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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 10: 1864
   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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                       Suffering And Reigning With Jesus

   DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING JANUARY 3, 1864,

   BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him: if we deny Him, He also
   will deny us." 2 Timothy 2:12.

   MY venerable friend who has up to now sent me a text for the New Year,
   still ministers to his parish the Word of Life and has not forgotten to
   furnish the passage for our meditation today. Having preached from one
   of a very similar character a short time ago, I have felt somewhat
   embarrassed in preparation. But I will take courage and say with the
   Apostle, "To write the same things to you, to me, indeed, is not
   grievous, but for you it is safe." If I should bring forth old things
   on this occasion, be you not unmindful that even the wise householder
   does this at times. For oft-recurring sickness the same wine may be
   prescribed by the most skillful physician without blame. No one scolds
   the contractor for mending rough roads again and again with stones from
   the same quarry. The wind which has borne us once into the haven is not
   despised for blowing often from the same quarter, for it may do us good
   service yet again. And therefore I am assured that you will endure my
   repetitions of the same Truths of God, since they may assist you to
   suffer with patience the same trials.

   You will observe that our text is a part of one of Paul's faithful
   sayings. If I remember rightly, Paul has four of these. The first
   occurs in 1 Timothy 1:15, that famous, that chief of all faithful
   sayings, "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.
   "A golden saying, whose value Paul himself had most marvelously proved.
   What shall I say of this verse, but the same--the lamp of a lighthouse,
   it has darted its ray of comfort through leagues of darkness and guided
   millions of tempest-tossed spirits to the port of Peace.

   The next faithful saying is in the same Epistle, at the fourth chapter
   and the ninth verse. "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having
   the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. This
   is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation." This, too, the
   Apostle knew to be true, since he had learned in whatsoever state he
   was in to be content. Our text is a portion of the third faithful
   saying. And the last of the four you will find in Titus 3:8, "This is a
   faithful saying and these things I will that you affirm constantly,
   that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good
   works. These things are good and profitable unto men." We may trace a
   connection between these faithful sayings.

   The first one, which speaks of Jesus Christ coming into the world to
   save sinners, lays the foundation of our eternal salvation in the Free
   Grace of God, as shown to us in the mission of the great Redeemer. The
   next affirms the double blessedness which we obtain through this
   salvation--the blessings of the upper and nether springs--of time and
   of eternity. The third faithful saying shows one of the duties to which
   the chosen people are called. We are ordained to suffer for Christ with
   the promise that "if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him." The last
   faithful saying sets forth the active form of Christian service,
   bidding us diligently to maintain good works.

   Thus you have the root of salvation in Free Grace. You have next the
   privileges of that salvation in the life which now is and in that which
   is to come. And you have also the two great branches of suffering with
   Christ and service of Christ loaded with the fruits of the Spirit of
   all Divine Grace. Treasure up, dear Friends, those faithful sayings,
   "Lay up these words in your heart; bind them for a sign upon your hand
   that they may be as frontlets between your eyes." Let these choice
   sayings be printed in letters of gold and set up as tablets upon the
   doorposts of our house and upon our gates. Let them be the guides of
   our life, our comfort and our instruction. The Apostle of the Gentiles
   proved them to be faithful. They are faithful still, not one word shall
   fall to the ground. They are worthy of all acceptation--let us accept
   them now and prove their faithfulness--each man for himself.

   This morning's meditation is to be derived from a part of that faithful
   saying which deals with suffering. We will read the verse preceding our
   text. "It is a faithful saying: For if we are dead with Him, we shall
   also live with Him." All the elect were virtually dead with Christ when
   He died upon the tree--they were on the Cross--crucified with Him. In
   Him, as their representative, they rose from the tomb and live in
   newness of life. Because He lives, they shall live also. In due time
   the chosen are slain by the Spirit of God and so made dead with Christ
   to sin, to self-righteousness, to the world, the flesh and the powers
   of darkness.

   Then it is that they live with Jesus! His life becomes their life and
   as He was, so are they also in this world. The Spirit of God breathes
   the quickening Grace into those who were once dead in sin and thus they
   live in union with Christ Jesus. When Believers die, though they may be
   sawn in sunder, or burnt at the stake, yet, since they sleep in Jesus,
   they are preserved from the destruction of death by Him and are made
   partakers of His immortality. May the Lord make us rooted and grounded
   in the mysterious but most consolatory doctrine of union with Christ
   Jesus.

   We must at once advance to our text--"If we suffer, we shall also reign
   with Him: if we deny Him, He also will deny us." The words naturally
   divide themselves into two parts--suffering with Jesus and its
   reward--denying Jesus and its penalty.

   I. SUFFERING WITH JESUS AND ITS REWARD. To suffer is the common lot of
   all men. It is not possible for us to escape from it. We come into this
   world through the gate of suffering and over death's door hangs the
   same escutcheon. We must suffer if we live, no matter in what style we
   spend our existence. The wicked man may cast off all respect for virtue
   and riot in excess of vice to the utmost degree, yet, let him not
   expect to avoid the well-directed shafts of sorrow. No, rather let him
   look for a tenfold share of pain of body and remorse of soul. "Many
   sorrows shall be to the wicked."

   Even if a man could so completely degrade himself as to lose his
   intellectual powers and become a brute, yet even then he could not
   escape from suffering. For we know that the brute creation is the
   victim of pain as much as more lordly man. Only, as Dr. Chalmers well
   remarks, the brutes have the additional misery that they have no mind
   endowed with reason and cheered by hope to fortify them under their
   bodily affliction.

   Understand, O Man, that however you may degrade yourself, you are still
   under the yoke of suffering--the loftiest bow beneath it nor the
   meanest can avoid it. Every acre of humanity must be furrowed with this
   plow. There may be a sea without a wave but never a man without sorrow.
   He who was God as well as Man had His full measure pressed down and
   running over! Let us be assured that if the Sinless One was not spared
   the rod, the sinful will not go free. "Man that is born of woman is of
   few days and full of trouble." "Man is born unto trouble as the sparks
   fly upward."

   If then, a man has sorrow, it does not necessarily follow that he shall
   be rewarded for it since it is the common lot brought upon all by sin.
   You may smart under the lashes of sorrow in this life but this shall
   not deliver you from the wrath to come. Remember, you may live in
   poverty and drag along a wearisome existence of ill-requited toil. You
   may be stretched upon a bed of sickness and be made to experience an
   agony in every single member of your body. And your mind, too, may be
   depressed with fears, or plunged in the depths of despair. And yet, by
   all this you may gain nothing of any value to your immortal spirit,
   for, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

   And no amount of affliction upon earth can alter that unchanging rule
   so as to admit an unregenerate man into Heaven. To suffer is not
   peculiar to the Christian--neither does suffering necessarily bring
   with it any recompense of reward. The text implies most clearly that we
   must suffer with Christ in order to reign with Him. The structure of
   the preceding verse plainly requires such a reading. The words, "with
   Him," may be as accurately supplied at the close of the one clause as
   the other. The suffering which brings the reigning with Jesus must be a
   suffering with Jesus.

   There is a very current error among those poor people who are ignorant
   of true religion that all poor and afflicted people will be rewarded
   for it in the next state. I have heard working men refer to the parable
   of the rich man and Lazarus with a cruel sort of satisfaction at the
   pains of Dives because they have imagined that, in the same manner, all
   rich people would be cast into the flames of Hell without a drop of
   water to cool their tongue--while all poor persons like Lazarus would
   be triumphantly carried into Abraham's bosom.

   A more fearful mistake could not be made! It was not the suffering of
   Lazarus which entitled him to a place in Abraham's bosom. He might have
   been licked by all the dogs on earth and then have been dragged off by
   the dogs of Hell! Many a man goes to Hell from a dunghill. A drunkard's
   hovel is very wretched--is he to be rewarded for bringing him- self to
   rags? Very much of the beggary we see abroad is the result of vice,
   extravagance, or folly--are these things so meritorious as to be
   passports to Heaven?

   Let no man deceive himself so grossly! On the other hand the rich man
   was not cast into Hell because he was rich and fared sumptuously. Had
   he been rich in faith, holy in life and renewed in heart, his purple
   and fine linen would have done him no hurt. Lazarus was carried above
   by the angels because his heart was in Heaven--and the rich man lifted
   up his eyes in Hell, because he had never lifted them up towards God
   and heavenly things. It is a work of Free Grace in the heart and
   character which shall decide the future--not poverty or wealth. Let
   intelligent persons combat this notion whenever they meet with it.

   Suffering here does not imply happiness hereafter. It is only a certain
   order of suffering to which a reward is promised--the suffering which
   comes to us from fellowship with the Lord Jesus and conformity to His
   image. A few words here, by way of aiding you in making the
   distinction. We must not imagine that we are suffering for Christ and
   with Christ if we are not in Christ. If a man is not a branch of the
   Living Vine, you may prune and cut until the sap flows and the branch
   bleeds but he will never bring forth heavenly fruit. Prune the bramble
   as long as ever you like. Use the knife until the edge is worn
   away--the brier will be as sharp and fruitless as ever!

   You cannot by any process of pruning translate it into one of the vines
   of Eshcol. If a man remains in a state of nature, he is a member of the
   earthly Adam--he will not, therefore, escape suffering--but ensure it.
   He must not, however, dream that because he suffers he is suffering
   with Christ! He is plagued with the old Adam. He is receiving with all
   the other heirs of wrath the sure heritage of sin. Let him consider
   these sufferings of his to be only the first drops of the awful shower
   which will fall upon him forever--the first tingling cuts of that
   terrible whip which will lacerate his soul forever.

   If a man is in Christ, he may then claim fellowship with the second
   Man, who is the Lord from Heaven and he may expect to bear the image of
   the heavenly in the Glory to be revealed. O my Hearers, are you in
   Christ by a living faith? Are you trusting in Jesus only? If not,
   whatever you may have to mourn over on earth, you have no hope of
   reigning with Jesus in Heaven. Supposing a man to be in Christ--it does
   not even follow, then, that all his sufferings are sufferings with
   Christ. If a good man were, out of mistaken views of mortification and
   self-denial, to mutilate his body, or to flog his flesh as many a
   sincere enthusiast has done, I might admire the man's fortitude, but I
   should not allow for an instant that he was suffering with Christ!

   Who called men to such austerities? Certainly not the God of Love! If,
   therefore, they torture themselves at the command of their own fancies,
   fancy must reward them, for God will not. If I am rash and imprudent
   and run into positions for which neither Providence nor Grace has
   fitted me, I ought to question whether I am not rather sinning than
   communing with Christ. Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of
   Malchus. If somebody had cut his ear off, what would you say? He took
   the sword and he feels the sword! He was never commanded to cut off the
   ear of Malchus and it was his Master's gentleness which saved him from
   the soldiers' rage.

   If we let passion take the place of judgment, and let self-will reign
   instead of Scriptural authority, we shall fight the Lord's battles with
   the devil's weapons! And if we cut our own fingers we must not be
   surprised. On several occasions, excited Protestants have rushed into
   Romish cathedrals, have knocked down the priest and dashed the wafer
   upon the ground, trod upon it and in other ways exhibited their hatred
   of idolatry. Now when the Law has interposed to punish such outrages,
   the offenders are hardly to be considered as suffering with Christ!
   This I give as one instance of a class of actions to which overheated
   brains sometimes lead men under the supposition that they will join the
   noble army of martyrs.

   The martyrs were all chosen to their honorable estate. And I may say of
   martyrdom as of priesthood, "No man takes that honor upon himself but
   he that is called thereunto as was Aaron." Let us mind we all make a
   distinction between things which differ and do not pull a house down on
   our heads and then pray the Lord to console us under the trying
   Providence.

   Again, in troubles which come upon us as the result of sin, we must not
   think we are suffering with Christ. When Miriam spoke evil of Moses and
   the leprosy polluted her, she was not suffering for God. When Uzziah
   thrust himself into the temple and became a leper all his days, he
   could not say that he was afflicted for righteousness' sake. If you
   speculate and lose your property, do not say that you are losing all
   for Christ's sake! When you unite with bubble companies and are duped,
   do not whine about suffering for Christ--call it the fruit of your own
   folly. If you will put your hand into the fire and it gets burned, why,
   it is the nature of fire to burn you or anybody else! Be not so silly
   as to boast as though you were a martyr.

   If you do wrong and suffer for it, what thanks have you? Go behind the
   door and weep for your sin, but come not forth in public to claim a
   reward. Many a hypocrite, when he has had his deserts and has been
   called by his proper name, has cried out, "Ah, I am persecuted!" It is
   not an infallible sign of excellence to be in bad repute among men. Who
   feels any esteem for a cold-blooded murderer? Does not every man
   reprobate the offender? Is he, therefore, a Christian because he is
   spoken against and his name cast out as evil? Assuredly not! He is a
   heartless villain and nothing more. Brethren, truthfulness and honesty
   should stop us from using expressions which involve a false claim. We
   must not talk as if we suffered nobly for Jesus when we are only
   troubled as the result of sin. O, to be kept from transgression! Then
   it matters not how rough the road of obedience may be--our journey
   shall be pleasant because Jesus walks with us.

   Be it observed, moreover, that suffering such as God accepts and
   rewards for Christ's sake must have God's Glory as its end. If I suffer
   that, I may earn a name, or win applause among men. If I venture into
   trial merely that I may be respected for it, I shall get my reward--but
   it will be the reward of the Pharisee and not the crown of the sincere
   servant of the Lord Jesus. I must mind, too, that love to Christ and
   love to His elect is ever the mainspring of all my patience,
   remembering the Apostle's words, "Though I give my body to be burned
   and have not charity, it profits me nothing."

   If I suffer in bravado, filled with proud defiance of my fellow men. If
   I love the dignity of singularity and out of dogged obstinacy hold to
   an opinion, not because it is right--but because I choose to think as I
   like, then I suffer not with Jesus. If there is no love to God in my
   soul. If I do not endure all things for the elect's sake, I may bear
   many a cuff and buffeting, but I miss the fellowship of the Spirit and
   have no recompense.

   I must not forget, also, that I must manifest the Spirit of Christ or I
   do not suffer with Him. I have heard of a certain minister, who, having
   had a great disagreement with many members in his Church, preached from
   this text, "And Aaron held his peace." The sermon was intended to
   portray himself as an astonishing instance of meekness. But as his
   previous words and actions had been quite sufficiently violent, a witty
   hearer observed that the only likeness he could see between Aaron and
   the preacher, was this, "Aaron held his peace and the preacher did
   not."

   It is easy enough to discover some parallel between our cases and those
   of departed saints, but not so easy to establish the parallel by holy
   patience and Christ-like forgiveness. If I have, in the way of virtue,
   brought down upon myself shame and rebuke. If I am hot to defend myself
   and punish the slanderer. If I am irritated, unforgiving and proud--I
   have lost a noble opportunity of fellowship with Jesus. I must have
   Christ's Spirit in me, or I do not suffer acceptably. If like a sheep
   before her shearers, I can be dumb. If I can bear insult and love the
   man who inflicts it. If I can pray with Christ, "Father, forgive them,
   for they know not what they do." If I submit all my case to Him who
   judges righteously and count it even my joy to suffer reproach for the
   cause of Christ--then and only then, have I truly suffered with Christ.

   These remarks may seem very cutting and may take away much false but
   highly-prized comfort from some of you. It is not my intention to take
   away any true comfort from the most humble Believer who really suffers
   with my Lord. But God grant we may have honesty enough not to pluck
   flowers out of other men's gardens, or wear other men's honors. Truth
   will only be desired by true men.

   I shall now very briefly show what are the forms of real suffering for
   Jesus in these days. We have not now to rot in prisons, to wander about
   in sheepskins and goatskins, to be stoned, or to be sawn in
   sunder--though we ought to be ready to bear all this if God wills it.
   The days of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace are past, but the fire is still
   upon earth. Some suffer in their estates. I believe that to many
   Christians it is rather a gain than a loss, so far as pecuniary matters
   go, to be Believers in Christ. But I meet with many cases--cases which
   I know to be genuine--where persons have had to suffer severely for
   conscience sake.

   There are those present who were once in very comfortable
   circumstances, but they lived in a neighborhood where the majority of
   the business was done on a Sunday. When Divine Grace shut up their
   shop, trade left them. And I know some of them are working very hard
   for their bread, though once they earned abundance without any great
   toil. They do it cheerfully for Christ's sake, but the struggle is a
   hard one. I know other persons who were employed as servants in
   lucrative positions involving sin, but upon their becoming Christians
   they were obliged to resign their former post and are not at the
   present moment in anything like such apparent prosperity as they were.

   I could point to several cases of persons who have really suffered to a
   very high degree in pecuniary matters for the Cross of Christ.
   Brethren, you may possess your souls in patience and expect as a reward
   of Grace that you shall reign with Jesus your Beloved! Those
   feather-bed soldiers who are broken-hearted if fools laugh at them
   should blush when they think of those who endure real hardship as good
   soldiers of Jesus Christ. Who can waste his pity over the small griefs
   of faint hearts when cold, hunger, and poverty are cheerfully endured
   by the true and brave?

   Cases of persecution are by no means rare. In many a country village
   squires and priests rule with a high hand and smite the godly villagers
   with a rod of iron. "No blankets, no coals, no almshouse for you if you
   venture into the Meeting House. You cannot live in my cottage if you
   have a Prayer Meeting in it. I will have no religious people on my
   farm." We who live in more enlightened society little know the
   terrorism exercised in some of the rural districts over poor men and
   women who endeavor conscientiously to carry out their convictions and
   walk with Christ.

   True Christians of all denominations love each other and hate
   persecution, but nominal Christians and ungodly men would make our land
   as hot as in the days of Mary if they dared. To all saints who are
   oppressed, this sweet sentence is directed--"If we suffer, we shall
   also reign with Him." More usually, however, the suffering takes the
   form of personal contempt. It is not pleasant to be pointed at in the
   streets and have opprobrious names shouted after you by vulgar tongues.
   Nor is it a small trial to be saluted in the workshop by opprobrious
   epithets, or to be looked upon as an idiot or a madman.

   And yet this is the lot of many of the people of God every day of the
   week. Many of those who are of the humbler classes have to endure
   constant and open reproach. And those who are richer have to put up
   with the cold shoulder and neglect and sneers as soon as they become
   true disciples of Jesus Christ. There is more sting in this than some
   dream. And we have known strong men who could have borne the lash
   brought down by jeers and sarcasms, even just as the wasp may more
   thoroughly irritate and vex the lion than if the noblest beast of prey
   should attack him. Believers have also to suffer slander and falsehood.
   It is not expedient for me, doubtless, to glory, but I know a man who
   scarcely ever speaks a word which is not misrepresented and hardly
   performs an action which is not misconstrued.

   The press at certain seasons, like a pack of hounds, will get upon his
   track and worry him with the most bases and undeserved abuse. Publicly
   and privately he is accustomed to be sneered at. The world whispers,
   "Ah, he pretends to be zealous for God, but he makes a fine thing of
   it!" Mark you, when the world shall learn what he does make of it,
   maybe it will have to eat its words! But I forbear such is the portion
   of every servant of God who has to bear public testimony for the Truth
   of God.

   Every motive but the right one will be imputed to him. His good will be
   evil spoken of. His zeal will be called imprudence--his courage,
   impertinence--his modesty, cowardice. It is impossible for the true
   Believer in Christ who is called to any eminent service to do anything
   right. He had better at once learn to say with Luther, "The world hates
   me and there is no love lost between us, for as much as it hates me, so
   heartily do I hate it." He meant not the men in the world, for never
   was there a more loving heart than Luther's. But he meant the fame, the
   opinion, the honor of the world he trod beneath his feet. If in your
   measure you bear undeserved rebuke for Christ's sake, comfort
   yourselves with these words, "If we suffer, we shall also reign with
   Him: if we deny Him, He also will deny us."

   Then again, if in your service for Christ you are enabled to sacrifice
   yourself--bearing upon yourself inconvenience and pain, labor and
   loss--then I think you are suffering with Christ. The Missionary who
   tempts the stormy deep--the herald of the Cross who penetrates into
   unknown regions among savage men--the tract distributor toiling up the
   moun-tainside--the teacher going wearily to the class--the village
   preacher walking many toilsome miles--the minister starving on a
   miserable pittance--the evangelist content to break down in health--all
   these and their like suffer with Christ.

   We are all too much occupied with taking care of ourselves. We shun the
   difficulties of excessive labor. And frequently behind the
   entrenchments of taking care of our constitution we do not half as much
   as we ought. A minister of God is bound to spurn the suggestions of
   ignoble ease--it is his calling to labor! And if he destroys his
   constitution, I for one, thank God that He permits us the high
   privilege of so making ourselves living sacrifices. If earnest
   ministers should bring themselves to the grave, not by imprudence, for
   that we would not advocate--but by honest labor, such as their ministry
   and their consciences require of them--they will be better in their
   graves than out of their graves if they come there for the cause of
   Christ. What? Are we never to suffer? Are we to be carpet-knights? Are
   God's people to be put away in padding, perfumed with lavender and
   boxed up in quiet softness? No! Not unless they would lose the reward
   of true saints!

   Let us not forget that contention with inbred lusts, denials of proud
   self, resistance of sin and agony against Satan are all forms of
   suffering with Christ. We may, in the holy war within us, earn as
   bright a crown as in the wider battlefield beyond us. O for Grace to be
   ever dressed in full armor, fighting with principalities and powers and
   spiritual wickedness of every sort! There is one more class of
   suffering which I shall mention and that is, when friends forsake, or
   become foes. Father and mother forsake sometimes. The husband
   persecutes the wife. We have known even the children turn against the
   parents. "A man's foes are they of his own household." This is one of
   the devil's best instruments for making Believers suffer. And those who
   have to drain this cup for the Lord's sake shall reign with Him.

   Brethren, if you are thus called to suffer for Christ, will you quarrel
   with me if I say, in adding all up, what a very little it is compared
   with reigning with Jesus? "For our light affliction, which is but for a
   moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory."
   When I contrast our sufferings of today with those of the reign of
   Mary, or the persecutions of the Albigenses on the mountains, or the
   sufferings of Christians in Pagan Rome--why ours are scarcely a pin's
   prick--and yet what is the reward? We shall reign with Christ!

   There is no comparison between the service and the reward. Therefore it
   is all of Grace. We do but little and suffer but little--and even that
   little, Grace gives us! And yet the Lord grants us, "A far more
   exceeding and eternal weight of Glory." We are not merely to sit with
   Christ, but we are to reign with Christ. All that the pomp imperial of
   His Kingship means. All that the treasure of His wide dominions can
   yield. All that the majesty of His everlasting power can bestow-- all
   this is to belong to you--given to you of His rich, Free Grace, as the
   sweet reward of having suffered for a little time with Him!

   Who would draw back, then? Who among you will flinch? Young man, have
   you thought of flying from the Cross? Young woman, has Satan whispered
   to you to shun the thorny pathway? Will you give up the crown? Will you
   miss the Throne? O Beloved, it is so blessed to be in the furnace with
   Christ, and such an honor to stand in the pillory with Him that if
   there were no reward, we might count ourselves happy! But when the
   reward is so rich, so super-abundant, so eternal, so infinitely more
   than we had any right to expect--will we not take up the Cross with
   songs and go on our way rejoicing in the Lord our God?

   II. DENYING CHRIST, AND ITS PENALTY. "If we deny Him, He also will deny
   us." Dreadful "if," and yet an "if which is applicable to every one of
   us. If the Apostles, when they sat at the Lord's Supper, said, "Lord,
   is it I?" surely we may say as we sit here, "Lord, shall I ever deny
   You?" You who say most loudly, "Though all men shall deny You, yet I
   will not"--you are the most likely to do it!

   In what way can we deny Christ? Some deny Him openly, as scoffers do,
   whose tongue walks through the earth and defies Heaven. Others do this
   willfully and wickedly in a doctrinal way, as the Arians and Socinians
   do who deny His deity--those who deny His Atonement, who rail against
   the inspiration of His Word--these come under the condemnation of those
   who deny Christ. There is a way of denying Christ without even speaking
   a word and this is the more common.

   In the day of blasphemy and rebuke, many hide their heads. They are in
   company where they ought to speak up for Christ. But they put their
   hands upon their mouths. They come not forward to profess their faith
   in Jesus. They have a sort of faith, but it is one which yields no
   obedience. Jesus bids each Believer to be baptized. They neglect His
   ordinance. Neglecting that, they also despise the weightier matters of
   the Law. They will go up to the House of God because it is fashionable
   to go there. But if it were a matter of persecution, they would forsake
   the assembling of themselves together.

   In the day of battle they are never on the Lord's side. If there is a
   parade, and the banners are flying and the trumpets are sounding, if
   there are decorations and medals to be given away, there they are. But
   if the shots are flying, if trenches have to be carried and forts to be
   stormed, where are they? They have gone back to their dens and there
   will they hide themselves till fair weather shall return.

   Mind, mind, mind, for I am giving a description, I am afraid, of some
   here. Mind, I say, you silent ones, lest you stand speechless at the
   bar of Judgment. Some, after having been long silent and so practically
   denying Christ, go farther and apostatize altogether from the faith
   they once had. No man who has a genuine faith in Christ will lose it,
   for the faith which God gives will live forever. Hypocrites and
   formalists have a name to live while yet they are dead--and after a
   while they return like the dog to its vomit and the sow which was
   washed to her wallowing in the mire. Certain professors do not run this
   length, yet practically deny Christ by their lives, though they make a
   profession of faith in Him.

   Are there not some here who hove been baptized and who come to the
   Lord's Table but what is their character? Follow them home. I would to
   God they never had made a profession because in their own houses they
   deny what in the House of God they have avowed. If I see a man drunk.
   If I know that a professor indulges in lasciviousness. If I know a man
   to be harsh and overbearing and tyrannical to his servants. If I know
   another who cheats in his traffic and another who adulterates his
   goods. And if I know that such men profess allegiance to Jesus--which
   am I to believe--their words or their deeds? I will believe that which
   speaks loudest! And as actions always speak louder than words, I will
   believe their actions--I believe that they are deceivers whom Jesus
   will deny at the last.

   Should we not find many present this morning belonging to one or other
   of these grades? Does not this description suit at least some of you?
   If it should do so, do not be angry with me but stand still and hear
   the Word of the Lord. Know, O Man that you will not perish even if you
   have denied Christ, if now you fly to Him for refuge. Peter denied, but
   yet Peter is in Heaven. A transient forsaking of Jesus under temptation
   will not bring on everlasting ruin, if faith shall step in and the
   Grace of God shall intervene. But persevere in it--continue still in a
   denial of the Savior and my terrible text will come upon you--"He also
   will deny you."

   In musing over the very dreadful sentence which closes my text, "He
   also will deny us," I was led to think of various ways in which Jesus
   will deny us. He does this sometimes on earth. You have read, I
   suppose, of the death of Francis Spira. If you have ever read it, you
   never can forget it to your dying day. Francis Spira knew the Truth of
   God. He was a reformer of no mean standing, but when brought to death,
   out of fear, he recanted. In a short time he fell into despair and
   suffered Hell upon earth. His shrieks and exclamations were so horrible
   that their record is almost too terrible for print. His doom was a
   warning to the age in which he lived.

   Another instance is narrated by my predecessor, Benjamin Keach, of one
   whom, during Puritanical times, was very earnest for Puritanism but
   afterwards, when times of persecution arose, forsook his profession.
   The scenes at his deathbed were thrilling amid terrible. He declared
   that though he sought God, Heaven was shut against him. Gates of brass
   seemed to be in his way. He was given up to overwhelming despair. At
   intervals he cursed. At other intervals he prayed and so perished
   without hope.

   If we deny Christ, we may be delivered to such a fate. If we have stood
   highest and foremost in God's Church and yet have not been brought to
   Christ--if we should become apostates--a high soar will bring a deep
   fall. High pretensions bring down sure destruction when they come to
   nothing. Even upon earth Christ will deny such. There are remarkable
   instances of persons who sought to save their lives and lost them. One
   Richard Denton, who had been a very zealous Lollard and was the means
   of the conversion of an eminent saint, when he came to the stake, was
   so afraid of the fire that he renounced everything he held and went
   into the Church of Rome.

   A short time after, his own house took fire, and going into it to save
   some of his money, he perished miserably, being utterly consumed by
   that fire which he had denied Christ in order to escape. If I must be
   lost, let it be any way rather than as an apostate. If there is any
   distinction among the damned, those have it who are wandering stars,
   trees plucked up by the roots, twice dead, for whom Jude tells us, is
   "reserved the blackness of darkness forever." Reserved! As if nobody
   else were qualified to occupy that place but themselves. They are to
   inhabit the darkest, hottest place because they forsook the Lord.

   Let us, my dear Friends, rather lose everything than lose Christ. Let
   us sooner suffer anything than lose our ease of conscience and our
   peace of mind. When Marcus Arethusus was commanded by Julian the
   apostate to subscribe towards the rebuilding of a heathen temple which
   his people had pulled down upon their conversion to Christianity, he
   refused to obey. And though he was an aged man, he was stripped naked
   and then pierced all over with lancets and knives. The old man still
   was firm.

   If he would give but one halfpenny towards the building of the temple,
   he could be free--if he would cast in but one grain of incense into the
   censer devoted to the false gods, he might escape. He would not
   countenance idolatry in any degree. He was smeared with honey and while
   his innumerable wounds were yet bleeding, the bees and wasps came upon
   him and stung him to death. He could die, but he could not deny his
   Lord. Arethusus entered into the joy of his Lord, for he nobly suffered
   with Him!

   In the olden time when the Gospel was preached in Persia, one
   Hamedatha, a courtier of the king, having embraced the faith, was
   stripped of all his offices, driven from the palace and compelled to
   feed camels. This he did with great content. The king, passing by one
   day, saw his former favorite at his ignoble work, cleaning out the
   camel's stables. Taking pity upon him he took him into his palace,
   clothed him with sumptuous apparel, restored him to all his former
   honors and made him sit at the royal table. In the midst of the dainty
   feast, he asked Hamedatha to renounce his faith.

   The courtier, rising from the table, took off his garments with haste,
   left all the dainties behind him, and said, "Did you think that for
   such silly things as these I would deny my Lord and Master?" And away
   he went to the stable to his ignoble work. How honorable is all this!
   How shall I denounce the meanness of the apostate--his detestable
   cowardice to forsake the bleeding Savior of Calvary to return to the
   beggarly elements of the world which he once despised and to bow his
   neck again to the yoke of bondage? Will you do this, O followers of the
   Crucified?

   You will not! You cannot! I know you cannot if the Spirit of the Lord
   dwells in you and it must dwell in you if you are the children of God.
   What must be the doom of those who deny Christ, when they reach another
   world? Perhaps they will appear with a sort of hope in their minds and
   they will come before the Judge, with, "Lord, Lord, open to us." Who
   are you? He says. "Lord, we once took the Lord's Supper--Lord, we were
   members of the Church, but there came very hard times. My mother bade
   me give up religion. Father was angry. Trade went bad. I was so mocked
   at, I could not stand it. Lord, I fell among evil acquaintances and
   they tempted me--I could not resist. I was Your servant--I did love
   You--I always had love towards You in my heart, but I could not help
   it--I denied You and went to the world again."

   What will Jesus say? I know you not! "But, Lord, I want You to be my
   Advocate." I know you not! "But, Lord, I cannot get into Heaven unless
   You should open the gate--open it for me." I do not know you! I do not
   know you! "But, Lord, my name was in the Church Book." I know you
   not--I deny you. "But will You not hear my cries?" You did not hear
   Mine--you did deny Me and I deny you. "Lord, give me the lowest place
   in Heaven, if I may but enter and escape from wrath to come." No, you
   would not brook the lowest place on earth and you shall not enjoy the
   lowest place here. You had your choice and you did choose evil. Keep to
   your choice. You were filthy, be you filthy still. You were unholy, be
   you unholy still.

   O, Sirs, if you would not see the angry face of Jesus! O, Sirs, if you
   would not behold the lightning flashing from His eyes and hear the
   thunder of His mouth in the day when He judges the fearful and the
   unbelieving and the hypocrite. If you would not have your portion in
   the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, cry this day mightily
   unto God, "Lord, hold me fast, keep me, keep me. Help me to suffer with
   You, that I may reign with You. But do not, do not let me deny You,
   lest You also should deny me."
     __________________________________________________________________

                           Forward! Forward! Forward!

   DELIVERED ON SUNDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 18, 1863,

   BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the Lord said unto Moses, Why cry you unto Me? Speak unto the
   children of Israel, that they go forward." Exodus 14:15.

   SPIRITUAL men, in their distresses, turn at once to prayer even as the
   stag when hunted takes to flight. Prayer is a never-failing resort. It
   is sure to bring a blessing with it. Even apart from the answer of our
   supplications, the very exercise of prayer is healthy to the man
   engaged in it. Far be it from me ever to say a word in disparagement of
   the holy, happy, heavenly exercise of prayer. But, Beloved, there are
   times when prayer is not enough--when prayer itself is out of season.
   You will think that a hard saying and say, "Who can bear it?" But my
   text is to the point. Moses prayed that God would deliver His people.
   But the Lord said to him, "Why cry you unto Me?" As much as to say this
   is not the time for prayer, it is the time for action. "Speak unto the
   children of Israel, that they go forward." When we have prayed over a
   matter to a certain degree, it then becomes sinful to tarry any longer.
   Our plain duty is to carry our desires into action, and having asked
   God's guidance and having received Divine power from on high, to go at
   once to our duty without any longer deliberation or delay.

   Brethren, a vigorous faith will often shut its eyes to difficulties.
   When faith looks upon a difficulty as being exceedingly great, then she
   turns to prayer. But, on the other hand, after having sought God's help
   and having received it, she frequently laughs at the impossibility and
   cries, "It shall be done." and then, instead of betaking herself any
   longer to her knees, she boldly marches on, believing that the
   difficulty will vanish before her, that the crooked will be made
   straight and the rough places plain. We are not to be always praying
   over a difficulty. When we have fairly committed it to God, we are to
   act upon the assurance that He has heard us.

   Nor will such an action be the fruit of rashness for it is a solid and
   substantial fact that prayer does avail with God. Beloved, it strikes
   me that the advice which the Lord gave to Moses was such as He has
   given to the preacher tonight-- and that the message which Moses
   delivered to the children of Israel is a very fit one for me to deliver
   to you. Short, prompt, soldier-like, here is the whole of it--"Forward!
   Forward!" If you have been sitting down or tempted to go
   back--"Forward!" We have long been praying, let us tonight, "go
   forward." The one subject we shall take up and try to deliver to
   different classes of characters, is, "Thus says the Lord, you children
   of Israel, Forward!"

   I. First, we will contemplate THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL AS A FLOCK OF
   FUGITIVES. And in this light they give encouragement to trembling
   sinners flying from the curse of the Law and from the power of their
   sins. I think I see those poor Israelites crowding together, all
   alarmed and afraid, whispering to one another some such trembling words
   as these--"I saw them. I saw my old master on horseback riding after
   me. I looked and I saw regiment upon regiment of warriors marching in
   long red lines." "I heard," says another, "the sound of their war
   music. I heard the clash of their spears. We cannot stand against them!
   We are only defenseless multitudes and they are the well-trained sons
   of Mizraim. Their swords will be drunk with our blood."

   They huddled together as a company of doves seeking to escape the hawk.
   Alas! What can they do? They are crying to God and to Moses, thinking
   of this plan and devising another. And Moses himself, in some sort of
   alarm, is crying out to God for them--"Lord, help this people! They are
   in great straits. They are in frightful difficulties. The enemy says,
   'I will pursue them. I will overtake them. I will divide the spoil. My
   lust shall be satisfied upon them.' Lord, what am I to do with this
   company?" Here comes the Divine answer, full of wisdom and love--"Speak
   unto them and bid them go forward."

   Now such is my message to the company of fugitives who are here
   tonight. You have been awakened. Your conscience has been alarmed. You
   have begun to feel the terrors of the Law. You have heard the crack of
   the whip and felt it on your back. You are trying to escape from your
   sins. You are not as you used to be, a contented bondsman, but you pant
   to be delivered altogether from sin and its power and its guilt. You
   have been flying as best you could from sin. But the whole of your sins
   are after you and your conscience, with its quick ear, can hear the
   sound of threatening judgment. "Alas," your heart is saying, "unless
   God helps me, I shall be in Hell!" "Alas," says your judgment, "unless
   God is merciful, I shall soon perish!" Every power of your manhood is
   now upon the alarm. The different parts of your heart are talking to
   one another and they are all foreboding desperate mischief.

   Now what shall I do for you? Shall I pray for you? Yes, that I will.
   Shall I bid you pray? Yes, that I may. And we may blend our prayers
   together--"God be merciful to us sinners! Lord save us, or we perish!"
   But I think while I am praying for you, I hear my Master saying, "Why
   cry you unto Me?

   Tell them to go forward! Preach Christ to them instead of praying any
   longer or bidding them pray.

   Deliver to them the message of the Gospel--"Forward, Sinner, forward to
   the Cross! Forward to the five wounds! Forward to the bloody sweat and
   to the crown of thorns! Go forward to the agonies of Gethsemane and to
   the death struggles of Golgotha. Forward! Forward to the place--

   'Where the full Atonement's made, Where the utmost ransom's paid.'"

   I know what you say. "Right before me rolls the great sea of God's
   wrath. I am surrounded with a dark, dark night and I see no light but
   the sheen of these terrible waves of fire. If I go forward, God's
   eternal wrath is in the way." Forward, Sinner, whatever may obstruct
   the way! Let not Hell itself block up the road! Do you not know that
   when Jesus is your Leader, He will at once divide the Red sea of
   Jehovah's wrath? He did divide it! He went through it Himself when He
   suffered the wrath of God instead of you!

   As you go forward, you shall find Almighty Justice standing up as a
   protecting wall on either hand and no longer rolling as a devouring
   flood. Forward in the way of faith in the Savior's name! And when you
   have passed through the dry bed of a sea once deep and stormy, you
   shall look back and see the deep sea swallowing up your sins and shall
   sing, "The depths have covered them, there is not one of them left."
   Forward, Sinner, forward! "Well," says one, "I will pray about it."
   Beware of substituting prayer for faith--faith is your present
   duty--Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. "I will
   think about it a little longer." Do no such thing! Thinking is a very
   poor substitute for believing. Forward! Forward at once and on the
   spot! Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.

   "But I am not fit to believe!" Forward, in God's name--forward! What
   have you to do with fitness? God commands you to believe in His Son
   Jesus Christ. Forward is my message--I come not here to tamper with
   you--to deal with your "ifs" and "buts," and excuses and perhapses.
   Hell is behind you--you are shut up on the right hand and on the left
   by God's Providence, your own fears, and Divine Justice. There is but
   one way of safety and that is the way of faith. Forward, Sinner!
   Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved!

   Why, some of you have been frittering away your time--weeks and months
   and years! You have been thinking about it, praying about it, reading
   about it, hoping about it, fearing about it--but never coming to Jesus
   just as you are. It is wrong--it is all wrong! God's command is neither
   work, nor feel, nor fear--it is simple and plain--BELIEVE! Forward!
   Trust a Savior's wounds. And in trusting there is life. In a look at
   Him you are saved! O, I wish I could get behind some of you and whisper
   a word in your ear, for I know what Satan says. He says, "Tarry, tarry,
   tarry!" Ah, he loves to have you in the place of breaking forth as
   children, that he may vex and torment you.

   "Go back," he says, "go back!" Ah, I know he would like to have you at
   your cups again and in your old sins, but you cannot go back if God has
   once brought you out of Egypt! I know what he whispers. He says, "It is
   of no use going forward. If you believe in Jesus," says he, "you will
   perish after all." Back, you old Liar, back! God never did permit a man
   yet to walk in a path in which He commanded him to go and not to walk
   safely. Forward, Sinner, FORWARD! Christ is before you and Heaven in
   Him is before you. If you stay where you are, you shall die. If you go
   forward, you can but die. And, therefore, take the captain's word
   tonight, for it is the word of the captain's King--"Speak unto the
   children of Israel that they go forward."

   II. Secondly, we may view the great company who came out of Egypt as AN
   ARMY UNDER COMMAND. Therefore they must obey. The command given to them
   is, "Forward! Forward! Forward!" Might the wise men have said in the
   host of Israel, "How can we go forward? That narrow beach leads down to
   the foaming billow. Forward? What do you mean? We are altogether as
   dead men if we go forward! Would you have us swim? Do you know where
   you are? There are miles and miles of deep water and who knows the
   bottom of the sea? Forward? Absurd!--We shall lose the camels and the
   sheep and the baggage and our wealth and our children and our little
   ones--yes, and our own lives also."

   But thus says the Lord, "Forward!" You came out of Egypt under Moses'
   command, will you play the rebel's part? If the Lord is your Captain,
   you must do absolutely what He bids you at any loss and at any cost. If
   He says, "Forward," and it is into the Red Sea or into a gulf of fire,
   forward you must go. Now, Beloved, this presents us a picture of those
   who are savingly converted, who, on a sudden, meet with difficulties in
   following Christ and run to their minister or to their friend, and say,
   "What are we to do?"

   The Lord's message by me tonight to your anxious inquiry is
   this--"Forward!" It is a simple one--"Forward!" "Sir, I have just begun
   to be a Christian, but if I continue in it, I shall lose my business.
   My calling is such that I cannot be honest in it and serve my God
   faithfully without sinking all my capital and bringing myself and
   family to beggary. What ought I to do? Ought I not to give up my
   religion?" Forward! Forward! No matter what is before you. Forward! You
   are not fit to be a soldier of Christ unless you can count all costs
   and still hold fast to the Cross of Christ.

   "Ah," says one, "but what is to become of my children, my family, my
   household?" Friend, I cannot tell you, but God can. It is yours to
   trust them with Him, for the only command I have for you is, Forward!
   Forward! "But my husband says I shall never come into the house again!
   My father tells me he will turn me out of doors." Be it so, no one
   pities you more than I do. But I dare not alter my message to your
   soul. I am to bid you, Go forward! "Well," says one, "these are hard
   commands."

   Yes, but the martyrs had harder still. Theirs was the stake, the
   gibbet, the rack. They must rot in prison. They must be dragged at the
   heels of the wild horse. But what is the command? "Forward.!" On went
   the goodly host through floods, through fires, through seas of blood.
   They never paused. And if you would be worthy followers of them, you
   must do the same. The Master's message to you is, "Forward!" At the
   famous charge of Balaclava, when the order was given to charge the
   batteries, what could that troop do but ride into the valley of death?
   There they go! On, on, up to the very cannons' mouths! The word of
   command must not be questioned but obeyed--

   "Theirs not to make reply.
   Theirs not to reason why.
   Theirs but to do and die--
   Into the valley of death
   Rode the six hundred."

   And you, if you are fit to be God's soldiers--if you are really His and
   filled with His Holy Spirit--you must do the same. What would you think
   of our soldiers if, when they were bid to charge, they should say,
   "There is a ditch in the way." Jump in it! "But there are soldiers in
   the way." Cut them to pieces! "But they have very sharp fixed
   bayonets." Fix yours, too! Push them at the bayonet's point and drive
   them back. England expects every man to do his duty. What God commands
   must surely have a higher claim on men than what England commands them
   to do! Comrades in arms, all my message to you is, "Forward! Forward!"
   If God has called you to honor and glory and immortality and eternal
   life--if loss of business, comfort, honor, fame, friends. If relatives
   should threaten you, you must not be daunted--for He who loves any of
   these more than Christ is not worthy of Him.

   There are cowards of another sort with whom I must have a word. They do
   not like going forward. They would not lose by it if they did, but they
   feel a quivering sensation of nervousness come over them. And though
   they know their Master's commands, yet they say, "Well, I must think
   the matter over." Now suppose one instance--and I take only one of the
   sort--suppose you know it (as it certainly is, whether you know it or
   not), to be your duty to be baptized? How often I have heard people
   say, "Well, yes, the Lord is my gracious Master and I am His servant
   and I believe it is the duty of Believers to be baptized. But if the
   Lord ever reveals it to me, then I will do it"?

   There is a soldier for you! He is not content to get the same orders as
   his fellow soldiers! No, he cries, "When the regiment is on the march,
   if the captain will come round to my tent and talk to me by myself, I
   will not mind going." Why, he deserves to be flogged as a deserter! I
   will not wish anything hard to my Christian Brothers and Sisters, but I
   do venture to prophesy that they will be beaten with many stripes if
   they talk in that way. "Ah," says one, "but the Lord must apply it to
   me." What for? The thing is clear enough without its being applied. If
   there is anything in the Bible which is plain at all, it is that he who
   believes in Christ should he buried with Him in Baptism. Then, if it is
   your clear duty, you ought to do it at once.

   "Well, I will pray about it." And do you believe God will hear such a
   wicked prayer as that? If I tell my child that there is something for
   him to do and he tells me, "Well, I will think about it." I shall let
   him know that I am not to be thus impudently trifled with. If I say to
   him, Now, my child, do so-and-so. "Father, I will pray about it."
   Believe me, I shall not put up with such hypocritical rebellion! It
   will not do in one's own house, much less in the House of God. Are you
   to be permitted to trifle with positive precepts and then to lay your
   sin upon God's back? I do not think so.

   Dear Brothers and Sisters, if you have been sitting down timidly and
   saying, "Well, one of these days I will come out and own my Lord,"
   instead of that, I am bid to command you on this point and on every
   other, if it is a plain duty, whether it is pleasant to the flesh or
   not, "Forward! Forward! Forward!" What are your marching orders? Does
   your Lord tell you to do it? Do it! Do the Scriptures bid you? Do it!
   It is not yours to reason why any more than it is the soldier's. But as
   the seed of Israel marched right on, even though the sea was in their
   way, so must you--though death itself should be the result. "Speak to
   the children of Israel, that they go forward."

   III. We will change the topic once again and we will take a third view
   of it. Let us view these people as ON THE MARCH TOWARDS CANAAN. Many of
   you are on your way towards Heaven and the Lord's command to you is,
   "Forward! Forward!"

   I would that I could sound that one word in the ears of many whom I
   believe to be the Lord's people but who have for a long time settled
   upon their lees. There are some persons who cannot be persuaded to make
   an advance in the Divine life. The moment you urge them to anything
   practical they call you legal. They seem to consider themselves as
   inanimate clay ordained to lie passively in the hands of the Holy
   Spirit. But they forget that the Holy Spirit works in us, not to be
   idle and powerless, but to will and to do of God's good pleasure. They
   neither will, nor do, but talk about the Spirit as though He were to
   will and to do everything for them.

   To such who have been converted but have made no progress let me, in my
   Master's name, give clear utterance to that word, "Forward." Brothers
   and Sisters, you and I ought to go forward in knowledge. If I know no
   more of Scripture than I did ten years ago, what have I done with my
   time? If I am no better instructed myself as a scribe in my Master's
   kingdom, of what use shall I be to others? If you have been in this
   world these years and yet doctrine has not become more clear, nor
   experience more plain it is time you should look about you and follow
   on to know the Lord. We do not keep boys at school year after year if
   they make no progress. And yet how many there are of professing
   Christians who seem to have been stunted in their early profession so
   that they positively have not advanced in knowledge one iota beyond
   where they were ten or twenty years ago? In this point, however, they
   are not so much to blame as in others.

   "Forward," should be the motto as to our faith. You were doubting and
   fearing twenty years ago. If I recollect, when I was but a lad ten
   years ago, I heard you lament--

   "It is a point I long to know,
   Oft it causes anxious thought."
   Have you not a better time than that now?
   Can you not sing--

   "A debtor to mercy alone,
   Of Co venant mercy I sing;
   Nor fear with Your righteousness on,
   My person and offerings to bring--
   The terrors of Law and of God,
   With me can have nothing to do;
   My Savior's obedience and blood
   Hide all my transgressions from view."

   I do not suppose you will altogether be rid of fears, but I do think
   your motto should be--"Forward!"--that your faith should become more
   constant and your doubts less frequent. Surely the venerable saint who
   has proved his Master a hundred times ought to find his faith more
   strong than those of us who are but babes in the family! Ought we to be
   always limping, always hoping and trusting, doubting and fearing? Is it
   not time for us to use the strong muscles of the fully developed
   man--and, leaving all nursery carts--ought we not to stand upright with
   Abraham with a faith which staggers not because of unbelief? Forward,
   Christian, forward as to your faith!

   May I not use the same word in reference to our fellowship with Christ?
   I am afraid most of us make no progress as to nearness to Christ. Some
   of us, I am afraid, go backwards. We said, years ago, "Nearer, my God,
   to You, nearer to You." Are we nearer? Have we come closer to the
   wounds of Jesus? Do we more frequently recline upon His bosom and sit
   at His feet? If not, I am commanded with Moses, "Speak unto the
   children of Israel, that they go forward."

   Above all, have we made any progress as to work for our Master? Some,
   as they grow old, give up their work. I do not understand it! I must
   confess an inability of comprehending how any man who once preached the
   Gospel can ever leave his ministry while his strength lasts. If the
   Master has once allotted you a field of labor, unless it is sheer
   inability, I cannot understand how you can ever cease to till the
   ground, or reap the sheaves. No, you will, if God has called you, want
   to do more and more and more for Jesus!

   You will feel a growing thirst after precious souls--at least you ought
   to. You will be moved with greater yearnings of your heart towards your
   fellow immortals and a higher zeal for the spread of your Master's
   kingdom. Christian men, when I think of some of you who have tasted
   that He is gracious, and are content with the taste. You who have been
   into the river of Jesus' love until you are up to the ankles, but are
   loath to wade into the deeper parts of the heavenly stream. When I
   think of some of you who are worshipping in the outer courts and have
   no ambition to enter into that which is within the veil. When I
   remember how some of you seem never to comprehend the resurrection
   life, nor what it is to be raised up together to sit in heavenly places
   in Christ Jesus--I do marvel at you that you thus stand back and in the
   name of God, whose servant I am, I give you this motto--"Forward!
   Forward!"

   Press onward in the Divine life! Forget the road already trod and
   onward urge your way. Cry for the Spirit of God! Ask for more unction,
   more power, more consciousness of the Divine indwelling and then take
   for the motto on your banner--"Forward! Forward! Forward!"

   IV. In the fourth place, but with very great brevity, TO CHRISTIANS IN
   TROUBLE our text is applicable. The children of Israel were in great
   straits. They were in a trial into which God had brought them. And it
   is an absolute certainty that if God brings you in, He will bring you
   out. He never did take a saint where he must of necessity perish. The
   rocks of daily life rise on the right and on the left. The raging enemy
   is behind. The equally raging sea is before. What is to be done now?
   God's word is--"Forward!"

   God shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace. In this vast
   assembly there may be several Christians who said to themselves last
   Saturday night, "I will go up to the House of God and enquire at the
   hand of the man of God what the Lord will do for me." This is the
   answer to your enquiry. You cannot help yourself--that is clear. Your
   trouble is none of your own finding--that you know. And your escape
   will not be of your own working--that you know, also. You have nothing
   now to do but to cast yourselves upon your God and go forward!

   Beloved, it is a blessed thing to be absolutely stripped of creature
   comforts that you may be wholly clothed upon with the Creator. It is
   not pleasing to flesh and blood to be brought down to abject
   nothingness. But faith never is more happy than when the strength of
   the mortal is altogether dead--because then the immortal God comes in
   and clothes our weakness with His Omnipotence. If I might have any
   choice between having abundant wealth, or being brought to absolute
   dependence upon daily supplies. If in the latter case I could have
   greater power to exhibit and to exert faith in Christ, I must confess
   that I should prefer the mode of living which would give me most room
   to enjoy the luxury of depending upon my God.

   I believe it is more happy and more Divine a life to live from hand to
   mouth, dependent upon the Providence of God and having the confidence
   to trust Him, than it is to have all the abundance of this world but to
   have nothing about which faith may exercise itself. Often when our joys
   are thick about us and we have ten thousand creature comforts, we are
   then naked and poor and miserable in spirituals. But when the creature
   comforts fall as the leaves are falling from the trees in autumn, then
   it is that we have frequently the most joy and the most peace in God.
   "Give me back my sickbed," said a saint when he remembered what joy he
   had had upon it!

   Theodoret, the martyr, said that his persecutors had done him an injury
   when they took him off the rack. "For," said he, "while I was on the
   rack, God sent His angels to comfort me. And now you have taken me off,
   I am afraid I shall lose their heavenly presence." Experimentally I
   have learned, dear Friends, that at the Red Sea of affliction we see
   most of the right arm of God. I am glad there was a Red Sea! I bless
   God that it had deep and foaming billows! I praise His name that there
   were fierce and cruel Egyptians--for if there had never been that Red
   Sea, never would the song of Moses and the shout of Miriam have been
   heard--"Sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously: the horse
   and his rider has He thrown into the sea."

   Your tribulations will yet yield you music. All you have to do now is
   to honor God by going forward! Hold your peace and God shall fight for
   you! "Be still and know that I am God." When the worst has come to the
   worst, that God--

   "Who moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform, Will plant His
   footsteps in the sea, And ride upon the storm. Forward! Christian,
   forward!"

   V. Let me not weary you, but I must, again, use my text in another
   manner--for the exhortation of all of you who are followers of my Lord
   and Master. THE ISRAELITES WERE UPON A DIVINE MISSION. They were going
   up to slay the Canaanites, Hivites, Jebusites and Hittites. They must
   all be slain with the sharp sword of Israel. But a difficulty rolls
   between them and their prey! The message, however, of God's captain, is
   still, "Forward! Forward!"

   My Brothers and Sisters, let me specially address you who are
   associated in Church fellowship here. Some of you will remember when I
   came up from the country. I remember better than you do, for I have
   hidden these things in my heart. A child, almost a babe, I came into
   your place of worship which was half empty, no, not one-sixth full. You
   may, some of you, remember that sermon when the youth preached of the
   faithfulness of God and tried to magnify Divine Immutability. I believe
   the note of the charge that morning, was, "Forward!"

   Hope was kindled in the breasts of many. The few there who were
   faithful to the cause hoped and believed that God had better days for
   them and we took heart. You will remember, some of you, when the people
   began to throng the aisles. Within three or four Sundays, when the
   place was full, our cry was "Forward!" We had more Prayer Meetings,
   more earnestness every day! I recollect it was thought a strange thing
   to see such zeal! Then we wanted to enlarge the Chapel. And one Sunday
   evening, preaching from that text--"By faith the walls of Jericho fell
   down"--when certain ones had objected to any alteration because it was
   a mere spasm, a mere excitement--the young lad from the country would
   soon be forgotten--I said concerning that wall at the back, "By faith
   this wall will fall down," for our motto was "Forward!"

   We held a little meeting, raised the money at once--down went the
   wall--the place was enlarged. The enlargement was of no use, our motto
   was, "Forward!" God opened the doors of Exeter Hall to us. We went
   there. The place was crowded, multitudes of souls were converted. The
   Church increased--did we stop? Our motto was "Forward!" The Surrey Hall
   was proposed to us, a larger structure. We went about it and we said,
   "This is too immense a place, too bold a venture."

   I thought in my own mind, "The place will never be filled." You
   remember we still dared it, for our motto was "Forward!" Then came a
   crushing blow, a terrible disaster which seemed to shatter us all and,
   most of all, the man who was called to take the brunt of the battle. He
   was laid upon the ground all broken-hearted and wretched by the
   catastrophe, but God suffered him not to lose heart! He rose from the
   dust of despondency. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him. His cry was
   "Forward!" And once again he stood among you and again the thousands
   gathered and on, on, on, from that time, "Forward!" has been the cry.

   "We will build a tabernacle," said we. Thirty thousand pounds! We stood
   back. Where would it come from? "The silver and the gold are Mine," was
   the promise of God. Some bold hearts went on, for our motto was
   "Forward!" And we prayed and worked and believed and lo--we entered
   this spacious house without a debt and we worship in it, remembering
   that of our own we gave unto God and that this goodly structure is a
   proof of the power of faith. Our motto was still "Forward!"

   The pastor took one or two young men to educate. He soon had a dozen.
   He asked your help, you helped him. He had a score. Some said it was
   too many. He had forty--before long fifty--now seventy. And still the
   cry is, "Forward! Forward!" What I want to do tonight is just to stir
   your souls with a little of the old enthusiasm, to scatter among you
   some coals of that holy fire which once set you in a blaze. "Forward!
   Forward!" is what we want! Brethren, we want to be doing more for
   Christ!

   Compared with our congregation I believe we are doing much, but still
   not what we might do--not what we ought to do. Here is this great city
   teeming with its multitudes and the proportion of evangelistic work
   which we take is far too small. "Forward! Forward!" At this time we
   have men ready to preach the Word. But we do not know where to find the
   room for them. There are rich men in this congregation and men in
   middling circumstances who might take a little room and pay the rent
   and let some young man come and preach in it and try to raise a Church
   in a destitute neighborhood. Some of you might cry, "Forward!" and do
   that.

   Others of you in the Providence of God live in poor neighborhoods and
   you may have a room which holds twenty, perhaps. Could you not let some
   one preach in it? Preaching is the great weapon of God for pulling down
   strongholds. It will pull down the largest blocks of stone the enemy
   can pile together. Preach the Gospel, the gates of Hell shake! Preach
   the Gospel, prodigals return! Preach the Gospel to every creature--it
   is the Master's mandate and it is the Master's power--"the power of God
   unto salvation unto everyone that believes."

   I would I could make every member of this Church feel in earnest about
   doing good. Do you not long to win souls? Do you not desire to spend
   and to be spent for your Master? I will venture to say that if you do
   not, you are not worthy of membership with such a Church as this! If no
   Divine zeal stirs you. If no heavenly fire has fallen on your soul, you
   might find a more congenial place of rest among some dull and sluggish
   people who care not for God. As for my own soul, God knows how I yearn
   over souls--I work and if there is any man living who can work more for
   God than I do, I envy him his strength and endurance!

   It is not twelve, nor thirteen, nor fourteen, or fifteen hours a day
   which will satisfy me in the service of my Master. I wish I could be
   cut in pieces to preach His Gospel and that every drop of blood might
   tell it to my perishing fellow men. As I cannot do that, I do love to
   see my young men preaching the Word of God. They are so many new mouths
   for me, so many tongues for some of you who have no power of speech for
   your Master. They speak for you, if you have a share in their
   maintenance. But, oh, what I can do seems to be nothing but
   contributing a drop, but taking out a cupful from the great see of the
   world's sorrow and the world's sin!

   Do help me! Do help me, I pray you! Brethren, pray for us! If you can
   do nothing else, pray that the Spirit of God may rest upon us in our
   preaching and in our efforts to extend His Kingdom--and may every one
   of you take a hand in this good work. I would sooner have half of you
   and have you all alive and earnest, than have the whole of you and have
   some of you a drag upon the wheels. If this Church does not serve
   God--mark these words, I speak, I think, prophetically--God will make
   this House a hissing and write "Ichabod" upon these walls!

   Never was a Church more favored than you have been! For more than two
   hundred years God has given you a succession of faithful pastors. We
   have, each of us in our, lot strived to do our work. We have stood upon
   the walls of Zion and those who have gone before, at least, have not
   been found unfaithful. And as God helps me, neither will I be
   unfaithful either to God's Truth or to the souls of men.

   But if with such appliances--with such preaching of the Gospel and
   helped so marvelously--and so many of you great sinners saved from
   great sins, having had much forgiven. If you do not love much and serve
   much, O my God, let me not live to see the curse fall upon this Church!
   But at least in my day let the blessing continue! Yes, and when this
   head sleeps among the clods of the valley, find them better men than we
   are to preach the Word and let this Church still be a star in Your
   right hand to shine amidst the thick darkness of the world!

   Dear Friends, if you are not in earnest about this, I am. Oh, we must
   not let this opportunity pass! There is much which you can do. I want
   you to help the heathen world, but I want you to begin with caring for
   this great heathen world of London. And if you can do nothing else, at
   least give us your prayers.

   VI. I have done when I shall say that soon you and I will stand on the
   brink of Jordan's river. The deep sea of death will roll before us.
   Trusting in Jesus, washed in His blood, hoping in His mercy we shall
   not fear the last solemn hour. We shall hear the angel say, "Forward!"
   We shall touch the chilly stream with our feet, the flood shall fly,
   and we shall go through the stream dry-shod. If the flood gathers and
   the Jordan overflows its banks, still the Divine watchword, "Forward!"
   shall speed us on and we will enter Heaven's gates among the
   blood-washed throng and sing unto Him who has enabled us to triumph
   gloriously in obedience to that command, "Forward! Forward!" God help
   you to go forward and unto Him be praise forever and ever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                        A Desperate Case--How to Meet It

   A Sermon

   (No. 549)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, January 10th, 1864, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we
   cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for
   verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye
   shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it
   shall remove: and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this
   kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting."--Matthew 17:19-21.

   THE NARRATIVE, of which our text forms a part, describes a scene which
   took place immediately after the transfiguration of our Lord. Not to
   divorce it therefore from its connection, let us glance at the
   antecedents of the case, that nothing may be lost by negligence, or
   that peradventure we may gain something by meditation.

   How great the difference between Moses and Christ! When Moses had been
   forty days upon the mountaintop, he underwent a kind of
   transfiguration, so that his face shone with exceeding brightness when
   he came down among the people, and he was obliged to put a veil over
   his face; for they could not bear to look upon his glory. Not so our
   Saviour! He had been really transfigured with a greater glory than
   Moses could ever know, and yet, as he came down from the mount,
   whatever radiance shone upon his face, it is not written that the
   people could not look upon him, but rather they were amazed, and
   running to him, they saluted him. The glory of the law repelled; for
   the majesty of holiness and justice, drive the awed spirits away from
   God. But the greater glory of Jesus attracts; though he is holy, and
   just, and righteous too, yet blended with these there is so much of
   truth and grace that sinners run to Jesus, amazed at his goodness,
   attracted by the charming fascination of his love, and they salute him,
   become his disciples, and take him to be their Lord and Master. Some of
   you may be just now blinded by the dazzling brightness of the law of
   God. You feel its claims on your conscience, but you cannot keep it in
   your life. It is too high; you cannot attain to it. Not that you find
   fault with the law; on the contrary, it commands your profoundest
   esteem. Still you are in no wise drawn by it to God; you are rather
   hardened in your heart, and you may be verging towards the inference of
   desperation: "As it is impossible for me to earn salvation by the works
   of the law, I will continue in my sins." Ah, poor heart! Turn thine eye
   away from Moses, with all his repelling splendour, and look to Jesus,
   yonder, crucified for sinful men. Behold his flowing wounds, and thorn
   crowned head! He is the Son of God, and therein he is greater than
   Moses. He bear the wrath of God, and therein he shows more of God's
   justice than Moses' broken tablets could ever do. Look thou to him, and
   as thou feelest the attraction of his love, fly to his arms and thou
   shalt be saved.

   How different the spirit of Moses and Jesus! When Moses comes down from
   the mountain, it is to purge the camp. He seems to grasp the fiery
   sword; he breaks the golden calf; he smites the idolaters; but when
   Jesus comes down from the mountain, he finds a strife in the camp, as
   Moses did; he finds his own apostles worsted and beaten, just as Aaron
   had been defeated by the clamours of the people; but he has not a word
   of cursing; there is a gentle rebuke--"O faithless and perverse
   generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?"
   His actions are actions of mercy--no breaking in pieces, but healing;
   no cursing, but blessing: love sits smiling on his brow, as he touches
   the poor wretch who is almost dead with diabolical possession, and
   restores him to life and health. Go you then, to Jesus; leave the law
   and your own self-righteousness, for these can do nothing but curse
   you. Fly to Jesus, for be you whomsoever you may, there are pardons on
   his lips; there are blessings in his hands; there is love in his heart;
   and he will not disdain to receive even you.

   How much of condescension there is in the manner of Christ! Our Lord,
   we have told you, had been very glorious on the mountain's top, with
   Moses and Elias, yet, when he comes down into the midst of the crowd,
   he doth not disdain the cry of the poor man, not refuse to touch him
   who was possessed with a devil. Observe my Masters condescension, for
   he deigns attention, and yet his manner softens into pity and presently
   it melts into a gracious sympathy, as if this was the only channel
   through which his peerless power could flow. Then remember, he is the
   same to-day as he was then.

   "Now though he reigns exalted high,

   His love is still as great:"--

   He is willing now to receive sinners as when it was said of him, "This
   man receiveth sinners and eateth with them:" just as ready to receive
   you, poor sinners, as when he was called "The friend of publicans and
   sinners." Come to him. Bow at his feet. His love invites you still.
   Believe that the transfigured and glorified Jesus is still a loving
   Saviour, willing to pardon and forgive.

   Once again what choice instruction there is in history! After Jesus had
   been absent for some time, he came back. You may ask for what purpose
   he had retired? Evidently he went up into the mountain to pray. It was
   while he was praying (and I make no doubt, fasting likewise) that the
   fashion of his countenance changed. By his own personal devotion, and
   by the Father's special revelation, he had thus come back, as it were,
   with great refreshment to carry on his ministry. Hence we become
   witnesses of a marvelous power which he immediately showed forth, and
   of no less remarkable counsel which he spoke to his disciples, when
   they felt their own weakness. Thus we have before us, on our text, a
   peculiar case--a patient, who utterly baffled the skill of all his
   disciples, healed at once by the great Master; and we have a reason
   given why the apostles themselves were not able to deliver him.

