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THE

GOSPEL STANDARD,

OR,

FEEBLE CHRISTIAN'S SUPPORT.

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled."-Matt. v. 6.

"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."—2 Tim. i. 9.

"The election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded."-Rom. xi. 7.

"If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.-And they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."-Acts viii. 37, 38; Matt. xxviii. 19.

No. 35.

NOVEMBER, 1838. VOL. IV.

A FEW THOUGHTS.

This reflection has come into my mind; now, here I see many keeping up the form of family prayer, and many acquainting themselves with the blessed Scriptures, and yet making no progress towards the knowledge of salvation, in my opinion. How is this? I ask myself. Ah! I can only resolve it into this, that is, God's sovereignty. I, as stupid as a beast, and as ignorant as a tree, began to seek after God; got into many wrong ways, wanted to get wrong through the ignorance or false wisdom that was in me; yet God would not let me go, it seems. For, I trust, I have attained to the knowledge of my own salvation. And yet, how many, it seems, with every outward advantage, in the way of an outward knowledge, more or less, of truth, get wrong. And so it is to be, it seems. Strangers in the land of Egypt; the sons of the idolater, as Naaman, and Candace's treasurer, (Acts viii. 27,) the strange Ethiopian, shall be brought to worship God; while many, familiar with the truth outwardly, from childhood, shall be cast out as refuse. Those from afar shall come; those that are seemingly near, "the light that is in them is darkness.” What a distant, dark, and ignorant neighbourhood, as regards God's truth, was I born in! and, though I have endeavoured, over and over again, to lose myself in the pathless forest of ignorance and sin toward God, yet the Lord seemingly forbade it; and made the light of his fear to chase me out of all my wild haunts.

Yes, the mighty orator, and the famous, and the wise, shall all know one day, that it is "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." The ever-blessed God shall touch a poor boy with the spirit of prayer and supplication, and that boy shall win the prize of celestial wisdom, over the heads of many, that might have

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seemed promising, or sure to outstrip him in the race. "God seeth not as man seeth." All the wisdom I have got, I think I have got in answer to prayer.

Again. When I see those running well, and over a rosy path of freedom from great tribulations, I have beat my hands together as it were, and said, “O, that I had never sinned, but walked as orderly as you!" Then, on the other hand, I see they have no experience.

What innumerable thoughts come into the mind of one that fears God, and has the gift at all of meditation, under the unctuous light of the lamp of heaven in his soul!

I have found that many things which man calls little have the most important consequences hung on them. So that, instead of turning off matters by saying, O, such and such things are of no consequence, I am obliged to feel that God can turn a very little matter into very important consequences, now or in future. So that a divine man has to see, from painful experience, (at least I have,) that God can magnify the most trifling incident, as men would say, into a mountainous chain of events. Thus, for instance, David knew music, and that was one reason, under God, of his immediate introduction and companionship to Saul. (1 Sam. xvi. 16. &c.) I knew a woman going to take tea with a neighbour, but as soon as she stepped out of doors to go, she fell down and broke her leg, which perhaps was the last thing in her calculations previously.

Again. I have observed, (whatever Antinomians may say to the contrary,) that sin damps my religion. The more loyalty I am enabled to have to the King of heaven, the more liberty of soul I feel, the more holy and righteous in thought, word, and deed, the more the lamp of heaven shines within. Thus, though the righteousness of Christ imputed is my all in all; yet I am obliged to pray and strive, that I may keep a good conscience toward God as well as man. "Thou settest a print on my footsteps; if I be wicked, (presumptuously or maliciously,) woe be unto me.” (Job x. 15.)

Again. The imputed righteousness of Christ will do no man a morsel or atom of good, unless the man is made to know, from God's own lips, that that imputed righteousness is imputed to him.

But there is nothing astonishes my poor mind scarcely more than what the apostle Paul terms the demonstration of power, and the demonstration of the Spirit. Thus I can see the greatest orators, who preach much truth, to be as insipid as the white of an egg to me. Poor creatures! they think they preach and write bravely; but if they could see and read their efforts and productions as I do, (I am unworthy,) they might advertise their chapels to be sold, and send their fine writings to a friendly neighbour, to wrap up tea and bacon, sold to his customers. For, depend upon it, the demonstration of power, (and that the power of God,) must be something superlatively great. I am persuaded that there are but few who have it, notwithstanding the great show of Calvinistic profession.

