THE

GOSPEL STANDARD.

No. 254. FEBRUARY 1, 1857. VOL. XXIII.

MATT. v. 6; 2 TIM. I. 9; ROM. XI. 7; ACTS VIII. 37, 38; MATT. XXVIII. 19.

MOURNERS IN ZION COMFORTED.

(Continued from page 18.)

Now all such poor mourners in Zion as these, who are cast down through many temptations and distressed in their mind, are in such a state that they may be well said to be sitting in sackcloth and ashes, lamenting their case, feeling like the sparrow alone on the housetop, or like the pelican desolate in the wilderness; pitying and bemoaning themselves, and not knowing whether they shall go to eternal happiness or endless misery. They cannot join in with the service of the church of England, and say, "We bless thee for our creation;" for they wish they had never been born, and think no one so miserable as they feel themselves to be; therefore they want the Lord to say unto them, "I am thy salvation!" For they have so many things against them that they are cast down and full of heaviness. They have not the consolation which they want, and are full of fears whether they shall get to heaven after all, and whether they have ever been taught by the blessed Spirit at all; so that they are like those who are sitting in sackcloth and ashes. Now David found himself in this state, but he cried unto the Lord, and he delivered him, for he says, "Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; thou hast put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness." And all those who are thus brought down and are low in their souls shall be exalted, and they shall have an experimental knowledge of the blessings and promise of the word of God, for in his own time he will come and deliver them. O how sweet were those words to my soul some time ago, when they were applied with divine power, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs." O how my soul did bless and praise the Lord for his mercy to me! His word was sweet and precious. It was the joy and rejoicing of my heart, and more unto me than my necessary food. And when the Lord does thus bless the soul with the rich communications of his grace, he can enter into the feelings of David, and say, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless and praise his holy name." He can also then use the language of the church service, and say, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." But there are multitudes who use these words, and say, "Take not thy Holy Spirit from us," who never knew what it was to mourn or

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sorrow for sin at all. And while they are mocking God with these blessed words, at one and the same time they are hating and persecuting the Lord's people, and are treating them with the greatest contempt. But it is the Lord's own appointment to bring his people into an enjoyment of those feelings; and when he is pleased to bring them here they will not say their own hands have attained to it, but they will know it is all of the riches of free and sovereign grace. And why will they not say so? Because the Lord will lay them low, and they will think it is too great a gift for God to bestow on such guilty miserable objects as they see and feel themselves to be; and they will say, "Canst thou bestow thy grace, Lord, upon such a wretch as I?" They will not boast that it is given unto them because they are better than their neighbors, or on account of any merit of their own, but they will use the language of Mr. Hart as expressive of their feelings:

"This is a treasure rich indeed,

Which none but Christ can give;
Of this the best of men have need;
This I, the worst, receive.'

Therefore it is on this account that they are brought down into the very dust of self abasement, and loathe themselves in dust and ashes before the Lord. And is it not a blessing for a man to be stripped of his own fancied righteousness, and to feel his need of being clothed in Christ's glorious righteousness? Paul might well say for himself, "Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." And David describes the glory and beauty of this righteousness in a wonderful way in the 45th Psalm.

The Lord hath also appointed "the oil of joy for mourning." This oil is the unction of the Holy Ghost, which causeth the heart of the Lord's people to rejoice. It is said that "wine maketh glad the heart of man, and oil maketh his face to shine." And David speaks of it as that unction, that dew, that power, whereby his heart was made to rejoice, and through which his mourning departed from him. It was this "oil of joy" that lifted him out of the deep miry places into which he had sunk, set his feet upon a rock, and established his goings, and which put a new song into his mouth, even praise unto his God. It was this "oil of joy" that made him rejoice in the Lord, and triumph in his song of praise that he was fixed upon the everlasting Rock of Ages, and caused his cup to run over with joy and delight. So that he knew it was the Lord that had changed his mourning into rejoicing, and his weeping into praise, and had given him the voice of melody, joy, and thanksgiving. And now he could not only praise God's name, but he called upon all those that feared God to come unto him and hear what the Lord had done for his soul.

Now there are many who when they hear these things laugh, and

call it enthusiasm. But, nevertheless, let Jesus only come into the soul, by the power of his blessed Spirit, and it will make the heart to rejoice with exceeding joy; let him but only kiss the soul with the kisses of his love, it will be better to him than wine, or all things else that the world can produce, and the soul will esteem it above ten thousand worlds. But if any will talk in this way they are viewed and looked upon as nothing better than fanatics. Notwithstanding all this, they know that the enjoyment of the love of Jesus to their souls is a "feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." So that when Jesus comes, their mourning is turned into joy, and their sorrow into delight, and they are lifted up above their fears; they show forth the Lord's praise, and bless him for saving them from going down to the pit; for they feel now that Christ is in and with them of a truth. But, then, how few there are who understand and can enter into these things. Nevertheless, it is a blessed thing to have the feet directed at all into the right way; and though the poor soul may not be able to make it out fully to its own comfort that it is in the right way, yet it is a great thing to be enabled to bless and praise the Lord for any evidence of his mercy. For a poor, lost, and ruined sinner to have any token of God's favor, and to praise him in any way for the riches of his grace in delivering him from going down to the pit, is a very great mercy indeed! And for a poor soul, who is full of troubles, and cast down in his mind, to have this blessed change wrought in his feelings, it is like that of a criminal who is anxiously awaiting the hour of his execution, when, to his great astonishment, he unexpectedly receives his reprieve. O what a change takes place in his feelings! Now I know about a month ago, when my soul was full of heaviness and trouble, and I was much cast down, the Lord was pleased to bless me with such an overwhelming manifestation of his love that there was such a change in my feelings, that though the ground was covered with snow and it was a gloomy day to many, yet it was like a spring day to me, for my poor soul was as happy as it was possible to be, and I did nothing but bless and praise the Lord for the displays of his loving kindness toward me. Therefore I say when the Lord is pleased to manifest his mercy, and show that he has been leading in a right way, the soul is satisfied, and would not have anything altered in the world. There is a conviction in the mind that all is right, and it is ready to say, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." It reminded me of a miser going a journey, who had entered into a rough road, where he could neither get out nor turn back, and was full of regret that he had ever entered it at all; but before he had completely got to the end of it he suddenly finds a purse of money. Behold the change that is wrought now in his feelings! There is no more grumbling about the roughness of the road, nor the length of the journey, nor of what he felt in it. O no! it was the very best road that he ever walked in; he is quite delighted that he came into it, and he would not have come by any other on any consideration whatever. And just so it is with

