urim and thummim, that he might go by the light of the Spirit, having no strong fire, nor any flame kindled by Satan casting sparks of pride into a fleshly mind; and a mitre on his head-a head stored with divine instructions-divine fortitude or faith more precious than gold; and he has also a holy crown upon his head, which denotes his being of the seed royal. "He hath made us kings and priests unto God;" he must reign over the world by faith, and teach it to others. And the anointing oil—a type of the Holy Ghost; every believer is anointed with this oil-every vessel of mercy, from the bowels to the flagons; and the altar was sprinkled seven times to show it was a type of the divinity of Christ, which sanctified the humanity; and the sprinkling seven times showed the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Ghost was upon Christ, he is justified when he is preached as the only righteousness of a true believer; and he poured the anointing oil upon Aaron's head. "We have an unction," says John; "he that hath anointed us is God." If the Spirit doth not lead a man into truth he must err. Any preacher who wilfully perverts any plain text of Scripture, or doctrine in it, to support an error, is cursed for removing his neighbour's landmark. As the dew of Hermon which fell on the chosen mountains of Zion, where God commanded the blessings, even the Spirit of life for evermore, rest upon you, and guide you into all truth. CORRESPONDENCE. MARK. THE WARFARE. To the Editors of the Gospel Magazine. DEAR MESSRS. EDITOR, I hope you will pardon a poor worm for taking the liberty of sending you these few lines; nay, why one who seems to be given up to a tempting devil, and a corrupt heart, to "work all uncleanness with greediness;" I say, why such a one should presume to write to you appears almost incredible; but, the other day, as I was in a house, by what we might call accident, a friend of mine came in with the GOSPEL MAGAZINE; and I asked him what he had in his hand, little thinking that it was worth reading, but I took it up and opened on that place where it is said, "Take up the stumbling-blocks out of the way of my people;" I read a little of it, and I thought, desperate as my case was, I could not but take a little comfort from it, but my friend wanted to go, and said, "Give me my book," so that I did not read much ; but the next day I bought one, and I see that you speak of things that very few in our day touch upon-namely, the work of the Spirit and the dear work of the flesh. They give one side, but not two. But, my friends, I want to come to the point, for I seem "of all men most miserable." You will say, "Why so?" Why, sirs, if I did not see in your periodical some of the things that cast me down, I dare not open my mind to you; I do not want to engratiate myself into your affections, nor do as some beggars do—namely, pull one of their arms out of their coat sleeves, to make men believe that they are cripples; but, sirs, my case seems desperate: I have not room in this sheet of paper to give you the detail of my experience, so that you might judge whether it came from earth, from heaven, or from hell; but what I have gone through, these last few years, no tongue can tell but God and myself, for I seem as if I were given up by God to fill up the measure of my iniquities. During the first part of my experience, after I had endured some time of trouble, I went on my way rejoicing; nor did I think that anybody, after regeneration, had any more desires after wickedness than an angel, so ignorant was I; and now it seems all over with me, for my lusts and corruptions appear to be let loose upon me, and I seem to be led captive at their will. I cry, I groan, I pray, I mourn, but all to no purpose; God seems to have left me, and I am overcome by them. Then the horror-the darkness-the hardness of heart that follows, no tongue can tell. You might well say that "a man wants no other hell than this;" that I can say by experience. that Most people seem to have a religion that is glorifying to God and a comfort to their souls, but mine seems to bring neither; on the contrary, it both dishonours God and distresses my soul, and sometimes I wish that God had let me alone, that I might have had a little peace in this world if I had been lost in the next. But ever since God stopped me-if ever he did stop me-I cannot have any peace in sin or in the world; and yet I cannot live without sin. I do not mean to say I live in the daily practice of sin; no, but I am overcome by it at times, so that I think no other child of God is like me, and for which thing my soul is distressed, at times, almost beyond measure. If you were to ask me whether I would deliberately go into sin for the sake of sinning, I would say, No; I would rather be quartered alive. And yet, perhaps, before another week I fall into the very sin that I so hate. And, as you observe in your piece, to pray against the very sin that we feel a going out in our hearts after, it does seem such dreadful presumption to me that I am afraid God will almost strike me dead for such awful mockery so that I do not know at all what to make of myself. This one thing I know, that I love God's people, especially his dear experimental ministers; and I hate the company of the world. I know, too, that I have had some sweet feelings that I shall never forget, when I have