Imatges de pàgina
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"The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea." But Simon said, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing nevertheless at thy command, we will let down the net." Luke v. 5. Breth. ren, our Vessel is but a little one, and but a few poor fishermen on board. The night is dark, and the seas are boisterous, and the winds seem contrary; the skies are lowering and stormy. But if Jesus be with us in the Vessel, we may smile at the storm, though he may seem to sleep; for "the winds and the waves obey him." And you know that we have been many a long dark night at sea, and in such hurricanes and storms, that we have cried out "Master, carest thou not that we perish ?" And he has arose and rebuked the winds, and we have had a great calm. I am sure that one little word from Jesus can hush the wildest storm, and bring such a peace and calm into the troubled soul, that nothing can trouble us. Not long ago I was in such a windy storm and tempest that I thought the deep would have swallowed me

up. And oh the sweet words that he dropped into my heart, they were these-" mighty to save!" The storm ceased instantly, and I was as calm as a soft summer's evening, and my fears, like midnight phantoms, fled at the rising of the sun.

Come, then, my poor brother fishermen, if Jesus be with us in the Vessel, let us launch out into the deep, and at his command, let down the net on the right side of the ship, and we shall take some fish. Ah! but, say you, I have been toiling all the long, dark night, and taken nothing. Very likely: some poor fishermen labour and toil many years, and take nothing, and are ready to give it up. But I say, have you had the right net? and was it let down on the right side of the ship? Why, say you, I prepared a good net. I selected a text; I well digested it in my mind; put down my heads and divisions; and I well arranged the subject; yea, I had several sermons well arranged before hand; and I preached audibly and loud, and went through all my well-arranged ideas; and many said it was an excellent sermon, and I thought so too. Did you, indeed? Ah! per

haps it was you that done it; You, and no one beside. I knew a minister who said that he always had twenty or thirty sermons in his drawer, well arranged and prepared before hand. But he generally put his net on a "line of other men's line of things, made ready to his hand ;" and fished in the same place where other good fishermen for years Ah! John Berridge

earthly invention.

had fished before him. (and many others,) fished 14 years with such nets and caught nothing! Master Fishermen, this seems like a net of your own invention"The kingdom of heaven is like a net." Ah! a net from heaven, made ready in heaven, and let down from heaven into your heart, and drawn by the Father, through the fisherman as an instrument, and the living soul must come to Jesus. That is the right net, and the right time and place, when Jesus speaks in your soul, then you let the net down right where you are, and where you see and feel yourself, on the right side of the ship. Right down where you are, and at the command of Jesus, not only the winds and waves obey him, but the fishes at the bottom of the sea. That is the way to go a fishing, my dear lads, at Jesus' command; he knows where the right kind of fish are, and he will draw all them unto him at the last day; and they shall swim in love everlasting, the boundless glory sea, and never thirst any more.

But when these living fish are taken out of the dead sea, their natural element, they cast up mire and dirt. Living, quickened souls, brought out of their natural element, the world; O, how they begin to thirst, like fish out of water, under a fiery, burning law, they struggle and dash about, and think they

shall soon be where there is not a drop of any kind of water to drink or cool them, even in hell. But when they are put into living gospel how sweetly they drink and swim in love, and "the river of the water of life," O,

waters,

they shall never die.

Some years ago, when I went a fishing, I paring a net, got my text all ready days was very unskilful, I was a whole week prebefore I went out, squared and lined my net in every way, as I thought, suitable, all well arranged: O, thought I, now I shall have them, because I have seen some fine large fish in the troubled sea. O, thought I, this text will suit you, and that text will suit another, and I should like to catch such and such a fish with golden scales. Bless your heart, will you believe it? soon as I hurled my net into the water, the very noise of it scared them. Bless you, they were soon frightened away. Then I toiled all night; ah, night after night, and caught nothing. Well, thought I, I will give up fishing, it is labour in vain: but when the poor fool was instructed to put the net that was put into his hand right down in the place where he was,

severely, and cried out vehemently, and said, "Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice," "salvation is of the Lord." So if the monster of the deep swallows any of the Lord's people with the hook in them, they must be drawn out, and the monster must give up his prey.