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the child of God; when the Lord is pleased to manifest himself to the soul in trouble, he does not any longer complain of his trials, and say, "Why have I had so much sorrow and affliction?" But he is perfectly satisfied now that all was for the best, and that the Lord has led him by a right way, and he would not have come in any other way if he could. And it is in this way that the soul is brought to "glory in tribulation also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." And when the love of God is so shed abroad in the heart, all murmuring and repining against his dispensation will cease. "The rebellious dwell in a dry land;" but when the love of God is thus manifested to the soul, all crooked things will appear straight and clear, and rough places will be made plain, and the heart will break out in praises to the Lord, and say, "My Jesus has done all things well." He will be quiet, and rest satisfied that everything is just as it ought to be. He will say, "Though I did not like the path in which I was led, yet God saw it was right to lead me in this way," and therefore he will not feel inclined to find fault any longer with any body, or any of the circumstances by which he is surrounded. He no longer looks to second causes, but sees that everything has been for the best, and he says,

"Tell it unto sinners round,

What a dear Saviour I have found."

Now some will say, "What blessing is there in all this, to be sitting in ashes, and to be brought into a state of mourning?" But those that are tried will say, "If these exercises are profitable to my soul, let me be brought into them." These things will cause them to cry unto the Lord that he will lead them in the right way, and in that path wherein he would manifest himself unto them. They will have an earnest desire to go where the Lord has appointed them, and to be and do whatsoever he pleases, so long as they may be proved true Christians and not bastard Calvinists. They will say, "Lord, lead us where thou pleasest, and do with us what thou wilt, so that we may be established by thy grace and have tokens from thee that thou art leading us!" Thus the troubles and exercises of the Lord's people are productive of very great blessings indeed to their souls. And, therefore, when I hear some persons crying out under their sorrows and difficulties, I have been very glad to hear it and have not wished that they should be removed, but rather that they might be increased upon them; because I have known that it is good for them to be tried, that they needed much furnace work, and required a great deal of purging and sifting; and I know these things will bring them away from a mere profession of religion, and prove the reality of grace in them. They will feel what it is to be bound with the chains and cords of their sins, and they will be earnest in seeking deliverance from the Lord.

But now, if you look around, you will find but very few persons

who are crying out under a feeling sense of their guilt and darkness, and sighing and mourning for a manifestation of God's mercy to their souls. There is so much resting in the form of religion. Most professors are so happy and comfortable in it, and say they are called out of darkness into light, that they are the Lord's children, and that they are going to heaven. But if you should inquire how and where they got it from, and press them close, it will come out that they have learnt their religion from their minister, or books, and have gained all their confidence that way. But this will not do. It will not stand the fire which will try every man's work, nor is it learning religion in God's way. Therefore the soul that is taught of him must be brought into a "spirit of heaviness;" and the "garment of praise" is appointed for all who are made to feel this "spirit of heaviness," and "heaviness in the heart maketh it to stoop.' Thus all those who are taught by the blessed Spirit will be tried and exercised whether they have a right faith, and whether God has really begun the work of grace upon them.

(To be concluded in our next.)

If by "the kingdom of God" be understood to mean the kingdom of grace, then it is plain an unregenerate man cannot see it, or cannot understand its doctrines, because they are spiritually discerned. But if by "the kingdom of God" be meant the kingdom of glory, then, unless a man be born again, he cannot see it, because we being impure by nature, except we are renewed we cannot dwell with a pure and holy God.— Whitefield.

Pharaoh and Saul confessed their sin, Judas repented himself of his doings, Esau sought the blessing, and that carefully with tears, and yet none of these had a heart rightly broken, or a spirit truly contrite. Pharaoh, Saul, and Judas, were Pharaoh, Saul, and Judas still; Esau was Esau still. There was no gracious change, no thorough turn to God, no unfeigned parting with their sins; no hearty flight for refuge, to lay hold on the hope of glory, though they indeed had thus been touched.—Bunyan.

If Francis Spira go for a despairing reprobate, (which I dare not aver,) yet, when he said, he believed Christ was able to save him, but he doubted his will, he must not be understood as if it were so indeed. Unbelievers know not all the mysterious turnings of lying and self-deceiving unbelief. Unbelief may lie to men of itself, when it dare not belie the worth of that soul-redeeming ransom of Christ's blood. If he that sinneth against the Holy Ghost could believe the power of infinite mercy, he should also believe the will and inclination of infinite mercy, for the power of mercy is the very power of a merciful will. I shall not then be afraid that that soul is lost which hath high and capacious apprehensions of the worth, value, dignity, and power of that dear ransom, and of infinite mercy. It is faith to believe this gospel truth, which is, "That Christ is able to save to the utmost all that come to him." If I believe soundly what free grace can do, I believe soundly what free grace will do.-Rutherford.