And as for error in practice, we have Watchmen to watch over it, Advocates to plead against it, Guardians to guard it, Observers to observe it, Examiners to examine it, Critics to criticise it, and Magazines filled with stores of explosive materials against it. Besides all these dead sentinels, who come out weekly or monthly, armed with cautions, warnings, and precepts, we have stationed in every town and village an army of Pharisees, Freewillers, Wesleyans, Evangelicals, General Dissenters, secret sinners and open sinners, all of whom are most scrupulously watchful over the conduct of others, however careless of their own, and whose eyes are both telescopes and microscopes in observing those whom they call Antinomians. Thus with these ever-watchful protectors, we are tolerably safe from any great errors in doctrine, or gross obliquity in practice.

But when we come to experience and the mysteries of vital godliness, there our periodical friends and their zealous allies of the church and the chapel desert us altogether. Being ignorant themselves of the kingdom of heaven, they can neither describe the way into it, nor discover any deviation from it. Not knowing gold from or moulu, nor silver from its German imitation, they cannot put the king's stamp on the genuine metal, nor nail the counterfeit to the counter. If the good sovereign be a little worn or defaced, a little dull or a little dirty, it is pronounced base metal; and if the Birmingham imitation be brightly gilt, it is received as genuine without suspicion, and passed from hand to hand for universal admiration. What little experience they bring forward is almost entirely in the letter, and, having neither end nor side, only tends to puzzle and distress God's living family. And being jumbled up from texts of scripture, and drawn from the dead pool of head knowledge, and not the living well of gracious experience, is fitter food for strutting peacocks than trembling doves; for religious dandies than desolate widows; and for singing men in Gilead, (2 Sam. xix. 35,) than mourners in Zion. Thus we feel ourselves disposed to continue the Gospel Standard, and still to lift up our banner upon the high mountain, as a witness against all that shallow, false, empty, canting, delusive experience which has usurped the place of divine teaching, and sitteth as God in the temple of God-the heart of man, though nothing else than a mystery of iniquity, a strong delusion, and a deceivableness of unrighteousness. (2 Thess. ii. 4-12.)

2nd. But another main branch in advocating divine godliness is, to establish truth. And by this we mean again not so much truth in doctrine, however blessed, nor truth in practice, however desirable, as truth in experience. True doctrines are held by thousands who never felt their power; and consistency of life is to be found amongst the greatest enemies of God. But a true experience is the happy portion only of the saved. Thus we desire to be Zaphnath-paaneahs, revealers of secrets, (Gen. xli. 45, marg.); interpreters of a gracious experience, (Job. xxxiii. 23); messengers with a message, not fools with our feet cut off, (Prov. xxvi. 6); but coming every month "in vessels of bulrushes," (creature weakness) "to a people scattered and peeled, (as the shoulders of Nebuchadnezzar's army before Tyre), with the burdens of war," (Ezek. xxix. 18); "to a nation meted out, and weighed up in conscience by terrible things in righteousness, trodden under foot by professors and themselves, and whose land of pleasure, profit, and profession the rivers of overflowing wrath, as well as of superabounding grace," (Isa. xxviii. 17; Rom. v. 20,) "have spoiled." (Isa. xviii. 2—7.)

Thus, if our publication should occasionally bring light to those who

sit in darkness, balm to the wounded in spirit, oil of joy to the mourners, deliverance to the captives, strength to the feeble, power to the faint, a rock to the shelterless, and an anchor to those that are in deep waters, we shall be abundantly repaid for all our trouble.

3rd. A third object in an experimental publication is, to form a connecting link between the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad— the elect strangers scattered up and down through the land. Carnal people have often remarked what they call the freemasonry which exists among the people of God. If this secret union must have a name, it would be better to compare it to electricity. One desirable object, then, of our publication would be to form a part of the electric chain which unites and pervades all the living family of God. All the living members of Christ's body have a secret union and sympathy with one another as fellow-sufferers and fellow-heirs. But they must be brought together, and come into contact, before this secret union can be openly manifested, and their hearts sweetly knit together. Should our publication effect this, it would indeed be highly favoured of God; and we trust that in some instances it has been thus blessed. Many of our readers have never seen "I. K." and some other correspondents in the flesh, who have felt a sweet union with them in the spirit, for as in water face answereth to face, so does the heart of man to man. Thus the trials and temptations, liftings up and castings down, sunshine and shade, hopes and fears, encouragements and despondencies, seasons of faith and times of unbelief, snares and deliverances, falls and recoveries, backslidings and healings, defeats and victories, groans and songs, hardenings and meltings, shuttings up and openings-in a word, all the varied, chequered, contradictory, mysterious, and everchanging experience of the living family, rivet and unite them together. Our little publication, therefore, as bringing out to light, from time to time, these hidden secrets of the heart, may, with the favour and blessing of a Tri-une Jehovah, contribute to unite in sympathy and love the scattered heirs of glory, who dwell north, south, east, and west, and who only know one another through our pages.

