weeks ago; they were very well then; I have not seen them since. I shall be glad to hear from you soon; nay, at all times. Remember me to all who love our Jesus, though unknown, yet well known. Plymouth, June 13th, 1809. INQUIRIES. Messrs. Editors,- Being a constant reader of your monthly periodical, and having frequently seen inquiries inserted concerning different portions of Scripture, it occurred to my mind to make a request concerning a passage which has frequently been like a sword in the flesh, insomuch, that when opening the word of God, I have been afraid of opening to that passage-having opened to it several times, when it has driven me almost to despair, taking it as a seal to my own damnation. The passage is Isaiah xvii. 10, 11; "Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength, therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants, and shalt set it with strange slips; in the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish; but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and desperate sorrow." Should you, or any of your kind correspondents, give a few spiritual remarks upon it, you will oblige, Hulme, Nov. 17th, 1839. AN INQUIRER. Will the worthy Editors of the Gospel Standard condescend to instruct the ignorant, by making a few remarks upon a statement or two in the 52nd hymn, 1st book, Watts' Hymns? The request is made, I trust, with a view to edification, consequently, the praise of the glory of God's grace to poor sinners. 666 Repent, and be baptiz'd, (he saith) In heav'n our solemn vows record!" The above verses speak of "sense assisting faith" and baptism, as a "sealing our covenant with God," and a "seal to God's covenant;" and the last verse calls upon God to record "our solemn vows.' Having heard the aforesaid hymn sung in a place where the gospel is preached, and feeling poverty-stricken, utterly unable to make any engagement, or seal any covenant with God, or ask his blessed Majesty to record any "solemn vows" of mine, and feeling pretty well assured that that faith which is of God's operation, can perform wonders without the assistance of sense, I am induced to make the above request. May the Lord our God remember his covenant, look upon the face of his anointed, and cause our souls to rejoice in that covenant which is well ordered in all things and sure. Peterborough. AN EMPTY VESSEL. EDITORS' REMARKS. We are not surprised at the objections that "An Empty Vessel" makes to the expressions quoted from Dr. Watts, as we think them justly objectionable. If sense can assist faith, then faith is not the pure unmixed gift and work of God. But all the elect are deeply and spiritually taught that living faith is breathed into a living soul by a living God; and such a faith as this, which stands in the power of God, can never be helped nor assisted by sense. So far from sense assisting faith, all its effects are to hinder it, and the triumph of faith is to believe in spite of sense. Thus Abraham believed he should have the child of promise, in spite of sense; and " 'being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body, now dead, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb." (Rom. iv. 19.) Sense said, The thing is impossible;" but faith said, "God hath promised;" and in holding fast the promise against and in spite of sense consisted the strength of his faith. In the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, sense says, "Here is nothing but water;" "Here is only bread and wine." Sense cannot rise beyond the natural, literal, carnal objects which the eye sees. But faith sees in the baptismal waters the Saviour's agonizing sufferings and death when all the billows and waves went over him. And in the bread, faith sees the flesh, and in the wine, the blood of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And those who know anything aright, know that in the partaking of the ordinances, there is a continual struggle and conflict between sense and faith, and that as the one rises, the other sinks. As to our making covenants with God, woe be to the hapless soul that is thus entangled in that yoke of bondage. The rod of Moses will surely flog such folly out of the heart of every such foolish child. Nor do we know of any other sealing of the covenant, ordered in all things and sure, but the sealing of the Holy Spirit of promise upon the heart and conscience of elect vessels of mercy, which is the earnest of their inheritance until the redemption of the purchased pos session. We feel ourselves obliged often to correct errors that occur in the pieces of our correspondents, much perhaps at times to their annoyance. But as being responsible for what appears in our pages, we cannot conscientiously allow any error, however slight, to go forth, and therefore shall continue to erase or alter whatever appears to us to be objectionable. EDITORS' REVIEW. Mercies of a Covenant God; or, An Account of some of the Lord's Dealings in Providence and Grace with John Warburton, Minister of the Gospel, Trowbridge. Second Part.—Gadsby, Manchester; Groombridge, London. Price 1s. 3d. Whatever some of our readers may think to the contrary, we can say from our hearts that we rejoice when we can with a good conscience give a favourable review of a work. We love not to cut and slash about, and wound the feelings of authors; but honesty is one of the indispensable requisites of a Reviewer, and if knowingly and wilfully he use false scales and weights, he deserves to be hooted out of the market, and be well flogged into the bargain. We rejoice then when honesty bids us approve of the works of gracious men; and with a clear conscience we can put the second part of John Warburton's experience into the scale and pronounce it thorough good weight. We did not expect to find it equal to the first part, and had a suspicion whether it might not have been spun out threadbare, and whether the meat had not all come on for the first course, and some hashed mutton, or perhaps bones have been reserved for the second course. But we confess that we read it with more sweetness and feeling than even the first part. Sometimes we smiled, and sometimes the tear, which with us does not lie very near the surface, struggled into the eye. Poor John and his pigs made us well nigh laugh outright, and other parts of his work well nigh made us cry: and so we went on moved and melted pretty nearly from the first page to the last. O, John, John, thou art a highly favoured man. Would we had some of thy sweet and precious lifts, thy striking