whofe hand by breath is, fit me for his whole will! We have all fomething here, to teach us this is not our reft. May we feek that reft which remains for the people of God!" I quote this to fhow the conftant difpofition of his mind. Very few letters I received from him, but were interfperfed with ferious reflections; and, I hope, I have reafon to blefs God for the many valuable remarks they contain. I have been favoured with a fight of a correfpondence he maintained with a Mr. James Simms, of Bridport, Dorfet, who died in the Lord about nine years ago. The letters that paffed between them are truly valuable: and discover that genuine fpirit of vital Christianity, and real favour for the things of God, which will be more or lefs manifeft in all thofe who are truly renewed by divine grace. On the 1ft of Janu ary 1782, he drew up a covenant or written dedication of himfelf to God, which concludes thus, "Being, through the divine goodness, entered on the beginning of a new year, on full confideration and ferious reflection, I have this day entered into covenant with God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft, as my covenant God and Father. May this cove nant which I have made on earth, be ratified in heaven!"

The happy death of Thomas Brown, of Knaresborough, who died 12th May, 1794.

THI
HIS poor man became a monument of grace at the clofe
HSP days, after a life of fixty-one years
spent in the

fervice of fin and fatan.

It should feem, that feveral months before his illness, which brought him to the grave, he had felt the pungent accufations of a guilty confcience; and probably its clamorous, pointed, and powerful fuggeftions may best account for a tormenting fenfation of mind, which he expreffed by the words of Having fatan continually about him. This appeared however, to have a happy effect, as it evidently reftrained him from fome of thofe evil practices, which by long ufe, had become habitual. But it was referved for a wafting complaint of body, as a mean in the hands of God, to give him fomething like a juft fenfe of his guilt and danger. Though far from intelligent, having been brought up in ignorance of every thing but just to get an honest livelihood, he did not want words to make us fenfible that he found himself a wretched condemned finner, and that it was out of

his power to make himself otherwife. With this view of his cafe, his very foul was frequently oppreffed and overwhelmed with forrow and fear; and though hardened and infenfible in the extreme before, having little doubt of the fafety of his ftate, like many others, the most pleafing figns of fenfibility and genuine contrition of fpirit now dropt from his lips, and ran in torrents from his eyes. He faw himself, to his own apprehenfion, for ever loft; and begged night and day like a condemned criminal for his life, at the footftool of divine mercy. The ftubbornnefs and ftout heartednefs of his former days were indeed happily changed through grace, for that poverty of fpirit and humility, and felf-abafement of foul, to which so many promifes are made, and which form fuch fatisfactory proof of a gracious work of God. It feemed impoffible to give him relief, by endeavouring to perfuade him that his ftate was lefs dangerous than he apprehended, or his iniquity lefs aggravating than what he reprefented it to be. His convictions were too fpiritual and powerful to be overcome by fuch vain and dangerous reafoning, and his maladies too obftinate to yield to fuch feeble remedies; nothing but the pardoning mercy of God could fatisfy his confcience; and from this, his anxiety and concern were not to be diverted. His extreme weakness of body, and the load of affliction with which he was burdened,became notwithstanding now and then strong temptations to impatience and haftinefs to those about him; but fuch was his tenderness and fenfibility of confcience, and his knowledge of the evil of fin, in what many would deem in fuch circumftances unavoidable human frailties, that if he were overtaken in this manner, his grief was proportionably renewed, and the anguifh and bitterness of his foul concealed from none. He did, indeed, confefs his tranfgreffions and lament his fin in the most unequivocal and humiliating terms. this time he was a broken-hearted finner, and a diligent feeker of mercy, which was a period of about a fortnight or three weeks continuance. The knowledge of forgiving mercy was yet behind, of which thefe fymptoms of contrition and repentance are the ufual and almost certain forerunners. A few days, however, before his deceafe, it pleafed God to hear his prayer, and to fatisfy him in a manner he never fuppofed poffible till now, that his cafe was not only not beyond the reach of mercy, but that his foul was accepted through the atonement of Chrift for him, and his iniquity done away. Though much impropriety of language was mixed with his defeription of this bleffed change, it required very little penetration to perceive that it was no delufion, and no impofition.

