NEWMAN, AND CO. "Let God be true, but every man a liar."-Rom. iii. 4. God, and yet they have their partic- ETERNAL TRUTH VERSUS LAUD, PUSEY ular rules and ways, and they must attend to these; but it arises a good deal through weakness of faith and the want of knowledge: hence Paul says, "There is not in every man that knowledge." But again, these little children are very shallow in their understandings, respecting their being in a pardoned state. These small evidences which they have, when they do not feel them, but the contrary, namely, the abounding of corruption, they at once cast away their confidence, and give place to the devil, who says they never were pardoned, and as their experience was shallow, they believe him, who is the father of lies. Now John, who was noted for love, deals very tenderly towards such, and says, "I write unto you little children, that ye may know that your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake." But if I have got a clear and rich experience of these things, I do not stand in need of another writing to me, and bringing forth marks and evidences, by which I may know it: all this shews that such are little in knowledge. But again, Jesus Christ is an Advocate. This is one of his office charBut it is a long time before we understand this, so as to live upon and make use of him as such. We wonder to feel such accusations from Satan, law and conscience, come again and again, and instead of our taking these difficulties to the Lord Jesus as our Advocate, we run to one and another telling them, and instead of getting better, we get worse and worse. Now John says, "my little children, these things I write unto you, that ye sin not: and if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole (elect) world." But these little children were dark in these things. acters. (To be Continued.) ON a hearing in arrest of judgment, or to shew cause why judgment should not be passed upon defendants, it was argued and alleged, in answer, by the plaintiff in this cause; that somewhere about the year 1640, when Archbishop Laud was first impeached, there was found amongst his papers, then ordered to be searched, one, purporting to be a letter from a professed Jesuit, addressed to the then rector of Brussels;—that this letter was found indorsed in the prelate's own handwriting, as follows;-March, 1628. A Jesuit's letter, sent to the rector of Brussels, about the ensuing parlia ment; and that the following is an extract from the same:-Father rector, let not the damp of astonishment seize upon your ardent and zealous soul, in apprehending the sudden and unexpected calling of a parliament. We have now many strings to our bow. We have planted that sovereign drug, arminianism, which we hope will purge the protestants from their heresy; and it flourisheth and bears fruit in due season. For the better prevention of the puritans, the arminians have already locked up the Duke of Buckingham's ears; and we have those of our own religion which stand continually at the duke's chamber, to see who goes in and out; we cannot be too careful and circumspect in this regard. I am, at this time, transported with joy, to see how happily all instruments and means, as well great as lesser, co-operate with our purposes. But to return to the main fabrick: our foundation is arminianism. The arminians and projectors, as it appears, in the premises, affect mutation: this we second and enforce by probable arguments. -Hidden works of darkness, p. 89. edition, 1645. It was further alleged, that what the Jesuit in the above letter, calls the sovereign drug, arminianism (which, as he says, the papists planted in England) did, indeed, go far to purge our protestant church effectually; and how merrily (as one says) popery and arminianism did, at that time, dance hand in hand, may be learned from the following extract from Tindal's continuation of Rapin; -The churches were adorned with paintings, images, altar-pieces, &c.; and, instead of communion tables, altars were set up, and bowings to them and the sacramental elements enjoined. The predestinarian doctrines were forbid, not only to be preached, but to be printed; and the arminian sense of the articles was encouraged and propagated. Such were the facts adduced on the above-mentioned hearing in this notable cause; from all which, we may gather the following conclusions and observations. 1. That the matter in question is indeed the cause of truth itself. That opposition and enmity to the truth of God, is the mainspring of all, so called puseyite principles and efforts. 3, That this is corroborated and fully borne out, in that their professed language, and spirit of all their proceedings is, Union with all excepting those abominable Calvin. ists. 4. That there is nothing new under the sun; that this is but the spirit of the leaven working in Laud's and the first Charles's days, as appears in the above extracts-nay, the very leaven which Luther's keenness discovered as the basis of popery, and against which, therefore, all the powers of the reformation were brought to bear: for though Luther failed not to assail the out-works of popery, his chief efforts were directed against that Pelagianism and arminianism, always its handmaids and attendants-nay, in which lies its every essence. 5. Let all the publications of the puseyite party be examined, the same leaven of enmity against the doctrines of the free grace of God, will be found to run through them. 6 Let, then, the true character of this puseyite movement be well marked it is to put down, and silence, as Tindal says, the predestinarian doctrines, as in king Charles's and Laud's days. 7. Amidst, therefore, the signs of the times, so much spoken of, let this one be chiefly apparent-A remark. able depreciation of God's truth. "Truth hath fallen in our streets, and equity cannot enter: the pearls are trampled under their feet: the pastures are trodden down, and the waters are fouled with their feet," Ezek. xxxiv. 18, 19.