THE SPIRITUAL MAGAZINE, AND ZION'S CASKET. "For there are Three that bear record in heaven the FATHER, the WORD, and the HOLY GHOST: and these Three are One."-1 John v. 7. Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.-Jude 3. "Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.”—1 Tim. iii. 6. DECEMBER, 1844. THE GOSPEL PULPIT. sought : Seek him." "Him :" THE MIGHTY ACTS OF THE LORD. A Sermon, Preached at Eden Street, Hampstead Road, London, on Lord's-day Evening, Aug. 25, 1844, BY MR. SEPTIMUS SEARS. "Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: the Lord is his name."Amos v. 8. In the morning of this day we were considering, what was the peculiar evidence of a true seeker of the Lord. That he was a poor, needy, helpless, friendless man, brought to the door of God's mercy, his last and only refuge. Then we were noticing what is true seeking. True seeking is not sleeping carelessly, stealing presumptuously, working self-righteously, or running away despairingly. But true seeking is waiting on the Lord, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, for the mercy he needs, with a deep sense of his unworthiness; pleading for it in the name of Jesus, until he arise and have mercy upon us. Then we were observing the object December, 1844.] God himself, in the displays of his love, mercy and God the power. his own Father; God the Son, the Father, the sinner seeks to enjoy as Redeemer of Israel, the sinner seeks to enjoy as his own Saviour; God the Holy Ghost, the sinner seeks to enjoy as his own Comforter. He seeks to enjoy the whole Three-One, as his portion in covenant love; to say, with the spiritual testimony of God in his heart, The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him." ་་ We propose, as the Lord may help us, to notice what the object sought is said to do, in the text. Who maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: the Lord is his name." Now I believe this text contains an outline of the Lord's dealings towards many of his seeking people, without including all his seeking people. I mean just this; no where in the word of God do I find it insisted upon, that a child of God shall pass through, after justification by faith, all these M M various things set forth in this portion of God's word. Many of the Lord's people may be taken safe home to glory, without ever being permitted to fall into sin, to have any abatement of their love for God, to be assaulted by the enemy with doubts and fears, to contract fresh guilt on the conscience, or brought into bondage or misery. Yet I believe there are those that love the Lord, in this world, after they enjoy justification by faith, are there brought and thus preserved. We have an instance of it in the thief on the cross, who was taken safe home to glory in the enjoyment and sealing of the Holy Spirit, as the earnest of his inheritance. We know that in a few hours, he was brought out of nature's darkness into God's marvellous light; brought from a state of death and distance from God, to feel quickened by the Eternal Spirit, convinced of sin, convinced of his need of a Saviour, and brought to cry to the Lord, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom;" was favoured with a promise, had it sealed with power on his heart, This day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' We have no account that he ever had communicated any suspicions about the reality of the work. We have every reason to conclude he went home to glory in the enjoyment of the love of God revealed to his heart, delivering him from slavish fear, the blood of sprinkling purging his conscience from guilt, the righteousness of Jesus justifying his soul from all things. When the apostle Paul was giving a kind of synopsis of all his preaching to the elders of the church at Ephe. sus, it was simply this; "Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." As if he had said, God is a sovereign, how he may deal with individuals; but with his people, in this particular, he deals alike with them all. They are all brought to repentance; consequently without repentance they must be damned: they are all brought to have faith in Christ, else they will perish in their sins, and where he is they cannot come. Now I believe I have heard the individual experience of a child of God spoken of, as if it must be the universal experience of the children of God, in a way which I believe in some measure made the heart of the righteous sad, whom the Lord has not made sad. I can give an instance in my own experience. While I was walking in the liberty of the gospel, enjoying the Lord as my portion; not a single doubt that I was delivered from all guilt and condemnation, that I was a vessel of mercy, that the Lord was my portion for ever and ever: I had not then known any thing about the dreadful risings, the horrid corruptions which I have since awfully known: those tremendous fears about futurity, and being in some horrid delusion, being in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. I heard some speak of them and say, you could not be a child of God if you had not passed through them. Really I began to be fearful, as I had not been tempted, that the work was not of God. I was very suspicious, as I had not passed through those dreadful labyrinths of doubts and fears that it was a delusion. I remember in my simple way, begging of God earnestly, that he would not let me be destitute of one mark or feature of his people: as his people must be tempted, and feel the dreadful risings of sin, with awful fear, that he would let me pass through them; any thing rather than be deceiving my own soul. Thus was I seeking