Good temper! 'tis the choicest gift W.-Beautiful! I expect the person who wrote them was a happy good-tempered man. C. No doubt about it. Ah! a good and clear conscience, and a grateful heart, what a blessing and delight they yield. Methinks it is in the power of all men to attain such happiness. Why health, food, drink, clothes, and exercise of mind and body, are what we want, and all who have them ought to be content and thankful to God for their condition, knowing as they do know, that thousands have not what they enjoy. O, discontented man, learn, learn to be happy! W.-You have certainly said a great deal to me this evening through coming so early; but before you go, I will tell you what made me so sharp with you. The fact is, a gentleman called on me this morning, and when I began to talk on religious matters he laughed at me, and told me not to be a fool and fill my mind with nonsense and delusions: that it would drive me mad. Why what is the matter with you? Why are you shedding tears? I can C.-Jesus wept when he pitied, and to hear of a gentleman, as you say, deluded by Satan, and trying to delude others, is enough to make a host of Christians weep. not help it. My dear fellow, reason a little, for a little reasoning is sufficient. He thinks what I believe is a delusion. Now, I do not simply think, but I KNOW, that what he believes is a gross delusion. Think what will be the end of his delusion? Death, darkness, despair! How long will he live? Where are his solid joys and settled peace of mind? I would ask with a voice as loud as ten thousand thunders-WHERE? Where do they come from? To what do they lead? The delusion which he thinks I am under, thank God, leads me on to happiness and glory. Men may call it a delusion if they please. It is a very happy one, I assure you; I trust such a delusion will attend me in the hour of death, as it has many before me. The idea of a delusion! To pray for mercy, wisdom, and happiness, and to get it; to be able to look upon the world in its proper light; to experience the favours of the God of heaven in every hour of life; to delight in His Word; in short, to have constant peace and joy in the God who made all things. 'Tis heaven upon earth. Oh, how I pity those poor creatures who are led away by the devil to believe a lie and be damned, who believe not, but reject the truth. Weep, indeed, no wonder Christ wept tears of blood. O, how those who know the truth ought to persevere, and point out the way to show and prove to blind men that they are led by the blind. My dear friend, take my advice for your own body and soul's sake; search the Scriptures, and pray that God will bless your reading, that you may learn and inwardly digest what you do read. Farewell! Farewell! W.—Then you are going? C.-Yes. It is getting late, and some other evening, please God, I will call on you, and explain, as well as I can, what the Bible is. Adieu, W.-Good night. God bless you. H DIALOGUE V. "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee."-1 Tim. iv. 16. "The Lord said unto me, say not I am a child, for thou shalt go to all that I send thee; and whatsoever 1 command thee, thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. They shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee."-Jer. i. 7, 8, 19. "I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your enemies shall not be able to resist."-Lnke xxi. 15. "And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together."-John iv. 36. W.-O, I am so glad you have come, for many days past have I been expecting you. I have been fancying you were offended, for when you parted with me the last evening you were here, you appeared somewhat hurt in your feelings. C.-I was hurt, indeed, but not on your account; now don't talk about it, for it's awful even to think of. Do you find yourself any better in soul and body? W.-I do indeed. Still I am in pain, and it shifts about from one limb to another. I can move myself a little but not without great pain. I have completely lost my appetite. C.-That's a blessing. W.-What! a blessing to lose my appetite? C. It is, under your circumstances; for if you had a good appetite, I think you would order a steak or chop in spite of the doctor. When, indeed, the body will bear food, and has got it to eat, then a good appetite is a great blessing, and the best of sauce. W.-We are wasting time. I long to hear about the Bible, as you promised me. C.-I suppose I must say a little on that subject, but when I reflect on the body of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Scriptures, (for they are one and the same almost, because you cannot speak of one scarcely without the other,) I'm lost, I wonder; therefore, if I should repeat anything I have said to you before, many things are repeated in Scripture, you must consider it is to impress it more on your mind, or to bring things to your remembrance; where shall I begin? with the speaker? his speech? or the person spoken of? for I tell you I am lost before I begin. W. But why lost? C.