will hold thy right hand, saying_unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy-Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel." (Isa. xli. 13-16.) He satisfieth the longing soul with good things, while the rich he sendeth empty away.

If the above be really your case, you have abundant cause to be thankful. You are just suited to Christ, and Christ is just suited to you. A more blessed fit cannot be pointed out, nor a more blessed match made, than a glorious Jesus and you being brought manifestatively together in one sweet bond of covenant love, by the precious power and energy of God the Holy Ghost. He shall glorify Christ, and shall glorify the saints in Christ. You are, you say, feelingly impotent: Christ is the great Physician, that brings health and cure, without money or price. Bless his adorable name, with his own stripes he heals us. But perhaps you may say, "I am such a sinner." So was David; but a feeling sense of it made him cry, "Lord, be merciful unto me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee." (Ps. xli. 4.) "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." (cxlvii. 3.) Were his people not a diseased people, he would not be a suited healer; but one part of the sweet song of the psalmist was, that the Lord forgave all his iniquities, and healed all his diseases. (Ps. ciii. 3.) And if you really be a hungry and thirsty sinner, that is, one that is thirsting for God, the living God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, you shall, in God's own time, eat the flesh, and drink the blood, of the blessed Redeemer, for he is the bread of God and the water of life. "He will pour water [the water of life] upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground." (Isa. xliv. 3.) "He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive." (John vii. 38, 39.) But mind, the disciples did not receive this blessing immediately that the promise was made, but they had to wait for it, and met with many perplexing disappointments before they experienced the promise in the power of it. Their dear Lord was put to cruel tortures, even in their presence, was crucified, and buried, and all their hope appeared almost to be buried too. Nevertheless,

it was through this dark, strange, mysterious method, that the promise was to be fulfilled; and after the resurrection of their dear Lord, the blessing was fully made manifest at the day of Pentecost. It is the privilege of the poor sinner to wait patiently for the Lord; for the Lord will not be hurried: he makes no better haste than good speed; for "the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." (Hab. ii. 3; Heb. x. 37.) Our ever-glorious and blessed Christ came both to seek and to save that which was lost; and he is such a precious Saviour that he is all a sinner can need, law require, justice demand, or God give. This is God's unspeakable gift; and his glorious Majesty gives this Gift of gifts to those who have no worth or worthiness in themselves, entirely without money or price.

"The poorer the wretch, the welcomer here."

"But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel. Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense. Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins." (Isa. xliii. 22—25.)` Wonder, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth, for the Lord hath done it! Here we have a description of wretches, without anything to recommend them to God,-nay, worse than that, they have made God to serve with their sins, and wearied him with their iniquities, yet matchless grace blots out all their transgressions, freely and fully, for the Lord's own name's sake. Come, poor, broken-hearted sinner, put the Lord in remembrance of such a gracious declaration. Plead with him for his name's sake; he will surely hear thee, and answer thee in mercy. God's name, in the full blaze of its glory, is in Christ. There all its honours harmonize, and rest for ever; and with him the Father is well pleased. May you be well pleased with him too, and daily plead him at the divine footstool; for whatsoever ye ask in the blessed name of Jesus, he will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (John xiv. 13, 14.)

Are you indeed a broken-hearted sinner? Are you indeed hungering and thirsting after righteousness? Are you indeed feelingly a dog? Does your soul indeed faint within you for

a ray of hope? Then you are a blessed character. God's word cannot be true, and you perish in your sins. When the Lord the Spirit has opened the heart of a sinner, and, as it were, broken it in pieces, discovering to the sinner the filth and loathsomeness of its contents, and brought him to tremble at the word of God, and to be a stench in his own nostrils, and to abhor himself before the Lord, crying feelingly, “Behold, I am vile," he will never forsake him, but will accomplish the work he has began. A broken and a contrite heart God will not despise. A poor, broken-hearted sinner appears to have more of the attention of Jehovah, and to be more his special care and charge than all the works of nature put together: "For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord but"-but what? why as if the Lord was about to say, But my eye of special grace, care, and favour is fixed elsewhere-" but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." (Isa. lxvi. 2.) Yes, bless his precious name, he not only looks to him, but dwells with him; not merely to look on, but to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. (Isa. lvii. 15.)

