SENTENCES OF THE REV. SAMUEL EYLES PIERCE; TAKEN DOWN IN WRITING BY HIS WIFE, ELIZABETH PIERCE, WHILE HE WAS PREACHING, DURING THE LATTER FART OF HIS MINISTRY. (Continued from Page 20.) Christ is exalted in our minds by the Holy Ghost giving us a supernatural knowledge of Him. Let us not centre in enjoyment, but in Christ, the object and subject. The believer does not live upon his joys, but in Christ, the object and subject. If life is prolonged, we have no other subject to live but Christ. When we have the spiritual apprehension of Christ, we are blessed indeed. Truth is not irrational, but it is too sublime for reason to comprehend. We should never prize the teaching of the Spirit of God, if we could always retain the truths we hae known; inasmuch as we do not, we are kept in a continual dependance on the Holy Spirit for His constant influences upon us, and His divine unction within us, to bring to our remembrance all necessary truth. There is always that in our experience to prove our fallibility; this teaches us our constant dependance upon God. If you take up Christ's cross, you must renounce self altogether-good self and bad self. The feeling of sin puts you upon the necessity of looking unto Christ; and looking at Christ gives a death-blow to sin. You cannot make any objection against yourself, but the gospel sets it aside. How often have we been miserable, and then the Lord Jesus shines in upon us again from behind the cloud. Christ did not express His delight only in our souls, but in our bodies and souls. There never will be a sin committed by any of the elect, but the grace of God exceeds it. God is not well pleased with the destruction of any sinner; but He is well pleased with His justice. As we express our thoughts by words, so God expressed His mind by Jesus Christ. We have to lament the falling into sin, but more particularly that the whole sinful nature is within us. All my guilt is to be reckoned in the counsel of God concerning me. The four Gospels are not to tell us what Christ was, but what He did and said. The greatest thing in God is His love. Whilst you are thinking about Jesus Christ you are spiritual persons. The Lord Jesus Christ will never fail to exercise His mind on us. Grace is God's act upon us; not our actings upon God. To stand fast in the Lord, is to stand fast in that system of truth which is revealed in the holy Scriptures. When this is revealed in the mind, we stand fast in the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace is the next blessing to grace. Christ will not communicate His glories, but will reflect His glories on us. We cannot overcome the devil by prayer, but by faith. The highest grace of God towards us, is to keep us dependant on Himself. There is the whole body of sin in the old Adam nature; and there is the whole body of grace in the new nature. The Lord has put you into such and such circumstances, that He may keep you alive unto Himself. No matter what my trials are, the Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient for every case. Christ fulfilled the Scriptures in His incarnate state, and reopened the Scriptures in His resurrection state. Here we enjoy Christ as our salvation; in heaven we shall enjoy Him as our eternal inheritance. We can never comprehend what we believe; but we are brought to apprehend what we cannot comprehend. Take Christ to His word. Receiving Christ into the mind, that is what produces the new birth. The humanity of Christ is not a person, but a thing. It is not my complacency with Christ Jesus, but His complacency with me. Christ's heart was more in salvation work, than ever mine was in sin. Like as Adam sinned in soul before he sinned in body, so Christ's sufferings began in His soul. The Angel that comforted Christ in His agony was the Holy Ghost; and He said that the Father's power would uphold the manhood. It is not the extensiveness or the greatness of Christ's sufferings alone, but the end and design of them. The resurrection of the righteous is by the Holy Spirit's dwelling in that part which is to be reanimated, and that by virtue of their union to Christ. The resurrection of the wicked is by the power of God. The Lord's people are all one in Christ, yet not all one in knowledge and communion. If we are not satisfied with Christ on earth, we shall never be satisfied with Him in heaven. A man in Christ goes off his centre. own The Lord takes delight in acknowledging His people. We do not centre in being the saved of the Lord, but in the Lord Himself. There is no brightness in Jesus' righteousness, but His people shine in it. God's great end in salvation is the glorifying of His mercy. The promise gives you a warrant to receive from God what He has promised to perform. remedy for it, and in His undertakings, sacrifice, and death. We want a sight of Christ more fully opened. It is not any new truth we want, but the same