A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE LATE REV. JOHN COWPER, OF BENNET COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. DRAWN UP BY HIS BROTHER,

THE TASK.

[Concluded from Page 149.] MR. C. was himself very sanguine in his expectations of recovery; but frequently said, that his desire extended no further than his hope of usefulness: adding, "Unless I may live to be an instrument of good to others, it were better for me to die." As his assurance was clear and unshaken, he was very sensible of the goodness of the Lord to him in that respect. On the day when his eyes were opened, he turned to me, and in a low voice said, "What a mercy it is to a man in my condition, to know his acceptance! I am completely satisfied of mine." On another occasion, speaking to the same purpose, he said, "This bed would be a bed of misery, and it is so-but it is likewise a bed of joy, and a bed of discipline. Were I to die this night, I know I should be happy: CHRIST. GUARD. VOL. IV.

same time he said, "Brother, I have been building my glory upon a sandy foundation. I have laboured night and day to perfect myself in things of no profit; I have sacrificed my health to these pursuits, and am suffering the consequence of mispent labour. But how contemptible do the writers I once highly esteemed now appear to me! Yea, doubtless, I count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. I must now go to a new school; I have many things to learn. I proceeded in my former pursuits; I wanted to be highly applauded-and I was so I was flattered up to the height of my wishes. Now I must learn a new lesson."

On the evening of the 13th, he said, "What comfort have I in this bed, miserable as I seem to be! Brother, I love to look at you-I see now who was right, and who was mistaken. But it seems wonderful that such a dis

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pensation should be necessary to enforce what seems so very plain. I wish myself at Olney-you have a good river there, better than all the rivers of Damascus. What a scene is passing before me! ideas upon these subjects crowd upon me faster than I can give them utterance. How plain do many texts appear, to which, after consulting all the commentators, I could hardly affix a meaning; and now I have their true meaning, without any comment at all. There is but one key to the New Testament, there is but one interpreter. I cannot describe to you, nor shall I ever be able to describe to you, what I felt in the moment when it was given to me: may I make a good use of it! Though I shudder when I think of the danger I have just escaped, I had made up my mind on these subjects, and was determined to hazard all on the justness of my own opinions." Speaking of his illness, he said, he had been followed night and day from the beginning of it with this text: "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord." This notice was fulfilled to him, though not in such a sense as my desire for his recovery prompted me to put upon it. His remarkable amendment soon appeared to be no more than present supply of strength and spirits, that he might be able to speak of the better life which God had given him; which was no sooner done, than he relapsed as suddenly as he revived.

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About this time he formed a purpose of receiving the Sacrament; induced to it principally by a desire of setting his seal to the truth, in presence of those who were strangers to the change which had taken place in his sentiments. It must have been administered to him by the Master of the college, to whom he designed to have made this short declaration : I die in the belief of the doctrines of

the Reformers, and of the Church of England, as it was at the time of the Reformation.” But his strength declining apace, and his pains becoming more severe, he could never find a proper opportunity of doing it. His experience was rather peace than joy, if a distinction may be made between joy and that heart-felt peace which he often spoke of in the most comfortable stram, and which he expressed by a heavenly smile upon his countenance, under the bitterest bodily distress. His words upon this once were these: "How wonderful is it that God should look upon man, especially that he should look upon me! Yet he sees me, and takes notice of all that I suffer. I seem to see him too; he is present before me, and I hear him say, Come unto me, all ye that are weary and 'heavy laden, and I will give you

rest.'

On the 14th, in the afternoon, I perceived that the strength and spirits which had been afforded him were suddenly withdrawn, so that, by the next day, his mind became weak, and his speech roving and faltering; but still at intervals he was enabled to speak of divine things with great force and clearness. On the evening of the 15th, he said, "There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-andnine just persons that need no repentance that text has been sadly misunderstood by me and others where is that just person to be found? Alas! what must have become of me, if I had died this day se'nnight? what should I have had to plead? My own righteousness!that would have been of great service to me indeed! Well, whither next-whither? Why, to the mountains to fall upon us, and to the hills to cover us. am not duly thankful for the mercy I have received. Perhaps I may ascribe some part of my insensi

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body: I hope, at least, that if I were in better health, it would be better for me in these respects also." The next day, perceiving that his understanding began to suffer by the extreme weakness of his body, he said, "I have been vain of my understanding and acquirements, and now God has made me little better than an idiot; as much as to say, Now be proud, if thou canst! Well, while I have any sense left, my thoughts will be poured out in the praises of God. I have an interest in Christ, in his sufferings and blood, and my sins are forgiven me. Have I not cause to praise him?-When my understanding fails me quite, as I think it will soon, then he will pity my weakness."

Though the Lord intended that his warfare should be short, yet a warfare he was to have, and to be exposed to a measure of conflict with his own corruptions. His pain being extreme, his powers of recollection much impaired, and the Comforter withdrawing for a season his sensible support, he was betrayed into a fretfulness and impatience of spirit which had never been permitted to show itself before. This appearance alarmed me; and having an opportunity afforded me by every body's absence, I said to him, "You were happier last Thursday

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you are to-day; are you entirely destitute of the consolations you then spoke of, and do you not sometimes feel comfort flowing into your heart from a sense of your acceptance with God?" He replied, "Sometimes I do; but sometimes I am left to desperation." The same day, in the evening,, he said, "Brother, I believe you are often uneasy, lest what lately passed should come to nothing." I replied, by asking him whether, when he found his patience and temper fail, he endeavoured to pray for power against

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swered, "Yes, a thousand times in a day; but I see myself odiously vile and wicked. If I die in this illness, I beg you will place no other inscription over ine, than such as may just mention my name, and the parish where I was Minister: for that I ever had a being, and what sort of a being I had, cannot be too soon forgotten. I was just beginning to be a Deist, and had long desired to be so; and I will own to you, what I never confessed before, that my function, and the duties of it, were a weariness to me which I could not bear. Yet, wretched creaturę and beast that I was, I was esteemed religious, though I lived without God in the world."

