there never was a more glaring crime committed by the children of Israel, than when Moses, being long absent in the Mount, they said one to another, "Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt." I look upon that as one of the very blackest features of their stiffnecked rebellion against the Almighty as they passed through the wilderness. "Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt." Well, suppose you cannot get the true comfort of the gospel, or make progress and advancement in the Divine life, and, with the children of Israel, say, "We have been deceived; let us go back to the world, and carry our religion with us, engage in a few innocent amusements, kill our sorrows, employ our time, and associate with relatives and friends, who will be all the kinder and more affectionate toward us if we stoop to them a little way." What follows? Dire rebellion against your God. And surely there is no evidence in that of your having found grace in His sight. But when the soul of the believer is so filled with spiritual desires, and fired with ardent longings after God, that nothing satisfies him but what is spiritual and heavenly, and he is brought to the conclusion of the Holy Ghost, speaking by the apostle, that "to be carnally-minded is death; but to be spiritually-minded is life and peace," then there is evidence in that man that he has found grace in the sight of the Lord. I beseech you, beloved, not to dismiss this important point from your minds until you have brought it home to close self-examination. It would be a most awful and tremendous thing for any of my hearers to go through the world supposing they have just religion enough to take them to heaven, whilst, in fact, it is only just enough to make hell the hotter, and to aggravate their condemnation unto all eternity. May God fasten this upon your hearts and consciences, and clear my soul of your blood.

Moreover, when God said unto Moses, "Thou hast found grace in my sight," He had honoured him and the people of whom he was the leader with Divine relationship; and Moses pleads it: "Consider," says he, "that this nation is thy people." Ah, this is finding grace indeed; not only to come to the point of knowing that God has forgiven my iniquities, and blotted out my sins, separated me from the Egyptians, taken me from among carnal characters, and taught me how to enjoy spiritual things and epiritual company, but in so doing has revealed this holy relationship unto me: "I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord God Almighty." That is a finding of grace indeed; that is to have the spirit of adoption as well as the privileges of adoption. That is following out what the apostle says in his epistle to the Romans: "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." I beseech you, then, to investigate this matter closely, because I much fear that a great number of the Lord's own children, the real Israelites of God, go on a long time in their experience influenced by fluctuating frames and feelings, and entirely lose sight of the Divine relationship.

But to come to the sweet point which is evidenced and witnessed to by the Holy Ghost, that there has existed from eternity, and does now exist, an indissoluble union between my soul and the Persons of the Deity. This is truly a solid basis for comfort and enjoyment. This only can supply the assurance after which we are continually aspiring of being children of God, and if children then heirs-heirs of God and

joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. And in order to get at this point, understand what the Holy Ghost hath said, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the children of God." That is finding grace. Then again, there is the finding of the grace that testifies of that union in its vitality, by enabling the souls united to Christ by fixed decree, and living faith, to obtain rest and draw fresh supplies of comfort and grace, and life, and joy, and peace in believing, immediately from the fulness of Christ, in the exercise and actings of living faith; and singing as the apostle did, "of His fulness have we all received, and grace for grace.' That is finding grace. What think you of it? What think you, beloved, of this finding grace in the sight of the Lord? and finding it not only so as to be sure that His eyes are graciously fixed upon you for a special purpose, in predestinating love and covenant engagement, according to His Divine foreknowledge; but finding it so as to enjoy it, and exhibit its fruits before the Church and the world. "Thou hast also found grace in my sight." Oh, my brethren, do not, I entreat you, disregard this grand point of high and holy affinity to God; this honour of Divine relationship; the worms of the earth adopted into the Lord's own spiritual family, beggars enriched with riches in glory by Jesus Christ; traitors not only forgiven, but presented at court, and received and graciously acknowledged by the sovereign against whom they had rebelled. Oh, the solemn, the sacred, the glorious change which takes place in the poor believer's soul when he is brought to the enjoyment of this relationship. He looks at a promise on the ground of that affinity. He offers a prayer in the very spirit of it. He presents his praises as one who has a right to do so, as one belonging to the heavenly choir and the Lord's family; and he sends forth his desires to the Father, knowing that He has declared that "He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him." He stands aloof, separate, and apart from the world, glorying in the distinction asserted by his elder Brother, "they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." Go back to Egypt! No, he disdains the thought. He scorns the base proposal. He rebuts and rejects with the utmost abhorrence the invitation to do so, and says, "No; it is to Canaan that I am bound. Heaven is my home. Glory is in view. Hinder me not, therefore. I must press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

"Thou hast also found grace in my sight," for I have employed thee in my work. Now this Moses might well take as his evidence. God rescued him from being drowned, and preserved him in the ark of bulrushes. God sent him to his own mother to be nursed. God sent him to Pharaoh's court to be educated. And God sent him to his brethren to deliver them from their slavery. All these marvellous acts were proofs of his having found grace in the sight of the Lord; and that God had sent him and employed him to lead, and guide, and conduct His chosen tribes out of the bondage of Egypt into the liberty

of Canaan.

