will be saving; the least touch healing to thee. And God intends thou shouldst look on him; for he hath set him upon a high throne of glory, in the open view of all poor sinners. Thou hast infinite reason to look on him; no reason at all to look off him. He is meek and lowly of heart. (Matt. xi. 29.) He will do that himself which his creature has to do; viz., bear with infirmities. (Rom. xv. 1.) No pleasing himself; no standing upon points of law. (Ver. 2.) He will restore the spirit of meekness (Gal. v. 1), and bear thy burdens. (Ver. 2.) He will forgive; not only till seven times, but seventy times seven. (Matt. xviii. 21, 22.) It put the faith of the apostle to it to believe this. (Luke xvii. 4, 5.) Because we are hard to forgive, we think Christ is so.

We apprehend sin too great to be pardoned. We think Christ doth so, and measure infinite love with our line, infinite merits with our sins, which is the greatest pride and blasphemy. (Psal. ciii. 11, 12; Isa. xl. 15.) Hear what he saith: "I have found a ransom." (Job xxxiii. 24.) “In him I am well pleased." (Matt. iii. 17.) God will have nothing else. Nothing else will do thee good, or satisfy conscience, but Christ, who satisfied the Father. God doth all upon the account of Christ. Thy deserts are rejection, wrath, hell. Christ's deserts are acceptance, pardon, life. He will not show thee the one, without giving thee the other. It is Christ's own glory and happiness to pardon.

Consider; whilst Christ was upon the earth, he was more among publicans and sinners than scribes and pharisees, his professed adversaries, for they were righteous ones. It is not as thou imaginest, that his state in glory makes him neglectful, scornful to poor sinners. No; he hath the same heart now in heaven. He is God and changeth not. He is "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." (John i. 29.) He went through all thy temptations, dejections, sorrows, desertions, rejections. (Matt. iv. 3--12, 26; Mark xv. 34; Luke, xxii. 44; Matt. xxvi. 38.) He hath drunk the bitterest of the cup, and left thee the sweet: the condemnation is out. Christ drank up all the Father's wrath at one draught; and nothing but salvation is left for thee. Thou sayest I cannot believe, I cannot repent. Christ is exalted a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins. (Acts v. 31.) Hast thou nothing but sin and misery? Then Christ is just suited to thee. We would be bringing to Christ, and that must not be. Not a penny of nature's highest improvements will pass in heaven. Grace will not stand with works, (Tit. iii. 5; Rom. xi. 6.) That is a terrible point to nature,

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which cannot think of being stripped of all, not having a rag of duty or righteousness left to look at. Self-righteousness and self-sufficiency are the darlings of nature, which she preserves as her life. That makes Christ seem ugly to nature. Nature cannot desire him. He is just opposite to all nature's glorious interests. Let nature but make a gospel, and it would make it quite contrary to Christ. It would be to the just, the innocent, the holy, &c. Christ makes the gospel for thee; that is, for needy sinners; the ungodly, the unrighteous, the accursed. Nature cannot endure to think the gospel is only for sinners: it will rather choose to despair, than to go to Christ upon such terms. When nature is put to it by guilt or wrath, it will go to its old haunts of self-righteousness, self-goodness, &c. An Infinite Power must cast down those strong-holds. None but the self-justiciary stands excluded by the gospel. Christ will look at the most abominable sinner before him; because to the other Christ cannot be made justification. He does not know or confess his sin. (John ix. 41.) To say, in compliment, I am a sinner," is easy; but to pray with the publican indeed, "Lord be merciful to me a sinner!" is the hardest prayer in the world. It is easy to say, in Christ." But to see Christ full of grace and truth, whose fulness thou mayest receive, grace for grace;" that is saving. It is easy to profess Christ with the mouth. But, to confess him with the heart, as Peter did, "to be the Christ, the Son of the living God," the alone Mediator; that is above flesh and blood. Many call Christ Saviour; few know him to be so. To see grace and salvation in Christ, is the greatest sight in the world. Sights will cause applications. Men may be ashamed to think, in the midst of so much profession, they have known so little of the blood of Christ, which is the main thing of the gospel. A Christless, formal profession is the blackest sight, next to hell. Thou mayest have many good things; one thing may be wanting, that may make thee go away sorrowful from Christ. Thou hast never sold all that thou hast, never parted with all thine own righteousness, &c. Thou mayest be high in duty, and yet a perfect enemy and adversary to Christ in every prayer, in every ordinance.

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I believe

"of

Free will, or moral capacity of believing in, turning unto, and calling upon God in Christ, the Scriptures, the Articles of the Church of England, and the experience of Christian men, declare the natural man hath not. His refuge is free grace. (John vi.; 1 Cor. ii.; Rom. viii. 7.) The idea of it will soon be destroyed in his heart who hath had any spiritual dealing with Jesus Christ; as to the

application of his merits, and subjection to his righteousness; Christ is every way too magnificent a person for poor nature to apprehend. Christ is so infinitely holy, nature durst not look at him; so infinitely good, nature can never believe him when it lies under full lengths of sin. Christ is too high and glorious for nature to do so much as to touch. There must be a divine nature first put into the soul, to make it lay hold on him who lies so infinitely beyond its sight.

