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built his house upon the sand; and the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it" (Matt. vii. 26, 27).

Jonathan-My dear friend, when I commenced this topic, it was not my intention to enter into an analysis of the doctrines (not in detail), but to give you some of the leading features. I think you omitted to cut me a slice out of the last few words in my paragraph in your running comment. But listen to me, Joseph,

And who would not rather assume the risks of such a constitution than be without its possibility? Who would not rather pass onward to the skies by his own preference, and in the expenditure of all practical personal diligence, than to be arbitrarily lifted into the enjoyment of the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens? Is it well and essential that Divine grace dispose and assist us in the way of righteousness? but for even Divine grace to compel us along the path to immortality would be to do violence to our nature; to divest our course of all virtue, and to preclude all high reward. Verily, it is sweet to be free. There is genuine luxury in the assurance that we own ourselves that only God is greater than we; and that He respects the manhood He has conferred upon us. The power of determining our own ways, and constructing our own characters, and mapping out our own future, is not to be lightly esteemed, or lightly surrendered.

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Joseph-I have a few words to offer you in return, my friend, which I hope will have their effect. I always avoid, if I can, an argument for mere argument's sake. Why, Jonathan, where have you been to learn these erroneous doctrines. Not in the Bible; nor at a throne of grace. Where, then? In your colleges, where you make bishops by scores, and parsons by hundreds. Where men learn to preach as parrots learn to talk, and give lectures upon Telegraphs, Railways,' 'Art and Science,'' Botany,' 'Anatomy,' Astronomy,' 'Physiology,' 'Phrenology,' 'Geology,' 'Philosophy,' &c. And when you profess to be master of all these arts, you fail then, if you cannot clothe your sermon in the gorgeous robes of eloquent politics, and you know 'tis impossible to climb up into your "holy orders" in any other way. And I may truly add that, should you fail to attain to this state of "American Methodist perfection," as sure as you live, Jonathan, your "piece of bread" may lie on the shelf until it is mouldy ere you get put into a "priest's office." Well, my friend, if I omitted something in my last reply, I will try to remember you in this. You say. "And who would not rather assume the risk of such a constitution, than be without its possibilities." It appears from these words, your salvation is a matter of speculation; an assumption of risks-a trade

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of uncertainties-a foolish virgin lamp-profession-no oil in the vessel (Matt. xxv. 3.) Aye, to be sure; but you can soon rectify that by saying, "I go sir," as you abound with oil wells. And besides, what an honour it must be to you to go a warfare at your own charge," and "pass onwards to the skies by his own preference." And what an advantage you have on your side. would not rather pass onward" in their own strength, and especially being their own choice, towards-if not "to the skies"—if to only have it said, after his decease, "He worked hard;" "he strove well;" "wonderful in the means;" see what an amount of good he did;" "how strict he was in keeping our rules;" "what a pattern of moral virtue;" "he must have eaten the ten commandments;" "but somehow he grew dark in these things at the last." And no wonder, for even unto this day, when Moses is read the veil is upon their heart (2 Cor. iii. 15).

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But while you glory in having made your choice, Jonathan, God's people glory in Him Who made choice of them (Ephes. i. 4). And with all your boast "in the expenditure of all practical personal diligence" to obtain-not a prize, because you strive unlawfully, but-a blank ! Which is not the case with those whom Jesus "loved with an everlasting love," called by the Holy Ghost, saved by His grace, "raised them up from a death of sin to a life of righteousness: "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). We can glory in nothing save in "eternal redemption." There lies a colossal and an immortal expenditure of blood, one drop of which would quench hell out were it to drop in. And this blood-shedding was for the remission of all the sins-both past, present and to come of all the election of grace (Rom. xi. 5). And it would be as well, while you are reading the reference, to read the two following verses, which will explain it more fully. Sovereign grace to a poor, blind, ruined, wretched, helpless, hell-deserving sinner, would be esteemed as a glorious lift into the spiritual enjoyment of the children of God; and afterwards, and all the way, kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation, and taken to "the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." But you disdain the help that God's children are compelled to receive cre they are "lifted into the enjoyment" you speak of. Here it appears is no small difficulty,-to confess what you don't believe; but being thoroughly shamed out of it, you whisper faintly, "It is well and essential that Divine grace dispose and assist us in the way of righteousness: but for even Divine grace to compel us along the path to immortality, would be to do violence to our nature."

