Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

Ashtoreth the creative energy, in Mercury or Mercurius (Acts xiv. 12) the expressive word, and in Jupiter the thunders and lightnings of the Most High. And poets and orators in all ages have abundantly followed this example, which, being unaware of its real root, Mr. D. has copied. But a Christian teacher should draw his wisdom and mode of utterance from the Scriptures, and should not thus "learn the way of the heathen," but avoiding all such poetical and oratorical language, should speak forth the words of truth and soberness.

We have thus largely commented on this passage, not from any personal unkind feeling to the writer, but as simply giving our thoughts on an important point. After we had read the passage, and formed our opinion of it, we incidentally saw it quoted with approbation in a religious periodical, and this has induced us to lay open our minds more fully perhaps than we should have otherwise done, that we might not condemn without assigning our reasons. When we do not fully approve of a work, we like to state our reasons, and at the same time give as long an extract as our limits will allow from the work itself. Here, we say, is the sample, and here is our opinion of it. Let our readers judge. We condemn it not without alleging evidence, and offering our reasons for our judgment. Whether that opinion be correct, must be left to the discernment of those who have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel the grounds on which that judgment rests.

The Gospel Preached to Babes.

This little work is intended for the use of children; it is written principally in words of two syllables, and is intended, as the author says, to "preach Jesus to a child, and to simplify the great truths of Christianity to the infantile understanding." The arrangement of the little book and the language are well adapted for the use of children; and the truths of the Bible simplified in this form for the purpose of teaching children first to read, we approve of; but as to considering this to be "the gospel preached to babes," it is foreign to the point, and gives a legal sound. Works of this kind should be written according to sound doctrine and truth, and not calculated to teach the child a system of fleshly religion and self-righteousness, which, indeed, is the strain that the most of such works are written in; nor is the book before us free. "Pray to God to pardon your faults, and to make you a good girl, for the sake of Jesus Christ." (p. 13.) This is the very foundation of the whole host of fleshly religion, and the very religion that every unregenerate heart has in it. Again: "If we are good, he will take us to heaven." (p. 8.) There are many sentences equally legal. If the book was written according to the harmony of truth, it might be useful in teaching children to read, but as it is, it would need to be much altered before we could recommend it.

POETRY.

ON THE EXCELLENCY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. See the bright, noble, living dawn, Help, did I say? Help only comes Where sharp repentance, thorny way, From the blest Spirit's quick'ning pow'r, Where faith, that stills sin's sobbing moan,'Tis He to death the wretch that dooms, Twinkling, leads pardon forth to day. 'Tis He his pardon down docs lower. O the sad midnight of despair, The Scriptures, fair and beauteous shell, Which sin, as lead, does sink man in! The kernel hid lies deep beneath; The Gospel, constellation fair, None by the Bible escape hell; Helps him the port of peace to win. 'Tis God must on our dry bones breathe.

If victory over hell we gain,
The Bible is the echoing sound,
Something than Scripture more we want; But who from sounds can substance suck?
Ah! something more, indeed! hell's pain, To the High Lord, then, O my soul,
Nought less for reading, stings does plant.Thine Alpha and Omega, look;
What serves the Bible, then? As reeds Assured that nothing good can roll
For arrows, which the Spirit shoots.
Unless the Spirit sows the seeds,
Vain are the crops, vain are the roots.
My soul, dost thou, then, keep in view,
That'tis God's hand these arrows shoots?
Thus, never can the letter strew
Seeds that yield ever living fruits.
No: else the glory would redound
To the muteScripture's breathless book:

But what from Him its life-springs took
When reading, then, the sacred page,
Dost thou feel God's electing power?
Lighting repentance' fiery rage?
Has faith's clock struck thee pardon's hour?
May the bless'd Bible's glorious glow,
Lit thus with supernat'ral fires,
Wisdom's fair living seeds me sow,
And guard me from the fowler's wires.

THE PLAGUE OF THE HEART.

"All thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his ɔwn heart.”
1 Kings viii. 38.

Dear Lord, is it so, that thy people must know

And feel, although but in part,

The power of sin that rages within,

The dreadful, sad plague of the heart?

Thy word doth declare that every heir

To whom thou new life dost impart,

That within him's a foe, he shall feel it, and know
The plague, the sad plague of the heart.

