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           Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 7: 1861
      Creator(s): Spurgeon, Charles Haddon (1834-1892)
   CCEL Subjects: All; Sermons;
      LC Call no: BV42
   LC Subjects:

   Practical theology

   Worship (Public and Private) Including the church year, Christian
   symbols, liturgy, prayer, hymnology

   Times and Seasons. The church year
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                             Consolation in Christ

   A Sermon

   (No. 348)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 2nd, 1860, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At Exeter Hall, Strand.

   "If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of
   love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and
   mercies."--Philippians 2:1.

   THE language of man has received a new coinage of words since the time
   of his perfection in Eden. Adam could scarce have understood the word
   consolation, for the simple reason that he did not understand in Eden
   the meaning of the word sorrow. O how has our language been swollen
   through the floods of our griefs and tribulations! It was not
   sufficiently wide and wild for man when he was driven out of the garden
   into the wide, wide world. After he had once eaten of the tree of
   knowledge of good and evil, as his knowledge was extended so must the
   language be by which he could express his thoughts and feelings. But,
   my hearers, when Adam first needed the word consolation, there was a
   time when he could not find the fair jewel itself. Until that hour when
   the first promise was uttered, when the seed of the woman was declared
   as being the coming man who should bruise the serpent's head, Adam
   might masticate and digest the word sorrow, but he could never season
   and flavour it with the hope or thought of consolation, or if the hope
   and thought might sometimes flit across his mind like a lightning flash
   in the midst of the tempest's dire darkness, yet it must have been too
   transient, too unsubstantial, to have made glad his heart, or to soothe
   his sorrows. Consolation is the dropping of a gentle dew from heaven on
   desert hearts beneath. True consolation, such as can reach the heart,
   must be one of the choicest gifts of divine mercy; and surely we are
   not erring from sacred Scripture when we avow that in its full meaning,
   consolation can be found nowhere save in Christ, who has come down from
   heaven, and who has again ascended to heaven, to provide strong and
   everlasting consolation for those whom he has bought with his blood.

   You will remember, my dear friends, that the Holy Spirit, during the
   present dispensation, is revealed to us as the Comforter. It is the
   Spirit's business to console and cheer the hearts of God's people. He
   does convince of sin; he does illuminate and instruct; but still the
   main part of his business lies in making glad the hearts of the
   renewed, in confirming the weak, and lifting up all those that be bowed
   down. Whatever the Holy Ghost may not be, he is evermore the Comforter
   to the Church; and this age is peculiarly the dispensation of the Holy
   Spirit, in which Christ cheers us not by his personal presence, as he
   shall do by-and-bye, but by te indwelling and constant abiding of the
   Holy Ghost the Comforter. Now, mark you, as the Holy Spirit is the
   Comforter, Christ is the comfort. The Holy Spirit consoles, but Christ
   is the consolation. If I may use the figure, the Holy Spirit is the
   Physician, but Christ is the medicine. He heals the wound, but it is by
   applying the holy ointment of Christ's name and grace. He takes not of
   his own things, but of the things of Christ. We are not consoled to-day
   by new revelations, but by the old revelation explained, enforced, and
   lit up with new splendour by the presence and power of the Holy Ghost
   the Comforter. If we give to the Holy Spirit the greek name of
   Paraclete, as we sometimes do, then our heart confers on our blessed
   Lord Jesus the title of the Paraclesis. If the one be the Comforter,
   the other is the comfort.

   I shall try this morning, first, to show how Christ in his varied
   positions is the consolation of the children of God in their varied
   trials; then we shall pass on, secondly, to observe that Christ in his
   unchanging nature is a consolation to the children of God in their
   continual sorrows; and lastly, I shall close by dwelling awhile upon
   the question as to whether Christ is a consolation to us--putting it
   personally, "Is Christ a present and available consolation for me."

   I. First, CHRIST IN HIS VARIED POSITIONS IS A CONSOLATION FOR THE
   DIVERS ILLS OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD.

   Our Master's history is a long and eventful one; but every step of it
   may yield abundant comfort to the children of God. If we track him from
   the highest throne of glory to the cross of deepest woe, and then
   through the grave up again the shining steeps of heaven, and onward
   through his meditorial kingdom, on to the day when he shall deliver up
   the throne to God even our Father, throughout every part of that
   wondrous pathway there may be found the flowers of consolation growing
   plenteously, and the children of God have but to stoop and gather them.
   "All his paths drop fatness, all his garments which he wears in his
   different offices, smell of myrrh, and aloes and cassia, out of the
   ivory palaces, whereby he makes his people glad."

   To begin at the beginning, there are times when we look upon the past
   with the deepest grief. The withering of Eden's flowers has often
   caused a fading in the garden of our souls. We have mourned exceedingly
   that we have been driven out to till the ground with the sweat of our
   brow--that the curse should have glanced on us through the sin of our
   first parent, and we have been ready to cry, "Woe worth the day in
   which our parent stretched forth his hand to touch the forbidden
   fruit." Would to God that he had rested in unsullied purity, that we
   his sons and daughters might have lived beneath an unclouded sky, might
   never have mourned the ills of bodily pain or of spiritual distress. To
   meet this very natural source of grief, I bid you consider Christ in
   old eternity. Open now the eye of thy faith, believer, and see Christ
   as thine Eternal Covenant-head stipulating to redeem thee even before
   thou hadst become a bond-slave, bound to deliver even before thou hadst
   worn the chain. Think, I pray thee, of the eternal council in which thy
   restoration was planned and declared even before thy fall, and in which
   thou wast established in an eternal salvation even before the necessity
   of that salvation had begun. O, my brethren, how it cheers our hearts
   to think of the anticipating mercies of God! He anticipated our fall,
   foreknew the ills which it would bring upon us, and provided in his
   eternal decree of predestinating love an effectual remedy for all our
   diseases, a certain deliverance from all our sorrows. I see thee, thou
   fellow of the Eternal, thou equal of the Almighty God! Thy goings forth
   were of old. I see thee lift thy right hand and engage thyself to
   fulfil thy Father's will--"In the volume of the book it is written of
   me, I delight to do thy will, O God.'" I see thee forming, signing, and
   sealing that eternal covenant by which the souls of all the redeemed
   were there and then delivered from the curse, and made sure and certain
   inheritors of thy kingdom and of thy glory. In this respect Christ
   shines out as the consolation of his people.

   Again, if ever your minds dwell with sadness upon the fact that we are
   at this day absent from the Lord, because we are present in the body,
   think of the great truth that Jesus Christ of old had delights with the
   sons of men, and he delights to commune and have fellowship with his
   people now. Remember that your Lord and Master appeared to Abraham in
   the plains of Mamre under the disguise of a pilgrim. Abraham was a
   pilgrim, and Christ to show his sympathy with his servant, became a
   pilgrim too. Did he not appear also to Jacob at the brook Jabbok? Jacob
   was a wrestler, and Jesus appears there as a wrestler too. Did he not
   stand before Moses under the guise and figure of a flame in the midst
   of a bush? Was not Moses at the very time the representative of a
   people who were like a bush burning with fire and yet not consumed? Did
   he not stand before Joshua--Joshua the leader of Israel's troops, and
   did he not appear to him as the captain of the Lord's host? And do you
   not well remember that when the three holy children walked in the midst
   of the fiery furnace, he was in the midst of the fire too, not as a
   king, but as one in the fire with them? Cheer then thy heart with this
   consoling inference. If Christ appeared to his servants in the olden
   time, and manifested himself to them as bone of their bone, and flesh
   of their flesh, in all their trials and their troubles, he will do no
   less to thee to-day; he will be with thee in passing through the fire;
   he will be thy rock, thy shield, and thy high tower; he will be thy
   song, thy banner, and thy crown of rejoicing. Fear not, he who visited
   the saints of old will surely not be long absent from his children
   to-day; his delights are still with his people, and still will he walk
   with us through this weary wilderness. Surely this makes Christ a most
   blessed consolation for his Israel.

   And now to pursue the Master's footsteps, as he comes out of the
   invisible glories of Deity, and wears the visible garment of humanity.
   Let us view the babe of Bethlehem, the child of Nazareth, the Son of
   Man. See him, he is in every respect a man. "Of the substance of his
   mother" is he made; in the substance of our flesh he suffers; in the
   trials of our flesh he bows his head; under the weakness of our flesh
   he prays, and in the temptation of our flesh he is kept and maintained
   by the grace within. You to-day are tried and troubled, and you ask for
   consolation. What better can be afforded you than what is presented to
   you in the fact that Jesus Christ is one with you in your nature--that
   he has suffered all that you are now suffering--that your pathway has
   been aforetime trodden by his sacred foot--that the cup of which you
   drink is a cup which he has drained to the very bottom--that the river
   through which you pass is one through which he swam, and every wave and
   billow which rolls over your head did in old time roll over him. Come!
   art thou ashamed to suffer what thy Master suffered? Shall the disciple
   be above his Master, and the servant above his Lord? Shall he die upon
   a cross, and wilt not thou bear the cross? Must he be crowned with
   thorns, and shalt thou be crowned with laurel? Is he to be pierced in
   hands and feet, and are thy members to feel no pain? O cast away the
   fond delusion I pray thee, and look to him who "endured the cross,
   despising the shame," and be ready to endure and to suffer even as he
   did.

   And now behold our Master's humanity clothed even as ours has been
   since the fall. He comes not before us in the purple of a king, in the
   garb of the rich and the respectable, but he wears a dress in keeping
   with his apparent origin; he is a carpenter's son, and he wears a dress
   which becomes his station. View him, ye sons of poverty, as he stands
   before you in his seamless garment, the common dress of the peasant;
   and if you have felt this week the load of want--if you have suffered
   and are suffering this very day the ills connected with poverty, pluck
   up courage, and find a consolation in the fact that Christ was poorer
   than you are--that he knew more of the bitterness of want than you ever
   yet can guess. You cannot say, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the
   air have nests, but I have not where to lay my head;" or if you could
   go as far as that, yet have you never known a forty-day's fast. You
   have some comforts left to you; you do know at least the sweet taste of
   bread to the hungry man, and of rest to the weary; but these things
   were often denied to him. Look at him, then, and see if there be not to
   you comfort in Christ.

   We pass now, O Jesus, from thy robe of poverty to that scene of shame
   in which thy garments were rent from thee, and thou didst hang naked
   before the sun. Children of God, if there be one place more than
   another where Christ becomes the joy and comfort of his people, it is
   where he plunged deepest into the depths of woe. Come, see him, I pray
   you, in the garden of Gethsemane; behold him, as his heart is so full
   of love that he cannot hold it in--so full of sorrow that it must find
   a vent. Behold the bloody sweat as it distils from every pore of his
   body, and falls in gouts of gore upon the frozen ground. See him as all
   red with his own blood, wrapped in a bloody mantle of his own gore, he
   is brought before Herod and Pilate, and the Sanhedrim. See him now as
   they scourge him with their knotted whips, and afresh encrimson him, as
   though it were not ehough for him to be dyed once in scarlet, but he
   must again be enwrapped in purple. See him, I say, now that they have
   stripped him naked. Behold him as they drive the nails into his hand
   and into his feet. Look up and see the sorrowful image of your dolorous
   Lord. O mark him, as the ruby drops stand on the thorn-crown, and make
   it the blood-red diadem of the King of misery. O see him as his bones
   are out of joint, and he is poured out like water and brought into the
   dust of death. "Behold and see, was there ever sorrow like unto his
   sorrow that is done unto him?" All ye that pass by, draw near and look
   upon this spectacle of grief. Behold the Emperor of woe who never had
   an equal or a rival in his agonies! Come and see him; and if I read not
   the words of consolation written in lines of blood all down his side,
   then these eyes have never read a word in any book; for if there be not
   consolation in a murdered Christ, there is no joy, no peace to any
   heart. If in that finished ransom price, if in that efficacious blood,
   if in that all-accepted sacrifice, there be not joy, ye harpers of
   heaven, there is no joy in you, and the right hand of God shall know no
   pleasures for evermore. I am persuaded, men and brethren, that we have
   only to sit more at the Cross to be less troubled with our doubts, and
   our fears, and our woes. We have but to see his sorrows, and lose our
   sorrows; we have to see his wounds, and heal our own. If we would live,
   it must be by contemplation of his death; if we would rise to dignity
   it must be by considering his humiliation and his sorrow.

   "Lord, thy death and passion give

   Strength and comfort in my need,

   Every hour while here I live,

   On thy love my soul shall feed."

   But come now, troubled heart, and follow the dead body of thy Master,
   for though dead, it is as full of consolation as when alive. It is now
   no more naked; the loving hands of Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus,
   and the Magdalene and the other Mary, have wrapped it in cerements, and
   have laid it in the new tomb. Come, saints, not to weep, but to dry
   your tears. You have been all your lifetime subject to fear of death:
   come, break your bonds asunder; be free from this fear. Where your
   Master sleeps, you may surely find an easy couch. What more could you
   desire than to lie upon the bed of your royal Solomon? The grave is now
   no more a charnel-house or a dark prison; his having entered it makes
   it a blessed retiring-room, a sacred bath in which the King's Esthers
   purify their bodies, to make them fit for the embraces of their Lord.
   It becomes now not the gate of annihilation, but the portal of eternal
   bliss,--a joy to be anticipated, a privilege to be desired. "Fearless
   we lay us in the tomb, and sleep the night away, for thou art here to
   break the gloom, and call us back to day."

   I am certain, brethren, that all the consolations which wise men can
   ever afford in a dying hour will never be equal to that which is
   afforded by the record, that Jesus Christ ascended from the tomb. The
   maxims of philosophy, the endearments of affection, and the music of
   hope, will be a very poor compensation for the light of Jesus' grave.
   Death is the only mourner at Jesus' tomb, and while the whole earth
   rejoices at the sorrow of its last enemy, I would be all too glad to
   die, that I might know him, and the power of his resurrection. Heir of
   heaven! if thou wouldst be rid once for all of every doubting thought
   about the hour of thy dissolution, look, I pray thee, to Christ risen
   from the dead. Put thy finger into the print of the nails, and thrust
   thy hand into his side, and be not faithless but believing. He is
   risen; he saw no corruption; the worms could not devour him; and as
   Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, he has become the first fruits of
   them that slept. Inasmuch as he has risen, thou shalt rise. He has
   rolled the stone away, not for himself alone, but for thee also. He has
   unwrapped the grave-clothes, not for his own sake, but for thy sake
   too, and thou shalt surely stand in the latter day upon the earth, when
   he shall be here, and in thy flesh thou shalt see God.

   Time would fail us, if we should attempt to track the Master in his
   glorious pathway after his resurrection. Let it suffice us briefly to
   observe that, having led his disciples out unto a mountain, where he
   has delighted often to commune with them, he was suddenly taken up from
   them, and a cloud received him out of their sight. We think we may
   conjecture, by the help of Scripture, what transpired after that cloud
   had covered him. Did not the angels

   "Bring his chariot from on high

   To bear him to his throne,

   Clap their triumphant wings and cry,

   His glorious work is done?"

   Do you not see him, as he mounts his triumphal chariot,

   "And angels chant the solemn lay,

   Lift up your heads, ye golden gates,

   Ye everlasting doors give away?"

   Behold angels gazing from the battlements of heaven, replying to their
   comrades who escort the ascending Son of Man. "Who is the King of
   Glory?" And this time those who accompany the Master sing more sweetly
   and more loudly than before, while they cry, "The Lord strong and
   mighty, the Lord mighty in battle! Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and
   be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may come
   in." And now the doors

   "Loose all their bars of massy light,

   And wide unfold the radiant scene,"

   and he enters. "He claims those mansions as his right," and all the
   angels rise to "receive the King of Glory in." Behold him, as he rides
   in triumph through heaven's streets; see Death and Hell bound at his
   chariot wheels. Hark to the "Hosannas" of the spirits of the just made
   perfect! Hear how cherubim and seraphim roll out in thunders their
   everlasting song--"Glory be unto thee; glory be unto thee, thou Son of
   God, for thou wast slain and thou hast redeemed the world by thy
   blood." See him as he mounts his throne and near his Father sits.
   Behold the benignant complacency of the paternal Deity. Hear him as he
   accepts him and gives him a name which is above every name. And I say,
   my brethren, in the midst of your tremblings, and doubtings, and
   fearings, anticipate the joy which you shall have, when you shall share
   in this triumph, for know you not that you ascended up on high in him?
   He went not up to heaven alone, but as the representative of all the
   blood-bought throng. You rode in that triumphal chariot with him; you
   were exalted on high, and made to sit far above principalities and
   powers in him; for we are risen in him, we are exalted in Christ. Even
   at this very day in Christ that Psalm is true--"Thou hast put all
   things under his feet; thou madest him to have dominion over all the
   works of thy hands." Come, poor trembler, thou art little in thine own
   esteem, and but a worm and no man! Rise, I say, to the height of thy
   nobility; for thou art in Christ greater than angels be, more magnified
   and glorified by far. God gives you grace, ye who have faith, that ye
   may now, in the fact of Jesus Christ's exaltation, find consolation for
   yourself!

   But now to-day methinks I see the Master, as he stands before his
   Father's throne, dressed in the garments of a priest; upon his breast I
   see the Urim and Thummim glittering with the bejewelled remembrances of
   his people. In his hand I see still the remembrance of his sacrifice,
   the nail mark; and there I see still upon his feet the impress of the
   laver of blood in which he washed himself not as the priest of old with
   water but with his own gore. I hear him plead with authority before his
   Father's face, "I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with
   me where I am." O my poor prayers, ye shall be heard! O my faint
   groans, ye shall be answered! Oh, my poor troubled soul, thou art safe,
   for

   "Jesus pleads and must prevail,

   His cause can never, never fail."

   Come, my poor heart, lift up thyself now from the dunghill; shake
   thyself from the dust; ungird thy sackcloth and put on thy beautiful
   garments. He is our advocate to-day, our eloquent and earnest pleader,
   and he prevails with God. The Father smiles--he smiles on Christ; he
   smiles on us in answer to Jesus Christ's intercession. Is he not here
   also the consolation of Israel?

   I only remark once more that he who has gone up into heaven shall so
   come in like manner as he was seen to go up into heaven. He ascended in
   clouds, "Behold he cometh with clouds." He went up on high with sound
   of trumpet and with shout of angels. Behold he cometh! The silver
   trumpet shall soon sound. Tis midnight: the hours are rolling wearily
   along; the virgins wise and foolish are all asleep. But the cry shall
   soon be heard--"Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him."
   That same Jesus who was crucified shall come in glory. The hand that
   was pierced shall grasp the sceptre. Beneath his arm he shall gather up
   all the sceptres of all kings; monarchies shall be the sheaves, and he
   shall be the kingly reaper. On his head there shall be the many crowns
   of universal undisputed dominion. "He shall stand in the latter day
   upon the earth." His feet shall tread on the mount of Olivet, and his
   people shall be gathered in the valley of Jehoshaphat. Lo, the world's
   great battle is almost begun; the trumpet sounds the beginning of the
   battle of Armageddon. To the fight, ye warriors of Christ, to the
   fight; for it is your last conflict, and over the bodies of your foes
   ye shall rush to meet your Lord--he fighting on the one side by his
   coming, you on the other side by drawing near to him. You shall meet
   him in the solemn hour of victory. The dead in Christ shall rise first,
   and you that are alive and remain shall be changed in a moment, in the
   twinkling of an eye, at the last triumphant sounding of the dread
   tremendous trump. Then shall you know to the full how Christ can
   console you for all your sorrows, all your shame, and all your neglect
   which you have received from the hand of men. Ay, to-day bethink you,
   there awaits the recompense of an earthly splendour for your earthly
   poverty; there awaits you earthly dignity for your earthly shame. You
   shall not only have spiritual, but you shall have temporal blessings.
   He who takes away the curse will take it away not only from your soul,
   but from the very ground on which you tread. He who redeems you shall
   redeem not only your spirit, but your body. Your eyes shall see your
   Redeemer; your hands shall be lifted up in acclamation, and your feet
   shall bear your leaping joys in the procession of his glory, in your
   very body in which you have suffered for him you shall sit with him
   upon the throne and judge the nations of the earth. These things, I
   say, are all full of the purest and highest consolation to the children
   of God.

   II. Having taken nearly all my time upon the first point, I can only
   say a word or two upon the second and on the third. The second point
   was to be this--CHRIST IN HIS UNCHANGING NATURE; a consolation for our
   continual sorrows.

   Christ is to his people a surpassing consolation. Talk of the
   consolations of philosophy? We have all the philosopher can pretend to;
   but we have it in a higher degree. Speak of the charms of music which
   can lull our sorrows to a blessed sleep?

   "Sweeter sounds than music knows,

   Charm us in our Saviour's name."

   "Jesus, the very thought of thee,

   With rapture fills my breast."

   Speak we of the joys of frienship? and sweet they are indeed; but
   "there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother"--"a brother
   born for adversity." There is one who is better than all friends, more
   able to cheer than those who are darest and nearest to our hearts. Or,
   speak we of the joys of hope? and certainly hope can console us when
   nothing else can do it. He is our hope. We cast the anchor of our hope
   into that which is within the veil, whither the forerunner hath for us
   entered. The consolations of Christ are unrivalled by any which can be
   offered by wit, by wisdom, by mirth, by hope itself; they are
   incomparable, and can never be surpassed.

   Again, the consolations of Christ, from the fact of his unchanging
   nature, are unfailing.

   "When every earthly prop gives way,

   He still is all our strength and stay."

   Look you at Job, and see the picture of how Christ can console. The
   messenger rushes in--"The Sabeans have taken away the oxen and the
   asses!" "Well, well," Job might console himself and say, "but the sheep
   are left." "But the fire of God hath fallen on the sheep! and the
   Chaldeans have carried away the camels and slain the servants!" "Alas!"
   the good man might say, "but my children are left, and if they be
   spared, then I can still have joy." "The wind has come from the
   wilderness, and smitten the four corners of the house, and all thy sons
   and daughters are dead!" Ah! well-a-day, penniless and childless, the
   patriarch might weep; but, looking on his wife, he would say, "There
   still remaineth one sweet comforter, my well-beloved spouse." She bids
   him "curse God and die;" "speaking as one of the foolish women
   speaketh." Yet might Job say, "Though my wife hath failed me, there
   remaineth at least three friends; there they sit with me on the
   dunghill, and they will console me." But they speak bitterness, till he
   cries, "Miserable comforters are ye all." Well, but at least he has his
   own body in health, has he not? No, he sits down upon a dunghill, and
   scrapes himself with a potsherd, for his sores become intolerable.
   Well, well, "skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for
   his life." He may at least cheer himself with the fact, that he lives.
   "Why should a living man complain?" Yes, but he fears he is about to
   die. And now comes out the grandeur of his hope: "I know that my
   Redeemer liveth, and though the worms devour this body, yet in my flesh
   shall I see God." All the other windows are darkened; but the sun
   shines in at the oriel window of redemption. All the other doors are
   shut; but this great door of hope and joy still stands wide open. All
   other wells are dry; but this flows with an unceasing stream. Brothers
   and sisters, when all things else depart, an unchanging Christ shall be
   your unchanging joy.

   Furthermore, the consolations of Christ are all powerful consolations.
   When a poor soul is so deep in the mire that you cannot lift it with
   the lever of eloquence, nor draw it up with the hands of sympathy, nor
   raise it with wings of hope, he can touch it with his finger and it can
   spring up from the mire, and put his feet upon a rock, and feel the new
   song in its mouth and its goings well established. There is no form of
   melancholy which will not yield before the grace of God; there is no
   shape of distress which will not give way before the divine energy of
   the Holy Ghost the Comforter, when he uses Christ as the consolation.

   Again: this consolation is everlasting consolation. It consoled you, O
   aged sire, when as a youth you gave your heart to Christ; it was your
   joy in the mid-winter of your manhood; it has become your strength and
   your song in the days of your old age; when tottering on your staff you
   shall go down to Jordan's brink, he will be your consolation then. In
   the prospect of your coming dissolution, yea, when you walk through the
   valley of the shadow of death, you shall fear no evil, for he is with
   you; his rod and his staff shall comfort you. All other things shall
   pass away as a dream when you awaketh; but this substantial support
   shall abide with you in the midst of the swellings of Jordan, in the
   hour of the departure of your spirit from your body.

   And then remember that this is a consolation which is always within the
   believer's reach. He is "a very present help in time of trouble." Ye
   may always cheer your heart with Christ when other things are far away.
   When a friend visits you not, and your chamber becomes lonely--when
   spouse has forgotten to speak the kind word to you, and children have
   become ungrateful, he will make your bed in your sickness, he will be
   your never-failing friend and abide with you in every dark and gloomy
   hour, till he brings you into his dear arms, where you will be
   emparadised for ever and ever.

   III. I close now with my last point--the grave and serious question, IS
   CHRIST AN AVAILABLE CONSOLATION FOR ME?

   Who art thou, friend? Art thou one who needs no consolation? Hast thou
   a righteousness of thine own? Let me put it in thine own words. You are
   a good man, kind to the poor, charitable, upright, generous, holy. You
   believe there may be some faults in yourself, but they must be very
   few, and you trust that what with your own merits and with God's mercy
   you may enter heaven. In the name of God, I do solemnly assure you,
   that Christ is not an available consolation for you. Christ will have
   nothing to do with you, so long as you have anything to do with
   yourself. If you are trusting in any measure whatever upon aught that
   you have ever done or hope to do, you are trusting in a lie, and Christ
   will never be friends with a lie. He will never help you to do what he
   came to do himself. If you will take his work as it is, as a finished
   work, well and good; but if you must needs add to it your own, God
   shall add unto you the plagues which are written in this Book, but he
   shall by no means give to you any of the promises and the comforts
   which Christ can afford.

   But instead thereof, I will suppose that I address myself this morning
   to a man who says, "I was once, I think, a believer in Christ; I made a
   profession of religion, but I fell from it, and I have lost for years
   all the hope and joy I ever had; I think I was a presumptuous man, that
   I pretended to have what I never had, and yet at the time I really
   thought I had it. May I think that there is consolation in Christ for a
   backslider and a traitor like me? Often, sir, do I feel as if the doom
   of Judas must be mine--as if I must perish miserably, like Demas, who
   loved this present world." Ah! backslider, backslider, God speaks to
   thee this morning, and he says, "Return ye backsliding children of men,
   for I am married to you;" and if married, there has never been a
   divorce between Christ and you. Has he put you away? Unto which of his
   creditors has he sold you? Where do you read in his Word, that he has
   divided from the affection of his heart one whose name was ever written
   in his Book? Come, come, backslider, come again to the cross. He who
   received you once will receive you again. Come where the flood is
   flowing; the blood that washed you once, can wash you yet once more.
   Come, come, thou art naked, and poor, and miserable; the raiment which
   was given to thee once, shall array thee again with beauty. The
   unsearchable riches which were opened up to thee aforetime, shall be
   thine again.

   "To thy Father's bossom press'd,

   Once again a child confess'd,

   From his hand no more to roam,

   Come, backsliding sinner, come."

   But I hear another say, "I am not a backslider, but simply one who
   desires to be saved. I can say honestly, I would give my right arm from
   its socket if I might but be saved. Why, sir, if I had ten thousand
   worlds I would freely cast them away as pebble stones, and worthless,
   if I might but find Christ." Poor soul, and does the devil tell thee
   thou shalt never have Christ? Why, thou hast a warrant to lay hold on
   Christ to-day. "No," sayest thou, "I have no right whatever." The fact
   that thou sayest thou hast no right should at least comfort the
   minister in addressing himself freely to thee. The right of a sinner to
   come to Christ does not lie in the sinner, nor in any feelings which
   the sinner may have had; it lies in the fact that Christ commands him
   to come. If one of you should receive as you went out of younder door a
   command to go at once to Windsor, and have an interview with the Queen,
   as soon as you had received the order and were sure it came from her,
   you might say, "Well, but if I had known this, I should have put on
   other clothes;" but the order is peremptory, "Come now; come just as
   you are;" you would, I think, without any very great doubt, though
   greatly wondering, take your place and ride there at once. When you
   came to the gate, some tall grenadier might ask you what you were at.
   "Why," he might say, "you are not fit to come and see Her Majesty; you
   are not a gentleman; you have not so many hundreds a year; how can you
   expect to be admitted?" You show the command, and he lets you pass on.
   You come to another door, and there is an usher there. "You are not in
   a court dress," says he; "you are not properly robed for the occasion."
   You show the command, and he lets you pass on. But suppose when at last
   you should come into the ante-room you should say, "Now I dare not go
   in; I am not fit; I feel I shall not know how to behave myself."
   Suppose you are silly enough not to go, you would be disobedient and
   ten times more foolish in disobeying than you could have been by any
   blunders in behaviour if you had obeyed. Now it is just so with you
   to-day. Christ says, "Come unto me." He does not merely invite you,
   because he knows you would think you did not deserve the invitation;
   but he gives the command, and he bids me say to you, "Repent, and be
   baptized every one of you;" he bids me command you in his name,
   "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Of his
   grace and mercy he puts it as a command. "But," you say. Ah! what right
   have you to say "but" to the Lord's commands? Again,I say, away with
   your "buts." What right have you to be "butting" at his laws and his
   commands. "But," you say, "do hear me for a moment." I will hear you
   then. "Sir, I cannot imagine that if such a hard-hearted sinner as I am
   were really to trust Christ I should be saved." The English of that is,
   that you give God the lie. He says you shall be, and do you think he
   speaks an untruth? "Ah!" says another, "but it is too good to be true.
   I cannot believe that just as I am, if I trust in Christ, my sin shall
   be forgiven." Again, I say, the simple English of that is, that you
   think you know better than God; and so you do in fact stand up and say
   to his promise, "Thou art false." He says, "Him that cometh unto me I
   will in no wise cast out." "Ah!" you say, "but that does not mean me?"
   Can any language speak more plainly? "Him. What him? Why, any "him" in
   the world.

   "Yes," says one, "but the invitations are made to character--'Come unto
   me all ye that labour and are heavy laden;' I am afraid I am not heavy
   laden enough?" Yes, but you will mark, while the invitation is given to
   character, yet the promise is not given to the character; it is given
   to those who come--"Come unto me, and I will give you rest;" and while
   that one invitation may be confined to the weary and heavy laden, yet
   there are scores of others that stand as wide and free as the very air
   we breathe. If you have that qualification, do not come even with it,
   because you are unqualified when you think you are qualified; you are
   unfit when you think you are fit; and if you have a sense of need,
   which you think makes you fit to come to Christ, it shows you are not
   fit and do not know your need; for no man knows his need till he thinks
   he does not know his need, and no man is in a right state to come to
   Christ till he thinks he is not in a right state to come to Christ. But
   he who feels that he has not one good thought or one good feeling to
   recommend him, he is the man who may come. He who says, "But I may not
   come," is the very man that is bidden to come. Besides, my friends, it
   is not what you think, or what I think; it is what Christ says; and is
   it not written by the hand of the Apostle John, "This is the
   commandment, that ye believe on Jesus Christ whom he hath sent?" Men
   who say it is not the duty of sinners to believe, I cannot think what
   they make out of such a text as that--"This is the commandment, that ye
   believe on Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent;" and that one where God
   expressely says, "He that believeth not is condemned already, because
   he believeth not." Why, I should think I was addressing heathens, if I
   addressed a company of men who thought that God did not command men to
   repent; for Scripture is so plain upon the point, and I say, if God
   commands thee to do it, thou mayest do it. Let the devil say "Nay," but
   God says "Yes." Let him stand and push you back; but say to him, "Nay,
   Satan, nay, I come here in God's name;" and as devils fear and fly
   before the name of Christ, so will Satan and thy fears all fly before
   his command. He commands thee to believe--that is, to trust him. Trust
   him, soul, trust him; right or wrong, trust him.

   But some of you want a great temptation, and a great deal of despair,
   before you will trust him. Well, the Lord will send it to you, if you
   will not trust him without it. I remember John Bunyan says he had a
   black temptation, and it did him a great deal of good; for, said he,
   "Before I had the temptation I used always to be questioning a promise,
   and saying, May I come, or may I not come?'" But at last he said, "Yea,
   often when I have been making to the promise, I have seen as if the
   Lord would refuse my soul for ever: I was often as if I had run upon
   the pike, and as if the Lord had thrust at me, to keep me from him as
   with a flaming sword." Ah! and perhaps you may be driven to that. I
   pray you may; but I would infinitely rather that the sweet love and
   grace of God would entice you now to trust Jesus Christ just as you
   are. He will not deceive you, sinner; he will not fail you. Trusting
   him, you shall build on a sure foundation, and find him who is the
   consolation of Israel and the joy of all his saints.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              The Wailing of Risca

   A Sermon

   (No. 349)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 9th, 1860, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At Exeter Hall, Strand.

   "Suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment."--Jeremiah
   4:20.

   THE sorrow of the weeping prophet was exceeding heavy when he uttered
   these words of bitter lamentation. A great and present burden from the
   Lord is weighing so heavily upon our hearts this morning, that we
   cannot spare so much as a moment for sympathy with the griefs of past
   ages. God has visited our land, and his strokes have been exceeding
   hard. We are constrained to take up a wailing, and cry aloud, "Suddenly
   are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment." There is a spot in
   South Wales which has frequently yielded me a quiet and delightful
   retreat. Beautiful for situation, surrounded by lofty mountains,
   pierced by romantic valleys, the breathing of its air refreshes the
   body, and the sight of the eyes makes glad the heart. I have climbed
   its hills, I have seen the ever widening landscape, the mountains of
   Wales, the plains of England, and the seas sparkling afar. I have
   descended the hills and marked the mist creeping up the side of the
   hills and covering the woods in clouds. I have mingled with its godly
   men and women, and worshipped God in their assemblies. These lips have
   ministered the Word in that once happy valley. I have been fired with
   the glorious enthusiasm of the people when they have listened to the
   Word. Well doth my soul remember one night, which I shall never forget
   in time or in eternity, when, crowded together in the place of worship,
   hearty Welsh miners responded to every word of Christ's minister, with
   their "gogoniants" encouraging me to preach the Gospel, and crying
   "Glory to God" while the message was proclaimed. I remember how they
   constrained me, and kept me well nigh to midnight, preaching three
   semons, one after another, almost without rest, for they loved to
   listen to the gospel. God was present with us, and many a time has the
   baptismal pool been stirred since then by the fruit of that night's
   labour. Nor shall I ever forget when standing in the open air beneath
   God's blue sky, I addressed a mighty gathering within a short distance
   of that spot; when the Spirit of God was poured upon us, and men and
   women were swayed to and fro under the heavenly message, as the corn is
   moved in waves by the summer winds. Great was our joy that day when the
   people met together in thousands, and with songs and praises separated
   to their homes, talking of what they had heard. But now our visitation
   of that neighbourhood must ever be mingled with sorrow. How hath God
   been pleased to smite down strong men, and to take away the young men
   upon a sudden! "How suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a
   moment." Oh! vale of Risca, I take up a lamentation for thee: the Lord
   hath dealt sorely with thee. Behold, and see if there be sorrow in any
   valley like unto thy sorrow which is done unto thee. The angel of death
   has emptied out his quiver upon thee; the awful reaper hath gathered to
   himself full sheaves from thy beautifull valley.

   You all know the story; it scarce needs that I should tell it to you.
   Last Saturday week some two hundred or more miners descended in health
   and strength to their usual work in the bowels of the earth. They had
   not been working long, their wives and their children had risen, and
   their little ones had gone to their schools, when suddenly there was
   heard a noise at the mouth of the pit;--it was an explosion,--all knew
   what it meant. Men's hearts failed them, for well they prophesied the
   horror which would soon reveal itself. They wait awhile, the foul gas
   must first be scattered, brave men with their lives in their hands
   descend into the pit, and when they are able to see with the dim
   miner's lamp, the light falls upon corpse after corpse. A few, a
   handful are brought up alive, and scarce alive, but yet, thank God,
   with enough of the vital spark remaining to be again kindled to a
   flame; but the great mass of those strong men have felt the grip of
   death. Some of them were brought up to the top with their faces burned
   and scarred, with their bodies disfigured by the fire; but many are
   discovered whose faces looked as if they sweetly slept, so that it was
   scarcely possible to believe that they really could be dead, so quietly
   had the spirit quitted the habitation of clay. Can you picture to
   yourselves the scene? The great fires lit around the pit, flaming both
   night and day, the thick mist, the pouring rain drenching the whole of
   the valley. Do you see the women as they come clustering round the pit,
   shrieking for their sons, and their husbands, and their fathers. Do you
   hear that shrill scream as yonder woman has just discovered the partner
   of her soul; and there do you mark another bending over the form of her
   two stalwart sons, now alas taken from her for ever? Do you mark the
   misery that sits upon the face of some who have not found their sons,
   or their fathers, or their husbands, or their brothers, and who know
   not where they are, and feel a thousand deaths themselves because they
   feel convinced that their precious ones have fallen, though their
   corpses cannot be found? The misery in that valley is past description;
   those who have witnessed it, fail to be able to picture it. As the cry
   of Egypt in the night when the destroying angel went through all the
   land and smote the firstborn; as the wail of Rachel when she could not
   be comforted for her children, because they were not; such has been the
   howling, the weeping, the lamentation of that fair but desolate valley.

   My friends, this judgment has a voice to us, and the scarce buried
   bodies of those men which lie around us in vision, have each a
   sorrowful lesson. The cry of the widow, and of the childless mother,
   shall come up into our ears to-day; and, O Lord God of Saboath, may it
   so arouse us that we may hear, and fear, and tremble, and turn unto
   thee--that this dread calamity may be to us the means of our salvation,
   or if saved, the means of stirring us up more earnestly to seek the
   salvation of our fellow men.

   There are three points upon which I shall try to address you this
   morning, though I feel inadequate to such a task. First, I shall say
   somewhat upon sudden bereavements; then I shall dwell awhile upon the
   fact of sudden death; and afterwards we will say but a little, for we
   know but little, of the sudden exchange which sudden death shall bring
   both to saints and sinners.

   I. Our first sorrowful theme is SUDDEN BEREAVEMENTS.

   Alas! alas! how soon may we be childless; how soon may we be widowed of
   the dearest objects of our affections! O Lord, thou hast shown to us
   this day, how soon thou canst blast our gourds and wither all the
   fruits of our vineyard. The dearest ones, the partners of our blood,
   how soon can death proclaim a divorce between us--our children, the
   offspring of our loins, how soon canst thou lay them beneath the sod.
   We have not a single relative who may not become to us within the next
   moment a fountain of grief. All that are dear and precious to us are
   only here by God's good pleasure. What should we be to-day if it were
   not for those whom we love, and who love us? What were our house
   without its little prattlers? What were our habitation without the wife
   of our bosom? What were our daily business without our associates and
   friends to cheer us in our trials? Ah! this were a sad world indeed, if
   the ties of kindred, of affection, and of friendship all be snapped;
   and yet it is such a world that they must be sundered, and may be
   divided at any moment.

   From the fact that sudden bereavements are possible--not only to miners
   and to women whose husbands are upon the sea, but to us also--I would
   that we would learn profitable lessons. And first let us learn to set
   loose by our dearest friends that we have on earth. Let us love
   them--love them we may, love them we should--but let us always learn to
   love them as dying things. Oh, build not thy nest on any of these
   trees, for they are all marked for the axe. "Set not thine affections
   on things on earth," for the things of earth must leave thee, and then
   what wilt thou do when thy joy is emptied, and the golden bowl which
   held thy mirth shall be dashed to pieces? Love first and foremost
   Christ; and when thou lovest others, still love them not as though they
   were immortal. Love not clay as though it were undying--love not dust
   as though it were eternal. So hold thy friend that thou shalt not
   wonder when he vanishes from thee; so view the partakers of thy life
   that thou wilt not be amazad when they glide into the land of spirits.
   See thou the disease of mortality on every cheek, and write not Eternal
   upon the creature of an hour.

   Take care that thou puttest all thy dear ones into God's hand. Thou
   hast put thy soul there, put them there. Thou canst trust him for
   temporals for thyself, trust thy jewels with him. Feel that they are
   not thine own, but that they are God's loans to thee; loans which may
   be recalled at any moment--precious benisons of heaven, not entailed
   upon thee, but of which thou art but a tenant at will. Your possessions
   are never so safe as when you are willing to resign them, and you are
   never so rich as when you put all you have into the hand of God. You
   shall find it greatly mitigate the sorrow of bereavements, if before
   bereavement you shall have learned to surrender every day all the
   things that are dearest to you into the keeping of your gracious God.

   Further, then, you who are blessed with wife and children, and friends,
   take care that you bless God for them. Sing a song of praise to God who
   hath blessed you so much than others. You are not a widow, but there
   are many that wear the weeds, and why is it not your lot? You are not
   bereaven of your spouse, but there is many a man whose heart is rent in
   twain by such a calamity,--why is it not your portion too? You have not
   to follow to-morrow your little ones to their narrow graves--early
   flowers that did but bud and never ripened, withering alas! too soon.
   Oh! by the sorrow which you would feel if they were taken away, I
   exhort you to bless God for them while you have them. We sorrow much
   when our gifts are taken away, but we fail to thank God that he spared
   them to us so long. Oh! be not ungrateful, lest thou provoke the Lord
   to smite very low the mercy which thou dost not value. Sing unto the
   Lord, sing unto his name. Give unto him the blessing which he deserves
   for his sparing favors which he has manifested towards you in your
   household.

   And then permit me to remind you that if these sudden bereavements may
   come, and there may be a dark chamber in any house in a moment, and the
   coffin may be in any one of our habitations, let us so act to our
   kinsfolk and relatives as though we knew they were soon about to die.
   Young man, so treat thy hoary father as thou wouldst behave to him if
   thou knewest he would die to-morrow. When thou shalt follow him to the
   grave, amidst all thy tears for his loss, let there not be one tear of
   repentance because of thine ill behaviour to him. And you godly fathers
   and mothers, to you I have a special message--your children are
   committed to your care; they are growing up, and what if after they be
   grown up they should plunge into sin and die at last impenitent! Oh,
   let not the fierce regret sting you like an adder,--"Oh that I had
   prayed for my children! Oh that I had taught them before they
   departed." I pray you so live, that when you stand over your child's
   dead body you may never hear a voice coming up from that clay, "Father,
   thy negligence was my destruction. Mother, thy want of prayer was the
   instrument of my damnation." But so live, that when you hear the
   funeral knell, for a neighbour even, you may be able to say, "Poor
   soul, whether he is gone to heaven or to hell, I know I am clear of is
   blood." And with double earnestness be it so with your children. "Yes,"
   says one "but I have thought of teaching my children more of Christ,
   and being more earnest in prayer for them bye-and-bye," but what if
   they should die to-morrow? "Yes," says the wife, "I have thought of
   speaking to my ungodly husband, and trying to induce him to attend the
   house of God with me, but I was afraid he would only laugh at me, so I
   put it off for a month or two." Ah! what if he dies before you have
   cleared your conscience of him? Oh, my brothers and sisters in Christ,
   if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our
   bodies; and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about
   their knees, imploring them to stay, and not madly to destroy
   themselves. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the
   teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed
   for.

   In the light, then, of sudden bereavements, let not another hour pass
   over your head, when you have reached home, before you have freed your
   conscience of the blood of your children's souls. Gather them together
   around you this afternoon, and say to them, "My dear children, I have
   learned to day that you may die; I knew it before, but I have had it
   impressed upon my mind by a solemn incident. My dear children, I cannot
   help telling you, that as you must die, I am anxious that God's Holy
   Spirit should graciously lead you to repent of sin and seek a Saviour."
   And then, when you have told them the way to salvation in simple terms,
   put your arms about their necks, and bid the little ones kneel down and
   pray, "O God! upon their infant hearts, stamp thou, the image of
   thyself. As they are in the image of the earthy, so make them in the
   image of the heavenly, that at the last I may be able to say, Here am
   I, and the children thou hast given me.'"

   II. The second head of my discourse this morning was to be, SUDDEN
   DEATH, AS WE VIEW IT MORE PARTICULARLY IN RELATION TO OURSELVES.

   The miners of Risca had no more idea of dying that Saturday morning
   than you or I have, nor did there seem much likelihood that they would.
   They had gone up and down the pit, some of them, many thousands of
   times in their lives. It is true that some had perished there, but
   then, how very many had gone up and down and had not perished. Nay,
   they had grown so fearless of danger, that some of them even thrust
   themselves into it, and in defiance of every regulation for the
   preservation of human life, they were bold and careless, and would
   gratify a selfish indulgence when a spark might have caused the
   destruction of them all. We will not say that it was any negligence
   that caused this accident--God forbid that we should lay anything to
   the charge of those who have now departed, and have to answer before
   their God--but, at any rate, sure it is that men who have most to do
   with danger are generally the most callous, and those who are most
   exposed are usually utterly careless about the very danger which others
   see but which they will not see themselves. Any warning you or I might
   have given them would have been thought unnecessary, if not
   impertinent. "Why need I be so careful? I have done this fifty times
   before. Why may I not do it again?" But as in a moment, although there
   was no lightning flash, no earthquake, no opening of a pit to swallow
   them up, quick in a moment the gas explodes and they stand before the
   Eternal God. It was but the twinkling of an eye, even as though the
   last trump had sounded (and indeed it did sound as far as they were
   concerned), and down fell the lifeless corpse, and the spirit returned
   to God who made it. And you and I are in danger too. We are not in the
   pit in the midst of explosive air, but there are a thousand gates to
   death. How many there be who have fallen dead in the streets? How many
   sitting in their own homes? I stayed but a week or two ago with an
   excellent Christian man, who was then in the halest and most hearty
   health. I was startled indeed when I heard immediately after that he
   had come home, and sitting down in his chair had shut his eyes and
   died. And these things are usual, and in such a city as ours we cannot
   go down a street without hearing of some such visitation. Well, our
   turn must come. Perhaps we shall die falling asleep in our beds after
   long sickness, but probably we shall be suddenly called in such an hour
   as we think not to face the realities of eternity. Well, if it be so,
   if there be a thousand gates to death, if all means and any means may
   be sufficient to stop the current of our life, if really, after all,
   spiders' webs and bubbles are more substantial things than human life,
   if we are but a vapour, or a dying taper that soon expires in darkness,
   what then? Why, first, I say, let us all look upon ourselves as dying
   men, let us not reckon on to-morrow. Oh! let us not procrastinate, for
   taken in Satan's great net of procrastination we may wait, and wait,
   and wait, till time is gone and the great knell of eternity shall toll
   our dissolution. To-day is your only time. O mortal men, the present
   moment is the only moment you may call your own, and oh! how swift its
   wings! This hour is yours; yesterday is gone; to-morrow is with God,
   and may never come. "To-day if ye hear his voice harden not your
   hearts." Many have had their first impressions from thoughts of death,
   and hence it is that Satan never likes to let a man think of the grave.
   I know a family in which the governess, the daughter of a Christian
   minister, was told upon her entering her office, that she was never to
   mention the subject of death to the children. They were never to know
   even that children might die. I did not marvel when I knew the
   infidelity of the head of the household. What better atmosphere for an
   infidel to breathe in, than where the blast of death is never felt?
   Infidels ought to be immortal. They ought to live in a world where they
   can never die, for their infidelity will never be able to pass the
   stream of Jordan. There are infidels on earth, but there are none in
   heaven, and there can be none in hell. They are convinced--convinced by
   terrible facts--convinced that there is a God while they are crushed
   beneath his vengeance, and made to tremble at his eternal power. But I
   pray you, sirs, be not such fools as to live as though your bones were
   iron and your ribs were brass. Let us not be such madmen as to run as
   though there were no bounds to our race; let us not play away our
   precious days as though days were common as sands on a sea shore. That
   hour-glass yonder contains all the sands of your life. Do you see them
   running? How swiftly do they empty out! With some of you, the most of
   the sands are in the bottom bulb of the glass, and there are only a few
   to go trickling through the narrow passway of its days. Ah! and that
   glass shall never be turned again; it shall never run a second time for
   you. Let it once run out and you will die. Oh! live as though you meant
   to die. Live as though you knew you might die to-morrow. Think as
   though you might die now, and act this very hour as though I could
   utter the mandate of death, and summon you to pass through the portals
   of the tomb.

   And then take care, I pray you, that you who do know Christ not only
   live as though you meant to die, but live while you live. Oh what a
   work we have to do, and how short the time to do it! Millions of men
   unconverted yet, and nothing but our feeble voice with which to preach
   the Word! My soul, shalt thou ever condemn thyself in thy dying moments
   for having preached too often or too earnestly? No, never. Thou mayest
   rebuke thy soul, but thou canst never bemoan thy excessive industry.
   Minister of Christ! in thy dying hour it will never be a theme of
   reproach to you that you preached ten times in the week, that you stood
   up every day to preach Christ, and that you so preached that you spent
   yourself, and wasted your body with weakness. No, it will be our dull
   sermons that will haunt us on our dying beds, our tearless preaching,
   our long studyings, when we might have preached better had we come away
   and preached without them; our huntings after popularity, by gathering
   together fine words, instead of coming right up, and saying to the
   people, "Men and women, you are dying, escape for your life and fly to
   Christ;" preaching to them in red-hot simple words of the wrath to come
   and of the love of Christ. Oh! there are some of you members of our
   churches, who are living, but what are you living for? Surely you are
   not living to get money--that is the worldling's object. Are you living
   merely to please yourselves? Why that is but the beast's delight. Oh!
   how few there are of the members of our churches who really live for
   God with all their might. Do we give to God as much as we give to our
   own pleasures? Do we give Christ's service as much time as we give to
   many of our trifling amusements? Why, we have professional men of
   education, men of excellent training and ability, who when they once
   get into a church, feel that they could be very active anywhere else,
   but as Christians they have nothing to do. They can be energetic in
   parish vestries or in the rifle corps, but in the church they give
   their name, but their energies are dormant. Ah! my dear hearers, you
   who love the Saviour, when we shall come before Christ in heaven, if
   there can be a regret, it will be that we did not do more for Christ
   while we were here. I think as we fall down before his feet and worship
   him, if we could know a sorrow, it would be because we did not bring
   him in more jewels for his crown--did not seek more to feed the hungry,
   or to clothe the naked--did not give more to his cause, and did not
   labour more that the lost sheep of the house of Israel might be
   restored. Live while you live; while it is called to-day, work, for the
   night cometh wherein no man can work.

   And let us learn never to do anything which we would not wish to be
   found doing if we were to die. We are sometimes asked by young people
   whether they may go to the theatre, whether they may dance, or whether
   they may do this or that. You may do anything which you would not be
   ashamed to be doing when Christ shall come. You may do anything which
   you would not blush to be found doing if the hand of death should smite
   you; but if you would dread to die in any spot, go not there; if you
   would not wish to enter the presence of your God with such-and-such a
   word upon your lip, utter not that word; or if there would be a thought
   that would be uncongenial to the judgement-day, seek not to think that
   thought. So act that you may feel you can take your shroud with you
   wherever you go. Happy is he that dies in his pulpit. Blessed is the
   man that dies in his daily business, for he is found with his loins
   girt about him serving his Master; but, oh, unhappy must he be to whom
   death comes as an intruder, and finds him engaged in that which he will
   blush to have ever touched, when God shall appear in judgment. Power
   supreme; thou everlasting King; permit not death to intrude upon an
   ill-spent hour, but find me rapt in meditation high; hymning my great
   Creator; proclaiming the love of Jesus, or lifting up my heart in
   prayer for myself and my fellow-sinners. Let me but serve my God, and
   then, Death, I will not say to thee when thou mayest come--come when
   thou wilt; but if I might choose, come to me while I am yearning after
   souls; come to me when the cry of inviting love is on my lip, and when
   I am weeping over the souls of men. Come to me, then, that men may say,

   "He did his body with his charge lay down,

   He ceased at once to work and live."

