PHARISAIC PERSECUTION OR MODERN POPERY. 281 when he was laid in the tomb, in which no present, and took great umbrage at my man had ever laid; but he is not here now-observations, though they were founded on "the Lord is risen indeed!" He is gone up with the shout of a king. And now, in these low lands, disconsolate and striken one, often writing bitter things against thyself; it is thy privilege and mine, to have fellowship with a triumphant suffering Lord. PHARISAIC Persecution or Modern Popery. A Scene in Southwark Chapel Burial Ground. DISSENTERS in this vast metropolis are honored with the privilege of burying their dead in their own mode and manner, which generally differs from that of the national establishment. This solemn office I have been called to perform at different times and in different places: one of which is the Southwark Chapel Burying Ground, Long Lane, Bermondsey. A few month ago I spoke there over the mortal remains of a young woman (Jane Groves) to whom God had made my ministry (or rather, his own word through me,) signally useful. At the grave I read an account (penned by myself, from her own mouth when dying,) of her deliverance from the trumpery and trammels of Arminianism; which gave great offence to that deceived people, and heated their antipathy against me to a great extent. A short time since, I was requested to officiate at the interment of the venerable father of my esteemed brother Banks; it being known that I was to be the speaker on that solemn occasion, many persons assembled out of respect to Mr. Banks. And here allow me to say that the conduct of the pharisees was disgraceful to the last degree, especially of the man who is (I suppose) the manager of the ground. Persons were denied admittance into the place; the gate being closed against them; a desperate skirmish ensued between the people and the sentinel at the gate, and by which some persons got injured. They were not to be admitted because Stringer was there so much for universal charity, so highly applauded by the modern papists, the arminians: in fact, they are so very loving, holy, and pious, that they tolerate every sect but that which is everywhere spoken against; I mean the living people of the living God; and all his living ministers in particular. What I was enabled to say on this funeral occasion, heated the furnace of their enmity seven times hotter than usual. I was, and still am, branded by them with the most opprobrious and awful names, for the truth's sake; I am sure that when the grave flashes in a man's face he is in a special sense called upon to speak THE TRUTH, and hold not his peace. A short time since, I spoke in the same ground over the grave, at the interment of Mrs. Dyer, one of my hearers; and who had heard to her soul's advantage and comfort. Several of the arminian community were the Bible. I saw they could scarcely stand their ground; and I believe they would triumph could they but see me hanged upon a gallows fifty cubits high; but, blessed be God, satan has not full power yet. It has pleased the Lord also, to take to himself the soul of our sister, Mrs. Deely, (who attended my dear wife in her illness). The bereaved husband, our brother Deely, was desirous of her body being laid near that of my late wife's, in the same ground; the request being made to the manager, or managers, of the ground, by the undertaker, (our brother Mote) this enquiry was made, Who is to bury the corpse ? The reply was, "Mr. Stringer." "No" was the answer; "he is forbidden to speak in this ground any more;" or words to that effect. We then buried her mortal remains at Collier's Rents. So much for pharisaic persecution, pride, and popery. What think ye, my readers, of arminianism? Let them boast no more of universal charity; to their everlasting disgrace be it spoken, that these holy, mockhumble, pious enemies to the cross of Christ, have shut out a man from their burying ground, simply for speaking the naked truth at the mouth of the grave. I am bold to say, (hating not the deceived people, but their sentiments, from top to bottom, I do solemnly hate with a perfect hatred,) that unless sovereign grace prevents, thousands of them will be shut everlastingly out of God's presence; let them remember, that in the base act of shutting out a servant of Christ, they shut Christ out also; this will prove a ponderous weight upon the consciences of their holy pontiffs, and persecuting parsons, in a dying hour. Lord, have mercy upon them. Let the arminian conference, who have consulted together to shut me out of their burying ground for speaking the truth of God, hear this weighty sentence, "Whosoever, therefore, shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels." (Matt. viii. 38.) I am fully persuaded that the greatest enemies to the discriminating, unadulterated truth of God, under the heavens, are the arminians, or modern papists: they were so in our Lord's day: and they are so now yet they cry, "The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord! are these!" Let me say they are deceiving, and being deceived; for where his servant, and his truth are shut out; he never takes up his abode himself. Write upon the doors of your magnificient cathedrals, O ye enemies to God, and to God's truth-"Ichabod; the glory is departed." The glory of the creature, to an awful extent, is seen among them; they glory in a corrupt system, in each others presence; I wish I could transform them; but power belongeth unto God: though they would like to see me sawn asunder, I should be thankful if it