picked out, and shall not be lost, but are numbered with the blessed, and shall be brought to heaven at last as the fruits of sovereign grace and the riches of salvation. Sweet thought and sweet feeling! that we are redeemed-picked out from all the rubbish in which we once lay; and, if the time had rolled round, and we had still lain in that rubbish, we must have been swept away to hell, if death had found us in our lost, ruined, and undone state. Oh, I say, therefore may we realize that we are picked out; and, if we can realize that, we shall cry out with David, "Why me, Lord, why me?' why show mercy to such a wretch as I?-such an ill-and-hell-deserving sinner as I?" This is a very sweet feeling: I cannot tell you how sweet; but some of you know it by experience; and may the Lord thus favour us this morning, and then we shall look to the Rock "from whence we were hewn," and to the hole of the pit "from whence we were digged." Oh, if you had been left to yourself, what poor work you would have made of it; for, suppose you had been able to have separated yourself, sawn yourself off from the Rock, when thus separated and sawn off, could you have weighed or lifted yourself out of the pit? Oh, what a mercy if you are not going down to the pit of everlasting damnation, which is even now preparing for the wicked; what a mercy for your soul, if you have heard this sweet word, "Deliver him from going down into the pit." Why, what good is there in him? Why is he better than others? "Deliver him; for I have saved him, I have found a ransom for him; " and the poor soul may be ready to say, "Why did the Lord find a ransom for me? There are many better than I am." The Lord will give no account of His matters, but will do just as it pleases Him, merely because it is His will so to do; not giving reasons, only He will have it so. "I have found a ransom. Is not that a very sweet word to you-very blessed? "I have found a ransom;" and He will cause you to find the ransom too, for He has paid all with the price of His own precious blood-nothing less; and, if you are one of the sheep of His pasture and the flock of His fold, you have been told in, for not a hoof of the flock shall be left behind. No, the devil never could and never will be able to get one of the chosen flock to hell-not one; no, none but the reprobate goats; for all His sheep are chosen to life as the fruit of sovereign grace, the sovereignty of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the salvation of the Church elect in Christ Jesus. Well, we find Jesus did not pass by Zacchæus. Has the Lord ever given you this experience? that you can say, "The Lord could not pass by me; no, but He laid hold of me, and stopped me in my mad career, when I was determined to damn myself; for He well knew if left to myself I should do so, and be lost for ever; but He would not have it so.

SO

666 Determined to save,

As dear Newton says,

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He watched o'er my path.""

When, Satan's blind slave,
I sported with death.

"And can He have taught me
To trust in His name?

And thus far have brought me
To put me to shame'?"

Ah! we have often said so, and felt so perhaps, because of our evil heart of unbelief, which makes sad work in our souls sometimes, so that we ques

tion everything. "Can He have brought me thus far to leave me to perish?” And this we come to learn time after time. No! this be far from Him, "This must not be so done in our country;"

though, if He rewarded us according to our deserts, according to what we have done, notwithstanding all the revelations He has been pleased to make of Himself; notwithstanding that we are standing in the favour of Heaven, you and I have done enough to forfeit all, and go to be for ever with the wicked and non-elect; but, though the Lord does not love the sin of His people, He loves their persons, and has promised never to leave, nor forsake them. What a mercy, then, to feel His presence, to hear the whispers of His love. When you see and apprehend this; then what a mercy to feel that He will never leave you because He has put His love into your heart; and then you know what it is to have your heart melted with His love, grace, and goodness; and, if such is the case, He will never gainsay it, never undo it. He will never leave you in point of fact, though He may often leave you in point of feeling; for He hath promised that He will never leave nor forsake you that is, in point of fact; yet, I suppose, you often feel, with David, that He does leave you, making you to cry out, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies? Is His mercy clean gone for ever? Doth His promise fail for evermore?" Then I suppose you go on to say, "This is my infirmity; it is not true; the devil was practising upon my evil heart of unbelief, for I know whom the Lord loves in this world, He loves unto the end." He never ceases to love them; but then perhaps you say, "If He loves me, why am I so troubled with enemies, tribulations, and difficulties by the way-doubts and fears? Oh, by "these things men live." What, can it be by these things? Yes, by "these things men live"-without them there is death; if we have not got them, we are without the faith of God's elect—a faith which is constantly ebbing and flowing, coming and going. Even Abraham, “the Father of the faithful," could not always exercise faith. Faith is the work of God, not of man; therefore Abraham could not work faith, for it is the gift of God and the work of God; and, though Abraham lived by faith, he could not work it himself; for, when left to himself you know the result. There was nothing but unbelief; he could not even trust God with his wife, but feared the people of the land would slay him on her account; and this happened not once only, but twice, and was shown also in Isaac after him. There is not a believing soul but what is exercised in this way; for this faith, as I said before, is constantly ebbing and flowing, coming and going in the hearts of all God's people, as we see in the case of Peter. It was as if the Lord said, "Oh, poor Peter, you are going into the devil's sieve; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." But did it not fail when he denied his Lord and Master? And yet the Lord said it should not fail, therefore it did not. Your reason says that it did fail, but the Lord said it should not, and it did not fail. How was that? Why, it failed as to its working, but it did not fail as to its inbeing; and therefore we see faith sprang up again in Peter's heart. Well, then, we read, "When Jesus came to the place, He looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchæus, make haste and come down; for to-day Í must abide at thy house." What a blessed summons! how astonished Zacchæus must have been to hear his name thus called, for he had never seen the Lord before, and yet the Lord knew his name; yes, for "He is Lord over all, blessed for ever." He knows all, but He knows