The blessed Lord of the house is both anointed and sent for the express purpose of binding up the broken-hearted. (Isa. lxi. 1; Luke iv. 18.) Poor, broken-hearted sinners may and will find that they often walk in darkness, and appear to have no light; but from whence do they discover the loathsomeness of their disease? How came they to hunger, and thirst, and pant, for a ray of hope in the precious Redeemer's blood, &c.? This cannot be in a mind which is at enmity to God, and the carnal, unrenewed mind is enmity to God; and enmity to God cannot produce a desire after the sweet enjoyment of him, and a panting for the manifestations of his love. This springs from the life and light of God, and, in the Lord's own time, it shall be more fully made manifest. Clouds and darkness are sometimes round about the Lord, and we cannot perceive him. (Ps. xcvii. 2.) "Unto the upright, there ariseth light in darkness." (cxii. 4.) But if the upright were never in darkness, there could not arise light unto them in darkness. One promise of the Lord to his people is, he "will make darkness light before them." (Isa. xlii. 16.)

The Lord enable thee, poor, broken-hearted sinner, by faith and in feeling, to use the language of Micah (vii. 7, 8): "Therefore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. Rejoice not against

me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me."

I will conclude this epistle in the language of the Lord by Isaiah (1. 10): “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." If anything I have written be made a blessing to you, or to any other poor, broken-hearted sinner, may the Lord enable us to give him the glory.

Nov. 3, 1835.

Yours to serve in the gospel of God,

A LOVER OF ZION.

THE GOSPEL FEAST.

(Concluded from Page 86.)

Again: we observe that the Lord's feast is free, requiring no qualification or commendation, but what comes from himself. The invitation is couched in such language as not to be misunderstood: "Ho, every one that thirsteth come” (Isa. lv. 1); "and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely" (Rev. xxii. 17); and “him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." (John vi. 37.) How suitable is such a feast to the poor and needy sinner, who is taught to feel and know his own wretchedness. All seems to be against him; the world's feast suits him not, neither does the world invite him to it, for his back is towards it; yet Satan accuses him, and his own conscience condemns him, as an unfit subject for the Lord's. Hope and fear alternately arise, but the best robe is, by the command of the Father, put upon him, and, contrary to his expectation, he finds himself a guest, where, was it not for the Lord of the feast, he dare not so much as lift up his head.

Further; in this feast there is an abundance, for it is made unto all people, and yet all do not partake of it, neither is it possible that they should; but out of every nation, country, tribe, and people, shall they be brought who will partake of its bounties; for the Lord will " say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the uttermost parts of the earth;" and though they be swimming in the stream of nature, and playing among the mountains and rocks of curruption, yet will" he send for many fishers, and they shall fish them," (observe, not fish for them at an uncertainty, but fish them out of the pools and rivers, into which by sin they have been driven) "and

after he will send for hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks" (Jer. xvi. 16), for from Engedi unto Eneglaim, shall the net be spread, and every fish after his kind shall be found, who shall be brought and made willing to partake of

the abundance of this feast.

Again: the Lord's feast is a continual feast, being, like himself, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Its guests are not limited to certain seasons, nor can it be said that its provisions are exhausted, the "fat things full of marrow" being always set forth in the Paschal Lamb," who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification;" and the refined wines which for ages have stood upon the "lees," or will and pleasure of a covenant God, ever announces this feast with, "Come, for all things are now ready."

Lastly this feast shall not be deficient of guests; for the lanes and highways shall be searched, and in them shall be found those whose feet shall be directed towards this mountain in which the Lord's feast is made, the language of whose heart shall be, "Come and let us return unto the Lord." (Hosea.) "Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob" (Isa. ii. 3; Micah iv. 2); which is effected by the fulfilment of that sweet covenant promise, "Behold I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the courts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child, a great company shall return thither. They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a strait way wherein they shall not stumble." (Jer. xxxi. 8, 9.)

III. We notice the privilege of those who are the guests at this feast of the Lord's. In this mountain the Lord hath promised to destroy the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. And indeed, here only it is, that the poor sinner can have those things done for him; for the covering of sin, with which all are covered, can only be removed by the application of that blood which cleanseth from all sin.

Thus it is the privilege of these guests to be regenerated by the Holy Ghost, redeemed by the Son, and adopted and accepted in him by the Father.

Reader, what says your soul to these things? Are you a partaker of them? If not, you are no guest at the Lord's feast. You may attend ordinances and means of grace, but, without being born again, you are yet in your sins, and, living