"Seest thou this woman?" Examine her character, and ask if it is thine. "Seest thou this woman?" Look at her opportunity, seize it, and fly to Christ wherever you find Him. "Seest thou this woman?" Look at her manifestation of feeling, and see if necessity has driven thee to Christ, and the new creation in thy heart has constrained thee to pour forth tears of affection, love, and gratitude, to a glorious Saviour. Then sit down at His feet, and raise high thine expectations of enjoying and knowing more of His precious person, receiving repeated tokens of His forgiving love, and anticipating the moment when He shall say, "Come, pardoned soul; come, ransomed soul; come, renewed soul, and be thou a glorified soul with me above." May He send down His Spirit to apply these few remarks with power Divine to the hearts of my hearers, and, at all events, prevent any of them from going away, and saying that we do not preach to sinners, and His precious name shall have all the glory. Amen. THE 84TH SONG IN MR. IRONS' NEW VERSION OF THE PSALMS. GREAT is the Lord, His name confess, Let Zion shout His praise; The mountain of His holiness, The joy and beauty of the earth, Whose citizens, of heav'nly birth, Their liberties record. Within her palaces, her saints, Her cov'nant God is known; Kings have assembled to make war Against the chosen race, Fear seiz'd upon them when they saw The ships of Tarshish Thou shalt break When they Thy Church invade; "Tis but to bid the winds awake, And in the deep they're laid. Delivered in Grove Chapel, Camberwell, Sunday Morning, Feb. 4, 1849, BY THE REV. JOSEPH IRONS. "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth."-1 Peter ii. 22. DURING the week that is passed, we have been saying much respecting sinners and the salvation of sinners. The language which I have just read presents us with a beautiful contrast. It presents us with the only Person of whom it could ever be said since the fall of Adam, "who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." This is a description, concise and full, of that glorious personage whose name and fame we have been attempting to publish these many years, and whose name is, I know, as ointment poured forth to many of your souls. Everything relating to Him, as recorded in the volume of inspiration, serves to enhance His beauty and glory, and to endear Him to the hearts of His people. And this is what I am aiming at this morning; for, after all that is said of Him-after all the glorious names which are given to Him, every one of which is most expressive -and after all that He has done for the Church, and for your heart and mine, you and I may feel thoroughly ashamed that we have so little love to Him. I confess that this has been the great drawback upon my happiness all my life; this has been the great drawback upon my rejoicings, my exultations, and my triumphs day by day; the want of more love to that precious Christ, who is declared to be the Father's Beloved, in whom He is well pleased, whom all the angels adore, whom the millions of glorified spirits worship and love, whom all the Church confide in, and towards whom, I trust, you and I can find in our hearts some little "smoking flax" of affectionate aspiring, Published in Weekly Numbers, 1d., and Monthly Parts, price 5d. 2 Q Christ! Oh, the blessedness of living in the expectation of their being extended by looking at Him in a promise-by looking at Him iu a doctrine-by looking at Him in an ordinance by looking at Him in the closet, and conversing with Him-or even by looking at Him, sitting in contrast with the Pharisee. I can easily conceive that the eye of faith may place before it those two objects, such as the poor woman had. There was the proud, stiff-starched Pharisee, as dead as the seat on which he reclined, and there is the precious, glorious Christ of God humbling himself for the sake of sinners, and determining to save them to the uttermost. I can easily imagine that this poor woman, taught of God, on catching a glimpse of Simon, would be ready to say within herself, "What a demon-like countenance!" Then, turning to Christ, "See, heaven beams in His every look." Catching another glimpse of Simon, "What a mass of pride!" Then, turning to Christ, "What a pattern of humiliation, condescension, submission, and patience, is here!" Glancing once more at Simon, if she condescends to give him another look, "See his blindness, his hardness of heart, and his enmity towards Christ depictured in his very looks, and expressed in every sentence!" She turns away-“I will not look any more there. I can bear no longer the ugliness of the Pharisee. I must turn, and gaze only upon my Saviour. All the love of Deity, all the affection of a husband, all the tenderness of a brother, all the faithfulness of a glorious High Priest, all the responsibility of a Daysman and an Advocate, all the condescension that can bring him down to my ruined case, as a guilty, sinful wretch, whom all the city despises, all the happiness that my empty, guilty, hungering, longing soul can desire to enjoy-all are here pouring forth from His expressive words, and heavenly countenance.' And at length she breaks out, in the rapture of the Church of old, "He is the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely." Oh, look at Him again; He Himself invites you. "Look on me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." "Behold me," is His cry. Look off from everything else, to gaze upon the precious Christ of God, and know more and more of Him; yea, till ye "know even as ye are known." This poor woman expected, also, to receive absolution from the Saviour, and she obtained it. I cannot help contrasting this with the delusion under which millions are acting at this very moment. Millions of persons are, at this moment, and in this long-called Christian country, expecting to receive absolution from a sinner, as vile and polluted as themselves a human official priest. I have not language sufficiently strong to express my loathing of the ignorance that can bend beneath such superstitions, and my deep