truth more and more illuminated, and more reflected on the mind. A state of grace is as immutable as a state of glory. Sin is only an act of the creature; but the work of salvation is and has been the work of Christ, God-man. Christ cannot make known the utmost thoughts of God's love to us; for the finite mind cannot comprehend them. Baptism is for a militant state; the Lord's Supper is like the glorified state. Grace is commensurate with all old Adam nature, with all its sinfulness. God's covenant presence is better than His manifestative presence; because God may remove His manifestative presence, but His covenant presence is always the same with His people at all times. Jesus never looked upon any that were more worthy of His countenance than ourselves. Regeneration is the foundation of all that takes place in glorification. It is the grace of the gospel, not the glory of the gospel, that we need. Christ hath endured our hell. Aaron was the first type of Christ that was anointed. The highest act of worship on earth to trust all our salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes those who have the mean-is est appearance, have the greatest heavenly treasure. Whilst we are studying Christ, we have no time to think of ourselves or of sin. None can know Christ aright, but they must know their interest in Him. If Christ had not union with His people, He would not hold communion with them. The Lord Jesus Christ has His eye upon His word and promises. His eye is upon each of us-He knows what we want; He exercises Himself to relieve us. The Lord hath not opened the eyes of a sinner; but He hath opened eyes in a sinner's mind. The elect were never in a state of sin, without being interested in Christ, the The greatest act of the Holy Ghost is to establish us in Christ Jesus. We know we live, but we cannot say what the principle of life is. God does not work upon our will, but He gives us a new will. Our Bible is a manuscript of the counsel of God. The blood of Christ means His life, and the work He has performed. The Father elected-the Son redeemed-the Holy Spirit reveals. No one ever had a good thought of Christ and perished. The sacrifices could not be considered fit sacrifices, unless the sins of the people were confessed upon them, and unless the fire consumed them. Then are obliterated all their sins; so the curse of God came upon Christ, and sin was completely put away. Spiritual life is exercised upon Christ, not upon graces. The Lord Christ felt the curse and wrath of God's displeasure, to a greater extent than all the damned in hell do to all eternity. God obtains a glory in pardoning my sin, far beyond the benefit I receive in the pardon. You can have no kind of distress but it comes from Christ; He feels for you through it, and He will put a termination to it. It is a salvation altogether worthy of God, and every way suited to us. We must be brought into particular cases, that the Lord may teach us particular secrets of His grace. Whatever befals us does and shall work together for our spiritual good. So sure as you are now in grief, so sure will the Lord shine upon you and relieve you. It is impossible for Christ to forget and overlook anything that thou art. You have a life in Christ which death must give way to. It is Jesus alone can take off his hand; and it is Jesus alone who can sanctify his hand. It is a proof that we are in Christ if the Holy Spirit is pleased to draw out our minds on Christ. Sin is as present with us as Christ is. Sin is a part of us. There is not a spiritual desire that the Lord will overlook. God himself can only know what is contained in his mercy towards us. Answers to prayer will come at the best time. If thou hast great sins, thou hast need to live upon the covenant. The Church has nothing to do with the Lord's dispensations. The people of God are no man's people; they are the Lord's people. What we want, and what our cases are, is all before the Lord. The object is Christ; the subject is salvation. By faith we apprehend that Enoch was translated, that he should not see death. Christ died that death that was analogous to the second death. When you are most unhappy, then it is you want to make the most use of Christ. The troubles we pass through are temporary ones. He enters into all our thoughts, feelings, and distresses. There cannot be a sigh or grievance but what Christ has passed through in His incarnate state, and felt the same. Jesus never made a promise yet but He performed the same. All we have to complain of is not worth one single sigh. The Lord brings us into such and such cases, and He will meet us in them. Till there is more guilt in sin than there is mercy in Christ Jesus, thou hast no need to despair. Art thou in trouble, make thy prayer, and make it God's concern. It is of no use to give ourselves any uneasiness about what may take place. When we stand before God, it