   But I may talk thus about sudden death and the likelihood of it, but
   ah! sirs, I cannot stir your hearts, for I cannot stir my own as I
   would. The fact that so many die each day has very little force in it
   for us, because it is so trite an event, we have heard of it so many
   times. We look down the catalogue of deaths and take the average, and
   we say, "Fifty below the average, or a hundred above the average," but
   our dying never comes home to us. All men will persist in thinking all
   men mortal but themselves. If there were a great Hydra in the city of
   London, which every day ate ten of the inhabitants of London alive, we
   should be dreadfully miserable, especially if we never knew when it
   would be our turn to be eaten too. If we were certain that it would eat
   all in London by-and-bye, but would only eat ten in a week, we should
   all tremble as we passed by the huge monster's den, and say, "When will
   it be my time?" and that would cast a cloud over the whole metropolis,
   blacker than its usual fog. But here is a monster, Death, which devours
   its hundreds at its meal; and with its iron tongue the funeral knell
   keeps crying out for more; its greedy and insatiable maw never being
   filled; its teeth never being blunted; its ravenous hunger never being
   stayed. And here we are, and though it will be our turn by-and-bye to
   be devoured of this great monster, yet how little do we think about it!
   One reason I think is, because we so seldom visit the dying. I stood
   once by the side of a poor boy whom I had taught as a Sunday-school
   teacher; he had received very little good training at home, and though
   he was but a lad of seventeen, he became a drunkard and drank himself
   to death at one debauch. I saw him, and talked to him, and tried to
   point him to the Saviour, and heard at last the death-rattle in his
   throat, and as I went down stairs I thought everybody a fool for doing
   anything except preparing to die. I began to look upon the men who
   drove the carts in the street, the men who were busy at their shops,
   and those who were selling their wares, as being all foolish for doing
   anything except their eternal business, and myself most of all foolish
   for not pointing dying sinners to a living Christ, and inviting them to
   trust in his precious blood. And yet in an hour or so all things took
   their usual shape, and I began to think that I was not dying after all,
   and I could go away and be I fear as heartless as before. I could begin
   to think that men were after all wise in thinking of this world, and
   not the next; I mean not that I really thought so, but I fear I acted
   as if I thought so; the impression of the dying-bed was so soon
   obliterated. If you could see all die who die, perhaps the impression
   would be different. I would liken the sons of men to a company of South
   Sea Islanders, whose canoe being disabled, floated upon a raft, and
   they were attacked by sharks; they disappeared one by one, till but
   three or four were left. Can you conceive the despair which would
   settle upon the countenances of these few? If they knew a God, do you
   not think they would then indeed call on him? And in what respect,
   except that death was more apparent to them, were they different from
   us? Man after man is being taken away from us by the devouring monster.
   Friends and kinsfolk have been snatched into the deep, and some of us
   remain upon the edge of the raft. You gray-haired man may be the next
   that is carried away. The hosts of God are crossing the flood; some
   have already passed it and are singing the eternal song, and

   "We are to the margin come,

   And soon expect to die."

   God help us so to live in the expectation of death, that Christ may be
   glorified in us whether we sleep or wake, and that we may be able to
   say, "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain."

   III. I shall detain you but a few minutes longer, while I dwell upon
   the third theme, which is, THAT SUDDEN EXCHANGE WHICH A SUDDED DEATH
   WILL CAUSE.

   You see yonder Christian man, he is full of a thousand fears, he is
   afraid even of his interest in Christ, he is troubled spiritually, and
   vexed with temporal cares. You see him cast down and exceeding
   troubled, his faith but very weak; he steps outside your door, and
   there meets him a messenger from God, who smites him to the heart, and
   he is dead. Can you conceive the change? Death has cured him of his
   fears, his tears are wiped away once for all from his eyes; and, to his
   surprise, he stands where he feared he should never be, in the midst of
   the redeemed of God, in the general assembly and church of the
   first-born. If he should think of such things, would he not upbraid
   himself for thinking so much of his trouble, and for looking into a
   future which he was never to see? See yonder man, he can scarcely walk,
   he has a hundred pains in his body, he says he is more tried and pained
   than any man. Death puts his skeleton hand upon him, and he dies. How
   marvellous the change! No aches now, no casting down of spirit, he then
   is supremely blest, the decrepid has become perfect, the weak has
   become strong, the trembling one has become a David, and David has
   become as the angel of the Lord. Hark to the song which pours from the
   lips of him who just now groaned; look at the celestial smile which
   lights the features of the man just now racked with pain and tormented
   with anguish! Was ever change so surprising, so marvellous? When I
   think of it, I could almost long for it to come across myself this
   morning; to go from the thousand eyes of you that look upon me, to look
   into the eyes of Christ, and to go from your songs, to the songs of
   spirits before the throne, to leave the sabbath work on earth for an
   eternal sabbath of rest: to go from unbelieving hearts, from Christians
   who need to be cheered and sinners to be convinced, to be with those
   who need no preaching, but who in one eternal song, sing "Hallelujah to
   God and the Lamb." I can imagine that when a man dies thus suddenly,
   one of the first emotions he experiences in the next world will be
   surprise. I can conceive that the spirit knows not where it is. It is
   like a man waking up from a dream. He looks about him. Oh, that glory!
   how resplendent you throne! He listens to harps of gold, and he can
   scarce believe it true. "I, the chief of sinners, and yet in heaven? I,
   a doubting one, and yet in paradise?" And then when he is conscious
   that he is really in heaven, oh! what overwhelming joy; how is the
   spirit flooded with delight, covered over with it, scarcely able to
   enjoy it because it seems to be all but crushed beneath the eternal
   weight of glory. And next, when the spirit has power to recover itself,
   and open its eyes from the blindness caused by this dazzling light, and
   to think--when its thoughts have recovered themselves from the sudden
   effect of a tremendous flood of bliss,--the next emotion will be
   gratitude. See how that believer, five minutes ago a mourner, now takes
   his crown from off his head, and with transporting joy and gratitude
   bows before his Saviour's throne. Hear how he sings; was ever song like
   that, the first song he ever sang that had the fulness of Paradise and
   perfection in it--"Unto him that loved me and washed me from my sins in
   his blood, unto him be glory." And how he repeats it, and repeats it
   again, and looks round to cherubim and seraphim, and prays them to
   assist him in his song, till all the harps of heaven re-taught the
   melody of gratitude, re-tuned by the one faithful heart, send up
   another hallelujah, and yet another, and another; while the floods of
   harmony surround the eternal throne of God.

   But what must be the change to the unconverted man? His joys are over
   for ever. His death is the death of his happiness--his funeral is the
   funeral of his mirth. He has just risen from his cups; he has another
   cup to drain, which is full of bitterness. He has just listened to the
   sound of the harp and the viol, and the music of them that make merry;
   an eternal dirge greets his ears, mixed with the doleful chorus of the
   shrieks of damned souls. What horror and surprise shall seize upon him!
   "Good God," he says, "I thought it was not so, but lo, it is. What the
   minister said to me is true; the things I would not believe are at last
   really so." When the poor soul shall find itself in the hands of angry
   fiends, and lifts up his eyes in hell, being in torments so hot, so
   feverish, so thirsy, that it shall seem in that first moment as though
   it had been athirst for a million years, what will be his surprise!
   "And am I," he will say, "really here? I was in the streets of London
   but a minute ago; I was singing a song but an instant before, and here
   am I in hell! What! so soon damned? Is the sentence of God like a
   lightning-flash? Does it so instantaneously rive the spirit and destroy
   its joys? Am I really here?" And when the soul has convinced itself
   that it is actually in hell, can you imagine next the overwhelming
   horror that will roll over it. It, too, will be stunned with a mighty
   flood, not with a flood of glory but with a flood of anger, of wrath,
   of divine justice. Oh! how the spirit is tormented now--tormented
   beyond thought. And then at last, when the wave recedes a moment, and
   there is a pause, what black despair shall then seize upon the spirit!
   Have you ever seen men die without a hope? I read but yesterday a case
   of a young woman who had procrastinated many times, and at last whe was
   told by the physician that within nine hours he really believed she
   would be a corpse. Then, when death really became a matter of fact to
   her, she rose up in the bed upon which she had been laid by the sudden
   stroke of God, and she prayed--prayed till she fell back fainting, and
   her lips were livid and her cheek was pale, while she cried, "God be
   merciful to me a sinner." Friends talked to her, consoled and comforted
   her, and bade her trust in Christ; but she said, "It is of no use for
   you to comfort me; no, it is too late. I made a fatal resolve some
   months ago that I would again enjoy the world, and that resolve
   destroyed by soul." And then she rose up in bed again, with eyes
   starting from their sockets, and prayed again till she was breathless,
   and groaned and cried, and fell down again in a faint, needing to be
   restored once more. And so she did, till with ghastly look--an awful
   look of horror--as though she felt the anguish of another world, she
   expired.

   Now if such is the remorse of a spirit before it feels the wrath of
   God--if the first drops are sufficient thus to destroy all hope and
   beat in pieces all our boastings, what will the eternal hail be--what
   will the everlasting sleet of divine wrath be when once it is poured
   our? Sodom and Gomorrah! Why all their fiery hail from heaven shall be
   nothing compared with the eternal fire that must fall upon the sinner.
   Do you think I love to speak on such a theme as this? My soul trembles
   while she thinks of it. No, I would sooner preach of other things by
   far, but it is needful that men may be awakened. Oh! I implore you, men
   and brethren, ye that know not God, and are still condemned, because
   you believe not in Christ, I pray you think of these things. Oh that I
   had a Baxter's heart, that I could weep over sinners as he did; but my
   soul feels as true an anguish for your souls as ever Baxter felt. Oh
   that you would be saved! My eyes ache; my brow is full of fire now,
   because I cannot preach as I wanted to preach to you. Oh that God would
   take up the work and send that truth right home. I know I shall soon
   die and you too, and I shall face each of you, and your eyes shall
   stare on me for ever and ever, if you be lost through my
   unfaithfulness. And shall it be--shall it be? Oh that we had a hope
   that all of us might see the face of God and live! "Believe in the Lord
   Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."

   Spirit of God, convince of sin, and bring the heart to Christ, and may
   we all without exception see thy face in joy and glory, and praise
   thee, world without end. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                          A Blow at Self-Righteousness

   A Sermon

   (No. 350)

   Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 16th, 1860, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At Exeter Hall, Strand.

   "If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am
   perfect, it shall also prove me perverse."--Job 9:20.

   EVER since man became a sinner he has been self-righteous. When he had
   a righteousness of his own he never gloried of it, but ever since he
   has lost it, he has pretended to be the possessor of it. Those proud
   words which our father Adam uttered, when he sought to screen himself
   from the guilt of his treason against his Maker, laying the blame
   apparently on Eve, but really upon God who gave him the woman, were
   virtually a clame to blamelessness. It was but a fig leaf he could find
   to cover his nakedness, but how proud was he of that fig-leaf excuse,
   and how tenaciously did he hold to it. As it was with our first parents
   so is it with us: self-righteousness is born with us, and there is
   perhaps no sin which has so much vitality in it as the sin of righteous
   self. We can overcome lust itself, and anger, and the fierce passions
   of the will better than we can ever master the proud boastfulness which
   rises in our hearts and tempts us to think ourselves rich and increased
   in goods, while God knoweth we are naked, and poor, and miserable. Tens
   of thousands of sermons have been preached against self-righteousness,
   and yet it is as necessary to turn the great guns of the law against
   its walls to-day as ever it was. Martin Luther said he scarcely ever
   preached a sermon without inveighing against the righteousness of man,
   and yet, he said, "I find that still I cannot preach it down. Still men
   will boast in what they can do, and mistake the path to heaven to be a
   road paved by their own merits, and not a way besprinkled by the blood
   of the atonement of Jesus Christ." My dear hearers, I cannot compliment
   you by imagining that all of you have been delivered from the great
   delusion of trusting in yourselves. The godly, those who are righteous
   through faith in Christ, still have to mourn that this infirmity clings
   to them; while as to the unconverted themselves, their besetting sin is
   to deny their guiltiness, to plead that they are as good as others, and
   to indulge still the vain and foolish hope that they shall enter into
   heaven from some doings, sufferings, or weepings of their own. I do not
   suppose there are any who are self-righteous in as bold a sense as the
   poor countryman I have heard of. His minister had tried to explain to
   him the way of salvation, but either his head was very dull, or else
   his soul was very hostile to the truth the minister would impart; for
   he so little understood what he had heard, that when the question was
   put, "Now then, what is the way by which you hope you can be saved
   before God?" the poor honest simpleton said, "Do you not think sir, if
   I were to sleep one cold frosty night under a hawthorn bush, that would
   go a great way towards it?" conceiving that his suffering might, in
   some degree at least, assist him in getting into heaven. You would not
   state your opinion in so bold a manner; you would refine it, you would
   gild it, you would disguise it, but it would come to the same thing
   after all; you would still believe that some sufferings, or believings
   of your own might possibly merit salvation. The Romish Church indeed,
   often tells this so very plainly, that we cannot think it less than
   profanity. I have been informed that there is in one of the Romish
   chapels in Cork, a monument bearing these words upon it, "I. H. S.
   Sacred to the memory of the benevolent Edward Molloy; a friend of
   humanity, the father of the poor; he employed the wealth of this world
   only to procure the riches of the next; and leaving a balance of merit
   in the book of life, he made heaven debtor to mercy. He died October
   17th, 1818, aged 90." I do not suppose that any of you will have such
   an epitaph on your tombstones, or ever dream of putting it as a matter
   of account with God, and striking a balance with him, your sins being
   on one side and your righteousness on the other, and hoping that a
   balance might remain. And yet the very same idea, only not so honestly
   expressed--a little more guarded, and a little more refined--the same
   idea, only taught to speak after a gospel dialect--is inherent in us
   all, and only divine grace can thoroughly cast it out of us.

   The sermon of this morning is intended to be another blow against our
   self-righteousness. If it will not die, at least let us spare no arrows
   against it; let us draw the bow, and if the shaft cannot penetrate its
   heart, it may at least stick in its flesh and help to worry it to its
   grave.

   I. Endeavouring to keep close to my text, I shall start with this first
   point--that THE PLEA OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS CONTRADICTS ITSELF. "If I
   justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me."

   Come, friend, thou who dost justify thyself by thine own works, let me
   hear thee speak. "I say that I have no need of a salvation by the blood
   and righteousness of another, for I believe that I have kept the
   commands of God from my youth up, and I do not think that I am guilty
   in his sight, but I hope that I may be able in my own right to claim a
   seat in paradise." Now, sir, your plea and this declaration of yours is
   in itself a condemnation of you, because upon its very surface it is
   apparent that you are committing sin while you are pleading that you
   have no sin. For the very plea itself is a piece of high and arrogant
   presumption. God hath said it, let Jew and Gentile stop his mouth, and
   let all the world stand guilty before God. We have it on inspired
   authority, that "there is none righteous, no, not one." "There is none
   good, save one, that is God." We are told by the mouth of a prophet
   sent from God, that "all we like wandering sheep have gone astray; we
   have turned every one to his own way." And thou, in saying that thou
   art righteous, dost commit the sin of calling God a liar. Thou hast
   dared to impugn his veracity, thou hast slandered his justice. This
   boast of thine is in itself a sin, so great, so heinous, that if thou
   hadst only that one sin to account for, it would be sufficient to sink
   thee to the lowest hell. The boast, I say, is in itself a sin; the
   moment that a man saith, "I have no sin," he commits a sin in the
   saying of it,--the sin of contradicting his Maker, and making God a
   false accuser of his creatures.

   Besides, dost thou not see, thou vain and foolish creature, that thou
   hast been guilty of pride in the very language thou hast used? Who but
   a proud man would stand up and commend himself? Who, but one who was
   proud as Lucifer, would in the face of God's declaration declare
   himself to be just and holy? Did the best of men ever speak thus? Did
   they not all of them acknowledge that they were guilty? Did Job, of
   whom God said that he was a perfect and an upright man, claim
   perfection? Did he not say, "If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall
   condemn me?" Oh! proud wretch, how art thou puffed up! How hath Satan
   bewitched thee; how hath he made thee lift up thine horn on high and
   speak with a stiff neck. Take heed to thyself, for if thou hadst never
   been guilty before, this pride of thine were quite sufficient to draw
   Jehovah's thunderbolts out of the quiver, and make him smite thee once
   for all to thine eternal destruction.

   But further, the plea of self-righteousness is self-contradictory upon
   another ground; for all that a self-righteous man pleads for, is
   comparative righteousness. "Why," saith he, "I am no worse than my
   neighbours, in fact a great deal better; I do not drink, or swear; I do
   not commit fornication or adultery; I am no Sabbath breaker; I am no
   thief; the laws of my country do not accuse, much less condemn me; I am
   better than the most of men, and if I be not saved, God help those who
   are worse than I am; if I cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, then who
   can?" Just so, but then all that you claim is that you are righteous as
   compared with others. Do you not see that this is a very vain and fatal
   plea, because you do in fact admit that you are not perfectly
   righteous;--that there is some sin in you, only you claim there is not
   so much in you as in another. You admit that you are diseased, but then
   the plague-spot is not so apparent in you as in your fellow-man. You
   admit that you have robbed God and broken his laws, only you have not
   done it with so desperate an intent, nor with so many aggravations as
   others. Now this is virtually a plea of guilty, disguise it as you may.
   You admit that you have been guilty, and against you the sentence comes
   forth--"The soul that sinneth it shall die." Take heed to thyself that
   thou find no shelter in this refuge of lies, for it shall certainly
   fail thee when God shall come to judge the world with righteousness and
   the people with equity.

   Suppose now for a moment that a command is issued to the beasts of the
   forest that they should become sheep. It is quite in vain for the bear
   to come forward and plead that he was not so venomous a creature as the
   serpent; equally absurd would it be for the wolf to say that though
   stealthy and cunning, and gaunt, and grim, yet he was not so great a
   grumbler not so ugly a creature as the bear; and the lion might plead
   that he had not the craftiness of the fox. "It is true," saith he, "I
   wet my tongue in blood, but then I have some virtues which may commend
   me, and which, in fact, have made me king of beasts." What would this
   argument avail? The indictment is that these animals are not sheep,
   their plea against the indictment is that they are no less like sheep
   than other creatures, and that some of them have more gentleness and
   more docility than others of their kind. The plea would never stand. Or
   use another picture. If in the courts of justice, a thief, when called
   up, should argue, "Well, I am not so great a thief as some; there are
   to be found some living in Whitechapel or St. Giles's who have been
   thieves longer than I have, and if there be one conviction in the book
   against me, there are some that have a dozen convictions against them."
   No magistrate would acquit a man on such an excuse as that, because it
   would be tantamount to his admission of a degree of guilt, though he
   might try to excuse himself because he had not reached a higher degree.
   It is so with you, sinner. You have sinned. Another man's sins cannot
   excuse you; you must stand upon your own feet. At the day of judgment
   you must yourself make a personal appearance, and it will not be what
   another man has done that will condemn, or acquit you, but your own
   personal guilt. Take heed, then, take heed, sinner; for it will not
   avail thee that there are others blacker than thyself. If there be but
   a spot upon thee thou art lost; if there be but one sin unwashed by
   Jesus' blood, thy portion must be with the tormentors. A holy God
   cannot look even upon the least degree of iniquity.

   But further, the plea of the self-conceited man is, that he has done
   his best, and can claim a partial righteousness. It is true, if you
   touch him in a tender place he acknowledges that his boyhood and his
   youth were stained with sin. He tells you that in his early days he was
   a "fast lad;" that he did many things which he is sorry for now. "But
   then," says he, "these are only like spots in the sun; these are only
   like a small headland of waste ground in acres of fruitful soil; I am
   still good; I am still righteous, because my virtues exceed my vices,
   and my good deeds quite cover up all the mistakes that I have
   committed." Well, sir, do you not see that the only righteousness you
   claim is a partial righteousness? and in that very claim you do in fact
   make an admission that you are not perfect; that you have committed
   some sins. Now I am not responsible for what I am about to state, nor
   am I to be blamed for harshness in it, because I state neither more nor
   less than the very truth of God. It is of no saving avail to you that
   you have not have committed ten thousand sins, for if you have
   committed one, you are a lost soul. The law is to be kept intact and
   entire, and the least crack, or flaw, or breakage, spoils it. The robe
   of righteousness in which you must stand at last must be without spot
   or blemish, and if there be but one microscopic stain upon it, which is
   supposing what is never true, yet, even then the gates of heaven never
   can admit you. A perfect righteousness you must have, or else you shall
   never be admitted to that wedding feast. You may say, "I have kept such
   a commandment and have never broken it," but if you have broken another
   you are guilty of the whole, because the whole law is like one rich and
   costly vase--it is one in design and fashion. Though you break not the
   foor, and stain not the margin, yet if there be any flaw or damage, the
   whole vessel is marred. And so if you have sinned in any point, at any
   time, and in any degree, you have broken the whole law; you stand
   guilty of it before God, nor can you be saved by the works of the law,
   do what you may.

   "It is a hard sentence," says one, "and who can bear it!" Indeed, who
   can bear it? Who can bear to stand at the foot of Sinai and hear its
   thunders roar? "If so much as a beast touch the mountain it must be
   stoned or thrust through with a dart." Who can stand when the
   lightnings flash and God descends upon Mount Paran and the hills melt
   like wax beneath his feet? "By the deeds of the law there shall no
   flesh living be justified." "Cursed is every one that continueth not in
   all things that are written in the law to do them." Cursed is the man
   who sins but once, yea, hopelessly cursed so far as the law is
   concerned. Oh! sinner, I cannot help turning aside from the subject for
   a moment to remind you that there is a way of salvation, and a way by
   which the law's demands can be fully satisfied. Christ bore all the
   punishment of all believers, so that they cannot be punished. Christ
   kept the law of God for believers, and he is willing to cast about any
   and every penitent sinner that perfect robe of righteousness which he
   himself has wrought out. But you cannot keep the law, and if you bring
   up your self-rigtheousness the law condemns both it and you; Out of
   your own mouth it condemns you, inasmuch as you have not done all
   things and have not kept all the law. A great rock lies in your path to
   heaven; a mountain insurmountable; a gulf impassable; and by that road
   no man shall ever enter into eternal life.

   The plea of self-righteousness, then, is in itself self-contradicting,
   and has only to be fairly stated to an honest man for him to see that
   it will not hold water for a single moment. What need of laboured
   argument to disprove a self-evident lie? Why should we tarry longer?
   Who but a very fool would maintain a notion which flies in its own face
   and witnesses against itself?

   II. But now I pass to the second point, THE MAN WHO USES THIS PLEA
   CONDEMNS THE PLEA HIMSELF.

   Not only does the plea cut its own throat, but the man himself is aware
   when he uses it that it is an evil, and false, and vain refuge. Now
   this is a matter of conscience, and therefore I must deal plainly with
   you; and if I speak not what you have felt, then you can say I am
   mistaken; but if I speak what you must confess to be true, let it be as
   the very voice of God to you. Men know that they are guilty. The
   conscience of the proudest man, when it is allowed to speak, tells him
   that he deserves the wrath of God. He may brag in public, but the very
   loudness of his bragging proves that he has an uneasy conscience, and
   therefore he makes a mighty din in order to drown its voice. Whenever I
   hear an infidel saying hard things of Christ, it reminds me of the men
   of Moloch, who beat the drums that they might not hear the screams of
   their own children. These loud blasphemies, these braggart boastings,
   are only a noisy way of drowing the shrieks of conscience. Do not
   believe that these men are honest. I think all controversy with them is
   time thrown away. I would never controvert with a thief about the
   principles of honesty, or with a known adulterer concerning the duty of
   chastity. Devils are not to be reasoned with, but to be cast out.
   Parleying with hell serves no one's turn except the devil's. Did Paul
   argue with Elymas? or Peter with Simon Magus? I would not cross swords
   with a man who says there is no God; he knows there is a God. When a
   man laughs at Holy Scripture, you need not argue with him; he is either
   a fool or a knave--perhaps both. However villainous he may be, his
   conscience has some light; he knows that what he speaks is untrue. I
   cannot believe that conscience is so dead in any man as to let him
   believe that he is speaking the truth when he denies the Godhead; and
   much more I am certain that conscience never did give assent to the
   utterance of the braggart, who says he deserves eternal life, or has no
   sin of which to repent, or which by repentance may be washed away
   without the blood of Christ; he knows within himself that he speaks
   that which is false. When Professor Webster was shut up in prison for
   murder, he complained to the prison authorities that he had been
   insulted by his fellow-prisoners, for he said that through the walls of
   the prison he could hear them always crying out to him, "Thou bloody
   man! thou bloody man!" As it was not consistent with law that one
   prisoner should insult another, the strictest enquiry was made, and it
   was found that no prisoner had ever said such a word, or that if he had
   said it, Webster could not have heard it. It was his own conscience; it
   was not a word coming through the walls of the prison, but an echo
   reverberating from the wall of his bad heart, as conscience shouted,
   "Thou bloody man! thou bloody man!" There is in all your hearts a
   witness who will not cease his testimony; it cries, "Thou sinful man!
   thou sinful man!" You have only to listen to it, and you will soon find
   that every pretence of being saved by your good works must crumble to
   the ground. Oh! hear it now, and listen to it for a moment. I am sure
   my conscience says, "Thou sinful man! thou sinful man!" and I think
   yours must say the same, unless you are given up of God, and left to a
   seared conscience to perish in your sins.

   When men get alone, if in their loneliness the thought of death forces
   itself upon them, they boast no more of goodness. It is not easy for a
   man to lie on his bed seeing the naked face of death, not at a
   distance, but feeling that his breath is breathing upon the skeleton,
   and that he must soon pass through the iron gates of death--it is not
   easy for a man to plead his self-righteousness then. The bony fingers
   thrust themselves like daggers into his proud flesh. "Ah!" saith Death,
   in tones which cannot be heard by mortal ear, but which are listened to
   by the mortal heart--"Where now are all thy glories?" He looks upon the
   man, and the wreath of laurel that was upon his brow fades and falls to
   the earth like blasted flowers. He touches his breast, and the star of
   honour which he wore moulders and is quenched into darkness. He looks
   at him yet again--that breast-plate of self-righteousness which
   glittered upon him like golden mail, suddenly dissolves unto dust, like
   the apples of Sodom before the touch of the gatherer, and the man finds
   himself to his own surprise naked, and poor, and miserable, when most
   he needed to be rich, when most he required to be happy and to be
   blessed. Ay, sinner, even while this sermon is being uttered, you may
   seek to refute it to yourself, and say, "Well, I believe I am as good
   as others, and that this fuss about a new birth, imputed righteousness,
   and being washed in blood, is all unnecessary," but in the loneliness
   of your silent chamber, especially when death shall be your dread and
   grim companion, you shall not need me to state this, you shall see it
   clearly enough yourselves; see it with eyes of horror; and feel it with
   a heart of dismay, and despair, and perish because thou hast despised
   the righteousness of Christ.

   How abundantly true, however, will this be at the day of judgment. I
   think I see that day of fire, that day of wrath. You are gathered as a
   great multitude before the eternal throne. Those who are robed in
   Christ's fine linen, which is the righteousness of the saints, are
   caught up to the right hand. And now the trumpet sounds; if there be
   any that have kept the law of God, if there be faultless ones, if there
   be any that have never sinned, let them stand forth and claim the
   promised reward; but, if not, let the pit engulph the sinner, let the
   fiery thunder-bolt be launched upon the impenitent offenders. Now,
   stand forth, sir, and clear thyself! Come forth, my friend, and claim
   the reward, because of the church you endowed, or the row of
   alms-houses that you erected. What! what! does your tongue lie dumb in
   your mouth? Come forward, come forward--you who said you had been a
   good citizen, had fed the hungry, and clothed the naked--come forward
   now, and claim the reward. What! what! is your face turned to
   whiteness? Is there an ashy paleness on your cheek? Come forward, ye
   multitudes of those who rejected Christ, and despised his blood. Come
   now, and say, "All the commandments have I kept from my youth up."
   What! are you seized with horror? Has the better light of judgment
   driven out the darkness of your self-righteousness? Oh! I see you, I
   see you, ye are not boasting now; but you, the best of you, are crying,
   "Ye rocks, hide me; ye mountains, open your stony bowels; and let me
   hide myself from the face of him that sits upon the throne." Why, why
   such a coward? Come, face it out before your Maker. Come up, infidel,
   now, tell God there is no God. Come, while hell is flaming in your
   nostrils; come, and say there is no hell; or tell the Almighty that you
   never could bear to hear a hell-fire sermon preached. Come now, and
   accuse the minister of cruelty, or say that we love to talk on these
   terrible themes. Let me not mock you in your misery; but let me picture
   to you how devils shall mock you. "Aha!" say they "where is your
   courage now? Are your ribs of iron and your bones of brass? Will you
   dare the Almighty now, and dash yourselves upon the bosses of his
   buckler, or run upon his glittering spear?" See them, see them as they
   sink! The gulf has swallowed them up; the earth has closed again, and
   they are gone; a solemn silence falls upon the ear. But hark below, if
   you could descend with them, you would hear their doleful groans, and
   hollow moans, as they now feel that the God omnipotent was right and
   just, and wise, and tender, when he bade them forsake their
   righteousness, and flee to Christ, and lay hold on him that can save to
   the uttermost them that come unto God by him.

   III. THE PLEA IS ITSELF EVIDENCE AGAINST THE PLEADER.

   There is an unregenerated man here, who says, "Am I blind also?" I
   answer in the words of Jesus, "But now ye say we see, therefore your
   sin remaineth." You have proved by your plea, in the first place, that
   you have never been enlightened of the Holy Spirit, but that you remain
   in a state of ignorance. A deaf man may declare that there is no such
   thing as music. A man who has never seen the stars, is very likely to
   say that there are no stars. But what does he prove? Does he prove that
   there are no stars? He only proves his own folly and his own ignorance.
   That man who can say half a word about his own righteousness has never
   been enlightened of God the Holy Spirit; for one of the first signs of
   a renewed heart is, that it abhors itself in dust and ashes. If thou
   dost to-day feel thyself to be guilty, and lost, and ruined, there is
   the richest hope for thee in the gospel; but if thou sayest, "I am
   good, I have merits," the law condemns thee, and the gospel cannot
   comfort thee; thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of
   iniquity, and thou art ignorant that all the while thou art talking
   thus, the wrath of God abideth on thee. A man may be a true Christian,
   and may fall into sin, but a man cannot be a true Christian and boast
   in his self-righteousness. A man may be saved, though infirmity may
   bespatter him with much mire; but he cannot be saved who does not know
   that he has been in the filth, and is not willing to confess that he is
   guilty before God. There are, in one sense, no conditions of salvation
   on our part, for whatever may be conditions God gives; but thus I know,
   there never was a man yet who was in a state of grace who did not know
   himself, in himself, to be in a state of ruin, a state of depravity and
   condemnation. If you do not know this, then I say your plea of
   self-righteousness condemns you for ignorance.

   But then again, inasmuch as you say that you are not guilty, this
   proves that you are impenitent. Now the impenitent can never come where
   God is. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us
   our sins;" "but if we say that we have no sins, we make God a liar, and
   the truth is not in us." God will pardon all men who confess their
   iniquity. If we weep and lament, and take with us words, and say, "We
   have grievously sinned, forgive us--we have greatly erred, have mercy
   upon us, through Jesus Christ," God will not refuse the cry; but if we,
   out of our impenitent and hard hearts, put ourselves upon God's
   justice, God will give us justice, but not mercy, and that justice
   shall be the meting out to us of the full vials of his indignation, and
   of his wrath for ever and ever. He that is self-righteous is
   impenitent, and therefore he is not, and cannot be saved.

   Further than this, the self-righteous man, the moment that he says he
   has done anything which can recommend him to God, proves that he is not
   a believer. Now, salvation is for believers, and for believers only.
   "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth
   not shall be damned." Sir, you will be damned with all your
   self-righteousness, and your self-righteousness shall be like
   Dejanira's tunic, which she gave to Hercules, and which he put upon
   him, and, as the old fable hath it, it became a robe of fire to him; he
   tried to drag it away, but he pulled away pieces of his living,
   quivering flesh each moment, and perished miserably. Such shall your
   self-righteousness be to you. It seems a pleasant draught, and
   intoxicates for the moment; it is deadly and damnable as the venom of
   asps, and as the wine of Gomorrah. O soul! would that thou wouldst
   flee, above all things, from self-righteousness; for a self-righteous
   man does not and cannot trust Christ, and therefore he cannot see the
   face of God. None but the naked man will ever go to Christ for
   clothing; none but the hungry men will ever take Christ to be his food;
   none but thirsty souls will ever come to this well of Bethlehem to
   drink. The thirsty are welcome; but those who think they are good, are
   welcome neither to Sinai nor to Calvary. They have no hope of heaven,
   no peace in this world, nor in that which is to come.

   Ah! soul, I know not who thou art; but if thou hast any righteousness
   of thine own, thou art a graceless soul. If you have given all your
   goods to feed the poor; if you have built many and many a sanctuary; if
   you have gone about with self-denial among the houses of poverty to
   visit the sons and daughters of affliction; if you have fasted thrice
   in the week; if your prayers have been so long that your throat has
   become hoarse through your crying; if your tears have been so many that
   your eyes have become blinded through your weeping; if your readings of
   Scripture have been so long that the midnight oil has been consumed in
   abundance;--if, I say, your heart has been so tender towards the poor
   and the sick and the needy that you would have been willing to suffer
   with them, to bear all their loathsome diseases, nay, if adding all
   this you could give your body to be burned, yet if you trusted in any
   one of these things your damnation would be as sure as though you were
   thief or drunkard. Understand me, I mean what I say. I want you not to
   think I speak unguardedly now. Christ said of the Pharisees of old the
   very thing that I have said of you. They were good and excellent in
   their way; but, said he, the publicans and harlots enter the kingdom of
   God before you, because they would go the wrong way, while the poor
   publicans and harlots were led to go the right way. The Pharisee who
   went about to make a righteousness of his own, did not submit to the
   righteousness of Christ; the publican and the harlot, knowing that they
   had nothing whereof to glory, came to Christ and took him as he was,
   and gave their souls up to be saved by his grace. Oh! that we may do
   the same; for until we get rid of self-righteousness we are in a state
   of condemnation, and dying, the sentence must be executed upon us for
   ever and ever.

   IV. I close now upon the last point, namely, that this plea, if we
   retain it, not only accuses the pleader now, but IT WILL RUIN THE
   PLEADER FOR EVER.

   Let me show you two suicides. There is a man who has sharpened a
   dagger, and seeking out his opportunity he stabs himself to the heart.
   There he falls. Who shall blame any man for his death? He slew himself;
   his blood be on his own head.

   Here is another: he is very sick and ill; he can scarcely crawl about
   the streets. A physician waits upon him; he tells him, "Sir, your
   disease is deadly; you must die; but I know a remedy which will
   certainly heal you. There it is; I freely give it to you. All I ask of
   you is, that you will freely take it." "Sir," says the man, "you insult
   me; I am as well as ever I was in my life; I am not sick." "But," says
   the other, "there are certain signs which I mark in your countenance
   which prove to me that you will have a deadly disease about you, and I
   warn you." The man thinks a moment; remembers that there have been
   certain signs in him of this very sickness; a monitor within tells him
   that it is so. He obstinately replies to the physician a second
   time--"Sir, if I want your physic I will send for it, and if I need it
   I will pay for it." He knows all the while there is not a farthing in
   his pocket, and that he cannot get credit anywhere; and there stands
   the life-giving cup before him which the physician at great expense has
   obtained, but which he freely gives to him and bids him freely take.
   "No," says the man, "I will not take it; I may be somewhat sick, but I
   am not worse than my neighbours; I am not more ill than other people,
   and I shall not take it." One day you go to his bed and you find he has
   slept his last sleep, and there he lies stone dead. Who slew this man?
   Who killed him? His blood be on his own head; he is as base a suicide
   as the other.

   Now I will show you two more suicides. There is a man here who
   says--"Well, let what will happen in the next world, I will have my
   fill in this. Tell me where there are pleasures to be had and I will
   have them. Leave the things of God to old fools, and such like; I shall
   have the things of the present, and the joys and delights of time." He
   drains the cup of drunkenness, frequents the haunt of folly, and if he
   knows where there is any vice pursued he rushes after it. Like Byron;
   he is a very thunderbold, launched from the hand of an arch-fiend; he
   flashes through the whole firmament of sin, and blazes himself out,
   until decayed in body and soul, he dies. He is a suicide. He defied
   God; he went against the laws of nature and of grace, despised
   warnings, declared he would be damned, and he has got what he richly
   deserved.

   Here is another. He says, "I despise these vices; I am the most
   upright, honest, and commendable of men. I feel that I do not need
   salvation, and if I did need it I could get it myself. I can do
   anything you tell me to do, I feel I have mental force and manly
   dignity enough remaining in me to accomplish it. I tell you, sir, you
   insult me when you bid me trust in Christ." "Well," he says, "I
   consider there is such dignity in manhood, and so much virtue in me,
   that I need not a new heart, nor will I succumb and bend my spirit to
   the gospel of Christ on free-grace terms." Very well sir, when in hell
   you lift up your eyes, and you will do so as surely as the most
   profligate and profane, your blood will be upon your own head; and you
   will be as truly a suicide as he who wantonly and wickedly dashed
   himself against the laws of God and man, and brought himself to a
   sudden and hasty end by his iniquity and crimes.

   "Well," says one, "this is a sermon well adapted to self-righteous
   persons, but I am not one." Then what are you, sir? Are you a believer
   in Christ? "I cannot say I am, sir." Why are you not, then? "Well, I
   would be, but I am afraid I may not believe in Christ." You are
   self-righteous, sir. God commands you to believe in Christ, and you say
   you are not fit. Now what does this mean but that you are wanting to
   make yourself fit, and this after all is the spirit of
   self-righteousness; you are so proud that you will not take Christ
   unless you think you can bring something to him--that is it "Ah! no,"
   says one poor broken-hearted soul, "I do not think that is fair with
   me, for I do feel as if I would give anything, if I might hope to be
   saved; but oh, I am such a wretch! I am such a wretch! I cannot
   believe." Now, that after all is self-righteousness. Christ bids you
   trust him. You say, "No, I will not trust thee, Christ, because I am
   such-an-one and such-an-one." So, then, you are wanting to make
   yourself somebody, and then Jesus Christ is to do the rest. It is the
   same spirit of self-righteousness only in another garb. "Ah!" saith
   one, "but if I did but feel my need enough, as you just now said, sir,
   then I think I would trust Christ." Self-righteousness again, you want
   your sense of need to save you. "Oh! but, sir, I cannot believe in
   Christ as I would." Self-righteousness again. Let me just utter a
   solemn sentence which you may masticate at your leisure. If you trust
   to your faith and to your repentance, you will be as much lost as if
   you trusted to your good works or trusted to your sins. The ground of
   your salvation is not faith, but Christ; it is not repentance, but
   Christ. If I trust my trust of Christ, I am lost. My business is to
   trust Christ; to rest on him; to depend, not on what the Spirit has
   done in me, but what Christ did for me, when he did hang upon the tree.
   Now be it known unto you, that when Christ died, he took the sins of
   all his people upon his head, and there and then they all ceased to be.
   At the moment when Christ died, the sins of all his redeemed were
   blotted out. He did then suffer all they ought to have suffered; he
   paid all their debts; and their sins were actually and positively
   lifted that day from their shoulders to his shoulders, for "the Lord
   hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." And now, if you believe in
   Jesus, there is not a sin remaining upon you, for your sin was laid on
   Christ; Christ was punished for your sins before they were committed,
   and as Kent says:

   "Here's pardon for transgressions past,

   It matters not how black their caste;

   And oh! my soul with wonder view,

   For sins to come here's pardon too."

   Blessed privilege of the believer! But if you live and die unbelievers,
   know this, that all your sins lie on your own shoulders. Christ did
   never make any atonement for you; you were never bought with blood; you
   never had an interest in his sacrifice. You live and die in yourselves,
   lost; in yourselves, ruined; in yourselves, utterly destroyed. But
   believing--the moment you believe, you may know that you were chosen of
   God from before the foundation of the world. Believing, you may know
   that the righteousness of Christ is all yours; that all he did, he did
   for you; that all he suffered, he suffered for you. You do in fact, in
   the moment you believe, stand where Christ stood as God's accepted Son;
   and Christ stands where you stood as the sinner, and suffers as if he
   had been the sinner, and dies as if he had been guilty--dies in your
   room, place, and stead.

   Oh! Spirit of God, give faith this morning. Win us all from self; knit
   us all to Christ; may we be saved now by his free grace, and be saved
   in eternity.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              Plenteous Redemption

   A Sermon

   (No. 351)

   Delivered at Exeter Hall, Strand, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON.

   "With him is plenteous redemption."--Psalm 103:7.

   REDEMPTION is a word which has gladdened many ears, when there was no
   heavenly sound in its blessed chime. Apart from any theological use of
   it, the word is a very sweet one, and has been melodious to many
   hearts. In those days when piracy was carried on continually along the
   coast of Africa, when our fellow Christian subjects were caught by
   corsairs, and carried away captive, you can well understand how the
   burdened soul of the manacled slave, chained to the oar of his galley,
   was gladdened by the hope that possibly there would be redemption. His
   cruel master, who had forced him into his possession, would not
   willingly emancipate him; but a rumour came, that in some distant
   nation they had raised a sum of money to purchase the freedom of
   slaves--that some wealthy merchant had dedicated of his substance to
   buy back his fellow-countrymen; that the king himself upon his throne
   had promised to give a liberal redemption that the captives among the
   moors might return to their home. Truly I can suppose the hours run
   happily along, and the dreariness of their toil would be assuaged, when
   once that word "redemption" had sounded in their ears. So with our
   fellow-subjects and our fellow-men, who once were slaves in our West
   India settlements. We can well conceive that to their lips the word
   redemption must have been a very pleasing song. It must have been well
   nigh as sweet to them as the marriage peals to a youthful bridegroom,
   when they knew that the noble British nation would count down the
   twenty millions of their redemption money; that on a certain morning
   their fetters should be snapped asunder, so that they should no more go
   out to the plantations to sweat in the sun, driven by the whip, but
   they should call themselves their own, and none should be their masters
   to possess thir flesh, and have property in their souls. You can
   conceive when the sun of that happy morn arose, when emancipation was
   proclaimed from sea to sea, and the whole land was at liberty, how
   joyful must their new-found freedom have appeared. O there are many
   sonnets in that one word "redemption."

   Now, ye who have sold for nought your glorious heritage; ye who have
   been carried bondslaves into Satan's dominion; ye who have worn the
   fetters of guilt and groaned under them; ye who have smarted beneath
   the lash of the law; what the news of redemption has been to slaves and
   captives, that will it be to you to-night. It will cheer your souls and
   gladden your spirits, and more especially so when that rich adjective
   is coupled with it--"plenteous redemption."

   This evening I shall consider the subject of redemption, and then
   notice the adjective appended to the word: "plenteous redemption."

   I. First, then, we shall consider the subject of REDEMPTION.

   I shall commence in this way, by asking, What has Christ redeemed? And
   in order to let you know what my views are upon this subject, I would
   announce at once what I conceive to be an authoritative doctrine,
   consistent with common sense, and declared to us by Scripture, namely,
   that whatever Christ has redeemed, Christ will most assuredly have. I
   start with that as an axiom, that whatever Christ ahs redeemed, Christ
   must have. I hold it to be repugnant to reason, and much more to
   revelation, that Christ should die to purchase what he never shall
   obtain; and I hold it to be little less than blasphemy to assert that
   the intention of our Saviour's death can ever be frustrated. Whatever
   was Christ's intention when he died--we lay it down as a very
   groundwork truth, which ought to be granted to us by every reasonable
   man--that Christ will most certainly gain. I cannot see how it can be
   that the intention of God in anything can be frustrated. We have always
   thought God to be so superior to creatures, that when he has once
   intended a thing, it must most assuredly be accomplished; and if I have
   that granted to me, I cannot for a moment allow you to imagine that
   Christ should shed his blood in vain; that he should die with an
   intention of doing something, and yet should not perform it; that he
   should die with a full intention in his heart, and with a promise on
   the part of God, that a certain thing should be given to him as a
   reward of his sufferings, and yet should fail to obtain it. I start
   with that; and I think that everyone who will weigh the matter, and
   truly consider it, must see it to be so, that Christ's intention in his
   death must be fulfilled, and that the design of God, whatever that may
   be, must certainly be carried out. Well then, I believe that the
   efficacy of Christ's blood knows no other limit than the purpose of
   God. I believe that the efficacy of Christ's atonement is just as great
   as God meant it should be, and that what Christ redeemed is precisely
   what he meant to redeem, and exactly what the Father had decreed he
   should redeem. Therefore I cannot for one moment give any credence
   whatever to that doctrine which tells us that all men are redeemed.
   Some may hold it, as I know they do, and hold it very strongly, and
   even urge it as being a fundamental part of the doctrine of revelation.
   They are welcome to it; this is a land of liberty. Let them hold their
   views, but I must tell them solemnly my persuasion, that they cannot
   hold such doctrine if they do but well consider the matter; for if they
   once believe in universal redemption, they are driven to the
   blasphemous inference that God's intention is frustrated, and that
   Christ has not received what he died to procure. If, therefore, they
   can believe that, I will give them credit for being able to believe
   anything; and I shall not despair of seeing them landed at the Salt
   Lake, or in any other region where enthusiasm and credulity can
   flourish without the checks of ridicule or reason.

   Starting, then, with this assumption, I beg now to tell you what I
   believe, according to sound doctrine and Scripture, Christ has really
   redeemed. His redemption is a very compendious redemption. He has
   redeemed many things; he has redeemed the souls of his people; he has
   redeemed the bodies of his people; he has redeemed the original
   inheritance which man lost in Adam; he has redeemed, in the last place,
   the world, considered in a certain sense--in the sense in which he will
   have the world at last.

   Christ has redeemed the souls of all his people who shall ultimately be
   saved. To state it after the Calvinistic form, Christ has redeemed his
   elect; but since you do not know his elect until they are revealed, we
   will alter that, and say, Christ has redeemed all penitent souls;
   Christ has redeemed all believing souls; and Christ has redeemed the
   souls of all those who die in infancy, seeing it is to be received,
   that all those who die in infancy are written in the Lamb's book of
   life, and are graciously privileged by God to go at once to heaven,
   instead to toiling through this weary world. The souls of all those who
   were written before all worlds in the Lamb's book of life, who in
   process of time are humbled before God, who in due course are led to
   lay hold of Christ Jesus as the only refuge of their souls, who hold on
   their way, and ultimately attain to heaven; these, I believe, were
   redeemed, and I must firmly and solemnly believe the souls of none
   other men were in that sense subjects of redemption. I do not hold the
   doctrine that Judas was redeemed; I could not conceive my Saviour
   bearing the punishment for Judas, or if so how could Judas be punished
   again. I could not conceive it possible that God should exact first at
   Christ's hands the penalty of his sin, and then at the sinner's hands
   again. I cannot conceive for a moment that Christ should have shed his
   blood in vain; and though I have read in the books of certain divines,
   that Christ's blood is fuel for the flames of hell, I have shuddered at
   the thought, and have cast it from me as being a dreadful assertion,
   perhaps worthy of those who made it, but utterly unsupported by the
   Word of God. The souls of God's people, whoever they may be, and they
   are a multitude that no man can number--and I could fondly hope they
   are all of you--are redeemed effectually. Briefly, they are redeemed in
   three ways. They are redeemed from the guilt of sin, from the
   punishment of sin, and from the power of sin. The souls of Christ's
   people have guilt on account of sin, until they are redeemed; but when
   once redemption is applied to my soul, my sins are every one of them
   from that moment for ever blotted out.

   "The moment a sinner believes,

   And trusts in his crucified Lord,

   His pardon at once he receives,

   Salvation in full through his blood."

   The guilt of our sin is taken away by the redemption of Christ.
   Whatever sin you may have committed, the moment you believe in Christ,
   not only will you never be punished for that sin, but the very guilt of
   that sin is taken from you. You cease to be in God's sight any longer a
   guilty person; you are reckoned by God as a justified believer to have
   the righteousness of Christ about you; and therefore, you can say--to
   recal a verse which we often repeat--

   "Now freed from sin I walk at large,

   My Saviour's blood's my full discharge;

   At his dear feet my soul I lay,

   A sinner saved, and homage pay."

   Every sin, every particle of guilt, every atom of transgression, is by
   the redemption of Christ, effectually taken away from all the Lord's
   believing family.

   And mark, next: not only the guilt, but the punishment of sin is taken
   away. In fact, when we cease to be guilty, we cease to be the objects
   of punishment altogether. Take away the guilt, the punishment is gone;
   but to make it more effectual, it is as it were written over again,
   that condemnation is taken away, as well as the sin for which we might
   be condemned. "There is, therefore, now, no condemnation to them that
   are in Christ Jesus." None of those who were redeemed by Christ can
   ever be damned; they can never be punished on account of sin, for
   Christ has suffered their punishment in their stead, and therefore,
   they cannot, unless God be unjust, be sued a second time for debts
   already paid. If Christ their ransom died, they cannot die; if he,
   their surety, paid their debt, then unto God's justice they owe no
   longer anything, for Christ hath paid it all. If he hath shed his
   blood, if he hath yielded up the ghost, if he hath "died, the just for
   the unjust, to bring us to God," how, then, would God be just, and yet
   the punisher of those whom he has already punished once in the person
   of Jesus Christ their Saviour? No beloved, through the plenteous
   redemtion of Christ we are delivered from all punishment on account of
   sin, and from all guilt which we had incurred thereby.

   Moreover the believing family of Christ--or rather, all for whom he
   died--are most effectually delivered from the power of sin. Oh! there
   are some who suck in the two truths I have been mentioning, as if they
   were honey; but they cannot endure this other point--Christ delivers us
   from the power of sin. Mark you this, then--we affirm it very
   strongly--no man can ever be redeemed from the guilt of sin, or from
   the punishment of sin, unless he be at the same time delivered from the
   power of sin. Unless he is made by God to hate his own sin, unles he is
   enabled to cast it to the ground, unless he is made to abhor every evil
   way, and to cleave unto God with full purpose of heart, walking before
   him in the land of the living, in the strength of the Holy Spirit, such
   a man has no right to believe himself redeemed. If thou art still under
   the dominion of thy lusts, O wicked sinner, thou hast no right to think
   thyself a purchased heir of heaven. If thou canst be drunk, if thou
   canst swear, if thou canst curse God, if thou canst lie, if thou canst
   profane the Sabbath, if thou canst hate his people, if thou canst
   despise his Word, then thou hast no right whatever, any more than Satan
   in hell, to boast that thou art redeemed; for all the Lord's redeemed
   are in due time brought out of the house of bondage, out of the land of
   Egypt, and they are taught the evil of sin, the horrible penalty of it
   and the desperate character of it in the sight of God. Art thou
   delivered from the power of sin, my hearer? Hast thou mortified it? Art
   thou dead unto it? Is it dead unto thee? Is it crucified unto thee, and
   thou unto it? Dost thou hate it as thou wouldst a viper? Dost thou
   tread on it as thou wouldst tread upon a serpent? If thou dost, albeit
   there be sins of frailty and infirmity, yet if thou hatest the sin of
   thy heart, if thou hast an unutterable enmity to it, take courage and
   comfort. The Lord hath redeemed thee from the guilt and penalty, and
   also from the power of sin. That is the first point of redemption. And
   hear me distinctly again, lest any should mistake me. I always like to
   preach so that there can be no mistake about it. I do not want so to
   preach that you will say in the judgment of charity, he could not have
   meant what he said. Now, I mean solemnly again to say what I have
   said--that I do believe that none others were redeemed than those who
   are or shall be redeemed from the guilt, the punishment, and the power
   of sin, because I say again, it is abhorrent to my reason, much less to
   my views of Scripture, to conceive that the damned ever were redeemed,
   and that the lost in perdition were ever washed in the Saviour's blood,
   or that his blood was ever shed with an intention of saving them.

