REVIEW OF MR. SPURGEON'S MINISTRY. at Waterbeach, when only seventeen years of age; and continued there until his removal to Southwark, in the early part of the present year. 279 William Gadsby, John Warburton, John of the man, who when he was dying, called me Foreman, James Wells, and others, and that to see him: he said, 'I am going to heaven.' of C. H. Spurgeon! Yet-who will dare to Well,' I replied, what makes you think you say that the latter is not as much of God, are going there, for you never thought of it as are all the former?-Mr. C. H. Spurgeon before ? Said he, God is good.'Yes,' I was brought to know the Lord for himself answered, but God is just.' 'No,' said he, under a powerful sermon preached from creature was dying, and being lost for ever, for 'God is merciful and good.' Now that poor these words, (when he was only fifteen years he had not a right conception of God. He had of age,)—“ Look unto me, and be ye saved, only one idea of God: that God is good; but all ye ends of the earth." About one year that is not enough. If you only see one attriand a half from this period, he was baptised bute, you only have half a God. God is good, at Isleham, in Cambridgeshire; and com- and he is a sovereign, and doeth what he menced preaching the gospel as far as it was pleases, and though good to all, in the sense of revealed and opened unto him; and very benevolence, he is not obliged to be good to any. many seals did the Lord give him even at 'I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, the outset; some of whom remain in the and show mercy on whom I will show mercy.' visible church as witnesses of the power of Do not you be alarmed, my friends, because I God even through the feeble instrumentality am going to preach about sovereignty. I know of a stripling so newly come to the faith. some people, when they hear about sovereignty, He was chosen pastor of the Baptist Church Oh, we are going to have some terrible high doctrine.' Well; if it is in the Bible, that is enough for you. Is not that all you want to know? If God says 'I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy,' it is not for you to say it is high doctrine. Who told you it is high doctrine? It is good doctrine. What right have you to call one doctrine high and one low? Would you like me to have a Bible with 'H' against high, and 'L' against low, so that I could leave the high doctrine out, and please you? My bible has no mark of that will be gracious.' There is divine sovereignty. kind; it says "I will be gracious to whom I I believe some are afraid to say anything about this great doctrine, lest they should offend some of their people; but, my friends, it is true, and you shall hear it. God is a sovereign. He was a sovereign ere he made this world. lived alone, and this was in his mind, Shall I make anything, or shall I not? I have a right to make creatures, or not to make any. He resolved that he would fashion a world. When he made it, he had a right to form the world in what shape and size he pleased; and he had a right, if he chose, to leave the globe untenanted by a single creature. When he had resolved to ever kind of creature he liked. he had a right to make him whatIf he wished to make him a worm or a serpent, he had a right to do it. When he made him, he had a right to put any command on him that he In a sermon of Mr. Spurgeon's-entitled pleased; and God had a right to say to Adam, "A View of God's Glory," we have the Thou shalt not touch that forbidden tree. And Sovereignty of God declared in a bold and when Adam offended, God had a right to pun becoming spirit. After a striking illustra-ish him, and all the race for ever in the bottomtion of the Goodness of God, he says We are disposed to believe there is some truth in the statement of a correspondent he says "I believe Mr. Spurgeon is as great a lover of free-grace and of real Calvinism, as any man; but the bigotry of some, who cannot hear the truth unless expressed in certain phrases, seems to put him out of heart; and keeps him walking almost in a separate path. All the moderates," (adds our correspondent,) "are ready to bite their tongues for rage, at, what they call Mr. Spurgeon's hyperism." Poor creatures! We have but one desire for them, and that is, that the Lord himself may break their hearts by the powerful application of Divine truth-cause them to know what it is to be driven to the very ends of the earth; to sink, as Jonah did, into the belly of hell; from thence to look with the eye of a living faith unto the Mediator, with "God be merciful to me, a sinner;" and when sovereign mercy has really delivered, pardoned, and established them on the only solid foundation, as loud as any they will cry-" Salvation is OF THE LORD." make man, He less pit. God is so far sovereign, that he has a right, if he likes, to save any one in this "I can say no more concerning God's good- chapel, or to crush all who are here. He has ness. But this is not all that Moses saw. If a right to take us all to heaven, if he pleases, you look to the words which follow my text, or to destroy us. He has a right to do just as you will see that God said. 