BOOK REVIEW BY J K POPHAM BOOK REVIEW BY J. K. POPHAM Mercies of a Covenant God. J.K. Popham
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We are thankful for this so gracious, so God honouring a book, displaying, as it does, in a very lively manner, the sovereign love of God the Father in election, the efficacy of the blood of God the Son, with which He purchased the church, and the mercy of God the Holy Ghost in the washing of regeneration. The simple, original, and in some ways powerful narrative of the dealings of his covenant God with one who was designed to receive grace for the ministry, for the “obedience to the faith” of many precious souls, is very attractive, and we hope may be the means of much good in the church of God. In the first place, it tells of the wonderful, the clear work of the Holy Ghost in quickening, converting, and separating John Warburton from sin and the world. For indeed, before this divine operation, he walked according to the course of this world; to use his own words, he… “was given up to all manner of wickedness, and so continued until I arrived at that time and place God had purposed, not to offer, but to call by grace. ‘To change the heart, renew the will, And turn the feet to Zion’s hill.’“ We most heartily welcome this dear book, because, if we have “the seeing eye,” we shall see the great works of the Lord, which are “sought out of all them that have pleasure therein;” see not a natural religion, not a towardness to God, but a mighty, a radical, an inward change, a powerful life, whose source, and nature, and end he himself knew not for a long time. It was eternal life which wrought, bubbled, boiled over, wrought according to its own nature, and manifested itself by its appetite, raising the forlorn sinner towards its glorious Source and End. Like its divine Author, it “could not be
