as this? I do. Left to ourselves for a moment or two, what are we but fit subjects for His saving grace and delivering mercy? His salvation is revealed in His title: "The Angel of His presence.' As God, He stood in the presence of the Father as no created angel could (John i. 18). As the God-Man, He came forth from the presence of the Father to reveal the Father's smiling face to His elect brethren (John xvii. 25). As the Father's faithful Servant, and the Surety of the covenant, He brings "poor vile sinners" into the presence of the Father. See! "No man cometh unto the Father but by Me" (John xiv. 6). "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God" (1 Peter iii. 18). "For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father" (Eph. ii. 18).

III.-REDEMPTION-"In His love and in His pity He redeemed them." The loving sympathies of Jesus slumber not, but are ever active. They are neither selfish, fickle, or partial. What think ye of sympathies like these? Ah, says one, the subject is too vast for my poor finite mind to comprehend. You are right, for none can truly describe it. As is the love of the Father to His Son, so is the love of the Son to His people. Beginning, it

had none, end it never can. See John xv. 9: "As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you." "Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me. . . . for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world" (John xvii. 23, 24). Look at that precious prayer of Paul for the Ephesian Christians in Eph. iii. 17-19: "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge." We know, we know but little, we think we know, and are," Lost in Godhead, love, and blood," and are looking forward to that glorious period when we shall be swallowed up in an eternity of unceasing and uninterrupted love, the love of a precious Christ. His love is uninfluenced, there was nothing in His people to deserve it. His love is sovereign, and flows where He will without consulting the objects thereof. His love is immutable and knows no change. His love is inexhaustible and knows no diminution.

Not only love, but pity.

"O had He not pitied the state you were in,

Your bosoms His love had ne'er felt;

You all would have lived, would have died, too, in sin,
And sunk with the load of your guilt."

Love delights in us as we appear in all the glorious perfections of our Covenant Head and Husband. Pity finds and feels for us in our fallen, sinful, and helpless state. This is blessedly set before us in that precious chapter, Ezek. xvi. The sinner is cast out in the day of his birth. God says, "None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee. But

Zion's Redeemer, who is "full of pity, joined with power" for "sinners poor and wretched," thus reveals Himself: " Now, when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread My skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness; yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest Mine." Here we see love and pity in the person of Jesus redeeming.

By nature we are sold under sin, and the bond-slaves of Satan; we hug our chains and defy our Deliverer. In Adam we were sold to slavery. Who can buy us back? Who can pay the price of our redemption? Jesus, our Kinsman-Redeemer. What is the price? "The precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter i. 18, 19). Through the virtue and power of that blood, all the elect of God are for ever secured from hell, and free from all the demands of God's righteous law. With this eternal redemption, Satan cannot detain you, sin cannot damn you, death cannot destroy you, and hell cannot devour you. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people" (Luke i. 68).

IV.-SUCCOUR-"And He bare them, and carried them all the days of old." What do you think of a carrying God? a carrying Saviour? No other kind of a Saviour will do for me. If I take a single step without the strength and support of His arm, I am sure to stumble. But the Father sent Him, and He came willingly to redeem, to save, to sympathise, and to succour. As a gentle Shepherd He carries His sheep upon His broad shoulders of sovereign power, and folds His lambs in His bosom of unfaltering affection. Like a Nursing Mother He carries His poor weak children through every danger and difficulty until He lands them safe in glory. See how beautifully this is expressed in the promise, "Hearken unto Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by Me from the belly, which are carried from the womb. And even to your old age I am He; and even to your hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you" (Isa. xlvi. 3, 4). See! In the person of Christ the whole of God's redeemed are sheltered and succoured, and, blessed be His holy name, they are refreshed and encouraged with the sweet assurance from His sacred lips, that come what will from earth, from hell, from sinner, or from saint, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."

May the Lord in His love and pity add His blessing for His name's sake. Amen.

MELTED AND MOULDED.

A Sermon

PREACHED IN GROVE CHAPEL, CAMBERWELL, ON SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 3RD, 1878, BY

THOMAS BRADBURY.

"But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you."-Romans vi. 17.

THE HE whole of this chapter is a refutation of all those false charges that Satan, and those in league with him, are ever bringing against the children of God who are taught by Him to own and acknowledge, wherever they go, that their salvation is all of His rich and sovereign grace, that they are saved for nothing, not because of anything in them, or done by them, but saved in spite of themselves. I know that such a declaration as this will grate on the ears of the uncircumcised, those not brought into experimental union with the Lord Jesus Christ; but to those who see themselves thoroughly used up and hard up, who have not a penny of their own to pay, who are divested of all vain notions of creature goodness, excellency, or dignity, and are brought to know and feel themselves to be but helldeserving sinners, such a declaration as this, confirmed by the power of the Holy Ghost, will fall like sweet music on their opened ears, and soothe and comfort their ofttimes troubled and exercised hearts.