-Because it is a boundless ocean I am going on, there is no shore, it is like eternity and space. "I am lost in wonder, love, and praise." and may he who caused the words to be written, cause me to speak the truth and to be able to comprehend the meaning of his providence and prophetic speech aright, and to explain a little here and there in a plain and simple manner. W.-Which is the speaker, God the Father, or God the Holy Ghost? C.-Both, because they are one; yet being the Spirit of God who moves men to do his will it is called the Holy Ghost. He teaches and talks to man by man, instructing him in all things pertaining to salvation. To be very plain, it is the Holy Ghost who tells man that Christ is the only way to the God of Justice, at the same time he warns those who will not heed what he says, that punishment awaits them. I trust he who opened the eyes of the blind, will open yours to behold the wondrous things in his law. W.-Pray speak of the person of Christ, for it is very mysterious to me, it appears so strange that God should die, for it was God in the flesh. C.-Truly it was God the Father in the flesh, but the flesh was not God the Father. The body itself was, is, and ever will be, the son of God. You are aware your body is not your soul, and that your soul is not your body. You will never see the beauty of the mystery, if I may so speak, unless you contemplate Jesus as a man, and the Holy Spirit of God the Father dwelling in that man. And although in the mind of God, before all worlds, and Christ, as it were, born with all the particulars of his life and flesh, yet he was not Jesus Christ until he became flesh. It is the same as futurity with us, all that is to come, is before him, he sees it, although we cannot, only as far as he pleases to reveal future events. We do not read Jesus was with God, but the thought, the will, the word, God planned or spoke, &c., it was done, that was with God before he made man. That Word! the Apostle John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God-and the Word was God;" then again, “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory." You will perceive, therefore, it was God himself, and at the same time this Word was with him; but when the fullness of God's time came, we beheld the man whom God had in his mind from all eternity. Now these said Scriptures, which are also called "the Word of God," is, as I said before, his MIND MADE KNOWN TO MAN, which word, or promise, alone was to the Antideluvian world, Jesus Christ and him crucified, for their salvation, and they who believed God's word and were saved, but not those who would not believe. The Bible plainly shews he was with God and in all his thoughts. O man! shall he who made you, think so much of that dear body, while you, you for whom he was made, thinks nothing of him? W. Then according to what you say, this Word which was with God is the Bible, because that is called the Word of God? C.-You seem dull of comprehension. Have I not very plainly said, that God planned a way to save man, and the Bible is the plan revealed to man for the benefit of Old Testament believers, to shew them there was, not will be, in God's mind, a way of escape, on condition of believing and obeying. Christ was the W.-I begin to understand a little now. way. Then the Bible or Old Testament as it is called, was simply God telling man, that he intended to take our human nature and offer himself a sacrifice to meet the claims of his own justice, which he had made up his mind to do and accept for their salvation, or for their sakes, under a condition that they obeyed his law, and believed what he told them. C. That is pretty near the mark, excepting the obeying of the law, that is a query which requires some explaining; because if it depended on man's fulfilling the law perfectly, then none would be saved; although they are bound by the love of God to walk according to that law, as near as they can. Christ fulfilled it for them and us completely. The law demanded a perfect fulfilment. He paid our debt that we might be free. W.-But how free? You do not mean that we may sin now, just as we please, do you? C.-God forbid, that because a believer is free from the condemnation of the law, that he should sin on that account. Paul says, "He who sins that grace may abound, his condemnation is sure." Also, he very clearly explains that which is a stumbling block to many, who suppose if a man believes he shall be saved, even if he wilfully sins, such must be a very dangerous doctrine indeed, the doctrine alone would lead men on to sin. Then because a man chooses to say that faith in Christ alone will lead to sin, that he must needs be believed. O Satan! you whose tricks are pretty well known by some, avaunt! O how cunning are thy devices, but truth shames you. You know there are none that liveth and sinneth not! It will not do for you to tell me now, "that I must be all perfection in myself, or otherwise it is impossible I can be saved," for I know where to hide my shameful face. I have found out the sinner's friend. If I am not in my own estimation, or in the eyes of other men, holy, I am in his eyes, |