deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," and another to feel its deceit and desperate wickedness; it is one thing to read, "from the sole of the foot even to the crown of the head there is no soundness, but wounds, bruises, and putrifying sores," and another to feel that our wounds stink and are corrupt, and that in our feelings we are neither fit for God, the church, the family, nor the world. So completely lost are we sometimes that we seem to be the offscouring of all things, and are fully persuaded that if we are saved from wrath eternal, it must be of rich, free, sovereign grace alone, and therefore are willing, most willing, to give the glory of our salvation to God alone. For my own self, I can say, before a heart-searching God, that if I could live as I would, I would live without sín in thought, word, and deed, from January to December, all the days of my mortal life. But I find "in me (that is, in my flesh) there dwelleth no good thing." I pray the Lord, therefore, to hold me up and be my salvation and strength; then I shall not fear what sin, the devil, or man can do unto me. Now I am persuaded that when worms are destroying, and have destroyed this poor mortal tabernacle, that in my flesh I shall see God, and my eyes shall behold him, and not another. Even now, amidst all the changes through which I am, or may be called to pass, "I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord." I am sure if any poor creature will have to praise God, it will be I. Come, my tried, tempted, distressed, dejected, cast down brethren; the Lord's hand is not shortened, neither is his ear heavy, nor has his compassion failed. Remember this, my friends, for it is for your sakes that I have written this, for I can have sympathy with you, for I know what it is to be tempted, and many times have concluded that I must one day perish by it. But here I am, a monument of the love and faithfulness of a covenant God, who hath said, "No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper," &c.; and then adds, "This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, (now mark) and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord;" (mark again;) you have a "Saith the Lord." Now, when Jehovah can cease to exist, that promise will fail, and not till then. A "Thus saith the Lord," in the soul, is worth more than all the creation. Consider, again, my brethren and companions in tribulation, this promise, "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able, but will, with the temptation, make a way for your escape," &c. Here is, first, a "will not," then a will." Now, who can resist his will? Can Satan, can sin, or all the angelic host in heaven, or all the powers of darkness? for "he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" What a mercy it is that such poor creatures as you and I have such a kind, faithful, and unchangeable God to hope in. Well, in conclusion, I would say, "Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." And, again, I would say, in the language of Mr. Hart, "Tis not for good deeds, good tempers, nor frames; Let me call upon all, before whom this may come, to read the compositions of that dear servant of God, for they are to me truly valuable; and may the Lord make them a blessing to his poor tried children to the end of time, for Jesus' sake. April 28th, 1839. T. NICHOLSON. THE MINISTRY. Dear Friends, Many thanks for your kind letter, and the present which accompanied the same. Your letter fitted the state of my mind, and your garment fitted the state of my body, and for this reason; the Lord took the measure and was the tailor's master. Every thing the Lord puts us to do, must be well done, though to us it may be the drawing of a bow at a venture. I have found this to be a truth by experience, that the Lord does not only lead the blind by a way they know not in walking, but also in working. This is not the first time the Lord, in his rich condescension, has opened a tailor's shop; for this was done in Eden; and I have not the least doubt but that the suit he made fitted the body to beautify and screen it, and the mind to comfort it, being a token of undeserved favour. The wearers received their garments in this light, and so do I receive mine. Remember, friends, the Lord set you to work, and I must send you to him for your wages, and I am confident he will pay you. I have read in a very old book, which few people in our day can read aright, that a cup of cold water given in the love of the Spirit, shall not lose its reward. Hirelings are pleased with such talk, and calculate upon mighty things, as a reward for their dead works. But the free-born son looks for nothing from these little charities, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting the household of faith; for his left hand knows not what his right hand doeth. I have, like the father of the faithful, many times given the Lord glory, by believing that he was able to supply my needs, "according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus; but when he did not appear at my time and in my way, unbelief has counselled me to go to the bondmaid's bed, to hasten the bringing forth of the blessing sought, desired, and needed. "He that believeth shall not make haste." If this be the truth, and sure I am it is, then I am in thousands of movements day by day a wretched unbeliever. I am almost always in a hurry, and saying as Eliezer did, "Hinder me not ;" not because the Lord has prospered my way, but because I think my hurry is the only way of prosperity. I want to make short work of faith and patience. I stood much in need of something to clothe me. I