has been, is now, and ever shall be, the sincere and fervent prayer of

Your truly affectionate, though unworthy

Son in the faith of Christ Jesus,

C. G.

P. S. I don't know that I should have mustered up courage sufficient to send this yet, had it not been for the masterly exposition and explanation of, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," last Sunday evening. Blessed be the Lord for evermore, I followed you step by step, and came away from his presence rejoicing in my interest in Jesus Christ, calling all the sermon my own. And for this, as well as every blessing bestowed upon ungrateful and unworthy me, to the Lord's name be all the glory, and all the praise; for, as it was with Israel of old touching the earthly Canaan, so it is with the Lord's spiritual Israel touching the heavenly country, the land which is very far off;

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They (natural Israel) got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them; but thy right hand and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them." And so it it with spiritual Israel: they can do nothing to obtain heaven; they have forfeited all right and title to every mercy by sin; therefore it is the Lord alone that does the work, that brings them in by an act

of free, sovereign grace, through faith in Christ Jesus, who is the only door of entrance, and the way to the kingdom. And blessed be God for Jesus Christ, through whom alone it is to be ob tained! I have no more to say at present, than that I should esteem it a favour if you would remember me at a throne of grace, and that the Lord may ever be with you in your goings out and comings in, still giving testimony to the word of his grace, which shall be the prayer of

C.G.

To MR. C. GOULDING.

My dearly beloved Son in Christ Jesus, mercy and truth be with thee.

THINE epistle came safe to hand, and I said in my heart, Who hath begotten me this child, seeing I am hated, and a captive driven to and fro, and have lost some spurious children, that the devil had palmed upon me? Who hath begotten me this? This!-where had he been? Surely thou art one born out of due time; before I travailed in birth thou art come forth. Who hath heard such a thing? Before our Zion began labour, and lamented her late miscarriage, another is found upon her knee; and I hope not a spurious one, not a base-born son, not a bastard that escapes both the

soul-humbling chastisements, and the experi mental instructions, given by our heavenly Father's rod. Thou appearest to be one who hast been whipped out of Satan's army by the King of kings and Lord of lords; thy back will proclaim thy discharge from that rebellious host. Welcome art thou to the Lord's standard; welcome to the banner of his love; welcome to the King's pardon; welcome to the divine bounty; and welcome to his eternal favour, and to all the gifts received for the rebellious, that the Lord God may dwell with thee! But I must interrogate thee. How hast thou broken forth? This breach be upon thee, and God grant it never may be healed; for it is a breach in Satan's armour, and not in Zion's bounds. Thou art a branch in the noble vine; heaven hath planted thee wholly a right seed, such trust have I to Godward; not that I am able to think any thing right of myself, but my sufficiency is of God, who by his grace has made me what I am. Surely thou canst never turn into the degenerate plant of a strange vine to the heavenly Husbandman! Strangers to the good Shepherd shall beget strange children; and unsanctified labourers “shall plant their soil with strange slips, and in the day shall they make their plant to grow; but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief, and of desperate sorrow," Isai. xvii. 11. But I am persuaded better things of thee, my son, and things that accompany salvation, though I thus write. The contents of my son's epistle are good news

from a far country; good news in the power, in the experience, and in the salvation of them, and in the happy enjoyment of all the blessings in them. The Spirit of God is a springing well, and the words of wisdom as a flowing brook; and that moisture that accompanies the root of the matter in the heart will likewise attend a reason of the hope from the mouth.

Thou hadst no call to inform me what instrument God used in framing thy soul for his temple; the whole pattern was shewn first to me in the holy mount, and thine is nothing but an abridgement of it. The features, the family likeness throughout thy mystical pedigree, parentage, and education, are conspicuous enough. If I had heard thee giving an exhortation when locked up in a closet out of my sight, even in the East Indies, I should have known both thy voice, and the voice of thy progenitor, for thy speech bewrayeth thee. Thou art the Coalheaver's own child, begotten to a lively hope by the Father of all mercies in my bonds; a true copy, a living epistle, known and read of all men; and made manifest to be the epistle of Christ ministered by me, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of God; not on tables of stone, but on the fleshly tables of the heart. When the Almighty first found me in Egyptian darkness, I spoke a language that he understood not, Psalm lxxxi. 5: but he set me down at his foot, and taught me out of his law; and, when he put a new treasure into my heart, he convinced

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me that I wanted a new tongue to bring that treasure forth; and, when the cloven tongue of fire came, I spake a new language, that which so much puzzled thee at thy first hearing me; and it has puzzled thousands more as well as you; but certain I am that it is the language of Canaanthe language of the better covenant, which was spoken by Melchisedec and by Abraham in that country; by all the prophets afterwards, and by Christ and his apostles; and is peculiar to the promised land, to the Israel of God, and to none else; for, though other people may have learnt a smatch of it, yet by them it is always adulterated with the dialect of Ashdod: a mingled seed will speak an impure language, mixing it with the native brogue of their own country. And I was (as well as another person in company with me) much surprised at reading your epistle; and not a little struck with astonishment at the pureness of the language, the clearness of the style, and especially at the weight of the emphasis, the determination of the points, and the eloquent punctuation of the accents, knowing that it is a language hard to be learnt, and the pronunciation of it difficult to be obtained. But is there any thing too hard for the Lord? No, there is not; " for then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent." Zeph. iii. 9.

What divine veracity hath promised omnipotence hath performed, and thou art a living wit