-And this, not only by the puseyite fraternity, but to which almost all other sects and parties of the land have lent a hand, more or less; so that the great question of the day is not so much (important as that may be) establishment or no establishment, state church or free church, but-Truth or no truth. True it is, the Lord, as the Head of the church, which is his body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all," will ever have his witnesses; so that, though they may be slain, or their mouths stopped over and over again (as there have already been many great slayings of the witnesses, and will again no doubt), yet he has always caused them in his own time and way, to rise again; and will to the end of time. What is the character of the late commotions in the diocese of Exeter? Is it not the same thing? Is it not enmity to the predestinarian doctrines of grace, and the eternal election of the church of God in Christ Jesus? How are the names of a Goodwin, a Toplady, a Berridge, a Hawker, a Wilkinson, depreciated in the present day. What else means this prevalence in the churches, of the doctrine of the universality of the atone ment and redemption, the very basis and root of popery? Whence all this bigotted contention about systems and externals, as if the great enemy would thereby throw dust in the eyes, to blind all parties as to the true and proper point of contention, namely, "the faith once delivered to the saints?" But, shall we waste our time and strength in defence of the outworks, when it is the citadel itself is attacked? How does all this contention about matters of mere human arrangement, having no more divine right in them than in the form and shape of the places where the worship is held, while the weightier matters of eternal truth are overlooked, prove the existence of a rank puseyite and papistical spirit in many, who outwardly declaim against both pope and Pusey ? are Lastly. If these things, then, be so, if truth be declining, if, as well in the establishment, as out of it amongst dissenters, notwithstanding the boasted spread of evangelicalism, the great doctrines of grace slighted, if not denied; such as, eternal union, the choice of the church in Christ before all worlds, predestination to life, eternal justification, total depravity by the fall, the damnable nature of original sin, particular redemption of the chosen family, limited atonement, that is, for those given of the Father to Christ, complete satisfaction for, and removal of sin, the imputation not only of the guilt and punishment, but also of the very sin itself to the first great substitute, the effectual calling by the Holy Spirit of those chosen in Christ, and their final and certain, perseverance unto eternal glory, if amidst the almost general denial, or neglect of those glorious doctrines, an undue weight be laid upon nonessentials-if, while some, in lieu of the bond of the truth, are setting up and looking to the alone bond of what they call fellowship, and so making the church (the scripture emblem whereof is the moon) to eclipse the Sun of Righteousness; and others, in their bigotry for things pertaining to church government and discipline, are carried away with the idolatry of system and externals;-if this be the state of things; if such the character of the age, and the signs of the times; and if, added to which, men of truth, such as a Hawker or a Wilkinson, be dropping around us, and none appear to rise up in their places, as is indeed the case, then, what an appeal have we to the still few remaining lovers of the truth, especially amongst the Lord's ministering servants, to rally round the standard of the cross; to be keen to mark the devices of the enemy; to stand upon the watchtower, and observe his approaches; to be increasingly bold in defence of "the faith once delivered to the saints;" to stand to their colours; to reject the prevailing spirit of compromise and expediency; to learn to trust God with his own truths, and to cast them upon the waters, sink or swim; to forget all their minor differences; to agree to differ about things non-essential and less essential; and to unite together against the common enemy. Brethren, beloved in the Lord, truth-lovers, truth-speakers, and truth-hearers, you cannot bnt groan under the general desolation, and destitution of the truth. Time was, when that sovereign drug, arminianism, even in the letter, was shamed out of doors; now, it is stalking through the land with a whorish forehead, or more or less palliated in almost every place. We are not ignorant of the intentions of the enemy; we see him concentrating his forces; we see his legions are all gathering together to one point; we see the holy city of divine truth is the object of attack, and the purpose is to level it with the dust. Perhaps you will say, this is nothing new; often and often has the noly city been assailed, and nigh to destruction, and again and again has the Lord of Hosts appeared to its aid, and destroyed these Philistines, or baffled and defeated them. True, we know, truth must prevail in the end, and they who remove the land-marks will perish according to law: we may, indeed, safely leave it in his hands whose purposes cannot be defeated or frustrated. This, however, hinders not but that such be the present aspect of affairs. As to arminian, pelagian, and free will teachers and hearers, we see not that they have any so much cause of complaint against their puseyite brethren. They (the puseyites) are too near akin, and are doing the work of these eachers but too well, for them to cry out, and make so much ado about their vain superstitious ceremonies, which, after all, I verily believe, are only the devil's blind, that by raising dispute about such things, their more insidious errors against the free grace of God, may be overlooked; but, perhaps, when in due time, this arminian spawn shall have grown up into popish supremacy, and these free-willers come to wail under the weight of the paw of the apocalyptic beast, they