Next, there is the deep hole of despair, when some large fish are harpooned, or hooked, they immediately plunge down to the bottom of the sea, to the deepest hole they can find; and some souls thus pierced with sharp conviction, dash down into deeper sins than they have been in before, endea

on the right side of the ship, I caught several | drags of nice fish, some of them are now in the gospel waters of grace, truth, and life, and some swimming in the soft sea of glory. However, as I have said before, there were some good fish that struggled out of the net, and were frightened far away into some very deep holes, as they might have been slightly hooked, or entangled, by some good fisher men before; so then I was obliged to launch out into the deep again, deeper still, and take to hook and line, the long threefold cord that is not quickly broken; and no one ever found the end yet, nor ever will, for it is "from everlasting to everlasting," and ever-vouring to drown conviction, and all thoughts lasting love is a line without end, and the word is "with everlasting mercies will I gather thee." So we went to work with this line, and some good hooks, baited with such things as we know the fish would snap at; for once they get them into their mouths it was as sweet as honey; but when they felt the hook in their belly it was sharp and bitter, and they could not get the hooks out. But now the true fishermen with the endless line of God's love and mercy do fish in deep holes of the dark sea; with the sharp hooks of God's word, and pierce and enter deep into the hearts and consciences of poor lost sinners in the deepest haunts and holes of

sin.

First, the line and hook is sent down into the hole of sin, in which Adam and his children fell, to let them know that however deep Adam fell, the love of God in Christ is much deeper; all manner of sin and blasphemy, through Christ's death, sufferings, and blood, shall be forgiven unto the sons of men for God's love in Christ is deeper than their sins, yea, deeper than hell; deeper than that hell that sin and satan hath made in their souls.

Second, with this line and hook they are to fish deep into backsliders' dark holes; at whatever distance they may be run from God; and some such may be gone so far, and so deep in this hole of the seas, that they may by some be thought to be gone past all recovery, out of sight, and almost out of mind with us. But there is many a good fish that struggle out of the net, and chosen fish too. David was down deep in backsliders' hole, covered with mud and filth, but the hook and long line," thou art the man!" found him; and with the hook in his heart he cried out aloud, so that he was heard from the deeps of the sea, "Out of the deeps cried I, and thou heard my voice." Poor, rebellious, backsliding Jonah ran quite away, and went down to the deepest hole, yea, into the very belly of hell; and he feared that death and hell had quite swallowed him up, and that he was in the very paws and jaws of the devil. But the hook was felt in his heart, and when the long line, the cord of love, was drawn, he felt the pain

of God, and when they find that they cannot get the hook out, skulk into some dark hole, and even seek death, because life is a burden to them, and sink into sullen desperation, and yield to death, seeking death and the grave, but cannot find it, saying, O! that I had never been born! The hook and arrows of conviction under the law. "work in them all manner of concupiscence," and even wrath against God! But even from this deep hole they are drawn by the almighty arm of blood and love, though in this state they cannot believe that God can love them; they see themselves such monsters of iniquity, that they think he can as soon love the devil, as he can love them: but all this is in love, though the poor soul cannot believe it: but the hook does not loose its hold, the arrows stick fast in the flesh and enter into the soul, and omnipotent love draws the line; the Father draws them, and they are brought to Jesus, with higher songs of love than those who were only angled out of shallower waters for

"From all their afflictions,

God's glory shall spring,
And the deeper their sorrows,
The louder they'l sing."

Next there is the hypocrites' and pharisees'
deep hole: a few have been brought out of
this hole, and according to the scriptures,
but a very few. Paul and Nicodemus were
brought out of that hole to be sure, but you
will not read of many more such in the
scriptures. There are more brought up from
the deep haunts of profane sinners, publicans
and harlots, then there are from pharisees'
hole. "Publicans and harlots shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven, before them." There
appear to be more in a hopeless state in this
deep place than in any other hole, except
the hole of the
66
great transgression,"
sin unto eternal death."

