fulness, and comfort, and honour in this life, as well as to your eternal welfare in that world where all the distinctions of this world are of no avail. In the first place, let no day pass over you without retirement for the purpose of reading the Bible and private prayer. Begin and end every day under this conviction, that the interests of your soul are of infinite importance, and the favour of God of more consequence than all the world. Pray that God by his Spirit may teach you to feel aright your need of his mercy, and lead you to Jesus Christ in humble penitence and true faith, as the only Saviour of sinners. In the next place, endeavour to find time every day for the improvement of your mind in useful knowledge in general, and religious knowledge in particular. Youth is the spring time of life; lose not its precious hours, but accumulate as well and as much as possible. Never read licentious poetry, and books which your conscience tells you will do you harm, however fashionable it may be to read them; but endeavour to store your mind with the knowledge of history, travels, and such kind of information as may tend to make you esteemed and respected. In the third place, my dear Henry, never be afraid or ashamed to be thought religious. I should condemn anything like forwardness, or display, or ostentation in religion; but of this you are in no danger. Your good temper and easy disposition, on the other hand, may often expose you to the greater danger of sinful compliance and conformity to the opinions and practices of those around you. You are not too young to be decided even on the subject of religion; and you will gain much and lose nothing by being decided. Even those who laugh and jeer at you as precise and pious, will respect and esteem you in their consciences. And, after all, what we are in God's sight, and what he thinks of us, is the great inquiry. Jesus Christ says, "Whosoever is ashamed of me, of him will I be ashamed." Let the books with which you are furnished be carefully read and attended to, especially the works of Doddridge, and I am persuaded you will feel your mind proof against all the taunts of the unprincipled and irreligious. Remember, my friend, that to be religious, it is not enough not to be dissipated and licentious. This, I trust, there is no reason to fear you will become. But you must look at what is far higher than this. A man may never curse, or swear, or drink to excess, or associate with the profligate and abandoned, and yet, after all, be altogether without religion. It is my wish and prayer for you, that you may not only be morally correct in the sight of men, but truly pious and devout in the sight of God. For this purpose, you must pray that God may give you a new heart,

and make you one of his children, and put his fear within you, and then you will be effectually preserved from the contagion of vice and infidelity, and be not only honoured and esteemed on earth, but prepared for the kingdom of heaven.

I have written thus freely and out of the fulness of my heart, and could easily enlarge were I not afraid of wearying you. May I cherish the hope, that after you have bidden farewell to your dear parents, relations, and friends, and many a wave has rolled between you and the shores of Britain, this letter will now and then recur to your remembrance, and the few instructions it contains be regarded? I shall not cease to pray that that God whose power and majesty you will often see on the mighty deep may protect you by his arm, guide you by his Spirit; preserve you from evils far greater than those of storms and tempests, the evils of bad principles and corrupt associations; and, in due time, restore you to the circle of your beloved connexions, in health, in safety, and in peace. Be assured, my dear Henry, that

I am

Yours, sincerely and affectionately,

J. F.

J. F. SHAW, BOOKSELLER, SOUTHAMPTON ROW, LONDON.

J. & W. Rider, Printers, Bartholomew Close, London.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST.

ONE morning, the late Dr. F. received a letter from a friend, stating that a neighbour of his, an intelligent man, but professedly a sceptic, was apparently very near his end; and, though he refused to see any other Christian visitor, was willing, he could scarcely say wishful, to see Dr. F- whom he had seen and once heard, and whom he thought a sincere man. He went, as requested, and on entering the chamber of this apparently dying sceptic he beheld the attenuated form of one who had been a tall, athletic man, struggling under the ravages of a disease at once the most painful and incurable. Dr. F made some kind inquiries respecting his disease, and, after suggesting some means calculated to soothe his pain, alluded to the sufferings of Christ, who died for us, and gave himself a ransom for sinners-who, equal with the Father, and one with him, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, that through his blood we might have peace with God. Hearing this, the dying man said, "Sir, I don't believe that. I wish I could, as my dear wife does: she believes all you say." "Well," said Dr. F, "but you say you wish you could, and that is a great point towards attaining it, if you are sincere. Now what do you believe concerning Jesus Christ?" 'Why," said he, very inarticulately, "I believe that such a man once lived, and that he was a very good, sincere man ; but that is all." It was a principle with Dr. F.