Let us look at the construction of this epistle. The first two chapters are taken up with statements concerning the total depravity of human nature and the universality of sin. Mankind by nature totally depraved, and, whether religious or irreligious, thoroughly corrupt. The first chapter gives us a description of the Gentile world in its highest stage of civilisation. The second chapter gives a painful description of the religious Jew without grace, and gives us to see that he is as much under condemnation as the irreligious Gentile. Come to chap. iii. 9, where the apostle says, "We have before proved both Jews

No. 67.-PRICE ONE PENNY.

and Gentiles, that they are all under sin." If you will look at the margin of your Bibles, you will see that word "proved" is rendered "charged." charged." "We have before charged both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin." This is quite correct, for he had not proved anything, but merely stated what was fact in his own heart's experience and in his spiritual observation. He first charged, then he proved from the 10th verse to the 19th. Here you see a string of quotations from the Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, fully proving and substantiating every word he had stated in his charge.

With the apostle, it was always, "What saith the Scripture?" I have had to thank God many times for a little advice given to me by an old merchant in Manchester, when it pleased the Lord to send me forth to speak in His name. This was the advice: "When you meet with captious and carping controversialists, do not waste your precious time in disputing with them. May the Lord enable you to meet them with a plain What saith the Scripture which is the most effective way to silence all opposers of God's truth and salvation." You may rest assured that this advice from the lips of Samuel Fletcher was not lost upon Thomas Bradbury. From that day to this, it has been my anxiety to find in God's most Holy Word that which thoroughly substantiates, not simply an opinion given, or an idea enunciated, but convictions deeply wrought in the heart by the power of the Holy Ghost. If you will look through the whole of this epistle to the Romans, you will see the apostle quotes largely from the Old Testament Scriptures in support and proof of the truths he declares. After proving that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God," and that no flesh can be justified before God on the ground of law or creature righteousness, he makes the grand and glorious declaration, that "the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets." This is the righteousness in which the whole election of grace stands justified, accepted, perfect, and complete in the presence of the Father. Look at the 24th verse: "Being justified freely," or justified for nothing. I cannot be justified by my faith. I have none. a particle, only as God works faith in me. As for hope, I am the most hopeless creature in the whole world when Christ is not known and felt in me the Hope of glory. As for prayer! What is prayer-prayer, according to the teaching of God's blessed Word, and the experience of His tried and tempted children? It is the flowing out of the soul to God, expressing felt want and necessity. It is not repeating a collect, or singing a hymn, or standing up in a pulpit, professing to lead the devotions of a congregation. You may have all these without a breath of prayer. True prayer is the inward movements of the Holy Ghost creating desires and longings for those blessings which a covenant God fore-determined to bestow. "Justified freely

Not

without any thinking, speaking, or acting on my part; but wholly "by His grace."

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He then proceeds to show that boasting is excluded. What does that word. "excluded" mean? Put out of doors. No standing whatever here. The child of God finds in himself no room for boasting; and when he boasts, it is according to Phil. iii. 3: “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice," or, make our boast, "in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." We come to the fourth chapter, where Paul gives two Old Testament illustrations of the free justification of elect sinners before God, from Psalm xxxii. and Genesis xvii. and xxii. Abraham and David are selected to show forth the free and sovereign grace of God abounding in the Son of His love. He concludes the chapter by stating that God imputed His righteousness to Abraham, not for his sake alone, But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." In the first eleven verses of chapter v., we have a glorious string of Gospel truths, then to the end we see the headship of Adam in the covenant of works, and the headship of Christ in the covenant of grace. Here is revealed the imputation of Adam's disobedience to all his seed who were in him when he sinned, and here is displayed the glorious fact of the imputation of Christ's obedience to all His seed who were in Him from the days of eternity. I wish you to notice this especially, because there is a sect of pestilential heretics who style themselves, "Brethren." May the Lord in mercy deliver me from all such brethren who deny the imputed righteousness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Yes, these go so far as to say that the imputed righteousness of Christ is not to be found. in the Scriptures. Look at the nineteenth verse: "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous." The perfect, unsinning, unswerving obedience of Jesus imputed to all in Him, in which they stand righteous before the face of the Father.

I endeavoured, on Tuesday evening, to give you a few little hints in reference to another awful error. Certain persons say we have no authority for praying to the Holy Ghost, or for the Holy Ghost. These say, The Holy Ghost is with the Church, and in the Church, why then pray for Him? Wait a moment. Did Paul know the Lord Jesus Christ? Certainly he did. Then where was his necessity for the prayer we find in Phil. iii. 10: "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection?" Blessed be God, the Spirit is come, and has blessed the children with many tokens of His sealing. But, beloved, the more we are blessed with the experience of the Spirit's sealing, the more the favoured child will pray for a continuance of His sealing. When the Spirit's work is seen and felt in a Church,