longer any efficiency; yet, I trust, through grace, to follow you with prayers as long as I remain in this tabernacle, that the Lord God will continue to grant his influence in crowning your labours with success, and thus manifesting his favour is with the Gospel Tract Society. Committing and commending you to the Lord, I remain, brethren beloved, your's in the Lord, Plymouth, Nov. 11, 1826. Sir, ROBERT HAWKER. (To the Editor of the Spiritual Magazine.) A QUERY. I would wish through the medium of the Spiritual Magazine to ask a question, which has presented itself to my mind on perusing the Rev. J. Irons' Card, No. 41. He makes use of the following expression in his lines on the New Year,- In me he created a nature divine.' I would, with all due submission to a man of his knowledge and experience, suggest whether it would not have been more proper to have used the word 'implanted' for 'created;' as it appears to me a contradiction to say, that a divine nature, or the new nature, is created: is it not uncreated? The opinion of your correspondents would by me be esteemed a peculiar favour. Perhaps the author himself may not think it troublesome, if I request from him an explanation of the passage in the mean while. I remain, your's respectfully, FRAGMENT. R. G. IF God's mercy might be overcome with our sins, we should overcome it every day; it must be rich mercy that can fully and for ever satisfy the soul; and therefore the apostle never speaks of it without the extensions of love, O the height and depth ! we want words, we want thoughts to conceive of it: O labour through grace to raise your souls to large and exalted conceptions and apprehensions of this mercy that is sovereign and divine ! THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. "In thy presence is fulness of joy, at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.” THOU fountain-spring of bliss, My happiness below: No other good I wish for here, I bless thee for each cross, For Jesus is my friend: Psalm xvi. 11. Though troubles must attend And guard me safely through: For all things must promote their good, Thy presence makes me blest, That waits for me above; Where sin and every care shall cease, T. F. B. DECEASE OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF YORK. His Royal Highness, Frederick, second son of George III. and brother to his present Majesty George IV. was born on the 16th of August, 1763, and was elected Bishop of Osnaburg, Feb. 27, 1764. His Royal Higliness was created Duke of York and Albany, in Great Britain, and Earl of Ulster in Ireland, Nov. 27, 1784. He was married Sept. 29, 1791, at Berlin, to the eldest daughter of his Majesty the King of Prussia. His Royal Highness was now called into actual and severe public service, being appointed Commander in Chief of the British army. His Royal Highness departed this life at Rutland House, Jan. 5, 1827, after a lingering and most painful illness, deeply regretted by all classes of his Majesty's subjects, and was interred with great funeral pomp at Windsor on the 20th of the same month. As a tribute of respect to his Royal Highness, we subjoin his memorable speech delivered in the House of Lords, April 25, 1825, which must ever endear his memory to British Christians, for the noble stand therein made in defence of protestant principles. "I hold in my hand a petition from the dean and chapter of the collegiate church of St. George, Windsor, praying that no farther concessions may be made to the Roman Catholics. I am sure that any representation from so learned and respectable a body, will be received with the attention it deserves; and therefore I should not have troubled your lordships with any observations in support of it, if I did not feel this was an occasion on which any man may be well permitted to address your lordships. I do this the more readily on the present occasion, because feeling that I am not in the habit of taking part in your discussions, I will not interrupt the progress of the debate on the bill to which the petitioners refer, if it should come into the house. It is now twenty-five years since this measure was first brought into discussion. I cannot forget with what events that discussion was at that time connected. It was connected with the most serious illuess of one now no more; it was connected also with the temporary removal of one of the ablest, wisest, and honestest ministers that this country ever had. From that time, when I gave my first vote on this question to the present, I have never seen any reason to regret or to change the line which I then took. I have every year seen more reason to be satisfied with my decision. When the question comes regularly before your lordships it will be discussed much more fully and ably than I can do it; but there are two or three subjects on which I am anxious to touch; one is that you place the church of England in a situation in which no other church in the world is placed. The Roman Catholic will not allow the church of England or parliament to interfere with his church, and yet he requires you to allow him to interfere with your church, and to legislate for it. There is another subject still more delicate on which I cannot, however, help saying a few words. I speak (1 beg to be understood) only as an individual. I desire not to be understood as speaking for any body else; but consider, my lords, in what a situation you place the sovereign; by the coronation oath the sovereign is bound to maintain the church established in her doctrine, discipline, and her rights inviolate. An act of parliament may release future sovereigns and other men from this oath, or from any other oath to be taken; but can it release an individual who has already taken it? I speak, I repeat it again, as an individual, but I entreat the house to consider the situation in which the sovereign is thus placed. I feel very strongly on this whole subject. I cannot forget the deep interest which was taken upon it by one now no more, and the long and unhappy illness in which -(here his royal highness was sensibly affected.)