'I will make all he pleases with us. We are as much in his my goodness pass before thee,' but there was hands, as prisoners in the hands of her majesty, something more. No one attribute of God sets when they are condemned for a capital offence God out to perfection; there must always be against the law of the land; yea, as much as another. He said-'I will be gracious to whom clay in the hands of the potter. This is what I will be gracious, and will show mercy on he asserted, when he said-'I will be gracious whom I will show mercy.' There is another to whom I will be gracious, and I will shew attribute of God. There is his sovereignty.mercy on whom I will shew mercy.' This stirs God's goodness without his sovereignty does up your carnal pride, does it not? Men want not completely set forth his nature. I think to be somebody. They do not like to lie down 280 REVIEW OF MR. SPURGEON'S MINISTRY. In the course of his sermon on the harvest, he said before God, and have it preached to them that I accustomed to call deep, experimental preachGod can do just as he wills with them. Ah! ing while, on the other hand, there are you may hate it, but it is what the scripture frequent bursts of zealous, exhortary, and tells us. Surely it is self-evident that God may urgent expression, which might be consido as he will with his own. We all like to do dered indicative of a legal and Arminian what we will with our own property. God has bias of mind. Nevertheless, there is a said, that if you go to his throne, he will hear you; but he has a right not to do it, if he likes. wholesome vein running through the whole He has a right to do just as he pleases. If he of it; which constrains us to hope that, to a choose to let you go on in the error of your large class of persons, it will be a great ways, that is his right; and if he says, as he blessing. The following paragraphs, gathered does Come unto me all ye that are weary, out rather hastily, will, we think, bear us and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,' out. it is his right to do so. That is the high and awful doctrine of DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY." Instead of fighting shy of Mr. Spurgeonor of being ready to bite our tongues with rage-when we read such sentiments as the following, our souls are ready to jump for joy, to find a young Timothy like him so unflinching and at the same time so fully alive to the real wants of the churches of Christ in these days. We know it is not very pleasant to go into the pulpit, and see half the pews empty-and then to be told afterward, the people are gone-some to the Surrey Tabernacle, and others to New Park Street. No; no; this is not pleasant to a proud heart; but, if it be so--and if at either of those places the people get better food than we can give them, we must say "the will of the Lord be done." Come, brethren, read the following paragraph and, then, if you can, pray that our God may keep this young minister faithful even unto death. In the same sermon to which we have referred, he said— "Put the two together-goodness and sovereignty-and you see God's glory. If you take sovereignty alone, you will not understand God. Some people only have an idea of God's sovereignty, and not of his goodness, such are usually gloomy, harsh, and ill-humoured. You must put the two together; that God is good, and that God is a sovereign. You must speak of sovereign grace. God is not grace alone, he is sovereign grace. He is not sovereign alone, but he is graciously sovereign. That is the best idea of God. When Moses said 'I beseech thee, show me thy glory,' God made him see that he was glorious, and that his glory was his sovereign goodness. Surely, beloved, we cannot be wrong in loving the doctrine of free, unmerited, distinguishing grace, when we see it thus mentioned as the brightest jewel in the crown of our covenant God. Do not be afraid of election and sovereignty. The time is come when our ministers must tell us more about them, or it not our souls will be so lean and starved that we shall mutiny for the bread of life. Oh may God send us more thorough gospel men who will preach sovereign grace as the glory of the gospel." There may be-we were going to say, there must of necessity be-yea, we may safely say, there is-in Mr. Spurgeon's ministry, but very little of what we are Christians "Every Christian is a sower sent into the world to sow good seed, and to sow good seed only. I do not say that Christian men never sow any other seed than good seed. Sometimes, in unguarded moments, they take garlic into their hands instead of wheat; and we may sow tares instead of corn. suffers his people to fall, so that they sow sins; sometimes make mistakes, and God sometimes but the Christian never reaps his sins; Christ reaps them for him. He often has to have a decoction made of the bitter leaves of sin, but he never reaps the fruit of it. Christ has borne the punishment. Yet bear in mind, my brethren, if you and I sin against God, God will take our sin and he will get an essence from it that will be bitter to our taste: though he does not make us eat the fruits, yet still he will make us grieve and sorrow over our crimes. But the Christian, as I have said, should be shall have a glorious harvest. In some sense employed in sowing good seed, and as such he or other the Christian must be sowing seed. If God calls him to the ministry, he is a seed sower; if God calls him to the Sabbath School, he is a seed sower; whatever his office, he is a sower of seed. Here I stand, Sabbath after Sabbath, and on week days too, and sow seed broadcast all over this immense field; I cannot tell where my seed goes. Some are like barren ground, and they object to the seed that I sow. Let them-I have no objection that man should do so. I am only responsible to God, whose servant I am. There are others, and my seed falls upon them and brings forth a little fruit, but by