moment relinquishes; he carries it on with a power to which all resistance must yield, and will complete it to the praise of the glory of the whole divine Trinity and all the sacred perfections of Deity. In the faithful mirror of the gospel he presents to their astonished view the glory, personal and mediatorial, the grace, the righteousness, the atonement, the redemption, the salvation of Immanuel, in the transcendent beauty of their perfection, and in the riches, the superabundant riches of their freeness to the guilty, whose only desert is the vengeance of eternal fire. His glorious almighty power effectually disposes them to believe the gospel testimony concerning Jesus; and assuring them that the absolute grant which God the Father has made of him, and all the riches of his fulness to sinners as such, is their complete and only warrant to receive him, he encourages their desponding minds, and emboldens and enables their fearful, trembling hearts, swollen with anguish, to claim him as their own, on that very ground; to venture their languishing souls upon him, and to place their entire confidence in him for justification, pardon, and peace; for sanctification and everlasting life. Here they triumph; here they rest; this is their rest for ever; here they shall dwell in perfect safety; no power shall separate them from Him in whom they confide; their righteous souls shall never be removed from this impregnable foundation, this invincible sanctuary where grace reigns over sin, and death, and hell, through righteousness, unto eternal life. "This is the glorious era of their existence: before, they existed as mere men; now, they exist as Christian men; they now enter upon a new career; they begin to live a life of faith, of love, of hope, of self-denial, of humility, of godly fear, of prayer, of praise, of cheerful obedience to the divine command, and of ardent desire of the highest possible enjoyment of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whom they affectionately regard as the supreme good, whose favour is life, and whose smile is bliss. The faithful Spirit carries on his gracious work; he will not, he cannot forsake it; he helps their manifold and various infirmities. Under his efficient influence, and in his never failing strength, they fight the good fight of faith, resist the devil, wrestle with flesh and blood, put off, as concerning the former conversation, the old man with his deeds, putting on the new; and run with patience the race which is set before them, looking unto Jesus;' nor shall they faint; for God has granted unto them that they, being delivered from the hand of their enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness, before him all, not a part only, but all the days of their lives." There are two things remarkable in this description. 1. That the deliverance spoken of seems more of a doctrinal than an experimental nature. We have put into italics the parts which seem to us defective. There is too litte said of manifestation or application. More is said of what the Holy Ghost enables them to do, than what he does in them as passive recipients of mercy and pardon. Thus, according to our extract, "the Holy Ghost enables them to believe the gospel testimony concerning Jesus, and that the grant of the Father is their complete and only warrant to receive him; they are thus enabled to claim him, to venture upon him, to confide, and thence to triumph and rest in him." And is this all that need be known and felt that the soul may rejoice in the Lord? Is this a complete and thorough gospel deliverance? We are very much inclined to believe that a poor sinner so delivered will have, before he dies, to be delivered over again, and to have something more of manifestation and revelation than is here spoken of. It certainly does look to us like a bed too short and a covering too narrow. Though we believe such as is here described may be and often is the work of the Spirit, and affords excellent ground for encouragement and comfort to a seeking sinner, yet it seems to us to fall short of a full gospel deliverance. It seems to us more like a half-way house than the end of the journey-more the distance-post than the goal. A poor guilty sinner cannot so easily receive God's absolute grant of Jesus as his only warrant. He wants "who loved me and gave himself for me" to be whispered in his heart. Nor can he claim him as his on the ground of an absolute warrant; for a poor lawcondemned sinner has a thousand fears that he is not one for whom Christ died, which no absolute grant or general warrant can overcome. Still less can he for ever triumph and rest in this confidence, for till the Lord assures him with his own lips that he is his, a thousand suspicions will damp all confidence that rests on such grounds. And 2. We would remark that the doctrine of unwavering assurance is implied, if not expressed, in this extract. Nothing, at least, is said of any subsequent doubts or fears, exercises or conflicts; nothing of dark and gloomy paths, and of the inward conflict. In the light once seen, in the life once felt, in the faith once communicated, in the peace once enjoyed, the believer is assumed to walk during the rest of his pilgrimage. Not a hint is given of this faith being ever tried in the furnace, or that there is as much need of fresh deliverances and fresh manifestations as if the soul had never enjoyed any. And here, we suspect, is the great and prominent defect of Suffolk divinity. Correct in doctrine, (one or two points, we believe, excepted,) and possessing a large share of natural and acquired ability, the Suffolk divines appear to us very deficient in that power and unction, that vein of experience, that entrance into the very heart and conscience of God's people which are so sweet and so profitable. A dryness and hardness pervade their writings, so that we can neither get into them, nor do they much get into us. A doctrinal assurance runs through their works, which has to us very much the air of false confidence; for it is built, not so much on manifestations to the soul, or grounded upon the experience of felt and enjoyed mercy, as it rests upon the doctrines of grace as they stand in the word. Thus, their assurance is a logical, rational assurance-one built upon a syllogism, thus, "The elect can never perish; I am one of the elect; I can never perish." Now, this syllogistic sort of assurance is a very different thing from the witness of the Spirit; its seat, for the