   2. Now let us think of the second thing Christ has redeemed. Christ has
   redeemed the bodies of all his children. In that day when Christ
   redeemed our souls, he redeemed the tabernacles in which our souls
   dwell. At the same moment when the spirit was redeemed by blood, Christ
   who gave his human soul and his human body to death, purchased the body
   as well as the soul of every believer. You ask, then, in what way
   redemption operates upon the body of the believer. I answer, first, it
   ensures it a resurrection. Those for whom Christ died, are ensured by
   his death a glorious resurrection. "As in Adam all die, even so in
   Christ, shall all be made alive." All men are by virtue of the death of
   Christ quickened to a resurrection, but even here there is a special
   property of the elect, seeing that they are quickened to a blessed
   resurrection, whilst others are quickened only to a cursed
   resurrection; a resurrection of woe, a resurrection of unutterable
   anguish. O Christian, thy body is redeemed.

   "What though thine inbred sins require

   Thy flesh to see the dust,

   Yet, as the Lord thy Saviour rose,

   So all his followers must."

   What! though in a little time I shall slumber in the tomb, though worms
   devour this body, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and because he lives
   I know that in my flesh I shall see God. These eyes which soon shall be
   glazed in death, shall not be always closed in darkness; death shall be
   made to give back his prey; he shall restore all that he has taken. Lo,
   I see him there! He hath the bodies of the just locked up in his
   dungeons; they are wrapped up in their cerements, and he thinks they
   are secure: he has sealed their tombs and marked them for his own. O
   death! foolish death! thy caskets shall be rifled; thy storehouses
   shall be broken open. Lo, the morning is come! Christ hath descended
   from on high. I hear the trump, "Awake! Awake!" and lo! from their
   tombs, the righteous start; while death sits in confusion howling in
   vain, to find his empire all bereft of its subjects, to find all his
   dungeons rifled of their prey. "Precious shall their blood be in his
   sight;" precious shall be their bones! their very dust is blessed, and
   Christ shall raise them with himself. Think of that, ye that have lost
   friends--ye weeping children of sorrow! your redeemed friends shall
   live again. The very hands that grasped yours with a death clutch,
   shall grasp them in paradise; those very eyes that wept themselves away
   in tears, shall, with eye-strings that never shall be broken, wake up
   in the noon-day of felicity. That very frame which thou didst
   sorrowfully convey, with dread attire of funeral, to bury in its
   tomb--yes, that selfsame body, made like the image of Jesus Christ,
   spiritualized and changed, but nevertheless the selfsame body, shall
   rise again; and thou, if thou art redeemed, shalt see it, for Christ
   has purchased it, and Christ shall not die in vain. Death will not have
   one bone of the righteous--nay, not a particle of their dust--nay, not
   a hair of their heads. It shall all come back. Christ has purchased all
   our body, and the whole body shall be completed, and united for ever in
   heaven with the glorified soul. The bodies of the righteous are
   redeemed, and redeemed for eternal happiness.

   3. In the next place, all the possessions of the righteous which were
   lost in Adam are redeemed. Adam! where art thou? I have a controversy
   with thee, man, for I have lost much by thee. Come thou hither. Adam!
   thou seest what thou art now, tell me what thou once wast; then I shall
   know what I have lost by thee, and then I shall be able to thank my
   Master that all thou didst lose he has freely bought back to all
   believers. What didst thou lose? "Alas!" cries Adam, "I had a crown
   once; I was king of all the world; the beasts crouched at my feet and
   did me reverence; God made me, that I might have supreme command over
   the cattle upon the hills, and over all fowls of the air; but I lost my
   crown. I had a mitre once," said Adam, "for I was a priest to God, and
   ofttimes in the morning did I climb the hills, and sing sweet orisons
   of praise to him that made me. My censer of praise hath often smoked
   with incense, and my voice has been sweet with praise.

   'These are thy glorious works, parent of good,

   Almighty, thine this universal frame,

   Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then;'

   Oft have I bidden misty exhalations, sun, and moon, and stars, sing to
   his praise; daily have I bidden the herds upon the hills low out his
   glories, and the lions roar his honours; nightly have I told the stars
   to shine it out, and the little flowers to blossom it forth: but ah! I
   lost my mitre, and I, who was once a priest to God, ceased any longer
   to be his holy servant." Ah! Adam, thou hast lost me much; but yonder I
   see my Saviour; he takes his crown off his head, that he may put a
   crown on my head; and he puts a mitre on his head, to be a priest, that
   he may put a mitre on my head too, and on the head of all his people;
   for, as we have just been singing,

   "Thou hast redeemed our souls with blood,

   Hast set the prisoners free;

   Hast made us kings and priests to God,

   And we shall reign with thee."

   Just what Adam lost: the kingship and the priesthood of Christ, is won
   for all his believing people. And what else didst thou lose, Adam?
   "Why, I lost paradise." Hush, man! say nothing upon that; for Christ
   hath bought me a paradise worth ten thousand such Edens as thine. So we
   can well forgive thee that. And what else didst thou lose? "Why, I lost
   the image of my Maker." Ah! hush, Adam! In Jesus christ we have
   something more that that; for we have the perfect righteousness of
   Jesus Christ, and sure that is even better than the image of the Maker,
   for it is the very dress and robe that the Maker wore. So, Adam, all
   that thou hast lost I have again. Christ has redeemed all that we sold
   for nought. I, who have sold for nought a heritage divine, shall have
   it back unbought,--the gift of love, says Christ, e'en mine. Oh! hear
   it, then! The trump of Jubilee is blown; Christ hath redeemed the lost
   possesions of his people.

   4. And now I come to the last thing that Christ has redeemed, though
   not the last point of the discourse. Christ has redeemed this world.
   "Well, now," says one, "that is strange, sir; you are going to
   contradict yourself flatly." Stop a moment. Understand what I mean by
   the world, if you please. We do not mean every man, in it; we never
   pretended such a thing. But I will tell you how Christ has redeemed the
   world. When Adam fell God cursed the world with barrenness. "Thorns
   also and briars shall it bring forth unto thee, and in the sweat of thy
   brow shalt thou eat bread." God cursed the earth. When Christ came into
   the world they twisted a crown made of the cursed thorn, and they put
   that on his head, and made him king of the curse; and in that day he
   purchased the redemption of the world from its curse; and it is my very
   belief, and I think it is warranted by Scripture, that when Christ
   shall come a second time, this world will become everywhere as fertile
   as the garden of Paradise used to be. I believe that Sahara, the
   literal desert, shall one day blossom like Sharon, and rejoice like the
   garden of the Lord. I do not conceive that this poor world is to be a
   forlorn planetary wanderer for ever; I believe that she is yet to be
   clothed with verdure, such as she once wore. We have evidences in the
   beds of coal underneath the earth, that this world was once much more
   fertile than it is now. Gigantic trees once spread their mighty arms,
   and I had almost said one arm of a tree in that day would have builded
   half a forest for us now. Then mighty creatures, far different from
   ours, stalked through the earth; and I believe firmly that a luxuriant
   vegetation, such as this world once knew shall be restored to us, and
   that we shall see again a garden such as we have not known. No more
   cursed with blight and mildew, with no more blast and withering, we
   shall see a land like heaven itself--

   "Where everlasting spring abides,

   And never withering flowers."

   When Christ cometh he shall do even this.

   In the day of the fall, too, it is currently believed that animals for
   the first time received their ferocious temperament, and began to fall
   on each other; of this we are not sure; but if I read Scripture
   rightly, I find that the lion shall lie down with the kid, and that the
   leopard shall eat straw like the ox, and that the weaned child shall
   put his hand on the cockatrice den. I do believe that in millenial
   years that are coming, and coming soon, there shall be known no more
   devouring lions, no blood-thirsty tigers, no creatures that shall
   devour their kind. God shall restore to us again, and even to the
   beasts of the field, the blessing which Adam lost.

   And, my friends, there is a worse curse than that which has fallen on
   this world. It is the curse of ignorance and sin: that, too, is to be
   removed. Seest thou yonder planet? It is whirling along through
   space--bright, bright and glorious. Hearest thou the morning stars sing
   together, because this new sister of theirs is made? That is the earth;
   she is bright now. Stay! Didst remark that shadow sweep across her?
   What caused it? The palnet is dimned, and on her face there lies a
   sorrowful shadow. I am speaking, of course, metaphorically. See there
   the planet; she glides along in ten-fold night; scarce doth a speck of
   light irradiate her. Mark again, the day is not come, when that planet
   shall renew her glory, but it is hastening amain. As the serpent slips
   its slough, and leaves it behind it in the valley, so yon planet hath
   slopped its coulds, and shone forth bright as it was before. Do you ask
   who hath done it? Who hath cleared away the mist? Who hath taken away
   the darkness? Who hath removed the clouds? "I have done it," says
   Christ, the sun of righteousness; "I have scattered darkness, and made
   that world bright again." Lo, I see a new heaven and a new earth,
   wherein dwelleth righteousness. To explain myself, lest I should be
   mistaken, I mean this. This world is now covered with sin, ignorance,
   mistake, idolatry, and crime; the day is coming when the last drop of
   blood shall be drunk by the sword; it shall be no more intoxicated with
   blood; God shall make wars to cease unto the ends of the earth. The day
   is coming--oh that it were now!--when the feet of Christ shall tread
   this earth. Then down shall go idols from their thrones; down
   superstitions from their pinnacles; then slavery shall cease; then
   crime shall end; then peace shall spread its halcyon wings over all the
   world; and then shall you know that Christ hath died for the world, and
   that Christ hath won it. "The whole creation," says Paul, "groaneth and
   travaileth in pain together until now;" waiting for what? "waiting for
   the redemption;" and by the redemption, I understand what I have just
   explained to you, that this world shall be washed of all her sin; her
   curse shall be removed, her stains taken away and this world shall be
   as fair as when God first struck her from his mind; as when, like a
   glowing spark, smitten from the anvil by the eternal hammer she first
   flashed in her orbit. This Christ has redeemed; this, Christ shall, and
   most assuredly must have.

   II. And now, a word or two concerning the last thought--"PLENTEOUS
   REDEMPTION."

   It is plenteous enough, if you consider what I have already told you
   Christ has bought. Sure I should have made it no more plenteous, if I
   had lied against my conscience, and told you that he had bought every
   man; for of what avail is it that I am bought with blood, if I am lost?
   Of what use is it to me that Christ has died for me, if I yet sink in
   the flames of hell? How will that glorify Christ, that he hath redeemed
   me, and yet failed in his intentions? Surely it is more to his honour
   to believe, that according to his immutable, sovereign, and all-wise
   will, he laid the foundation as wide as he intended the structure to
   be, and then made it just according to his will. Nevertheless, it is
   "plenteous redemption." Very briefly, lend me your ears just a moment.

   It is "plenteous," when we consider the millions that have been
   redeemed. Think if ye can, how great that host who have already "washed
   their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb;" and then
   think how many now with weary feet are plodding their way to Paradise,
   all of them redeemed. They all shall sit down at the marriage supper of
   the Lamb. Is it not "plenteous redemption," when you reflect that it is
   a "multitude that no man can number" that will be gathered in? Let us
   close that by saying, "And why not you?" If so many are redeemed, why
   should not you be? Why should you not seek for mercy on the strength of
   that, knowing that all who seek will most assuredly receive, for they
   would not have sought unless it had been prepared for them?

   It is "plenteous," again, if we consider the sins of all who are
   redeemed. However great the sins of any redeemed soul, this redemption
   is enough to cover it all to wash it all away--

   "What though your numerous sins exceed

   The stars that spread the skies,

   And aiming at th' eternal throne,

   Like pointed mountains rise;"

   Yet this plenteous redemption can take all your sins away. They are no
   greater than Christ foresaw, and vowed to remove. Therefore, I beseech
   you, fly to Jesus, believing that however great your guilt, his
   atonement is great enough for all who come to him, and therefore you
   may safely come.

   Remember, again, that this "plenteous redemption" is plenteous, because
   it is enough for all the distresses of all the saints. Your wants are
   almost infinite; but this atonement is quite so. Your troubles are
   almost unutterable; but this atonement is quite unutterable. Your needs
   you can scarce tell; but this redemption I know you cannot tell.
   Believe, then, that it is "plenteous redemption." O believing sinner,
   what a sweet comfort it is for you, that there is "plenteous
   redemption," and that you have a lot in it. You will most certainly be
   brought safely home, by Jesu's grace. Are you seeking Christ? Or
   rather, do you know yourselves to be sinners? If you do, I have
   authority from God to say to every one who will confess his sins, that
   Christ has redeemed him. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
   acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of
   whom I am chief." Are you a sinner? I do not mean a sham sinner; there
   are lots of them about, but I have no gospel to preach to them just
   now. I do not mean one of those hypocritical sinners, who cry, "Yes, I
   am a sinner,"--who are sinners out of compliment, and do not mean it. I
   will preach another thing to you: I will preach against your
   self-righteousness another day; but I shall not preach anything to you
   just now about Christ, for he "came not to call the righteous, but
   sinners to repentance." But are you a sinner, in the bona fide sense of
   the word? Do you know yourself to be a lost, ruined, undone sinner?
   Then in God's name I urge you to believe this--that Christ has died to
   save you; for as sure as ever he has revealed to you your guilty by the
   Holy Ghost, he will not leave you till he has revealed to you your
   pardon by his only Son. If you know your lost estate, you shall soon
   know your glorious estate. Believe in Jesus now; then thou art saved,
   and thou mayest go away happy,--blest beyond what kings could dream.
   Believe that since thou art a sinner, Christ hath redeemed thee--that
   just because thou knowest thyself to be undone, guilty, lost and
   ruined, thou hast this night a right, a privilege, and a title, to
   bathe in the fountain filled with blood, "shed for many for the
   remission of sins." Believe that, and then thou shalt know the meaning
   of this text--"Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with
   God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom also we have received the
   atonement." God dismiss you with a blessing, for Jesus' sake!
     __________________________________________________________________

                                 None But Jesus

   A Sermon

   (No. 361)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, February 17th, 1861 by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At Exeter Hall, Strand

   "He that believeth on him is not condemned" --John 3:18

   THE way of salvation is stated in Scripture in the very plainest terms,
   and yet, perhaps, there is no truth about which more errors have been
   uttered, than concerning the faith which saves the soul. Well has it
   been proved by experience, that all doctrines of Christ are
   mysteries--mysteries, not so much in themselves, but because they are
   hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded
   their eyes. So plain is Scripture, that one would have said, "He that
   runs may read"; but so dim is man's eye, and so marred is his
   understanding, that the very simplest truth of Scripture he distorts
   and misrepresents. And indeed, my brethren, even those who know what
   faith is, personally and experimentally, do not always find it easy to
   give a good definition of it. They think they have hit the mark, and
   then afterwards they lament that they have failed. Straining themselves
   to describe some one part of faith, they find they have forgotten
   another, and in the excess of their earnestness to clear the poor
   sinner out of one mistake, they often lead him into a worse error. So
   that I think I may say that, while faith is the simplest thing in all
   the world, yet it is one of the most difficult upon which to preach,
   because from its very importance, our soul begins to tremble while
   speaking of it, and then we are not able to describe it so clearly as
   we would.

   I intend this morning, by God's help, to put together sundry thoughts
   upon faith, each of which I may have uttered in your hearing at
   different times, but which have not been collected into one sermon
   before, and which, I have no doubt, have been misunderstood from the
   want of their having been put together in their proper consecutive
   order. I shall speak a little on each of these points; first, the
   object of faith, to what it looks; next, the reason of faith, whence it
   comes; thirdly, the ground of faith, or what it wears when it comes;
   fourthly, the warrant of faith, or why it dares to come to Christ; and
   fifthly, the result of faith, or, how it speeds when it doth come to
   Christ.

   I. First, then, THE OBJECT OF FAITH, or to what faith looks.

   I am told in the Word of God to believe--What am I to believe? I am
   bidden to look--to what am I to look? What is to be the object of my
   hope, belief, and confidence? The reply is simple. The object of Faith
   to a sinner is Christ Jesus. How many make a mistake about this and
   think that they are to believe on God the Father! Now belief in God is
   an after-result of faith in Jesus. We come to believe in the eternal
   love of the Father as the result of trusting the precious blood of the
   Son. Many men say, "I would believe in Christ if I knew that I were
   elect." This is coming to the Father, and no man can come to the Father
   except by Christ. It is the Father's work to elect; you cannot come
   directly to him, therefore you cannot know your election until first
   you have believed on Christ the Redeemer, and then through redemption
   you can approach to the Father and know your election. Some, too, make
   the mistake of looking to the work of God the Holy Spirit. They look
   within to see if they have certain feelings, and if they find them
   their faith is strong, but if their feelings have departed from them,
   then their faith is weak, so that they look to the work of the Spirit
   which is not the object of a sinner's faith. Both the Father and the
   Spirit must be trusted in order to complete redemption, but for the
   particular mercy of justification and pardon the blood of the Mediator
   is the only plea. Christians have to trust the Spirit after conversion,
   but the sinner's business, if he would be saved, is not with trusting
   the Spirit nor with looking to the Spirit, but looking to Christ Jesus,
   and to him alone. I know your salvation depends on the whole Trinity,
   but yet the first and immediate object of a sinner's justifying faith
   is neither God the Father nor God the Holy Ghost, but God the Son,
   incarnate in human flesh, and offering atonement for sinners. Hast thou
   the eye of faith? Then, soul, look thou to Christ as God. If thou
   wouldst be saved, believe him to be God over all, blessed for ever. Bow
   before him, and accept him as being "Very God of very God," for if thou
   do not, thou hast no part in him. When thou hast this believed, believe
   in him as man. Believe the wondrous story of his incarnation; rely upon
   the testimony of the evangelists, who declare that the Infinite was
   robed in the infant, that the Eternal was concealed within the mortal;
   that he who was King of heaven became a servant of servants and the Son
   of man. Believe and admire the mystery of his incarnation, for unless
   thou believe this, thou canst not be saved thereby. Then, specially, if
   thou wouldst be saved, let thy faith behold Christ in his perfect
   righteousness. See him keeping the law without blemish, obeying his
   Father without error; preserving his integrity without flaw. All this
   thou are to consider as being done on thy behalf. Thou couldst not keep
   the law; he kept it for thee. Thou couldst not obey God perfectly--lo!
   his obedience standeth in the stead of thy obedience--by it, thou art
   saved. But take care that thy faith mainly fixes itself upon Christ as
   dying and as dead. View the Lamb of God as dumb before his shearers;
   view him as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; go thou with
   him to Gethsemane, and behold him sweating drops of blood. Mark, thy
   faith has nothing to do with anything within thyself; the object of thy
   faith is nothing within thee, but a something without thee. Believe on
   him, then, who on yonder tree with nailed hands and feet pours out his
   life for sinners. There is the object of thy faith for justification;
   not in thyself, nor in anything which the Holy Spirit has done in thee,
   or anything he has promised to do for thee; but thou art to look to
   Christ and to Christ alone. Then let thy faith behold Christ as rising
   from the dead. See him--he has borne the curse, and now he receives the
   justification. He dies to pay the debt; he rises that he may nail the
   handwriting of that discharged debt to the cross. See him ascending up
   on high, and behold him this day pleading before the Father's throne.
   He is there pleading for his people, offering up to-day his
   authoritative petition for all that come to God by him. And he, as God,
   as man, as living, as dying, as rising, and as reigning above,--he, and
   he alone, is to be the object of thy faith for the pardon of sin.

   On nothing else must thou trust; he is to be the only prop and pillar
   of thy confidence; and all thou addest thereunto will be a wicked
   antichrist, a rebellion against the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus. But
   take care if your faith save you, that while you look to Christ in all
   these matters you view him as being a substitute. This doctrine of
   substitution is so essential to the whole plan of salvation that I must
   explain it here for the thousandth time. God is just, he must punish
   sin; God is merciful, he wills to pardon those who believe in Jesus.
   How is this to be done? How can he be just and exact the
   penalty,--merciful, and accept the sinner? He doeth it thus: he taketh
   the sins of his people and actually lifteth them up from off his people
   to Christ, so that they stand as innocent as though they had never
   sinned, and Christ is looked upon by God as though he had been all the
   sinners in the world rolled into one. The sin of his people was taken
   from their persons, and really and actually, not typically and
   metaphorically, but really and actually laid on Christ. Then God came
   forth with his fiery sword to meet the sinner and to punish him. He met
   Christ. Christ was not a sinner himself; but the sins of his people
   were all imputed to him. Justice, therefore, met Christ as though he
   had been the sinner--punished Christ for his people's sins--punished
   him as far as its rights could go,--exacted from him the last atom of
   the penalty, and left not a dreg in the cup. And now, he who can see
   Christ as being his substitute, and puts his trust in him, is thereby
   delivered from the curse of the law. Soul, when thou seest Christ
   obeying the law--thy faith is to say, "He obeys that for his people."
   When thou seest him dying, thou art to count the purple drops, and say,
   "Thus he took my sins away." When thou seest him rising from the dead,
   thou art to say--"He rises as the head and representative of all his
   elect"; and when thou seest him sitting at the right hand of God, thou
   art to view him there as the pledge that all for whom he died shall
   most surely sit at the Father's right hand. Learn to look on Christ as
   being in God's sight as though he were the sinner. "In him was no sin."
   He was "the just," but he suffered for the unjust. He was the
   righteous, but he stood in the place of the unrighteous; and all that
   the unrighteous ought to have endured, Christ has endured once for all,
   and put away their sins for ever by the sacrifice of himself. Now this
   is the great object of faith. I pray you, do not make any mistake about
   this, for a mistake here will be dangerous, if not fatal. View Christ,
   by your faith, as being in his life, and death, and sufferings, and
   resurrection, the substitute for all whom his Father gave him,--the
   vicarious sacrifice for the sins of all those who will trust him with
   their souls. Christ, then, thus set forth, is the object of justifying
   faith.

   Now let me further remark that there are some of you, no doubt,
   saying--"Oh, I should believe and I would be saved if"--If what? If
   Christ had died? "Oh no, sir, my doubt is nothing about Christ." I
   thought so. Then what is the doubt? "Why, I should believe if I felt
   this, or if I had done that." Just so; but I tell you, you could not
   believe in Jesus if you felt that, or if you had done that, for then
   you would believe in yourself, and not in Christ. That is the English
   of it. If you were so-and-so, or so-and-so, then you could have
   confidence. Confidence in what? Why, confidence in your feelings, and
   confidence in your doings, and that is just the clear contrary of
   confidence in Christ. Faith is not to infer from something good within
   me that I shall be saved, but to say in the teeth, and despite of the
   fact that I am guilty in the sight of God and deserve his wrath, yet I
   do nevertheless believe that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son
   cleanseth me from all sin; and though my present consciousness condemns
   me, yet my faith overpowers my consciousness, and I do believe that "he
   is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him." To
   come to Christ as a saint is very easy work; to trust to a doctor to
   cure you when you believe you are getting better, is very easy; but to
   trust your physician when you feel as if the sentence of death were in
   your body, to bear up when the disease is rising into the very skin,
   and when the ulcer is gathering its venom--to believe even then in the
   efficacy of the medicine--that is faith. And so, when sin gets the
   mastery of thee, when thou feelest that the law condemns thee, then,
   even then, as a sinner, to trust Christ, this is the most daring feat
   in all the world; and the faith which shook down the walls of Jericho,
   the faith which raised the dead, the faith which stopped the mouths of
   lions, was not greater than that of a poor sinner, when in the teeth of
   all his sins he dares to trust the blood and righteousness of Jesus
   Christ. Do this, soul, then thou are saved, whosoever thou mayest be.
   The object of faith, then, is Christ as the substitute for sinners. God
   in Christ, but not God apart from Christ, nor any work of the Spirit,
   but the work of Jesus only must be viewed by you as the foundation of
   your hope.

   II. And now, secondly, THE REASON OF FAITH, or why doth any man
   believe, and whence doth his faith come?

   "Faith cometh by hearing." Granted, but do not all men hear, and do not
   many still remain unbelieving? How, then, doth any man come by his
   faith? To his own experience his faith comes as the result of a sense
   of need. He feels himself needing a Saviour; he finds Christ to be just
   such a Saviour as he wants, and therefore because he cannot help
   himself, he believes in Jesus. Having nothing of his own, he feels he
   must take Christ or else perish, and therefore he doth it because he
   cannot help doing it. He is fairly driven up into a corner, and there
   is but this one way of escape, namely, by the righteousness of another;
   for he feels he cannot escape by any good deeds, or sufferings of his
   own, and he cometh to Christ and humbleth himself, because he cannot do
   without Christ, and must perish unless he lay hold of him. But to carry
   the question further back, where does that man get his sense of need?
   How is it that he, rather than others, feels his need of Christ? It is
   certain he has no more necessity for Christ than other men. How doth he
   come to know, then, that he is lost and ruined? How is it that he is
   driven by the sense of ruin to take hold on Christ the restorer? The
   reply is, this is the gift of God; this is the work of the Spirit. No
   man comes to Christ except the Spirit draw him, and the Spirit draws
   men to Christ by shutting them up under the law to a conviction that if
   they do not come to Christ they must perish. Then by sheer stress of
   weather, they tack about and run into this heavenly port. Salvation by
   Christ is so disagreeable to our carnal mind, so inconsistent with our
   love of human merit, that we never would take Christ to be our all in
   all, if the Spirit did not convince us that we were nothing at all, and
   did not so compel us to lay hold on Christ.

   But, then, the question goes further back still; how is it that the
   Spirit of God teaches some men their need, and not other men? Why is it
   that some of you were driven by your sense of need to Christ, while
   others go on in their self-righteousness and perish? There is no answer
   to be given but this, "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy
   sight." It comes to divine sovereignty at the last. The Lord hath
   "hidden those things from the wise and prudent, and hath revealed them
   unto babes." According to the way in which Christ put it--"My sheep,
   hear my voice"; "ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep, as I
   said unto you." Some divines would like to read that--"Ye are not my
   sheep, because ye do not believe." As if believing made us the sheep of
   Christ; but the text puts it--"Ye believe not, because ye are not of my
   sheep." "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me." If they come
   not, it is a clear proof that they were never given; for those who were
   given of old eternity to Christ, chosen of God the Father, and then
   redeemed by God the Son--these are led by the Spirit, through a sense
   of need to come and lay hold on Christ. No man yet ever did, or ever
   will believe in Christ, unless he feels his need of him. No man ever
   did, or will feel his need of Christ, unless the Spirit makes him feel,
   and the Spirit will make no man feel his need of Jesus savingly, unless
   it be so written in that eternal book, in which God hath surely
   engraved the names of his chosen. So, then, I think I am not to be
   misunderstood on this point, that the reason of faith, or why men
   believe, is God's electing love working through the Spirit by a sense
   of need, and so bringing them to Christ Jesus.

   III. But now I shall want your careful attention, while I come to
   another point, upon which you, perhaps, will think I contradict myself,
   and that is, THE GROUND OF THE SINNER'S FAITH, or on what ground he
   dares to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

   My dear friends, I have already said that no man will believe in Jesus,
   unless he feels his need of him. But you have often heard me say, and I
   repeat it again, that I do not come to Christ pleading that I feel my
   need of him; my reason for believing in Christ, is not that I feel my
   need of him, but that I have a need of him. The ground on which a man
   comes to Jesus, is not as a sensible sinner, but as a sinner, and
   nothing but a sinner. He will not come unless he is awakened; but when
   he comes, he does not say, "Lord, I come to thee because I am an
   awakened sinner, save me." But he says, "Lord, I am a sinner, save me."
   Not his awakening, but his sinnership is the method and plan upon which
   he dares to come. You will, perhaps, perceive what I mean, for I cannot
   exactly explain myself just now. If I refer to the preaching of a great
   many Calvinistic divines, they say to a sinner, "Now, if you feel your
   need of Christ, if you have repented so much, if you have been harrowed
   by the law to such-and-such a degree, then you may come to Christ on
   the ground that you are an awakened sinner." I say that is false. No
   man may come to Christ on the ground of his being an awakened sinner;
   he must come to him as a sinner. When I come to Jesus, I know I am not
   come unless I am awakened, but still, I do not come as an awakened
   sinner. I do not stand at the foot of his cross to be washed because I
   have repented; I bring nothing when I come but sin. A sense of need is
   a good feeling, but when I stand at the foot of the cross, I do not
   believe in Christ because I have got good feelings, but I believe in
   him whether I have good feelings or not.

   "Just as I am without one plea,

   But that thy blood was shed for me,

   And that thou bidst me come to thee,

   O Lamb of God I come."

   Mr. Roger, Mr. Sheppard, Mr. Flavel, and several excellent divines, in
   the Puritanic age, and especially Richard Baxter, used to give
   descriptions of what a man must feel before he may dare to come to
   Christ. Now, I say in the language of good Mr. Fenner, another of those
   divines, who said he was but a babe in grace when compared with
   them--"I dare to say it, that all this is not Scriptural. Sinners do
   feel these things before they come, but they do not come on the ground
   of having felt it; they come on the ground of being sinners, and on no
   other ground whatever." The gate of Mercy is opened, and over the door
   it is written, "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all
   acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
   Between that word "save" and the next word "sinners," there is no
   adjective. It does not say, "penitent sinners," "awakened sinners,"
   "sensible sinners," "grieving sinners," or "alarmed sinners." No, it
   only says, "sinners," and I know this, that when I come, I come to
   Christ to-day, for I feel it is as much a necessity of my life to come
   to the cross of Christ to-day as it was to come ten years ago,--when I
   come to him I dare not come as a conscious sinner or an awakened
   sinner, but I have to come still as a sinner with nothing in my hands.
   I saw an aged man this week in the vestry of a chapel in Yorkshire. I
   had been saying something to this effect: the old man had been a
   Christian for years, and he said, "I never saw it put exactly so, but
   still I know that is just the way I come; I say, Lord,

   'Nothing in my hands I bring,

   Simply to thy cross I cling;

   Naked, look to thee for dress;

   Helpless, come to thee for grace;

   Black'--

   ("Black enough," said the old man)

   'I to the fountain fly,

   Wash me, Saviour, or I die.'"

   Faith is getting right out of yourself and getting into Christ. I know
   that many hundreds of poor souls have been troubled because the
   minister has said, "if you feel your need, you may come to Christ."
   "But," say they, "I do not feel my need enough; I am sure I do not."
   Many a score letters have I received from poor troubled consciences who
   have said, "I would venture to believe in Christ to save me if I had a
   tender conscience; if I had a soft heart--but oh my heart is like a
   rock of ice which will not melt. I cannot feel as I would like to feel,
   and therefore I must not believe in Jesus." Oh! down with it, down with
   it! It is a wicked anti-Christ; it is flat Popery! It is not your soft
   heart that entitles you to believe. You are to believe in Christ to
   renew your hard heart, and come to him with nothing about you but sin.
   The ground on which a sinner comes to Christ is that he is black; that
   he is dead, and not that he knows he is dead; that he is lost, and not
   that he knows he is lost. I know he will not come unless he does know
   it, but that is not the ground on which he comes. It is the secret
   reason why, but it is not the public positive ground which he
   understands. Here was I, year after year, afraid to come to Christ
   because I thought I did not feel enough; and I used to read that hymn
   of Cowper's about being insensible as steel--

   "If aught is felt tis only pain

   To find I cannot feel."

   When I believed in Christ, I thought I did not feel at all. Now when I
   look back I find that I had been feeling all the while most acutely and
   intensely, and most of all because I thought I did not feel. Generally
   the people who repent the most, think they are impenitent, and people
   feel most their need when they think they do not feel at all, for we
   are no judges of our feelings, and hence the gospel invitation is not
   put upon the ground of anything of which we can be a judge; it is put
   on the ground of our being sinners and nothing but sinners. "Well,"
   says one, "but it says, Come unto me all ye that are weary and
   heavy-laden and I will give you rest'--then we must be weary and
   heavy-laden." Just so; so it is in the text, but then there is another.
   "Whosoever will let him come"; and that does not say anything about
   "weary and heavy-laden." Besides, while the invitation is given to the
   weary and heavy-laden, you will perceive that the promise is not made
   to them as weary and heavy-laden, but it is made to them as coming to
   Christ. They did not know that they were weary and heavy-laden when
   they came; they thought they were not. They really were, but part of
   their weariness was that they could not be as weary as they would like
   to be, and part of their load was that they did not feel their load
   enough. They came to Christ just as they were, and he saved them, not
   because there was any merit in their weariness, or any efficacy in
   their being heavy-laden, but he saved them as sinners and nothing but
   sinners, and so they were washed in his blood and made clean. My dear
   hearer, do let me put this truth home to thee. If thou wilt come to
   Christ this morning, as nothing but a sinner, he will not cast thee
   out.

   Old Tobias Crisp says in one of his sermons upon this very point, "I
   dare to say it, but if thou dost come to Christ, whosoever thou mayest
   be, if he does not receive thee, then he is not true to his word, for
   he says, Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.'" If thou
   comest, never mind qualification or preparation. He needeth no
   qualification of duties or of feelings either. Thou art to come just as
   thou art, and if thou art the biggest sinner out of hell, thou art as
   fit to come to Christ as if thou wert the most moral and most excellent
   of men. There is a bath: who is fit to be washed? A man's blackness is
   no reason why he should not be washed, but the clearer reason why he
   should be. When our City magistrates were giving relief to the poor,
   nobody said, "I am so poor, therefore I am not fit to have relief."
   Your poverty is your preparation, the black is the white here. Strange
   contradiction! The only thing you can bring to Christ is your sin and
   your wickedness. All he asks is, that you will come empty. If you have
   anything of your own, you must leave all before you come. If there be
   anything good in you, you cannot trust Christ, you must come with
   nothing in your hand. Take him as all in all, and that is the only
   ground upon which a poor soul can be saved--as a sinner, and nothing
   but a sinner.

   IV. But not to stay longer, my fourth point has to do with THE WARRANT
   OF FAITH, or why a man dares to trust in Christ.

   Is it not imprudent for any man to trust Christ to save him, and
   especially when he has no good thing whatever? Is it not an arrogant
   presumption for any man to trust Christ? No, sirs, it is not. It is a
   grand and noble work of God the Holy Spirit for a man to give the lie
   to all his sins, and still to believe and set to his seal that God is
   true, and believe in the virtue of the blood of Jesus. But why does any
   man dare to believe in Christ I will ask you now. "Well," saith one
   man, "I summoned faith to believe in Christ because I did feel there
   was a work of the Spirit in me." You do not believe in Christ at all.
   "Well," says another, "I thought that I had a right to believe in
   Christ, because I felt somewhat." You had not any right to believe in
   Christ at all on such a warranty as that. What is a man's warrant then
   for believing in Christ. Here it is. Christ tells him to do it, that is
   his warrant. Christ's word is the warrant of the sinner for believing
   in Christ--not what he feels nor what he is, nor what he is not, but
   that Christ has told him to do it. The Gospel runs thus: "Believe on
   the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. He that believeth not
   shall be damned." Faith in Christ then is a commanded duty as well as a
   blessed privilege, and what a mercy it is that it is a duty; because
   there never can be any question but that a man has a right to do his
   duty. Now on the ground that God commands me to believe, I have a right
   to believe, be I who I may. The gospel is sent to every creature. Well,
   I belong to that tribe; I am one of the every creatures, and that
   gospel commands me to believe and I do it. I cannot have done wrong in
   doing it for I was commanded to do so. I cannot be wrong in obeying a
   command of God. Now it is a command of God given to every creature that
   he should believe on Jesus Christ whom God hath sent. This is your
   warrant, sinner, and a blessed warrant it is, for it is one which hell
   cannot gainsay, and which heaven cannot withdraw. You need not be
   looking within to look for the misty warrants of your experience, you
   need not be looking to your works, and to your feelings, to get some
   dull and insufficient warrants for your confidence in Christ. You may
   believe Christ because he tells you to do so. That is a sure ground to
   stand on, and one which admits of no doubt. I will suppose that we are
   all starving; that the city has been besieged and shut up, and there
   has been a long, long famine, and we are ready to die of hunger. There
   comes out an invitation to us to repair at once to the palace of some
   great one there to eat and drink; but we have grown foolish, and will
   not accept the invitation. Suppose now that some hideous madness has
   got hold of us, and we prefer to die, and had rather starve than come.
   Suppose the king's herald should say, "Come and feast, poor hungry
   souls, and because I know you are unwilling to come, I add this threat,
   if you come not my warriors shall be upon you; they shall make you feel
   the sharpness of their swords." I think my dear friends, we should say,
   "We bless the great man for that threatening because now we need not
   say, I may not come,' while the fact is we may not stop away. Now I
   need not say I am not fit to come for I am commanded to come, and I am
   threatened if I do not come; and I will even go." That awful
   sentence--"He that believeth not shall be damned," was added not out of
   anger, but because the Lord knew our silly madness, and that we should
   refuse our own mercies unless he thundered at us to make us come to the
   feast, "Compel them to come in"; this was the Word of the Master of
   old, and that text is part of the carrying out of that exhortation,
   "Compel them to come in." Sinner, you cannot be lost by trusting
   Christ, but you will be lost if you do not trust him, ay, and lost for
   not trusting him. I put it boldly now--sinner, not only may you come,
   but oh! I pray you, do not defy the wrath of God by refusing to come.
   The gate of mercy stands wide open; why will you not come? Why will you
   not? Why so proud? Why will you still refuse his voice and perish in
   your sins? Mark, if you perish, any one of you, your blood lies not at
   God's door, nor Christ's door, but at your own. He can say of you, "Ye
   will not come unto me that ye might have life." Oh! poor trembler, if
   thou be willing to come, there is nothing in God's Word to keep thee
   from coming, but there are both threatenings to drive thee, and powers
   to draw thee. Still I hear you say, "I must not trust Christ." You may,
   I say, for every creature under heaven is commanded to do it, and what
   you are commanded to do, you may do. "Ah! well," saith one, "still I do
   not feel that I may." There you are again; you say you will not do what
   God tells you, because of some stupid feelings of your own. You are not
   told to trust Christ because you feel anything, but simply because you
   are a sinner. Now you know you are a sinner. "I am," says one, "and
   that is my sorrow." Why your sorrow? That is some sign that you do
   feel. "Ay," saith one, "but I do not feel enough, and that is why I
   sorrow. I do not feel as I should." Well, suppose you do feel, or
   suppose you do not, you are a sinner, and "this is a faithful saying
   and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to
   save sinners." "Oh, but I am such an old sinner; I have been sixty
   years in sin." Where is it written that after sixty you cannot be
   saved? Sir, Christ could save you at a hundred--ay, if you were a
   Methuselah in guilt. "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us
   from all sin." "Whosoever will let him come." "He is able to save to
   the uttermost them that come unto God by him." "Yes," says one, "but I
   have been a drunkard, a swearer, or lascivious, or profane." Then you
   are a sinner, you have not gone further than the uttermost, and he is
   able to save you still. "Ay," saith another, "but you do not know how
   my guilt has been aggravated." That only proves you to be a sinner, and
   that you are commanded to trust Christ and be saved. "Ay," cries yet
   another, "but you do not know how often I have rejected Christ." Yes,
   but that only makes you the more a sinner. "You do not know how hard my
   heart is." Just so, but that only proves you to be a sinner, and still
   proves you to be one whom Christ came to save. "Oh, but, sir, I have
   not any good thing. If I had, you know, I should have something to
   encourage me." The fact of your not having any good thing just proves
   to me that you are the man I am sent to preach to. Christ came to save
   that which was lost, and all you have said only proves that you are
   lost, and therefore he came to save you. Do trust him; do trust him.
   "But if I am saved," saith one, "I shall be the biggest sinner that
   ever was saved." Then the greater music in heaven when you get there;
   the more glory to Christ, for the bigger the sinner the more honour to
   Christ when at last he shall be brought home. "Ay, but my sin has
   abounded." His grace shall much more abound. "But my sin has reached
   even to heaven." Yes, but his mercy reaches above the heavens. "Oh! but
   my guilt is as broad as the world." Yes, but his righteousness is
   broader than a thousand worlds. "Ay, but my sin is scarlet." Yes, but
   his blood is more scarlet than your sins, and can wash the scarlet out
   by a richer scarlet. "Ay! but I deserve to be lost, and death and hell
   cry for my damnation." Yes, and so they may, but the blood of Jesus
   Christ can cry louder than either death or hell; and it cries to-day,
   "Father, let the sinner live." Oh! I wish I could get this thought out
   of my own mouth, and get it into your heads, that when God saves you,
   it is not because of anything in you, it is because of something in
   himself. God's love has no reason except in his own bowels; God's
   reason for pardoning a sinner is found in his own heart, and not in the
   sinner. And there is as much reason in you why you should be saved as
   why another should be saved, namely, no reason at all. There is no
   reason in you why he should have mercy on you, but there is no reason
   wanted, for the reason lies in God and in God alone.

   V. And now I come to the conclusion, and I trust you will have patience
   with me, for my last point is a very glorious one, and full of joy to
   those souls who as sinners dare to believe in Christ--THE RESULT OF
   FAITH, or how it speeds when it comes to Christ.

   The text says, "He that believeth is not condemned." There is a man
   there who has just this moment believed; he is not condemned. But he
   has been fifty years in sin, and has plunged into all manner of vice;
   his sins, which are many, are all forgiven him. He stands in the sight
   of God now as innocent as though he had never sinned. Such is the power
   of Jesus' blood, that "he that believeth is not condemned." Does this
   relate to what is to happen at the day of Judgment? I pray you look at
   the text, and you will find it does not say, "He that believeth shall
   not be condemned," but he is not; he is not now. And if he is not now,
   then it follows that he never shall be; for having believed in Christ
   that promise still stands, "He that believeth is not condemned." I
   believe to-day I am not condemned; in fifty years' time that promise
   will be just the same--"He that believeth is not condemned." So that
   the moment a man puts his trust in Christ, he is freed from all
   condemnation--past, present, and to come; and from that day he stands
   in God's sight as though he were without spot or wrinkle, or any such
   thing. "But he sins," you say. He does indeed, but his sins are not
   laid to his charge. They were laid to the charge of Christ of old, and
   God can never charge the offence on two--first on Christ, and then on
   the sinner. "Ay, but he often falls into sin." That may be possible;
   though if the Spirit of God be in him he sinneth not as he was wont to
   do. He sins by reason of infirmity, not by reason of his love to sin,
   for now he hateth it. But mark, you shall put it in your own way if you
   will, and I will answer, "Yes, but though he sin, yet is he no more
   guilty in the sight of God, for all his guilt has been taken from him,
   and put on Christ,--positively, literally, and actually lifted off from
   him, and put upon Jesus Christ." Do you see the Jewish host? There is a
   scapegoat brought out; the high priest confesses the sin of the people
   over the scapegoat's head. The sin is all gone from the people, and
   laid upon the scapegoat. Away goes the scapegoat into the wilderness.
   Is there any sin left on the people? If there be, then the scapegoat
   has not carried it away. Because it cannot be here and there too. It
   cannot be carried away and left behind too. "No," say you, "Scripture
   says the scapegoat carried away the sin; there was none left on the
   people when the scapegoat had taken away the sin. And so, when by faith
   we put our hand upon the head of Christ, does Christ take away our sin,
   or does he not? If he does not, then it is of no use our believing in
   him; but if he doth really take away our sin, then our sin cannot be on
   him and on us too; if it be on Christ, we are free, clear, accepted,
   justified, and this is the true doctrine of justification by faith. As
   soon as a man believeth in Christ Jesus, his sins are gone from him,
   and gone away for ever. They are blotted out now. What if a man owe a
   hundred pounds, yet if he has got a receipt for it, he is free; it is
   blotted out; there is an erasure made in the book, and the debt is
   gone. Though the man commit sin, yet the debt having been paid before
   even the debt was acquired, he is no more a debtor to the law of God.
   Doth not Scripture say, that God has cast his people's sins into the
   depths of the sea? Now, if they are in the depths of the sea, they
   cannot be on his people too. Blessed be his name, in the day when he
   casts our sins into the depth of the sea, he views us as pure in his
   sight, and we stand accepted in the beloved. Then he says, "As far as
   the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions
   from us." They cannot be removed and be here still. Then if thou
   believest in Christ, thou art no more in the sight of God a sinner;
   thou art accepted as though thou wert perfect, as though thou hadst
   kept the law,--for Christ has kept it, and his righteousness is thine.
   You have broken it, but your sin is his, and he has been punished for
   it. Mistake not yourselves any longer; you are no more what you were;
   when you believe, you stand in Christ's stead, even as Christ of old
   stood in your stead. The transformation is complete, the exchange is
   positive and eternal. They who believe in Jesus are as much accepted of
   God the Father as even his Eternal Son is accepted; and they that
   believe not, let them do what they will, they shall but go about to
   work out their own righteousness; but they abide under the law, and
   still shall they be under the curse. Now, ye that believe in Jesus,
   walk up and down the earth in the glory of this great truth. You are
   sinners in yourselves, but you are washed in the blood of Christ. David
   says, "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." You have lately seen
   the snow come down--how clear! how white! What could be whiter? Why,
   the Christian is whiter than that. You say, "He is black." I know he is
   as black as anyone--as black as hell--but the blooddrop falls on him,
   and he is as white--"whiter than snow." The next time you see the
   snow-white crystals falling from heaven, look on them and say, "Ah!
   though I must confess within myself that I am unworthy and unclean,
   yet, believing in Christ, he hath given me his righteousness so
   completely, that I am even whiter than the snow as it descends from the
   treasury of God." Oh! for faith to lay hold on this. Oh! for an
   overpowering faith that shall get the victory over doubts and fears,
   and make us enjoy the liberty wherewith Christ makes men free. Go home,
   ye that believe in Christ, and go to your beds this night, and say, "If
   I die in my bed I cannot be condemned." Should you wake the next
   morning, go into the world and say, "I am not condemned." When the
   devil howls at you, tell him, "Ah! you may accuse, but I am not
   condemned." And if sometimes your sins rise--say, "Ah, I know you, but
   you are all gone for ever; I am not condemned." And when your turn
   shall come to die shut your eyes in peace.

   "Bold shall you stand in that great day,

   For who aught to your charge can lay?"

   Fully absolved by grace you shall be found at last and all sin's
   tremendous curse and blame shall be taken away, not because of anything
   you have done. I pray you do all you can for Christ out of gratitude,
   but even when you have done all, do not rest there. Rest still in the
   substitution and the sacrifice. Be you what Christ was in his Father's
   sight, and when conscience awakens, you can tell it that Christ was for
   you all that you ought to have been, that he has suffered all your
   penalty; and now neither mercy nor justice can smite you, since justice
   has clasped hands with mercy in a firm decree to save that man whose
   faith is in the cross of Christ. The Lord bless these words for his
   sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                          None But Jesus--Second Part

   A Sermon

   (No. 362)

   Delivered on Sunday Evening, February 17th, 1861 by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At New Park Street, Southwark.

   "He that believeth on him is not condemned" --John 3:18

   IN the morning sermon, our time was mainly taken up with the
   description of Faith--what it is. We had only a few minutes left at its
   close to describe what it leads to--the privilege of justification,
   which is a gift to the soul as the result of Faith. Let this high
   privilege, then, occupy our attention to-night. The text says, "He that
   believeth on him--[that is on Christ Jesus]--is not condemned."

   To take up the subject in order, we shall notice first, the
   satisfactory declaration here made; then, secondly, we shall endeavour
   to correct certain misapprehensions respecting it, by reason of which
   the Christian is often cast down; and we shall close with some
   reflections, positive and negative, as to what this text includes, and
   what it excludes.

   I. First of all, then, WHAT A SATISFACTORY DECLARATION!--"He that
   believeth on him is not condemned."

   You are aware that in our courts of law, a verdict of "not guilty,"
   amounts to an acquittal, and the prisoner is immediately discharged. So
   is it in the language of the gospel; a sentence of "not condemned,"
   implies the justification of the sinner. It means that the believer in
   Christ receives now a present justification. Faith does not produce its
   fruits by-and-by, but now. So far as justification is the result of
   faith, it is given to the soul in the moment when it closes with
   Christ, and accepts him as its all in all. Are they who stand before
   the throne of God justified to-night?--so are we, as truly and as
   clearly justified as they who walk in white and sing his praises above.
   The thief upon the cross was justified the moment that he turned the
   eye of faith to Jesus, who was just then, hanging by his side: and
   Paul, the aged, after years of service, was not more justified than was
   the thief with no service at all. We are to-day accepted in the
   Beloved, to-day absolved from sin, to-day innocent in the sight of God.
   Oh, ravishing, soul-transporting thought! There are some clusters of
   this vine which we shall not be able to gather till we go to heaven;
   but this is one of the first ripe clusters and may be plucked and eaten
   here. This is not as the corn of the land, which we can never eat till
   we cross the Jordan; but this is part of the manna in the wilderness,
   and part too of our daily raiment, with which God supplies us in our
   journeying to and fro. We are now--even now pardoned; even now are our
   sins put away; even now we stand in the sight of God as though we had
   never been guilty; innocent as father Adam when he stood in integrity,
   ere he had eaten of the fruit of the forbidden tree; pure as though we
   had never received the taint of depravity in our veins. "There is,
   therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."
   There is not a sin in the Book of God, even now, against one of his
   people. There is nothing laid to their charge. There is neither speck,
   nor spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing remaining upon any one
   believer in the matter of justification in the sight of the Judge of
   all the earth.

   But to pass on, the text evidently means not simply present, but
   continual justification. In the moment when you and I believed, it was
   said of us, "He is not condemned." Many days have passed since then,
   many changes we have seen; but it is as true of us to-night, "He is not
   condemned." The Lord alone knows how long our appointed day shall
   be--how long ere we shall fulfill the hireling's time, and like a
   shadow flee away. But this we know, since every word of God is assured,
   and the gifts of God are without repentance, though we should live
   another fifty years, yet would it still be written here, "He that
   believeth on him is not condemned." Nay, if by some mysterious dealing
   in providence our lives should be lengthened out to ten times the usual
   limit of man, and we should come to the eight or nine hundred years of
   Methuselah, still would it stand the same--"He that believeth on him is
   not condemned." "I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall
   never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." "The just
   shall live by faith." "He that believeth on him shall never be
   confounded." All these promises go to show that the justification which
   Christ gives to our faith is a continual one, which will last as long
   as we shall live. And, remember, it will last in eternity as well as in
   time. We shall not in heaven wear any other dress but that which we
   wear here. To-day the righteous stand clothed in the righteousness of
   Christ. They shall wear this same wedding dress at the great wedding
   feast. But what if it should wear out? What if that righteousness
   should lose its virtue in the eternity to come? Oh beloved! we
   entertain no fear about that. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but
   this righteousness shall never wax old. No moth shall fret it; no thief
   shall steal it; no weeping hand of lamentation shall rend it in twain.
   It is, it must be eternal, even as Christ himself, Jehovah our
   righteousness. Because he is our righteousness, the self-existent, the
   everlasting, the immutable Jehovah, of whose years there is no end, and
   whose strength faileth not, therefore of our righteousness there is no
   end; and of its perfection, and of its beauty there shall never be any
   termination. The text, I think, very clearly teaches us, that he who
   believeth on Christ has received for ever a continual justification.

   Again, think for a moment; the justification which is spoken of here is
   complete. "He that believeth on him is not condemned,"--that is to say,
   not in any measure or in any degree. I know some think it is possible
   for us to be in such a state as to be half-condemned and half-accepted.
   So far as we are sinners so far condemned; and so far as we are
   righteous so far accepted. Oh beloved, there is nothing like that in
   Scripture. It is altogether apart from the doctrine of the gospel. If
   it be of works, it is no more of grace; and if it be of grace, it is no
   more of works. Works and grace cannot mix and mingle any more than fire
   and water; it is either one or the other, it cannot be both; the two
   can never be allied. There can be no admixture of the two, no dilution
   of one with the other. He that believeth is free from all iniquity,
   from all guilt, from all blame; and though the devil bring an
   accusation, yet it is a false one, for we are free even from
   accusation, since it is boldly challenged, "Who shall lay anything to
   the charge of God's elect?" It does not say, "Who shall prove it?" but
   "Who shall lay it to their charge?" They are so completely freed from
   condemnation, that not the shadow of a spot upon their soul is found;
   not even the slightest passing by of iniquity to cast its black shadow
   on them. They stand before God not only as half-innocent, but as
   perfectly so; not only as half-washed, but as whiter than snow. Their
   sins are not simply erased, they are blotted out; not simply put out of
   sight, but cast into the depths of the sea; not merely gone, and gone
   as far as the east is from the west, but gone for ever, once for all.
   You know, beloved, that the Jew in his ceremonial purification, never
   had his conscience free from sin. After one sacrifice he needed still
   another, for these offerings could never make the comers thereunto
   perfect. The next day's sins needed a new lamb, and the next year's
   iniquity needed a new victim for an atonement. "But this man, after he
   had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down at the right hand
   of God." No more burnt-offerings are needed, no more washing, no more
   blood, no more atonement, no more sacrifice. "It is finished!" hear the
   dying Saviour cry. Your sins have sustained their death-blow, the robe
   of your righteousness has received its last thread; it is done,
   complete, perfect. It needs no addition; it can never suffer any
   diminution. Oh, Christian, do lay hold of this precious thought; I may
   not be able to state it except in weak terms, but let not my weakness
   prevent your apprehending its glory and its preciousness. It is enough
   to make a man leap, though his legs were loaded with irons, and to make
   him sing though his mouth were gagged, to think that we are perfectly
   accepted in Christ, that our justification is not partial, it does not
   go to a limited extent, but goes the whole way. Our unrighteousness is
   covered; from condemnation we are entirely and irrevocably free.