   Let us look for a little time at this very sad case; not so singular
   either, methinks, but that we may find the round about us. Then let us
   notice the scene around the case--the father, the disciples, the
   scribes. Afterwards we shall joyfully observe the Saviour's coming into
   the midst and deciding all the difficulty; and, lastly, we shall attend
   to the reason he gives in private to his disciples, why they, before
   his coming, were utterly powerless to achieve the work.

   I. First we have before us a VERY PECULIAR CASE.

   It appears that the disciples had cast out devils of all sorts.
   Wherever they had gone, heretofore, this was their uniform testimony,
   "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us;" but now they are baffled.
   They seem to have encountered a devil of the worst kind. There are
   grades in devilry as there are in human sin. All men are evil, but all
   men are not alike evil. All devils are full of sin, but they are not
   all sinful to the same degree. Do we not read in Scripture, "Then goeth
   he and taketh unto him seven other spirits more wicked than himself?"
   It may be there is a gradation in the wickedness of devils, and
   perhaps, also, in their power to fulfil their wicked impulses. We can
   scarcely think that all devils are Satans. There seems to be one chief
   arch-spirit, one great Diabolus, who is an accuser of the brethren--one
   mighty Lucifer, who fell down from heaven and has become the prince of
   the powers of darkness. In all his hosts it is probable that there is
   not his like. He stands first and chief of those fallen morning stars;
   the rest of the spirits may stand in different grades of wickedness, a
   hierarchy of hell. This poor wretch seems to have been possessed of one
   of the worst, most potent, and violent, and virulent of these evil
   spirits. I believe, brethren, that here we have a picture of a certain
   class of individuals who are not only desperately sinful, but subject
   to extraordinary impulses which carry them to infernal lengths and
   depths of infamy; they are incapable of restraint, a terror to their
   kinfolk, and a misery to themselves. All men are sinful, as I have said
   before; but the power of depravity in some men is much stronger than in
   others; at least, if it be not intrinsically stronger, yet it certainly
   has manifestations in some which we have never perceived in common
   among men. Let us try and pick out the case according to the narrative.
   How frequently, dear friends, too frequently, alas! have we seen young
   people who have answered to the description here given. They have had a
   precocity of wickedness. When Jesus asked the father, "How long has he
   been in this way?" the answer was, "Of a child." I remember having once
   known such a child, over whom, paroxysms of passion came, in which his
   face would turn black. When he was able to run about, and was sent to a
   public school, a flint-stone, a club, a brick-bat, anything which might
   come next to hand, he would throw, without a moment's thought, at any
   one who vexed him. His knife would be drawn from his pocket and opened
   in an instant. The young assassin has often been prevented from
   stabbing others by a careful hand and watchful eye which guarded him.
   We have noticed this, I say, in the very young. They begin to lie early
   and to thieve soon, and the young lip even assays to swear, while the
   anxious mother cannot understand where the child could have learnt it.
   You have protected such a child from contamination, and seemed to shut
   him in and girdle him about with holy influences; and yet, in these
   desperate instances, as soon as ever the child could know the right
   from the wrong, he has deliberately chosen the wrong with a violence of
   self-will and recklessness of consequences altogether unusual. Some
   such cases we have seen. O, may God grant it never be your lot or mine,
   to be the parents of such children. Yet such there have been, and such
   men there are who have grown up now, and the youthful passions of their
   childhood have become developed; and you may find them with the low
   forehead and dark scowling eye, if you will, in our prison-houses. Or
   if you see them in the streets, you may hopefully wish that they may be
   in prison ere long, for they are unsafe abroad. Of a child they seem to
   have been possessed with the chief of devils, and to have been carried
   captive by him at his will.

   This lad seems also to have been afflicted with what is here called
   lunacy, which was, indeed, only a form of epilepsy. He was constantly
   subjected, it seems, to epileptic fits; for I think we can hardly
   understand lunacy to mean anything short of occasional madness. Attacks
   of such outrageous violence would come upon him, that there would be no
   enduring him. He would then dash himself into the fire, or if water
   were near, he would attempt self destruction by plunging in to it. We
   have met with persons of this kind, perfectly outrageous and beyond all
   command, when fits of evil came upon them. I will instance cases which
   I have observed.

   I know a man now, he may be here this morning; if he is , he will
   recognize his own portrait. At times he is as reasonable as anyone I
   could wish to associate with. He enjoys listening to the Word of God.
   He is, in some respects, an amiable, excellent, and respectable man.
   But occasionally fits of drunkenness come upon him, in which he is
   perfectly powerless under the influence of the demon; and while it
   lasts, it matters not, even when he knows he is wrong, a thousand
   angels could not drag him from it. He is thrown into the water of
   self-destruction, and he will continue in it. You may urge him and
   reason with him, and you may think--oh, how often some have thought who
   love him!--he will never do that again; he is too sensible a man; he
   has been too well-taught; the Word of God has had such an effect upon
   him, that he will never do it again; yet he does; he repeats the old
   paroxysms, and has done for twenty or thirty years; and, if he lives,
   unless sovereign grace prevent it, he will die a drunkard, as sure as
   he is a living man, and go from his drink to damnation.

   Another case, from which I likewise draw from life. The man is kind,
   tender, and generous--generous to a fault. He has a home--he had one, I
   ought to say--he had a home, and he was the light of it. No one ever
   suspected him--that is, in his better times--of any grievous faults;
   but sometimes--and this has been concealed by many an indulgent
   friend--an attack of lasciviousness comes upon him, and at such seasons
   it matters not what the temptation may be, nor how foul the vice may
   be, the man runs into it. If you should meet him in the street, and
   talk with him, and argue with him, it would be all time and labour
   thrown away; nay, I have known him break up his home, and cross the sea
   to go to another land, that he might indulge his vile passions without
   rebuke, or the restraint of associating with former friends. He will
   come back again, broken-hearted, wondering that he ever could be such a
   fool; but he will go again. It is in him. The devil is in him, and,
   unless God casts it out, he will do the same again, deliberately
   choosing his own damnation. Though he knows it, yet so possessed of the
   love of sin is he, that when the fit comes upon him, this diabolical
   epilepsy, he falls into sin with his whole might and power.

   I might go on describing cases of the kind, but you will not need that
   I should picture any more; it could only be to vary the different forms
   of sin. However, let me try once more. A lad had as good a father as a
   child could have. He was bound apprentice. It became whispered in a few
   weeks that little moneys were missing. The father was very grieved, so
   indeed was the master, and the matter was quietly hushed up. A little
   while after the same thing occurred. The indentures were cancelled, and
   nothing more was said of it; but the father was sorely perplexed. He
   looked out for some other situation for the boy where he might,
   perhaps, recover his character. After a time it was precisely the same
   again. Bad companions had got hold of him, or rather, he had become a
   ringleader among other bad companions. Well, something else must be
   tried. It was tried. He has had twenty situations, and they have all
   been thrown up from the very same cause. And now, what think you is his
   treatment of his parents? Instead of being grateful for the repeated
   kindness and longsuffering shown to him, he will break out sometimes
   into such dreadful passions, that even the lives of his parents are
   scarcely safe; and when he has been in his old haunts a little more
   than usual, he is really so terrible a being, that his mother who loves
   him and who weeps over him, would almost as soon see a fiend from hell
   as see him; for when he comes home, everything goes wrong; confusion,
   is in the house, and terror in every heart; he acts precisely as if he
   were a madman. They have said, "Send him to Australia, or send him to
   America"--where they do send many of that sort--but if he goes there he
   will turn up, sooner or later, at the foot of the gallows; he is
   desperately set on evil, and nothing turns him aside. He tears and
   foams at the mouth with passion; his whole heart goes forth
   outrageously after anything like vice, and there appears to be not one
   redeeming trait in his character; or, if there be, it only seems to be
   subjected tot he power his lusts. He devises means to be more mighty to
   do mischief in the world.

   What dreadful cases these are! Wherefore am I talking of them? Dear
   friends , I have taken them because it has been laying upon my heart to
   encourage and comfort you who are constrained to carry a daily cross in
   having such relations and such children as these. It is one of the
   heaviest afflictions which can come upon you.

   In the case before us, the child was both deaf and dumb--not, I
   suppose, through any organic effect, but through the epilepsy, and the
   Satanic possession. So often we have seen children--shall I look them
   in the face this morning, as I stand here?--they are no children
   now--who are positively deaf to all spiritual sounds. They have been
   pleaded with, but it is vain. They know the truth, they know the whole
   truth, but they do not know the power of it. They are never absent from
   family prayer, nor in any prayer are they ever forgotten by their
   parents. They come to this place; they attend our classes; they go to
   revival services. Now and then there is something like a little
   emotion, but it does not come to much; they are precisely similar to
   the deaf adder which cannot be charmed, charm we never so wisely.
   Others of the family have been converted. Nearly all the household has
   now been brought to Christ. Lydia has had her heart opened; God has
   been much pleased to call young Timothy; but this one remains, and
   after much anxiety, much effort, much labour, no good has been
   achieved. The adamant seems as soft as their heart, and the ear of the
   deaf as much alive to rebuke as their conscience. This again is a very
   sad case.

   I meet sometimes, too, with cases of another kind--persons who are
   beset with very high doctrine, who have got the devil in them, puffing
   up their fleshly minds with a vain conceit of sound understanding, and
   degrading their carnal profession with a loathsome impurity of heart
   and life. You will talk with them; they will tell you they wish to be
   saved--would give their right arm to be saved; but it is not in their
   power. You bid them believe in Jesus. They have no sense, they tell
   you, of the need of a Saviour; they are not in a fit state to believe.
   When God's time comes, the thing will occur. They love high doctrine;
   they will hear nothing else but it; but then their Sunday, if there is
   a temptation which comes across their path, will be spent anywhere but
   in the worship of God; and during the week they give way to all sorts
   of sins. Whatever temptation comes, they go after it. The comfort they
   get from their religion, which they wrap about them like a cloak, is
   this--that no minister speaks the truth except one or two; that the
   truth is fatalism; that all they have to do is to be carried along like
   dead, inanimate logs down the stream, and that they are not at all
   responsible; or if they are responsible, it is merely to maintain with
   unflinching hardihood their own crude sentiments. I have seen some of
   these people--good people in their own way too--of whom I have thought
   that the conversation of drunkards was more hopeful than theirs; for
   that damnable fatalism, which by some is put instead of the
   predestination of the Scriptures, has locked them up--put them in an
   iron cage: and so they are beyond the reach of help, going on in their
   sin, rejecting the gospel of Christ, while assaying to be connoisseurs
   of its choicest mysteries.

   Now, brothers and sisters, why are such cases as these permitted? Why
   doth the Lord allow the devil thus to fill the soul with sin?

   I think it is, first, to show that there is a reality of sin. If we
   were all moral and outwardly respectable, we should begin to think sin
   was but a fancy. These daring sinners show the reality of it.

   It is to manifest the reality of divine grace; for when these are
   saved, then it is we wonder, and we are compelled to say, "There is
   something in this. If such a hard, iron nature yet melts before the
   power of divine love, there must be a majesty in it."

   It is to humble us too, to throw us on our back, and let us see how
   utterly powerless human agency is. When you cannot get in the thin end
   of the wedge, much less the whole wedge; when the ploughshare breaks on
   the edge of a hard rock; when the edge of the sword turns against the
   armour, then it is to draw yourself out of self to God. You see it is a
   deadly evil, where only omnipotence can help. Your soul says, "Lord,
   put out thine arm! Now do it, and the glory shall be thine." This is
   probably the chief reason; it is in order that God may get great glory
   to himself. He lets the devil have it all his own way. "There," he
   says, "pick your own ground, fight in your own territory, manoeuvre in
   your own way, and, with a word, I will crush your power." He gives
   Satan great advantage, lets him entrench himself firmly in the soul
   from youth up, so that the victory may be splendid to the greatest
   degree.

   We have thus before us now, for our sorrowful contemplation, the case
   of one whose disease mocks the physician, laughs at all human
   endeavours, and defies the watchful care of mild and gentle treatment
   to mitigate its force, or ameliorate its fearful symptoms.

   II. Turn we now with passing glance, to LOOK AT THE SCENE AROUND. The
   company is made up of five sorts of people.

   There are the scribes--cynics, methinks, to a man--"We told you so! We
   told you so!" they say. "Your Master pretended to give you power to
   cast out devils. No such thing! you cannot cast out devils. Those whom
   you healed were not truly possessed. Little enough was ever the matter
   with them, and so they got better. They were fanciful, and they
   believed you through enthusiasm. The dupes of credulity, your
   incantations bewitched them, and so they got better. But you cannot
   cast out a devil--you cannot cast that devil out." "Now then," says one
   of the scribes to Andrew, "cast it out. Come, Phillip, try what you can
   do!" And inasmuch as after all trying, the devil would not go out--"Ah!
   just so!" they say, "they are impostors. There is nothing in it" Just
   recall it, friends, to your own memories, have not you seen men of that
   kind? "Ah yes," they say, " the gospel converts one sort of people,
   such as always go to places of worship, the more intelligent and
   respectable of the community, but, you see, it is no good in these
   tough cases. These hardened ones--it cannot touch them. They are beyond
   its power." "Aha!" they say, "where is the boasted might of this great
   physician? He can heal your finger-aches; he does not know how to make
   these foul diseases fly."

   Then here is the poor father, all dejected. "I brought him to you--I
   knew you did cast out devils, and I thought you could cast my son's
   devil out, and he would be healed. I am disappointed in you all. Yet I
   do think your Master can do it, but I am not sure that even he can. If
   such excellent apostles, as you are, have tried so hard, and have
   failed, I do not think there can be any chance for me. I am full of
   unbelief. O, I wish I had never brought my child here at all, to make a
   public spectacle of him, that he might be a witness to your failures."
   That is the poor father. Perhaps that poor father is here this morning
   and he is saying, "Ah, I do believe, but still I am full of unbelief. I
   have brought my daughter; I have brought my child under the sound of
   the Word; I have prayed, and wrestled with God in prayer, and my child
   is not saved." "I have brought my husband," says one good woman, "but
   he is just as full of Satan as he ever was. I must give it up in
   despair."

   And then, there are the disciples, and they look pitiable indeed.
   "Well," they say, "we do not know how to account for it. We cannot tell
   you how it is. We have said the same in this case that we were wont to
   say in others." "Why" says one of them, "when I went abroad and just
   said In the name of Jesus Christ I command thee to come out of him,'
   the unclean spirit always did come out in every other case. I cannot
   comprehend this. I must give it up." "We all must give it up," says the
   apostles. For some unknown cause, this seems to be quite out of the
   catalogue of cases which we are commissioned to cure. And so we
   sometimes hear dejected ministers, after preaching long at such hard
   shells as these--they say, "Well, we cannot understand it. The gospel
   is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.' Oh, it
   must be that these are fore-ordained unto damnation; we must give it
   up." That is how unbelieving ministers talk--or at least the most part
   of ministers in their season of misgiving and chagrin.

   But then there is the general crowd. They are neither this way nor
   that. They say they will see fair. "Come, clear the ring out. If Jesus
   Christ be not an impostor--if he be God--certainly he can heal this
   poor man." Now here is the test and the ordeal, "If that man be not
   healed, we," says the crowd, "will not believe; but, if he be, then we
   will believe that Jesus Christ is sent of God." O dear friends, how
   often we have thought of those very hard cases in this way. There are
   hundreds of undecided people looking on and saying, "Ah, if So-and-so
   were converted, then I should say there was something in it. If truly
   we could have a new heart and a right spirit, then I, too, would turn
   to God with full purpose of heart.

   There was the fifth party there, and that was the devil himself. Oh,
   how triumphant was he! "Ah!" he seemed to say, "try your exorcism; go
   on with your words; preach at him; pray at me; weep over me; do what
   you will, you cannot get me out." There he seems to stand intrenched
   within the stronghold of the poor tortured heart. "Do your best, do
   your worst, I am not afraid of you. I have got this man, and I will
   keep him. I have so fixed myself in him that no power shall ever be
   able to heal him." So we seem to hear that vile shriek of hell over
   some men, "Yes," saith he, "I will trust him to go into Spurgeon's
   Tabernacle. I know the thousands there have felt the power of the Holy
   Ghost in making new men of them, this is a case I can trust. There is
   nothing that will ever touch him. The great hammer has knocked the
   chains off many, but it cannot touch his chains; they are harder than
   iron. I have no fear for him;" and perhaps he is gloating his thoughts
   now with the torments of the man in another world. Ah, thou foul fiend!
   if our Master should come here this morning, thou shouldst sing another
   tune. if he should say, "Come out of him thou foul spirit," thou wilt
   go back howling to thy vile den; for his voice can do what our voice
   never could have done. And may we not easily realize such a scene
   enacted in this congregation? You have the scoffers, you have the
   anxious parent, the ministry confessedly powerless in the matter; the
   crowd looking on, and the devil rejoicing that such cases are quite
   beyond human strength. What more can you want to vivify the picture
   before your imagination?

   III. But look! THE MASTER COMES.

   Ah! the master comes! Forthwith the scene changes. The lieutenants and
   the captains who began the battle did not understand the art of war;
   the were precipitant and hasty. The right wing was broken; the left
   began to reel; the centre almost fails. The trumpets of the adversary
   begin to sound a victory. Here they come--their dread artillery in
   front. What will become of the army now? Hold! Hold! What is that I
   see? A cloud of dust. Who comes galloping there? It is the
   commander-in-chief. "What are you at?" says he, "What are you at?" In a
   moment he sees this is not the way to fight. He comprehends the
   difficulties of the case in an instant. "Forward there! Forward There!
   Backward there!" The scale is turned. The mere presence of the
   commander-in-chief has changed the whole face of the field; and now, ye
   adversaries, ye may turn your backs and fly. It was so in Jesus' case
   exactly. His lieutenants and captains--the apostles--had lost the day.
   He comes into the field; comprehends the state of the case. "Bring him
   hither to me," says he, and the poor wretch, foaming and tormented, is
   brought to him, and he says, "Come out of him, thou unclean spirit."
   The thing is done; the victory achieved; the undecided receive Christ
   as a prophet; the scoffers' mouths are shut; the trembling father
   rejoices, and the poor demoniac is cured.

   And yet when Jesus Christ came to cure this poor man, he was in as bad
   a state as he well could be. Nay, the very presence of the Saviour
   seemed to make it worse. As soon as ever the devil perceived that
   Christ was come he began to rend and tear his poor victim. As quaint
   old Fuller says--like a bad tenant whose lease is out, he hates the
   landlord, and so he does all the damage he can, because he has got
   notice to quit. Often just before men are converted, they are worse
   than ever; there is an unusual display of their desperate wickedness,
   for then the devil hath great wrath, now that his time is short.

   The struggles of this child are appalling. The devil seemed as if he
   would kill him before he would be healed; and after great paroxysms of
   the most frightful kind, the poor youth laid upon the ground, pale, and
   still as a corpse, insomuch that many said, "He is dead." It is just
   the same with many conversions of these desperate sinners. Their
   convictions are so terrible; frequently the work of the devil within
   them keeping them from Christ is so furious that you would give up all
   hope. You say, "That man will be driven mad; those acute feelings, the
   intense agony of his spirit will rob him of all mental power, and then
   in abject persecution he will die in his sin." Ah! dear friends, this
   again is only a piece of Satan's infamy. He knew, and knew right well
   that Christ would set that poor young man free, and therefore he sets
   upon him with all his might, to torment him while he may. Have I any
   such desperate case among my hearers this morning--one who has been as
   a son of Belial among the children of men? Is the devil tormenting you
   to-day? Do you feel tempted to commit suicide? Are you urged to some
   freak of yet greater sin in order to drown your griefs and strangle
   your conscience? O poor soul, do no such thing, for my Master will soon
   stoop over you, and take you by the hand and lift you up, and your
   comfort shall begin, because the unclean spirit is cast out. "Ah! he
   means to destroy me," says the soul under conviction. Nay, soul, God
   does not destroy those whom he convinces of sin. Men do not plough
   fields which they have no intention to sow. If God ploughs you with
   conviction he will sow you with gospel comfort, and you shall bring
   forth a harvest of his glory. As a woman at her work first plies the
   needle with its sharp prick, and then draws the thread after it, so in
   your case the sharpness of sorrow for sin will be speedily followed by
   the silver thread of joy and peace in believing.

   And oh, mark it! The vision just now, up there on the mountain of
   glory, resolved itself into "Jesus only." His peerless radiance
   eclipsed every other. So, too, it is "Jesus only," down there in the
   valley. His matchless grace can encounter no rival. Keep this forever
   in your mind's eye--it is the Master who did it all. His appearance on
   the scene removed all difficulties. In such extreme cases, there will
   be, and there must be, a most eminent display of God's power; and that
   power may be unassociated with means. Under any circumstances, it will
   be the Lord alone doing it, to the praise and glory of his grace.

   IV. Now, we come to the last, and perhaps the most important part of
   the sermon. The riddle is perplexing. "WHY COULD NOT WE CAST HIM OUT?"
   Let the Master tell us the reasons why these cases thwart our power.

   The Saviour said it was for want of faith--want of faith. No man may
   expect to be the means of the conversion of a sinner without having
   faith which leads him to believe that the sinner will be converted.
   Such things may occur, but it is not the rule. If I can preach in faith
   that my hearers will be saved, they will be saved. If I have no faith,
   God may honour his Word, but it will be in no great degree; certainly
   he will not honour me. Abandoned sinners, if converted by means, are
   usually brought under the power of divine grace through ministers of
   great faith. Have you observed--there were persons who heard all the
   small fry of the Whitefieldian age; they had listened to this preacher
   and to that. Under whom were they converted? Under Mr. Whitefield,
   because Mr. Whitefield was a man of masterly faith. He believed that
   the lost could be reclaimed--that the worst diseases could be healed,
   the most heinous, abandoned, profligate, blasphemous sinners could be
   saved. He preached to them as if he expected the deaf would be charmed
   by the gospel melody, and the dead would be quickened at the commanding
   call of the great Redeemer's name. At Surrey Chapel, over yonder, in
   Rowland Hill's day, some of the grossest blackguards and biggest scamps
   who ever infested London, were saved. Why? Because Rowland Hill
   preached the gospel to big sinners, and believed the fact of big
   sinners being converted. The respectable people of his day said, "Oh,
   yes! it is only tag, rag, and bob-tail who go to hear Mr. Hill." "Just
   so," said Mr. Hill, " and welcome tag, and welcome rag, and welcome
   bob-tail; they are the very people that I want" "What is the good of
   such people as they are, going to hear the gospel? Why does Mr. Hill
   try to preach to harlots and thieves?" they said. "They are just the
   very people," said Mr. Hill. "I believe that these people can be
   saved." It was want of faith in the others; for if a man have faith as
   a grain of mustard seed, let it be ever so little, yet, if it is true,
   it is mighty in proportion to its power. Mr. Hill had the power of
   faith, and he was the means of the conversion of very great sinners. A
   few years ago it was utterly hopeless to try and reclaim fallen
   daughters of sin, but a few men had faith that it could be done, and it
   has been done; and I will now make bold to say that if there be a great
   sinner here, such as I tried to describe just now, some gross case of
   infernal possession, if that person be not saved, it is for the want of
   faith in our case. If we have brought that person before God, and have
   not been anxious about his salvation, and God has not heard that
   prayer, it is because we could not believe it possible such a case
   could be saved. If God gives you the power to believe that any soul
   will be saved, it will be saved; there is no doubt about that.

   Still, our Saviour added, "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by
   prayer and fasting." What does he mean by that? I believe he meant that
   in these very special cases ordinary preaching of the Word will not
   avail, and ordinary prayer will not suffice. There must be an unusual
   faith, and to get this there must be an unusual degree of prayer; and
   to get that prayer up to the right point, there must be, in many cases,
   fasting as well. No doubt there is something special about the
   admonition to prayer, from the association in which it stands. One sort
   of Christian will use formal supplications; and the petitions they ask
   are founded upon a sense of propriety, without any glow of feeling.
   Another sort will wait for the Spirit to move them; and when certain
   impulses stimulate their minds, they rejoice in a sense of liberty. Yet
   I show you a more excellent way There be those who watch unto prayer,
   wait before the Lord, seek his face, and exercise patience till they
   get an audience. Such disciples continue in their retirement until they
   have an experience of access for which they crave.

   And what is fasting for? That seems to be the difficult point. It is
   evidently accessory to the peculiar continuance in prayer, practised
   oftentimes by our Lord, and advised by him to his disciples. Not a kind
   of religious observance, in itself meritorious, but a habit, when
   associated with the exercise of prayer, unquestionably helpful. I am
   not sure whether we have lost a very great blessing in the Christian
   Church by giving up fasting. It was said there was superstition in it;
   but, as an old divine says, we had better have a spoonful of
   superstition than a porringer full of gluttony. Martin Luther, whose
   body, like some others, was of a gross tendency, felt as some of us do,
   that in our flesh dwelleth no good thing, in another sense than the
   apostle meant it; and he used to fast frequently. He says his flesh was
   wont to grumble dreadfully at abstinence, but fast he would, for he
   found that when he was fasting, it quickened his praying. There is a
   treatise by an old Puritan, called, "The soul fattening institution of
   fasting," and he gives us his own experience that during a fast he has
   felt more intense eagerness of soul in prayer than he had ever done at
   any other time. Some of you, dear friends, may get to the boiling point
   in prayer, without fasting. I do think that others cannot, and probably
   if we sometimes set apart a whole day for prayer for a special object,
   we should at first feel ourselves dull, and lumpish, and heavy. Then
   let us resolve, "Well, I shall not go down to my dinner. I shall stop
   here. I feel anxious for a praying frame of mind, and I will keep
   alone; and if when the time for evening meal came on, we should say, "I
   feel a little craving of hunger, but I will satisfy them with some very
   slender nutriment--a piece of bread, or something of the kind--and I
   will continue in prayer," I think that very likely towards evening our
   prayers would become more forcible and vehement than at any other part
   of the day. We do not exactly recommend this for those who are weak.
   There are some men with little or no encumbrance of flesh about them;
   but others of us of a heavy make, with sluggishness for a temptation,
   have to cry out because we are rather like stones on the ground than
   birds in the air. To such, I think, we can venture to recommend it from
   the words of Christ. At any rate, I can suppose a father here setting
   apart a day of prayer, going on wrestling with God without any
   intermission; pleading with him till, as it was said of the famous
   martyr of Brussels, he would so pray that he forgot everything except
   his prayer; and when they came to call him to meat, he made no answer,
   for he had got out of all earthly things in his wrestling with the
   angel, that he could not think of anything besides. Such a man taking
   up the case of a gross sinner, I believe, would be the means of that
   sinner's conversion; and the reason why some are never brought to
   Christ, is, speaking after the manner of men, because we have not got
   the qualified to deal with them; for "this kind goeth not out save with
   prayer and fasting." When we have prayed, and have reached the point of
   true faith, then the sinner is saved by the mighty power of God, and
   Christ is glorified. Methinks I have some in this house who are ready
   to say, "Well, if such be the case, I will try it. I will take the
   Master at his word." Brother, brother, if half-a-dozen of us joined
   together, it might be better; nay, "If two agree as touching any one
   thin," it would be done. Let some of us put it to the test upon some
   big sinner, and see whether it does not come true. I think I may fairly
   ask you who are lovers of souls, who have eyes which do weep, and
   hearts which can feel, to try my Master's prescription, and see if the
   most unmanageable devil which ever took possession of a human heart, be
   not driven out, as the result of prayer and fasting, in the exercise of
   your faith. The Lord bless you in this thing, and may he bring us all
   to trust in Jesus by a saving faith. To him be glory, for ever and
   ever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                      The Ship on Fire--A Voice of Warning

   A Sermon

   (No. 550)

   Delivered on Sunday Evening, November 8th, 1863, on the

   burning of the Ship "Amazon," by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Escape for thy life."--Genesis 19:17.

   "Thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in
   saving my life."--Genesis 19:19.

   HERE IS THE ALARM of mercy declaring the sinner's duty--"Escape for thy
   life." Here is the work of grace, and the gratitude of the sinner after
   he is saved. "Thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed
   unto me in saving my life."

   The other day, there sailed down the Thames as stout a vessel as had
   ever ploughed the deep. The good ship "Amazon," had sailed the broad
   Pacific many a time, and what is there to hinder her from once more
   reaching America in safety? Who would refuse to underwrite her? Who
   among her crew or passengers has a fear for her safety? But in the book
   of providence, there was a black line against that ship, and never more
   could she reach her desired haven. The wind was exceedingly high: the
   vessel tarried awhile at Gravesend. There was a little improvement in
   the weather: she sailed a little further; but cast anchor again, and
   remained off Broadstairs. Matters went as usual in such weather. Night
   came on; the watch was changed as usual; the captain turned in, feeling
   that all was right and safe. The passengers were snug in their
   berths--a little the worse, perhaps, for the roll of the ship, but as
   assured of security as men could be. In a moment, what a change had
   taken place! A passenger perceives a smell of fire; the warning cry is
   raised. Everyone rushes upon deck. Attempts arc made to quench the
   fire; but when the hatches are lifted up, the wind rushes in, and the
   fire is fanned to a dreadful, all-devouring conflagration. Further
   effort is of no avail. Rockets are fired, as the signals of distress.
   The boats are let down, crowded with the passengers. A lugger puts off
   to her, and a steam-tug hastens to the rescue, and, thanks be unto the
   God of providence, all the passengers--the captain and chief officers
   last--are on board the vessels and carried to Margate, where they see
   the melancholy, and yet satisfactory spectacle of their vessel burning
   to the water's edge, and then disappearing from view.

   Now, as the good brother who was captain to that vessel, constantly
   comes here when he is on shore, and as he is sitting in the midst of
   you to-night, I thought I might use the burning of this vessel as a
   picture of spiritual things, out of which I might make an illustrated
   sermon These things happen not without design, and should not escape
   without improvement.

   Two things, then, to-night: they are both in the text and in the story
   of the ship on fire. First, an alarm--"Escape for thy life;" secondly,
   grateful acknowledgment--"Thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou
   hast shewed unto me in saving my life."

   I. First, AN ALARM.

   We come here to-night, to raise an alarm. True ministers of God. are
   great alarmists. It is their duty to be like Barnabas, who was a son of
   consolation; but it is equally their duty to be like Boanerges--sons of
   thunder. Thunder does not rock men to sleep, and plays no pleasant tune
   for fools to dance to; with its crash and roar, it wakes a slumbering
   world, and its dread volleys, echoed peal on peal, afford no dulcet
   notes for dainty ears. God's servants should learn to thunder; for when
   God speaketh through them, the voice of the Lord is powerful and full
   of majesty; and in his temple doth everyone speak of his glory.

   The alarm we have to give to-night, is that of the angel to Lot, with
   an emphasis of meaning--"Escape for thy life." It is an alarm suggested
   by tremendous danger. When the cry of "Fire! fire! fire!" ran along the
   decks, and the cabins, and the saloons of the "Amazon," everyone knew
   that there was no small danger to be encountered, for flame is a cruel
   tyrant and devours remorselessly. The very word "Fire!" has a
   razor-edge about it, cutting to the very quick. Terror has fire for her
   first-born. But the alarm we have to raise, is concerning a matter more
   terrific still--add to the word "Fire," that dreadful syllable "Hell,"
   and then what shall more alarm than "Hell fire?" In that cry, we
   comprehend such weighty matters as eternity alone can reveal. The wrath
   to come! The judgment of the Eternal! The wrath of the Most High! Fire,
   when it is at its most furious pitch, is but a plaything compared with
   hell fire; yea, when it consumes a city; when it runs down the red lips
   of a volcano, and buries thousands; when it sets the sky and earth upon
   a blaze as in Egypt's plagues, it is but child's-play compared with the
   wrath of God, and that Tophet which is prepared of old, the pile
   whereof is wood and much smoke. Here is something at which the joints
   of a man's loins may well be loosed, for there is eternity in it,
   infinity in it, deity in it; and where these three are set against a
   man,. woe unto him. It is as when the fire is set in battle array
   against the stubble. Well may it be written by the prophet, "The
   sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites.
   Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall
   dwell with everlasting burning?" Sinner, by the crushing terror of the
   woe which cometh, I beseech thee, "Escape for thy life."

   It is a danger not to be overcome. The fire-engine was brought out upon
   the deck of the burning ship; attempts were made to extinguish the
   fire; but the mischief was far too much in power to be driven from its
   stronghold. The like may be boldly declared of the evil which cometh
   upon the ungodly. Sinner, your danger is such that you cannot contend
   with it by any power of your own. There is a fire of sin within you
   which you cannot quench; there is a fire of hell without you which no
   drops even of your own blood shall be able to extinguish. You are in a
   danger which you are unable to cope with. There is no possibility that
   if you remain in it, your utmost exertions or most strenuous efforts
   can avert the certain ruin which your state must bring upon you. If you
   neglect the only way of salvation, how can you escape? What awaits you
   but a fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation? The
   pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at the reproof of the Lord
   of hosts--how, then, canst thou endure the tempest of his anger, and
   the fury of his hot displeasure?

   "O sinner, seek his face,

   Whose wrath thou canst not bear;

   Fly to the dying Savior's wounds,

   And find salvation there."

   It is a danger, too, a terrific danger which makes no exception to
   anyone. The captain is as much in danger as the poorest cabin-boy, if
   he cannot escape from the burning ship. The rich man, with ingots of
   gold in his cabin, will as certainly be burned alive as the poor
   traveler who could scarcely pay his passage. There is no distinction of
   persons in the judgments of God. Sinner, you may be great and mighty,
   but you shall go down to hell unless grace shall save you. Woman, thou
   mayst be amiable in thy temper and excellent in thy deportment, but
   thou shalt perish as surely as a harlot, unless Christ have pity upon
   thee. Man, thou mayst be upright, and shine before thy fellow-merchants
   as one of excellent repute, but the wrath of God abideth on thee except
   thou fleest to Jesus; for there is none other name given under heaven
   whereby ye must be' saved; and out of that name, and apart from that
   name, whoever thou mayst be, though thou wert monarch of seven empires,
   thou art still in danger. Rich and poor, high and low, learned and
   ignorant, my cry is to you all, "O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word
   of the Lord!"

   Do not forget that we are in danger of a consuming fire--a danger which
   kills without remedy. It is not a fire which merely singes and
   scorches, but a fire which burns to ashes. As yonder ship must be
   burned up, and every passenger who cannot leave its burning deck must.
   be consumed, so you, O unconverted men, are in danger of utter
   destruction from the presence of the Lord. "For, behold, the day
   cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all
   that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn
   them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root
   nor branch." I would I could speak upon this dreadful subject in a
   proper manner. Whitfield had tones and emotions which were fitting for
   such a subject. He would cry out, "Oh, the wrath to come! The wrath to
   come! The wrath to come!" He would cry, I say, until all his hearers
   responded. with, "What must we do to be saved?" And good Baxter,
   trembling lest be should he guilty of men's blood, while he delivered
   the message, as a dying man to dying men--knew the terrors of the law,
   and right earnestly he persuaded men to escape for their lives. O sirs,
   if I saw you. in a burning house, there were not half so much need of
   earnestness as when I see you in the midst of a mass of sin and
   corruption which must be consumed by God's anger, and you with it.
   Sinner, why wilt. thou die? What can ail thee? What besots thee that
   thou dost not perceive anything dreadful in the wrath of him who made
   thee? He can dash whole worlds to pieces--what can he not do with thee?
   Hast thou. learned to be callous when thou hearest of eternity? Hast
   thine ear grown cold to that dreadful word, "Condemnation?" Canst thou
   read the story of those to whom he said, "Depart, ye cursed," and not
   tremble? Canst thou know that thou art this day in danger of the
   judgment, and not be afraid? When the sword is sharp, and furbished,
   and taken out of its sheath, canst thou play about its edge? Canst thou
   yet make mirth? Then is there indeed, need for me to cry to thee, and
   for all God's faithful ministers to cry with louder voice than
   mine--"Escape! escape! escape for thy life."

   The alarm of fire was needed because of the security of the persons in
   danger. Many on board the "Amazon" were sound asleep. Oh, how dreadful
   to be awakened out of sleep with the cry of "Fire! fire! fire! Some of
   them, when they awoke, seemed to have been so startled and so confused,
   that they had fairly to be dragged out of their berths that they might
   be rescued. There were none there, we have reason to believe, who would
   have been kept below through their own drunkenness or the carelessness
   of the crew. They were in a right state, with this exception, of
   course, that they were all alarmed--and men alarmed are not always
   ready to do the wisest thing, and as for the captain and his men they
   seem to have been as sensible as they were brave. My hearers, God's
   ministers have to deal with passengers much more difficult to handle.
   Are not men asleep? Till the voice of God awakens us, we are all
   asleep. How you and I walked for years, and years, and years, upon the
   brink of the grave, as utterly unconcerned as though we were to live
   for ever; and when sometimes we were a little impressed by the passing
   bell, or an open grave, or an earnest sermon, how soon we went back
   again to our old frivolity, and toyed with the flames of hell as though
   they were fancy's dream. It is not so now. God has awakened us; but we
   had never been awakened if the voice which awakes the dead had not
   cried in our ear, "Escape for thy life." Nay, worse, men are not only
   asleep, but when they do perceive their danger, they love their sins
   too well to leave them, even though hell stares them in the face. The
   best of them cry with Solomon's sluggard, "Yet a little sleep, a little
   slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." Sinner, how hard it
   is to bring thee to serious consideration of thy ways. We cannot touch
   thy wits, or make thee reason like a man of sound mind. Thou wilt
   sooner be damned by thoughtlessness thau give an hour's careful
   meditation to thy soul's affairs. We would fain drag thee out of thy
   sleeping berth, and even kick thee and strike thee, treating thee to
   rough usage, if we could by this means drag thee from the devouring
   flames; thou wouldst thank us well enough afterwards for these rough
   cuffs, if we could but wake thee. We hear complaints that the minister
   speaks too harshly and talks too much of judgment. Saved sinners never
   make that complaint. They know that nothing but these terrors will
   awaken some slumbering minds; and if they be awakened themselves, they
   are but too glad, however rough the means may have been. Are there not
   some in this house to-night who are hard, fearfully hard, to be brought
   to sober thinking, because they are drunken and besotted with sin? Some
   of you, with your Sunday trading, will rather gain your sixpences and
   your paltry pence on the Sunday, than find eternal felicity in faith in
   the Lord Jesus. Others of you, with your tap-room companions, with your
   theatres, your balls, and worse places still, where lust wears no mask,
   are cutting the throats of your poor miserable souls. You cannot give
   up your vices; you will sooner be damned than be Christians. Well, so
   it must be, sirs, if ye will have these things, and will pawn your
   souls for them, so it must be; you have chosen your own delusions, and
   you shall inherit them. But O, do listen once more, while we warn you
   in God's name, " Escape for thy life," and trifle no more with hell and
   heaven, with thine own soul and judgment, God and his dear bleeding
   Son. If every preacher in London should suddenly begin to preach
   nothing but alarms, it would all be needed, for what a secure and
   reckless city is this. If every corner in the street had a Jonah in it,
   and that Jonah's sermon were nothing but this--"Yet a few more days and
   thou shalt be destroyed!" it were not too much for a city so given to
   slumber. We have waxen rich; we have grown careless, till we have
   become like Nineveh of old, a people at ease, and dwelling carelessly
   Isaiah might well say concerning London--"Thou saidst, I shall be a
   lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart,
   neither didst remember the latter end of it." Let us take heed unto
   ourselves lest in the world to come this carnal security of ours should
   be like faggots to the fire, and the remembrance of our sloth should
   pour oil upon the flames. O God, let the alarm be heard, to-night by
   those who crowd this house, for thou knowest that many of them are
   sound asleep.

   Again, it is an alarm which requires instant attention. A man on board
   a vessel, when he hears the cry of "Fire!" must not stop to arrange his
   clothes; he must not be concerned to see that his face is washed, that
   he has bound together that little bundle of papers, or packed up the
   portmanteau, or counted over the little purse of gold, or even snatched
   his little property from the cabin. At once, at once, must he climb the
   stairs and reach the deck, or he will never have stairs to climb, nor
   feet to climb with. Now or never. Quick is the word. Waste a moment,
   and it is all over with you; the fire is upon you, for it tarries not
   in its march. So is it with you to-night who fear not God. "Escape for
   thy life," is a cry for the present moment. Now is the accepted time;
   behold, now is the day of salvation." Now, now, NOW. This is the only
   period God has allotted to you, take care that you use it, lest when
   your to-days are past, and you hope to see your to-morrow, you should
   have to spend your to-morrows in the pit of hell. Procrastination is
   not only the thief of time, but the thief of souls. Now is the day of
   salvation; I have never heard of any other day. I do not know, but I
   think this is one of the most difficult things in the gospel ministry,
   a matter worthy of the Holy Ghost's power--to make men seriously think
   about their souls at this present. I know, young man, you intend to
   think of these things when you are ill; you expect to have a long time
   upon a sick-bed, and then you suppose all will be right before you die.
   Who told you you would ever lie upon a sick-bed at all? Yours may be a
   sudden death; and sudden death to such as you, are would be sudden
   damnation. As men stand upon the bank, and spring head-first into the
   water, so may you dash into hell. Death enters men's doors without
   knocking. The judgment may follow on the heels of your next sins. And
   what if you should lie upon a bed of sickness? You will have enough to
   do to bear the pain, to mourn over your weeping wife, and worry
   yourself about those little children who will be left fatherless: I
   tell you, sir, it is hard repenting upon a dying bed. Do not sew
   pillows to thine armholes, and make for thyself this fond hope, that
   thou shalt one day be saved. It is now or never, it is now or never
   with you. I speak as a prophet of God at this moment, I know I do;
   there are some of you to whom this now or never is a more applicable
   thing than you suppose. You will not see a new year. No Christmas
   festivities will be yours. You will be at home on Christmas-day, but it
   will be your long, lost home. "Set thine house in order; for thou shalt
   die, and not live." As the Lord my God liveth, before whom I stand,
   thus saith the Lord unto some of you--"There is but a step between you
   and death." Be warned, then, for as I will meet you on the other side
   the stream, at my Master's judgment-seat, I have bidden you give
   immediate, instantaneous attention to the Word of God. Consider your
   ways, O sinners, born to die. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, O
   trembler, and thou shalt be saved. Trust him, trust him. God help thee
   to trust Jesus to-night, for it is now or never with thy soul.

   Again, this alarm demands of every one of us who are unsaved, an
   undivided attention. You have fifty things to think about. You tell me
   you have a thousand cares. O sirs, a man whose life is in danger, has
   no other care than to save his life. Did those who were rescued from
   the "Amazon," have time to save their money and their gold? We are told
   that they were utterly destitute when they landed at Margate, and what
   signifies it? Would not a flush of joy be on their cheeks because their
   lives were preserved! If one said to his fellow, "Where is thy purse?"
   "Oh," saith the other, "never mind my purse, I am in the lifeboat; my
   life is saved." What shall it profit you, if you gain the whole world,
   and lose your own soul? And what is the loss after all, if you lose the
   world, if you gain your soul? Nay, those on board the ship had not time
   to save their clothes. The instincts of self-preservation made them
   run, just as they were, half-naked, to the vessel's deck, and so must
   you. I know you will tell me you are not living to make money; if you
   could just make ends meet, keep your family, and supply the wants of
   your children--that is all--are you not to think of this? It is well
   and good; far be it from me to discourage prudent carefulness in all
   matters; it is your business to see to temporal matters, but still your
   paramount business must be your soul; even necessaries must not come
   between your soul and your most serious thoughts. You must see to this
   first and foremost, and remember there is a promise about it--"Seek ye
   first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things
   shall be added unto you." Those persons who escaped from the blazing
   vessel had, some of them, even to suffer in body. We read of one who
   broke his arm in the medley of the escape, but what of that?* (*I hear
   since, from the friends of the second mate, that the man did not break
   his arm.) Better to escape with a broken arm, than fry in those
   horrible flames with every bone in its place. It would be very little
   comfort to the poor passenger to save his bones entire, and to have his
   body consumed. "It is better for thee to enter into life halt or
   maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into
   everlasting fire." You are rightly considerate of your bodies, but
   still, if that poor body, which is to become worm's meat one day, is
   worthy of so much thought, how much more ought you to give to your
   immortal spirit, which is to live for ever with God in glory, or with
   fiends in torment? Think first, I pray you, think chiefly, think now
   to-night with undivided heart, with consecrated thought upon your soul.
   Let comforts go, let pelf go, let raiment go, let life itself go--but
   do see to that which is better than life--thy soul--thine everlasting
   destiny.

   Now, the alarm which I have tried to give--"Escape for thy life!" seems
   to me to suggest a very solemn question. "How can I escape?" says cue.
   Dost thou sincerely ask that question--"What must I do to be saved?"
   Remember there is but one way of rescue--the lifeboat of faith must put
   thee into the vessel of salvation--Christ Jesus. Stop in thine own
   vessel, and thou art burned; leap into those floods of wrath, and thou
   art drowned; get into that boat of saving faith, let that boat bear
   thee into the vessel of Christ Jesus, and thou art safe. Sinner, the
   road of salvation is, out of self into Christ. There are only two steps
   to heaven--out of self, into Christ. That man who has left himself as a
   burning vessel behind, left sin and left self-righteousness as a thing
   to be destroyed--that man who has taken Christ to be his all in all,
   and takes the cross to be the only thing to which he clings, is safe.
   Escape, I pray thee, for thy life, awakened and seeking sinner, for
   Jesus is the only foundation, he only is thy rock and thy salvation;
   come to him for shelter, and you are saved.

   To conclude this matter of alarm, our meditation arouses a very solemn
   enquiry--Will all be safe? Will all in the vessel escape? What joy must
   there have been in the captain's heart when he heard that not one had
   been left to burn in the vessel! Will all escape? Will every hearer in
   this huge house of prayer to-night be a singer in heaven? Dare we, in
   the judgment of charity, hope so? Well, well, let us try to hope, if so
   your charity wishes it, but I fear me, I fear me it will be hope
   without any grounds; for there are some here who love the drunkard's
   cup, others who vomit the swearer's oaths, and some who have the proud,
   self-righteous look which God hateth. O that we could hope that these
   would be transformed by grace through Jesus Christ, that so they might
   be saved! I am, I own it, very much afraid that all of you will not be
   saved, but that some of you will perish in your iniquities. It is not,
   however, our duty to pry into futurity, let us therefore, turn to that
   which far more concerns us, our own personal salvation. The enquiry
   changes--"Shall I be saved? If there be an alarm given, Escape for thy
   life!' Shall I be saved?" And what if it should be the preacher's lot
   to be lost for ever! What, if after talking to you this morning of
   being sick of love to Christ, he should have to hear those doleful
   words, "I never knew you, depart, ye cursed!" And what if this were to
   be the lot of the church-officers who sit around me, or of any one
   amongst you? Brother, you have passed the sacramental cup to others,
   what if the cup of devils be your portion for ever and ever! My
   brethren and sisters in Church fellowship, you may well put the
   question as did the apostles of old, "Lord is it I?"

   "Shall I be banished for my life,

   And yet forbid to die?

   Shall I endure eternal death,

   Yet death for ever fly?"

   Shall it be so! My dear hearer, thou who makest no profession of
   religion, will you ask the question, Shall I, shall I perish in
   devouring flames, or shall I escape? The answer to that question, so
   far as you are concerned, at this moment, must depend upon whether
   there is now a work of grace in your heart. If thou believest that
   Jesus is the Christ, thou canst never perish. If thou dost not, and
   wilt not believe, thy destruction is most sure. O God Almighty, thou
   who alone canst impress the heart, lead everyone of us now to take such
   sure hold of Christ that we may never perish, neither may any pluck us
   out of his hand.

   II. My time is fled, woe is me, when I had meant to have spoken with my
   whole heart upon another topic. It was GRATITUDE. Well, we will just
   run over the points, although most briefly. I will hope that you and I
   are saved; I will trust that we have been put into thy grace-vessel; I
   will believe that we have laid hold on Christ; may me belief be
   warranted by facts? Then this calls for gratitude. Gratitude of what
   kind? Gratitude that I was awakened. O my God, I bless thee that I was
   not permitted to sleep the sleep of death. I thank thee for that fever
   which made me fear, that loss which made me think, that dear dead babe
   which brought the parent to a Savior's feet. I bless thee, Lord, for
   the minister's earnest voice which shook me in my slumbers, for a
   mother's tears which fell like cold drops on my sleeping brow, and made
   me wake. I thank thee, O God, that though others slumber, yet, thou
   hast awakened me, and made me look to my soul's concerns. It is no
   slight mercy to be able to hear the trumpet of warning. It is a
   foundation mercy, but it is not the least of mercies to have an
   awakened conscience.

   Secondly, I would thank God, and let every believer join with me, that
   when you and I were awakened, the ship was not out to sea. If the
   "Amazon" had been far out to sea when the cry of "Fire" was given, what
   must have been the result? How few could have escaped! But there she
   was, close to land. You and I, when we were awakened, were not in
   hell--not like the rich man, lifting up our eyes where hope could never
   come--we were still on praying ground, still on pleading terms with
   God, still off the Foreland, still where mercy could come to us, and
   grace could meet us. Sinner, if you have been awakened to-night, thank
   God for this, thank him that the trumpet which wakes you is not the
   trumpet of the archangel summoning you to judgment, but the silver
   trumpet of God's messenger of mercy, inviting you to mercy banquet.

   Let us thank God it did not blow harder, for there might have been much
   trouble in reaching the boat. When you and I were awakened to a sense
   of sin, it might have been just when death was coming, or when the
   terrors of conscience would have been too much for us, and when the
   fears of death might have kept us from a Savior. But, blessed be God,
   when we were aroused there was wind enough, we were conscience-stricken
   and smitten, but still not too much, or else the fire had been too
   vehement, and we had not escaped. Thank God, then, that he awakened us
   while there was really time to avail ourselves of the covenant
   lifeboat.

   Let us be thankful again, that we could use the signals. I told you
   that the vessel sent up its rockets--signals of distress. Ah! what a
   thousand mercies it was that we could pray. I remember well when this
   was the only comfort my bursting spirit had, I could pray. Oh, to be on
   pleading terms with God! Thank God for this, awakened sinner, bless God
   for this. If you have not got so far as being completely saved, yet do
   praise him that you are allowed to fire off the rockets of desires,
   sighs, groans, sobs, tears, longings, and pantings, and that you can
   send them up where God can see them. Your cries, and groans, and tears
   will yet bring comfort and peace from heaven through the Lamb's
   redeeming blood. Rejoice, my beloved brethren, that the Lord has not
   abolished a mercy-seat, nor forgotten to be gracious. He saith "not to
   the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain." He waits to be gracious. He
   delighteth in mercy. Before you call he will answer, and while you are
   yet speaking he will hear.

   Thank God that there were good officers on board to direct the
   passengers. Without firm authority, men become a mob, and then, with
   every appliance which might save, few are rescued. Awakened sinner, be
   grateful that you have gospel ministers. Oh! what a mercy to have a
   gospel ministry! What an awful thing to sit under a half-and-half
   milk-and-water, yea-and-nay ministry, as was my lot when under
   conviction. I attended different places of worship, but what I heard
   was not the gospel. And I venture to say it, that a few years ago, in
   nine places out of ten in London, and in the suburbs, and throughout
   England, such a thing as the gospel was not preached, except by
   accident. It is preached NOW. It is not preached now as it should be,
   but it is preached now. What I mean by the gospel, is the doctrine that
   Jesus Christ came to save sinners, and that the simple trusting upon
   him is saving faith. This is a doctrine which the revival has brought
   up more clearly, and which the revival keeps before the public mind;
   but before that great movement came, it was a doctrine ignored and cast
   behind; too much of the preaching was a dry morality, or else
   philosophy which might tickle the ears of men who claimed intellect,
   but could never move the heart. Oh, thank God, poor sinner, that you do
   hear it rung in your ears--Come as you are! Come as you are! You hear
   the gospel sung to you:--

   "Just as I am, without one plea,

   But that thy blood was shed for me,

   And that thou bidd'st me come to thee,

   O Lamb of God, I come! I come!

   Just as I aim-thy love I own,

   Has broken every barrier down:

   Now, to be thine, yea, thine alone,

   O Lamb of God, I come! I come!"

   We hold up to you no ceremonies, no feelings, no works, no orthodoxies;
   we only hold up Christ, Christ crucified, a substitute for sinners, a
   substitute for you if you trust him; and we tell you again and again,
   till we half fear of tiring you, that, trusting Jesus, you are saved.
   Now we have reason, if saved, to be grateful to God for gospel
   officers.

   Then how grateful ought you and I to be that the ship is come to the
   rescue. Jesus came all the way from heaven to earth to save us--"Who
   though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through his
   poverty might be made rich." How shall we be grateful enough for this
   unspeakable gift?

   "O, for this love let rocks and hills

   Their lasting silence break,

   And all harmonious human tongues

   The Savior's praises speak."

   Better still: how grateful we ought to be that we have got on board
   that ship. Oh! joy! joy! joy! that blessed step which set me upon
   Christ! that blessed act which made me one with him. My soul would
   repeat now that grace-wrought deed of faith.

   "A wounded, weak, and helpless worm,

   On Christ's kind arms I fall;

   Be thou my strength and confidence,

   My Jesus and my all."

   Be grateful for this; and, sinner, if thou canst now step into Christ
   and trust him with thyself, make earth ring with thy joy, and make
   heaven resound with thy praise.

   Our gratitude, methinks, will be greatest of all when we get safe on
   shore, and look on this old hulk, the burning world, without a fear;
   we, will see her blaze and cast her dreadful splendours over the
   infinite leagues of space, until beings in far-off worlds shall ask,
   "What is this? A world on fire, whose elements dissolve with fervent
   heat." But we, caught up together with the Lord, to dwell for ever with
   him, shall look on with complacency, having lost nothing because saved
   in him; having found in him our Savior, better than all we had before,
   and being, once for all on heaven's terra firma, never to put to sea
   again, never to fear tempest, rock, wreck, or fire; but saved! saved!
   saved eternally!

   Escape, sinner, escape for thy life. Remember, though thus I talk to
   thee, if thou shalt escape, free grace must have all the praise; and in
   the language of good Lot, thou wilt have to say--"Thou hast magnified
   thy mercy in saving my life." May God send you away with a blessing,
   for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                 Faith and Life

   A Sermon

   (No. 551)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, January 24th, 1864, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that
   have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of
   God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; grace and peace be multiplied unto
   you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as
   his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life
   and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to
   glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and
   precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine
   nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through
   lust."--2 Peter 1:1-4.

   THE two most important things in our holy religion are faith and life.
   He who shall rightly understand these two words is not far from being a
   master in experimental theology. Faith and life! these are vital points
   to a Christian. They possess so intimate a connection with each other
   that they are by no means to be severed; God hath so joined them
   together, let no man seek to put them asunder. You shall never find
   true faith unattended by true godliness; on the other hand, you shall
   never discover a truly holy life which has not for its root and
   foundation a living faith upon the righteousness of our Lord Jesus
   Christ. Woe unto those who seek after the one without the other! There
   be some who cultivate faith and forget holiness; these may be very high
   in orthodoxy, but they shall be very deep in damnation, in that day
   when God shall condemn those who hold the truth in unrighteousness, and
   make the doctrine of Christ to pander to their lusts. There are others
   who have strained after holiness of life, but have denied the faith;
   these are comparable unto the Pharisees of old, of whom the Master
   said, they were "whitewashed sepulchres;" they were fair to look upon
   externally, but inwardly, because the living faith was not there, they
   were full of dead men's bones and all manner of uncleanness. Ye must
   have faith, for this is the foundation; ye must have holiness of life,
   for this is the superstructure. Of what avail is the mere foundation of
   a building to a man in the day of tempest? Can he hide himself among
   sunken stones and concrete? He wants a house to cover him, as well as a
   foundation upon which that house might have been built; even so we need
   the superstructure of spiritual life if we would have comfort in the
   day of doubt. But seek not a holy life without faith, for that would be
   to erect a house which can afford no permanent shelter, because it has
   no foundation on a rock--a house which must come down with a tremendous
   crash in the day when the rain descends, and the floods come, and the
   winds blow, and beat upon it. Let faith and life be put together, and,
   like the two abutments of an arch, they shall make your piety strong.
   Like the horses of Pharaoh's chariot, they pull together gloriously.
   Like light and heat streaming from the same sun, they are alike full of
   blessing. Like the two pillars of the temple, they are for glory and
   for beauty. They are two streams from the fountain of grace; two lamps
   lit with holy fire; two olive-trees watered by heavenly care; two stars
   carried in Jesus' hand. The Lord grant that we may have both of these
   to perfection, that his name may be praised.

   Now, it will be clear to all, that in the four verses before us, our
   apostle has most excellently set forth the necessity of these two
   things--twice over he insists upon the faith, and twice over upon
   holiness of life. We will take the first occasion first.

   I. Observe, in the first place, what he says concerning the character
   and the origin of faith, and then concerning the character and origin
   of spiritual life.

   "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that
   have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of
   God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." So far the faith. "Grace and peace
   be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our
   Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that
   pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath
   called us to glory and virtue." These two verses, you see, concern the
   spiritual life which comes with the faith.

   Let us begin where Peter begins, with the FAITH. You have here a
   description of true saving faith.

   First, you have a description of its source. He says, "to them that
   have obtained like precious faith." See, then, my brethren, faith does
   not grow in man's heart by nature; it is a thing which is obtained. It
   is not a matter which springs up by a process of education, or by the
   example and excellent instruction of our parents; it is a thing which
   has to be obtained. Not imitation, but regeneration; not development,
   but conversion. All our good things come from without us, only evil can
   be educed from within us. Now, that which is obtained by us must be
   given to us; and well are we taught in Scripture that "faith is not of
   ourselves, it is the gift of God." Although faith is the act of man,
   yet it is the work of God. "With the heart man believeth unto
   righteousness;" but that heart must, first of all, have been renewed by
   divine grace before it ever can be capable of the act of saving faith.
   Faith, we say, is man's act, for we are commanded to "believe on the
   Lord Jesus Christ," and we shall be saved. At the same time, faith is
   God's gift, and wherever we find it, we may know that it did not come
   there from the force of nature, but from a work of divine grace. How
   this magnifies the grace of God, my brethren, and how low this casts
   human nature! Faith. Is it not one of the simplest things? Merely to
   depend upon the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, does
   it not seem one of the easiest of virtues? To be nothing, and to let
   him be everything--to be still, and to let him work for me, does not
   this seem to be the most elementary of all the Christian graces?
   Indeed, so it is; and yet, even to this first principle and rudiment,
   poor human nature is so fallen and so utterly undone, that it cannot
   attain unto! Brethren, the Lord must not only open the gates of heaven
   to us at last, but he must open the gates of our heart to faith at the
   first. It is not enough for us to know that he must make us perfect in
   every good work to do his will, but we must be taught that he must even
   give us a desire after Christ; and when this is given, he must enable
   us to give the grip of the hand of faith whereby Jesus Christ becomes
   our Saviour and Lord. Now, the question comes (and we will try and make
   the text of today, a text of examination all the way through) have we
   obtained this faith? Are we conscious that we have been operated upon
   by the Holy Spirit? Is there a vital principle in us which was not
   there originally? Do we know today the folly of carnal confidence? Have
   we a hope that we have been enabled through divine grace to cast away
   all our own righteousness and every dependence, and are we now, whether
   we sink or swim, resting entirely upon the person, the righteousness,
   the blood, the intercession, the precious merit of our Lord Jesus
   Christ? If not, we have cause enough to tremble; but if we have, the
   while the apostle writes, "Unto them that have obtained like precious
   faith," he writes to us, and across the interval of centuries his
   benediction comes as full and fresh as ever, "Grace and peace be
   multiplied unto you."

   Peter having described the origin of this faith, proceeds to describe
   its object. The word "through" in our translation, might, quite as
   correctly, have been rendered "in"--"faith in the righteousness of our
   God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." True faith, then, is a faith in
   Jesus Christ, but it is a faith in Jesus Christ as divine. That man who
   believes in Jesus Christ as simply a prophet, as only a great teacher,
   has not the faith which will save him. Charity would make us hope for
   many Unitarians, but honesty compels us to condemn them without
   exception, so far as vital godliness is concerned. It matters not how
   intelligent may be their conversation, nor how charitable may be their
   manners, nor how patriotic may be their spirit, if they reject Jesus
   Christ as very God of very God, we believe they shall without doubt
   perish everlastingly. Our Lord uttered no dubious words when he said,
   "He that believeth not shall be damned," and we must not attempt to be
   more liberal than the Lord himself. Little allowance can I make for one
   who receives Jesus the prophet, and rejects him as God. It is an
   atrocious outrage upon common sense for a man to profess to be a
   believer in Christ at all, if he does not receive his divinity. I would
   undertake, at any time, to prove to a demonstration, that if Christ
   were not God, he was the grossest impostor who ever lived. One of two
   things, he was either divine or a villain. There is no stopping between
   the two. I cannot imagine a character more evil than that which would
   be borne by a man who should lead his followers to adore him as God,
   without ever putting in a word by way of caveat, to stop their
   idolatry; nay, who should have spoken in terms so ambiguous, that two
   thousand years after his death, there should be found millions of
   persons resting upon him as God. I say, if he were not God, the
   atrocity of his having palmed himself upon us, his disciples, as God,
   puts aside altogether from consideration any of the apparent virtues of
   his life. He was the grossest of all deceivers, if he was not "very God
   of very God." O beloved, you and I have found no difficulties here;
   when we have beheld the record of his miracles, when we have listened
   to the testimony of his divine Father, when we have heard the word of
   the inspired apostles, when we have felt the majesty of his own divine
   influence in our own hearts, we have graciously accepted him as "the
   Wonderful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father;"
   and, as John bear witness of him and said, "The Word was in the
   beginning with God, and the Word was God," even so have we received
   him; so that at this day, he that was born of the virgin Mary, Jesus of
   Nazareth, the king of the Jews, is to us "God over all, blessed for
   ever."

   "Jesus is worthy to receive

   Honour and power divine:

   And blessings more than we can give,

   Be Lord for ever thine."

   Now, beloved friends, have we heartily and joyfully received Jesus
   Christ as God? My hearer, if thou hast not, I pray thee seek of God the
   faith that saves, for thou hast it not as yet, nor art thou in the way
   to it. Who but a God could bear the weight of sin? Who but a God shall
   be the "same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?" Concerning whom but a
   God could it be said, "I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons
   of Jacob are not consumed." We have to do with Christ, and we should be
   consumed if he changed; inasmuch, then, as he does not change, and we
   are not consumed, he must be divine, and our soul rolls the entire
   burden of its care and guilt upon the mighty shoulders of the
   everlasting God, who--

   "Bears the earth's huge pillars up,

   And spreads the heavens abroad."

   Remark in further dwelling upon the text, that the apostle has put in
   another word beside "God", and that is, "of God and our Saviour." As if
   the glory of the Godhead might be too bright for us, he has attempered
   it by gentler words "our Saviour." Now, to trust Jesus Christ as
   divine, will save no man, unless there be added to this a resting in
   him as the great propitiatory sacrifice. Jesus Christ is our Saviour
   because he became a substitute for guilty man. He having taken upon
   himself the form of manhood by union with our nature, stood in the
   room, place, and stead of sinners. When the whole tempest of divine
   wrath was about to spend itself on man, he endured it all for his
   elect; when the great whip of the law must fall, he bared his own
   shoulders to the lash; when the cry was heard, "Awake, O sword!" it was
   against Christ the Shepherd, against the man who was the fellow to the
   eternal God. And because he thus suffered in the place and stead of
   man, he received power from on high to become the Saviour of man, and
   to bring many sons into glory, because he had been made perfect through
   suffering. Now, have we received Jesus Christ as our Saviour? Happy art
   thou, if thou hast laid thy hand upon the head of him who was slain for
   sinners. Be glad, and rejoice in the Lord without ceasing, if today
   that blessed Redeemer who has ascended upon high has become thy
   Saviour, delivered thee from sin, passing by thy transgressions, and
   making thee to be accepted in the beloved. A Saviour is he to us when
   he delivers us from the curse, punishment, guilt and power of sin, "He
   shall save his people from their sins." O thou great God, be thou my
   Saviour, mighty to save.

