got so jammed between the sharp rocks, that he has not to this day recovered from his bruises. Now I think if these "few wretched men" had been made poor by an Almighty hand, (1 Sam. ii. 7,) so far from thinking that I had made the road too narrow, they would rather have complained that I had left it still too wide. They would have said, "If friend Philpot had only known a little more of his own deceitful and hypocritical heart, and had only had a deeper insight into Satan's delusions, he would have made the wires of his sieve a little closer. He is very young in these matters; he has a deal to learn; he is but a novice yet; he must go more into the furnace, before his ladle can scum off all our dross. There are deceits, delusions, and depths of hypocrisy in our heart, which he has never touched upon. He has not shook out all the down of our arm-hole pillows, nor struck the mattock deep enough into our untempered mortar, nor cut away all our rotten props, nor hunted us out of all our lying refuges. We can creep into holes and corners where he has never been. He is only ankle-deep, and we have been in waters to be swum over. He must have a longer line, before he can reach the depths of our unfathomable deceit and hypocrisy." Such, I conceive, would be the language of " a few wretched men" to one another, after they had perused my little tract, if they had been made beggars and bankrupts by a supernatural power. But I have read of some beggars, who tie up their legs, and then call themselves lame; of others, who double up their arm in the sleeve of their jackets, and profess to have been crippled in the wars; and of others, who rub their flesh with a certain herb which produces a sore, and then show their piteous wounds. Now I will not say that the "few wretched men" have made themselves wretched in this way, but I am fully convinced they have not been led deeply either into the nature of true religion, the delusions of the devil, or the deceitfulness of their own hearts. They complain, for instance, that "I have pulled down all their evidences of a new birth," and left them wandering on a dark labyrinth of uncertainty." Now the question is, whether I have destroyed one evidence of a gracious nature? I say, No. All I have pulled down is the counterfeit religion of the flesh; and if they had been" brands half-consumed in the fire," it would have been burnt off long before they ever fell in with my appendix. I never said that spiritual" praying, seeking, striving, desiring, wishing, and tasting" were no evidences; but I have attempted to show, and brought forward Scripture proofs and instances too for each, that natural praying, seeking, &c., are no evidences of a heavenly birth. Nor have I ever asserted" that a dead man can taste, feel, hunger, and thirst after the bread of life;" though I believe the devil can beget on a deceitful heart a bastard offspring that has a tongue to taste false comforts, hands to feel a false Christ, feet to walk in a false path, a throat to swallow false evidences, and a stomach to digest a false experience. But I never have, and God forbid I ever should breathe a word against, or lay a rude finger upon a grain of true faith, a spark of genuine hope, or a particle of divine love. But it seems to me that a few wretched men" have quite mistaken my drift. My object

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Or

was not to show what were evidences of salvation, but what salvation itself was. Now these two things are quite distinct. Whoever thought that the title deeds were the same thing as the estate? whoever imagined that a twenty pound note was the same thing as twenty sovereigns; or that the certificate of my birth was the same thing as I myself? The title deeds may be imitated, the note counterfeited, and the certificate forged. But land is land, gold is gold, and I myself am J. C. Philpot still, though false deeds, notes, and certificates should be as thick as leaves in autumn.

My object was to show what an inward salvation was, and this I insisted upon consisted in a revelation of Christ to the soul. But I never said there were not minor evidences of the new birth, though even of these I would allow none but spiritual ones. I have said, for instance, towards the end, that "salvation does not consist in doubts and fears, tribulations and temptations," &c., but I have added, that “all these things accompany salvation, and are to be found in all the heirs of glory." And to show that I only rejected false evidences, I have said, To sum up the whole, salvation does not consist in any thing of the flesh.'

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But to convince "a few wretched men" that I have not cut off such as they call themselves, allow me a little longer extract.

"Some of them, indeed, are now being plunged into the terrors of the law, others doubting and fearing, others cutting themselves off as hypocrites, others groaning beneath the weight of sin, others overcome by the power of their lusts, others harassed by the devil, others fainting by reason of the way, and all engaged in a terrible conflict with an old man of sin. Some, again, are cut to the heart on account of their backslidings, others abhorring themselves in dust and ashes, others buffeted with the sorest temptations, others filled with rebellion and fretfulness, others entangled in Satan's snares, and others sitting in stubborn silence, or well nigh swallowed up with despondency. Some have never found their Saviour, and others have lost him; some have never felt pardon and deliverance, and others have been' again entangled in the yoke of bondage;' some are hoping against hope, and others are doubting against evidences; some are 'plagued all the day long, and chastened every morning,' and others are fearing they are bastards, because the rod of God is not upon them.""

But what would my Lancashire friends think of me if I were to assert in the Standard that I could ride all over Chat Moss and never so much as sink in up to my horse's fetlocks?

But,

I have tried all these evidences that I have cut away, and found they would not bear me up. The ice was firm and good once. alas! the thaw came, and the ice became rotten, and I feared I should be drowned. And this made me look out for some dry land; and I have ever since felt that no evidence will abide the storm but Christ revealed to the soul. Now if I saw a few wretched men" riding at night towards Chat Moss, or skaiting away over rotten ice, I should be their best friend if I cried out, "You are lost men if you venture there." And if, through zeal for their safety, I pulled them a little rudely from their saddle, or even tore their clothes or hands with my sheephook as I dragged them off the ice, they would forgive my rough usage, and thank God for their escape.

But if" a few wretched men" will show me in your next number any gracious evidences that I have pulled down, I will either acknow

ledge my fault, or endeavour to prove that what they consider genuine evidences may be, and are delusions of Satan, and lying refuges of self-deceived professors.

