as never man spake, I am constrained with pain to say, in reference to many who have dared to presume to be God's mouth to the people, that darkness hath covered the land and gross darkness the people." But I desire to bless my covenant keeping God, that the work of divine revelation, which testifies of Jesus, is without any mixture of error or contradiction, This silent preacher finds its way to the heart of the sinner dead in trespasses and in sins; he feels his ruined and hopeless condition as a violater of every precept of the law, and cries out, in anguish of spirit, "Lord, save, or I perish!" And not only so, but the saint already quickened and made alive by precious faith in the Lord Jesus, daily needs an application of the word of God with divine power to his heart, to strengthen his faith, confirm his expectation, and so to impart the grace of the ever-blessed Spirit, that he may come behind in no spiritual gift, waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. November, 1844.]

I can well remember many seasons of trial and difficulty, many castings down by reason of indwelling sin, and many sharp and severe attacks of the enemy upon my defenceless soul, when one single portion of scripture, applied with divine power to my heart, has proved like David's sling and stone, casting down vain imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of Christ, and bringing every thought into sweet subjection to the obedience of "the faith once delivered to the saints."

"I sing my Saviour's wond'rous death,
He conquered when he fell;
"T is finished, said his dying breath,
And shook the gates of hell."

that

I must, however, bring my remarks to a close, lest I should weary you, for I know, through our manifold infirmities, we are not always so spiritually minded as to find the things of God life and peace unto our souls. True indeed it is, that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Yet I cannot close without telling you I had a very blessed scripture this morning, before the break of day, that at once directed my faith to the heart of God himself, as the fountain from whence salvation flows to the church, with its ten thousand blessings; the passage was this: "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

"A guilty, weak and helpless worm,
On thy kind arms I fall;
Be thou my strength and righteousness,
My Jesus and my all."

yet in all with profit your article, published in the Spiritual Magazine, according to my request, which in the October number is before us, a vindication of your own assertions, namely, That the sin against the Holy Ghost cannot be committed now, that if we, (not saying what we,) sin wil. fully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there is an exclusive sacrifice: the superiority of the gospel to the law, having, you say, provided a sacrifice for wilful and presumptuous sins, that is, The blood of the Son of God.

These assertions, having for some few years been increasing in the nations, and many authors having unitedly laboured to produce scripture proofs, on the best of motives, eccording to their imaginations, namely for the praise of the glorious Three One, and to extol the riches of his grace, and for the deliverance of the election of God, from their distressing tormenting fears of perishing, being tempted, although renewed by the Holy Ghost, to fear, they had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, or wilful and presumptuous sins, which was my own case, as declared in the number for September, that case being put in the Magazine, has been rendered a blessing, to some hundreds of the Zion of the Holy One." Thus in "The Lord God who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working," we have to thank our beloved brother Onesimus for some of his Magazine doctrines and goodwill toward men; and above all to thank and bless God for the benefit of a free press and for special blessing of Magazines like the Spiritual and some others, by which, as no renewed men at all times, understand their own errors," Psa. xix. 12, all by christian controversy, and trying all assertions, by the divine law, and testimony, in the mysterious working of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of promise, in us all espe

46

cially in his public witnesses, pastors, and watchmen, truth at length, may have victory, errors be exposed and consumed, Satan's head of influence in Zion be bruised, and God Three One be glorified; and that "the Zion of the Holy One" may be more satisfied, that the present distresses, they are wading in, and tormenting fears, they endure by Satan's workings, temptations, and bruisings, whilst they are chastened under God the Father's hand by his rod and reproofs for sin; they may know that the present state they are in, by God's fore-knowledge, and love to them, is the very furnace of affliction in which they are chosen. See Isa. xlviii. 10. And the very fiery trial and sufferings, for Christ's sake, foreappointed, see Phil. i. 29; 1 Peter iv. 12 through which all must pass for a shorter or longer time, by the Godhead's will, for his glory and their special blessings; as it is written ; "Whose fire is in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem." Isa. xxxi. 9. Therefore goodwill toward" the Zion of the Holy One," in the Godhead's furnace and fire, have issued assertions, and are unitedly labouring to give scriptural proofs, imagining they shall do so, for the comfort and final deliverance of the renewed of God, from their fears, and set up a standard for the whole Zion of the Holy One," to arrive at, for succour, nay to the place of no dread of committing the sin against the Holy Ghost, or of wilful presumptuous sins, even if they have, or intend to go unto them, because the superiority of the blood of the Son of God, under the New Testament dispensation is so exceeding in merit, and efficacy, than through the Old Testament dispensation that for wilful and presumptuous sins, they say, his blood is the exclusive sacrifice. Now as the beloved Onesimus did protest those assertions, in the number for August last and as myself, An Old Watch

man, did request him through the September number to give us scriptural proofs in the October number, which he has attempted to do, from page 230 to the end of page 234; The Old Watchmam has a call, nay, a command by the Holy One, to publish a reply, and as far as the Holy One gives counsel by his law and testimony ingrafted in his heart and soul, as recorded in his holy volume the Bible will interpret through the magazines the momentous portions of Scripture, which Onesimus, with many other men, has thus been labouring to interpret but failed. First then that I may do justice in the divine blessing, to Onesimus, before the Zion of the Holy One," whilst I am An Old Watchman on Zion's walls; I must conscientiously declare that Onesimus is an affectionate controvertist, whom I have viewed with love and pleasure mingled with pain, adventuring through the whole Scriptures, as an open field, roving forward and backward in his peculiar gleaning hand, and penfulls, of quotations, and arranging them all in his superior the ological wisdom in order to prove, his assertions scriptural, but alas all is a failure. Secondly therefore I must say in all christian charity and faithfulness, beloved Onesimus you have erred in spirit, and as I have no doubt of your election according to the forknowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience. and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." Although you have erred in spirit, you may by God's special blessings in, and through these Magazines, come to understanding. To that end, God willing, Thirdly, I am to prove scripturally, what the sin against the Holy Ghost was, and now is, and who did from the beginning commit that sin; who can even now, commit, and do commit that sin, and who cannot commit it. Proving also, what

wilful sins are, against the glorious Three One, and what persons of old, committed wilful sins, and what persons can, and are now committing wilful sins, for which there is no exclusive sacrifice; or any superiority of the blood of the Son of God, in merit or efficacy, in this New Testament dispensation, than the old, so that the persons who are left to commit wilful sins, manifest their reprobation, and in the same article, prove that it is utterly impossible for one of God's elect sons or daughters to commit wilful or presumptuous sins.

Now hear ye, and in Scripture light and sounds see ye, that the sin against the Holy Ghost, is the highest blasphemy committed by creatures who had, and has in sinful nature, a knowledge of the Holy Ghost that he was and is, with the Father and Christ one God; and having at the same time a knowledge, that the Holy Ghost's law and testimony is the truth; and in all that knowledge, do hate the Holy Ghost, and his truth; and publicly in hatred to him, speak lies against him, by taking from or adding unto his truth, which lies, are the highest blasphemies and uttered with the wicked murderous intention to seduce the people, who love honour and obey the Holy Ghost, according to his recorded truth. Such is the sin against the Holy Ghost. the unpardonable sin. And creatures who have or shall commit that sin, know they have done so, by the curse of the Godhead, that is denounced, falling upon, and entering into them, according to the Scriptures, and by feeling the plagues and vindictive torments added unto them. For undeniable proofs, read Gen. iii. 16. Rev. xxii. 18.

We beseech you to observe beloved Onesimus and all the citizens of Zion, who from the walls of the city may hear the sounds, and see our interpretations that the first sinful creature who committed the sin against the Holy Ghost,

was