Last Sunday morning, dear old Sarah Watts, another inmate of the Asylum, and member of this Church, worshipped with us here. I noticed the intensity of feeling pictured on her anxious countenance as she listened to the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. Monday morning, she was stricken down. Tuesday morning, she was summoned home. Friday afternoon, her mortal part was committed to the silent grave. This morning she worships with the glorified within the inner shrine.

Last Friday morning, a good man, though he did not think he was, Mr. James Cunliffe, of Handforth, near Manchester, was taken home. He was one of the best and nearest friends I ever possessed. In the Lord I knew him well, and am thankful to God that I was privileged with his company and his confidence. He knew well the plague of his own heart, the perversity of his nature, and the preciousness of Christ. Many times have I witnessed the joy of his heart beaming in his face and bursting from his lips and eyes, as he listened to the glorious truths of God's covenant salvation from these poor stammering lips of mine. He loved God's Christ. He loved God's truth. He loved God's people. He was a firm abider by the stuff, and many a sorrowing spirit was cheered by his unostentatious benevolence. A letter I received yesterday morning from one of his sons concluded with these words: "His end was perfect peace. Blessed exchange. Time for eternity. Grace for glory. May the Weeping One of Bethany bless his dear widow, who is an heir, together with him, of the grace of life, and all the bereaved ones with his His own sweet sympathy.

It is our lot this morning to thank and praise JEHOVAH'S holy name, because it has pleased Him to translate our dear departed friends from these lower scenes of night to take their place amongst heaven's aristocracy. The portals of glory have opened for them, and their precious Saviour is seen in all His blessedness and beauty. In the contemplation of these unspeakable glories, my longing spirit sings

"There shall I bathe my weary soul

In seas of heavenly rest,

And not a wave of trouble roll
Across my peaceful breast."

May the Lord add his blessing. Amen.

GROVE CHAPEL PULPIT.

THE SAINT'S INVENTORY.

A Sermon

PREACHED IN GROVE CHAPEL, CAMBERWELL, ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 14TH, 1878, BY

THOMAS BRADBURY.

"Therefore let no man glory in men.

For all things are yours;

"Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;

"And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's."-1 Cor. iii. 21-23.

THER

HERE is scarcely any part of Divine revelation, where the free, sovereign, uninfluenced grace of God shines forth more brightly than this 1st Epistle of Paul to the Corinthian Christians.

meets us in every verse, flowing from JEHOVAH, the full, free, and inexhaustible fountain of the same. We behold this more as we notice those who were the recipients of this grace, By nature they were wholly given up to lewdness, licentiousness, and profligacy, and those of us who have observed the world's ways know well the meaning of the term, "a Corinthian woman." This term speaks not well for the morality and chastity of the Corinthians. But leaving this, let us take a view of those, whom God had separated from the corrupt mass, by His rich and distinguishing grace. Turn to chapter vi. verse 11: "And such were some of you." What does Paul mean by that word "such?" Read at your leisure that black, dark, and filthy catalogue of sins and abominations given in the two preceding verses. Let me ask you, Can you read it without feeling something of your depravity, and at the same time some little experience of the lovingkindness and grace of a covenant God, flowing through the person of that blessed One "who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens?" Yet in the face of such an awful catalogue we read, "And such were some of you; but ye

No. 74.-PRICE ONE PENNY.

are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." Can we imagine, even for a moment, that there are those who profess to be partakers of this grace, and who profess to pray for it, yet who can find fault with plain Scripture declarations of the same, saying, "Oh, that man paints human nature too black, and brings out the failings of Jonah and Peter too prominently." Mark you! "that man" alluded too is the one who now addresses you, and who will not read for you this black catalogue, nor that dreadful description of human nature found toward the close of Romans i. But those who have a true estimate of themselves through the teaching of the Holy Ghost will not find much fault with a man who Scripturally lays poor proud nature low, and is the instrument in bringing them down to the footstool of sovereign mercy. That is the spot to which I desire in the inward conflict of my soul to bring every poor law-convinced, broken-hearted sinner that hangs upon my lips, and whose spirit is moved with the gracious testimony which flows from my exercised heart. "And such were some of you." Look at these persons before and after God took them in hand. Can they be one and the same? Oh, how filthy, yet washed from all sin in precious atoning blood! Oh, how depraved, yet partakers of a nature as pure and as spotless as the sinless nature of our Lord Jesus Christ! Oh, how condemned, yet "justified in the name of the Lord Jesus!" What does that mean? Something more than acquittance; it is a perfect clearance from all charges brought by Satan against these sin-burdened ones, who still experience the power of indwelling sin, the incorrigibility of their nature, the enmity of their carnal mind, and the awful temptations of Satan. God, in His Gospel, declares them to be "free from sin, justified from all things, all fair, without fault before the throne of God." But while all this is gloriously true, they are not without spot in their own eyes, they are not without fault in the sight of others. We see this in the testimony given throughout the whole of this epistle. This teaches us a very precious lesson, in the true and spiritual understanding of which, we shall be blessed with a liberal spirit toward those who are weak and wavering, and a spirit of consideration toward those who may differ from us in externals, which I call the children's playthings, for such they are in the judgment of every man or woman to whom God has bestowed a little common sense in connection with His free and sovereign grace.