That Christ which the natural man can apprehend, is but a Christ of his own making; not the Father's Christ, not Jesus the Son of the living God, to whom none can come without the Father's drawing. (John vi. 44, 45.)

Judge not Christ's love by providences, but by promises. (Psl. Ixiii.; Heb. xii. 1; Eccles. ix.) Bless God for shaking off false foundations; and for any way whereby he keeps the soul awakened and looking after Christ. Better is sickness and temptation, than security and slightness.

It was the saying of a great saint, he was more afraid of his duties than his sins: the one often made him proud, the other always made him bumble.

High professor! despise not weak saints. Thou mayest come to wish to be in the condition of the meanest of them. It is a high privilege to be faithful to others' infirmities while sensible of thy own; to be content with little of the world, then little will serve; to think very little of the earth because unworthy the least; to think much of heaven not little, because Christ is so rich and free; to think every one better than thyself, and ever carry self-loathing about thee, as one fit to be trampled upon by all the saints; to see the vanity of the world, and the consumption that is upon all things, and love nothing but Christ; to mourn to see so little of Christ in the world, so few needing him-trifles pleasing them better; to mourn to think how many under baptism and ordinances, who are not under grace-looking much after duty and obedience, little after Christ, or grace; to prepare for the cross, and welcome it; to bear it triumphantly as Christ's cross, whether scoffs, mockings, jeers, contempt, imprisonments, &c.; to remember thy sins, Christ's pardonings; thy deserts, Christ's merits; thy weakness, Christ's strength; thy pride, Christ's humility; thy many infirmities, Christ's restorings; thy guilt, Christ's new applications of his blood; thy failings, Christ's assistance; thy wants, Christ's fulness; thy temptations, Christ's tenderness; thy vileness, Christ's righteousness.

Blessed soul! whom Christ shall strip of his own righteousness and wash in the blood of the Lamb. (Rev. vii. 14.)

Woeful, miserable professor! who hast not the power within. Rest not on the judgment of thy fellow-creatures. Thou mayest be applauded by them, and cast away in Christ's day of trial. Thou mayest come to baptism, and never come to Jesus and the blood of sprinkling."

But thou who hast found Christ ALL and thyself absolutely NOTHING, Who makest Christ all thy life, and art dead to all righteousness besides; thou art the Christian, one highly beloved, who hath found favour with God, a favourite of heaven. Do Christ this one favour for all his love to thee; love his poor saints and people (the meanest, the weakest notwithstanding any difference in judgment); they are engraven on his heart, as the names of the children of Israel on Aaron's breast-plate. (Exod. xxviii. 21.) Let them be so on thine: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee." (Psalm cxxii. 6.)

POETRY.

ACROSTIC-THE GOSPEL STANDARD.

The standard of truth is the banner of love!
How precious to those who are born from above!
E lected, redeemed by covenant blood,

G lean'd out of the world by the Spirit of God.
Ordain'd by the Father, preserved in the Son,
Secure as His throne are the trophies He's won;
Prepared for his service by pardoning grace,
E lated with love that communicates peace,

Life, light, faith, and hope, the whole truth to embracc.

Such only enjoy the mysterious scheme
That's laid by the triune Jehovah supreme!—
A lmighty in power, in wisdom and skill,
Narrator of all things concerning His will;
Disposer of all both in heaven and earth,
And every creature the ocean brings forth!
Rejoice then in Jesus, our Saviour and King,
Depend upon nothing the creature can bring.
Bridgnorth, July 21st, 1835.

W. T.

A SUNDAY SCHOOL HYMN.

Indulgent God, bow down thine ear,
Make this young tribe thy special care;
Teach them thy praises to repeat,
And worship towards thy mercy-seat.

Though trophies to the power of sin,
And strangers to thy grace within,
Yet from the mighty take the prey,
And show thy power on this thy day.
Within thine house, and at thy throne
We bring them, Lord, but thou alone
Canst change the heart, subdue the will,
And lead them forth to Zion's hill.
Bless thou the words of sacred truth,
Which oft we place before our youth;
That when the earth knows us no more,
They may be found thee to adore.

August, 1835.

LEBBEUS.

GLEANINGS.

Adam had no need of books, for he had the book of Nature; and all the patriarchs and prophets do cite much out of that book; as, touching the sorrows of women bearing children, of the fellowship and community of the members of man's body, as St. Paul relateth such parables, and saith, that one member cannot miss another: if the eyes did not see, whither then would the feet go? how would they stumble and fall. If the hands did not fasten and take hold, how then should we eat? If the feet went not, where then would the hands get anything? Only the maw, that lazy drone, lies in the midst of the body, and is fatted like a swine. This parable teacheth us that mankind should love one another, as also the Greek's pictures do teach, concerning two men, the one lame, the other blind, who showed kindness the one to the other, as much as in them lay; the lame guided the blind in the way, which else he neither knew nor saw, and the blind carried the lame, that else could not go; so that they both were holpen and came forward.-Luther.

God is patient, long-suffering, and merciful, in that he can keep such silence, and can suffer so long the most wicked wretches to go unpunished: I could not do so.-Luther.

A man should never be ashamed of owning he has been wrong, for it is but saying, in other words, he is so much wiser to-day than he was yesterday.

What is God?-A spirit. How large? So large as to fill immensity, and so small as to dwell in the "humble and contrite heart."