His own with a special knowledge, and therefore He knew Zaccheus as one of His own elect, one of the flock of His fold, one whom God the Father chose before all worlds, and gave to Him the Son-one for whom He poured out His most precious blood, and one whom He ever liveth to bless. He knew him as a child of God, and a partaker of grace, one of the blood-bought family; and yet I say how astonished Zaccheus must have been, when the Lord thus picked him out, passing by all the rest of the people, leaving them still in their sins, but laying hold of Zacchæus; and this the Lord is doing still. Mark what I say, perhaps of those here present, the most part are Zacchaeuses, picked out from the multitude when you were in the broad road of destruction, and with them going to hell as fast as you could, where you must have gone had He not stopped you, and made you to seek your peace and blessedness in Him, and in Him alone, and to say by faith, as I trust not a few of you do, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth I desire beside Thee." "To whom else can I go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." For you know something about these words, that they are important words, and, as the dear Lord Himself said, "They are spirit, and they are life;" as if He said, "I will make these precious words come home to your heart, bringing spirit and life with them, that you may know experimentally that they are not in word only, but also in power, and this is power. Oh, how sweet to receive such words from the Lord's own mouth, the Spirit giving testimony to the words of His grace in His dealings with your hearts! Oh, do we not like our hearts dealt with? I like it when I am a hearer; I like the word to touch my heart; and usually when it comes from the heart it goes to the heart. The Lord says, "My son, give me thine heart;" and, because you will not, He comes and takes it. I trust He has taken yours, taken it captive; "and thou becamest mine." Is not that true of some of you? As we read in Ezekiel, "When thou wert cast out to the loathing of thy person;" yet that was not enough to stop His love. "Behold, when I passed by thee, thy time was a time of love; I spread my skirt over thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, and sware unto thee;" and then

He sweetly says, "Thou becamest mine." Now you are one, your heart was touched, and you dropped at His feet, exclaiming, "My Lord and my God." Oh, may the Lord give us each a taste of this love; and how? By the apprehension of a precious Christ, whereby we shall be melted down at His blessed feet, saying, "Lord, can it be ?" And is it true that such a wretch as I, who am only fit to be burning in hell, should be thus numbered with the blessed, eternally saved.

"Saved in the Lord, for ever saved,

And in life's bundle bound."

How blessed, then, is the thought that the Lord has taken you in hand, and has given you a sweet experience of these things-sweet tastes of His love and grace! This is what I used to long for, and to have when I was a hearer, and went from time to time to hear that dear servant of the Lord, Watts Wilkinson, and was favoured, under him, to have the Gospel preached to my soul. Dear old Wilkinson! Ah! there is not such a man in London now, or out of it, I believe, for simplicity. Oh, what times of refreshing the Lord gave me under that dear man! and what, you may ask, was the character of his preaching? A union of two things-simplicity, the utmost simplicity, and the most powerful unction-just what we want as hearers. (To be continued.)

The Triumphs of Grace over Death and the Grave;

OR, WHISPERS FROM THE DYING PILLOWS OF GOD'S SERVANTS.

"Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace."-PSALM Xxxvi. 37.

A "WISE SON," WHO MADE A "GLAD FATHER.'

BEING FRUIT UNTO GOD GATHERED FROM

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JOSIAH COWELL, JUN.

BY "JOSIAH," SEN.

To lose a son is a common occurrence among men, but the loss of such a son as the above, especially as an only son, it is not the privilege of every bereaved parent to record. Nor would the writer, who desires not to make his son a hero, a martyr, or an idol, dare to bring his case before the readers of a Gospel Magazine, but for the fact that a whole Gospel of grace-blessings was wrapt up in his life, and made abundantly manifest in his death.