If you look at the Church of Corinth, you will see it the most corrupt in practice of all Churches in apostolic times. Read through the Epistle to the Galatians, and you will see their Churches the most corrupt in doctrine. Now throughout the whole exposure of the corruption in connection with these Churches, we find not one word calling upon those

who were born of God, and taught by Him, to separate themselves from the Churches. Ofttimes in fancied Scriptural separation there is fearful spiritual pride. In separating ourselves from those whom God in His providence has identified us with, we are liable to run into discord and dissatisfaction. It therefore behoves us who are blessed with the teaching of God the ever-blessed Spirit to seek our place at the feet of Jesus, begging of Him to lead us into brighter apprehensions of His Father's will concerning us, and into a more blessed appreciation of His own work in His people, in whatever Church they may be found. We have wondrous grace revealed here. We see elect, redeemed, and regenerate ones, yet corrupt in practice, not walking straight, nay, not walking at all; but fallen, fallen most foully. We read at the commencement of chapter v. of one who was guilty of a most abominable crime, yet he was to be treated not as an enemy, but as a brother. Depend upon it, the apostle's manner of dealing with an unruly or fallen brother was vastly different to the Pope's bulls of excommunication which are filled with curses the most fiendish, ay, and vastly different, too, to the administration of Church order and discipline in many so-called Protestant Churches. You may rest assured that that minister is greatly lacking in judgment, and also in the spirit of the Master, who makes his pulpit a vehicle to hurl personalities at the weak and halting ones of his congregation. The pulpit ought always to be a spot consecrated by the Holy Ghost for the declaration of God's glorious Gospel to meet the wants and necessities of His poor, tried, and tempted children. My dear friends, as I am led to look at, and to loathe myself, I have not a stone to throw at any of you, neither have I a reproving word for the most inconsistent among you. The knowledge of what I am in myself gives me to understand what that means,

"The more Thy glories strike mine eye,

The humbler I shall lie."

Now look at the chapter which I have read for our instruction. Paul addresses the Corinthian Christians as "the Church of God, sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints." Look at chap. i. 30: "But of Him "—that is, of the Father-" are ye in Christ Jesus, who "-that is, Christ Jesus-" of God is made unto us Wisdom," for we greatly need it; "Righteousness," for we have none of our own; "Sanctification," for we are one unmingled mass of depravity; "Redemption," deliverance from the thraldom of sin, Satan, and self. That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." See! there is no wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, or glory apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is all these to His people in Him. Paul commences the chapter before us thus: "And I, brethren." He is one with them, a brother in the

66

same family, a partaker of the same grace. He aspires not to the office of censor, though he must tell them the truth concerning them. He condemns not as a judge, but counsels as a brother. He does not say, I cannot acknowledge you as my brethren because of your depraved and disorderly conduct, for if you were partakers of grace, you would be more consistent. A pretty article I should be were I to address any poor halting child of God after that fashion. Yet Paul wrote, "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ." Carnal, yet elect, redeemed, regenerate. He as much as says, You have compelled me to address you according to the ground you occupy. Their disorders arose from the flesh, and their inconsistencies were the breakings forth of their carnal mind, therefore he spoke to them as carnal, yet as babes in Christ. "I have fed you with milk and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal; for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men ? 66 or, according to man? You are not walking according to the Spirit and in the fear of the Lord, but according to the clique with which you are identified, or according to the man whom you have made your model preacher. Here is a lesson for us. There are those whose religion is confined to the Grove, to the Tabernacle, or to some other earthly building; but may the Lord, in His infinite mercy and goodness, grant to you who are attached to me for work's sake, that you may see little of me, and much of my Master. May it be yours when you hear the voice of the preacher to be swallowed up in the sweet strains of Gospel music which flow alone from the once broken heart of our most glorious Christ who lives and reigns for His own up yonder. Time would fail me to point out the marvellous grace abounding in this precious chapter, but, in humble dependence upon the leading of God's good Spirit, I would seek to direct your minds into the understanding and enjoyment of the new covenant provision set before us in the portion I have read as my text-which divides itself into two questions:

I.-WHO?" Ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."

my

II. WHAT? The saint's inventory-" For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours."

I.-WHO?" Ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." This reveals a property or possession which God has in His own people in Christ Jesus. My soul was blest with a little quiet, resting in the truth of the portion in Deut. xxxii. 9-12, as our dear friend Davis was preaching God's truth most preciously from it at " Old Dulwich " the other evening: "For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance," &c.