were God's will, to see the 282 THE LORD'S DEALINGS WITH JOHN EPPS. saved from that destruction which awaits. them. I tremble at their destiny. They are a multitudinous people to a witness; and should popery once more prevail in our beloved country, what shoals of volunteers from the arminian camp will swell the popish ranks! SOME OF THE Lord's Dealings with John Epps, OF BRABOURNE, KENT. (Concluded from p. 265.) On the Lord's day, December, 13, 1829, went to Let me just insert an anecdote of the Ashford to hear that dear man of God Mr. immortal Toplady's. In the last century, Thomas Tappenden, it being the fifth sermon I an Asiatic Jew, named Sabbatei Sevi, pre-heard him preach: behold now was the time arrived tended to be the Messiah, and to work for me to have a furtherance of the riches of the miracles. Being brought before the Turkish glorious grace of God displayed on my behalf, he Emperor, that prince told him he would spoke from these words "For by one offering he have him stripped naked, and shot at with hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." arrows; and if he proved invulnerable, he Heb. x. 14; and the Holy Ghost spake through him would acknowledge him for the person he into my soul, then was I led to verify that blessed pretended to be. The impostor fell on his portion "In whom ye also trusted, after that ye knees, and begged he might not be put to heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salso violent a test. Arminianism professes vation, in whom also after that ye believed, ye itself to be the true system; but, stripped were sealed with that holy spirit of promise;" and shot at with the arrows of sound rea- Eph. i. 13, and did then and there receiye by son, and God's word; it soon appears to be the blessed tuition power and operation of the an imposture. O let it be sounded, and Holy Ghost a personal realization of my justispread to the remotest bounds of terra fication in the person, obedience and blood of firma, that the universal charity camp of Immanuel, as flowing from the eternal good will inveterate arminians, have shut out from and pleasure of God the Father, and yet must their consecrated burying ground, a plain faithfully declare that Christ was my soul's sole honest testifier of Jesus, for telling out the object, he being my nett salvation, my mind and truth to a company of dying creatures like soul was taken up with his eternal perfection, so himself, at the open grave. O, ye despisers that I was enamoured with his glorious person, of my God and his truth, wonder; and re- he being the justifier, a thousand fold above and member, God is no idle spectator; he takes beyond my real experience as the justified, the cognizance of your persecuting conduct; one being the saviour, the other the saved, the and will one day bring you into judgment, one the grand cause, the other the effects thereof, and when arrainged at his awful tribunal thus was I led into the glorious liberty of the you will, to your souls' confusion, solemnly gospel of salvation, then was I brought to receive prove that something more is requisite to Christ as my Christ, and to believe the soul-transconstitute vital christianity, and accept-porting fact that I was a justified character in the ance with God, than class meetings, and sight of a holy God, so as to give credence to the love feasts, lying confessions, and fleshly blessed fact that I was "without blame before conversions, with groans, moans, and amens. him in love;" Eph. i, 4, and again "holy unThese things, without grace, will only hang blameable and unreproveable in his sight." Col. about your necks like mill stones to sink i. 22. And although I have been sorely tried, you into the yawning gulf of everlasting awfully tempted, and sadly beset, annoyed and woe. You may sneer and laugh at this overcome with a whole body of sin and death and statement, but there is no sneering or that most desperately depraved, inasmuch as my laughing in hell. Have patience, and ere besetting sin has ever and anon appeared in all long you shall (if grace prevent not, which its hienousness, causing me to moan, groan, sigh God grant it may,) prove these facts too true. and cry, and have the painful experience that Ministers of Christ! lift up your voices although notwithstanding all that I have expelike trumpets: cry aloud against armini-rienced, yet must make the solemn and soul rackanism, the poisonous bane of our beloved country. Sound, sound fearlessly, and faithfully sound the alarm in God's holy mountain, (his church). ing declaration, that I have been an unceasing backslider in heart before the Lord, I cannot better explain myself than by the words of an eminent saint who says, "The old man continues Ye people of God! (some, doubtless, unregenerate to the last, no part in him is reamong them,) come out from among them: generated, he remains untouched, and is just the that ye be not partakers of their plagues. same he was, only deprived of power and doI defy the whole of them to prove their minion. The new man is wholly regenerated, sentiments to be either scriptural, soul- there is no unregenerate part in him, there is no supporting, or God-glorifying. No; they sin in him, or done by him." "Whosoever is are unscriptural, soul-distressing, devil-born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed gratifying, flesh-pleasing, and God-dis- remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." "Teach me honouring, to the last degree. thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain "What is sooner broken than a glass, or an earthly vessel? Ministers are quickly taken away, and therefore you should be tender of them while have them."