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and dying so, where God is, you never can come. But to the poor and needy one of the Lord's household I would say, Fear not all you may have to contend with in yourself, or out of yourself, seeing the Lord has brought you to this mountain. May you be enabled to feast upon the fat things, and drink of the wines which he hath mingled, and then you will forget your poverty, and remember your wretchedness no more. Yours in him,

Yorkshire, August 25, 1835.

LEBBEUS.

BROKEN, YET STERLING, SENTENCES.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE GOSPEL STANDARD.

Having been favoured with twelve copies of your work, six for August and six for September, it was truly gratifying to me, and to many friends, to find such a sweetness and accordance with divine truth in them, inasmuch as we have a demand for about thirty numbers monthly, so long as they shall maintain the spirit of the gospel in that plain and decided manner that shall be acceptable to all the readers who are lovers of divine truth, and who can in an experimental manner join hand and heart to the language and matter that they contain; and I hope and trust that God the Spirit will direct your hearts and minds to guard and to protect the press from error of every kind and shape, and that it may be your happiness to be favoured with constant matter, and with that variety that shall be edifying to the Lord's poor, and that shall tend to the establishment of their minds in divine truth, as it is in Jesus. For this end, I am led to say, the Lord bless you in your undertaking, and keep you steady, tractable, and watchful, so that it may be proved that the work is not of man, but of God, and that many of his children may have cause to bless him, that he ever directed this little work, adding to his honour the great advantage they have derived in leading them out of Arminian darkness into the glorious fulness of the doctrines of sovereign grace. For this cause, I pray for your prosperity, that whilst the standard of the gospel is hoisted up, the banners of the Gospel Standard may be unfurled, bearing this inscription: A Trinity in Unity; the Personality of God the Father, Son, and Spirit, in all that fulness of grace that is treasured up in Christ Jesus; together with every blessing that is connected with the vessels of mercy and the glory of God; that whilst the electing love of God the Father is freely spoken of, the fulness of the redeeming love of God the Son

may be equally acknowledged, through the power and teachings of God the Spirit; so that the church of God may ever have a saving acquaintance with their high calling, which is in Christ Jesus, and know that all spiritual blessings flow through the atoning blood of Jesus, leading them to supplicate for all needful blessings through that channel, and engrafting them into the perfect knowledge-into the sound doctrines of God's electing love and justifying righteousness; to the end that the weary and heavy laden may be brought to find rest through the peace-speaking blood of the Lamb.

Though the doctrines of grace are of such inestimable value to the seed-royal, yet they are but empty sounds when they reach no lower than a man's chin. These doctrines, in the life and power, do not commence in a sinner's head, but in his heart. True it is, that many that profess them, because they are expressed so clearly in God's word, make no other use of them than to raise the heart and mind with haughtiness, pride, insolence, and self-assurance. Like a female I heard of, that made her boast that she possessed knowledge of the doctrines of the Bible sufficient to stock a parish; but the work of grace in the heart was a perfect stranger to her. How different is the work of God the Spirit! When he takes a sinner in hand, the way and manner that his work of grace operates is to lead the wretch to loathings and inward abhorrence, to self-abasement, brokenness of spirit, and contrition of soul. These grow very slowly, but surely. They attain to light in a very small sense, but discover more of their own darkness. They can see but little in the work of God in the soul, and very little in the doctrines of grace, that relates to themselves. To these the Lord's promise is, that he will be unto them a God, and they shall be unto him a people;" and when the blessed time comes that he leads them into his house, and banquets their souls with dying love, and sweetens their consciences with the Redeemer's blood, then it is they can sit down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit becomes sweet to their taste, whilst "his banner over them is love;" and while they lie beneath its shade, and are enabled feelingly to say, "He has loved me, and given himself for me," it is then that the soul is dissolved, and that Christ is so greatly exalted, beloved, and adored; then it is they can say, Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel;" for he hath given commandmeut to bless, and they shall be blessed, and sin cannot reverse it: " He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel." As the Lord the Spirit

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leads the helpless soul out of himself, to look steadfastly, by the eye of faith, and see himself perfect in Christ Jesus, standing complete in him, being spotless, then he looks where God looks; and as God makes it known to him that he is justified in Christ, he can claim him feelingly as "the Lord his righteousness and strength," rejoicing in him, being justified freely from all law claims, and standing complete in him.

May the Lord the Spirit lead the elect of God to claim all blessings promised in Christ Jesus; and if these broken sentences are made the means of imparting comfort to any, may they give God the glory.

Downham, Oct. 16, 1835.

BARTIMEUS.

MAN'S SIN HIS OWN GUILTY ACT AND DEED, AND HIS HEART BEING INCLINED THEREUNTO, SCRIP TURALLY CONSIDERED.

(Continued from page 64.)

Having established the doctrine of man's total depravity and utter apostacy from the Lord, let us illustrate it by the conduct of some who are recorded in scripture for our admonition, upon whom, as the apostle writes, the ends of the world

are come.