-I have been brought up from my early years in these principles, and from the time when I began to reason for myself, I have entertained them from conviction, and in every situation in which I may be placed, I will maintain them, so help me God!" MONODY ON THE DEATH OF HIS ROYAL HIGH- WHEN the grim tyrant with unsparing hand, There are, of tender mould, whom others' woes But the sad tidings of death's drear inroad, Not so, when Death, the mighty conqueror, As in the prophet's days the voice of grief, But if one deed demands superior praise, Decreed the orb of heaven to illume this world; In the august assembly-where were found Friends of the harlot church-and solemnly, By whom kings reign, and princes do decree The staunch defender, -as from early youth— As "glorious reformation" well secured! The muse might here-escaping the thick gloom But Israel's God in whom the church relies- He is her mighty shield, support, and stay, Her everlasting glory and defence! Though princes die-and sovereigns quit their thrones And gospel-heralds gain their high reward The church diminished here swells that above THE Spiritual Magazine ; SAINTS? OR, TREASURY. There are Three that bear record in heaven, the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY GHOST: and these Three are One." << Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." 1 John v. 7, Jude 3. MARCH, 1827. (For the Spiritual Magazine.) A SWEET CLUSTER OF PROMISES TO GOD'S ELECT PEOPLE.- -No. II. "I will bring the blind by a way they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight: these things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."-Isaiah xlii. 16. THESE words must be considered as addressed to God's elect people, neither can we take them as applicable generally to all men, without supposing that God promises what he does not perform; seeing that a great portion of mankind remain to the end of their lives blind, as to spiritual things, and in the ways of sin and error, and not in his ways. But, say some, this doctrine of election ought not to be touched upon, for it is a secret, and "secret things belong to God." Yet our Lord did not keep it secret when he preached on earth, for he declared that the days of tribulation should be shortened for "the elect's sake," Math. xxiv. 22. that it was impossible that the elect should be deceived finally or totally by false teachers, Matt. xxiv. 24. that God would avenge his own elect, Luke xviii. 7. And when his seventy disciples came to him rejoicing that by the power he had imparted to them, the devils were subject to them; he reminded them of a higher and better cause for their joy: "rejoice not in this, (said he) that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven." Luke x. 20. Did Paul keep this doctrine a secret when he thanked God for those to whom he wrote at Thessalonica, that they were in the number of VOL. III.-No. 35. 2 P his elect people?"We are bound (says he) to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation." 2 Thess. ii. 13. Does he keep it secret when, as it were in a tone of defiance, he exclaims, who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?" Rom. viii. 33. Does Peter keep it secret, when writing to those whom he calls "elect according to the fore-knowledge of God," he exhorts them "to make their calling and election sure?" 1 Pet. ii. 10. But how shall men obey this exhortation if they are not taught the doctrine of election; led into an acquaintance with it; and instructed in the way and means by which it is to be made sure? It is true, the doctrine of election may be abused by wicked men, and there is no doctrine of grace they may not abuse; but if it is a doctrine plainly set forth in scripture, and there written as with a sun beam; and that it is, according to the experience of all God's chosen and called people, as our church says, "full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort;" then let it be proclaimed, yea, and let it be proclaimed here, that the text is a cluster of sweet and precious promises, made by God to his elect people, and to no others. Now the first promise God here makes to his elect is, that though by nature they are spiritually blind, he will bring them by a way they knew not. The elect of God, before the light of the gospel comes to them, are, in common with all the other degenerate sons of fallen Adam, blind as to spiritual things; blind as to the true knowledge of God, and especially as in Christ; blind as to the knowledge of Christ, and the way of peace, life, and salvation by him; blind as to their own miserable lost state and condition by nature; blind as to the Spirit of God, and his wonderful operations on the souls of men; blind as to any true knowledge of the scriptures, the gospel, and the doctrines of it. St. Paul says, "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 2 Cor. i. 14. As there must be a natural faculty to see and discern natural things, so there must be a spiritual one to see, discern, and approve of spiritual things; and this faculty the natural man has not, but he only who is regenerated by the grace and Spirit of God. But the Lord has promised to bring his people, blind by nature as to the true knowledge of God in Christ and the Spirit, and of their own true state, by a way they knew not; that by his Spirit he will open the eyes of their understandings, and shew them those things they were blind in and ignorant of; and bring them by a way they knew not before; that he will take care by means of his ministers, and word, and ordinances, to instruct them in a way he does not others, so that they may become "wise unto salvation." And what is the way into which the Lord brings his people, and which they know not? Christ; Christ is the way, and the only way to the Father; the way of peace, and righteousness, and life; the way to heaven, and eternal happiness. The Lord's people by nature know |