--NALTON. 1 John iii. 9. And by these contrarieties the old man, and the new, I have learnt by internal experience, is the cause of the unceasing combatting felt in the same individual person. Yet in all these exercises, blessed be the name of a triune Jehovah, I have never, no never doubted the reality of the exercise wrought in me by the power of the Holy Ghost, December 13, 1829, as having then been led into gospel liberty, THE LORD'S DEALINGS WITH JOHN EPPS. 283 and this is my soul's feeling, "In the Lord shall | her, and blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever, gave me the blessed satisfaction that And now, thou blessed Paraclete of heaven, above exercises the things that my soul has experienced, passed through, felt the condemnation of on the one hand—and blessedly enjoyed the salvation on the other? Thou knowest that the of them; a time ever to be remembered; and it | but "because I live ye shall live also." John might be truly said of me, throughout my afflic- xiv. 19. tion, "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye re-equal with the Father and the Son, are not the joice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." 1 Peter i. 8. I have not since the autumn above mentioned, heard the gospel but very little either to profit or satisfaction, which I have found to be no small deprivation, yet have had great conso-writing of this has been attended with trembling, lation and satisfaction by the applications of wonder, rejoicing and prayer, and acknowledge blessed portions of the word; also much blest that I am the chief of sinners in every sense of in reading, as also in secret devotion, I have the word, yet saved by free, eternal, sovereign had numberless instances that the dear Lord, in grace! Saved eternally-saved perfectly-saved infinite mercy, has drawn nigh unto my soul, honourably saved justly- saved internally! and I have, as the blessed effects thereof, drawn Hast thou not given unto me "a white stone, very nigh unto him, as my soul's covenant God, and in the stone a new name written, which no through Christ Jesus, under the blessed tuition man knoweth saving he that receiveth it?" Rev. and operative power of the Holy Ghost, the glo- ii. 17. Wonder O heaven! and be astonished O rifier of a precious Christ; and now I am com- earth! for the Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost pelled to exclaim, "How little do I know of hath done it! And now I desire, this evening, these things!" and often, in hearing or prayer solemnly to commit my spirit, soul, and body into have to cry out, "My leanness! my leanness!" the arms of a triune Jehovah for the small resiHad a very highly favoured time in October, due of time, and to all eternity. Amen and 1847, on a visit at Wadhurst, in Sussex; heard amen. sweetly; had a soul-melting time at the Lord's Supper; also blessed communion with the brethren there. I cannot conclude without mentioning the most astonishing deliverance in providence I ever had. I was very much afflicted; always in pain day and night; used the means, but still got nothing bettered, but rather grew worse; brought very low in mind; could scarcely attend to the things of this life; till one Friday morning, the Lord impressed my mind to mention the case in prayer. When I went to prayer I did so; and addressed Jesus Christ in such a simple, free way and manner as I had never before done; took a walk in the fields; felt very happy in mind; lifted my thoughts to God again, for I had not felt the pain since I was in prayer in the morning, yea, I have not felt it since, that being a twelvemonth ago. Now, this I ascribe wholly to the Lord in putting a desire into my soul to pray, giving me a spirit to pray, and hearing and answering that prayer. What a salvation! What melting times have I had for this (to me) astonishing deliverance! And after all that I have experienced, the apostle's declaration is the exercise of my mind, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Phil. iii. 10-14. Thus have I experienced twenty-eight years of unceasing conflicting and resisting between nature and grace-the old man and the new-light and darkness-carnality and spirituality-things earthly, sensual, and devilish-and things spiritual, heavenly, and divine! What hardness of heart! What carelessness of mind? What unconcernedness of soul ! Yea, a thousand times astonished there could be life, eternal life, notwithstanding so much death, Smeeth, Nov. 25, 1848. JOHN EPPS. On the Incarnation. Auspicious day, O glorious birth, I feel this great salvation mine, Amazing grace, surpassing thought, Purg'd from the errors of the day, E. W. E. "Eye more, mind more, and lay to heart more, the spiritual and internal workings of God in your souls, than the external providence of God in the world. Beloved, God looks that we should consider the operations of his hand; and the despising the work of his hands is so provoking to him, that he threatens them to lead them into captivity for not considering of them. Above all, look to the work that God is carrying on in your souls."-BROOKS. REMOVAL OF MR. JAMES NUNN'S CHURCH, Removal of the Church & Congregation UNDER THE PASTORAL CARE OF MR JAMES NUNN. DEAR MR. EDITOR.