   Once more. The non-condemnation is effectual. The royal privilege of
   justification shall never miscarry. It shall be brought home to every
   believer. In the reign of King George the Third, the son of a member of
   this church lay under sentence of death for forgery. My predecessor,
   Dr. Rippon, after incredible exertions, obtained a promise that his
   sentence should be remitted. By a singular occurrence the present
   senior deacon--then a young man--learned from the governor of the gaol
   that the reprieve had not been received; and the unhappy prisoner would
   have been executed the next morning, had not Dr. Rippon gone post-haste
   to Windsor, obtained an interview with the king in his bed-chamber, and
   received from the monarch's own hand a copy of that reprieve which had
   been negligently put aside by a thoughtless officer. "I charge you,
   Doctor," said his majesty, "to make good speed." "Trust me, Sire, for
   that," responded your old pastor, and he returned to London in time,
   just in time, and only just in time, for the prisoner was being marched
   with many others on to the scaffold. Ay, that pardon might have been
   given, and yet the man might have been executed if it had not been
   effectually carried out. But blessed be God our non-condemnation is an
   effectual thing. It is not a matter of letter, it is a matter of fact.
   Ah, poor souls, you know that condemnation is a matter of fact. When
   you and I suffered in our souls, and were brought under the heavy hand
   of the law, we felt that its curses were no mock thunders like the
   wrath of the Vatican, but they were real; we felt that the anger of God
   was indeed a thing to tremble at; a real substantial fact. Now, just as
   real as the condemnation which Justice brings, just so real is the
   justification which mercy bestows. You are not only nominally
   guiltless, but you are really so, if you believe in Christ; you are not
   only nominally put into the place of the innocent, but you are really
   put there the moment you believe in Jesus. Not only is it said that
   your sins are gone, but they are gone. Not only does God look on you as
   though you were accepted; you are accepted. It is a matter of fact to
   you, as much a matter of fact as that you sinned. You do not doubt that
   you have sinned, you cannot doubt that; do not doubt then that when you
   believe your sins are put away. For as certain as ever the black spot
   fell on you when you sinned, so certainly and so surely was it all
   washed out when you were bathed in that fountain filled with blood,
   which was drawn from Emmanuel's veins.

   Come, my soul, think thou of this. Thou art actually and effectually
   cleared from guilt. Thou art led out of thy prison. Thou art no more in
   fetters as a bond-slave. Thou art delivered now from the bondage of the
   Law. Thou art freed from sin and thou canst walk at large as a freeman.
   Thy Saviour's blood has procured thy full discharge. Come, my
   soul,--thou hast a right now to come to thy Father's feet. No flames of
   vengeance are there to scare thee now; no fiery sword; justice cannot
   smite the innocent. Come, my soul, thy disabilities are taken away.
   Thou wast unable once to see thy Father's face; thou canst see it now.
   Thou couldst not speak with him, nor he with thee; but now thou hast
   access with boldness to this grace wherein we stand. Once there was a
   fear of hell upon thee; there is no hell for thee now. How can there be
   punishment for the guiltless? He that believeth is guiltless, is not
   condemned, and cannot be punished. No frowns of an avenging God now. If
   God be viewed as a judge, how should he frown upon the guiltless? How
   should the Judge frown upon the absolved one? More than all the
   privileges thou mightest have enjoyed if thou hadst never sinned, are
   thine now that thou art justified. All the blessings which thou couldst
   have had if thou hadst kept the law and more, are thine to-night
   because Christ has kept it for thee. All the love and the acceptance
   which a perfectly obedient being could have obtained of God, belong to
   thee, because Christ was perfectly obedient on thy behalf, and hath
   imputed all his merits to thy account that thou mightest be exceeding
   rich, through him who for thy sake became exceeding poor.

   Oh that the Holy Spirit would but enlarge our hearts, that we might
   suck sweetness out of these thoughts! There is no condemnation.
   Moreover, there never shall be any condemnation. The forgiveness is not
   partial, but perfect; it is so effectual that it delivers us from all
   the penalties of the Law, gives to us all the privileges of obedience,
   and puts us actually high above where we should have been had we never
   sinned. It fixes our standing more secure than it was before we fell.
   We are not now where Adam was, for Adam might fall and perish. We are
   rather, where Adam would have been if we could suppose God had put him
   into the garden for seven years, and said, "If you are obedient for
   seven years, your time of probation shall be over, and I will reward
   you." The children of God in one sense may be said to be in a state of
   probation; in another sense there is no probation. There is no
   probation as to whether the child of God should be saved. He is saved
   already; his sins are washed away; his righteousness is complete: and
   if that righteousness could endure a million years' probation, it would
   never be defiled. In fact, it always stands the same in the sight of
   God, and must do so for ever and ever.

   II. Let me now endeavour to CORRECT SOME MISAPPREHENSIONS, BY REASON OF
   WHICH CHRISTIANS ARE OFTEN CAST DOWN.

   What simpletons we are! Whatever our natural age, how childish we are
   in spiritual things! What great simpletons we are when we first believe
   in Christ! We think that our being pardoned involves a great many
   things which we afterwards find have nothing whatever to do with our
   pardon. For instance, we think we shall never sin again; we fancy that
   the battle is all fought; that we have got into a fair field, with no
   more war to wage; that in fact we have got the victory, and have only
   just to stand up and wave the palm branch; that all is over, that God
   has only got to call us up to himself and we shall enter into heaven
   without having to fight any enemies upon earth. Now, all these are
   obvious mistakes. Though the text has a great meaning, it does not mean
   anything of this kind. Observe that although it does assert "He that
   believeth is not condemned"; yet it does not say that he that believeth
   shall not have his faith exercised. Your faith will be exercised. An
   untried faith will be no faith at all. God never gave men faith without
   intending to try it. Faith is received for the very purpose of
   endurance. Just as our Rifle Corps friends put up the target with the
   intention of shooting at it; so does God give faith with the intention
   of letting trials and troubles, and sin and Satan aim all their darts
   at it. When thou hast faith in Christ it is a great privilege; but
   recollect that it involves a great trial. You asked for great faith the
   other night; did you consider that you asked for great troubles too?
   You cannot have great faith to lay up and rust. Mr. Greatheart in John
   Bunyan's Pilgrim was a very strong man, but then what strong work he
   had to do. He had to go with all those women and children many scores
   of times up to the celestial city and back again; he had to fight all
   the giants, and drive back all the lions; to slay the giant Slaygood,
   and knock down the Castle of Despair. If you have a great measure of
   faith, you will have need to use it all. You will never have a single
   scrap to spare, you will be like the virgins in our Lord's parable,
   even though you be a wise virgin, you will have to say to others who
   might borrow of you, "Not so, lest there be not enough for us and for
   you." But when your faith is exercised with trials, do not think you
   are brought into judgment for your sins. Oh no, believer, there is
   plenty of exercise, but that is not condemnation; there are many
   trials, but still we are justified; we may often be buffeted, but we
   are never accursed; we may ofttimes be cast down, but the sword of the
   Lord never can and never will smite us to the heart. Yea, more; not
   only may our faith be exercised, but our faith may come to a very low
   ebb, and still we may not be condemned. When thy faith gets so small
   that thou canst not see it, even then still thou art not condemned. If
   thou hast ever believed in Jesus, thy faith may be like the sea when it
   goes out a very long way from the shore, and leaves a vast track of
   mud, and some might say the sea was gone or dried up. But you are not
   condemned when your faith is most dried up. Ay! and I dare to say
   it,--when your faith is at the flood-tide, you are not more accepted
   then, than when your faith is at the lowest ebb; for your acceptance
   does not depend upon the quantity of your faith, it only depends upon
   its reality. If you are really resting in Christ, though your faith may
   be but as a spark, and a thousand devils may try to quench that one
   spark, yet you are not condemned--you shall stand accepted in Christ.
   Though your comforts will necessarily decay as your faith declines, yet
   your acceptance does not decay. Though faith does rise and fall like
   the thermometer, though faith is like the mercury in the bulb, all
   weathers change it,--yet God's love is not affected by the weather of
   earth, or the changes of time. Until the perfect righteousness of
   Christ can be a mutable thing--a football to be kicked about by the
   feet of fiends--your acceptance with God can never change. You are, you
   must be, perfectly accepted in the Beloved.

   There is another thing which often tries the child of God. He at times
   loses the light of his Father's countenance. Now, remember, the text
   does not say, "He that believeth shall not lose the light of God's
   countenance"; he may do so, but he shall not be condemned for all that.
   You may walk, not only for days but for months in such a state that you
   have little fellowship with Christ, very little communion with God of a
   joyous sort. The promises may seem broken to you, the Bible may afford
   you but little comfort; and when you turn your eye to heaven you may
   only have to feel the more the smarting that is caused by your Father's
   rod; you may have vexed and grieved his Spirit, and he may have turned
   away his face from you. But you are not condemned for all that. Mark
   the testimony, "He that believeth is not condemned." Even when your
   Father smites you and leaves a wale at every stroke, and brings the
   blood at every blow, there is not a particle of condemnation in any one
   stroke. Not in his anger, but in his dear covenant love he smites you.
   There is as unmixed and unalloyed affection in every love-stroke of
   chastisement from your Father's hand as there is in the kisses of Jesus
   Christ's lips. Oh! believe this; it will tend to lift up thy heart, it
   will cheer thee when neither sun nor moon appear. It will honour thy
   God, it will show thee where thy acceptance really lies. When his face
   is turned away, believe him still, and say, "He abideth faithful though
   he hide his face from me." I will go a little further still. The child
   of God may be so assaulted by Satan, that he may be well nigh given up
   to despair, and yet he is not condemned. The devils may beat the great
   hell-drum in his ear, till he thinks himself to be on the very brink of
   perdition. He may read the Bible, and think that every threatening is
   against him, and that every promise shuts its mouth and will not cheer
   him; and he may at last despond, and despond, and despond, till he is
   ready to break the harp that has so long been hanging on the willow. He
   may say, "The Lord hath forsaken me quite, my God will be gracious no
   more"; but it is not true. Yea, he may be ready to swear a thousand
   times that God's mercy is clean gone for ever, and that his
   faithfulness will fail for evermore; but it is not true, it is not
   true. A thousand liars swearing to a falsehood could not make it true,
   and our doubts and fears are all of them liars. And if there were ten
   thousand of them, and they all professed the same, it is a falsehood
   that God ever did forsake his people, or that he ever cast from him an
   innocent man; and you are innocent, remember, when you believe in
   Jesus. "But," say you, "I am full of sin." "Ay," say I, "but that sin
   has been laid on Christ." "Oh," say you, "but I sin daily." "Ay," say
   I, "but that sin was laid on him before you committed it, years ago. It
   is not yours; Christ has taken it away once for all. You are a
   righteous man by faith, and God will not forsake the righteous, nor
   will he cast away the innocent." I say, then, the child of God may have
   his faith at a low ebb; he may lose the light of his Father's
   countenance, and he may even get into thorough despair; but yet all
   these cannot disprove my text--"He that believeth is not condemned."

   "But what," say you, "if the child of God should sin?" It is a deep and
   tender subject, yet must we touch it and be bold here. I would not
   mince God's truth lest any should make a bad use of it. I know there
   are some, not the people of God, who will say, "Let us sin, that grace
   may abound." Their condemnation is just. I cannot help the perversion
   of truth. There be always men who will take the best of food as though
   it were poison, and make the best of truth into a lie, and so be
   damning their own souls. You ask, "What if a child of God should fall
   into sin?" I answer, the child of God does fall into sin; every day he
   mourns and groans because when he would do good, evil is present with
   him. But though he falls into sins, he is not condemned for all
   that--not by one of them, or by all of them put together, because his
   acceptance does not depend upon himself, but upon the perfect
   righteousness of Christ; and that perfect righteousness is not
   invalidated by any sins of his. He is perfect in Christ; and until
   Christ is imperfect, the imperfections of the creature do not mar the
   justification of the believer in the sight of God. But oh! if he fall
   into some glaring sin,--O God, keep us from it!--if he fall into some
   glaring sin, he shall go with broken bones, but he shall reach heaven
   for all that. Though, in order to try him and let him see his vileness,
   he be suffered to go far astray, yet he that bought him will not lose
   him; he that chose him will not cast him away; he will say unto him,
   "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own
   sake, and will not remember thy sins." David may go never so far away,
   but David is not lost. He comes back and he cries, "Have mercy upon me,
   O God!" And so shall it be with every believing soul--Christ shall
   bring him back. Though he slip, he shall be kept, and all the chosen
   seed shall meet around the throne. If it were not for this last
   truth--though some may stick at it--what would become of some of God's
   people? They would be given up to despair. If I have been speaking to a
   backslider, I pray he will not make a bad use of what I have said. Let
   me say to him, "Poor backslider! thy Father's bowels yearn over thee;
   he has not erased thy name out of the registry. Come back, come back
   now to him and say, Receive me graciously, and love me freely'; and he
   will say, I will put you among the children.' He will pass by your
   backsliding and will heal your iniquities; and you shall yet stand once
   more in his favour, and know yourself to be still accepted in the
   Redeemer's righteousness and saved by his blood." This text does not
   mean that the child of God shall not be tried, or that he shall not
   even sometimes fall under the trial; but it does mean this, once for
   all: He that believeth on Christ is not condemned. At no time, by no
   means, is he under the sentence of condemnation, but is evermore
   justified in the sight of God.

   III. Now dear brethren, but little time remains for the closing points,
   therefore, in a hurried manner, let me notice WHAT THIS TEXT EVIDENTLY
   INCLUDES; and may God grant that these few words may nevertheless do
   good to our souls!

   "He that believeth on him is not condemned." If we are not condemned,
   then at no time does God ever look upon his children, when they believe
   in Christ, as being guilty. Are you surprised that I should put it so?
   I put it so again; from the moment when you believe in Christ, God
   ceases to look upon you as being guilty; for he never looks upon you
   apart from Christ. You often look upon yourself as guilty, and you fall
   upon your knees as you should do, and you weep and lament; but even
   then, while you are weeping over inbred and actual sin, he is still
   saying out of heaven, "So far as your justification is concerned, thou
   art all fair and lovely." You are black as the tents of Kedar--that is
   yourself by nature; you are fair as the curtains of Solomon--that is
   yourself in Christ. You are black--that is yourself in Adam; but
   comely, that is yourself in the second Adam. Oh, think of that!--that
   you are always in God's sight comely, always in God's sight lovely,
   always in God's sight as though you were perfect. For ye are complete
   in Christ Jesus, and perfect in Christ Jesus, as the apostle puts it in
   another place. Always do you stand completely washed and fully clothed
   in Christ. Remember this; for it is certainly included in my text.

   Another great thought included in my text is this; you are never liable
   as a believer to punishment for your sins. You will be chastised on
   account of them, as a father chastises his child; that is a part of the
   Gospel dispensation; but you will not be smitten for your sins as the
   lawgiver smites the criminal. Your Father may often punish you as he
   punisheth the wicked. But, never for the same reason. The ungodly stand
   on the ground of their own demerits; their sufferings are awarded as
   their due deserts. But your sorrows do not come to you as a matter of
   desert; they come to you as a matter of love. God knows that in one
   sense your sorrows are such a privilege that you may account of them as
   a boon you do not deserve. I have often thought of that when I have had
   a sore trouble. I know some people say, "You deserved the trouble."
   Yes, my dear brethren, but there is not enough merit in all the
   Christians put together, to deserve such a good thing as the loving
   rebuke of our heavenly Father. Perhaps you cannot see that; you cannot
   think that a trouble can come to you as a real blessing in the
   covenant. But I know that the rod of the covenant is as much the gift
   of grace as the blood of the covenant. It is not a matter of desert or
   merit; it is given to us because we need it. But I question whether we
   were ever so good as to deserve it. We were never able to get up to so
   high a standard as to deserve so rich, so gracious a providence as this
   covenant blessing--the rod of our chastening God. Never at any time in
   your life has a law-stroke fallen upon you. Since you believed in
   Christ you are out of the law's jurisdiction. The law of England cannot
   touch a Frenchman while he lives under the protection of his own
   Emperor. You are not under the law, but you are under grace. The law of
   Sinai cannot touch you, for you are out of its jurisdiction. You are
   not in Sinai or in Arabia. You are not the son of Hagar or the son of a
   handmaid, you are the son of Sarah, and are come to Jerusalem and are
   free. You are out of Arabia, and are come to God's own happy land. You
   are not under Hagar, but under Sarah; under God's covenant of grace.
   You are a child of promise, and you shall have God's own inheritance.
   Believe this, that never shall a law-stroke fall on you; never shall
   God's anger in a judicial sense drop on you. He may give you a
   chastising stroke, not as the result of sin, but rather as the result
   of his own rich grace, that would get the sin out of you, that you may
   be perfected in sanctification, even as you are now perfect and
   complete before him in the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.

   IV. I was about to go into a list of things which this text includes,
   but the time fails me; therefore I must spend the last minute or two in
   saying WHAT THIS TEXT EXCLUDES.

   What does it exclude! Well, I am sure it excludes boasting. "He that
   believeth is not condemned." Ah! if it said, "He that worketh is not
   condemned," then you and I might boast in any quantity. But when it
   says, "He that believeth,"--why, there is no room for us to say half a
   word for old self. No, Lord, if I am not condemned, it is thy free
   grace, for I have deserved to be condemned a thousand times since I
   have been in this pulpit to-night. When I am on my knees, and I am not
   condemned, I am sure it must be sovereign grace, for even when I am
   praying I deserve to be condemned. Even when we are repenting we are
   sinning, and adding to our sins while we are repenting of them. Every
   act we do, as the result of the flesh, is to sin again, and our best
   performances are so stained with sin, that it is hard to know whether
   they are good works or bad works. So far as they are our own, they are
   bad, and so far as they are the works of the Spirit they are good. But
   then the goodness is not ours, it is the Spirit's, and only the evil
   remains to us. Ah, then, we cannot boast! Begone, pride! begone! The
   Christian must be a humble man. If he lift up his head to say
   something, then he is nothing indeed. He does not know where he is, or
   where he stands, when he once begins to boast, as though his own right
   hand had gotten him the victory. Leave off boasting, Christian. Live
   humbly before thy God, and never let a word of self-congratulation
   escape thy lips. Sacrifice self, and let thy song be before the
   throne--"Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be glory forever."

   What next does the text exclude? Methinks it ought to exclude--now I am
   about to smite myself--it ought to exclude doubts and fears. "He that
   believeth is not condemned." How dare you and I draw such long faces,
   and go about as we do sometimes as though we had a world of cares upon
   our backs? What would I have given ten or eleven years ago if I could
   have known this text was sure to me, that I was not condemned. Why, I
   thought if I could feel I was once forgiven, and had to live on bread
   and water, and be locked up in a dungeon, and every day be flogged with
   a cat-o'-nine tails, I would gladly have accepted it, if I could have
   once felt my sins forgiven. Now you are a forgiven man, and yet you are
   cast down! Oh! shame on you. No condemnation! and yet miserable? Fie,
   Christian! Get thee up and wipe the tears from your eyes. Oh! if there
   be a person lying in gaol now, to be executed next week, if you could
   go to him and say, "You are pardoned," would he not spring up with
   delight from his seat; and although he might have lost his goods, and
   though it would be possible for him, after pardon, to have to suffer
   many things, yet, so long as life was spared, what would all this be to
   him? He would feel that it was less than nothing. Now, Christian, you
   are pardoned, your sins are all forgiven. Christ has said to you, "Thy
   sins, which are many, are all forgiven thee"--and art thou yet
   miserable? Well, if we must be so sometimes, let us make it as short as
   we can. If we must be sometimes cast down, let us ask the Lord to lift
   us up again. I am afraid some of us get into bad habits, and come to
   make it a matter of practice to be downcast. Mind, Christian, mind, it
   will grow upon you--that peevish spirit--if you do not come to God to
   turn these doubts and fears out of you, they will soon swarm upon you
   like flies in Egypt. When you are able to kill the first great doubt,
   you will perhaps kill a hundred; for one great doubt will breed a
   thousand, and to kill the mother is to kill the whole brood. Therefore,
   look with all thy eyes against the first doubt, lest thou shouldest
   become confirmed in thy despondency, and grow into sad despair. "He
   that believeth on him is not condemned." If this excludes boasting, it
   ought to exclude doubts too.

   Once more. "He that believeth on him is not condemned." This excludes
   sinning any more. My Lord, have I sinned against thee so many times,
   and yet hast thou freely forgiven me all? What stronger motive could I
   have for keeping me from sinning again? Ah, there are some who are
   saying this is licentious doctrine. A thousand devils rolled into one,
   must the man be who can find any licentiousness here. What! go and sin
   because I am forgiven? Go and live in iniquity because Jesus Christ
   took my guilt and suffered in my room and stead? Human nature is bad
   enough, but methinks this is the very worst state of human nature, when
   it tries to draw an argument for sin from the free grace of God. It is
   far harder to sin against the blood of Christ, and against a sense of
   pardon, than it is against the terrors of the law and the fear of hell
   itself. I know that when my soul is most alarmed by a dread of the
   wrath of God, I can sin with comfort compared with what I could when I
   have a sense of his love shed abroad in my heart. What more monstrous!
   to read your title clear, and sin? Oh, vile reprobate! you are on the
   borders of the deepest hell. But I am sure if you are a child of God,
   you will say when you have read your title clear, and feel yourself
   justified in Christ Jesus,

   "Now, for the love I bear his name,

   What was my gain, I count my loss;

   My former pride I call my shame,

   And nail my glory to his cross."

   Yes, and I must, and will esteem all things but loss for Jesus' sake. O
   may my soul be found in him, perfect in his righteousness! This will
   make you live near to him: this will make you like unto him. Do not
   think that this doctrine by dwelling on it will make you think lightly
   of sin. It will make you think of it as a hard and stern executioner to
   put Christ to death; as an awful load that could never be lifted from
   you except by the eternal arm of God; and then you will come to hate it
   with all your soul, because it is rebellion against a loving and
   gracious God, and you shall by this means, far better than by any
   Arminian doubts or any legal quibbles, be led to walk in the footsteps
   of your Lord Jesus, and to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.

   I think this whole sermon, though I have been preaching to the children
   of God, is meant for sinners too. Sinner, I would that thou didst say
   so. If you know this, that he that believeth is not condemned, then,
   sinner if thou believest, thou wilt not be condemned; and may all I
   have said to-night help you to this belief in thy soul. Oh, but sayest
   thou, "May I trust Christ?" As I said this morning, it is not a
   question of whether you may or may not, you are commanded. The
   Scripture commands the gospel to be preached to every creature, and the
   gospel is--"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
   I know you will be too proud to do it, unless God by his grace should
   humble you. But if ye feel to-night that you are nothing and have
   nothing of your own, I think you will be right glad to take Christ to
   be your all-in-all. If you can say with poor Jack the Huckster,--

   "I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all,"

   You may go on and say with him, this night,

   "But Jesus Christ is my all in all."

   God grant that it may be so, for his name's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                       The First Sermon in the Tabernacle

   A Sermon

   (No. 369)

   Delivered on Monday Afternoon, March 25th, 1861 by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   "And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach
   and preach Jesus Christ."--Acts 5:42.

   I DO not know whether there are any persons here present who can
   contrive to put themselves into my present position, and to feel my
   present feelings. If they can effect that, they will give me credit for
   meaning what I say, when I declare that I feel totally unable to
   preach. And, indeed, I think I shall scarcely attempt a sermon, but
   rather give a sort of declaration of the truths from which future
   sermons shall be made. I will give you bullion rather than coin; the
   block from the quarry, and not the statue from the chisel. It appears
   that the one subject upon which men preached in the apostolic age was
   Jesus Christ. The tendency of man, if left alone, is continually to go
   further and further from God, and the Church of God itself is no
   exception to the general rule. For the first few years, during and
   after the apostolic era, Christ Jesus was preached, but gradually the
   Church departed from the central point, and began rather to preach
   ceremonials and church offices than the person of their Lord. So has it
   been in these modern times: we also have fallen into the same error, at
   least to a degree, and have gone from preaching Christ to preaching
   doctrines about Christ, inferences which may be drawn from his life, or
   definitions which may be gathered from his discourses. We are not
   content to stand like angels in the sun; our fancies disturb our rest
   and must needs fly on the sunbeams, further and further from the
   glorious source of light. In the days of Paul it was not difficult at
   once, in one word, to give the sum and substance of the current
   theology. It was Christ Jesus. Had you asked anyone of those disciples
   what he believed, he would have replied, "I believe Christ." If you had
   requested him to show you his Body of Divinity, he would have pointed
   upward, reminding you that divinity never had but one body, the
   suffering and crucified human frame of Jesus Christ, who ascended up on
   high. To them, Christ was not a notion refined, but unsubstantial; not
   an historical personage who had left only the savour of his character
   behind, but whose person was dead; to them he was not a set of ideas,
   not a creed, nor an incarnation of an abstract theory; but he was a
   person, one whom some of them had seen, whose hands they had handled,
   nay, one of whose flesh they had all been made to eat, and of whose
   blood they had spiritually been made to drink. Christ was substance to
   them, I fear he is too often but shadow to us. He was a reality to
   their minds; to us--though, perhaps, we would scarcely allow it in so
   many words--rather a myth than a man; rather a person who was, than he
   who was, and is, and is to come--the Almighty.

   I would propose (and O may the Lord grant us grace to carry out that
   proposition, from which no Christian can dissent), I would propose that
   the subject of the ministry of this house, as long as this platform
   shall stand, and as long as this house shall be frequented by
   worshippers, shall be the person of Jesus Christ. I am never ashamed to
   avow myself a Calvinist, although I claim to be rather a Calvinist
   according to Calvin, than after the modern debased fashion. I do not
   hesitate to take the name of Baptist. You have there (pointing to the
   baptistery) substantial evidence that I am not ashamed of that
   ordinance of our Lord Jesus Christ; but if I am asked to say what is my
   creed, I think I must reply: "It is Jesus Christ." My venerable
   predecessor, Dr. Gill, has left a body of divinity admirable and
   excellent in its way; but the body of divinity to which I would pin and
   bind myself for ever, God helping me, is not his system of divinity or
   any other human treatise, but Christ Jesus, who is the sum and
   substance of the gospel; who is in himself all theology, the
   incarnation of every precious truth, the all-glorious personal
   embodiment of the way, the truth, and the life.

   This afternoon I will try to describe the subject, Christ Jesus; then,
   secondly, to speak for a little while upon its comprehensiveness; then
   to enlarge upon sundry of its excellencies; and conclude by testing its
   power.

   I. First, then, the SUBJECT.

   They continued both to teach and preach Jesus Christ. To preach Jesus
   Christ aright we must preach him in his infinite and indisputable
   Godhead. We may be attacked by philosophers, who will either make him
   no God at all, or one constituted temporarily and, I must add, absurdly
   a God for a season. We shall have at once upon us those who view Christ
   as a prophet, as a great man, as an admirable exemplar; we shall be
   assailed on all sides by those who choose rather to draw their divinity
   from their own addled brains than from the simplicity of Holy Writ; but
   what mattereth this? We must reiterate again and again the absolute and
   proper deity of Christ; for without this we are in the position of
   those described by the prophet:--"Their tacklings are loosed, they
   could not well strengthen their mast" and soon will our enemies prevail
   against us, and the prey of a great spoil shall be taken. Take away the
   divinity of Christ from the gospel, and you have nothing whatever left
   upon which the anxious soul can rest. Remove the Word who was in the
   beginning with God, and who was God, and the Jachin and Boaz of the
   temple are overturned. Without a divine Saviour, your gospel is a rope
   of sand; a bubble; a something less substantial than a dream. If Christ
   were not God, he was the basest of impostors. He was either one of two
   things, very God of very God, or else an arch-deceiver of the souls of
   men, for he made many of them believe he was God, and brought upon
   himself the consequences of what they called blasphemy; so that if he
   were not God, he was the greatest deceiver that ever lived. But God he
   is; and here, in this house, we must and will adore him. With the
   multitude of his redeemed we will sing:

   "Jesus is worthy to receive,

   Honour and power divine,

   And blessings more, than we can give

   Be Lord for ever thine."

   To preach Christ, however, we must also preach his true humanity. We
   must never make him to be less manlike because he was perfectly divine.
   I love that hymn of Hart which begins--

   "A man there was--a real man,

   Who once on Calvary died."

   "Real man!" I think we do not often realize that manhood of Christ; we
   do not see that he was bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh;
   feeling, thinking, acting, suffering, doing, just like ourselves--one
   of our fellows, and only above us because he is "exalted with the oil
   of gladness above his fellows." We must have a human Christ, and we
   must have one of real flesh and blood too; not of shadows or filmy
   fancies. We must have one to whom we can talk, one with whom we can
   walk, one

   "Who in his measure feels afresh

   What every member bears;"

   who is so intimately connected with us in ties of blood, that he is as
   with us one, the head of the family, first-born among many brethren. I
   am never more glad than when I am preaching a personal Christ. A
   doctrinal Christ, a practical Christ, or an experimental Christ, as
   some good men make him to be according to the temper of their minds, I
   do not feel to be sufficient for the people of God. We want a personal
   Christ. This has been a power to the Romish church--a power which they
   have used for ill, but always a power; they have had a personal Christ,
   but then it has either been a baby Christ in his mother's arms, or else
   a dead Christ upon the cross. They never reached the force of a real
   full-grown Christ, one who not only lived and suffered, but who died
   and rose again, and sits at the right hand of God, the Head of the
   Church, the one ruler of men. Oh! we must bring out more and more
   clearly each day the real personality of the Redeemer in his complex
   person. Whatever we fail to preach, we must preach him. If we are wrong
   in many points, if we be but right here, this will save our ministry
   from the flames; but if we be wrong here, however orthodox we may
   pretend to be, we cannot be right in the rest unless we think rightly
   of him.

   But, further, to preach Christ Jesus, it is absolutely necessary we
   should preach him as the only mediator between God and man. Admitting
   the efficacy of the intercession of living saints for sinners, never
   for a moment denying that every man is bound to make supplication for
   all ranks and conditions of men, yet must we have it that the only
   mediator in the heavens, and the only direct intercessor with God, is
   the man Christ Jesus. Nay, we must not be content with making him the
   only mediator; we must set aside all approach to God in any way
   whatever, except by him. We must not only have him for the priest, but
   we must have him for the altar, the victim, and the offerer too. We
   must learn in full the meaning of that precious text--"Christ is all."
   We must not see a part of the types here and a part there, but all
   gathered up in him, the one door of heaven, the one crimson way by
   which our souls approach to God. We must not allow that approaches can
   be made in human strength, by human learning, or by human effort; but
   in him and through him, and by him, and in dependence upon him, must
   all be done between God and man. We have no wings, my brethren, with
   which to fly to heaven; our journey thither must be on the rounds
   [rungs] of Jacob's ladder. We cannot approach God by anything we have,
   or know, or do. Christ crucified, and he alone, must lift us up to God.

   And more, we must preach Christ in the solitariness of his redemption
   work. We must not permit for a moment the fair white linen of his
   righteousness to be stained by the patch-work of our filthy rags. We
   must not submit that the precious blood of his veins should be diluted
   by any offering of ours co-acting therewith, for our salvation. He
   hath, by one sacrifice, for ever put away sin. We shall never preach
   Christ unless we have a real atonement. There be certain people
   nowadays who are making the atonement, first a sort of compromise, and
   the next step is to make the atonement a display of what ought to have
   been, instead of the thing which should have been. Then, next, there
   are some who make it to be a mere picture, an exhibition, a shadow--a
   shadow, the substance of which they have not seen. And the day will
   come, and there are sundry traces of it here and there, in which in
   some churches the atonement shall be utterly denied, and yet men shall
   call themselves Christians, while they have broken themselves against
   the corner-stone of the entire system. I have no kith nor kin, nor
   friendship, nor Christian amity, with any man whatever who claims to be
   a Christian and yet denies the atonement. There is a limit to the
   charity of Christians, and there can be none whatever entertained to
   the man who is dishonest enough to occupy a Christian pulpit and to
   deny Christ. It is only in the Christian church that such a thing can
   be tolerated. I appeal to you. Was there ever known a Buddhist
   acknowledged in the temple of Buddha who denied the basis doctrine of
   the sect? Was there ever known a Mahomadan Imaum who was sanctioned in
   the mosque while he cried down the Prophet? It remains for Christian
   churches only to have in their midst men who can bear the name of
   Christian, who can even venture to be Christian teachers, while they
   slander the Deity of him who is the Christian's God, and speak lightly
   of the efficacy of his blood who is the Christian's atonement. May this
   deadly cancer be cut out root and branch; and whatever tearing of the
   flesh there may be, better cut it out with a jagged knife than suffer
   to exist because no lancet is to be found to do it daintily. We must
   have, then, Christ in the efficacy of his precious blood as the only
   Redeemer of the souls of men, and as the only mediator, who, without
   assistance of ours, has brought us to God and made reconciliation
   through his blood.

   Our ministry will scarcely be complete unless we preach Christ as the
   only lawgiver and Rabbi of the Church. When you put it down as a canon
   of your faith that the church has right and power to decree rites and
   ceremonies, you have robbed Christ at once of his proper position as
   the only teacher of the church. Or when you claim the office of
   controlling other men's consciences by the decree of the church, or the
   vote of a synod, apart from the authority of Christ, you have taken
   away from Christ that chair which he occupies in the Christian church,
   as the teacher in the great Christian school, as the Rabbi, and the
   only Rabbi, of our faith. God forbid that we should hold a single truth
   except on his authority. Let not our faith stand in the wisdom of man,
   but in the power of God. You refer me to the writings of Doctor this
   and Doctor the other: what are these? The words of Christ, these are
   truth, and these are wisdom. You bring me authority from the practice
   of a church three or four centuries removed from the crucifixion as the
   proof of the existence of a certain ceremony and the righteousness of
   certain ecclesiastical offices. What is your proof worth? If Christ
   hath not specially ordained it, and if he hath not commanded his people
   to obey it, of what value is any rite whatever? We acknowledge Christ
   as ordaining all things for his church, and presenting that church with
   a finished code of laws, from which any deviation is a sin, and to
   which any addition is a high crime. Any church officer who is not
   ordained of Christ occupies an office which he ought to resign. Any
   person who practices a ceremony for which he has not scriptural
   authority should renounce it; and any man who preaches a doctrine for
   which he has not Christ as his certifier, should not demand for it the
   faith of men.

   But I fear there are times coming when the minister will not be true to
   his duty unless he goes further, and preaches Christ as the sole King
   of the Church. There has been a disposition on the part of the state,
   especially with regard to the Free Church of Scotland, to exercise
   power and judgement over church decrees. No king, no queen that ever
   lived, or can live, has any authority whatever over the church of
   Christ. The church has none to govern and rule over her but her Lord
   and her King. The church can suffer, but she cannot yield; you may
   break her confessors alive upon the wheel, but she, in her uprightness,
   will neither bend nor bow. From the sentence of our church there is no
   appeal whatever on earth. To the court of heaven a man may appeal if
   the sentence of the church be wrong, but to Caesar never. Neither the
   best nor the worst of kings or queens may ever dare to put their finger
   upon the prerogative of Christ as the head of the church. Up, church of
   God! If once there be any laws of man passed to govern thee, up, dash
   them in pieces! Let us each catch up the war cry, and uplift the lion
   standard of the tribe of Judah; let us challenge the kings of the earth
   and say, "Who shall rouse him up?" The church is queen above all
   queens, and Christ her only King. None have jurisdiction or power in
   the church of Christ save Jesus Christ himself. If any of our acts
   violate the civil laws, we are men and citizens, and we acknowledge the
   right of a state to govern us as individuals. None of us wish to be
   less subjects of the realm because we are kings and priests unto God.
   But as members of Christian churches we maintain that the
   excommunication of a Christian church can never be reversed by the
   civil power, or by any state act, nor are its censures to be examined,
   much less to be removed, mitigated, or even judged. We must have, as
   Christ's church, a full recognition of his imperial rights, and the day
   will come when the state will not only tolerate us as a mere society,
   but admit that as we profess to be the church of Christ, we have a
   right by that very fact to be self-governing, and never to be
   interfered with in any sense whatever, so far as our ecclesiastical
   affairs are concerned.

   Christ must be preached, then, and exalted in all these respects, or
   else we have not preached a full Christ; but I go one step further. We
   have not yet mounted to the full height of our ministry unless we learn
   to preach Christ as the King of kings. He has an absolute right to the
   entire dominion of this world. The Christian minister, as ordained of
   God to preach, has a perfect right in God's name to preach upon any
   subject touching the Lord's kingdom, and to rebuke and exhort even the
   greatest of men. Sometimes I have heard it said, when we have canvassed
   the acts of an emperor or senator, "These are politics;" but Christ is
   King of politics as well as theology. "Oh! but"--say they--"what have
   you to do with what the state does?" Why, just this: that Christ is the
   head of all states, and while the state has no authority over the
   church, yet Christ himself is King of kings, and Lord of lords. Oh,
   that the church would put her diadem upon her head, and take her right
   position! We are not slaves. The church of God is not a grovelling
   corporation bound for ever to sit upon a dunghill; never queen was so
   fair as she, and never robe so rich as the purple which she wears.
   Arise, O Church! arise, the earth is thine; claim it. Send out thy
   missionary, not as a petitioner to creep at the feet of princes, but as
   an ambassador for God to make peace between God and man. Send him out
   to claim the possession which belongs to thee, and which God has given
   to thee to be thine for ever and ever, by a right which kings may
   dispute, but which one day every one of them shall acknowledge.

   The fact is, we must bring Christ himself back into camp once more. It
   is of little use having our true Jerusalem swords, and the shields, and
   the banners, and the trumpets, and the drums; we want the King himself
   in the midst of us. More and more of a personal Christ is the great
   lack of the time. I would not wish for less doctrine, less experience,
   or less practice, but more of all this put into Christ, and Christ
   preached as the sum and substance of it all.

   II. But, secondly, I am now to speak, for a short time, upon the
   COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE SUBJECT which the text announces.

   It is an old and trite saying that the ministers of the gospel may be
   divided into three kinds--the doctrinal, the experimental, and the
   practical. The saying is so often repeated that very few would
   contradict it. But it betrays at once, if it be true, the absence and
   lack of a something essentially necessary for the church's success.
   Where is the preacher of Christ out of these? I propound this, that if
   a man be found a preacher of Christ, he is doctrinal, experimental, and
   practical. The doctrinal preacher generally has a limited range. He is
   useful, exceedingly useful; God constitutes him a barrier against the
   innovations of the times: he preaches upon his subjects so frequently
   that he is well versed in them, and becomes one of the armed men about
   the bed of Solomon. But suppose the doctrinal preacher should have it
   all his own way, and there should be none others at all, what would be
   the effect? See it in our Baptist churches about one hundred and fifty
   years ago. They were all sound and sound asleep. Those doctrines had
   preached them into a lethargy, and had is not been for some few who
   started up and proposed the missions for the heathen, and who found but
   little sympathy at first, the church would have been utterly inactive.
   Now, I would not be hard with any, but there are some brethren still
   whose preaching might justly be summed up as being doctrinal, nothing
   more than doctrinal, and what is the effect of their ministry?
   Bitterness. They learn to contend not only earnestly for the faith, but
   savagely for it. Certainly we admire their earnestness, and we thank
   God for their soundness, but we wish there were mingled with their
   doctrine a somewhat else which might tone down their severity and make
   them seek rather the unity and fellowship of the saints than the
   division and discord which they labour to create.

   Again, I will refer you to the next class of preachers, the
   experimental. How delightful it is to sit under an experimental
   preacher! Perhaps of all ministries this one is the most useful, he who
   preaches the doubts, the fears, the joys, the ecstasies of the people
   of God. How often do the saints see the footsteps of the flock, and
   then they find the shepherd under an experimental minister! But do you
   know the effect of an experimental minister, purely so, I mean, when
   all else is put aside to make room for experience? There is one school
   of divines always preaching the corruption of the human heart. This is
   their style; "Except thou be flayed alive by the law; except thou art
   daily feeling the utter rottenness of thine heart; except than art a
   stranger to full assurance, and dost always doubt and fear; except thou
   abidest on the dunghill and dost scrape thyself with a potsherd, thou
   art no child of God." Who told you that? This has been the preaching of
   some experimental preachers, and the effect has been just this. Men
   have come to think the deformities of God's people to be their beauty.
   They are like certain courtiers of the reign of Richard III, who is
   said by history to have had a hump upon his back and his admirers
   stuffed their backs that they might have a graceful hump too. And there
   be many who, because a minister preaches of doubts and fears, feel they
   must doubt and fear too; and then that which is both uncomfortable to
   themselves and dishonouring to God comes to be the very mark of God's
   people. This is the tendency of experimental preaching, however
   judiciously managed, when ministers harp on that string and on that
   alone; the tendency is either to preach the people into a soft and
   savoury state, in which there is not a bit of manliness or might, or
   else into that dead and rotten state in which corruption outswells
   communion, and the savour is not the perfume of the king's ointments,
   but the stench of a corrupt and filthy heart.

   Take also the practical preacher; who would say a word against this
   good man? He stirs the people up, excites the children of God to holy
   duties, promotes every excellent object, and is in his way an admirable
   supplement to the two other kinds of ministers. But sit under she
   practical preacher; sit under him all the year round and listen to his
   people as they come out. There is one who says, "the same thing over
   again--Do, do, do, nothing but do." There is a poor sinner yonder just
   gone down the front steps. Follow him, "Oh," says he, "I came here to
   find out what Christ could do for me, and I have only been told what I
   must do for myself" Now this it a great evil, and persons who sit under
   such a ministry become lean, starvelling things. I would that practical
   preachers would listen to our farmers, who always say it is better to
   put the whip in the manger than upon the horse's back. Let them feed
   the people with food convenient for them, and they will be practical
   enough; but all practice and no promise, all exhortation and no sound
   doctrine, will never make the man of God perfect and zealous for good
   works.

   But what am I driving at in bringing up these three sorts of ministers?
   Why just this: to show you that there is one minister who can preach
   all this, without the dangers of any one of the others, but with the
   excellencies of the whole. And who is he? Why, any man in the world who
   preaches Christ. If he preaches Christ's person he must preach
   doctrine. If I preach Christ I must preach him as the covenant head of
   his people, and how far am I then from the doctrine of election? If I
   preach Christ I must preach the efficacy of his blood, and how far am I
   removed then from the great doctrine of an effectual atonement? If I
   preach Christ I must preach the love of his heart, and how can I deny
   the final perseverance of the saints? If I preach the Lord Jesus as the
   great Head and King, how far am I removed from divine Sovereignty? Must
   I not, if I preach Christ personally, preach his doctrines? I believe
   they are nothing but the natural outgrowth of that great root thought,
   or root substance rather, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He who
   will preach Christ fully will never be lax in doctrine. And what better
   experience can you preach than in preaching Christ? Would you preach
   the sufferings of the saints, preach his agony and bloody sweat, his
   cross and passion; for the true sufferings of the saints are in
   fellowship with him. If you would preach their joys, preach his
   resurrection, his ascension, and his advent; you are never far from the
   joys of the saints when you are near to the joys of Christ; for did not
   he say, "My joy shall be in them that their joy may be full"? And what
   better practice can be preached than preaching Christ? Of every virtue
   he is the pattern; of the perfection of human character he is the very
   mirror; of everything that is holy and of good report, he is the
   abiding incarnation. He cannot fail, then, to be a good doctrinal,
   experimental, practical preacher, who preaches Christ. Did you ever
   know a congregation grow less spiritual by a minister preaching Christ?
   Did you ever know them get full of doubts and fears by preaching
   Christ? Did you ever hear of their getting lax in sentiment by his
   preaching Christ? Did you ever hear a whisper that men became unholy in
   their lives because they heard too much about Christ? I think that all
   the excellencies of all ministers may be gathered up into the teaching
   of the man who can preach Christ every day in the week, while there
   will not be any of the evils connected with the other forms of
   preaching.

   III. I shall now pass onto notice some of the surpassing excellencies
   of the subject

   First, he will always have a blessed variety in his preaching. In
   Australia I have heard that the only change for the backwoodsmen is to
   have one day damper [unleavened cake baked in wood ashes), tea, and
   bread; the next day, bread, damper, and tea; and the next day, tea,
   bread, and damper. The only variety some ministers give, is one Sunday
   to have depravity, election, and perseverance, and the next Sunday,
   election, perseverance, and depravity. There are many strings to the
   harp of the gospel. There are some brethren who are so rightly charmed
   with five of the strings, which certainly have very rich music in them,
   that they never meddle with any of the other strings; the cobwebs hang
   on the rest, while these five are pretty well worn out. It is always
   pretty much the same thing from the first of January to the last of
   December. Their organ has very few keys, and upon these they may make a
   very blessed variety, but I think not a very extensive one. Any man who
   preaches Christ will ensure variety in his preaching. He is all manner
   of precious perfume, myrrh, and aloes, and cassia. He is all sorts of
   music, he is everything that is sweet to the ear; he is all manner of
   fruits; there is not one dainty in him but many. This tree of life
   bears twelve manner of fruits. He is all manner of raiment; he is
   golden raiment for beauty, he is the warm raiment for comfort, he is
   the stout raiment for harness in the day of battle. There are all
   things in Christ, and he that hath Christ will have as great a variety
   as there is to be found in the scenery of the world where are no two
   rocks alike, and no two rivers wind in precisely the same manner, and
   no two trees grow in precisely the same form. Any other subject you may
   preach upon till your hearers feel satiety; but with Christ for a
   subject, you may go on, and on, and on, till the sermon swells into the
   eternal song, and you begin to sing, "Unto him that loved us and washed
   us from our sins in his own blood."

   There is yet another excellence about this subject, namely, that it
   suits all sorts of people. Are there rebels present? Preach Christ; it
   will suit them. Are there pardoned sinners present? What is better, to
   melt their hearts than the blood of the Lord Jesus. Are there doubting
   Christians? What can cheer them better than the name of Christ. Are
   there strong believers? What is stronger meat than Jesus crucified? Are
   there learned, polite, intellectual hearers? If they are not satisfied
   with Christ, they ought to be. Are there poor, ignorant, unlettered
   men? Jesus Christ is just the thing to preach to them--a naked Christ
   to their simple ears. Jesus Christ is a topic that will keep in all
   climates. Land in New Zealand in the midst of uncivilised men, move off
   to another post and stand in the midst of poetical Persia or fickle
   France, the cross is adapted to all. We need not inquire into the
   doctrinal opinion of our hearers. If they are high, I am sure Christ
   will suit them. If they are low, if they be true believers, I am sure
   Christ Jesus will suit them. No Christians will reject such meat as
   this; only prepare it, and with a hot heart serve it up on the table,
   and they will be satisfied and feed to the full. So that there is
   adaptation as well as variety in this subject.

   IV. But more than this, I must add, and this will bring me to my last
   point, for my time flies--there is a power about this subject when it
   is preached with the demonstration of the Spirit, which is not found in
   any other. My brethren, what power there is in this subject to promote
   the union of the people of God! There is a man there, he is almost a
   Puseyite. "I do not like him," says one. Stop till I tell you something
   more about him, and you will. There is another man there, a
   Presbyterian--true blue; he cannot bear Independency, or anything but
   Presbytery--a covenant man. "Well," says one, "I like him a little
   better; but I do not suppose we shall get on very well." Stop! I will
   tell you some more about him. There is another man down there; he is a
   very strong Calvinist. "Humph," says one, "I shall not admire him."
   Stop, stop! Now, here are these three men; let us hear what they say of
   each other. If they know nothing of each other except what I have
   stated, the first time they meet there will be a magnificent quarrel.
   There is yonder clergyman--he will have little fraternity whatever with
   the ultra-Evangelical; while the Presbyterian will reject them both,
   for he abhors black prelacy. But, my dear brethren, all three of you,
   we of this congregation will approve of you all, and you will approve
   of one another when I have stated your true character. That man yonder,
   whom I called almost a Puseyite, was George Herbert. How he loved the
   doornails of the church! I think he would scarce have had a spider
   killed that had once crept across the church aisles. He was a thorough
   churchman, to the very centre of the marrow of his bones; but what a
   Christian! What a lover of his sweet Lord Jesus! You know that hymn of
   his which I have so often quoted, and mean to quote a hundred times
   more: "How sweetly doth my Master's sound," and so forth. I hear a
   knock at the door. "Who is that?" "Why, it is a very strong churchman."
   "Do not show him in; I am at prayer; I cannot pray with him." "Oh, but
   it is George Herbert!" "Oh, let him in, let him in! No man could I pray
   better with than Mr. Herbert. Walk in, Mr. Herbert; we are right glad
   to see you; you are our dear companion; your hymns have made us glad."

   But who was that second man, the Presbyterian, who would not have liked
   George Herbert at all? Why, that was Samuel Rutherford. What a seraphic
   spirit! What splendid metaphors he uses about his sweet Lord Jesus! He
   has written all Solomon's Song over without knowing it. He felt and
   proved it to be divine. The Spirit in him re-dictated the song. Well
   now, I think, we will introduce Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Herbert
   together, and I am persuaded when they begin to speak about their
   Master they will find each other next of kin; and I feel sure that, by
   this time, Samuel Rutherford and George Herbert have found each other
   out in heaven, and are sitting side by side. Well, but then we
   mentioned another; who was that high Calvinist? He was the man who was
   called the Leviathan of Antinomians. That he was a leviathan I will
   grant, but that he was an Antinomian is false. It was Dr. Hawker. Now,
   I am sure, George Herbert would not have liked Dr. Hawker, and I am
   certain that Dr. Hawker would not have liked George Herbert, and I do
   not suppose that Samuel Rutherford would have had anything to do with
   either of them. "No, no," he would say, "your black prelacy I hate."
   But look at Hawker, there is a sweet spirit; he cannot take up his pen
   but he dips it in Christ, and begins to write about his Lord at once
   "Precious Immanuel--precious Jesus." Those words in his morning and
   evening portions are repeated again and again, and again. I recollect
   hearing of Mr. Rowland Hill, that he said to a young man who was at tea
   with him one night when he was about to go:--"Where are you going to?"
   "Oh!" said he, "I am going to hear Dr. Hawker, at St. George's in the
   Borough." "Oh, go and hear him," he said; "he is a right good man,
   worth hearing. But there is this difference between him and me; my
   preaching is something like a pudding, with here and there a plum; but
   Dr. Hawker's is all plum." And that was very near the mark, because Dr.
   Hawker was all Christ. He was constantly preaching of his Master; and
   even if he gave an invitation to a sinner, it was generally put in this
   way: "What sayest thou? Wilt thou go with this man, and be married and
   espoused unto him? It was the preaching of a personal Christ that made
   his ministry so full of marrow and fatness.

