Nuggets Of Gold

 We will have quotes from the Puritans of England, or from the settlers in the New world. (We have a great love for the works of these men) on which we will give brief comments.

 

In the sermon on Jacob, we have made much of the unspeakable joy in knowing oneself to be loved of God, with that electing, predestinating, saving love that is  God’s alone. The “nuggets of gold” chosen for this page have a direct relevance to that subject. It is with assurance in their heart that the protestant martyrs died with songs of praise upon their lips, and joy in their hearts. Their death’s was often vile, and cruel. yet even on the scaffold, the fire, or the axe man’s block, they were full  of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort. They knew that the fearsome death before them, was but the doorway to Him who was the eternal lover of their souls.

 

Men like the godly James Guthrie, who, of the scaffold declared, “that he would not exchange the scaffold for the place or mitre of the greatest prelate in Britain.”

 

That godly man, that true jewel in Christ’s crown, the heavenly Samuel Rutherford, faced death with words “I shall live and adore him” and “Glory to Him in  Emmanuel’s Land.”  It is said that words of that beautiful hymn ‘Emmanuel’s Land’ were inspired by his writings. If ever you have the opportunity, re-mortgage your house and buy the works of Rutherford. This hymn is full of Rutherfordisms. Take this little nugget:

 

“O Christ he is the fountain,

The deep, sweet well of love.

The streams on earth I’ve tasted,

More deep I’ll drink above:

There, to an ocean fullness

His mercy doth expand,

And glory, glory dwelleth

In Emmanuel’s Land.

        

Or This:

 

The bride eyes not her garments

but he dear bridegroom’s face;

I will not gaze at glory,

But on my King of Grace;

Not at the gift he gifted,

but on his pierced hand;

The Lamb is all the glory”

of Immanuel’s Land

 

Or This:

 

 

The puritan John Bunion spent many years in jail. From that

filthy hole he wrote the immortal Pilgrim’s Progress. He left us this little nugget

 

“Since, Lord, thou dost defend

Us with Thy Spirit

We know we at the end

Shall life inherit.

Then fancies flee away!

I’ll fear not what men say,

I’ll labor night and day

To be a pilgrim”

 

Love and Peace:   It was this glorious assurance that enabled them to write such passages like this. Sensing the nearness of death and the need of love and peace among God’s people he had already written “I know I shall not speak long to friends, saints or sinners; therefore I was the more willing to take the opportunity of preaching to you when I am dead,”  he continues to say he has written this discourse… “To testify of my cordial love and affection to all the true lovers of Christ. I would fain have as free, as large and as sweet a heart towards the saints, as Christ hath. For a wolf to worry a lamb is usual, but for a lamb to worry a lamb is unnatural; for Christ’s lilies to be among thorns is ordinary, but for these lilies to become thorns, to tear and fetch blood of one another, monstrous and strange.”

 

 

The Lord’s supper:  “..and as Christ in hearing times, when his people are a-hearing the word of life, does  lift up the light of his countenance upon them; so when they are a-receiving the bread of life, he makes known his love to them, and their interest in him. In this feast of fat things, the master of the feast, the Lord Jesus, comes in the midst of his guests saying, “Peace be here.” Here the beams of his glory do so shine, as that  they cause the hearts of children to burn within them, and as scatters all that thick darkness and cloud that are gathered about them. When saints are in this wine-cellar, Christ’s banner over them is love; when they are in this Cannan, then he fills them with milk and honey; when they are in this paradise, then shall they taste of angels food: when they are at the gate of heaven, then shall they see Christ at the right hand of God the Father; when they are before the mercy seat, then they shall see mercy rolling towards them. In this ordinance they see that, and taste that, and feel that of Christ, that they are not able to declare and manifest to others……..This ordinance is a cabinet of jewels; in it are abundance of spiritual springs, and rich mines, heavenly treasures.   In this ordinance,  weak hands and feeble have been strengthened, and fainting hearts have been comforted, and questioning souls have been resolved, and staggering souls have been settled, and falling souls have been supported.”

 

Thankfulness:  “When ever you have had free admission ,and sweet entertainment with God in the more public ordinances, or private duties of worship: when you have had his smiles, his seals, and with hearts warmed with comfort, are returning from those duties, say, O my soul, thou mayest thank thy good Lord Jesus for all this! Had  he not interposed as a mediator of reconciliation,  I could never have had access to, or friendly communion with God to all eternity.”

