teem, having frequently had my spirits refreshed thereby. In reading your piece, however, in the present month, entitled 'Fragments gathered up.' I could have wished that you had not used the term offered in reference to redemption, it being a very objectionable term, and so much in use at the present day by the yea-and-nay men, falsely called Gospel ministers. Now though I am fully satisfied that you do not intend to use it in the way those men do, for you immediately quote that blessed truth of the Lord's people being willing people in the day of the Lord's power; yet I conceive it would have been better and more in accordance with the Scriptures of truth if you had used the word gift rather than offer; the former being much more full and decisive, as the latter carried with it a probability of rejection, but we know that all the promises of God in Christ Jesus are yea and amen, to the glory of God, and to the everlasting happiness and security of the Church. Should this letter be received in Christian love, as it is intended it should be, how truly welcome a line from you would be to assure the writer of it. Indeed, I would by no means wound your feelings by anything that I have written. I love to hear of real spiritual Gospel ministers in the establishment, and should rejoice to know the Lord was increasing the number; and who can tell but that a poor pilgrim in the wilderness may be refreshed while travelling with you to the same blessed home of rest and peace? "Trusting and believing that we are both part of the purchased possession by the blood of the Lamb (Oh, precious blood!) and sweetly felt when applied to the conscience by the blessed Spirit; and I believe that eternity with all its years, will not erase the recollection of its first application, the extremes from nature to grace are so great, that indeed I can hardly think the next change from grace to glory will be so great, however blessed, as that will be a passing from life to life, whereas the other is from death unto life,' darkness to light, hell to heaven; and in the soul's feeling so overpowering and unexpected, but the soul that has through grace believed and been brought into an acquaintance with the Lord, and favoured with sweet and heavenly com. munion being enabled to look up with child-like confidence, and cry, 'Abba, Father,' the Spirit of God bearing its own testimony to the soul of its relationship; why this, I say, is heaven begun below. And as dear Doctor Hawker (who I believe lived near to God, and enjoyed much of the sensible presence of Jesus) used to observe that now his dear Lord was on one side of the hedge and he the other, and that ere long there would be a gap made in the hedge, and that he should go through-thus change his place, but not his company. Oh! that you, dear brother, and myself, may be favoured with divine intercourse with the Lord while we are passing through the desert, until called up higher to partake of the same tree of life on the other side of the river, is the prayer of "Yours in Jesus, "H. H." DEAR SIR, To the Vicar of Harewood. Nottingham, Jan. 11th, 1846. Having very unexpectedly received through "L. L. S." your re cently published tract with your kind remembrance, I hereby acknowledge the same, and, as a gleaner in the field of the heavenly Boaz, venture to salute the reaper in that dear name Immanuel, which, when breathed in the soul by the Holy Ghost, is indeed like ointment poured forth. May its savour reach, and its fragrance invigorate us now that under Divine unction, and with new delight we may say, "Hosanna to the Son of David. Hosanna in the highest. All hail! the second Man who is the Lord from heaven." Most welcome in our nature is the Prince of Life, who brought eternal life, abolished death, and swallowed up in victory all our foes. 'Tis wonderful to see our glorious Conqueror take Abraham's seed, while passing angels by, and take it to redeem it, aise it, glorify it with himself for ever; take it to bear the curse, endure the death, and be himself the life of all, his seed a life which sin, and death, and hell, can never reach; and as we individually come under the unction and teaching of the Holy Comforter to know Christ our life, we, under the same anointing, do triumph in him, even in dreary and deathlike circumstances; and while we bear about the body of this death, and loathe the evil of it, and because thereof say, "Who shall deliver me?" we also add, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord;" "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ ;" and feeling union to him, we are led forth into his victories; and we do glory indeed, not in men, not in ourselves, but "in the Lord," and in that he has taken our nature into oneness with himself, and taken it in perfect purity, and safely through every temptation which the malice or cunning of hell could desire, or the world present; and though in Adam, the first head, Satan soon prevailed over the nature, pure as it was, and gained a seeming triumphyet, by the second Head, he is overcome in the same nature; by the seed of the woman his head is truly bruised, and against the holy seed included in that conquering Head, he shall never really prevail; the victory was for them, and they shall have it; their champion was Man, and he will crown them with his triumphs, while they joyfully sing to his praise," Our David has slain his tens of thousands; therefore, whom should we fear? or of whom should we be afraid? for the Lord Jehovah Jesus is our light and our salvation. He is the strength of our life, and our portion for ever. Who shall lay anything to our charge? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." With him we were crucified, and, as death hath no more dominion over him, so also he hath abolished it for us; and really and truly the bitterness of death is past, for the sting of death is sin. He was made sin for us, endured the death due to sin, and now sin and death are conquered foes! and as we walk in him by faith, we prove it, and know, by sweet experience, the sixth of Romans, when death with Christ, and resurrection in Christ are triumphantly set forth. He, our sweet and precious Christ, had the pain and pangs of that death which was the wages of sin-we have the bene. fit, in that we are now dead to sin, also dead to the law (Rom. vii. 4), also crucified (Gal. vi. 14) to the world; and moreover, we not only die, but live; for our best Beloved when he had, in our nature, and for our sakes, honoured the holy law in thought, word, and deed, and fulfilled every jot and tittle of it-when he had met our enemies singlehanded, and vanquished them all-when he satisfied divine justice by offering himself without spot unto God for our sins, then did he, on that glorious third morning, burst through stone, and seal, and watch, and every barrier that earth and hell could place in the way, and he raised our nature in resurrection glory; and surely from