and by when the sun is up, because of persecution, they whither away and they die. But I hope there are many here, who are like the good ground that God has prepared, and when I scatter the seed abroad it falls on good ground and bring forth fruit to an abundant harvest. Ah! the minister has a joyful harvest, even in this world, when he sees souls converted. I have had a harvest time when I have led the sheep down to the washing of Baptism, when I have seen God's people coming out from the mass of the world, and telling what the Lord has done for their souls-when God's children are edified and built up it is worth living for, and worth dying ten thousand deaths for to be harvest it is when God gives us converted the means of saving one soul. What a joyful ones by tens and hundreds, and 'adds to his church abundantly such as shall be saved!' Now I am like a farmer just at this season of any REVIEW OF MR. SPURGEON'S MINISTRY. the year. I have got a good deal of wheat down, and I want to get it into the barn, for fear the rain comes and spoils it. I believe I have got a great many here, good pious Christian persons, but they will persist in standing out in the field. I want to get them into the barns. They are good people, but they do not like to make a profession and join the church. I want to get them into my Master's granary, and to see Christians added to the church. I see some holding down their heads and saying, he means me. So I do. You ought before this to have joined Christ's church; and unless you are fit to be gathered into Christ's little garner here on earth, you have no right to anticipate being gathered into that great garner which is in heaven." Again in the following paragraphsthere are weighty and powerful truths thrown out in so striking a manner, as are calculated, under God, to alarm, to arrest, to convince, and to constrain, many a careless professor! Yea, we can never believe that such a ministry will fail-it must do good. Let giddy and careless professors read this: "The worst harvest will be that of those who sin against the church of Christ. I would not that a man should sin against his body; I would not that a man should sin against his estate; I would not that a man should sin against his fellows; but most of all, I would not have him touch Christ's church. He that touches one of God's people, touches the apple of his eye. When I have read of some people finding fault with the servants of the Lord, I have thought within myself, I would not do so. It is the greatest insult to a man to speak ill of his children. You speak ill of God's children, and you will be rewarded for in everlasting punishment. There is not a single one of God's family that God does not love, and if you touch one of them, he will have vengeance on you. Nothing puts a man on his mettle like touching his children; and if you tonch God's church, you will have the direst vengeance of all. The hottest flames of hell are for those who touch God's children. Go on, sinner, laugh at religion if thou pleasest; but know that it is the blackest of sin in all the catalogue of crime. God will forgive anything sooner than that; and though that is not unpardonable, yet if unrepented of, it will meet the greatest punishment. God cannot bear that his elect should be touched, and if you do so, it is the greatest crime you can commit." 281 led to think deeply, and to enter solemnly, into the hidden mysteries of the Person, the passion, the work, the victories, and the kingdom of our inexpressibly glorious Mediator-the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, there is something so supernatural and soul-enchanting in the Holy Spirit's revelation of Jesus in the conscience of a heaven-born soul, and in the unctuous testimony which that soul will bear to the honor of his dear name, that always awakens in us a sense of gratitude to God, and of real sympathy to the person thus honored, and helped to know and to rejoice in "the glories of the Lamb." Prudence lays a constraint on us here, or we could much enlarge. May God the Holy Ghost pour down on the head and heart of this his young servant, and upon all our fellow-labourers in the gospel kingdom, such a measure of holy light, and sanctifying loveas shall produce unity of heart and effort in seeking the glory of God, and the good of souls;-then-and not till then-can it manifestly go well with Zion. Passing by much that is powerfully telling in this discourse, we come to notice the preacher's description of the Character of that Witness, or testimony, which Christ bore. He first shews, that "Christ witnessed directly from himself; and that is one thing in which he is superior to all the rest of the prophets; and other holy men who testified to the truth." "When Christ spake, he always spake directly from himself. All the rest only spake that which they had received from God. They had to tarry till the winged cherub brought the live coal, they had to gird on the Ephod and the curious girdle with its Urim and Thummim, they must stand listening till the voice saith-Son of man I have a message for thee.' They were but instruments blown by the breath of God, and giving sounds only at his pleasure; but Christ was a fountain of living water, he opened his mouth and the truth gushed forth, and it all came directly from himself. In this, as a faithful witness, he was superior to every other." Secondly, he shews Christ's testimony was uniform. Noah, he was a very good testifier to the truth, "We cannot say that of any other. Look at