Well, Jonathan, and may I be allowed to ask you what that is in your nature that prompts you to utter such unheard-of arrogance (except within the pale of your own dear Methodistical Episcopal Church)? Ah, it is well-and only just, well and essential-that Divine grace dispose and assist, though we could of our own free-will and natural strength accomplish the task alone, as we abhor that word "imputed" righteousness. As you have called for an explanation of that which exists in your nature, and prompts you to these utterances, now, Jonathan, I hope the truth will give you no offence, but it is pride of heart; and that first made its appearance in "Lucifer, the son of the morning," for which he was cast out of heaven. For to be compelled to worship Jesus, when God gave the command, "Let all the angels of God worship Him," Satan, like you, refused; feeling that very act would and did "do violence to his nature." And to give all the honour and praise, and power and glory to Jesus, was just what Satan declined to do, seeing it would divest him of all meritorious rewards due to pious, pompous "virtues" like his; and then his proud, independent spirit echoed, "Verily it is sweet to be free." "There is genuine luxury in the assurance that we own ourselves -that only God is greater than we, and that He respects the manhood he has conferred upon us." What "luxury" to stand upon the hill-top of your own conceit! and see ourselves "in the assurance" of that which nobody else sees besides you! What a size you must be on your side of the Atlantic! How do you feel, Jonathan, when an OX comes down to your water to drink? Why, of course, you treat him with contempt, and say that only God is greater than we." Well, it is an act of great condescension on your part to admit as much as this. And, pray, what has that dignified piece of "manhood" you boast of to do with the salvation of the soul? This question might have been saved, had I recollected that yours from first to last is a system of fleshly worship, and that "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," and they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Neither can you, while you claim "the power of determining your own ways, and constructing your own character, and mapping out your own future." These mighty wonders are among the first-born of your strength, as their size is so prodigious. O the wonderful power of freewill! Who can conceive a millionth part of "the power of determining thy own way?" We believe there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. xiv. 12); and that "the ways of a fool are right in his own eyes" (Prov. xii. 15). However wrong it may be in the eyes of others, who take the views of the Bible, and not of a mortal, upon such important

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things as these; constructing railways, tunnelling through rocky mountains, constructing Great Easterns, conducting Abyssinian expeditions, and constructing plans of campaigns, for thoroughly effecting and giving one of the most disastrous and crushing blows to one of the most powerful nations in the world, together with building pyramids, are all in the shade, far behind, compared with the "determining," "constructing," and "mapping out" our future. The Bible says, God leadeth His people "in paths they have not known." And also, "I will bring the blind by a way they know not ;" and that "the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." Jeremiah prays, "That the Lord thy God may show us the way wherein we may walk" (Jer. xlii. 2). Which is a proof clear enough that God's children can neither "determine," "construct," nor "map out" their future or destiny; and those who can will be " lightly esteemed" in their own estimation. And the idea of surrender would be a thousand times more galling than the surrender of Paris was to the French. J. F.

(To be continued.)

PURE GOLD FROM PURITAN AND OTHER MINES.

BUT FOR A SEASON.-There is a 66 needs be" for these trials and temptations, or God would not have appointed you to walk in such a path. If there were nothing before your eyes but the inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, and you were looking forward to be put into the peaceable possession of it at death, without any intermediate trouble or sorrow, you would not be walking in the path of tribulation through which, and through which alone, it is declared that we must enter the kingdom of heaven. You would not be a partaker of the sufferings of Christ, which you must be, if you are to be a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. You would have, therefore, no "fellowship of His sufferings," no being "made conformable unto His death," no "bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," nor being "delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." Beside which, you would be no companion for the poor afflicted family of God; you would have few errands to the throne of grace; few openings up of the Scripture to your mind; few discoveries of the pity and compassion of Him Who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and little sympathy with the Man of sorrows. Your smooth, easy, even path, would set you far away from the choicest saints of God, and from the best part of living experience. J. C. Philpot.

THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST.

No. X.

THE WITHERED HAND RESTORED.

Matt. xii. 9-14, Mark iii. 1-6, Luke vi. 6-11. COMPLAINTS and diseases, in all their strange and distressing variety, appear before us in the Gospels to bear witness to the eternal power and Godhead of Him "Who is our Hope." Neither does anything more display the innate depravity of the unregenerate heart and the enmity of the carnal mind against God, than the hostility of the leading professors in the Saviour's day at His merciful kindness to the miserable sufferers. Nothing He did pleased them. His preaching exposed the hollowness of their religious pretensions, and His miracles confounded their adverse and blasphemous assertions respecting Him. Sabbatarians of the strictest sort, the Pharisees and their followers assumed to abstain on the seventh day from everything that savoured of secular occupation; though, like the modern Jews, they did not object to the employment of Gentiles in what they deemed unlawful for themselves. But the spirit of the sabbath, as GOD'S REST, they never understood. And when He Who alone honoured it in accordance with the scope of Jehovah's institution stood before them, their hate knew no bounds: and could they have hindered the performance of His benevolent work, they would, whatever the loss sustained by the Lord's glory and the creature's comfort. But, “I will work, and who shall let it?" applies to all those decrees of mercy which in His mediatorial character He is pledged to carry out as the Executor of the Father's goodwill and pleasure. How consoling this truth to the Lord's afflicted and timorous when the Spirit shines upon it and reflects it in their hearts. "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure," is the answer to all insinuated impossibilities, and, "If it be marvellous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in these days, should it also be marvellous in Mine eyes, saith the Lord of Hosts," is a rebuke to all questioning. as to ways and means.

Our present subject takes us to Capernaum. The site is now disputed, only a mass of ruins being left. There our blessed Lord fixed His abode, as a prophet without honour in His own country— a place exalted to heaven by His presence, and debased to hell by

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