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tions; and that those, who receive not the love of the truth,' are in the way to be punished with that “strong delusion of believing a lie.?

Hear the just laws, the judgment of the skies!
He, that hates truth, shall be the dupe of lies.
And he, that will be cheated to the last,

Delusions, strong as hell, shall bind him fast. In this way, Madam, has God enabled me hitherto to examine my foundation. Or, if I may be allowed at the conclusion to change the metaphor, 1 stand like one, who, for a long time, has been imposed upon by toys and tinsel; but, at length, feels satisfied that he has found gold. Some, indeed, try to persuade me that I am still imposed upon, and that what I take for gold is but base metal. I therefore proceed to prove my gold, by every method of trial which I can devise : I put it into the scale : I try it in the fire : I bring it to the touchstone: I place it under the hammer: and I find it still pure gold. After all this, shall I regard their cry who have never thus tried it; and whose fears and lusts oppose the trial?

At your request, I have now put down the substance of my unconnected remarks; and since, in that form, they afforded you relief in discourse, I have avoided giving them a more regular one in paper. I have also been sparing of practical inferences from the truth thus established; as I need not demonstrate to You, what Reasons for Action must necessarily arise from these Reasons for Repose. You are also fully aware that the Truth before us must be infinitely momentous, or nothing: that it cannot be nothing, we have full proof in our own breasts : infinitely momentous therefore it must remain, and such may we ever feel it!

But, after all these considerations, I cannot expect you will ever have so strong a conviction of the energy

of divine truth as our venerable friend Mr. Nor as myself. Like the demoniac Legion, we must needs sit with more admiration in our right minds at

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Christ's feet, than Lydia did. Yet I feel comfort in speaking to a Christian on this subject, since we can both, like David, “enter in the Sanctuary' in order to clear up our doubts, and behold the end of those who will not follow us thither. We have “the witness in ourselves, when a mist, like that which lately overspread your mind, does not rise to obscure it. For, whether the world will believe it or not, we know there is such a thing as a Common Sense among the real disciples of Christ-a heart-felt conviction and experience of the truth of the Gospel. We know that nothing did us good till we received that Gospel : that, till then, we had no well-grounded hope in view of affliction, death, and judgment. I must repeat the term well-grounded, because an ill-grounded confidence is worse than none at all.

With a mind fully mude up on the subject, 'all the days of my appointed time' i hope to wait till my change come. Such a change we all know must soon take place in every one of us; but a strange infatuation leads fallen man, like one walking in his sleep toward a precipice, to plunge into the abyss before him, without so much as inquiring whither he is going, or how he may go safely. On the contrary, as one awake, I would anticipate the change before it takes place: I would provide against it: I would descend to the grave, taking hold of the Almighty Hand stretched out for my help: crying, as I descend, · Remember the word unto thy servant, upon

which Thou hast caused me to hope.'

Till then, as we cannot but pity such as slight these Results of our Inquiry, so let us also pray for them; endeavouring, by every step in our conduct, still further to demonstrate the more excellent way. And, permit me to add, that, till then, I must, remain, Dear Madam, Your affectionate Friend, And faithful Servant.

R. C.

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FRAGMENT,

WRITTEN

IN AN ILLNESS, IN THE YEAR 1799.

As a traveller, who has left his house but a few hours, finds himself in an entirely new situation; so, shut up for a few hours in a sick bed, and with a prospect of death, I look backward and forward, and seem in a new world. I feel the truths which I have taught, in a way I never before felt them. I marvel at the stupidity of man, and most of all at my own stupidity. I desire to live, only that I may live and act under the impressions that I now have, as I clearly perceive nothing else worth living for.

I just now called for one to help me, who would go through fire and water to do it; but received no answer. What a mercy that He, who always can help me, always hears me when I call!

I feel many sweet and strong ties to the present life, in my family and in my Church, to which all earthly possessions bear no comparison; yet to depart and be with Christ is' doubtless' far better.' But I have been this morning perplexed with the consideration, that when I shall see him as he is,' I shall not be able to forgive myself for not having served him better. I know not how to separate the idea of self-reproach from heavenly enjoyment.

Our three grand enemies are the World, the Flesh, and the Devil: but we are sure to conquer; for 'greater is he that is in us, than they that be against us !?

Sitting in my blankets, with this Bible before me, I seen like old Elwes with a bushel of bank notes and India bonds ; but with this difference, that he must have his all taken away, and I shall take all mine with ine.

I am astonished, and even confounded, when I recollect with what prodigality we Ministers are accustomed to waste our time. "A Minister spending his strength and talents merely to entertain his acquaintance, is a Foolish Virgin' wasting her oil to light up a puppet show. I purpose, in the strength of God, that the few drops which I have remaining, shall be consecrated to the lighting of wanderers to the Door, or pilgrims on their Way.

The moment my soul departs from this body, it will be more separate from the present world in which I live, than if it were at this instant placed beyond the orb of Saturn; and yet, at the orb of Saturn, what a

1 mere non-entity would this present world be! But, to be placed at such an inconceivable distance from my present station, and to be there alone, though out of absolute pain, shocks the mind: on the other hand, to be there, or any where else, under a sense of divine favour, and with the presence of Christ, makes that state no solitude, and this world no loss.

I have had a view, in my sickness, that I never had before; respecting those Opiates which have kept me in a doze at least, where I ought to have been broad awake. Arts and sciences, literature, curiosities, news, and even nonsense, have wasted hours and days; and that, while I had a most important charge to be executed, and a soul to be prepared for this season. all this with a clearness that fills me, at once, with wonder, indignation, and abasement. Should I live, ought I not to proclaim it upon the house top? and especially to those who are dosing to this hour ?

When He said to me, by the physicians, 'Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live ;' and especially when one of them told me this with many

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tears ; my soul, like a man suddenly overwhelmed with an inundation, looked about hastily, to examine the ground on which it stood to meet the unexpected trial. But the ground was found in a moment to be such, as could secure me from any flood ; and I was cnabled to reply, “ My Dear Friend, you do not at all alarm me; for " I know whom I have believed,' and 'I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him unto that day.""

But, in going home by myself in the coach, and looking from off the Rock on which I stood, to the waves which surrounded it, my calmness forsook me: I thought of my wife and children, and burst into tears : not that I doubtod but they would be taken care of by him who had all

my life taken care of me, but I could not bear the thought of parting with them, much less of leaving them in such a world. I thought too of my Church; and felt that I had not time left even to make such a settlement as that I could leave it with satisfaction. The whole was too much, and I was obliged to turn my eyes again from the waves to the Rock, and, for the present, transact with God for my own soul.

From having possessed great natural vigour, and a good constitution, I had strangely and preposterously imagined, that I should live to be old : and have often pleased myself with a fond idea of discoursing to my congregation from St. John's pulpit, in a familiar, affectionate, and parental manner, with a head as white

And this delusion had proceeded so far, that I almost took it for granted it would be so: and had imagined the sort of discourses which I should deliver at that time, with the tone of voice, and necessary imperfections! What upon earth, could make me so blind and forgetful of the nature of man, and the express admonition of our Lord? And this, too, after I had been writing Memoirs of the late Rev. Mr. Cadogan," taken off in a few days at nearly my own Oge.

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