 

 

Christian Hope:  “This hope is from above, and it makes the heart to live there: it is a spark of glory, and it leads the heart to live in glory. Divine hope carries a man to heaven, for life to quicken him, and for wisdom to direct him, and for power, and for holiness to sanctify him, and for mercy to forgive him, and for assurance to rejoice him, and for happiness to crown him. Hope’s richest treasures, and choicest friends, and chiefest delights, and sweetest contents are in the country above; and therefore hope loves best to live there most.” 

 

 

The promises of God:   “Absolute promises may, and doubtless often are, choice cordials to many precious souls, who unhappily, have lost the sense and feelings of divine favor. Absolute promises are waters of life to many precious sons of Zion. They are a heavenly fire at which they can sit down and warm themselves when they cannot blow their own spark into a flame, and when all candle-light, torch-light, and star-light fails them. When all other comforts can yield a perplexed, distressed soul no comfort, yet then the absolute promise will prove full breasts of consolation to the distressed soul.”   

 

Holiness:   “Holiness is the very marrow and quintessence of all religion.  Holiness is God stamped and printed upon the soul; it is Christ formed in the heart; it is our light, our life, our beauty, our glory, our joy, our crown,  our heaven, our all. The holy soul is happy in life, and blessed in death, and shall be transcendently glorious in the morning of the resurrection, when Christ shall say, Lo here am I, and my holy ones, who are my joy; Lo here am I, and my holy ones, who are my crown; and therefore, upon the heads of these holy ones will I set an immortal crown.”

 

 

Love for Christ:    “Christians, you are empty; Christ is full. You are poor; Christ is rich; you are indigent; Christ is all sufficient; and will not you love Christ, who is able to do for you beyond what you are able to ask or think, and is as willing as He is able, to supply all your spiritual necessities?  Will you not love Christ, who is an overflowing and an ever flowing fountain of good; who has inexhaustible treasures of graces and comforts in Him, which are set open before you, and unto you, and every day you may freely come and fetch such jewels out of this treasury as are of higher worth, greater use, than any earthly riches, in the greatest plenty and abundance?”

 

Knowledge of Christ:  It is the most sweet and comfortable knowledge; to be studying Jesus Christ, what is it but the digging among all the veins and springs of comfort? and the deeper you dig, the more do these springs flow upon you. How are hearts ravished with the discoveries of Christ in the Gospel? What ecstasies, melting, transports, do gracious souls meet here?  A believer could sit from morning to night, to hear discourses of Christ; “His mouth is most sweet.”

 

 

The Christian Life

 

1. The life of Christianity consists very much in our love to Christ; without love to Christ, we are as much without spiritual life as a carcass when the soul is fled from it is without natural life. Faith without love to Christ is a dead faith, and a Christian without love to Christ is a dead Christian: dead in sins and trespasses. Without love to Christ we may have the name of Christians, but we are wholly without the nature. We may have a form of godliness, but we are wholly without the power. "give me thine heart" is the language of God to all the children of men; and "give me thy love is the language of Christ to all his followers.
 

2. Obedience must be cheerful. I delight to do thy will O my God, yea thy law is within my heart. That is the sweetest obedience which is cheerful, as that is the sweetest honey which drops from the comb freely. God sometimes accepts work, but never of the work without willingness. 'There came out two women, and the wind was in their wings. (Zech). Wings are swift, but the wind in the wings denotes great swiftness; and is an emblem of the sweetness which should be in obedience.

3. God's mercy is one of the most orient pearls of his crown: it makes God appear amiable and lovely ...His holiness makes him illustrious; his mercy makes him propitious.


4. As God's mercy makes the saints happy, so it should make them humble. Mercy is not the fruit of our goodness, but the fruit of God's goodness. Mercy is an alms that God bestows. They have no cause to be proud that live upon the alms of God's mercy.


5. God made the world to demonstrate his own glory. The world is a looking glass, in which we may see the power and goodness of God shine forth ...The world is like a curious piece of tapestry, in which we may see the skill and wisdom and skill and wisdom of him that made it


6. When the hearts of his people are most humble, when their prayers are most fervent, when their faith is strongest, when their forces are weakest, when there enemies are highest; then that is the usual time that Christ puts forth his kingly power for their deliverance


7. A Christian  ....desires Christ not only for his jewels but for his beauty ...he desires still more of Christ and would be swallowed up in the sweet ocean of his love.  Behold here is a desire which God himself has raised in the soul, and he will open the breast of mercy and satisfy it.