   My dear friends, let a man stand up and exalt Christ, and we are all
   agreed. I see before me this afternoon members of all Christian
   denominations; but if Christ Jesus is not the topic that suits you, why
   then I think we may question your Christianity. The more Christ is
   preached, the more will the Church prove, and exhibit, and assert, and
   maintain her unity; but the less Christ is preached, and the more of
   Paul, and Apollos, and Cephas, the more of strife and division, and the
   less of true Christian fellowship.

   We will only mention the power of the preaching of Christ upon the
   heart of sinners. There is a person, now a member of my church, whose
   conversion was owing to the reading of that hymn:

   "Jesus, lover of my soul."

   "Ah," said he "does Jesus love my soul? Then how vile I have been to
   neglect him." There are scores whose conversion is distinctly and
   directly traceable, not to doctrine--though that is often useful--nor
   experience, nor practice, though these are fruitful, but to the
   preaching of Christ. I think you will find the most fertile sermons
   have always been the most Christly sermons. This is a seed which seldom
   rots under the clod. One may fall upon the stony ground, but it oftener
   happens that the seed breaks the stone when it falls, and as Christ is
   a root out of a dry ground, so this finds root for itself even in dry,
   hard, stony hearts. We ought to preach the law, we ought to thunder out
   the threatenings of God, but they must never be the main topic. Christ,
   Christ, Christ, if we would have men converted. Do you want to convince
   yonder careless one? Tell him the story of the cross. Under God it will
   arrest his attention and awaken his thoughts. Would you subdue the
   carnal affections of yonder profligate? Preach the love of Christ, and
   that new love shall uproot the old. Would you bind up yonder broken
   heart? Bring forth Christ, for in him there is a cordial for every
   fear. Christ is preached and we do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice "for
   he is the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth."
   Judge not, my dear brethren, any man's ministry. The world has too
   often condemned the man whom God intended to honour. Say not of such an
   one "He can do no good, for his language is rough and rude." Say not of
   another that his style is too often marred with flippancy. Say not of a
   third that he is too erudite or soars too high. Every man in his own
   order. If that man preach Christ, whether he be Paul, or Apollos, or
   Cephas, we wish him God speed; for God will bless the Christ he
   preaches, and forgive the error which mingled with his ministry. I must
   even frankly admit the truth of many a criticism that has been uttered
   on my ministry, but I know it has been successful, and under God it has
   been, because I have sought to preach Christ. I say that without
   boasting or egotism, because if I had not done so I had no right so be
   a minister of Christ at all, and as I claim to be God's minister, I
   will and must declare it, whatever I have not preached, I have preached
   Christ, and into whatever mistakes I have fallen, I have sought to
   point to his cross, and say, "Behold the way to God." And if ye see
   others preaching Christ, be not you their foe. Pray for them; bear them
   in your arms before God; their errors may yet be outgrown, if they
   preach Christ; but if not, I care not what their excellency may be, the
   excellency shall die and expire like sparks that go out in darkness.
   They have not the fuel of the flame, for they have not Christ Jesus as
   the substance of their ministry.

   May I entreat, in closing, your earnest prayer, each one of you, that
   in this house as well as in all the places of worship round about,
   Christ may evermore be preached, and I may add my own sincere desire
   that this place may become a hissing and the abode of dragons, and this
   pulpit be burned with fire, or ever any other gospel be preached here
   than that which we have received of the holy apostles of God; and of
   which Jesus Christ himself is the chief corner stone. Let me have your
   incessant prayers. May God speed every minister of Christ. But where
   there is so large a field of labour may I claim your earnest and
   constant intercessions, that where Christ is lifted up, men may be
   drawn to hear, and afterwards drawn to believe, that they may find
   Christ the Saviour of our souls. "He that believeth, and is baptized,
   shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned." "Repent and be
   converted, every one of you," said Peter. Yet again said Paul to the
   jailer, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, and thy
   house." God give us grace to believe, and unto him be glory for ever
   and ever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                      Exposition of the Doctrines of Grace

   Nos. 385-88.

   Thursday, April 11th, 1861.

   EDITOR'S NOTE: These messages are part of the inaugural ceremonies held
   at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, when it first opened. Spurgeon
   had already preached the first sermons there, beginning March 25, while
   the building was not yet quite finished. This, however, was the
   official opening ceremony, and Spurgeon presided, choosing several
   fellow pastors to expound the doctrines of Calvinism. This guide is
   offered the reader wishing to follow the familiar TULIP acronym:

   ? Total depravity--"Human Depravity," by Evan Probert (message 2).

   ? Unconditional Election--"Election", by John Bloomfield (message 1).

   ? Limited Atonement--"Particular Redemption," by J. A. Spurgeon
   (message 3).

   ? Irresistible Grace--"Effectual Calling," by James Smith (message 4).

   ? Perseverance of the Saints--"The Final Perseverance of Believers in
   Christ Jesus," by William O'Neill (message 5).

   The Rev. C. H. SPURGEON took the chair at 3 o'clock.

   The proceedings were commenced by singing the 21st Hymn--

   Saved from the damning power of sin,

   The law's tremendous curse,

   We'll now the sacred song begin

   Where God began with us.

   We'll sing the vast unmeasured grace

   Which, from the days of old,

   Did all his chosen sons embrace,

   As sheep within the fold.

   The basis of eternal love

   Shall mercy's frame sustain;

   Earth, hell, or sin, the same to move

   Shall all conspire in vain.

   Sing, O ye sinners bought with blood,

   Hail the Great Three in One;

   Tell how secure the cov'nant stood

   Ere time its race begun.

   Ne'er had ye felt the guilt of sin,

   Nor sweets of pard'ning love,

   Unless your worthless names had been

   Enroll'd to life above.

   O what a sweet exalted son

   Shall rend the vaulted skies,

   When, shouting, grace, the blood-wash'd throng

   Shall see the Top Stone rise.

   The Rev. George Wyard, of Deptford, offered prayer.

   The REV. C. H. Spurgeon in opening the proceedings said, we have met
   together beneath this roof already to set forth most of those truths in
   which consists the peculiarity of this Church. Last evening we
   endeavoured to show to the world, that we heartily recognised the
   essential union of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now, this
   afternoon and evening, it is our intention, through the lips of our
   brethren, to set forth those things which are verily received among us,
   and especially those great points which have been so often attacked,
   but which are still upheld and maintained,--truths which we have proved
   in our experience to be full of grace and truth. My only business upon
   this occasion is to introduce the brethren who shall address you, and I
   shall do so as briefly as possible, making what I shall say a preface
   to their remarks.

   The controversy which has been carried on between the Calvinist and the
   Arminian is exceedingly important, but it does not so involve the vital
   point of personal godliness as to make eternal life depend upon our
   holding either system of theology. Between the Protestant and the
   Papist there is a controversy of such a character, that he who is saved
   on the one side by faith in Jesus, dare not allow that his opponent on
   the opposite side can be saved while depending on his own works. There
   the controversy is for life or death, because it hinges mainly upon the
   doctrine of justification by faith, which Luther so properly called the
   test doctrine, by which a Church either stands or falls. The
   controversy again between the believer in Christ and the Socinian, is
   one which affects a vital point. If the Socinian be right, we are most
   frightfully in error; we are, in fact, idolaters, and how dwelleth
   eternal life in us? and if we be right, our largest charity will not
   permit us to imagine that a man can enter heaven who does not believe
   the real divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are other
   controversies which thus cut at the very core, and touch the very
   essence of the whole subject. But, I think we are free to admit, that
   while John Wesley, for instance, in modern times zealously defended
   Arminianism, and on the other hand, George Whitfield with equal fervour
   fought for Calvinism, we should not be prepared either of us, on either
   side of the question, to deny the vital godliness of either the one or
   the other. We cannot shut our eyes to what we believe to be the gross
   mistakes of our opponents, and should think ourselves unworthy of the
   name of honest men, if we could admit that they are right in all things
   and ourselves right too. An honest man has an intellect which does not
   permit him to believe that "yes" and "no" can both subsist at the same
   hour and both be true. I cannot say, "It is," and my brother point
   blank say, "It is not," and yet both of us be right on that point. We
   are willing to admit, in fact, we dare not do otherwise, that opinion
   upon this controversy does not determine the future of even the present
   state of any man; but still, we think it to be so important, that in
   maintaining our views, we advance with all courage and fervency if
   spirit, believing that we are doing God's work and upholding most
   important truth. It may not be misunderstood, we only use the term for
   shortness. That doctrine which is called "Calvinism" did not spring
   from Calvin; we believe that it sprang from the great founder of all
   truth. Perhaps Calvin himself derived it mainly from the writings of
   Augustine. Augustine obtained his views, without doubt, through the
   Spirit of God, from the diligent study of the writings of Paul, and
   Paul received them of the Holy Ghost, from Jesus Christ the great
   founder of the Christian dispensation. We use the term then, not
   because we impute any extraordinary importance to Calvin's having
   taught these doctrines. We would be just as willing to call them by any
   other name, if we could find one which would be better understood, and
   which on the whole would be as consistent with fact. And then again,
   this afternoon, we shall have very likely to speak of Arminians, and by
   that, we would not for a moment insinuate that all who are in
   membership with the Arminian body, hold those particular views. There
   are Calvinists in connection with Calvinistic Churches, who are not
   Calvinistic, bearing the name but discarding the system. There are, on
   the other hand, not a few in the Methodist Churches, who, in most
   points perfectly agree with us, and I believe that if the matter came
   to be thoroughly sifted, it would be found that we are more agreed in
   our private opinions than in our public confessions, and our devotional
   religion is more uniform than our theology. For instance, Mr. Wesley's
   hymn-book, which may be looked upon as being the standard of his
   divinity, has in it upon some topics higher Calvinism than many books
   used by ourselves. I have been exceedingly struck with the very
   forcible expressions there used, some of which I might have hesitated
   to employ myself. I shall ask your attention while I quote verses from
   the hymns of Mr. Wesley, which we can all endorse as fully and plainly
   in harmony with the doctrines of grace, far more so than the preaching
   of some modern Calvinists. I do this because our low-doctrine Baptists
   and Morisonians ought to be aware of the vast difference between
   themselves and the Evangelical Arminians.

   HYMN 131, verses 1, 2, 3.

   "Lord, I despair myself to heal:

   I see my sin, but cannot feel;

   I cannot, till thy Spirit blow,

   And bid the obedient waters flow.

   'Tis thine a heart of flesh to give;

   Thy gifts I only can receive:

   Here, then, to thee I all resign;

   To draw, redeem, and seal,--is thine.

   With simple faith on thee I call,

   My Light, my Life, my Lord, my all:

   I wait the moving of the pool;

   I wait the word that speaks me whole."

   HYMN 133, verse 4.

   "Thy golden sceptre from above

   Reach forth; lo! my whole heart I bow;

   Say to my soul, Thou art my love;

   My chosen midst ten thousand, thou."

   This is very like election.

   HYMN 136, verses 8, 9, 10.

   "I cannot rest, till in thy blood

   I full redemption have:

   But thou, through whom I come to God,

   Canst to the utmost save.

   From sin, the guilt, the power, the pain,

   Thou wilt redeem my soul:

   Lord, I believe, and not in vain;

   My faith shall make me whole.

   I too, with thee, shall walk in white;

   With all thy saints shall prove,

   What is the length, and breadth, and height,

   And depth of perfect love."

   Brethren, is not this somewhat like final perseverance? and what is
   meant by the next quotation, if people of God can perish at all?

   HYMN 138, verses 6, 7.

   "Who, who shall in thy presence stand,

   And match Omnipotence?

   Ungrasp the hold of thy right hand,

   Or pluck the sinner thence?

   Sworn to destroy, let earth assail;

   Nearer to save thou art:

   Stronger than all the powers of hell,

   And greater than my heart."

   The following is remarkably strong, especially in the expression
   "force." I give it in full:--

   HYMN 158

   "O my God, what must I do?

   Thou alone the way canst show;

   Thou canst save me in this hour;

   I have neither will nor power:

   God, if over all thou art,

   Greater than my sinful heart,

   All thy power on me be shown,

   Take away the heart of stone.

   Take away my darling sin,

   Make me willing to be clean;

   Make me willing to receive

   All thy goodness waits to give.

   Force me, Lord, with all to part;

   Tear these idols from my heart;

   Now thy love almighty show,

   Make even me a creature new.

   Jesus, mighty to renew,

   Work in me to will and do;

   Turn my nature's rapid tide,

   Stem the torrent of my pride;

   Stop the whirlwind of my will;

   Speak, and bid the sun stand still;

   Now thy love almighty show,

   Make even me a creature new.

   Arm of God, thy strength put on;

   Bow the heavens, and come down;

   All my unbelief o'erthrow;

   Lay th' aspiring mountain low:

   Conquer thy worst foe in me,

   Get thyself the victory;

   Save the vilest of the race;

   Force me to be saved by grace."

   HYMN 206, verses 1, 2.

   "What am I, O thou glorious God!

   And what my father's house to thee,

   That thou such mercies hast bestow'd

   On me, the vilest reptile, me!

   I take the blessing from above,

   And wonder at the boundless love.

   Me in my blood the love pass'd by,

   And stopp'd, my ruin to retrieve;

   Wept o'er my soul thy pitying eye;

   Thy bowels yearn'd, and sounded, "Live!"

   Dying, I heard the welcome sound,

   And pardon in thy mercy found."

   Nor are these all, for such good things as these abound, and they
   constrain me to say, that in attacking Arminianism we have no hostility
   towards the men who bear the name rather than the nature of that error,
   and we are opposed not to any body of men, but to the notions which
   they have espoused.

   And now, having made these remarks upon terms used, we must observe
   that there is nothing upon which men need to be more instructed than
   upon the question of what Calvinism really is. The most infamous
   allegations have been brought against us, and sometime, I must fear, by
   men who knew them to be utterly untrue; and, to this day, there are
   many of our opponents, who, when they run short of matter, invent and
   make for themselves a man of straw, call that John Calvin, and then
   shoot all their arrows at it. We are not come here to defend your man
   of straw--shoot at it or burn it as you will, and, if it suit your
   convenience, still oppose doctrines which were never taught, and rail
   at fictions which, save in your own brain, were never in existence. We
   come here to state what our views really are, and we trust that any who
   do not agree with us will do us the justice of not misrepresenting us.
   If they can disprove our doctrines, let them state them fairly and then
   overthrow them, but why should they first caricature our opinions and
   then afterwards attempt to put them down? Among the gross falsehoods
   which have been uttered against the Calvinists proper, is the wicked
   calumny that we hold the damnation of little infants. A baser lie was
   never uttered. There may have existed somewhere, in some corner of the
   earth, a miscreant who would dare to say that there were infants in
   hell, but I have never met with him, nor have I met with a man who ever
   saw such a person. We say, with regard to infants, Scripture saith but
   little, and, therefore, where Scripture is confessedly scant, it is for
   no man to determine dogmatically. But I think I speak for the entire
   body, or certainly with exceedingly few exceptions, and those unknown
   to me, when I say, we hold that all infants are elect of God and are
   therefore saved, and we look to this as being the means by which Christ
   shall see of the travail of his soul to a great degree, and we do
   sometimes hope that thus the multitude of the saved shall be made to
   exceed the multitude of the lost. Whatever views our friends may hold
   upon the point, they are not necessarily connected with Calvinistic
   doctrine. I believe that the Lord Jesus, who said, "Of such is the
   kingdom of heaven," doth daily and constantly receive into his loving
   arms those tender ones who are only shown, and then snatched away to
   heaven. Our hymns are no ill witness to our faith on this point, and
   one of them runs thus:

   "Millions of infant souls compose

   The family above."

   "Toplady, one of the keenest of Calvinists, was of this number. "In my
   remarks," says he, "on Dr. Nowell, I testified my firm belief that the
   souls of all departed infants are with God in glory; that in the decree
   of predestination to life, God hath included all whom he decreed to
   take away in infancy, and that the decree of reprobation hath nothing
   to do with them." Nay, he proceeds farther, and asks, with reason, how
   the anti-Calvinistic system of conditional salvation and election, or
   good works foreseen, will suit with the salvation of infants? It is
   plain that Arminians and Pelagians must introduce a new principle of
   election; and in so far as the salvation of infants is concerned,
   become Calvinists. Is it not an argument in behalf of Calvinism, that
   its principle is uniform throughout, and that no change is needed on
   the ground on which man is saved, whether young or old? John Newton, of
   London, the friend of Cowper, noted for his Calvinism, holds that the
   children in heaven exceed its adult inhabitants in all their
   multitudinous array. Gill, a very champion of Calvinism, held the
   doctrine, that all dying in infancy are saved. An intelligent modern
   writer, (Dr. Russell, of Dundee,) also a Calvinist, maintains the same
   views; and when it is considered that nearly one-half of the human race
   die in early years, it is easy to see what a vast accession must be
   daily and hourly making to the blessed population of heaven."

   A more common charge, brought by more decent people,--for I must say
   that the last charge is never brought, except by disreputable
   persons,--a more common charge is, that we hold clear fatalism. Now,
   there may be Calvinists who are fatalists, but Calvinism and fatalism
   are two distinct things. Do not most Christians hold the doctrine of
   the providence of God? Do not all Christians, do not all believers in a
   God hold the doctrine of his foreknowledge? All the difficulties which
   are laid against the doctrine of predestination might, with equal
   force, be laid against that of Divine foreknowledge. We believe that
   God hath predestinated all things from the beginning, but there is a
   difference between the predestination of an intelligent, all-wise,
   all-bounteous God, and that blind fatalism which simple says, "It is
   because it is to be." Between the predestination of Scripture and the
   fate of the Koran, every sensible man must perceive a difference of the
   most essential character. We do not deny that the thing is so ordained
   that it must be, but why is it to be, but that the Father, God, whose
   name is love, ordained it; not because of any necessity in
   circumstances that such and such a thing should take place. Though the
   wheels of providence revolve with rigid exactness, yet not without
   purpose and wisdom. The wheels are full of eyes, and everything
   ordained is so ordained that it shall conduce to the grandest of all
   ends, the glory of God, and the next to that the good of his creatures.
   But we are next met by some who tell us that we preach the wicked and
   horrible doctrine of sovereign and unmerited reprobation. "Oh," say
   they, "you teach that men are damned because God made them to be
   damned, and that they go to hell, not because of sin, not because of
   unbelief, but because of some dark decree with which God has stamped
   their destiny." Brethren, this is an unfair charge again. Election does
   not involve reprobation. There may be some who hold unconditional
   reprobation. I stand not here as their defender, let them defend
   themselves as best they can; I hold God's election, but I testify just
   as clearly that if any man be lost he is lost for sin; and this has
   been the uniform statement of Calvinistic ministers. I might refer you
   to our standards, such as "The Westminster Assembly's Catechism," and
   to all our Confession, for they all distinctly state that man is lost
   for sin, and that there is no punishment put on any man except that
   which he richly and righteously deserves. If any of you have ever
   uttered that libel against us, do it not again, for we are as guiltless
   of that as you are yourselves. I am speaking personally--and I think in
   this I would command the suffrages of my brethren--I do know that the
   appointment of God extendeth to all things; but I stand not in this
   pulpit, nor in any other, to lay the damnation of any man anywhere but
   upon himself. If he be lost, damnation is all of man; but, if he be
   saved, still salvation is all of God. To state this important point yet
   more clearly and explicitly, I shall quote at large from an able
   Presbyterian divine:

   "The pious Methodist is taught that the Calvinist represents God as
   creating men in order to destroy them. He is taught that Calvinists
   hold that men are lost, not because they sin, but because they are
   nonelected. Believing this to be a true statement, it is not wonderful
   that the Methodist stops short, and declares himself, if not an
   Arminian, at least an AntiPredestinarian. But no statement can be more
   scandalously untrue. It is the uniform doctrine of Calvinism, that God
   creates all for his own glory; that he is infinitely righteous and
   benignant, and that where men perish it is only for their sins.

   In speaking of suffering, whether in this world or in the world to
   come; whether it respects angels or men, the Westminster standards
   (which may be considered as the most authoritative modern statement of
   the system) invariably connect the punishment with previous sin, and
   sin only. "As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God as a righteous
   judge FOR FORMER SINS doth blind and harden, from them he not only
   withholdeth his grace, whereby they might have been enlightened in
   their understandings and wrought upon in their hearts, but sometimes
   also with draweth the gifts which they had, and exposeth them to such
   objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin; and withal gives
   them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world, and the
   power of Satan, whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves
   even under those means which God useth for the softening of others."
   The Larger Catechism, speaking of the unsaved among angels and men,
   says, "God according to his Sovereign power and the unsearchable
   counsel of his own will (whereby he extendeth or withholdeth favour as
   he pleaseth) hath passed by and fore-ordained the rest to dishonour and
   wrath, to be for their sin inflicted, to the praise of the glory of his
   justice." Again, "the end of God appointing this day (of the last
   judgment) is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy, in the
   eternal salvation of the elect, and of his justice in the damnation of
   the reprobate who are wicked and disobedient." This is no more than
   what the Methodist and all other Evangelical bodies acknowledge--that
   where men perish it is in consequence of their sin. If it be asked, why
   sin which destroys, is permitted to enter the world, that is a question
   which bears not only on the Calvinist, but equally on all other
   parties. They are as much concerned and bound to answer it as he; nay,
   the question in not confined to Christians. All who believe in the
   existence of God--in his righteous character and perfect providence,
   are equally under obligation to answer it. Whatever may be the reply of
   others, that of the Calvinist may be regarded as given in the statement
   of the Confession of Faith, which declares that God's providence
   extendeth itself even to the first fall, and other sins of angels and
   men, &c.; "yet so as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the
   creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither
   is nor can be the author or approver of sin." It is difficult to see
   what more could be said upon the subject; and if such be the undoubted
   sentiments of Calvinists, then what misrepresentation can be more gross
   than that which describes them as holding that sinners perish
   irrespective of their sin, or that God is the author of their sin? What
   is the declaration of Calvin? "Every soul departs (at death) to that
   place which it has prepared for itself while in this world."

   It is hard to be charged with holding as sacred truth what one abhors
   as horrid blasphemy, and yet this is the treatment which has been
   perseveringly meted out to Calvinists in spite of the most solemn and
   indignant disclaimers. Against nothing have they more stoutly protested
   than the thought that the infinitely holy, and righteous, and amiable
   Jehovah is the author of sin; and yet how often do the supporters of
   rival systems charge them with this as an article of faith?

   A yet further charge against us is, that we dare not preach the gospel
   to the unregenerate, that, in fact, our theology is so narrow and
   cramped that we cannot preach to sinners. Gentlemen, if you dare to say
   this, I would take you to any library in the world where the old
   Puritan fathers are stored up, and I would let you take down any one
   volume and tell me if you ever read more telling exhortations and
   addresses to sinners in any of your own books. Did not Bunyan plead
   with sinners, and whoever classed him with any but the Calvinist? Did
   not Charnock, Goodwin, and Howe agonise for souls, and what were they
   but Calvinist? Did not Jonathan Edwards preach to sinners, and who more
   clear and explicit on these doctrinal matters. The works of our
   innumerable divines teem with passionate appeals to the unconverted.
   Oh, sirs, if I should begin the list, time should fail me. It is an
   indisputable fact that we have laboured more than they all for the
   winning of souls. Was George Whitfield any the less seraphic? Did his
   eyes weep the fewer tears or his bowels move with the less compassion
   because he believed in God's electing love and preached the sovereignty
   of the Most High? It is an unfounded calumny. Our souls are not stony;
   our bowels are not withdrawn the compassion which we ought to feel for
   our fellowmen; we can hold all our views firmly, and yet can weep as
   Christ did over a Jerusalem which was certainly to be destroyed. Again,
   I must say, I am not defending certain brethren who have exaggerated
   Calvinism. I speak of Calvinism proper, not that which has run to seed,
   and outgrown its beauty and verdure. I speak of it as I find it in
   Calvin's Institutes, and especially in his Expositions. I have read
   them carefully. I take not my views of Calvinism from common repute but
   from his books. Nor do I, in this speaking, even vindicate Calvinism as
   if I cared for the name, but I mean that glorious system which teaches
   that salvation is of grace from first to last. And again, then, I say
   it is an utterly unfounded charge that we dare not preach to sinners.

   And then further, that I may clear up these points and leave the less
   rubbish for my brethren to wheel away, we have sometimes heard it said,
   but those who say it ought to go to school to read the first book of
   history, that we who hold Calvinistic views are the enemies of
   revivals. Why, sirs, in the history of the Church, with but few
   exceptions, you could not find a revival at all that was not produced
   by the orthodox faith. What was the great work which was done by
   Augustine, when the Church suddenly woke up from the pestiferous and
   deadly sleep into which Pelagian doctrine had cast it? What was the
   Reformation itself but the waking up of men's minds to those old
   truths? However far modern Lutherans may have turned aside from their
   ancient doctrines, and I must confess some of them would not agree with
   what I now say, yet, at any rate, Luther and Calvin had no dispute
   about Predestination. Their views were identical, and Luther, "On the
   bondage of the will," is as strong a book upon the free grace of God as
   Calvin himself could have written. Hear that great thunderer while he
   cries in that book, "Let the Christian reader know then, that God
   foresees nothing in a contingent manner; but that he foresees,
   proposes, and acts, from his eternal and unchangeable will. This is the
   thunder stroke which breaks and overturns Free Will." Need I mention to
   you better names than Huss, Jerome of Prague, Farrel, John Knox,
   Wickliffe, Wishart, and Bradford? Need I do more than say that these
   held the same views, and that in their day anything like an Arminian
   revival was utterly unheard of and undreamed of. And then, to come to
   more modern times, there is the great exception, that wondrous revival
   under Mr. Wesley, in which the Wesleyan Methodists had so large a
   share; but permit me to say, that the strength of the doctrine of
   Wesleyan Methodism lay in its Calvinism. The great body of the
   Methodists disclaimed Palagianism, in whole and in part. They contended
   for man's entire depravity, the necessity of the direct agency of the
   Holy Spirit, and that the first step in the change proceeds not from
   the sinner, but from God. They denied at the time that they were
   Pelagians. Does not the Methodist hold as firmly as ever we do, that
   man is saved by the operation of the holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost
   alone? And are not many of Mr. Wesley's sermons full of that great
   truth, that the Holy Ghost is necessary to regeneration? Whatever
   mistakes he may have made, he continually preached the absolute
   necessity of the new birth by the Holy Ghost, and there are some other
   points of exceedingly close agreement; for instance, even that of human
   inability. It matters not how some may abuse us, when we say man could
   not of himself repent or believe; yet, the old Arminian standards said
   the same. True, they affirm that God has given grace to every man, but
   they do not dispute the fact, that apart from that grace there was no
   ability in man to do that which was good in his own salvation. And
   then, let me say, if you turn to the continent of America, how gross
   the falsehood, that Calvinistic doctrine is unfavourable to revivals.
   Look at that wondrous shaking under Jonathan Edwards, and others which
   we might quote. Or turn to Scotland--what shall we say of M'Cheyne?
   What shall we say of those renowned Calvinists, Dr. Chalmers, Dr.
   Wardlow, and before them Livingstone, Haldane, Erskine, and the like?
   What shall we say of the men of their school, but that, while they held
   and preached unflinchingly the great truths which we would propound
   to-day, yet God owned their word, and multitudes were saved. And if it
   were not perhaps too much like boasting of one's own work under God, I
   might say, personally I have never found the preaching of these
   doctrines lull this Church to sleep, but ever while they have loved to
   maintain these truths, they have agonised for the souls of men, and the
   1600 or more of whom I have myself baptized, upon profession of their
   faith, are living testimonies that these old truths in modern times
   have not lost their power to promote a revival of religion.

   I have thus cleared away these allegations at the outset; I shall now
   need a few minutes more to say, with regard to the Calvinistic system,
   that there are some things to be said in its favour, to which of course
   I attach but little comparative importance, but they ought not to be
   ignored. It is a fact that the system of doctrines called the
   Calvinistic, is so exceedingly simple and so readily learned, that as a
   system of Divinity it is more easily taught and more easily grasped by
   unlettered minds than any other. The poor have the Gospel preached to
   them in a style which assists their memories and commends itself to
   their judgments. It is a system which was practically acknowledged an
   high philosophic grounds by such men as Bacon, Leibnitz, and Newton,
   and yet it can charm the soul of a child and expand the intellect of a
   peasant. And then it has another virtue. I take it that the last is no
   mean one, but it has another--that when it is preached there is a
   something in it which excites thought. A man may hear sermons upon the
   other theory which shall glance over him as the swallow's wing gently
   sweeps the brook, but these old doctrines either make a man so angry
   that he goes home and cannot sleep for very hatred, or else they bring
   him down into lowliness of thought, feeling the immensity of the things
   which he has heard. Either way it excites and stirs him up not
   temporarily, but in a most lasting manner. These doctrines haunt him,
   he kicks against the pricks, and full often the word forces a way into
   his soul. And I think this is no small thing for any doctrine to do, in
   an age given to slumber, and with human hearts so indifferent to the
   truth of God. I know that many men have gained more good by being made
   angry under a sermon than by being pleased by it, for being angry they
   have turned the truth over and over again, and at last the truth has
   burned its way right into their hearts. They have played with
   edge-tools, but they have cut themselves at last.

   It has this singular virtue also--it is so coherent in all its parts.
   You cannot vanquish a Calvinist. You may think you can, but you cannot.
   The stones of the great doctrines so fit into each other, that the more
   pressure there is applied to remove them the more strenuously do they
   adhere. And you may mark, that you cannot receive one of these
   doctrines without believing all. Hold for instance that man is utterly
   depraved, and you draw the inference then that certainly if God has
   such a creature to deal with salvation must come from God alone, and if
   from him, the offended one, to an offending creature, then he has a
   right to give or withhold his mercy as he wills; you are this forced
   upon election, and when you have gotten that you have all: the others
   must follow. Some by putting the strain upon their judgments may manage
   to hold two or three points and not the rest, but sound logic I take it
   requires a man to hold the whole or reject the whole; the doctrines
   stand like soldiers in a square, presenting on every side a line of
   defence which it is hazardous to attack, but easy to maintain. And mark
   you, in these times when error is so rife and neology strives to be so
   rampant, it is no little thing to put into the hands of a young man a
   weapon which can slay his foe, which he can easily learn to handle,
   which he may grasp tenaciously, wield readily, and carry without
   fatigue; a weapon, I may add, which no rust can corrode and no blows
   can break, trenchant, and well annealed, a true Jerusalem blade of a
   temper fit for deeds of renown. The coherency of the parts, though it
   be of course but a trifle in comparison with other things, is not
   unimportant. And then, I add,--but this is the point my brethren will
   take up--it has this excellency, that it is scriptural, and that it is
   consistent with the experience of believers. Men generally grow more
   Calvinistic as they advance in years. Is not that a sign that the
   doctrine is right. As they are growing riper for heaven, as they are
   getting nearer to the rest that remaineth for the people of God, the
   soul longs to feed on the finest of the wheat, and abhors chaff and
   husks. And then, I add--and, in so doing, I would refute a calumny that
   has sometimes been urged,--this glorious truth has this excellency,
   that it produces the holiest of men. We can look back through all our
   annals, and say, to those who oppose us, you can mention no names of
   men more holy, more devoted, more loving, more generous than those
   which we can mention. The saints of our calendar, though uncanonized by
   Rome, rank first in the book of life. The names of Puritan needs only
   to be heard to constrain our reverence. Holiness had reached a height
   among them which is rare indeed, and well it might for they loved and
   lived the truth. And if you say that our doctrine is inimical to human
   liberty, we point you to Oliver Cromwell and to his brave Ironsides,
   Calvinists to a man. If you say, it leads to inaction, we point you to
   the Pilgrim Fathers and the wildernesses they subdued. We can put our
   finger upon every spot of land, the wide world o'er, and say, "Here was
   something done by a man who believed in God's decrees; and, inasmuch as
   he did this, it is proof it did not make him inactive, it did not lull
   him to sloth."

   The better way, however of proving this point is for each of us who
   hold these truths, to be more prayerful, more watchful, more holy, more
   active than we have ever been before, and by so doing, we shall put to
   silence the gainsaying of foolish men. A living argument, is an
   argument which tells upon every man; we cannot deny what we see and
   feel. Be it ours, if aspersed and calumniated, to disprove it by a
   blameless life, and it shall yet come to pass, that our Church and its
   sentiments too shall come forth "Fair as the moon, clear as the sun,
   and terrible as an army with banners."

                                    ELECTION

   BY THE

Rev. JOHN BLOOMFIELD,

   OF MEARD'S COURT, SOHO.

   My dear Christian friends, those who best know my cast of mind and
   ministry will readily believe me when I say I would rather have spoken
   on the majesty and mystery of the person of Christ, or I would rather
   have spoken on the perfection and intrinsic worth of the mediation of
   Christ, or on the great attraction of Christ as a gracious and
   omnipotent Saviour, than on the subject that has been assigned to me.
   The subject that has been given me is that of the doctrine of eternal
   and personal election; I have to prove that the doctrine of election is
   a scriptural truth; and, at the commencement of my few remarks on this
   profound subject, allow me to say that I hold and firmly believe the
   Bible to be revelation from God, that the revelations of God's mind are
   essentially and infallibly true, that its ancient historical records
   are of the greatest value, that its prophecies are to be studied and to
   be venerated, that the doctrines of the Bible are in harmony with the
   majesty, wisdom, holiness and goodness of their Author. Now it should
   not be a point with us whether a doctrine is like or disliked, whether
   it is believed or disbelieved, but whether it is a doctrine according
   to godliness, whether it is the doctrine of the Word of God. Truth has
   never been popular in this world: Jesus Christ when on earth was by no
   means popular. Truth never will be popular in this world while men are
   influenced by sin, and enmity against God. Perhaps no doctrine has met
   with such bitter opposition as the doctrine on which I have to speak.
   It has been fearfully misunderstood for a want of prayerful and
   independent study of the Holy Scriptures, or perhaps from the miserable
   misrepresentations that have been given of it by some public men. It is
   a truth which has been bitterly opposed; we may oppose a doctrine which
   we cannot with all our puny efforts depose. We may dispute in our
   blindness and enmity a doctrine which we cannot refute. We believe
   firmly that the doctrine of election to salvation in Jesus Christ is a
   doctrine of the Scriptures. We believe in sovereign love, but not in
   sovereign hatred. We believe in salvation by the grace of God without
   works, but not in damnation without sin. We believe firmly in election
   to salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but we discard from our
   creed the miserable, wretched doctrine of reprobation without sin. Is
   the doctrine of election a Scriptural doctrine? Can we prove it from
   the word of God? It is one thing to believe it to be a doctrine of
   Divine revelation, and it is another thing to have the sanctifying
   grace and power of it in our hearts. The election we read of in the
   Scriptures is inseparably connected with holiness, and we believe in no
   election to salvation without faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He who
   has appointed salvation as an end has appointed the methods by which
   that end shall be accomplished. Perhaps no man possessed of his
   reasoning powers questions the truth that God has predestinated harvest
   as long as this world shall continue. But without sowing of seed,
   without the agricultural labour that is given to the land, we should
   have no harvest, because he who predestinated harvest predestinated the
   sowing of the seed as much. And God has appointed us not unto wrath,
   but to obtain salvation through Jesus Christ. I shall endeavour now to
   prove, from the quotation of a few Scriptures, that the doctrine of
   eternal and personal election is a Scriptural and Divine truth. Jesus
   Christ himself was said to be "chosen of God and precious." He is God's
   elect, for Jehovah himself says, "Behold my servant, mine elect in whom
   my soul delighteth." Angels that continue in their unfallen dignity and
   felicity are termed elect angels. Elect angels are employed as
   ministering spirits to those that shall be heirs of salvation. Elect
   angels will be employed in the gathering of God's elect into the
   heavenly world. The Jewish nation was a chosen nation, and as such they
   were privileged with the oracles of God, and stood as a representative
   people. They were chosen not because of their personal worth, they were
   chosen not because of their goodness, but they were chosen to be a
   separated people, a people that should be God's peculiar treasure, and
   should be holiness unto the Lord; of them it was said, "For thou art a
   holy people unto the Lord thy God--the Lord hath chosen thee to be a
   special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of
   the earth." Jesus Christ himself, in the 24th chapter of Matthew,
   speaks of certain days being shortened because of God's elect. The
   Psalmist craved to be remembered with the favour that God was pleased
   to bear towards his people, that he might see the good of his chosen.
   And Jesus Christ himself said to his disciples, "Ye have not chose me,
   but I have chosen you." And the Apostle Paul very often in his writings
   has brought out this great and profound doctrine. He says, "There is a
   remnant according to the election of grace." He speaks to the Ephesian
   Church, and says, "Ye are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the
   world that ye may be holy, and that ye may stand before God without
   blame in love." God hath in the exercise of his sovereignty chosen a
   people in Christ to salvation before time began--it was before the
   foundation of the world, here is its antiquity--it is in Christ
   according to the riches of God's grace, and it is to holiness and
   salvation. He, in his addresses to the Church at Thessalonica, said he
   could but thank God "that they were chosen to salvation through
   sanctification of the Spirit and the belief of the truth." Peter speaks
   of the people of God as a chosen generation and a royal priesthood. He
   wrote to the elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.
   More Scriptures might be given upon this subject, but I think they
   would be unnecessary. If we would only give our attention to the simple
   teachings of the Spirit of God by the prophets, by the Psalmist, by
   Christ, and by the Apostles, we could not have one moment's doubt as to
   the doctrine of Divine election being a Scriptural truth.

   My second point is to show that God has chosen his people to the
   highest possible relation to himself, and to the enjoyment of the most
   precious blessings in Christ. All spiritual relations stand in Christ;
   all spiritual relations originated in God's grace; and all spiritual
   relations are standing manifestations of the sovereignty of God's
   favour and of the immutability of God's love. If we are the sons of
   God, what has constituted us the sons of God? We are sons of God by
   God's sovereign love; it is by an act of adoption, it is by an act of
   Jehovah's will, that we are constituted his sons and his daughters.
   Adoption is relation established to which we have no natural right;
   adoption is one thing, and the spirit of adoption is another. Now
   Christ is God's first-born, and all the family are chose in him; Christ
   is the glorious Head of the Church, and all the family of God are
   chosen members in him; Christ is the everlasting Priest of his Church,
   and he represents all the family, just as the Jewish priest represented
   by his breast-plate and in the fulfilment of his office the whole of
   the Jewish nation. All relation to God then stands in Christ,
   originated in the sovereignty of Jehovah's will, and is expressive of
   the infinite love of Jehovah's heart. We are chose to salvation--that
   is the end; the means by which that end is accomplished is by the
   "sanctification of the Spirit, and the belief of the truth." We are
   chose to usefulness; every Christian should seek to be useful; every
   Christian in his right mind is a witness for God; every Christian, as
   he is influenced by Christian principles, bears testimony to the
   dignity of the relation that God has established, and bears testimony
   to the holiness of the principles by which his heart is influenced;
   every Christian should be a living gospel, his life should bear
   testimony to the holiness of that Christianity that he studies and is
   influenced by. We are chosen to eternal life, but it is eternal life
   through Christ. Without faith there is no evidence of interest in
   Christ, without faith there is no enjoyment of salvation by Christ.
   Without faith, a man has no evidence of interest in the Lamb's Book of
   Life; but he who believes in Christ, however weak and trembling his
   faith has evidence in his own heart that his name is written in the
   Lamb's Book of Life; and his conduct corresponding with the holiness of
   the gospel, he carries in his life a witness to his interest in all the
   purposes of heaven, and in all the redemptive excellency of the Lord
   Jesus Christ. The great evidence of interest in election is holiness. A
   man to talk of believing in election, and going to heaven, because he
   is one of God's elect, and yet living in sin, and in enmity to God,
   this can never, never be. We are chosen unto salvation, it is said,
   "through sanctification of the Spirit and the belief of the truth;"
   and, without this sanctification of the Spirit and the belief of the
   truth, there is no holiness; and, "without holiness, no man can see the
   Lord." Without holiness, no man would be capable of serving God in
   heaven; without holiness, no man would be capable of beholding the
   glories of Jesus Christ there; without holiness, no man can serve God
   with power and success here; without holiness, no man can have
   fellowship with God, and so have fellowship with us, for truly our
   fellowship is with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ. It is only
   by practical life of consistency with faith in Christ Jesus, that we
   have evidence of our interest in election. We are chosen, not because
   we are holy, but that we might be holy; we are chosen, not because we
   are good, but that by the principles of the everlasting Gospel, we
   might become so; we are chosen, not because we are saved, but that we
   may be saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I hold, dear
   friends, that the great doctrine of election should be preached. It
   should be preached, because it is part of a grand system of truth.
   Truth is not one doctrine, but it is a grand system, and you cannot
   leave out one part without impairing its beauty, nor leave out one part
   of this system without weakening its strength. The beauty of truth lies
   in its perfection, and in that harmony of its connection; the strength
   of truth lies in the unity of its parts, and it is like gold dust--it
   is all precious. If Election be not a truth inspired by the Spirit of
   the living God--if it be not a truth proclaimed by the prophets that
   were inspired--if it be not a truth published by the Apostles--if it be
   not a truth found in the teachings of the word of God, let us never say
   one word about it; but if it was truth in the days of the Apostles,
   then it is no less a truth now. What the Apostles preached, I hold, we
   ought to preach in the spirit of love, in the spirit of faith, in the
   spirit of meekness, entirely depending on the power of the Holy Spirit
   to give us success in the conversion of immortal souls. One moment
   longer, and I have done. There is nothing in the doctrine of election
   that is discouraging to a penitent, seeking sinner. There is everything
   in the Gospel to welcome the returning prodigal to his Father's house;
   there is everything to meet the necessities of an awakened conscience;
   there is everything in the Gospel to satisfy the longing of a penitent
   soul. I know some may say, "I fear, Sir, I shall not be saved because I
   am not one of God's elect." Art thou a sinner? art thou a penitent
   sinner? art thou a seeking sinner? If thou art a seeking, penitent
   sinner, you cannot imagine how welcome you are to the provisions of
   infinite love. Every truth in the Gospel is open to you; every promise
   in the Gospel is open to you; every invitation in Scripture speaks to
   you. If thou art a sinner seeking mercy, let this cheer thy heart--that
   God delighteth in mercy. If thou art seeking salvation, Jesus is a
   willing and an able Saviour, and he has said, "All that the Father
   giveth to me shall come to me, and him that cometh I will in no wise
   cast out." There is nothing, dear friends, in the doctrine of election
   as it stands in the Scriptures that should discourage any penitent in
   seeking after mercy through Jesus Christ. I know, in the miserable
   misrepresentation of this great and glorious truth, men might well be
   discouraged from seeking mercy through the Saviour. But see it in its
   Scriptural connection; see it in the simplicity of it as it is put
   before us by the great Apostles; see it in the teachings of the Saviour
   himself, and there is nothing in it but that which welcomes a penitent
   sinner. It is a great encouragement to a seeking soul. Does the farmer
   who sows his seed sow that seed with less or more encouragement because
   he knows that God has ordained that harvest shall be? He sows his seed
   with a heart brimfull with hope, because God has promised that a
   harvest shall be as long as the world continues. Only let the means be
   used according to the Holy Scriptures; only let the poor awakened,
   penitent sinner renounce everything but Christ and him crucified, mercy
   will roll into his troubled heart and fill his spirit with peace, and
   he shall come off more than conqueror, shouting, Victory through the
   blood of the Lamb--Victory, victory through Jesus Christ.

                                HUMAN DEPRAVITY

   BY THE

Rev. EVAN PROBERT,

   OF BRISTOL.

   My Christian friends, you are quite aware that the subject which is to
   engage our further attention this afternoon, is HUMAN DEPRAVITY--a
   subject about which there are different opinions, which I shall not
   attempt to examine at the present time, but I shall confine myself to
   the teachings of God's word, which is the only infallible rule of faith
   and practice, and from which we learn what man was when he came from
   the hands of his Maker, and what he is now as a fallen creature. It is
   explicitly declared by the sacred writers, that God made man upright,
   and therefore his condition was one of perfect innocence and high moral
   excellence. There was no tendency to evil in any part of his nature,
   nothing that deviated in the least from the rule of moral rectitude.
   Whatever his duty was, it was to him his invariable and delightful
   employment. But, alas! man in honour did not long continue. Through the
   insinuating wiles of the devil, our first parents were induced to
   violate the positive command of their Maker, the observance of which
   was the condition of their happiness, and, as punishment for their
   transgression, they were driven out of Paradise, and became liable to
   be cut off by the sentence of death, and consigned to everlasting
   misery; and, in consequence of our connection with Adam, as our federal
   head and representative, we became subject to the dreadful consequences
   of his fall. This is evident from the testimony of the Apostle Paul, in
   the fifth Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. There we read, "By one
   man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so that death passed
   upon all men, for that all have sinned." And, again, "By the offence of
   one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, and by the
   disobedience of one, many were made sinners." It is evident from these
   passages that God viewed Adam in the covenant of works as the head and
   representative of his natural posterity, and consequently, when he fell
   we fell in him, and became subject to the tremendous consequences of
   his fall. Here it may be asked, what are the consequences of his fall?
   what were they to him, and what are they to us? To answer this
   question, we must ascertain what the Apostle means when he uses the
   words death, judgment, and condemnation. I think that he uses these
   words in opposition to the grace of God, to justification of life, and
   to the reign of the redeemed in life by Jesus Christ. These are the
   benefits which result from the grace of God through Christ, and which
   stand opposed to the evils which sin has introduced into our world;
   and, as it cannot be supposed that these benefits relate to temporal
   life, or solely to the resurrection of the body, it cannot be that the
   evils involved in the words, death, judgment, and condemnation, relate
   simply to temporal death, but they must be considered as including
   temporal, legal, and spiritual death.

   From the very hour that Adam transgressed, he became mortal,--the
   sentence of death was pronounced upon him, and the seeds of depravity
   were sown in his system; thus the fair and beautiful and glorious
   creature began to fade, wither, and die, and all his posterity became
   mortal in him, and have from that day to this come into the world
   dying. Whatever the case of man might have been if he had not sinned we
   cannot say. This however we know, that he would not have died; for
   death is the result of the federal failure of the father of our race.
   "Dust thou are," God said to him, "and unto dust shalt thou return."
   "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." "In Adam all
   died." So that it may be said to every one of Adam's sons and
   daughters, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

   But Adam by his transgression not only brought temporal death upon
   himself and his posterity, he also brought legal death. Having violated
   the law that was given him to observe, he became under the curse of
   that law, which involved not only temporal death and expulsion from
   Paradise, but an exposure to suffer the just demerits of his
   transgression; and, in consequence of our connection with him as our
   federal head, we are under the curse of the same law--"By one man's
   disobedience judgment came upon all men to condemnation;" and further,
   "By the offence of one many were made sinners." The very moment our
   progenitor transgressed, all his descendants became subject to the
   curse. The holy nature of God abhorred the apostate race; the curse of
   his holy and righteous law has ever rested upon that race; judgment has
   been given and recorded against us as a fallen world, in the court of
   Heaven, and unless it is reversed it must fall upon us with all its
   tremendous consequences.

   We are also, in consequence of Adam's transgression, become the
   subjects of spiritual death, which consists not merely in the
   deprivation of the principle of life; but in having become depraved
   creatures, all the faculties of our souls and members of our bodies are
   depraved, so that it may be said of us, as the prophet says of the
   Jewish nation, "The head is sick, the whole heart is faint; from the
   sole of the foot unto the head there is no soundness." What! no
   soundness in any part? nothing good in any part? nothing spiritually
   good? nothing if cherished and fostered that will not lead to God, to
   Heaven, and to happiness? Nothing whatever. Let no one mistake me. I do
   not mean to say for a single moment, that sin has destroyed any of the
   faculties of man's soul, for they are all there. They all exist as they
   did when they were produced; but I mean to say, that sin has deprived
   man of the principle of spiritual life, and made him a depraved and
   debased creature; and we believe that we can prove this from the word
   of God, as well as from observation.

   First,--From the conduct of little children. Children begin to sin very
   early in life. If there were any good in us, it would show itself in
   infancy, before good habits became corrupted, and evil principles were
   produced by our connection with the world. But do little children
   prefer good? Are they inclined to the good and the excellent? Do you
   see from the earliest period of their existence that they are desirous
   of good? On the contrary, I say, as soon as they begin to act, they
   prove by their action, that in them there is a depraved nature, from
   which they act. "Madness," says a wise man, "is bound up in the heart
   of a child," they go astray from the womb telling lies. But it may be
   said, in the way of objection, that this may arise from the
   unfavourable circumstance in which some children are placed. No doubt,
   unfavourable circumstances have a bad influence upon the minds of
   children; but it is not so with the whole race. Point out to me, one
   child who is disposed from infancy to seek that which is good, that
   which is holy. And surely, if the tendency of infants from their
   earliest history is to evil, it is a proof that it must arise from the
   evil propensities within them, which grow with their growth, and
   strengthen with their strength.

   Secondly,--We have further proof of human depravity from the aversion
   of sinners to come to Christ. They are invited to come, persuaded to
   come, and are assured that they shall find pardon, acceptance, and
   salvation. But they cannot be induced to come to him; and why will they
   not come? Is it because he is not willing to receive them, or because
   there is anything in him to prevent them? No, but it is because of the
   deep-rooted depravity in their hearts. The heart is averse to all that
   is good, and therefore rejects the Saviour and turns away from him.
   Hence he complained when in our world, "How often would I have gathered
   you, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would
   not." "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." What more
   needed to be added? Man turns away in proud disdain from all the
   blessings of the gospel, and the glories of heaven brought before him,
   and rushes on with steady purpose to damnation. "Light is come into the
   world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds
   are evil." Oh, to how many in this land may it be said, "They hate
   knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord; they would none of
   his counsel, they despised all his reproof."

   Thirdly,--We have further evidence of native depravity from the
   testimony of Scripture. In the first place, let me refer you to the
   fifth chapter of the Book of Genesis, and the third verse. There we
   read, that Adam, after he had lived one hundred and thirty years, begat
   a son in his own likeness after his image. Mind, the image in which
   Adam was created was the image of God, but that image he had lost
   before he begat Seth; therefore, the image in which Seth was born must
   have been the image of his progenitor, as a fallen and depraved
   creature. Let me refer you, in the second place, to the third chapter
   of the Gospel of John. "He that is born of the flesh," said the Saviour
   to Nicodemus, "is flesh, and he that is born of the Spirit is spirit."
   To be born of the flesh, according to the wisest interpretation of that
   passage, is to be born of a depraved nature; to be born of the Spirit
   is to be born of the Holy Spirit of God--which birth, the Saviour told
   Nicodemus he must experience before he could see the kingdom of God.
   And again, we have several passages in proof of this point. In the
   seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, at the fifth verse of
   that chapter, the Apostle says, "When we were in the flesh, the motions
   of sin by the law which worked in us to bring forth fruit unto death."
   "When we were in the flesh," means this--when we were in an unrenewed
   depraved state. In the same chapter he says, at the 14th verse, "We
   know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin;" as if
   he had said, "I am as a sinner, a depraved creature." In accordance
   with this the Apostle says, at the 18th verse of the same chapter, "In
   me--that is, in my flesh--there dwelleth no good thing." No love to
   God, no holy aspirations! No, none whatever. At the beginning of the
   eighth chapter the same Epistle, we find the terms "flesh" and "Spirit"
   placed in opposition to each other, "Who walk not after the flesh,'
   says the Apostle, describing Christians, "but after the Spirit." To be
   in the flesh is to be in a depraved state, to be in the Spirit is to be
   a partaker of his grace; to walk after the flesh is to walk after the
   dictates of corrupt principles and propensities, to walk after the
   Spirit is to be governed by spiritual principles and by the Holy Spirit
   of God; and the Apostle, in writing to the Galatians, says to them,
   "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh."
   These passages, I think, prove beyond all contradiction, that man as a
   fallen creature, is a depraved creature, destitute of any good. There
   are many other passages of Scripture that confirm this doctrine, such
   as the following, "Who can bring a clean thing out of a unclean." Not
   one. What is man that he should be clean, or the son of man that he
   should be just. "Behold," says a Psalmist, "I was shapen in iniquity,
   and in sin did my mother conceive me." Read the account of man before
   the deluge, and there we find that every imagination and the thought of
   his heart were only evil, and that continually. The same account is
   given of him after the flood. The deluge could not wipe away the stains
   of moral pollution, could not destroy in man the deep-rooted depravity
   of his heart. "The heart," says Jeremiah, "is deceitful above all
   things and desperately wicked, who can know it." I think that what our
   blessed Lord said to the Jews of old, is applicable to every
   unconverted man under heaven--"But I know you that ye have not the love
   of God in you." Some of you may be more humane that others, more
   benevolent than other, more compassionate than other, as men, and as
   women, but one has as much of the love of God in him as others. "The
   carnal mind is enmity against God," against the being of God, against
   the government of God, against the gospel of God, against the purposes
   of God. The enmity of the human heart is unconquerable by any human
   agency whatever. It is mortal enmity, it strikes at the being of God,
   and, therefore, as President Edwards, of America, justly observes,
   "that when it found God in our nature, in our world, it put him to
   death on the accursed tree." Such, my brethren, is the enmity of the
   heart of man, such is its deeprooted depravity, that in him there is no
   good thing. We can never speak too bad of what sin has done for us, and
   we can never speak too much, or too well, of what God has done for us,
   in the person of his Son, and in us, by the agency of his Holy Spirit.