66

when

*

reasoning with unbelievers, if they acknowledged the smallest portion of truth, to make it a position from which to argue with them. This mode he adopted in the present case, and said, "You believe that Jesus Christ was a good man—a sincere man; now do you think that a good man would wish to deceive others, or a sincere man use language which must mislead ?" "Certainly not," said he. "Then how do you reconcile your admission that he was a good man with his saying to the Jews, 'I and my Father are one?' When the Jews took up stones to kill him, because he made himself equal with the Father, he did not undeceive them, but used language confirmatory of his Godhead; and he further said, My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me, and I know them, and I give unto them eternal life. How could any mere man say, 'I give unto them eternal life?' could any angel even, however exalted-" "Stop!" cried the dying man, with an excited voice, “ Stop, sir: I never saw this before; a new light breaks in upon me-stop, sir!" Holding up his emaciated hand, as if fearing that a breath might obscure the new light breaking in upon his benighted soul, and with a countenance lighted up with a sort of preternatural expression, he fixed his eyes intently upon Dr. F- and after a short, but most solemn pause, he exclaimed, the big tears rolling down his face, "Sir, you are a messenger of mercy, sent by God himself to save my soul. Yes, Christ is God, and he died to save sinners-yes, even me." His feelings were so excited as to be almost too much for the wasted body; and Dr. F——— was so powerfully affected as to be only able to conclude the interview with prayer, and a promise to renew his visit next day, referring him, before he left, to some suitable portions of Scripture on which to rest his faith and hope.

The next day he found him propped up in bed, literally "a new man," with all the eagerness of a hungry man seeking to be fed with the bread of life; and yet with all the simplicity of a child trusting in the promises of God, which are "yea and amen in Christ Jesus." He candidly confessed, that though he had rejected the gospel as unworthy of credit, he had never before read it-a painful fact, which, however, is not unfrequently found to be the case with infidel objectors. The mind of the dying man seized upon each successive truth as it was unfolded to his view, with an avidity indescribable. He seemed almost to forget the severe sufferings of his body in the absorbing impression left upon his mind by the great and glorious facts of the gospel. The more clearly he perceived the certainty that

*John x. 31.

Jesus was a Divine Person, the more overwhelming was his sense of his condescension and love. He spoke as though he felt that on such a Saviour his confidence could not be misplaced; and, in proportion as his bodily frame decayed, his faith triumphed. He gave his eldest child a copy of the New Testament, with all the passages marked by his own hand which had been especially useful to him in the way of instruction or consolation, and he desired her, as the last request of her dying father, to read it daily-never to part with it, but to make its blessed contents her guide through life, that they might prove her comfort in death. He lived but a brief space longer to enjoy the light which had been by the Spirit of God caused to shine upon his heart, and then he departed, bearing an affecting testimony to the fact, that "great," in its power of relieving the conscience, of removing the dread of condemnation, and of inspiring a holy confidence in prospect of eternity, "is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh."*

The truth thus presented to this dying individual, and which, by the accompanying power and blessing of the Holy Spirit, he was enabled to receive, is that which is essential for every man to acknowledge and appreciate before he can have any just views of the gospel plan of salvation. Man needs a Divine Redeemer, and a Divine Redeemer who shall at the same time possess a nature like that of the objects of his compassion and grace. And when we glance at the work of redemption which Jesus undertook to accomplish, and which it was necessary should be undertaken before any one sinner can be saved, we can hardly fail to be struck with the depth of the Divine wisdom which is displayed in the constitution of Christ's person, as "the man Christ Jesus,"† and yet "Him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." He had to atone for human guilt, and to satisfy the demands of God's violated law. For such an undertaking no created being in the wide universe could have been qualified. There was required in one person the wonderful combination of a being possessing the same nature as that in which man had sinned, and that nature in all its original purity and innocence-of a being clothed in humanity, yet having a right to dispose of life as a substitute for others, and whose obedience and death would possess such a value as to render them an adequate atonement for sin, which is an evil of infinite magnitude. Deity could never have suffered, and every created intelligence would have successively sunk beneath the load of human guilt, had the

* 1 Tim. iii. 16.

+ 1 Tim. ii. 5.

Col. ii. 9.