8. Zeal is the richest evidence of faith, and the clearest demonstration of the spirit. The baptism of water is but a cold proof of man's Christendom, being common to all comeners; ....can we suppose wormwood without bitterness, and a Christian without spirit and zeal.

 

 

George Whitefield

In the cover of Arnold Dallimore’s book, which must be the definitive account of “George Whitefield. The life and times of the great evangelist of the 18th century revival.” the claim is made that: “From the age of 24 when he commanded the greatest congregations yet seen in America, until his death 30 years later, his was the voice heard by the English speaking world.

 Whitefield’s life is central in the historical epoch which shaped the subsequent history of Britain and America. The movements which saw the hitherto dormant doctrines of the reformation preached in the open-air in England, which lifted the separate American colonies and forged a national religious consciousness, which broke the religious deadness of Scotland and made Wales a nation raised on the bible, were all closely related to Whitefield.” Dallimore’s two volumes show the truth of that claim.

From the Great awakening in Virginia.

W. M. Gewehr said. “Whitefield was the greatest single factor in the awakening of 1740. He zealously carried the work up and down the colonies from New England to Georgia. Among the revivalists, his influence alone touched every section of the country and every denomination. Everywhere, he supplemented and augmented the work with his wonderful eloquence. He literally preached to thousands as he passed from place to place. He was the one preacher to whom people everywhere listened – the great undying agency in the awakening, the great molding force among the denominations.”

John Wesley asked “Have we read or heard, of any person who called so many thousands, so many myriads of sinners to repentance?”

A strong Calvinist, preaching what he believed, this great out-door preacher could hold spellbound 20,000 at a time on the great British commons.

In the words of the great English Bishop Ryle: “No Englishman, I believe, dead or alive, has ever equaled him”

In his ‘Journals’ we read these words spoken against ministers,  “If  I have any regard for the honor of Christ, and good of souls, I must lift up my voice like a trumpet, and show how sadly our Church ministers are fallen from the doctrines of the reformation. Her prophets prophesy lies, and many of the people love to have it so.” Could any words be more relevant today.

A final quote: “weak and broken in body, yet preaching his last sermon ‘until the candle which he held in his hand burned away and went out in its socket.”

 

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 1834-1892 

Was the greatest English preacher to occupy the same pulpit over a long period of time. His ministry was wrought in a situation of constant revival. By 1899 over a hundred million of his Lord's Day sermons had been sold in 23 languages. He has been called the last of the puritans.  . When he first came to London, the boy preacher (18 years old had already served as a pastor for 3 years) was answering the call of New Park Street Baptist church. That building proved to be totally inadequate to house the vast crowds who came to hear him, and plans were set in motion to build another building to be called the Metropolitan Tabernacle. In the meantime his church hired two of London's largest venues: Exeter Hall And the Surrey music Hall. Thousands attended upon his ministry there. In 1861 His new Church was opened. He had a member ship 4366. The church was regularly over flowing, often thousands being turned away. His passed through three great conflicts in his ministry which it is often said shortened his life. He died in 1892. It is almost unbelievable that in 1966 Ian Murray published the book, “The Forgotten Spurgeon”.  In my opinion,  Rev. Murray's book was the book that began a new interest of in the great Victorian preacher and a revival of Puritan literature, as we young men at that time, were galvanized for a renewing of that Literature on which Spurgeon had been nourished. Many ministries were renewed for the better. The following quotations tell their own story. Ian Murray’s book tells it much more fully.

 

“We are cried down as Hypes; we are reckoned the scum of creation; scarcely a minister looks on us or speaks favorably of us, because we hold strong views upon the divine sovereignty of God and His divine electings and special  love towards His own people. (1856)”

“Let those preach lightly who dare to do so; to me, it is 'the burden of the Lord’ -joyfully carried out as grace is given; but still a burden which at times crushes my whole manhood into the dust of humiliation.” (1858)

“Shall we ever forget Park Street, those prayer meetings, when I felt compelled to let you go without a word from my lips, because the Spirit of God was so awfully present that we felt bowed to the dust. And what listening there was at Park Street, where there was scarcely enough air to breathe! The Holy Spirit came down like showers which saturate the soil till the clods are ready for the breaking; and then it was not long  before we heard on the right and on the left,  'What must I do to be saved?”

 

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