most part, being the head, more than the heart. Such a logical assurance does very well until the soul gets into a storm; but that makes terrible havoc with the minor premiss, as logicians call it, "I am one of the elect ;" and if that limb of the syllogism is torn away by Satan, what becomes of the conclusion, "I can never perish ?" But this tearing to pieces of logic and reasoning makes a sweet, yea, the only way for the inward voice of love and mercy, raising up a faith which stands not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Highly esteeming and respecting Mr. Job Hupton, we wish he was more decidedly free from the faults of Suffolk divinity, and that we could feel towards him all that love and union which warm our heart to those preachers and writers who, without half of his ability in argument or clearness of style, more abundantly dip their foot in oil, and, more manifestly to our conscience, preach the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. POETRY. "THIS IS NOT YOUR REST." Poor burden'd heart, bow'd down with They teach those lessons to the mind, "SAY UNTO MY SOUL, I AM THY SALVATION.” To men and devils, (sure I must,) O Lord! assist me while I write ; At that great day when thou wilt come T. C. I feel I'm helpless, Lord, and vile; That soul which feels and hates its sin. A HELPLESS SINNER. THE GOSPEL STANDARD, OR, FEEBLE CHRISTIAN'S SUPPORT. "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled."-Matt. v. 6. "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."-2 Tim. i. 9. "The election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded."-Rom. xi. 7. "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.-And they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.-In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."-Acts viii. 37, 38; Matt. xxviii. 19. No. 99. MARCH, 1844. VOL. X. A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE LAST DAYS ON EARTH OF THE LAMENTED W. GADSBY. (Extracted from the Memoirs about to be published.) For several months his breathing had at times been much affected, so that it was with difficulty he could walk to the chapel, and latterly he had been unable to walk more than a very short distance. The last place at which he preached, except at his own chapel, was Woolroad, Saddleworth, on the 17th December. While there, his illness was very severe, so much so, that on his return home he told his family that Mr. B. was afraid he was going to die there, and that he had said to him, "You never were so glad to get rid of me in your life." The last thoughts that he committed to paper for the press were his Remarks on the Advantages of Sunday Schools, for the first number of the Sunday School Visitor. The late separation from his church had certainly preyed much upon his mind, though not nearly so much as some former ones; and though he had long anticipated it, for he had seen a leaven working for nearly three years, yet when it came it caused an evident change in his health. He thought the Lord dealt hardly with him. But God was wiser than he, for he lived to see those separated from them who, had they been left in the church after his decease, would certainly have been grievous troublers, and would doubtless have sooner or later succeeded in having ministers to supply, whose doctrines, or at least some of them, were inimical to the feelings of the great majority of the members that now remain. But he was much reconciled to the event for several months before his death, and desired to leave it wholly in the hands of the Lord. On the evening of New Year's day, he was present at a tea meeting in the Sunday School room connected with his chapel. He there gave an account of some of the Lord's dealings with him since his residence in Manchester, which, unknown to him, was taken down in short hand. On rising to speak, many of his friends observed that he was so full that he could scarcely express himself, and that his voice faltered; and some did not hesitate to express their fears that his end was near. The week before the one in which he died, his poor wife had been unusually troublesome and harassing. This he named in a letter to Mr. Warburton, written on the 18th or 19th of January, adding, that he had been much put about, and that his "breathing was very bad." On the Lord's day (21st) he preached as usual. His text was Isa. xliii. 2: "When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." The last head on which he dwelt in the morning was, "The last flood that a child of God has to contend with is Death." In the evening, he spoke of good old Abraham wanting a place in which to bury his dead, and remarked, it would soon be said of him, "Let me bury my dead out of my sight." In going to the chapel in the evening, he said he certainly could not survive many more such days as that, and was on the point of desiring the cabman to turn back. He was unable to give out the hymns, except the last, and was so exhausted at the close that many of his friends felt persuaded he had preached his last sermon. Just before giving out the last hymn, he said, "I have once more proved the devil a liar, for as I was coming to the chapel in the morning he told me it was of no use coming, for I should not be able to preach from want of strength, both of body and mind; but I have preached, you see." In his concluding prayer he prayed that the Lord would have mercy on the young and rising genera tion, and that he would raise many of them up to call him blessed, "when our old heads are laid in the grave." He had always expressed a desire that, if it were the Lord's will, he might not be laid long aside when he came to die, but that strength might be given him to preach to the last; and how mercifully was this desire granted! (Prov. x. 24.) Not a single Lord's day passed over. He was taken to his eternal rest before another dawned. For many years back, when solicited by friends in the country to visit them, even at the expense of his not going to London, he has been often heard to say he believed he should go to London once a year as long as he lived. This year he had determined upon not going to London, but visiting his friends in the country. He has not lived, however, to do so. His poor dear wife, whose mental affliction for twenty-two years had been such a trial to him, but who, prior to that period, had been a kind and affectionate partner, had for some months treated his illness as though it were a matter of no moment; and even on the |