-We rejoice that the Lord is our Judge, and that he knows that we conscientiously, and in his fear, took our stand with Mr. James Nunn, our beloved pastor, not from feelings of opposition, nor from a desire of being singular, but from unexpected and unsought for circumstances, we were, from principle, necessitated to proceed from one point to another, and were finally compelled from righteous motives to unite as a separate body, and so assist our dear pastor in carrying out what he conscientiously believed was more in accordance with the government of the church of God in the Apostles' days. From this conviction, we separated; and prayerfully leaving the Lord to go before us, we moved on carefully. A place of worship offered that would hold about four-hundred persons; a committee met, and laid the matter before the Lord by prayer; and after mature consideration, and consultation, determined to offer what they considered a fair rental, and not to exceed a certain price; that thereby they might know the mind of the Lord. The consequence was, a refusal of the offer; which led them to the belief, that some other place was treasured up in the stores of divine providence, and which would be opened at some future period. A friend had heard, and unexpectedly informed the committee, of the large room in which we at present meet; which will hold, at least, one-hundred more than the above named chapel; here, we think, is seen the wisdom and mercy of our covenant God; but even this room is far too small; it is not only very crowded from one Lord's-day to another, but many are obliged to leave, not being able to obtain even standing room, including the lobby and stairs entering to the room. Another difficulty-the room is within three doors of Mr. Arthur Triggs' chapel, which we consider does not look well: friends were, therefore, appointed to wait upon him, to shew that necessity, and not opposition, led us to the room so near his chapel. Mr. Triggs kindly received the communications from the delegates, and quite acquiesced, under the circumstances, in our taking the room. We therefore took it; and on Wednesday evening, September 5th, one-hundred and thirty baptized persons united in the fear of God, were formed into a church upon the principles of government proposed by Mr. James Nunn; and he, agreeable to their request, became their pastor. And, forever blessed be the King of Zion, he has favoured us with his gracious presence in a most especial manner; and has caused our hearts to rejoice; and his gracious power is evidently put forth in the ministry of the word, to the comforting of his people, and of bringing many to walk in the ordinances of his house. Twenty-three persons have been nominated to the church as candidates for baptism, and messengers appointed by the 285 church to enquire into their moral character and the work of grace in their hearts; who, at various church-meetings, give a faithful detail of their experience, and their satisfaction of the work of the Spirit upon their hearts, as well as their fitness for membership; with which the church was pleasingly interested. Mr. Owen Clark, the minister, and the deacons of Vernon Chapel, Bagnegeswells Road, kindly granted us the use of their chapel; and on Thursday evening, November 1st, our pastor baptized fifteen females and eight males, in the presence of a large and peaceful congregation. And on Lord's-day evening, the 4th inst., received them, with eight others, into the church; making an addition of thirty-one to our number. From the great inconvenience experienced through the over-crowded state of our present place, and the numbers who are obliged to go away every Lord's-day, who desire constantly to worship with us, our Captain seems to be saying, "Enlarge the place of thy tent:" and we have, therefore, looked out for a piece of ground to build a larger place, and having met with a suitable spot, we announced a public tea meeting upon the voluntary principle, each person to give in the sight of God what they were able to spare, and that the strong may help the weak, we hoped that some giving liberally, would enable others to partake the same bounty, and experience the same pleasure, though they could give but 6d. or even 3d. each, depositing according to their ability in a box with a hole in the lid. Some persons no doubt will ask, "how did it answer?" Why, on Thursday evening, 15th instant, above 300 persons sat down to tea; and a most imposing sight it was: every countenance expressed pleasure and delight; tables from 30 to 40 feet long, supplied with every comfort for the occasion, some of which was kindly sent voluntarily; and the result was that a balance of £5 10s 11d. remained after all expenses had been discharged, including £2 15 0 for the use of the room, &c. This is but a fair specimen of what our friends do constantly, and that from principle. And it was the impression upon the minds of the friends who met, that our contemplated new place will be paid for ultimately, by the same free-will offerings, although we shall have to borrow the money in the first instance; but as this is to be raised in small shares, we do not anticipate much difficulty, seeing the lenders will receive 5 per cent for their money. O that the blessed operations of the Holy Spirit may not only be felt and continued in our hearts, enabling us to keep the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace. But may the happy day be nigh at hand, when the churches of Christ of the same faith may unitedly and collectively meet as one happy family to experience such pleasures and intercourse one with the other, is the sincere desire of yours in a precious Christ. (Signed) W. Ludlow, J. Harvey, T. Dowland, Deacons. November, 19th, 1849. |