March 6, 1838.

Yours in the best bonds,

J. C. PHILPOT.

SPIRITUAL CORRESPONDENCE.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE GOSPEL STANDARD.

May grace, mercy, and truth continue with you. I have just read W. G's. piece in the Gospel Standard, with much comfort and concern. I heard him twenty-one years ago in London, and never had the opportunity to relate how profitable the blessed Lord made his ministry to my soul. Other pieces in the Gospel Standard have been a great blessing to me; and please to allow me to make my grateful thanks to a few tried travellers that contribute to the pages of the Gospel Standard; but first, I do hereby publicly bless and thank our blessed dear Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that put it in your hearts by the eternal God the Holy Ghost, to edit and publish the Gospel Standard, and sincerely thank you for your performances in the same; and may the dear Lord bless and prosper you in your endeavours to scatter the trials, troubles, and the good Lord's kind deliverances of his dear beloved bought children, for many years to come in the Gospel Standard. And also my sincere thanks to I. K., Abingdon. Ah! my dear friend, you see eye to eye with me, with respect to the locusts that darken the hemisphere in our gospel Zion; the Lord help you to continue to bear your testimony for the truth as it is in Jesus. Also to my poor tried brother, A Watchman on the Walls; also to Resurgam, A Pensioner, Timothy, John Warburton, Newborn, and some others whose names I cannot call to mind; but most particularly to W. G. And why I now make free to scribble, is, fearing that the Lord should take our dear brother W. G. home to that place of rest prepared for him and all the purchased possession, before I make known to him how precious the Lord, by the power of the blessed Spirit, has made his ministry to my soul. I say, take him home to that rest, for I have been as satisfied for the last twenty-one years of his going to glory as I am that I am in my own existence, and many hundred times has the Lord brought him in my mind in prayer, with many more of the Lord's sent servants. The first time I heard brother W. G. was in Conway Street Chapel, Fitzroy Square, London, after at the Caledonian Chapel, Hatton Garden, London, and the last time at Hampstead. One time at Conway Street, the discourse was all reproval and rebuke to me, and at the close, I said, "No word of comfort for me this night," the words had hardly proceeded from my mouth, when W. G., as if under some sudden impulse, quoted with such vehemence and zeal 1 Sam. xii. 22., that it came home to my soul with such glorious

power, that I did bless and thank the Lord with joyful lips, and have thought of it many times since with heartfelt gratitude both to the God of our mercies, and the Lord's servant. O how many times I have longed to hear him since; also our dear brother John Warburton, but have been deprived of that blessed privilege for many long years. Give my love to him, (W. G.) and tell him my soul does bless him as the Lord's servant, even while I write; also, that his writings have been a blessing to me many, many times. Tell Mr. G. I am the poor wretch that left Mr. Toplady's works, for the chapel library at Gower Street, some years ago, and would not allow Mr. H., to say who left them. Now for a little, hoping it may be a comfort to the Lord's dear children. In the year 1816, the blessed Lord brought my poor ill and hell deserving soul into the glorious liberty of the blessing of peace, under the ministry of Edmund Robins, Conway Street, which glorious liberty my soul so enjoyed, that it was a heaven on earth. For three weeks after that, I was by degrees brought down into the valley, and I have found it to be a warfare from that day to this. Even for nearly the last thirteen months, it is impossible for me to tell you what darkness, affliction, distress, and trouble I have gone through. Many times I have wished it lawful to shoot myself to get out of it. Many times I have thought myself to be in the same state as Major Mizabib. O the groaning, crying, and sighing my poor distracted soul has gone through. Sometimes I got a lift from the Gospel Standard; but our good and blessed Lord God Almighty has in mercy restored my poor soul into joy and peace in. believing, and my poor body gratefully partakes of his glorious benefits. Ah! my friends, this is the right sort of a college to go to. See Ezek. xx. 30., to the end. Dear friends, now the Lord has delivered me, I would not be without the trials and troubles I have gone through for a thousand worlds. Now, my dear friends, I am at a point, that were it possible for a poor child of God to get into hell, our God would fetch him back again; for I can verily say, “I have waded through the depth of death and hell, and lovely dear Emmanuel has brought my soul out again, and set my feet in a large room. And sure I am, from ups and downs, ins and outs, by woeful and blessed experience, that, where the Lord has once blessed the soul, yea, if it has enjoyed one unconditional promise, applied by the Holy Ghost to the soul, yea, if a soul has felt and read all the curses' in the Bible as a hell deserving sinner, and has cried for mercy, hungering and thirsting for righteousness and the water of life; I say, that soul is as sure and safe to go to heaven as if it was there. I forgot many things I heard with power; but it has just come to my mind of what I heard Mr. G. once say, that if we could only sigh, the Lord heard and would assuredly answer us. I well know it now for a truth; but when I get into the dark, I am as full of that cursed sin of unbelief as ever; and though I am at times sure I shall be for ever with the Lord, yet, I only expect to escape as it were with the skin of my teeth; but as our dear friend used to say, (and I see he still keeps saying so,) "Honours crown his brow,

he will laing us safly through." I can assure you there are times wood avaama with mis, that I am certain, rather than the blesssal Loud would lose one of his dear blood-bought children, he would past the whole world into convulsions. May the blessing of thu bound test upon you and all his dear redeemed children, for Jeane Chise's sake. May our dear friend, by God's heavenly will, to tenured to health and strength, and God grant that his afflictions ung by the homour and glory of the blessed God, for his soul's stand and wou the pouniction, conversion, entication, and comfort để dày tud's dom vazute, i the prayer of yours in the best of