Í SAY, brethren, our business is of the greatest importance; it is on life and death; death, death, death, is written on every thing we behold in this polluted dying world; yea, death is written on all your faces, and on every member of your bodies, and on mine too. But who are the men that can read it? None but those who have the spirit of life, "the light of life" in them, who have looked into the glass of their own imperfections, the law of death, the ministration of death; none others ever saw their own black face, to say from the bottom of his or her heart in truthful experience, "I am black, I am black." "The life is the light of men;" and without the divine life of the Spirit in them, they have no light to see their own black faces, and their sin-black nature, in the law of death. "The body is dead because of sin."

The word Saul signifies death, or hell, a sepulchre or a destroyer. Ah, beloved! Saul was dead to God, and full of the rage of hell against God's saints, while he was Saul; and the devil had so blinded him, that he verily thought he did God service in persecuting the saints. "Yes," says self-good Saul, "I am a Jew, I have been circumcised, I know all the law, I have kept it all, I am a blameless man; who can lay any bad thing to my character ? I have got letters in my pocket from high authority, I will scourge them wretches who do not keep our law, those fanatics, who are following, and proclaiming one Jesus; yes, that I will.” He was alive, was he not? Alive to what? to all mischief, and alive to his own goodness. Ah," said he within himself, "I am a good man, and I will shew it by my good actions, and my zeal for God and his law. I have made a fine havock among some of them already, I have boldly entered into their houses and taken both men and women, and committed them to prison. Ah, such wretches ought to be banished out of the land." And so say all professors of religion now in their hearts, (and some with their tongues.) Ah, all professors who know nothing of a life and death religion. Ah, say they, all Antinomians,

66

66

(so called,) ought to be banished out of the land. So said Saul, almost out of breath, on the road for slaughtering the disciples of Christ. But suddenly the gracious Lord Jesus sent light and life into his soul from heaven; how now? Why Paul had then life and light in his soul to see, feel, and read his own death warrant in the law. "And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven, and he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ?" Ah! then the law's death-dart went through Saul's heart, he trembled and fell down like a bird shot through the heart. By the light from heaven he saw his own black face, black heart, and black deeds, and like a man under sentence of death, by the law, his sins revived against him and he died. thought he, I have been persecuting the Lord himself, and I must die the death; the sentence of death went through his very soul; he fell down as a dead man ; lost his eye sight, neither could he eat or drink; "he was three days without sight." Aye, if anything will take a man's appetite away, the sentence of death will do it, unless he is a hardened wretch indeed. However, he fell down dead Saul, and by the life and light of the Spirit of Christ in him, he arose from the earth living Paul; for the Spirit of Christ was in his spirit, which made him groan, cry, and pray. It is said, "behold he prayeth."

0,

Ah, see now dear souls, here is king Saul, and pharisee Saul, both fallen upon their own sword that they fought the true Israel of God with. Pharisee Saul fought the saints of Jesus with the sword of law and justice; pharisee Saul fell upon the sword hinself and died. "Sin revived and I died." Ah Saul is dead, dead, dead. Saul the destroyer is dead; but Paul the labourer, the labourer together with God in the gospel of his dear Son Jesus, is alive, for Christ is in him his new life, and hope of glory. I say, sirs, do you know anything about life and death religion? Death in self, and Life in Christ? The Holy Ghost taught Paul to write, and he knew what

ness."

he wrote to be true: "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousSaul is dead through the law, the ministration of death; Paul is alive through the gospel, the ministration of life; the old man is a body of death, not one good thing dwelling in him. The new man is a principle of life and holiness from Christ through the revelation of Christ in us by the Holy Spirit of Life. Thus, "the Spirit is life because of righteousness; because the Spirit reveals in us Christ who is our righteousness. A better righteousness than Adam lost, for his was but a man's righteousness at best; but Christ is God in the man, who wrought out a righteousness for us, called the righteousness of God, by faith imputed unto us that believe, and this faith is wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Life; and leads our living souls from self, sin, law, and death to feed and live upon Christ who is our life. O, my soul, thou canst not have one drop of comfort but from Christ! O, dear bleeding Saviour! my poor fainting soul would cleave to thee still, feed on thee, live on thee, "thy flesh is meat indeed, and thy blood is drink indeed." All is death in self, all is death in this world, and in all the old creation. Ah, my dear Lord, I find nothing but bitterness and death out of thee; bitter sorrows and sufferings; bitter words from men and hypocrites in Zion; gall and bitterness from my own corrupt nature. But thou, O, dearest Redeemer! thou art sweet indeed, when thou revealest thyself to me, thy name is sweet; thy dear person is sweet; thy words are sweet; thy breath in my soul is sweet. Ah, says the spouse, "his mouth is most sweet," so say I. Make haste, my beloved, come quickly. I set moaning, and waiting for thee.

A WATCHMAN ON THE WALLS. Leicester, Jan. 20, 1846.

CORN SIFTED IN THE SIEVE.