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For indeed this deep hole of the false church, with her numerous swarms of professors of our day, is the very whirlpool to hell! A whore, is a deep ditch, the abhorred of the Lord, shall fall therein; "for her darts strike through his liver, as a bird hasteneth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for

his life. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death:" not only the Church of Rome, but all grades and denominations of false churches, and poor duped professors are caught and slain by her sorcery and witchcraft, free-will: and as Mr. JAMES OSBOURN stated, free-will can only grow, and have a lasting abode in a seared conscience, seared by the devil's red hot iron.

Well, my dear friends, this wide world of sin is the great sea, the troubled sea, casting up mire and dirt, and you must know that in this wide sea, there are two kinds or companies of fishermen, and two kinds of nets; Christ's net, and the devil's net; the kingdom of heaven or the gospel, is as a net, and the kingdom of hell or error is as a net. Christ Jesus has his fishermen, and the devil has his fishermen,: there is a good net, and an evil net and as fishes are taken in an evil net, and as the bird is caught in a snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time." Eccles. ix. 12. And my brother fishermen, "this is an evil time, and the days are evil." And you may be sure that the devil, the old dragon of the deep, has a large company of his fishermen, and with an evil net, a spurious false gospel; and tens of thousands of the sons of men, are snared and caught in this evil net, by the flatterers, who flatter and deceive multitudes of poor souls; some deceiving; others being deceived by them; for they who are not Christ's gospel fishermen, are but flatterers, as John Bunyan calls them. "The wicked desireth the net of an evil man." Prov. xii. 12. And truly in these evil days, they have their desire, and appear to be willingly ignorant of the glorious gospel of Christ, and multitudes upon multitudes are snared and taken, and snared in satan's net in this evil time, for his fishermen have spread their wide drag net over the whole sea. The prophet Habakkuk stood astonished at this great fishery of the old dragon and his company. "They make men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things; they take up all of them with their angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag, therefore they rejoice and are glad." (Hab. i. 15.) Ah! they do rejoice and are glad, and laugh too at us poor fishermen. A free-will minister once sneeringly and exultingly said to me, "look at your numbers, and compare them with our's, what have you done comparatively with us?" I said, Sir, your numbers speak nothing in your favor, but rather the contrary. It is said, "narrow is the way, and few they be that find it" and again, "fear not little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

of the Lord, while a true minister of Christ's gospel, is almost compelled to run for his life, from persecution, as poor Elijah did; and if God was not to feed them with a cake of bread, in a special providential manner, as he did Elijah, they would be ready to lay down under a tree, in some wood, and die. But the God-sent prophets, the ministers of Jesus, have bread to eat, which they "know nothing of." Christ's ministers who minister in life and Spirit, have the Spirit of Christ in them, and the testimony of Jesus (in their souls) is the spirit of prophecy, and all Jezebel's prophets hate them, because the spirit of Jesus in them compels them to prophecy against these false prophets who speak lies in the name of the Lord.

But now ye poor fishermen of Jesus, how much have you of this world's portion and fat things? Nothing to spare, say you; I am kept alive, but the Lord will not pamper my flesh, lest I grow wanton and kick, nor give me my portion all in this life. That is true, dear fishermen, the Lord knows your needs for the poor flesh, but your portion is in him, he will provide you some bread, fish, and honey-comb, sufficient for your need, and with honey-comb and his presence, you will have a sweet meal, though you may have little or no money in your pocket. You know that when they came to Jesus and his disciples, for taxes, the whole company could not make up half-a-crown. Then said Jesus to Peter, "cast a hook into the sea," and up came the fish with a piece of money in its mouth, just enough to pay the tax; well, enough is enough, at the time it is needed. Jesus knows your needs, and your times are in his hands; go on ye poor fishermen of Jesus, spread your nets, cast in your hook at Jesus' command, and when he knows that you are driven to your wit's end, and really want a little piece of money, the fish will come up on your hook, with a piece of money in its mouth, enough for your need. I have been in great straits, and sometimes a fish has come up with a piece of money in its mouth, many times it has been so with me; I had one come up with five sovereigns in its mouth! and one time when I thought I must have been wrecked altogether, as sure as you live, a fish came up with twenty pounds in its mouth! It made me silent with wonder, which at last broke out in praise to his name, and I have now need to look to Jesus, and wait his command.