   But be pleased to notice the word "righteousness." It is a faith in the
   righteousness of our God and our Saviour. In these days, certain
   divines have tried to get rid of all idea of atonement; they have
   taught that faith in Jesus Christ would save men, apart from any faith
   in him as a sacrifice. Ah, brethren, it does not say, "faith in the
   teaching of God our Saviour;" I do not find here that it is written,
   "faith in the character of God our Saviour, as our exemplar." No, but
   "faith in the righteousness of God our Saviour." That righteousness,
   like a white robe, must be cast around us. I have not received Jesus
   Christ at all, but I am an adversary and an enemy to him, unless I have
   received him as Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness. There is
   his perfect life; that life was a life for me; it contains all the
   virtues, in it there is no spot; it keeps the law of God, and makes it
   honourable; my faith takes that righteousness of Jesus Christ, and it
   is cast about me, and I am then so beauteously, nay, so perfectly
   arrayed, that even the eye of God can see neither spot nor blemish in
   me. Have we, then, today a faith in the righteousness of God our
   Saviour? For no faith but this can ever bring the soul into a condition
   of acceptance before the Most High. Why," saith one, "these are the
   very simplicities of the gospel." Beloved, I know they are, and,
   therefore, do we deal them out this morning, for, thanks be to God, it
   is the simplicities which lie at the foundation; and it is rather by
   simplicities than by mysteries that a Christian is to try himself and
   to see whether he be in the faith or no. Put the question, brethren,
   have we, then, this like precious faith in God and our Saviour Jesus
   Christ?

   Our apostle has not finished the description, without saying that it is
   "like precious faith." All faith is the same sort of faith. Our faith
   may not be like that of Peter, in degree, but if it be genuine, it is
   like it as to its nature, its origin, its objects, and its results.
   Here is a blessed equality. Speak of "liberty, equality, and
   fraternity," you shall only find these things carried out within the
   Church of Christ. There is indeed a blessed equality here, for the
   poorest little-faith who ever crept into heaven on its hands and knees,
   has a like precious faith with the mighty apostle Peter. I say,
   brethren, if the one be gold, so is the other; if the one can move
   mountains, so can the other; for remember, that the privileges of
   mountain-moving, and of plucking up the trees, and casting them into
   the sea, are not given to great faith, but "if ye have faith as a grain
   of mustard seed," it shall be done. Little faith has a royal descent
   and is as truly of divine birth as is the greatest and fullest
   assurance which ever made glad the heart of man, hence it ensures the
   same inheritance at the last, and the same safety by the way. It is
   "like precious faith."

   He tells us too, that faith is "precious;" and is it not precious? for
   it deals with precious things, with precious promises, with precious
   blood, with a precious redemption, with all the preciousness of the
   person of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Well may that be a
   precious faith which supplies our greatest want, delivers us from our
   greatest danger, and admits us to the greatest glory. Well may that be
   called "precious faith," which is the symbol of our election, the
   evidence of our calling, the root of all our graces, the channel of
   communion, the weapon of prevalence, the shield of safety, the
   substance of hope, the evidence of eternity, the guerdon of
   immortality, and the passport of glory. O for more of this inestimably
   precious faith. Precious faith, indeed it is.

   When the apostle, Simon Peter, writes "to them that have obtained like
   precious faith with us, through the righteousness of God, and our
   Saviour Jesus Christ," does he write to you? does he write to me? If
   not, if we are not here addressed, remember that we can never expect to
   hear the voice which says, "Come ye blessed of my Father;" but we are
   today in such a condition, that dying as we now are, "Depart ye cursed"
   must be the thunder which shall roll in our ears, and drive us down to
   hell. So much, then, concerning faith.

   Now we shall turn to notice with great brevity, the LIFE. "Grace and
   peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus
   our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things
   that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that
   hath called us to glory and virtue." Here we have, then, brethren, the
   fountain and source of our spiritual life. Just as faith is a boon
   which is to be obtained, so you will perceive that our spiritual life
   is a principle which is given. A thing which is given to us, too, by
   divine power--"according as his divine power hath given unto us all
   things that pertain unto life and godliness." To give life at all is
   the essential attribute of God. This is an attribute which he will not
   alienate; to save and to destroy belong unto the Sovereign of heaven.
   "He can create, and he destroy," is one of the profoundest notes in the
   ascription of our praise. Suppose a corpse before us. How great a
   pretender would he be who should boast that it was in his power to
   restore it to life. Certainly, it would be even a greater pretence if
   anyone should say that he could give to himself or to another the
   divine life, the spiritual life by which a man is made a Christian. My
   brethren, you who are partakers of the divine nature, know that by
   nature you were dead in trespasses and sins, and would have continued
   so until this day if there had not been an interposition of divine
   energy on your behalf. There you lay in the grave of your sin, rotten,
   corrupt. The voice of the minister called to you, but you did not hear.
   You were often bidden to come forth, but ye did not and could not come.
   But when the Lord said, "Lazarus, come forth," then Lazarus came forth;
   and when he said to you, "Live," then you lived also, and the spiritual
   life beat within you, with joy and peace through believing. This we
   ought never to forget, because, let us never fail to remember, that if
   our religion is a thing which sprang from ourselves, it is of the
   flesh, and must die. That which is born of the flesh in its best and
   most favourable moments, is flesh, and only that which is born of the
   Spirit is spirit. "Ye must be born again." If a man's religious life be
   only a refinement of his ordinary life, if it be only a high attainment
   of the natural existence, then is it not the spiritual life, and does
   not prepare him for the eternal life before the throne of God. No, we
   must have a supernatural spark of heavenly flame kindled within us.
   Just as nothing but the soul can quicken the body and make it live, so
   the Spirit alone can quicken the soul and make the soul live. We must
   have the third master-principle infused, or else we shall be but
   natural men, made after the image of the first Adam. We must have, I
   say, the new spirit, or else we shall not be like the second Adam, who
   was made a quickening spirit. Only of the Christian can we say that he
   is spirit, soul, and body; the ungodly man has only soul and body, and
   as to spiritual existence, he is as dead as the body would be if there
   were no soul. Now the implantation of this new principle, called the
   spirit, is a work of divine power. Divine power! What stupendous issues
   are grasped in that term, divine power! It was this which digged the
   deep foundations of the earth and sea! Divine power, it is this which
   guides the marches of the stars of heaven! Divine power! it is this
   which holds up the pillars of the universe, and which one day shall
   shake them, and hurry all things back to their native nothingness. Yet
   the selfsame power which is required to create a world and to sustain
   it, is required to make man a Christian, and unless that power be put
   forth, the spiritual life is not in any one of us.

   You will perceive, dear friends, that the apostle Peter wished to see
   this divine life in a healthy and vigorous state, and therefore he
   prays that grace and peace may be multiplied. Divine power is the
   foundation of this life; grace is the food it feeds upon, and peace is
   the element in which it lives most healthily. Give a Christian much
   grace, and his spiritual life will be like the life of a man who is
   well clothed and nurtured; keep the spiritual life without abundant
   grace, and it becomes lean, faint, and ready to die; and though die it
   cannot, yet will it seem as though it gave up the ghost, unless fresh
   grace be bestowed. Peace, I say, is the element in which it flourishes
   most. Let a Christian be much disturbed in mind, let earthly cares get
   into his soul, let him have doubts and fears as to his eternal safety,
   let him lose a sense of reconciliation to God, let his adoption be but
   dimly before his eyes, and you will not see much of the divine life
   within him. But oh! if God shall smile upon the life within you, and
   you get much grace from God, and your soul dwells much in the balmy air
   of heavenly peace, then shall you be strong to exercise yourself unto
   godliness, and your whole life shall adorn the doctrine of God your
   Saviour.

   Observe, again, that in describing this life, he speaks of it as one
   which was conferred upon us by our being called. He says, "We were
   called unto glory and virtue." I find translators differ here. Many of
   them think the word should be "By"--"We are called by the glory and
   virtue of God"--that is, there is a manifestation of all the glorious
   attributes of God, and of all the efficacious virtue and energy of his
   power in the calling of every Christian. Simon Peter himself was at his
   fishing and in his boat, but Jesus said to him, "Follow me;" and at
   once he followed Christ. He says there was in that calling, the divine
   glory and virtue; and, doubtless, when you and I shall get to heaven,
   and see things as they are, we shall discover in our effectual calling
   of God to grace, a glory as great as in the creation of worlds, and a
   virtue as great as in the healing of the sick, when virtue went from
   the garments of a Saviour. Now, can we say today, that we have a life
   within us which is the result of divine power, and have we, upon
   searching ourselves, reason to believe, dear friends, that there is
   that within us which distinguishes us from other men, because we have
   been called out by mankind by the glory and energy of the divine power?
   I am afraid some of us must say "Nay." Then the Lord in his mercy yet
   bring us into the number of his people. But if we can, however,
   tremblingly say, "Yes, I trust there is something of the life in me;"
   then as Peter did so, do I wish for you that benediction, "Grace and
   peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of our Lord and
   Saviour Jesus Christ." O brethren, whatever men may say against the
   faith of God, there is nothing in the world which creates virtue like
   true faith. Wherever true faith enters, though it be into the heart of
   a harlot or of a thief, what a change it makes! See her there; she has
   polluted herself many times; she has gone far into sin. Mary has been a
   sinner; she hears the preaching of the Saviour; standing in the crowd
   she listens to him one day as he preaches concerning the prodigal, and
   how the loving father pressed him to his bosom; she comes to Jesus and
   she finds forgiveness. Is she a harlot any longer? Nay, there she is,
   washing his feet with her tears, and wiping them with the hairs of her
   head. The woman who was a sinner, hates her evil ways and loves her
   gracious Lord. We may say of her, "But she is washed, but she is
   sanctified, but she is saved." Take Saul of Tarsus. Foaming with blood,
   breathing out threatenings, he is going to Damascus to drag the saints
   of God to prison. On the road he is struck down; by divine mercy he is
   led to put his trust in Jesus. Is he a persecutor any longer? See that
   earnest apostle beaten with rods--shipwrecked--in labours more abundant
   than all the rest of them--counting not his life dear unto him, that he
   may win Christ and be found in him. Saul of Tarsus becomes a majestic
   proof of what the grace of God can do. See Zaccheus, the grasping
   publican, distributing his wealth, the Ephesians burning their magical
   books, the jailer washing the apostle's stripes. Take the case of many
   now present. Let memory refresh itself this morning, with the
   recollection of the change which has been wrought in you. We have
   nothing to boast of; God forbid that we should glory, save in the cross
   of Christ, but yet some of us are wonderful instances of renewing
   grace. We were unclean, our mouths could utter blasphemy; our temper
   was hot and terrible; our hands were unrighteous; we were altogether as
   an unclean thing, but how changed now! Again, I say, we boast of
   nothing which we now are, for by the grace of God we are what we are,
   yet the change is something to be wondered at. Has divine grace wrought
   this change in you? Be not weary with my reiteration of this question.
   Let me put it again to you till I get an answer; nay, till I force you
   to an answer: Have you this precious faith? Can you not answer the
   question? Then, have you not that divine life, that life which is given
   by divine calling? If you have the one, you have the other; and if you
   have not both, you have neither; for where there is the one, the other
   must come, and where the one has come, the other has been there.

   II. I have thus fully but feebly brought the subject before you, allow
   me to remind you that another verse remains which handles the same
   topics. In the fourth verse, he deals with the privileges of faith, and
   also with the privileges of the spiritual life.

   Notice the PRIVILEGE OF FAITH first. "Whereby are given unto us
   exceeding great and precious promises"--here is the faith, "That by
   these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the
   corruption that is in the world through lust." Here is the life
   resulting from the faith. Now, the privileges of faith first. The
   privileges of faith are, that we have given to us "Exceeding great and
   precious promises." "Great and precious"--two words which do not often
   come together. Many things are great which are not precious, such as
   great rocks, which are of little value; on the other hand, many things
   are precious which are not great--such as diamonds and other jewels,
   which cannot be very great if they be very precious. But here we have
   promises which are so great, that they are not less than infinite, and
   so precious, that they are not less than divine. I shall not attempt to
   speak about their greatness or their preciousness, but just give a
   catalogue of them, and leave you to guess at both. We have some of them
   which are like birds in the hands--we have them already; other promises
   are like birds in the bush, only that they are just as valuable and as
   sure as those which are in the hand.

   Note here, then, we have received by precious faith the promise and
   pardon. Hark thee, my soul, all thy sins are forgiven thee. He who hath
   faith in Christ hath no sin to curse him, his sins are washed away,
   they have ceased to be; they have been carried on the scape-goat's head
   into the wilderness; they are drowned in the Red Sea; they are blotted
   out; they are thrown behind God's back; they are cast into the depths
   of the sea. Here is a promise of perfect pardon. Is not this great and
   precious?--as great as your sins are; and if your sins demanded a
   costly ransom, this precious promise is as great as the demand.

   Then comes the righteousness of Christ: you are not only pardoned, that
   is, washed and made clean, but you are dressed, robed in garments such
   as no man could ever weave. The vesture is divine. Jehovah himself has
   wrought out your righteousness for you; the holy life of Jesus the Son
   of God, has become your beauteous dress, and you are covered with it.
   Christian, is not this an exceeding great and precious promise? The law
   was great--this righteousness is as great as the law. The law asked a
   precious revenue from man, more than humanity could pay--the
   righteousness of Christ has paid it all. Is it not great and precious?

   Then next comes reconciliation. You were strangers, but you are brought
   nigh by the blood of Christ. Once aliens, but now fellow-citizens with
   the saints and of the household of God. Is not this great and precious?

   Then comes your adoption. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it
   doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall
   appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." "And if
   children, then heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ, if
   so be we suffer with him that we may be glorified together." Oh, how
   glorious is this great and precious promise of adoption!

   Then we have the promise of providence: "all things work together for
   good to them that love God, to them that are called according to his
   purpose." "Thy place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks." "Thy
   bread shall be given thee and thy waters shall be sure." "As thy days
   thy strength shall be." "Fear not, I am with thee; be not dismayed, I
   am thy God." "When thou passest through the rivers, I will be with
   thee, the floods shall not overflow thee. When thou goest through the
   fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flames kindle upon
   thee." When I think of providence, the greatness of its daily gifts,
   and the preciousness of its hourly boons, I may well say, here is an
   exceeding great and precious promise.

   Then you have the promise too, that you shall never taste of death but
   shall only sleep in Jesus. "Write, blessed are the dead which die in
   the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they cease from
   their labours; and their works do follow them." Nor does the promise
   cease here, you have the promise of a resurrection. "For the trumpet
   shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall
   be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this
   mortal must put on immortality." Beloved, we know that if Christ rose
   from the dead, so also them who sleep in Jesus, will the Lord bring
   with him. Nor is this all, for we shall reign with Jesus; at his
   coming, we shall be glorified with him, we shall sit upon his throne,
   even as he has overcome and sits with his Father upon his throne. The
   harps of heaven, the streets of glory, the trees of paradise, the river
   of the water of life, the eternity of immaculate bliss--all these, God
   hath promised to them who love him. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
   the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, but he hath
   revealed them unto us by his Spirit;" and by our faith we have grasped
   them, and we have today "the substance of things hoped for, and the
   evidence of things not seen." Now, beloved, see how rich faith makes
   you!--what treasure!--what a costly regalia!--what gold mines!--what
   oceans of wealth!--what mountains of sparkling treasures has God
   conferred upon you by faith!

   But we must not forget the life, and with that we close. The text says,
   he has given us this promise, "that"--"in order that." What then? What
   are all these treasures lavished for? For what these pearls? For what
   these jewels? For what, I say, these oceans of treasure? For what? Is
   the end worthy of the means? Surely God never giveth greater store than
   the thing which he would purchase will be worth. We may suppose, then,
   the end to be very great when such costly means have been given; and
   what is the end? Why, "that by these ye might be partakers of the
   divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world
   through lust." O, my brethren, if you have these mercies today by
   faith, do see to it that the result is obtained. Be not content to be
   made rich in these great and precious promises, without answering God's
   design in your being thus enriched. That design, you perceive, is
   twofold; it is first that you may be partakers of the divine nature;
   and, secondly, that you may escape the corruption which is in the
   world.

   To be a partaker of the divine nature is not, of course, to become God.
   That cannot be. The essence of Deity is not to be participated in by
   the creature. Between the creature and the Creator there must ever be a
   gulf fixed in respect of essence; but as the first man Adam was made in
   the image of God, so we, by the renewal of the Holy Spirit, are in a
   yet diviner sense made in the image of the Most High, and are partakers
   of the divine nature. We are, by grace, made like God. "God is love;"
   we become love--"He that loveth is born of God." God is truth; we
   become true, and we love that which is true, and we hate the darkness
   and the lie. God is good, it is his very name; he makes us good by his
   grace, so that we become the pure in heart who shall see God. Nay, I
   will say this, that we become partakers of the divine nature in even a
   higher sense than this--in fact, in any sense, anything short of our
   being absolutely divine. Do we not become members of the body of the
   divine person of Christ? And what sort of union is this--"members of
   his body, of his flesh, and of his bones?" The same blood which flows
   in the head flows in the hand, and the same life which quickens Christ,
   quickens his people; for, "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with
   Christ in God." Nay, as if this were not enough, we are married into
   Christ. He hath betrothed us unto himself in righteousness and in
   faithfulness; and as the spouse must, in the nature of things, be a
   partaker of the same nature as the husband, so Jesus Christ first
   became partaker of flesh and blood that they twain might be one flesh;
   and then he makes his Church partakers of the same spirit, that they
   twain may be one spirit; for he who is joined unto the Lord is one
   spirit. Oh, marvellous mystery! we look into it, but who shall
   understand it? One with Jesus, by eternal union one, married to him; so
   one with him that the branch is not more one with the vine than we are
   a part of the Lord, our Saviour, and our Redeemer. Rejoice in this,
   brethren, ye are made partakers of the divine nature, and all these
   promises are given to you in order that you may show this forth among
   the sons of men, that ye are like God, and not like ordinary men; that
   ye are different now from what flesh and blood would make you, having
   been made participators of the nature of God.

   Then the other result which follows from it, was this, "Having escaped
   the corruption that is in the world through lust." Ah, beloved, it were
   ill that a man who is alive should dwell in corruption. "Why seek ye
   the living among the dead?" said the angel to Magdalene. Should the
   living dwell among the dead? Should divine life be found amongst the
   corruptions of worldly lusts? The bride of Christ drunken! Frequenting
   the ale-house! A member of Christ's body found intoxicated in the
   streets, or lying, or blaspheming, or dishonest! God forbid. Shall I
   take the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot? How can
   I drink the cup of the Lord, and drink the cup of Belial? How can it be
   possible that I can have life, and yet dwell in the black, dark, foul,
   filthy, pestiferous tomb of the world's lusts? Surely, brethren, from
   these open lusts and sins ye have escaped: have ye also escaped from
   slothfulness? Have ye clean escaped from carnal security? Are we
   seeking day by day to live above worldliness, and love of the things of
   the world, and the ensnaring avarice which they nourish? Remember, it
   is for this that you have been enriched with the treasures of God. Do
   not, oh, I conjure you, do not, chosen of God and beloved by him, and
   so graciously enriched, do not suffer all this lavish treasure to be
   wasted upon you.

   There is nothing which my heart desires more than to see you, the
   members of this Church, distinguished for holiness: it is the
   Christian's crown and glory. An unholy Church! it is of no use to the
   world, and of no esteem among men. Oh! it is an abomination, hell's
   laughter, heaven's abhorrence. And the larger the Church, the more
   influential, the worse nuisance does it become, when it becomes dead
   and unholy. The worst evils which have ever come upon the world, have
   been brought upon her by an unholy Church. Whence came the darkness of
   the dark ages? From the Church of Rome. And if we want to see the world
   again sitting in Egyptian darkness, bound with fetters of iron, we have
   only to give up the faith, and to renounce holiness of life, and we may
   drag the world down again to the limbo of superstition, and bind her
   fast in chains of ignorance and vice. O Christian, the vows of God are
   upon you. You are God's priest: act as such. You are God's king: reign
   over your lusts. You are God's chosen: do not associate with Belial.
   Heaven is your portion; live like a heavenly spirit, so shall you prove
   that you have the true faith; but except ye do this, your end shall be
   to lift up your eyes in hell, and find yourself mistaken when it will
   be too late to seek or find a remedy. The Lord give us the faith and
   the life, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                Do You Know Him?

   A Sermon

   (No. 552)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, January 31st, 1864, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "That I may know him."--Philippians 3:10.

   THE object of the apostle's life--that for which he sacrificed
   everything: country, kindred, honor, comfort, liberty, and life itself,
   was, that he might know Christ. Observe that this is not Paul's prayer
   as an unconverted man, that he may know Christ, and so be saved; for it
   follows upon the previous supplication that he might win Christ and be
   found in him. This is the desire of one who has been saved, who enjoys
   the full conviction that his sins are pardoned, and that he is in
   Christ. It is only the regenerated and saved man who can feel the
   desire, "That I may know him." Are you astonished that a saved man
   should have such a desire as this? A moment's reflection will remove
   your astonishment. Imagine for a moment that you are living in the age
   of the Roman emperors. You have been captured by Roman soldiers and
   dragged from your native country; you have been sold for a slave,
   stripped, whipped, branded, imprisoned, and treated with shameful
   cruelty. At last yon are appointed to die in the amphitheatre, to make
   holiday for a tyrant. The populace assemble with delight. There they
   are, tens of thousands of them, gazing down from the living sides of
   the capacious Colosseum. You stand alone, and naked, armed only with a
   single dagger--a poor defense against gigantic beasts. A ponderous door
   is drawn up by machinery, and forth there rushes the monarch of the
   forest--a huge lion; you must slay him or be torn to pieces. You are
   absolutely certain that the conflict is too stern for you, and that the
   sure result must and will be that those terrible teeth will grind your
   bones and drip with your blood. You tremble; your joints are loosed;
   you are paralyzed with fear, like the timid deer when the lion has
   dashed it to the ground. But what is this? O wonder of mercy!--a
   deliverer appears. A great unknown leaps from among the gazing
   multitude, and confronts the savage monster. He quails not at the
   roaring of the devourer, but dashes upon him with terrible fury, till,
   like a whipped cur, the lion slinks towards his den, dragging himself
   along in pain and fear. The hero lifts you up, smiles into your
   bloodless face, whispers comfort in your ear, and bids you be of good
   courage, for you are free. Do you not think that there would arise at
   once in your heart a desire to know your deliverer? As the guards
   conducted you into the open street, and you breathed the cool, fresh
   air, would not the first question be, "Who was my deliverer, that I may
   fall at his feet and bless him?" You are not, however, informed, but
   instead of it you are gently led away to a noble mansion house, where
   your many wounds are washed and healed with salve of rarest power. You
   are clothed in sumptuous apparel; you are made to sit down at a feast;
   you eat and are satisfied; you rest upon the softest down. The next
   morning you are attended by servants who guard you from evil and
   minister to your good. Day after day, week after week, your wants are
   supplied. You live like a courtier. There is nothing that you can ask
   which you do not receive. I am sure that your curiosity would grow more
   and more intense till it would ripen into an insatiable craving. You
   would scarcely neglect an opportunity of asking the servants, "Tell me,
   who does all this, who is my noble benefactor, for I must know him?"
   "Well, but" they would say, "is it not enough for you that you are
   delivered from the lion?" "Nay," say you, "it is for that very reason
   that I pant to know him." "Your wants are richly supplied--why are yon
   vexed by curiosity as to the hand which reaches you the boon? If your
   garment is worn out, there is another. Long before hunger oppresses
   you, the table is well loaded. What more do you want?" But your reply
   is, "It is because I have no wants, that, therefore, my soul longs and
   yearns even to hungering and to thirsting, that I may know my generous
   loving friend." Suppose that as you wake up one morning, you find lying
   up on your pillow a precious love-token from your unknown friend, a
   ring sparkling with jewels and engraved with a tender inscription, a
   bouquet of flowers bound about with a love-motto! Your curiosity now
   knows no bounds. But you are informed that this wondrous being has not
   only done for you what you have seen, but a thousand deeds of love
   which you did not see, which were higher and greater still as proofs of
   his affection. You are told that he was wounded, and imprisoned, and
   scourged for your sake, for he had a love to yon so great, that death
   itself could not overcome it: you are informed that he is every moment
   occupied in your interests, because he has sworn by himself that where
   he is there you shall be; his honors you shall share, and of his
   happiness you shall be the crown. Why, methinks you would say, "Tell
   me, men and women, any of you who know him, tell me who he is and what
   he is;" and if they said, "But it is enough for you to know that he
   loves you, and to have daily proofs of his goodness," you would say,
   "No, these love-tokens increase my thirst. If ye see him, tell him I am
   sick of love. The flagons which he sends me, and the love-tokens which
   he gives me, they stay me for awhile with the assurance of his
   affection but they only impel me onward with the more unconquerable
   desire that I may know him. I must know him; I cannot live without
   knowing him. His goodness makes me thirst, and pant, and faint, and
   even die, that I may know him."

   Have I imagined emotions which would not be natural? I think not. The
   most cool and calculating would be warmed with desires like these.
   Methinks what I have now pictured before you will wake the echoes in
   your breasts, and you will say, "Ah, it is even so! It is because
   Christ loved me and gave himself for me that I want to know him; it is
   because he has shed his blood for me and has chosen me that I may be
   one with him for ever, that my soul desires a fuller acquaintance with
   him."

   Now may God, the Holy Ghost, very graciously lead me onward that I may
   also quicken in you the desire to know HIM.

   I. Beloved, let us PASS BY THAT CROWD OF OUTER-COURT WORSHIPPERS WHO
   ARE CONTENT TO LIVE WITHOUT KNOWING CHRIST. I do not mean the ungodly
   and profane; we will not consider them just now--they arc altogether
   strangers and foreigners to him--I mean children of God: the visible
   saints. How many there are of these whom I must call outer-court
   worshippers, for they are strangers to this panting to know him. They
   can say with Paul, "That I may win him and be found in him"--that they
   do want; but this higher wish, "That I may know him," has not stirred
   their hearts. How many brethren we know, who are content to know
   Christ's historic life! They read the evangelists and they are charmed
   with the perfect beauty of the Savior's history. "Never man spake like
   this man," say they; and they confess that never man acted with such
   love as lie did. They know all the incidents of his life, from his
   manger to his cross; but they do not know HIM. They are as men who have
   read " Caesar's Commentaries," but who have never seen Caesar. They
   know the battles which Caesar fought; they can even recognize the
   mantle which Caesar wore "that day he overcame the Nervii;" but they do
   not know Caesar himself. The person of the Lord Jesus is us much hidden
   from their eyes us the golden pot of manna when concealed in the ark.
   They know the life of Christ, hut not Christ the Life; they admire his
   way among men, hut they see not himself as the way.

   Others there are who know Christ's doctrine, and prize it too, but they
   know not Him. All which he taught is dear to them; orthodoxy--for this
   they would burn at Smithfield, or lay down their necks at Tower Hill.
   Many of them are well-instructed and divinely-illuminated in the
   doctrine of Christ, and the wonder is, that they should stop there;
   because, beloved, it does seem to me when I begin to know a man's
   teaching, that the next thing is the desire to know his person.
   Addison, in one of the " Spectators," tells us that the reason why so
   many books are printed with the portraits of the authors is just this,
   that as a man reads a book, lie feels a desire to know what sort of
   appearance the author had. This, indeed, is very natural. If you have
   ever been refreshed under a minister's printed sermons, if you have at
   any time received any benefit from his words, I know you have said, "I
   would like to see that man; I would like to hear the truth flow hot and
   fresh from his living lips; I would like to know just how he said that
   sentence, and how that passage sounded as it came from his earnest
   heart." My beloved, surely if you know the doctrine of Jesus, if you
   have so been with Christ as to sit at his feet and hear what he has to
   say, you must, I hope, have had some longings to know him--to know his
   person; and if you have, you will have had to pass by multitudes of
   followers of Jesus who rest satisfied with his words, but forget that
   he is himself "THE WORD."

   Beloved, there are others--and against them I bring no complaint; they
   go as far as they can--who are delighted with Christ's example.
   Christ's character is in their esteem the mirror of all perfection.
   They desire to walk in his footsteps; they listen to his sermon upon
   the Mount; they are enchanted with it--as well they may be; they pray
   to he obedient in all things to Christ, as their Master and their Lord.
   They do well. Mark, I am finding no fault with any of these who prize
   the history, or who value the doctrine, or who admire the precept; but
   I want more. I do want, beloved, that you and I should "know HIM." I
   love his precepts, but I love HIM better. Sweet is the water from
   Bethlehem's well; and well worth the struggle of the armed men to win
   but a bucket from it; but the well itself is better, and deserves all
   Israel's valor to defend it. As the source is ever more valuable than
   the stream, so is Christ ever better than the best words of his lips,
   or the best deeds of his hand. I want to know him. I do care for his
   actions; my soul would sit down and admire those masterly works of holy
   art--his miracles of humiliation, of suffering, of patience, and of
   holy charity; but better far I love the hands which wrought these
   master-works, the lips which spoke these goodly words, and the heart
   which heaved with that matchless love which was the cause of all. Yes,
   beloved, we must get farther than Immanuel's achievements, however
   glorious; we must come to "know him."

   Most believers rest perfectly at ease with knowing Christ's sacrifice.
   They see Jesus as the great High Priest, laying a great sacrifice upon
   the altar for their sins, and with their whole heart they accept his
   atonement. By faith they know that all their sin is taken away by
   precious blood. This is a most blessed and hallowed attainment, I will
   grant you; but it is not every Christian who perceives that Christ was
   not only the offerer of a sacrifice, but was himself the sacrifice,
   and, therefore, loves him as such. Priest, altar, victim, everything
   Christ was. He gathers up all in himself, and when I see that he loved
   me, and gave himself for me, it is not enough to know this fact: I want
   to know him, the glorious person who does and is all this. I want to
   know the man who thus gave himself for me. I want to behold the Lamb
   once slain for me. I want to rest upon the bosom which covers the heart
   which was pierced with the spear; I pray him to kiss me with the kisses
   of that mouth which cried, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" I love
   Calvary, the scene of woe, but I love Christ better, the great object
   of that agony; and even his cross and all his sufferings, dear though
   these must ever be to the Christian mind, only occupying a second
   place; the first seat is for himself, his person, his deity, and
   humanity.

   Thus, you see, we have to leave a great many believers behind; nor have
   we enumerated all, for I believe that even some of those saints who
   have received grace to look for the coming of Christ, yet in their
   vision of his coming too much forget him. Is it not possible for nine
   to pant for the second advent as to lose sight of him who is to make
   that advent? So to long for a millennium, that I may forget him who is
   to reign King of kings? So to pant after that glory of Israel that I
   may forget him who is Israel's glory? Anywhere short of knowing him, I
   would not have you stop, beloved; and even when you know him, I would
   urge you still to be impelled with the same desire, and to press
   forward, crying with the apostle, "That I may know him."

   Beloved, how many there are who have heard of Christ and read about
   Christ, and that is enough for them! But it is not enough for me, and
   it should not be enough for you. The apostle Paul did not say "I have
   heard of him, on whom I have believed," but " I know whom I have
   believed." To hear about Christ may damn you, it may be a savor of
   death unto death to you. You have heard of him with the ear; hut it is
   essential that you know him in order that you may be partakers of
   eternal life. My dear hearers, be not content unless you have this as
   your soul's present portion.

   Others there be who have been persuaded by the judgment and
   encouragement of others, that they know something about the great
   Redeemer. They do not know him, but still they are persuaded by others
   that they have an interest in him. Let me warn you of second-hand
   spirituality, it is a rotten, soul-deceiving deception. Beware of all
   esteeming yourself according to the thoughts of others, or you will be
   ruined. Another man's opinion of me may have great influence over me, I
   have heard of a man in perfectly good health killed by the opinion of
   others. Several of his friends had foolishly agreed to play him a
   practical trick; whereupon one of them met him and said, "How ill you
   look this morning." He did not feel so; he was very much surprised at
   the remark. When he met the next, who said to him, "Oh! dear, how bad
   you look," lie began to think there might be something in it; and us he
   turned smart round the corner, a third person said to him, "What a
   sight you are! How altered from what you used to be!" He went home ill,
   he took to his bed and died. So goes the story, and I should not marvel
   if it really did occur. Now, if such might be the effect of persuasion
   and supposed belief in the sickness of a man, how much more readily may
   men be persuaded into the idea of spiritual health! A believer meets
   you, and by his treatment seems to say, " I welcome you as a dear
   brother"--and means it too. You are baptized, and you are received into
   Church-fellowship, and so everybody thinks that von must be a follower
   of Christ; and yet you may not know him. Oh, I do pray you, do not be
   satisfied with being persuaded into something like an assurance that
   you are in him, but do know him--know him for yourself.

   There are many who I hope will be saved ere long; but I am in great
   doubt of them, because they can only say they half think they know
   Christ; they do not quite believe in him, but they do not disbelieve in
   him; they halt between two opinions. Ah, dear hearer, that is a very
   dangerous place to stand in. The border-land is the devil's hunting
   ground. Undecided souls are fair game for the great fowler. God give
   you once for all the true decision by which through grace you shall
   know him. Do not be satisfied with thinking you know him; hoping you
   know him, but know him. Oh, it is nothing to have heard about him, to
   have talked about him, to have eaten and have drank with him, to have
   preached him, or even to have wrought miracles in his name, to have
   been charmed by his eloquence, to have been stirred with the story of
   his love, to have been moved to imitate him--this shall nothing avail
   you, unless you win him and are found in him. Seek with the apostle, to
   give up everything of your own righteousness, and all other objects and
   aims in life, and say, "This I seek after, that I may know him." Thus
   much, then, on the first point. Leaving those behind who do not know
   him, let us make an advance.

   II. Secondly, let us DRAW CURTAIN AFTER CURTAIN WHICH SHALL ADMIT US TO
   KNOW MORE OF CHRIST.

   Did you ever visit the manufactory of splendid porcelain at Sevres? I
   have done so. If anybody should say to me, "Do you know the manufactory
   at Sevres?" I should say, " Yes, I do, and no, I do not. I know it, for
   I have seen the building; I have seen the rooms in which the articles
   are exhibited for sale, and I have seen the museum and model room; but
   I do not know the factory as I would like to know it, for I have not
   seen the process of manufacture, and have not been admitted into the
   workshops, as some are. "Suppose I had seen, however, the process of
   the moulding of the clay, and the laying on of the rich designs, if
   anybody should still say to me, "Do you know how they manufacture those
   wonderful articles?" I should very likely still be compelled to say,
   "No, I do not, because there are certain secrets, certain private rooms
   into which neither friend nor foe can be admitted, lest the process
   should be open to the world." So, you see, I might say I knew, and yet
   might not half know; and when I half knew, still there would be so much
   left, that I might be compelled to say, "I do not know." How many
   different ways there are of knowing a person--and even so there are all
   these different ways of knowing Christ; so that you may keep on all
   your lifetime, still wishing to get into another room, and another
   room, nearer and nearer to the great secret, still panting to "know
   him." Good Rutherford says, "I urge upon you a nearer communion with
   Christ, and a growing communion. There are curtains to be drawn by, in
   Christ, that we never shut, and new foldings in love with him. I
   despair that ever I shall shall win to the far end of that love; there
   are so many plies in it. Therefore, dig deep, and set by as much time
   in the day for him as you can, he will be won by labor."

   To begin with. We know a person when we recognize him. You know the
   Queen. Well, I do. I recollect seeing her, and if I were to see any
   quantity of ladies, I think I should know which was the Queen and which
   was not. You may say honestly that you know her to that extent.
   Beloved, every Christian must in this sense know Christ. You must know
   him by a divine illumination so as to know who he is and what line is.
   When Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Whom sayest thou that I am," he said,
   "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God;" and the Lord replied,
   "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjonas, for flesh and blood hath not
   revealed this unto thee." It is an early step in this knowledge of
   Christ, to know and to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord; to know that
   Christ is God, divine to me; that Christ is man, brother to me--bone of
   my bone and flesh of my flesh--that as such line is a sin-subduing
   Savior; that line is for inc an intercessor, pleading before the
   throne; my prophet, priest, and king--in this sense I trust that most
   of you know him. If you do not, breathe the silent prayer now, "Lord,
   help me that I may know him." But this knowledge of recognition is
   comparatively a low attainment, one of the lowest rounds of the ladder
   of light.

   In the second place, a believer knows Christ, to a higher degree when
   he knows him by practical experiment at acquaintance with what he does.
   For instance, I know Christ as a cleanser. They tell me he is a
   refiner, that he cleanses from spots; he has washed me in his precious
   blood, and to that extent I know him. They tell me that he clothes the
   naked; he hath covered me with a garment of righteousness, and to that
   extent I know him. They tell me that he is a breaker, and that he
   breaks fetters, he has set my soul at liberty, and therefore I know
   him. They tell me that he is a king and that he reigns over sin; he
   hath subdued my enemies beneath his feet, and I know him in that
   character. They tell me he is a shepherd: I know him for I am his
   sheep. They say he is a door: I have entered in through him, and I know
   him as a door. They say he is food: my spirit feeds on him as on the
   bread of heaven, and, therefore, I know him as such. You know if anyone
   says, "Do you know doctor So-and-so?" It is a very satisfactory answer,
   if you can reply, "Oh, yes, I know him, for he attended me the last
   time that I was ill." There is more knowledge in that, than if on could
   only say, " Oh, yes, I know him: he wears such-and-such a hat or "line
   is a man of such-and-such an appearance." So, Christian, thing is a
   second and higher step to know Christ, because you have experienced in
   your own soul that he is just what God has revealed him to be.

   But we know a man in a better sense than this when we are on speaking
   terms with him. "Do you know So-and-so?" " Yes," you say, I not only
   know him by name, so as to recognize him; I not only know him as a
   tradesman having dealt with him, but I know him because when we pass
   each other in the morning, we exchange a word or two; and if I had
   anything to say upon matters--any request to make--I should feel no
   difficulty about asking him." Well, now. the Christian knows his Lord
   in this sense, line has every day official communication with Christ,
   line is on speaking terms with him. There may be persons here, perhaps,
   who know the Queen in a sense in which I do not know her--perhaps they
   speak to him. They have so done; I have never done that; they go beyond
   me there. But you see, dear friends, this is not a very great thing
   because you may be on speaking terms with a man, but you may not know
   much of him for all that. So you may be in the habit of daily prayer,
   and you may talk with Christ every morning and every evening, and you
   may know exceedingly little of him. You are on speaking terms with him;
   but there ins something beyond this, very far beyond this. As I might
   say that I know a man merely because I meet him every day, and ask him
   for what I want, and understand that he is kind and generous; but how
   shallow is such an acquaintance, for I do not know his private
   character nor his inward heart. Even so a believer may have constant
   dealings with Christ in his prayers and in his praises, and yet for all
   that, he may have only gone a certain distance, and may have need still
   to pray, "That I may know him."

   But you are said to know a person better still when he invites you to
   his house. At Christmas time there is a family party and a romp, and he
   asks you there, and you are one of the children, and enter into all
   their sports around the fire-side, and you indulge as they do in the
   genialities of social life. You are asked again; you go there pretty
   often; in fact, if there is a happy evening in that house they
   generally expect to see friend So-and-so there. Well, now, that is
   better. We are getting now into something like knowing a man; and I do
   trust there are many of you, beloved, who have got as far as this with
   regard to your divine Lord. Christ has entertained you with some rare
   visits from his gracious presence. He brought you into the
   banquetting-house, and his banner over you was love. When he manifested
   himself, he did it unto you as he did not unto the world. He was
   pleased in the majesty of his condescension, to take you aside and show
   you his hands and his side. He called you "Friend;" he treated you as
   such, and permitted you to enjoy thine sweets of being one of the
   family.

   Ah, but you may go into a man's house as a constant visitor, and yet
   you may not know him--that is to say, not in the highest sense. You
   speak to the man's wife and say, "Your husband is a marvellously
   charming man; what a cheerful, joyful, spirited man he is; he never
   seems to have any depressions of spirit, and experiences no changes
   whatever." She shakes her head. and she says, "Ah! you do not know him,
   you do not know him as I do;" because shine sees him at all times and
   at all hours; she can read the very heart of the man. That Christian
   has grown much in grace who has advanced not only to be the friend of
   Christ, having occasional fellowship with him, but who comes to
   recognize his marriage-union with the person of his Lord, and of whom
   it can be said, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him; and
   he will show them his covenant," Now we have the intimacy of love, with
   its perfect frankness, nearness, sweetness, joyousness, delight. The
   rending away of every separating veil makes the communion to be as near
   as it well can be this side the black river; but a Christian may get
   farther than this.

   Even the spouse may not know her husband. The most loving wife who ever
   entered into the cares of her husband, must have discovered that there
   is a something which separates his experience from her powers of
   comprehension. Luther's wife. Catherine, was of all women the wife for
   Luther; but there were times in Luther's gigantic tribulations, when he
   must leave Kate behind. There were extraordinary times within him;
   times both of ecstatic joy, when like a great angel, he stretched his
   mighty wings, and flew right up to heaven, and of awful misery, when he
   seemed to sink down to the very depths of hell; and in either case, no
   other heart could keep pace with him. Then it was himself alone who had
   communion with himself. And a Christian may so grow in grace as to
   become identified with Christ, a member of his body; not so much
   married to him as a part of him, a member of the great body of Christ,
   so that he suffers with Christ, sympathizes with Jesus, his heart
   beating to the same dolorous tune, his veins swollen with the sumac
   floods of grief, or else his eyes sparkling with that same gleam of
   joy, according to the Master's Word, "That my joy might remain in you,
   and that your joy might be full."

   Well, have not you waded out of your depth some of you? I have
   certainly got out of my own. I feel as if the Master might come on to
   this platform, look round on many of us, and say, "Have I been so long
   time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?" for truly even
   in the minor sense, though I trust we arc saved, though we have
   believed in Jesus, yet we have not reached the height of this great
   text--"That I may know him."

   III. Having taken you so far, let us SIT DOWN A FEW MINUTES AND
   CONSIDER WHAT SORT OF KNOWLEDGE THIS KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST IS--"That I
   may know him."

   Then it is clear, if I know him I shall have a very vivid sense of his
   personality. "That I may know him." He will not be to me a myth, a
   vision, a spirit, bat a person, a real solid person, as much real as I
   am myself, or as my dearest friend can be to me. My soul, never be
   satisfied within a shadowy Christ. My heart, be thou never content
   until he hath embraced thy soul, and proved to thee that he is the
   lover of his people. This knowledge, then, must be a knowledge of him
   in his personality. Then, beloved, it must be a personal knowledge on
   our part. I cannot know Christ through another person's brains. I
   cannot love him with another man's heart, and I cannot see him with
   another man's eyes. Heaven's delight is, "Mine eyes shall see him and
   not another." These eyes shall behold the King in his beauty. Well,
   beloved, if this be heaven, we certainly cannot do without a personal
   sight of Christ here. I am so afraid of living in a second-hand
   religion. God forbid that I should get a biographical experience. Lord
   save us from having borrowed communion. No, I must know him myself. O
   God, let me not be deceived in this. I must know him without fancy or
   proxy; I must know him on mine own account.

   Then these few thoughts upon what sort of knowledge we must have. It
   must be an intelligent knowledge--I must know him. I must know his
   natures, divine and human. I must know his offices--I must know his
   attributes--I must know his works--I must know his shame--I must know
   his glory; for I do not know him if it be merely a subject of passion
   and not of intellect. I must let my head consciously meditate upon him
   until I own something like an idea of him, that I may "Comprehend with
   all saints what is the breadth, and length and depth, and height; and
   to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge."

   Then I must have an affectionate knowledge of him; and, indeed, if I do
   know him at all, I must love him. As it is said of some men, that there
   is such a charm about them, that if you once get into their company you
   cannot criticise any longer, but must admire; so you feel with Christ.
   It is said of Garibaldi, that if you are in his society he charms all,
   so that even malice and slander must be silent in his presence.
   Infinitely, supremely so is it with Christ. Being near him, his love
   warms our hearts, till we glow with intense love to him.

   Then I shall find, if I know Christ, that this is a satisfying
   knowledge. When I know Christ my mind will he fill to the brim--I shall
   feel that I have found that which my spirit panted after. "This is that
   bread whereof if a man eat he shall never hunger."

   At the same time it is an exciting knowledge; the more I know of
   Christ, the more I shall want to know. The deeper I plunge the greater
   the deeps which will be revealed. The higher I climb the loftier will
   be the summits which invite my eager footsteps. I shall want the more
   as I get the more. My spiritual thirst will increase, though in another
   sense it will be entirely quenched.

   And this knowledge of Christ will be a most happy one, in fact, so
   happy, that sometimes it will completely bear me up above all trials,
   and doubts, and sorrows; and it will, while I enjoy it, make me
   something more than "Man that is born of a woman who is of few days,
   and full of trouble;" for it will fling about me the immortality of the
   ever-living Savior, and gird me with the golden girdle of his eternal
   happiness. To be near to Christ, is to be near to the pearly gates of
   the golden-streeted city. Say not, "Jerusalem, my happy home, my labors
   have an end in thee;" but say, "Jesus, thou art my rest, and when I
   have thee, my spirit is at peace." I might thus keep on speaking in
   praise of this knowledge, but I will not.

   Only permit me to say, what a refreshing, what a sanctifying knowledge
   is this, to know him. When the Laodicean Church was neither hot nor
   cold, but lukewarm, how did Christ seek her revival? Did he send her
   precious doctrines? Did he send her excellent precepts? Mark you, he
   came himself, for thus it is said, "Behold, I stand at the door, and
   knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come into
   him, and will sup with him, and he with me." That is a cure for it all,
   you see. No matter how lukewarm, though God may say, "I will spue thee
   out of my mouth," yet, if Christ comes, that is the cure. The presence
   of Christ with his Church puts away all her sicknesses. When the
   disciples of Christ were at sea in a storm, do you recollect how he
   comforted them? Did he send them an angel? No. "It is I, line not
   afraid;" and when they knew him, then they had no more fears. They were
   assembled one night, "the doors being shut for fear of the Jews:" how
   did he comfort them? Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and
   said, "Peace be unto you." There was Thomas, full of doubts and fears.
   How did Jesus Christ take away his doubts? "Reach hither thy finger,
   and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my
   side." Oh! it is Christ, it is Christ who cures all. The company of
   Christ is the only thing which a Christian wants. I will undertake that
   if his heart be like an iceberg, as soon as Jesus comes, it shall flame
   like Vesuvius. His spirit shall be dead and like a rotten corpse; but
   if Jesus comes he shall leap like a hart, and become strong as a young
   unicorn. Thy presence makes me like the chariots of Amminadib. Now, do
   not think I am talking what I do not know. Do not imagine that I am
   talking mere fanatical slip-slop which I cannot prove. I do assert (and
   God who searcheth all hearts, knows how true this is), I do assert
   that, from the depths of doubt, of dullness, of worldliness, I have
   leaped in one moment into love, and life, and holy enthusiasm, when
   Jesus Christ has manifested himself to nine. I cannot describe the
   difference between my spirit, water-logged, worm-eaten, ready to sink
   to the bottom without Christ, and that same spirit, like a strong
   stanch ship, with sails full, with favorable wind, speeding into
   harbor, with a golden freight. Like you poor little bird which some
   cruel boy has torn from the nest and almost killed--it is not fledged
   yet, and cannot fly, and it lies down to die, trampled in the mire in
   the streets--that is my heart without Christ. But see that other bird!
   The cage-door is opened, its wings vibrate, it sings within all its
   might. and flies up to talk with the sun--that is my heart when I have
   the conscious presence of my Lord Jesus Christ! I only bring in my own
   consciousness because I do not know yours; but I think I will now
   venture to say that every believer here will admit it is the same with
   him--

   "Midst darkest shades if he appear

   My dawning is begun;

   He is my soul's bright morning star,

   And he my rising sun.

   IV. I shall close by urging you, dearly beloved, who know the Lord, to
   take this desire of the apostle, and by exhorting you, make it your
   own, "That I may know him." I wish I had time this morning--time will
   fly--I wish I had time to urge and press you, believers, onward to seek
   to know him. Paul, you see, gave up everything for this--you will be
   seeking what is worth having. There can be no mistake about this. If
   Paul will renounce all, there must be a reward which is worthy of the
   sacrifice. If you have any fears, if you seek Christ and find him, they
   will be removed. You complain that you do not feel the guilt of sin;
   that you cannot humble yourself enough. The sight of Christ is the very
   best means of setting sin in its true colors. There is no repenting
   like that which comics from a look of Christ's eye: the Lord turned and
   hooked upon Peter, and he went out and wept bitterly. So it is not a
   sight of the law, it is the sight of Christ looking upon us which will
   break our hearts.

   There is nothing like this to fill you with courage. When Dr. Andrew
   Reed found some difficulties in the founding of one of his orphan
   asylums, he sat down and drew upon a little piece of paper the cross,
   and then he said to himself, "What, despair in the face of the cross?"
   and then he drew a ring round the cross, and wrote in it nil
   desperandum! and took it for his coat of arms. Oh, there cannot be any
   despair in the presence of the cross. Thou dying Lamb, didst thou
   endure the cross, despising the shame, and shall I talk of difficulties
   when thy glory is in the way? God forbid! O holy face, bedewed with
   bloody sweat, I pledge myself in thy solemn and awful presence, that
   though this face of mine should be bedewed with sweat of the like sort,
   to accomplish any labor upon which thou shalt put me; by thy will and
   in thy strength, I will not shrink from the task. A sight of Christ,
   brethren, will keep you from despondency, and doubts, and despair. A
   sight of Christ! How shall I stir you to it? It will fire you to duty;
   it will deliver you from temptation; it will, in fact, make you like
   him. A man is known by his company; and if you have become acquainted
   with Christ, and know him, you will be sure to reflect his light. It is
   because the moon hath converse within the sun, that she hath any light
   for this dark world's night; and if you talk with Christ, the Sun, he
   will shine on you so gloriously, that you. like the moon, shall reflect
   his light, and the dark night of this world shall be enlightened by
   your radiance. The Lord help us to know him.

   But I do seem, this morning, to have been talking to you about him, and
   not to have brought him forward. O that I knew how to introduce you to
   him! You who do not love him, O that I could make you seek after him!
   But you who do love him and have trusted in him, O that I could make
   you hunger and thirst until you were filled with him! There he is,
   nailed to his cross, suffering--oh! how much!--for you; there he is,
   risen, ascended, pleading before the throne of God for you. Here he is:
   "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Here he is,
   waiting to be comforted with your company, desiring communion with you,
   panting that his sister, his spouse, would be no longer a stranger to
   him. Here he is, waiting to be gracious, saying, "Come unto me all ye
   that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Come,
   Christian, come, let this be thy desire, "That I may know him."

   And you who do not know him, and have not loved him, I pray you,
   breathe this prayer with me, " Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." O
   sinner, he is a gentle Christ; line is a loving Savior, and they that
   seek him early shall find him. May you seek and find him, for his
   name's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                  Election no Discouragement to Seeking Souls

   A Sermon

   (No. 553)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, February 7th, 1864, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "I will be gracious upon whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy
   upon whom I will show mercy."--Exodus 33:19.

   BECAUSE GOD IS THE MAKER, and creator, and sustainer of all things, he
   has a right to do as he wills with all his works. "Shall the thing
   formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not
   the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto
   honor, and another unto dishonor?" God's absolute supremacy and
   unlimited sovereignty naturally flow from his omnipotence, and if it
   were not so, the superlative excellence of the divine character would
   entitle him to absolute dominion. He should be chief who is best. He
   who cannot err, being perfect in wisdom; he who will not err, being as
   perfect in holiness; he who can do no wrong, being supremely just; he
   who must act in accordance with the principles of kindness, seeing he
   is essentially love, is the most fitting person to rule. Tell me not of
   the creatures ruling themselves: what a chaos were this! Talk not of a
   supposed republic of all created existences, controlling and guiding
   themselves. All the creatures put together, with their combined wisdom
   and goodness--if, indeed, it were not combined folly and
   wickedness--all these, I say, with all the excellencies of knowledge,
   judgment, and love, which the most fervid imagination can suppose them
   to possess, could not make the equal of that great God whose name is
   holiness, whose essence is love, to whom all power belongeth, and to
   whom alone wisdom is to be ascribed. Let him reign supreme, for he is
   infinitely superior to all other existences. Even if he did not
   actually reign, the suffrages of all wise men would choose the Lord
   Jehovah to be absolute monarch of the universe; and if he were not
   already King of kings and Lord of lords, doing as he wills among the
   armies of heaven and the inhabitants of this lower world, it were the
   path of wisdom to lift him up to that throne. Since men have sinned,
   there becomes a yet further reason, or, rather a wider scope for the
   display of sovereignty. The creature, as a creature, may be supposed to
   have some claim upon the Creator; at least, it may expect that he shall
   not make it intentionally and despotically to put it to pain; that he
   shall not arbitrarily and without cause or necessity, cause its
   existence to be one of misery. I will not venture to judge the Lord,
   but I do think it is altogether incompatible with his goodness that he
   should have made a creature, and, as a creature, have condemned it to
   misery. Justice seems to demand that there shall be no punishment where
   there is no sin. But man has lost all his rights as a creature. If he
   ever had any, he has sinned them away. Our first parents have sinned,
   and we, their children, have attainted ourselves, by high treason
   against our liege lord and sovereign. All that a just God owes to any
   one of us on the footing of our own claim, is wrath and displeasure. If
   he should give to us our due, we should not longer remain on praying
   ground, breathing the air of mercy. The creature, before its Creator,
   must now be silent as to any demands upon him; it cannot require
   anything of him as a matter of right. If the Lord willeth to show
   mercy, it shall be so; but, if he withholds it, who can call him to
   account? "Can I not do as I will with mine own?" is a fit reply to all
   such arrogant enquiries; for man has sinned himself out of court, and
   there remains no right of appeal from the sentence of the Most High.
   Man is now in the position of a condemned criminal, whose only right is
   to be taken to the place of execution, and justly to suffer the due
   reward of his sins. Whatever difference of opinion, then, there might
   have been about the sovereignty of God as exercised upon creatures in
   the pure mass, there should be none, and there will be none, except in
   rebellious spirits, concerning the sovereignty of God over rebels who
   have sinned themselves into eternal ruin, and have lost all claim even
   to the mercy, much more the love of their offended Creator.

   However, whether we all of us agree to the doctrine that God is
   sovereign or not, is a very little matter to him, for he is so. De
   jure, by right, he should be so; de facto, as matter of fact, he is so.
   It is a fact, concerning which you have only to open your eyes and see
   that God acts as a sovereign in the dispensation of his grace. Our
   Saviour, when he wished to quote instances of this, spake on this wise:
   many widows there were in Israel in the time of Elias the prophet, but
   unto none of these was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon,
   unto a woman who was a widow. Here was election! Elias is not sent to
   nourish and to be nourished by an Israelitish widow, but to a poor
   idolatress across the border, the blessing of the prophet's company is
   graciously granted. Again our Saviour says, "Many lepers were in Israel
   in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them were cleansed,
   save only Naaman the Syrian"--not an Israelite at all, but one who
   bowed in the house of Rimmon. See how distinguishing grace finds out
   strange objects! Although our Saviour only gave these two instances,
   and no more, because they sufficed for his purpose, there are thousands
   of such cases on record. Look at man and the fallen angels. How is it
   that fallen angels are condemned to endless fire, and reserved in
   chains of darkness unto the great day? There is no Saviour for angels;
   no precious blood was ever shed for Satan. Lucifer falls, and falls for
   ever, never to hope again. There is no dispensation of mercy to those
   nobler spirits; but man who was made lower than the angels, is selected
   to be the object of divine redemption. What a great deep is here! This
   is a most illustrious and indisputable instance of the exercise of the
   prerogatives of divine sovereignty. Look again at the nations of the
   earth. Why is the gospel preached today, to us Englishmen? We have
   committed as many offenses--I will even venture to say we have
   perpetrated as many political crimes as other nations. Our eye is
   always prejudiced toward everything which is English; but if we read
   our history fairly, we can discover in the past, and detect in the
   present, grave and serious faults which disgrace our national banner.
   To pass by as minor offenses the late barbarities in Japan, and our
   frequent wars of extermination in New Zealand, and at the Cape, let it
   crimson the cheek of every inhabitant of the British Isles when we do
   but hint at the opium traffic with China. Yet to us the gospel is
   graciously sent, so that few nations enjoy it so fully as we do. It is
   true that Prussia and Holland hear the Word, and that Sweden and
   Denmark are comforted by the truth, but their candle burns but dimly;
   it is a poor flickering lamp which cheers their darkness, while in our
   own dear land, partly from the fact of our religious liberty, and yet
   more graciously through the late revival, the sun of the gospel shines
   brightly, and men rejoice in the light of day. Why this? Why no grace
   for the Japanese? Why no gospel preached to the inhabitants of Central
   Africa? Why was not the truth of God displayed in the Cathedral of
   Santiago, instead of the mummeries and follies which disgraced both
   dupes and deceivers, and were the incidental cause of the horrible
   burnings of that modern Tophet? Why today is not Rome, instead of being
   the seat of the beast, become the throne of Jesus Christ? I cannot tell
   you. But assuredly, divine sovereignty passing by many races of men,
   has been pleased to pitch upon the Anglo-Saxon family, that they may be
   as the Jews were aforetime, the custodians of divine truth, and the
   favorites of mighty grace.

   We need not further speak upon national elections, for the principle is
   plainly carried out in individuals. See ye anything, my brethren, in
   that rich publican whose coffers are gorged with the results of his
   extortion, when he climbs the sycamore-tree, that his short stature may
   not prevent his seeing the Saviour--see ye anything in him why the Lord
   of glory should halt beneath that sycamore-tree and say, "Zaccheus,
   make haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house?" Can
   you find me a reason why yonder adulterous woman, who has had five
   husbands, and who is now living with a man who is not her husband,
   should constrain the Saviour to journey through Samaria that he might
   tell her of the water of life? If you can see anything, I cannot. Look
   at that bloodthirsty Pharisee, hurrying to Damascus with authority to
   hail men and women to prison, and shed their blood. The heat of midday
   cannot stop him, for his heart is hotter with religious rage than the
   sun with noontide rays. But see, he is arrested in his career, a
   brightness shines round about him; Jesus speaks from heaven the words
   of tender rebuke; and Saul of Tarsus becomes Paul, the apostle of God.
   Why? Wherefore? What answer can we give but this? "Even so, Father, for
   so it seemed good in thy sight." Read the "Life of John Newton;" had he
   not ripened into the grossest of all villains? Turn to the history of
   John Bunyan, by his own confession the lowest of all blackguards, and
   tell me, can you find in either of these offenders any sort of reason
   why the Lord should have chosen them to be among the most distinguished
   heralds of the cross? No man in his senses will venture to assert that
   there was anything in Newton or Bunyan why they should engross the
   regard of the Most High. It was sovereignty, and nothing but
   sovereignty. Take your own case, dear friends, and that shall be the
   most convincing of all to you. If you know anything of your own heart,
   if you have formed a right estimate of your own character, if you have
   seriously considered your own position before the Most High, the
   reflection that God loveth you with an everlasting love, and that,
   therefore, with the bands of his kindness he has drawn you, will draw
   forth from you at once the exclamation, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
   us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for truth's sake."
   Brethren! the whole world is full of instances of divine sovereignty,
   for in every conversion some beam of the absolute dominion of God
   shines forth upon mankind.

   When a sinner is anxiously disturbed about his soul's affairs, his
   chief and main thought should not be upon this subject; when a man
   would escape from wrath and attain to heaven, his first, his last, his
   middle thought should be the cross of Christ. As an awakened sinner, I
   have vastly less to do with the secret purposes of God, than with his
   revealed commands. For a man to say, "Thou commandest all men to
   repent, yet will I not repent, because I do not know that I am chosen
   to eternal life," is not only unreasonable, but exceedingly wicked.
   That it is unreasonable you will clearly see on a moment's reflection.
   I know that bread does not of itself nourish my body, "For man shall
   not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the
   mouth of God." It depends, therefore, upon God's decree whether that
   bread shall nourish my body or not; for if he has not purposed that it
   shall, it may even choke me, and so become rather the cause of my death
   than the staff of my life. Do I therefore, when I am hungry, thrust my
   hands into my pockets and stand still, and refuse to help myself from
   the well-loaded table, because I do not know whether God has decreed
   that the bread shall nourish me or not? If I did, I should be an idiot
   or madman; or if in my senses, I should starve myself on such a
   pretence, I should richly deserve the burial of a suicide. I am not
   absolutely sure that there will be a harvest upon my field next year:
   unless God has ordained that the corn shall spring up and shall ripen,
   all my husbandry will be labor lost. There are worms in the earth,
   frosts in the air, birds in the sky, mildews in the winds--all of which
   may destroy my corn, and I may lose every single grain of the handsful
   which I throw into my furrows. Shall I, therefore, leave my farm to be
   one perpetual fallow, because I do not know whether God has decreed
   that there shall be a harvest or not next year? If I become a
   bankrupt--if I am unable to pay my rent--if the thorn and the thistle
   grow taller and higher, and if at last, my landlord thrusts me from my
   tenancy, all that men will say, will be, "It serves him
   right!"--because I was such a fool as to make the secret purposes of
   God a matter of paramount consideration, instead of performing my known
   duty. I am ill and sick: a physician comes to me with medicine. I am
   not clear that his medicine will heal me; it has healed a great many
   others, but if God has decreed that I shall die, I shall die, let me
   take any quantity of physic, or take none at all. My arm mortifies, but
   I will not have it cut off, because I do not know whether God has
   decreed that I shall die of mortification or not. Who but a crazed
   idiot, or raving maniac, would talk thus? When I put the case in that
   light, you all reply, "Nobody ever talks in that way; it is too
   absurd." Of course, nobody does. And the fact is, even in the things of
   God, nobody really does argue in that way. A man may say, "I will not
   believe in Christ, because I am afraid I am not elected;" but the thing
   is so stupid, so absurd, that I do not believe that any man, not
   absolutely demented, can be so grossly foolish as to believe in his own
   reasoning. I am far rather inclined to think that is a wicked and
   perverse method of endeavoring to stultify conscience, on the theory
   that a bad excuse is better than none, and that even a foolish argument
   is better than having one's mouth shut in speechless confusion.

   But since men will everlastingly be getting to his point, and there are
   so many who are always giving this as a reason why they do not believe
   in the Lord Jesus Christ, because, "It is not of him that willeth, nor
   of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy," I shall try, this
   morning, to talk with these people on their own ground; and I shall
   endeavor, by the help of the Holy Spirit, to show that the doctrine of
   the sovereignty of God, so far from discouraging anybody, has not in
   it, if regarded aright, any sort of discouragement whatever, for any
   souls believing in Jesus Christ.

   For one moment let me detain you from my object, while I reply to a
   very common method of misrepresenting the doctrine. It may be as well
   to start with a clear idea of what the doctrine really is. Our
   opponents put the case thus: suppose a father should condemn some of
   his children to extreme misery, and make others supremely happy, out of
   his own arbitrary will, would it be right and just? Would it not be
   brutal and detestable? My answer is, of course, it would; it would be
   execrable in the highest degree, and far, very far be it from us to
   impute such a course of action to the Judge of all the earth. But the
   case stated is not at all the one under consideration, but one as
   opposite from it as light from darkness. Sinful man is not now in the
   position of a well-deserving or innocent child, neither does God occupy
   the place of a complacent parent. We will suppose another case far
   nearer the mark, indeed, it is no supposition, but an exact description
   of the whole matter. A number of criminals, guilty of the most
   aggravated and detestable crimes, are righteously condemned to die, and
   die they must, unless the king shall exercise the prerogative vested in
   him, and give them a free pardon. If for good and sufficient reasons,
   known only to himself, the king chooses to forgive a certain number,
   and to leave the rest for execution, is there anything cruel or
   unrighteous here? If, by some wise means, the ends of justice can be
   even better answered by the sparing of the pardoned ones, than by their
   condemnation, while at the same time, the punishment of some tends to
   honor the justice of the lawgiver, who shall dare to find fault? None,
   I venture to say, but those who are the enemies of the state and of the
   king. And so may we well ask, "Is there unrighteousness with God? God
   forbid." "What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power
   known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to
   destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on
   the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us,
   whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?"
   Who is he that shall impugn the mingled mercy and severity of heaven,
   or make the eternal God an offender, because "he hath mercy on whom he
   will have mercy?" Let us now proceed to our proper subject, and
   endeavor to clear this truth from the terrors supposed to cluster
   around it.

   I. Let us begin with this assertion, which we are absolutely sure is
   correct: THIS DOCTRINE DOES NOT OPPOSE ANY COMFORT DERIVED FROM OTHER
   SCRIPTURAL TRUTHS.