looked to my wants, and seeing no way to supply those wants, this made me fret. I tried to look to the Lord, but all being a blank as to ways and means to pay for my covering, I thought I must sit down, if I could, content with my lot. When I had given up all hopes of providing for myself, and my expectations were at a low ebb as to the Lord's providing, because I could not see how, nor would he work by the measuring line of my carnal reason, I then called upon my dear friend P., and found your much prized gift, the thing I had been seeking and running after many weeks, and looking for from another quarter. When the Lord supplies my wants in his own way, and at his own time, then He gets all the glory; but when supplies come in my way, then I, a guilty monster, burn incense to my own net, and sacrifice to my own drag. You wish to know how they fit; I tell you I believe you never fitted any one so well since you began fitting. The truth is, they fit personally and relatively, for now my old ones can be made up into something useful for one of my sons; experimentally, for now I have another proof that the Lord knoweth what I need, and careth for me; and spiritually, for I am bound to acknowledge, that if the Lord was to give me no more than my faith could hold out in believing, and with patience waiting to obtain, I should soon be naked, starved, and damned. Friends, though I am unfaithful, I have to do with a faithful God. I used to think, how can God be faithful unless he sends me to hell? And though I saw nothing before my eyes but hell, and felt the sentence of death in my soul, yet, I used to say to myself, I must praise the Lord, though he sends me to hell, because he is just, and has done what is right. I bave hundreds of times thought that it was impossible for God to be faithful and just, unless he banished me from his presence. I could not bear the thought of the Lord showing mercy to me, at the expense of his justice. I have thought, how can I behold the Lord in his kingdom, who am verily guilty, when he hath said, “that he will by no means clear the guilty." I thought if he shows me mercy, he cannot be true to himself in that which is just and holy. O what a change that is when the Spirit comes down upon, and into the soul of a poor sinner; when, under a feeling sense of the justice of God in our condemnation, our mouth stopped with guilt, without hope or power to cry for mercy, he brings with him a personal and powerful revelation of Jesus in his love and blood; then, then we see he can be faithful and just, and yet a Saviour from deserved wrath; and while we are under the influence of this power, by faith we can cast our souls upon the Lord, nor dare one unbelieving care intrude. But when this power is taken away, then we are all cares, wants, woes, complaints, and miseries. But here I must stay my pen to tell you that we are all in health, and O may he who is the Sun that makes the calves grow up, and is a shield when the sun withdraws its shining, bless us and you with saving health of soul, ERUDITUS. My Dear Sister in Christ,-Believing you are anxious to know how I am, and also how I am going on, I inform you that I am in good health, but as weak and as vile in myself as ever. I find, to this day, that I can do nothing but sin against God, and burden myself with thick clay. I find myself sufficient for nothing that is spiritual, for I am carnal, sold under sin; I am made up with infirmities and weakness, so that when I would do good I cannot. I once thought I could do many things, but now I see I can do nothing but wherein sin appears in some form or other, whether in preaching or in praying. Every day seem to grow more and more insufficient for the pulpit, and more and more unlike a Christian, so that the growth of grace with me seems to be like a carrot, downward. At times I wonder what I shall turn to, or what I shall prove to be at last, for I find myself to be a walking hell, burdened, bowed down, and shut up, full of uneasiness, and a prayerless heart withal, without a grain of patience, and I seem as if I could not bear myself, nor bear with any body else, and as if I knew not how to pray; and, what is worse, I feel as if I had no heart in what I say; so I am forced to carry my own troubles, for I cannot leave them with the Lord when I would, but only when the Lord will. Thus left to myself, every trifle gives me pain, and then I think that the Lord deals hardly with me in laying the ministry upon me. A sense of my insufficiency on the one hand and of the burden of the ministry on the other, together with the awful criminality of running without being sent, and the solemn consequence of doing the work of the Lord deceitfully, these cause me to go to and from the pulpit uneasy, thinking that I know not how to preach, and angry with myself for ever beginning to preach, and also wishing that I had been anything else but a preacher; for I seem as if I could not bear with the troubles of God's people, nor with myself. Notwithstanding my baseness, the Lord is going on to own his word among us by giving life to the dead, and also feeding his own flock, which he hath purchased with his own blood. I have also received three testimonies of God blessing the reading of the "Looking Glass." One of them is a neighbour to me, and he has had hard bondage for nine years. In the morning he used to say, "Would to God it were evening;" and in the evening, "Would to God it were morning;" for he was afraid to live, and afraid to die. God doing these things breaks my heart, so that it melts like wax before the fire. Then I fall, crying, "Will the Lord indeed make the word a blessing