Memorials of the Life of Mr.Joseph Hamblin.

BY THOMAS JONES.

(Continued from page 49.)

JOSEPH HART gives it as the lesson of his life that, "it is not so

easy to be a Christian as most men imagine." His own exercises under the strong hand of God, as recorded by himself, fully justifies his conclusion, which agrees with an ancient testimony: "For thou, O God, hast proved us, thou hast tried us as silver is tried. Thou broughtest us into the net; thou laidest affliction upon our loins. Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place." Thus, also, spake Moses to the children of Israel, "The Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end." Not all Christians can minutely describe the way or the voyage through which they have come, but those who could, tell of warrings between the law of the members and the law of the mind; of a confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; cries of fear, mingled with hope; liftings up and castings down; death struggles with the adversary, and vehement wrestlings with Jacob's God; their feeble vision overpowered by the brightness of his glory, and they, anon, plunged into thick darkness which can be felt. These are among the means whereby the Father of spirits "exercises and proves, and tries the heart and the reins."-Psalm xxvi. 2.

Joseph Hamblin was taught in the same school as Joseph Hart, and, like him, learnt that "faith, like gold, must be tried in the fire before it can be depended on." One day, he relates, while employed in his business, and thinking of his manifold backslidings, Satan entered his mind with fierce rage and malice, and stoutly charged him with having sealed his own condemnation by committing the sin against the Holy Ghost, the sin the Saviour declares shall not be forgiven to men neither in this world nor in the world to come. The suddenness, the violence, the frightfulness of the charge, and the manner in which it was made, shook his whole system, and rendered him incapable of following his usual occupation two weeks. In this his distress he betook himself to his knees, and with many tears entreated help of Him who is "mighty to save." His cry was heard, his soul was relieved, and the accuser was cast down. He was given to see that many and heinous as were his transgressions, the unpardonable crime was not among them. Nor was this all the spoil he acquired through the fight, as a fresh sense of pardon was sealed on his conscience; and though there was not the same glow and joy he had felt before, he realised that sweet peace which Satan may be suffered to disturb, but he is never able to destroy.

It would seem that this accusation of unforgivable blasphemy is the enemy's great gun, with which he contrives to rake and harass poor souls to · a fearful extent. Many of our Father's family have been struck with a shot from that engine, but they fell to rise again. Bunyan was bruised by it, and he obtained healing for himself, and such instruction concerning the whole matter as qualified him to minister to the relief of others wounded by the same weapon. He says a seared conscience is one of the marks of such reprobates, and he who fears he has committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, hath not committed it.

We read that after Satan, in his devilish impudence, had attacked our blessed Lord with his wonted subtleties, and continued the siege forty days and forty nights, HE DEPARTED FROM HIM FOR A SEASON. Luke says he had "ended all the temptation," implying that he had tried all his skill and craft, and expended all his ammunition in this desperate campaign, artfully judging that if he could conquer the Captain of our salvation, the rank and file would be an easy prey. This is recorded for the comfort and encouragement of His tempted followers that "He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin ;" Satan could not induce him to sin. But lest we should be too jubilant when he has fled from us, and so become carelessly confident, we are told that when he had tried his every stratageni on our Lord, and been constantly foiled, he departed only for a season, still bent on mischief, and waiting for opportunity.

After he had inflicted a painful wrench on our friend Hamblin, who in his anguish sought succour under the shade of the cross, he departed from him for a season.

"Satan trembles when he sees,

The weakest saint upon his knees."