   This doctrine, stern as it may seem to be, does not oppose the
   consolation which may be rightly derived from any other truth of
   revelation. Those who hold the free-will theory, say that our doctrine,
   that salvation is of the Lord alone, and that he will have mercy on
   whom he will have mercy, takes away from man the comfort derivable from
   God's goodness. God is good, infinitely good in his nature. God is
   love; he willeth not the death of any, but had rather that all should
   come to repentance. "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in
   the death of him that dieth, but had rather that he should turn unto me
   and live." Our friends very properly insist upon it that God is good to
   all, and his tender mercies are over all his works; that the Lord is
   merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy; let me
   assure them that we shall never quarrel on these points, for we also
   rejoice in the same facts. Some of you have listened to my voice for
   these ten years: I ask you whether you have heard me utter a single
   sentence which at all contradicts the doctrine of God's great goodness?
   You may have so construed it by mistake, but no such teaching has
   passed my lip. Do I not, again and again, assert the universal
   benevolence of God--the infinite and overflowing goodness of the heart
   of the Most High? If any man can preach upon the great text, "God is
   love," though I may not be able to preach with the same eloquence, I
   will venture to view with him in the decision, heartiness, delight,
   earnestness, and plainness, with which he may expound his theme, be he
   who he may, or what he may. There is not the slightest shadow of a
   conflict between God's sovereignty and God's goodness. He may be a
   sovereign, and yet it may be absolutely certain that he will always act
   in the way of goodness and love. It is true that he will do as he
   wills; and yet it is quite certain that he always wills to do that
   which, in the widest view of it, is good and gracious. If the sons of
   sorrow fetch any comfort from the goodness of God, the doctrine of
   election will never stand in their way. Only mark, it does with a
   two-edged sword cut to pieces that false confidence in God's goodness
   which sends so many souls to hell. We have heard dying men singing
   themselves into the bottomless pit with this lullaby, "Yes, sir, I am a
   sinner, but God is merciful; God is good." Ah! dear friends, let such
   remember that God is just as well as good, and that he will by no means
   spare the guilty, except through the great atonement of his Son Jesus
   Christ. The doctrine of election, in a most blessedly honest manner
   does come in, and breaks the neck, once for all, of all this false and
   groundless confidence in the uncovenanted mercy of God. Sinner, you
   have no right to trust to the goodness of God out of Christ. There is
   no word in the whole Book of Inspiration, which gives the shadow of a
   hope to the man who will not believe in Jesus Christ. It says of him,
   "He that believeth not shall be damned." It declares of you, who are
   resting upon such a poor confidence as the unpromised favor of heaven,
   "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ
   the righteous." If this be an evil to rob you of a false refuge, the
   doctrine of election certainly does this; but from the comfort properly
   derivable from the largest view of God's bounteous goodness and
   unlimited love, election does not detract a single grain.

   Much comfort, too, flows to a troubled conscience from the promise that
   God will hear prayer. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye
   shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you, for every one that
   asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh
   it shall be opened." If you ask anything of God in the name of Jesus
   Christ, you shall receive it. Now, there are some who imagine that they
   must not pray because they do not know whether they are God's chosen
   people. If you refuse to pray on the ground of such bad reasoning as
   this, you must do so at your own expense; but do mark our solemn
   assurance, for which we have God's warrant, that there is nothing in
   the sovereignty of God which at all militates against the great truth,
   that every sincerely seeking soul, craving divine grace by humble
   prayer through Jesus Christ, shall be a finder. There may be an
   Arminian brother here who would like to get into this pulpit and preach
   the cheering truth, that God hath not said to the seed of Jacob, seek
   ye my face in vain. We not only accord him full liberty to preach this
   doctrine, but we will go as far as he can, and perhaps a little
   further, in the enunciation of that truth. We cannot perceive any
   discrepancy between personal election and the prevalence of prayer. Let
   those who can, vex their brains with the task of reconciling them; to
   us the wonder is how a man can believe the one without the other.
   Firmly must I believe that the Lord God will show mercy to whom he will
   show mercy, and have compassion on whom he will have compassion; but I
   know as assuredly that wherever there is a genuine prayer, God gave it;
   that wherever there is a seeker, God made him seek; consequently if God
   has made the man seek and made the man pray, there is evidence at once
   of divine election; and the fact stands true that none seek who shall
   not find.

   Very much comfort also is supposed to be derived, and naturally so,
   from the free invitations of the gospel. "Ah," cries one, "what a sweet
   thing it is that the Saviour cried, Come unto me all ye that labor and
   are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' How delightful to read such
   a word as this, Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,
   and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine
   and milk without money and without price,' Sir, my heart is encouraged
   when I find it written, Whosoever will, let him take the water of life
   freely.' But, sir, I dare not come because of the doctrine of
   election." My dear hearer, I would not say anything harshly to you, but
   I must express my conviction that this is nothing but an idle excuse
   for not doing what you have no mind to do; because invitations of the
   most general character, nay, invitations which shall be universal in
   their scope, are perfectly consistent with the election of God. I have
   preached here, you know it, invitations as free as those which
   proceeded from the lips of Master John Wesley. Van Armin himself, the
   founder of the Arminian school, could not more honestly have pleaded
   with the very vilest of the vile to come to Jesus than I have done.
   Have I therefore felt in my mind that there was a contradiction here?
   No, nothing of the kind; because I know it to be my duty to sow beside
   all waters, and like the sower in the parable, to scatter the seed upon
   the stony ground, as well as upon the good land, knowing that election
   does not narrow the gospel call which is universal, but only affects
   the effectual call, which is and must be from the Spirit of God. My
   business is to give the general call, the Holy Spirit will see to its
   application to the chosen. O my dear hearers, God's invitations are
   honest invitations to every one of you. He invites you; in the words of
   the parable he addresses, "All things are ready; come ye to the supper,
   my oxen and my fatlings are killed." Nay, he saith to his ministers,
   "Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in."
   Though he foreknows who will come in, and has before all worlds
   ordained who shall taste of that supper, yet the invitation in its
   widest possible range, is a true and honest one; and if you accept it
   you shall find it so.

   Furthermore, if we understand the gospel at all, the gospel lies in a
   nutshell. It is this:--"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
   shalt be saved." Or, to use Christ's words, "He that believeth and is
   baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned."
   This promise is the gospel. Now, the gospel is true, whatever else may
   be false. Whatever doctrine may or may not be of God, the gospel
   certainly is. The doctrine of sovereign grace is not contrary to the
   gospel, but perfectly consonant therewith. God has a people whom no man
   shall number, whom he hath ordained unto eternal life. This is, by no
   means, in conflict with the great declaration, "He that believeth on
   him is not condemned." If any man who ever lived, or ever shall live,
   believes in Jesus Christ, he hath eternal life. Election or no
   election, if you are resting upon the rock of ages you are saved. If
   you, as a guilty sinner, take the righteousness of Christ--if all
   black, and foul, and filthy, you come to wash in the fountain filled
   with blood, sovereignty or no sovereignty, rest assured of this, that
   you are redeemed from the wrath to come. O my dear friends, when you
   say, "I will not believe in Christ because of election," I can only say
   as Job did to his wife, "Thou speakest as one of the foolish women
   speaketh." How dare you, because God reveals to you two things, which
   two things you cannot make square with one another--how dare you charge
   either the one or the other with being false? If I believe God, I am
   not only to believe what I can understand, but what I cannot
   understand; and if there were a revelation which I could comprehend and
   sum up as I may count five upon my fingers, I should be sure it did not
   come from God. But if it has some depths vastly too deep for me--some
   knots which I cannot untie--some mysteries which I cannot solve--I
   receive it with the greater confidence, because it now gives me
   swimming-room for my faith, and my soul bathes herself in the great sea
   of God's wisdom, praying, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

   Let it be said over and over again, that there shall be no doubt about
   this matter, that if there be any comfort derivable from the gospel; if
   there be any sweet consolation flowing from the free invitations and
   the universal commands of divine truth, all those may be received and
   enjoyed by you, while you hold this doctrine of divine sovereignty as
   much as if you did not hold it, and received some wider scheme.
   Methinks I hear one voice say, "Sir, the only comfort I can ever have
   lies in the infinite value of the precious blood of Christ; O sir, it
   seems to me such a sweet thing that there is no sinner so black that
   Christ cannot wash away his sins, and no sinner so old that the
   meritorious virtue of that atonement cannot meet his case--not one in
   any rank or in any condition whom that blood cannot cleanse from all
   sin. Now, sir, if that be true, how can the doctrine of election be
   true?" My dear friend, you know in your own heart that the two things
   are not opposed to each other at all. For what does the doctrine of
   election say? It says that God has chosen and has saved some of the
   greatest sinners who ever lived, has cleansed some of the foulest sins
   ever committed, and that he is doing and will do the same to the
   world's end. So that the two things exactly tally. And I will venture
   to say that if in the fulness of a man's heart he shall say, "There is
   no sin except the one excepted sin, which cannot be forgiven," if he
   boldly announce that "All manner of sin shall be forgiven unto men,"
   and if he shall plead with power and earnestness that souls would now
   come to Christ and lay hold upon eternal life, he may go back to his
   Bible, and he may read every text teaching the sovereignty of God, and
   every passage upholding divine election; nd he may feel that all these
   texts look him in the face, and say, "Well done, our spirit and your
   spirit are precisely the same; we have no conflict together; we are two
   great truths which came from the same God; we are alike the revelation
   of the Holy Ghost." But we leave that point. If there be any comfort,
   sinner, which you can truthfully and rightly get from any passage of
   Scripture, from any promise of God, from any invitation, from any open
   door of mercy, you may have it, for the doctrine of election does not
   rob you of one atom of the consolation which the truth of God can
   afford you.

   II. But now will take another point for a moment. Our second head is,
   that THIS DOCTRINE HAS A MOST SALUTARY EFFECT UPON SINNERS. These may
   be divided into two classes: those who are awakened, and those who are
   hardened and incorrigible.

   To the awakened sinner, next to the doctrine of the cross, the doctrine
   of distinguishing grace is perhaps the most fraught with blessings and
   comfort. In the first place, the doctrine of election, applied by the
   Holy Ghost, strikes dead for ever all the efforts of the flesh. It is
   the end of Arminian preaching to make men active, to excite them to do
   what they can; but the very end and object of gospel preaching is to
   make men feel that they have no power of their own, and to lay them as
   dead, at the foot of God's throne. We seek, under God, to make them
   feel that all their strength must lie in the Strong One who is mighty
   to save. If I can convince a man that, let him do what he may, he
   cannot save himself; if I can show him that his own prayers and tears
   can never save him apart from the Spirit of God; if I can convince him
   that he must be born again from above; if I lead him to see that all
   which is born of the flesh is flesh, and only that which is born of the
   spirit is spirit, brethren! three parts of the great battle are already
   won. "I kill and I make alive," saith God: "when a man is killed the
   work is half done." "I wound and I heal: when a man is wounded his
   salvation is commenced." What! am I to set a sinner industriously to
   labor after eternal life by his own works? Then, indeed, am I an
   ambassador of hell. Am I to teach him that there is a goodness in him
   which he is to evolve, to polish, and educate and perfect, and so to
   save himself? Then I am a teacher of the beggarly elements of the law
   and not the gospel of Christ. Are we to set forth man's prayers,
   repentings, and humblings as the way of salvation; if so, let us
   renounce the righteousness of Christ at once, for the two will never
   stand together! I am a mischief-maker if I excite the activities of the
   flesh instead of pointing to the arms of the Redeemer! But if the
   potent hammer of electing sovereignty dashes out the brains of all a
   man's works, merits, doings, and willings, while it pronounces over the
   dead carcass this sentence: "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him
   that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy;" then, the best thing is
   done for a sinner that can be done as a stepping-stone to the act of
   faith. When a man is weaned from self, and totally delivered from
   looking to the flesh for help, there is hope for him: and this the
   doctrine of divine sovereignty does through the Holy Spirit's power.

   Again, this doctrine gives the greatest hope to the really awakened
   sinner. You know how the case stands. We are all prisoners condemned to
   die. God, as sovereign, has a right to pardon whom he pleases. Now,
   imagine a number of us shut up in a condemned cell, all guilty. One of
   the murderers says within himself: "I know that I have no reason to
   expect to be delivered. I am not rich: if I had some rich relations,
   like George Townley, I might be found insane, and delivered. But I am
   very poor; I am not educated. If I had the education of some men I
   might expect some consideration. I am not a man of rank and position; I
   am a man without merit or influence, therefore I cannot expect that I
   should be selected as one to be saved." No, I believe that if the
   present authorities of our land were the persons to be taken into
   consideration, a man who was poor might have a very poor chance of
   expecting any gratuitous deliverance. But when God is the great
   sovereign the case is different. For then, we argue thus: "Here am I;
   my salvation depends entirely upon the will of God: is there a chance
   for me? We take down a list of those whom he has saved, and we find
   that he saves the poor, the illiterate, the wicked, the godless, and
   the worst of the worst, the base things, and things that are despised.
   Well, what do we say? Then, why may he not choose me? Why not save me?
   If I am to look for some reason in myself why I should be saved, I
   shall never find any, and consequently never shall have a hope. But if
   I am to be saved for no reason at all but that God wills to save me,
   ah! then there is hope for me. I will to the gracious King approach, I
   will do as he bids me, I will trust in his dear Son, and I shall be
   saved." So that this doctrine opens the door of hope to the worst of
   the worst, and the only persons it discourages are the Pharisees, who
   say: "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are"--those proud,
   haughty spirits who say: "No! if I am not to be saved for something
   good in myself, then I will be damned!" as damned they will be with a
   vengeance, too.

   Moreover, do not you see, dear friends, how the doctrine of election
   comforts the sinner in the matter of power. His complaint is, "I find I
   have no power to believe; I have no spiritual power of any kind."
   Election stoops down and whispers in his ear--"But if God wills to save
   you, he gives the power, gives the life, and gives the grace; and
   therefore since he has given that power and might to others as weak as
   you, why not to you? Have courage, look to the cross of Christ and
   live." And oh! what emotions of gratitude, what throbbings of love does
   this doctrine cause in human hearts. "Why," saith the man, "I am saved
   simply because God would save me, not because I deserved it, but
   because his loving heart would save me; then, I will love him, I will
   live to him, I will spend and be spent for him." Such a man cannot be
   proud, I mean not consistently with the doctrine. He lies humbly at
   God's feet. Other men may boast of what they are, and how they have own
   eternal life by their own goodness, but I cannot. If God had left me, I
   had been in hell with others; and if I go to heaven, I must cast my
   crown at the feet of the grace which brought me there. Such a man will
   become kind to others. He will hold his opinions, but he will not hold
   them savagely, nor teach them bitterly, because he will say, "If I have
   light, and others have not, my light was given me from God, therefore,
   I have no cause to plume myself upon it. I will try to spread that
   light, but not by anger and abuse. For why should I blame those who
   cannot see, for could I have seen if God had not opened my blind eyes?"
   Every virtue this doctrine fosters, and every vice it kills, when the
   Holy Spirit so uses it. Pride it treads under foot, and humble,
   trustful confidence in the mercy of God in Christ, it cherishes as a
   darling child.

   My time is gone; but I wanted to have said a word as to the effect of
   this gospel upon incorrigible sinners. I will just say this: I know
   what the effect of it ought to be. What do you say who have made up
   your minds not to repent, you who care not for God? Why, you believe
   that any day you like you can turn to God, since God is merciful, and
   will save you; and therefore, you walk about the world as comfortably
   as possible, thinking it all depends upon you, and that you will get
   into heaven just at the eleventh hour. Ah! man, that is not your case.
   See where you are. Do you see that moth fluttering in my hand! Imagine
   it to be there. With this finger of mine I can crush it--in a moment.
   Whether it shall live or not depends absolutely upon whether I choose
   to crush it or let it go. That is precisely your position at the
   present moment. God can damn you now. Nay, let us say to you, "Yours is
   a worse position than that." There are some seven persons now doomed
   for murder and piracy on the high seas. You can clearly say that their
   lives depend upon Her Majesty's pleasure. If Her Majesty chooses to
   pardon them she can. If not, when the fatal morning comes, the bolt
   will be drawn and they will be launched into eternity. That is your
   case, sinner. You are condemned already. This world is but one huge
   condemned cell in which you are kept, until the execution morning
   comes. If you are ever to be pardoned, God must do it. You cannot
   escape from him by flight; you cannot bribe him by actions of your own.
   You are absolutely in the hand of God, and if he leaves you where you
   are and as you are, your eternal ruin is as certain as your existence.
   Now, does not this make some sort of trembling come upon you? Perhaps
   not; it makes you angry. Well, if it does, that will not frighten me,
   because there are some of you who will never be good for anything until
   you are angry. I believe it is no ill sign when some persons are angry
   with the truth. It shows that the truth has pierced them. If an arrow
   penetrates my flesh, I do not like the arrow, and if you kick and
   struggle against this truth, it will not alarm me; I shall have some
   hope that a wound is made. If this truth should provoke you to think,
   it will have done for some of you one of the greatest things in the
   world. It is not your perverse thinking which frightens me; it is the
   utterly thoughtless way in which you go on. If you had sense enough to
   consider these things and fight against them, I should then have some
   faint hope of you. But alas! many of you have not sense enough, you
   say, "Yes, yes, it is all true," you accept it, but then it has no
   effect upon you. The gospel rolls over you, like oil adown a slab of
   marble, and produces no effect.

   If you are at all right in heart, you will begin to see what your state
   is, and the next thing that will startle your mind will be the
   reflection: "Is it so? am I absolutely in God's hands? can he save me
   or damn me as he will? Then, I will cry to him, O God, save me from the
   wrath to come--from eternal torment--from banishment from thy presence.
   Save me, O God! What wouldst thou have me to do? Oh! what wouldst thou
   have me to do, that I may find thy favor and live?'" Then comes the
   answer to you:--"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
   saved;" for "whosoever believeth in him shall never perish, but shall
   have eternal life."

   O that God might bless this divine doctrine to you. I have never
   preached this doctrine without conversions, and I believe I never
   shall. At this moment God will cause his truth to attract your hearts
   to Jesus, or to affright you to him. May you be drawn as the bird is
   drawn by the lure, or may you be driven as a dove is hunted by the hawk
   into the clefts of the rock. Only may you be sweetly compelled to come.
   May my Lord fulfill this desire of my heart. O that God may grant me
   your souls for my hire; and to him shall be the glory, world without
   end. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              Enduring to the End

   A Sermon

   (No. 554)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, February 14th, 1864, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "He that endureth to the end shall be saved."--Matthew 10:22.

   THIS PARTICULAR TEXT was originally addressed to the apostles when they
   were sent to teach and preach in the name of the Lord Jesus. Perhaps
   bright visions floated before their minds, of honor and esteem among
   men. It was no mean dignity to be among the twelve first heralds of
   salvation to the sons of Adam. Was a check needed to their high hopes?
   Perhaps so. Lest they should enter upon their work without having
   counted its cost, Christ gives them a very full description of the
   treatment which they might expect to receive, and reminds them that it
   was not the commencement of their ministry which would win them their
   reward, but "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." It
   would be well if every youthful aspirant to the gospel ministry would
   remember this, if merely to put our hand to the plough proved us to be
   called of God, how many would he found so; but alas, too many look back
   and prove unworthy of the kingdom. The charge of Paul to Timothy, is a
   very necessary exhortation to every young minister: "Be thou faithful
   unto death." It is not to be faithful for a time, but to be "faithful
   unto death," which will enable a man to say, "I have fought a good
   fight." How many dangers surround the Christian minister! As the
   officers in an army are the chosen targets of the sharpshooters, so are
   the ministers of Christ. The king of Syria said to his servants, "Fight
   neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel;" even
   so the arch-fiend makes his main attack upon the ministers of God. From
   the first moment of his call to the work, the preacher of the Word will
   be familiar with temptation. While he is yet in his youth, there are
   multitudes of the softer temptations to turn the head and trip the feet
   of the youthful herald of the cross; and when the blandishments of
   early popularity have passed away, as soon they must, the harsh croak
   of slander, and the adder's tongue of ingratitude assail him, he finds
   himself stale and fiat where once he was flattered and admired; nay,
   the venom of malice succeeds to the honeyed morsels of adulation. Now,
   let him gird his loins and fight the good fight of faith. In his after
   days, to provide fresh matter Sabbath after Sabbath, to rule as in the
   sight of God, to watch over the souls of men, to weep with them who
   weep, to rejoice with those who do rejoice, to be a nursing father unto
   young converts, sternly to rebuke hypocrites, to deal faithfully with
   backsliders, to speak with solemn authority and paternal pathos to
   those who are in the first stages of spiritual decline, to carry about
   with him the care of the souls of hundreds, is enough to make him grow
   old while yet he is young, and to mar his visage with the lines of
   grief, till, like the Savior, at the age of thirty years, men shall
   count him nearly fifty. "Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast
   thou seen Abraham?" said the adversaries of Christ to him when he was
   but thirty-two. If the minister should fall, my brethren; if, set upon
   a pinnacle, he should be cast down; if, standing in slippery places, he
   should falter; if the standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may,
   what mischief is done to the Church, what shouts are heard among the
   adversaries, what dancings are seen among the daughters of Philistia!
   How hath God's banner been stained in the dust, and the name of Jesus
   cast into the mire! When the minister of Christ turns traitor, it is as
   if the pillars of the house did tremble; every stone in the structure
   feels the shock. If Satan can succeed in overturning the preachers of
   the Word, it is as if yon broad-spreading tree should suddenly fall
   beneath the axe; prone in the dust it lies to wither and to rot; but
   where are the birds of the air which made their nests among its boughs,
   and whither fly those beasts of the field which found a happy shadow
   beneath its branches? Dismay hath seized them, and they flee in
   affright. All who were comforted by the preacher's word, strengthened
   by his example, and edified by his teaching, are filled with
   humiliation and grief, crying, "Alas! my brother." By these our
   manifold dangers and weighty responsibilities, we may very justly
   appeal to you who feed under our ministry, and beseech you, "Brethren,
   pray for us." Well, we know that though our ministry be received of the
   Lord Jesus, if hitherto we have been kept faithful by the power of the
   Holy Ghost, yet it is only he who endureth to the end who shall be
   saved.

   But, my brethren, how glorious is the sight of the man who does endure
   to the end as a minister of Christ. I have photographed upon my heart
   just now, the portrait of one very, very dear to me, and I think I may
   venture to produce a rough sketch of him, as no mean example of how
   honorable it is to endure to the end. This man began while yet a youth
   to preach the Word. Sprung of ancestors who had loved the Lord and
   served his Church, he felt the glow of holy enthusiasm. Having proved
   his capabilities, he entered college, and after the close of its
   course, settled in a spot where for more than fifty years he continued
   his labors. In his early days, his sober earnestness and sound doctrine
   were owned of God in many conversions both at home and abroad. Assailed
   by slander and abuse, it was his privilege to live it all down. He
   outlived his enemies, and though he had buried a generation of his
   friends, yet he found many warm hearts clustering round him to the
   last. Visiting his flock, preaching in his own pulpit, and making very
   many journeys to other Churches, years followed one another so rapidly,
   that he found himself the head of a large tribe of children and
   grandchildren, most of them walking in the truth. At the age of
   fourscore years, he preached on still, until laden with infirmities,
   but yet as joyful and as cheerful as in the heyday of his youth, his
   time had come to die. He was able to say truthfully, when last he spake
   to me, "I do not know that my testimony for God has ever altered, as to
   the fundamental doctrines; I have grown in experience, but from the
   first day until now, I have had no new doctrines to teach my hearers. I
   have had to make no confessions of error on vital points, but have been
   held fast to the doctrines of grace, and can now say that I love them
   better than ever." Such an one was he, as Paul, the aged, longing to
   preach so long as his tottering knees could bear him to the pulpit. I
   am thankful that I had such a grandsire. He fell asleep in Christ but a
   few hours ago, and on his dying bed talked as cheerfully as men can do
   in the full vigor of their health. Most sweetly he talked of the
   preciousness of Christ, and chiefly of the security of the believer;
   the truthfulness of the promise; the immutability of the covenant; the
   faithfulness of God, and the infallibility of the divine decree. Among
   other things which he said at the last was this, which is, we think,
   worth your treasuring in your memories. "Dr Watts sings--

   'Firm as the earth thy gospel stands,

   My Lord, my hope, my trust.'

   What, Doctor, is it not firmer than that? Could you not find a better
   comparison? Why, the earth will give way beneath our feet one day or
   another, if we rest on it. The comparison will not do. The Doctor was
   much nearer the mark, when he said--

   "Firm as his throne his promise stands,

   And he can well secure

   What I've committed to his hands.

   'Till the decisive hour.'"

   "Firm as his throne," said he, "he must cease to be king before he can
   break his promise, or lose his people. Divine sovereignty makes us all
   secure." He fell asleep right quietly, for his day was over, and the
   night was come, what could he do better than go to rest in Jesus? Would
   God it may be our lot to preach the Word, so long as we breathe,
   standing fast unto the end in the truth of God; and if we see not our
   sons and grandsons testifying to those doctrines which are so dear to
   us, yet may we see our children walking in the truth. I know of
   nothing, dear friends, which I would choose to have, as the subject of
   my ambition for life, than to be kept faithful to my God to death,
   still to be a soul-winner, still to be a true herald of the cross, and
   testify the name of Jesus to the last hour. It is only such who in the
   ministry shall be saved.

   Our text, however, occurs again in the twenty-fourth chapter of
   Matthew, at the fourteenth verse, upon which occasion it was not
   addressed to the apostles, but to the disciples. The disciples, looking
   upon the huge stones which were used in the construction of the Temple,
   admired the edifice greatly, and expected their Lord to utter a few
   words of passing encomium; instead of which, he, who came not to be an
   admirer of architecture, but to hew living stones out of the quarry of
   nature, to build them up into a spiritual temple turned their remarks
   to practical account, by warning them of a time of affliction, in which
   there should be such trouble as had never been before, and he added,
   "No, nor ever shall be." He described false prophets as abounding, and
   the love of many as waxing cold, and warned them that "He that endureth
   to the end, the same shall be saved." So that this solemn truth applies
   to every one of you.

   The Christian man, though not called to the post of danger in
   witnessing publicly of the grace of God, is destined in his measure to
   testify concerning Jesus, and in his proper sphere and place, to be a
   burning and a shining light. He may not have the cares of a Church, but
   he hath far more, the cares of business: he is mixed up with the world;
   he is compelled to associate with the ungodly. To a great degree, he
   must, at least six days in the week, walk in an atmosphere uncongenial
   with his nature: he is compelled to hear words which will never provoke
   him to love and good works, and to behold actions whose example is
   obnoxious. He is exposed to temptations of every sort and size, for
   this is the lot of the followers of the Lamb. Satan knows how useful is
   a consistent follower of the Savior, and how much damage to Christ's
   cause an inconsistent professor may bring, and therefore he emptieth
   out all his arrows from his quiver that he may wound, even unto death,
   the soldier of the cross. My brethren, many of you have had a far
   longer experience than myself; you know how stern is the battle of the
   religious life, how you must contend, even unto blood, striving against
   sin. Your life is one continued scene of warfare, both without and
   within; perhaps even now you are crying with the apostle, " wretched
   man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" A
   Christian's career is always fighting, never ceasing; always ploughing
   the stormy sea, and never resting till he reaches the port of glory. If
   my God shall preserve you, as preserve you he must, or else you are not
   his; if he shall keep you, as keep you he will if you have committed
   your souls to his faithful guardianship, what an honor awaits you! I
   have in my mind's eye, just now, one who has been for about sixty years
   associated with this Church, and who this week, full of years, and ripe
   for heaven, was carried by angels into the Savior's bosom. Called by
   divine grace, while yet young, he was united with the Christian Church
   early in life. By divine grace, he was enabled to maintain a consistent
   and honorable character for many years; as an officer of this Church,
   he was acceptable among his brethren, and useful both by his godly
   example and sound judgment; while in various parts of the Church of
   Christ, he earned unto himself a good degree. He went last Sabbath day,
   twice to the house of God where he was accustomed of late years to
   worship, enjoying the Word, and feasting at the Communion-table with
   much delight. He went to his bed without having any very serious
   illness upon him, having spent his last evening upon earth in cheerful
   conversation with his daughters. Ere the morning light, with his head
   leaning upon his hand, he had fallen asleep in Christ, having been
   admitted to the rest which remaineth for the people of God. As I think
   of my brother, though of late years I have seen but little of him, I
   can but rejoice in the grace which illuminated his pathway. When I saw
   him, the week before his departure, although full of years, there was
   little or no failure in mind. He was just the picture of an aged saint
   waiting for his Master, and willing to work in his cause while life
   remained. I refer, as most of you know, to Mr. Samuel Gale. Let us
   thank God and take courage--thank God that he has preserved in this
   case, a Christian so many, many years, and take courage to hope that
   there will be found in this Church, many, at all periods, whose grey
   heads shall be crowns of glory. "He that endureth to the end," and only
   he "shall be saved."

   But, dear friends, perseverance is not the lot of the few; it is not
   left to laborious preachers of the Word, or to consistent
   Church-officers, it is the common lot of every believer in the Church.
   It must be so, for only thus can they prove that they are believers. It
   must be so, for only by their perseverance can the promise be
   fulfilled, "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved." Without
   perseverance, they cannot be saved; and, as saved they must be,
   persevere they shall through divine grace.

   I shall now, with brevity and earnestness, as God enables me, speak
   upon our text thus: perseverance is the badge of saints--the target of
   our foes--the glory of Christ--and the care of all believers.

   I. First, then, PERSEVERANCE IS THE BADGE OF TRUE SAINTS. It is their
   Scriptural mark. How am I to know a Christian? By his words? Well, to
   some degree, words betray the man; but a man's speech is not always the
   copy of his heart, for with smooth language many are able to deceive.
   What doth our Lord say? "Ye shall know them by their fruits." But how
   am I to know a man's fruits? By watching him one day? I may, perhaps,
   form a guess of his character by being with him for a single hour, but
   I could not confidently pronounce upon a man's true state even by being
   with him for a week. George Whitfield was asked what he thought of a
   certain person's character. "I have never lived with him," was his very
   proper answer. If we take the run of a man's life, say for ten, twenty,
   or thirty years, and, if by carefully watching, we see that he brings
   forth the fruits of grace through the Holy Spirit, our conclusion may
   be drawn very safely. As the truly magnetized needle in the compass,
   with many deflections, yet does really and naturally point to the pole;
   so, if I can see that despite infirmities, my friend sincerely and
   constantly aims at holiness, then I may conclude with something like
   certainty, that he is a child of God. Although works do not justify a
   man before God, they do justify a luau's profession before his fellows.
   I cannot tell whether you are justified in calling yourself a Christian
   except by your works; by your works, therefore, as James saith, shall
   ye be justified. You cannot by your words convince me that you are a
   Christian, much less by your experience, which I cannot see but must
   take on trust from you; but your actions will, unless you be an
   unmitigated hypocrite, speak the truth, and speak the truth loudly too.
   If your course is as the shining light which shineth more unto the
   perfect day, I know that yours is the path of the just. All other
   conclusions are only the judgment of charity such as we are bound to
   exercise; but this is as far as man can get it, the judgment of
   certainty when a man's life has been consistent through out.

   Moreover, analogy shows us that it is perseverance which must mark the
   Christian. How do I know the winner at the foot-race? There are the
   spectators, and there are the runners. What strong men! what
   magnificent muscles! what thews and sinews! Yonder is the goal, and
   there it is that I must judge who is the winner, not here, at the
   starting-point, for "They which run in a race run all, but one
   receiveth the prize." I may select this one, or that other person, as
   likely to win, but I cannot be absolutely sure until the race is over.
   There they fly! see how they press forward with straining muscles; but
   one has tripped, another faints, a third is out of breath, and others
   are far behind. One only wins--and who is he? Why, he who continueth to
   the end, So I may gather from the analogy, which Paul constantly allows
   us, from the ancient games, that only he who continueth till he reaches
   the goal may be accounted a Christian at all. A ship starts on a voyage
   to Australia--if it stops at Madeira, or returns after reaching the
   Cape, would you consider that it ought to be called an emigrant ship
   for New South Wales? It must go the whole voyage, or it does not
   deserve the name. A man has begun to build a house, and has erected one
   side of it--do you consider him a builder if he stops there, and fails
   to cover it in or to finish the other walls? Do we give men praise for
   being warriors because they know how to make one desperate charge, but
   lose the campaign? Have we not, of late, smiled at the boasting
   despatches of commanders, in fights where both combatants fought with
   valor, and yet neither of them had the common sense to push on to reap
   the victory? What was the very strength of Wellington, but that when a
   triumph had been achieved, he knew how to reap the harvest which had
   been sown in blood? And he only is a true conqueror, and shall be
   crowned at the last, who continueth till war's trumpet is blown no
   more. It is with a Christian as it was with the great Napoleon: he
   said, "Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest must maintain me."
   So, under God, conquest has made you what you are, and conquest must
   sustain you. Your motto must be, "Excelsior;" or, if it be not, you
   know not the noble spirit of God's princes. But why do I multiply
   illustrations, when all the world rings with the praise of
   perseverance?

   Moreover, the common-sense judgment of mankind tells us, that those who
   merely begin and do not hold out, will not be saved. Why, if every man
   would be saved who began to follow Christ, who would be damned? In such
   a country as this, the most of men have at least one religious spasm in
   their lives. I suppose that there is not a person before me, who at
   some time or other did not determine to be a pilgrim. You, Mr. Pliable,
   were induced by a Christian friend, who had some influence with you, to
   go with him some short way, till you came to the Slough of Despond, and
   you thought yourself very wise when you scrambled out on that side
   which was nearest to your own home. And even you, Mr. Obstinate, are
   not always dogged; you have fits of thoughtfulness and intervals of
   tenderness. My hearer, how impressed you were at the prayer meeting!
   how excited you were at that revival service! When you heard a zealous
   brother preach at the theater what an impression was produced! Ah! yes;
   the shop was shut up for a Sunday or two; you did not swear or get
   drunk for nearly a month, but you could not hold on any longer. Now, if
   those who were to begin were saved, why you would be secure, though you
   are at the present time as far from anything like religion, as the
   darkness at midnight is from the blazing light of midday. Besides,
   common sense shows us, I say, that a man must hold on, or else he
   cannot be saved, because the very worst of men are those who begin and
   then give up. If you would turn over all the black pages of villany, to
   find the name of the son of perdition, where would you find it? Why,
   among the apostles. The man who had wrought miracles and preached the
   gospel, sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver--Judas Iscariot,
   betrays the Son of Man with a kiss. Where is a worse name than that of
   Simon Magus? Simon "believed also," says the Scripture, and yet he
   offered the apostles money if they would sell to him the Holy Ghost.
   What an infamous notoriety Demas has obtained, who loved the present
   evil world! How much damage did Alexander the coppersmith do to Paul?
   "He did me much evil," said he, "the Lord reward him according to his
   works." And yet that Alexander was once foremost in danger, and even
   exposed his own person in the theater at Ephesus, that he might rescue
   the apostle. There are none so bad as those who once seemed to be good.
   "If the salt has lost its savor, wherewith shall it be seasoned?" That
   which is best when ripe, is worst when rotten; liquor which is sweetest
   in one stage, becomes sourest in another. Let not him that putteth on
   his armor boast as though he putteth it off; for even common sense
   teaches you, that it is not to begin, but to continue to the end which
   marks the time of the child of God.

   But we need not look to analogy and to mere common sense. Scripture is
   plain enough. What says John? "They went out from us." Why? Were they
   ever saints? Oh! no--"They went out from us, because they were not of
   us, for if they had been of us, doubtless they would have continued
   with us, but they went out from us, that it might be manifest that they
   were not of us." They were no Christians, or else they had not thus
   apostatized. Peter saith, "It hath happened unto them according to the
   proverb, the dog hath returned to its vomit, and the sow that was
   washed to her wallowing in the mire," indicating at once most clearly
   that the dog, though it did vomit, always was a dog. When men disgorge
   their sins unwillingly, not giving them up because they dislike them,
   but because they cannot retain them; if a favorable time comes, they
   will return to swallow once more what they seemed to abandon. The sow
   that was washed--ay, bring it into the parlour, introduce it among
   society; it was washed, and well-washed too; whoever saw so respectable
   a member of the honorable confraternity of swine before? Bring it in!
   Yes, but will you keep it there? Wait and see. Because you have not
   transformed it into a man, on the first occasion it will be found
   wallowing in the mire. Why? Because it was not a man, but a sow. And so
   we think we may learn from multitudes of other passages, if we had time
   to quote them, that those who go back into perdition are not saints at
   all, for perseverance is the badge of the righteous. "The righteous
   shalt hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger
   and stronger." We not only get life by faith, but faith sustains it;
   "the just shall live by faith;" "but if any man draw back, my soul
   shall have no pleasure in him."

   What we have learned from Scripture, dear friends, has been abundantly
   confirmed by observation. Every day would I bless God that in so
   numerous a Church we have comparatively so few who have proved false;
   but I have seen enough, and the Lord knoweth, more than enough, to make
   me very jealous over you with a godly jealousy. I could tell of many an
   instance of men and women who did ran well. "What did hinder them that
   they should not obey the truth?" I remember a young man of whom I
   thought as favourably as of any of you, and I believe he did at that
   time deserve our favorable judgment. He walked among us, one of the
   most hopeful of our sons, and we hoped that God would make him
   serviceable to his cause. He fell into bad company. There was enough
   conscience left, after a long course of secret sin, to make him feel
   uncomfortable in his wickedness, though he did not give it up; and when
   at last his sin stared him in the face, and others knew it, so ashamed
   was he, that, though he bore the Christian name, he took poison that he
   might escape the shame which he had brought upon himself. He was
   rescued--rescued by skill and the good providence of God; but where he
   is, and what he is, God only knoweth, for he had taken another poison
   more deadly still which made him the slave of his own lusts.

   Do not think it is the young alone, however. It is a very lamentable
   fact that there are, in proportion, more backslidings among the old
   than the young; and, if you want to find a great sinner in that
   respect, you will find him, surely, nine times out of ten, with grey
   hairs on his head. Have I not frequently mentioned that you do not find
   in Scripture, many cases of young people going astray. You do find
   believers sinning, but they were all getting old men. There is Noah--no
   youth. There is Lot, when drunken--no child. There is David with
   Bathsheba,--no young man in the heat of passion. There is Peter denying
   his Lord--no boy at the time. These were men of experience and
   knowledge and wisdom. "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed
   lest he fall."

   With sorrow do we remember one whom, years ago, we heard pray among us,
   and sweetly too; esteemed and trusted by us all. I remember a dear
   brother saying very kindly, but not too wisely, "If he is not a child
   of God, I am not." But what did be, my brethren, to our shame and
   sorrow, but go aside to the very worst and foulest of sins, and where
   is he now? Perhaps the ale-house may tell or worse places still. So
   have we seen, that earth's sun may be eclipsed, earth's stars may go
   out, and all human glory melt into shame. No true child of God
   perishes--hold that fast; but this is the badge of a true child of God:
   that a man endures to the end; and if a man does not hold on, but
   slinks back to his old master, and once again fits on the old collar,
   and wears again the Satanic yoke, there is sure proof that he has never
   come out of the spiritual Egypt through Jesus Christ, his leader, and
   hath never obtained that eternal life which cannot die, because it is
   born of God. I have thus then, dear friends, said enough to prove, I
   think, beyond dispute, that the true badge of the Christian is
   perseverance, and that without it, no man has proved himself to be a
   child of God.

   II. Secondly, PERSEVERANCE IS THEREFORE, THE TARGET OF ALL OUR
   SPIRITUAL ENEMIES.

   We have many adversaries. Look at the world! The world does not object
   to our being Christians for a time; it will cheerfully overlook all
   misdemeanors in that way, if we will now shake hands and be as we used
   to be. Your old companions who used to call you such good fellows, when
   you were bad fellows, would they not very readily forgive you for
   having been Christians, if you would just go back and be as in days
   gone by? Oh! certainly, they would look upon your religion as a freak
   of folly, but they would very easily overlook it, if you would give it
   up for the future. "O!" saith the world, "come back; come back to my
   arms once more; be enamored of me, and though thou hast spoken some
   hard words against me, and done some cruel deeds against me, I will
   cheerfully forgive thee." The world is always stabbing at the
   believer's perseverance. Sometimes she will bully him back; she will
   persecute him with her tongue--cruel mockings shall be used; and at
   another time, she will cozen him, "Come thou back to me; O come thou
   back! Wherefore should we disagree? Thou art made for me, and I am made
   for thee!" And she beckons so gently and so sweetly, even as Solomon's
   harlot of old. This is the one thing with her, that thou shouldst cease
   to be a pilgrim, and settle down to buy and sell with her in Vanity
   Fair.

   Your second enemy, the flesh. What is its aim? "Oh! " cries the flesh,
   "we have had enough of this; it is weary work being a pilgrim, come,
   give it up." Sloth says, "Sit still where thou art. Enough is as good
   as a feast, at least, of this tedious thing." Then, lust crieth, "Am I
   always to be mortified? Am I never to be indulged? Give me at least, a
   furlough from this constant warfare?" The flesh cares not how soft the
   chain, so that it does but hold us fast, and prevent our pressing on to
   glory.

   Then comes in the devil, and sometimes he beats the big drum, and cries
   with a thundering voice "There is no heaven; there is no God; you are a
   fool to persevere." Or, changing his tactics, he cries, "Come back! I
   will give thee a better treatment than thou hadst before. Thou
   thoughtest me a hard master, but that was misrepresentation; come and
   try me; I am a different devil from what I was ten years ago; I am
   respectable to what I was then. I do not want you to go back to the low
   theater or the casino; come with me, and be a respectable lover of
   pleasure. I tell thee, I can dress in broad cloth as well as in
   corderoy, and I can walk in the courts of kings, as well as in the
   courts and alleys of the beggar. O come back!" he saith, and make
   thyself one of mine." So that this hellish trinity, the world, tine
   flesh, and the devil, all stab at the Christian's perseverance.

   His perseverance in service they will frequently attack: "What profit
   is there is in serving God? The devil will say to me sometimes, as he
   did to Jonah, "Flee thou unto Tarshish, and do not stop in this
   Nineveh; they will not believe thy word, though thou speak in God's
   name?" To you he will say, "Why, you are so busy all the six days of
   the week, what is the good of spending your Sunday with a parcel of
   noisy brats in a Sunday School? Why go about with those tracts in the
   streets? Much good you will get from it. Would not you be better with
   having a little rest?" Ah! that word rest--some of us are very fond of
   it; but we ought to recollect that we spoil it if we try to get it
   here, for rest is only beyond the grave. We shall have rest enough when
   once we come into the presence of our Lord. Perseverance in service,
   then, the devil would murder outright.

   If he cannot stay us in service, he will try to prevent our perse
   verance in suffering. "Why be patient any longer?" says he; "why sit on
   that dunghill, scraping your sores with a potsherd?--curse God, and
   die. You have been always poor since you have been a Christian; your
   business does not prosper; you see, you cannot make money unless you do
   as others do. You must go with the times, or else you will not get on.
   Give it all up. Why be always suffering like this?" Thus the foul
   spirit tempts us. Or you may have espoused some good cause, and the
   moment you open your mouth, many laugh and try to put you down. "Well,"
   says the devil, "be put down--what is the use of it? Why make yourself
   singularly eccentric, and expose yourself to perpetual martyrdom? It is
   all very nice," saith he, "if you will be a martyr, to be burnt at
   once, and have done with it; but to hang, like Lord Cobham, to be
   roasted over a slow fire for days, is not comfortable. Why," saith the
   tempter, "why be always suffering--give it up." You see, then, it is
   also perseverance in suffering which the devil shooteth at.

   Or, perhaps, it is perseverance in steadfastness. The love of many has
   waxed cold, but you remain zealous. "Well," saith he, "what is the good
   of your being so zealous? Other people are good enough people, you
   could not censure them: why do you want to be more righteous than they
   are? Why should you be pushing the Church before you, and dragging the
   world behind you? What need is there for you to go two marches in one
   day? Is not one enough? Do as the rest do; loiter as they do. Sleep as
   do others, and let your lamp go out as other virgins do." Thus is our
   perseverance in steadfastness frequently assailed.

   Or else, it will be our doctrinal sentiments. "Why," says Satan, "do
   you hold to these denominational creeds? Sensible men are getting more
   liberal, they are giving away what does not belong to them--God's
   truth; they are removing the old landmarks. Acts of uniformity are to
   be repealed, articles and creeds are to be laid aside as useless
   lumber, not necessary for this very enlightened age; fall in with this,
   and be an Anythingarian. Believe that black is white; hold that truth
   and a lie are very much akin to one another, and that it not does
   matter which we do believe, for we are all of us right, though we
   flatly contradict each other; that the Bible is a nose of wax to fit
   any face; that it does not teach anything material, but you may make it
   say anything you like. Do that," saith he, "and be no longer firm in
   your opinion."

   I think I have proved--and need not waste more words about it--that
   perseverance is the target for all enemies. Wear your shield,
   Christian, therefore, close upon your armor, and cry mightily unto God,
   that by his Spirit you may endure to the end.

   III. Thirdly, brethren, PERSEVERANCE IS THE GLORY OF CHRIST.

   That he makes all his people persevere to the end, is greatly to his
   honor. If they should fall away and perish, every office, and work, and
   attribute of Christ would be stained in the mire. If any one child of
   God should perish, where were Christ's covenant engagements? What is he
   worth as a mediator of the covenant and the surety of it, if he hath
   not made the promises sure to all the seed? My brethren, Christ is made
   a leader and commander of the people, to bring many souls into glory;
   but if he doth not bring them into glory, where is the captain's honor?
   Where is the efficacy of the precious blood, if it does not effectually
   redeem? If it only redeemeth for a time and then suffereth us to
   perish, where is its value? If it only blots out sin for a few weeks,
   and then perniits that sin to return and to remain upon us, where, I
   say, is the glory of Calvary, and where is the lustre of the wounds of
   Jesus? He lives, he lives to intercede, but how can I honor his
   intercession, if it be fruitless? Does he not pray, "Father, I will
   that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am;" and if
   they be not finally brought to be with him where he is, where is the
   honor of his intercession? Hath not the Pleader failed, and the great
   Mediator been dismissed without success? Is he not at this day in union
   with his people? But what is the value of union to Christ, if that
   union does not insure salvation? Is he not to-day at the right hand of
   God, preparing a place for his saints; and will he prepare a place for
   them, and then lose them on the road? Oh! can it be that he procures
   the harp and the crown, and will not save souls to use them? My
   brethren, the perishing of one true child of God, would be such
   dishonor to Jesus, that I cannot think of it without considering it as
   blasphemy. One true believer in hell! Oh! what laughter in the
   pit--what defiance, what unholy mirth! "Ah! Prince of life and glory,"
   saith the prince of the pit, "I have defeated thee; I have snatched the
   prey from the mighty, and the lawful captive I have delivered; I have
   torn a jewel from thy crown. See, here it is! Thou didst redeem this
   soul with blood, and yet it is in hell." Hear what Satan cries--"Christ
   suffered for this soul, and yet God makes it suffer for itself. Where
   is the justice of God?" Christ came from heaven to earth to save this
   soul, and failed in the attempt, and I have him here;" and as he
   plunges that soul into deeper waves of woe, the shout of triumph goes
   up more and more blasphemously--"We have conquered heaven! We have rent
   the eternal covenant; we have foiled the purposes of God; we have
   defeated his decree; we have triumphed over the power of the Mediator,
   and cast his blood to the ground!" Shall it ever be? Atrocious
   question! It can never be. They who are in Christ are saved. They whom
   Jesus Christ hath really taken into union with himself, shall be with
   him where he is. But how are you to know whether you are in union with
   Christ? My brethren, you can only know it by obeying the apostle's
   words, "Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure."

   IV. I close, therefore, with but a hint on the last point, PERSEVERANCE
   SHOULD BE THE GREAT CARE OF EVERY CHRISTIAN--his daily and his nightly
   care. O beloved! I conjure you by the love of God, and by the love of
   your own souls, be faithful unto death. Have you difficulties? You must
   conquer them. Hannibal crossed the Alps, for his heart was full of fury
   against Rome; and you must cross the Alps of difficulty, for I trust
   your heart is full of hatred of sin. When Mr. Smeaton had built the
   lighthouse upon the Eddystone, he looked out anxiously after a storm to
   see if the edifice was still there, and it was his great joy when he
   could see it still standing, for a former builder had constructed an
   edifice which he thought to be indestructible, and expressed a wish
   that he might be in it in the worst storm which ever blew, and he was
   so, and neither himself nor his lighthouse were ever seen afterwards.
   Now you have to be exposed to multitudes of storms; you must be in your
   lighthouse in the worst storm which ever blew; build firmly then on the
   Rock of Ages, and make sure work for eternity, for if you do these
   things, ye shall never fall. For this Church's sake, I pray you do it;
   for nothing can dishonor and weaken a Church so much as the falls of
   professors. A thousand rivers flow to the sea, and make rich the
   meadows, but no man heareth the sound thereof; but if there be one
   cataract, its roaring will be heard for miles, and every traveler will
   mark the fall. A thousand Christians can scarcely do such honor to
   their Master as one hypocrite can do dishonor to him. If you have ever
   tasted that the Lord is gracious, pray that your foot slip not. It
   would be infinitely better to bury you in the earth than see you buried
   in sin. If I must be lost, God grant it may not be as an apostate. If I
   must, after all, perish, were it not better never to have known the way
   of righteousness than after having known the theory of it, and
   something of the enjoyment of it, turn again to the beggarly elements
   of the world? Let your prayer be not against death, but against sin.
   For your own sake, for the Church's sake, for the name of Christ's
   sake, I pray you do this. But ye cannot persevere except by much
   watchfulness in the closet, much carefulness over every action, much
   dependance upon the strong hand of the Holy Spirit who alone can make
   you stand. Walk and live as in the sight of God, knowing where your
   great strength lieth, and depend upon it you shall yet sing that sweet
   doxology in Jude, "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling,
   and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with
   exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty,
   dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen." A simple faith brings the
   soul to Christ, Christ keeps the faith alive; that faith enables the
   believer to persevere, and so he enters heaven. May that be your lot
   and mine for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                               Nothing But Leaves

   A Sermon

   (No. 555)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, February 21st, 1864, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "He found nothing but leaves."--Mark 11:13.

   MOST of the miracles of Moses were grand displays of divine justice.
   What were the first ten wonders but ten plagues? The same may be said
   of the prophets, especially of Elijah and Elisha. Was it not
   significant both of the character and mission of Elias when he called
   fire from heaven upon the captains of fifties; nor was he upon whom his
   mantle descended less terrible when the she-bears avenged him upon the
   mockers. It remained for our incarnate Lord to reveal the heart of God.
   The only begotten was full of grace and truth, and in his miracles
   pre-eminently God is set forth to us as LOVE. With the exception of the
   miracle before us, and perhaps, a part of another, all the miracles of
   Jesus were entirely benevolent in their character; indeed this one is
   no exception in reality, but only in appearance. The raising of the
   dead, the feeding of the multitude, the stilling of the tempest, the
   healing of diseases--what were all these but displays of the
   lovingkindness of God? What was this to teach us but that Jesus Christ
   came forth from his Father on an errand of pure grace?

   "Thine hands, dear Jesus, were not arm'd

   With an avenging rod,

   No hard commission to perform

   The vengeance of a God.

   But all was mercy, all was mild,

   And wrath forsook the throne,

   When Christ on his kind errand came

   And brought salvation down."

   Let us rejoice that God commendeth his love towards us, because in "due
   time Christ died for the ungodly."

   Yet, as if to show that Jesus the Savior is also Jesus the Judge, one
   gleam of justice must dart forth. Where shall mercy direct its fall?
   See, my brethren, it glances not upon a man, but lights upon an
   unconscious, unsuffering thing--a tree. The curse, if we may call it a
   curse at all, did not fall. on man or beast, or even the smallest
   insect; its bolt falls harmlessly upon a fig tree by the wayside. It
   bore upon itself the signs of barrenness, and perhaps was no one's
   property; little, therefore, was the loss which any man sustained by
   the withering of that verdant, mockery, while instruction more precious
   than a thousand acres of fig trees has been left for the benefit of all
   ages. The only other instance at which I hinted just now was the
   permission given to the devils to enter into the swine, and the whole
   herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the
   waters. In that case, again, what a mercy it was that the Savior did
   not permit a band of men to become the victims of the evil one. It was
   infinitely better that the whole herd of swine should perish than that
   one poor man should be rendered a maniac through their influence. The
   creatures choked in the abyss were nothing but swine--swine which their
   Jewish owners had no right to keep; and even then they did not perish
   through Jesus Christ's agency, but through the malice of the devils,
   for needs must even swine run when the devil drives.

   Observe, then, with attention, this solitary instance of stern judgment
   wrought by the Savior's hand. Consider seriously that if only once in
   his whole life Christ works a miracle of pure judgment, the lesson so
   unique must be very full of meaning. If there be hut one curse, where
   does it fall? What is its symbolic teaching? I do not know that I ever
   felt more solemnly the need of true fruitfulness before God than when I
   was looking over this miracle--parable--for such it may justly be
   called. The curse, you at once perceive, falls in its metaphorical and
   spiritual meaning upon those high professors who are destitute of true
   holiness; upon those who manifest great show of leaves, but who bring
   forth no fruit unto God. Only one thunderbolt, and that for boasting
   pretenders; only one curse, and that for hypocrites. O blessed Spirit,
   write this heart-searching truth upon our hearts!

   I. We will commence our exposition with the remark that THERE WERE MANY
   TREES WITH LEAVES ONLY UPON THEM, AND YET NONE OF THESE WERE CURSED BY
   THE SAVIOR, SAVE ONLY THIS FIG TREE. It is the nature of many trees to
   yield to man nothing but their shade. The hungering Savior did not
   resort to the oak or to the elm to look for food, nor could the fir
   tree, nor the pine, nor the box, offer him any hope of refreshment; nor
   did he breathe one hard word concerning them, for he knew what was in
   them, and that they neither were, nor pretended to be fruit-bearing
   trees. So, dear friends, there are many men whose lives bear leaves,
   but no fruit--and yet, thanks be unto God, almighty patience bears with
   them. They are allowed to live out their time, and then it is true they
   are cut down and cast into the fire; but while they are permitted to
   stand, no curse withers them: the longsuffering of God waiteth to be
   gracious to them. Here are some of the characters who have leaves but
   no fruit.

   There are thousands who ignorantly follow the sign and know nothing of
   the substance. In England, we think ourselves far in advance of Popish
   countries; but how much of the essence of Popery peeps out in the
   worship of very many! They go to Church or chapel, and they think that
   the mere going into the place and sitting a certain time and coming out
   again is an acceptable act to God: mere formality, you see, is mistaken
   for spiritual worship! They are careful to have their infants
   sprinkled, but what the ceremony means they know not; and without
   looking into the Bible to see whether the Lord commands any such an
   ordinance, they offer him their ignorant will--worship either in
   obedience to custom, or in the superstition of ignorance. What the
   thing is, or why it is, they do not enquire, but go through a
   performance as certain parrots say their prayers. They know nothing
   about the inward and spiritual grace, which the Catechism talks about,
   if indeed, inward spiritual grace could ever be connected with an
   unscriptural outward and visible sign. When these poor souls come to
   the Lord's Supper, their thoughts go no farther than the bread and
   wine, or the hands which break the one and pour out the other; they
   know nothing whatever of communion with Jesus, of eating his flesh and
   drinking his blood; their souls have proceeded as far as the shell, but
   they have never broken into the kernel to taste the sweetness thereof.
   They have a name to lives and are dead; their religion is a mere show;
   a signboard without an inn a well-set table without meat; a pretty
   pageant where nothing is gold, but everything gilt nothing real, but
   all pasteboard, paint, plaster, and pretense. Nonconformists, your
   chapels swarm with such, and the houses of the Establishment are full
   of the same! Multitudes live and die satisfied with the outward
   trappings of religion, and are utter strangers to internal vital
   godliness. Yet such persons are not cursed in this life! No, they are
   to be pitied, to be prayed for, to be sought after, with words of love
   and honest truth; they are to be hoped for yet, for who knoweth but
   that God may call them to repentance, and they may yet receive the life
   of God into their souls?

   Another very numerous class have opinion but not faith, creed but not
   credence. We meet them everywhere. How zealous they are for
   Protestantism! They would not only die for orthodoxy, but kill others
   as well. Perhaps it is the Calvinistic doctrine which they have
   received, and then the five points are as dear to them as their five
   senses. These men will contend, not to say earnestly, but savagely for
   the faith. They very vehemently denounce all those who differ from them
   in the smallest degree; and deal damnation round the land with amazing
   liberality to all who are not full weight according to the balance of
   their little Zoar, Rehoboth, or Jireh: while all the while the spirit
   of Christ, the love of the Spirit, bowels of compassion, and holiness
   of character are no more to be expected from them than grapes from
   thorns, or figs from thistles. Doctrine, my brethren, is to be prized
   above all price! Woe to the Church of God when error shall be thought a
   trifle, for truth be lightly esteemed; and when truth is gone, what is
   left? But, at the same time, we grossly mistake if we think that
   orthodoxy of creed will save us. I am sick of those cries of "the
   truth," "the truth," "the truth," from men of rotten lives and unholy
   tempers. There is an orthodox as well as a heterodox road to hell, and
   the devil knows how to handle Calvinists quite as well as Arminians. No
   pale of any Church can insure salvation, no form of doctrine can
   guarantee to us eternal life. "Ye must be born again." Ye must bring
   forth fruits meet for repentance. "Every tree which bringeth not forth
   fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." Stopping short of vital
   union to the Lord Jesus by real faith, we miss the great qualification
   for entering heaven. Yet the time is not come when these mere
   head-knowers are cursed. These trees have leaves only, but no fatal
   curse has withered them hopelessly. No; they are to be sought after;
   they may yet know the Lord in their hearts, and the Holy Spirit may yet
   make them humble followers of the Lamb. O that it may be so!

   A third class have talk without feeling. Mr. Talkative, in "Pilgrim's
   Progress," is the representative of a very numerous host. They speak
   very glibly concerning divine things. Whether the topic be doctrinal,
   experimental, or practical, they talk fluently upon everything. But
   evidently, the whole thing comes from the throat and the lip; there is
   no welling up from the heart. If the thing came from the heart it would
   be boiling, but now it hangs like an icicle from their lips. You know
   them--you may learn something from them, but all time while you are
   yourself aware that if they bless others by their words, they
   themselves remain unblessed. Ah! let us be very anxious lest this
   should be our own case. Let the preacher feel the anxiety of the
   apostle Paul, lest, after having preached to others, he himself should
   be a castavay; and let my hearers feel the same concern, lest, after
   talking about the timings of God, they should prove to be mere
   lip-servers, and not accepted children of the Most High.

   Another tribe springs up just now before my eye--those who have regrets
   without repentance. Many of you under a heart-searching sermon feel
   grieved on account of your sins, and yet never have the strength of
   mind to give them up. You say you are sorry, but yet go on in the same
   course. You do really feel, when death and judgment press upon you, a
   certain sort of regret that you could have been so foolish, but the
   next day the strength of temptation is such, that you fall a prey to
   the very same infatuation. It is easy to bring a man to the river of
   regret, but you cannot make him drink the water of repentance. If Agag
   would be killed with words, no Amalekite would live. If men's transient
   sorrows for sin were real repentance on account of it, there is not a
   man living who would not, sometime or other, have been a true penitent.
   Here, however, are leaves only, and no fruit.

   We have yet again, another class of persons who have resolves without
   action. They will! Ah! that they will! but it is always in the future
   tense. They are hearers, and they are even feelers, but they are not
   doers of the Word: it never comes to that. They would be free, but they
   have not patience to file their fetters, nor grace to submit their
   manacles to the hammer. They see the right, but they permit the wrong
   to rule them. They are charmed with the beauties of holiness, and yet
   deluded with the wantonness of sin. They would ran in the ways of God's
   commandments, but the road is too rough, and running is weary work.
   They would fight for God, but victory is hardly won, and so they turn
   back almost as soon as they have set out; they put their hand to the
   plough, and then prove utterly unworthy of the kingdom.

   The great majority of persons who have any sort of religion at all,
   bear heaves, but they produce no fruit. I know there are some such
   here, and I solemnly warn you, though no curse falls upon you, though
   we do not think that the miracle now under consideration has any
   relation to you whatever, yet remember, there is nothing to be done
   with trees which bring forth only leaves, but in due time to use the
   axe upon them, and to cast them into the fire: and this must be your
   doom. As sure as you live under the sound of the gospel, and yet are
   not converted by it, so surely will you be cast into outer darkness. As
   certainly as Jesus Christ invites you, and ye will not come, so
   certainly will he send his angels to gather the dead branches together,
   and you among them, to cast them into the fire. Beware! beware! thou
   fruitless tree! thou shalt not stand for ever! Mercy waters thee with
   her tears now; God's lovingkindness digs about thee still; still the
   husbandman comes, seeking fruit upon thee year after year. Beware! the
   edge of the axe is sharp, and the arm which wields it is nothing less
   than almighty. Beware! lest thou fall into the fire!

   II. Secondly, THERE WERE OTHER TREES WITH NEITHER LEAVES NOR FRUIT, AND
   NONE OF THESE WERE CURSED!

   The time of figs was not yet come. Now, as the fig tree either brings
   forth the fig before the leaf, or else produces figs and leaves at the
   same time, the major part of the trees, perhaps all of them, without
   exception of this one, were entirely without figs and without leaves,
   and yet Jesus did not curse any one of them, for the time of figs was
   not yet come.

   What multitudes are destitute of anything like religion; they make no
   profession of it; they not only have no fruits of godliness, but they
   have no leaves even of outward respect to it; they do not frequent the
   court of the Lord's house; they use no form of prayer; they never
   attend upon ordinances. The great outlying mass of this huge city--how
   does religion affect it? It is a very sad thing to think that there are
   people living in total darkness next door to the light; that you may
   find in the very street where the gospel is preached, persons who have
   never heard a sermon. Are there not, throughout this city, tens and
   hundreds of thousands who know not their right hand from their left, in
   matters of godliness? Their children go to Sabbath schools, but they
   themselves spend the whole Sabbath day in anything except the worship
   of God! In our country parishes, very often neither the religion of the
   Establishment nor of Dissent, at all affects the population. Take, for
   instance, that village which will be disgracefully remembem'ed as long
   as Essex endures, the village of Hedingham. Theme are in that place not
   only parish Churches, but Dissenting meetinghouses, and yet the persons
   who foully murdered the poor wretch supposed to be a wizard, must have
   been as ignorant and indifferent to common sense, let alone religion,
   as even Hottentots or Kaffirs, to whom the light of religion has never
   come. Why was this? Is it not because there is not enough of missionary
   spirit among Christian people to seek out those who are in the lowest
   strata of society, so that multitudes escape without ever coming into
   contact with godliness at all? In London, the City Missionaries will
   bear witness that while they can sometimes get at the wives, yet there
   are thousands of husbands who are necessarily away at the time of the
   missionary's visit, who have not a word of rebuke, or exhortation, or
   invitation, or encouragement, ever sounding in their ears at all, from
   the day of their birth to the day of their death; and they might, for
   all practical purposes, as well have been born in the center of Africa
   as in the city of London, for they are without God, without hope,
   aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, far oft; not by wicked works
   only, but by dense ignorance of God.

   These persons we may divide into two classes, upon neither of whom does
   the withering curse fall in this life. The first we look upon with
   hope. Although we see neither leaves nor fruit, we know that "the time
   of figs is not yet." They are God's elect, but they are not called.
   Their names are in the Lamb's Book of Life, and were there from before
   the foundations of the world; though they be dead in trespasses, they
   are the objects of divine love, and they must, in due time, be called
   by irresistible grace, and turned from darkness to light. "The Lord
   hath much people in this city," and this should be the encouragement of
   every one of you, to try to do good, that God has among the vilest of
   the vile, the most reprobate, the most debauched and drunken, an elect
   people who must be saved. When you take the Word to them, you do so
   because God has ordained you to be the messenger of life to their
   souls, and they must receive it, for so the decree of predestination
   runs; they must he called in the fullness of time to be the brethren of
   Christ and children of the Most High. They are redeemed, beloved
   friends, but not regenerated--as much redeemed with precious blood as
   the saints before the eternal throne. They are Christ's property, and
   yet perhaps, they are waiting around the ale-house at this very moment
   until the door shall open--bought with Jesus' precious blood, and yet
   spending their nights in a brothel, and their days in sin; but if Jesus
   Christ purchased them he will have them. If he counted down the
   precious drops, God is not unfaithful to forget the price which his Son
   has paid. He will not suffer his substitution to be in any case an
   ineffectual, dead thing. Tens of thousands of redeemed ones are not
   regenerated yet, but regenerated they must be; and this is your comfort
   and mine, when we go out with the quickening Word of God. Nay, more,
   these ungodly ones are prayed for by Christ before the throne. "Neither
   pray I for these alone," saith the great Intercessor, "but for them
   also which shall believe on me through their word." They do not pray
   for themselves; poor, ignorant souls, they do not know anything about
   prayer; but Jesus prays for them. Their names are on his breast, and
   ere long they must bow their stubborn knee, breathing the penitential
   sigh before the throne of grace. "The time of figs is not yet." The
   predestinated moment has not struck; but, when it comes, they shall,
   for God will have his own; they must, for the Spirit is not to be
   withstood when he cometh forth with power--they must become the willing
   servants of the living God. "My people shall be willing in the day of
   my power." "He shall justify many." "He shall see of the travail of his
   soul." "He shall divide a portion with the great, and he shall divide
   the spoil with the strong."

   No curse falls upon these; they deserve it, but eternal love prevents
   it. Their sins write it, but the finished sacrifice blots it out. They
   may well perish because they seek not mercy, but Christ intercedes for
   them, and live they shall.