Now kind readers, if you think the Vessel is in Jesus' fishery, and the men on board, the fishermen of Jesus, I trust they will not put down their lines in vain, seeing the Vessel is in debt, and the under-captain in distress, for if the last month's line brought nothing up; may this bring up a thousand little fish, with six-pences in their mouths. A WATCHMAN ON THE WALLS.

These net draggers are all fattening at Jezebel's table. This woman Jezebel, is a type of the false church, who will raise tens of thousands to feed false prophets, and lying ministers, who speak lies in the name' December 1, 1846.

Mr. James Osbourn,

FROM BALTIMORE IN NORTH AMERICA.

This dear and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, whose life and soul experience is recorded in a work entitled "The Lawful Captive Delivered," is now in England. He has preached in several Chapels in London, where the truth as it is in Christ is maintained, and is highly esteemed as a bold, faithful labourer, and talented minister of the true circumcision. We have had the pleasure of conversing with him and also of perusing some of his works, which as yet are not generally known in England; he is blessed with powers of mind peculiarly adapted for diving into "the deep things of God;" his whole heart is in the work to which the Lord has called him; his public ministrations are sober, comprehensive, and striking. We trust his labours in England may be owned of God.

On Lord's day, December 20, 1846, he preached, at the Surrey Tabernacle, for Mr. JAMES WELLS, both morning and evening. The following is a brief outline of the evening discourse. The text was Romans i. 16.

:

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

In the morning we observed five distinct things, and closed our discourse under the fifth head. We there pointed out the disparity that existed between the gospel of Christ and the law; the one being a dispensation of death, the other a dispensation of life and peace. We now come to the sixth general head of our discourse.

In the first place, however, we are to understand that the gospel is a system of pure clemency, and that it was invented by eternal deity to accomplish the ends he had in view from everlasting: and it has not failed in one of these objects, His own declarative glory, the exaltation of his character, and the setting forth of his own glorious name for the sons of men, were the grand objects designed to be accomplished by the gospel. All must be made subservient to the declarative glory of God. His prime and main end in the creation of the world, and in the creation of man, is a point inferior to the declarative glory of God. A humane general taking the lead of his army into a field of battle, if he

was told that some of his men would be killed, and that some of the enemy would be killed-and if he was asked if that was his object, he would reply, "No: victory is my object!" So the gospel of God; by it victory is aimed at and obtained. By the illustration of the attributes of God, and in the carrying of them out, God will secure his own glory. If men believe and are saved, the glory of God is promoted; and if men perish in their sins, still the glory of God is promoted. The mercy of God was never displayed in the awakening, converting, or saving of a poor sinner at the expense of divine justice. God's justice was never displayed but with the approbation of divine mercy.

Again, we will observe, that as this is the object and aim of God, this glorious gospel of the Lord is like himself; that is to say, it is immutable, it undergoes no sort of alteration whatever. It is like its divine contriver-always the same. It retains all its oriental glories untarnished; and it is contended for by those who love and fear God. It is distinguished from every other system among men; and the people of God have no desire to be saved by any other system. Grace standing simply and alone is Godlike, but when it is coupled with human merits, it then becomes dwarfish and puny. The carnal mind is hostile to the gospel; and the gospel, from the begining down to the forty-sixth year of the nineteenth century, has been subject to the scorn and the reproach of the ignorant and the unbelieving. Is this reproach confined to the ungodly and openly profane? No. It is mostly to be found in men who call themselves gospellers, and profess a marked regard to the gospel of God. There is not one particle of truth in all that such men say, but it is a perfect subversion of the gospel of the living God. Thus, then, the gospel is subject to reproach. We see the crowds, the thousands, the millions, who are expecting to go to heaven while they are living in hostility to the gospel. We may as well expect to go to heaven without a Saviour, as to go to heaven without a gospel. I stand as secure in this assertion as the Rock of Gibraltar, and nothing can move me. I pity that man in my very soul, who thinks he can manage his affairs in such a manner as to escape scorn and reproach. If we are informed that we must be saved by

