Speech at the Annual Meeting of the Liberation Society, in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, May 7th, 1877. Erasmus laughs at the idea of the man who attaches a benefit to the mere possession of the Bible.
EARNESTNESS. F3
Might you not better lay down the name of the office than hold the title, if you do not fulfill it. Think of your end, and of that which has been provided for you, — the mansions of the blessed in the land, of rest hereafter.
PRAYER AND FAITH. F4
No, and there is no necessity that it should, because our prayers are the reflection of the decrees of God. For me to live is Christ,” is to be the word of every saved man, not of the apostle only.
HOME MISSIONS. F5
Our churches south of the Tweed had need to be up in arms against popery. True elevation of soul is the consecration of spirit, soul, and body to the cause of the Great Redeemer.
CHRISTIAN WORK. F6
We know by experience that the idle part of the church is that in which sin has strongest hold. Even thus, in the church, if you are not serving God, you are hindering his cause; if you are not contributing to the progress of the Redeemer’s kingdom, you are a drag upon its wheels. Try the other end of the broom, Betty,” and so on in the most judicious manner.
He wrote in London a paper on birds; and he says, “While I am writing I think I hear the rustle of the wings of pigeons in the backwoods of America.”. Very many of the gewgaws of ministerialism — they are not much better — ought to be thrown away. He told me what would become of my soul if I died a swearer, and he told me of the world to come.
HOME EVANGELIZATION. F7
There is a constant influx of young men who come up from the country and increase the numbers and power of the London churches. I fear it is the fact that it would be very difficult to supply the gospel to every village in England if the State Church is abolished, Part of the difficulty lies in the independent policy of the Baptists and Independents. I am persuaded that a large proportion of the sermons that are preached are not understood by the people.
I have at home all the volumes of The Pulpit, and I was reading some of them this morning. I hope the funds of the society will tend to encourage the brethren in the country. And those gentlemen in London were not aware of the importance of the service which they had rendered.
THE TOLLER, FAMILY. F8
My dear brother must have given you good matter to have kept you so long together. Rippon, used to say that he had in his church some of the best people in England, and some of the worst. Well, that is just my experience; I have got some of the best people in England.
Toller fortunately seems not to have had many of the worst, but to have had some of the best people in England. How can you expect a young fellow just starting to have all the knowledge and experience of a man that has been many years in the service. What a blessing it is to you at Kettering to be kept together all these years.
LOVE IN ACTION. F9
The society has done indirectly a very great service, for years ago the incomes of the brethren helped amounted on an average to £75 or £76. At this present moment the average stipend of the assisted ministers comes to £87, which, with the £20, makes up £107, so that there has been an improvement of some £12 or £14 each all round of those helped, apart from the help the society has given. We delight to gather in the poorest of the poor and preach the gospel to them.
I believe the best Wesleyans, certainly the best Congregationalists, very many of the best Church of England people, and all the best Plymouth Brethren, have been baptized. The others, for reasons best known to themselves, slink every man to his tent in the rear, and escape some of the reproach that we have to bear. We are not respectable at all because we put baptism out of the font into the right place.
STRANGE SCENES. F10
Conceive the judge, in the middle of an assize, suddenly jumping up on the top of the bench, and shouting,. Strange scenes have been seen on the face of the earth amongst those who worked for Christ — strange through the heroism of those who were the chief actors in them. It was also a strange scene when in spite of the threatening of Cromwell’s soldiers, when holding a pistol to his head, the clergyman at St.
Such scenes caused by the heroism of the persons in the center, were well worthy of their remembrance. Secondly, some scenes had been very strange, because of the singular places in which they occurred. Binney, at the Weigh House Chapel, to rebuke a gentleman who in the middle of the sermon took out his watch, said, “What is the clock, sir?” A strange scene, too, in that American place of worship, when the preacher, having preached some three hours, and a hungry sinner on retiring being told by the preacher he should soon be through, answered,.
THE CHURCH’S WORK. F11
We now feel that we want to be fed in order that we may work; for, “If any man will not work, neither let him eat,” should be a spiritual as well as a moral rule. Now, if sinners are to be converted through us, let us use, at any rate:, all our common sense. I want God’s work to be done with all your thoughtfulness and care, for if not, I am persuaded we cannot expect that sinners will be converted to God.
If sinners are to be converted, then the next thing is that we must mind the conditions under which the Holy Spirit is generally found to work. Now, if we want sinners to be converted we must be looking after them in that way. There are all sorts of things to be done if people wish to bring souls to Christ.
LABOURERS TOGETHER WITH GOD. F12
I think we lack one evidence of the perfect reconciliation of our souls to God, until we get to do something for him. The world, with all its millions to be made to bow before Emmanuel’s feet through the agency of the church of God. A thing that might be easily done would not show so much of the divine condescending truthfulness in us.
Oh that we could rise to the magnitude of the scale in which God works, and begin to feel that. I feel grateful to know that the missionaries rise to a sense of the responsibility that God has laid upon them. Some mention was made of the sovereignty of God, and the way in which it crippled some of our forefathers.
DISESTABLISHMENT. F13
Although my whole heart and sympathy are with the evangelical clergy of the Church of England, yet certain]y as to courage I have more hope of the High Church. The union of the Church with the State causes, before all the world, a misrepresentation of what the Church is. All Englishmen are said to be members of the National Church, and they are treated as such.
To me one of the most sorrowful things is, that in this Church Jesus Christ is practically dethroned. I am sorry for a man that he should ever bring his conscience down to submit to the dictate of the State about a thing which concerns Christ. I know the bishops and clergy of the Church of England have been acting in a very dreadful manner for years, without knowing it.
WORK IN LONDON. F14
He did not believe that, but he believed in the philosophy at the bottom of it. In conclusion he exhorted the deacons and elders to more active exertions in the service of the church. If they wanted to be a king, let them try and make everybody else a king too.
Let them qualify themselves for the best positions in the body to which they belonged. If they were not strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, their ministry would be a failure, let them do what they might. The fellow has no feeling at all.” He believed in resurrection of character, and they might be content to.
COUNTRY CHURCHES AND EVANGELIZATION. F16
Poor souls, my marvel is how they support this mortal life at all with the wages some of the agricultural laborers earn. That is not true merely of the poorer people, but out in the suburbs there are a number of persons whom you consider ladies and. I think, too, that our country churches contain some of the very soundest of our divines, and some of the very best orthodox members.
I wish that some of this so-called ignorance would wipe out some of the wisdom that we have in our towns. Ask them if they have seen the power of the gospel in converting men, and you will hear some things from some of them that you might not have beard if you had. Now, there ought to be this year an extra expenditure upon the poorer ministers of the country; they will greatly want it just at this time.
A COUNCIL OF WAR. F18
Each member of the body must take its own share in the organization of the body according to the intent of him who made that body. He believed in the coming of the Lord, even that night he would be glad to see him; but he did not stand and open his mouth gazing for him. The door-mat at the house of the Lord was the best article after all.
The mischief of the churches was that every one wanted to be the first horse. Some people talked a good deal of the doctrines of grace, but directly one preached anything decided it was bigotry. Let them try and get the elite of the church to be engaged there, and not leave it entirely to the young people.
FOOTNOTES
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