will be as if we had never been in a fallen state, because we shall stand before him in white robes; in the immaculate righteousness of the worthy Lamb. Whilst the apostles saw Christ in our nature, they did not fully apprehend Him. The seed of the woman; the seed of David; the Son of God. Christ died on purpose to manifest this truth, that He was the Son of God. Believing in Christ is the fruit and effect of our having everlasting life. Christ hath outshone all our feeling of guilt, &c. He will keep His eye upon me, until He sees me face to face in glory. It is the knowledge of Christ without me, makes way for the knowledge of Christ and the enjoyment of Him within me. Christ is all grace in the present state, and all glory in the eternal state. Christ opens, and none can shut. He opens the Scriptures. He opens the mind to apprehend His everlasting love, &c. Fountains of waters, means the abundance of satisfaction. There is no fathoming the grace of Christ. Christ did not become one with us by taking our nature upon Him; for He was one with us from all eternity, by reason of His headship. (To be continued.) THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF UNION WITH CHRIST. To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine. SIR,-In common, no doubt, with many | others, I have followed with much interest the articles headed "The Scripture Doctrine of Union with Christ," which have appeared in your Magazine. Though unable to endorse every idea expressed in them, I have, nevertheless, been refreshed and strengthened by their perusal. From the clear and able manner in which their author disentangled the true doctrine, from the mass of yea-andnay, half-and-half theological opinions current on the subject in the present day, and the fresh light of Scripture that he brought to bear on the whole matter, I have been built up in a truth which I have been always led to look upon as the foundation of a believer's hope and life, in a belief in that blessed and vital union of the regenerated soul and Christ; which the writer himself says is not something that has merely an ideal existence, not the metaphorical representations of a state of mind, but a reality, a fact, as actual as the incarnation itself." dwelling of the Holy Ghost was mentioned in his article that appears in the November Number of the Magazine. At first I was bewildered; but at each successive perusal I became more convinced that I could not agree with many of its statements. I waited for the December Number, fully expecting that some one of experience would take up the subject. In this expectation I was disappointed, and I therefore venture to send you a few remarks on the article in question, rather with the object of making certain objections to the statements and arguments therein contained, than of adducing fresh, and, to my mind, conclusive proofs (in the place of those controverted) of the points on which I see eye to eye with the writer; or of substituting my own statements in the room of those which I consider unfounded on Scripture. This may seem a peculiar mode of proceeding, but it has this object-viz., to induce the writer of the articles to show that my objections are groundless, and thus confirm and strengthen the positions assailed, or else to allow the force of my strictures, and then either to give up the statements and arguments entirely, or base them again upon a more sure foundation. I confidently hoped that before the course of articles terminated, I should gain some valuable information on a subject intimately connected with the doctrine of our union with Christ, and one on which I deeply feel my ignorance- The object of the article is, I believe, viz., the operation of the Holy Ghost in to show that believers, in the present the mystical body of Christ, and in His dispensation, are one, really and vitally, members in particular. It is an age in with a risen Saviour; and that no such which the third person in the glorious union could have taken place previous to Trinity is much dishonoured and ignored. the resurrection. With such an end in It is true that that blessed Person does view I cordially sympathize, firmly believnot testify much of Himself in the reve-ing the doctrine it contains, that we are lation that He has left us in the New the children begotten by the resurrec Testament; and that in His office He, tion of Jesus Christ. But I do not as it were, screens Himself behind the arrive at this conclusion by the same Saviour, while He takes of His things, reasoning as the article displays; nor do and shows their preciousness to us: yet I think that John vii. 39, has anything are we not debarred from seeking His to do with the subject, or can bear the own aid to search into some of the truths strain put upon it by the author of the that are connected with His office, and article. I will shortly consider the text which only