All

His fimplicity and honefty were more difcoverable than he intended they should be, while he told the pleasant tale of a gracious vifit from the Lord; to one who had felt the fame fenfations, by an experience of the fame grace, it could not fail to approve itfelf as genuine, and to revive fome of thofe reflections which had formerly arifen. from a fimilar ftate of mind, and had accompanied a fimilar cafe. His heart was elevated with joy, in the measure in which it had been funk and depreffed by the fear of deferved wrath. The fenfations of bodily pain were gone with his burden of confcious guilt, and with the ftrong and almoft invincible temptations to despair; and the mourning finner was loft in the joyous and happy faint. It may fuffice to fay, he had found all he wanted in the difcovery of a gracious, all-fufficient Saviour; and his joy on the occafion could not be exceeded by that of a condemned malefactor, at the news of a pardon under the fatal tree. It was alfo, not only abundant, but rational and well founded: It was pure, fpiritual and full of glory. He knew the beft comment on those words of the Apoftle, "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works," and was enabled to preferve and exemplify the fweet influence of fuch confolatory fentiments to a cafe like his, to the last. Previous to this, whenever he was reminded of his iniquity, his anguifh of foul appeared unutterable; and now, every remark upon the love of Chrift, in dying for finners like himfelf, affected him to the fame degree, but in another form. He feemed at a lofs to make us fenfible what a view he had of that furprising grace. When his wife, who was able to fhare in his joy,by having gone through fomething of the fame fcene, depreffed her tender feeling for his afflicted body, his inftant and unpremeditated reply fhowed how little he thought about it, and how much his mind was otherwife engaged. "I have not enough suffering from Chrift," fays he, "I could bear as much again with pleasure. He has been with me all the night, and I have prayed to him, and converfed with him as if he stood there," pointing to his bedfide. To many pious Chriftians, this language to favour of enthusiasm; but what the writer of this article has experienced of the fame kind, will warrant him to give it another name correfpondent with, if not illuftrative of the words of the Pfalmift,The Lord is nigh to them that call upon him in truth. He often attempted to defcribe the preciousness of Chrift, and to speak highly of him; but his language was too imperfect to be copied verbatim; and the fentiments

and fenfations of gratitude, love, pleasure, and peace, were perhaps better expreffed in his countenance, than by his words. He faid more than once, he fhould foon be with Chrift, and he longed to be gone, that he might love and praise him better; that he could give all his family up to the Lord, and leave them in his hands with great fatisfaction. Being asked juft before his removal, how he felt his mind, he replied, Quite happy in Chrift; and his very appearance teftified the fame. With this comfortable frame of mind he fell asleep, and breathed forth his spirit into the hands of his gracious Saviour, without the least visible symptoms of pain or uneafinefs.

It was particularly pleafing to hear a man fo exceedingly illiterate, able to fay any thing intelligible on a fubject fo heavenly and fublime,as the love of Chrift fhed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghoft; and not lefs fo, for one that feldom fpoke in his family with temper, to appear teachable, gentle, and meek as a little child. But what cannot the grace of Christ effect in the most unpromifing fubjects? And if these be not its effects, and the fure tokens of a new heart thereby, what probable caufe can we affign for them, or in what way must we account for them? Has philofophy ever been known to change a finner into a faint; or a proud, peevish, ill-natured being into a character the very reverfe? or rather to inspire amiable tempers and chriftian graces, without the medium of reading, ftudy, and erudition? I trow not fo much: Then has the Gospel the advantage of this idolized phantom, and the man that knows and feels it, though a way-faring man and a fool, the fuperiority of a mere moral philofopher :

May but this grace my foul renew,
Let fceptics gaze and hate me too;

Their boafted, vain, and reas'ning scheme
Has no fuch efficacious claim.

A MEMOIR of the Lord's gracious Dealings with ELIZABETH LASKEY, late of Ray-street, Clerkenwell; who departed to a blessed Immortality, on Thursday April 2, 1795, in the Sixty-fourth Year of her Age.

DIVINE Grace produces in the heart the most benign and generous principles: It teaches its happy poffeffor to weep with them that weep, and to rejoice with them that rejoice. Next to the fenfible prefence of the Holy Spirit on the foul, the believer cannot enjoy a more exalted pleasure, than in feeing ignorant finners brought to the knowledge of the truth, and fuffering faints fupported and comforted in their various tribulations, To fuch as are experimentally acquainted with the truth of this remark, the following Narrative will not be unacceptable; It contains a brief account of the Lord's goodness to one, who, though very poor and needy among men, was divinely enriched from her Saviour's fullness, and is now beholding his face without a vail.

LIZABETH LASKEY, whofe experience is the fub.

Eject of thefe few pages, was born at Fowey in Corn

wall, in the year 1731. She continued in that awful state of enmity and ignorance, in which all are by nature involved, until the month of April 1785; when it pleafed God, by the grace of his Holy Spirit, to convince her of her need of Jefus, as a Saviour, in a very remarkable manner. The Lord, who had fome time before taken her husband, faw fit to lay his afflicting hand upon her only fon, a child between five and fix years of age; and the fickness proved unto death. A few days before his deceafe, the poor boy was particularly defirous of feeing a gracious woman, who had been a kind friend to his mother; but he was told it would be in vain to` go for her then, as fhe was gone to Spa-field chapel (the place of worship which the conftantly attended): On which, looking-earneftly on his mother, he faid, "Mother, have "Yes, my dear !" the replied. "Then," faid he, "why have you never told me of him? Why don't you go and ferve him as Mrs. E. does?-Do, mother, when I am dead, go where she goes, and serve her God!" On Mrs. E.'s return from chapel, fhe came and spake to the little sufVOL. I.

you no God ?”

N