Page images
PDF
EPUB

though you was advised to the contrary. Surely, if you had been armed and equipped from heaven, you would have been fit for the field, without riding so many miles to plunder the arguments of the dead.

You report that you formerly attended Mr. C. to hear depths of doctrine; Mr. R. to have your graces stirred up; and Mr. Huntington, to hear oddities and I believe they are oddities, and ever will remain so, to novices: " for the preaching of the cross of Christ, is to them that perish, foolishness." But did not all these depths, stirrings, and oddities, furnish you for the attack? Have you no truth, nor arguments, but what lay on the shelves of your study? If the Spirit and word of God had dwelt in you, and if God had sent you on this warfare, he would have furnished you both with armour and weapons. A good soldier of Jesus Christ is never without his armour, nor his artillery; nor does he go a warfare at his own expense. Fetching lumber from Smarden, plainly proves that God had no hand in the expedition: besides, arguments borrowed from authors by graceless men are never forcible, for want of a divine edge. If God be the sword of a man's excellency, the excellency and power of God will attend the man. Without this, however fine the reasonings, however nice the distinctions, however eloquent the language, the man can do no more than carnalize, legalize, or philosophize, the dispensation of the Spirit; and the soul-beggary of the man, whether he preach

or write, will discover itself, in all he says or writes, to one who lives and walks in the Spirit of God, Many of our authors are not aware of this; they write and speak to display their abilities, and exalt themselves in the eyes of others; and, when they have done all, it can only be called the speech of them that are puffed up, for there is no power; and, in truth, they only expose their pride and ignorance, and the starving condition of their souls; and convince the spiritually-minded, that not a reformation in life, improvement in language, or even ministerial, which are called spiritual gifts, make a man a spiritual man. Nothing but a spiritual birth can do this: "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Such men, though they may be ranked, as they often are by ignorant professors and weak believers, with gospel ministers, yet neither their rank nor their gifts secure heaven to them, nor their souls from falling headlong into hell. Judas, says Peter, "was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry," and it was 'the worst part, the gift, not the grace, that is so necessary for the discharge of the office that he had taken therefore from this part of the ministry Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. This coming and going from the place of the holy will be eternally forgotten in the heavenly Jerusalem, Eccles. viii. 10, though they have so done in Mount Zion.

[ocr errors]

Nor did yd. appear in well-set hair at Cranbrook, but in baldness: the shame of your naked

ness was not hid; nor did your melody rise from the certain sound of the gospel-trumpet; but, like that of a drum, from the emptiness of the preacher. Did God ever give you a message against me? Had you either your message or impulse from him?

Did you once ask him either for matter or manner in this undertaking? Did your face shine or heart flow with grace in that work of naught? Did the fair beauty of the Lord appear in the meeting? Were the outgoings of God seen in it? or, did he once stir up his strength, and come among you? Were the ungodly alarmed, the unruly warned, the gainsayers confuted, the hypocrites exposed, and the bowels of the saints refreshed? Did you go home with the testimony and approbation of God in your heart? Had you nearness of access to him in prayer at your return? or did either scripture or conscience say, "Well done, good and faithful servant?" Do not you think that the freewill Baptists, the hypocritical Arminians, and some that are called members of that place, beside the openly profane, stood in more need of the sharpness that you used among them, than I did? Is there one mote in my eye that the beam in your own will allow you to pull out? If there is, get about it.

Wo to such wanton trifling! Remember the fall of him that you are gone to succeed. I heard him, about twelve years ago, at Kingston upon Thames; and said, as soon as he had finished his discourse, that he had run before he was sent:

and I said the same of one since, who was ordained at Hammersmith, who confirmed it soon after; and the same of two since, whom God discovered in the same way, to let me know that my judgment of those men was from him. "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." I hope those who are going, according to report, to ordain you, will look about them; and not lay hands suddenly on any man; nor countenance and recommend a man to the work of the ministry, upon a reason of his hope, and a confession of his faith, in general terms; without an account of his heart-felt experience of the truth; a confession of the faith delivered to him, and impressed on his soul, by God himself; and a testimony in the ordainers' consciences from God, and from men of experience, touching the testimony of God to the word of his grace by him; besides the witness of some converts, or living seals of his mission and commission from God.

Sodomites, adulterers, and fornicators, have been palmed upon the church of God heretofore, instead of ministers of the Spirit. If he that bids an erroneous man, who brings not the doctrine of Christ, God speed, is a partaker of his evil deeds; what must they be partakers of, who, upon a partial examination, a written schoolboy's confession, and perhaps an inexperienced people's call, or an attachment to a party, lay on hands, countenance and send forth a wolf in sheep's clothing, instead

of an under-shepherd? It is well if this work does not one day recoil, with a double discharge both of grief and guilt, upon the consciences of many who in our day are called Presbyters. When God makes manifest the counsels of the heart, it will appear that this is no small part of the mystery of spiritual wickedness, in the propagation of errors, that will be unfolded in the great day, to the confusion of such deceitful workers and hypocrites, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation. Which pre-ordination of God is no excuse for a partial ordination by men.

I have not a single doubt of my effectual call, both to salvation and to the ministry of the everlasting gospel, and that by Jesus Christ himself: and I believe I may say that God has set his seal a thousand times to the ministry that I have received, by working a change in sinners' hearts, and ministering the Spirit unto them. But, who sent you, I know not. Where is your genealogy? Where are the credentials that the Spirit of the living God has written on the fleshly tables of your heart? Produce the twofold witness, that of the Spirit, and of conscience, and the mystery of faith held therein. Let us have some account of the signing and sealing you to the day of redemption, that we may know what image and superscription you bear. bear. If you are destitute of these things, you run before you were sent; and, if acquainted with them, even but in theory, you

« PreviousContinue »