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hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God loveth his brother also." He dwells upon the love of God to him. What was the precious commandment of Christ to all the members of His mystical body? "This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you.' And the apostle John may be said to have made this almost his only theme during the closing period of his stay upon earth, when he was scarcely able to preach. "Love one another was his constant theme. "Marvel not if the world hate you," but "love one another with a pure heart fervently."

Just one word more. The more ardent affection a poor pardoned, justified sinner has towards Jesus Christ, the more ardent is the affection he expresses towards all who are in Christ, and who bear the image of Christ.

May God bless His word for His name's sake. Amen.

HYMN.

No. 14, GROVE CHAPEL HYMNS.

THE King of kings, who reigns above,
The self-existent "God is love;"
His essence, attributes, and name,
Boundless, unchanging love proclaim.

A depth unfathom'd, height unknown,
A breadth unmeasured, like His throne,
A length no finite mind can reach,
A sum that angels cannot teach.

This theme shall angel tongues employ;

Here sinners find a source of joy,

While, through the Saviour's blood, they prove

This sacred truth, that "God is love."

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Delivered in Grove Chapel, Camberwell, Sunday Morning, May 27, 1849, BY THE REV. JOSEPH IRONS.

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God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us."-Acts xv. 8.

An

I CAN almost imagine myself translated to Bethel, and kneeling side by side with Jacob, wrestling as he did with Jacob's God, until constrained to cry out, "How solemn, how dreadful is this place! it is none other than the house of God, it is the gate of heaven.' assembly of precious, immortal souls, convened to worship the heartsearching God, and that heart-searching God present, "knowing their hearts;' "God, which knoweth the hearts." Are they honest in intention? Are your hearts right in the sight of God? Do you possess new hearts? or is there only the old Adam heart, which, we have been reading, "is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked?" "God, which knoweth the hearts."

Oh! beloved, if you and I could form right conceptions of what our uncovered hearts are in the sight of God, and what His infinite glories are, while we attempt to worship Him, sure I am that we should not only veil our faces, as the cherubim and seraphim did (the angels round the throne veil their faces with their wings), but, lying prostrate in the dust, without daring so much as to lift up our eyes to heaven, our cry would be, Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? Stand? Yes; there are those, and those present this morning, who can stand before Him-stand before Him complete, stand before Him accepted, stand before Him full dressed fit for court, stand before Him with sincerity and integrity, stand before Him with the cry to Him who is the "God which knoweth the hearts," "O God, search my Published in Weekly Nos., Id., and Monthly Parts, 5d. D

VOL. II.

heart and try my reins, and lead me in the way everlasting." Oh! the solemnity of the position we at this moment occupy, and the blessed service we are at this moment commencing! All worlds are intent-heaven, earth, and hell are looking on. God the Father is to be adored, God the Son is to be worshipped and trusted, God the Spirit is to go forth with mighty, invincible power from heart to heart, "knowing the hearts," and intending to accomplish the work for which He covenanted before the world began, or before a human heart was formed.

I am delighted, while awed, with this appeal of Peter. It appears that there were, in those early days, some of the Pharisee tribe, which, in modern language, would be called the Popish and Puseyite tribe, who were determined, while they admitted the name of Jesus Christ, to attach something to it of creature doings; and they had troubled the Jewish converts, or the converts from Judaism, with their notion that it was needful to be circumcised, and keep the law of Moses, as well as believe in Jesus Christ. The apostles and elders met, in order to decide this matter, in these early days; and when Peter takes his turn to deliver the message of the Lord, he introduces the language of my text, stating that they were quite aware that it had pleased God to make choice (oh! how blessed it is to refer back to God's choice in everything)-" Ye know how that, a good while ago, God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe." Then, mind you, their hearing it and their believing it were both pursuant to God's choice, and the instrument that should deliver the gospel to them; even Peter was chosen from among the rest, having been shown that he was to call nothing common or unclean. May we indulge the thought, for one moment, that God has made choice of me to deliver His truth to you this morning, and made choice of you to hear it and to believe it? May God grant us this testimony before the close of this service! And then the apostle marks, in the language of my text, the sanction which Jehovah gives to it. He says, 66 God, which knoweth the hearts," not only made choice of me to go and preach to them, and not only made choice of every one of those that should hear my voice, and not only made choice of His sovereignty to put grace into their hearts that they might believe, but He "bare them witness"bare them witness Himself—" giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us."

Now you are aware, beloved, that this day is what the folks that are fond of superstitions call Whitsunday. I do not mean to despise it, however, on that account, or to say that it is not as good as any other day, nor do I object to be in the fashion when it costs my conscience nothing, and therefore I hope to be in the fashion to-day, and to deliver some truths relative to the gift of the Holy Ghost. For this purpose God has made choice of these words, and fastened them on my mind. There are three things in the text to which I invite your prayerful attention, upon which I desire to call down invincible unction, and respecting which I have been pleading for a holy liberty to set them forth. The first is the author-the second is the gift-the third is the end or design mentioned. The Author is "God, which knoweth the hearts;" the gift is nothing less than the Holy Ghost; the end is the bearing witness by Jehovah Himself in the hearts of them that believe. O Holy Ghost, let my Father's gift to me, and to

His dear saints before Him, be especially manifest this morning that there may be a "mighty rushing wind" penetrating every con

science.