To Mr. C. W. Banks, Minister. MY DEAR BROTHER IN THE LORD,

GRACE, mercy, and peace, be unto you, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. May the good-will of him that dwelt in the bush rest upon you: may you be strengthened with the Spirit's might in the inner man. "May your

bow abide in its strength, and the arms of your hands made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob." May a realization of, and a participation in, the precious things of the lasting hills be sweetly enjoyed in your soul's experience from day to day, and may you be favoured with an abundant outpouring of the Holy Ghost, in the power of his operations, so that you may from time to time, be enabled to testify of the solemn and weighty things of eternity, to vindicate the honours of the dear Redeemer, and to contend for a vital and heartfelt acquaintance with the things of God, in this Christ-despising, and blaspheming age of anti-christianism. But, that God does enable you to bear testimony to the solemn realities of an eternal world: that he does_enable you to unfold the honours of Jesus, and to contend for a personal and experimental acquaintance with the things of God, is a truth, of which I am a living witness; although I am a stranger to you in the flesh, yet I trust I am not a stranger to the Christ you preach, nor to the blessed truths you set forth, for I could truly say on some occasions, when hearing you; "It is good to be here." The last time I heard you preach, was at Windmill Street Chapel, from the following words :—“ In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." 1 John iii, 10.

Previous to arriving at the Chapel, I was very much exercised as to whether I should go or not; I felt in such a miserable and dejected condition; I felt as it were, one mind to go, and two minds to stay away, but, however, I went, and I was very glad afterwards I did go, although by your discourse I was cut to pieces, and had scarcely a stump left to stand upon. I thought the discourse throughout was one of the most solemn I had ever heard, but when you was describing the marks which distinguished a reprobate, I verily thought I should as surely go to hell, as I was then sitting there, for I thought I was being made manifest to be nothing else but a reprobate. As I had been for many weeks, in a cold, lukewarm, backsliding state, so much so, that at times I seemed so careless and indifferent, as though, the loss, or gain of my soul was a matter of no

importance: consequently I took the latter part of your sermon entirely to myself, as being the individual you pointed out, and branded with the awful name of reprobate. Oh, brother, my soul trembled at the thought of being cast off as a reprobate; and at times I am sadly afraid that God will give me over to a reprobate mind, but I trust he never will. Yet notwithstanding my dreadful fears in this matter, I could say, and can still say, that in my heart I am sure I do not hate Christ, that I do not hate his truth, that I do not hate his ministers, that I do not hate his dear people, no, they are as dear to my soul, yea, dearer than life itself, and my only grief and sorrow is, because I cannot love Christ, his truth, his ministers, and his people more: yet although I cannot love them so much as I should wish, I do not hate them, for God is my witness that I love all his people in the Lord Jesus Christ, and for the truth's sake, and by the help of God, had I a thousand lives they should all be devoted to his glory; and living in love and unity with his people. But, my dear brother, though you sent me home sorrowing, what I had heard was not without its advantages, for I heartily bless God I was so cut in pieces: and methinks such discourses in the hand of the Spirit of God are very benefitting to the Lord's family, for such plain dealings leads them to self examination, it excites jealousy within, as to whether they are born of God and taught by his Spirit, or not; it drives them out of their false refuges, it creates anxiety within, and makes them anxious to know whether they are stony-ground-hearers, or whether they have Christ set up in their hearts as the hope of glory. If such solemn realities as those I heard from your lips, sounded from every pulpit in this great metropolis, depend upon it there would not be so many dead, deluded professors and stalking hypocrites as there are, who have a name to live, in a mere outside garb of godliness, and appear righteous unto men, but who are nothing else than whited sepulchres, and inwardly are full of dead men's bones, hypocrisy, and iniquity, and dying without the grace of God must eternally perish in their own deceivings. O, may the Lord, in infinite mercy, ever keep us and all his dear chosen ones feeling after Christ, as the way, the truth, and the life.

669

""'Tis he alone can do helpless sinners good."

I feel and know by daily experience that nothing but Christ and his finished salvation will satisfy my poor soul; and if God's salvation rested on any thing contingent, I know I must be lost for ever, such a poor helpless thing do I feel myself to be; a base, wicked, proud, and deceitful heart I feel daily dragging me into captivity, and making my soul miserable. Pride, that is ready at all times to puff me up, and take advantage at every opportunity, with a host of temptations from the devil, and nothing but a manifestation of God's almighty grace to my soul, through the medium Christ Jesus, can subdue my proud heart and make me humble before God, for as Hart says,—

"Gethsemane's the place,

Where pride dare not intrude;

For should it dare to enter there, 'Twould soon be drown'd in blood." No, brother, none but those who are taught experimentally by God the Spirit, know anything of the everlasting love of God, of the efficacious blood of the Almighty Redeemer, and of the rich anointings of the Holy Ghost, in a way to make them sick of self and sin, and to put their trust in the Lord. A man must feel his nakedness before he will prize the righteousness of Christ: a man must feel his sickness before he feels his need of the good physician to heal him: a man must feel that he has a host of enemies too strong for him, before he will cry unto God, like king Jehoshaphat when the Moabites and Ammonites were no might against this great company that "For we have coming up against him, cometh up against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee." 2 Chron. xx. 12. Of these things all the living in Jerusalem know something more or less. What wonders will the grace of God do! it will make a king a beggar, and a beggar a king—

"Grace 'tis a charming sound,
Harmonious to the ear;

Heaven with the echo shall resound,
And all the earth shall hear."

But I find I have ran along, and written considerably more than I intended to write, and I have not yet said a word about the circumstance by which I was actuated to write to you. It is as follows: I had a bill put in my hand last Friday night in Redcross Street, on which was printed the contents of the

G 2