been melted at his blessed feet, and that, too, sometimes after my abominable heart has gone after its lusts. But this is the question with me-here comes the argument, whether my joy is not that of the stony-ground hearer ? whether my hope was not that of the hypocrite? whether my horrors were not those of a Cain, a Judas, or a Saul? and whether my light was not that of a Balaam? These things fill me with great fear. Dear Sirs, I cannot say one half what I would; but before I leave it I would observe that if you speak of such things as you have in this month's Magazine, you will have the devil raise some up to load you with some horrid name or other, calling you corruption-men. If you speak of the two depths-namely, the depth of God's love, and the depth of the iniquity of the heart, they will tell you that you make a Christ of them; but if they felt the weight of their corruption as I do, they would think that it would sink them to hell instead of making a Christ of them. That passage of Paul has often been upon my mind, "Deliver such an one over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the Spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord." That your bow may abide in strength, and the hands of your arms made strong by the mighty God of Israel, is the prayer of August 4th, 1840. A POOR DESPAIRING SINNER. [Poor soul! we understand thy case-we know thy distress and misery-and all we can do is, to point thee to Jesus, who alone can help and deliver thee. Oh! that He may lead thee to look out of thyself-to cast away thy own righteousness as nothing but filthy rags-and enable thee to fall before him as a poor, guilty sinner. May He enable thee to come to him as thou didst first come to him; entreating him to strip and clothe thee-to wound thee and make thee whole. We know that now, as soon as thou art overcome of one temptation, thou art so sickened of thyself that thy resolution is to avoid the appearance of another; but Satan only makes his approaches one step at a time. He will sometimes withdraw himself, and leave thee to the exercise of thy reason, and to the debatings of conscience; thine own deceitful heart will then form its resolutions, and thou wilt obtain a measure of false quietude and peace, until thy enemy has once more thrown thee sufficiently off thy guard, presented thee with a fresh bait, and again plunged thy soul in misery. Then he will set in like a devil, as he is. He will tell thee thou hast sinned beyond the reach of mercy; that thou hast trampled under foot the blood of the Son of God, crucified him afresh, and put him to an open shame; that God has given thee over to a reprobate mind; and that thy damnation is sure. Poor, distressed, agonized soul! All we can say to thee is, cast thyself upon Jesus -a dear, loving-hearted, compassionate Jesus. It is a mercy if thou art not so far shut up in hardness of heart, and so near the borders of despair, that thou canst yet groan out thy sorrows before him. He knows thy case, and all about thee; and in his good time he will reveal himself unto thee, and then thou wilt be broken down with sweetest contrition before him. Thine hardness of heart shall be removed; thy wounded spirit comforted; thine heart enlarged; and thou, who art now tossed to and fro upon the billows of temptation, which threaten every moment to overwhelm thee, shalt find Jesus as thy blessed portion, and shalt rejoice in him as thy wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Oh! that he may speak a word of comfort to thee; that he may give thee another first-love visit; that he may break in upon thy benighted soul, to scatter thy darkness, dispel thy fears, and give thee a sweet review of all the way by which he he has led thee. Oh! that he may, amidst all thy weakness, sin, and misery, speak home one blessed promise to thine heart, and say unto thee, "IN ME IS THINE HELP FOUND.' This one promise will do more for thee than ten thousand times ten thousand resolutions. One word-one look from Jesus will do for thee as much as it did for the mad Gadarene; it will chase away all thy derangement, and bring thee to sit at his blessed feet, "clothed and in thy right mind." Lord! speak thus to us; we need it as much as the poor soul we are addressing.-Lead us, we beseech thee, and all our sin-sick readers, to Gethsemane, from thence to Calvary; there let us look upon thee whom we have pierced, and weep and mourn. A sight of thee made Job "loathe himself and repent in dust and ashes." One look from thee broke poor Peter's heart; and if thou art but pleased thus to look upon us, it will break our fetters-burst our bonds-and make sin to us more exceeding sinful, and cause us more to loathe and abhor it, and ourselves on account of it, than ten thousand law terrors. We feel, dear Lord, the truth of the poet's words 66 'Law and terrrors do but harden All the while they work alone; Soon dissolves the heart of stone.' 