I. According to this order, let me first invite your attention to the Author, "God, which knoweth the hearts." Oh! that we may everywhere and every hour of our lives live under a deep consciousness of this truth-an all-seeing Triune Jehovah ever with us—an allseeing God, in a Trinity of Persons, from whom nothing can be hid! "All things," it is written," are naked and open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." The Word of God, the Eternal Word, Jesus Himself, is "a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart;" and even in the days of His humiliation it is said "Jesus knew their hearts;" and He did not commit Himself to men, because He knew what was in man. He is the all-seeing God. Of the Holy Ghost it is said, "The Spirit search eth all things, even the deep things of God." I know not how other people can avoid-I had almost said evade preaching the glorious doctrine of the Trinity from every text; for even if I were to search for one, I could not get a text but what, either in its immediate bosom or close connexion, sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity. And here, if I speak of the "God, which knoweth the hearts," I find that heart-knowledge and that heartsearching referred especially to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Now pause, I beseech you, a moment over this, to meditate on the word omniscience; and when you have meditated on the word omniscience, think on the word omnipresence; then add to it the word omnipotence. We have before us the glorious, self-existing, Triune Jehovah, all-seeing, everywhere present to see, omnipotent to manage all He sees. "God, which knoweth the hearts." I fear much, beloved, that even those of us who have been favoured with the closest intimacy with the Most High, fall infinitely short of what is required in this particular. I fear much lest that solemn charge should stand against any of us, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself." And how frequently are our acts of worship so tame and carnal, so mean and beggarly, so impoverished and so wandering and scattered, as to leave us scarcely the consciousness that we are in the immediate presence of Omniscience! the fact scarcely being felt that everywhere, at all times, and especially when gathered together expressly to worship Jehovah, He is looking, penetrating, searching the inmost recesses of every soul, and constraining us to cry out with the Psalmist, "Lo, O Lord, there is not a thought in my heart but thou knowest it altogether." To be conscious of being in the presence of earthly princes or monarchs, though they are but fellow-worms, would undoubtedly awe us, and lay a solemn restraint upon our feelings and our expressions; what, then, ought to be the exercise of soul cherished, the holy awe preserved, the profound reverence maintained, by those who are conscious that Omniscience is in every pew, pervading every principle, every power, every faculty of their souls. Oh! my God, let my words be few and well ordered, under a consciousness of this solemn fact! If, as we hinted in our exordium, we could be admitted (by-and-bye we shall, it cannot be long) within the circle of angels, among the glorified spirits who surround the throne, with white robes and palms in their hands, adoring the persons and perfections of Deity in unsullied bliss, with increased happiness, and infinite delight,

still, amidst all their triumph, amidst all their loud shouts of "hallelujah," and all the glories of the place, we should find that they are so awed with the Divine presence, that each must cast his crown at the feet of the throne, and cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts." And shall lightness, shall vanity, shall timetoys, shall things of earth, much less shall accursed vanity and pride, ever more pollute, defile, corrupt our acts of worship? My God, forbid! "God, which knoweth the hearts," must be worshipped "in spirit and in truth."

Bear with me if I lead on your attention for a moment to omnipresence. He is not only omniscient to discern, but omnipresent to discern everywhere, and all things, and all beings. Oh! among the millions that are congregated in different parts of the world, what does this all-seeing eye witness at this moment? of mockery and mimicry and insult offered to God—of idolaters, putting forth creatures and created things as acts of adoration and matters of worship, while God should be worshipped "in spirit and in truth." What millions does the omnipresent Jehovah now witness, offering Him the grossest insults and mockeries under the name of Christianity; and yet, mingled among all these, scattered up and down in the earth, are the very souls He has made choice of, the very objects of His love, the whole election of grace, engaged with Himself worshipping Him in spirit and in truth. And He Himself is at this moment in thousands of congregations, "knowing their hearts;" aye, and witnessing the fervent breathings, the devout emotions, the pure principles, the high aspirings in the souls of those for whom Jesus bled, on whom the Father set His love, and in whom the Holy Ghost has come to dwell.

Follow the thought of omnipresence in this all-seeing God, the Author of "every good and perfect gift," with the idea of omnipotence. We cannot do without this. What use would omniscience and omnipresence be, if He were not omnipotent?-omnipotent to overrule, omnipotent to support, omnipotent to defend, omnipotent to supply, omnipotent to protect, omnipotent to strengthen His feeble few, His little flock, to stand up and withstand the hosts of enemies of earth and hell against which they have to contend.

Just glance here at the fact, that the omniscience of Jehovah permits of no evasion. Now there may be evasions among mortals-and it is a detestable thing-relative to questions, transactions, motives, or principles. There may be evasions among mortals that pass off undetected; but not one before God. There is no evading His omniscience. What an awful thought is this for hypocrites! What an awful thought is this for those who have only "a name to live and are dead!" Not a few, like Judas and Demas, may for a while pass on unsuspected by evading and concealing what, if they gave themselves time to think, they must know to be odious in the sight of God. While it can be concealed from a fellow-professor, they appear determined to banish the thought of omniscience, and sometimes go on with im punity. "But I will reprove thee," says God, when the soul would wink at and overlook all these matters" I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thee." Can anything be more appalling to the soul that is conscious of being insincere? Is there one such here this morning? Is there one person in the presence of God who is conscious that there is a want of integrity and uprightness in his heart? Mind you, you may evade your minister, you may evade your fellow

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