   Alas! however, among those who have neither leaves nor fruit, there is
   another class which never bring forth either the one or the other; they
   live in sin and die in ignorance, perishing without hope. As these
   leave the world, can they upbraid us for neglecting them? Are we clear
   of their blood? May not the blood of many of them cry from the ground
   against us? As they arc condemned on account of sins, may they not
   accuse us because we did not take the gospel to them, but left them
   where they were? Dread thought! but let it not be shaken off, there are
   tens of thousands every day who pass into the world of spirits unsaved,
   and inherit the righteous wrath of God. Yet in this life, you see, no
   special curse falls upon them, and this miracle has no special bearing
   upon them; it bears upon a totally different class of people, of whom
   we will now speak.

   III. WE HAVE BEFORE US A SPECAL CASE.

   I have already said, that in a fig tree, the fruit takes the precedence
   of the leaves, or the leaves and the fruit come at the same time; so
   that it is laid down as a general rule, that if there be leaves upon a
   fig tree, you may rightly expect to find fruit upon it.

   To begin then with the explanation of this special case, in a fig tree
   fruit comes before leaves. So in a true Christian, fruit always takes
   the precedence of profession. Find a man anywhere who is a true servant
   of God, and before he united himself with the Church, or attempted to
   engage in public prayer, or to identify himself with the people of God,
   he searched to see whether he had real repentance on account of sin--he
   desired to know whether he had a sincere and genuine faith in the Lord
   Jesus Christ, and he perhaps tarried some little time to try himself to
   see whether there were the fruits of holiness in his daily life.
   Indeed, I may say that there are some who wait too long; they are so
   afraid lest they should make a profession before they have grace in
   possession, that they will wait year after year--too long--become
   unwise, and make what was a virtue become a vice. Still this is the
   rule with Christians: they first give themselves to the Lord and
   afterwards to the Lord's people according to his will. You who are the
   servants of God--do you not scorn to vaunt yourselves beyond your line
   and measure? Would you not think it disgraceful on your part to profess
   anything which you have not felt? Do you not feel a holy jealousy when
   you are teaching others, lest you should teach more than God has taught
   you? and are you not afraid even in your prayers lest you should use
   expressions which are beyond your own depth of meaning? I am sure the
   true Christian is always afraid of anything like having the leaves
   before he has the fruit.

   Another remark follows from this--where we see the leaves we have a
   right to expect the fruit. When I see a man a Church-member, when I
   hear him engage in prayer, I expect to see in him, holiness, the
   character and the image of Christ. I have a right to expect it, because
   the man has solemnly avowed that he is the partaker of divine grace.
   You cannot join a Church without taking upon yourselves very solemn
   responsibilities. What do you desire when you come to see us, and ask
   to be admitted into fellowship? You tell us that you have passed from
   death unto life, that you have been born again, that there has been a
   change in you, the hike of which you never knew before, one which only
   God could have wrought. You tell us you are in the habit of private
   prayer; that you have a desire for the conversion of others. If you did
   not so profess, we dare not receive you. Well now, having made these
   professions, it would be insincere on our part if we did not expect to
   see your characters holy, and your conversation correct; we have a
   right to expect it from your own professions. We have a right to expect
   it from the work of the Spirit which you claim to have received. Shall
   the Holy Spirit work in man's heart to produce a trifle? Do you think
   that the Spirit of God would have written us this Book, and that Jesus
   Christ would have shed his precious blood to produce a hypocrite? Is an
   inconsistent Christian the highest work of God? I suppose God's plan of
   salvation to be that which has more exercised his thoughts and wisdom
   than the making of all worlds and the sustenance of all providence; and
   shall this best, this highest, this darling work of God, produce no
   more than that poor, mean, talking, unacting, fruitless deceiver? Ye
   have no love for souls, no care for the spread of the Redeemer's
   kingdom, and yet think that the Spirit, has made you what you are! No
   zeal, no melting bowels of compassion, no cries of earnest entreaty, no
   wrestling with God, no holiness, no self-denial, and yet say that you
   are a vessel made by the Master and fitted for his use! How can this
   be? No; if you profess to be a Christian, from the necessity of the
   Spirit's work, we have a right to expect fruit from you. Besides, in
   genuine professors we do get the fruit, we see a faithful attachment to
   the Redeemer's cause, an endurance to the end, in poverty, in sickness,
   in shame, in persecution. We see other professors holding fast to the
   truth, they are not led aside by temptation, neither do they disgrace
   the cause they have espoused; and, if you profess to be one of the same
   order, we have a right to look for the same blessed fruits of the
   Spirit in you, and if we see them not you have belied us.

   Observe further that our Lord hungers for fruit. A hungry person seeks
   for something which may satisfy him, for fruit, not leaves! Jesus
   hungers for your holiness. A strong expression, you will say, but I
   doubt not of its accuracy. For what were we elected? We were
   predestinated to be conformed unto the image of God's Son; we were
   chosen to good works, "which God hath before ordained that we should
   walk in them." What is the end of our redemption? Why did Jesus Christ
   die? " He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all
   iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good
   works." Why have we been called but that we should be called to be
   saints? To what end are any of the great operations of the covenant of
   grace? Do they not all point at our holiness? If you will think of any
   privilege which the Lord confers upon his people through Christ, you
   will perceive that they all aim at the sanctification of the chosen
   people--the making of them to bring forth fruit that God the Father may
   be glorified in them. O Christian, for this the tears of the Savior!
   for this the agony and bloody sweat! for this the five death-wounds!
   for this the burial and the resurrection, that he makes you holy, even
   perfectly holy like unto himself! And can it be, that when he hungers
   after fruit, you think nothing of fruit-bearing? O professor, how base
   art thou, to call thyself a blood-bought child of God, amid yet to live
   unto thyself! How darest thou, O barren tree, professing to be watered
   by the bloody sweat, and digged by the griefs and woes of the wounded
   Savior--how darest thou bring forth leaves and no fruit? Oh!
   sacrilegious mockery of a hungry Savior! oh! blasphemous tantalizing of
   a hungry Lord! that thou shouldst profess to have cost him all this,
   and yet yield him nothing! When I think that Jesus hungers after fruit
   in me, it stirs me tip to do more for him. Does it not have the same
   effect on you? He hungers for your good works; he hungers to see you
   useful. Jesus the King of kings, hungers after your prayers--hungers
   after your anxieties for the souls of others; and nothing ever will
   satisfy him for the travail of his soul but seeing you wholly devoted
   to his cause.

   This brings us into the very midst and meaning of the miracle. There
   are some, then, who make unusual profession, and yet disappoint the
   Savior in his just expectations. The Jews did this. When Jesus Christ
   came it was not the time of figs. The time for great holiness was after
   the coming of Christ and the pouring out of the Spirit. All the other
   nations were without leaves. Greece, Rome, all these showed no signs of
   progress; but there was the Jewish nation covered with leaves. They
   professed already to have obtained the blessings which he came to
   bring. There stood the Pharisee with his long prayers; there were the
   lawyers and the Scribes with their deep knowledge of the things of the
   kingdom. They said they had the light. The time of figs was not come,
   but yet they had the leaves, though not a single fruit; and you know
   what a curse fell on Israel; how in the day of Jerusalem's destruction
   the tree was withered altogether from its root, because it had its
   leaves, but had no fruit.

   The same will be true of any Church. There are times when all the
   Churches seem sunken alike in lethargy--such a time we had, say ten
   years ago--but one Church, perhaps, seems to be all alive. The
   congregations are large. Much, apparently, is proposed for the growth
   of the Savior's kingdom. A deal of noise is made about it; there is
   much talk, and the people are all expectation; and, if there be no
   fruit, no real consecration to Christ, if there be no genuine
   liberality, no earnest vital godliness, no hallowed consistency, other
   Churches may live on; but such a Church as this, making so high a
   profession, and being so precocious in the produce of leaves, shall
   have a curse from God. No man shall eat fruit of it for ever, and it
   shall wither away.

   In the case of individuals the moral of our miracle runs thus. Some are
   looked upon as young believers, who early join the Church. "The time of
   figs is not yet;" it is not a very ordinary case to see children
   converted, but we do see some, and we are very grateful. We are jealous
   however lest we should see leaves but not fruit. These juveniles are
   extraordinary cases; and on that account we look for higher results.
   When we are disappointed what shall come upon such but a curse upon
   their precocity, which led them to the deception. Some of us were
   converted, or profess to have been, when young, and if we have lived
   hitherto, and all we have produced has been merely words, resolves,
   professions, but not fruit unto God, we must expect the curse.

   Again, professsors eminent in station. There are necessarily but few
   ministers, but few Church officers; but when men so distinguish
   themselves by zeal, or by louder professions than others, as to gain
   the ear of the Christian public and are placed in responsible
   positions--if they bring forth no fruit, they are the persons upon whom
   the curse will light. It may be with other Christians that "the time of
   figs is not yet;" they have not made the advances which these profess
   to have made; but having been, upon their own profession, elected to an
   office which essentially requires fruit, since they yield it not, let
   them beware.

   To those who make professions of much love to Christ, the same caution
   may be given. With the most of Christians, I am afraid, I must say that
   "the time of figs is not yet," for we are too much like the Laodicean
   Church. But you meet with some men--how much they are in love with
   Christ! How sweetly they can talk about him, but what do they do for
   him? Nothing! nothing! Their love lies just in the wind which comes out
   of their own mouths, and that is all. Now, when the Lord has a curse,
   he will deal it out on such They went beyond all others in an untimely
   declaration of a very fervent love, and now they yield him no fruit.
   "Yes," said one, "I love God so much, that I do not reckon that
   anything I have is my own. It is all the Lord's--all the Lord's, and I
   am his steward." Well, this dear good man, of course, joined the
   Church, and after a time, some mission work wanted a little help. What
   was his reply? "When I pay my seat rent, I have done all I intend to
   do." A man of wealth and means! After a little time, this same man
   found it inconvenient even to pay for his seat, and goes now to a place
   not quite so full, where he can get a seat and do nothing to support
   the ministry! If there is a special thunderbolt anywhere, it is these
   unctions hypocrites who whine about love to Christ, and bow down at the
   shrine of mammon.

   Or, take another case. You meet with others whose profession is not of
   so much love, but it is of much experience. Oh! what experience they
   have had! What deep experience! Ah! they know the humblings of heart
   and the plague of human nature! They know the depths of corruption, and
   the heights of divine fellowship, and so on. Yes, and if you go into
   the shop you find the corruption is carried on behind the counter, and
   the deceit in the day-book; if they do not know the plague of their own
   hearts, at least they are a plague to their own household. Such people
   are abhorrent to all men, and much more to God.

   Others you meet with who have a censorious tongue. What good people
   they must be; they can see the faults of other people so plainly! This
   Church is not right, and the other is not right, and yonder
   preacher--well some people think him a very good man, but they do not.
   They can see the deficiencies in the various denominations, and they
   observe that very few really carry out Scripture as it should be
   carried out. They complain of want of love, and are the very people who
   create that want. Now if you will watch these very censorious people,
   the very faults they indicate in others, they are indulging in
   themselves; and while they are seeking to find out the mote in their
   brother's eye, they have a beam in their own. These are the people who
   are indicated by this fig tree, for they ought, according to their own
   showing, taking t hem on their own ground, to be better than other
   people. If what they say be true, they are bright particular stars, and
   they ought to give special light to the world. They are such that even
   Jesus Christ himself might expect to receive fruit from them, but they
   are nothing but deceivers, with these high soarings and proud
   boastings; they are nothing after all but pretenders. Like Jezebel with
   her paint, which made her all the uglier, they would seem to be what
   they are not. As old Adam says, "They are candles with big wicks and no
   tallow, and when they go out they make a foul and nauseous smell."
   "They have summer sweating on their brow, and winter freezing in their
   hearts." You would think them the land of Goshen, but prove them the
   wilderness of sin. Let us search ourselves, lest such be the case with
   us.

   IV. And now to close, SUCH A TREE MIGHT WELL BE WITHERED. Deception is
   abhorred of God. There was the Jewish temple, there were the priests
   standing in solemn pomp, there were the abundant sacrifices of God's
   altar. But was God pleased with his temple? No, because in the temple
   you had all the leaves, you had all the externals of worship, but there
   was no true prayer, no belief in the great Lamb of God's passover, no
   truth, no righteousness, no love of men, no care for the glory of God;
   and so the temple, which had been a house of prayer, had become a den
   of thieves. You do not marvel that the temple was destroyed. You and I
   may become just like that temple. We may go on with all the externals
   of religions, nobody may miss us out of our seat at Tabernacle, nay, we
   may never miss our Christian engagements; we may be in all external
   matters more precise than we used to be, and yet for all that, we may
   have become in our hearts a den of thieves; the heart may be given to
   the world while external ceremonies are still kept up and maintained.
   Let us beware of this, for such a place cannot be long without a curse.
   It is abhorrent to God.

   Again, it is deceptive to man. Look at that temple! What do men go
   there for? To see holiness and virtue. Why tread they its hallowed
   courts? To get nearer to God. And what do they find there? Instead of
   holiness, covetousness; instead of getting nearer to God, they get into
   the midst of a mart where men are haggling about the price of doves,
   and bickering with one another about the changing of shekels. So men
   may watch to hear some seasonable word from our lips, and instead of
   that, may get evil; and as that temple was cursed for deluding men, so
   may we be, because we deceive and disappoint the wants of mankind.

   More than this, this barren fig tree committed sacrilege upon Christ,
   did it not? Might it not have exposed him to ridicule? Some might have
   said, "How goest thou to a tree, thou prophet, whereon there is no
   fruit?" A false professor exposes Christ to ridicule. As the temple of
   old dishonored God, so does a Christian when his heart is not right; he
   does dishonor to God, and makes the holy cause to be trodden under foot
   of the adversary. Such men indeed have reason to beware.

   Once more, this tree might well be cursed, because its bringing forth
   nothing but leaves was a plain evidence of its sterility. It had force
   and vitality, but it turned it to ill account, and would continue to do
   so. The curse of Christ was but a confirmation of what it already was.
   He did as good as say, "He that is unfruitful, let him be unfruitful
   still." And now, what if Christ should come into this Tabernacle this
   morning, and should look on you and on me, and see in any of us great
   profession and great pomp of leaves, and yet no fruit, what if he
   should pronounce the curse on us, what would be the effect? We should
   wither away as others have done. What mean we by this? Why, they have
   on a sudden turned to the world. We could not understand why such fair
   saints should, on a sudden, become such black devils; the fact was,
   Christ had pronounced the word, and they began to wither away. If he
   should pronounce the unmasking word on any mere professor here, and
   say, "Let no man eat fruit of thee for ever," you will go into gross
   outward sin and wither to your shame. This will take place probably on
   a sudden; and taking place, your case will be irretrievable; you never
   afterwards will be restored. The blast which shall fall upon you will
   be eternal; you will live as a lasting monument of the terrible justice
   of Christ, as the great head of the Church; you will be spared to let
   it be seen that a man outside the Church may escape with impunity in
   this life, but a man inside the Church shall have a present curse, and
   be made to stand as a tree blasted by the lightning of God for ever.
   Now, this is a heart-searching matter. It went through me yesterday
   when I thought, "Well, here am I, I have professed to be called of God
   to the ministry; I have forced myself into a leading place in God's
   Church; I have voluntarily put myself into a place where sevenfold
   damnation is my inevitable inheritance if I be not true and sincere." I
   could almost wish myself back out of the Church, or at least in the
   obscurest place in her ranks, to escape the perils and responsibilities
   of my position; and so may you, if you have not the witness of the
   Spirit in you that you are born of God--you may wish that you never
   thought of Christ, and never dreamed of taking his name upon you. If
   you have by diligence worked yourself into a high position among God's
   people; if you have mere leaves without the fruit, the more sure is the
   curse, because the greater the disappointment of the Savior. The more
   you profess, the more is expected of you; and if you do not yield it,
   the more just the condemnation when you shall be left to stand for ever
   withered by the curse of Christ. O men and brethren, let us tremble
   before the heart-searching eye of God; but let us still remember that
   grace can make us fruitful yet. The way of mercy is open still. Let us
   apply to the wounds of Christ this morning. If we have never begun, let
   us begin now. Now let us throw our arms about the Savior, and take him
   to be ours; and, having done this, let us seek divine grace, that for
   the rest of our lives we may work for God. Oh! I do hope to do more for
   God, and I hope you will. O Holy Spirit, work in us mightily, for in
   thee is our fruit found! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              The Sinner's Friend

   A Sermon

   (No. 556)

   By the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "A friend of publicans and sinners."--Matthew 11:19.

   MANY A TRUE WORD is spoken in jest, and many a tribute to virtue has
   been unwittingly paid by the sinister lips of malice. The enemies of
   our Lord Jesus Christ thought to brand him with infamy, hold him up to
   derision, and hand his name down to everlasting scorn, as "a friend of
   publicans and sinners." Short-sighted mortals! Their scandal published
   his reputation. To this day the Savior is adored by the title which was
   minted as a slur. It was designed to be a stigma, that every good man
   would shudder at and shrink from; it has proved to be a fascination
   which wins the heart, and enchants the soul of all the godly. Saints in
   heaven, and saints on earth delight to sing of him thus--

   "Savior of sinners they proclaim,

   Sinners of whom the chief I am."

   What the invidious Jews said in bitter spleen, has been turned by the
   Holy Spirit to the most gracious account. Where they poured out vials
   of hate, odours of sacred incense arise. Troubled consciences have
   found a sweet balm in the very sound. Jesus, "the friend of publicans
   and sinners," has proved himself friendly to them, and they have become
   friends with him; so completely has he justified the very name which
   his enemies gave him in ribald affront.

   We shall take this title of Jesus to-night as an order of distinction
   which sets forth his excellency, and as God helps us, we shall try to
   exalt his name and proclaim his fame, while we attempt to explain how
   he was the friend of sinners; and how he shows that he is still the
   same.

   I. OUR LORD PROVED HIMSELF IN HIS OWN TIME TO BE THE FRIEND OF SINNERS.

   What better proof could he give of it than coming from the majesty of
   his Father's house to the meanness of Bethlehem's manger? What better
   proof could he give than leaving the society of cherubim and seraphim,
   to lie in the manger where the horned oxen fed, and to become the
   associate of fallen men? The incarnation of the Savior in the very form
   of sinners, taking upon himself the flesh of sinners, being born of a
   sinner, having a sinner for his reputed father--his very being a man,
   which is tantamount to being in the same form with sinners--surely this
   were enough to prove that he is the sinner's friend.

   When you take up the roll of his earthly lineage and begin to read it
   through, you will be struck with the fact that there are but few women
   mentioned in it; and yet three out of those mentioned were harlots, so
   that even in his lineage there was the taint of sin, and a sinner' s
   blood would have run in his veins if he had been the true son of
   Joseph; but inasmuch as he was begotten by the Holy Ghost, who
   overshadowed the Virgin, in him was no sin; yet his reputed pedigree
   ran through the veins of sinners. Tamar, and Rahab, and Bath-sheba are
   three names which bring to remembrance deeds of shame, and yet these
   stand in the records as the ancestors of the Son of Mary, the sinner's
   friend!

   As soon as Jesus Christ, being born in the likeness of sinful flesh,
   has come to years of maturity, and has commenced his real life-work, he
   at once discloses his friendship for sinners by associating with them.
   You do not find him standing at a distance, issuing his mandates and
   his orders to sinners to make themselves better, but you find him
   coming among them like a good workman who stands over his work; he
   takes his place where the sin and the iniquity are, and he personally
   comes to deal with it. He does not write out a prescription and send by
   another hand his medicines with which to heal the sickness of sin, but
   he comes right into the lazar-house, touches the wounded, looks at the
   sick; and there is healing in the touch; there is life in the look. The
   great Physician took upon himself our sicknesses and bare our
   infirmities, and so proved himself to be really the sinner's friend.
   Some people appear to like to have a philanthropic love towards the
   fallen, but yet they would not touch them with a pair of tongs. They
   would lift them up if they could, but it must be by some
   machinery--some sort of contrivance by which they would not degrade
   themselves or contaminate their own hands. Not so the Savior. Up to the
   very elbow he seems to thrust that gracious arm of his into the mire,
   to pull up the lost one out of the horrible pit and out of the miry
   clay. He takes himself the mattock and the spade, and goes to work in
   the great quarry that he may get out the rough stones which afterwards
   he will himself polish with his own bitter tears and bloody sweat, that
   he may make them fit to shine for ever in the glorious temple of the
   Lord his God. He comes himself into direct, personal contact with sin,
   without being contaminated with it. He comes as close to it as a man
   can come. He eats and drinks with sinners. He sits at the Pharisee's
   table one day, and does not rise because there is a crowd of people no
   better than they should be coming near him. Another day he goes to the
   publican's house, and the publican had, no doubt, been a great
   extortioner in his time; but Jesus sits there, and that day does
   salvation come to that publican's house. Beloved, this is a sweet trait
   about Christ, and proves how real and how true was his love, that he
   made his associations with sinners, and did not shun even the chief of
   them.

   Nay, he not only came among them, but he was always seeking their good
   by his ministry. If there was anywhere a sinner, a lost sheep of the
   house of Israel, Christ was after that sinner. Never such an
   indefatigable shepherd; he sought that which was lost till he found it.
   One of his earliest works of mercy we will tell you of in brief. He was
   once on a journey, and Samaria was a little out of his way; but there
   lived in a city of that country a woman--ah! the less said of her the
   better. She had had five husbands, and he whom she then had was not her
   husband, nor were any of the others either. She was a disgrace to that
   city of Samaria. But Jesus, who has a keen eye for sinners, and a heart
   which beats high for them, means to save that woman, and he must and he
   will have her. Being weary, he sits down on a well to rest. A special
   providence brings the woman to the well. The conventionalities of
   society forbid him to talk with her. But he breaks through the narrow
   bigotry of caste. A Samaritan by birth, he cares not for that; but will
   that most holy being condescend to have familiar conversation with
   her--a dishonor to her sex? He will. His disciples may marvel when they
   come back and find him talking with her, but he will do it. He begins
   to open up the Word of life to her understanding, and that woman
   becomes the first Christian missionary we ever hear of, for she ran
   back to the city, leaving her water-pot, and crying, "Come, see a man
   which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" And
   they came and believed; and there was great joy in that city of
   Samaria. You know, too, that there was another sinner. He was a bad
   fellow--I fear him. He had been constantly grinding the faces of the
   poor, and getting more out of them by way of taxation than he should
   have done; but the little man had the bump of curiosity, and he must
   needs see the preacher, and the preacher must needs love him; for I say
   there was a wonderful attraction in Jesus to a sinner. That sinner's
   heart was like a piece of iron: Christ's heart was like a loadstone;
   and wherever there was a sinner the loadstone began to feel it, and
   soon the sinner began to feel the loadstone too. "Azccheus," said
   Christ, "make haste, and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy
   house;" and down comes the sinner, and salvation has come to his house
   at that hour, Oh! Christ never seemed to preach so sweetly as when he
   was preaching a sinner's sermon. I would have loved to have seen that
   dear face of his when he cried, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are
   heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" or, better still, to have seen
   his eyes running with whole showers of tears when he said, "O
   Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often would I have gathered thy children
   together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would
   not even!" or to have heard him preach those three great sermons upon
   sinners when he described the woman as sweeping the house and taking
   away the dust, that she might find the lost piece of her money; and the
   shepherd going from hill to hill after the wandering sheep; and the
   father running to welcome that rag-clad prodigal; kissing him with the
   kisses of love, clothing him with the best robe, and inviting him into
   the feast, while they did dance and make merry because the lost was
   found, and he who was dead was alive again. Why, he was the mightiest
   of preachers for sinners, beyond a doubt, Oh! how he loved them! Never
   mind the Pharisees: he has thunderbolts for them. "Woe unto you,
   Scribes and Pharisees!" But when publicans and harlots come, he always
   has the gate of mercy ajar for them. For them he always has some tender
   word, some loving saying, such as this--"Him that cometh unto me, I
   will in no wise cast out." "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be
   forgiven unto men;" or such like words of tender wooing. The very chief
   of sinners was thus drawn into the circle of his disciples.

   And you know, dear friends, he did not prove his love merely by
   preaching to them, and living with them, and by his patience in
   enduring their contradiction against himself, and all their evil words
   and deeds, but he proved it by his prayers too. He used his mighty
   influence with the Father in their behalf. He took their polluted names
   on his holy lips; he was not ashamed to call them brethren. Their cause
   became his own, and in their interest his pulse throbbed. How many
   times on the cold mountains he kept his heart warm with love to them!
   How often the sweat rolled down his face when he was in an agony of
   spirit for them I cannot tell you. This much I do know, that on that
   self-same night when he sweat as it were great drops of blood falling
   down to the ground, he prayed this prayer--after having prayed for his
   saints, he went on to say--"Neither pray I for these alone, but for
   them also which shall believe on me through their word." Here, truly,
   the heart of the Savior was bubbling up and welling over towards
   sinners. And you never can forget that almost his last words were,
   "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Though wilfully
   and wickedly they pierced his hands and his feet, yet were there no
   angry words, but only that short, loving, hearty prayer--"Father,
   forgive them; for they know not what they do." Ah! friends, if there
   ever was a man who was a friend to others, Jesus was a friend to
   sinners his whole life through.

   This, however, is but little. As for the river of the Savior's love to
   sinners, I have only brought you to its banks. You have but stood on
   the bank and dipped your feet in the flood; but now prepare to swim. So
   fond was he of sinners that he made his grave with the wicked. He was
   numbered with the transgressors. God's fiery sword was drawn to smite a
   world of sinners down to hell. It must fall on those sinners. But
   Christ loves them. His prayers stay the arm of God a little while, but
   still the sword must fall in due time. What is to be done? By what
   means can they be rescued? Swifter than the lightning's flash I see
   that sword descending. But what is that in vision I behold? It
   falls--but where? Not on the neck of sinners; it is not their neck
   which is broken by its cruel edge; it is not their heart which bleeds
   beneath its awful force. No; the "friend of sinners" has put himself
   into the sinner's place! and then, as if he had been the sinner, though
   in him was no sin, he suffers, bleeds, and dies--no common
   suffering--no ordinary bleeding--no death such as mortals know. It was
   a death in which the second death was comprehended; a bleeding in which
   the very veins of God were emptied. The God-man divinely suffered. I
   know not how else to express the suffering. It was a more than mortal
   agony, for the divine strengthened the human, and the man was made vast
   and mighty to endure through his being a God. Being God and man he
   endured more than ten thousand millions of men all put together could
   have suffered. He endured, indeed, the hells of all for whom he died,
   the torments, or the equivalent for the torments, which all of them
   ought to have suffered--the eternal wrath of God condensed and put into
   a cup, too bitter for mortal tongue to know, and then drained to its
   utmost dregs by the loving lips of Jesus. Beloved, this was love.
   "Herein is love, that while we were yet sinners, in due time Christ
   died for the ungodly." "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay
   down his life for his friends." This Christ has done, and he is,
   therefore demonstrated to be the friend of sinners.

   But the trial is over; the struggle is passed; the Savior is dead and
   buried; he rises again, and after he has spent forty days on earth--in
   that forty days proving still his love for sinners--he rose again for
   their justification; I see him ascending up on high. Angels attend him
   as the clouds receive him.

   "They bring his chariot from on high,

   To bear him to his throne;

   Clap their triumphant wings and cry,

   'The glorious work is done.'"

   What pomp! What a procession! What splendor! He will forget his poor
   friends the sinners now, will he not? Not he! I think I hear the song,
   "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting
   doors, that the King of Glory may come in." The bars of massy light are
   all unloosed; the pearly gates are all wide open flung; and as he
   passes through, mark you, the highest joy which swells his soul is that
   he has opened those gates, not for himself, for they were never shut on
   him, but that he has opened them for sinners. It was for this, indeed,
   he died; and it is for this that he ascends on high, that he may "open
   the kingdom of heaven for all believers." See him as he rides through
   heaven's streets! "Thou hast ascended up on high; thou hast led
   captivity captive; thou hast received gifts of men." Ah! but hear the
   refrain, for this is the sweetest note of all the hymn, "Yea, for the
   rebellious also--yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might
   dwell among them." The scattered gifts of his coronation, the lavish
   bounties of his ascension, are still for sinners. He is exalted on
   high--for what? To give repentance and remission of sins. He still
   wears upon his breastplate the names of sinners; upon his hands and
   upon his heart does he still bear the remembrance of those sinners; and
   every day for the sinner's sake he doth not hold his peace, and for the
   sinner's sake he doth not rest, but cries unto God until every sinner
   shall be brought safely home. Every sinner who believeth, every sinner
   who was given to him, every sinner whom he bought with blood--he will
   not rest, I say, till all such are gathered to be the jewels of his
   crown, world without end.

   Methinks we cannot say more; and 1 think you will say we could not have
   said less concerning the way in which the Savior proved himself to be
   the sinner's friend. If there are any of you who dare to doubt him
   after this, I know not what further to advance. If there can be one who
   has proved himself your friend, surely Jesus did it, and he is willing
   to receive you now. What he has done he still continues to do. O that
   you might have grace to perceive that Jesus is the lover of your soul,
   that you might find the blessedness which all these tokens of
   friendship, of which we have been speaking, have brought for believing
   sinners.

   II. While we change the subject a little, we shall still keep to the
   text, and notice WHAT CHRIST IS DOING NOW FOR SINNERS.

   There is a deep principle involved here--a principle the Pharisee of
   old could not understand, and the cold heart of humanity is slow to
   embrace it to-day. I have two explanations to offer of the way in which
   Jesus personally discovers himself to be the friend of sinners, and I
   will just mention these before I come to the application of the subject
   I intend. Once upon a time a woman was brought to Jesus by the Scribes
   and Pharisees: she was an adulteress, she had been taken in the very
   act. They tell "the sinners friend" what sentence Moses would pronounce
   in such a case, and they ask him, how sayest thou? This they said
   tempting him. They were not much concerned about the unhappy creature;
   the accusation they were intent to lay was against the Man of Nazareth.
   You know how he disposed of the case, and put her accusers out of
   countenance. He did not bring the sinner up before the magistrate; nay,
   he would not act the judge's part, and pronounce sentence, rather would
   he act the neighbor's part; he acquitted himself as a friend. There is
   a proverb among a certain class of hard-dealing tradesmen, "We know no
   friendship in business;" and full well they carry it out, while they
   grind the faces of the poor without pity, and strive to over-reach one
   another without fairness. And there was in like manner no friendship,
   no mercy whatever, among those gentlemen of the long robe.
   Righteousness, to their idea, stood in exacting justice with rigid
   severity; and as for wickedness, it was only shameful when it was found
   out. She who was taken in the act must be stoned. They who had done it
   secretly must prosecute. The real friendship of Jesus appears in his
   singling out the object of pity; and where they accused him of winking
   at crime and harbouring the criminal, he was truly laying the axe at
   the root of the tree, and sheltering the victims while he upbraided the
   arrogant rulers, whose secret vices were the genuine cause of the
   wretchedness which had fallen upon the dregs of the nation. I commend
   this thought to your consideration. When it is said of him, he is a
   "friend of pubhicans and sinners," it was implied that he was not a
   friend of Scribes and Pharisees. Yet again, I want you to notice that
   the office which Christ came to fulfill towards sinners was that of
   pure, unmingled friendship. Let us give you an illustration. There is
   an awful story abroad: a murder has been committed; and the poor wretch
   who committed it has cut his own throat. The policeman and the surgeon
   are quickly on the spot. The one comes there in the interest of law,
   the other attends in the interest of humanity. Says the officer of
   police, "Man, you are my prisoner;" says the doctor, "My dear fellow,
   you are my patient." And now he lays a delicate hand upon the wound, he
   stanches the blood, applies soft liniments, binds it up with plasters,
   and, bending down his ear, listens to the man's breathing: taking hold
   of his hand, he feels his pulse: gently raising his head, he
   administers to him some wine or stimulant, takes him to the hospital,
   gives the nurse instructions to watch him, and orders that he shall be
   given nutritious diet as he is able to bear it. Day after day he still
   visits him, and uses all his skill and all his diligence to heal the
   man's Wounds. Is that the way to deal with criminals? Certainly it is
   not the manner in which the police deal. Their business is to find out
   all the traces and evidences of his guilt. But the medical attendant is
   not concerned with the man as an evil doer, but as a sufferer. So is it
   with the sinner. Moses is the officer of justice who comes to arrest
   him. Christ is the good Physician who comes to heal him; he says, "O
   Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself but in me is thy help." He deals
   with the disease, with the wounds, with the sufferings of sinners. He
   is therefore their friend. Of course the parallel will only go a little
   way. In the instance of the murderer, the surgeon would hand his
   patient over to the officers as soon as his wound was recovered; but in
   the conduct of our Savior he redeems the soul from under the law, and
   delivers it from the penalty of sin, as well as restores it from the
   self-inflicted injuries. But oh! if I could but show thee that Christ
   treats the sinner with pity, rather than with indignation; that the Son
   of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them; that his
   visit to our world was mediatoral, not to condemn the world, but to
   give his life a ransom for many; surely, then, thou wouldst see reason
   enough why the sinner should look to him as a friend indeed.

   Ah! then; I would go further. I would entreat thee to make the case
   thine own. Thou art a sinner; can I not convince thee that he is thy
   friend?

   You were sick the other day. The physician looked very grave, and
   whispered something to your wife. She did not tell you what it was, but
   your own life trembled in the scale, and it is a wonder you are here
   to-night. Shall I tell you why you are here? Do you see that tree
   yonder? It has been standing in its place for many years, but it has
   never yielded any fruit, and several times the master of the garden has
   said, "Cut it down." The other day the woodman came with his axe; he
   felt its edge, it was sharp and keen enough, and he began to cut, and
   the chips were flying, and he made a deep gash. But the gardener came
   by, one who had watched over the tree, and had hope of it even yet, and
   he said, "Spare it--spare it yet a little longer; the wound thou hast
   made may heal; and I will dig about it, and dung it, and if it bring
   forth fruit well; spare it another year, and if not then cut it down."
   That tree is yourself. The woodman is Death. That chipping at the trunk
   of the tree was your sickness. Jesus is he who spared you. You had not
   been here to-night--you had been there in hell among damned spirits,
   howling in unutterable woe, if it had not been that the friend of
   sinners had spared your life.

   And where are you to-night? Perhaps, my hearers, you are in an unusual
   place for you. Your Sunday evenings are not often spent in the house of
   God. There are other places which know you, but your seat there is
   empty to-night. There has been much persuasion to bring you here, and
   it may be that you have come against your will; but some friend has
   asked you to conduct him to the spot, and here you are. Do you know why
   you are here? It is a friendly providence, managed by the sinner's
   friend which has brought you here, that you may hear the sound of
   mercy, and have a loving invitation tendered to you. Be grateful to the
   Savior that he has brought you to the gospel-pool. May you--O, may you
   this night be made to step in and be washed from sin! But it is kind of
   him, and proves how true a friend he is of sinners, that he has brought
   you here. I will leave you now where you are, and I will tell you how
   he has dealt with other sinners, for mayhap this may lead you to ask
   him to deal the same with you.

   I know a sinner--while I live I must know him. Full well do I remember
   him when he was hard of heart and an enemy to God by a multitude of
   wicked works. But this friend of sinners loved him; and passing by one
   day, he looked right into his soul with such a look, that his hard
   heart began to break. There were deep throes as though a birth of a
   divine sort were coming on. There was an agony, and there was a grief
   unutterable; and that poor soul did not think it kind of Jesus; but,
   indeed, it was kindness too intense ever fully to estimate, for there
   is no saving a soul except by making it feel its need of being saved.
   There must be in the work of grace an emptying and a pulling down
   before there can be a filling and a building up. That soul knew no
   peace for many a year, and the sole of its foot had no rest; but one
   day

   "I heard the voice of Jesus say,

   Come unto me and rest;

   Lay down, thou weary one, lay down,

   Thy head upon my breast.

   I came to Jesus as I was,

   Weary, and worn, and sad,

   I found in him a resting-place,

   And he has made me glad!

   I heard the voice of Jesus say,

   Behold, I freely give

   The living water, thirsty one,

   Stoop down, and drink, and live.

   I came to Jesus and I drank

   Of that life-giving stream;

   My thirst was quench'd, my soul revived,

   And now I live in him.

   I heard the voice of Jesus say,

   I am this dark world's light,

   Look unto me, thy morn shall rise,

   And all thy days be bright.

   I look'd to Jesus and I found

   In him my star, my sun

   And in that light of light I'll walk,

   Till travelling days are done."

   Ay, said I, Christ is the friend of sinners! So say I, and so will I
   say while this poor lisping stammering tongue can articulate a sound.
   And methinks God had a design of abundant mercy when he saved my soul.
   I had not then believed it, though a mother's loving accents might have
   whispered it in my ears. But he seems to remind me of it over and over
   again, till love and terror mingle in my breast, saying, "Woe is me if
   I preach not the gospel." O my blessed Master, thou dost trust my lips
   when thou dost bear witness to my heart. Thou givest charge to my
   tongue when thou constrained my soul. "Am I a chosen vessel?" It is to
   bear his name to sinners. As a full bottle seeks vent, so must my
   testimony pant for utterance. O sinner, if thou trustest him, he will
   be such a friend to thee; and if thou hast now a broken heart and a
   contrite spirit, these are his work; and it is a proof of his great
   love to thee if he has made thee to hunger and thirst after him.

   Let me impress upon you that Jesus is the friend of the friendless. She
   who had spent all her money on physicians without getting relief,
   obtained a cure gratis when she came to him. He who bath "nothing to
   pay" gets all his debts cancelled by this friend. And he who was ready
   to perish with hunger, finds not only a passing meal, but a constant
   supply at his hands.

   We know of a place in England still existing, where there is a dole of
   bread served to every passer-by who chooses to ask for it. Whoever he
   may be he has but to knock at the door of St. Cross Hospital, and there
   is the dole of bread for him. Jesus Christ so loveth sinners that he
   has built a St. Cross Hospital, so that, whenever a sinner is hungry,
   he has but to knock and have his wants supplied. Nay, he has done
   better; he has attached to this hospital of the cross a bath; and
   whenever a soul is black and filthy it has but to go there and be
   washed. The fountain is always full, always efficacious. There is no
   sinner who ever went into it and found it, could not wash away his
   stains. Sins which were scarlet and crimson have all disappeared, and
   the sinner has been whiter than snow. As if this were not enough, there
   is attached to this hospital of the cross a wardrobe, and a sinner,
   making application simply as a sinner, with nothing in his hand, but
   being just empty and naked, he may come and be clothed from head to
   foot. And if he wishes to be a soldier, he may not merely have an under
   garment, but he may have armor which shall cover him from the sole of
   his foot to the crown of his head. Nay, if he wants a sword he shall
   have that given to him, and a shield too. There is nothing that his
   heart can desire that is good for him which he shall not receive. He
   shall have spending-money so long as he lives, and he shall have an
   eternal heritage of glorious treasure when he enters into the joy of
   his Lord.

   Beloved, I cannot tell you all that Christ has done for sinners, but
   this I know, that if he meets with you to-night, and becomes your
   friend, he will stand by you to the last. He will go home with you
   to-night. No matter how many pairs of stairs you have to go up, Jesus
   will go with you. No matter if there be no chair to sit down on, he
   will not disdain you. You shall be hard at work to-morrow, but as you
   wipe the sweat from your brow he shall stand by you. You will, perhaps,
   be despised for his sake, but he will not forsake you. You will,
   perhaps, have days of sickness, but he will come and make your bed in
   your sickness for you. You will, perhaps, be poor, but your bread shal
   be given you, and your water shall be sure, for he will provide for
   you. You will vex him much and grieve his Spirit. You will often doubt
   him--you will go after other lovers. You will provoke him to jealousy,
   but he will never cease to love you. You will, perhaps, grow cold to
   him, and even forget his dear name for a time, but he will never forget
   you. You may, perhaps, dishononr his cross, and damage his fair fame
   among the sons of men, but he will never cease to love you; nay, he
   will never love you less--he cannot love you more. This night he doth
   espouse himself unto you. Faith shall be the wedding-ring which he will
   put upon your finger. He plights his troth to you,

   "Though you should him ofttimes forget

   His lovingkindness fast is set."

   His heart shall be so true to you that he will never leave you nor
   forsake you. You will come to die soon, but the friend of sinners, who
   loved you as a sinner and would not cast you off when your sinnership
   kept breaking up, will still he with you when you come to the sinner's
   doom, which is to die. I see you going down the shelving banks of
   Jordan, but the sinner's friend goes with you. Ah! dear heart, he will
   put his arm beneath you, and bid you fear not; and when in the thick
   shades of that grim night you expect to see a fearful visage--the grim
   face of Death--you shall see instead thereof, you shall see his sweet
   and smiling face, bright as an evening star, by your soul, and you
   shall hear him say, "Fear not, I am with thee; be not dismayed; I am
   thy God." You will land in the world of spirits by-and-by; but will the
   sinner's friend forsake you then? No; he will be pleased to own you; he
   will meet you on the other side the Jordan, and he will say, "Come, my
   beloved, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and have bought
   thee, though thou wast a sinner vile, and now I am not ashamed to
   confess thee before my holy angels; nay, come with me, and I will take
   thee to my Father's face, and will confess thee there." And when the
   day shall come in which the world shall be judged, he will be thy
   friend then. Thou shalt sit on the bench with him. At the right hand of
   the Judge shalt thou stand, accepted in him who was thine Advocate, and
   who is now thy Judge, to acquit thee. And when the splendours of the
   millennium shall come, thou shalt partake of them; and when the end
   shall be, and the world shall be rolled up like a worn-out vesture, and
   these arching skies shall have passed away like a forgotten dream; when
   eternity, with its deep-sounding waves shall break upon the mocks of
   time and sweep them away for ever--then, on that sea of glass mingled
   with fire, thou shalt stand with Christ, thy friend still, owning thee
   notwithstanding all thy misbehaviour in the world which has gone, and
   loving thee now, loving thee on as long as eternity shall last. Oh!
   what a friend is Christ to sinners, to sinners!

   Now do recollect, that we have been talking about sinners; there is a
   notion abroad that Jesus Christ came into the world to save respectable
   people, and that he will save decent sort of folks; that those of you
   who go regularly to a place of worship, and are good sort of people,
   will be saved. Now Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners;
   and who does that mean? Well, it includes some of us who have not been
   permitted to go into outward sin; but it also includes within its deep,
   broad compass those who have gone to the utmost extent of iniquity.

   Talk of sinners! Walk the streets by moonlight, if you dare, and you
   will see sinners then. Watch when the night is dark, and the wind is
   howling, and the picklock is grating in the door, and you will see
   sinners then. Go to you jail, and walk through the wards, and see the
   men with heavy, over-hanging brows, men whom you would not like to meet
   out at night, and there are sinners there. Go to the Reformatories, and
   see those who have betrayed an early and a juvenile depravity, and you
   will see sinners there. Go across the seas to the place where a man
   will gnaw a bone upon which is reeking human flesh, and there is a
   sinner there. Go you where you will, and ransack earth to find sinners,
   for they are common enough; you may find them in every lane and street,
   of every city and town, and village and hamlet. It is for such that
   Jesus died. If you will select me the grossest specimen of humanity, if
   he be but born of woman, I will have hope of him yet, because the
   gospel of Christ is come to sinners, and Jesus Christ is come to seek
   and to save sinners. Electing love has selected some of the worst to be
   made the best. Redeeming love has bought, specially bought, many of the
   worst to be the reward of the Savior's passion. Effectual grace calls
   out and compels to come in many of the vilest of the vile; and it is
   therefore that I have tried to-night to preach my Master's love to
   sinners.

   Oh! by that love, looking out of those eyes in tears; oh! by that love,
   streaming from those wounds flowing with blood; by that faithful love,
   that strong love, that pure, disinterested, and abiding love; oh! by
   the heart and by the bowels of the Savior's compassion, I do conjure
   you turn not away as though it were nothing to you; but believe on him
   and you shall be saved. Trust your souls with him and he will bring you
   to his Father's right hand in glory everlasting.

   May God give us a blessing for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              Where to Find Fruit

   A Sermon

   (No. 557)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, February 28th, 1864, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "From me is thy fruit found."--Hosea 14:8.

   THE text has a double significance. It may indicate the fruit upon
   which we feed, or the fruit which we are enabled to produce. If it
   shall mean the first, there is mach of comfort in it. The Lord has
   compared himself, in his condescending mercy, to a green fir tree in
   the sentence which precedes the text. The fir tree in the East yields a
   most goodly shade. Neither the burning heat of the sun, nor the drops
   of pouring rain can.pass through the dense foliage, and therefore it
   affords a welcome shelter to the traveler. But shade is not enough for
   a man; he requires food, and the fir tree fails in that respect, for it
   yields no repast for the hungry. To complete the picture, therefore,
   when the Lord deigns to compare himself to a green fir tree, he adds,
   "From me is thy fruit found." Our gracious God is like a fir tree for
   shade, but like the apple tree among the trees of the wood for fruit.
   We sit under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit is sweet unto
   our taste. Living souls must have food to feed upon, or however well
   housed, they would be comparable to the king of Israel in the besieged
   city of Samaria. He sat in his palace of ivory, he wore his mantle of
   purple, and placed the crown of gold upon his head; but what availed
   his splendor, when neither barn-floor nor winepress could relieve his
   hunger? In vain all other blessings if the soul received no nourishment
   from on high; Jesus must not only be our life, but the bread of heaven
   by which that life is sustained. Glory be to his name! he is all in all
   to his people: we may gather fruit from him which shall satisfy the
   cravings of the soul.

   According to Master Trapp, some read this passage, "In me is thy fruit
   ready." Certain it is that at all times, whenever we approach to God,
   we shall find in him a ready supply for every lack. The best of trees
   have fruit on them only at appointed seasons. Who is so unreasonable as
   to look for fruit upon the peach or the plum at this season of the
   year? No drooping boughs beckon us to partake of their ripening crops,
   for Winter's cold still nips the buds. But our God hath fruit at all
   times: the tree of life yieldeth its fruit every month; nay, every day
   and every hour, for he is "a very present help in time of trouble."

   Another translator reads the passage, "In me thy fruit is enough."
   Whatever may be the accuracy of the translation, the sentiment itself
   is most correct. In God there is enough for all his people; and well
   there may be, since in him there is infinity. "I have enough, my
   brother," said Esau when he met Jacob: "I have all things," said Jacob
   in reply. None but the believer can say, "I have all things;" and
   therefore only he can be sure of having enough. Ishmael had his bottle
   of water, and went away into the wilderness; but it is written, that
   Isaac abode by the well: how happy is the soul which bath learned how
   to live by the well of his faithful God! for the water will be spent in
   the bottle, but the water will never be spent in the well. Christian,
   remember the all sufficiency of thy God! Let that ancient name, "El
   Shaddai"--God all-sufficient, sound like music in thine ear--as some
   translate it, "The many-breasted God," yielding from himself the
   sustenance of all his creatures.

   As we find the text translated, we have it, "From me is thy fruit
   found;" but the particle from does not mean apart from, but out of me;
   and to prevent misunderstanding, I shall not err if I read it in, for
   this is the force of the word in this place. The text speaks of fruit
   being found, implying perhaps, that we must look for it--not because
   there is little, or here and there a cluster, like the grape-gleanings
   of Abi-ezer; but because the Lord will be enquired of by the house of
   Israel, and would exercise our faith by making us search for the needed
   benefit. It is of essential service to us to make us seek, and hence we
   have the promise of finding to excite our diligence. Christian, look up
   longingly! Is thy spirit hungering? Look up to thy God now with intense
   desire; come before him with earnest, vehement pleadings, and thou
   shalt find in thy God whatsoever thy heart desireth.

   Mark that little word "thy." As if the Lord had said, "It is thine
   already; I have freely given it; it is thy fruit. I bear it, but I bear
   it for thee; every golden apple, every luscious cluster, I will bestow
   on thee. Thou canst not ask me for anything which I have not given
   thee. For behold, 1 have given thee my Son, and in him dwelleth all the
   fullness of the Godhead bodily.'" Believer, hast thou not learned the
   sweet logic of the beloved disciple, "He that spared not his own Son,
   but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely
   give us all things?" In the eternal covenant, God has made over--not
   only all created things--but himself unto his people. "I will be their
   God, and they shall be my people." "God, even our God," saith the
   Psalmist. Is not that a delightful expression, "Even our own God?" And
   so, as God is your own, his fruit is your own. Every outgoing of power,
   every outflow of love is yours already. "In him is thy fruit found."
   Surely this word "thy" is as a little golden cup filled with a rare
   cordial; he who drinketh of it shall forget his misery, and remember
   his poverty no more. Let us not fail then, dearly beloved, to receive
   boldly that which is our own by covenant engagement and faithful
   promise. What dost thou want this morning? Surely out of the "twelve
   manner of fruits," there shall be something which will suit thy
   necessities; stand not back through shame or fear, but come boldly to
   the throne of the heavenly grace.

   Thus much for the first sense of the text; but we do not intend to use
   the words in that signification this morning. We think that,
   understanding the text the other way--"From me is that fruit found
   which grace produces in thee," it will be a very fitting sequel to the
   sermon of last Sabbath morning. You will recollect we spoke upon the
   withering of the fig tree which mocked the Savior with its leaves, but
   yielded him no fruit. There may be some who were alarmed under that
   sermon, and even believers who were shaken by it; such anxieties will
   do none of us any hurt, especially if they lead us to pant after
   fruitfulness. Our text, following upon the other, will direct earnest
   seekers where to find fruit. There are three sorts of preachers, all
   useful in their way, the doctrinal, the experimental, and the
   practical; we will try to blend the three this morning, and so handle
   the words doctrinally, experimentally, and practically.

   I. First. THE DOCTRINE OF THE TEXT. The doctrine of the text is
   twofold. First, that the believer's fruit is his own--it is called "thy
   fruit;" secondly, that though it is the believer's own, yet it proceeds
   entirely from his God.

   1. The first doctrine is that true fruit is a believer's own. You will
   think this a very trite remark, but it is one which needs to be made in
   these days, for there are certain persons who talk of man as if he were
   not a thinking, intelligent, free agent. They forget his will,
   judgment, reason, and affections: they leave out of their consideration
   everything in fact which constitutes the man, and then speak of the
   operations of grace as though they were manual works upon wood or
   stone. For aught I can see, according to their way of talking, the
   grace of God might just as well have produced holiness in monkeys as in
   men, for men are generally represented as merely passive existences to
   be moved by them to gratitude, or repentance, or faith, as horses are
   groomed in a stable or led out to be exercised. Be it never forgotten
   that our God deals with men as intelligent beings, having will and
   reason and all the other powers which make man a responsible creature;
   he does not ignore our manhood when he converts us by his grace. He
   uses means fitted for our constitution as men, "I drew them with the
   cords of love, with the bands of a man."

   Good works are a believer's own. It were an ill thing for him if they
   were not; to what could we compare him but to those dead sticks with
   fruits tied on them, which women sell to little children? a sorry
   picture for a branch of Christ's vine. The believer produces fruit from
   his own inner self when grace has renewed him; and if his holiness were
   not really the outgrowth of his new heart and his renewed nature, it
   would be no sign of spiritual life. It is not fruit tied on us, but
   fruit growing out of us which proveth us to be engrafted into Christ.

   True fruit is the believer's own because he wills through divine grace
   to do good works. If I performed what looked like a good work against
   my will, I do not see how it could be truly a good work as far as the
   doer is concerned. If a man could be compelled to virtue while his
   heart staggered away to sin, would he not be really transgressing?
   There is a gracious willingness towards the right thing bestowed upon
   us by the Holy Spirit. Nay, there is not only a will to holiness, but a
   desire after it. The true Christian longs after holiness and
   usefulness; he hungers and thirsts to do the will of his Father who is
   in heaven. Like his Lord in some measure, it is to him his meat and his
   drink to do the will of him who sent him. He can say, "The zeal of
   thine house hath eaten me up." He is constrained, but mark, it is not a
   physical constraint, for "the love of Christ constraineth us." So you
   see, beloved, good works are a believer's own because he is willing to
   do them and desires to perform them.

   They are his own, again, because he actually does them. The Holy Ghost
   does not repent, nor feed the hungry, nor clothe the naked, nor preach
   the gospel. He gives us grace to do all these, but we ourselves do
   them. If the poor be fed, it must be by these hands; if souls are
   edified, it must be by these lips; we do not fold our arms, and shut
   our mouths, and then bring forth fruit unto God. We do not find
   ourselves taken up by the hair of our head as the prophet Habakkuk was
   said to have been, according to the Apocrypha, and so carried away
   whether we will or no, to perform a deed of charity. All glory be to
   the Holy Spirit, but he is not glorified by making him appear to be a
   physical force instead of the great spiritual Worker. We do, my
   brethren, bring forth fruit which is properly our own when we consider
   ways of usefulness, meditate methods of working, plan designs of good,
   act out deeds of mercy, persevere in labor, and continue in service
   before God.

   I will tell you why I am absolutely sure a believer's works are his
   own, namely, because he grieves over them. The best works he ever
   performs he feels are his own, because they are imperfect. If there is
   anything good in them, he ascribes it wholly to the fact that they
   proceeded from God; but, inasmuch as there is something imperfect in
   them, he is obliged to say, "Ah! yes, this is my fruit. If it had been
   God's fruit independent of me, it would have been perfect, but inasmuch
   as it is imperfect, I am compelled to see that I had a hand in it. The
   stream was clear enough as it came from the fountain, but flowing
   through the wooden spout of my nature, it is become in some measure
   defiled, and so far at least is mine."

   Dear friends, the whole analogy of fruitbearing must show to you that
   the Christian does bring forth fruit unto God, real fruit from his
   inner self; and if any of you think that you are going to attain to
   holiness by simply being passive, you are wonderfully mistaken. If you
   imagine you will be a pilgrim by sitting down at the wicket-gate, or be
   carried in a sedan-chair to glory, you will find yourselves left
   behind. No, we must fight if we would win; we must travel if we would
   reach the Celestial City; we must wrestle, and fight, and pray. The
   Word of God does say "It is God that worketh in us to will and to do of
   his own good pleasure," but it does not stop there, it bids us for this
   very reason "Work out our own salvation with fear and trembling." The
   passive first, but then the active. We must lie as dead at Jehovah's
   feet to be quickened, but being quickened, what then? Why then we walk
   in holiness and in the fear of God. We are first of all made trees of
   the Lord's right-hand planting, and we receive grace from him, and then
   through his grace, we ourselves do really bring forth fruit. The truth
   is clear enough, prove by your energetic strivings that you under stand
   it.

   2. The pith of the doctrine lieth here, that all a believer's fruit
   proceeds from his God, and that in several senses from the divine
   purpose. If you are holy, it is because he has called you to holiness.
   If you have good works they come to you, according to the word of the
   apostle concerning good works, "which God hath before ordained that we
   should walk in them." When you see a costly vase which is the
   admiration of all eyes, you know that whatever of beauty there is in
   that vessel was originally in the artist's plan. If you have examined
   his sketches, you have seen every elegant line, and every graceful
   figure. Even so, beloved, if you have been sanctified it is according
   to the eternal design, which was settled in grace and wisdom, before
   the skies were formed.

   All our fruit springs from our God as to calling. You were dead in
   trespasses and sins. There were no good works in you by nature, and
   there never would have been, but he who commanded the light to shine
   out of darkness hath shined in your heart, to give you the knowledge of
   God, and then to turn you from dead works to serve the living and true
   God. You owe everything to your calling. The tree which is loaded with
   fruit, owes its fruit first of all, to its having been chosen to be in
   the garden, and next to its having been really planted there; for in
   our case, had we been left to grow in the wide wilderness, we should
   have brought forth no fruit unto God; but he took us up out of the
   place of barrenness, and put us in the rich soil which Jesus had
   watered with his own bloody sweat, and therefore we bring forth fruit.

   Our fruit is found from God as to union. The fruit of the branch is
   really traceable to the root. Cut the connection and the branch dies,
   and no fruit is hereafter produced. By virtue of our union with Christ
   we bring forth fruit. Every branch of grapes has been first in the
   root, it has passed through the stem, and flowed through the sap
   vessels, and fashioned itself externally into fruit, but it was first
   internal in the stem; so also every good work was first in Christ, and
   then was brought forth in us. O Christian, prize this precious doctrine
   of union to Christ; hold it firmly, because it is the source of every
   atom of fruitfulness which thou canst ever hope to know. If thou wert
   not joined to Jesus Christ, no fruit could ever be in thee.

   Our fruit comes from God, and from God alone, as to providence. When
   the dew-drops fall from heaven, each one may whisper to the tree and
   say, "From me is thy fruit found." When the cloud looks down from on
   high, and is about to distil its liquid treasure, it may thunder to the
   earth beneath, "From me is thy fruit found." And the bright sun above
   all others, as he paints the cheek of the apple, or swells the berries
   of the cluster, may well say to all the trees of the garden, "From me
   is your fruit found." The fruit owes much to the root--that is
   essential to fruitfulness--but it owes very much also to external care.
   Beloved, how much we owe to God's grace-providence! We are greatly
   debtors to his common providences, in that he maketh all things work
   together for good. But his grace-providence, in which he provides us
   constantly with quickening, teaching, correction, consolation,
   strength, or whatever else we want--to this we owe our all of
   usefulness or virtue.

   Our fruit is found in God as to the matter of husbandry. The knife
   which the gardener taketh from his pocket, might talk to the tree and
   say, "Much of thy fruit is found in me. Thou wouldst not yield such an
   abundance if it were not for my sharp edge. I make thee bleed a little,
   as I take away thy superfluous shoots, but thou hadst not such goodly
   clusters if it were not of me." So is it, Christian, with that pruning
   which the Lord gives to thee. "My Father is the husbandman. Every
   branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch
   that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit."

   Thus the text may be read in very many ways. They will all come to
   one--that we have nothing, except as we receive it from above. "What
   hast thou which thou hast not received?" I may say, to conclude this
   head, that all our fruit is found in God, because he will, having been
   the author of it, get all the glory of it. Of all our spiritual life he
   shall have the praise, for it is all due to him, and if he giveth us a
   crown at the last, we will cast it at his feet.

   Brethren, you know this doctrine well enough without my enlarging upon
   it; you know how constantly Scripture teacheth us that we can do
   nothing without Christ. We can sin; we can ruin our own souls; we can
   bring forth the apples of Sodom and the grapes of Gomorrah, but
   anything which is lovely, and honest, and of good repute, must come
   from him who is glorious in working. You have no question or quibble
   about this. "You hath he quickened;" you trace your life to him You
   doth he quicken day by day; you owe the continuance of your life to
   him. You know as a matter of doctrine that "in him we live and move and
   have our being," and that "every good gift and every perfect gift is
   from above." I need not confirm this doctrine: no argument is required.
   You have never erred from the truth in this respect; you could not be
   Christians if you did, for I hold this to be fundamental truth, in all
   godliness, that salvation from first to last is of the Lord. Salvation
   is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Let us heartily praise him
   whose workmanship we are.

   II. We come now to THE EXPERIENCE. Experimentally we have proof that
   all our fruit is in God. Let me remind you of your experience when you
   were the servants of the flesh. What fruit had ye then in those days?
   What repentance did your natural mind bring forth? What faith in Christ
   did your unrenewed soul ever beget or foster? What love to God ever
   stirred your carnal heart? What affection for the brotherhood possessed
   your alienated spirit? You must say that at that time you were without
   God and without hope, and certainly without fruit. "What fruit had ye
   then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?" A painful remembrance
   of your former estate compels you to feel the truth of the Lord's Word,
   "In me is thy fruit found."

   Again, when the law began to work in your heart, and you were in a
   state of bondage, having enough of light to see your darkness, and
   enough of life to mourn your death--what fruit had ye then when ye were
   under the law? The law told you what you should do; did it enable you
   to do anything? The ten commandments set before you a perfect rule: but
   was it not "weak through the flesh?" You had a very clear perception of
   the justice and righteousness of God: did the perception reconcile you
   to justice or to holiness? Let me ask you, did the law of God ever make
   you love him? Did the awakenings of your conscience, which proceeded
   from it ever lead you to trust in Jesus Christ? They may have been
   overruled to this purpose, but the law worketh wrath, and as long as
   you were under it, it rather produced sin in you than righteousness.
   Such was Paul's experience, "When the commandment came, sin revived,
   and I died," "for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou
   shalt not covet." As a child might never care to run into the street,
   but being told not to do it, he straightway doth it by reason of the
   perversity of his nature, just so it is with us by nature; the
   forbidden thing our flesh lusteth after. All the enmity of carnal
   nature is provoked to yet greater sin by the law. That which should
   have been a bit, becomes a spur. Cold water quencheth fire, and yet
   when poured on lime, produceth a vehement heat. So the law acts
   contrary to its own nature, by reason of the depravity of the human
   heart. Thus were you, my brethren, led by a very sorrowful experience,
   to feel that from Christ must come your fruit; for none could be
   produced by the efforts of the flesh, backed up by the most earnest
   resolution and most devout prayer, and driven onward by the whip of the
   law.

   A sweeter experience has proved this to you. When did you begin to bear
   fruit? It was when you came to Christ and cast yourselves on the great
   atonement, and rested on the finished righteousness. Ab! what fruit you
   had then! Do you remember those early days? Did not your faith, and
   love, and zeal, form a garden of nuts, an orchard of pomegranates, with
   pleasant fruits? Then indeed the vine flourished, the tender grape
   appeared, the pomegranates budded forth, and the beds of spices gave
   forth their smell. Have you declined since then? Even if you have, I
   charge you to remember that time of love. Jesus remembers it, for he
   says, "I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine
   espousals, when thou wentest after me into the wilderness." He
   recollects that time of the singing of birds, when the voice of the
   turtle was heard in your land. Would God this were with you ever! He
   has not forgotten it, do you not forget it, but seek to enjoy it still.
   Your fruit began, you know it did, when you camne to Jesus Christ.

   My brethren, when have you been the most fruitless? This is another
   part of experience. Has not it been when you have lived farthest from
   the Lord Jesus Christ, when you have slackened in prayer, when you have
   departed somewhat from the simplicity of your faith, when your graces
   engrossed your attention instead of your Lord, when you said, "My
   mountain standeth firm, I shall never be moved;" and forgot where your
   strength lieth--has not it been then that your fruit has ceased? Some
   of us know that we have nothing out of Christ by terrible
   soul-emptyings and humblings of heart before the Lord. Brethren, it is
   no pleasant thing to be clean emptied out; but such times have happened
   to some of us, when we have felt that if one prayer would save us, if
   the Holy Spirit did not aid us, we were damned; if one good thought
   would take us to heaven, we could not reach it; the vileness of our
   heart has been so clear before our eyes, that had not it been that
   there was a mighty God to trust to we should have given up in despair.

   "How seldom do I rise to God,

   Or taste the joys above!

   Corruption presses down my faith,

   And chills my flaming love.

   When smiling mercy courts my soul

   With all its heavenly charms,

   This stubborn, this relentless thing,

   Would thrust it from my arms."

   In such seasons we do well to cry, "Quicken thou me, O Lord, according
   to thy word." Then you feel that to will is present with you, but how
   to perform that which is good, you find not. It is a very easy thing
   for me to exhort you, but sometimes I do not find it very easy to do
   myself what I exhort you to do. And there are times with us, dear
   friends, when, though we know our interest in Christ, we are wretched
   under a deep sense of the creature's fickleness, sinfulness, and death.
   Our moan is, " wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the
   body of this death?" When you have seen the utter emptiness of all
   creature confidence, then you have been able to say, "From him all my
   fruit must be found, for no fruit can ever come from me." We shall find
   from Scripture, I am sure--let our past experience confirm it--that the
   more we depend upon the grace of God in Christ Jesus, and wait upon the
   Holy Spirit, pleading that his influences may operate in our hearts,
   the more we shall bring forth fruit unto God. If I could bear fruit
   without my God, I would loathe the accursed thing, for it would be the
   fruit of pride--the fruit of an arrogant setting up of one's self in
   independence of the Creator No; the Lord deliver us from all faith, all
   hope, all love which do not spring from himself! May we have none of
   our own-manufactured graces about us. May we have nothing but that
   which is minted in heaven, and is therefore made of the pure metal. May
   we have no grace, pray no prayer, do no works, serve God in nothing
   except as we depend upon his strength and receive his Spirit. Any
   experience which comes short of a knowledge that we must get all from
   God, is a deceiving experience. But if you have been brought to find
   everything in him, beloved, this is a mark of a child of God. Cultivate
   a spirit of deep humiliation before the Most High; seek to know more
   your nothingness, and to prove more the omnipotence of the eternal God.
   There are two books I have tried to read, but I have not got through
   the first page yet. The first is the book of my own ignorance, and
   emptiness, and nothingness--what a great book is that! It will take us
   all our lives to read it, and I question whether Methuselah ever got to
   the last page. There is another book I must read, or else the first
   volume will drive me mad--it is the book of God's all-sufficiency. I
   have not got through the first word of that, much less the first page,
   but reading the two together, I would spend all my days. This is
   heaven's own literature, the wisdom which cometh from above. Less than
   nothing I can boast, and yet "I can do all things through Christ which
   strengtheneth me." Having nothing yet possessing all things." Black as
   the tents of Kedar, yet fair as the curtains of Solomon: dark as hell's
   profoundest night, and yet "Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and
   terrible as an army with banners."

