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more dominion over Him;" having died once, He dieth no more. And had He not much honour put upon Him in His humiliation! Was not the tomb burst open, the veil rent, the sun darkened, the sol diers frightened? Were not the powers of darkness vanquished, and the people astounded, so that the cry was extorted, "Truly this was the Son of God?" And if He had so much honour put upon Him— if He had so much authority and kingly power and sovereignty given to Him in the depths of His humiliation, has He not much more now? He has now not a mere reed, which can be crushed with one blow, or one wave, but He has the sceptre of all worlds in His hands, ruling all things by the word of His power; and consequently His Church, His espoused bride, His redeemed people will be as safe on earth, though not quite so happy, as when they get home-as safe in fiery furnaces, as safe amidst deluges of trials, as safe amidst fiery temptations, as safe in the midst of sorrow, as safe in the midst of awful persecutions, as they will be when seated at His right hand. Not so happy, I grant you; old nature does not like even the contemplation of these things; but I hear Him saying, as if spoken afresh from the throne, the very language which He has caused His prophet to pen; "Fear not; for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."

Beloved, do you believe your King? Can you trust your King? Can you commit your all to your King? Then call upon thy soul, as I call upon mine, to complain no more, but to thank Him that He is "doing what seemeth Him good in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth," ruling over all worlds, angel hosts flying at His command. Some here, ministering to "the heirs of salvation" this morning. And devils, with all their legions in the bottomless pit, chained. He has laid hold of the old serpent, and locked him up, He has said concerning them all, that thus far should they go, and no farther; He has promised His children that "no temptation shall happen to them but such as is common to men, and that He will with the temptation make a way for them to escape, that they may be able to bear it." Oh! how sweet the thought, that while heaven and hell are under His control, the earth is not lost sight of! Nations, empires, thrones, monarchs, rulers, good or bad, are under His check, His control, His sway, His direction, and if any of them should turn out as wicked as Haman, as perfidious as Pilate, or as cruel as Herod, none of them can advance a step further than our glorious King permits. They have only permission, just as when, in the days of His flesh, the devils besought Him to let them go into the herd of swine; they could not have entered even into a hog without His permission, much less into a sheep; and if they had asked Him to let them go into a flock of sheep, He would not have permitted them, because the sheep is an emblem of His Church, but when they asked Him to let them go into the swine, an emblem of the world, He let them go at once. Now is His dominion circumscribed? Is there a city, a parish, or a house in the whole world, in which one of His chil dren dwells, that His eye is not upon, that His hand is not stretched out to defend, that His bounty is not waiting to supply? Blessed be His name, He overlooks nothing relating to His kingdom, and rules

over all worlds, for the advancement of His own designs and the consummation of His own purposes.

And all this must terminate in the entire and eternal salvation of His whole Church. His name is called Jesus, for this very reason, "He shall save His people from their sins." It is astonishing how some persons hate the Bible. There are multitudes that pass for Christians, and would fain make us believe that they are Protestants, too, who, to support their own creed, most awfully pervert that text. They are obliged to read it something like this: "His name shall be called Jesus, and probably He may, or can, save all His people from their sins." I am sure I would tear it out of my Bible if it read so, for it would doom me to eternal despair. But I cannot read it so. İ read it as it is written, and maintain it to be correct: "His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." Do you not see that "shall" engraven upon His brow? Do you not see that "shall" constituting the basis of His throne? Go to His mercy seat, poor sinner, cry for mercy; tell Him what a sinner you are, and see it written on the front of the mercy seat on which He sits, "He shall save His people from their sins." "He shall save." Mark, it is not a probability, it is not a peradventure, it is not a proposal, it is not a contingency; there it is, engraven as in eternal brass, "He shall save His people from their sins." Well, but they are determined that they will not be saved. Never mind, they shall be saved. They can do nothing towards saving themselves, but "He shall save" them. But who? "His people;" all that the Father gave Him. What from? "From their sins." Every one personally pardoned, cleansed, accepted, sinless and pure! Glory to His name, that this is the purpose of His exaltation. Farewell, Gethsemane, for the present; farewell, Pilate's hall, for the present, just to allow us (shall I call it?) a symphony before we get together again—to get away from earth, beyond Joseph's tomb, up higher than the Mount of Olives, and see our precious exalted Christ wearing His "many crowns," swaying His sceptre over all worlds, ordering all things according to the council of His own will, enriching all the subjects of His grace, securing their eternal salvation, and thereby glorifying all the perfections and attributes of Deity.

Oh, ye sinners of hardened character! ye sinners, who still crown Him with thorns! ye sinners, who would succomb to Pilate's perfidy! mark, He is a King, and so sure as you leave this world without bowing to His sceptre, He will "dash you in pieces like a potter's vessel," and destroy you with an eternal destruction. If you never owned Him as a King before, you shall feel Him to be so at the last day; if you never bowed to His sceptre of mercy, you shall beneath His sword of vengeance; if you were not under the sway of His grace here, you must then be under the mighty arm of His wrath. For ever! Too late to ask a favour, to touch the sceptre's top, or obtain a moment's reprieve. But, my hearers, if your consciences are at all touched, if your hearts are at all capable of feeling, if you have a single spark of repentance given you by the Holy Ghost, oh! let me enjoin upon you, that all other sovereigns be utterly rejected, and the Lord alone exalted, throughout the whole of your experience, and throughout eternity. Then may you anticipate the holy joy, the high exultation, the eternal rapture, of being among the kings and priests that shall reign with Him for ever and ever.

