LETTER XXXVIII.-To A FRIEND UNDER BEREAVEMENT.

My dear Friend,

"Was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow!" Let us examine your case? Have you lost a beautiful and only son? So have I. Have you been bereaved of lovely daughters? So have I. Have you parted with an affectionate wife? So have I. Have you but one prop of your family left? My dear wife, four daughters and one son, have left me. Has death struck your friend? And several of mine, that were "as my own soul." Did you feel the bereave ment imposing silence on yourself and friends, because your grief was great?" So did Job. Does, grief break your rest, impair your health, exhaust your spirits, threaten your life and darken your prospects? This is "common to man ;" and even to good men. Have you lost your children by sudden death? Your property by plunderers? Your friends by prejudice? Your wife's favour by suffering and reproach. Your health, by disease? So did Job: and yet" all worked together" for his honour, happiness, and usefulness. "He saw the END of the Lord," and proved him to be "very pitiful and of tender mercy!"

Or are you young and bereaved of father and mother, unde, aunt and cousin, without a relation in the world? So was I.

"When father, mother and friends left me, then the Lord took me up;" and conducted me through childhood and youth, to be come a husband and a father; and then took my wife and five children, at the ages of four, five, to twenty-five years. Do you ast how I obtained power to assuage my anguish in successive bereavements? I answer-in the word of God, and in the house of God. Read his words, Isaiah lvi. 4, 5. Unto them that" choose the things that please me; and take hold of my covenant," that is of Christ and the promises by faith; "even unto them will I give within my house and within my walls, a place, and a name, BETTER than of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name, which shall not be CUT OFF." And what NAME is that, which survives all earthly relations, and which shall never, as they are, be cut off! The name of A CHILD OF GOD! with all the honours and privileges, the prospects and inheritance, promised to every child and heir.

Faith in the atonement, righteousness, and all-sufficient grace of

the Redeemer and Saviour. Faith in the truth, the providence and perfections of God, as a FATHER, will bear up the soul, bear it onward to that world, "where its inhabitants neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God!"

Will any one of these sons of God, these saints in light die? No!"there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; for the FORMER things, are passed away!"

"If you were a child of God, you should not be so bereaved and otherwise tried." These are your words. "If ye are without chastisement, whereof all are partakers;" that is all the children of God, "then are ye bastards and not sons." These are the words of GOD. Have you considered the advantages of divine, paternal chastisements?

They awaken the drowsy mind to concern for spiritual blessings. Renew the exercise of repentance, call forth the desires of the soul in importunate prayer-render the judgment sound to estimate spiritual and eternal things-excite a tender sympathy for other sufferers-expose the fallacy and danger of wordly opinions, praises, and censures.

Sanctified afflictions expose the evil of sin, in its guilt, pollution, aggravation and consequences. They lead us to the word of God for counsel and comfort; impress on us the value and necessities of a lost soul; quicken our attention to the invitations of the Saviour, to come to him, believe in him; afford encouragement to trust and plead his promises of pardon and eternal life, to all that "come to him;" and qualify them to embrace the assurance given, that "whosoever cometh to him, he will in no wise cast out," and by making us feel our unworthiness and insufficiency, they endear the ALL-SUFFICIENCY of the GRACE of Christ," to pardon, purify, sustain and save us.

These blessed sufferings teach us, that God hath not given an unlimitted commission to disease and death, and Satan; but show the power and mercy of God, his forbearance, wisdom, grace and faithfulness, in sparing health, or life, or friends, or remaining blessings at least in sparing the greatest of all our interests, the soul and a day of grace. Bereaved, suffering Christian, God's design is not to please you. "He afflicts you for your PROFIT, that you may be partaker of his holiness!" You desire to have this testimony, that God pleases you:" Enoch had this testimony that, "by faith, he pleased GOD."-Which is right?

A lady on receiving the news that two beloved children were drowned, exclaimed, in faith in the goodness and wisdom of God, "I see thou wilt have all my heart, and thou shalt have it." Here, here is the patience, the resignation and triumph of the saints. This is the glory of the religion of Jesus! This is religion; the effect worthy of its CAUSE; "the SPIRIT of glory, resting on us!" Your's, &c.,

J. COOKE.

LETTER XXXIX.-TO ONE WHO HAD COMPLAINED OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE.