   III. We now arrive at the PRACTICAL POINT.

   1. First then, dear friends, let us look to Jesus Christ for fruit in
   the same way in which we first looked to him for shade. That sounds
   like something you have heard a great many times before. Very well, but
   have you really understood it? To give an illustration--you want to
   overcome an angry temper! You are given to ebullitions of passion--you
   try to overcome that. How do you go to work? It is very possible there
   are even believers here who have never tried the right way. How did I
   get salvation? I came to Jesus just as I was, and I trusted him to save
   me. Can I kill my angry temper in the same way? It is the only way in
   which I can ever kill it. I must go to Christ with it, and say to him,
   "Lord, I trust thee to deliver me from it." This is the only death-blow
   it will ever receive. Are you covetous? Do you feel the world entangle
   you? You may struggle against this evil as long as you like, but if it
   be your besetting sin, you will never be delivered from it in any way
   but the cross. Take it to Christ. Tell him, "Lord, I have trusted thee,
   and thy name is Jesus--Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall
   save his people from their sins'--Lord, this is one of my sins; save me
   from it!" Do not take Jesus Christ with the blood only, and without the
   water--that is to have only half-a-Christ. Pray to be forgiven, but ask
   also to be sanctified. Sing with Toplady--

   "Let the water and the blood,

   From thy river side which flowed,

   Be of sin the double cure,

   Cleanse me from its guilt and power."

   I know what some of you do. You go to Christ for forgiveness, and then
   you go to the law for power to fight your sins. " foolish Galatians,
   who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth?" Tell me,
   did ye receive faith by the law, or by the operation of grace? "Are ye
   so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the
   flesh?" The only weapon to fight sin with is the spear which pierced
   Christ's side. Nothing can kill the viprous brood of hell but drops of
   Jesus' precious blood. Take your sins to Christ's cross, sir, for the
   old man can only be crucified there: we are crucified with him; we are
   buried with him. If I be dead to the world, I must be dead with him,
   and if I rise again to newness of life, I must rise in him. Ordinances
   are nothing without Christ as means of mortification. Baptism is
   nothing, except as we are buried with him in baptism unto death. The
   Lord's Supper is nothing, except as we eat his flesh and drink his
   blood, and have communion with him. And your prayers and your
   repentances, and your tears--the whole of them put together--are not
   worth a farthing apart from him. Every flower which grows in your
   garden will wither, and the sooner it is blasted and withered the
   better for you; only the rose of Sharon will bloom in heaven. "None but
   Jesus can do helpless sinners good;" or helpless saints either. You
   must overcome by the blood of the Lamb.

   2. Another practical observation is this--let us cultivate those graces
   most which bring us most to Christ, for these will be the most
   fruitful. Let me look well to my faith; let me see that I keep it
   purely stayed on him, having no supplementary confidence, but resting
   wholly and absolutely upon the finished work of my Lord. Let me see to
   my love. Let my Lord be to me altogether lovely. Lord, help me to sing,
   "My beloved is mine, and I am his." Sometimes graciously enable me to
   sing, "He brought me to the banqueting-house, and his banner over me
   was love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth
   embrace me." Faith and love are the great fruitbearers. A gardener
   says, "There is such and such a twig, I must not cut that off, because
   it is to the young wood that I am looking for my summer fruits." So he
   taketh care of it. There is that, believer, a growing faith and growing
   love to which you must look as the fruitbearing shoots, because they
   pre-eminently link your soul to Christ, and most evidently have
   intercourse with him. Cultivate those things which lead you most to
   him.

   3. A third practical piece of advice. Be most in those engagements
   which you have experimentally proved to draw you nearest to Christ,
   because it is from him that all your fruits proceed. Any holy exercise
   which will bring you to him will help you to bear fruit Do you find
   prayer the channel of Jesus' manifestations? Do you find yourself
   profited in the public means of grace? Is it the breaking of bread
   which we love to celebrate every Sabbath day, which is most precious to
   you? If so, wherever Jesus Christ layeth bare his heart to you, there
   be you found; and if there be any one means of grace which has been
   more rich to you than another, use it with the greatest perseverance.
   Use them all, dear friends, do not neglect any, hut especially use
   those most which bring you nearest to your Lord.

   4. Lastly, let none of us--whether we be the Lord's people or not--let
   none of us ever insult Christ by thinking that we are to bring fruit to
   him as a recommendation to his love. "From me is thy fruit found." Now
   there may be some saint here who has lost his evidences, and he dare
   not approach the throne of grace as he used to do, because he says "I
   have sinned--I must produce fresh fruit before I dare come." My dear
   friend! My dear friend! Bring fruit to Christ! How can you talk in so
   legal a fashion? All the fruit you ever will have you must first get
   from him! Come to him as you are and get your fruit out of him. Never
   suppose that you must bring Christ a present or else you must not come
   to him. He does not want your money. If he takes it he will give it
   back to you in your sack's mouth. He will receive your fruit as an
   offering, but never as a reconciliation. There are those here this
   morning who are not converted as yet. They are saying, "I dare not seek
   the Lord, I dare not trust Christ. I know the gospel is, trust Christ
   and you are saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned; but I
   must not trust him, I am a drunkard, I have been a swearer, I am a
   Sabbath-breaker, I will wait until I am better and then I will come to
   Christ." Why how can you talk thus? "From him is thy fruit found." If
   there be any fruit you must come to Jesus Christ for it. Am I, if I am
   poor and ragged, am I to buy a new coat before I may beg a garment?
   What a strange proposal that I should do for myself what Christ came to
   do. How can that be reasonable? If I saw a man standing outside the
   baths and wash-houses, and he should say, "Well really, I've just come
   home from my work and am as black as a sweep, but I dare not go into
   those baths until I have washed my face first." I should say, "How
   foolish! it is in the bath that your washing is to be found." There is
   no fitness wanted for Christ but that which is in Christ: nothing
   wanted in you, everything is in him. To use the old proverb," Why carry
   coals to Newcastle?" Who would think it a profitable business for our
   London merchants, in the cold winter time, when the price of coals is
   very high, to charter all the ships they can, and send them laden with
   coals to Newcastle? If they did so, you would think them mad. And yet
   there are many sinners penniless, comfortless, with no good thing of
   their own, who want to bring good works to Jesus! This is carrying
   coals to Newcastle with a vengeance. Oh! folly! folly! folly! Go with
   your ship all black and empty, sail up the harbour, and the pit's mouth
   will soon yield to you an abundance of precious store. Go to Jesus as
   you are. Do you want faith to-day--repentance--grace? Go to Christ for
   it. Go to him, resting on him, dependent on him, believing that he is
   ready to save you, to begin, to carry on, and finish your salvation. He
   will be as good as you ever believe him to be, and infinitely better.
   If thou canst believe him princely enough to put all thy sins away, and
   to cover thee with his righteousness, he will do it, for never man
   thought too well of Christ. If thou canst get a big thought of Christ,
   thou big sinner--if thou canst believe on the eternal Son of the
   eternal Father, who once poured out his blood in streams on Calvary
   thou art secure. God help thee. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                               A Bundle of Myrrh

   A Sermon

   (No. 558)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, February 28th, 1864, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night
   betwixt my breasts."--Song of Solomon 1:13.

   CERTAIN DIVINES have doubted the inspiration of Solomon's Song; others
   have conceived it to be nothing more than a specimen of ancient
   love-songs, and some have been afraid to preach from it because of its
   highly poetical character. The true reason for all this avoidance of
   one of the most heavenly portions of God's Word lies in the fact that
   the spirit of this Song is not easily attained. Its music belongs to
   the higher spiritual life, and has no charm in it for unspiritual ears.
   The Song occupies a sacred enclosure into which none may enter
   unprepared. "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon
   thou standest is holy ground," is the warning voice from its secret
   tabernacles. The historical books I may compare to the outer courts of
   the Temple; the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Psalms, bring us into
   the holy place or the Court of the priests; but the Song of Solomon is
   the most holy place: the holy of holies, before which the veil still
   hangs to many an untaught believer. It is not all the saints who can
   enter here, for they have not yet attained unto the holy confidence of
   faith, and that exceeding familiarity of love which will permit them to
   commune in conjugal love with the great Bridegroom. We are told that
   the Jews d id not permit the young student to read the Canticles--that
   years of full maturity were thought necessary before the man could
   rightly profit by this mysterious Song of loves; possibly they were
   wise, at any rate the prohibition foreshadowed a great truth. The Song
   is, in truth, a book for full-grown Christians. Babes in grace may find
   their carnal and sensuous affections stirred up by it towards Jesus,
   whom they know, rather "after the flesh" than in the spirit; but it
   needs a man of fuller growth, who has leaned his head upon the bosom of
   his Master, and been baptized with his baptism, to ascend the lofty
   mountains of love on which the spouse standeth with her beloved. The
   Sung, from the first verse to the last, will be clear to those who have
   received an unction from the holy One, and know all things. (1 John
   2:20.) You are aware, dear friends, that there are very few
   commentaries upon the Epistles of John. Where we find fifty
   commentaries upon any book of St. Paul, you will hardly find one upon
   John. Why is that? Is the book too difficult? The words are very
   simple; there is hardly a word of four syllables anywhere in John's
   Epistles. Ah! but they are so saturated through and through with the
   spirit of love, which also perfumes this Book of Solomon, that those
   who are not taught in the school of communion, cry out, "We cannot read
   it, for it is sealed." The Song is a golden casket, of which love is
   the key rather than learning. Those who have not attained unto heights
   of affection, those who have not been educated by familiar intercourse
   with Jesus, cannot come near to this mine of treasure, "seeing it is
   hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of
   heaven." O for the soaring eagle wing of John, and the far-seeing
   dove's eyes of Solomon; but the most of us are blind and cannot see
   afar off. May God be pleased to make us grow in grace, and give us so
   much of the Holy Spirit, that with feet like hind's feet we may stand
   upon the high places of Scripture, and this morning have some near and
   dear intercourse with Christ Jesus.

   Concerning our text, let us talk very simply, remarking first, that
   Christ is very precious to believers; secondly, that there is good
   reason why he should be; thirdly, that mingled with this sense of
   preciousness, there is a joyous consciousness of possession of him; and
   that therefore, fourthly, there is an earnest desire for perpetual
   fellowship with him. If you look at the text again, you will see all
   these matters in it.

   I. First, then, CHRIST JESUS IS UNUTTERABLY PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS. The
   words manifestly imply this: "A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto
   me." She calls him her "well-beloved," and so expresses her love most
   emphatically; it is not merely beloved, but well-beloved. Then she
   looks abroad about her, to find a substance which shall be at once
   valuable in itself and useful in its properties; and lighting upon
   myrrh, she saith, "A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me."
   Without looking into the figure just now, we keep to the statement that
   Christ is precious to the believer.

   Observe first, that nothing gives the believer so much joy as
   fellowship with Christ. Ask yourselves, you who have eaten at his table
   and have been made to drink of his cup, where can such sweetness be
   found as you have tasted in communion with Jesus? The Christian has joy
   as other men have in the common mercies of life. For him there are
   charms in music, excellence in painting, and beauty in sculpture; for
   him the hills have sermons of majesty, the rocks hymns of sublimity,
   and the valleys lessons of love. He can look upon all things with an
   eye as clear and joyous as another man's; he can be glad both in God's
   gifts and God's works. He is not dead to the happiness of the
   household: around his hearth he finds happy associations, without which
   life were drear indeed. His children fill his home with glee, his wife
   is his solace and delight, his friends are his comfort and refreshment.
   He accepts the comforts which soul and body can yield him according as
   God seeth it wise to afford them unto him; but he will tell you that in
   all these separately, yea, and in all of them added together, he doth
   not find such substantial delight as he doth in the person of his Lord
   Jesus. Brethren, there is a wine which no vineyard on earth ever
   yielded; there is a bread which even the corn-fields of Egypt could
   never bring forth. You and I have said, when we have beheld others
   finding their god in earthly comforts, "You may boast in gold, and
   silver, and raiment, but I will rejoice in the God of my salvation." In
   our esteem, the joys of earth are little better than husks for swine
   compared with Jesus the heavenly manna. I would rather have one
   mouthful of Christ's love, and a sip of his fellowship, than a whole
   world full of carnal delights. What is the chaff to the wheat? What is
   the sparkling paste to the true diamond? What is a dream to the
   glorious reality? What is time's mirth in its best trim compared to our
   Lord Jesus in his most despised estate? If you know anything of the
   inner life, you will all of you confess that our highest, purest, and
   most enduring joys must be the fruit of the tree of life which is in
   the midst of the Paradise of God. No spring yields such sweet water as
   that well of God which was digged with the soldier's spear. As for the
   house of feasting, the joy of harvest, the mirth of marriage, the
   sports of youth, the recreations of maturer age, they are all as the
   small dust of the balance compared with the joy of Immanuel our best
   beloved. As the Preacher said, so say we, "I said of laughter, It is
   mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?" "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity."
   All earthly bliss is of the earth earthy, but the comforts of Christ's
   presence are like himself heavenly. We can review our communion with
   Jesus, and find no regrets of emptiness therein; there are no dregs in
   this wine; no dead flies in this ointment. The joy of the Lord is solid
   and enduring. Vanity hath not looked upon it, but discretion and
   prudence testify that it abideth the test of years, and is in time and
   in eternity worthy to be called "the only true delight."

   "What is the world with all its store?

   "Tis but a bitter sweet;

   When I attempt to pluck the rose,

   A pricking thorn I meet.

   Here perfect bliss can ne'er be found,

   The honey's mix'd with gall;

   'Midst changing scenes and dying friends,

   Be thou my All in All."

   We may plainly see that Christ is very precious to the believer,
   because to him there is nothing good without Christ. Believer, have you
   not found in the midst of plenty a dire and sore famine if your Lord
   has been absent? The sun was shining, but Christ had hidden himself and
   all the world was black to you; or it was a night of tempest, and there
   were many stars, but since the bright and morning star was gone on that
   dreary main, where you were tossed with doubts and fears, no other star
   could shed so much as a ray of light. O, what a howling wilderness is
   this world without my Lord! If once he groweth angry, and doth, though
   it be for a moment, hide himself from me, withered are the flowers of
   my garden; my pleasant fruits decay; the birds suspend their songs, and
   black night lowers over all my hopes. Nothing can compensate for the
   company of the Savior: all earth's candles cannot make daylight if the
   Sun of Righteousness be gone.

   On the other hand, when all earthly comforts have failed you, have you
   not found quite enough in your Lord? Your very-worst times have been
   your best times? You must almost cry to go back to your bed of
   sickness, for Jesus made it as a royal throne, whereon you reigned with
   him. Those dark nights--ah! they were not dark, your bright days since
   then have been darker far. Do you remember when you were poor? Oh! how
   near Christ was to you, and how rich he made you! You were despised and
   rejected of men, and no man gave you a good word! Ah! sweet was his
   fellowship then, and how delightful to hear him say, "Fear thou not;
   for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God!" As afflictions
   abound, even so do consolations abound by Christ Jesus. The devil, like
   Nebuchadnezzar, heated the furnace seven times hotter, but who would
   have it less furiously blazing? No wise believer; for the more terrible
   the heat the greater the glory in the fact that we were made to tread
   those glowing coals, and not a hair of our head was singed, nor so much
   as the smell of fire passed upon us, because the Son of God walked
   those glowing coals in our company. Yes, we can look with resignation
   upon penury, disease, and even death; for if all comforts be taken from
   us, we should still be blest, so long as we enjoy the presence of the
   Lord our Savior.

   Nor should I be straining the truth if I say that the Christian would
   sooner give up anything than forsake his Master. I have known some who
   have been afraid to look that text in the face which saith, "He that
   loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me," or
   that--"Except a man hate (or love less) his father and mother, and wife
   and children, he cannot be my disciple." Yet I have found that those
   have frequently proved to be the most sincere lovers of Jesus who have
   been most afraid that he had not the best place in their hearts.
   Perhaps the best way is not to sit down calmly to weigh our love, for
   it is not a thing to be measured with cool judgment, but put your love
   to some practical test. Now, if it came to this, that you must deny
   Christ, or give up the dearest thing you have, would you deliberate?
   The Lord knoweth I speak what I feel in my own soul--when it comes to
   that, I could not hesitate a second. If there were a stake and burning
   faggots, I might flinch from the fire, but so mighty is divine love
   that it would doubtless drive me to the flames sooner than let me leave
   Jesus. But if it comes to this, "Wilt thou lose thine eyes or give up
   Christ?" I would cheerfully be blind. Or if it were asked, "Wilt thou
   have thy right arm withered from its socket or give up Christ?" Ay; let
   both arms go; let them both drop from the shoulder blades. Or if it
   should be, "Wilt thou be from this day dumb and never speak before the
   multitude?" Oh! better to be dumb than lose him. Indeed, when I talk of
   this it seems to be an insult to my Master, to put hands, and eyes, and
   tongue, in comparison with him.

   "Nor to my eyes is light so dear

   Nor friendship half so sweet."

   If you compare life itself with Jesus, it is not to be named in the
   same day. If it should be said, "Will you live without Christ or die
   with Christ?" you could not deliberate, for to die with Christ is to
   live with Christ for ever; but to live without Christ is to die the
   second death, the terrible death of the soul's eternal perdition. No,
   there is no choice there. I think we could go further, dear friends,
   and say, not only could we give up everything, but I think, when love
   is fervent, and the flesh is kept under, we could suffer anything with
   Christ. I met, in one of Samuel Rutherford's letters, an extraordinary
   expression, where he speaks of the coals of divine wrath all falling
   upon the head of Christ, so that not one might fall upon his people.
   "And yet," saith he, "if one of those coals should drop from his head
   upon mine and did utterly consume me, yet if I felt it was a part of
   the coals that fell on him, and I was bearing it for his sake, and in
   communion with him, I would choose it for my heaven." That is a strong
   thing to say, that to suffer with Christ would be his heaven, if he
   assuredly knew that it was for and with Christ, that he was suffering.
   Oh! there is indeed a heavenliness about suffering for Jesus. His cross
   hath such a majesty and mystery of delight in it, that the more heavy
   it becometh, the more lightly doth it sit upon the believer's
   shoulders.

   One thing I know proveth, beloved, that you esteem Christ to be very
   precious, namely, that you want others to know him too. Do you not feel
   a pining in your souls till others hearts be filled with the love of
   Christ? My eyes could weep themselves out of their sockets for some of
   you who are ignorant of my Master's love. Poor souls! ye are sitting
   outside the feast when the door is wide open, and the king himself is
   within. Ye choose to be out in the highways and under the hedges sooner
   than come to this wedding-feast, where the oxen and fatlings are
   killed, and all things are ready--oh! did you know him, did you know
   him, you would never be able to live without him. If your eyes had ever
   seen him once, or if your heart had ever known the charm of his
   presence, you would think it to be a hell to be for a moment without
   Christ. O poor blind eyes which cannot see him, and deaf ears which
   cannot hear him, and hard stony hearts which cannot melt before him,
   and hell-besotted souls which cannot appreciate the majesty of his
   love, God help you! God help you! and bring you yet to know and rejoice
   in him. The more your love grows, beloved, the more insatiable will be
   your desire that others should love him, till it will come to this that
   you will be, like Paul, "in labors more abundant," spending and being
   spent that you may bring the rest of Christ's elect body into union
   with their glorious head.

   II. But, secondly, THE SOUL CLINGETH TO CHRIST, AND SHE HATH GOOD
   REASON FOR SO DOING, for her own words are "A bundle of myrrh is my
   well-beloved unto me." We will take the myrrh first, and then consider
   the bundle next.

   1. Jesus Christ is like myrrh. Myrrh may be well the type of Christ for
   its preciousness. It was an exceedingly expensive drug. We know that
   Jacob sent some of it down into Egypt as being one of the choice
   products of the land. It is always spoken of in Scripture as being a
   rich, rare, and costly substance. But no myrrh could ever compare with
   him, for Jesus Christ is so precious, that if heaven and earth were put
   together they could not buy another Savior. When God gave to the world
   his Son, he gave the best that heaven had. Take Christ out of heaven,
   and there is nothing for God to give. Christ was God's all, for is it
   not written, "In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily?"
   Oh! precious gift of the whole of deity in the person of Christ! How
   inestimably precious is that body of his which he took of the substance
   of the virgin! Well might angels herald the coming of this immaculate
   Savior, well might they watch over his holy life, for he is precious in
   his birth, and precious in all his actions. How precious is he, dear
   friends, as myrrh in the offering of his great atonement! What a costly
   sacrifice was that! At what a price were ye redeemed! Not with silver
   and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. How precious is he
   too, in his resurrection! He justifies all his people at one
   stroke--rising from the dead--that glorious sun scatters all the nights
   of all his people by one rising. How precious is he in his ascension,
   as he leads captivity captive, and scattereth gifts among men! And how
   precious to-day in those incessant pleadings of his through which the
   mercies of God come down like the angels upon Jacob's ladder to our
   needy souls! Yes, he is to the believer in every aspect like myrrh for
   rarity and excellence.

   Myrrh, again, was pleasant. It was a pleasant thing to be in chamber
   perfumed with myrrh. Through the nostrils myrrh conveys delight to the
   human mind; but Christ gives delight to his people, not through one
   channel, but through every avenue. It is true that all his garments
   smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, but he hath not spiritual smell
   alone, the taste shall be gratified too, for we eat his flesh and drink
   his blood. Nay, our feeling is ravished, when his left hand is under us
   and his right hand doth embrace us. As for his voice it is most sweet,
   and our soul's ear is charmed with its melody. Let God give him to our
   sight, and what can our eyes want more? Yea, he is altogether lovely.
   Thus every gate of the soul hath commerce with Christ Jesus in the
   richest and rarest commodities. There is no way by which a human spirit
   can have communion with Jesus which doth not yield unto that spirit
   fresh and varied delights. O beloved, we cannot compare him merely to
   myrrh. He is everything which is good to look upon, or to taste, or to
   handle, or to smell--all put together in one, the quintessence of all
   delights. As all the rivers run into the sea, so all delights center
   into Christ. The sea is not full, but Jesus is fall to the very brim.

   Moreover, myrrh is perfuming. It is used to give a sweet smell to other
   things. It was mingled with the sacrifice, so that it was not only the
   smoke of the fat of kidneys of rams, and the flesh of fat beasts, but
   there was a sweet fragrance of myrrh, which went up with the sacrifice
   to heaven. And surely, beloved, Jesus Christ is very perfuming to his
   people. Does not he perfume their prayers, so that the Lord smelleth a
   sweet savor? Doth he not perfume their songs, so that they become like
   vials full of odour sweet? Doth he not perfume our ministry, for is it
   not written, "He causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest
   the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a
   sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that
   perish." Our persons are perfumed with Christ. Whence get we our
   spikenard but from him? Whither shall we go to gather camphire which
   shall make our persons and presence acceptable before God but to him?
   "For we are accepted in the beloved." "Ye are complete in
   him"--"perfect in Christ Jesus"--"for he hath made us kings and priests
   unto our God, and we shall reign for ever and ever."

   Myrrh has preserving qualities. The Egyptians used it in embalming the
   dead: and we find Nicodemus and the holy women bringing myrrh and aloes
   in which to wrap the dead body of the Savior. It was used to prevent
   corruption. What is there which can preserve the soul but Christ Jesus?
   What is the myrrh which keeps our works, which in themselves are dead,
   and corrupt, and rotten--what, I say, keeps them from becoming a foul
   stench in the nostrils of God, but that Christ is in them? What we have
   done out of love to Christ, what we have offered through his mediation,
   what has been perfumed by faith in his person, becomes acceptable. God
   looketh upon anything we say, or anything we do, and if he seeth Christ
   in it, he accepteth it; but if there be no Christ, he putteth it away
   as a foul thing. See to it then, beloved, that you never pray a prayer
   which is not sweetened with Christ. I would never preach a sermon--the
   Lord forgive me if I do--which is not full to overflowing with my
   Master. I know one who said I was always on the old string, and he
   would come and hear me no more; but if I preached a sermon without
   Christ in it, he would come. Ah! he will never come while this tongue
   moves, for a sermon without Christ in it--a Christless sermon! A brook
   without water; a cloud without rain; a well which mocks the traveler; a
   tree twice dead, plucked up by the root; a sky without a sun; a night
   without a star. It were a realm of death--a place of mourning for
   angels and laughter for devils. O Christian, we must have Christ! Do
   see to it that every day when you wake you give a fresh savor of Christ
   upon you by contemplating his person. Live all the day, trying as much
   as lieth in you, to season your hearts with him, and then at night, lie
   down with him upon your tongue. It is said of Samuel Rutherford, that
   he often did fall asleep talking about Christ, and was often heard in
   his dreams, saying sweet things about his Savior. There is nothing
   which can preserve us and keep us from sin, and make our works holy and
   pure, like this "bundle of myrrh."

   Myrrh again, was used as a disinfectant. When the fever is abroad, we
   know people who wear little bags of camphor about their necks. They may
   be very good; I do not know. But the Orientals believed that in times
   of pest and plague, a little bag of myrrh worn between the breasts
   would be of essential service to whoever might carry it. And there
   doubtless is some power in myrrh to preserve from infectious disease.
   Well, brethren, certain I am it is so with Christ. You have to go into
   the world which is like a great lazar-house; but if you carry Christ
   with you, you will never catch the world's disease. A man may be worth
   never so much money, he will never get worldly if he keepeth Christ on
   his heart. A man may have to tug and toil for his livelihood, and be
   very poor, he will never be discontented and murmuring if he lives
   close to Christ. O you who have to handle the world, see to it that you
   handle the Master more than the world. Some of you have to work with
   drunken and swearing men; others are cast into the midst of
   frivolities--O take my Master with you! and sin's plagues can have no
   influence upon your moral nature.

   But myrrh was believed by the ancient physicians to do more than
   this--it was a cure--it did not merely prevent, but it healed. I do not
   know how many diseases are said to be healed by the use of myrrh, nor
   do I altogether suppose that these Oriental physicians spoke from
   facts, for they were too much given to ascribe qualities to drugs,
   which those drugs did not possess; however even modern physicians
   believe myrrh to have many valuable medical properties. Certain is it
   that your Christ is the best medicine for the soul. His name is Jehovah
   Rophi--"I am the Lord that healeth them." When we see Luke called "the
   beloved physician," we almost grudge him the name. I will take it from
   him and give it to my Master, for he deserves it far more than Luke.
   The beloved physician! he touched the leper, and he was made whole. He
   did but look upon those who were lame. and they leaped as a hart. His
   voice startled the silence of Hades, and brought back the soul to the
   body. What cannot Christ do? He can heal anything. You who are sick
   this morning, sick with doubts and fears, you who are sick with
   temptation, you who struggle with an angry temper, or with the
   death-like sleep of sloth, get Christ, and you are healed. Here all
   things meet, and in all these things we may say, "A bundle of myrrh is
   my well-beloved unto me."

   I have not done yet, for myrrh was used in the East as a beautifier. We
   read of Esther, that before she was introduced to Ahasuerus, she and
   the virgins were bidden to prepare themselves, and among other things,
   they used myrrh. The belief of Oriental women was, that it removed
   wrinkles and stains from the face, and they used it constantly for the
   perfecting of their charms. I do not know how that may be, but I know
   that nothing makes the believer so beautiful as being with Christ. He
   is beautiful in the eyes of God, of holy angels, and of his fellow-men.
   I know some Christians whom it is a great mercy to speak to: if they
   come into your cottage, they leave behind them tokens of remembrance,
   in the choice words they utter. To get them into the Church is a
   thousand mercies, and if they join the Sunday-school, of what value
   they are! Let me tell you that the best gauge of a Christian's
   usefulness will be found in the degree in which he has been with Jesus
   and learned of him. Do not tell me it is the scholar, do not say to me
   it is the man of eloquence, do not say it is the man of substance--well
   we would have all these consecrate what they have to Christ--but it is
   the man of God who is the strong man; it is the man who has been with
   Jesus who is the pillar of the Church; and a light to the world. O
   brethren, may the beauty of the Lord be upon us through being much with
   Christ.

   And I must not close this point without saying that myrrh might well be
   used as an emblem of our Lord from its connection with sacrifice. It
   was one of the precious drugs used in making the holy oil with which
   the priests were anointed and the frankincense which burned perpetually
   before God. It is this, the sacrificial character of Christ, which is
   at the root and bottom of all that Christ is most precious to his
   people. O Lamb of God our sacrifice, we must remember thee.

   2. Now there has been enough, surely, said about the myrrh. Have
   patience while we just notice that he is called a bundle of myrrh, or
   as some translate it, a bag of myrrh, or a box of myrrh.

   There were three sorts of myrrh; there was the myrrh in sprigs, which
   being burnt made a sweet smell; then there was myrrh, a dried spice;
   and then thirdly, there was myrrh a flowing oil. We do not know to
   which there is reference here. But why is it said "a bundle of myrrh?"
   First, for the plenty of it. He is not a drop of it, he is a casket
   full. He is not a sprig or flower of it, but a whole bundle full. There
   is enough in Christ for my necessities. There is more in Christ than I
   shall ever know--perhaps more than I shall understand even in heaven.

   A bundle again, for variety; for there is in Christ not only the one
   thing needful, but "ye are complete in him;" there is everything
   needful. Take Christ in his different characters, and you will see a
   marvellous variety--prophet, priest, king, husband, friend, shepherd.
   Take him in his life, death, resurrection, ascension, second advent,
   take him in his virtue, gentleness, courage, self-denial, love,
   faithfulness, truth, righteousness--everywhere it is a bundle. Some of
   God's judgments are manifold, but all God's mercies are manifold, and
   Christ being the sum of God's mercies, hath in fold upon fold of
   goodness. He is "a bundle of myrrh" for variety.

   He is a bundle of myrrh again, for preservation--not loose myrrh to be
   dropped on the floor or trodden on, but myrrh tied up, as though God
   bound up all virtues and excellencies in his Son: not myrrh spilt on
   the ground, but myrrh in a box--myrrh kept in a casket. Such is Christ.
   The virtue and excellence which goeth out of Christ is quite as strong
   today as in the day when the woman touched the hem of his garment and
   was healed. "Able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God
   through him," is he still unto this hour.

   A bundle of myrrh again, to shew how diligently we should take care of
   it. We must bind him up, we must keep our thoughts of him and knowledge
   of him as under lock and key, lest the devil should steal anything from
   us. We must treasure up his words, prize his ordinances, obey his
   precepts, tie him up and keep him ever with us as a precious bundle of
   myrrh.

   And yet again, a bundle of myrrh for speciality, as if he were not
   common myrrh for everybody. No, no, no; there is distinguishing,
   discriminating grace--a bundle tied up for his people and labelled with
   their names from before the foundation of the world. No doubt there is
   an allusion here to the scent bottle used in every land. Jesus Christ
   is a bottle of myrrh, and he doth not give forth his smell to everybody
   but to those who know how to draw forth the stopper, who understand how
   to get into communion with him, to have close dealings with him. He is
   not myrrh for all who are in the house but for those who know how to
   put the bottle to their nostrils and receive the sweet perfume. Oh!
   blessed people whom the Lord hath admitted into his secrets! Oh! choice
   and happy people who are thus made to say "A bottle of myrrh is my
   well-beloved unto me."

   But I am afraid I tire you, especially those of you who do not know
   anything about my subject. There are some such here who know no more
   about what I am talking of than if they were Mahometans. They are
   listening to a new kind of religion now. The religion of Christ is as
   high above them as is the path of the eagle above that of the fish, and
   as much hidden from them as the way of the serpent on the rock from the
   eye of man. This is a path which the eagle's eye hath not seen, nor
   hath the lion's whelp trodden it; but I trust there are some here who
   know it.

   III. Our third remark was to be--that with a sense of Christ's
   preciousness is combined A CONSCIOUSNESS OF POSSESSION. It is "my
   well-beloved." My dear hearer, is Christ your well-beloved? A
   Savior--that is well; but my Savior--that is the best of the best. What
   is the use of bread if it is not mine? I may die of hunger. Of what
   value is gold, if it be not mine? I may yet die in a workhouse. I want
   this preciousness to be mine. "My well-beloved." Have you ever laid
   hold on Christ by the hand of faith?

   Will you take him again this morning, brethren, in Jesus? I know you
   will. Would that those who never did take him, would take him now and
   say, "My saviour." There stands his atonement, freely offered to you,
   may you have the grace to take it, and say, "My Savior, my Savior,"
   this morning. Has your heart taken him? It is well for us to use both
   hands, not only the hand of faith, but the hand of love, for this is
   the true embrace when both arms meet around our beloved. Do you love
   him? O souls, do you LOVE Christ, with an emphasis upon the word. Do
   not talk to me about a religion which dwells in the head and never gets
   into the heart. Get rid of it as quickly as you can; it will never
   bring you to heaven. It is not "I believe this and that" merely, but "I
   love." Ah! some who have been great fools in doctrine have been very
   wise in love. We tell our children to learn things "by heart." I think
   you can, you love Jesus, and if you cannot you must confess as I do,

   "A very wretch, Lord, I should prove,

   Had I no love to thee;

   Sooner than not my Savior love,

   O may I cease to be."

   But that is not the only word. "A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved
   unto me." That is not a redundant expression, "unto me." He is not so
   to many. Ah! my Lord is a root out of a dry ground to multitudes. A
   three-volume novel suits them better than his Book. They would sooner
   go to a play or a dance than they would have any fellowship with him.
   They can see the beauties upon the cheeks of this Jezebel world, but
   they cannot see the perfections of my Lord and Master. Well! well!
   well! Let them say what they will, and let them think as they please,
   every creature hath its own joy, but "a bundle of myrrh is my
   well-beloved unto me"--unto me--unto me, and if there is not another
   who finds him so, yet "a bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me." I
   would it were not with others as it is--I would that others did think
   so also of him; but let them say what they will, they shall not drive
   me out of my knowledge of this--"a bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved
   unto me." The infidel saith, "There is no God." The atheist would
   altogether laugh me to scorn. They shall say what they will, but "a
   bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me." Even bishops have been
   found who will take away a part of his Book, and so rend his garments,
   and rob him; and there be some who say his religion is out of date, and
   grace has lost his power; and they go after philosophy and vain
   conceit, and I know not what, but "a bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved
   unto me." They may have no nostril for him, they may have no desire
   after him; so let it be, but "a bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto
   me." I know there are some who say they have tried him and not found
   him sweet, and who have turned away from him and gone back to the
   beggarly elements of the world because they see nothing in Christ that
   they should desire him; but "a bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto
   me." Ah! Christian, this is what you want, a personal experience, a
   positive experience; you want to know for yourself; for there is no
   religion which is worth a button which is not burnt into you by
   personal experience; and there is no religion worth a straw which does
   not spring from your soul, which does lay not hold upon the very vitals
   of your spirit. Yes, you must say--I hope you can say as you go down
   those steps this morning, and enter again to-morrow into that busy,
   giddy world--you must say, "Let the whole world go astray, a bundle of
   myrrh is my well-beloved unto me.'"

   IV. Now the practical point closes it. A SENSE OF POSSESSION AND A
   SENSE OF ENJOYMENT WILL ALWAYS LEAD THE CHRISTIAN TO DESIRE CONSTANT
   FELLOWSHIP. "He" or rather "it shall lie all night betwixt my breasts."
   The Church does not say, "I will put this bundle of myrrh on my
   shoulders"--Christ is no burden to a Christian. She does not say, "I
   will put this bundle of myrrh on my back"--the Church does not want to
   have Christ concealed from her face. She desires to have him where she
   can see him, and near to her heart. The bundle of myrrh shall lie all
   night upon my heart. The words "All night" are not in the original; I
   do not know how they got into the translation. He is to be always
   there, not only all night but all day. It would be always night if he
   were not there, and it cannot be night when he is there, for

   "Midst darkest shade, if he appear,

   My dawning has begun."

   He shall always be upon our heart. I think that expression just means
   these three things. It is an expression of desire--her desire that she
   may have the consciousness of Christ's love continually. Do not you
   feel the same desire. O Christian, if thou hast ever been made like the
   chariots of Amminadib, it will be ill for thee if thou canst be content
   to be otherwise. If thou hast but once tasted Christ, thou wilt wait to
   feed upon him all day and all night, and as long as thou livest. My
   desire is that Jesus may abide with me from morn till even, in the
   world and in the Church, when I awake, when I sleep, when I go abroad,
   and when I come home into the bosom of my family. Is not that your
   desire that he may be always with you?

   But then, it is not only her desire, but it is also her confidence. She
   seems to say, "He will be with me thus." You may have a suspension of
   visible fellowship with Christ, but Christ never will go away from
   people really. He will be all night betwixt your breasts; he will at
   all times abide faithful to you. He may close his eyes and hide his
   face from you, but his heart never can depart from you. He has set you
   as a seal upon his heart, and increasingly will make you sensible of
   it. Recollect there is no suspension of Christ's union with his people,
   and no suspension of those saving influences which always make his
   people to stand complete in him.

   To conclude, this is also a resolve. She desires, she believes, and she
   resolves it. Lord, thou shalt be with me, thou shalt be with me always.
   I appeal to you, brethren, will you not make this resolve in God's
   strength this morning to cling close to Christ. Do not go talking, as
   you go home, about all sorts of nonsense; do not spend this afternoon
   in communion with folly and vanity, but throughout this day let your
   soul keep to Christ, to nothing but Christ. This evening we shall come
   to his table, to eat bread and drink wine, in remembrance of him, let
   us try if we can, that nothing shall make us give up Christ all this
   day. Have you got him, hold him and do not let him go till you bring
   him to your mother's house, to the chamber of her who bare you. Then
   there will be the family prayer at night. O, seek to keep him till you
   put your head upon the pillow. And then, on Monday morning, some of you
   have to go to work, and as soon as you get into the workshop or the
   factory, you say, "Now I must lose my Master." No, do not lose him.
   Hold him fast when your hand plies the hammer, and when your fingers
   hold the needle, still cling to him, in the market or in the exchange,
   on board ship, or in the field, do not let him go. You may have him
   with you all day. The Mahometan usually wears a piece of the Koran
   round his neck, and one, when converted to Christianity, put his New
   Testament in a little silken bag, and always wore it there. We need not
   such outward signs, but let us always have the Savior there; let us
   hang him about our neck as a charm against all evil; seek his blessed
   company, place him as a star upon your breast to be your honor and joy.

   Well, I have done, but I must have a word with the unconverted. There
   are some who can say, "I will have Christ always on my tongue." Away
   with tongue religion. You must have him on your heart. Ah! there are
   some who say, "I hope I shall have Christ on my heart in all eternity."
   You cannot have Christ in eternity if you do not have him in time. If
   you despise him to-day--in this life, he will reject you to-morrow in
   the world to come; and if he call and you refuse, one day you will call
   and he refuse. Do not put up with desires merely, dear friends--some of
   you have desires, and nothing more. Do not only desire Christ, but get
   him. Do not stop short with saying, "I should like to have him in my
   heart;" give no sleep to your eyes nor slumber to your eyelids, till by
   humble faith you have taken Christ to be your all in all. May the Lord
   bless these poor words, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                             The Cripple at Lystra

   A Sermon

   (No. 559)

   by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "The same heard Paul speak: who stedfastly beholding him, and
   perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice,
   Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked."--Acts 14:9-10.

   I  HAVE READ in your hearing the story of the preaching of Paul and
   Barnabas in the town of Lystra. The name of Christ was there totally
   unknown. They were a sort of country people, partly pastoral and partly
   agricultural, who seem to have been deeply sunken in superstition. At
   the gates of their city there stood a great temple dedicated to
   Jupiter, and they appear to have been his zealous votaries. Coming down
   from the mountainside Paul and Barnabas enter the town, and when a
   fitting time has come, they stand up in the marketplace, or the street,
   and begin to talk concerning Jesus, the Son of God, who had come down
   from heaven, had suffered and died, and had again ascended up on high.
   The people gather round them. Among the rest a cripple listens with
   very marked attention. They preach again. The crowds are still greater,
   and on one occasion, while Paul is in the middle of a sermon, using his
   eyes to watch the audience as all preachers should do, and not looking
   up at the ceiling, or at the gallery-front as some preachers are wont
   to do, he marks this cripple, fixes his eyes upon him, and looks
   earnestly in his face. Either by the exercise of his judgment, or by
   the promptings of revelation, the apostle gathers that this man has
   faith--faith to be healed. In order to attract the attention of the
   people, to glorify the name of Christ, to publish more widely his
   glorious fame, and to make the miracle well known, Paul stops the
   sermon, and with a loud voice cries, "Stand upright on thy feet." The
   cripple leaps and praises God. The population are all amazed, and
   knowing that there was a tradition that Jupiter and Mercury had once
   appeared in that very town, a tradition preserved in the Metamorphoses
   of Ovid to the present day, they at once conclude that surely Jupiter
   and Mercury must be come again. They fix upon Barnabas, who was
   probably the elder and the nobler looking man, for Jupiter; and as
   Jupiter was always attended by Mercurins, as a messenger, and Mercury
   was the god of eloquence, they conclude that Paul must be Mercury. They
   rush to the temple, they tell the priests that the gods have come down.
   The priests, only too ready to foster popular credulity, and pander to
   it, bring forth the sacred bullocks and the garlands, and are about to
   offer sacrifice before Paul and Barnabas. Such homage these men of God
   indignantly refuse; they rend their clothes; they beseech them to do no
   such thing, for they are nothing but men; yet hardly with earnest words
   can they stay the people. But the next day certain Jews came thither
   and produced a counter irritation in the simple minds of the people. No
   very difficult task where a rude fanaticism rouses the wild passions of
   the mob. Such an assembly must rage, whether it he with redundant
   applause or with derisive jeers. Accordingly, Paul finds himself
   exposed to peril; he is stoned through the streets, dragged forth as
   dead, and left by the very men who worshipped him but yesterday as a
   god, left to die as a villain outside the city gates. But Paul's
   preaching had not been in vain. There were some few disciples who
   remained faithful. His ministry was rewarded and owned of God.

   There are two or three points in this narrative to which I shall call
   your attention to-night, making, however, the lame man the center of
   the picture. We shall notice, first of all, what preceded this lame
   man's faith; secondly, wherein lay his faith to be healed; and thirdly,
   what is the teaching of the miracle itself, and the blessing which the
   lame man obtained through faith.

   I. WHAT WAS IT WHICH PRECEDED HIS FAITH?

   That "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God," is a
   great and universal rule; but the hearing of what? Doubtless the
   hearing of the gospel is intended. On turning to your Bibles you will
   find it is written--"And there they preached the gospel." What, Paul,
   dost thou not change thy voice? Thou hast preached the gospel in the
   cities of Iconium and Antioch, where there were enlightened and
   intelligent hearers; if the gospel suited them, surely it will not do
   for these wolfish boors! Why go and preach to these poor, ignorant,
   superstitious fanatics the very same truths which you spoke to your
   enlightened Jewish brethren? But he does do so, my friends. The very
   gospel which he preached at Damascus in the synagogue he preaches here
   at Lystra in the market-place. He makes no difference between the
   education of his hearers in different places; he has the same gospel to
   preach to them both. You recollect that Paul went to Ephesus, and
   Ephesus, as a city, was besotted with a belief in sorcery. The people
   had given themselves up to practice magical arts. What is the right way
   to begin to preach at Ephesus? Deliver a course of lectures upon the
   impossibility and absurdity of such superstition? No, sir, nothing of
   the kind. Preach Christ, preach the gospel; and as Jesus Christ is
   lifted up they bring their magical books and make a bonfire of them in
   the open forum. But here is a polished governor, Sergius Paulus,
   sitting upon the judgment-seat. What shall be preached to him? Would it
   not be well to begin with a dissertation on politics, and to show that
   the Christian religion does not interfere with proper government, that
   it does not stir up the people to anarchy? No, sir, nothing of the
   kind. There is nothing for Sergius Paulus any more than there is for
   Elymas the sorcerer, but the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
   Paul goes to Athens. Now the Athenians are the most learned and
   philosophical of the whole race of men. What will Paul preach there?
   The gospel, the whole gospel, and nothing but the gospel. He may change
   his tones, but never his matter. It is the same remedy for the same
   disease, he the men what they may. He comes to Corinth, and here you
   have not only polished manners, but the very refinement of vice. It is
   a city, an emporium of trade, and a sort of central depot of sin. What
   then? Will he now, to please the trader, assume a different dialect?
   Not he! The Christ for Athens is the Christ for Corinth too. And now
   see him. He has come to Lycaonia, and is preaching at Lystra. Here is
   an ignorant set of people who worship an image. Why does he not begin
   by preaching of the deity? Why does he not talk to them of the Trinity
   in unity? Why does he not try and confute their notions about their
   gods? No, my dear sir, he will do nothing of the kind; that may be done
   incidentally, but the first and the last thing that Paul will do at
   Lystra is, there he will preach the gospel. O glorious gospel of the
   blessed God! Wherever we take thee thou art suited to the wants of men.
   Take thee to Persia with all its gems and jewels, and thou dost suit
   the monarch on his throne; or take thee to the naked savage with all
   his poverty and squalid filth, and thou dost suit him too. Thou mayst
   he preached, thrice glorious wisdom of God, to the wisest of men; but
   thou are not too great a mystery to be understood and believed even by
   the fools and the babes; the things which are not can receive thee as
   well as the things which are. Never, I pray you brethren, lose heart in
   the power of the gospel. Do not believe that there exists any man, much
   less any race of men, for whom the gospel is not fitted. Wherever you
   go, do not cut, and trim, and shape, and alter; hut just bring out the
   whole truth as God has taught it to you, and rest assured that you will
   be unto God a sweet savor of Christ in every place, both in them who
   are saved and in them who perish.

   What then, was this gospel which the apostle Paul did preach
   everywhere? Well, it was a gospel which had in it three things, certain
   facts, certain doctrines, and certain commands.

   It was a gospel of facts. Every time Paul stood up to preach he told
   the following unvarnished tale: God, looking upon the race of men,
   beheld them lost and ruined. Out of love to them he sent his only
   begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was born of the virgin Mary,
   lived some thirty-two or thirty-three years a life of spotless
   innocence and perfect obedience to God. He was God: he was man. In due
   time he was delivered up by the traitor Judas. He was crucified, and
   actually put to death. Though he was the Lord of life and glory, who
   only hath immortality, yet he bowed his head and gave up the ghost.
   After three days he rose again, and showed himself to many of his
   disciples, so that they were well assured he was the same person who
   had been put into the grave; and when the forty days were finished he
   ascended up to heaven in the sight of them all, where he sitteth at the
   right hand of God, and shall also come ere long a second time to judge
   both the quick and the dead. These were the facts which Paul would
   state. God was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his
   glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the father, full of grace
   and truth. "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." Briefly, these were the facts which Paul would preach, and if
   any one of these facts he preached doubtfully, or he left out of any
   ministry, then the gospel is not preached; for the foundations upon
   which the gospel rests have been removed, and then what can the
   righteous do?

   Following upon these facts, Paul preached certain doctrines, the
   doctrines flowing out of the facts. To wit, he preached that Jesus
   Christ had offered a full atonement to divine wrath for the sin of his
   people, so that whosoever would believe on him, and trust him, should
   be saved. The doctrine of the atonement would form the most prominent
   feature in the gospel of the apostle Paul, Christ also hath suffered
   for us, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. "God commendeth
   his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died
   for the ungodly." Then would come the doctrine of pardon. Paul with
   glowing tongue would tell how God could be just, and yet the justifier
   of him who believeth; how all manner of sin and iniquity shall be
   forgiven unto men, the simple condition being that the man believes in
   Christ, and this not so much the man's own work, as a gift of the Holy
   Ghost. Everywhere Paul would he unmistakable in this--"Ye chief of
   sinners, look to the wounds of Jesus, and your sins shall he forgiven
   you." Equally clear would he be upon the doctrine of justification.
   "Christ," he would say, "will wash you; nay, more, he will clothe you;
   the perfect holiness of his character shall he imputed unto you, and
   being justified, you shall have peace with God, and there shall be no
   condemnation, because you are in Christ Jesus." I think I see the
   flashing eye of the apostle; methinks I listen to his earnest voice,
   while he pleads with men to lay hold upon eternal life, to look to
   Jesus Christ, to forsake the deeds of the law, to put their trust in
   nothing which cometh from man, but to look to Jesus, and to Jesus only.
   These great truths, atonement, pardon, and justification, with all the
   other truths connected with them, of which we cannot now speak
   particularly, were just the gospel which the apostle Paul preached.

   And out of these we said their sprung certain commands. The commands
   were these--"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
   Nor do I suppose that the apostle for a moment stammered to preach that
   other command--"Arise, and he baptized." He would not preach half the
   gospel, but the whole of it--"He that believeth and is baptized shall
   he saved; but he that believeth not shall he damned;" and often after
   his hearers had cried, "What must we do to he saved," and they had
   believed in Christ, they would say to him--"See, here is water, what
   doth hinder me to he baptized?"

   The apostle then preached a gospel which was made up of certain
   authenticated facts, out of which there flowed certain most gracious
   evangelical doctrines, which were enforced and driven home with divine
   authority, by Christ's own commands. "Well," says one, "do you think
   the world will be turned upside down by this?" Sirs, it has been, and
   it will he again. In vain do those who seek after human learning, and
   who aim at dreamy sentiment or spurious science in preference to the
   standard teaching which is from above, attempt to find a nobler
   instrument. This is the great battering-ram which shall yet shake the
   bastions of error. This is the sword, the true Escalabar, which, if any
   man knoweth how to wield it, shall cut through joints and marrow, and
   make him more than a conqueror. He who getteth a hold of the gospel of
   Christ, and knoweth how to use it, hath that before which the devils
   tremble, and in the presence of which angels adore, which cherubs long
   to look into, and which God himself smiles upon as his noblest work.
   The truth we proclaim is not that which is discovered by us, but that
   which has been delivered to us. Do ye ask, then, where this man's faith
   came from? It came from Paul's preaching of the gospel.

   II. Now WHEREIN LAY THIS MAN'S FAITH?

   Paul looked at the man, we are told, and perceived "that he had faith
   to be healed." What meaneth this "faith to be healed?" In this man's
   case I think it was something like this. Poor fellow! As he listened to
   Paul's preaching, he thought perhaps--"Well, that looks like true; that
   seems to be the truth; it is the truth; I am sure it is true; and, if
   it is true that Jesus Christ is so great a Savior, perhaps I may be
   healed; these lame legs of mine, which never would carry me anywhere,
   may yet come straight; I--I--I think they may; I hope they may; I
   believe they may; I know it can be done if Christ wills it; I believe
   that, and from what Paul says of Christ's character, I think he must be
   willing to do it; I will ask the apostle; the first convenient season
   that I have I will lift up my cry, for I believe it can be done, and I
   think there is a perfect willingness, both in the mind of the apostle
   and of the Master that it should be done; I believe it will be done,
   and that I shall yet stand upright." Then Paul said to him, "Stand
   upright on thy feet," and he did so in a moment, for "he had faith to
   he healed."

   Do you think I am overstraining the probabilities of the case? You will
   perhaps say, "It does not appear that Paul had any communication with
   the poor cripple before the miracle was performed." Now I venture to
   draw quite an opposite inference. I know from my own experience that it
   is no uncommon thing for some one individual to arrest the preacher's
   attention. The group of countenances which lay before him in a large
   assembly like the present, might to the first glance of a stranger look
   confused and inexplicable, as a Chinese grammar does to those who know
   not the language. But you need not doubt that a practiced eye can learn
   to read the one as well as the other. The languor and indifference of
   some; the curious enquiring look of others; the cold, critical
   attention of a considerable number, and the countenances of those who
   are rather absorbed in a train of thought just awakened in their own
   minds--these have all a peculiar impressiveness, and form a picture
   which often reacts upon us, and kindles a vehement desire in our
   breasts to reach the souls of those who, for a brief hour, hang upon
   our lips. But there will sometimes be one who has faith dazzling in his
   very eyes, as they are fixed with an intentness, of which it were vain
   for me to attempt a description, seeming to drink in every word and
   every syllable of a word, till the preacher becomes as absorbed in that
   man as the man had been in the preacher. And while he pursues the
   discourse, gaining liberty at every step, till he forgets the formality
   of the pulpit in the freedom of conversation with the people, he
   perceives that at last this man has heard the very truth which meets
   his case. There is no concealing it. His features have suddenly
   relaxed. He listens still, but it is no longer with painful anxiety; a
   calm satisfaction is palpable on his face now. That soul of communion
   which is in the eye has unravelled the secret. Preacher and hearer,
   unknown to all the rest of the audience, have secretly saluted ench
   other, and met on the common ground of a vital faith. The anxious one
   feels that it can be done. And I can readily conclude that the apostle
   perceived that feeling with greater certainty than he would have done
   had the man whispered it in his ears. So have I sometimes known that
   the exhortation to believe has become from these lips a positive
   command to the struggling conscience of some one, who has been brought
   to a point where the remedy is instantly applied, and the cure
   instantly effected.

   Most unquestionably there is such a thing as faith to be saved. I do
   not know how many here may possess it; but, thank God, there are
   hundreds of you here who have faith that you are saved. That is better;
   that is the ripest faith, the faith which knows you are saved and
   rejoices in hope of the glory of God. Alas! there are others who have
   no faith at all. But it is with those who have faith, and that only
   faith to be saved, not faith that you are saved, I am more particularly
   concerned at this moment.

   Shall I describe this "faith to he saved?" for I believe that there may
   be some here who may just now stand upright on their feet; some who may
   at this time leap for joy of heart because they are saved and did not
   know it. You have "faith," but you have not fully exercised it. Now,
   you believe that Jesus Christ is God's Son? "Yes." That he has made a
   full atonement for his people? "Yes." You believe that they are his
   people who trust him? "Yes." You believe he is worthy to be trusted?
   "Yes." You have nothing else to trust to? "No, sir." You depend on
   nothing which you have ever felt, or thought, or done? "No, sir, I
   depend on nothing but Christ." And you do, after a sort of fashion,
   trust Christ. You hope that one of these days he will save you, and you
   think, and sometimes you almost know, he will. You are ready to trust
   him. You do believe he is able, you do not think he is unwilling; you
   have got faith in his ability, and you have almost got faith in his
   willingness; sometimes you half think to yourself, "I am a child of
   God." But then, there is some ugly "but" comes in. Those lame legs
   again; those lame legs again. You are still afraid. You have "faith to
   he saved," but you have not the full assurance of faith which can utter
   forth this joyous psalm, "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust,
   and not he afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he
   also is become my salvation."

   Well now, I do not know whether I have picked you out, whether I have
   given a right description of you or not. I recollect the time when I
   was in that state. I can honestly say I did not doubt Christ. I then
   partly believed that he would save me. I knew he was worthy of my
   trust, and I did trust him as far as this, that I resolved, if I did
   perish, I would perish crying to him, and that if I was east away, it
   should be clinging to the cross. I believe I had "faith to be saved,"
   and was for months in bondage, when there was no necessity that I
   should have been in bondage at all, for, when there is "faith to he
   saved," then the man only needs that gracious command--"Stand upright
   on thy feet," and forthwith he leaps out of his infirmity, and walks
   freely in the integrity of his heart.

   III. I shall not enlarge further upon this, because I want to go to THE
   SPIRITUAL TEACHING OF THE MIRACLE, AND OF THE BLESSING CONFERRED.

   Are there not many, who though they have "faith to be saved," are still
   entirely lame or painfully limping? The reasons may be different in
   different cases. Some have been so stunned by the grief which they have
   suffered on account of sin, and the frightful convictions through which
   they have passed, that while they do believe that Christ is able and
   willing to save, they cannot get a hold of the fact that they are
   saved; such is the faintness of spirit and the languishing of soul
   brought on by long despair. "Stand upright on thy feet," thou trembling
   sinner. If thou believest in Jesus, whatever thy fears may be, there is
   no cause for them. As for thy sins, they were laid on him, every one of
   them, and though thou hast been sore broken in the land of dragons,
   thus saith the Lord unto thee, "I have put away thy sin; thou shalt not
   die; I have blotted out like a cloud thy transgressions, and like a
   thick cloud thy sins." Rejoice, then, and he glad. If you do trust
   Christ, you are saved; though as yet it only looketh like faith which
   heralds the tidings of a salvation which has not yet arrived. Still, it
   is the grace of God which bringeth salvation which has enabled thee to
   believe; and he who believeth on the Son bath everlasting life. O
   receive the welcome message; spring up at the sound of the words; stand
   upright on thy feet and rejoice.

   Some are still lame, though they have faith, through ignorance. They do
   not know what being saved is. They entertain wrong expectations. They
   are trusting in Christ, but they do not feel any surprising emotions;
   they have not had any remarkable dreams, or visions, or striking
   ebullitions of excited joy, and therefore, though they have "faith to
   be saved," they have not the faith of a present salvation. They are
   waiting for something, they hardly know what, to embellish their faith,
   or to fortify it with signs and wonders. Now, poor soul, wherefore do
   you wait? These things are not necessary to salvation. In fact, the
   fewer you have of them, methinks, the better, especially of things
   which are visionary. I rather tremble for those who talk much about
   sensible evidences; they are too often the frivolities of unstable
   hearts. Beloved, though you may have never had any ecstatic joys, or
   suffered any deep depression of your spirits, if you are resting on
   Christ, it does not matter one whit what your feelings have been or
   have not been. Do you expect to have an electric shock, or to go
   through some mysterious operation? The operation is mysterious, too
   mysterious for you to discern it; but all that you have to do with is
   this--"Do I believe in Jesus? Am I simply depending upon him for
   everything?" If you do you are saved, and I pray you to believe this.
   Stand upright on your feet, and leap for joy; for whether you believe
   it or not, if you are now depending upon Christ, your sins are forgiven
   you; you are a child of God; you are an heir of heaven.

   How many, too, are kept lame because of a fear of self-deception. "I do
   trust Christ, but I am afraid lest I should deceive myself; suppose I
   were to get confidence, and it should he presumption! suppose I should
   think myself saved, and I am not!" Now, sir, if thou wert dealing with
   thyself there would be reason to be afraid of presumption, but thy
   faith hath to deal with God, who cannot deceive thee, and with Christ
   who will never tempt thee to be a deceiver. Doth not the Lord Jesus
   Christ himself tell thee that if thou believest in him thou art saved?
   Thou believest that, dost thou not? Then, soul, if thou believest on
   him, it is not presumption to say, "I am saved." Away with all that
   affectation of modesty, which some good people think to he so
   pretty--saying, "I hope;" "I trust;" but "I feel such doubts, such
   fears, and such gloomy misgivings." My dear sir, that is not humility:
   that is a vain unseemly questioning of God. The God and Father of our
   Lord Jesus Christ tells you, and he gives his own unequivocal word for
   it, that if you rest upon Christ you rest upon a rock; that if you
   believe in him you are not condemned. Is it an evidence of the
   lowliness of your heart that you suspect the veracity of God, or the
   faithfulness of his promise? Surely this were no fruit of the meekness
   of wisdom. No, beloved; it may seem too good to he true, but it is not
   too good for my God to give, though it is too good for you to receive.
   You have his word for it, that if you trust his Son to save you, and
   simply trust him, and him alone, even if the pillars of the heavens
   should shake, yet you would be saved. If the foundations of the earth
   should reel, and the whole earth should like a vision pass away, yet
   this eternal promise and oath of God must stand fast.

   Others again, cannot stand upright on their feet, because they are
   afraid that if they did begin they would go back again, and so bring
   dishonor to Christ. This would be a very proper fear if you had
   anything to do with keeping yourselves. If you had to carry yourselves
   to heaven, it would he reasonable enough for you to despair of doing
   it. Of your own impotence it is impossible you can be too deeply
   convinced. You cannot do anything whatever, but Christ gives you his
   promise to preserve you even to the end. If you believe on him you
   shall be saved. He does not say you shall he saved for a year, or for
   twenty years, and then, perhaps, he lost at last. No; but "he that
   believeth and is baptized, shall he saved." If one man who believes in
   Christ is cast away, that promise of Christ is not true. Brethren, it
   is true, and it must he true, and let its glorious truth be sweetly
   familiar with you now--if you give your soul to Christ, putting simple
   faith in his person as the Son of God, and in his work as the Mediator
   between God and man, you shall as surely see his face within the pearly
   gates of heaven as your eyes see me to-night. There may he a question
   about your seeing me, but there can be no question about Christ
   fulfilling his promise and keeping his word. Now sit down in the dust
   no longer, thou doubting, mourning, trembling sinner. With a loud voice
   I say unto thee, as Paul did, "Stand upright on thy feet." Wherefore
   dost thou mourn? There is nothing to mourn about. Thy sin is forgiven;
   thine eternal salvation is secure; a crown in heaven is provided for
   thee, and a harp of gold awaits thee. If thou believest in Jesus none
   can lay anything to thy charge. Not even the principalities of darkness
   shall be able to prevail against thee. Eternal love secures thee
   against the malice of hell. Stand upright, then, on thy feet, for if
   thou believest thou art saved, completely saved, saved in time, and for
   eternal days, saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation.

   Then possibly there is one here who cannot stand upright because of his
   many sins. Ah! while I have been talking about Christ it may be
   something has been saying in your heart, "Ah! ah! what is it? Christ
   taking men's sins, suffering in their stead? That suits me. Is God
   doing this? Ah! then he must be able to save, and I am told that
   whosoever trusteth in him shall never perish; is it so? Why, here I am;
   I who have not been in a place of worship for months, for years, I have
   strayed in here to-night, and if what this man says be true, well then
   I will even venture my soul upon it; I have got nothing, I know, but he
   says there is nothing wanted; I am not prepared to trust Christ, but he
   says there is no preparation required, and if I trust Jesus Christ just
   as I am, Christ will save me; why, I will do it; by the grace of God I
   will do it; can he save me?" Then comes in the bitter reflection--"Look
   what a sinner I have been! why, I should be ashamed to say how foully I
   have sinned; he must shut me out; I have been too great a villain, too
   gross an offender; I have cursed and sworn at such a rate; he cannot
   mean that if I trust Christ I shall be saved; 1 believe he can save me;
   I see the fitness of the plan, and the excellency of it; I believe it,
   but see what a sinner I am!" Sinner, stand upright on thy feet, for
   "all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men." Return,
   thou wanderer, return to thy Father's house! He comes to meet thee. On
   thy neck he will fall, and thou shalt be his child for ever. Only
   believe thou in his Son Jesus Christ, and though this he the first time
   thou hast ever heard his Word, I would settle mine eyes upon thee
   earnestly, and say, "Stand upright on thy feet."

   Oh! how often I do wish that somebody had come to me when I was under
   depression of mind, and had told me about the simple gospel of Jesus
   Christ. I think I should have stood upright on my feet long before I
   did, but, alas! I kept hearing about what people felt before they
   believed in Christ--very proper preaching--and I was afraid I did not
   feel it, though now I know I did. I heard a great deal about what
   Christians ought to be, and a great deal more about God's elect, what
   they are in his esteem, but I did not know whether I was one of God's
   elect, and I knew I was not what I ought to be. O for the trumpet of
   the archangel, to sound the words, "Believe and live," as loud as the
   voice which shall wake the dead in their graves! and O for the
   quickening Spirit to go with voice, as it shall go with the ringing of
   the archangel's trump, when the graves shall open, and the dead shall
   arise! Go, you who know it, and tell it everywhere, for there are
   multitudes, I doubt not, who are really seeking Christ, and who have
   his Spirit in them, but it is like as the prophet hath it, "The
   children have come to the birth and there is no strength to bring
   forth." They have come to the very edge of light, and they only want
   one helping hand to bring them into noonday. They are slipping about in
   the Slough of Despond, and they are almost out of it, but they want
   just a helping hand to pull them out. This hand of help is stretched
   out by thus telling them, telling them plainly, it is in Jesus their
   help is found, and that trusting him, relying upon him, they shall
   never perish. neither shall any pluck them out of his hand.