During a few years following he travelled through chequered scenes; some bright, some gloomy; sometimes rejoicing in the Lord, and sometimes crying out, "O, wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" He had numerous sins to mourn over, and countless mercies to praise for, in the year 1819, he was visited with fatherly chastisement in the shape of a dangerous bodily affliction: "What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" Disease made such rapid progress that in the space of one night he sunk so low that his recovery was very doubtful. Through mercy he did recover, and it was not till he was convalescent that he came to know how near he had been to the grave, and how manifest was the hand of God in plucking him from the jaws of death. Then he was led to see the wisdom of Divine goodness, as in the extremity of his weakness had he apprehended a speedy dissolution death would have been hastened by those fears which infested his soul, and which would have been intensified a thousand-fold if he had believed he was so near to the bar of judgment; his body healed, the Holy Spirit led him to deeper examinations of his own heart, and to enquire more jealously into the nature of his hope and the grounds of his faith. Here he encountered difficulties he had not so much as dreamed off. He was conscious of abounding sin; he was not so conscious of the super-aboundings of grace. He did not doubt the Word as it stands, but could not realise his own standing in the grace of the Word,

and it was after much reading, pondering, and praying that he clearly perceived that the sinner becomes just before God by the righteousness of Christ freely imputed; and in that same Jesus is wisdom, sanctification, and redemption. He ceased to trust to some good thing in his own flesh, and looked only to the Saviour, in whom it hath pleased the Father all fulness should dwell. Legality, slavish fear, fleshly reasonings, engendering doubt, were expelled by faith in the Gospel record-in the Christ of the Gospel ; and he felt his feet were set upon a rock, while glory shone around.

WHEN DID THE HOLY SPIRIT BEGIN HIS WORK
IN THE GOSPEL DISPENSATION?

I was thinking of those words in Psalm ciii, "But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him. This mercy appeared to be like a river flowing out of the heart of GOD; and, coming down, in the person of JESUS, rolling on through all the Ages of Time; its streams making glad the citizens of Zion; and emptying itself in the sea of everlasting love, which is before the throne of God and the Lamb for ever. In the character of the Good Samaritan, the living embodiment of mercy appeared in its most benevolent employment-healing, raising, and taking care of the poor man who had fallen amongst thieves; but the most powerful thought in my mind was upon the exercise of mercy manifested in the power and grace of the Holy Ghost.

Did not the ETERNAL SPIRIT begin His great work in the New Testament dispensation just as the Redeemer was finishing His great sacrificial work? I think He did. There is something very pleasant, yea, most exceedingly powerful as illustrating the faithfulness, the harmony, and the beautiful unity of the Three Glorious Persons in the ever-blessed Trinity in the work of salvation, if you look at two things for one moment.

I. Did not the Saviour say unto His disciples, 66 If I go not away, the COMFORTER will not come unto you; but if I Go away, my FATHER will send Him unto you?"

وو

The

II. Now before the Saviour was quite gone, did not the Holy Spirit fly from the eternal throne, and entering into the soul of one of the expiring malefactors on Calvary's Hill, did He not convince him of his sinful and dangerous state- and then, directing his eye and his heart toward the bleeding and expiring JESUS, He secretly said, as it were, within him, "Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world?" poor dying thief looked, and as he looked, the SPIRIT wrought faith in his soul, and prompted him to throw himself upon the all-sufficiency of the Son of God, with, "LORD, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.' And was it possible he could be denied? In ancient prophecy had not the Lord cried out, "Look unto me and be ye saved all ye ends of the earth? For I am God, and beside me there is no Saviour." And now from the ends of the earth indeed a poor dying thief was LOOKING" and crying too. Besides, in the days of His holy ministry, the Great Immanuel cried, "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." Therefore, in the fulness of His faithfulness, the dying Saviour replied, "To day shalt thou be with Me in paradise." Thus, the prophetic exclamation, the Saviour's proclamation, and His promise concerning the coming and work of the Holy Spirit, were all fulfilled and realised in that dreadful hour, when Jesus on the cross did hang.

Shadows of a Pastor's Life.

Lights and Shadows of

BEING A DOZEN CHAPTERS IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A LIVING MINISTER.

(Continued from page 45).