   Fourthly--The doctrine of human depravity may be proved from those
   passages which assert the universal necessity of redemption by Jesus
   Christ. "Thou shalt call his name Jesus," said the angel, "because he
   shall save his people from their sins," "In him we have redemption
   through his blood," says St. Paul, "even the forgiveness of sin
   according to the riches of his grace." Now, the work of redemption
   pre-supposes the sinful state of man, and implies a deliverance from
   that state and from the punishment to which man is exposed. Hence it is
   said of Christ, that he came into the world to save sinners, to seek
   and to save that which was lost, and that he died--the just for the
   unjust--that he might bring us to God. Now, if redemption by Christ is
   necessary, it is evident that man is a sinner; and, if man is a sinner,
   it is evident that man has a depraved nature. You cannot make anything
   else of it. Say what you like about man and about his excellencies, you
   must come to this conclusion, that he is a condemned and a depraved
   creature, or else he would not need redemption through the blood of our
   Lord Jesus Christ.

   Fifthly,--The passages that assert the universal necessity of the new
   birth prove this very truth--"Except a man be born of water," said the
   Saviour, "and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Marvel
   not that I said unto you, ye must be born again." But if a man has some
   good in him, and if that good could be cherished, and be increased, and
   worked up so as to make men fit for heaven, what need of the new birth?
   what need of the Spirit of all grace to renew him in the spirit of his
   mind? Whenever, my brethren, you pray to God for the Spirit to change
   the human heart, whether you believe the doctrine or not, you imply it
   in your petition before the mercy-seat. They are represented by the
   sacred writers as having been called from darkness into light, as
   having an unction from the Holy One whereby they know all things, and
   those of them who have been called readily acknowledge that they were
   once foolish, once deceived and deceiving, once depraved -- very
   depraved; and not only so, but the very best of Christians in the world
   confess with humility the depravity of their hearts, and I believe that
   the man who knows himself best is the man who is most ready to confess
   this and to humble himself before God--"Oh wretched man that I am, who
   shall deliver me from the body of this death?" And while Christians
   feel this, their language is, "Create within me a clean heart, oh God!
   and renew a right spirit within me; purge me with hysop and I shall be
   clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." Apply the blood of
   sprinkling to my guilty conscience, and let the Spirit of all grace
   work in my polluted and depraved heart, and form me to the image of the
   Lord Jesus Christ, and meeten my immortal spirit for the inheritance of
   the saints in light, and of angels in glory. My dear friends, I need
   not say more. I should not think there is an individual here this
   afternoon who is not disposed to agree with me, when I say that man is
   fallen creature, is a depraved creature, is a condemned creature: he is
   under the curse of God's righteous law, and at the same time the
   subject of the reigning power of depravity, the subject of the effects
   of sin throughout his whole nature; and that, as a sinner, let it be
   recorded in high heaven there is no good in man's nature until God puts
   it there, and you will never be brought, by beloved hearers, into a
   right state of mind before God, until you are brought to feel that you
   have nothing, and that you must have all in the Lord Jesus Christ. "Oh!
   Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!" But here are blessed tidings,
   "But in me is their help found." Does not this subject, my hearers,
   teach us, in the first place, the amazing long suffering of God towards
   our race. God might, as soon as man sinned, without the least
   imputation of injustice to his character, have cut him down, because
   the fall was the result of his criminal choice, and attended by the
   most aggravating circumstances; but God has borne with us, and is
   bearing still, which shows that he has no pleasure in the death of the
   sinner, but rather that he should turn from his ways and live. "Turn
   ye, turn ye, for why will ye die, oh! house of Israel?" And does not
   the subject teach us also the helplessness of man as a sinner? He is
   unable to atone for his sins or to renew his heart. Many attempts have
   been made to atone for human transgression, and to cleans and purify
   the human heart, but they have all failed, not one has succeeded. No
   sacrifice, short of an infinite one, could satisfy Divine justice and
   magnify the broken law. No power, short of the omnipotent energy of the
   Eternal Spirit, can renew the human heart. But, while man is a helpless
   creature he is not a hopeless creature. We do not say to him there is
   no hope. Oh, no! I rejoice in that thought at this very moment. God has
   remembered us in our lowest state, he has laid help upon one that is
   mighty, one who, by his passive and active obedience, has magnified the
   law and made it honourable, satisfied the claims of Divine justice, so
   that God can be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in the
   Lord Jesus Christ; and while he made atonement for our transgressions,
   he has procured for us the Spirit of all grace to renew our nature, to
   transform us into the likeness of himself, and to prepare us in the use
   of means for the inheritance of the saints in light. Those of us who
   are made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and, I trust, most of us
   are--would to God that I could believe that we all are--let us pray for
   a larger measure of the Spirit, upon ourselves, individually, and upon
   the world around us. Surely, my hearers, my dear brother who has to
   occupy this platform, and who has to unfurl to you the banner of the
   cross, will need a large measure of the Holy Spirit. May He come upon
   his head, and upon his heart; and may he never ascend this platform but
   in His strength, and under His guidance, and in His light; may he never
   preach a sermon without its being blessed to the conversion of souls,
   and the building up of the Church; and may you, as a Christian Church,
   continue earnest in prayer for the Spirit to come, and it is the Spirit
   will reconcile us to each other, the Spirit will remove differences
   between Arminians and Calvinists, the Spirit will bring us to see,
   by-and-by, eye to eye, and this world will be filled with the glory of
   God. May the Lord command his blessing upon these remarks, for his
   name's sake. Amen.

   The Meeting then adjourned till half-past six. After the friends had
   assembled--

   The REV. C. H. SPURGEON said, I wish to make one or two observations
   before I introduce to you the speakers of this evening. Controversy is
   never a very happy element for the child of God: he would far rather be
   in communion than engaged in defence of the faith or in attack upon
   error. But the soldier of Christ knows no choice in his Master's
   commands. He may feel it to be better for him to lie upon the bed of
   rest than to stand covered with the sweat and dust of battle; but as a
   soldier he has learned to obey, and the rule of his obedience is not
   his personal comfort but his Lord's absolute command. The servant of
   God must endeavour to maintain all the truth which his Master has
   revealed to him, because, as a Christian soldier, this is part of his
   duty. But while he does so, he accords to others the liberty which he
   enjoys himself. In his own house of prayer he must and will maintain
   that which he believes to be true. He does not feel himself at all out
   of temper or angry when he hears that in other places there are some
   holding different views of what the truth is, who as honestly, and
   perhaps as forcibly, endeavour to maintain their views. To our own
   Master we stand or fall; we have no absolute judge of right or wrong
   incarnate in the flesh on earth to-day. Nor is even the human judgment
   itself an infallible evidence of our being, for since the fall, no
   powers of mortals are free from imperfection. Our judgment is not
   necessarily a fully enlightened one, and we ourselves therefore let
   another man's judgment also be his guide unto God; but we must not
   forget that every man is responsible to the Most High for the use of
   that judgment, for the use of that mental power which God has given
   him, by which he is to weigh and balance the arguments of either side.
   I have found commonly that, with regard to the doctrine of grace which
   we preach, there are a great many objections raised. One of the
   simplest trades in the world is the raising of objections. You never
   need, if you wish to set up in that line of business, to look abroad
   for capital or resources; however poor and penniless a man may be, even
   in wits, he can easily manufacture difficulties. It is said "that a
   fool may raise objections which a thousand wise men could not answer."
   I would not hesitate to say that I could bring objections to your
   existence to-night, which you could not disprove. I could sophisticate
   and mystify until I brought out the conclusion that you were blind, and
   deaf, and dumb, and I am not sure that by any process of logic you
   would be able to prove that you were not so. It might be clear enough
   to you that you could both speak, and see, and hear. The only evidence,
   however, I suppose that you could give, would be by speaking, and
   seeing, and hearing, which might be conclusive enough; but if it were
   left to be a mere matter of word-fighting for schoolmen, I question
   whether the caviller might not cavil against you to the judgment-day in
   order to dispute you out of the evidence of your very senses. The
   raising of difficulties is the easiest trade in all the world, and,
   permit me to add, it is not one of the most honourable. The raising of
   objections has been espoused, you know, by that great and mighty master
   of falsehood in the olden times, and it has been carried on full often
   by those whose doubts about the truth sprung rather from their hearts
   than from their heads. Some difficulties, however, ought to be met, and
   let me now remove one or two of them. There are some who say, "Provided
   the doctrines of grace be true, what is the use of our preaching?" Of
   course I can hardly resist a smile while I put this splendid
   difficulty--it is so huge a one. If there are so many who are to be
   saved, then why preach? You cannot diminish, you cannot increase the
   number, why preach the Gospel? Now, I thought my friend Mr. Bloomfield
   anticipated this difficulty well enough. There must be a harvest,--why
   sow, why plough? Simply because the harvest is ordained in the use of
   the means. The reason why we preach at all is because God has ordained
   to save some. If he had not, we could not see the good of preaching at
   all. Why! we should come indeed on a fool's errand if we came here
   without the Master's orders at our back. His elect shall be
   saved--every one of them,--and if not by my instrumentality or that of
   any brother here present, if not by any instrumentality, then would God
   sooner call them by his Holy Spirit, without the voice of the minister,
   than that they should perish. But this is the very reason why we
   preach, because we wish to have the honour of being the means, in the
   hand of God, of calling these elect ones to himself. The certainty of
   the result quickens us in our work, and surely it would stay none but a
   fool in his labour. Because God ordains that his word shall not return
   unto him void, therefore, we preach that word, because, "as the rain
   cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but
   watereth the earth and maketh it to bring forth and bud, even so doth
   the word of the Lord accomplish his purpose;" therefore, we would have
   our doctrine to drop as the rain and distil as the dew, and as the
   small rain upon the tender herb. But, there are some again who say, "To
   what purpose after all, is your inviting any to come, when the Spirit
   of God alone constrains them to come; and why, especially, preach to
   those whom believe to be so depraved that they cannot and will not
   come?" Ay, just so, this is a serious difficulty to everything except
   faith. Do you see Ezekiel yonder; he is about to preach a sermon. By
   his leave, we will stop him. "Ezekiel, where are you about to preach?"
   "I am about," saith he, "to preach to a strange congregation--dead, dry
   bones, lying in a mass in a valley." "But, Ezekiel, they have no power
   to live." "I know that," saith he. "To what purpose, then, is your
   preaching to them? If they have no power, and if the breath must come
   from the four winds, and they have no life in themselves, to what
   purpose do you preach?" "I am ordered to preach," saith he,
   "commanded;" and he does so. He prophesies, and afterward mounting to a
   yet higher stage of faith, he cries, "Come from the four winds, oh
   breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." And the wind
   comes, and the effect of his ministry is seen in their life. So preach
   we to dead sinners; so pray we for the living Spirit. So, by faith, do
   we expect his Divine influence, and it comes,--cometh not from man, nor
   of man, nor by blood, nor by the will of the flesh, but from the
   sovereign will of God. But not withstanding it comes instrumentally
   through the faith of the preacher while he pleads with man, "as though
   God did beseech them by us, we pray them in Christ's stead to be
   reconciled to God." But if ten thousand other objections were raised,
   my simple reply would be just this, "We can raise more objections
   against your theory, than you can against ours." We do not believe that
   our scheme is free from difficulties; it were uncandid if we were to
   say so. But we believe that we have not the tithe of the difficulties
   to contend with that they have on the opposite side of the question. It
   is not hard to find in those texts which appear to be most against us,
   a key, by which they are to be harmonized; and we believe it to be
   utterly impossible, without wresting Scripture, to turn those texts
   which teach our doctrine, to teach any other thing whatsoever. They are
   plain, pointed, pertinent. If the Calvinistic scheme were the whole sum
   and substance of all truth, why then surely, if it held everything
   within some five or six doctrines, you might begin to think that man
   were God, and that God's theology were less than infinite in its sweep.
   What are we, that we should grasp the infinite? We shall never measure
   the marches of eternity. Who shall compass with a span the Eternal God,
   and who shall think out anew his infinite thoughts? We pretend not that
   Calvinism is a plumb-line to fathom the deeps; but we do say, that it
   is a ship which can sail safely over its surface, and that every wave
   shall speed it onwards towards its destined haven. To fathom and to
   comprehend is neither your business nor mine, but to learn, and then,
   having learned, to teach to others, is the business of each Christian
   man; and thus would be do, God being our helper. One friend kindly
   suggests a difficulty to me, which, having just spoken of, I shall sit
   down. That amazing difficulty has to do with the next speaker's topic,
   and, therefore, I touch it. It says in the Scriptures, that Paul would
   not have us destroy him with our meat for whom Christ died. Therefore,
   the inference is--only mark, we don to endorse the logic--the inference
   is, that you may destroy some with your meat for whom Christ died. That
   inference I utterly deny. But then, let me put it thus. Do you know,
   that a man may be guilty of a sin which he cannot commit. Does that
   startle you? Every man is guilty of putting God out of existence, if he
   says in his heart, "No God." But he cannot put God out of existence;
   and yet, the guilt is there, because he would if he could. There be
   some who crucify the Son of God afresh. They cannot,--he is in heaven,
   he is beyond their reach. And yet, because their deeds would do that,
   unless some power restrained, they are guilty of doing what they can
   never do, because the end and aim of their doings would be to destroy
   Christ, if he were here. Now, then, it is quite consistent with the
   doctrine that no man can destroy any for whom Christ died, still to
   insist upon it that a man may be guilty of the blood of souls. He may
   do that which, unless God prevented it,--and that is no credit to
   him,--unless God prevented it, would destroy souls for whom Jesus
   Christ died. But, again I say, I have not come here to-night to
   anticipate and to answer all objections; I have only done that, that
   some troubled conscience might find peace. This was not a meeting of
   discussion, but for the explaining of our views, and the teaching them
   simply to the people. I now shall call upon my beloved brother to take
   up the point of particular redemption.

                             PARTICULAR REDEMPTION

   BY THE

Rev. J. A. SPURGEON,

   OF SOUTHAMPTON.

   I think it is well that the death of Christ and its consequent
   blessings should occupy one place in our discussion here to-night; for
   not only is it the central truth in the Calvinistic theory, but the
   death of Christ is the centre point of all history and of all time. The
   devout of all ages have stood and gazed with anxious glance into these
   deep mysteries, searching what, or what manner of things the Holy
   Spirit did by them testify and reveal; and we know that hereafter, in
   yon world of glory, the redeemed shall sing of these things for ever,
   and shall find in the Redeemer and in his work, fresh matter for love
   and for praise as eternity shall roll on. We take our stand between the
   two, and I think the language of our hearts to-night is akin to all
   ages of the Church of Christ,--"God forbid that we should glory save in
   the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

   Now the grand result of the death of our Lord--though not the only
   result--the grand result of that death, so far as man is concerned, is
   the redemption which it ultimately achieves; and, with regard to the
   extent of that redemption, we believe the Scriptures are plain and
   speak most clearly, when they tell of a final day of manifestation,
   when the redeemed from amongst men shall take their stand before the
   Redeemer, to sing of him who, as the good shepherd, hath laid down his
   life for his sheep, and has purchased unto himself a peculiar
   people--his body, the Church. Now, we believe that, in reaching that
   grand and final result there are many steps that must be taken, and we
   think that, from these preliminary steps, there are multitudes that
   gain rich handfuls of blessings who shall not however reap the full
   harvest of glory. We believe that the whole world is flooded with
   blessings, and that the stream rolls broad and clear from the hill-foot
   of Calvary, and laves the feet alike of the godly and of the ungodly,
   the thankful and the thankless. But from the riven side of Christ there
   comes forth one stream--the river of life, whose banks are trodden only
   by the feet of the multitude of believers, who wash and are clean, who
   drink and liver for evermore. We speak to-night of Christ's death in
   its various relations, so as to touch upon and include sundry things
   which cannot be properly classed under the title of particular
   redemption; but we feel we are driven to this course, so as to be able
   to do justice to ourselves and to our leading theme.

   Now, we have three sets of truths before us, and these three sets of
   truths we must deal with. (1.) We have, first of all, a God holy and
   righteous, loving and gracious, a God who has been most grievously
   wronged and injured, and a God who must be honoured alike by the giving
   him all the glory of which he has been robbed, and by the bearing of
   his just expression of holy indignation at the wrong that has been done
   unto him. We have a God jealous in the extreme, and yet, strange
   enough, declaring that he passes by iniquity and forgiveth
   transgression and sin. We have a God truthful, who has sworn "that the
   soul that sinneth it shall die," and who yet speaks to those souls, and
   says, "Turn ye, turn ye; for why will ye die." A God whom we know must
   be just, and must execute upon the ungodly that which they have justly
   merited, and who yet strangely says, "Come and let us plead together,
   and though your sins be as scarlet I will make them as wool, and though
   they be like crimson I will make them white as snow." That is one set
   of truths--strange, and apparently contradictory. Then we have another.
   (2.) We have a world lost, and yet swathed in an atmosphere of mercy.
   We have a world dark with the darkness of death, and yet everywhere we
   find it more or less under the influence of the beams of the Sun of
   Righteousness, which came a light unto darkness, that did not and could
   not comprehend it. And we have, moreover, a world rebellious, and
   serving another master than the right one, and yet nevertheless beneath
   the feet of him who has been made Head over all things for his body's
   sake, which is the Church. (3.) And then, once more, we have a Church
   peculiar in its unmerited privileges, chose from before all time to
   inherit the kingdom given to it before the world began--a kingdom that
   can never be trodden upon save by the spotless and the deathless; and
   yet the inheritors are by nature dead in trespasses and in sins--lost,
   ruined--without a God and without a hope in the world. How are all
   those strange and apparently contradictory things to be solved? One
   clue, we find, is in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The work
   involves its ultimate end, which is redemption, and of that work we are
   about to speak here to-night.

   We speak first of those blessings which come from the death of Christ,
   and are for all men; the whole world is under a mediatorial government,
   the whole spirit of which is a government of long-suffering,
   graciousness, tenderness, and mercy, such as could not have been
   exercised had Christ never died. A government there might have been,
   but it must be, we think, a government akin to that which is found in
   the place where those are found who make their bed in hell. We find,
   moreover, that the direct and indirect influences of the Cross of
   Christ have pervaded the whole world, and none can tell how full oft
   its gentle spirit has come like oil upon the troubled waters; or what
   man, with his wild passions, would have been without the ameliorating
   influence of the Cross. We possibly may be able to tell, when we look
   across the impassable gulf into a Gehenna beneath, and see sin
   unchecked working out its dire results; and, we believe that whatever
   comes short of that darkness, whose very light is darkness, is due to
   that light which radiates from the Cross of Christ, and whatever is
   short of hell streams from Calvary. And then, further still, we have a
   Bible, a revelation filled with the love and mercy of God to man--a
   Bible in which our Lord himself could show, beginning at Moses, and in
   all the prophets, that which did testify concerning himself; and, apart
   from Jesus Christ and his death, there could have been no such
   revelation of God's character unto the human race. A revelation there
   might have been, but it would have been a revelation of Sinai's horrors
   and terrors, without even the spark of hope which comes forth from that
   dispensation there set forth. There might have been a revelation, I
   say, but it would have been a revelation that would not have wound up
   as this does with a blessing. It would have ended like the Old
   Testament with a curse; it would have begun with the same. It would
   have been worse than Ezekiel's roll of woes which is filled all over
   with terrible lamentation, and with awful sorrow and woe. And again,
   there is a positive overture of mercy, a true and faithful declaration
   of good tidings unto every creature, and we do believe that it is our
   duty to preach the Gospel unto every creature; and the Gospel runs
   thus--"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, for he
   who believeth and is baptized shall be saved." That overture we hold to
   be no mockery, but made in good faith; and that overture is not the
   overture of a shadow, but the presentation of solid, substantial
   blessings; and for the rejection of that, not God, but man is
   answerable, and for the rejection of that he will be lost. "For this
   the condemnation, that they have not believed on him whom God hath
   sent." And, then, lastly, we find that as the purchase of the death of
   Christ there is a Church, and that Church is sent forth into the world
   with orders to bless it and to do good unto all men. It is bidden to go
   forth as a light in the midst of darkness; it is bidden so to live as
   to be the salt of the whole earth. Now, we say that each one of these
   blessings is no small gift from God to man--no mean result of the death
   of our Master; and, combined, we think they would form a boon worthy of
   a God; and, as we put our hand upon it, we think we can give a full and
   true expression, and with an emphasis surpassed by none, to that
   glorious text--"God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
   Son." And we think, upon our system, and upon ours alone, we can give
   full truthfulness and emphasis to the remainder--"That whosoever
   believeth in him shall have everlasting life." Now, upon redemption
   proper, the latter part of our theme, we will pass on to speak. And,
   first, what do we mean by redemption? Most certainly we do not mean the
   POSSIBILITY OF REDEMPTION, for we have learned to distinguish between
   the possibility of a thing and a thing itself. We feel this, that we do
   not preach and cannot preach, gathering our teaching from the Bible, a
   possibility of redemption. We proclaim a redemption. Nor do we mean by
   redemption a contingency of redemption, which, again, is contingent
   upon a third thing. We have learned to distinguish between a
   contingency and a certainty. We proclaim a certain redemption, and we
   speak of that which is not possible but positive, not contingent but
   certain. Neither do we mean by redemption such an outgrowth of the
   man's own power or goodness as shall enable him to burst his way
   through every bondage and to get forth free; such an elevation of human
   nature, whether by the education of others, or by his own works, as to
   enable him at last to stand free. If we meant that, we should use the
   word escape, but not the word redemption. And again, if we meant, as
   some, alas! have seemed to mean, God's foregoing his claim upon man;
   God's waiving man's liabilities, and God's giving up that which we
   believe, as a holy God, he cannot surrender; if we meant that, we
   should speak of emancipation--of pure pardon and forgiveness. But we do
   not. We mean redemption. And then, again, we do not mean by redemption
   the meeting of the debts, either in prospective or in the present. We
   do not mean that the man shall, either in the present or in the future,
   bear any part of the penalty; and, by some goodness, either in the
   present or foreseen, satisfy God's claim upon him. If we meant that, I
   think we should use altogether another word than the word redemption.
   What do we mean by redemption? We mean, by redemption, the work of one
   being which is done for another, but generally a helpless one, in order
   to give him a perfect freedom. And when we speak of redemption, mark
   you, we speak of a thing that is the result of that work. We
   distinguish between redemption and redemption work. What we mean, by
   redemption, is just this--the grand result and end of the work of our
   Lord Jesus Christ; and we could as well speak of redemption apart from
   the redeemed, as we could speak of life apart from a living creature.
   Life and living creatures are co-extensive, and so is redemption and
   the redeemed. If you take down any book that will give you an
   explanation of the word "redemption," I think you will find three
   things put therein. It is a ransom, a rescue, and a release. Now, I
   take the whole three words to be the fulness of the meaning of one
   word. It is such a ransom, and such a rescue, as result in a complete
   and full release. Whatever stops short of that thing, is, of course,
   not the thing itself; the thing itself that we mean, is the positively
   being redeemed and made free. Now, just by way of simplifying the
   subject, let me speak of the Redeemer, and of the redemption work, and
   of those who are redeemed.

   First, the Redeemer, who is he? We believe him to be the Word that was
   with God, equal unto God, and was God,-- who became flesh and dwelt
   among us. At the same time, the flesh did not become, in any sense,
   Deity, neither did the Deity, in any sense, become carnal. They formed
   another person, and that person the God-man, Jesus Christ, our
   Redeemer. Now, what is he? And here I just ask that question, in order
   to meet some objections, and, if I can, to put on one side two or three
   theories that seem to fight against ours. I hear a voice, saying, in
   reply to that question, what is he? Why, he is God's idea of humanity;
   he is God, who has taken up humanity from its fallen state, raised it
   up not only to the place where he first put it, but, beyond, even to
   the height to which he hoped it would ascend, or possibly something
   beyond it. And, now, from henceforth, such is the union betwixt common
   humanity, that the lost, in their degradation, have but to look to
   their common humanity exalted, realize their identity with it, and to
   feel themselves, by that deed, raised to the same standard, and
   redeemed, and free for evermore. To which, we reply, there is enough of
   truth in that lie to keep it alive, and that is all. We do believe that
   our Master did lay hold of humanity; we do believe that he has honoured
   and dignified the human race, by taking that upon him, and by becoming
   flesh like unto ourselves. But we cannot see how that the gazing upon
   that can open blind eyes, unstop deaf ears, give live to the dead, and
   procure the discharge of our sins, any more than we can see how that
   the gazing upon an Olympic game would give to the physically lame,
   physical strength, or could give to those who were physically dead,
   life from their physical death.

   And, again, I hear other voices replying to that question. They say,
   "he is the great example of self-denial, and of the submission of the
   human will to the Divine. And what redemption is, is this--that man now
   can look to that great display of selfdenial, can catch of its spirit,
   and can imitate it, and by that deed of subjection, making the will to
   succumb to the will of the Divine, they may, at least, emancipate
   themselves, and go forth free." To which we reply, once more, there is
   enough of truth in that just to cement the error together, and to give
   it a plausible appearance to the sons of men, but there is nothing
   more. It is true that our Saviour was the Sent One of the Father. It is
   true, he came, saying, "Lo! I come to do thy will." He declares he was
   not doing his own will, but the will of him that sent him. And he winds
   up by saying, "Not my will, but thine be done." But, after all, we
   cannot, and dare not accept that submission of Christ's will to the
   Father, as being a satisfaction for sin; neither can we see, how, by
   the imitation of that, we can, in any sense, wipe away the sins of the
   past, or free ourselves from the penalty that is yet to come.

   But now to answer for ourselves. What is our Lord Jesus Christ? And we
   say, that in life he is the great example and copy; in death, he is the
   substitute; and in both, the federal head--the elder brother and
   kinsman of his Church.

   But now time warns me that I must pass on to the second thought--the
   work of redemption. First of all, we gaze at that part of the work
   which is Godward, and that we call atonement; and, when you ask
   me--What is the character of the atonement? I reply--It has a twofold
   nature, to correspond with the twofold character of sin. Sin is a
   transgression of the law, and a consequent insult to him who is the
   lawmaker. But it is something more than that: the power by which he has
   transgressed has been perverted; it was given to him to obey the law
   that he might glorify God. And to make, therefore, a satisfaction for
   sin, there must be a bringing to the law obedience; there must be the
   bearing of the sanction because of the disobedience; there must be the
   rendering to God the glory due to him; and there must be the bearing of
   his just displeasure and the expression of his holy wrath and
   indignation. That Christ has done: he came, and his whole life was
   obedience to the law, for he was obedient even unto death; and in that
   death he bore the sanction of the law--for he was made a curse, it
   being written, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." His whole
   life was spent to glorify God, and at its close he could say, "I have
   glorified thee, and I have finished the work which thou gavest me to
   do:" and his death was the bearing of the just displeasure of God
   towards the sinner, and in the agony of his heart he cried, "My God, my
   God, why hast thou forsaken me?" In these things we behold, therefore,
   the presentation of the obedience due, the giving to God the glory due,
   the bearing of God's displeasure, and the enduring of the curse of the
   law. And now the question would be put to me as to the value of
   atonement. We believe that its value depends not so much upon the Being
   appeased, nor upon the beings to be atoned for, as upon the Being who
   makes the atonement. The value of Christ's atonement is the value of
   himself. He gave himself for us. If he had stood as the surety for the
   whole world, he could not be more. He gave himself; what more could he
   bestow? The value of the atonement is the value of our Lord Jesus
   Christ. In his flesh he can take man's place, and by his Divinity he
   can give, and must give anyhow, an infinite value to the work that he,
   in mortal flesh, performs. For one soul, therefore, it must be
   infinite--for more or less it cannot be. Infinite it is, and infinite
   it must be, and we have no part or parcel with those who would say,
   that if Judas was to have been saved, Judas' amount of penalty would
   have had to have been paid, in addition to what has been borne and paid
   by Christ. He took the place, the room, and stead of the church, and
   then all that he was worth went in that church's place and stead. More
   he could not do, if he had taken the place of the whole world. But, you
   ask me, is there any limit to the atonement at all? I say I think there
   is; and the limit seems to be, not in the value, but in the purpose.
   The limit seems to be this theory--for whom did he die? in whose place
   and stead did he stand? If he stood in the place and stead of the whole
   world, then he made atonement for the sins of the whole world, and the
   whole world will be saved. If he stood in the place and stead of his
   Church, then he made atonement for his Church, and the whole Church
   will be saved. We believe that Christ took the place and stead of every
   believer, that the believer's sin was put on him, and thus the
   ex-sinner can go forth free. But I hear a voice saying, "I challenge
   substitution, and I object to that." So be it. I ask you, did Christ
   die for sin at all? It must be answered,--Yes. Then for whose sin did
   he die? If his own, then he suffered righteously. Did he die for the
   sins of the whole world? then justice cannot demand this again. Did he
   die for part of the sins of the whole world? then the rest of the sins
   will still condemn the world; then must have Christ died in vain. We
   believe that he took all the sins of some men. It was not a fictitious
   condemnation; it was not a fancy sin made for the occasion; it was a
   positive sin that had been committed by God's people, and is
   transferred from them to him who laid down his life for his sheep;
   loving us, and giving himself for and in the stead or in the place of
   his people.

   But, then, we say this work of redemption comprised something more than
   thus paying down the ransom, and the bearing of the penalty. It is,
   moreover, a rescue; for sin has not only made men this to have insulted
   God and broken God's law, it has transferred them unto bondage under
   the allegiance of one--"the strong man armed." They must be freed from
   that. Christ came, has destroyed death, and through death him also who
   has the power of death, even the devil; making an open show of them
   upon his cross, ascending up on high a victor, leading captivity
   captive. And then, I think, there is yet something further. Sin has
   affected the man himself, made him to need in his own person a
   releasing from the dominion, power, and corruption of sin. This Christ
   has secured by his covenant with the Father. But that which I take to
   comprise effectual calling and final perseverance, I shall leave to my
   brethren who shall speak afterwards. And now as to the persons
   redeemed--who are they? The Church, we say, whether you look at the
   Church as elect from all eternity, or the Church believing in time, or
   the Church as glorified hereafter. We look at them all as one, and we
   say these are the redeemed, these are they for whom redemption has been
   procured. We cannot add to their number, we cannot diminish them; for
   we believe that those whom God foreknew, he did predestinate; that
   those whom he did predestinate, he also called: for whom he calls he
   justifies, for whom he justifies he also glorifies; the whole are
   one,--and for these redemption has been made.

   Now, if I may be permitted the time, I will just touch upon one or two,
   objections, and then I will conclude. I hear some one saying, "But by
   that, sir, you surely must limit God's love." I reply, is God loving
   when he punishes any and doth not save all? Then is he loving also when
   he purposes to do that, for whatever justifies the deed justifies the
   purpose which gives the morality to the deed. And then I hear another
   objection--"How can you, sir, upon that theory, go to preach the Gospel
   unto every creature?" You have heard that answered--we have got the
   order; but, I reply yet further: I could not go and preach the Gospel
   upon any other theory, for I dare not go on that fool's errand of
   preaching a redemption that might not redeem, and declaring a salvation
   that might not save. I could not go and say to a man, "Believe on the
   Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." And he would answer me, "Do
   you think you are going to heaven?" "Yes." "Why?" "Because Christ died
   for me." "But he died for us all, and my chances therefore are as good
   as yours." And he might reply to me after he had accepted my
   declaration, and after he had believed, and begun to rejoice, after all
   he might say, "Is there any real reason why I should rejoice, some for
   whom Christ died are in hell, and I may also go there. I cannot begin
   to rejoice in your news till I feel myself in glory. It is rather a
   faulty piece of good news, because it is nothing positive; it is a
   grand uncertainty you have proclaimed to me." Now, what we preach, is
   the Gospel to every creature, and that we take to be this--If you
   believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you shall be saved; if you do not, you
   will be lost, and lost for ever. You are not redeemed--you are not
   saved,--there is not, in another word, salvation and redemption for
   those who are lost for ever. But we add, "We are what we are by Divine
   grace; we have believed; if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ you
   will be as we are--will be able to boast as we do, humbly in the Lord
   our God;" or in other words--If you believe, and are baptized, you will
   be saved; if you do not believe, you will be lost, and lost for ever.

                               EFFECTUAL CALLING

   BY THE

Rev. JAMES SMITH

   OF CHELTENHAM.

   My Christian friends, our minds have been occupied to-day with some of
   the loftiest subjects that can engage the thoughts of man. Our
   attention has been directed to the infinitely wise and true God, and we
   have been endeavouring to conceive of him as the great, the infinite,
   the eternal; the great, the infinite, the eternal intellect, who, of
   himself, conceiveth the grandest schemes, and infallibly provides for
   their accomplishment, so that there can be no mistake, no failure. We
   know that every wise intellect forms its plan before it provides its
   mean, or attempts to carry out the idea conceived in the mind.

   And the great doctrine of election, to which our attention was directed
   this afternoon, answers to the formation of the plan in the infinite
   mind of God. He foresaw, clearly, that the whole human race,
   represented by the first man, would fall into sin, and left to
   themselves, would certainly perish. To prevent a catastrophe so
   fearful, he determined in his infinite mind, to have a people for
   himself, a people that would comprise the vast majority of the fallen
   inhabitants of this world. They were all present before his mind; their
   names were registered in his book, which book was delivered into the
   hands of the Lamb, the Son of God, who accepted the book at the hands
   of his Father, and, as it were, signed it with his own name, so that it
   has been designated, "The Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the
   foundation of the world." And Jesus looked upon this act as the
   committing of the people to himself, on purpose that he might take the
   charge of them, on purpose that he might carry out the Father's will
   respecting them, and gain eternal laurels and honours to himself, by
   placing them in splendor, majesty, and glory before his Father's face
   for ever. We therefore find him frequently when speaking with his
   Father, and referring to this act in the eternal counsels, saying,
   "Thine they were and thou gavest them me. Keep those whom thou hast
   given me by thine own name, that they may be one as we are." But
   election interferes not with man as standing in Adam, but with man as
   under sin the result of Adam's fall. It ensured their restoration, but
   it did not interfere with their fall, and consequently the elect, with
   the rest, all fell in the first man. The entire mass of human nature
   became depraved, polluted, rotten to the heart's core; so depraved, so
   polluted, so rotten, that nothing could effect a change but the
   omnipotent energy of the omnipotent God. There is that in depravity in
   every form, that defies the touch of any one but the Infinite; that
   refuses to succumb to anything but to Omnipotence itself. The heart of
   man is foul as the heart of Satan; the nature of man is foul as the
   nature of Satan; and the sin of man is worse than the sin of Satan.
   Satan, the great archangel, that fell from heaven, did a tremendous
   deed when he set mind in opposition to Deity; but man set not merely
   mind, but matter with mind, in opposition to the eternal God. God could
   once look upon the world and say, "Though mind is in rebellion, matter
   is not in opposition;" but after the fall of man, mind and matter alike
   were corrupt, were depraved, were in opposition to the Eternal. Every
   man's heart steams with enmity against God; every man's spirit rises in
   rebellion against God; and, as you have heard tonight, the verdict of
   every man's conscience in its fallen state is, "No God, no God;" and if
   the Eternal could be voted out of existence by the suffrages of his
   fallen creatures, every hand would be up, every heart would give its
   verdict, and every voice would vote for the annihilation of the Most
   High. The will of man strong, the will of man stern, the will of man
   determined, and opposed to the will of God, will yield to nothing but
   that which is superior to itself; it laughs at authority, it turns with
   disgust from holiness, it refuses to listen to invitation, and, in this
   state, man--universal man, is found. In this state, man, the entire
   mass of man, with the exception of those who had been saved on credit,
   and had been changed by the sacred influences of the Spirit--in this
   state man was found when Christ came into our world. He came and, as ye
   have heard, assumed humanity, and united it with Deity. The two natures
   constituted the one person of the glorious Mediator; that glorious
   Mediator stood the representative of his people; that Mediator stood
   the Surety of his family; that Mediator stood the Substitute of the
   multitude of his fallen ones. That Mediator came to be the sacrifice to
   which sin was to be transferred, by which sin was to expiated and
   removed out of the way, that God's mercy might freely flow, and from
   the sinner's conscience, that he might have peace and joy.

   But as the election of the Father did not interfere with the falling of
   man's nature, so the redemption of the Son did not change the nature
   that had fallen. It was therefore necessary, that as the Father sent
   the Son, the Son should send the Comforter; and as it required an
   infinite victim to atone for man's guilt, it required an infinite agent
   to change man's fallen nature. As to the Father, the atonement must be
   made as the moral governor, as the maintainer of the rights of the
   eternal throne; so from the Father, through the Son, must the Holy
   Spirit descend to renew, to transform, to remodel, to fit human nature
   to gaze upon the unveiled glories of Deity, and to render to God the
   homage due unto his name. And this just brings me to my
   point--EFFECTUAL CALLING. This implies, that there is a calling that
   may not be effectual. Yes, there is a call that extends to the whole
   human family. As it is written, "Unto you, O men, I call, and my voice
   is unto the sons of men." There is a call that refers to humanity as
   sinful, and to sinners as such, however fallen and depraved they may
   be. Repentance or a change of mind, repentance and remission of sins,
   are to be preached amongst all nations, and the disciples were to begin
   at Jerusalem; and, beginning at Jerusalem the slaughter-house of the
   Son of God, and the slaughter-house of the prophets, and of the
   saints,--beginning there, they said, "Repent and be converted, that
   your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come
   from the presence of the Lord." But the people were like the deaf adder
   that stoppeth her ear, and refuseth to hear the voice of the
   charmer--charm he never so wisely. The Baptist had come and cried,
   "Repent," and sternly, and impressively he preached, but they paid
   little regard,--at least, little regard that tended to life. And the
   Son of God, with all that was soft, and winning, and captivating, came
   and preached; but they turned away, and he said, "To whom shall I like
   the men of this generation--they are like unto children sitting in the
   markets, and calling to their fellows--We have piped unto you, but ye
   have not danced, and we have mourned unto you, but ye have not
   lamented." Now, this call must be given, because God commands it; this
   call must be given, because God works by it. In giving the general, the
   universal call to all that hear the gospel, we obey the high mandate of
   the Eternal God; we do honour and homage to the authority of the Lord
   Jesus Christ, and we employ an instrument--a weapon, if you please--by
   which the Spirit of God operates upon the human mind; for the weapons
   of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty through God, to the
   pulling down of strongholds, and the casting down of imaginations, and
   every high thing, and the bringing into subjection every thought to the
   obedience of Christ. The general call leads to the special, to the
   particular, or what we designate, the "effectual call." We speak to me
   as men, and we reason with them; we speak to sinners as sinners, and we
   expostulate with them; but while we reason, and while we expostulate,
   we have the promise of the presence of the Master--"I am with you;" we
   have the promised presence of the Eternal Paraclete, who was sent to
   empower, sent to accompany, and sent to work by the Lord's servants;
   and, while we speak and give the call as we are commanded and
   commissioned, the Holy Spirit works--the infinite power of the Eternal
   Spirit comes into contact,--direct, immediate contact, with the mind of
   man. There is a power that goes with the word--distinct from the
   word--when it is accompanied by the energy of the Eternal Spirit; and
   that power produces in the heart, life--a spiritual, a Divine, an
   immortal life--a life that man dead in sin had not; a life which a man
   once having loseth not, for it is eternal; a life that was given us in
   Christ before the world was; a life preserved for us by Christ all
   through the past ages that have rolled away; a life that is
   communicated from the loving heart of Him who is the great depository
   of grace, and conducted by the Holy Ghost into the heart that is called
   by grace. Has the Spirit accompanying the word produced life? From that
   life springs conviction: not the cold conviction awakened occasionally
   in the mind of man, by the reasoning of man, by reflecting upon his
   past misconduct, or by the flashing of the forked lightnings of the
   law; but a conviction that is produced by the Holy Spirit bringing the
   law into contact with the conscience--the Gospel into contact with the
   heart. In the sinner's conscience God erects a tribunal, in the
   sinner's conscience God sits as judge, and to the tribunal, before the
   just judge, man is summoned to appear; and in the heart, in the soul,
   in the nature of man, there is a miniature of the judgment that is to
   take place at the completion and winding up of the present
   dispensation. The man is arraigned as a sinner, the man is convicted as
   a culprit, the man is condemned as a criminal; he stands before God,
   and he has nothing to say; every excuse has withered like the leaves of
   autumn, every excuse is carried away like the chaff from the summer's
   threshing-floor, every rag that the man boasted of is torn from him,
   and he stands, a naked sinner, before a heart-searching God. The
   penetrating eye of the Omniscient darts into the innermost recesses of
   his soul, and the gentle fingers of the Spirit turns over one fold of
   the heart after the other; the process may be long, or the operation
   may be quick, but sooner or later the man is brought to this.--"In me,
   that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." He had once started at
   the Scriptural representation of man's fallen and depraved nature; he
   had once wondered that from the lip of truth had proceeded the
   startling words, "From within, out of the heart, proceed murders,
   adulteries, blasphemies, false witnesses, and abominable idolatries."
   He never could have thought that evil so dreadful, he never could have
   thought that sins so fearful, he never could have thought that
   principles so diabolical, could have been found in a nature like his;
   but there they are, and he has nothing to object--but, under the power
   of the deep conviction that is produced, he is filled with terrible
   alarm. If he casts his eye back, there are the crimes of his life; if
   he casts his eye forward, there is the tremendous judgment; if he lifts
   up his eyes to Heaven, there is the pure and holy God that he has
   insulted; and if he turns his eyes within, all is dark and vain and
   wild. He is filled with alarm--alarm that perhaps keeps him awake by
   night, and haunts and harasses him by day, until he is prepared to do
   anything, prepared to go anywhere, if he may but escape the just
   judgment of his God. He is by this discipline prepared to submit to
   God's method of salvation; he is prepared to give up proposing
   conditions according to which he would be saved; he no longer goes
   about to work out a righteousness of his own, but he is ready to submit
   himself to the righteousness of God. Being, therefore, conscious of his
   criminality, burdened with his guilt, trembling at the prospect of his
   destiny, he falls prostrate before the high throne of the Eternal,
   smites upon his breast, and cries "God be merciful to me a sinner," as
   if no such a sinner had ever appealed to God's mercy, as if no such
   culprit had ever stood before God's throne; before God he says, "If
   there can be mercy in thy heart sufficient to reach a case so dismal
   and so desperate, God be merciful to me;" and after having pleaded with
   earnestness, after having supplicated with intense emotion, and after
   having, perhaps, become a little bold, he is startled at his own
   temerity, and receding, as it were, from the position that he had
   taken, he cries--

   "Depth of mercy, can there be

   Mercy in thy heart for me,

   O God of spotless purity?"

   And, perhaps, like David, he groans in his heart, and mourns in his
   soul, until his bones wax old, through his roaring all the day long.
   But, no relief, no help is found, until, at length, he begins to make
   confession of his sin, and, as he confesses, the Spirit of God unveils
   and unfolds the gospel mystery, and, as in the days of the law, when
   the victim was brought to the Priest, and the man placed his hand upon
   its head, between its horns, and pressed with his might and confessed
   over it all his transgressions, all his iniquities, and all his sins,
   so the man lays his hand of faith upon the victim's head, and there
   confesses his sin. As he confesses, a change takes place in his
   feelings, the burden begins to disperse, a little bright light in the
   cloud attracts his attention, and, as he looks upward, he seems to
   catch the loving Father's eye, and feels an encouragement within him to
   approach unto God; and, as he approaches, still confessing, still
   pleading, still deploring, still resting his hand upon the victim's
   head, and trusting in the atonement you have heard of, and on that
   alone, he seems to hear strange music, delightful melody, and that
   music is the commencement of the sound of the trump of the Jubilee,
   when the oppressed one is to go free, and as he listens to the sound
   the chains drop from his hands, and the burden from his shoulders, the
   trouble is removed from his heart, and he lifts up his eyes, streaming
   perhaps with tears, to heaven, and says, "Oh Lord, I will praise thee,
   for though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and
   thou comfortest me:" and looking around, on those about him, in the
   language of wonder, astonishment, and gratitude, he says, "Behold,
   behold a mystery, behold a miracle, behold one of the greatest wonders
   of the universe; behold, God is my salvation. I will trust, and not be
   afraid, for Jah Jehovah is my strength, and my song, he also is become
   my salvation." He has now peace flowing into his heart like a river, he
   has now a consciousness that God has accepted him in the beloved, and
   he now experimentally knows the truth, tastes the sweetness, and feels
   the power of the apostolic testimony, "Being justified by faith we have
   peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom also we have
   access into this grace, wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the
   glory of God." He has now experienced the effectual call. It has been a
   call from darkness into marvellous light, from bondage into glorious
   liberty; out of prison the man comes to reign; from the dunghill he is
   lifted up to sit among the princes, even among the princes of God's
   people. And, now, as I must conclude, just observe, the origin of this
   call is the free, the sovereign, the distinguishing grace of God. It
   originates, not in man's will, nor in man';s disposition, nor in man's
   station in society, but of His will, and of His will alone, who is the
   great sovereign ruler of the universe, is this change effected; of man
   it cannot be, for it includes a new creation; a resurrection; and the
   inhabitants of God. Generally speaking, the instrumentality by which
   God works is the gospel, but in every instance the agent that produces
   the change is the holy and eternal Spirit of God. He quickens the soul
   dead in trespasses and sins, he enlightens the understanding that was
   in the midnight darkness of nature, he disposes the will which before
   ran counter to the will of God; he teaches the understanding that was
   once averse to everything pure and holy, and then gently, and lovingly,
   and sweetly he leads the soul to the Cross to gaze upon the wondrous
   Sufferer, he then leads the soul to the Church to confess Christ and
   him crucified, and then leads it in the paths of righteousness for his
   own name's sake. The calling is high, for it is from the High and Holy
   One; it is heavenly, in contrast with the earthly calling of the
   descendants of Abraham of old; it is an evidence of distinguishing
   love; and thanks, eternal thanks to God, it is irreversible; for the
   gifts and the callings of God are without repentance. From death to
   life we pass; from darkness into light we come; out of bondage into
   liberty we spring; from sin to the knowledge and enjoyment of holiness
   we are introduced; then at last from earth to heaven. Into the grace of
   Christ we are called, and we stand in his favour. Into the fellowship
   of Christ we are called, and when Christ who is our life shall appear,
   we also shall appear with him in glory. The Father draws; the Spirit
   quickens; the Son receives; and when locked in the arms of the Son of
   God, our effectual calling is realized and enjoyed. Its author, is God;
   its subjects, are the elect; its nature, is holy; and its end, is
   glorious. Thus, you perceive, my friends, all originated in God's
   thought, which thought sprung into a perfect plan, to carry out which
   plan provision was made, and this plan will be perfectly carried out to
   the praise of the glory of his grace. Thus, whether you think of
   election, whether you think of redemption, or whether you think of
   effectual calling,

   >

   "Give all the glory to his holy name,

   For to him all the glory belongs;

   Be your's the high joy still to sound forth his praise

   And crown him in each of your songs."

   The REV. C. H. SPURGEON.--I think it was John Newton, who, speaking
   about good Calvinistic doctrine compared it to lumps of sugar; but he
   said, he did not so much give to his people the lumps of sugar, as
   diffuse the whole of it throughout his sermons; just as people do not
   eat sugar, but put it in their tea. Now, some of you have not yet grown
   patient enough to listen, I think, to a doctrine, however fully it may
   be brought out. Our people want anecdotes, illustrations, parables, and
   metaphors; even the best and sublimest things keep our minds on such a
   stretch when we listen to them, that there is good need that
   illustrations should yield us some relief. To-day was set apart that
   these doctrines might be fully brought out; this has been done, and
   there remains but one, and that my friend Mr O'Neil is to take, namely
   the final perseverance of the saints. Before he speaks, just one or two
   words. Has it never struck you that the scheme of doctrine which is
   called Calvinistic has much to say concerning God? It commences and
   ends with the Divine One. The angel of that system stands like Uriel in
   the sun; it dwells with God; he begins, he carries on, he perfects; it
   is for his glory and for his honour. Father, Son, and Spirit
   co-working, the whole Gospel scheme is carried out. Perhaps there may
   be this defect in our theology; we may perhaps too much forget man. I
   think that is a very small fault, compared with the fault of the
   opposite system, which begins with man, and all but ends with him. Man
   is a creature; how ought God to deal with him? That is the question
   some theologians seem to answer. The way we put it is--God is the
   Creator, he has a right to do as he wills; he is Sovereign, there is no
   law above him, he has a right to make and to unmake, and when man hath
   sinned, he has a right to save or to destroy. If he can save, and yet
   not impair his justice, heaven shall ring with songs; if he destroy,
   and yet his goodness be not marred, then hell itself with its deep bass
   of misery, shall swell the mighty rollings of his glorious praise. We
   hold that God should be most prominent in all our teachings; and we
   hold this to be a gauge by which to test the soundness of ministers. If
   they exalt God and sink the sinner to the very dust, it is all well;
   but if they lower the prerogatives of Deity, if he be less sovereign,
   less just, or less loving than the Scripture reveals him to be, and if
   man be puffed up with that fond notion that he is anything better than
   an unclean thing, then such theology is utterly unsound. Salvation is
   of the Lord, and let the Lord alone be glorified.

              THE FINAL PERSEVERANCE OF BELIEVERS IN CHRIST JESUS;

   BY THE

Rev. WILLIAM O'NEILL,

   MINISTER OF NEW BROAD STREET CHAPEL, LONDON.

   My dear Brethren and Friends.

   Most unexpectedly did the kind invitation of my esteemed brother, Mr
   Spurgeon, come to me, to take part in the present service of this
   beautiful house. And after I had engaged to come I sincerely wished
   that I had not. I felt, however, that it would not be proper to retire
   from the engagement, but seek to meet in a becoming spirit, both
   towards God's truth and God's people. I will now try to do this. I
   utter here, of course, my own sentiments. As I am not responsible for
   anything that has been or may be said by another speaker, so I alone am
   responsible for what I shall say. But though I am not the delegate or
   representative of any church, denomination, or community, I doubt not
   that my declaration of faith on the matter at hand will be, in all
   substantial points, that of a very large number who love Jesus and are
   living in His service. That I desire to believe what the Bible teaches,
   and that I am sincere in my convictions, I know to be true: but that
   there are thousands of excellent Christians on the other side admits of
   no doubt, and should not be questioned by any one. Of their deep
   sincerity, love to God and his Gospel, zeal and devotedness in holy
   things, self-denying labours in the Divine service, and the cultivation
   and manifestation of Christian graces, I would and do speak with the
   most earnest approval. I give them as much credit for sincerity as I
   claim for myself; and I do this not as a favour, but as a piece of
   simple justice. Yet we differ--differ as to what the Sacred Oracles
   teach on the doctrine now before us; and it is competent and right for
   all men to examine, each one for himself, which of our opinions is that
   which is taught in the Bible, for certainly both are not taught there.