   I would to God that some of you, who have been long hearing me, might
   be found in this class. I have been bowed down in spirit at some sad
   things which have been brought to my hearing of late. I know that there
   are some here, and there always have been some few attending my
   ministry, who have a personal affection for me, and who listen to the
   Word with very great attention, and who, moreover, are very greatly
   moved by it, but who have some besetting sin which they either cannot
   or will not give up. They do renounce it for a time, but either bad
   associates, or else the strength of their passions, take them away
   again. O sirs! I would ye would take warning. There was one of whom we
   had some sort of hope, who listened to our ministry. There came a
   turning point with him; it was this, either that he must give up sin,
   or else give up coming to the Tabernacle; and what--oh! what became of
   him? I could indicate the place where he sat. He died of delirium
   tremens! And I do not wonder. When you have heard the gospel preached
   Sabbath after Sabbath, when your response to the solemn appeals you
   have earnestly listened to has only been that you reject Christ and
   refuse eternal life--is it any marvel that in making the choice of your
   own damnation reason should resign its seat as director of your
   actions, and cease to curb your headstrong will, leaving the maddened
   passions to dash on with reckless fury, and precipitate your
   destruction. Am I clear of their blood? I have asked myself the
   question. I may not be in some things, but I know I am as far as my
   ministry is concerned. I have not shunned to declare unto any of you
   the whole counsel of God. When I have known any vice, or any
   folly--which of you have I been afraid of, or before whom of you all
   have I trembled? God is my witness; him have I served in the spirit;
   and if these turn aside unto their crooked ways, they have not done it
   without well knowing the consequences; nay, they have not done it
   without being warned and entreated, and persuaded to look unto Jesus
   Christ. And I do conjure some of you--you know to whom I refer--I do
   conjure those of you who have a conscience which is not seared, but
   who, nevertheless, persevere in your sins--I conjure you by the love of
   God, do me this one favor at the last: if you choose your own ruin,
   bear witness for me that I have not hesitated to warn you of it. I had
   infinitely rather, however, that you would do yourselves this great
   favor, to love your own souls. If you have anything to throw into the
   fire, throw it in, but let it not be your soul. If you have anything to
   lose, go and lose it, but do not lose your soul. Sirs, if you must play
   the fool, indulge your sport at a cheaper rate than this. If sin be
   worth having, then I pray you pay a cheaper price than your own souls
   for it, for it does seem to me so pitiful, so sorrowful a thing, that
   you who have been so short a time among us and are passing away before
   my very eyes, should still prefer the fleeting joy of the moment to the
   eternal joy, and risk everlasting torment for temporary mirth. By the
   tears of Jesus when he wept over Jerusalem, by the blood of Jesus which
   he shed for guilty men, by the heart of the eternal Father who willeth
   not the death of a sinner but had rather that he should turn unto him
   and live, I pray you he wise and consider your ways. Choose ye this day
   whom ye will serve, and may the Lord guide your choice. May you fall
   into the arms of divine mercy and say, "If thou wilt help me, Jesus,
   here I am; I give myself to thee." May my Master teach me how to
   address you if I do not know how to gasp the words of simplicity,
   tenderness, of terrible apprehension, but of persuasive power. If there
   were any words in any language that would melt you, this tongue is at
   your service to utter them. If there is any form of speech, though it
   should make me to be called vulgar, and subject me to the shame and
   hissing which once I endured, if the furnace could be heated seven
   times hotter than that, I would but laugh at it if I might but win your
   souls. Tell me, sirs, how shall I put the case? Would you have
   argument? I wish that I could reason with you. Would you have tears?
   There, let them flow! Ye dry eyes, why do ye not weep more for these
   perishing souls? Would you have God's Word without my word? Sirs, I
   would read it, and let my tongue he dumb if that would teach you. Would
   my death save you? That God who seeth in secret knoweth that to-night
   it were a joy to me to enter into my rest, and so it were little for me
   to talk of being willing to give a life for you, and it were, indeed,
   but a trifle to me. Oh! why will ye perish? Why should I plead with
   you, and you not care for yourselves? What is it that besets you? Poor
   moths! Are ye dazzled with the flames? Are ye not content to have
   singed your wings? Must they also consume body and soul? How can ye
   make your bed in hell? How can ye abide with eternal burnings? In the
   name of Jesus of Nazareth, I command you--for I can do no less--I
   command you to turn unto him and live. Believe on him and you shall he
   saved. But remember, at your hazard you reject the message to-night. It
   may he the last message that shall ever come to your soul with power,
   if ye cast this away--

   "What chains of vengeance must they feel,

   Who slight the bonds of love?"

   I would have you saved just now. I cannot talk about to-morrow. I would
   have you decide it at once. Oh! you have come as far as this twenty
   times, and have you gone back again? You have been aroused, you have
   made vows and you have broken them, resolutions and you have belied
   them. O sirs, for God's sake do not lie to the Almighty again. Now be
   true this time. May the Spirit of God make you speak the truth, even
   though you should he compelled to say, through your wickedness, "I will
   not submit myself unto the Son of God." Do speak the truth.
   Procrastinate not. As Elijah said, "How long halt ye between two
   opinions?" so say I. If God he God serve him, but if Baal he God serve
   him. But do not keep on coming here and then going to the pot-house. Do
   not come and take your seat here and then go to the brothel. Sirs, do
   not this foul scandal for God's sake, and for your own sake. If you
   will serve the devil serve him, and he a true servant to him. If you
   mean to go to hell, go there; but if you seek eternal life and joys to
   come, give up these things. Renounce them. Why drink poison and drink
   medicine too? Have done with one or the other and be honest. Be honest
   to your own souls. May the Lord grant that tonight some may have given
   to them, not only "faith to be saved," but the faith which saves, for
   his name's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                   Christ is Glorious--Let Us Make Him Known

   A Sermon

   (No. 560)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, March 20th, 1864, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the
   majesty of the name of the Lord his God; and they shall abide: for now
   shall he be great unto the ends of the earth."--Micah 5:4.

   YOU HAVE A VERY VIVID IDEA of the sufferings of Christ. Your faith has
   seen him sweating great drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane. You
   have looked on with amazement while he gave his back to the smiters,
   and his cheeks to them who plucked off the hair, and hid not his face
   from shame and spitting. With sorrowful sympathy you have followed him
   through the streets of Jerusalem, weeping and bewailing him with the
   women. You have sat down to watch him when he was fastened to the tree;
   yon have wept at his hitter complaint--"My God, my God, why hast thou
   forsaken me?" and you have rejoiced in his shout of victory--"It is
   finished!" With Magdalene and Nicodemus, you have followed his dead
   body to the tomb, and seen it wrapped about with spices, and left to
   its lonely sleep. Are your perceptions quite as keen concerning the
   glory which did follow and is following? Can you see him quite as
   distinctly when on the third morn the Conqueror rises, bursting the
   bonds of death with which he could not be holden? Can yon as clearly
   view him ascending up on high, leading captivity captive? Can you hear
   the ring of angelic clarions, as with dyed garments from Bozrah the
   Yictor returns from the battle, dragging death and hell at his chariot
   wheels? Do you plainly perceive him as he takes his seat at the right
   hand of the Father, henceforth expecting until his enemies be made his
   footstool? And can you be as clear this morning about the reigning
   Christ as you have been about the suffering Christ? Lo! my brethren,
   "the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to
   open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof!" At this hour he
   goeth forth, riding upon his white horse, conquering and to conquer.
   Lo! at his girdle swing the keys of heaven, and death, and hell, for
   "the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be
   called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, T he everlasting Father,
   The Prince of Peace." "God also hath highly exalted him, and given him
   a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee
   should bow." Behold him, my brethren, in his present plenitude of
   glory, and endeavor to get as clear a perception of it as you have had
   of his shame. Not only weep at his burial, but rejoice at his
   resurrection; not only sorrow at his cross, but worship at his throne.
   Do not merely think of the nails and of the spear, but behold the
   imperial purple which hangs so nobly upon his royal shoulders, and of
   the divine crown which he wears upon his majestic brow.

   I want to conduct you in such a frame of mind through the glories of my
   text. First, bidding you observe the perpetual reign of Christ: "He
   shall stand and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the
   name of the Lord his God;" then I shall beg you to observe that flowing
   from this is the perpetual continuance of his church: "and they shall
   abide;" and then proceeding both from his continued reign and from the
   Church's consequent perpetual existence comes the greatness of our
   King: "for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth."

   I. At the outset, observe carefully THE PERPETUAL REIGN OF CHRIST. He
   lives, he reigns, he is king over his people.

   Notice first, that his reign is shepherd-like in its nature. The kings
   of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, but our Master washed his
   disciples' feet. Earthly monarchs are often tyrants; their yoke is
   heavy, and their language domineering; but it is not so with our King;
   his yoke is easy, and his burden is light, for he is meek and lowly of
   heart. He is a shepherd-king. He has supremacy, but it is the
   superiority of a wise and tender shepherd over his needy and loving
   flock; he commands and receives obedience, but it is the willing
   obedience of the well-cared-for sheep, rendered joyfully to their
   beloved Shepherd, whose voice they know so well. He rules by the force
   of love and the energy of goodness. His power lies not in imperious
   threatenings, but in imperial lovingkindness. Let the children of Zion
   he joyful in their King, for "men shall be blessed in him: all nations
   shall call him blessed." Never people had such a king before. His
   service is perfect freedom; to be his subject is to be a king; to serve
   him is to reign. Blessed are the people who are the sheep of his
   pasture; if they follow in his footsteps their road is safe; if they
   sleep at his feet no lion can disturb their peace; if they are fed from
   his hand they shall lie down in green pastures, and know no lack; if
   they abide close to his person they shall drink of rivers of delight.
   Righteousness and peace are the stability of his throne, joy and
   gladness are the ornaments of his reign. Oh! how happy are we who
   belong to such a prince. Thou King in Jeshurun, we pay thee homage with
   loyal hearts; we come into thy presence with thanksgiving, and into thy
   courts with praise, for thou art our God, and we are the people of thy
   pasture, and the sheep of thy hand.

   Notice that the reign of Jesus is practical in its character. It is
   said "he shall stand and feed." The great Head of the Church is
   actively engaged in providing for his people. He does not sit down upon
   the throne in empty state, or hold a scepter without wielding it in
   government. No, he stands and feeds. The expression "feed," in the
   original is like an analogous one in the Greek, which means to
   shepherdize, to do everything expected of a shepherd: to guide, to
   watch, to preserve, to tend, as well as to feed. Our Lord Jesus Christ,
   the great Head of the Church, is always actively engaged for the
   Church's good. Through him the Spirit of God constantly descends upon
   the members of the Church; by him ministers are given in due season,
   and all Church-officers in their proper place. When he ascended up on
   high he received gifts for men; "And he gave some, apostles; and some,
   prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for
   the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the
   edifying of the body of Christ." Our Lord does not close his eyes to
   the state of his Church. Beloved, he is not a listless spectator of our
   wants. He is this day standing and feeding his people. They are
   scattered, I know, wide as the poles asunder, but our mighty Shepherd
   can see every sheep and lamb of his flock, and he gives them all their
   portion of meat in due season. He it is that like a mighty Breaker,
   goes forth at the head of his flock, and they follow where he clears
   the way, "He shall stand and feed." Oh! blessed carefulness and divine
   activity of our gracious King! always fighting against our enemies, and
   at the same the shedding his benignant influences upon his friends.

   Consider again, for it is in our text, that this active reign is
   continual in its duration. It is said, "He shall stand and feed;" not "
   he shall feed now and then, and then leave his position;" not, "he
   shall one day grant a revival, and then next day leave his Church to
   barrenness." Beloved, there is no such pastor as Christ. "I know my
   sheep," he can say, in a very high and peculiar sense. He knows them
   through and through; he feels with them; in all their afflictions he is
   afflicted; he is one with them eternally. There is no such wakeful
   watchman as the Lord Jesus. Is it not written, "I the Lord do keep it;
   I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night
   and day." Those eyes never slumber, and those hands never rest; that
   heart never ceases to beat with love, and those shoulders are never
   weary of carrying his people's burdens. The Church may go through her
   dark ages, but Christ is with her in the midnight. She may pass through
   her fiery furnace, but Christ is in the midst of the flame with her.
   Her whole history through, wherever you find the Church, there shall
   you find the Church's Lord. The head is never severed from the body,
   nor is the watchful care of this gracious husband towards his spouse
   suspended for an instant.

   I beseech you labor to realize the noble picture. Here are his sheep in
   these pastures this morning, and here is our great Shepherd with the
   crown upon his head, standing and feeding us all; nay, not us all
   alone, but dispensing his tender mercies to all the multitudes of his
   elect throughout the whole world. He is at this moment King in Zion,
   ruling, and overruling, present everywhere, and everywhere showing
   himself strong in the defense of his saints. I would that our Churches
   could be more influenced by a belief in the abiding power, presence,
   and pre-eminence of their living and reigning Lord. He is no dead King
   whose memory we are bidden to embalm, but a living Leader and Commander
   whose behests we must obey, whose honor we must defend.

   Do not fail to discern that the empire of Christ in his Church is
   effectually powerful in its action; "He shall feed in the strength of
   Jehovah." Wherever Christ is, there is God; and whatever Christ does is
   the act of the Most High. Oh! it is a joyful truth to consider that he
   who redeemed us was none other than God himself, he who led oar
   captivity captive was Jehovah-Jesus; he who stands to-day representing
   the interests of his people is very God of very God, he who has sworn
   that every one of his people whom he hath redeemed by blood shall be
   brought safe to his Father's right hand, is himself essential Deity. O
   my brethren, we rest upon a sure foundation when we build upon the
   Incarnate God; and O ye saints of God, the interests of each one of
   you, and of the one great Church, must be safe, because our champion is
   God; Jehovah is our Judge, Jehovah is our Lawgiver, Jehovah is our
   King, he will save us. How can he fail or be discouraged? When he
   maketh bare his arm, who shall stand against him? Let us rehearse the
   mighty deeds of the Lord and tell of his wonders of old. Remember how
   he got him victory upon Pharaoh and the pride of Egypt! Pharaoh said,
   "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go?" Ten
   plagues of terrible majesty taught the boaster that the Lord was not to
   be despised, and the humbled tyrant bade the people go their way. With
   a high hand and an outstretched arm did the Lord bring forth his people
   from the house of bondage. When the proud high stomach of Egypt's king
   again rose against the Most High, the Lord knew how to lay his
   adversary lower than the dust. Methinks I see the hosts of Mizraim,
   with their horses and their chariots, hurrying after the Lord's
   fugitives. Their mouths are foaming with rage. "The enemy said, I will
   pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be
   satisfied upon them." See how they ride in all their pompous glory,
   swallowing the earth in their fury. O Israel, where shall be thy
   defense? How shalt thou escape from thy tyrannic master? Be still, O ye
   seed of Jacob; ye sons of Abraham, rest ye patiently, for these
   Egyptians whom ye see to-day, ye shall see no more for ever. With their
   horses and their chariots the fierce foemen descended into the depths
   of the sea, but the Lord looked upon them, and troubled them. "Thou
   didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in
   the mighty waters." The depths have covered them; they sank into the
   bottom like a stone. "Let us sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed
   gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea."
   Surely it shall be so at the last with Jesus our King, and all his
   saints; we also shall sing "the song of Moses, the servant of God, and
   of the Lamb," in that day when the arch-enemy shall be overthrown, and
   the hosts of evil shall be consumed, and they who hate the Lord shall
   become as the fat of rams, into smoke shall they consume, yea, into
   smoke shall they consume away.

   One other word remains; our Lord's kingdom is most majestic in its
   aspect. You will observe it is written by the prophet--"He shall feed
   in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God." Jesus Christ is
   greatly to be reverenced; the familiarity with which we approach him is
   always to be tempered with the deepest and most reverent adoration. He
   is our brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, but still he
   counteth it not robbery to be equal with God. I know he made himself of
   no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and he calleth
   himself to-day our husband, and maketh us to be members of his body, of
   his flesh, and of his bones; but yet we must never forget that it is
   written, "Let all the angels of God worship him," and "At the name of
   Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth,
   and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that
   Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Yes, Christ is
   majestic in his Church. I would, brethren, we always thought of this.
   There is a glory and a majesty about all the laws of Christ, and all
   his commands, so that whether we baptize at his command, or break bread
   in remembrance of him, or lift up his cross in ministry--in whatever we
   do, in his name, which is in fact, what he does through us, there is an
   attendant majesty which should make our minds feel perpetually reverent
   before him. O that the world could see the glory of Christ in the
   Church! O that the world did but know who it is that is in the midst of
   the few, the feeble, the weak, the foolish as they call them. O
   Philistia! if thou didst but know who is our champion, thy Goliath of
   Gath would soon hide his diminished head. O Assyria, if thou didst but
   know that the ancient might of him who smote Sennacherib, still abideth
   with us, thy hosts would turn their backs and yield us an easy victory.
   There is a true and mysterious presence of Christ with his people,
   according to the promise "Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of
   the world;" it is because the world ignores this that she despises and
   sneers at the Church of God. Therein is our comfort and our glory. We
   have a majesty about us if we be the people of God, which is not to be
   gainsayed; angels see it and wonder--a majesty of indwelling Godhead,
   for the Lord is in the midst of us for a glory and around us for a
   defense.

   II. We will now occupy one or two minutes with THE CONSEQUENT
   PERPETUITY OF THE CHURCH. Because of the unseen but most certain
   presence of Christ as King in the midst of his people, his Church
   ABIDES--so says the text. Here reflect first that a Church exists. What
   a wonder this! It is perhaps, the greatest miracle of all ages that God
   has a Church in the world. You who are conversant with human history
   will hear me out when I say that the whole history of the Church is a
   series of miracles, a long stream of wonders! A little spark kindled in
   the midst of oceans, and yet all her boisterous waves cannot quench it!
   Here is the great wonder which John saw in vision, and which history
   reveals in solemn, sober fact. A woman, "being with child, cried,
   travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared
   another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon . . . stood
   before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her
   child as soon as it was born." The man-child who is to rule all nations
   with a rod of iron, was brought forth and caught up to God and to his
   throne. As for the woman, the Church, she fled as on eagles' wings to
   her wilderness-shelter prepared of God, until, in great wrath, the
   dragon pursued and persecuted her. Apt enough is that metaphor, "The
   serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman that he
   might cause her to be carried away of the flood . . . And the dragon
   was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her
   seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of
   Jesus Christ." Yet, my brethren, as surely as that glorious man-child,
   the Lord Jesus, lives and sits upon the throne, so surely shall the
   woman, the poor afflicted Church, live on until the dragon's time is
   over, and the King shall reign upon the earth.

   To what trials, my brethren, has not the Church of God been subjected?
   What new invention can Satan bring forth? The fire, the rack,
   imprisonment, banishment, confiscation, slander, all these have been
   tried, and in them all the Church has been more than conqueror through
   him who loved her. False doctrine without, heresy and schism with in,
   hypocrisy, formalism, fanaticism, pretences of high spirituality,
   worldliness, these have all (lone their worst. I marvel at the wondrous
   ingenuity of the great enemy of the Church, but methinks his devices
   must nearly have come to an end. Can he invent anything further? We
   have been astounded in these ages by the prodigy of an infidel bishop;
   we have been struck dumb with sorrow and amazement at a decree which
   declares that a Church professing to be a Church of Christ must permit
   men to be her ministers who deny the inspiration of Holy Scripture.
   This is a new thing under the sun. Popery and infidelity are to be both
   legalized and fostered in a Church professing to be Christian and
   Protestant. What next? and what next? Bat what of all this? The Church,
   I mean the company of the Lord's called and faithful and chosen still
   exists; the Lord has his elect people who still hold forth the Word of
   truth, and in the most reprobate Church still he may say, "I hay e a
   few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and
   they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy."

   Observe, the text says, "she abides," which means, not that she exists
   now and then by starts and spasms, but she exists always. This is
   wonderful! Always a Church! When the full force of the Pagan Emperors
   came like a thundering avalanche upon her, she shook off the stupendous
   load as a man shaketh the flakes of snow from his garment, and she
   lived on uninjured. When papal Rome vented its malice yet more
   furiously and ingeniously; when cruel murderers hunted the saints among
   the Alps, or worried them in the low country; when Albigenses and
   Waldenses poured out their blood in rivers, and dyed the snow with
   crimson, she lived still, and never was in a healthier state than when
   she was immersed in her own gore. When after a partial reformation in
   this country, the pretenders to religion determined that the truly
   spiritual should be harried out of the land, God's Church did not sleep
   or suspend her career of life or service. Let the covenant signed in
   blood witness to the vigor of the persecuted saints. Hearken to her
   psalm amidst the brown heath-clad hills of Scotland, and her prayer in
   the secret conventicles of England. Hear ye the voice of Cargil and
   Cameron thundering among the mountains against a false king and an
   apostate people; hear ye the testimony of Bunyan and his compeers who
   would sooner rot in dungeons than bow the knee to Baal. Ask me "Where
   is the Church?" and I can find her at any and every period from the day
   when first in the upper room the Holy Ghost came down even until now.
   In. one unbroken line our apostolic succession runs; not through the
   Church of Rome; not from the superstitious hands of priest-made popes,
   or king-created bishops, (what a varnished lie is the apostolic
   succession of those who boast so proudly of it!) but through the blood
   of good men and true, who never forsook the testimony of Jesus; through
   the loins of true pastors, laborious evangelists, faithful martyrs, and
   honorable men of God, we trace our pedigree up to the fishermen of
   Galilee and glory that we perpetuate by God's grace that true and
   faithful Church of the living God, in whom Christ did abide and will
   abide until the world's crash.

   Observe, dear friends, that in the use of the term "Abide," we have not
   only existence, and continued existence, but the idea of quiet, calm,
   uninjured duration. It does not say she lingers, hunted, tempted,
   worried, but she abides. Ohm! the calmness of the Church of God under
   the attacks of her most malicious foes. Thou crue1 adversary, the
   virgin daughter of Zion hath shaken her head at thee and laughed thee
   to scorn! She abides in peace when the world rages against her. It is
   most noteworthy how in most instances the Church of God still keeps her
   foothold where she has been most savagely persecuted. In modern times
   we find in Madagascar, after years of exterminating persecution, the
   Church of God rises from her ashes, like the phoenix from the flames.
   The chief wonder is that she abides perfect. Not one of Cod's elect has
   gone back; not one of the blood-bought has denied the faith. Not one
   single soul which ever was effectually called call be made to dolly
   Christ, even though his flesh should be pulled from his bones by hot
   pincers, or his tormented body flung to the jaws of wild beasts. All
   that the enemy has done has been of no avail against the Church. The
   old rock has been washed, and washed, and washed again by stormy waves,
   and submerged a thousand times in the floods of tempest, hut even her
   angles and corners abide unaltered and unalterable. We may say of the
   Lord's tabernacle, not one of he stakes thereof has been removed, nor
   one of her cords boom broken. The house of he Lord from foundation to
   pinnacle is perfect still: "The rain descended, and the floods came,
   and the winds blew, and beat upon that house and it fell not;" nay, nor
   a single stone of it "for it was founded upon a rock."

   But why all this, dear friends, why is it that we have seen the Church
   endure to this day? How is it that we are confident that even should
   worse times arrive, the Church would weather the storm and abide till
   moons shall cease to wax and wane? Why this security? Only because
   Christ is in the midst of her. You do not believe, I hope, in the
   preservation of orthodoxy by legal instruments and trust deeds. This is
   what too many Dissenters have relied upon. We certainly cannot depend
   upon creeds; they arc good enough in their way, as trust deeds are too,
   but they are as broken reeds if we rely upon them. We cannot depend
   upon parliament, nor kings, nor queens. We may draw up the most express
   and distinct form of doctrine, but we shall find that the next
   generation will depart from the truth unless God shall be pleased to
   give it renewed grace from on high. You cannot, by Presbytery, or
   Independency, or Episcopacy, secure the life of the Church--I find the
   Church of God has existed under an Episcopacy--a form of government not
   without its virtues and its faults. I find the Church of God flourish
   under a Presbytery, and decay under it too. I know it can be successful
   under an Independent form of Church government and can decline into
   Arianism quite as easily. The fact is that forms of government have
   very little to do with the vital principle of the Church. The reason
   why the Church of God exists is not her ecclesiastical regulations,
   11cr organization, her formularies, her ministers, or her creeds, but
   the presence of the Lord in the midst of her; and while Christ lives,
   and Christ reigns, and stands and feeds his Church, she is safe; but if
   he were once gone, it would be with her as it is with you and with me
   when the Spirit of God has departed from us, we are weak as other men,
   and she would be quite as powerless.

   III. But now, thirdly, flowing from both these, from the perpetual
   presence of Christ and from the continued existence of his Church, is
   THE GREATNESS OF OUR KING. "Now shall he be great unto the ends of the
   earth." Christ is great in his Church. Oh! how great in our hearts
   where he reigns supreme! My heart, it doth leap at the sound of his
   name--

   "Jesus, the very thought of thee,

   With rapture fills may breast."

   O for crowns! for golden crowns! Let us crown him King in Zion! O for a
   well-tuned harp, and for David's feet, to dance before the ark at the
   very mention of Jesus' name! Now shall he be great indeed in our
   hearts! But he is to be great to the ends of the earth. That is a
   promise, of which we will say it is accomplished in a measure even now.
   Christ is made great ill the conversion of every sinner. When he
   suppliant penitent cries, "God be merciful to me a sinner," and the
   peace-speaking blood comes dropping upon the troubled conscience, and
   the soul bows meekly to accept he finished righteousness, then is
   Christ great. And he is great in the consecration of every one of his
   bloodbought saints; when they live for him; when in their prayers they
   make mention of him; when they give him their heart's music, their
   life's light, and their hips' testimony; when they feel that
   tribulation is joyous if endured for him, and the sternest toil a dear
   delight when undertaken for his sake--then Christ is great. Think, my
   brethren, this morning, how many ships are now furrowing the blue sea
   in which there are hearts which love the name of Jesus. Hark! across
   the waves of the Atlantic and the Pacific I hear the sound of prayer
   and praise from many a vessel bearing the British flag. From many an
   islet of the sea the song is borne upon the breeze. And there across
   the waters in the land of our American brethren, now so sadly chastened
   with war, multitudes of hearts beat as high as ours at the mention of
   the Savior's name. Here across you narrow Channel, in Holland, in
   Sweden, in Germany, in Switzerland, and even in France and Italy, how
   many own his name and praise him this day! We speak of our Queen's
   dominions and say that the sun never sets upon them. We may in truth
   say this of our Lord Jesus; men of all colors trust in his blood; they
   who look upward to the southern cross and they who follow the Polar
   star, alike worship his dear name; and when England ceases her strain
   of joy, in the hush of night, Australia takes up the song, and so from
   land to land, and from shore to shore, a sacrifice of a pure offering
   is brought to his shrine. It is accomplished, in some degree, but oh!
   how small the degree when we think of the thick darkness which covers
   the multitude of the people.

   Again, it is a promise which is guaranteed as to its fulfillment in the
   fullest sense. Courage! brethren, courage! the night is not for ever,
   the morning cometh! Watchman, what sayest thou? Are there not streaks
   reddening the east? Hath not the God of day, the Lord Jesus, began to
   shoot his divine arrows of light upwards into the thick darkness? It is
   even so. As I think of the signs of the times, I would fondly hope that
   we shall live to see brighter and better days. "Now," says the text,
   "shall he be great unto the ends of the earth." Prophet, I would that
   thy "now" were true this day. Now, even mow, let him reign! why doth he
   tarry? Why are his chariots so long in coming? Will it be, my brethren,
   that Christ will come before the world is converted? If so, welcome
   Jesus. Or will the world be converted first? If so, thrice welcome the
   mercy. But whether or no, this we do know, he shall have dominion from
   sea to sea, and from the river even unto the ends of the earth. They
   who dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him, and his enemies shall
   lick the dust. The day shall come when the fifth great monarchy shall
   be co-extensive with the world's bounds, and everywhere the Great
   Shepherd shall reign.

   But remember, dear friends, that while this promise is thus guaranteed
   as to its fulfillment, it is to be prayed for as to its accomplishment.
   "I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it
   for them." The mountain of the Lord shall be in the latter days, but
   mark you, though there be no sound of trowel or a hammer, there will be
   heard be sound of prayer and praise, as upward the mountain of Cod's
   house shall ascend. You know the picture. The prophet had seen the
   Lord's house standing, as it were, in a valley, and as he looked upon
   it, presently it became a little hill; the ground began to heave;
   by-and-by it had swollen from a little hill into a lofty mountain, and
   up it rose, and grew more great before his eyes, till Alps were dwarfed
   and Himalayas were stunted, and up it still went, not the house only,
   but the mountain too, till infinitely higher than the projected tower
   of Babel, which man meant to be the world's center, this house stood
   out clear and sharp above the clouds, having pinnacles high up in God's
   heaven, and yet deep foundations in man's earth, and all nations began
   to flow to it as to the great center. What a dream! What a vision! Yet
   such shall it be. The Church is as it were, in a plain just now, she
   begins to misc. Oh! stupendous movement! she begins to rise, her
   mountains swell and grow; she attracts observers; she cannot he held
   down. Who can attempt to restrain the swelling mass? Who shall prevent
   the gigantic birth? Up rises the mountain, as though swollen by some
   inward fire, anti up it swells, and swells, and swells, till earth
   touches heaven, and God communes with men. Then shah be heard the great
   hallelujah, "The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with
   them."

   But then, and this is the conclusion, and I hope God may help me to
   press it on your hearts. All this is to be labored for as well as
   prayed after. My soul pants and pines to see Christ glorious in the
   eyes of men. Lives there a Christian here with soul so dead that he
   does not desire the extension of his Master's kingdom? Sirs, is there
   one among you who counts it little to see Jesus Christ lifted up in
   men's hearts? I know I speak to a people--and the Lord knoweth it to
   many of whom Christ is he dearest of all which is beloved, the fairest
   among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely. Now, if Christ is to be
   glorified, he must be glorified by you; if his kingdom is to come, it
   must come through you. God works, but God works by means. He worketh in
   you "to will and to do of his own good pleasure." Souls are to be
   saved, but they are not saved without instruments. The feast is to be
   furnished with guests, but you are to go into the highways and hedges,
   and compel them to come in. I know my Master is to have many crowns,
   but they are to be crowns for which you grace, and which you have
   fought, which you have won through his you place at his feet, that he
   may honor you by wearing them upon his brow. Now we, as a people, have
   been greatly blessed and helped of God, and I believe the Master has a
   very high claim upon us. We, above all the Churches in the world are
   indebted to the grace and mercy of God, and we ought to be doing
   something for the extension of the Savior's kingdom. We cannot boast of
   wealth; we cannot profess to build all over London a multitude of
   Churches as the Bishop hopes to do. Any scheme of raising three
   millions of money by us, must be looked upon as being entirely a dream;
   we cannot attempt such a. thing; if London is to be converted by money
   we must give up the task. We have no mitred bishops, no queens to
   subscribe, and no nobles and dukes, and the like to add their thousands
   and their tens of thousands of pounds. We are a feeble folk; what then
   can we do for Cod? Why, do as much as the strong! What call we do for
   God? Do as munch as the mighty! Nay, my brethren, our very weakness and
   want of power shah be our adaptation to Cod's work; and he who often
   putteth by the sword of Saul, and the armor of the son of Kish, will
   use David, and his sling and his stone, and smite Goliath's brow
   therewith.

   I have been musing all this week upon that celebrated scene in ancient
   history, which seems to me to be so much like the state of our Church
   just now; the story of Gideon, the son of Joash, threshing wheat in the
   winepress, because he was afraid to be seen; the Midianites having
   spoiled the land. Now we, as Baptists, have generally been too much
   afraid to be seen; we have threshed our corn somewhere away in the
   winepress--up a back court--down a narrow street; any dirty hole would
   do to build a chapel in; so long as people could not find it tine site
   was thought advantageous; and if nobody could ever see it that was the
   place for our fathers, and for some who still linger among us. It was
   threshing wheat in the winepress, to hide it from the enemy. Well now,
   I think the time has come that we should not be afraid of these
   Midianites any longer. Long has he Church of God been oppressed and
   kept back; she has been content to let the world devour liner increase.
   There have been few additions to the Churches; they remain very much
   what they were twenty or thirty years ago; but, my brethren, some of us
   think that we have seen our fleece wet with dew, while all around was
   dry; and we believe the Lord has said to us, "The Lord is with thee,
   thou mighty man of valor." We think we have had the Lord's commission,
   "Go in this thy strength." We do not expect all of you to go with us,
   for the people are too many. We expect that there are many of the
   trembling and faint-hearted who will step back from the battle; men who
   are look ill for their families, mind must provide for them; men who
   are saving up money, and grudge their sovereigns, and so on--these of
   course will stand back, and let them; such men encumber our march. We
   fear that you are not all men who lap; but we have a few who care ery
   little for the ease and repose of life, but who snatch a hasty draught
   as they run, and with heat, and zeal, and passionate earnestness run to
   meet the adversary. Now, these we expect to go with us to the fray. In
   the name of the Lord, I proclaim a new crusade against the sin and vice
   of this huge city. What are we to do? The hosts of Midian are to be
   counted by millions. Here in this great city we have three millions of
   people, and what if I were to say, two-and-half millions of them do not
   know their right hand from their left in matters of religion, I believe
   I should speak too charitably; for if I could believe there were half a
   million of true believers in London, I should have vastly greater hopes
   of it than I have now. But, alas! that is not the case. Millions,
   millions are gathered in he valley of indecision who are not upon the
   Lord's side. What can you and I do? We can do nothing of ourselves, but
   we can do everything by he help of our God. Where Christ is there is
   might and where God is there is strength; let us therefore in God's
   name determine to plant new Churches wherever openings occur. Like
   Gideon's men let us rally under our Church-officers, and follow where a
   warm heart leads the way. Gideon took his men, and bade them do two
   things; covering up a torch in an earthen pitcher, he bade them, at an
   appointed signal, break tine pitcher and let the light shine, and then
   sound with their trumpets, crying, "The sword of the Lord and of
   Gideon! the sword of he Lord and of Gideon!" This is just what all
   Christians must do. First, you must shine; break the pitcher which
   conceals you; throw aside the bushel which has been hiding your candle,
   and shine. Let your light shine before men; let your good works be
   such, that when they look upon you, they shall know that you have been
   with Jesus. There is much good done by the shining. Then there must be
   the sound, the blowing of the trumpet. O dear friends, the great mass
   of London will never hear r the gospel, unless you go and blow the
   trumpet in their ears. Many who are members of this Church never heard
   a gospel sermon, until they heard some of you preaching in the street.
   "Why," said one "I never went to a place of worship; but I went down a
   street, and there stood a young man at the corner; I listened to him,
   and God was pleased to send tine arrow to my conscience, and I came
   into the house of God afterwards." Take the gospel to them; carry it to
   their door; put it in their way; do not suffer them to escape it; blow
   the trumpet right against their ears. In the name of God, I pray you do
   this. Remember that the true war cry of the Church is Gideon's war-cry,
   "The sword of the Lord!" God must do it, it is God's work. But we are
   not to be idle; instrumentality is to be used--"The sword of the Lord
   and of Gideon!" Mark you, if we only cry, "The sword of the Lord!" we
   shall be guilty of an idle presumption, and shall be tempting God to
   depart from his fixed rule of procedure. This is the cry of every, lazy
   lie-n-bed. What good ever comes of saying, "The Lord will do his own
   work, let us sit still?" Nor must it be "The sword of Gideon" alone,
   for that were idolatrous reliance on an arm of flesh; we can do nothing
   of ourselves. Not "The sword of the Lord" only, that were idleness; but
   the two together, "The sword of the Lord and of Gideon." O my brethren,
   God help you to learn this lesson well, and then you will go forth
   shining and sounding, living and teaching, testifying and living out
   the truth? Ye shall most assuredly make the kingdom of Christ to come,
   and his name shall be honored if you will do this. It seems to me that
   now is a glorious opportunity. There is a spirit of hearing upon the
   people. Almost anyone may get a hearing who is willing to preach
   Christ. Now or never! Sons of Jacob! Ye are to be like a lion among the
   flock of sheep, and will ye lie down and slumber? Up and every man to
   the prey! Sons of Jacob! ye are to be as dew upon the grass, and will
   ye tarry for men and wait for the sons of men? No. In God's name, go
   forward, and let something be done for God, and for his Christ, for a
   perishing age, for a dark world, for heaven's glory, and for hell's
   defeat. Up! ye who know the Lord; ye swordsmen of our Israel, up and at
   them, and God give you a great victory and deliverance!

   I want you to make some practical point of these things to-day. God has
   been pleased to put a sword into my hand, and to give me my lamp and my
   pitcher; my College of young men is now become in the Lord's hands a
   marvellous power for good. A blessing greater than I could have
   expected rests on this work. We are continually sending them out, and
   God owns them in the conversion of souls. I have never seen any agency
   more blessed to the conversion of souls, than the agency of our
   College. Without saying anything to depreciate other efforts, I do
   believe God has conferred on our Institution a crowning and special
   blessing, and will continue to do so yet more and more. I want you all,
   both hearers and readers of my sermons, to feel that this is your work,
   and to help me in it while I continue to cry, "The sword of the Lord
   and of Gideon! God works, and therefore we work; God is with us, and
   therefore we are with God, and stand on his side. Inasmuch as many of
   these men raise Churches, we want you to help to build the places where
   the new congregations can be accommodated afterwards; and to that end
   we have striven to raise a fund of five thousand pounds, to be lent out
   to these new Churches on loan to be repaid by installments without
   interest. It is but a small sum, but it is as much as I think we can
   do, and frugal care will turn it to good account. Some three thousand
   pounds have been promised by our seven shepherds and principal men; but
   there are many who have not promised anything yet, and we shall be glad
   if they will come forward, for otherwise this useful fund cannot be
   raised. When this is done with, once for all, we will go on and do
   something else for Jesus. Do break this pitcher; get this done, and let
   tine light of this thing shine. We must be doing something for God. I
   speak to you now upon the practical point, and come to it at once. If
   you are content to live without serving God, I am not; and if you are
   willing to let these hours roll by without doing something to extend
   the kingdom of Jesus, let me be gone from you; let me be gone from you
   to those of warmer spirits and of holier aspirations, for I must fight
   for God! there must be victories won for him! We must extend the range
   of the gospel; we must find places where souls can be brought to hear
   the Word. Hell shall not for ever laugh at our inactivity, and heaven
   shall not eternally weep at our sloth! Let us be up and doing, and let
   this thing be done by the mainly, the few have already done their
   parts. Promises reaching over five years are asked of you, you can all
   do something. And then, every one of you, when you have done your share
   in this, go out personally and serve with your flaming torch of holy
   example, and with your trumpet tones of earnest declaration and
   testimony serve your Lord, and God shall be with you, and Midian shall
   be put to confusion, and the Lord of hosts shall reign for ever and
   ever. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that
   believeth not shall be damned." Hear ye that note, O dead souls, and
   live.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                   Expiation

   A Sermon

   (No. 561)

   By the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin."--Isaiah 53:10.

   BOTH Jews and Gentiles knew pretty well what an offering for sin meant.
   The Gentiles had been in the habit of offering sacrifices. The Jews,
   however, had by far the clearer idea of it. And what was meant by a
   sin-offering? Undoubtedly, it was taken for granted by the offerer,
   that without shedding blood there was no remission of sin. Conscious of
   guilt, and anxious for pardon, therefore he brought a sacrifice, the
   blood of which should be poured out at the foot of the altar--feeling
   persuaded that without sacrifice there was no satisfaction, and without
   satisfaction there was no pardon. Then the victim to be offered was, on
   all occasions, a spotless one. The most scrupulous care was taken that
   it should be altogether without blemish; for this idea was always
   connected with a sin-offering, that it must be sinless in itself; and
   being without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, it was held to be a
   competent victim to take the offender's place. That done, the victim
   being selected, the offerer put his hand upon the sin-offering--and
   this indeed was the essence of the whole transaction--putting his hand
   on the victim, he confessed his sin, and a transferrence took place, in
   type at least, from the offender to the victim. He did, as it were, put
   the sin from off his own shoulders on to those of the lamb, or the
   bullock, or the he-goat which was now about to be slaughtered. And, to
   complete the sin-offering, the priest draws his knife and kills the
   victim which must be utterly consumed with fire. I say this was always
   the idea of a sin-offering,--that of a perfect victim; without offense
   on its own account, taking the place of the offender; the transferrence
   of the offender's sin to that victim, and that expiation in the person
   of the victim for the sin done by another.

   Now, Jesus Christ has been made by God an offering for sin; and oh that
   to-night we may be able to do in reality what the Jew did in metaphor!
   May we put our hand upon the head of Christ Jesus; as we see him
   offered up upon the cross for guilty men, may we know that our sins are
   transferred to him, and may we be able to cry, in the ecstasy of faith,
   "Great God, I am clean; through Jesus' blood I am clean."

   I. In trying now to expound the doctrine of Christ's being an offering
   for sin, we will begin by laying down one great axiom; which is, that
   SIN DESERVES AND DEMANDS PUNISHMENT.

   Certain divines have demurred to this. You are aware, I suppose, that
   there have been many theories of atonement; and every new or different
   theory of atonement involves a new or different theory of sin. There
   are some who say that there is no reason in sin itself why it should be
   punished, but that God punishes offenses for the sake of society at
   large. This is what is called the governmental theory,--that it is
   necessary for the maintenance of good order that an offender should be
   punished, but that there is nothing in sin itself which absolutely
   requires a penalty. Now, we begin by opposing all this, and asserting,
   and we believe we have God's warrant of it, that sin intrinsically and
   in itself demands and deserves the just anger of God, and that that
   anger should be displayed in the form of a punishment. To establish
   this, let me appeal to the conscience--I will not say to the conscience
   of a man who has, by years of sin, dwindled it down to the very lowest
   degree, but let me appeal to the conscience of an awakened sinner,--a
   sinner under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And are we ever in our
   right senses, brethren, till the Holy Spirit really brings us into
   them? May it not be said of each of us as it was of the prodigal, "He
   came to himself?" Are we not beside ourselves till the Holy Spirit
   begins to enlighten us? Well, ask this man, who is now really in the
   possession of his true senses, whether he believes that sin deserves
   punishment; and his answer will be quick, sharp, and decisive. "Deserve
   it," saith he, "ay, indeed; and the wonder is that I have not suffered
   it. Why, sir, it seems a marvel to me that I am out of hell, and
   Wesley's hymn is often on my lips,--

   'Tell it unto sinners, tell,

   I am, I am out of hell.'"

   "Yes, sir," says such a sinner, "I feel that if God should smite me
   now, without hope or offer of mercy, to the lowest hell, I should only
   have what I justly deserve; and I feel that if I be not punished for my
   sins, or if there be not some plan found by which my sin can be
   punished in another, I cannot understand how God can be just at all:
   how shall he be Judge of all the earth, if he suffer offenses to go
   unpunished?" There has been a dispute whether men have any innate
   ideas, but surely this idea is in us as early as anything, that virtue
   deserves reward, and sin deserves punishment. I think I might venture
   to assert that if you go to the most degraded race of men, you would
   still find, at least, some traces of this--shall I call it tradition?
   or is it not a part of the natural light which never was altogether
   eclipsed in man? Man may put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter;
   darkness for light, and light for darkness; but this follows him as a
   dog at the heels of its master,--a sense that virtue should be
   rewarded, and that sin must be punished. You may stifle this voice, if
   you will, but sometimes you will hear it; and terribly and decisively
   will it speak in your ears to say to you, "Yes, man, God must punish
   you; the Judge of all the earth cannot suffer you to go scot free." Add
   to this another matter; namely, that God has absolutely declared his
   displeasure against sin itself. There is a passage in Jeremiah, the
   forty-fourth chapter and the fourth verse, where he calls it "That
   abominable thing which I hate." And then, in Deuteronomy, the
   twenty-fifth chapter, at the sixteenth verse, he speaks of it as the
   thing which is an abomination to him. It must be the character of God,
   that he has a desire to do towards his creatures that which is
   equitable. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" If there is
   anything in them which deserves reward, rest assured he will not rob
   them of it; and, on the other hand, he will do the right thing with
   those who have offended, and if they deserve punishment, it is
   according to the nature and character of a just and holy God that
   punishment should be inflicted. And we think there is nothing more
   clear in Scripture than the truth that sin is in itself so detestable
   to God that he must and will put forth all the vigor of his tremendous
   strength to crush it, and to make the offender feel that it is an evil
   and a bitter thing to offend against the Most High. Beware, ye who
   forget God in this matter, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be
   none to deliver you. Sin must be punished.

   The other idea, that sin is only to be punished for the sake of the
   community, involves injustice. If I am to be damned for the sake of
   other people, I demur to it. No, sir: if I am to be punished, Justice
   says; at any rate, that it shall be for my own sins, but if I am to be
   eternally a castaway from God's presence merely as a sort of trick of
   government to maintain the dignity of his law, I cannot understand the
   justice of this. If I am to be cast into hell merely that I am to teach
   to others the tremendousness of the divine holiness, I shall say there
   is no justice in this; but if my sin intrinsically and of itself
   deserves the wrath of God, and I am sent to perdition as the result of
   this fact, I close my lips, and have nothing to say. I am speechless;
   conscience binds my tongue. But if I am told that I am only sent there
   as a part of a scheme of moral government, and that I am sent into
   torment to impress others with a sense of right, I ask that some one
   else should have the place of preacher to the people, and that I may be
   one of those whose felicity it shall be to be preached to; for I see no
   reason in justice why I should be selected as the victim. Really, when
   men run away from the simplicities of the gospel in order to make
   Jehovah more kind, it is strange how unjust and unkind they make him.
   Sinner, God will never destroy you merely to maintain his government,
   or for the good of others. If you be destroyed, it shall be because you
   would not come to him that you might have life; because you would rebel
   against him; because sin from stern necessity did, as it were, compel
   the attribute of divine justice to kindle into vengeance, and to drive
   you from his presence for ever. Sin must be punished.

   The reverse of this doctrine, that sin demands punishment, may be used
   to prove it; for it is highly immoral, dangerous, and opens the
   floodgates of licentiousness to teach that sin can go unpunished. O
   sirs, it is contrary to fact. Look ye! Oh! if your eyes could see
   to-night the terrible justice of God which a being executed now,--if
   these ears could but hear it,--if ye could be appalled for a moment
   with

   " The sullen groans and hollow moans

   And shrieks of tortured ghosts,"

   you would soon perceive that God is punishing sin! And if sin deserve
   not to be punished, what is Tophet but injustice on a monstrous scale?
   What is it but an infinite outrage against everything which is honest
   and right, if these creatures are punished for anything short of their
   own deserts. Go and preach this in hell, and you will have quenched the
   fire which is forever to burn, and the worm of conscience will die.
   Tell them in hell that they are not punished for sin, and you have
   taken away the very sting of their punishment. And then come to earth,
   and go, like Jonah went, though with another message than Jonah
   carried, through the highways and the broadways, the streets and
   thoroughfares of the exceeding great city, and proclaim that sin is not
   to be punished for its own intrinsic desert and baseness. But if you
   expect your prophecy to be believed, enlarge the number of your jails,
   and seek for fresh fields for transportation in the interests of
   society; for if any doctrine can breed villains, this will. Say that
   sin is not to be punished, and you have unhinged government; you have
   plucked up the very gate of our commonweal; you have been another
   Samson to another Gaza; and we shall soon have to rue the day. But,
   sirs, I need not stop to prove it; it is written clearly upon the
   consciousness of each man, and upon the conscience of every one of us,
   that sin must be punished. Here are you and I to-night brought into
   this dilemma. We have sinned; we all like sheep have gone astray; and
   we must be punished for it. It is impossible, absolutely, that sin can
   be forgiven without a sacrifice. God must be just, if heaven falls. If
   earth should pass away and every creature should be lost, the justice
   of God must stand, it cannot by any possibility be suffered to be
   impugned. Let this, then, be fully established in our minds.

   You need not to be told, as for the first time, that God in his
   infinite mercy has devised a way by which justice can be satisfied, and
   yet mercy can be triumphant. Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the
   Father, took upon himself the form of man, and offered unto Divine
   Justice that which was accepted as an equivalent for the punishment due
   to all his people.

   II. Now, the second matter that I wish to bring under your notice is
   this,--THAT THE PROVISION AND ACCEPTANCE OF A SUBSTITUTE FOR SINNERS IS
   AN ACT OF GRACE.

   It is no act of grace for a person to accept a pecuniary debt on my
   behalf of another person. If I owe a man twenty pounds, it is no matter
   to him whatever who shall pay the twenty pounds so long as it is duly
   paid. You know that you could legally and at once demand a receipt and
   an acquittance from any one who is your creditor, so long as his debt
   is discharged, though it is discharged by another, and not by you. It
   is so in pecuniary matters, but it is not so in penal matters. If a man
   be condemned to be imprisoned, there is no law, there is no justice
   which can compel the lawgiver to accept a substitute for him. If the
   sovereign should permit another to suffer in his stead, it must be the
   sovereign's own act and deed. He must use his own discretion as to
   whether he will accept the substitute or not; and if he do so, it is an
   act of grace. In Gods case, if he had said in the infinite sovereignty
   of his absolute will, "I will have no substitute, but each man shall
   suffer for himself, he who sinneth shall die," none could have
   murmured. It was grace, and only grace which led the divine mind to
   say, "I will accept of a substitute. There shall be a vicarious
   suffering; and my vengeance shall be content, and my mercy shall be
   gratified."

   Now, dear friends, this grace of God is yet further magnified not only
   in the allowance of the principle of substitution, but in the providing
   of such a substitute as Christ--on Christ's part that he should give up
   himself, the Prince of Life to die; the King of glory to be despised
   and rejected of men; the Lord of angels to be a servant of servants;
   and the Ancient of days to become an infant of a span long. Think of
   the distance

   "From the highest throne in glory

   To the cross of deepest woe,"

   and consider the unexampled love which shines in Christ's gift of
   himself. But the Father gives the Son. "God so loved the world that he
   gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
   perish, but have everlasting life." To give your wealth is something,
   if you make yourself poor; but to give your child is something more.
   When the patriot mother tears her son from her bosom, and cries, "Go,
   my first-born, to your country's wars; there, go and fight until your
   country's flag is safe, and the hearths and homes of your native land
   are secure," there is something in it; for she can look forward to the
   bloody spectacle of her son's mangled body, and yet love her country
   more than her own child. Here is heroism indeed; but God spared not his
   own Son, his only-begotten Son, but freely delivered him up for us all.
   "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners,
   Christ died for us." I do implore you, do not look upon the sacrifice
   of Christ as an act of mere vengeance on the Father's part. Never
   imagine, oh! never indulge the idea, that Jesus died to make the Father
   complacent towards us. Oh, no, dear friends: Jesus' death is the effect
   of overwhelming and infinite love on the Father's part; and every blow
   which wounds, every infliction which occasions sorrow, and every pang
   which rends his heart, speaks of the Father's love as much as the joy,
   the everlasting triumph, which now surrounds his head.

   Let us add, however, to this, that, although Jesus Christ's dying as a
   substitute does give to him lawful right to all promised privileges,
   and does make him, as the covenant head of his people a claimant of the
   divine mercy, yet it does not render any of the gifts which we receive
   from God the less gifts from God. Christ has died; but still everything
   that we receive comes to us entirely as a gratuitous outflow of God's
   great heart of love. Never think you have any claim to anything because
   Christ purchased it. If you use the word claim at all, let it always be
   in so humble and modified a sense that you understand that you are
   still receiving, not of debt, but of grace. Look upon the whole
   transaction of a substitute, and of Christ becoming the second Adam, as
   being a matter of pure, rich, free, sovereign grace, and never indulge
   the atrocious thought, I pray you, that there was justice, and justice
   only here; but do magnify the love and pity of God in that he did
   devise and accomplish the great plan of salvation by an atoning
   sacrifice.

   III. But now to go a step further, and with as much brevity as
   possible. The Lord having established the principle of substitution,
   having provided a substitute, and having through him bestowed upon us
   gratuitously innumerable mercies, let us observe THAT JESUS IS THE MOST
   FITTING PERSON TO BE A SUBSTITUTE, AND THAT HIS WORK IS THE MOST
   FITTING WORK TO BE A SATISFACTION.

   Let every sinner here who desires something stable to fix his faith
   upon, listen to these simple truths, which I am trying to put as
   plainly as possible. You do understand me, I trust, that God must
   punish sin; that he must punish you for sin unless some one else will
   suffer in your stead; that Jesus Christ is the person who did suffer in
   the room and place of all those who ever have believed on him who do
   believe in him, or ever shall believe in him, --making for those who
   believe on him a complete atonement by his substitution in their place.
   Now we say that Christ was the best person to be a substitute; for just
   consider what sort of a mediator was needed. Most absolutely he must be
   one who had no debt of his own. If Christ had been at all under the law
   naturally, if it had been his duty to do what it is our duty to do, it
   is plain he could only have lived for himself; and if he had any sin of
   his own, he could only have died for himself, seeing his obligations to
   do and to suffer would have been his just due to the righteousness and
   the vengeance of God. But on Christ's part there was no natural
   necessity for obedience, much less for obedience unto death. Who shall
   venture to say that the Divine Lord, amidst the glories of heaven, owed
   to his father anything? "Who shall say it was due to the Divine Father
   that Christ should be nailed to the accursed tree, to suffer, bleed,
   and die, and then be cast into the grave? None can dare to say such a
   thing. He is himself perfectly free, and therefore can he undertake for
   others. One man who is drawn for the militia cannot be a substitute for
   another person so drawn, because he owes for himself his own personal
   service. I must, if I would escape, and would procure a substitute,
   find a man who is not drawn, and who is therefore exempt. Such is Jesus
   Christ. He is perfectly exempt from service, and therefore can
   volunteer to undertake it for our sake. He is the right person.

   There was needed, also, one of the same nature with us. Such is Jesus
   Christ. For this purpose he became man, of the substance of his mother,
   very man, such a man as any of us. Handle him, and see if he be not
   flesh and bones. Look at him, and mark if he be not man in soul as well
   as in body. He hungers; he thirsts, he fears, he weeps, he rejoices, he
   loves, he dies. Made in all points and like unto us, being a man, and
   standing exactly in a man's place, becoming a real Adam,--as true an
   Adam as was the first Adam, standing quite in the first Adam's
   place,--he is a fit person to become a substitute for us.

   But please to observe (see if you cannot throw your grappling-hooks
   upon this), the dignity of his sacred person made him the most proper
   person for a substitute. A mere man could at most only substitute for
   one other man. Crush him as you will, and make him feel in his life
   every pang which flesh is heir to, but he can only suffer what one man
   would have suffered. He could not, I will venture to say, even then
   have suffered an equivalent for that eternal misery which the ungodly
   deserve; and if he were a mere man, he must suffer precisely the same.
   A difference may be made in the penalty, when there is a difference in
   the person; but if the person be the same, the penalty must be
   precisely and exactly the same in degree and in quality. But the
   dignity of the Son of God, the dignity of his nature, changes the whole
   matter. A God bowing his head, and suffering and dying, in the person
   of manhood, puts such a singular efficacy into every groan and every
   pang that it needs not that his pangs should be eternal, or that he
   should die a second death. Remember that in pecuniary matters you must
   give a quid pro quo, but that in matters of penal justice no such thing
   is demanded. The dignity of the person adds a special force to the
   substitution; and thus one bleeding Saviour can make atonement for
   millions of sinful men, and the Captain of our salvation can bring
   multitudes unto glory.

   It needs one other condition to be fulfilled. The person so free from
   personal service, and so truly in our nature, and yet so exalted in
   person, should also be accepted and ordained of God. Our text gives
   this a full solution, in that it says, "He shall make his soul an
   offering for sin." Christ did not make himself a sin-offering without a
   warrant from the Most High: God made him so. "The Lord hath laid on him
   the iniquity of us all." It was the sovereign degree of heaven which
   constituted Christ the great substitute for his people. No man taketh
   this office upon himself. Even the Son of God stoopeth not to this
   burden uncalled. He was chosen as the covenant-head in election; he was
   ordained in the divine decree to stand for his people. God the Father
   cannot refuse the sacrifice which he has himself appointed. "My son,"
   said good old Abraham, "God shall provide himself a lamb for a
   burnt-offering." He has done so in the Saviour; and what God provides,
   God must and will accept.

   I wish to-night that I had power to deal with this doctrine as I would.
   Poor trembling sinner, look up a moment. Dost thou see him there--him
   whom God hath set forth? Dost thou see him in proper flesh and blood
   fastened to that tree? See how the cruel iron drags through his tender
   hands! Mark how the rough nails are making the blood flow profusely
   from his feet! See how fever parches his tongue, and dries his whole
   body like a potsherd! Hearest thou the cry of his spirit, which is
   suffering more than his body suffers--"My God, my God, why hast thou
   forsaken me?" This is none other than God's only-begotten Son; this is
   he who made the worlds; this is the express image of his Father's
   person, the brightness of Jehovah's glory! What thinkest thou, man? Is
   there not enough there to satisfy God? Truly it has satisfied God: is
   there not enough there to satisfy thee? Cannot thy conscience rest on
   that? If God's appointed Christ could suffer in thy stead, is it not
   enough? What can Justice ask more? Wilt thou now trust Christ with thy
   soul? Come, now, sir, wilt thou now fall flat at the foot of the cross,
   and rest thy soul's eternal destiny in the pierced hands of Jesus of
   Nazareth? If thou wilt, then God has made him to be a sin-offering for
   thee; but if thou wilt not, beware, lest he whom thou wouldst not have
   to be thy Saviour should become thy Judge, and say, "Depart, thou
   cursed one, into everlasting fire in hell!"

   IV. We come now to our fourth remark,--THAT CHRIST'S WORK, AND THE
   EFFECTS OF THAT WORK, ARE NOW COMPLETE.

   Christ becomes a substitute for us. We have seen how fit and proper a
   person he was to be such. We hinted that from the dignity of his person
   the pains he suffered were a good and sufficient equivalent for our own
   suffering on account of sin. But now the joyous truths come up that
   Christ's work is finished. Christ has made an atonement so complete
   that he never need suffer again. No more drops of blood; no more pangs
   of heart; no more bitterness and darkness, with exceeding heaviness,
   even unto death, are needed.

   "Tis done--the great transaction's done."

   The death-knell of the penalty rings in the dying words of the
   Saviour,--"It is finished." Do you ask for a proof of this? Remember
   that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. If he had not completed his
   work of penalty-suffering, he would have been left in the tomb till
   now; our preaching would have been in vain, and your faith would have
   been in vain; ye would have been yet in your sins. But Jesus rose.
   God's sheriff's officer let him out of "durance vile" because the
   account had been discharged, and God's great Court of King's Bench sent
   down the mittimus to let the captive go free. More than that: Christ
   has ascended upon high. Think you he would have returned thither with
   unexpiated sin red upon his garments? Do you suppose he would have
   ascended to the rest and to the reward of an accomplished work? What!
   sit at his Fathers right hand to be crowned for doing nothing, and rest
   until his adversaries are made his footstool, when he has not performed
   his Father's will! Absurd! Impossible! His ascension in stately pomp,
   amidst the acclamations of angels, to the enjoyment of his Father's
   continued smile, is the sure proof that the work is complete.

   Complete it is, dear brethren, not only in itself, but, as I said, in
   its effects; that is to say, that there is now complete pardon for
   every soul which believeth in Christ. You need not do anything to make
   the atonement of Christ sufficient to pardon you. It wants no eking
   out. It is not as if Christ had put so much into the scale and it was
   quivering in the balance; but your sins, for all their gravity, utterly
   ceased their pressure through the tremendous weight of his atonement.
   He has outweighed the penalty, and given double for all your sins.
   Pardon, full and free, is now presented in the name of Jesus,
   proclaimed to every creature under heaven, for sins past, for sins
   present, and for sins to come; for blasphemies and murders; for
   drunkenness and whoredom; for all manner of sin under heaven. Jesus
   Christ hath ascended up on high, and exalted he is that he may give
   repentance and remission of sin. Ye have no need of shillings to pay
   the priests; nor is baptismal water wanted to erect the pardon: there
   is no willing, doing, being, or suffering of yours required to complete
   the task. The blood has filled the fountain full: thou hast but to wash
   and be clean, and thy sins shall be gone forever.

   Justification, too, is finished. You know the difference. Pardon takes
   away our filth, but then it leaves us naked; justification puts a royal
   robe upon us. How no rags of yours are wanted; not a stitch of yours is
   needed to perfect what Christ has done. He whom God the Father hath
   accepted as a sin offering hath perfected forever thou who are set
   apart. Ye are complete in Christ. No tears of yours, no penance, no
   personal mortifications, nay, no good works of yours, are wanted to
   make yourself complete and perfect. Take it as it is. O sirs! may you
   have grace to take it as it is freely presented to you in the gospel.
   "He that believeth on him is not condemned;" "There is therefore now no
   condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." Trust
   Christ--implicitly trust Christ; and all that he did shall cover you,
   while all that he suffered shall cleanse you.

   Remember, too, that acceptance is finished. There are the Father's
   arms, and here are you, a black sinner to-night. I do not know you, but
   it may be you have trodden the pavements, or you have gone further than
   that, and added drunkenness to shame; you have gone to the lowest vice,
   perhaps to robbery,--who knoweth what manner of person may step into
   this place?--but the great arms of the Eternal Father are ready to save
   you as you are, because the great work of Christ has effected all that
   is wanted before God for the acceptance of the vilest sinner. How is it
   that the Father can embrace the prodigal? Why! he is fresh from the
   swine-trough! Look at him: look at his rags; how foul they are! We
   would not touch them with a pair of tongs! Take him to the fire and
   burn the filth! Take him to the bath and wash him! That lip is not fit
   to kiss; those filthy lips cannot be permitted to touch that holy cheek
   of the glorious Father! Ah! but it is not so. While he was yet a great
   way off, his father saw him,--rags and poverty and sin and filth and
   all,--and he did not wait till he was clean, but ran and fell upon his
   neck and kissed him, just as he was. How could he do that? Why, the
   parable does not tell us; for it did not run on with the subject to
   introduce the atonement. But this explains it,--when God accepts a
   sinner, he is, in fact, only accepting Christ. He looks into the
   sinner's eyes, and he sees his own dear Son's image there, and he takes
   him in. As we have heard of a good woman, who, whenever a poor sailor
   came to her door, whoever he might be, would always make him welcome,
   because, she said, "I think I see my own dear son who has been these
   many years away, and I have never heard of him; but whenever I see a
   sailor, I think of him, and treat the stranger kindly for my son's
   sake." So my God, when he sees a sinner long for pardon and desirous of
   being accepted, thinks he sees his Son in him, and accepts him for his
   Son's sake. Do not imagine that we preach a gospel in this place for
   respectable, godly people. No: we preach a gospel here for sinners. I
   heard, the other day, from one who told me that he believed we were
   saved by being perfect, that when we committed sin we at once fell out
   of God's mercy. Well now, supposing that were true, it would not be
   worth making a large splutter about. It would not be worth angels
   singing "Glory to God in the highest" about it, I should think. Any
   fool might know that God would accept a perfect man. But this is the
   thing of marvel, for which heaven and earth shall ring with the praises
   of the Mediator, that Jesus Christ died for the ungodly,--that Jesus
   Christ gave himself for their sin; not for their righteousness, not for
   their good deeds. If he had looked to all eternity, he could not have
   seen anything in us worthy of so great a suffering as that which he
   endured; but he did it for charity's sake,--for love's sake.

   And now, in his name,--oh that I could do it with his voice and with
   his love and with his fervor!--I do beseech you to lay hold upon him.
   No matter who you may be, I will not exclude you from the invitation.
   Hast thou piled thy sins together till they seem to provoke heaven? Do
   thy sins touch the clouds? Yet come, and welcome; for God has provided
   a sin-offering. Has man cast thee out? Say, poor woman, does the dreary
   river seem to invite thee to the fatal plunge? God has not cast thee
   out. O thou who feelest in thine own body the effect of thy sin, till
   thou art loathing thyself, and wishing thou hadst never been
   born--perhaps thou sayest, like John Bunyan, "Oh that I had been a
   frog, or a toad, or a snake, sooner than have been a man, to have
   fallen into such sin, and to have become so foul!" Have courage,
   sinner; have courage. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
   unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he
   will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly
   pardon." Do not doubt this message: God has sent it to you. Do not
   reject it: you will reject your own life if you do. Turn you at his
   rebuke! It is a loving voice which speaks to you, and that would speak,
   perhaps, better and more forcibly if it were not choked with love. I do
   implore thee, sinner, come to Jesus! If thou art damned it is not for
   want of invitation. If thou wilt perish, it is not for want of earnest
   pleading with thee. I tell thee, man, there is nothing of thine own
   wanted. All this is found in the sin-offering; for thou needest not
   find it. There is no merit of thine needed; there is merit enough in
   Christ. Is it not the old proverb that you are not to take coals to
   Newcastle? Do not take anything to Christ. Come as you are--just as you
   are. Nay, tarry not till you go out of this house. The Lord enable you
   to believe in Jesus now, to take him now as a complete and finished
   salvation for you, though you may be the most sunken and abandoned and
   hopeless of all characters. Why did God provide a sin-offering but for
   sinners? He could not have wanted to provide it if there was no
   necessity. You have a great necessity. You have, shall I say? compelled
   him to it. Your sins have nailed Christ's hands to the cross,--your
   sins have pierced his heart; and his heart is not pierced in vain, nor
   are those hands nailed there for naught. Christ will have you, sinner,
   Christ will have you. There are some of God's elect here, and he will
   have you. You shall not stand out against him. Almighty love will have
   you. He has determined that you shall not do what you have vowed. Your
   league with hell is broken to-night, and your covenant with death is
   disannulled. The prey shall not be taken from the mighty; the lawful
   captive shall be delivered. The Lord will yet fetch you up from the
   depths of the sea. Oh! what a debtor to grace you will be! Be a debtor
   to that grace to-night. Over head and ears in debt, plunge yourself by
   a simple act of trusting in Jesus, and you are saved.