66 But, poor soul, when Jesus returns to thee, and again lifts upon thee the light of his countenance, he will most blessedly prove to thee that thy joy is coupled with too much sinking of heart, and travail of soul, to be that of the stonyground bearer; nor is thine the hope of the hypocrite; the light of a Balaam; nor the horror of a Cain, a Judas, or a Saul. They never had as thou hast, a hatred to sin, nor one spark of affection towards the poor despised family of God; for though thou tellest it not, we are sure there are moments in thy experience-notwithstanding all the rebellion of which thou complainest—when thou wouldst lay down thy life for them, and be anything or everything, so that their souls were established, comforted, and blessed. This, then, entitles thee to an interest in one blessed promise-if thou canst lay claim to no other 'By this we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." And another promise, too, bears upon thy case, Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee." Now, canst thou not say, that there are seasons when-though thou art upon the very verge of despair, as it respects thyself-thou hast an earnest breathing after the interest and welfare of the tried family of God? Thou art fancying some to be in thy very condition, apparently twice dead, and plucked up by the roots-given over to the will and power of the adversary, preparatory in their view to final destruction; a spirit of prayer is stirred up within thee-a holy wrestling is imparted, which bursts forth in earnest cries to the Lord, that whatever becomes of thee-whether thy soul is saved or lost-that he would be pleased, in the case of the poor soul that is laid upon thy mind, to baffle the skill of the tempter, and set the captive free. And perhaps that very soul thou hast never seen, nor ever will see, until time shall be no more, and he and thou are got beyond the reach of a tempting devil, unbelief, and sin. Dost thou stagger at the expression, and art thou ready to exclaim, "Ah! that I fear will never, never be my case.' We say unto thee, "It will." As surely as Jesus-thy Jesus-has vanquished the powers of hell, and risen triumphantly victorious over the grave, so surely shalt thou be brought off more than conquerer, and live and reign with him for ever. The breathings which thou hast on account of the tried members of the household of faith, prove thy kindred and relationship that thou art a son-an heir-a joint-heir with Christ; and as he, thy glorious covenant Head, is risen as the first-fruits, so shalt thou rise as a part of his mystical body. It may seem too much for thee now to realize, even by faith, but it is true, and God's word bears us out in it, which says, "Here am I, Father, and the children which thou hast given me; of which I have lost none, save the son of perdition, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled." -ED.] To the Editors of the Gospel Magazine. DEAR FRIENDS, May the God of peace and love rest upon you in your labour of love, for the sweet pieces that you have written in the two last Numbers. Oh, how sweet they were to my poor soul; it is now what may be called a GOSPEL MAGAZINE, for it comes with power; for the Gospel is the power of God to salvation-and all Gospel short of this is no Gospel at all. "True religion's more than notion; When a poor sinner feels that he is a sinner, and nothing but a sinner, from head to foot, within and without-all over sin; and at the same time hated by the ungodly world, and false professors-which are the worst and greatest enemies the poor child of God has to do with, for they hate him with a perfect hatred-the devil hates him and tempts him with all sorts of temptations; and sometimes gets the poor soul to hearken to him,-and after Satan has caught him in his trap, then he comes to him and says, "Where is the religion that you talked so much about, the other day? where is that love that you thought you felt to Christ? You look like a child of God, don't you? O," says Satan, "you are an awful hypocrite; you have sinned against light, love, and blood; all," says he, 66 what you felt-what you thought was the love of God, was me; I did all that;" and, says Satan, 66 you are damned and lost for ever; your religion never begun right." My dear sirs, Satan has tried me so on this ground, until I have thought that everything I looked at cursed me as I walked on the road. Oh, the hard and rugged way to the kingdom of heaven! well might dear Hart say, "The path so press'd, so close, so straight, Oh! I have thought what shall I do? where will it end?—until I have cried out, "Lord, save, or I perish; O God, be merciful to me a sinner; Lord, send me not to hell-O Lord, I know thou wouldst be just in sending me to hell, but save me, for thy mercy's sake-for thy dear Son's sake; wash me in thy precious blood, blessed Lord Jesus." And bless his sweet name, he has heard my cry; and that many, many times. Once, when I was in this dreadful state-I shall never forget-the devil told me that I had sinned against the Holy Ghost: I thought that it was no use to pray any more; and supposed that my die was cast; but a thought struck my mind that I would go and pray once more; I could but be damned after all. I went into my bed-room, and falling on my knees, cried to the Lord to have mercy on me, a lost and undone sinner; and oh, happy time-blessed never-to-be-forgotten dayblessed be his dear name! he said unto me that he was a "friend who loveth at all times," and a "brother born for adversity." Oh! the love of his precious heart. It broke my heart all to pieces; I then knew what it was to "look upon him whom I had pierced, and to mourn" for sin, and to hate it from my very soul. Under such a sweet feeling as this, I have ever found that I would not commit one sin; no, |