Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

self-righteous, and opposed to the true Christ, and his righteousness, than the old moderate deceivers who made them. When I preached to you, I did not hide from you the righteousness of God, in order to stimulate you to go about to establish a righteousness of your own. I endeavoured to prove you had no righteousness of your own. I strove to prevail upon you to submit to the righteousness of God, which is by faith. You believed, and submitted; what was the consequence? You had peace and joy, you rejoiced in Christ Jesus, and had no confidence in the flesh. You passed from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God, and you then found that you loved the children of our common father.

Again, you turn my attention to the marriage of the King's son. When the whole company were assembled, the King entered, &c. &c. When the servants went out into the high-way, they gathered all they found, but the King on his entrance found there a man who had not on the wedding garment; this man was bound and then cast out. Now who is the King? and who the Son of the King? The everlasting Father, the faithful Creator, the divine Nature is the King. The head of every man, the second Adam, in whom it pleased the Father all fulness should dwell, is the beloved Son. The guests are the children of men, men of every description. The wedding garment is the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. But who is the man found among the wedding guests, without a wedding garment? The man of sin who opposeth, and exalteth himself, &c. &c. The man who made the world as a wilderness. Isaiah xiv. 16, 17. This mar han had not on the wedding garment, when our Saviour took on him the seed of Abraham, that he might be the Saviour of the world, by becoming their righteousness. That he might be the life of the world, he passed by the nature of Angels. This enemy is however with, or in the midst of the guests, and will continue there, until the King, as Almighty, gives orders to bind him, and cast him out. Then will it be emphatically said, "The accuser of the brethren is cast out." Then shall this evil spirit be taken, and separated from the guests. and we are all his offspring, shall assemble together, this adversary shall no more be in the midst of them.

Then, when the sons of God,

When he shall be questioned in the last day, he shall be speechless. The Prince of darkness shall no more mix with God's inheritance, but the King shall cast him out into his own kingdom, into

outer darkness. The guests are very numerous, but there is but one amongst them without a wedding garment, even that one who was found among the sons of God, in former times, Job i. 6. Thus is the salvation of the human nature, the destruction and torment of your adversary the Devil, who said to our Saviour, on seeing him draw near, in order to cast him out, "Art thou come to torment us before the time?" Let us then give glory to our strong deliverer, who will, in his own time, complete the work of salvation, by binding this strong man armed, and spoiling his goods.

You say, "it is not in your power to manifest unto me, the torment of your body and soul." God help you, my afflicted friend, I sympathize with you most sincerely, you are indeed in the dark ; darkness genders fear, and fear hath torment. But if you had power to look with a single eye on that Saviour, who was the propitiation for your sins, and not for your sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world, your whole body would be full of light. Darkness is Hell, Light is Heaven. In Hell there is torment; in Heaven peace and joy. You are dead, but your life is hid with Christ in God. Shut up in darkness, you cannot see this life, but God our Saviour is not in the dark. He knows he is your life, and he knows when he who is your life shall appear, you will appear with him in glory. The things which make for your peace are now, in this your day of darkness, hid from your eyes. But the day of the Lord cometh. The Lord's day will be a day of light, and this light will manifest what the darkness concealeth. Why God who is emphatically styled Love, Love in the abstract, should suffer so many of his purchased possession to remain so long under the power and dominion of the grand adversary, is a secret which belongeth unto him, and him alone. But blessed, forever blessed, be the merciful High Priest of our profession, he has not left us in the dark, with respect to his divinely gracious purposes. The things which make for peace, will not always be hid from the eyes of his inheritance; you, as a part of his purchase, will shortly know your Redeemer, and live to sing his praises. Yea, even while you set in darkness, and see no light, the Lord Jesus is your light, and your salvation, and as he is now, and ever will be, the light of the world, so, in his own time, he will assuredly lighten every man who cometh into the world. I know this, and am not afraid; that is I believe God, and I am in consequence saved from fear. If I should believe you, and not God, I should be in as much torment as you are; but God is truc, he is faith

ful who has promised, and he has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. You tell me of my casting out the unclean spirit, "when you had power to cast out the unclean spirit, &c. &c." Alas! I never had any such power, when I preached the gospel unto you, and you believed the good report. The power that drove from your heart the spirit of unbelief, of bondage, and of fear, was not the power of the imbecile individual who was sent to you, on an errand of peace; all the power which was delegated to me, was to proclaim the truth of God. I trust I did not arrogate any thing to myself, I meant not to assume the attributes of Deity, I only took of the things of the power of Jesus, and shewed them unto you, and we beheld his salvation, and rejoicing therein, we united in doing homage to the Redeemer of men.

