Him for this? He is my God, and I will exalt Him for all these wonders.

Moreover, in the advancement of Jesus' kingdom, do not lose sight of its progress beyond our little circle; everywhere, all over the world, amidst wars and rumours of wars, convulsions of every kind, God has His elect, and He has His sent servants, and He will employ them. Their talents are varied, their spheres of usefulness are larger or smaller according to His appointment; but he makes them work, tells them what to say, applies what they say to the hearts of poor ruined sinners: and He has been gathering, and will continue to gather in His elect, till He has perfected His kingdom, and accomplished all the purposes of His eternal mind for His Church.

Let us glance for a moment at the deliverance of individual souls, and try and exalt Him for that. A sinner held in the grasp of Satan, plunged in the gulph of sin, and very fond of it-an enemy to God-still more, his very heart enmity against God-a hater of the gospel, and of the precious Christ of God; in love with sin, and bent upon his own destruction! And who can help him? Forth goes the Arminian, and says, "Why don't you repent? Why don't you pray? Why don't you believe? Why don't you turn to God?" The poor wretch laughs at him; he says, "I do not believe in your God, or your Bible, or your Christianity either." The faithful preacher-not the free-willer-proclaims in his hearing what sin is, what the curse is, what the gospel of Christ is; and warns him honestly, that if he die in such a state he will be damned. The sinner cares nothing about it, calls the preacher a ranter, or an Antinomian, or a Methodist, or any other ugly name he chooses to give him, and there is an end of the matter; no more effect is produced than upon a stone in the street. But while this faithful servant of God is proclaiming the truth of God, down comes the third Person of the glorious Trinity; He strikes an arrow into the sinner's heart, and it is very sharp, according to the prayer of the Psalmist, "That thine arrows may be very sharp in the hearts of the king's enemies." There the arrow stops; it is a barbed arrow; his friends are alarmed, they think he is going mad; all manner of vanities are tried. "Let us take him to the play, to the fair, to the rout, or the race-course, or the oratorio, to get rid of this religious melancholy." There sticks the arrow; they cannot get it out; there it sticks hard and fast and everything that is trumped up by the devil to amuse him and rid him of his soul-distress, is of no avail. At length he cries out, "Woe is me, I am undone; hell is my portion; the curse of God sticks in my very conscience; eternal distress and misery are mine; there is nothing before me but to lie down in sorrow." Well, but can't you comfort him? Can't you alleviate his sufferings? Try medicine, try music, try gay amusements. But all is of no use; the arrow of the Almighty fastens in his conscience. What a mercy! Presently down come some trickling drops of blood, precious, atoning, efficacious blood. They are poured into the wound; the arrow retracts its power and force, drops from the wound, and blood Divine heals it as with a celestial balm. Shall not I exalt Him for this? "O God, thou art my God; I will exalt thee," for such wondrous things as this.

I pause a moment while you ask, Has that arrow ever been shot at me? Has that arrow ever reached my heart? Oh I cannot pause any

longer, I will pray for you, "That thine arrows may be sharp in the hearts of the king's enemies."

III.-How I should like to do justice to this subject, if I could; but I must go on just to say a word or two about the eternal First Cause. I do not know where I shall end here. The eternal First Cause! All this affinity, and all these wonders are to be traced to Divine "counsels of old," which are "faithfulness and truth." Well, then, it comes to this, from the language of my text and the truths it contains, that the arrow which I pray God some poor sinner may be feeling in his conscience at this moment, was shaped, and formed, and pointed, and aimed, and the precious moment was fixed, when the poor sinner's conscience should be pierced by it, from all eternity. It was a settled matter. Why, my hearers, I need not concern myself about it; it is only for me to make the proclamation: and sometimes when I am enabled to come into the pulpit with a quiver full of arrows, I can only thrust them here and there, and leave it with God to accompany them. It may perhaps be with me as with the soldier in the Assyrian army, I draw my bow at a venture, and take care that the arrow is of the right sort, so that if it hit it may stick fast; and you know that the arrow which the Assyrian soldier shot at a venture, found its way between the joints of the king's harness. It did not hit the harness, so as to rebound and be broken, and cast on one side; it found its way between the joints of the harness, and it proved effectual. Beloved, I have made up my mind, that whether you like it or not, it is not an atom of consequence to me, I will draw my bow, and shoot my arrow, making it as barbed as I can, and leave it with my God to send it right in between the joints of your harness. Ah," says the poor sinner, who was proud enough before, and thought he was well harnessed, “Carry me out of the host, for I am wounded." And so will it always be; "carry me out of the host, I cannot bear it any longer; carry me somewhere into private, for I shall die of this wound." And so you will, if Christ do not heal you. Oh the wonders of our covenant God! And all this designed, all this determined, all this predestinated, all this without a single contingency; all this as certain as the throne of God; all this as secure as the existence of Deity. "Thy counsels of old." So of all the comforts, all the healings, all the consolations, all the strengthenings, all the persecutions of the Church of God as a body, and of the people of God individually, all settled in the councils of God.

Now, just look for a moment at the appellations employed; "Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth." Well, then, the prosperity of Zion depends on the faithfulness and truth of God; and I firmly believe that where His dear people are enabled to trust His faithfulness and truth, without being too busy in touching the ark or the new cart that carries it, or anything else, they have nothing more to do than Manoah and his wife had. "The angel of the Lord did wondrously," and they "looked on." It is a nice easy task to look on, is it not? I like it much. I have often been blessed with the desire neither to touch, taste, nor handle things that I can see and know to be contrary to the Word of God. I do think I shall adopt the name of Manoah by-and-bye, a looker on, and let God work. "The angel did wondrously, and Manoah and his wife looked on." I rather think his wife taught him to do it; for he was evidently less likely to do so of the

two.