deliverances, thy answers to prayer, thy blessed manifestations of love and blood, and the unction, feeling, and power, with which thy God and Saviour hath anointed thee. But we are glad too, that thou findest thyself carnal, and sensual, and devilish, a beast and a brute, and that thou dost groan under the same body of sin and death that makes us sigh and groan also. It may appear presumption in us to set our seal of approbation to a work which carries with it such a weight of evidence. We can only say then that it is a book which we shall put on our very top shelf, side by side with Hart, Bunyan, and Huntington. We believe the work will be blessed for generations to come, when the writer shall have entered into his eternal rest. By it, when dead, he will yet speak; and heartily glad are we that he has sent forth this account of the Lord's dealings with his soul; that as he has fed hundreds of God's family with his mouth, so he may feed them with his pen when he is safely landed from every storm. We make one extract to show with what sweetness and unction the work is written: "Blessings and honours be unto thee, O Holy God the Father, that ever thy love and choice was fixed upon such a brat of hell as I. Honours, blessings, majesty, praises, and glories for ever crown thy head, O Holy God the Son, equal with the Father, and one with him, that ever thou didst condescend to take my nature into union with thy divine person, didst obey and righteously fulfil all the demands of the holy law, and didst satisfy divine justice for all my cursed sins; didst conquer death, and him that hath the power of death, even the devil; and hast ascended up on high, and taken possession of the inheritance, and ever livest to make intercession for my poor soul. And O thou Holy God, thou blessed Spirit, one with the Father and the Son, blessings, honours, majesty, and glories for ever be unto thee, that ever thou didst pick up my poor soul out of the ruins of the fall; didst kill me to all works of righteousness which I could do; didst reveal justifying righteousness and pardoning blood to my heart, and didst bear thy solemn witness to my spirit, that I am an heir of God, and joint heir with Christ. O thou that hast preserved me from falling a prey to the world, the flesh, and the devil, all these years up to this moment; that hast lifted up a standard in my soul again and again when the floods of horrid, awful, and unspeakable blasphemies have plunged my poor trembling soul into such despair that I have many times given it all up as a lost matter. O holy, blessed, Trinity of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, One God, whom reason cannot fathom, but faith believes, love embraces, and praise adores, bless thy holy name; it is in thy light that I see light; it is thy smiles that make my smiles; it is thy strength and power made manifest in me that holds me up and makes me strong; it is thy Spirit of grace and supplications poured into my heart that brings my soul to pour it out unto thee; it is thy precious gift of faith, and thy precious power, that draws it into exercise, which enables my soul to come with confidence, and say, My Lord and my God; it is thy precious presence as my Father, and my Friend, and my eternal All, that changes a dungeon into a palace. Without thee I am more and more confident that I can do nothing. O ever keep me, ever teach me, ever uphold me. me to myself, my dear Lord, for two are better than one." POETRY. O never leave Messrs. Editors,-Having been favoured with the perusal of some hymns and other short poems written by a young man now no more, but whom when living I highly esteemed and loved, and whose memory I affectionately cherish, I have asked permission of his friends to insert one or two occasionally in the Gospel Standard. They breathe such a spirit of humility and godly sincerity that I believe they need no other recommendation. Stamford, Dec. 3, 1839. J. C. P. "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. (Judges xiv. 14.) We read of one in days of old might, And loudly roaring too-- And found a treasure there- And wear a heavier chain; Oakham. 'Twas put to Sampson's friends we learn, But now, my soul, to thee I turn, The mystery to tell Though feebly 'tis, methinks I can, And sighs, and groans as well. And turn'd my night to day. T. C. THE GOSPEL STANDARD, OR, FEEBLE CHRISTIAN'S SUPPORT. "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled."-Matt. v. 6. "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."-2 Tim. i. 9. "The election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded."-Rom. xi. 7. "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.-And they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.-In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."-Acts viii. 37, 38; Matt. xxviii. 19. No. 51. MARCH, 1840. VOL. VI. GRACE. What is grace as generally received by the religious world in our day? A cant phrase, a bubble, a Will-o'-the-wisp, a lifeless theme of lifeless professors' lifeless conversation. To hear the multitude of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram speak of this divine, eternal, glorious, saving, soul-melting blessing, essential to and revealed by the unchanging Jehovah in his work of salvation, externally and internally, one would think it a matter of little import, a toy for fullgrown pious children, a kill-time hobby, a round-about for school boys to ride in, a swing to please a mob at a fair, a something to be talked of, but nothing to be felt or enjoyed. How few know anything of grace as it is in Christ Jesus, as set forth in the pure faithful word of God, the Holy Ghost! How few feel their need of it, as a free pardon to condemned criminals for all their sins and evil deeds; as an ark to save them from the flood of everlasting wrath, which is revealed from heaven against "every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;" as the hand of a faithful, affectionate, and watchful Prince, who, though hated, opposed, fought against, despised, and spat upon, and used with the utmost contempt and scorn, yet still determined to do him every good, and to save him at all hazards, seeing him in distress and danger of destruction, his life demanded as the penalty of his offences, and tortures unspeakable to be inflicted, freely, joyfully, willingly, and with all his heart (disregarding all that is past, and knowing that his goodness will not keep the criminal from still fighting against him) steps forth, becomes surety for the stranger, lays down his life for C |