Professors may run, and bastards may shun
The rod, who for sin never smart;
Deceiv'd, on they go, not feeling the woe,
That springs from the plague of the heart.
But those whom God loves, he constantly proves
In the furnace; their dross he will part
From the gold till it shine: thus he will refine,
And teach them the plague of their heart.

O it oft bows me down, and makes me to groan;
Such a sight often makes me to start;

It fills me with fear, that grace is not here,

When I feel the sad plague of my heart.

Such a host of strong foes that me daily oppose,
Are swarming in every part;

Unbelief, lust, and pride, and a thousand beside:
O the plague, the sad plague of my heart.
The world's a sad foe, oft makes me groan too,
And Satan with his fiery dart;

But tongue can't express the greatest distress
That comes from the plague of my heart.

I never can tell the half that I feel,
No, nor yet the ten-thousandth part;

I fail to repeat, the mystery's so great,

The plague, the sad plague of the heart.

But none can e'er show, or make us to know,
But the Spirit that new life doth impart,

The fountain within of indwelling sin;
He reveals the sad plague of the heart.
He sometimes unseals, and the mystery reveals,
That Christ hath borne all my desert,

Sutton Banjer,

Bore the curse due to me, when he hung on the tree---
Sweet balm for the plague of my heart,

Then sweetly I prove that God rests in his love,
Nor with me, a rebel, will part;

Then I sink and I rise, low in self, high in grace,
And soar o'er the plague of my heart;

Then I bless and I praise the riches of grace,
That I in his love have a part.

Well, the time will soon come that I shall go home,
And be freed from this plague of the heart.

A SMOKING FLAX,

GLEANINGS.

"The more I strove to avoid him, the nearer he approached; the vision opened brighter and brighter, and the impression was made deeper upon my mind; and the more I condemned myself, and tried to creep into darkness from his sight, the more he smiled upon me, and the more he melted, renewed, and comforted my soul. When I found I could not shua him, nor shut out his dissolving beams, I arose from the ground and went into the garden. Here I found that all my temptations were fled; my hard thoughts of God, and the dreadful ideas I had of him in his righteous law were dissipated; my sins, which had stood before me during so many months with their ghastly and formidable appearance, had spread their wings and taken flight, as far from me as the East is from the West, so that no bird remained upon the sacrifice. My darkness was dispelled by the rays of the Sun of Righteousness;' and life and immortality appeared in such a glorious point of view, that I swooned in the soul-renewing and soul-transporting flames of everlasting love! All the horrors of the damned and my meditations upon their irrevocable doom, vanished; confusion and despair sunk into oblivion; the self-existent Jehovah, the God of armies, had put all to flight, and kept both throne and field alone, waving the banner of eternal love. The reprobate and the awful lines of threatenings were all set at the foot of the mount, and I was brought under the covenant line of God's elect; while the unconditional promises of an everlasting gospel stood as numerous as the leaves in autumn to secure my interest in a finished salvation. My thoughts were sweetly established; my heart was firmly fixed; my mind was serenely composed; my doubts and fears were finally fled; my conscience appeared a mysterious principality, divinely governed by the Prince of Peace; my affections were rapturously inflamed; my heart sweetly resigned; and grace, with all her comforting operations, swaying her uncontrollable sceptre over every faculty of my soul. Thus sin, Satan, death, destruction, horror, despair, unbelief, confusion, and distraction struck their flags; and were routed, vanquished, and slain before the triumphant Redeemer's artillery, displayed from the wonderful armoury, the mystery of the cross, where God and sinners meet. I went into the tool-house in all the agonies of the damned, and returned with the kingdom of God established in my heart. O happy year! happy day! blessed minute! sacred spot! Yea, rather, blessed be my dear Redeemer, who 'delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling." (Ps. cxvi. 8.)”—Huntington's Kingdom of Heaven taken by Prayer, pp. 181.

THE LATE MISSIONARY WILLIAMS.

Much interest having been excited in what is called the religious world by the unhappy massacre of the missionary Williams by some of the savage heathens of the New Hebrides, in the Pacific Ocean, I cannot forbear to tell a little anecdote connected with him. I was travelling a few years ago in a coach inside with him, (not knowing at the time who he was) and a young Oxford student. The subject of religion having come up, the student asked the missionary whether he thought the gospel was preached more among the Dissenters, or in the Church of England. The reply of the missionary of the South Seas was, "Why, Sir, if we except two sects, the Unitarians and the Antinomians, I believe every dissenting minister in England preaches the gospel." However we may lament the unhappy massacre of a most amiable and zealous individual, we can hardly, after such a speech, consider he knew any thing experimentally of the glorious doctrine of Jesus Christ.—Aliquis.