On one occasion he thought he was going to die; his wife said

(I think she must have been an Antinomian, she was a very sound divine), "If the Lord were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would He have showed us all these things." I wish every man had such a good wife to teach him divinity after that sort.

Bear with this digression. Let it be remembered that the truth and faithfulness of God form the ground of our confidence, and not the truth and faithfulness of man; for my Bible says that there is no truth nor faithfulness in them, and I believe it. And if "he who trusteth in his own heart is a fool," what must he be who trusts in the heart of a fellow-man? I should think he must be a double-dyed fool. But "he that trusteth in the Lord shall never be moved." Now, beloved, what I want from you is confidence in the truth and faithfulness of God. Bear with me if I say a word to my brethren in the ministry. You have your different charges, your different stations in the cause of God, in which you are deeply interested and concerned. I pray you, keep in view continually the truth and faithfulness of God. His "counsels of old are faithfulness and truth." I have experienced it for more than forty years, thirty of them in this place; and I rejoice to be enabled to bear my humble testimony that faithfulness is the girdle of His loins. They cannot be ungirt, and truth is the very existence that He deigns to possess; for He is a God of truth, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

It is generally expected on these anniversary occasions that some account will be given of the state of the cause and its general history. The latter, however, is unnecessary, because you have the history of Grove Chapel in print up to the year 1843; since which the hand of our God has been upon us for good, fulfilling His own promise to Zion, "I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her poor with bread." Many have been the testimonies of broken-hearted sinners to the Divine power which has accompanied the preached word, and many heaven-born souls bear witness that "in this mountain the Lord of hosts hath made unto them a feast of fat things full of marrow." And even when the poor instrument has been "with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling," then "the Lord has caused His glorious voice to be heard, and shown the lighting down of His arm to prove that His counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. Nor ought we to be unmindful of the fact, nor unthankful for the mercy that, during the past year, every Lord's-day morning's proclamation of truth has been put within the reach of the poorest of God's hungry family through the length and the breadth of the land; so that Grove Chapel pulpit sounds out the word of the Lord in very many places where my voice has never been heard; and I pray that the precious seed so scattered may yield an abundant harvest of good to souls and of glory to God. Then shall many gladdened hearts respond to the language of our text, "We will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things." One word by way of close, that on these grounds the highest praise is due to His name. "I will exalt thee, and I will praise thy name." If His name is Father, I will praise it; for there never was such a father. If His name is Brother, I will praise it; for there never was such a brother. If His name is Husband, I will praise it; for there never was such a husband. If His name is Physician, I will praise it; for there never was such a physician. If His name is Friend, I will

praise it; for He is a Friend that loveth at all times, and you cannot say that of most friends. Take whatever name you will, "I will exalt Him and praise Him." As God the Father, I will praise Him. As God the Son, I will praise Him. As God the Holy Ghost, I will praise Him. "O Jehovah! I will praise thee, for thou art my God; and when my stammering tongue fails to say a word for thee on earth, and my voice can no longer be uplifted to praise thee, in strains in which I delight, among the myriads of saints before thy throne, within the circle of angelic hosts, amid thy ransomed, blood-bought family, I will spend an eternity in the exultation of my text. "O Jehovah! thou art my God; I will exalt thee; I will praise thy name.”

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

THE 107TH SONG IN

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

I own;

O God, thou art my God alone,
Thy cov'nant love and grace
My soul now thirsteth, Lord, for thee,
Earth is a barren land for me.

Within thy temple I have been,
Thy pow'r and glory I have seen;
Thy loving-kindness felt and known
Is better far than life, I own.

My lips shall grateful tribute give,
Thus will I bless thee while I live;
My soul with Christ is satisfied,
Marrow and fatness are supplied.

Because thou hast in seasons past
Help'd me, I'll trust thee to the last;
My soul shall follow after thee,
While thy right hand upholdeth me.

My foes shall be dismay'd and fall,
My King is crowned Lord of all;
And ev'ry one that knows His voice
In Him shall glory and rejoice.

Delivered in Grove Chapel, Camberwell, Sunday Morning, July 22, 1849, BY THE REV. JOSEPH IRONS.

"Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life."-Acts v. 20.

EVERYTHING recorded in the book of inspiration, both Old Testament and New, and everything handed down to us in the history of the Church, respecting real godliness, proves it to be something superhuman, proves it to be of Divine origin, proves it to be beyond the reach and touch of poor fallen mortals, proves it to be nothing less than a sovereign gift from above, according to the good pleasure of His goodness who sits enthroned on high. Vain worms, who would fain be wiser than God, may devise their plans and boast of converting the world, and tell us of their grand exploits, but after all it is and must be the hand of God that finds out His sheep, that fixes upon His own marked ones, that must subdue the proud rebellious heart, and that must gather in His sheep that are scattered abroad to the four winds.

Can we have a more striking demonstration of this, than in the history whence I have selected my text for this morning? Here are these poor fishermen sent forth by their glorious Master, to preach His everlasting gospel; not man's gospel, mark, but Christ's gospel. For so doing they are seized by ruffian priests and their agents, and cast into prison, yea, the common jail, as though they would degrade them as the vilest of felons, as though they would associate them with the worst miscreants that earth could produce. They put them into the common jail; but they were no common persons. The angel of the Lord by night opened the prison door, and shut it again too, for

VOL. II.

Published in Weekly Nos., 1d., and Monthly Parts, 5d.

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