except once, when he was intoxicated; he was a sorry testifier to the truth then. David was a testifier to the truth, but he sinned against God, and put Uriah to death. * *The same might be said of Isaac; and if you go through the whole list of holy men, you will find some fault in them; and we shall be obliged to say, they were very good testifiers, certainly, but their testimony is not uniform. There is a plague spot which sin has left upon them all; there was something to shew that man is nothing but an earthen vessel after all. But Christ's testimony was uniform. There never was a time when he contradicted himself; there never was an instance in which it 282 REVIEW OF MR. SPURGEON'S MINISTRY. could be said, 'what you have said, you now | Romans?" contradict." After shewing that Christ's testimony was perfect, and final, he comes to the confirmation of the testimony of Christ in the believer's own experience. And here we are a little disappointed. We had hoped the preacher would have freely and fully given us the benefit of his own experience in the reception, and in the realization of THE TRUTH as it is in Christ. This, however, he has hardly touched. It may be he is keeping this back for a special occasion; but we will venture to beseech of him never to withhold his own daily experience of God's grace-nor his spiritual exercises under faith's trials. We do not wish any minister to be everlastingly preaching about himself; but a testimony hot and honest from the ever-bubbling breast of an exercised child of God, is of more value to God's living family than all the finewoven essays, and theoretical dissertations which the brain of man can produce. Oh, thou valiant little pastor of Park Street! for Christ's sake, and for the sake of poor tried and tempted souls, we pray thee, hoid not back a full and faithful declaration of God's gracious dealings with thine own soul. Go -brother-go, in David's path, and cry out "Come, and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will tell thee what he has done FOR MY SOUL." Having gone thus far, we must not leave our readers to suppose that the preacher said nothing from himself. No; by reading the following sentences, (with which we close up this first paper, and that very abruptly, too, having to take a journey in the Master's cause), some pleasing testimony from the preacher's own heart will be found. Our readers must understand the following are not entire extracts they are sentences selected; but they are his own words; and more of them we hope to give another day; for, if we live, we have not done with Mr. Spurgeon yet, The following, however, forms an interesting close to this hasty notice. He said "Oh, beloved, that is the best confirmation of gospel truth, which every Christian carries about within him. I love Butler's Analogy; it is a very powerful book. I love 'Paley's Evidences; but I never need them myself, for my own use. I do not want any proof that the Bible is true. Why? Because it is confirmed in me. There is a witness which dwells in me, which makes me bid defiance to all infidelity, so that I can say-"Should all the forms that men devise, Assault my soul with treacherous art, I'll call them vanities and lies, And bind the gospel to my heart." I do not care to read books opposing the Bible; I never want to wade through mire for the sake of washing myself afterwards. When I am asked to read an heritical book I think of good John Newton. Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, said to him, ‘Have you read my "Key to the 'I have turned it over,' said Newton.' 'You have turned it over said the Doctor; and is this the treatment a book must meet with which has cost me so many years' hard study? You ought to have read it carefully, and weighed deliberately what comes forward on so serious a subject. Hold,' said Newton, you have cut me out selah's. My life is too short to be spent in full employment for a life as long as Methureading contradictions of my religion. If the first page tells me the man is undermining truths, it is enough for me. If I find the first mouthful of a joint tainted, I do not want to eat it through to be convinced I ought to send it away.' Having the truth confirmed in us, we can laugh all arguments to scorn; we are plated in a sheet of mail when we have the witness within us of God's truth. All the men in this world cannot make us alter one single iota of what God has written within us. Ah, brethren and sisters, we want to have the truth confirmed in us. Let me tell you a few things that will do this. First, the very fact of our conversion tends to confirm us in the truth. Oh, says the Christian, do not tell me there is no power in religion, for I have felt it. I was thoughtless like others; I laughed religion to scorn, and those who attended to it; my language was, let us eat, drink, and enjoy the sunshine of Bible a honeycomb, which hardly needs to be life; but now through Christ Jesus I find the pressed to let the drops of honey run out; it is so sweet and precious to my taste that I wish I could sit down and feast on Bible for ever. What has made this alteration ? That is how the Christian reasons. He says, there must be a power in grace, otherwise I never should be so changed as I am, there must be truth in the Christian religion, otherwise this change never would have come over me." my another side to his experience; and from [Ah, dear brother, but the Christian has that you might have read a leaf or two.] followers, and yet Divine grace has been so "Some men