Again, you direct me to the book of Revelations, anxious to attach to me the character of the false prophet. This reference necessitates me to repeat myself, or rather the good sayings of my God. That there are two spirits cannot be denied; the one benign, the other baneful; the one a true, and the other a lying spirit; the one affectionate, the other malignant, the one the friend, the other the adversary of man; the one the accuser, the other the advocate, or mediator. Both these beings have their kingdoms, and dominions, the one a purchased kingdom, consisting of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, the other a kingdom usurped by an adversary, and by deceit and violence, enchained until an appointed time; the former is a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, the latter a dominion ordained for destruction. Again, these two powers have their kingdoms, the one consisting of righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, the other of unrighteousness, confusion, and sorrow, engendered by an evil spirit. The former of these kingdoms is eternal, the latter is only temporary; certainly not, for the time is rapidly approaching, when there shall be no more pain, when there shall be a new heaven, and a new earth, and the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and he will be their God, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away. Revelations xxi. 3, 4. Thus shall the kingdom of Satan pass away, while the kingdom of the Prince of Peace shall endure forever.

:

But, again, while the kingdom of Satan continues, he will, as a deceiver, transforming himself into the likeness of an angel of light, and shewing himself that he is God, have his synagogues, his religion, and his ministers, and, as the ministers of Christ, receive power from the Prince of Peace, to proclaim the Gospel to every creature, assuring every individual that Christ died for their sins, according to the Scripture; and, in defence of this God-glorifying, soul-satisfying doctrine, they have power given them to stard before rulers, and to rejoice when all manner of evil is said of them falsely, for the Saviour's sake. So the ministers of Satan, or the false prophet receive power from the arch-fiend, to make God a liar. The true prophet receives power from the Holy Ghost to declare to every child of Adam, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing unto them their trespasses. The false prophets receive power from the being denominated in the Revelations, a Beast, to assure the children of men that God was not in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, that he is the irreconcilable enemy of the world, and that God imputes their trespasses unto them, and that they have more to dread from him than from the most obdurate and inveterate adversary. The true prophets have power given them by the Holy Ghost to declare to every creature, that by grace they are saved, and that Jesus is the Saviour of all men. The false prophets, as we have already seen, have power from the Beast, to declare that the sinners of mankind, are not saved by grace, that Jesus is not the Saviour of all men. The true prophets have power given them to declare that there are none righteous, no, not one; that the righteousness which is of God, by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all, and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. The false prophets receive power from the Beast, to assure us there are many righteous, and that the righteousness of God is not by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and that there is as much difference between believers and unbelievers, as between heaven and hell, and that as many as are interested in Christ at all, are interested in his righteousness, not by the faith of Christ, but by their own faith.

The true prophets, by the power of the Holy Ghost, continually preach peace, by the blood of Jesus, to every individual of the fallen race; assuring them, by divine authority, that Christ died for their sins, and rose again for their justification, that the Saviour hath abolished death, and him who had the power of death, that is the Devil. In one word, that Christ Jesus is the Saviour of all men, as God's

work, and the destroyer of all sin, as the Devil's work. And, as a A Christian poet, on the authority of sacred writ, figuratively declares,

"On Grace's door this motto's grav'd,

Let sin be damn'd, the sinner suv'd.”

The false prophets, by the power of the adversary, are continually preaching wrath and destruction, representing Jesus as the Saviour of the righteous and the destroyer of sinners, as the friend of the self righteous and the enemy of sinners, that he hath not abolished death or him who had the power of death, and that death and the Devil will both continue, in full power, through the wasteless ages of eternity, that Jesus, instead of destroying the work of the Devil, will destroy the Human Nature, his own work.

"And down our throats this lie is cramm'd,

Let sin be sav'd, the sinner damn'd."

I appeal to your conscience, madam, and I appeal to the conscience of every individual who hears me, to which of these characters I belong.

No, truly, had I been the false prophet you seem to suppose, the world would have loved its own, and unbelievers would not thus malign and hate me.

You assert that your first death was at 35, and your second at 47. But here too, you are deceived. Your first death was in Eden, your second death on Mount Calvary. In Adam you and every one died, and Jesus, having died once for all, his death is, in the eye of divine justice, their death. You and I, therefore, having passed through these deaths, are directed to look with a single eye to Jesus, giving to him the glory which is due unto his name, saying, "Thanks be to God who hath given us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

You say I shall, "if I examine, find a woman should exceed all that had been;" I have examined, and I find a woman was the instrument of bringing death into the world, and through a woman came the destruction of death and him who had death's power. The seed of the woman bruised the serpent's head. Again, I find the human nature spoken of as a woman, and her Maker is her husband. Isaiah, liv. 5. The human nature, in its fallen state, is spoken of as a woman, and a very bad woman. Jeremiah iii. 20. Ezekiel xvi. In

« ZurückWeiter »