Now I want this one point to be investigated by you: Has God given you any employment? I do not mean to say you are all to be Moseses, all to be leaders of the people. I do not mean to say that you are all to be ministers. I do not mean to say that you have all the gifts and talents that are requisite for public labours in the Lord's service. But this I assert, that God has commanded every one of His children, "Son, go, work in my vineyard to-day;" and be you

sure that, if you are His children, He will give you some employment there. I would ask you, then, how you are engaged. And there is one description of employment which has been marked out by the apostle, that you have been set to, if you have found grace in the

sight of the Lord. "As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now"-being taken away from among the Egyptians-"yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." Glorify God with your bodies and with your spirits, which are the Lord's." Again the apostle sets us a bright example, when he says, "Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." Now just ask yourselves the question, how God is employing your powers and faculties; what is the nature of your reading, your study, and your intercourse with your fellow mortals; whether anything ever drops from your lips as a testimony for Christ; whether any person upon earth has ever been the better for your company; whether Jesus has been honoured and exalted by you in the circle in which you generally move; whether sin has been supplanted, the world trampled under foot; the followers of the Lamb solaced and comforted, and their burdens borne; a union of heart maintained with the household of faith; and Jesus honoured, exalted, and glorified, at home and abroad, in public and in private; so that whatsoever you eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, you do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks unto God and the Father by him. These are inquiries worth your making, for it is finding grace in the sight of the Lord. To me it is no small matter of joy that I have not only found grace in His sight to be taken from the Egyptians-God be praised-and His mercy I can never sufficiently value-I have not only found grace in His sight to be honoured with relationship to Him, and to be well satisfied of it by the Holy Spirit's witnessing, but I have so found grace in His sight, as to be well employed in His service. I do not wish to imply that God means to employ every one of you in the pulpit, but I ask how and where He has marked out any employment for you, however circumscribed and confined its sphere, so that His precious name may be exalted and glorified, and that you may be, at least, as active for your blessed Master as sinners and the world are for their cursed one. You will not find an unconverted sinner upon the face of the earth but he will serve the devil to the utmost of his power. Surely, then, the Lord's servants should serve the best of Masters, and dedicate body, soul, and spirit to His glory.

"Thou hast found grace," also, suited and proportioned to every time of need, fulfilling the promise which reads, "When thou passeth 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." Yea, thou hast found grace to vanquish enemies, to repel temptations, to crucify old Adam's corruptions, to bear you up amidst the heaviest calamities and trials-in a word, the Lord's declaration has been verified to you in every trouble, "My grace is sufficient for thee." Then take these pledges of love Divine to encourage you for the future, expecting in the confidence of faith, that, when you come to the brink of Jordan, you shall find grace enough to bear you safely and fearlessly over, and be welcomed home with, "Thou hast found grace in my sight."

One word more before I close. "Thou hast found grace in my sight, and therefore I have loved thee, and elevated thee in the scale of being both for time and for eternity.' With this idea, and a very few words upon it, I intend concluding the present discourse. A real Christian is elevated in the scale of being even now. There is a dignity surrounding him and within him, which the worldling cannot reach, even if you put him in the most splendid robes that can be worn, deck him in the most costly jewels, or place him in the most magnificent of palaces; admit him to the most powerful court upon earth, or seat him upon the loftiest throne among men. With all these extrinsic adornments, he will not have reached the dignity of the humblest Christian in existence, or the elevation in the scale of being which that Christian has realized. For whatever the elevation attained to by the worldling, he knows not the way to the court of heaven; he has never had intercourse and intimacy with God, or the Spirit's witnessings of His relationship to Him; and he may, at any moment, be hurled into hell, from which all his dignity will fail to save him. But the child of God walks with God, holds conversation in heaven, is decked with royal robes, and the Holy Spirit's graces, is accustomed to Divine teaching, dwells in love, and dwells in God, and God dwells in him, and is destined, ere long, to occupy a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Oh, the blissful elevation of a real child of God! Do not diminish its glory. Do not tarnish it. Do not undervalue it. Do not allow your garment to get spotted with the flesh. Do not grovel in the dust, and make it unfit to be seen. Remember the dignity of your character, as a member of Christ's body, as a joint-heir with Himself, as created for heaven, as the workmanship of the Holy Ghost, as destined to endless bliss, and shortly to enter upon it. Therefore gird up your loins, trim your lamps, watch and pray, and hasten through this wilderness, crying unto the Lord for quickening grace, that you may run in the way of Jehovah's commands with enlarged hearts; and be sure you see to it, that you do not pass through the world as the bird passes through the air, leaving not a trace behind; but that wherever you go it may be seen that a child of God, an heir of grace, has been there.

May the Holy Spirit maintain you in this bigh and holy distinction, and keep you pressing on until you obtain possession of the crown of righteousness which God the righteous Judge shall give to you, and His name shall have all the glory.

Delivered in Grove Chapel, Camberwell, Sunday Morning, May 20, 1849, BY THE REV. JOSEPH IRONS.

"God is love."-1 John iv. 8.

Hark! how those voices round the throne above
Proclaim this fact, in extacies Divine.
An angel host all pure and perfect stand,
Resounding this sweet theme. Their happiness
Is drawn from this undoubted cheering fact
That "God is love;" one holy essence known
As Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Within
Their circle ransom'd souls appear in white,
As wash'd and cleans'd in Christ's atoning blood;
In Him complete completely glorified:
Their harps are tun'd, their voices all accord
In this melodious anthem, "God is love."
Descend to earth, and listen while the saints,
With all Christ's heralds, join the heavenly song,
To publish, sing, and preach this glorious fact,
The God we worship is the God of love.
O'ercome with love Divine, and melted down
With gratitude, believers live on high,

Constrain'd, transformed, and fill'd with cov'nant love.

BUT there is one large class that dare dispute this truth, that utter not the proclamation with their voice, nor teach it in their creeds; they will tell us, "No, our God is fickle, disappoints His people, is dissatisfied Himself; His love cannot stand; He loves to-day, and to-morrow He hates the object of that love; who will own such a God?" Oh, how awful must Published in Weekly Nos., 1d., and Monthly Parts, 5d. C

VOL. II.