from one so vile?" and I blush for shame, and say, "Truly salvation is of the Lord from first to last;" then I say, "Send, O Lord, by whom thou wilt send." At other times the Lord breaks in upon me with his melting love, and leads me to see my oneness with Christ, and also that I am as completely fixed in him as a tree is in its bark which has never been bruised; then I feel Christ is precious enough to make me say his ways are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace, and that I would not change situations with any man on earth, nor have anything altered in my own if I could, for all is right to me now, seeing that I am just as the Lord would have me to be. My heart is then like the earth in the month of May; all that hath life is shooting forth, and all the life that is in me is blessing, lauding, and magnifying his holy name. I say, he that is mighty has done wonderful things unto me, and holy is his name. I grieve for grieving him, and am ashamed for distrusting him at all, either with body or soul. I can see, and say, that he is too wise to be mistaken, too good to be unkind. Thus, you see, I am still in the old way, the same Daniel as ever. I hope my sister is often brought into the presence of the King, asking him to remember his poor, vile wretch at Rowley. The love that first our hearts did tie, In fellowship and love, Still holds them fast, though bodies part, And we shall meet above. Thine, for Christ's sake, Rowley, 1839. THE DOCTRINES OF FAITH. A COWARD. Most of our readers are aware from what has appeared in the Gospel Standard that the friends at Deeping, Lincolnshire, and the neighbourhood, are about to erect a small Chapel for Mr. Tryon, who has lately left the National Establishment, commonly but falsely called the Church. A declaration of their principles has been sent us by a friend, which we here insert, not as a call upon the pockets of any of our readers, but as simply wishing to give circulation to a statement which we consider to embody sound principles of truth. Mr. Tryon, of James Deeping, Lincolnshire, having lately, for conscience' sake, seceded from the Establishment, the friends of the Redeemer in Deeping and the neighbourhood, being desirous that he should continue among them, are anxious to purchase a piece of ground, and build upon it a chapel, in which he may preach the doctrines of grace, and set forth, as far as he is acquainted with their power, the experimental mysteries of vital godliness. But as those who are thus desirous to sit under his ministry are, for the most part, a poor people, they are not able, unaided by the contributions of the lovers of Zion's cause, to carry these wishes into effect. They are, therefore, compelled to ask assistance from those lovers of truth whose hearts and hands the Lord has opened to seek the prosperity of Israel. But that there may be no mistake nor misapprehension as to the truths which they believe their brother Tryon will endeavour, according to his ability, to set forth, they thus openly declare them. The doctrines in which they profess their faith, and for the preaching of which the chapel is to be built, are the following: The glorious Trinity of Three Persons in One undivided Godheadthe Deity and spotless humanity of Immanuel, the Lord Jesus Christ— the Deity and personality of the Holy Ghost-the eternal covenant of grace between the Three Persons in the Trinity on behalf of the Church-the eternal election and justification of the Church in and through the Lord Jesus-the immutable decrees of Jehovah-the entrance of sin, death, and condemnation through Adam's fall, with all their miserable train of total ruin, helplessness, and enmity-the particular, personal, and complete redemption of the Elect, and of them alone, by the blood-shedding of the Saviour-the effectual calling of all the elect vessels of mercy at the time appointed by Jehovah's decree -the application of the law to the conscience-the manifestation of pardon through the blood of sprinkling, and of justification through Christ's righteousness-and the certain perseverance of the Saints in grace and faith till they arrive at the eternal enjoyment of their purchased inheritance. These doctrines of grace they advocate and contend for, not as a mere creed or a dry system, but as inseparably connected with vital godliness and pure undefiled religion. They contend, therefore, for the operations of grace on the heart, under the divine teachings of the Holy Ghost-for the power of truth on the conscience-for the fear of God in the soul-for the work of faith, the labour of love, and the patience of hope-aud for whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, as outward evidences before the Church and the world. They reject all false doctrines, such as the pre-existence of Christ's human soul-the free-will of the creature— the offers of grace-the law being a rule of life to the believer—the commanding of all men to keep the law and every teaching or interpretation of man that tends to detract from the glory of Jesus as the alone Head of the Church, and the believer's all in all. They also profess their belief in the two standing ordinances of Christ for his Church, viz., the Baptism of believers by immersion, and the Lord's Supper; and they believe that the latter is to be restricted to those who have been previously baptized by immersion. And in order, as far as human power can go, to exclude all doctrines and all preaching contrary to this statement of their faith, they purpose to vest in the hands of the under-named Trustees, all the property of the Chapel proposed to be built, and to invest them with authority and |