indignation at the diabolical villainy of those who fill their coffers by contrivances of lies. Talk of absolution from a creature! Surely, none but the devil himself could ever equal it. Nay, I do not think that he ever did; for in all his temptations of Christ, he did not once presume to offer absolution. He certainly did presume to tell Him one barefaced lie; namely, that he would give Him all the kingdoms of the world, which he could not do, because they were not his to give. "All the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." That was base enough; but it is not half so base as the wretches who tell us that they have power to grant absolution to a fellow-worn. It really appears to me, that none of the brute creation are sunk so much beneath their position in the creation of God, as those men are who yield to such horrible delusions. I denounce this, because of the fact that millions of persons are this very day, and even in the British empire, duped and plundered by that horrible doctrine of absolution at the hands of men. Observe, however, that this doctrine, viewed scripturally, is a very precious one; and we do not mean that the devil should rob us of the doctrine, though it is his constant practice to turn to the vilest of uses the best of things. The doctrine of absolution is plainly set forth in Scripture, but then Jehovah assumes it as His own prerogative. "I, even I," says He, "am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah xliii. 25). The Jews asked the question very pertinently, at the close of the chapter from which I have taken my text, when Jesus said unto the woman, "Thy sins are forgiven thee," "Who is this that forgiveth sins?" A very reasonable question; and I wish every poor wretch who visits the Confessional would put that question to the priest. The rational answer would be, "Why a fallen creature, who needs forgiveness himself, or he will go to hell." But when the question is put concerning Christ, "Who is this that forgiveth sins?" the answer is, "He who is able; He who has engaged to blot them out in His own blood; He who, from everlasting, has taken them upon Himself, in covenant engagements, that He might put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself; He who is truly and properly God." A word relative to the difference between the declaration of the doctrine of absolution, and the reception of it from Christ by the poor sinner. They are two different things. Unto Simon the Lord Jesus Christ said, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven." But that would not have satisfied her, if she had stopped there. It was the doctrine of Divine forgiveness in the hands of Christ proclaimed. It was the doctrine of Divine forgiveness, reaching the vilest and guiltiest of sinners. "She loved much," for much was forgiven her; a doctrine that may well raise the hopes and expectations of the guilt-burdened soul. If Jehovah forgives sins, and those of the vilest description, why not mine? In the very existence of such a doctrine, my hearer may hope that, by and bye, Christ will speak unto his heart and conscience with the power of the Holy Ghost, and say, "Thy sins, which are many, are forgiven thee." This assurance is sealed with power. It is received with faith. It is a certificate embosomed in the soul-a satisfaction not to be destroyed-a holy joy commenced, heaven pledged, and hell shut and barred against that soul for ever-Satan vanquished, and all the blessings of the everlasting gospel of Christ opened to the view, to be poured out by the spirit, and enjoyed in personal experience. What thinkest thou, then, beloved, of the doctrine of absolution? Is it brought home to thy conscience? Do you receive it at the hands of our Great High Priest? I solemnly declare, that I would not thank a thousand human priests, even though they were the best men in the world, for all the absolutions they might be able to pronounce in the course of their whole lives. I should treat them all with utter contempt-as mere delusions. But when Jesus speaks to my heart, and says, "I, even I, have blotted out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins," I can believe Him, I receive His assurance, and I cannot resist it. He sets a seal upon it. He puts it in the soul, writes and engraves it in the heart and the mind, and then, like Hezekiah, the pardoned sinner, however great his transgressions may have been, exultingly exclaims, "He has cast all my sins behind His back. When sought for, they shall not be found. When asked after, there shall be none.' "Seest thou this woman?" Examine her character, and ask if it is thine. "Seest thou this woman?" Look at her opportunity, seize it, and fly to Christ wherever you find Him. "Seest thou this woman?" Look at her manifestation of feeling, and see if necessity has driven thee to Christ, and the new creation in thy heart has constrained thee to pour forth tears of affection, love, and gratitude, to a glorious Saviour. Then sit down at His feet, and raise high thine expectations of enjoying and knowing more of His precious person, receiving repeated tokens of His forgiving love, and anticipating the moment when He shall say, "Come, pardoned soul; come, ransomed soul; come, renewed soul, and be thou a glorified soul with me above." May He send down His Spirit to apply these few remarks with power Divine to the hearts of my hearers, and, at all events, prevent any of them from going away, and saying that we do not preach to sinners, and His precious name shall have all the glory. Amen. THE 84TH SONG IN MR. IRONS' NEW VERSION OF THE PSALMS. GREAT is the Lord, His name confess, Let Zion shout His praise; The mountain of His holiness, The joy and beauty of the earth, Whose citizens, of heav'nly birth, Their liberties record. Within her palaces, her saints, Her cov'nant God is known; Kings have assembled to make war Against the chosen race, Fear seiz'd upon them when they saw The ships of Tarshish Thou shalt break When they Thy Church invade; "Tis but to bid the winds awake, And in the deep they're laid. |