for the very things that the Lord Jesus taught his disciples to pray against, Lead us not into temptation." Therefore what I may be led to speak of the Lord's dealings with me, and many of his children, I do not mean to say it applies to all his children. But when I speak of a sinner brought to feel himself a sinner, lost and undone, I mean to say, all God's people are brought there; if they are never brought there, they will be damned. When I speak of a sinner brought to feel and so account of himself, that nothing will help him, nothing redeem him, but the blood and righteousness of Jesus, I mean to say, that all the Lord's people are brought there. When I speak of a sinner waiting on God, having no rest, no settled, contented peace, until the blood of Jesus purges his conscience. until favoured with the Lord's sure testimony in his heart, that he has loved him with an everlasting love; I mean to say, all the Lord's people are brought there. When I speak of pardoning mercy coming into the conscience, the Lord's mercy meeting with our misery, and justifying ns; that the blood of sprinkling being sprinkled on the conscience, the soul is swallowed up, through the love of God being shed abroad in the heart; slavish fear being put down, the Holy Spirit bearing witness with ours that we are the children of God: all the Lord's people are led to know something about spring, after a long, severe, cold winter of distress. There is a sinking down and rising up of the children of God. I do not mean to say, if your ups and downs have not come just in the same manner, your winters and summers do not follow in the same way, which my own have done, that you have no life in your souls; I find no such thing in the word of God. The word of God declares all must be brought to repentance, and to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. All the Lord's people are branches in the living Vine, more or less, as they live in the world, after they are justified, they will be purged, and bring forth more fruit." But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not the Lord, whom this poor soul is brought to seek, is said to make. By the seven stars here, is meant the Pleiades. We read in Job, "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades?" as the margin reads, "the seven stars ;" or loose the bands of Orion?" The Pleiades makes its appearance about spring; it is ushered in with the appearance of the Pleiades. Hence Job speaks of the sweet influences of the Pleiades : Canst thou bind them, or loose the bands of Orion ?" Spring literally, the Lord makes it spring; so with regard to spring spiritually, the Lord makes it spring. Seek him that maketh the spring. Now the Lord's people are all brought here. All who are led to be real seekers, made poor and needy, helpless, friendless, beggars at mercy's door, they are all brought to know something about a spiritual spring. Spring literally sometimes comes on very suddenly, at another time it comes on more gradual. When the buds and leaves begin to appear, we begin to think summer will soon follow. Again it seems by cold winds as if nature was going back into the winter. So it is frequently experienced by God's children. Those of you who know any. thing experimentally, at times most of you can look back when there has appeared a kind of springing up, something in your souls that you never before felt. You can look back when there appeared all misery, wretchedness, condemnation, hardness of heart, dread of death, trembling at futurity, and dark in your judgment; you can look back at some special seasons when you felt at first a softening down, you have felt that kind of softness, that kind of humbling at the Lord's feet, you were strangers to before; that kind of falling under the sentence of the Lord, a kind of acceptance of the punishment of your iniquity; that kind of conformity and acquiescence The seven stars is the first thing with his dealings, that was the Lord sons.' instantly to cut you off, and hurl you to hell, he would be strictly just; that kind of loathing yourselves, with contrition and godly sorrow, a giving way of the wretched enmity and hardness of heart you had previously felt, the dreadful workings of self-pity, reproaches against God, thinking as he made you he dealt hardly with you: you can look back and see this in some measure giving way, feel it breaking to pieces, a softening down before him, feeling wonder and astonishment that he spared you, a wonder and astonishment that such a rebel is not in hell, a wonder and astonishment that you are still alive upon the earth, that you can say from your inmost soul, what you were afraid to say before, that if he sent you to hell you must acknowledge he was strictly just. Now at the same time, before you could utter language like this, there must be some softening beams come in, some dissolving rays coming upon you, a kind of breaking up of the winter. These are some of the influences of the Pleiades. Something softening coming in, and melting the enmity and risings up against God; thinking he had made you an immortal soul that must appear before him, that must live for ever; that kind of feeling that you would gladly hide yourself under the rocks and mountains, gladly become a dog, or the meanest reptile upon the earth, rather than be in possession of an immortal soul; that kind of self pity giving way, a melting and falling down before him in self loathing, supplicating and acknowledging at his feet that you are a base rebel against him, and wondering he should have spared you who deserved nothing but wrath; this is spring breaking in upor you, and the sweet