are truly born of God. There is, and can be, no real union between unbelievers and believers. True Christians do not hate the world; no, they would rejoice, if it were the will of God, to know that were brought to the knowledge of the truth. But however they may desire this, they cannot, they dare not affirm the doctrine of universal redemption, or of universal salvation, because it is contrary to Divine revelation, and to the inward teaching of the Spirit of God in their own hearts.

Did the Saviour suffer in His own sacred Person, as our Surety, the displeasure of God revealed against sin? Now, though God does not punish His dear children for sin in a vindictive sense, yet He makes every one of them to feel, by teaching them out of His holy law, that it is a bitter thing to depart from Him; that they all deserve eternal punishment, for, and on account of sin. It is now that the Saviour appears to a poor sinner what He really is, a Friend in need, and a Friend indeed. For, as the convinced sinner's transgressions are all removed from him, and imputed to the Saviour by God the Father, so have all vindictive wrath and punishment passed away from the sinner, having been borne by his Surety.

But, as the Saviour suffered for sin, those who are justified from all things from which they could never be justified by the law of Moses, do suffer, and will continue to suffer as long as they live, from sin. Though its guilt may be purged from the conscience, its inbeing continues to be one of

the heaviest burdens that a saved sinner is called to sustain. Paul deeply felt what he wrote to the Romans: O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' though he could at the same time, in the very next words, say: I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.'

Did the Saviour suffer from the powers of darkness? Surely none who are delivered from the usurped dominion of the strong man armed, are strangers to the fiery darts of the wicked one. Though Satan cannot lead us captive at his will, yet he can, and does, continually distress us with his inward assaults. Unbelief, rebellion, discontent, impatience, fretfulness, and even our bad tempers, are stirred up by Satan, all these being his work within us. The old man of sin and his father the devil will always work together. But, blessed be God! sin shall not have dominion over us, and the Lord will bruise Satan under our feet shortly.

Did the Saviour, by the suffering of death, change it from a vindictive sentence to a new covenant blessing, with respect to His whole family? (for Paul says: All things are yours, whether life or death.') Yet the dear children of God often suffer much from the fear of death with all its attendant circumstances.

Thus have we seen that the saints are partakers of Christ's sufferings. And as they are in covenant union with Him, and this union can never be broken, they continue with Him in His temptations. Brought by the Lord Himself into the path of tribulation, they must and shall continue

in it unto the end. I do not believe that any of us who have been called to walk in this path, would really wish to be out of it; because, if this were possible, we must part company with the Saviour, and lose the supporting presence of our best Beloved. We may sometimes wish that we could escape from some especial trial appointed for us; we may, like Christian, for a time mistake Bypath Meadow for the right way; but, finding that every false way only leads to Despair and Doubting Castle, we would not, when in our right mind, choose any other path than that which the Lord has appointed for us, however smooth the one, and rough the other may appear.

For us thus to abide with the Lord in all these things even to the end, is to continue with Him in His temptations.

APPENDIX.

4 LETTERS TO FRIENDS.

I.

(To Mr. R. and Miss T.)

Cobham, December 20, 1825. My dear Friends whom I love in the Lord Jesus Christ,-May the God of all mercies and the Father of all comforts abundantly bless you with an endearing sense of His supporting presence, under the present trying dispensation with which He has seen good to exercise your faith and patience, and which was made known to me by our esteemed friend Mr. L. I could not help dropping the sympathetic tear; and this, my beloved, you and I are allowed, for Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. But, bless His precious name! my faith can trace the happy spirit of our departed sister to the regions of eternal day, where I shall follow her in the Lord's appointed time, and where the inhabitants of that land shall no more say, I am sick; for the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.

It is a privilege when we know that a saint

has fallen asleep in Jesus: and if the good Lord has been pleased to gather home to Himself her whom He hath loved with an everlasting love, whom He hath called in time, washed in His most precious blood, and made meet for eternal glory, the exercise to those who are still in the body is not unlike that through which He caused His beloved disciples to pass of old. He had long been with them, had unfolded to them the secret love of His heart, and had sweetly engaged their affections to Himself by every endearing manifestation ; and after all this, He told them: It is expedient for you that I go away;' at the hearing of which sorrow filled their hearts. Nor could it be otherwise, from the pure love they bore to Him, produced by a sweet sense of His precious love to them. But He told them He would see them again, and they should rejoice, and their joy no man should take from them.

And this, my beloved, will be the happy experience of all those who love Jesus in this world. He will often visit them with His soul-satisfying, heart-cheering presence, yea, they shall see the King in His beauty, and their eyes shall behold the land that is very far off. Our Beloved goes down into His garden, He feeds among the spices, and gathers His lilies one by one, each of which is laid in the bosom of everlasting love.

Oh! how sweet it is to have the soul alive to a sight and sense of the sufferings of Christ; to feel that His sufferings are ours, and that our afflictions are His. His precious love, brought home to

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