"There are many devices in a man's heart." I have tried to bring about certain events, but could not; yes, I have in by-gone times thought, and the fear of God in my soul, how I would accomplish such an event, and how this would turn up, and how another thing might fall out; but, alas! I was supposing wrong; God turned everything a contrary way. All my fine wisdom stained as folly. Any one that knows anything, there are many things hid underneath he has not come at yet. That good man is not far wrong that says, "It requires twenty years to teach a man he is a fool." And something on the con

trary, which was truly desirable, has fallen into my hands, without any trouble at all on my part, in the least, comparatively, to obtain it. "It is not of him that willeth."

The light of heaven appears to me to be twofold; namely, faith, and a good conscience. But this, though most own, how few know by divine gift and divine practice, and are acquainted, experimentally, with the various lights and shadows thereof.

Two great difficulties in prayer I daily feel, namely, first as to the unction of the Holy Spirit, secondly as to what God has predestinated to give me. "I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding." A great deal of prayer I have heard seems to me to be very little else or better than chattering.

A man may err by carelessness, a man may err by over-carefulness. A man may "will and run," and err. A man may tempt God by heedlessness, or rashness, or indolence; "The foolishness of man perverteth his way; and his heart fretteth against the Lord." (Prov. xix. 3.) O the narrow way!

"By the word of God, and by prayer," by which, to the elect, the temporal and providential gifts of God are sanctified, is meant, not merely the letter of the word of holy Scripture, but the hidden grace, sensibly experienced power, and felt value of the incarnate Word, in the soul, through the energy of the ever-blessed Holy Spirit. Bastard Calvinists, and Irvingites, and such like, forget this, or, rather, never knew it, and never shall know it, except through a work of divine grace on their souls, to their regeneration and conversion from the error of their ways.

I have sometimes felt one look with my eye to put all my sensibly felt religion away instantly. O the difficulty of being enabled to please God.

This world's a vain and brittle thread,
That ties us up to fancied good;
Whoso hangs hopes too heavy there,
Will find them dash'd in sad despair;
Creature-good is only understood
By those who by the Spirit are led;
(Wrecks to their surfeits all else fall;)
"A half is better than the whole."

A godly person has, not only like the Canaanitish woman, (Matt. xv. 22,) to call himself a dog, but also a fiend, in the greatness of his humility, fear of God, self-abasement, sense of sin, and terrors of God! "Jesus was asleep in the hinder part of the ship." A sense of this, when the winds and waves are high, threatening destruction, or a sense of God as a consuming fire; these things in the soul, make a vessel of mercy shriek out in his soul, "Lord, I am a dog and a fiend."

The gift of divine and spiritual humility is one of God's greatest gifts to the ransomed soul, in the predestinated conformity to Christ Jesus' image. "Then the God-Man riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded." (John xiii. 4, 5.) "The Lord resisteth the proud." (James iv. 6.) Yes, and he ever will resist their pride too! blessed be his name for it! And let such see how much good their pride will do them in the battle, with the Lord God Almighty for their antagonist., "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty," (Ps. cxxxi. 1,) said David, in some degree weaned from his viperous pride.

What a shoal of brisk arrows there is shot off in opposition to the man who is enabled, experimentally and spiritually, to wish to find Christ, the Saviour of the elect, in his heart! Pride, self-sufficiency, the world, sin, self, the devil, and God himself will try that man. "The Lord trieth the righteous.". "Two are better than one. Woe be unto the man that standeth alone in the battle. Be thou my strong refuge, O Lord.”

I do solemnly believe, and feel to be enabled to experimentally win the felt prize of God Almighty's electing love in one's poor soul, that, well nigh actually,

"Tis more than thought can e'er conceive,
Or hope expect, or faith believe."-HART.

Abingdon.

I. K.

A FEW WORDS TO “A FEW WRETCHED MEN.”