Of the world before the flood it is written, that all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. (Gen. vi. 12.) To me it appears, that the best exposition of this scripture will be by the perusal and serious consideration of another (Rom. i. 21, to the end); where the depravity of the Gentiles or Heathen lands is most degrading, and most strikingly portrayed; and though the Lord says to Noah, "Thee only have I seen righteous before me in this generation" (Gen. vii. 1), it is said of him again, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." (Gen. vi. 8.) Yes, it was grace, and grace alone that made the difference; as may be seen by the shameful and inconsistent conduct of Noah after the flood. (Gen. ix. 20— 27.)

If we take a slight retrospect of man after the flood, no fairer a picture presents itself. In process of time all nations, and to a man every individual of them, was wholly given to idolatry. So that Abram, an idolator, at the age of seventyfive, must have a special call from God almighty to save him from that universal Paganism which, in his day, overspread the earth. From these few remarks, how true the testimony of the Lord by the Prophet and the apostle, "Unless the Lord

had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah. (Isa. i. 9; Rom. ix. 20.)

Who would have thought that Israel of old would have proved so brutishly mad upon their lusts as they were, when, with their miraculous deliverance from Egyptian bondage, and the signal manifestations of God's love to them at the Red Sea; and, besides this, the thunderings, and lightnings, and thick clouds upon Mount Sinai, the Lord descending thereupon in fire; who, I say, would have thought, that with these things before their eyes, they had been so debased in heart as to make to themselves a golden calf, sit down to eat and drink, and then rise up to play-in other words, in nakedness dance round their idol god in gross heathenism, and make this lying acknowledgment unto it" These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt?" (Exod. xxxii. 4.) Heathens, left to themselves and the light and strength of nature alone, that they should do such things is not much to be wondered at; but that the peculiar people of God, chosen to himself before all nations of the earth, should, with all their privileges, act as they did, proves the depravity of our nature to be desperate indeed. What a striking comment, as we pursue the history of the journeyings of Israel to the promised land, was their general conduct as a people, upon this Scriptare truth, "Moreover, the law entered that the offence might abound." (Rom. v. 20.) It does nothing else now; for this truth, "The law worketh wrath," is verified more or less in the present experience of all the Lord's people.

I pass over the many instances of the hard-heartedness,

stiff-neckedness, and wickedness of Israel, and just mention a few more characters, equally base.

What a devilish display of latent cruelty, ferocity, and barbarity, did the prophet Elisha behold in the heart of Hazael, King of Syria, when he told him he knew the evil that he would do unto the children of Israel: "Their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child." (2 Kings viii. 12.) But though Hazael seemed to think it was impossible he could be such a dog, yet the sequel proves that he was not only dog enough, but devil enough too; for he first strangled his master, then reigned in his stead, and afterwards fulfilled to the letter all that had been predicted by Elisha. What a mystery of iniquity is man!

David, the man after God's own heart, affords another appalling proof of our ruined condition. Through what a series of perplexity, trials, and persecutions, did the Lord safely

bring him; and yet, when he had rest on every side, and was sunk in the lap of earthly ease and worldly grandeur, what a lamentable proof of human weakness and depravity presents itself to our view. I pass over the particulars of his detestable conduct and base ingratitude towards Uriah, and come to the affecting parable of the poor man's ewe lamb. For twelve months had David's guilty conscience been hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, and would, I believe, have continued hardened to his eternal damnation, but for the almighty love and grace of his covenant God. But to make him acquainted, feelingly and experimentally, with the aggravated criminality of his conduct, the prophet Nathan was sent to him (see 2 Sam. xii.); and, after reciting his parable, and David saying, "As the Lord liveth, the man shall die,' ""THOU ART THE MAN," from the mouth of Nathan, as an arrow from a bow, strung and shot into David's conscience by the almighty power of the Holy Spirit, wrought conviction, and pronounced the sentence of death from his own mouth, in the heart of David. Nathan now brings forth to view the accumulated blessings of the Lord upon him, in showers of mercies, and sets before him his awful criminality in such glowing colours, that he appears only to have power to reply to Nathan in these words, "I have sinned against the Lord." Such a death in David's conscience now followed, every stroke of reproof from the mouth of the prophet, seconded by a long series of severe chastisements in his own person, in his kingdom, and in his family, that, but for the superabounding grace, and love, and power of God, David would have sunk to rise no more.

In short. The idolatry of Solomon, who, in the latter end of his reign, bowed his knees to worship heathen deities; the wickedness and bloodshedding of Manasseh, of whom it is written, that he seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed (2 Kings xxi. and xxiv.); the dreadful fall of Peter, who, with cursing and swearing, denied his Master; the bloody persecutions of Saul of Tarsus against the church, of whom it is recorded, that he made havoc of the church;-what shall we say to these things, and that from the conduct of such who were vessels of mercy, part of the mystical body of Christ? It exhibits to view, on the one hand, with transcendent lustre and brightness, these truths: “ Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound;" "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" and, on the other hand, the desperate, unfathomable deep of our corrupt nature, through sin. There is but one

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