4th. But we must mention a fourth point connected with our magazine as a periodical advocate of vital godliness, and that is, its utility in coming out at brief intervals of time, and in consisting of a small shape in size. The children of God are mostly poor, and cannot buy books; and are usually much occupied in bodily labour, and have little time to read. Thus, they can purchase a pamphlet where they cannot buy a volume, and can read a magazine where they cannot peruse a book.

Nor must we forget that God works by means. Thus, our little publication, lying on the table or the shelf, may occasionally be taken up, and a short sentence or a few words may be blessed to the reviving of the soul out of deadness, rousing it from slumber, stirring it up to prayer, delivering it from false peace; or, on the other hand, to the comforting it when cast down, encouraging it when drooping, and watering it when parched up for want of rain and dew. There are seasons when we cannot read the Bible, through guilt of conscience, darkness of soul, deadness of heart, worldliness of mind, and workings of enmity, and aversion to all that is holy and heavenly. But, sometimes in these seasons, we can glance our eyes over the writings of gracious men, and pick a bit here or there, suited to our case, which may be blessed to the driving away the unclean birds which hover over the sacrifice, and renewing our appetite for the word of truth. At other times, too, the Bible is to us a sealed book, and if read

at all, is hurried over without feeling, and almost without understanding. A dark veil is spread over it, and all its authority, glory, sweetness, and power, obscured to our eyes. But, if a ray of light springs up within from truth preached and heard with power, or from conversation with living souls felt with divine authority, or from gracious writings commended to the conscience; this same ray of light shoots across the Bible, and we read it with new eyes, and feel it with new hearts. Thus, our little publication, coming out from time to time, may be an instrument, not to supersede or set aside the Scriptures, (God forbid!) but to open the heart, soften the soul, and melt down the conscience to receive them, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, effectually working in them that believe.

II. But we must pass on to the only means whereby we can hope that these objects will be accomplished; and these means we consider to be twofold.

1st. That as our publication can only be kept up by our correspondents, that these should be men really taught of God.

Religion has become such a trade, and an empty profession has so flooded the land, that we may almost say, "The good man has perished out of the earth." (Mic. vii. 2.) But, let men be endowed with talents ever so great to understand, explain, and enforce the letter of truth, yet, unless they be men that fear God and are taught of him, men of simplicity and godly sincerity, men broken down and humbled under the mighty hand of God, neither their preaching nor their writing can ever profit the living family. They may make a noise in the pulpit, and create a buzz of admiration in the parlour; may lead captive silly women, and raise up a party of graceless men; may fill their writings with pretty comparisons, and their contributions to magazines with great swelling words; but all they say and all they write is only wind and confusion. Barren sands cannot produce fertile crops, clouds without water cannot pour down refreshing showers, dry breasts cannot feed new born babes, nor legal servants minister to free-born sons. Our main want then, is to have gracious, God-fearing, heaventaught correspondents-men that know God and know themselves, men with humble hearts and broken, contrite spirits, men led experimentally into the mystery of sin and the mystery of salvation, men emptied and stripped of presumption, hypocrisy, superstition, and selfrighteousness. Such correspondents as these would keep onr periodical free from that vain confidence, dead assurance, dry formality, barren doctrine, and awful presumption which make some religious magazines worse for a child of God to read than a book of history or a newspaper. And, upon the communications of such correspondents alone, can we hope or expect the blessing of God to rest.

2nd. But the second means whereby alone we can expect our object, as advocates of vital godliness to be accomplished is, that our coriespondents should be men taught of God to write.

A man must be as much inspired of God to write as inspired to preach, if his writings are to profit God's family. A man may be a gracious character, whom God has not commissioned to write, as there are many living souls whom the Holy Ghost has not commissioned to preach; not being raised up by God to do his work, neither the writ ing of the one, nor the preaching of the other will profit his children.

But, as God does not require eloquence in the pulpit, so does he not require eloquence with the pen. The marks of a man's being commissioned by him to write, cousist not in beauty of style nor clearness of argument, but in the power, dew, authority, unction, sweetness,

and savour which clothe his words. There will be always an originality, a freshness, a weight, a depth, a fulness about the writings of men whose pen is inspired; and a secret, nameless, indescribable power which enters into the heart of a spiritual reader, and sinks into the depths of his soul. It will not be a hard, formal, picked up, cut and dried, prosy round of doctrine, nor a whining, canting tale of experience, filled with words and phrases stolen from the pulpit and the table-pew; but there will be a simplicity, honesty, straightforwardness, originality, and living freshness about it, which will show it is from heaven, and not of men; a gift from God, and not a production of the brain.

