saw a gravity and solemnity in him different from the rest. After he
had preached, I had a great desire to know more of him; and being invited
by two brethren of Exmouth, in whose house he was staying, to spend some
time with them, I had an opportunity of living ten days with him under the
same roof. Through the instrumentality of this brother the Lord bestowed a
great blessing upon me, for which I shall have cause to thank Him
throughout eternity.

I will mention some points which God then began to show me.

1. That the word of God alone is our standard of judgment in spiritual
things; that it can be explained only by the Holy Spirit; and that in our
day, as well as in former times, He is the teacher of His people. The
office of the Holy Spirit I had not experimentally understood before that
time. Indeed, of the office of each of the blessed persons, in what is
commonly called the Trinity, I had no experimental apprehension. I had not
before seen from the Scriptures that the Father chose us before the
foundation of the world; that in Him that wonderful plan of our redemption
originated, and that He also appointed all the means by which it was to be
brought about. Further, that the Son, to save us, had fulfilled the law,
to satisfy its demands, and with it also the holiness of God; that He had
borne the punishment due to our sins, and had thus satisfied the justice
of God. And further, that the Holy Spirit alone can teach us about our
state by nature, show us the need of a Saviour, enable us to believe in
Christ, explain to us the Scriptures, help us in preaching, &c. It was my
beginning to understand this latter point in particular, which had a great
effect on me; for the Lord enabled me to put it to the test of experience,
by laying aside commentaries, and almost every other book, and simply
reading the word of God and studying it. The result of this was, that the
first evening that I shut myself into my room, to give myself to prayer
and meditation over the Scriptures, I learned more in a few hours than I
had done during a period of several months previously. But the particular
difference was, that I received real strength for my soul in doing so. I
now began to try by the test of the Scriptures the things which I had
learned and seen, and found that only those principles, which stood the
test, were really of value.

2. Before this period I had been much opposed to the doctrines of
election, particular redemption,