   The question--Is it possible for sincere Christians, truly regenerated
   persons, to be finally separated from Jesus, to lose the favour of God
   their Father, and be eternally shut out from His smile and Home?--is
   one of no small moment. It involves issues of the most momentous
   nature, and cannot but be unspeakably interesting to every believer in
   Christ. We say, with unfaltering tongue, that of all the dead, every
   one who was ever renewed in heart is now in heaven; and that
   reconciliation with God on earth, through Christ Jesus, will, in every
   case, end in the everlasting salvation of the soul. Did God, then, tell
   us that all who are here now are His regenerated people, (would that
   they were!) we should believe that when the roll of the finally saved
   shall be called, every one of them would answer to that call by saying,
   "Here am I, Lord: Thy right arm, and the effectual operation of Thy
   Spirit and grace has done it all, and now I am to be for ever happy,
   for ever sinless, for ever safe." It is hardly necessary to say, that
   we believe this view of the case to be in entire harmony with the
   teaching of God's Book. To the law and to the testimony, if we, or
   others, speak not on this and on all other matters according to that
   Word, it is because there is no light in us or in them. (Isaiah viii.
   20.)

   Having called public attention to this doctrine lately in a small book,
   [1] in which I have sought to obey the Master's command,--"Search the
   scriptures,"--I will now, with your kind permission, direct attention
   to a few portions of the Divine Word that, we believe, fully establish
   the doctrine of the saints' final preservation and perseverance. On
   each of those texts my words must be few, as the time allotted to me is
   short.

   Hear then the Holy Spirit's teaching when speaking by the prophet
   Samuel:--"For the LORD will not forsake His people for His great name's
   sake; because it hath pleased the Lord to make you His people." (1 Sam.
   xii. 22) This, we think, is conclusive. What Christian does not know,
   and knowing, does not mourn over, the untrustworthiness of his own
   heart? And feeling fully assured that it is impossible for him to
   vanquish "the world, the flesh, and the devil," how welcome to his
   heart is the declaration, "The LORD will not forsake His people." No;
   He thought proper to renew their hearts, to quicken them into spiritual
   life, and He will mercifully continue to carry on His good work in
   their souls till it be perfected in glory. The reason why "He will not
   forsake His people" is stated here most explicitly; just as much so as
   is the declaration of His unchangeable love. It is not that they were
   less sinful by nature or practice than others; or because of any moral
   qualities that were found in them; but "because it pleased the Lord to
   make them His people." Hear another portion: God, speaking by his
   prophet Isaiah, says,--"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she
   should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may
   forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the
   palms of My hands." (Isaiah xlix. 15, 16.) This we regard as a most
   interesting, as well as a most consolatory portion of Scripture. "Zion
   said, the LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me." This
   was not only an error in creed,--it was also a dishonourable estimate
   of the Divine character, and to it the Gracious One replies in these
   words:--"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have
   compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will not I
   forget thee." The affection of a right-minded mother for her tender and
   helpless offspring is one of the strongest that is experienced by human
   beings. But, though strong, very strong, it may, alas! give way. It is,
   at best, only a creature's love, and therefore changeable; while that
   love which is exercised by God towards His believing children is, like
   Himself, unchangeable. These words prove, and were designed to prove,
   most conclusively, that the love of the Divine Father towards His
   adopted sons and daughters is not a fluctuating or changing thing. What
   other, or what lower interpretation can we put upon the words, "YET
   WILL NOT I FORGET THEE?" And not forgetting them is, in this case,
   equivalent to His continuing to care for, to keep, and tenderly regard
   them.

   Hear God again speaking by the same prophet:--"For a small moment have
   I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little
   wrath I hid My face form thee for a moment; but with everlasting
   kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer. For
   this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the
   waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I
   would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall
   depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from
   thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, saith the LORD
   that hath mercy on thee." These words deserve to hold a prominent place
   among those which God has spoken for the comfort and joy of His people.
   Their obvious design is--to sustain believers under the chastening hand
   of God, and to do this by considerations drawn from His own character,
   and not from anything in themselves. Vain, brethren, is it to trust, or
   put confidence in our own false hearts. They are weak as helpless
   infancy. To lean on them will only be evidence of our folly and of our
   sin. We are not to find consolation in our gifts, in our graces, in our
   labours, in our resolutions, or in our experience, nor by the grace of
   God will we do so. But when chastised by the everloving and good
   Father,--when smarting under his parental and deserved stripes,--we may
   feast our souls on His blessed words--words that fire those souls with
   confidence, hope, and love.--"In a little wrath I hid my face from thee
   for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy upon
   thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My
   kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my
   peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee." Such,
   brethren, are GOD'S utterances! These are the words of One who is
   unchangeable in affection; of One who says,--Oh! blessed be his
   adorable name for that saying,--"For I am the LORD, I change not;
   therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." (Mal. iii. 6.)

   I name another passage:--"For there shall arise," says Jesus, "false
   Christ's, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders;
   insomuch, that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very
   elect." (Matt. xxiv. 24.) The plain and obvious meaning of this latter
   clause is, that it is not possible to deceive, or allure to their final
   ruin, the adopted sons and daughters of God, those whom He has chosen
   to be His. Nothing less, we believe, was intended by the Gracious
   Speaker, and we see not how any other meaning can be consistently given
   to the language which He here uses. The words, "If it were possible,"
   only say, in another form, "It is not possible."

   I now name such texts as connect faith, or believing in Christ, with
   salvation, of which the following are a few:--"God so loved the world,
   that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
   should not perish, but have everlasting life." "Verily, verily, I say
   unto you, he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me,
   hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is
   passed from death unto life." "And this is the will of Him that sent
   Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Me hath
   everlasting life. I am the bread which came down from heaven: if any
   man eat of this bread he shall live for ever." "The Gospel is the power
   of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." (John ii. 16, v.
   24, vi. 47, 50, 51, 57; Rom. i. 16.) The plain teaching of these, and
   many similar passages, is, that every believer in Jesus hath
   everlasting life. They teach this or they teach nothing. Is this be not
   their meaning, what is? But, can that which is everlasting cease to be?
   Can it come to an end? No words can more plainly assert than these do,
   that whosoever believeth in Jesus SHALL NOT COME INTO CONDEMNATION;
   that all believers in him shall enjoy "everlasting life." We take these
   gracious assurances as proving, to the fullest extent, the doctrine for
   which we plead. If the belief of the Gospel be not followed, in every
   instance, by eternal blessedness, what did Paul mean when he said, "The
   Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth?"
   (Rom. i. 16.) If, at the last day, a single one be unsaved of those who
   had believed the Gospel, who had been united to Christ by faith in His
   name--the apostle's words must needs be falsified--his teaching is not
   true. This, at least, is our opinion. No amount of adverse criticism
   can set aside the evidence that such verses as these furnish in support
   of the blessed doctrine which we now defend.

   Hear Christ again:--"My sheep," he says, "hear My voice, and I know
   them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they
   shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of My hand. My
   Father who gave them Me is greater than all; and no one is able to
   pluck them out of My Father's hand." We regard this entire passage as
   one of the most delightful and consoling in the Scriptures. It teaches
   most unequivocally,--in the plainest, strongest, and most conclusive
   terms,--that Christ's believing ones "SHALL NEVER PERISH;" that no
   enemy, human or hellish, shall be able to wrench them out of His or His
   Father's covenanted and secure grasp. Infinite power, no less than
   infinite love--both existing in their God and Saviour--stand guarantee
   for their security! Neither men nor demons shall be able to defeat or
   overturn the purpose of Divine grace concerning them! Difficulties,
   many and sharp, may surround them; and temptations, fierce and fiery,
   may assault their souls; but Divine love, wisdom, grace, and power
   shall be ever on their side. Jesus, the "faithful and true witness,"
   says, "THEY SHALL NEVER PERISH." Elsewhere He says, "Because I live, ye
   shall live also." (John xiv. 17) The spiritual life of believers is in
   HIS keeping, and He here declares that it is as secure as His own. If
   He dies, and continues not to be their "Advocate with the Father," (1
   John ii. 1) their Intercessor "at the right hand of God," (Rom. viii.
   34) then may they die also, but not otherwise. In perfect keeping with
   his Lord's words are those which Paul uses, when referring to the same
   subject. "For if," he says, "when we were enemies, we were reconciled
   to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall
   be saved by His life." (Rom. v. 10) That is, we shall be preserved in
   that state of reconciliation by Christ's intercessory life at God's
   right hand in heaven. He, the God-man, lives there as Mediator, for
   them: He holds and exercises "all power in heaven and on earth" for the
   welfare and safety of His church. And they cannot die while He lives.
   The power that is to destroy the spiritual life of the weakest saint
   must first destroy the life of that saint's Head. "Their life," as the
   Holy Spirit by Paul elsewhere teaches, "is hid with Christ in God"
   (Col. iii. 3). Where, brethren, could it be safer, or as safe? In whose
   care or keeping could it be so secure? It is "hid with Christ in God."
   Not only so, but the Apostle goes on to say, "When Christ, who is our
   life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him IN GLORY." This,
   to say the least of it, is a glorious statement and declaration. Can
   language, we ask, go beyond that which is used in these texts to
   guarantee the eternal salvation of every believer in Jesus? The Head
   and members shall never be separated. They are bound up in an
   inseparable and an unchanging union.

   Hear a Divine lesson given in another place:--"Moreover, whom He did
   predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also
   justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified" (Rom. viii.
   30).

   When it is said, "Whom He did predestinate, them He also called," we
   must interpret the word "called" to mean very much more than invited;
   for the Apostle goes on to say, "Whom He called, them He also
   justified." We know that this is only true of those who believe in
   Jesus--who are effectually called or drawn, by the combined operations
   of the Word and Spirit of God, into the blessed fellowship and joys of
   the Gospel (1 Cor. i. 9). That those, and only those, who believe in
   Christ are justified, is the uniform lesson of the Divine Word (John
   iii. 16, 36; Acts xiii. 39, 40; Rom. i. 16, iii. 22, 28). Let it be
   noted that Paul affirms three things here. The first is--"Whom He did
   predestinate, them He also called." The second is--"Whom He called,
   them He also justified." And the third is--"Whom He justified, them He
   also glorified." What, then, does he mean by the expression
   "glorified?" Does he, or can he mean anything less than the enjoyment
   of everlasting life? We say, then, that were only a single individual
   out of the whole number of those who have been, or shall be "justified"
   by faith in Jesus, to come short of heaven, the declaration would not
   be true that "Whom He justified, them He also glorified."

   Hear another Divine proclamation relative to the security of God's
   people:--"For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
   nor principalities, nor powers, nor things to come, nor height, nor
   depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the
   love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. viii. 38, 39).
   These, brethren, are notes of the most triumphant character, relative
   to the ultimate blessedness of believers in Jesus. The terms which are
   here used are such as leave no doubt as to what the Holy Spirit,
   speaking by Paul, meant to teach. We deliberately affirm that language
   has no power to assert the doctrine for which we contend more
   conclusively than is here done. Words have no meaning, nor are they of
   any use in communicating thought, if these words were not used by a man
   who believed as we do on the matter in hand. And we are entirely
   willing to believe or disbelieve with the Apostle Paul, neither more
   nor less.

   I quote him again. Hear what he wrote to the Church at
   Philippi:--"Being confident of this very thing, that He who hath begun
   a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." I
   well remember how greatly this strengthened my own soul when, in the
   morning of my religious life, I was passing through much mental
   conflict. And are not these words well calculated to comfort the hearts
   of those who, through grace, have believed in the Saviour? Is there any
   room for objecting criticism here, or is there any ambiguity in the
   language employed? No, there is none whatever: the Apostle was
   "confident of this very thing." What "very thing?" Why, that wherever
   the Divine Spirit had commenced this "good work" of grace in the soul,
   He would complete it. No other power could have begun it, and no other
   power is competent to carry it forward to completion. That He who
   commences that "good work" is able to finish it, no professing
   Christian will deny: that He will finish it, this verse most clearly
   teaches. The Apostle Paul was "confident of THIS VERY THING;" and so
   are we.

   Let us give attention to other words of the same sacred penman.
   Addressing one of the primitive Churches, he says:--"We are bound to
   give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord,
   because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through
   sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth" (2 Thes. ii. 13).
   This is a most important portion of Scripture in relation to the
   question--What is the end of election? In what does it, or is it to
   terminate? What does it secure? Are its subjects merely chosen to enjoy
   the light of the gospel, the means of grace, and no more? Or, are they
   chosen to enjoy, in its full measure, everlasting life; the priceless
   favour and blissful fellowship of God here and for ever? This question
   is definitely settled by the language of inspiration employed here. The
   Apostle declares that the choice is "to salvation;" or, in other words,
   which he also uses in this place, "to the obtaining of the glory of our
   Lord Jesus Christ." This means, of course, eternal life in heaven, as
   well as all that precedes and prepares for it on earth. But how can
   this be realized? How can it be said, they were "chosen to salvation,"
   if they may all apostatize finally from Jesus, fall out of the Divine
   favour, and be for ever numbered with the lost? The thing is, of
   course, impossible. If not saved,--fully and for ever,--it would not be
   true to say they were chosen "to salvation."

   I beg to name one passage more. Speaking of believers, a divinely
   inspired teacher says:--"Who are kept by the power of God through faith
   unto salvation" (1 Peter, i. 5). Here we are distinctly taught what the
   Divine Being is doing and will continue to do for His believing people.
   The Apostle asserts, that they are "kept by the power of God through
   faith unto salvation." If so, nothing is more certain than that they
   shall reach it, and enjoy it for ever. Had Peter believed that it was
   possible for any number of them to become outcasts from God, and die in
   their sins, he would never have employed the language which is found
   here. The declaration that believers are "kept" or garrisoned in (for
   such is the meaning of the term here employed) "by the power of GOD
   through faith unto salvation," settles the point with us, and leaves us
   nothing more to desire in the shape of statement or promise. This is,
   indeed, a glorious declaration. Fellow pilgrims, let it fill you with
   the highest joy, as it gives you the fullest assurance that you are
   safe in the grasp and guardianship of Jehovah of hosts.

   We hold and teach too, that the certain enjoyment of everlasting life
   is inseparably connected with continued faith in the Divine testimony
   concerning sin, Jesus, and His salvation. They shall be preserved in
   the exercise of faith in the Redeemer, until they shall enter upon the
   possession of the heavenly inheritance. This is clearly taught here,
   and nothing less.

   I have now referred to a few out of the many portions of God's word
   which teach the doctrine for which we contend. God's people shall be
   preserved, and will persevere to the end, for they were given to Christ
   in the everlasting covenant, that covenant which is "ordered in all
   things and sure:" the stability of which is as safe as the oath, and
   promise, and power of God can make it (Psalm lxxxix. 30, 34; Heb. vi.
   18, 19). They are "loved by Him with an everlasting love" (Jer. xxxi.
   3); they are "chosen to salvation" (Eph. i. 4; 2 Thes. ii. 13); and
   God, their gracious and reconciled Father, "will rest in His love"
   (Zeph. iii. 17). Their safety, as believers in Jesus, is secured by the
   word and promise of the "God that cannot lie." He has said that He will
   never leave them nor forsake them (Heb. xiii. 2); that they shall never
   perish" (John x. 28); and that He will confirm them unto the end" (1
   Cor. i. 8).

   For this purpose the ever-availing intercession of Jesus is employed.
   He is at the right hand of God as their Brother, Representative, and
   Advocate. He prays for them that their faith fail not (Luke xxii. 32).
   They are, each and all, borne on His heart, and pleaded for in His
   gracious and ever-successful intercession. "Father," says he, "I will
   that they also, whom thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, that
   they may behold My glory" (John xvii. 24). Oh, what priceless joy do
   these words afford to the believer's heart! No weapon that is formed
   against them shall prosper. Their Almighty King will vanquish all their
   spiritual foes. He will so aid them that they shall contend
   victoriously against "the world, the flesh, and the devil." They shall
   be more than conquerors through Him that loved them (Rom. viii. 37).
   They shall be the saved of His right arm, and the everlasting monuments
   and trophies of His grace, love, and power. They are "sealed with that
   Holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of their inheritance, until
   the redemption of the purchased possession" (2 Cor. i. 21, 22; Eph. i.
   13, 14). Having received the "earnest," the pledge which guarantees the
   fulfilment of their Heavenly Father's covenant to save them, they are
   perfectly and for ever secure.

   We build our faith in this doctrine on God's plain teaching. We extort
   no meaning from His word which cannot be found there by the simple and
   ordinary reader of it. We take its statements in their plain and
   grammatical sense, just as they would be interpreted by any
   unprejudiced expounder of language. We should be content to abide by
   the interpretation of them which would be given by any man, infidel or
   other, who felt no interest in our controversy, and who was entirely
   careless relative to our differences of opinion. One unequivocal
   passage teaching this doctrine would be, or should be sufficient to
   establish it, and to bring our opinions into harmony with Divine
   teaching; but we are not confined to one, or five, or ten; we have line
   upon line, promise upon promise, assurance upon assurance, and
   declaration upon declaration to this effect. So that we would fain
   ask,--If the doctrine be not taught in the portions of Scripture that I
   have named, what is taught in them? What is their import? What do they
   teach? Or, what language or terms would be thought sufficient to teach
   it? It is our firm conviction that no doctrine of religion is more
   clearly taught in the Bible than is this. It is expressed as plainly as
   words can possibly do it.

   And are we, with these inspired declarations before us, to suppose it
   possible for wicked men or demons to say, when pointing to numbers of
   the lost,--"The Most High began to build up His kingdom in their souls,
   but He was not able to finish it! He quickened them into spiritual
   life,--renewed, pardoned, justified, and sanctified them; but now they
   are torn from His grasp, His enemies were able--contrary to the words
   of Jesus (1 John x. 21)--'to pluck them out of His hand,' and they have
   done it."

   This would, indeed, make short work of many plain and positive
   declarations found in the Bible: it would prove, beyond doubt, that its
   promises, and assurances, and declarations are of very little value.

   Let me, before I close, say--and say with the fullest emphasis
   possible--that we believe as firmly as any man living, as firmly as we
   believe any truth taught in the Bible, that "without holiness no man
   shall see the Lord" (Heb. xii. 14). We know no other evidence of being
   in Christ, or of being a Christian, than that which is furnished by a
   life and behaviour becoming the Gospel. And though holiness is not the
   cause of God's first or continued love to His people, it is the effect
   and fruit of that love, and a main part of the salvation which is in
   Christ Jesus--that salvation to which they are chosen (Eph. i. 4); and
   he who is satisfying himself with the notion that he is safe for
   eternity, while he is living in any known sin, is turning the grace of
   our God into licentiousness, and is a deadly enemy of the Cross of
   Christ. The blessed doctrine which the Bible teaches, and in which we
   glory, is--the doctrine of the saints' final perseverance, and that
   doctrine was never designed to comfort any man who is not living a life
   of faith in the Son of God, intensely anxious to please God in all
   things, and to be the holy and happy subject of that mind which was in
   Jesus.

   Very interesting, then, is the question, when asked in no wrong
   spirit--Are there few that be saved? If GOD does not hold up His
   people, if He does not keep them by His grace and power, they will be
   very few indeed--a child may count them, and, in fact, have none, not
   one, to count. But let no man charge our views with being "narrow," or
   "embracing only a few," or contemplating the eternal salvation of "a
   very limited number" of our race, for, according to the view which we
   hold and teach, they will be a numberless number. We believe, and our
   hearts swell with high and holy joy in believing, that every child of
   man who loved God,--every one of Adam's race who was renewed in
   heart,--all who were ever on the Lord's side,--will be found among the
   saved. Not one will be lost. Not one will be missed from the eternal
   banquet. Not one, will be outside the gates of the holy city. All, all
   shall be there, and there for ever, and ever, and ever!

   "The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,

   He will not, He cannot, give up to His foes;

   That soul, though all hell should endeavour to shake,

   He'll never! no, never! no, never forsake!"
     __________________________________________________________________

   [1] Unchanging Love. Tresidder, Ave Maria Lane, London. All the texts
   that are usually quoted in opposition to the doctrine now noticed are
   passed under calm review.
     __________________________________________________________________

                  Jehovah Tsidkenu: The Lord Our Righteousness

   A Sermon

   (No. 395)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, June 2nd, 1861 by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "This is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our
   Righteousness.--Jeremiah 23:6.

   MAN BY THE FALL sustained an infinite loss in the matter of
   righteousness. He suffered the loss of a righteous nature, and then a
   two-fold loss of legal righteousness in the sight of God. Man sinned;
   he was therefore no longer innocent of transgression. Man did not keep
   the command; he therefore was guilty of the sin of omission. In that
   which he committed, and in that which he omitted, his original
   character for uprightness was completely wrecked. Jesus Christ came to
   undo the mischief of the fall for his people. So far as their sin
   concerned their breach of the command, that he has removed by his
   precious blood. His agony and bloody sweat have for ever taken away the
   consequences of sin from believers, seeing Christ did by his one
   sacrifice bear the penalty of that sin in his flesh. He, his own self,
   bare our sins in his own body on the tree. Still it is not enough for a
   man to be pardoned. He, of course, is then in the eye of God without
   sin. But it was required of man that he should actually keep the
   command. It was not enough that he did not break it, or that he is
   regarded through the blood as though he did not break it. He must keep
   it, he must continue in all things that are written in the book of the
   law to do them. How is this necessity supplied? Man must have a
   righteousness, or God cannot accept him. Man must have a perfect
   obedience, or else God cannot reward him. Should He give heaven to a
   soul that has not perfectly kept the law; that were to give the reward
   where the service is not done, and that before God would be an act
   which might impeach his justice. Where, then, is the righteousness with
   which the pardoned man shall be completely covered, so that God can
   regard him as having kept the law, and reward him for so doing? Surely,
   my brethren, none of you are so besotted as to think that this
   righteousness can be wrought out by yourselves. You must despair of
   ever being able to keep the law perfectly. Each day you sin. Since you
   have passed from death unto life, the old Adam still struggles for
   dominion within you. And by the force of the lusts of the flesh you are
   brought into captivity to the law of sin which is in your members. The
   good you would do, you do not, and the evil you would not, that you too
   often do. Some have thought the works of the Holy Spirit in us would
   give us a righteousness in which we might stand. I am sure, my
   brethren, we would not say a word derogatory to the cork of the Holy
   Spirit. It is divine. But we hold it to be a great cardinal point in
   divinity that the work of the Spirit never meant to supplant the merits
   of the Son. We could not depreciate the Lord Jesus Christ in order to
   exalt the office of the Holy Spirit of God. We know that each
   particular branch of the divine salvation which was espoused by the
   persons of the Trinity has been carried out by each one to perfection.
   Now as we are accepted in the Beloved, it must be by a something that
   the Beloved did; as we are justified in Christ it must be by a
   something not that the Spirit has done, but which Christ has done. We
   must believe, then,--for there is no other alternative--that the
   righteousness in which we must be clothed, and through which we must be
   accepted, and by which we are made meet to inherit eternal life, can be
   no other than the work of Jesus Christ. We, therefore, assert,
   believing that Scripture fully warrants us, that the life of Christ
   constitutes the righteousness in which his people are to be clothed.
   His death washed away their sins, his life covered them from head to
   foot; his death the sneaky to God, his life was the gift to man, by
   which man satisfies the demands of the law. Herein the law is honored
   and the soul is accepted. I find that many young Christians who are
   very clear about being saved by the merits of Christ's death, do not
   seem to understand the merits of his life. Remember, young believers,
   that from the first moment when Christ did lie in the cradle until the
   time when he ascended up on high, he was at work for his people; and
   from the moment when he was seen in Mary's arms, till the instant when
   in the arms of death he "bowed his head and gave up the ghost," he was
   at work for your salvation and mine. He completed the work of obedience
   in his life, and said to his Father, "I have finished the work which
   thou gavest me to do." Then he completed the work of atonement in his
   death, and knowing that all things were accomplished, he cried, "It is
   finished." He was through his life spinning the web for making the
   royal garment, and in his death he dipped that garment in his blood. In
   his life he was gathering together the precious gold, in his death he
   hammered it out to make for us a garment which is of wrought gold. You
   have as much to thank Christ for loving as for dying, and you should be
   as reverently and devoutly grateful for his spotless life as for his
   terrible and fearful death. The text speaking of Christ, the son of
   David, the branch out of the root of Jesse, styles him THE LORD OUR
   RIGHTEOUSNESS.

   Having introduced the doctrine of imputed righteousness, I proofed to
   map out my subject. First, by way of affirmation; we say of the
   text--it is so--Christ is the Lord or righteousness; secondly, I shall
   exhort you to do him homage; let us call him so: for this is the name
   whereby he shall be called; and thirdly, I shall appeal to your
   gratitude; let us wonder at the reigning grace, which has caused us to
   fulfill the promise, for have been sweetly compelled to call him the
   Lord our righteousness.

   First, then, He is so. Jesus Christ is the Lord our righteousness.
   There are but three words, "JEHOVAH"--for so it is in the
   original,--"OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.' He is Jehovah. Read that verse, and you
   will clearly perceive that the Messias of the Jews, Jesus of Nazareth
   the Saviour of the Gentiles, is certainly Jehovah. He hath the
   incommunicable title of the Most High God. "Behold, the days come,
   saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a
   king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in
   the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell
   safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR
   RIGHTEOUSNESS." Oh, ye Arians and Socinians, who monstrously deny the
   Lord who bought you and put him to open shame by denying his divinity,
   read you that verse and let your blasphemous tongues be silent, and let
   your obdurate hearts melt in penitence because ye have so foully sinned
   against him. He is Jehovah, or, mark you, the whole of God's word is
   false, and there is no noun for a sinner's hope. We know, and this day
   we testify in his name, that the very Christ who did lie in the manger
   as an infant was infinite even then; that he who cried, cried for very
   pain as a child, was nevertheless saluted at that very moment as God by
   the songs of the creatures that his hands had made. He who walked in
   pain over the flinty acres of Palestine, was at the same time possessor
   of heaven and earth. He who had not where to lay his head, and was
   despised and rejected of men, was at the same instant God over all,
   blessed for evermore. He that sweat great drops of blood did bear the
   earth upon his shoulders. He who was flagellated in Pilate's hall was
   adored by spirits of the just made perfect. He who did hang upon the
   tree had the oration hanging upon him. He who died on the cross was the
   ever living, the everlasting One. As a man he died, as God he lives. As
   Mary's son he bled, as the son of the Eternal God he had the sway and
   the dominion over all the world. In nature Christ proves himself to be
   universal God. Without him was not anything made that was made. By him
   all things consist. Who less than God could make the heavens and the
   earth? Bow before him, bow before him, for he made you, and should not
   the creatures acknowledge their Creator?

   Providence attests his Godhead. He upholdeth all things by the word of
   his power Creatures that are animate have their breath from his
   nostrils; inanimate creatures that are strong and mighty stand only by
   his strength. He can say concerning the earth, "I bear the pillars
   thereof." In the deep foundations of the sea his power is felt, and in
   the towering arches of the starry heavens his might is recognized to
   the full. And as for Grace, we claim for Christ that he is Jehovah in
   the great kingdom of his grace. Who less than God could have carried
   your sins and mine and cast them all away? Who less than God could have
   interposed to deliver us from the jaws of hell's lions, and bring us up
   from the pit, having found a ransom? On whom less than God could we
   rely to keep us from the innumerable temptations that beset us? How can
   he be less than God, when he says, "Lo, I am with you always, unto the
   end of the world?" How could he be omnipresent if he were not God! How
   could he hear our prayers, the prayers of millions, scattered through
   the leagues of earth, and attend to them all, and give acceptance to
   all, if he were not infinite in understanding and infinite in merit?
   How were this if he were less than God? Let Atheists scoff, let Deists
   sneer, let the vain Socinian boast, let the Arian lift up his puny
   voice, but we will glory in this fact, that he that bought us with his
   blood is Jehovah--very God of very God. At his footstool we bow and pay
   him the very homage that we pay to his Father and to the Spirit.

   "Blessings more than we can give,

   Be Lord for ever thine."

   But the text speaks about righteousness too--"Jehovah our
   righteousness." And he is so. Christ in his life was so righteous, that
   we may say of the life, taken as a vehicle, that it is righteousness
   itself. Christ is the law incarnate Understand me. He lived out the law
   of God to the very full, and while you see God's precepts written in
   fire on Sinai's brow, you see them written in flesh in the person of
   Christ.

   "My dear Redeemer and my Lord,

   I read my duty in thy word,

   But in thy life the law appears

   Drawn out in living characters."

   He never offended against the commands of the Just One. From his eye
   there never flashed the fire of unhallowed anger. On his lip there did
   never hang the unjust of licentious word. His heart was never stirred
   by the breath of sin or the taint of iniquity. In the secret of his
   reins no fault was hidden. In his understanding was no defect; in his
   judgment no error. In his miracles there was no ostentation. In him
   there was indeed no guile. His powers being ruled by his understanding,
   all of them acted and co-acted to perfection's very self, so that never
   was there any flaw of omission or stain of commission. The law consists
   in this first, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart."
   He did so. It was his meat and his drink to do the will of him that
   sent him. Never man spent himself as he did. Hunger and thirst and
   nakedness were nothing to him, nor death itself if he might so be
   baptised with the baptism wherewith he must be baptized, and drink the
   cup which his Father had set before him. The law consists also in this,
   "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." In all he did, and in all he
   suffered he more than fulfilled the precept, for "he saved others
   himself he could not save." He exhausted the utmost resources of love
   in the deep devotion and self-sacrifice of loving. He loved man better
   than his own life. He would sooner be spit upon than that man should be
   cast into the flames of hell and sooner yield up the ghost in agonies
   that cannot be described than that the souls his Father gave him should
   be cast away. He carried out the law, then, I say to the very letter he
   spelt out its mystic syllables, and verily he magnified it, and made it
   honorable. He loved the Lord his God, with all his heart, and soul, and
   mind, and he loved his neighbors as himself. Jesus Christ was
   righteousness impersonated. "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" he
   might well say. One thousand eight hundred years have passed since
   then, and blasphemy itself has not been able to charge him with a
   fault. Strange as it may appear, the most perverted judges have
   nevertheless acknowledged the awful dignity of his character. They have
   railed at his miracles; they have denied his Godhead; but his righteous
   character I know not that they have dared to impugn. They have hatched
   jokes about his generation; they have made his poverty a jest, and his
   death has been the theme of ribald song; but his life has staggered
   even the most unbelieving, and made the careless wonder how such a
   character could have been conceived even if it be a fiction, and much
   more, how it could have been executed if it be a fact. No one that I
   know of has dared to charge Christ with unrighteousness to man, or with
   a want of devotedness to God. See then, it is so. We do not stay to
   prove his righteousness any more than we did to prove his Godhead. The
   day is coming when men shall acknowledge him to be Jehovah, and when
   looking upon all his life while he was incarnate here, they shall be
   compelled to say that his life was righteousness itself. The pith,
   however, of the title, lies in the little word "our,"--"Jehovah our
   righteousness." This is the grappling iron with which we get a hold on
   him--this is the anchor which dives into the bottom of this great deep
   of his immaculate righteousness. This is the saved rivet by which our
   souls are joined to him. This is the blessed hand with which our soul
   toucheth him, and he becometh to us all in all, "Jehovah our
   Righteousness"

   You will now observe that there is a most precious doctrine unfolded in
   this title of our Lord and Saviour. I think we may take it thus: When
   we believe in Christ, by faith we receive our justification. As the
   merit of his blood takes away our sin, so the merit of his obedience is
   imputed to us for righteousness. We are considered, as soon as we
   believe, as though the works of Christ here our works. God looks upon
   us as though that perfect obedience, of which I have just now spoken,
   had been performed by ourselves,--as though our hands had been bony at
   the loom, an though the fabric and the stuff which have been worked up
   into the fine linen, which is the righteousness of the saints, had been
   grown in our own fields. God considers us as though we were
   Christ--looks upon us as though his life had been our life--and
   accepts, blesses, and rewards us as though all that he did had been
   done by us, his believing people. Accordingly, if you will turn to the
   thirty-third chapter of this same prophet Jeremiah, and look at the
   sixteenth verse, you will see it written, "This is the name wherewith
   she shall be called, the Lord our righteousness." I know that Socinus
   in his day used to call this an execrable, detectable, and licentious
   doctrine: probably it was, because he was an execrable, detectable, and
   licentious man. Many men use their own names when they are applying
   names to other persons; they are so well acquainted with their own
   characters, and so suspicious of themselves, that they think it best,
   before another can express the suspicion, to attach the very same
   accusation to someone else. Now we hold, you know, that this doctrine
   is not execrable, but most delightful, that it is not abominable, but
   Godlike, that it is not licentious, but holy: and let others say what
   they will of it, we will repeat the praise which we have been
   singing,--

   "Jesus, thy perfect righteousness

   My beauty is, my glorious dress;"

   and we will day when all things shall be tried by fire, for we feel
   confident that--

   "Bold shall we stand in that great day,

   For who aught to our charge shall lay,"

   when we are clothed with the righteousness divine?

   Imputation, so far from being an exceptional case with regard to the
   righteousness of Christ, lies at the very bottom of the entire teaching
   of Scripture. How did we fall, my brethren? We fell by the imputation
   of Adam's sin to us. Adam was our federal head; he represented us; and
   when he sinned, we sinned representatively in him, and what he did was
   imputed to us. You say that you never agreed to the imputation. Nay,
   but I would not have you say thus, for as by representation we fell, it
   is by the representative system that we rise. The angels fell
   personally and individually, and they never rise, but we fell in
   another, and we have therefore the power given by divine grace to rise
   in another. The root of the fall is found in the federal relationship
   of Adam to his seed; thus we fell by imputation. Is it any wonder that
   we should rise by imputation? Deny this doctrine, and I ask you--How
   are men pardoned at all? Are they not pardoned because satisfaction has
   been offered for sin by Christ? Very well then, but that satisfaction
   must be imputed to them, or else how is God just in giving to them the
   results of the death of another, unless that death of the other be
   fire? of all imputed to them? When we say that the righteousness of
   Christ is imputed to an believing souls, we do not hold forth an
   exceptional theory, but we expound a grand truth, which is so
   consistent with the theory of the fall and the plan of pardon, that it
   must be maintained in order to make the gospel clear. I think it was
   this doctrine which Martin Luther called the article of standing or
   falling of the Church. I find a passage in his works which seems to me
   to refer to this doctrine rather than to justification by faith. He
   ought certainly to have said, "Justification by faith is the doctrine
   of standing or falling of the Church." But in Luther's mind, imputed
   righteousness we, so interwoven with justification by faith, that he
   could not see any distinction between the two. And I must confess, in
   trying to observe a difference, I do not see much. I must give up
   justification by faith if I give up imputed righteousness. True
   justification by faith is the surface soil, but then imputed
   righteousness is the granite rock which lies underneath it; and if you
   dig down through the great truth of a sinners being justified by faith
   in Christ, you must, as I believe, inevitably come to the doctrine of
   the imputed righteousness of Christ as the basis and foundation on
   which that simple doctrine rests.

   And now let us stop a moment and think over this whole title--"The Lord
   our righteousness." Brethren, the Law-giver has himself obeyed the law
   Do you not think that his obedience will be sufficient? Jehovah has
   himself become man that so he may do man's work: think you that he has
   done it imperfectly? Jehovah--he who girds the angels that excel in
   strength--has taken upon him the form of a servant that he may become
   obedient: think you that his service will be incomplete? Let the fact
   that the Saviour is Jehovah strengthen your confidence. Be ye bold. Be
   ye very courageous. Face heaven, and earth, and hell with the challenge
   of the apostle. "Who shall say anything to the charge of God's elect?
   "Look back upon your past sins, look upon your present infirmities, and
   all your future errors, and while you weep the tears of repentance, let
   no fear of damnation blanch your cheek. You stand before God to-day
   robed in your Saviour's garments, "with his spotless vestments on, holy
   as the Holy One." Not Adam when he walked in Eden's bowers was more
   accepted than you are,--not more pleasing to the eye of the
   all-judging, the sin-hating God than you are if clothed in Jesus'
   righteousness and sprinkled with his blood. You have a better
   righteousness than Adam had. He had a human righteousness; your
   garments are divine. He had a robe complete, it is true, but the earth
   had woven it. You have a garment as complete, but heaven has made it
   for you to wear. Go up and down in the strength of this great truth and
   boast exceedingly, and glory in your God; and let this be on the top
   and summit of your heart and soul: "Jehovah, the Lord our
   righteousness."

   You will remember that in Scripture, Christ's righteousness is compared
   to fair white linen; then I am, if I wear it, without spot. It is
   compared to wrought gold; then I am, if I wear it, dignified and
   beautiful, and worthy to sit at the wedding feast of the King of kings.
   It is compared, in the parable of the prodigal son, to the best robe;
   then I wear a better robe than angels have, full they have not the
   best; but I, poor prodigal, once clothed in rage, companion to the
   nobility of the stye,--I, fresh from the husks that swine do eat, am
   nevertheless clothed in the best robe, and am so accepted in the
   Beloved.

   Moreover, it is also everlasting righteousness. Oh! this is, perhaps,
   the fairest point of it--that the robe be shall never be worn out; no
   thread of it shall ever give way. It shall never hang in tatters upon
   the sinner's back. He shall live, and even though it were a
   Methusaleh's life, the robe shall be as if it were woven yesterday. He
   shall pass through the stream of death, and the black stream shall not
   foul it. He shall climb the hills of heaven, and the angels shall
   wonder what this whiteness is which the sinner wears, and think that
   some new star is coming up from earth to thine in heaven. He shall wear
   it among principalities and powers, and find himself no whit inferior
   to them all. Cherubic garments and seraphic mantles shall not be so
   lordly so priestly, so divine, as this robe of righteousness this
   everlasting perfection which Christ has wrought out, and brought in and
   given to all his people. Glory unto thee, O Jesus, glory unto thee!
   Unto thee be hallels for ever; Hallelu--jah! Thou art you--"Jehovah,
   the Lord our righteousness."

   II. Having thus expounded and vindicated this title of our Saviour, I
   would now APPEAL TO YOUR FAITH.

   Let us call him so. "This is the name whereby he shall be called, the
   Lord our righteousness." Let us call him by this great name, which the
   mouth of the Lord of Hosts hath named. Let us call him--poor
   sinners!--even we, who are today smitten down with grief on account of
   sin. I want this text to be fulfilled in your ears and in your case
   to-day. You are guilty. Your own conscience acknowledges that the law
   condemns you, and you dread the penalty. Soul! he that trusteth Christ
   Jesus is saved, and he that believeth on him is not condemned. To every
   trustful spirit Christ is "the Lord our righteousness." Call him so, I
   pray thee. "I have no good thing of my own," sayest thou? Here is every
   good thing in him. "I have broken the law," sayest thou? There is his
   blood for thee. Believe in him, he will wash thee. "But then I have not
   kept the law. "There is his keeping of the law for thee. Take it,
   sinner, take it. Believe on him. "Oh, but I dare not," saith one. Do
   him the honor to dare it. "Oh, but it seems impossible." Honour him by
   believing the impossibility then. "Oh, but how can he save such a
   wretch as I am?" Soul! Christ is glorified in saving wretches. As I
   told you the other day, Christ cures incurable sinners; so I say now he
   accepts unacceptable sinners. He receives sinners that think they are
   not fit to be received. Only do thou trust him and say, "He shall be my
   righteousness to-day." "But suppose I should do it and be presumptuous?
   It is impossible. He bids you, he commands you. Let that be your
   warrant. "This is the commandment, that ye believe on Jesus Christ whom
   he hath sent." If you cannot say it with a loud voice, yet with the
   trembling silence of your soul let heaven hear it. Yes, Jesus, "All
   unholy and unclean, I am nothing else but sin, yet I dare with fervent
   venture of these quivering lips to call thee, and to call upon thee
   now, as the Lord my righteousness."

   And you who have passed from a state of trembling hope into that of
   lively faith, I beseech you call him so. Let your faith say, as you see
   him suffering, bleeding, dying, "Thus my sins were washed away." But
   let not your faith stay there. As you see him sweating, toiling, living
   a self-denying laborious life, say, "Thus the law was kept for me."
   Come up to the foot of Sinai now, and if you see its lightnings flash,
   and hear its thunders roar, be brave, and say like Moses, "I will
   ascend above those thunders, I will stand enwrapped within the
   storm-cloud, and I will talk with God, for I have no cause for fear,
   there are no thunderbolts for me; for me no lightning flash can spend
   its arrow, I am perfectly, completely justified in the sight of God,
   through the righteousness of Jesus Christ." Say that, child of God!
   Does yesterday's sin make thee stammer? In the teeth of all thy sins
   believe that he is thy righteousness still. Thy good works do not
   improve his righteousness; thy bad works do not sully it. This is a
   robe which thy best deeds cannot mend and thy worst deeds cannot mar.
   Thou standest in him, not in thyself. Whatever, then, thy doubts and
   fears may have been, do now, poor troubled, distressed, distracted
   believer, say again, "Yes, he is the Lord my righteousness."

   And some of us can say it yet better than that: for we can say it not
   merely by faith, but by fruition. We remember well the day when we
   first called him "the Lord our righteousness." Oh, the peace it
   brought, the joy, the gladness, the transport! Since then we have
   proved it to he true, for we have had privileges we could not have had
   if he had not been our righteousness. We have had the privilege of
   reconciliation with God; and He could not be reconciled to one that had
   not a perfect righteousness, we have had access with boldness to God
   himself, and He would never have suffered us to have access if we had
   not worn our brother's garments. We have had adoption into the family,
   and the Spirit of adoption, and God could not have adopted into his
   family any but righteous ones. How should the righteous Father be God
   of an unrighteous family? Our prayers have been heard, and we have had
   gracious answers, and that could not have been--for he could not heal
   the prayer of the wicked; he could not have heard us--if it had not
   been that he seemed to hear Christ crying through us, and to have seen
   Christ's merits in us. And therefore granted the desire of our hearts.
   We have had in daily rich and sweet experience such manifestations of
   fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, that to us it
   is a matter of fact as well as a matter of faith, a matter of praise as
   well as a matter of profession, that Jesus Christ is "the Lord our
   righteousness."

   Brethren, your divinity must be experimental or it will not profit you.
   I would not give a straw for your theology if you learned it merely out
   of a pollee, or out of a system of man's teaching. No, no, we must
   prove these things to be true in our lives. I can say it, and I must
   say it--the testimony is not egotistical--I know there is a comfort in
   the faith of Christ's imputed righteousness which no other doctrine can
   yield. There is something that a man can sleep on and wake on, can live
   on and die on, in the firm conviction that he is received by God as
   though the deeds of Christ were his deeds, and the righteousness of
   Christ his righteousness. Take away his filthy garments from him, set a
   fair mitre on his head, array him in fine linen. O, Joshua, priest of
   the Most High, thou man greatly beloved, come thou forth now in thy
   garments and offer acceptable sacrifice, seeing, thou wearest the
   garments of Jesus, our great High Priest." Let us, then, call upon his
   name and extol him in our worship as "the Lord our righteousness."

   And now let the whole universal Church of Christ, in one glad song,
   call Jesus Christ the Lord their righteousness. Wake up, ye isles of
   the sea; shout, thou wilderness that Kedar doth inhabit; ye people of
   God, scattered and peeled, banished among the heathen, vexed with the
   filthy conversation of the idolaters, from your huts, from the
   destitute places that ye inhabit, sing, "The Lord our righteousness!"
   Let no heir of heaven be silent at this hour; let every soul be
   stirred. Though tempest-tossed and half a wreck, yet, mariner in
   Christ, say, "Thou art the Lord my righteousness." Though cast down
   into the deep dungeon, thou despairing soul, yet say, "The Lord my
   righteousness." Let no one of the entire believing family keel; back
   his song but together let us sing, "The Lord our righteousness." And
   you, ye spirits that walk in white, ye glorious ones that "day without
   night circle his throne rejoicing," ye saints that ere his day beheld
   him, and died, not having received the promise, but having beheld it
   afar off,--Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and Samuel, and
   Jephthah, and David, and Solomon, and all the mighty host, sing ye,
   sing ye, sing ye unto him to-day; and let this be the summit of your
   song, "The Lord our righteousness." Our spirit bows before him now.
   Sweet fellowship beyond the stream! Me clasp our hands with those that
   went before; and while the cherubim can only say, "Holy, holy, holy; he
   is righteous," we lift up a higher note, and say, "yes, thrice holy,
   but the Lord our righteousness is he." Let none, then, of all his
   saints in heaven and in earth, refuse to call him "the Lord our
   righteousness"

   III. I now conclude, in the third place, by appealing to your
   GRATITUDE. Let us admire that wonderful and reigning grace which has
   led you and me to call him, "The Lord our righteousness."

   When I look back some ten or twelve years upon a foolish boy, who cared
   little for the things of God, who was burdened with an awful sense of
   sin, and thought that he never could be pardoned--clad so often driven
   to the borders of despair that he was fain to make away with his own
   life, because he thought there was no happiness on earth for him--I can
   only say for my own self. O the riches of the grace of God in Christ,
   that ever I should stand not only conscious that he is the Lord my
   righteousness, but to preach him to you! O God, thou hast done
   wonderful things! Thou saidst by the mouth of Jeremy, "This is the name
   whereby he shall be called." I call him so this day from my inmost
   soul. Jesus of Nazareth! suffering man! glorious God! thou art the Lord
   my righteousness! If I were to pass this question round these
   galleries, and down below oh, what hundreds of responses would there be
   from such as joyously obey the summons of gratitude! And among those
   about to be added to the Church (I am sure they would permit me to
   tell, for the honor of the glorious grace of God), there are very many
   who are special instances of that grace which has sweetly constrained
   them to call Christ their righteousness. Some of them, according to
   their own concession before us at the Church meeting, were not only
   revelling in drunkenness, one until he had well nigh drank away his
   reason by thirty years of habitual intoxication; but others of them
   were unclean and unchaste, till they had rioted in debauchery, and gone
   to the utmost lengths of crime. There be many in this place to-day, who
   would not, though they would blush for the past, refuse to tell, to the
   honor of redeeming grace, that once they had committed every crime in
   the catalogue except murder; and if they have not committed that, it
   was nothing but the sovereign grace of God that restrained them. Some
   members of this Church have sinned in every part of the world--have
   sinned in every quarter of the globe--have committed every form of lust
   and vice--and if you had asked them ten years ago whether they should
   ever be in a place of worship, they would have repelled with an oath
   what they would have thought an insult, and would have cursed you for
   supposing that they should so degrade themselves as to profess the
   faith of Christ. Brothers and sisters, I should not be surprised if you
   were to stand up now and say, "Yes, still Jehovah Jesus is the Lord our
   righteousness." Oh!--

   "Wonders of grace to God belong;

   Repeat his mercies in your song."

   Who would have thought that the lip of the blasphemer should fulfill
   that very prophecy--that the tongue that could scarce move without an
   oath should, nevertheless, glorify Christ,--that the heart that was
   black with accumulated lust,--the mouth which must have become a very
   sepulcher, breathing forth deadly miasma, has now become a place for
   song, and the heart a house for music, while heart and tongue say,
   "Yes, he is the Lord my righteousness this very day!"

   It would be a wonder if God should vow that the devils should yet sing
   his praise; but I do not think it would be a greater wonder than when
   he makes some of us sing his glorious praise. Brethren, you and I know
   that there is nothing in freewill doctrine; for in our case, at any
   rate, it was not true. Left to ourselves, where should we have been?
   What could Arminianism have done for us? Oh, no! it was irresistible
   grace that brought us to call him "the Lord our righteousness." It was
   that divine shall that broke in pieces our will. It was that strong arm
   that broke the iron sinew of our proud neck, and made us bow, even us,
   who would not have this man to reign over as. It was his finger that
   opened the blind eye; for once we could see now beauty in him. It was
   his breath that thawed our icy heart; for once we felt no love to
   him;--

   "But now, subdued by sovereign grace,

   Our spirit longs for his embrace;

   Our beauty this our glorious dress,

   Jesus the Lord our righteousness."

   And this shall be our glory here, and our song forever--"The Lord our
   righteousness."
     __________________________________________________________________

                             Climbing the Mountain

   A Sermon

   (No. 396)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, June the 16th, 1861 by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?"--Psalm 24:3.

   THERE IS little doubt that this Psalm has a primary reference to the
   Lord Jesus Christ. He it is who alone ascended up on high by his own
   merits, and by virtue of a perfect obedience stands in God's holy
   place. He alone of mortal race hath clean hands and a pure heart; he
   hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor hath he sworn deceitfully
   therefore hath he received the blessing and righteousness from the God
   of his salvation. At his ascension the glorified spirits flooded heaven
   with music while they sang the language of the seventh verse, "Lift up
   your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and
   the King of glory shall come in." It would be a delightful theme for
   Christian meditation to consider the ascension of Christ, in relation
   to his work, what we obtain by it, and the glories with which it was
   accompanied, when, with a shout of saved joy, he returned to his own
   throne and sat down for ever having finished the labor which he had
   undertaken to perform. But, this morning, I must take the text apart
   from its connection, for I desire to make it the basis of a set of
   parables or illustrations with regard to Christian life. I think we may
   fairly compare the life of a Christian to the ascent of a mountain, and
   we may then ask the question, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the
   Lord?" This has been, in fact, a favorite metaphor, and even that
   mighty master of allegory, John Bunyan, who needed never to borrow from
   another, must have the Hill Difficulty somewhere or other to make his
   story complete; he must tell how the pilgrim "fell from running to
   going, and from going to clambering upon his hands and knees because of
   the steepness of the place." Without putting any strain upon the text,
   I conceive I may use it as a most serious question, while I picture our
   course to heaven as an ascent into the hill of the Lord.

   Behold, then, before your eyes believer, the hill of God; it is a high
   hill even as the hill of Bashan, on the top thereof is that Jerusalem
   which is from above, the mother of us all; that rest

   "To which our laboring souls aspire,

   With fervent pangs of strong desire."

   This mount of which we speak is not Mount Sinai, but the chosen hill
   whereon are gathered the glorious company of angels, the spirit of the
   just made perfect, the Church of the first-born, whose names are
   written in heaven. And we are the pilgrims, full often joyous with
   faith, but sometimes weary and footsore, making the best of our way to
   the top of this mountain of God, where we shall see his face, and
   rejoice in him for evermore.

   I, your fellow pilgrim, propose the question, "Who shall ascend into
   the hill of the Lord?" No sooner does the question escape my lips, than
   I hear a jubilant shout from a company yonder who cry, "We shall;
   assuredly we shall; there is no doubt about our eternal safety. We
   shall most certainly attain the summit, rest our wearied feet thereon,
   and dwell with God for ever." Well, confidence is good if it be good,
   but if it be presumption, nothing can be more ill. Let us, then, look
   at those who are so sure that they shall ascend into the hill of the
   Lord.

   I notice, first, that some who speak thus are young beginners; they
   have not yet trodden the rough part of the mountain; they have only as
   yet danced upon the green knolls which are at the base of it; no wonder
   that their untried sinews find it easy work to ascend an easy pathway.
   Their limbs are supple, their muscles strong, and the marrow in their
   bones is as yet not dried up. They laugh at difficulty and they defy
   danger. "Ah!" they say, "whatever the danger may be, we can brave it;
   and however stern the toil, we are sufficient to surmount it." Ah!
   young man, but be thou warned; if thou speakest thus in thine own
   strength, thou shalt soon find it fail that for the boastful man who
   journeys in his own strength is like the snail which, though it doth
   but crawl, yet spendeth its own life and wasteth itself, whilst it
   maketh but sorry way. Thy strength is perfect weakness; and thy
   weakness such that difficulties shall soon subdue thee, and terror
   shall cow thy spirit. Oh! dost thou not know there are troubles to
   come, and thou hast not endured them yet; there are attacks of Satan;
   there are temptations from without and from within? Thou wilt find it
   go hard with thee if thou hast nothing but thine own strength; thou
   wilt he down to die of despair before thou hast reached one-tenth of
   the way, and the summit thou shalt never see. Oh, young man! there are
   rocks most sharp and steep which mortal strength can never chub, and
   there are rugged ravines so tangled with briars and so bestrewn with
   flint stones that they shall cut thy feet, nay, cut thy very heart and
   make it bleed, if thou hast not something better to trust to than thine
   own strength. How much of our early courage in the Christian life is
   the courage of the flesh; and though it be a sorrowful thing to lose
   this, yet it is a blessed loss. To be weak is to be strong, but to be
   strong is to be weak. It may seem a paradox, but we are never really so
   mighty as when our might has fled, and never so truly weak as when we
   are filled with our own strength, and are reckonings upon ease and
   security. Be not so bold; take warning and look thou to a superior arm.