Dear Sir,

You ask me in your last letter, What is providence? I frankly acknowledge, that I do not expect to satisfy you in my answer, although half as many thoughts would satisfy any inquirer under a good temper. Do not be angry.-I am sincere at least in what I write, when I hazard the disclosure of my views to you. I do really think, that under your present feelings I shall not please yo You are evidently lifted up and cast down, more by appearance than by principle. To-day you seem to understand providence, because it seems to accommodate your temper, your desires, and your plan. To-morrow it may not be less favourable to your interests in a different way; but viewed through your senses, your passions, and your disposition to prescribe rules for God to work by, you are disappointed, vexed, and discouraged, because God works after the counsel of his own will, and not by your's. Were you as solicitous, that "the only wise God" should form your plan of acting in your business, as you are prayerful that he should bless the plan you form for his providence, "your soul would dwell at ease." distrust his understanding, his goodness, and his promise. You read, and hear, and converse on providence, hoping that God will please you, and sometimes he does please you; and then you sing "Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide." But an unexpected event alarms your fears, excites your repining thoughts, and darkens your prospects-now, it is not " JEHOVAH Jireh;" but "I Jireh :" must foresee and provide. On this plan, despondency quickly paralyzes your exertions; and the business or the place must be changed.

But you

and a trial made, where you shall receive more encouragement. A little brisker trade composes your nerves; and trade, a little diminished for a few days, will agitate them. Then again customers are fickle, providence is obscure, the situation is unfavourable, and "you do not know what to make of providence." Unhappy in yourself, "a troubled spring" to your friends, an obscure text to your fellow Christians, and a stumbling block to unbelievers, you provoke God to hedge up your way with thorns. In this state of things, if "given up to your own counsel," temptation may assail you, by promising appearances, which may lead to a false step, hastily taken, which by concealed consequences, may involve you in tenfold perplexities; and you may learn too late, that "the foolishness of man perverteth his way, and his heart fretteth against the Lord." You will then look back on your distrust of God, your repining disposition, and murmuring tongue; and perhaps learn, though by painful experience, that the error of your heart and way has been, a concern that God in his providence might please you, instead of a supreme concern to PLEASE HIM, by a believing, patient, selfdenying accommodation of yourself to his paternal dispensation. Without faith, you may please yourself, and be "a man-pleaser;" but "without faith, it is impossible to please God;" or to be pleased with, and derive profit from, his kindest dispensations.

You complain of a bad memory, and the want of enjoyment in the best things. This I can account for; but God alone can cure it. I account for your good memory in some things by attention to them, and your enjoyment which accompanies your attention. You have this afternoon paid a tea visit-you say you very much enjoyed it; and you have equally enjoyed the relation of it. Your memory retains the account of all you heard. The persons who want servants-servants that have left their places-those who have the bailiffs in their houses-the old customers your friend

has lost-new ones which supply their places; you recollect the diseases and deaths in families-the legacies left, and the quarrels of the relations; who is confined, and who is brought to bed with sons and daughters; you have heard several stories which you deem slanders, and slanders which you believe to be true; you say Mrs.

- has been unfaithful to her husband; Mr. Q. has been arrested, and Miss W. is to be married on Monday; Mr. L's servant has defrauded him, and the doctors have pronounced Mr. V.'s brother incurable. What a retentive memory where your attention is rivetted by what pleases you! Did religion possess an equal interest in your affections, your attention would be proportionably engaged, your memory would retain, and your tongue with equal readiness express, your feelings on divine subjects. But alas! your head is in the region of trifles; "you mind earthly things," and out of the abundance of your heart your mouth speaketh." Men remember what they love, and what they hate. The heart governs the thoughts and words; the actions and the memory. Here is the true cause of complaint; for "out of the heart are the issues of life." Your's faithfully,

J. COOKE

LETTER XLI.-To MR. EDWARDS.

My dear Sir,

Written during a Tempest.

London, July 16.-10 o'clock.

THE thunder of God's power is rolling over my head, and “the glittering sword" of his lightning, renders the room daylight. I really forget my subject. I was going to say "God speaketh in affliction, once, yea twice; and man, with his ears stopped by the world in his ear,-" man perceiveth it not." You learn, my dear sir, from the 107th Psalm, that God delivers the worst of men; but he does not teach and bless them. Many are afflicted, and alarmed, but not blessed; and at length they are afflicted, and not alarmed. This is a proof that affliction has hardened their hearts: and if these persons conclude, as many do, that because they suffer here, they