EXTRACT FROM THE LIFE OF BRADFORD.

DEAR SIR,

To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine.

Reading your article in this mouth's Magazine, "A Visit to the Brethren at Brussels ;" and noticing the subject of Popish Mass, and your enquiry as to what it really means, I felt a strong inclination to send you the enclosed extract from one of Bradford's letters, together with his biographer's note on the subject in question.

The letter alluded to is No. 100, in "Memoirs of the Life and Martyrdom of Bradford," by William Stepheus. (London: R. Fenn, Homer's Head, Charing Cross, 1832).

In the commencement of the letter, he anathematizes all those professed gospelers that would go with the Papists to the mass, and "tarry with them personally at their anti-christian and idolatrous service; declaring them to be "the most perilous and pernicious, both before God and man. That they were false to both, and true to neither." That their excuses to save their life and property, would avail them nothing when they come to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. "That the Catholic church will not excuse them; nay, it will most of all accase them, as will all the good fathers, patriarchs, apostles, prophets, martyrs, confessors, and saints."

"All those condemn the mass; and all who ever use it, as it is now, being, of all idols that ever was, the most abominable, and blasphemous to Christ, and his priesthood, manhood, and sacrifice; for it maketh the priest that saith mass, God's fellow, and better than Christ, for the offerer is always better, or equivalent, to the thing offered. If, therefore, the priest take upon him, there to offer up Christ, as they boldly affirm they do, then must he needs be better or equal with, Christ. Oh that they would show but one iota of the scripture of God, calling them to this dignity, or of their authority to offer up Christ, for the quick and dead, and to apply the benefit of his death and passion to whom they will."

"Surely if this were true, as it is most false and blasphemous, prate they, at their pleasure, to the contrary; then, it made no matter at all whether Christ were our friend or not, if so be the mass priest were our friend, for he can apply Christ's merits to us by his mass, if he will,

FRAGMENTS BY A REDEEMED ATHEIST

"O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken : ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?"-Luke xxiv. 25, 26.

J.

"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" Ps. xxxii. 1.

My precious sin-pardoning God, when I look back over the past orty years of my life, how unwearied seems thy care, how endless thy love, how evil my nature, how black my ingratitude, how manifest my helplessness! A pardoned sinner-a man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity-in whose spirit there is no guile-for I have aeknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I have confessed my transgressions unto the Lord, and he forgave the iniquity my sin. Selah!

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Once, indeed, day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me; (how heavy, yet light compared with my deserts), but now thou art my hiding-place-daily dost thou preserve me from trouble, nightly dost thou compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah! Thou hast instructed me, and taught me in the way in which I should go, and thou wilt continue to guide me with thine eye. I am glad in the Lord -I do rejoice in the Lord my righteousness, and I shout for joy because he hath made me upright in heart-yea, the blood of Jesus Christ his Son, hath cleansed me from all sin: and I can now cry from the bottom of my soul, with heartfelt joy, "Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile."

II.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits"-Ps. ciii. 2. Forget not all his benefits!" Canst thou remember one out of a thousand of the benefits which he has showered upon thee, ever

since thy pilgrimage began in a desert land, and in the waste, and howling wilderness of this world? (Gen. xxxii. 10). How innumerable his mercies, while as yet thou wert a stranger to the promises, and for aught known by thee to the contrary, without God in the world (2 Eph. xii), and without one hope for eternity.

How patient and long-suffering was the Lord with the follies of the melancholy-hearted boy, who used to weep in solitude, through very weariness of spirit. How forbearing, when the lad, full of pride and rebellion, murmured at being kept out of the streams of dissipation, down which, hundreds of his own age, were plying their way, with wind, with oar, and with tide. How infinitely compassionate to bear with the conceited sceptic, who, without one ray of light from above, made gods of the abstractions of intellect, and assigned to the creatures of imagination, the powers and attributes of omnipotent Deity. What god-like loving kindness to supply thee with every good thing, while thou wert diligent in rejecting his revealed word, and framing with the very faculties he had bestowed, flimsy arguments to disprove the genuineness of His sacred book. Yea, to what but his unfathomable love can it be ascribed, that he did not at this period cut thee asunder, and give thee thy portion with the unbelievers for thou wert an unbeliever-a pestilent class, aiming the shafts of thy petty ridicule, against the colossal glories of Him, who then was, to thee, "THE UNKNOWN GOD."

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Had he left thee to fester and perish in the depths of infidelity, like many of thy comrades, who could have arraigned his justice? who would have wept over thy eternal doom? But thou art the purchase of Jesu's blood, and the justice of God was bound, for his sake, to give thee pardon, peace, and life. Jesus had a right to thee, and he has claimed, and conquered thee; He hath redeemed thee from destruction, and crowneth thee with loving kindnesses and tender mercies. Therefore, "Bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name" (Ps. ciii. 1).

III.

"Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will heep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth”—Rev. iii. 10.