   "For they that trust their native strength

   Shall melt away and droop, and die;"

   whilst those who trust in the Lord,

   "Swift as the eagle cuts the air,

   Shall mount aloft to his abode;

   On wings of love their souls shall fly

   Nor tire amidst the heavenly road."

   In looking upon this group who are so confident that they shall ascend
   the hill of the Lord, I detect some others who speak out of sheer
   ignorance. "Oh," say they, "it is not far to heaven, it is little
   matter to be a Christian, you have but to say, God be merciful to me,'
   and the thing is done, it is but a mere trifle. As for the new birth,"
   say they, "no doubt it is a great mystery, but possibly it may be of
   very little importance. It will be, no doubt, found after all, that
   ministers and Christians make much ado about nothing, for it is a mere
   run to the mountain summit." Ah, poor ignorant soul, your folly is too
   common. To the unaccustomed traveler there is nothing more deceptive
   than a lofty Alp. You say, "I could reach the mountain-top in
   half-an-hour," and you find it to be a day's full journey, for its
   twisting roads, and rugged--sides, and precipitous acclivities come not
   into the reckoning of a distant observer. And so is it with religion;
   men think it so simple, so easy, but when they once begin to ascend,
   they find it stern work to climb to glory. The young soldier gets on
   his armor, and says, "One rush and I will win the battle," but when his
   banner is torn, and his armor is indented and battered with the heavy
   blows of the adversary, he finds it quite another thing. I beseech you,
   count the cost, you who say that you can ascend into the hill of the
   Lord. I tell you, sirs, that it is so hard a thing, that the righteous
   scarcely are saved; and where shall the ungodly and the wicked appear?
   It is by the skin of their teeth, and often so as by fire that many who
   are saved, enter into the eternal rest. I will not merely say it is
   hard, but I will say it is impossible. It is as easy for a camel to go
   through the eye of a needle, as for any man to enter into the kingdom
   of heaven, if he rely in any degree upon his own strength, or think
   that the passage thereto is easy, and he needeth no help that he may
   pass through it. Be thou persuaded, O ignorant man, that the hill of
   God is higher than thou dreamest. That is not the summit which thou
   seest, the mountains brow is far beyond thine eyesight. It is higher
   than thine understanding, it is loftier than thy grovelling
   conceptions; the eagle's wing hath not reached it, man hath his eye
   beheld it; to the spiritual only is it manifest, and they know that it
   is higher than the clouds. Be not thou so ignorantly brave, but learn
   the read from the lips, of Jesus, and then ask him to help thee to run
   therein.

   But amongst this very presumptuous group I perceive others who say, "We
   shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, "for in their hearts they
   imagine that they have found out a smooth grassy icy which they shall
   avoid all the roughness of the road. Some new prophet has preached to
   them a new salvation. Some modern impostor has declared to them another
   way besides the good old path, and they think that they shall now,
   without wearying their limbs and blistering their feet, be able to
   ascend to the summit Take care, take care, presumptuous soul, for rest
   assured the greener the path may look the more is the danger of it. On
   the sloping sides of the lofty mountains there are verdant splits, so
   deliciously green that one never saw the grass itself after the shower
   look like them, but only put your foot upon them for a moment, only
   venture your weight, and you will be swallowed up, unless there be some
   one nigh at hand to lay hold upon you. The green mantle covers a
   tremulous mass of mire, the verdant carpet is only a coverlet for a
   deadly bed of bottomless bog, for the bogs and quagmires are deceptive
   enough. And so these new systems of divinity, these new schemes of
   getting to heaven by some universal fatherhood, or by part-obedience,
   or gorgeous ceremonies,--I tell you, sirs, these are but quagmires
   which shall swallow up your souls, green deceptions, they may seem to
   be like velvet beneath your feet, but they shall be as hell if you dare
   to trust them. Still to this day, "Strait is the gate and narrow is the
   way, and few there be that find it." Still as there is no royal road to
   learning, there is no royal road to heaven, no way by which you can
   pamper your sins and yet be saved, indulge the flesh and yet inherit
   eternal life. There is no way by which you can avoid the new birth and
   still escape from the wrath to come, no way by which you may enter into
   heaven with iniquity hidden in your soul. Corruptions must be taken
   away. Lust must be denied. The right arm must be cut off and the right
   eye must be plucked out. There is no new, no easier path to heaven, and
   you who think you have found it are mistaken in very deed.

   Some few others I mark in this group who say, "We shall ascend into the
   hill of the Lord," and why, sirs? You look as if you had a heavy load
   to carry. "Ay! Ay!" say they, "but these are necessaries for the
   journey. We have half a dozen staves under our arm, that if one of them
   should break we may take another and we have bottles of rich wine that
   we may refresh ourselves, we have food wherewith, when we grow weary,
   we may recruit our strength. We have excellent garments that when a
   storm comes on we may cover ourselves from it. We are fully provided
   for the journey--we shall certainly ascend the mountain." This is just
   the way in which the worldly-wise and self-sufficient talk; and those
   who are rich and lumbered with much serving in this world. "Ah!" say
   they, "we shall readily ascend to heaven; we are not poor--we are not
   ignorant--we are not led away by the depraved vices of the vulgar mass;
   we shall be able to climb certainly, for we have all things and
   abound." Yes, but this is what makes your climbing difficult. You have
   a load to carry, you would ascend better if you had it not; one staff
   is good for a traveler, a competence you may seek for, but a bundle of
   staves must be heavy to carry; and multiplied riches make it hard to
   climb the narrow way of life, for they brine many cares and many
   sorrows, and thus they cause the feet to slip when they might stand
   fast. Say not because of your wit, and your wisdom, and your own moral
   strength, that you are the better equipped for the journey; these are
   your dangers; your confidences are your weaknesses; that on which you
   rest shall give you no rest, and that on which you depend, if it be
   anything but God, shall pierce you try the very soul. O sirs, if you
   can say, "I shall ascend into the hill of God," if with your hand upon
   your heart you can appeal to heaven and say, "The ground-work of my
   confidence is not in myself, but in the promise, not in the flesh, but
   in the spirit; not in man but in God, not in what I am but in what God
   has promised to do for me;" then be as confident as you will, then let
   no stammering stop you of your boasting, for the joy of the Lord is
   your strength. But if this confidence springs from anything short of a
   firm fixed, simple, unmingled faith in Christ, I pray you give it up,
   for it is a deadly snare, and will certainly destroy your soul.

   We have thus paused to listen to the group who are so sure of ascending
   the hill of the Lord. But hark! I can hear groans, and sobs, and moans,
   I look around, and certainly, my eyes are gladdened with the aspect of
   these men who seem to be so sad. Why mourn you, brethren. Why are you
   sad? "Oh," say they, "we shall never ascend the hill of God, we shall
   never reach the topmost height." Brethren, if I had been allowed to
   judge I should have thought you the very men who would ascend, and yet
   you say you shall not. And if I had looked at the other group, I should
   have thought they never would gain the top, and yet they say they
   shall. How singular it is! Men so often misjudge their own state, that
   the most unlikely think themselves sure, while the most holy are the
   most afraid. Come, only brethren, I would stop your mourning, and wipe
   your eyes; I would put a song into your mouths instead of the notes of
   lamentation. Let me have your reasons think you shall never ascend the
   hill of God. The first reply is, "I shall never get there, for I am
   weak, and the hill is exceeding high; and, sir, you have told us that
   godliness is a great steep, and that true religion is a towering up,
   and I am so weak; to will is present with me, but how to perform I find
   not. I can do nothing, I am emptied entirely, I know that this can
   never be performed by me. To perfect holiness and perfect rest I can
   never come, for I am the weakest of the entire family, and that steep
   is too lofty to be attained by tottering feet like mine. My bones ache,
   my knees bend, hot sweat drenches my garments, my head is giddy, and I
   drag my bleeding feet with anguish from crag to crag." Oh! my dear
   brother, be of good cheer; if that be thine only cause of mourning, lay
   it aside, for remember, whilst thou art weak, it is not thy strength
   which is to carry thee there, but God's, if nature had undertaken to
   ascend into the celestial mountain, indeed, you might despair but it is
   grace, all-conquering grace that is to do it.

   "Weak as you are, yet through his might,

   You all things shall perform."

   It is true the hill is steep, but then God is omnipotent, it is certain
   that the Alp is high, but higher still is the love and grace of God. He
   hath borne you, he hath carried you, and he will carry you even to the
   end: when you cannot walk he will take you in his arms, and when the
   road is so rough that you cannot even creep along it, he will hear you
   as on eagles' wings, till he bring you to his promised rest. Again, I
   say, if it were yourself that you had to look to, it would be right in
   you to mourn, but you are not to look to self. Trust thou in the Lord
   for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. "Ah! but,"
   says a second, "my difficulty is this--not only am I weak, but I am so
   sore tried, the road is very rough to me, you spoke of grass just now,
   there is none where I am, I have looked at that promise, He maketh me
   to lay down in green pastures,' and I cannot say it is true of me.
   Instead of it I must say he leadeth me by the rough torrents, and
   suffereth me not to lie down at all, but upon the steep ascents, where
   the stones cut my feet, he leads my weary and sorrowful way. I am the
   man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath, all his waves
   and his billows have gone over me. If the road be rough like this, I
   shall never ascend into the hill of God." O Christian, Christian! I
   beseech thee take down thy harp from the willow now; for if this be all
   thy fear, it is a foolish fear indeed. Why, man, "the road is rough:"
   is this a new thing? The road to heaven never was anything else but
   rough, and so thou mayest be the better assured that this is the right
   way. If your road were smooth, you might fear that you were like the
   wicked who stand in slippery places. Because your pathway is rough, the
   better foothold for a mountain-climber. There is nothing MO much to be
   feared as that smooth glass-faced rock on which the foot slips back and
   slides. No, those stones and flints give foothold. Stand then, strong
   in the strength of God, and be of good courage. Your afflictions are
   proofs of your sonship. Bastards may escape the rod, but the tree-born
   child of God must not--would not if he might. You know too, that these
   afflictions are working for your good. They are rough waves, but the;
   are driving your ship into port, they are blustering winds, but they
   make your ship scud over the briny deep into the eternal rest which
   remaineth for your soul. Your troubles, I tell you, are your best
   Mercies. Where did the Israelites get their jewels, their ear-rings,
   and necklaces? Why, from Egypt, from Egypt only; and so you, too,
   though you have lien among the pots, shall yet be as the dove whose
   wings are covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold. Let
   not the roughness of the road dismay thee--it is the better proof that
   it is the right road to heaven. Why, you will have a worse trouble yet,
   perhaps. That is poor consolation, say you; but, then, save your tears
   till you get to it. Cease your weeping now, and if this be poor
   comfort, yet methinks it is true common sense. You will come to places
   soon where you will have to crawl on your hands and knees, and when you
   think to grasp the root of some tree to drag you up you will grasp a
   thorn, and every thorn shall pierce your flesh; but even then those
   thorns shall be heavenly lancets to let out your bad blood; and that
   roughest part of the road shall be the speediest way to heaven, for the
   steeper the road, the sooner we shawl be at the summit. So be of good
   cheer and mourn not, until thou comest where there is more cause to
   mourn; and then mourn not, for thou shalt come to a place where there
   is more cause for joy. The more sorrow, the more consolation. Therefore
   up, thou poor dispirited one; thou shalt yet ascend into the hill of
   God!

   "But I," saith another--"I have been sorely tempted. Across my path
   there is a torrent--a swollen torrent; and I cannot wade it through,
   fear the deep waters would carry me down and dash me from the rocks. I
   shall never be able to ascend." During last sleek, while in one of the
   wild valleys of Cumberland, we were rained up for two or three days, so
   that we could not get home; and I feared I should not be able to arrive
   in town to preach to-day; for across a high mountain-pass which we had
   to traverse, the little brooks had been swollen by the heavy rains,
   till they roared like thundering rivers, and it would have been
   impossible for any creature to pass without great danger of being swept
   away. So it sometimes happens in the Christian's career. Temptation
   gets swollen to its brim, nay, bursts its banks, and roaring like an
   angry torrent, it bears all before it. Ah, well, Christian, the Lord
   knows how to deliver thee out of thy trouble. He never did yet send
   temptation without making a way of escape. I was pleased to notice but
   last Thursday, how, across these brooks, the sheep which fed upon the
   mountain side could spring from stone to stone, rest a moment in the
   middle, while the angry flood roared on either side; and then leap and
   spring again you would think they must be drowned; but yet their feet
   were fast and firm. I thought then of that text, "He maketh my feet
   like hind's feet, and maketh me to stand on my high places." Do not you
   know, tried Christians, that others have gone through as much
   temptation as you, and they did not perish?--nor will you. Job was
   sorely tried--the brook was swollen indeed, but it did not carry him
   away. He was safe, for he could say, "Though he stay me, yet will I
   trust in him." Come, now there are stepping-stones across the brook, if
   you have but faith enough to find them you shall leap from statue to
   stone; though they be wide apart, they shall not be too wide for thee;
   and though they shall seem as though they would be moved yet they shall
   never be, till you have safely passed by the swelling danger.

   "Ah," saith another, "but my trouble is worse than that, I have lost my
   way altogether. I cannot see a step before me; a thick fog of doubt and
   fear hangs over me, I shall never ascend into the hill of the Lord."
   And we, too, have passed through the damp and clinging mists. The dense
   masts on the mountain summit wet you through very speedily, ruin the
   prospect, and cause alarm to the timed. The descent on the loft hand
   seems bottomless, and the ascent on the right appears to be lost in
   cloud. Mist is the mother of exaggeration, all things loom out in
   indefinite greatness. The little brook magnified by the haze swells
   into a river, and the tarn enlarges into a tremendous lake; while the
   mountain tops are in the seventh heavens. Every stone becomes a rock in
   the mist--such is the exaggeration which an imagination can perform
   when nature wears her veil. So when a poor Christian gem into doubts
   and fears, everything looks bad and black against him. "Oh," says he,
   "I shall surely fall by the hand of the enemy." It is only a cart-rut,
   he is sure he will be drowned in it. It is only a stone, which he might
   put into a sung and throw at some Goliath but he fears it is a
   tremendous rock, and shall never be able to pass it by. He is in a mist
   and sees no light, and knows not his way. Well, Christian, so you say
   you shall never get to the top because of this. Why, man, there have
   been tens of thousands who have been in quite as thick a mist as you,
   and yet they have found their way. Many a Christian has had quite as
   black doubts and fears as you, and yet has come light at last Doubts
   and fears never kill the Christian. They are like the tooth-ache, they
   are very painful, but they are never mortal. So doubts and fears are
   very grievous to a believer, but a myriad doubts and fears will not
   suffice to kill him, or deprive his soul of his interest in Christ.
   Come, man, do you not know what the text says? "If any man walk in
   darkness and see no light, let him"--do what? Let him despair? No, "let
   him trust in the Lord! "Now is the season for faith. When you have
   nothing else to trust to, put your hand within the hand of the Eternal
   God, and he will wisely lead, and powerfully sustain and bring you on
   your way to the promised rest. Let not these doubts fret you, nor
   distress you, nor cast you down. It is this very mist through which
   David passed, and an God's people have been surrounded with more or
   less of it, and it does not prove that you are out of the way.

   "But," saith another, "my woe is worse. I have been going down hill. My
   faith is not so strong as it was: I am afraid my love has grown cold; I
   never felt so much of the blackness of my nature as I do now. I think I
   have grown worse; my depravity has broken up like the floods in the
   days of Noah. I am sure now it is all over with me. I thought I was
   vile when I begun; but I know I am depraved now. I shall never ascend
   to the hill of God." And so, believer, you have been going down hill,
   have you? Allow you not that most men who have to go up had must
   sometimes descend? You say, "How is that?" Well, in climbing a
   mountain, it often occurs that the path winds downward for a season, to
   enable the traveler to avoid a precipice, or comb a beetling crag, or
   reach another peak of the range. Part of the road to Mont Blanc, the
   king of the Alps, is a descent, and on the great mountain passes there
   are frequent spots where the load runs readily at the horse's heels.
   "But how can going down help me to get up?" you say. It is a strange
   paradox, but I do not believe Christians ever mount better than when
   they descend. When they find out more of the baseness of their hearts,
   when they are taken from chamber to chamber and shown the idolatry and
   blasphemy of their hearts, it is then they are growing in grace. "Oh,"
   say they, "it is all over with me now." It would have been all over
   with you if you had not come here. "Ah," say they, "the Lord is about
   to slay me now." No, no,--only to slay your pride. He is putting you in
   your proper place.

   "If to-day he deign to bless us,

   With a sense of pardoned sin;

   He to-morrow may distress us,

   Make us feel the plague within.

   All to make us

   Sick of self, and fond of him."

   It is all up hill, brethren, even when it is down hill. It is all
   towards God, even when sometimes it seems to be away from him. And when
   we are discovering most our own baseness and vileness, it is only that
   our eyes washed with tears, may be like the eyes of doves washed with
   milk and fitly set, that we may behold the King in his beauty, seeing,
   less of self and more of him.

   I will not keep you much longer on that point, for I fear by the aspect
   of some of your countenances that I weary you; and yet I know not why I
   should; for surely this is a question which is important to each of us,
   and I seek to put it in as comely a parable as I can. I hear yet
   another groan. "Ah," saith one, "I shall never ascend into the hill of
   God." Why? "Oh," saith he, "because, though I have come up a little
   way, I feel in such danger." Brethren, do you know when a Christian man
   looks down it is enough to make his head swim? The Christian life is
   very much like the walk of Blondin upon his lofty rope. There he is
   high up in the air; if he look down he must perish. Sometimes
   Christians with a little faith think of liking down--and what a cold
   shudder thrills them! The hypocrite has fallen; I may fall;
   such-and-such a professor has come down, I may come down too. There is
   the roar of a tumultuous crowd beneath, who are expecting that we may
   fall, nay, they are longing to say, "Aha! aha! The eyes of Samson are
   put out, and the mighty are destroyed." Now Little-faith, what business
   have you with looking down? Look up, man; look up! The Scripture does
   not say, "Let us run with trembling the race that is set before us,
   looking to our own tottering legs;" no; but it says, "Let us run with
   patience the race that inset before us, looking unto Jesus." What if
   the crag be steep, and the precipice be grim; what is that to thee? You
   will never fall while your faith is fixed on your God! What if the jaws
   of death be open wide, and his teeth be sharp as knives--what is that
   to you? Because Christ lives, you shall live also. What if the fires of
   hell be hot, and the flames of Tophet vehement, what is that to you?
   There is no damnation to him that is in Christ Jesus, who walks not
   after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Up man! look up! As the poor sea
   boy, climbing the giddy mast, dares not look down upon the awful deep,
   but upward to the calm blue sky, where shines the bright unclouded sun;
   so must you look up to the Father of lights, with whom there is no
   variableness, neither shadow of turning; or if it be dark with you, up
   to yon star of Bethlehem, who shineth still calmly, lovingly above your
   head; he bids you silently look unto him, and stand securely. Look up,
   poor Little-faith, and thou Much-afraid, for thou shalt ascend into the
   hill of the Lord.

   I shall crave your attention a moment or two, while I now, in the third
   place,--having listened to those who said they could climb, and to
   those who said they could not climb,--picture to you the man who is
   able to ascend into the hill of the Lord. Methinks I see him. He has
   nothing in himself; but he has everything in his God. Let us look at
   him from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. You notice,
   first, that he has put on shoes of iron and of brass; his feet are shod
   with the preparation of the gospel of peace. You will want those shoes,
   O heavenly pilgrim! When the Lord said he would give you those shoes of
   iron, you thought they would be too heavy for you, but you will find
   out that you have to tread on stones that are hard as iron. When he
   said he would give you show that were made of brass, you thought they
   would be too strong. You will find it a long way, and a stew stiff
   ascent, and anything else than brass would be worn out. Young
   Christian, have you had your feet shod yet? You are of no use for
   climbing unless you have. Unless you have peace with God through Jesus
   Christ our Lord, which is the preparation of the gospel of peace, you
   can never ascend into the hill of Lord. But observe that the pilgrim is
   girt about his loins to keep his garment from tripping him up, he is
   girt with the girdle of truth and sincerity. You, too, my hearer, must
   be sincere in your profession, your heart must be right in the sight of
   God, or else climbing will be fatal work to you, because you climb
   presumptuously, and you shall come down desperately. I observe that the
   pilgrim has in his hand a strong staff, it is cut from the tree of
   life, it is called the Staff of Promise. And he knows how to thrust his
   Alpenstock deep into the ground, and to draw himself up thereby, or
   stop himself as he is going down a crag, lest, his foot slipping, he
   fall. He has a staff of promise. See to it that you get it. Get a
   promise every day. Don't be content when you pray, unless you can plead
   the promise of God, or else you will be like a man going to the bankers
   without a cheque. You must take the promise when you go to God, and you
   will get that bestowed upon you which the promise guarantees. Go not up
   the mountain, pilgrim, without this staff.

   Take warning once more. If yonder pilgrim is ever to ascend the summit,
   his shoes of iron and of brass will not be enough--his girdle not
   enough, his staff not enough--he must have a guide. He that travels
   without a guide will lose his way in this ascent to the hill of God. It
   reminds me of the old story of the man who said to his advocate when he
   was about to be tried--"I'll be hanged if I don't plead for myself."
   "You will be banged if you do," said the lawyer. So there be some men
   who say they will try for themselves, they will be their own guide,
   they will find their own way. Ay, but they will be lost if they try it.
   If they put their souls into their own keeping, and rely upon their own
   wisdom, they shall find their wisdom to be fully full blown. Christian,
   rely upon your Guide, your Comforter--the Holy Spirit. Go not one step
   of the way apart from his monitions and his promptings, wait on him, be
   of good courage, saying, "I waited patiently for the Lord, for he will
   assuredly direct me in the path of peace."

   But even with a guide, that man will never gain the summit unless he
   marks the way. And what is the way? The way to the hill of God, you
   know, as well as I can tell you, is Christ himself. "I am," saith he,
   "the way." We begin in Christ, we must go on with Christ, we must end
   with Christ. As guilty sinners we come to Christ for pardon, as needy
   sinners we must come to him to receive of his fullness day by day, and
   at the last, when with joyful spring we shall leap to the flowery
   summit and be safe, that last spring must still be taken in the one
   blood-besprinkled way--the open side, the pierced hands and feet of
   Christ, for other way to the summit of the hill of God there is none,
   and he that thinks there may be shall be mistaken now, and fatally
   deluded at the last. Be thou wise, then, pilgrim, and with thy shoe
   upon thy foot with thy staff in thy hand, thy girdle about thy loins,
   thy guide by thy side, and the loving Lord before thee, climb with
   patience into the hill of God. But take care that thou lay aside every
   weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset thee, or the road will be
   painful to thee, and thy end shall not be such as thou wouldst desire.

   I come, in the last place to complete the picture, to end the allegory
   and to stimulate the exertions of every climber of this heavenly
   mountain, by describing what is to be seen and to be enjoyed upon the
   summit. He who shall ever climb the hill of God, and come to heaven at
   last, will find, first of all, that all his toil is done--

   "Servant of God, well done

   Rest from thy lov'd employ,

   The battle's fought, the victory's won,

   Enter thy rest of joy."

   No crags, no slippery places now; no roaring torrents, nor ascending or
   descending paths--

   "Jerusalem, my happy home,

   Name ever dear to me,

   Now shall my labors have an end,

   In joy and peace and thee."

   Brethren, do you and I think enough of heaven? Do we not think too much
   of earth? Do we not think too much of the toil, and too little of the
   time when it shall all be over? A few more days and you and I,
   believers, shall have dolls fighting with Satan, have done with
   temptations, have done with cares, have done with woes. An hour's work
   and an eternity of rest! One day's toil; and when I shall have
   accomplished as an hireling my day, then thou comest, O sweet and
   gentle rest! "For they rest from their labors, and their works do
   follow them "Courage, pilgrim courage! Up that crag, man! Now put hand
   and knee to it--up!--for when you have climbed a little higher, ay, but
   a very little, you shall lie down to rest, and then no more fatigue or
   sorrow. And there too, when we come to the top of the hill of God, we
   shall be above all the clouds of worldly care, and sin, and temptation.
   Oh! how deep is the rest of the people of God above! How calm is their
   sky!

   "No vain discourse shall tempt my soul,

   Nor trifles vex my ear."

   No need to go out to a business which distracts my longing spirit. No
   need to toil at a labor which fags my body, and thus puts my soul into
   an in state for prayer; no need to mix with worldly-minded men, who
   make a jest of my solemnities, and would engage my mind with trifles
   unworthy of notice. No, above the world, above its distractions and
   attractions, my soul shall rise when it shall ascend into the hill of
   God. And, brethren, what a prospect there shall be from the summit!
   When we shall mount to the hill of God, what sights we shall see! You
   know from lofty mountains you can look on that side and see the lakes
   and the rivers; and on this side the green and laughing valleys, and
   far away, the wild black forest. The view is wide, but what a view is
   that which we shall have in heaven! There shall I know even as I am
   known. "Here we see through a glass darkly, but there face to face."
   And chief and foremost, best of all, my eyes shall see the King in his
   beauty. We shall behold his face; we shall look into his eyes, we shall
   drink love from the fountain of his heart, and hear the music of his
   love from the sweet organ of his lips; we shall be entranced in his
   society, emparadised on his bosom. Up, Christian, up, Christ waits for
   thee! Come, man, tread thou the thorny way and climb, for Christ stands
   on the summit stretching out his hands, and saying, "Come up hither, to
   him that overcometh will I give to sit upon my throne, even as I have
   overcome, and am set down with my Father upon his throne."

   And there is this sweet reflection to close with--all that we shall see
   upon the top of the hill of God thou be ours. We look from earthly
   mountains and we see, but we do not possess. That mansion yonder is not
   ours; that crystal abeam belongs not to us, those wide-spread lawns are
   beautiful, but they are not in our possession. But on the hill-tops of
   heaven, all that we are we shall possess. We shall possess the streets
   of gold, the harps of harmony, the palms of victory, the shouts of
   angels, the songs of cherubim, the joy of the Divine Trinity, and the
   song of God as he rears in his love, and rejoices over us with singing,
   nay, God the Eternal One himself shall be ours, and ours for ever and
   for ever. What better encouragement can I give to you poor tired,
   fagged, wearied, and all-but-despairing Christians? Take courage. The
   last six days have tired you very much. Put away your trials to-day,
   you have had enough to cast you down, but is not the reflection of
   to-day enough to lift you up? Oh! remember the summit will repay you
   for the toil in climbing it. Though rough may be the road, it is but
   short at the longest, and the rest, the rest, will make amends. O man!
   men will suffer more to get rich than you do to be found in Christ. Go
   on, go on, stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved, and having done
   all, still stand.

   Would that some here who have never tried to climb that mountain would
   remember that if they climb it not now, they will have to descend for
   ever! If now they turn not their faces to the steep ascent and go up it
   like men, they must fall eternally. Good God, what a fall! On what
   slippery places do they stand! I see them reeling even now! what a
   desperate dash was that! They fall, they fall, on through darkness,
   through blackest darkness, black as death and hell: on, on they fall,
   for the pit is bottomless! No feat shall they ever reach, down, down
   descending from the lower depths to the lowest depths, from hell to
   hell's profounder deep, from eternity of woe, on, on, on to woe
   trebled, multiplied sevenfold! May God grant that we, having faith in
   Christ, may tread the blood-marked way, and outer into "the rest which
   remaineth for the people of God!"
     __________________________________________________________________

                               Fire! Fire! Fire!

   A Sermon

   (No. 397)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, June 23rd, 1861 by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither
   shall the flame kindle upon thee."--Isaiah 43:2.

   BEFORE we explain the metaphor of the text, it may be well for us to
   remark that we are not sufficiently grateful, I fear, for the
   preservation which God affords to us from fire. To be startled at the
   dead of night with the alarming cry, and to find one's self and
   children and goods in danger of being immediately consumed, must be no
   small trial. I have felt myself extreme gratitude to God that while
   both on the right hand and on the left the flames have raged, he has
   been pleased to spare to us this temple of our solemnities, this place
   where we delight to worship. And is it not meet that we should each and
   all render to him our hearty thanks for sparing our habitations
   preserving the roof under which we rest, enabling us to go out and to
   come in in perfect safety? Or, probably, I may be addressing some this
   morning who have had escaped from the very midst of the fires. Let such
   not only bless God for preservation in the past, but let them celebrate
   his goodness in plucking them as brands out of the burning. Let them be
   extremely grateful to God that while others this day are dying as a
   black heap of ashes who but yesterday were living men, we are still in
   the land of the dying unburned and unsinged. It was at least the trap
   of many of you, during the past week, and again last night, to witness
   a conflagration of awful grandeur, in which tongues of flame, mountains
   of fire, and pillars of smoke, made a spectacle to be gazed at with
   interest while it produced terrors and apprehensions that could awe the
   wildest mob into silence. With you and me it is a common mercy to be
   preserved day by day, and night by night from the devouring element.
   Yet when the dreadful catastrophe is within view--when those we know
   personally or by repute are sufferers--and when at the same time we
   look on with a sense of our own present security--then surely we ought
   to give more than a common expression of gratitude to God for mercies
   that at other times we are too apt to paste over unheeded as but the
   effects of a common Providence. Never was a truer sentence uttered than
   when one said, "These mercies are not valued until they are lost, and
   these preservations are not esteemed until they are withdrawn." Let us
   thank God while we have the mercies, lest he be provoked by our
   ingratitude and take forth his rod and scourge us. Then, indeed, might
   we cry out under the smart, and wish and desire that we had our mercies
   back again. Thus much I could not in my conscience withhold at a time
   when there are judgments around us enough to make us tremble, and
   mercies enough in the little circles of home to make us exceedingly
   grateful. Let us now take the text in its real signification. Of course
   the walking through the fire here is put for the severest form of
   trouble: You have, in the commencement of the verse, trouble described
   as passing through the water. This represents the overwhelming
   influence of trial in which the soul is sometimes so covered that it
   becomes like a man sinking in the waves. "When thou goest through the
   rivers,"--those mountain torrents which with terrific force are often
   sufficient to carry a man away. This expresses the force of trouble,
   the power with which it sometimes lifts a man from the foothold of his
   stability, and carries him before it. "When thou passest through the
   rivers they shall not overflow thee." But going through the fire
   expresses not so much the overwhelming character and the upsetting
   power of trouble as the actual consuming and destructive power of
   trouble and temptation. The metaphor is more vivid, not to, say more
   terrific, than that which is employed in the first sentence, and yet
   vivid and awful though it be, it is certainly not too strong a figure
   to be used as the emblem of the tribulations, temptations and
   afflictions, through which the Church and people of God have been
   called to pass. We may apprise the richness of the promise in
   proportion to the astonishing character of the metaphor, and we ought
   to value the privilege which it confers in the precise ratio of the
   dreadful character of the danger against which it preserves us. "When
   thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall
   the flame kindle upon thee."

   We shall talk of three things, this morning, as the Holy Ghost may
   enable us; first of all, a terrible pathway,--walking around the fire;
   secondly, an awful danger,--the danger of being burned and utterly
   consumed; and thirdly, a double insurance,--"Thou shalt not be burned,
   neither shall the fire kindle upon thee."

   I. First, then, let us speak a little upon this TERRIBLE PATHWAY.

   The sacramental host of God's elect has never had an easy road along
   which to journey. I see the fields on fire, the prairie is in a blaze,
   the very heavens are like a furnace, and the clouds seem rather to be
   made of fire than water. Across that prairie lies the pathway to
   heaven, beneath that blazing sky the whole Church of God must make its
   perpetual journey. It started at the first in fire, and its very glory
   at the last shall take place in the midst of the fiery passing away of
   all things. When first there was a Church of God on earth, in the
   person of Abel it was persecuted, Cain lifted up his cruel club to slay
   his brother; and when the children of Seth were the representatives of
   God's chosen, they were without doubt the subject of the jeer and gibe
   of the descendants of Cain. Noah, the preacher of righteousness endured
   during his one hundred and twenty years, the hardness of heart and
   carelessness of an unthinking world; he and his family, who were the
   remnant of the Church in the latter part of those days, were constantly
   exposed to the laughter and persecution of men. When God had destroyed
   the earth with water, and the whole race of man was contained within
   the ark, you would think that then, certainly, the Church within the
   ark would be secure from molestation. But no, we find him ready to
   detect the failings of his parents, and no doubt a ringleader of
   everything that was vile and vicious, just as we have reason to hope
   that some of his brethren adhered to the most true God. From that day
   forward, whether you read through the life of Abraham, or Isaac, or
   Jacob, it still standeth true, "He that is born after the flesh
   persecuteth him that is born after the Spirit." Whether we refer you to
   the history of Israel by the side of the brick-kilns of Egypt, or to
   the host of God constantly beset by the marauders of the Amalekites,
   you find it still to be true that through much tribulation the people
   of God must wade their way to Canaan. And if you look further on in
   history, between David and Saul, between Hezekiah and Sennacherib,
   between the faithful followers of God after the captivity who would
   rebuild the temple, and Sanballat the Horonite; between the Maccabees
   and Antiochus Epiphanes, there must always be preserved a deadly feud,
   to let it be seen that the world must hate God's people, and must
   harass them and seek to hunt them out, while they, on the other hand,
   must steadily pursue their onward march through the midst of billows of
   fire till they come at last to their eternal rest. Find me the abode of
   the Church of God and I can smell the furnace not far off. Show me the
   follower of the God of Abraham and I shall soon find the host of
   enemies ready for the attack. Up till the days of the Saviour the
   kingdom of heaven suffered violence, not only from its friends who
   would take it, but from those enemies who world assault it. From the
   blood of Abel down to the blood of Zecharias the son of Barachias, the
   pathway of the Church hath been a blood-besprinkled time. Since that
   day, what tongue can tell the sufferings of the people of God? Since
   Christ became martyr as well as Redeemer, has there been a season in
   which God's people have not somewhere or other been made to feel that
   they are not of the world, and that the world does not love them
   because they are not of the world? In apostolic times, Stephen expires
   beneath a shower of stones, James is killed with a sword, certain
   others of the saints are vexed; believers are scattered abroad. The
   Roman lion takes up the fight, Herod delights in the gore of the
   Christians, and smears the confessors of that holy faith with pitch and
   sets them in his gardens that they might be literally, as they were
   spiritually, the lights of the world. Let the catacombs of Rome witness
   to their sorrowful lives and let the Capitol witness to their terrible
   deaths. Let the old dungeons, some of which still remain, testify to
   the places where they wore out their dreary lives, and let the
   blood-stained Campus Martius still show where they cheerfully
   surrendered those lives for Christ. Oh! if the lands could speak, if
   the Earth could vomit forth her blood what stories could still be told
   of the way they were slain. Some of them were tortured, others sawn
   asunder, some stoned, and others burnt to death; though of them the
   world was not worthy. All the Roman Emperors, with but few exceptions,
   were persecutors; and the Christian emperors were as bad as the Pagan,
   for the Christian emperors were not Christians, nor were they members,
   as I believe, of a Christian Church. The Christian Church, and
   especially that Church of which we are still members, which has never
   defiled its garments, but which, never having had any alliance with the
   Church of Rome, has never needed to be reformed,--that Church under its
   different names, Paulitians, Novations, Albigenses, Lollards,
   Wyckliffites, Anabaptists, Baptists, has always suffered. It matters
   not what state, what Church, may have been dominant, whether it has
   been Christian or anti-Christian, the pure Church of Christ has always
   been the victim of persecution, and though she has persecuted never,
   but has always maintained inviolate, disunion from the state, and an
   utter hatred of all laws which would bind the conscience of man, yet
   has she been especially destitute, afflicted, tormented, and if she
   hath to-day a little breathing time, perhaps it is rather owing to the
   timidity which has made us keep back our sentiments, than to any
   charity towards ourselves. Find the Church of Christ wherever you will,
   and you shall find her scorned and despised of man. Find her in
   Scotland, and her Covenanters have to hide themselves in the midst of
   the mountain, and read the Word of God by the lightning flash, to
   escape from the dragoons of Claverhouse. Find her in England and where
   was she? Not in the cathedrals of her cities, but in the dungeons of
   her rural towns like Bedford with John Bunyan; not among the great and
   noble who were the persecutors, but among the poor and conscientious
   who were the persecuted. "If you want to find the drunkards and sinners
   of the worst dye," said one of our preachers at or before Cromwell's
   time, "you can find them in Church and state, but if you wish to find
   the men who are holy and who serve God, you must look into the felon's
   dungeons for them, for that is where they have been cast by the powers
   that be." Everywhere from the first day until now, it is not
   respectable to be a follower of Christ. If we follow Christ fully and
   faithfully before God, it is not equitable and praiseworthy before men.
   To take up his cross and to perform the ceremonies which he ordains,
   man hates. To adhere to truths which never were and never can be
   palatable to the carnal mind of man, is, and ever has been to excite
   animosity. The pathway of the Church, then, has been one of fire and
   flame. As it has been so with the Church, we may suspect there is some
   reason for it, and that reason has to be found in the great fact that
   the Church is in an enemy's country. She is not among her friends, she
   is a pilgrim and a stranger upon the earth. She is a bird that has lost
   her place, and all the birds round about her are against her, because
   she is a speckled one and belongs not to the common flock. If we were
   of the world, the world would love its own, but "because," said Christ,
   "ye are not of the world but I have chosen you out of the world,
   therefore the world hateth you." "We know," said he, "it hated me
   before it hated you." True Christians are aliens, foreigners, men that
   speak another speech, men who are actuated by different motives, men
   who live for different ends, who are governed by different maxima from
   the rest of the men of this world, therefore it is that their pathway
   must be one of trial and opposition. All things the Christian teaches
   are so dead against the pleasures of the worldling and his gain, that
   it is no wonder he opposes us. Men hate the gospel because the gospel
   does not like them. That Church is never true to her Christ, nor true
   to herself which does not draw upon herself the hatred of ungodly men,
   by a faithful testimony against their sins.

   It hath fared well with the Church when she hath been persecuted, and
   her pathway hath been through fire. Her feet are shod with iron and
   brass. She ought not to tread on paths strewed with flowers; it is her
   proper place to suffer. Christ redeemed the world with agonies, and the
   Church must teach the world by the example of her anguish. First of
   all, the blood of Christ was shed meritoriously, and afterwards the
   blood of his Church is shed testimonially, to will the world by
   suffering. When you hear of the massacre of Christians in Madagascar,
   weep for their death, but do not be utterly cast down. This is a good
   work. This is the way the Church grows. There is no loss in the army of
   Christ when the best preachers fall and the mightiest evangelists are
   put to death. They are not lost, the blood is well shed and gloriously
   well spent. It is buying victory. It is procuring crowns for Jesus
   Christ. It is after all accomplishing higher results by dying than
   could have been effected by doing. It is under the heaviest fire of
   artillery that the loyal, the brave, and the true do the most daring
   feats of prowess. When one hero falls, from his ashes other heroes
   arise. The post of danger is the post of honor, therefore fresh
   aspirants will be found ready to lead the brigade. Moreover, my
   friends, if the path of fire be always a path of terror, it is often a
   path of progress. Melancholy as it is to mark the ruins of a
   conflagration, while the dying embers smoulder, how often you must have
   observed more majestic edifices raised to replace the structures that
   have been consumed! Thus fearful disasters are made to stimulate
   industry and nourish enterprise.

   No doubt the sufferings of the Church, and the fact that she has to
   pass through the fire, must be ascribed to the great truth that thus
   her God is glorified.

   Brethren, you and I do not glorify God much; for we have very little to
   suffer. The blood red crown of martyrdom is such an object of ambition,
   or it should be, to the believer that he might almost regret that it is
   not in his power to coin it. We! what do we suffer? Somebody slanders
   our character. What is that? Somebody abuses us in the newspaper, what
   is that? We are accused of one crime and another. What can it signify
   to a man who knows his conscience is right in the sight of God? What
   does he care if all the babbling tongues of all the liars in earth and
   hell should be let loose against him; he can bear all that and endure
   it quietly. It is nothing. When I read the stories of the Book of
   Martyrs, and note how our great reformers fought for Christ, and
   manfully won the victory, I blush for ourselves. Why, brethren, we live
   in such silken times that glory is scarce possible to us. We have much
   to do, but we have nothing to suffer. We cannot prove our love to
   Christ as they did. They indeed were a highly honored people who were
   permitted to glorify Christ even in the very fires. Look at it in this
   light, and the light afflictions you have to endure, will seem to be as
   nothing at all, when you think of the weight of glory which they shall
   bring to your Lord and to yourself. But as history confirms the
   statement that the Church of Christ must walk through the fire, so does
   the history of each individual Christian teach him that he must walk
   through the fire too.

   "The path of sorrow and that path alone,

   Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown."

   Through much tribulation we must inherit the kingdom. Think it no
   strange thing when the fiery trial shall happen to you. If you have the
   common afflictions of the world do not wonder. You must have them. The
   same thing happeneth both to the evil and to the good. You lose in
   business, you have reverses and disappointments, do not stagger at
   these in the way to heaven. You must have these, they are necessary to
   your spiritual health. Worse than that, you have strange temptations,
   you are placed in a position where you are constantly exposed to sin.
   It must be so. This too, is the pathway of God's people, you must have
   these fiery temptations, that you, being tried in the fire, may come
   forth as "gold seven times purified." You have mental anxieties.
   Neither let these seem a wonder to you. They fall to the lot of all the
   saints of the Most High. Moreover, you will have to endure the attacks
   of Satan, you must go through the valley of the shadow of death, and
   fight with Apollyon as Christian did, you are not to be exempted from
   the hardness of Christian warfare. If you will mount the hill, you must
   climb; if you are to win the crown, you must win it by sheer might.
   Think not this a strange thing. And if in doing good you meet with
   difficulties, let not that stagger you. It is but right and natural. I
   tell you again, if there be any pathway in which there be not fire,
   tremble, but if your lot be hard, thank God for it. If your sufferings
   be great, bless the Lord for them, and if the difficulties in your
   pathway be many, surmount them by faith, but let them not cast you
   down. Be of good courage, and wait on the Lord, setting this constantly
   in your minds that he has not promised to keep you from trouble, but to
   preserve you in it. It is not written, "I will save thee from the
   fire," but "I will save thee in the fire," not "I will quench the
   coals," but "they shall not burn thee," not "I will put out the
   furnace," but "the flames shall not kindle upon thee." Write it down
   and expect it to come true, that in this world thou shalt have
   tribulation. Only follow thy glorious leader, be it through flood or
   flame.

   II. We will now turn to our second point--there is AN AWFUL DANGER.

   The promise of the text is based on a prophecy that follows it. As I
   glance my eye down the chapter, I see that it tells us how God taught
   his people by terrible things in the past; and how he hath terrible
   lessons to teach them in the future. If the judgment of Egypt, and of
   Ethiopia, and Seba, are behind us, we have startling destinies that
   rise up to view before us. There is a people to be gathered in, and we
   are to be the agents in gathering them. Fear not, saith the Lord,
   though thou walkest through the fire in fulfilling my mission. God
   speaks to the north, "Give up;" and to the south, "Keep not back. Bring
   my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." But the
   manner of Egypt is repeated again. The monarch said, "I will not let
   them go." Jealousy is stirred. The fire burns: the coals thereof have a
   vehement flame. And they that come forth from the bondage of this world
   must walk through the fire, even as those that came forth from Egypt
   had to pass through water. The fire of prophecy is no poetic fiction,
   it is real fire. It will burn. If it doth not burn the believer, it is
   not for want of energy, it is because some supernatural restraint is
   laid on it, or some supernatural protection vouchsafed to the saint. My
   brethren, the Church has had very painful experience that persecution
   is a fire which does burn. How many ministers of Christ, when the day
   of tribulation came, forsook their flocks and fled. When King Edward
   the Sixth was on the throne, there were many who professed to be
   Protestants and preached justification by faith. When Mary returned the
   vicar of Bray was but a specimen of a great class, his principles being
   to keep his living. When again Elizabeth was upon the throne, there
   were plenty who found it to be profitable to profess the reformed
   faith. But when acts of conformity were passed afterwards by which
   those who had hitherto used a Christian freedom in the Church of
   England, were driven out, there were some who said they did not love
   prelacy but hated it, while others who had heretofore professed the old
   Puritanical doctrines, finding that their livings were to be lost
   thereby, held fast to this world, and let the things of the next world
   shift for themselves. Too many have forsaken the Church as Demas
   forsook Paul. Their piety would not stand the fire, they could walk
   with Christ in silvery slippers, but they could not go barefoot; they
   had no objection whatever to accompany him to his throne, but they had
   some slight difficulties about going with him to his cross; they would
   not mind bearing the weight of his glory, but the weight of the cross
   of tribulation was much too great for their constitutions. Persecution
   is a fire which does burn.

   Again: I see iniquity raging on every side. Its flames are fanned by
   every wind of fashion. And fresh victims are being constantly drawn in.
   It spreads to every class. Not the palace nor the hovel are safe. Not
   the lofty piles that are raised for merchandise, nor the graceful
   edifice that is constructed for worship. Iniquity, whose contagion is
   fearful as fire, spreads and preys upon all things that are homely and
   comely, things useful and things sacred are not exempt. We must walk
   through the fire. We who are God's witnesses must stand in its very
   midst, to pour the streams of living water upon the burning fuel, and
   if not able to quench it, at least we must strive to prevent its
   spread. There are young men whose youthful lusts, inflammable as they
   are, have not yet ignited. They are in imminent danger. "Fire! fire!"
   we may well cry. We may give the alarm this morning to you, young man
   who are in the midst of ribald companions. I may cry "fire!" to you who
   are compelled to live in a house where you are perpetual tempted to
   evil, I may cry, "fire!" to you who are marked each day, and have to
   bear the sneer of the ungodly--"fire!" to you who are losing your
   property and suffering in the flesh, for many have perished thereby.
   Oh! may God grant you never may! I see today before my mind's eye the
   blackened skeletons of hundreds of fair professions.
   Multitudes--multitudes have perished in the valley of temptation who
   once, to all human judgment, had bid fair for heaven and made a show in
   the flesh! How many, too, have fallen under the attacks of Satan! This
   is a fire that does burn. Many a man has said, "I will be a pilgrim;"
   but he has met Apollyon on the road and he has turned back. Many a man
   has put on the harness, but he has given up the battle soon,--put his
   hand to the plough and looked back. There are more pillars of salt than
   one. If Lot's wife were a solitary specimen, it were well, but there
   have been tens of thousands who, like her, have looked back to the
   plains of Sodom, and like her, as they are in their spirit, have stood
   for ever what they were,--lost souls. We ought not to look upon our
   dangers with contempt. They are dangers, they are trials, we ought to
   look upon our temptations as fires. Oh, they are fires! If you think
   they are not fires you are mistaken. If you enter then, in your own
   strength, saying "Oh I could bear them," you will find that they are
   real fires, which, with forked tongues, shall lick up your blood,
   consume it in an instant, if you have not some better guard than your
   own creature power.

   III. I will not tarry longer here, because I want to get to the pith
   and marrow of the promise. "Though thou walkest through the fire thou
   shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." Here is
   A DOUBLE INSURANCE.

   Dr. Alexander, an eminent and most admirable American commentator says
   there appears to be some mistake in the translation here, because he
   thinks the two sentences are an anti-climax. "Thou shalt not be
   burned;" and then follows, "neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."
   It strikes me, however, that in the second clause we have the higher
   gradation of a climax. "Thou shalt not be burned," to the destruction
   of thy life, nor even scorched to give thee the most superficial
   injury, for "the flames shall not kindle upon thee." Just as when the
   three holy children came out of the fiery furnace; it is said, "upon
   their bodies the fire had no power, nor was a hair of their head
   singed; neither were their coats changed, nor had the smell of fire
   passed on them. "So the text seems to me to teach that the Christian
   Church under all its trials has not been consumed, but more than
   that--it has not lost anything by its trials. The Lord's Church has
   never been destroyed yet by her persecutors and her trials. They have
   thought they crushed her, but she lives still. They had imagined that
   they had taken away her life, but she sprang up more vigorous than
   before. I suppose there is not a nation out of which Christ's Church
   has ever been utterly driven. Even Spain, which seemed at last to have
   accomplished it by the most persevering barbarities, finds still a few
   believers to be a thorn in the side of her bigotry; and as for our own
   denomination, in the very country, where by the most frightful
   massacres, it was believed that the sect of Anabaptists had been
   utterly extinguished, our good and esteemed brother Mr. Oncken has been
   the means of reviving it, so that throughout all Germany, and in parts
   of Denmark, and Prussia, and Poland, and even Russia itself, we have
   sprung up into a new, vigorous, and even wonderful existence. And in
   Sweden where, under Lutheran government, the most persecuting edicts
   had been passed against us, we have been astonished to find within ten
   years three hundred churches suddenly spring up, for the truth has in
   it a living seed which is not to be destroyed.

   But I have said that the Church not only does not lose her existence,
   but she does not lose anything at all. The Church has never lost her
   numbers. Persecutions have winnowed her and driven away the chaff; but
   not one grain of wheat has been taken away from the heap. Nay, not even
   in visible fellowship has the Church been decreased by persecution. She
   is like Israel in Egypt; the more they were afflicted the more they
   multiplied. Was a bishop put to death to-day? Ten young men came the
   next morning before the Roman proctor and offered themselves to die,
   having that very night been baptised for the dead bishop, having made
   their confession of faith that they might occupy his position. "I fill
   up the vacancy in the Church, and then die as he did." Was a woman
   strangled or tortured publicly? Twenty women appeared the next day and
   craved to suffer as she suffered, that they might honor Christ. Did the
   Church of Rome in more modern times burn one of our glorious
   reformers--John Huss--yet did not Martin Luther come forward as if the
   ashes of Huss had begotten Luther? When Wycliffe had passed away, did
   not the very feet of Wycliffe being persecuted help to spread his
   doctrines, and were there not found hundreds of young men who in every
   market-town in England read the Lollard's Scriptures and proclaimed the
   Lollard's faith? And so depend upon it, it shall ever be. Give a dog a
   bad name and you hang him, give a Christian a bad name and you honor
   him. Do but give to any Christian some ill name and before long a
   Christian denomination will take that name to itself, and it will
   become a title of honor. When George Fox was called "Quaker" it was a
   strange name, one to laugh at, but those men of God who followed him,
   called themselves Quakers too and so it lost its reproach. They called
   the followers of Whitfield and Wesley "Methodists," they took the title
   of Methodists and it became a respectful designation. When many of our
   Baptist forefathers, persecuted in England, went over to America to
   find shelter, they imagined that among the Puritans they would have a
   perfect rest, but Puritan liberty of conscience meant, "The right and
   liberty to think as they did, but no toleration to those who differed."
   The Puritans of New England as soon as ever a Baptist made his
   appearance amongst them, persecuted him with as little compunction as
   the Episcopalians had the Puritans. No sooner was there a Baptist, than
   he was hunted up and brought before his own Christian brethren. Mark
   you, he was brought up for fine, for imprisonment, confiscation and
   banishment before the very men who had themselves suffered persecution.
   And what was the effect of this? The effect has been that in America
   where we were persecuted, we are the largest body of Christians. Where
   the fire burnt the most furiously, there the good old Calvinistic
   doctrine was taught, and the Baptist became the more decidedly a
   Baptist than anywhere else, with the most purity and