await a diligent search in in question, as it has applied itself to my order to be brought to light, and to re- mind; and I shall then be able to point dound to His own glory. After expect-out where the arguments fail, in my ing too much, perhaps, from the author opinion, and where his statements are of the articles, I was, in consequence, all unscriptural. the more grieved and astonished at the It was on the last great day of the manner in which the subject of the in-feast of tabernacles, that Jesus stood and cried, saying, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." It was on that or the previous day that the golden bowl of water was brought from the pool of Siloam, and poured out amidst the prayers and rejoicings of the whole people, for and in the blessing of their own peculiar nation. It was an acknowledged type, among the Jews, of the Holy Ghost. It was prophetical also. They repeated at the time the verse in the 12th of Isaiah, "Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." It typified the great outpouring of the Spirit in the latter days, spoken of in Isa. xliv. 3, and Joel ii. 28. In the following verse (the 38th), our Saviour confirms the typical signification of the outpouring of the water: "He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." He would draw the Jews from the type to the antitype; even as their own Scriptures had clearly pointed out. Whoever really thirsted might at once slake their thirst at the true fountain, of whose waters he who drank should never thirst again; for they would become in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life. This was the present promise, and the future one was, that out of his belly should flow rivers of living water-i.e., that at a period which was still future, though imminent, the force and meaning of the typical ceremony that they had been performing should be exhibited in such a person, and that the Holy Ghost would descend on him in such abundance (as at the Pentecostal effusion), that, as if there were not room to contain the blessing, there would be a gushing out of him, on all sides, of signs and wonders, even as of the overflowing and bursting out of waters. That by "living water" our Saviour referred to the Holy Spirit, would be evident from the conversation He held with the Samaritan woman, recorded in the 4th chapter of the same Gospel; but the matter is made certain by what the evangelist adds, "But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." The word given is not in the original, and is not, perhaps, the best word to supply in order fully to express the infer ence that John would draw; but he is generally, and I believe rightly, understood to state, that our blessed Lord, in the preceding verse, referred to the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit conferred on the Church at Pentecost, and in which sense (foretold in the Scriptures) the Holy Ghost could not then be said to be known and manifested; and for this simple reason, because that God's time had not yet arrived for the fulfilment of the prediction, and that Jesus was not yet ascended to the right hand of the Father, to dispense those blessings on His Church which He was to lay down His life to secure for them. It is on this latter verse that the writer of the article in question bases his argument. In it he can see no reference to the Holy Spirit, the third Person in the Trinity; but to the Holy Spirit in an impersonal sense, which he considers to be the same as the resurrection-life of Christ, into which all believers of this dispensation are baptized, and of which they exclusively partake. The verse cannot refer to the third person in the Trinity, he says, because it cannot be true of that divine person that He was not yet, i.e., that He was not existing at a certain time. This would be conclusive, were it impossible to supply the natural ellipsis that John intended to be understood. But that this is not only possible, but self-evident, I have already tried to point out. Again, his own argument on the subject fails, when he tells us, further on, that the same impersonal Holy Spirit (i.e., without the article) was instrumental in begetting Christ's humanity of the Virgin Mary (p. 550), and was also present in Christ (pp. 551, 553) while in the flesh, though not transmitable, being confined by the flesh "as in an impervious vessel." What is this but saying that the impersonal Spirit did exist previous to the glorification of Jesus Christ? In extenuation of this contradiction, the writer might argue that this existence is not the same, in power or manifestation, as that which the impersonal Spirit afterwards assumed. But if this point be allowed, there can be no difficulty in deciding that the blessed third Person in the Trinity is Himself alluded to by John, since it is only necessary to supply an ellipsis of a precisely similar kind, if |