Here is an hour of temptation threatened-nay, decreed, for it is ushered to our notice with the imperative shall, which always implies a decree, coupled with a self-included power of creation. It is to come

upon all the world; none are to escape the visitation, and the design of it is, "to try them that dwell upon the earth." All the dwellers upon the earth are to be tried by this hour of temptation. Prisoners are placed at the bar of justice and tried, that it may be known whether they are guilty or innocent; cannon newly cast, are proved with a double charge of powder, that it may be seen whether they will stand or burst; and, in the like manner, all that dwell upon the earth, are to be subjected to ordeal, that it may be made manifest, both to themselves and to others, whether they belong to the "righteous nation which keepeth the truth" (Isa. xxvi. 2), or to "the people, against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever" (Mal. i. 4).

If this Scripture point prophetically, as it may do, to some mighty hour of temptation, which is to roll with horror and darkness, over the church of the living God collectively, it is also certain, that the Spirit of God gives it an individual or personal application to believers, while they are being led by the Lord their God in the wilderness, to humble them, to prove them, and to know what is in their hearts, whether they will keep his commandments or no (Deut. viii. 2).

Reader, has anything like a personal application of this text, been made to your soul by the Holy Ghost? In the course of your pilgrimage, have these words been set with power upon your heart, and in your memory, as big with some yet hidden meaning? Have they followed you for years, sometimes rising up in the mind, and arresting your attention, and anon, slipping away into oblivion, without leaving behind the slightest hint of their import, to feed your spiritual understanding? Wondering, waiting, and conjecturing, have you not often thought on the words, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter?" (John xiii. 7). All this has the writer experienced, in connexion with this text-the meaning of which was long concealed from his view, but is now laid very clearly open.

The temptation is the Tractarian heresy, which, for some years, has been insidiously coming upon the world, "to try them that dwell upon the earth." And while thousands have been drawn into this gulph of mock-religion, HE, who promised, has been faithful, and has kept the writer from that hour of temptation. He led him by a secret, though a painful path, far aloof from the din of this infidel faction. Nor was it till His strength was in some degree made perfect in the writer's weakness, that He suffered him to come in contact with the unscriptural pestilence, called, "Tractarianism."

IV.

"Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward” -Gen. xv. 1.

Believer, have you been able to identify yourself with Abram? you, a citizen of the nineteenth century, with the Father of the faithful, to

whom, while dwelling in the plain of Mamre, the word of the Lord came in a vision, saying, "Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward?" Have you found these very words applied to your soul with power and significant sweetness, so as to work into your wondering heart a persuasion, that they are as personally addressed to you, as they were thousands of years ago to the patriarch?

Yes! Although years have elapsed, it is yet fresh in your recollection, that this sacred verse, lit up by the Spirit of God, burst into your mind with marvellous hope, and scattered for a moment the powers of darkness that were then beguiling your trembling heart. It was the first promise that gleamed amid the darkness of your unbelief, and if it rose like a rocket in the gloom, suddenly to disappear; yet it left behind a faint hope, that the power which had so spoken once, would some day speak again with more abiding force. Nor have you been disappointed. In those deplorable days of your pilgrimage, when you lay hearkening to the thunders of Mount Sinai, has not this desire, "Fear not," softened your dread, and diffused a languid hope, that the blackness, and darkness, and tempest (Heb. xii. 18; Exodus xix. 16), would not last for ever? In after time, when engaged hand to hand in the deadly fight with sin and Satan, beat down, wounded, despairing, dying, have you not heard this heaven-born cry, "Fear not," come to the rescue, driving the squadrons of hell back to their camp, and giving you time to recover and arm again? Yes, your heavenly Father knows it; Jesus, your beloved Jesus, knows it, for it was his voice-his cheering voice, like the sound of many waters that spake when he heard you in the day of soul-trouble, and strengthened you out of Zion (Ps. xx. 1). Such has been some of your experience concerning these glorious words, and the immoveable loving-kindness of their Divine Author, who further declares, "I am thy shield;" and truly he is, and has been, a shield to your defenceless soul, guarding it from the demands of his Father's law, and from the fiery darts of Satan. A mighty shield, borne on a holy arm, and receiving the tremendous stroke of eternal justicewhich, had it reached your guilty soul, would have hurled you down to dwell in everlasting burnings. Nor is he only your shield, but oh, unutterable love, he is your exceeding great reward." Miracle of miracles-mercy of mercies; well may you exclaim, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me: it is high, I cannot attain unto it cxxxix. 6, 7). And yet, "dust and ashes as you are (Gen. xviii. 27), the Son of God has "given you an understanding" (1 Eph.; John v. 20), whereby you know "the wisdom of God is a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory," and concerning which it is written, "Eye hath uot seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him " (1 Cor. ii, 7-9). The things which God hath prepared? Yes, they are already prepared, for "the works were finished from the foundation of the world" (Heb. iv. 3). And it is "these things," that constitute the exceeding great reward, or gift,

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(Ps.