the womb of that morning he and we have the dew of eternal youth, and after all his toil and labour for his loved one, he has presented her nature in perfection and union to his own person before his and her Father, with exceeding great joy, and there as our bridegroom, he waits the arrival of his spouse, and the day of consummation when the nuptials shall be openly celebrated, the crowning take place, and all the sons of God again shout for joy; and even now he gives us to rise by faith into that new and resurrection life beforehand, and not only to say, "I am crucified with Christ," but also, "I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." He is my life, my activity, my holiness, my happiness, my God, my glory. I am all gone; I died upon his cross, that I might be nothing and he everything; all to me, all for me, all in me; my all-absorbing subject, my all-engrossing object, how gladly do I thus lose my own life for his sake, that he may be life to me, and I in that new life may walk before our Father with a perfect heart. Ah! dear Sir, this river of water of life is refreshing indeed. We seem to drink life and vigour, and in love and liberty go forth free to forget and forsake ourselves, and prove the blissfulness of having Christ our all. My soul glows with the dear subject of the Word made flesh and dwelling among us, and I long to know more of the wonders wrought for us by Him who was the mighty God, and yet the child-born, the Son given, and our brother born for our adversity, which he took upon himself that he might raise us to his prosperity; for "though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich." Here are green pastures indeed, in which, as the Holy Comforter leads us, we both feed and lie down with delight, often exclaiming with a glad heart, "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift; ""Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ." Please, dear Sir, accept this humble line in love from one of the feeblest of those feeble folk who have their dwelling in the Rock, where bread is given, and water is sure; yea also, a feast of fat things, full of marrow, is prepared. I trust the dear Lord is with you in your work; though perhaps you also feel with the gleaner that you can never speak well enough of his dear name. May he more fire us with his love, and fill us with his praise. Adieu. With thanks for your remembrance, Yours respectfully, TIDINGS FROM BRUSSELS. R. (Concluded from page 43.) NOTWITHSTANDING that we are unknown to each other by name, I feel we are one in Christ, and members of the same blessed family named after him. I count it a great honour and inestimable privilege, to be enabled by my God to identify myself with those who proclaim that great leading truth which you profess, "Christ all in all, and we complete in him." However unworthy, or however weak I may be, I feel I am not my own but the Lord's, and that it is my bounden duty, in as far as the Lord shall give me strength, to help you to strive for the faith once delivered to the saints, but now, alas! too often trodden underfoot. I have been called on, with a few other Adulmites in this town, to bear the evil report of our attachment to the glorious truths you advocate in the GOSPEL MAGAZINE, and can sympathize with you in the front of the battle making a stand for God's truth. We have spoken together about the loss mentioned in your appeal, and we feel encouraged to help you to cover it. We are but a very few, still we are within the number of the promise, and the Lord is with us, and blesses us daily. You know "Not many mighty, not many noble, not many rich, are called;" what we send you is, however, a token of our sincere affection for you in the Lord, and a testimony of the interest we take in your labours of love. May the great Head of the Church, our Lord and Master, abundantly bless your own soul, teach you and direct your steps and labours, so that you may be a blessing to his people, and be always enabled to exalt him as the author and finisher of our faith, the Lord our righteousness; and believe me to be, DEAR SIR, To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine. When Mr. Triggs responded to my initials of " D. E. R.," in your February number of 1843, he addresses me as his brother; in February, 1846, I am turned into a sister. That he was wrong upon one or other occasion, is beyond all contradiction. But with regard to the subject in discussion. Mr. Triggs has got into the core of the question when he says, "Nor can I restrict sin, being no part of our regenerated nature, but believe also that sin is no part of our nature as sinners. Sin made us sinners, and filled us with vitiosity and corruption, and death came by sin; but we had the very nature in Adam that we have now before he fell; and if sin be admitted to be a part of our nature, God must be the author and creator of it, as he is our Creator; and so God created us with a sinful nature in his own image; and if sin was not in us at the creation, then there was a deficiency in our nature; besides, if sin be a part of our nature, and Christ the Son of God took our very nature, as the Scriptures declare, then he must have taken a sinful nature." Now, Sir, I think our brother must see that in this passage he has proved too much, therefore has proved nothing at all. To speak for myself, I disavow all participation in this unfallen nature, as God's record of man's total depravity just suits my experience. I believe when God created man it was in his own image, therefore he was like God, and perfect in every respect, so that, "though sin was wanting," there was "no deficiency." I believe, when man fell, he lost that original holiness wherein he was created, and both body and soul partook of the fatal effects of the fall (Gen. vi. 5, 12). His body, through death, which entered by sin (Rom. v. 12), making him equal with the beasts, "for that which befalleth the sins of men befalleth the beast;" his sins placing him, as to his nature, on a level with the beasts; "but what they know naturally as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves;" and his ignorance fixes him below the beast, "the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." And this degrading view of human nature is experimentally felt when the soul is led into the chambers of imagery, and made to cry out with Asaph, "I was as a beast before thee." But further, his fall is manifested in his devilish hatred of God, his truth, his word, his ways, his people. "The carnal mind" being "enmity against God," filled only with the wisdom which is "earthly, sensual, devilish," and enclosed in a body one "little member" of which is called "a world of iniquity," and "set on fire of hell." Far from the wall of our nature having no share in this pollution, I find from the word of God, that every power, every faculty, and every member, is become the corrupt channel which manifests that the plague |