ASSING through the street one day about three months after, I had begun

PASSIN

the French, I picked up a leaf of some philological work on which I saw it stated, that the French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese were all sister languages, and were derived from the Latin. Then, thought I, with my present knowledge of Latin and French, I shall be able to acquire these with comparative ease. I commenced with the Italian, adapting my usual course of reading in it the first chapter of John, and so going through the Italian Testament. I thought that my best course would be to acquire the Italian through the medium of the French; I accordingly bought a French and Italian dictionary, and Zotte's Grammaire Italien, in French and Italian. By this process I acquired it rapidly, and at the same time strengthened and increased my knowledge of the French, A Florentine gentleman to whom I was introduced, kindly volunteered to teach me the pronunciation, which I found remarkably easy, and extremely musical.

I then set to work at the Spanish through the French, and the Portuguese at the same time; and acquired a tolerable knowledge of both in a few weeks, so as to be able to read the prose writers in both languages. Here I paused in my study of languages for a few months, till one day, in the course of one of my rambles, I found a Greek Testament; at this time I had never seen a letter in the Greek alphabet, but the title Novum Testamentum Græcum, being in Latin told me what it was, and in a few months I had read it through, and could "parse" it too.

Some time subsequent, to this, with the object of reading the philological works of Bopp, Grimm, and Adding, in their native tongue, I turned my attention to the German, and then to its collateral dialects, the Dutch, and the Danish. I then commenced the study of the old Sclavonic, the modern Russian, and the Luthuarian, the old Prussian, and the old Gothic, the parent of the Anglo-Saxon. Then the Anglo-Saxon itself, then the Erse, or old Irish, and the old Celtic, or parent of the Welsh.* In fact I had a perfect passion for languages, and acquired a knowledge of them with great rapidity.

At the close of these chapters, if I have space, I will add an appendix of some of the interesting results to which I was led by this study of languages. During all this time I was a stranger to vital godliness, but still I looked upon a profession of religion as a respectable and necessary thing, and though as I was now twenty years of age, it was time for me to put it Beside several of my old schoolfellows had done so, joined churches, and were now at college, and studying for the ministry, and why should not I? and I accordingly began to look round, and see which seemed the most *I do not mean to say that I mastered these latter languages, as I studied them chiefly with a view to their philology.

on.

respectable and fashionable Independent church in London; and I soon decided in favour of the church at S chapel, then under the pastorate of the late Mr. S▬▬▬. After attending public worship there some four or five months, I called on Mr. S, and expressed a wish to join the church. He received me very courteously, and the following conversation took place.

Mr. S

"Where do you live?" I told him.

"How long have you attended my ministry?"

"Four or five months."

"And you like it?"

"Yes! sir."

"Can you give me two references as to moral conduct ?"
"Yes! sir."

"I will send two of my deacons to see them and you.
"Good morning, sir."

Good morning."

A week or two after, two of the deacons, having seen my references, called on me when the following conversation ensued.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty."

"How long have you attended Mr. S- -'s ministry?"

"Then you will receive a ticket of membership, between this and the first Sunday in next month. Good morning."

Six other young men that I know were received into membership about the same time, on the strength of a precisely similar conversation. In fact I had ascertained from one of them before I went to see Mr. S-- what questions I was likely to be asked that I might be prepared to answer.

I have been thus particular in detailing the conversation, because it affords a sad but striking illustration of the way that members are received into the great dissenting churches. Had minister or deacons asked me any questions in relation to soul matters, as to when, where, how I had been convinced of sin, what I knew of the burden of sin, of the felt necessity of salvation, of communion with God, or yearning after it; I must have been speechless, and covered with shame and confusion of face before them. But as far as their questions were concerned, I might have been a positive atheist, and they would not have known, and I should have been admitted. This s a fearful state of things, in what is not inaptly termed, the "professing world," (it is certainly not the church of Christ). Having a name to live (in members, zeal, profession) but being dead. Nor was this mode of admitting members, confined to this church, I found from my intercourse with the members of the metropolitan Congregational churches, that this was pretty much the rule in them all.* Soon after I had joined the church, I was sent out to preach at different stations, prisons, and workhouses in the

* I know of one church where quite recently, sixteen members were admitted by a letter, one of the sixteen wrote it, and the others copied it, only making certain verbal alterations.