66

Dear Messrs. Editors, I have been for some time balancing it in my mind whether I should take any notice of a piece in the Standard of August last, entitled, "The Rallying of a Few Wretched Men.” The Holy Ghost by Solomon gives us what might at first seem conflicting pieces of advice, (Prov. xxvi. 4, 5,) " Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him." And again, "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." Thus, whether I answer your correspondents or not, I have a divine warrant to satisfy my own conscience. But as these same few wretched men," who, with all their wretchedness, are not deficient in a good opinion of themselves, might probably infer from my silence that I was so crippled and maimed by their attack that my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth and my fingers refused to hold my pen; and as some of their readers might possibly draw the same conclusion, I have felt it best, however disinclined to controversy, to come again into the field, and show these "wretched men" that their rallying charge has not forced me into winter quarters, driven me into an hospital, or compelled me to retire from the service as incurable.

In truth, these "wretched men" seem to me to have put in practice a very old stratagem, which was, to dress out a few regiments in the king's colour, who were to come into the lines as friends, and when once within the entrenchments, to cut and hew without mercy. I am their" dear Captain Philpot," "with whom they will walk sword in hand, and fight to their last breath in the holy war." I am their "brother John," though the initial "J." no more always stands for "John," than "a few wretched men" for "a few living souls," or mere cant for simplicity and godly sincerity. But having thus ranked themselves under my captainship, and come into the camp with an Art thou in health, my brother?" they seem willing enough to smite me under the fifth rib. (2 Sam. xx. 9, 10.) Thus they wish to insinuate that I do not "preach about what I have tasted, felt, and handled, but what I have picked up and stolen from commentaries, and enter more into false evidences of hypocrites and vain janglers, than into true evidences in the soul." They do not

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indeed assert this, but it is evident that they wish to leave such an impression. Now, I can honestly say that my preaching and writing, whatever they be, are borrowed from no man, living or dead, in earth, heaven, or hell; that I scarce look into a commentary once in a year, and that my grand desire and aim, however much I fall short of it, is to trace out gracious evidences in the soul.

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But let us come to the main point. The sum and substance of their attack on me is this, that "in raking together false evidences in my 'Answer to the important question,' I scrambled up a true evidence unawares, that of tasting." Now I tell these few wretched men again, as I told them before, that my object in the "Answer,” was not to show what evidences of salvation were, but what salvation itself was, which two things are as different as the proof of a thing is from the thing which is proved. I was asked to furnish "an Answer to the important question, What is it that saves a soul?” and if, instead of showing what salvation was, I had shown what evidences of salvation were, I should have been as wide of the mark as the few wretched men are. But I never said that tasting was not an evidence of grace. My words were these, p. 23; 66 Neither does salvation consist in outward gifts, as preaching and praying, as a man may taste of the heavenly gift' and his end be to be burned.' (Heb. vi. 4-8.) Whilst Saul prophesied, Judas preached, and the sons of Sceva adjured devils by the name of Jesus." Now what is said or implied here about tasting not being an evidence of grace? I have said, what I suppose these eagle-eyed critics will not deny, that salvation does not consist in outward gifts; and have brought forward, what I considered, a suitable passage of Scripture to prove what I advanced. In that passage occurs the expression which has so troubled my wretched correspondents, " taste of the heavenly gift," and which, from their quarrelling with it, one would almost suppose they did not know was the language of the Holy Ghost. That expression I have connnected with what follows, "whose end is to be burned," and I have therefore implied, that a man may taste of the heavenly gift, and yet be cast into Tophet. So that the controversy between us comes to this, whether I have misinterpreted the language of the Holy Ghost, (Heb. vi. 4–8,) by referring what is there said about" tasting the heavenly gift" to reprobates. I for my part firmly believe that in that passage, as well as in the corresponding one, (Heb. x. 26-29,) the Holy Ghost is speaking of such outward gifts only as Balaam, Saul, Judas, and others possessed. And if I am asked how a reprobate can taste of the heavenly gift, I answer that there is a natural tasting of divine things, which the Scripture sets forth under the joy of the stony ground hearers, the burning wicks of the foolish virgins, the feeding themselves without fear of Jude's professors, (v. 12,) and the walking in the light of their own fire of Isaiah's hypocrites. (1. 11.) "To taste that the Lord is gracious" by a spiritual experience of his beauty and blessedness, is, I believe, a true evidence of grace in the soul, and I never have, and God forbid I ever should deny it to be so. 66 A few wretched men" were perhaps so swallowed up in wretchedness and misery,

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