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never been born, than make such state-
ments. If this be not the case, six and
four does not make ten. If this be the
case, we might just as well have pre-
vented Christ from coming into the
world to die. Not a soul has ever been
coaxed into heaven. Men are sunk too
low to be coaxed there. "Lazarus, come
forth!" This is peremptory.
"And
Lazarus came forth, bound hand and
foot." God spake to us from Mount
Sinai, and his dear Son speaks to us
from Mount Calvary. God is cleared
from the injustice of making man and
leaving him to perish. The Holy Ghost
is just shoved to leeward, (a technical
term used at sea) and men have only to
fall in with these views. If I am right, as
God liveth, they are wrong; and if they
are right, I am one of the worst wretches
out of hell. However, I am content to
risk the safety of my position.

The general notion that is held respecting the gospel, as sure as God is in heaven, it is not true. If the gospel is not in a general way, brought before people in so many words, it is brought before them as a fact, that the gospel is only made use of by the eternal founder of it as an experiment. This is an infernal outrage upon the Creator-a libel upon his word. Some men naturally seem to have scientific minds, and they are continually finding something out; but prudence naturally suggests to them, before they bring their discoveries to light, that they should perform the ex- In the gospel of the Son of God there periment, to see if it answers the in- is no coadjuter. Under the Levitical tended purpose. Does God act so? If law it was forbidden to plough with an he does, in what way is it so used? Why ox and an ass together; it was forbidden it is said that God lays his plans before to sow together seeds of various kindsthe sons of men, and coaxes them into a to mix a covenant of grace with a covebelief of them. The formation of them nant of works. The gospel has no more is such that surely men cannot be dis-respect for men's good works, than they pleased with them. Such is the way in have themselves for their bad works. As which the gospel is spoken of. If this God liveth, our bad works are as fit to be true, we stand precisely as devils commend us as our good works; for stand-without a hope in the world. But God will reject both. Therefore, let us blessed be God, this is not true-it is as sweep away all these cobwebs from the false as hell. There is nothing of the gospel; then we shall see that there is sort in the gospel-nothing so despotic, a foundation laid for poor sinners to as we observed in the morning. It is hope upon. Nothing is more plain than truly the breath of God in the field of the doctrine established by the apostle death. It is a rich source of fragrancy Paul: "Not by deeds of righteousness and perfume. Men are taken sometimes which we have done; (there is no more by surprise, and they are surprised that salvation for us in these, than there is such a remedy, such a gospel should be for devils,) but according (oh, this provided, as to turn them from "the blessed according) to his riches in glory power of sin and satan unto God." Those by Christ Jesus." On no other principle men, who thus represent the gospel as will God save man; and not a single an experiment, must do so in order to soul is saved on this plan, but by his carry out the principles of their first no- own consent; he is heartily willing to tions respecting it. The salvation of be saved in God's own way. man depend upon human contingencies! Another trait in the gospel is the perIf this be the case, there is no more hope petuity of it. It is not that which is to for us. There is no contingency. It is continue for a short season, but "from I will and they shall. Therefore it is the rising of the sun unto the going not true what we hear of the gospel, at down of the same, the name of the least, in my country, where it is stated, Lord shall be great among the Gentiles." that unless we raise more money, and "From the rising of the sun unto the more preachers, and send them to Hin-going down of the same." That is, from doo or some other such place, men will the east unto the west. God says, my continue to go on as they are now going on, dropping into hell, and so on. It would have been better that you had

name shall be great. What is the name of God? Grace is God's name; Mercy is another name; Love is another name

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