About this time I reminded him

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of that account of Janeways, which he once read at my desire. He said, he had laughed at it in his mind, and accounted it mere madness and folly. "Yet, base as I am," said he, "I have no doubt now but God has accepted me also, and forgiven me all my sins." I then asked him, what he thought of my narrative? replied, "I thought it strange, and ascribed much to the state in which you had been. When I came to visit you in London, and found you in that deep distress, I would have given the world to have administered some comfort to you; you may remember that I tried every method of doing it. When I found all my attempts were vain, I was shocked to the greatest degree; I began to consider your sufferings as a judgment upon you, and my inability to alleviate them as a judgment upon myself. When Mr. M- came, he succeeded in a moment: this surprised me, but it does not surprise me now; he had the key to your heart, which I had not. That which filled me with disgust against my office as a Minister, was the same ill success which attended

me in my own parish: there I endeavoured to soothe the afflicted, and to reform the unruly, by warning and reproof; but all that I could say, in either case, was spoken to the wind, and attended with no effect."

There is that in the nature of salvation by grace, when it is truly and experimentally known, which prompts every one to think himself the most extraordinary instance of its power. Accordingly, my brother insisted upon the precedence in this respect, and, upon comparing his case with mine, would by no means allow my deliverance to have been so wonderful as his own. He observed, that from the beginning both his manner of life and his connexions had been such, as had a natural tendency to blind his eyes, and to confirm and rivet his prejudices against the truth. Blameless in his outward conduct, and having no open immorality to charge himself with, his acquaintance had been with men of the same stamp, who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised the doctrines of the cross. Such were all who, from his earliest days, he had been used to propose to himself as patterns for imitation. To go no further back, such was the clergyman under whom he received the rudiments of his education; such was the schoolmaster under whom he was prepared for the university; and such were all the most admired characters there, with whom he was most ambitious of being acquainted. He lamented the dark and Christ-less condition of the place, where learning and morality were all in all; and where, if a man was possessed of these qualifications, he neither doubted himself, nor did any one else doubt, the safety of his state. He therefore concluded, that to show the fallacy of these appearances, and to root out the prejudices which long familiarity with

them had fastened upon his mind, required a more than ordinary exertion of divine power; and that the grace of God was more clearly manifested in such a work, than in the conversion of one like me, who had no outward righteousness to boast of, and who, if I was ignorant of the truth, was not, however, so desperately prejudiced against it. His thoughts, I sup. pose, had been led to this subject, when one afternoon, while I was writing by the fire-side, he thus addressed the nurse, who sat at his bolster: "Nurse, I have lived three-and-thirty years, and I will tell you how I spent them. When I was a boy, they taught me Latin, and, because I was the son of a gentleman, they taught me Greek; these I learned under a sort of private tutor. At the age of fourteen, or thereabouts, they sent me to a public school, where I learned more Latin and Greek; and last of all to this place, where I have been learning more Latin and Greek still.

Now has not this

been a blessed life, and much to the glory of God?" The ndirecting his speech to me, he said, "Brother, I was going to say I was born in such a year; but I correct myself I would rather say, in such a year I came into the world: you know when I was born."

As long as he expected to recover, the souls committed to his care were much upon his mind. One day, when no one was present but myself, he prayed, "0 Lord! thou art good; goodness is thy very essence, and thou art the fountain of wisdom. I am a poor worm, weak and foolish as a child; thou hast intrusted many souls unto me, and I have not been able to teach one, because I knew thee not myself. Grant me ability, O Lord! for I can do nothing without thee, and give me grace to be faithful." In a time of severe and continual pain, he smiled in my

face, and said, "Brother, I am as happy as a king!" and the day before he died, when I asked him what sort of a night he had had, he replied, "A sad night--not a wink of sleep." I said, "Perhaps though your mind has been composed, and you have been enabled to pray." "Yes," said he, "I have endeavoured to spend the hours in the thoughts of God and prayer. I have been much comforted, and all the comfort I got came to me in this way."

they pressed me out of the room, and in about five minutes after I had left him he died; sooner indeed than I expected, though for some days there were no hopes of his recovery. His death at that time was rather extraordinary, at least I thought it so; for when I took leave of him the night before, he did not seem worse or weaker than he had been, and, for aught that appeared, might have lasted many days: but the Lord, in whose sight the death of his saints is precious, cut short his sufferings, and gave him a speedy and peaceful departure.

ent ages of the world, that a Saviour should come, but they bring before us separate parts of his character; and, taken together, form a grand system, exhibiting to the faith of the ancient Church God's gracious designs of Redemption. These several predictions, concur in foretelling one and the same event; but the descriptions given of the extraordinary Person about to appear, are more enlarged in some than in the others; and generally, as we approach nearer to the time of the Advent, the great scheme is more and more unfolded, a brighter, and a more minute, comprehensive view is afforded us.

Such is the conclusion we must

draw from the present passage. The justness of its application to Christ has been already stated: nor has it ever been called in question. It may further recommend this interpretation, to remark, that the Reformers of our Church have directed our attention