influences of the Pleiades bringing you to accept the punishment due for your iniquity, bringing you to acknowledge the sentence of the Lord is just, as the poet writes, "He justifies the dreadful stroke That lays the sinner dead." That is an act of faith, that proceeds from the heart, and really acknowledges before a heart-searching God, that he would be just if he sent you to hell; that you are not worthy of the least mercy from him, but truly worthy of wrath, like that confession of the thief who had just before been reviling Jesus, but said afterwards, We suffer justly, receiving the due reward of our deeds; like that poor man who said, "I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof; speak the word only and my servant shall be healed." This is one of the sweet influences of the Pleiades: a humbling, a crumbling down, no longer having a word to say against the Lord's dealings with us, but falling down, to say with Job, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Another effect of the sweet influence of the Pleiades, is a going out in a spirit of prayer. Previous to this humbling, this breaking up, this melting, this crumbling into dust, you did not feel the spirit of prayer; you felt instead such enmity rising God, such wrath against him, and such repining at his having created you, together with such self pity, that you dared not address him or come nigh to him, but dreaded him, and felt your heart full of hatred to him. Whenever this kind of breaking took place, then was felt the sweet influences of the Pleiades; my heart, my heart went out after God, saying, Though I am wor thy of hell, have mercy upon me, O God; according to thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions, wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." For such an act of grace and mercy we feel amazed, and can say from heart-felt experience, I am 66 no more worthy of it than the damned in hell. Then weeping and supplications are joined together; with weep. ing and supplication the Lord leads his people. This is spring time in the soul, the risings and buddings of hope. This is really the work of the eternal Spirit in the hearts of God's people, so that it goes out in humble acknowledgment, that were he swept with the besom of destruction to the bottomless pit, the Lord would be strictly just; at the same time there is an earnest cry to spare us for his mercy's sake, to cleanse our souls from guilt, to blot out our transgressions, to say to our souls, "I am thy salvation," to remember us with the favour that he beareth to his people, and to remember our iniquities, for they are great. Another effect of the sweet influences of the Pleiades, is by the raising of hope, mixed with this contrition, for mercy; mixed with a continual earnest cry to the Lord to have mercy upon us for the sake of his dear Son; hope in the soul that there may be some good thing found in our heart toward the Lord God of Israel; there is a hope rising in the soul that the Lord will some one day appear to deliver us from all condemnation; a hope ever rising in the soul, like an anchor thrown out, but a long time before it gets any thing to hang on; a hoping for some word of promise upon which he may safely rest his hope. The sinner, therefore, in spite of all his fears, hopes there is some good thing in him towards the Lord; and this hope is found mixing with humble confessions and acknowledg. ments to the Lord that he is not worthy of God's mercy in the forgiving of his sins; but hope goes out, that there is something in him which struggles against despair, and makes him believe at times that God has favours in reserve for him, and that he will come and have mercy upon his ruined soul. The Lord in his own time gives a kind of anchorage to this hope, be gives a word to his servant, some particular thing, something upon which his hope hangs. This sentence encouraged my hope when I seemed almost in despair, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." That sentence, also, in the Saviour's sermon on the mount was a great encouragement to me: "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." This was attended with a going out of heart and affection towards him. No reprobate ever felt any thing like this. I cried earnestly to the Lord to have mercy upon me, that I might escape eternal wrath. No reprobate ever felt godly contrition, earnest supplieation, humble hope, real affection, united with meltings of heart, and goings out to the Lord Jesus for grace and mercy, for him to manifest his grace, to apply the blood of sprinkling to his conscience, to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ, at the same time humbly acknowledging he is no more worthy of such a favour than the damned in hell, though he hopes it would be granted to him; he has a real love for what he prays for. A child of God has a feeling the reprobate never have. The reprobate desires to escape hell, he desires to escape punishment, he desires to escape the wrath of God; but there is one other feeling he knows nothing at all about, he knows nothing about desiring Jesus for the sake of Jesus. The child of God desires the atonement, his heart has conceived a love for it; he desires the imputed righteousness of Christ, it has such a melodious sound to him, it is the proclamation of rich and free and sovereign mercy in his heart; it is a sweet sound to him. Those who never love the sound are reprobate. Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound, they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance; in thy name shall they rejoice all the day, and in thy righteousness shall they be ex |