Such is our object, then, and such are our wishes. Such do we desire our periodical to be-an instrument in the hands of God to uphold vital godliness, and by such means as we have pointed out. No other object is worth our seeking, and sure we are, that by no other means than the two we have briefly entered into, can that object be accomplished.

So far as this object has been thus far attained, would we thank God and take courage. We commit the matter into his hands at the opening of the new year, knowing that he works in a mysterious way in the accomplishment of his eternal designs; and desiring, if he shall condescend to make use of us to advance his own kingdom, that he will enable us to ascribe to him all the glory.

THE EDITORS.

THE DOCTRINES OF THE GOSPEL.

A clear and accurate knowledge of the precious doctrines of the pure gospel, a sound and harmonious judgment in divine things, is, to God's children, a desirable acquisition, and useful in freeing their minds from the perplexing shackles of Arminian and Neonomian errors, and for the solution of difficult passages, that seem to make against the tenor of truth. But, however good and desirable in its place, it is only as a shadow to the substance, a name to the person, profession to possession, to the Lord's people. When soul-travail tribulation comes upon them, when the horrifying gusts of unbelief, the keen, the cunning, the crafty snares and temptations of the devil, the gloom of despondency, the sinkings of doubts and fears, all set in upon them, as an impetuous and overwhelming flood, all judgmental knowledge then flies as winnowed chaff and frothy bubbles before the driving whirlwind, and down comes the poor soul. All his judgment-stored knowledge is not worth one fraction in the day of inward trial. When a man comes to be tried in the fire of tribulation, it is then and there he is proved to be "wood, hay, stubble, or gold, silver, precious stones." (1 Cor. iii. 12.) Then the doctrines in his judgment merely will avail him nothing, for he will see the necessity of knowing the truths of God, not in word only, but in power, and in the Spirit's demonstration.

I have seen the day when I thought I could explain and harmonize almost any part of God's word; but now the case is greatly altered with me. It is with the greatest difficulty, sighings, groanings,

and agonies of soul I can come at even one verse, to get into its genuine, unctuous meaning. My fancied wisdom is become complete folly, my speculative knowledge has proved perfect ignorance, and I now hesitate and tremble to give a decided view on any passage; nor do I wish to come at any part of the word in any other way, though indeed it is a hard, pinching, painful way of learning the Bible; still it is sound, sure, and lasting. I feel with good old Bunyan in this respect: "I wish to know nothing but what the Lord sets me down in." If Dr. Gill and Dr. Hawker had come at all their commentaries in this manner, they would not have finished them even by this time. Of course my readers will think this puts me out of conceit with commentaries even of the most genuine stamp ever issued, because I know that not one tenth of their contents is written from a soul-labour knowledge, and this is the cause of their so often contradicting themselves, and appearing so dry and barren.

The word of God and the heart of God's people are like a lock and key,—the heart the lock, and the word the key; and just as our hearts are modelled, cut and carved, screwed and bended by the Spirit of God, the word will enter in and fit; and as the joints of our consciences are cleansed, oiled, and supled by the molifying unction of the blessed Spirit, with ease and alacrity shall we open to truth and shut against error. The doctrines of the gospel in the letter are of little use to me, except the Holy Ghost has made a place in my heart to receive them. Without this, there is no unction, no sap, no dew, no soul-sweetness,, no soul-nutriment in them. For instance; what is the doctrine of electing love to me, except I feel that I am so weak and wicked that I cannot choose and love God? What is justification to me, except I feel the pangs of guilt? What is pardon, except I feel the despairing pains of condemnation? What is sanctification, except I feel choked, stifled, and sickened with vileness, filth, and pollution? What is salvation, except I feel irrecoverably lost? What is redemption, except I feel myself a slave? What is the perfection of Christ, except I feel wholly imperfect and putrid? Now, I say, what are all these doctrines to me (precious in themselves), if I have not a feeling use for them? Seeing them merely in judgment is nothing but an empty, dry, barren sound, without life and power; but if my soul be moulded, by the Spirit of God, into a shape to receive these truths, how they fit, how they shine, how sweet they taste, how precious they are, how glorious they appear! There is no place that I know of so well calculated for thus learning the Bible as the school of tribulation. In this school there are various apartments. One in particular I know well its name is, Questioning Cell. In this miserable, gloomy, fretful place, I have been shut up for some time. Its walls are built of the hard stones of rebellion; its door of the iron bars of despair; its ceiling, the stubborn oak of unbelief; its floor, the cold, clammy quicksands of doubts and fears. In one corner of this cell is a blinking fire of feverish agitation and peevish anxiety, which just gives light enough to discover the inmate's poor, worn-out, haggard, dejected countenance, and withal the devil hurling in his virulent temptations through the iron