GROVE CHAPEL PULPIT. FIFTY-TWO- SERMONS BY THOMAS BRADBURY, Minister of Grove Chapel, Camberwell. "He that hath My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD."-Jeremiah xxiii. 28. PREFACE. THE THE one object the author of these discourses has in view in their publication, is the glorification of God's Christ in the experience and walk of those members of His elect and redeemed family, into whose hands His kind and gracious providence may place them. The preaching of the Word is God's grand ordinance in this dispensation of grace, by which the nations of the saved are called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ. By the preached Word it pleases God to save them that believe. It is my mercy to be surrounded at the Grove with those whose faith stands not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. These have felt the burden of sin, the curse of the law, their utter unworthiness before a sin-hating God, and are spiritually convinced that without Christ they can do nothing but sin, and expect nothing but hell. But to them a precious Christ is All in all, as He is revealed in them "not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." The God of the Church at the Grove has declared that, among His duly-qualified and commissioned servants who preach the preaching that He bids them (Jonah iii. 2), there are "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but he hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and He hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath He chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in His presence" (1 Cor. i. 2629). William Huntington, the coalheaver, was, and is still, hated and despised by the fleshly religious multitude. John Bunyan, the tinker, is derided as a visionary by learned ecclesiastics, who thus betray their utter ignorance of the Spirit's teaching. Dear old John Kent, the Devonport dockyard labourer, will live in the praises of God's elect family when all haters and despisers of new covenant truth are silent in darkness. The author of this volume expects no better treatment from Arminians, Papists, Unitarians, and Universalists; but it will be his lot, by the grace of God vouchsafed to him, not to fear nor |