may find out their error. Certain it is, that the mystery of iniquity doth still work, and whereunto it will grow, we know not. just emerging from the gloom of Emmaus, to come forth with a few hints seasonable to the church of Christ generally, now sunk into a sad and miserable state in these last days so expressly mentioned by Paul in 2 Tim. iv. 3; and as a scriptural foundation, allow me to head my poor mite for the treasury with the solemn admonition of the apostle, in Rom. xii. 16. "Condescend to men of low estate." This is a passage for living souls who, as Bunyan says, are almost grown rusty. After near thirty years' attendance on the ministry of the Lord's faithful and sent servants, in many parts of this Sardis and her metropolis, I have never once heard this much needed admonition taken as a text. Moved, therefore, as I trust, by the best of motives, namely the glory of our dear Lord, and the reproof, rebuke, admonition, instruction and profit, as well as comfort of the poor outcasts of Zion, who as dear Hart says, "Men disturbers call; For those too bad, for these too good, Condemned and shunn'd by all." May the eternal Spirit of all grace enable me, though in myself entirely incompetent, to enter rightly into the subject, for the apostle Paul says, God has "I chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and base things of the world, and things that are despised, to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence," 1 Cor. i. 27-29. came, saith the Lord, to bring fire upon the earth;" and what if it be that it still burneth, and will burn unto the end, sometimes hotter and fiercer? But blessed be his name, it shall be well with his remnant, and Whe thst feareth God, shall come orth of them all." ་་ Bethesda Chapel, Bath. J. A. WALLINGER, HE GREAT THINGS GOD HATH DONE FOR MY SOUL. PERMIT, Messrs. Editors, a poor, despised and unworthy grasshopper, Wise men after the flesh are chosen by men, but the Lord calls the fool, and makes him to know the mystery of his grace, that the wisdom of man may be brought low. Entreating the Lord that I may be kept from all wrong feeling, which too often tinctures the writings and the discourses of some good men, may I be enabled to smite the Lord's family in love, for "faithful are the wounds of a friend," and reprove and rebuke and exhort with all long-suffering, whilst I endeavour to draw the solemn line of separation between the real Israel of God and the modern bastards of Ashdod, the half and half men of this day, who swarm over the land, and who cannot aspirate the ǹ in the word Shibboleth, but answer, as did the deceivers of old, Sibboleth. The modern pharisees, the wolves habited in sheeps' clothing, God forbid that I should spare any more from the cutting truth, than Elijah spared the prophets of Baal, those self-righteous and holy Arminians, who are scorners of Jesus and his free grace salvation, as well as scorners of real experimental religion, feelingly taught in the soul by God the Holy Ghost, and scorners of God's poor, feeble, readyto halt family, to whom I would say, Mark what is written in the Proverbs, "Judgments are prepared for scorn. ers, and stripes for the back of fools," chap. xix. 29. The scorner is the child of the devil, and the fool is the child of God. Now while I would, without softening down, or qualifying scripture language, plainly say to these worst enemies of the truth, whose hearts boil up with malicious enmity against the inwrought teachings of God the Spirit in the souls of his own family, and which children are always, as was David and many also in the days of Joshua, wondered at" by the seed of the serpent, the generation of vipers, those enemies under the garb of friendship, outer court worshippers, with different sentimental dresses, and having the mark of the beast on their foreheads, or else secretly in the hand, that they belong to that world out of which Jesus brings his people, a world that wander after the beast, that lies in the wicked one, and that Jesus never prayed for, and so consequently a world that can never be saved. Yea, Jesus asked their ancestors how they could escape the damnation of hell? I will, therefore, conclude my address to these in the January, 1845.] 66 men words of Paul, when he spake to that man who strove to turn away the deputy from the faith, Oh, full of all subtlety and mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord." Acts xiii. Bless the dear Lord, I have often found he maketh the malice of my enemies to work for my good, since their cruel treatment drives me to my glorious hiding-place; they drive, and Jesus, with the sweet cords of his love, gently draws; then in plaintive notes I sing, Blest be the sorrow and kind the storm that drives me nearer home. Thus out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. This is truly a riddle which none of the ancient or modern philosophers ever understood. Now in all the plots and schemes and deep-laid designs of evil I have suffered from the modern freewillers and bastards of the day, they have done their duty, the dirty work their father the devil set them to do, but the Lord has overturned all their machinations for my good and his own glory, so that I have oftentimes exclaimed, and that with real heartfelt gratitude, Moab is my washpot." But what is more distressing still to the poor of the family, men of low estate, is, that many even of the Lord's own children will at times join these Ahabs, and persecute and distress their poor and needy brethren, the men of low estate, and thus make their path as rugged as possible. Oh much of this sort of trouble and grief has fallen to my lot, causing me to say, If it had been an enemy I could have borne it. Alas, my own familiars watched for my halting, and did privily lay snares for my soul many times. Yes, in the valley of adversity, temporally, and in the valley of Bocksin, spiritually, I have long been living; Bethany, the house of affliction, has been for a long time my habitation. D |