Rejoice, ye subjects of His grace, in whose heart Jesus reigns, who have sworn allegiance to Him under the constraining influence of His love, exalt His precious name, maintain your loyalty to Him, and anticipate the fulfilment of His promise, that "the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever" (Dan. vii. 18). Even now the blessings of His kingdom of grace are open for your enjoyment, the righteousness, the peace, and the joy of the Holy Ghost, which constitute that kingdom, are yours, and nothing but your unbelief prevents your possessing them; and I trust that some of you have already appropriated them by faith. Look up, then, with bright anticipation to the period when all that you have realized here shall be consummated in everlasting glory, where you shall be like your exalted King, and see Him as He Let this eternal inheritance be kept in view; let this soul-animating prospect, accompanied as it is with Divine certainty, constrain you to make the apostolic vow, "Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death" (Phil. i. 20).

is.

May God Almighty command a blessing on these few hints, and His name shall have all the glory.

THE 30TH SONG IN

MR. IRONS'S NEW VERSION OF THE BOOK OF PSALMS.

KING Jesus reigns on Zion's hill,
His throne is truth and grace;
He works salvation as He will,
For all His chosen race.

His heart's desire His Father gives;
And glory crowns His brow;
His people live, because He lives,
And all His foes must bow.

Salvation glorifies His name,
The joy before Him set;
Let all the saints His love proclaim,
His triumphs ne'er forget.

Honour and majesty Divine
To Zion's King belong;

His righteousness is counted mine,
I'll praise Him in my song.

All His redeem'd may shout, for us
King Jesus ever reigns;

Jehovah is exalted thus,

His Church salvation gains.

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Delivered in Grove Chapel, Camberwell, Sunday Morning, July 8, 1849, BY THE REV. JOSEPH IRONS.

"And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."-Luke xxiv. 47. THESE words are part of the last address which our glorious Lord delivered to His disciples after His resurrection, giving them their commission to go forth as His heralds, and publish the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. Having told them that all the prophecies which went before concerning Him were fulfilled, and having opened their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures, He insists upon the absolute necessity of His sufferings, death, and resurrection, saying, "Ought not Christ to suffer these things?" and, again, "Thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem;" as though He should say, "Among all nations, Jerusalem sinners are the vilest, therefore let the first proclamations of mercy be made to them; let the nature and necessity of repentance be pointed out to them; yea, let the Divine prerogative of Him they murdered, to give repentance and remission of sins, be first made known to them, assuring them that the vilest sinner there, to whom Jesus gives repentance, shall receive the remission of sins at those very hands which they had nailed to the cross."

How amazing is the account of the darkness and ignorance of the disciples of Christ until He opened their understandings; yea, until the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost descended upon them; so that the very men who had been with Jesus all through His ministry, who had heard His blessed discourses, who had witnessed the miracles Published in Weekly Nos., 1d., and Monthly Parts, 5d.

VOL. II.

K

which He wrought, and who had heard His own testimony of the great work which He came to accomplish, were, after all, so blinded and unbelieving as to doubt and dispute the great reality, when all had been accomplished before their eyes. How indisputably does this prove that nothing short of the Divine illumination, and teaching of the Holy Ghost, can make men wise unto salvation, or even give them any spiritual discernment of spiritual things. A man may have the most capacious mind, the most finished education, yea, the most orthodox creed, yet, if he has nothing beyond nature, if he has no Divine illumination, no heavenly birth and education, he lives and dies as destitute of real Christianity as the brute creation. He may have read his Bible to criticise upon its statements, until he can almost repeat its contents, and yet be destitute of all the grand realities which it sets forth. This humiliating fact, which stares us in the face in every grade of society, turn which way we will, confirms the grand doctrines of grace which we are setting forth from time to time, and warrants the boldest statements we can make of man's utter ruin, and of God's absolute sovereignty in the whole work of salvation and redemption; and in no doctrine is the ignorance and perverseness of man more conspicuous than in that which our text contains, or else no man would refer repentance to creatures, as if it were in their power, while it is declared to be the gift which Christ is exalted to bestow; nor would any man look to a fellow-man for the remission of sins, which it is the prerogative of Christ alone to impart; and when He imparts it, His princely sovereignty is employed, for He is exalted a Prince and a Saviour for this very purpose.

The words of our text contain three prominent features, to which I invite your prayerful attention. First, the subjects of apostolic preaching, "Repentance and remission of sins." Secondly, the efficiency and authority thereof, "in His name.' Thirdly, the extent thereof, 66 among all nations," with the special direction to "begin at Jerusalem."

I.-The subjects. The word repent has various significations in Scripture, and we shall do well to notice them distinctly. When God is said to repent, it means a change of conduct, not a change of mind, for He is of one mind and none can turn Him. Man may be said to repent when he changes his opinion, renouncing one sentiment for another. A sinner may be said to repent when he smarts under the consequences of his wickedness, and regrets the folly which brought him into misery, as Pharaoh and Judas; the one said, "I have sinned against the Lord," and of the other it is written, "he repented and went out and hanged himself," "that he might go to his own place;" but these are not the repentance which we are commanded to preach, neither a change of conduct, nor a change of creed, nor a change of words, but a change of heart, producing heart-felt sorrow for sin. All the former kinds of repentance are but the ebullitions of nature, but this is the work of grace; the repentance which we are commanded to preach is one of Christ's ascension gifts, brought into the soul by the invincible operation of the Holy Ghost, and is in nowise dependent upon man, but man is the recipient, and then it is repentance unto life, the pledge and earnest of the remission of sins.

The fatal mistake so prevalent in the present day is the supposition that the great realities of the gospel are within the grasp of poor,

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