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to spend one shilling in these soul and health destroying liquors, which invariably produce crime, misery, disquietude and ruin' ....... Many, if not all, who are termed moderate, may be said to be in a state of incipient drunkenness, however they may object to be so considered."
........................ W. Brooks Esq.
................................... of Manchester
John Higginbottom Esq F.R.C.S. and F.R.S of Nottingham.
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Fifty two years have now passed [...] - away [?] since I resolved to abstain from all intoxicating beverages, and it has been my greatest temporal blessing. A great part of that time I endured great mental and physical exertion, loss of rest, and extremes of heat and cold
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.............. One cannot fail to observe in this account of Mr Sherman's early years, especially in the narratives of his conversion and call to the ministry, a slight tendency to what, in its full development, we should call fanaticism.
The impression upon his mind in both instances, manifestly was, that there was something supernatural in God's dealings with him.
Now, although he relates these things in the last year of his life, does he say one word to intimate that the impression of the youth was different from that of the man. Many young persons of fervent impulsive temperament, and under the excitement of strong religious feeling, will so interpret these early religious experiences; but the cooler judgement of the man will correct this, and, while recognising God's loving providence, and the contractings of His gracious spirit, will yet harmonise these with the ordinary means of grace.
Mr Sherman [crossed out] (evidently) thought that there was something exceptional in his case, in the assurance of acceptance with God which came to him as he was returning from Tottenham Court Road Chapel, and in the strong conviction that, somehow or other, he would be released from his apprenticeship, & directed into the ministry. ............................................
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The question, What is the kind of evidence of our acceptance with God which we may expect, and upon which we can rely, is a very important one - a question with which ministers have to deal, and from which they have to remove misconception in almost every case of conversion.
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is more common than for those who seek salvation to be expecting supernatural impressions - that in some way or other they will suddenly feel forgiven - that an impression be made upon them altogether unmistakable, the Spirit witnessing with their spirit that they are the children of God.
No impressions or feelings of his own can tell him whether the holy God has pardoned his past transgressions. He can be assured of this only by God's own declarations. He reads "He that believeth" that puts his trust in "Christ, shall be saved." He interprets these declarations as meaning that God forgives every sinful man who puts his trust in Christ - "whom God sets forth as a propitiation for sins that are past; "and that whoever comes to Christ, and puts a simple and entire trust in Him for the forgiveness of his sins, is forgiven - forgiven the instant that he trusts. If then his own consciousness tells him that he has so come to Christ - lay hold as it were up on Christ as the only possibility of forgiveness, then he draws the inference that therefore he is forgiven. God will not tell him personally that he is forgiven - will not produce upon him a supernatural impression that he is forgiven. He gives him a general assurance - sets before him, and before all men, the general conditions of forgiveness. It is for him to determine whether he has complied with these conditions, and to conclude that, having done this, God has forgiven him, as He promised to do. And
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as soon as he believes this, all the joy that he wished to feel naturally springs up in his heart. His feelings produced by his faith, not his faith by his feeling ... This is the only scriptural ground upon which the assurance of personal forgiveness can rest in the consciousness that I have compiled with the conditions upon which God promised forgiveness ... The consciousness of a new heart - of the feelings and sympathies of a regenerate soul - the witness of the Spirit with my spirit that I am a child of God, comes afterwards, and is confirmatory evidence of our first faith in the declaration of Scripture about forgiveness.
Henry Allon's Memoir of the Rev. James Sherman.
Dr Livingston the African traveller says of his youth.
In reading, everything I could lay my hands on was devoured except novels.
Scientific works and books of travels were my especial delight; though my father, believing with many more of his time who ought to have known better, that the former were inimical to religion, would have preferred to have seen me poring over the "Cloud of Witnesses" or "Boston's Fourfold State" ... Our difference of opinion reached the point of open rebellion on my part, and his last application of the rod was on my refusal to peruse Wilberforce's "Practical Christianity." This dis
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like [dislike] to dry doctrinal reading, and to religious reading of every sort, continued for years afterwards; but having lighted on those admirable works of Dr. Thos. Dick, The Philosophy of Religion; The Philosophy of a future state; it was gratifying to find my own ideas, that religion and science are not hostile, but friendly to each other, fully proved and enforced.