have ridiculed religion and its mighty, that those very men have become converted and felt the new birth. Such men cannot be argued out of the true religion. You may stand and talk to them from dewy morn to setting eve, but you can never get them to believe that there is not truth in God's word. They have the truth confirmed in them. Then, again, another thing confirms the Christian in the truth, and that is, when God answers his prayers. I think that this is one of the strongest confirmations of truth, when we find God hears us. Now I speak to you on this point of things which I have tasted and handled. The wicked man will not believe this; he will say, Ah, go and tell those who know no better. I say, I have proved the power of prayer a hundred times, because I have gone to God, and asked him for mercies, and have had them. Ah, say some, it is only just in the common course of providence. Common course of providence! It is a blessed course of providence, If you had been in my position you would not have JOHN NEWTON'S CONVERSION. said that; I have seen it just as if God had rent the heavens, and put his hand out and said-There, my child, is the mercy.' It has come so plainly out of the way, that I could not call it a common course of providence. Sometimes I have been depressed and downcast, and even out of heart at coming to stand before this multitude; and I have said, What shall I do? I could fly anywhere rather than come here any more. I have asked God to bless me, and send me words to say; and then I have felt filled to the brim, so that I could come before this congregation or any other. Is that a common course of providence? It is a special providence a special answer to prayer. And there be some here who can turn to the pages of their diary, and see there God's hand plainly interposing we can say to the infidel, begone! the truth is confirmed in us; and so confirmed, that nothing can drive us out of it. You 283 JOHN NEWTON'S CONVERSION, CHRISTIAN CHARACTER AND DEATH "Puritan Tracts." (London: Houlston and Stoneman; Leicester: J. Chapman Browne.) The first of a new series of pamphlets, under the above title, gives us an outline of the life of good John Newton. We know not who the editor may be:-but we like the spirit and the manner in which he has commenced his work;-the motto in the front of the first page-and one or two paragraphs in the body of the work, knit our heart to the compiler, be he whom he may. We quote them; thereby giving our readers proof that the "Puritan Tracts" are in such hands as will ensure a godly contention for vital, and essential principles. How delightlowing:ful to a longing soul are words like the fol "There is no deliverance from the guilt and burden of sin, but by the death and blood of Jesus Christ."-BUNYAN. "Oh, how unlike the complex works of man, "You have had the truth confirmed in you; my dear friends, when you have found great support in times of affliction and tribulation. Some of you have passed through trouble, for we can never expect a congregation which is free from it Some of you have been tried and have been brought very low. And cannot you say with David, 'I was brought low, and the Lord helped me?" Can you not think how well you bore that last trouble? When you lost that child you thought that you could not bear it so well as you did; but you said, 'The Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Many of you have loved ones under the sod; your mother, father, husband, or wife. thought your heart would break when you lost your parents; but is not the promise true-If thy father or mother forsake thee, the Lord will take thee up?' He told thee, "We live in a day of great profession and woman, that he would be a Father to thy little practice. It behoveth every man to children; and hast thou not found it so? Canst thou not say, Not one good thing has prove his own work. It will be tried by fire. failed of all the Lord has promised? That is Think not, dear reader, that because you may the best confirmation of the truth of God. be a member of a religious community, a reguSometimes persons come to me in the vestry, lar attendant on the ordinances and means of and they want me to confirm the truth out-grace, and the possessor of a fair moral reputaside of them. I cannot do that; I want them to have the truth confirmed in them. They say, 'How do you know the Bible is true? "Oh,' I say, 'I never have to ask such a question as that now, because it is confirmed in me.' The Bishop has confirmed me-I mean the Bishop of souls; for I never was confirmed by any other; and so confirmed me in thetruth, that no one can confirm me out of it." An intelligent, and rather charitable correspondent, says he has discovered very much in the sermons we have just noticed, "that fall with an ill grace from the" lips of a mere youth. It may be so; many a good man has repented both of his manner, and of some of his matter, when more advanced in life. If there were no marks of imperfection to be seen in friend Spurgeon, he would be a rare exception indeed. Should his life be spared, and his soul's experience of Divine things be deepened, we believe that when many of us are silent in the grave, he will be found of great use in the church of Jesus Christ. tion, that these things, though good and com- that As a further illustration of the spirit with which these Puritan Tracts are commenced, we give the following account of John Newton's Conversion to God, and his Departure for Glory. He says "It was from the deck of a foundering vessel. |