Mr. Huntington was once preaching from "Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty; for he is the Lord; and worship thou him ;" (Ps. xlv. 10 ;) when he was powerfully impressed that his text was given for some elect vessel present, who was at that time a member of the Romish Church; nor was he deceived, for my late friend, Mrs. Snelling, for the first time, was present, who answered in every respect to the character, and the Lord blessed the word to the quickening of her soul; and though her old connections strove to subvert her, she witnessed a long and good confession, and died in Mr. Fowler's communion, in London. I, who am now writing this account, being favoured with her acquaintance, witnessed her, a few days previous to her death, expressing her vehement desire to depart, to be with Christ; which she said she knew would be so very far better; and what was still more remarkable, she was at the time happy in mind, surrounded with every earthly comfort, and, for what I could see, in good health of body.-L. Z.

One Sunday morning, (said Mr. S.,) I heard Mr. Huntington preach, and he was, as it were, in the spirit and power of Elias. He preached from "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone," (Hosea iv. 17,) observing as follows, "Let him alone conscience; let him alone wrath; let him alone law." From that discourse the word of God was as a sharp sword with two edges cutting two ways; it was made a savour of life and a savour of death, for one man, who had been in a backsliding state, was graciously restored, and another man went and put an end to his mortal existence.-L. Z.

I have sometimes seen more in a line of the Bible than I could well tell how to stand under; and yet, at another time, the whole Bible hath been to me as a dry stick; or, rather, my heart hath been so dead and dry unto it, that I could not conceive the least dram of refreshment, though I have looked it all over.— Bunyan.

I have wondered much at this one thing, that though God doth visit my soul with ever so blessed a discovery of himself, yet I have found again, that such hours have attended me afterwards, and I have been in my spirit so filled with darkness, that I could not so much as once conceive what that God and that comfort was, with which I had been refreshed.—Bunyan.

Of all the temptations that ever I met with in my life, to question the being of of God and truth of his gospel is the worst, and the worst to be borne.-Bunyan. No human creature's life is peaceable without disquietness; every one hath his tribulations; and many a one, rather than be without them, will make and procure disquietness to himself; for no man is content with that which God giveth and sendeth. Hath one a wife? so wisheth he that he had her not; & single man desireth to have a wife; a master wisheth to be a servant; a poor man would willingly be rich, a rich man continually coveteth more he cannot be filled nor satisfied. Even so fareth it with the heart of a human creature, which never can be at rest.—Luther.

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. 55.

JULY, 1840.

GOOD TIDINGS.

VOL. VI.

My dear friend does not, I trust, impute my long silence to any decrease of affection and esteem on my part, but to inability to write to him as I could wish. You heard that I was thinking of visiting Ireland for ten days or a fortnight; and had it not been for the violent tempests which have been very awful on our coast, I should in all human probability by this time have returned thence. Three weeks successively was I waiting for an opportunity to leave, but every time I made the attempt, the storm arose with redoubled violence, and the steamers could not leave the port. Seeing so manifestly that the hand of the Lord was against my desire, I at length abandoned it for the time being. No sooner had I done this, than the reason wherefore I was to remain here came to light. During the time of my detention, a person, who had been at the very brink of despair, was brought into glorious liberty by the Lord; and although wishing to keep it back, was constrained to make me acquainted therewith. When you hear who that person is, it will, I think, astonish you. It is, then, no other than Mrs. B. For the last eighteen months or more, she had been in the deepest distress of soul. Time after time the Lord broke her false confidence into pieces, and ripped open the deceit of her heart; and such has been her wretchedness, and the condemnation which she got under my ministry, that she has often determined in herself that she would leave the chapel, and thus escape being so lacerated and pierced; but she said she felt she dared not leave, and was obliged to continue coming. All her former religion she lost, and became convinced there was a something in God's regenerate children which was not in her, and this conviction so worked in: her, that she often thought she must be eternally lost. About a week before her deliverance, she dreamed that she took a living child, which be longed to no one and to every one, and cut it into pieces as beartlessly as if it had been a piece of meat after which, seeing a nail on the wall, she

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »