POETRY.

A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT
TO A MUCH-TRIED SOUL.
WHAT is thy woe? poor soul, dis-
mayed,

Do all thy comforts seem to fade;
Remember that thy God's the same,
Jehovah-jireh is his name.

Doth sin perplex and Satan snare,
Is life to thee a scene of care?
Still from the promise hope receive,
'Twas Jesus said, "I will not leave."
Art thou distrest with doubts and
fears?

Soon will thy Jesus dry thy tears;
He'll speak in every time of need,
He will not break the bruised reed.

Is sin the cause of thy complaint?
Wait on the Lord, thou shalt not
faint;

Perhaps you feel the war within,
The hard contention, grace with sin.
Oft do you think you'll surely fall,
By some proud persecuting Saul;
But Christ is mightier than your foes,
And to sustain you, grace bestows.
Dost roam in sad and midnight
gloom,

With no sweet sight of yonder home?
Still lean upon thy Saviour God,
And he'll support thee on the road.
Blessed are they that weeping go,
They shall bear precious seed below;
With joy such souls shall come again,
Bearing their sheaves across the
plain.

Halesworth, Aug. 16, 1833.

Dismiss thy fears, my christian
friend,

Though trials may thy soul attend;
Jesus will send a cheering word,
Or some sweet token will afford.

Go, supplicate the heavenly Dove,
And he'll apply the Father's love;
Go, still attend the means of grace,
Depending on him for success.

Then you may hope your God to
meet,

While cleaving to his mercy-seat; He'll frequent with thy soul commune,

And your desponding harp attune,

And if the promise seem delayed,
Still, sorrowing one! be not dis-
mayed;

Wait, and when deepest is the gloom,
Thy conquering Lord will swiftly

come.

As gold the furnace doth refine,
So cares will make thee brighter
shine;

They purge thy soul from every dross,
Till thou shalt glory in the cross.

Now, may the Saviour bless thy
soul,

And make thy wounded spirit whole;

That in the Rock thy soul may
dwell,

Meantime I bid my friend, farewell.
A COUNTRY MINISTER.

RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

Just Published, LONDON and COUNTRY SCENES, Evangelically Illustrated. By the REV. MR. MORRIS, Minister of the Welsh Baptist Chapel, Eldon Street, Finsbury Circus.

A New Edition of HYMNS. By the late REV. R. DAVIS, of Rothwell; with Recommendatory Prefaces by the late Rev. Dr. Gill and the Rev. J. A. Jones. LETTERS, containing the Views of the Writer on some important Doctrinal and Experimental Subjects; together with his reasons for dissenting from the National Establishment. By JACKSON J. SMITH, late Curate of Broad Blundsdon, Wilts.

The INCARNATION, and other Poems. By THOMAS RAGG.

On Wednesday, July 24, Mr. HART, late of Framingham, was publicly recognized as Pastor of the Baptist Church at Wortwell, in the county of Norfolk. The Rev. T. GOLDSMITH, of Stradbroke, stated the nature of a gospel church, and asked the usual questions. Mr. HART gave a concise statement of the Lord's dealings with his soul-his call to the ministryand confession of his faith. Mr. TOTTMAN, of Loxfield, offered up the ordination prayer. Mr. TIDD, of Diss, gave the charge from Jer. iii. 15; and Mr. Buck, of Hayleston, (Independent) concluded. The Rev. Mr. COOPER, of Stoke, preached in the Afternoon; and the Rev. Mr. TIDD in the Evening.

THE

Spiritual Magazine ;

OR,

SAINTS' TREASURY.

"There are Three that bear record in heaven; the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY GHOST: and these Three are One."

"Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints."

OCTOBER, 1833.

REMARKS ON 1 COR. XII. 19.

66 BUT ONE BODY."

1 John v. 7.

Jude 3.

THIS is the most forcible representation of the union subsisting between the many sons which are bringing unto glory, with which we are furnished by the divine Spirit in the pages of eternal truth; the indispensable connection constituted by the Holy Creator between the various members of the natural body of man; the necessary dependance of one upon the other; the various functions appropriated to each; the imperfection and uneasiness of the whole, attendant upon the derangement of a single organ, or even the sudden touch of a sensitive nerve; these several contingencies are admirably calculated to illustrate the vast sublimity of the figure here most aptly employed by the author of the word of God.

If indeed we entertain but ordinary views of the objects in nature, from which the figurative language of the scripture is drawn, we can then but very superficially understand the beauty of the ideas intended to be inculcated; but if, on the other hand, we are amazed with the basis introduced to our notice, we cannot but be completely absorbed in the mysterious superstructure.

If the well-finished portrait of a living individual be surveyed with considerable apathy; if the several beauties be to the spectator wholly undiscoverable-we can but suppose him to remain unallured and unmoved, in the sight of the original, from whom the transcript was attempted; and thus, if the adherency of the innumerable particles of the animal frame be a matter scarcely deserving attention, it will follow as a consequent, that the attachment of the members of the spiritual body of Christ unto each other, will be also a subject undervalued, if not quite overlooked.

VOL. IX. No. 114.]

2 P

If the Holy Spirit have condescended to afford spiritual illustrations from the polluted stores which the lap of injured nature contains, why should the magazine of the natural creation be considered too nugatory to deserve the continued investigation of the intellectual and christian mind? Or is there any visible atom, from the eel which leaves not the ooze at the bottom of the water to the eagle which towers in the air, unretarded by the brightness of the sun, in which the power, wisdom, omniscience, and purpose of the Eternal are not beheld or concerned?

Since then the church of Christ is compared to the body of man, let us remark some few things of that church, as impressed upon the mind in a due regard of certain appurtenances to which that body is here subjected.

1. "The body has many members." (1 Cor. xii. 12.) The body of Christ comprehends also many members; and as the members of the human frame are for the most part diverse in their forms and denominations, so the members of the body of Christ are not chosen from any one nation, kindred, tongue, or people, but are organized in time, by the divine Comforter, according to the eternal purpose which Jehovah eternally purposed in himself, (Eph. i. 9.); and as the sovereignty of God has fixed upon such and such particles, and also upon such and such ligaments to unite those particles in one body, so he hath also determined upon such and such individuals, and upon such and such means to have them built up in Christ, so that they might be finally presented before his presence as one perfected body.

It is not merely a certain number of members which are requisite to constitute a perfect breathing frame; if a thumb be substituted for a finger, although the numeral calculation be the same, the frame is not perfect; so it is not merely a certain number from the lapsed progeny of Adam who shall be saved to compose the perfect body of Christ, but it is indispensably necessary that the number should be comprehended in those very individuals who were blessed in him before the foundation of the world, given into his hands as God-man Mediator to redeem with his most precious blood, and virtually justified when he arose victorious from the chambers of the silent grave. One of these finally lost would leave the mystical body of Christ void of perfection, and one of them exchanged would destroy its exactitude and symetry; yet as the whole shall be equivalent with the decree of Jehovah, when the plummet shall be seen in the hand of Zerubbabel, neither of these preventitives can be for a moment supposed, although the degeneracy of the times would constrain us to believe the stupendous plan of salvation altogether irrespective of design.

"The election obtain it, and the rest are blinded;" and whilst the doctrine is as an unsparing sabre striking at the very vitals of creature consequence, the very work which it performs demonstrates it to be from above and of God; there is no stronger argument against the correctness of the sentiment of an indwelling relict of upright

ness in the apostate spirit of man,'than the one which we urge, when we evidence its tendency to please the ungodly; most surely, the mystery of the cross was never so contrived as to comfort the transgressor; and therefore, when the latter is secured, the former must be unfaithfully represented, or most grossly concealed. The offence of the cross has not and cannot cease whilst the unmixed gospel is proclaimed in the congregations of the unconverted; hence if it do cease, it must inevitably arise from a deficiency of candour, or an unjust display of liberalism, on the part of the ministers of Christ.

It is no honour to an under shepherd to have the unqualified applause of the irreligious, since it argues the deceitfully handling of the word of God; the obdurate heart never can become wellaffected towards the divine statement of truth, until the Holy Spirit introduces an emollient; and therefore, where his energies have never been experienced, we naturally look for a temper of opposition and hostility to be manifested, and as before observed, the contrary suggests a sinful retention of those facts within the bosom of secresy, which should be openly avowed.

What indeed is the reason of the illegal intimacy between the world and the church in these days so rapidly increasing and extending? Is it that mammon is become pure, that the natural mind has lost her enmity against God, that the inward disgust to free grace has been removed, that the denaturalized system of man has been covered? Is it that Satan hath ceased to actuate the carnal to the commission of unhallowed deeds, or to the pursuance of vicious courses? Hath hell become WILLINGLY tributary to the person of the Redeemer? Oh! no; it is not-it was not-it cannot be" as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end." Beelzebub is still active with his fiery arms, and ever fighting though he cannot prevail. What then is the cause of this unhallowed conjunction? Alas! alas!" Ephraim hath joined himself unto idols;" "the virgin of Israel is fallen;" the christian hath effected a compromise with the carnal to which he presumptuously imagines the most Holy will accede or overlook; he has lain aside the badge of his effectual calling, so offensive to the uncalled; he has clothed himself with the tarnished garment of hypocrisy; he hath sacrificed justice upon the altar of pretended liberality; he hath shrunk from the unreserved avowal of his tenets, and hath lost the sterling coin of religion in the counterfeits of formalism and concession; he hath submitted to the piety which the pretender has contrived; he hath looked to the broken cistern of natural invention, and thus hath forsaken the fountain of living waters: in a word, he hath become ashamed of his noblest possessions, and hath vainly boasted of that agreement with the profane, which is his shame and degredation.

Stand up, then; let us no longer kiss the unhallowed dust; let the doctrines of absolute election and adoption in Christ, involving the complete salvation of a certain loved and foreknown people, be strenuously insisted upon by the watchmen on the walls of Zion,