Like his namesake of Scripture chronicle, this young "Josiah " began early to fear the Lord, as was evidenced by his declining neither to the right-hand nor to the left. Thus, when youthful passions were strong, and worldly temptations great, he never once deviated from the path of outward rectitude, and would neither "walk in the counsel of the ungodly" nor "stand in the way of sinners." Moreover, the half-yearly school reports of his conduct were always accompanied with the commendation good," "excellent," or, "all that can be desired," &c.

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Nevertheless he was a sinner in the sight of God, and also of himself, outward morality being not the safe or only evidence of inward life, though there is no manifest proof of grace in the heart, where there is not the outward consistent walk. But my son seemed to make his calling and election more sure, by not being ashamed of the reproach which the actings of one under a sense of their sinnership entails. Thus he would never deny the profession of his belief in Christ before men: and, though surrounded by everything that was inviting and alluring in the varied and exciting "places of worship" (so called), none could persuade young Josiah to stray from the meeting-house least esteemed in the town. Indeed, his seat at the chapel was never once vacated for the popular "Lo-here's, or Lo-there's," of our day whilst the preaching of "truth," the "whole truth," and Christ only as the truth, seemed alone to satisfy his inmost desires.

Whilst abroad in the world, and in the full vigour of youth, he chose for his pursuits those special recreative pleasures that enabled him to be much alone. Thus he would spend hours with his boat and fowlingpiece on the river, in furtherance of his studies on Natural History; whilst the pleasing occupations of bird-preserving, painting, and the performance of sacred music formed the staple of his indoor pursuits.

'Tis true he was placed in an architect's office, but with no thought he would live to follow out that profession; it was always felt that his days were numbered on the earth. Indeed, the "sentence of death" in him became incipiently developed before he was fourteen years of age; by which time he was nearly six feet high. And ah! how many an anxious glance has been cast upon his fine stalwart frame, as he has strode with such a wide and manly step across the fields; and with what inward grief have we

seen in him "the glory of man" in his strength. Full play there would no doubt have been for parental pride, but for the consciousness that the consumption decreed was at work.

But in the meantime this common foe to our human race invaded the family circle in another and unsuspected form. Being down at Lowestoft in the autumn of 1863, a sweet and amiable daughter was seized with this disease, when, as the physician of that place surmised, in her twentieth year, she died. Thus this happy pair were parted for life, and the place of their father's sepulchre has now reunited them in death. And here I will pause in my narrative to make a remark on the subject of prayer, leaving it with some of the Lord's family, who may have been exercised in the same way, to give us the benefit of their experience therein.

It was my

As this deadly disease progressed in my fair, sweet, lively girl, I cried mightily unto God to spare her valued life. Indeed, I have recorded it at the time, that " never before did I so earnestly and constantly pray for any earthly thing, as for the restoration of my daughter's health." practice to inwardly cry unto God all the day long, audibly every night at "family prayer," again by myself after all had retired to rest, and lastly on the stairs when myself was on the way thereto. But, in the face of all this, she grew worse and died. Now, tell me, dear reader, was I right or wrong? If you say I was right in asking it, do not you infer that God was wrong in not granting it? If you say I was wrong in my petition, what will you say of my duty as a parent? Qualified as my prayer always was by subjection to the will of God, as expressed in words, it is evident that His will and mine were not one in this matter.

Seeing, then, that the Lord, though He heard my cry, did not answer my prayer, how could I pursue the same course with my son? I felt that I could not-that I durst not, and therefore I did not, but left it with the Lord, asking neither for life nor death, but, saying, "Let Him do as seemeth good in His sight." And yet what so natural, and seemingly so desirable, as to pray for the life of those we most love? Ah, my dear friend, it is the very fact of its being so natural that seems to me to give it more of personality than spirituality. We ask amiss when we pray wholly for ourselves. Real prayer to God is in the spirit, and not in the flesh. The flesh must be crucified in its affections as well as in its lusts, and both alike laid at the foot of the cross. God in all things can only be glorified through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thus a true believer is right only in the exercise of faith's obedience; and faith always says to our heavenly Father, "Thy will be done." But to return. From the "scholar of the school" (as Josiah was called) he grew to be a young man and a great favourite with all who knew him. His urbanity of manners and kindliness of disposition won upon the hearts of all those who had expansion enough in themselves to appreciate "things that are excellent" in others. But beyond all this it was observed how very peculiar and unusual was his own choice in the matter of companions, and especially of visitors to the house; the aged, afflicted, and infirm, if spiritually wise, however humble and poor-these would he welcome the most, and feel it an honour to serve the best. Indeed, he would always put aside his own occupations, to listen to, and learn something from, their more profitable conversation.

On the other hand it was observed what an union of spirit subsisted in the hearts of such towards him. One aged minister has written to me thus: "Dear lad! I felt hopefully pleased with him and his manner,

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