   Pray, ye who know how to pray, that this message may be made effective
   in the hand of God. And you who have never prayed before, God help you
   to pray now. May he now be found of them who sought not for him, and he
   shall have the glory, world without end. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

          "Alas For Us, If Thou Wert All, and Nought Beyond, O Earth"

   A Sermon

   (No. 562)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, March 27th, 1864, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
   miserable."--1 Corinthians 15:19.

   YOU WILL UNDERSTAND that the apostle is arguing with professedly
   Christian people, who were dubious about the resurrection of the dead.
   He is not saying that all men are now miserable if there be no hope of
   the world to come, for such an assertion would be untrue. There are
   very many who never think of another life, who are quite happy in their
   way, enjoy themselves, and are very comfortable after a fashion. But he
   speaks of Christian people--"If we, who have hope in Christ, are led to
   doubt the doctrine of a future state and of a resurrection, then we are
   of all men most miserable." The argument has nothing to do with some of
   you who are not Christians; it has nothing to do with you who have
   never been brought out of a state of nature into a state of grace; it
   only respects those who are real, living followers of the Savior, and
   who are known by this, that they have hope in Christ--hope in his blood
   for pardon, in his righteousness for justification, in his power for
   support, in his resurrection for eternal glory. "If we who have hope in
   Christ, have that hope for this life only, then we are of all men most
   miserable." You understand the argument; he is appealing to their
   consciousness; they, as Christians, had real enjoyments, "but," says
   he, "you could not have these enjoyments if it were not for the hope of
   another life; for once take that away, if you could still remain
   Christians and have the same feelings which you now have, and act as
   you now do, you would become of all men most miserable," therefore to
   justify your own happiness and make it all reasonable, you must admit a
   resurrection; there is no other method of accounting for the joyous
   peace which the Christian possesses. Our riches are beyond the sea; our
   city with firm foundations lies on the other side the river: gleams of
   glory from the spirit-world cheer our hearts, and urge us onward; but
   if it were not for these, our present joys would pine and die.

   We will try and handle our text this morning in this way. First, we are
   not of all men most miserable; but secondly, without the hope of
   another life we should be--that we are prepared to confess--because
   thirdly, our chief joy lies in the hope of a life to come; and thus,
   fourthly, the future influences the present; and so, in the last place,
   we may to-day judge what our future is to be.

   I. First then, WE ARE NOT OF ALL MEN MOST MISERABLE. Who ventures to
   say we are? He who will have the hardihood to say so knoweth nothing of
   us. He who shall affirm that Christianity makes men miserable, is
   himself an utter stranger to it, and has never partaken of its joyful
   influences. It were a very strange thing indeed, if it did make us
   wretched, for see to what a position it exalts us! It makes us sons of
   God. Suppose you that God will give all the happiness to his enemies,
   and reserve all the mourning for his sons? Shall his foes have mirth
   and joy, and shall his own home-born children inherit sorrow and
   wretchedness? Are the kisses for the wicked and the frowns for us? Are
   we condemned to hang our harps upon the willows, and sing nothing but
   doleful dirges, while the children of Satan are to laugh for joy of
   heart? We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus. Shall
   the sinner, who has no part nor lot in Christ, call himself happy, and
   shall we go mourning as if we were penniless beggars? No, we will
   rejoice in the Lord always, and glory in our inheritance, for we "have
   not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received
   the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." The rod of
   chastisement must rest upon us in our measure, but it worketh for us
   the comfortable fruits of righteousness; and therefore by the aid of
   the divine Comforter, we will rejoice in the Lord at all times. We are,
   my brethren, married unto Christ; and shall our great Bridegroom permit
   his spouse to linger in constant grief? Our hearts are knit unto him:
   we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones, and though
   for awhile we may suffer as our Head once suffered, yet we are even now
   blessed with heavenly blessings in him. Shall our Head reign in heaven,
   and shall we have a hell upon earth? God forbid: the joyful triumph of
   our exalted Head is in a measure shared by us, even in this vale of
   tears. We have the earnest of our inheritance in the comforts of the
   Spirit, which are neither few nor small. Think of a Christian! He is a
   king, and shall the king be the most melancholy of men? He is a priest
   unto God, and shall he offer no sweet incense of hallowed joy and
   grateful thanksgiving? We are fit companions for angels: he hath made
   us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; and
   shall we have no days of heaven upon earth? Is Canaan ours from Dan to
   Beersheba, and shall we eat no fruit from Eshcol's vine on this side of
   Jordan? Shall we have no taste of the figs, and of the pomegranates,
   and of the flowing milk and honey? Is there no manna in the wilderness?
   Are there no streams in the desert? Are there no streaks of light to
   herald our eternal sunrising? Heritors of joy for ever, have we no
   foretastes of our portion? I say again, it were the oddest thing in the
   world if Christians were more miserable than other men, or not more
   happy. Think again of what God has done for them! The Christian knows
   that his sins are forgiven; there is not against the believer a single
   sin recorded in God's book. "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy
   transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins." More than that, the
   believer is accounted by God as if he had perfectly kept the law, for
   the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him, and he stands clothed in
   that fair white linen which is the righteousness of the saints, And
   shall the man whom God accepts be wretched? Shall the pardoned offender
   be less happy than the man upon whom the wrath of God abideth? Can you
   conceive such a thing? Moreover, my brethren, we are made temples of
   the Holy Ghost, and is the Holy Ghost's temple to be a dark, dolorous
   place, a place of shrieks, and moans, and cries, like the Druidic
   groves of old? Such is not like our God. Our God is a God of love, and
   it is his very nature to make his creatures happy; and we, who are his
   twice-made creatures, who are the partakers of the divine nature,
   having escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust, is it
   to be supposed that we are bound by a stern decree to go mourning all
   our days? Oh! if ye knew the Christian's privilege, if ye understood
   that the secret of the Lord is laid open to him, that the wounds of
   Christ are his shelter, that the flesh and blood of Christ are his
   food, that Christ himself is his sweet companion and his abiding
   friend, oh! if ye knew this, ye would never again foolishly dream that
   Christians are an unhappy race. "Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like
   unto thee, O people saved by the Lord?" Who can be compared with the
   man who is "satisfied with favor and full with the blessing of the
   Lord." Well might the evil prophet of Bethor exclaim, "Let me die the
   death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

   We will go a step farther. We will not only say that from the nature of
   his position and privileges, a Christian should be happy, but we
   declare that he is so, and that among all men there are none who enjoy
   such a constant peace of mind as believers in Christ. Our joy may not
   be like that of the sinner, noisy and boisterous. You know what Solomon
   says--"The laughter of fools is as the crackling of thorns under a
   pot"--a great deal of blaze and much noise, and then a handful of
   ashes, and it is all over. "Who hath woe, who hath redness of the eyes?
   They that tarry long at the wine-men of strength to mingle strong
   drink." The Christian, in truth, does not know much of the excitement
   of the bowl, the viol and the dance, nor does he desire to know; he is
   content that he possesses a calm deep-seated repose of soul. "He is not
   afraid of evil tidings, his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord." He
   is not disturbed with any sudden fear: he knows that "all things work
   together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
   according to his purpose." He is in the habit in whatever society he
   may be, of still lifting up his heart to God; and therefore he can say
   with the Psalmist, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will
   sing and give praise."

   "He waits in secret on his God;

   His God in secret sees;

   Let earth be all in arms abroad,

   He dwells in heavenly peace.

   His pleasures rise from things unseen,

   Beyond this world and time,

   Where neither eyes nor ears have been,

   Nor thoughts of sinners climb.

   He wants no pomp nor royal throne

   To raise his figure here:

   Content and pleased to live unknown,

   Till Christ his life appear.

   "There is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of God."
   Believers drink of that river and thirst not for carnal delights. They
   are made "to lie down in green pastures," and are led "beside the still
   waters." Now this solid, lasting joy and peace of mind sets the
   Christian so on high above all others, that I boldly testify that there
   are no people in the world to compare with him for happiness. But do
   not suppose that our joy never rises above this settled calm; for let
   me tell you, and I speak experimentally, we have our seasons of
   rapturous delight and overflowing bliss. There are times with us when
   no music could equal the melody of our heart's sweet hymn of joy. It
   would empty earth's coffers of every farthing of her joy to buy a
   single ounce of our delight. Do not fancy Paul was the only man who
   could say, "Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell; God
   knoweth," for these ecstasies are usual with believers; and on their
   sunshiny days when their unbelief is shaken off and their faith is
   strong, they have all but walked the golden streets; and they can say,
   "If we have not entered within the pearly gate, we have been only just
   this side of it; and it we have not yet come to the general assembly
   and Church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven, if we
   have not joined the great congregation of the perfect in actual body,
   yet still--

   "E'en now by faith we join our hands

   With those that went before,

   And greet the blood-besprinkled bands

   On the eternal shore."

   I would not change one five minutes of the excessive joy my soul has
   sometimes felt for a thousand years of the best mirth that the children
   of this world could give me. O friends, there is a happiness which can
   make the eye sparkle and the heart beat high, and the whole man as full
   of bounding speed of life as the chariots of Amminadib. There are
   raptures and high ecstasies, which on festival days such as the Lord
   allotteth to his people, the saints are permitted to enjoy. I must not
   fail to remind you that the Christian is the happiest of men for this
   reason, that his joy does not depend upon circumstances. We have seen
   the happiest men in the most sorrowful conditions. Mr. Renwick, who was
   the last of the Scotch martyrs, said a little before his death,
   "Enemies think themselves satisfied that we are put to wander in mosses
   and upon mountains, but even amidst the storm of these last two nights
   I cannot express what sweet times I have had when I have had no
   coverings but the dark curtains of night: yea, in the silent watch my
   mind was led out to admire the deep and inexpressible ocean of joy
   wherein the whole family of heaven do swim. Each star led me to wonder
   what He must be who is the star of Jacob, and from whom all stars
   borrow their shining." Here is a martyr of God driven from house and
   home and from all comforts, and yet having such sweet seasons beneath
   the curtains of the black night as kings do not often know beneath
   their curtains of silk. A minister of Christ going to visit a very,
   very poor man, gives this description. He says, "I found him alone, his
   wife having gone out to ask help of some neighbor. I was startled by
   the sight of the pale emaciated man, the living image of death,
   fastened upright in his chair by a rude mechanism of cords and belts
   hanging from the ceiling, totally unable to move hand or foot, having
   been for more than four years entirely deprived of the use of his
   limbs, and suffering extreme pain from swellings in all his joints. I
   approached him full of pity, and I said, "Are you left alone, my
   friend, in this deplorable situation?" He answered with a gentle
   voice--his lips were the only parts of his body which he appeared to
   have power to move--"No, sir, I am not alone, because the Father is
   with me." I began to talk with him, and I soon observed what was the
   source of his consolation, for just in front of him lay the Bible upon
   a pillow, his wife having left it open at some choice Psalm of David so
   that he might read while she was gone, as he had no power to turn over
   the leaves. I asked him what he had to live upon, and found that it was
   a miserable pittance, scarcely enough to keep body and soul together,
   "But," said he, "I never want anything, for the Lord has said, Your
   bread shall be given you, and your water shall be sure,' and I trust in
   him, and I shall never want while God is faithful to his promise." "I
   asked him," says this minister "whether he did not often repine on
   account of suffering so acutely for so many years. "Sir," said he, "I
   did repine at first, but not for the last three years, blessed be God
   for it, for I know whom I have believed, and though I feel my own
   weakness and unworthiness more and more, yet I am persuaded that he
   will never leave me nor forsake me; and so graciously does he comfort
   me that when my lips are closed with lock-jaw and I cannot speak a word
   for hours together, he enables me to sing his praises most sweetly in
   my heart." Now here was a man to whom the sun of all earthly comfort
   was set, and yet the sun of heaven shone full in his face, and he was
   more peaceful and happy in deep poverty and racking pain than all you
   or I have been in the health and strength of youth. John Howard spent
   his time in visiting the gaols and going from one haunt of fever to
   another, he was asked how he could find any ground of happiness when he
   was living in miserable Russian villages, or dwelling in discomfort in
   an hospital or a gaol. Mr. Howard's answer was very beautiful. "I
   hope," said he, "I have sources of enjoyment which depend not upon the
   particular spot I inhabit. A rightly cultivated mind, under the power
   of divine grace and the exercise of a benevolent disposition affords a
   ground of satisfaction that is not to be affected by heres and theres."
   Every Christian will bear you his witness that he has found his sad
   times to be his glad times, his losses to be his gains, his sicknesses
   means to promote his soul's health. Our summer does not depend upon the
   sun, nor our flood-tide upon the moon. We can rejoice even in death. We
   look forward to that happy hour when we shall close our eyes in the
   peaceful slumbers of death, believing that our last day will be our
   best day. Even the crossing of the river Jordan is but an easy task,
   for we shall hear him say, "Fear not; I am with thee: be not dismayed,
   I am thy God; when thou passest through the rivers I will be with thee,
   and the floods shall not overflow thee." We dare to say it, then, very
   boldly, we are not of all men most miserable: we would not change with
   unconverted men for all their riches, and their pomp, and their honor
   thrown into the scale.

   "Go you that boast in all your stores,

   And tell how bright they shine,

   Your heaps of glittering dust are yours,

   And my Redeemer's mine.

   II. This brings us to the second point--WITHOUT THE HOPE OF ANOTHER
   LIFE, WE WILL ADMIT, THAT WE SHOULD BE OF ALL MEN MOST MISERABLE.

   Especially was this true of the apostles. They were rejected by their
   countrymen; they lost all the comforts of home; their lives were spent
   in toil, and were daily exposed to violent death. They all of them
   suffered the martyr's doom, except John, who seems to have been
   preserved not from martyrdom, but in it. They were certainly the twelve
   most miserable of men apart from that hope of the world to come, which
   made them of all men the most happy. But this is true, dear friends,
   not merely of persecuted, and despised, and poverty-stricken
   Christians, but of all believers. We are prepared to grant it, that
   take away from us the hope of the world to come we should be more
   miserable than men without religion. The reason is very clear, if you
   think that the Christian has renounced those common and ordinary
   sources of joy from which other men drink. We must have some pleasure:
   it is impossible for men to live in this world without it, and I can
   say most truthfully I never urge any of you to do that which would make
   you unhappy. We must have some pleasure. Well then, there is a vessel
   filled with muddy filthy water which the camels' feet have stirred:
   shall I drink it? I see yonder a rippling stream of clear flowing
   water, pure as crystal and cooling as the snow of Lebanon, and I say,
   "No, I will not drink this foul, muddy stuff; leave that for beasts; I
   will drink of you clear stream." But if I be mistaken, if there be no
   stream yonder, if it be but the deceitful mirage, if I have been
   deluded, then I am worse off than those who were content with the muddy
   water, for they have at least some cooling draughts; but I have none at
   all. This is precisely the Christian's case. He passes by the pleasures
   of sin, and the amusements of carnal men, because he says, "I do not
   care for them, I find no pleasure in them: my happiness flows from the
   river which springs from the throne of God and flows to me through
   Jesus Christ--I will drink of that," but if there were no hereafter, if
   that were proved to be a deception, then were we more wretched than the
   profligate and licentious.

   Again, the Christian man has learned the vanity of all earthly joys. We
   know when we look upon pomp that it is an empty thing. We walk through
   the world, not with the scorn of Diogenes, the cynical philosopher, but
   with something of his wisdom, and we look upon the common things in
   which men rejoice, and say with Solomon, "Vanity of vanities, all is
   vanity." And why do we say this? Why, because we have chosen eternal
   things in which there is no vanity, and which are satisfying to the
   soul. But, my brethren, it is the most unhappy piece of knowledge which
   a man can acquire, to know that this world is vain, if there be not
   another world abundantly to compensate for all our ills. There is a
   poor lunatic in Bedlam, plaiting straw into a crown which he puts upon
   his head, and calls himself a king, and mounts his mimic throne and
   thinks that he is monarch over all nations, and is perfectly happy in
   his dream. Do you think that I would undeceive him? Nay, verily, if I
   could, I would not. If the delusion makes the man happy, by all means
   let him indulge in it; but, dear friends, you and I have been
   undeceived; our dream of perfect bliss beneath the skies is gone for
   ever; what then if there be no world to come? Why then it is a most
   sorrowful thing for us that we have been awakened out of our sleep
   unless this better thing which we have chosen, this good part which
   shall not be taken from us, should prove to be real and true, as we do
   believe it is.

   Moreover, the Christian man is a man who has had high, noble, and great
   expectations, and this is a very sad thing for us if our expectations
   be not fulfilled, for it makes us of all men most miserable. I have
   known poor men waiting and expecting a legacy. They had a right to
   expect it, and they have waited, and waited, and borne with poverty,
   and the relative has died and left them nothing; their poverty has ever
   afterwards seemed to be a heavier drag than before. It is an unhappy
   thing for a man to have large ideas and large desires, if he cannot
   gratify them. I believe that poverty is infinitely better endured by
   persons who were always poor, than by those who have been rich and have
   had to come down to penury, for they miss what the others never had,
   and what the originally poor would look upon as luxuries they consider
   to be necessary to their existence. The Christian has learned to think
   of eternity, of God, of Christ, of communion with Jesus, and if indeed
   it be all false, he certainly has dreamed the most magnificent of all
   mortal visions. Truly, if any man could prove it to be a vision, the
   best thing he could do would be to sit down and weep for ever to think
   it was not true, for the dream is so splendid, the picture of the world
   to come so gorgeous, that I can only say, if it be not true, it ought
   to be--if it be not true, then there is nothing here worth living for,
   my brethren, and we are disappointed wretches indeed--of all men most
   miserable.

   The Christian, too, has learned to look upon everything here on earth
   as fleeting. I must confess every day this feeling grows with me. I
   scarce look upon my friends as living. I walk as in a land of shadows,
   and find nothing enduring around me. The broad arrow of the great
   skeleton king is, to my eye, visibly stamped everywhere. I go so often
   to the grave, and with those I least expected to take there, that it
   seems to be rather a world of dying than of living men. Well, this is a
   very unhappy thing--a very wretched state of mind for a man to be in,
   if there be no world to come. If there be no resurrection of the dead,
   then is the Christian indeed committed to a state of mind the most
   deplorable and pitiable. But, O my brethren, if there be a world to
   come, as faith assures us there is, how joyous it is to be weaned from
   the world, and to be ready to depart from it! To be with Christ is far
   better than to tarry in this vale of tears.

   "The cords that bound my heart to earth

   Are broken by his hand;

   Before his cross I find myself,

   A stranger in the land.

   My heart is with him on his throne,

   And ill can brook delay;

   Each moment listening for the voice,

   'Make haste, and come away."'

   May I not pant to be in my own sweet country with my own fair Lord, to
   see him face to face? Yet, if it be not so and there be no resurrection
   of the dead, "we are of all men most miserable."

   III. OUR CHIEF JOY IN THE HOPE OF THE WORLD TO COME. Think of the world
   to come, my brethren, and let your joys begin to kindle into flames of
   delight, for heaven offers you all that you can desire. You are, many
   of you, weary of toil; so weary, perhaps, that you can scarcely enjoy
   the morning service because of the late hours at which you have had to
   work at night. Ah! there is a land of rest--of perfect rest, where the
   sweat of labor no more bedews the worker's brow, and fatigue is for
   ever banished. To those who are weary and spent, the word "rest" is
   full of heaven. Oh! happy truth, there remaineth a rest for the people
   of God. " They rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."
   Others of you are always in the field of battle; you are so tempted
   within, and so molested by foes without, that you have little or no
   peace. I know where your hope lies. It lies in the victory, when the
   banner shall be waved aloft, and the sword shall be sheathed, and you
   shall hear your Captain say, "Well done, good and faithful servant;
   thou hast fought a good fight; thou hast finished thy course:
   henceforth wear thou the crown of life which fadeth not away." Some of
   you are tossed about with many troubles; you go from care to care, from
   loss to loss: it seems to you as if all God's waves and billows had
   gone over you; but you shall soon arrive at the land of happiness,
   where you shall bathe your weary soul in seas of heavenly rest, You
   shall have no poverty soon; no mud-hovel, no rags, nor hunger. "In my
   Father's house are many mansions," and there shall you dwell, satisfied
   with favor, and full of every blessing. You have had bereavement after
   bereavement; the wife has been carried to the tomb, the children have
   followed, father and mother are gone, and you have few left to love you
   here; but you are going to the land where graves are unknown things,
   where they never see a shroud, and the sound of the mattock and the
   spade are never heard; you are going to your Father's house in the land
   of the immortal, in the country of the hereafter, in the home of the
   blessed, in the habitation of God Most High, in the Jerusalem which is
   above, the mother of us all. Is not this your best joy, that you are
   not to be here for ever, that you are not to dwell eternally in this
   wilderness, but shall soon inherit Canaan? With all God's people their
   worst grief is sin. I would not care for any sorrow, if I could live
   without sinning. Oh! if I were rid of the appetites of the flesh and
   the lusts thereof, and the desires which continually go astray, I would
   be satisfied to lie in a dungeon and rot there, so as to be delivered
   from the corruption of sin. Well but, brethren, we shall soon attain
   unto perfection. The body of this death will die with this body. There
   is no temptation in heaven, for the dog of hell can never cross the
   stream of death; there are no corruptions there, for they have washed
   their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; there shall
   by no means enter into that kingdom anything which defileth. Methinks
   as I hear the joyous song of the glorified this morning, as I catch
   floating down from heaven the sound of that music which is like many
   waters and like the great thunder, and as I hear the harmony of those
   notes which are sweet as harpers harping with their harps, my soul
   desireth to stretch her wings, and fly straight to yonder worlds of
   joy. I know it is so with you, my brethren in the tribulation of
   Christ--as you wipe the sweat your brow, is not this the comfort: there
   is rest for the people of God? As you stand out against temptation and
   suffer for Christ's sake, is not this your comfort: " If we suffer with
   him, we shall also reign with him." When you are slandered and despised
   by men, is not this your hope: "He will remember me when he cometh into
   his kingdom. I shall sit upon his throne, even as he has overcome, and
   sitteth down upon his Father's throne?" Oh! yes, this is the music to
   which Christians dance; this is the wine which maketh glad their
   hearts; this is the banquet at which they feast. There is another and a
   better land, and we, though we sleep with the clods of the valley,
   shall in our flesh see God, when our Redeemer shall stand in the latter
   days upon the earth. I think you catch my drift--we are not of all men
   most miserable; apart from the future hope we should be, for our hope
   in Christ for the future is the mainstay of our joy.

   IV. Now, dear friends, this brings me to a practical observation in the
   fourth place, which is, that THUS THE FUTURE OPERATES UPON THE PRESENT.

   I had some time ago a conversation with a very eminent man whose fame
   is familiar to you all, but whose name I do not feel justified in
   mentioning, who was once a professed believer but is now full of
   scepticism. He said to me in the course of our argument, "Why, how
   foolish you are, and all the company of preachers. You tell people to
   think about the next world, when the best thing they could do would be
   to behave themselves as well as they can in this!" I granted the truth
   of the observation; it would be very unwise to make people neglect the
   present, for it is of exceeding great importance, but I went on to show
   him that the very best method to make people attend to the present was
   by impressing them with high and noble motives with regard to the
   future. The potent force of the world to come supplies us through the
   Holy Spirit with force for the proper accomplishment of the duties of
   this life. Here is a man who has a machine for the manufacture of
   hardware. He wants steam power to work this machine. An engineer puts
   up a steam engine in a shed at some considerable distance. "Well,"
   saith the other, "I asked you to bring steam power here, to operate
   upon my machine." "That is precisely," says he, "what I have done. I
   put the steam engine there, you have but to connect it by a band and
   your machine works as fast as you like; it is not necessary that I
   should put the boiler, and the fire, and the engine close to the work,
   just under your nose: only connect the two, and the one will operate
   upon the other." So God has been pleased to make our hopes of the
   future a great engine wherewith the Christian man may work the ordinary
   machine of every-day life, for the band of faith connects the two, and
   makes all the wheels of ordinary life revolve with rapidity and
   regularity. To speak against preaching the future as though it would
   make people neglect the present is absurd. It is as though somebody
   should say, "There, take away the moon, and blot out the sun. What is
   the use of them--they are not in this world?" Precisely so, but take
   away the moon and you have removed the tides, and the sea becomes a
   stagnant, putrid pool. Then take away the sun--it is not in the
   world--take it away, and light, and heat, and life; everything is gone.
   What the sun and moon are to this natural world, the hope of the future
   is to the Christian in this world. It is his light--he looks upon all
   things in that light, and sees them truly. It is his heat; it gives him
   zeal and energy. It is his very life: his Christianity, his virtue
   would expire if it were not for the hope of the world to come. Do you
   believe, my brethren, that apostles and martyrs would ever have
   sacrificed their lives for truth's sake if they had not looked for a
   hereafter? In the heat of excitement, the soldier may die for honor,
   but to die in tortures and mockeries in cold blood needs a hope beyond
   the grave. Would you poor man go toiling on year after year, refusing
   to sacrifice his conscience for gain; would yon poor needle-girl refuse
   to become the slave of lust if she did not see something brighter than
   earth can picture to her as the reward of sin? O my brethren, the most
   practical thing in all the world is the hope of the world to come; and
   you see the text teaches this, for it is just this which keeps us from
   being miserable; and to keep a man from being miserable, let me say, is
   to do a great thing for him, for a miserable Christian--what is the use
   of him? Keep him in a cupboard, where nobody can see him; nurse him in
   the hospital, for he is of no use in the field of labor. Build a
   monastery, and put all miserable Christians in it, and there let them
   meditate on mercy till they learn to smile; for really there is no
   other use for them in the world, But the man who has a hope of the next
   world goes about his work strong, for the joy of the Lord is our
   strength. He goes against, temptation mighty, for the hope of the next
   world repels the fiery darts of the adversary. He can labor without
   present reward, for he looks for a reward in the world to come. He can
   suffer rebuke, and can afford to die a slandered man, because he knows
   that God will avenge his own elect who cry day and night unto him.
   Through the Spirit of God the hope of another world is the most potent
   force for the product of virtue; it is a fountain of joy; it is the
   very channel of usefulness. It is to the Christian what food is to the
   vital force in the animal frame. Let it be said of any of us, that we
   are dreaming about the future and forgetting the present, but let the
   future sanctify the present to highest uses. I fear our prophetical
   brethren err here. They are reading continually about the last vials,
   the seventy weeks of Daniel, and a number of other mysteries; I wish
   they would set to work instead of speculating so much, or speculate
   even more if they will, but turn their prophecies to present practical
   account. Prophetical speculations too often lead men away from present
   urgent duty, and especially from contending earnestly for the faith
   once delivered to the saints; but a hope of the world to come is, I
   think, the best practical power which a Christian can have.

   V. And now, to conclude, this will let us see very clearly WHAT OUR
   FUTURE IS TO BE.

   There are some persons here to whom my text has nothing whatever to
   say. Suppose there were no hereafter, would they be more miserable?
   Why, no; they would be more happy. If anybody could prove to them that
   death is an eternal sleep, it would be the greatest consolation that
   they could possibly receive, It it could be shown, to a demonstration,
   that as soon as people die they rot in the grave and there is an end of
   them--why some of you could go to bed at night comfortable, your
   conscience would never disturb you, you would be molested by none of
   those terrible fears which now haunt you. Do you see, then, this proves
   that you are not a Christian; this proves as plainly as twice two make
   tour, that you are no believer in Christ; for if you were, the taking
   away of a hereafter would make you miserable. Since it would not tend
   to make you happy to believe in a future state, this proves that you
   are no believer in Christ. Well, then, what have Ito say to you? Why
   just this--that in the world to come, you will be of all men most
   miserable. "What will become of you?" said an infidel once to a
   Christian man, "supposing there should be no heaven?" "Well," said he,
   "I like to have two strings to my bow. If there be no hereafter I am as
   well off as you are; if there be I am infinitely better off. But where
   are you? Where are you?" Why then we must read this text in the
   future--"If in this life there be indeed a hope of a life to come, then
   you shall be in the next life of all men most miserable." Do you see
   where you will be? Your soul goes before the great Judge, and receives
   its condemnation and begins its hell. The trumpet rings; heaven and
   earth are astonished; the grave heaves; yonder slab of marble is lifted
   up, and up you rise in that very flesh and blood in which you sinned,
   and there you stand in the midst of a terrified multitude, all gathered
   to their doom. The Judge has come. The great assize has commenced.
   There on the great white throne sits the Savior who once said, "Come
   unto me, ye weary, and I will give you rest;" but now he sits there as
   a Judge and opens with stern hand the terrible volume. Page after page
   he reads, and as he reads he gives the signal, "Depart, ye cursed, into
   everlasting fire," and the angels bind up the fares in bundles to burn
   them. There stand you, and you know your doom; you already begin to
   feel it. You cry to the lofty Alps to fall upon you and conceal you. "O
   ye mountains, can ye not find in your rocky bowels some friendly cavern
   where I may be hidden from the face of him who sits upon the throne?"
   In terrible silence the mountains refuse your petition and the rocks
   reject your cry. You would plunge into the sea, but it is licked up
   with tongues of fire; you would fain make your bed even in hell if you
   could escape from those dreadful eyes, but you cannot; for now your
   turn is come, that page is turned over which records your history; the
   Savior reads with a voice of thunder and with eyes of lightning. He
   reads, and as he waves his hand you are cast away from hope. You shall
   then know what it is to be of all men most miserable. Ye had your
   pleasure; ye had your giddy hour; ye had your mirthful moments; you
   despised Christ, and you would not turn at his rebuke; you would not
   have him to reign over you; you lived his adversary; you died
   unreconciled, and now where are you? Now, what will ye do, ye who
   forget God, in that day when he shall tear you in pieces, and there
   shall be none to deliver you? In the name of my Lord and Master I do
   conjure you, fly away to Christ for refuge. "He that believeth in him
   shall be saved." To believe is to trust; and whosoever this morning is
   enabled by faith to cast himself upon Christ, need not fear to live,
   nor fear to die, You shall not be miserable here; you shall be thrice
   blessed hereafter if you trust my Lord.

   "Come, guilty souls, and flee away

   To Christ, and heal your wounds;

   This is the welcome gospel-day

   Wherein free grace abounds."

   O that ye would be wise and consider your latter end! O that ye would
   reflect that this life is but a span, and the life to come lasts on for
   ever! Do not, I pray you, fling away eternity; play not the fool with
   such solemn things as these, but in serious earnestness lay hold upon
   eternal life. Look to the bleeding Savior; see there his five wounds,
   and his face bedewed with bloody sweat! Trust him, trust him, and you
   are saved. The moment that you trust him your sins are gone. His
   righteousness is yours; you are saved on the spot, and you shall be
   saved when he cometh in his kingdom to raise the dead from their
   graves. O that the Lord might lead us all thus to rest on Jesus, now
   and ever. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                            The Barley Field on Fire

   A Sermon

   (No. 563)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning,, April 3rd, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "Absalom sent for Joab, to have sent him to the king; but he would not
   come to him; and when he sent again, the second time, he would not
   come. Therefore he said unto his servants, See, Joab's field is near
   mine, and he hath barley there: Go and set it on fire. And Absalom's
   servants set the field on fire. Then Joab arose, and came to Absalom
   unto his house, and said unto him, Wherefore have thy servants set my
   field on fire?"--2 Samuel 14:29-31.

   YOU REMEMBER the historical narrative. Absalom had fled from Jerusalem
   under fear of David's anger. He was after a time permitted to return;
   but he was not admitted into the presence of the king. Earnestly
   desiring to be restored to his former posts of honor and favor, he
   besought Joab to come to him, intending to request him to act as
   mediator. Joab, having lost much of his liking for the young prince,
   refused to come; and, though he was sent for repeatedly, he declined to
   attend at his desire. Absalom therefore thought of a most wicked, but
   most effective plan of bringing Joab into his company. He bade his
   servants set Joab's field of barley on fire. This brought Joab down in
   high wrath to ask the question, "Wherefore have thy servants set my
   field on fire?" This was all that Absalom wanted; he wished an
   interview, and he was not scrupulous as to the method by which he
   obtained it. The burning of the barley-field brought Joab into his
   presence, and Absalom's ends were accomplished.

   Omitting the sin of the deed, we have here a picture of what is often
   done by our gracious God, with the wisest and best design. Often he
   sendeth for us, not for his profit, but for ours. He would have us come
   near to him and receive a blessing at his hands; but we are foolish and
   cold-hearted and wicked, and we will not come. He, knowing that we will
   not come by any other means, sendeth a serious trial: he sets our
   barley-field on fire; which he has a right to do, seeing our
   barley-fields are far more his than they are ours. In Absalom's case it
   was wrong; in God's case he has a right to do as he wills with his own.
   He takes away from us our most choice delight, upon which we have set
   our heart, and then we inquire at his hands, "Wherefore contendest thou
   with me? Why am I thus smitten with thy rod? What have I done to
   provoke thee to anger?" And thus we are brought into the presence of
   God, and we receive blessings of infinitely more value than those
   temporary mercies which the Lord had taken from us. You will see, then,
   how I intend to use my text this morning. As the pastor of so large a
   church as this, I am constantly brought into contact with all sorts of
   human sorrow. Frequently it is poverty,--poverty too which is not
   brought on by idleness or vice, but real poverty and most distressing
   and afflicting poverty too, because it visits those who have fought
   well the battle of life, and have struggled hard for years, and yet in
   their old age scarce know where bread shall come from, except that they
   rest upon the promise--"Thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water
   shall be sure." Messengers come to me sometimes as fast as they came to
   Job, bearing sad tidings concerning one and another of you. There comes
   one--"I entreat your prayers for me, sir: God has been pleased to take
   away my wife with a stroke; she now lies in the cold grave." Another
   cries, "O sir, my wife is sore sick, and the physician saith that there
   is but little hope: pray for her, that she may be strengthened in the
   hour of her departure; and for me, that I may be enabled to kiss the
   Master's rod." Then comes another--"My son is afflicted; he is to
   undergo a painful operation: pray that the surgeon's knife may not be
   his death, but that he may be enabled to bear up under it." And when I
   have sympathized with a company of sad complaints like these, another
   set of messengers will be waiting at the door. How few families are
   long without severe trials! hardly a person escapes for any long season
   without tribulation. With impartial hand sorrow knocks at the door of
   the palace and the cottage. Why all this? The Lord, we know, "Doth not
   afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men" for naught; why can
   it be that he employs so many frowning servants, and sendeth out so
   often his usher of the black rod? Wherefore can it be? Perhaps I may be
   able to give the fitting answer to this very proper inquiry, and it may
   be that I may be as serviceable to the afflicted as the jailer was to
   Paul and Silas when he washed their stripes.

   I shall use my text, first of all, in reference to believers; and then,
   with regard to the unconverted. Oh for help from above!

   I. First of all, brethren, let us use the text WITH REFERENCE TO
   BELIEVERS IN CHRIST.

   My beloved brethren and sisters in Jesus Christ, we cannot expect to
   avoid tribulation. If other men's barley-fields are not burned, ours
   will be. If the Father uses the rod nowhere else, he will surely make
   his true children smart. As Paul saith, and as our hymnster hath rhymed
   it--

   "Bastards may escape the rod,

   Sunk in earthly vain delight,

   But the true-born child of God,

   Must not--would not if he might."

   Your Saviour hath left you a double legacy, "In the world ye shall have
   tribulation; but in me ye shall have peace." You enjoy peace; you must
   not expect that you shall escape without the privilege of the
   tribulation. All wheat must be threshed: and God's threshing-floor
   witnesses to the weight of the flail as much as any other. Gold must be
   tried in the fire; and truly the Lord hath a fire in Zion, and his
   furnace in Jerusalem.

   But you, beloved, have four very special comforts in all your trouble.
   You have, first, this sweet reflection, that there is no curse in your
   cross. Christ was made a curse for us, and we call his cross the
   accursed tree; but, truly, since Jesus hung upon it, it is most
   blessed; and I may now say concerning the cross of affliction, "Blessed
   is every man who hangeth on this tree." The cross may be very heavy,
   especially while it is green, and our shoulders unused to carrying it;
   but remember, though there may be a ton-weight of sorrow in it, there
   is not a single ounce of the curse in it. God doth never punish his
   children in the sense of avenging justice: he chastens as a father does
   his child, but he doth never punish his redeemed as a judge doth a
   criminal. It were unjust to exact punishment in their place and stead.
   How shall the Lord punish twice for one offence? If Christ took my sins
   and stood as my substitute, then there is no wrath of God for me; and
   though my cup may be bitter, yet there cannot be a single drop of the
   wormwood of Almighty wrath in it. I may have to smart, but it will
   never be beneath the lictor's rods of justice, but under the Parent's
   rod of wisdom. O Christian! how sweet this ought to be to you! There
   was a time when you were under conviction of sin,--when you thought you
   would rot in a dungeon or burn at the stake most cheerfully, if you
   could but get rid of the sense of God's wrath; and will you now become
   impatient? The wrath of God is the thunderbolt which scathes the soul;
   and now that you are delivered from that tremendous peril, you must not
   be overwhelmed with the few showers and gales which Providence sends
   you. A God of love inflicts our sorrows: he is as good when he chastens
   as when he caresses: there is no more wrath in his afflicting
   providences than in his deeds of bounty. God may seem unkind to
   unbelief, but faith can always see love in his heart. Oh! what a mercy
   that Sinai has ceased to thunder! Lord, let Jesus say what he will, so
   long as Moses is quieted forever. Strike, Lord, if thou wilt, now that
   thou hast heard the Saviour's plea and justified our souls.

   You have, secondly, another ground of comfort; namely, that your
   troubles are all apportioned to you by divine wisdom and love. As for
   their number, if He appoint them ten, they never can be eleven. As for
   their weight, He who weigheth the mountains in scales and the hills in
   a balance, takes care to measure your troubles, and you shall not have
   a grain more than his infinite wisdom sees fit. The devil may seem to
   be turned loose upon you, but remember he is always a chained enemy.
   There is a tether to every trouble, and beyond that tether it can never
   stray. Nebuchadnezzar may heat the furnace seven times hotter than
   usual, but God's thermometer measures the exact degree of heat; and
   beyond it the flame cannot rage, even though a thousand Nebuchadnezzars
   should swear themselves out of breath in their fury. Consider
   everything that you have to suffer as the appointment of wisdom, ruled
   by love, and you will rejoice in all your tribulation, knowing that it
   shall reveal to you the loving-kindness and wisdom of your God.

   You have a third consolation; namely, that under your cross you have
   many special comforts. There are cordials which God giveth to sick
   saints which he never putteth to the lips of those who are in health.
   Dark caverns keep not back the miners, if they know that diamonds are
   to be found there: you need not fear suffering, when you remember what
   riches it yields to your soul. There is no hearing the nightingale
   without night, and there are some promises which only sing to us in
   trouble. It is in the cellar of affliction that the good old wine of
   the kingdom is stored. You shall never see Christ's face so well as
   when all others turn their backs upon you. When you have come into such
   confusion that human wisdom is at a nonplus, then shall you see God's
   wisdom manifest and clear. Oh the love-visits which Christ payeth to
   his people when they are in the prison of their trouble! Then he layeth
   bare his very heart to them, and comforts them as a mother doth her
   child. They sleep daintily who have Jesus to make their beds. Suffering
   saints are generally the most flourishing saints; and well they may be,
   for they are Jesus' special care. If you would find a man whose lips
   drop with pearls, look for one who has been in the deep waters. We
   seldom learn much except as it is beaten into us by the rod in Christ's
   schoolhouse, under Madam Trouble. God's vines owe more to the
   pruning-knife than to any other tool in the garden; superfluous shoots
   are sad spoilers of the vines. But even while we carry it, the cross
   brings present comfort: it is a dear, dear cross, all hung with roses,
   and dripping with sweet-smelling myrrh. Rutherford seemed at times in
   doubt which he loved best, Christ or his cross; but then, good man, he
   only loved the cross for his Lord's sake. Humble souls count it a high
   honor to be thought worthy to suffer for Christ's sake. If ever heaven
   be opened at all to the gaze of mortals, the vision is granted to those
   who dwell in the Patmos of want and trouble. Furnace-joys glow quite as
   warmly as furnace-flames. Sweet are the uses of adversity, and sweet
   are its accompaniments when the Lord is with his people.

   "Mid the gloom the vivid lightnings

   With increasing brightness play;

   'Mid the thorn-brake beauteous flowrets

   Look more beautiful and gay.

   So, in darkest dispensations

   Doth my faithful Lord appear,

   With his richest consolations,

   To reanimate and cheer."

   But then,--and this is the point to which my text brings me, and all I
   have already said is going astray from it,--you have this comfort, that
   your trials work your lasting good by bringing you nearer and nearer to
   God. This point we will illustrate by the narrative before us. My dear
   friends in Christ Jesus, our heavenly Father often sends for us and we
   will not come. He sends for us to exercise a more simple faith in him.
   We have believed, and by faith we have passed from death unto life, but
   our faith sometimes staggers. We have not yet reached to Abraham's
   confidence in God; we do not leave our worldly cares with him, but,
   like Martha, we cumber ourselves with much serving. We have faith to
   lay hold upon little promises; but we are ofttimes afraid to open our
   mouths wide though God has promised to fill them. He therefore sendeth
   to us. "Come, my child," saith he; "come and trust me. The veil is
   rent: enter into my presence, and approach boldly to the throne of my
   grace. I am worthy of thy fullest confidence: cast thy cares on me.
   Come thou into the sunlight, and read thy title clear. Shake thyself
   from the dust of thy cares, and put on thy beautiful garment of faith.
   " But, alas! though called with tones of love to the blessed exercise
   of this comforting grace, we will not come. At another time he calls us
   to closer communion with himself. We have been sitting on the doorstep
   of God's house, and he bids us advance into the banqueting-hall and sup
   with him; but we decline the honor. He has admitted us into the inner
   chambers, but there are secret rooms not yet opened to us; he invites
   us to enter them, but we hold back. Jesus longs to have near communion
   with his people. This is that which gives him "to see of the travail of
   his soul, and to be satisfied." It must be a joy to a Christian to be
   with Christ; but it is also a joy to Jesus to be with his people, for
   it is written, "His delights were with the sons of men." Now, one would
   think that if Christ did but beckon with his finger and say to us,
   "Draw nigh, and commune with me," we should fly as though we had wings
   to our feet; but, instead thereof, we are cleaving to the dust: we have
   too much business; we have too many carking cares; and we forget to
   come, though it is our Beloved's voice which calls us to himself.
   Frequently the call is to more fervent prayer. Do you not feel in
   yourself, at certain seasons, an earnest longing for private prayer?
   You have felt as if you could not be at ease until you could draw near
   unto God and tell him your wants; and yet, may be, you have quenched
   the Spirit in that respect, and still have continued without nearness
   of access to God. Every day the Lord bids his people come to him and
   ask what they will, and it shall be done. He is a bounteous God, who
   sits upon the mercy-seat, and he delights to give to his people the
   largest desires of their hearts; and yet, shame upon us, we live
   without exercising this power of prayer, and we miss the plentitude of
   blessing which would come out of that cornucopia of grace,--prevailing
   prayer with God. Ah, brethren, we are verily guilty here, the most of
   us. The Master sendeth to us to pray, and we will not come. Often, too,
   he calls us to a higher state of piety. From this pulpit I have labored
   to stir you up to nobler attainments; I have besought you to rest no
   longer satisfied with your dwarfish attainments, but to press forward
   to things more sublime and heavenly. Have I not cried unto you,
   beloved, and bid you

   "Forget the steps already trod,

   And onward urge your way."

   I am persuaded there are Christians as much in grace beyond ordinary
   Christians as ordinary Christians are beyond the profane. There are
   heights which common eyes have never seen, much less scaled. Oh! there
   are nests among the stars where God's own saints dwell, and yet how
   many of us are content to go creeping along like worms in the dust!
   Would that we had grace to cleave the clouds and mount into the pure
   blue sky of fellowship with Christ! We do not serve God as we should.
   We are cold as ice, when we should be like molten metal, burning our
   way through all opposition. We are like the barren Sahara, when we
   should be blooming like the garden of the Lord. We give to God pence,
   when he deserveth pounds; nay, deserveth our heart's blood to be coined
   in the service of his church and of his truth. Oh! we are but poor
   lovers of our sweet Lord Jesus; not fit to be his servants, much less
   to be his brides. If he had put us in the kitchen to be scullions, I
   fear we are scarce fit for the service; and yet he hath exalted us to
   be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, married to him by a
   glorious marriage covenant. O brethren! God often calleth us to higher
   degrees of piety, and yet we will not come.

   Now, why is it that we permit the Lord to send for us so often, without
   going to him? Let your own heart give the reason, in a humble
   confession of your offenses. O my brethren, we never thought we should
   have been so bad as we are. If an angel had told us that we should be
   so indifferent towards Christ, we should have said, as Hazael did to
   Elisha, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" If
   any of us could have seen our own history written out by a prophet's
   pen, we should have said, "No; it cannot be. If Christ forgives me, I
   must love him; if he be pleased to make me his own brother, I must
   serve him; if I am the recipient of such splendid mercies, I must do
   something commensurate with his bounty." And yet, hitherto, here we
   have been ungrateful, unbelieving, and even refusing to listen to his
   call, or come at his bidding. He has said, "Seek ye my face;" and our
   heart did not say, "Lord, thy face will I seek." Because of all this,
   because we will not listen to the gentle call of God, there cometh
   trouble, just as there came the burning of the barley-field of Joab
   because he would not visit the young prince. Trouble comes in all sorts
   of shapes. Little doth it matter what form it cometh in, if it doth
   answer the purpose of making us obey the divine calling.

   Some Christians have their trial in the shape of sickness: they drag
   about with them a diseased body all their lives; or they are suddenly
   cast upon a bed of sickness, and they toss to and fro, by night and by
   day, in pain and weariness. This is God's medicine; and when God's
   children have it, let them not think it is sent to kill them, but to
   heal them. Much medicine which the physician gives makes the man ill
   for a time: he is worse with it than he would have been without it; but
   if he be a clever physician, he knows that this is the consequence of
   the medicine; and thus he is not at all alarmed by the pain of his
   patient, but he expects that all this will work for good, and hunt out,
   as it were, the original disease. When the Lord sends us sore sickness,
   it for a time perhaps makes our former spiritual infirmities grow
   worse; for sickness often provoketh impatience and murmurings against
   God, but in due time our proud spirits will be broken, and we shall cry
   for mercy. As a file takes off rust, so does sickness frequently remove
   our deadness of heart. The diamond hath much cutting, but its value is
   increased thereby; and so with the believer under the visitations of
   God. I have heard say of many ministers that they preach best after
   sickness, till their people have scarce regretted all the pains they
   have felt when they have found how savory and full of marrow have been
   their words. My brother, if you will not come to God without it, he
   will send you a sick-bed that you may be carried on it to him. If you
   will not come running, he will make you come limping. If you will not
   come while your eyes are bright and while your countenance is full of
   health, he will make you come when your eyes are dull and heavy, and
   your complexion is sallow and sad. But come you must; and if by no
   other means, sickness shall be the black chariot in which you shall
   ride.

   Losses, too, are frequently the means God uses to fetch home his
   wandering sheep: like fierce dogs, they worry the wanderers back to the
   shepherd. There is no making lions tame if they are too well fed; they
   must be brought down from their great strength, and their stomachs must
   be lowered a bit, and then they will submit to the tamer's hand: and
   often have we seen the Christian rendered obedient to his Lord's will
   by straitness of bread and hard labor. When rich and increased in
   goods, many professors carry their heads much too loftily and speak
   much too boastfully. Like David, they boast, "My mountain standeth
   fast; it shall never be moved." When the Christian groweth wealthy, is
   in good repute, hath good health, and a happy family, he too often
   admits Mr. Carnal Security to feast at his table. If he be a true child
   of God, there is a rod preparing for him. Wait awhile, and it may be
   you will see his substance melt away as a dream. There goes a portion
   of his estate--how soon the acres change hands! There goes a part of
   his business--no profits will ever come to him again in that direction.
   That debt yonder, a dishonored bill over there--how fast his losses
   come! where will they end? Now, as these embarrassments come in one
   after another, he begins to be distressed about them, and betakes
   himself to his God. O blessed waves, that wash the man on the rock of
   salvation! O blessed cords, though they may cut the flesh, if they draw
   us to Jesus! Losses in business are often sanctified to our soul's
   enriching. If you will not come to the Lord full-handed, you shall come
   empty. If God in his grace findeth no other means of making you to
   honor him among men--if you cannot honor him on the pinnacle of
   riches--he will bring you down to the valley of poverty.

   Bereavements, too,--ah! what sharp cuts of the rod we get with these,
   my brethren! We know how the Lord sanctifies these to the bringing of
   his people near to himself. How glad we should be to think that Christ
   himself once suffered bereavements as we have done. Tacitus tells us
   that an amber ring was thought to be of no value among the Romans till
   the emperor took to wearing one, and then straightway an amber ring was
   held in high esteem. Bereavements might be looked upon as very sad
   things; but when we recollect that Jesus wept over his friend Lazarus,
   henceforth they are choice jewels, and special favors from God. Christ
   wore this ring: then I must not blush to wear it. Many a mother has
   been stirred up to a holier life by the death of her infant,--many a
   husband has been led to give his heart more to Christ by the death of
   his wife. Do not departed spirits, like angels, beckon us up to heaven?
   "Come, come away," they say; "this is not your rest. I once could build
   upon the same tree, and sing upon the same bough; but now I am taken
   from you,--now I rest in heaven. Come hither, thou who wast once my
   fond mate--come hither, for all the trees where thou are building are
   marked for the axe; therefore come now, and dwell with me!" Yes, we
   must look upon our new-made graves in this light, and pray the Lord to
   dig our hearts with the funeral spade, and bury our sins as we bury our
   departed ones. Trials in your family, in your children, are another
   form of the burning barley-field. I do not know, brethren, but I think
   a living cross is much heavier to carry than a dead one. I know some
   among you who have not lost your children: I could have wished you had,
   for they have lived to be your grief and sorrow. Ah, young man! better
   that your mother should have seen you perish in the birth than that you
   should live to disgrace your father's name. Ah, man! it were better for
   you that the procession had gone winding through the streets, bearing
   your corpse down to the grave, than that you should live to blaspheme
   your mother's God, and laugh at the Book which is her treasure. It were
   better for you that you had never been born, and better for your
   parents too. Ah! but, dear friends, even these are meant to draw us
   nearer to Christ. We must not make idols of our children; and we dare
   not do it, when we see how manifestly God shows us that, like
   ourselves, they are by nature children of wrath. Sharper than an
   adder's tooth is an unthankful child; but the venom is turned to
   medicine in God's hand. God's birds would often keep down in the grass
   in their nests; but he fills their nests full of thorns, and then up
   they fly, and sing as a lark as they mount towards heaven. You must
   look upon these family trials as invitations from God--sweet compulsion
   to make you seek his face. Many are afflicted in another way, which is
   perhaps as bad as anything else,--by a deep depression of spirit. They
   are always melancholy; they know not why. There are no stars in the
   night for them, and the sun gives no light by day: melancholy has
   marked them for her own; but even this, I think, is often the means of
   keeping some of them nearer to God than they would be. You know there
   are some of our English plants which greatly affect damp, moist places
   under trees. If the sun were to shine in their faces they would die.
   Perhaps some minds are of the same order. Too many sweets make children
   sick, and bitters are a good tonic. A veil is needed for some delicate
   complexions, lest the sun look too fiercely on them: it may be, these
   mourners need the veil of sorrow. It is good that they have been
   afflicted, even with this heavy depression of spirit, because it keeps
   them near their God. Then there is that other affliction, the hiding of
   God's countenance--how hard to bear, but how beneficial! If we will not
   keep near to our Lord, he is sure to hide his face. You have seen a
   mother walking out with her little child, when it has just learned to
   walk; and as she goes through the street, the little one is for running
   sometimes to the right, and sometimes to the left, and so the mother
   hides herself a moment; then the child looketh round for the mother,
   and begins to cry, and then out comes the mother. What is the effect?
   Why, it will not run away from the mother any more: it is sure to keep
   hold of her hand afterwards. So, when we get wandering from God, he
   hides his face, and then, since we have a love for him, we begin crying
   after him; and when he shows his face once more, we cling to him the
   more lovingly ever afterwards. So the Lord is pleased to bless our
   troubles to us.

   Now, Christian, what about all this? Why, just this. Are you under any
   sharp trouble now? Then I pray you go to God as Joab went to Absalom.
   "Wherefore have thy servants set my field on fire?" "Show me wherefore
   thou contendest with me." "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me,
   and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and
   lead me in the way everlasting." Make this a special season of humbling
   and heart-searching. Now let every besetting sin be driven out. When
   God sweeps, do you search. When you are under the rod, it is yours to
   make a full confession of past offenses, and pray to be delivered from
   their power in the future. Or, have you no trial to-day, my brother?
   Then see if there be not something which may provoke God to send one,
   and begin now to purge yourself from all filthiness of the flesh and of
   the spirit by the Holy Ghost. Prevention is better than a cure; and
   sometimes a timely heart-searching may save us many a heart-smarting.
   Let us see to that, then. Or have we been afflicted, and is the
   affliction over now? Then, let us say with David, "Before I was
   afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word." Let us bless
   God for all that he has done, saying "It is good for me that I have
   been afflicted;" let us join together in one common hymn of praise for
   all the loving-kindness which God has been pleased to show us in the
   sharp cuts of his rod. I have said enough, I think, to the Christian,
   to work out the little picture before us. God has burned your
   barley-field, dear friends: now go to him, and the closer you can
   approach to him, and the more firmly you can cling to him, the better
   for your soul's health and comfort all your life. At the last, you and
   I shall sing to the praise of our afflicting God.

   All I meet I find assists me

   In my path to heavenly joy;

   Where, though trials now attend me,

   Trials never more annoy.

   Blest there with a weight of glory,

   Still the path I'll ne'er forget,

   But, exulting, cry, It led me

   To my blessed Saviour's seat.

   II. A few words--God make them mighty--TO THE SINNER shall form the
   second part of our discourse. God also has sent for you. O unconverted
   man! God has often sent for you. Early in your childhood your mother's
   prayers sought to woo you to a Saviour's love, and your godly father's
   first instructions were as so many meshes of the net in which it was
   desired that you should be taken; but you have broken through all
   these, and lived to sin away early impressions and youthful promises.
   Since that you have often been called under the ministry. Our sermons
   have not been all shots wide of the mark, but sometimes a hot shot has
   burnt its way into your conscience and you have been made to tremble;
   but, alas! the trembling soon gave way before your old sins. Hitherto
   you have been called, but you refused. The hands of mercy have been
   stretched out, and you have not regarded them. You have had calls, too,
   from your Bible, from religious books, from Christian friends. Holy
   zeal is not altogether dead, and it shows itself by looking after your
   welfare. Young man, your shopmate has sometimes spoken to you; young
   woman, your companion has wept over you. There are some of you now
   present who have been called by the most loving of voices, in
   connection with our classes. Both in our Sunday-school and in the
   catechumenical classes there are men and women with deep love to the
   souls of those committed to them,--tender hearts, weeping eyes,--and
   you have been wept over that you might come to Christ; but still all
   the agency that has been employed has been up to this moment without
   effect; you are a stranger to the God who made you, and an enemy to
   Christ the Saviour.

   Well, if these gentle means will not do, God will employ other
   agencies. Perhaps he has tried them already. If not,--if he intendeth
   in the divine decree your eternal salvation,--he will, as sure as you
   are a living man, use stronger ways with you; and if a word will not
   do, he will come with a blow, though he loveth to try the power of the
   word first. You, too, my hearer unconverted and unsaved, have had your
   trials. You weep as well as Christians. You may not weep for sin, but
   sin shall make you weep. You may abhor repentance because of its
   sorrow, but you shall not escape sorrow, even if you escape repentance.
   you have had your sickness. Do you remember it, when in the silent
   night you heard the watch ticking out, as you thought, your last few
   minutes, and foretelling your doom? Do you remember those weary days,
   when you tossed from side to side, and did but shift the place and keep
   the pain? Man, can you recollect your vows, which you have lived to
   break, and your promises with which you lied unto the eternal God? Then
   the Sabbath would be your delight, you said, if you were spared, and
   the house of God and the people of God should be dear to you, and you
   would seek his face. But you have not done so: you have broken your
   covenant, and have despised your promise made to God. Or, what is it,
   have you had losses in business? You began life well and hopefully, but
   nothing has prospered with you. I am not sorry for it; for I remember
   it is the wicked who spreadeth himself like a green bay tree, and it is
   concerning the reprobate that it is written, "There are no bands in
   their death; but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as
   other men; neither are they plagued like other men." I am glad that you
   are plagued. I would sooner see you whipped to heaven than coached to
   hell. Doubtless many go, like Agag, delicately to their hewing in
   pieces, while others go sorrowing to eternal glory. You have had
   losses: what are these but God's rough messengers to tell you that
   there is nothing beneath the sky worth living for, to wean you from the
   breasts of earth and cause you to look for something more substantial
   than worldly riches can afford you? And you, too, have lost friends;
   may I recall those graves, whose turf is yet so newly laid? May I
   remind you of children fair and beautiful in your eyes, taken away from
   you despite your tears? Shall I remind you of the parent who sleeps in
   Jesus? of a sweet sister who withered like a lily by early consumption?
   Shall I bring these thoughts back to you? I would not wish to make your
   wounds bleed afresh, but it is for your good that I bid you hearken to
   their solemn voice; for they say to you, "Come to your God. Be
   reconciled to him!" I do not think you ever will come to Jesus, unless
   the Holy Spirit shall employ trials to bring you. I find that the woman
   never found her piece of money till she swept the house. The prodigal
   never came back till he was hungry, and fain would have filled his
   belly with the husks which the swine did eat. I only hope that these
   troubles may be blessed to you. Besides this, you have had your
   depression of spirit. If I mistake not, I address some who are under
   such depressions now. You do not know how it is, but nothing is
   pleasant to you. You went to the theater last night. You wished you had
   not: it gave you no joy; and yet you have been as merry there as any,
   in former times. You go among your companions, and a day's pleasuring,
   as they call it, has become to you a very painful waste of time. You
   have lost the zest of life; and I am not sorry for it, if it should
   make you look for a better life, and trust in a world to come. My
   friends, again I say, this is the burning of your barley-fields. God
   has sent for you, and you would not come; and now he has sent
   messengers who are not so easily refused. He has sent these with
   sterner and rougher words, which speak to your flesh, if your spirit
   will not hear.

   Well, now, what then? If God is sending these, are you listening to
   them? My hearer, if God has sent these, have you listened to them?
   There are some of you of whom I almost despair. God can save you, but I
   cannot tell you how he will do it. Certainly the Word does not seem
   likely to be blessed. You have been called and entreated; early and
   late we have entreated you. Our hearts have yearned with tenderness for
   you, but hitherto in vain. God knows I have been hammering away at the
   granite, and it has not yielded yet; I have smitten the flint, and it
   is not broken. Some of you all but break the plowshare: you are such
   rocks that it seems in vain to plow upon you. As for trouble, I do not
   see that that is likely to do you any good; for if you are smitten
   again, you will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick already,
   and the whole heart is faint. You have been beaten, till from the crown
   of the head to the sole of your foot there is nothing but wounds,
   bruises, and putrifying sores. You are poor--perhaps your drunkenness
   has made you so; you have lost your wife--perhaps your cruelty helped
   to kill her; you have lost your children, and you are left a penniless,
   friendless, helpless beggar, and yet you will not turn to God! What now
   is to be done unto you? O Ephraim! what shall I do unto thee? Shall I
   give thee up? How can I give thee up? "How shall I make thee as Admah?
   how shall I set thee as Zeboim?" The heart of mercy still yearns after
   thee. Return thou! return thou! God help thee to return, even now.

   Others of you have not suffered all this in the past, but are just now
   enduring a part of it. Let me entreat you, by the mercies of God and by
   the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you despise not him who
   speaketh unto you. God doth not continue to send his messengers
   forever. After he hath labored with you for a time, he will leave you
   to cursing. Long-suffering lasts not forever. Mercy hath its day.
   Behold, the King runs up the white flag of comfort to-day, and he
   invites you to come unto him. To-morrow he may run up the red flag of
   threatening; and if that answereth not, if that red flag will not make
   you turn, he will run up the black flag of execution, and then there
   will be no hope. Beware! The black flag is not run up yet: the red flag
   is there now in trials and troubles, which are God's threatenings to
   you, bidding you open wide your heart that grace may enter; but if it
   cometh to this that the red flag fail, the black flag must come.
   Perhaps it has come! God help you with broken heart to cry unto him
   that you may be saved, before the candle is blown out and the sun is
   set, and the night of the dead is come on without the hope of another
   sun rising on a blessed resurrection.

   What is the drift of all this? My drift is this: If, now, a word of
   mine could make you come to the King this morning--I know it will not
   unless God the Holy Spirit compels you to do so by his irresistible
   power; but if he would bless it, I would rejoice as one who findeth
   great spoil. Wherefore do you stand out against God? If the Lord
   intendeth your eternal salvation, your resistance will be in vain; and
   how will you vex yourself in after years to think that you should have
   stood out so long! Wherefore dost thou resist? God's battering-ram is
   too mighty for the walls of your prejudice: he will make them fall yet.
   Why dost thou stand out against thy God, against him who loveth thee,
   who hath loved thee with an everlasting love, and redeemed thee by the
   blood of Christ? Why standest thou out against him who intends to lead
   thy captivity captive, and to make thee yet his rejoicing child? "Oh!"
   saith one, "if I thought there were such mercy as that, I would yield."
   If thou believest in the Lord Jesus Christ, this shall be an evidence
   that such mercy is ordained for thee. Oh that the Spirit of God would
   enable thee, sinner, to come just as thou art and put thy trust in
   Christ! If thou dost so, then it is certain that thy name is written in
   the Lamb's book of Life, that thou wast chosen of God and art precious
   to him, and that thy head is one on which the crown of immortality is
   to glitter forever. Oh that thou wouldst trust Christ! The joy and
   peace it works in the present is worth worlds; but oh the glory, the
   overwhelming glory which in worlds to come shall belong to those that
   trust in Jesus! God give you this morning to cast your souls upon the
   finished work of Jesus. His blood can cleanse; his righteousness can
   cover; his beauty can adorn; his prayer can preserve; his advent shall
   glorify; his heaven shall make you blessed. Trust him! God help you to
   trust him; and he shall have all the praise, both now and forever. Amen
   and amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                     A Promise For Us And For Our Children

   DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 10, 1864, BY THE REV. C, H.
   SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Yet now hear, O Jacob, My servant. And Israel, whom Ihave chosen: thus
   says the Lord thatmadeyou and formed you from the womb, which will help
   you. Fear not, O Jacob, My servant. And you, Jesurun, whom Ihave
   chosen. For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon
   the dry ground: I will pour My Spirit upon your seed and My blessing
   upon your offspring: and they shall spring up as among the grass, as
   willows by the water courses. One shall say, I am the Lord's, and
   another shall call himself by the name of Jacob. And another shall
   subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name
   of Israel." Isaiah 44:1-5.

   WE ought not to overlook the first and immediate meaning of these
   words. There can be no doubt that we have here a promise made to God's
   ancient people, the Jews. Whatever their sins may have been, God has
   not forever cast them away. They have become like the dry and thirsty
   desert, but the day will yet dawn when God's sovereign love shall again
   visit them and His Spirit shall distil upon them until Israel shall be
   glorious among the nations and her children shall be multiplied and
   saved. O that the long-expected day would hasten! Break, hallowed
   morning, for earth's watchers are growing weary! The twelve tribes
   right longingly wait for the appearance of Messiah the Prince and we
   also who believe in Jesus, joyfully expect His advent and the gathering
   together of Israel.

   How great will be the day of the Lord's gracious visitation! "For if
   the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall
   the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" If the fall of them
   is the riches of the world and the diminishing of them the riches of
   the Gentiles, how much more their fullness? The vision tarries, but it
   will surely come! The Glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh
   shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Be it
   ours to rejoice in that ancient promise, "There shall come out of Sion
   the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is
   My Covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins."

   Leaving this interesting view of the text, we will meditate on it, for
   practical purposes of comfort to ourselves. Observe that the text
   begins with the word, "Yet." What an ominous word as to the past! What
   a cheering word as to the future! "Yet." "Yet." What black words are
   those which come before it? Surely all is not well. Look at the
   preceding verses and see. God's people were represented as being in a
   sadly backsliding state. They had lost their love to the service of
   God. They neglected His altar. They brought Him no thank offerings. No,
   they had fallen into a state of sin until they wearied God with their
   iniquity.

   Consequently they fell into a condition of sorrow--God gave them up to
   the curse and the reproach. It may be that such is our case this
   morning, though we are God's people. Perhaps our soul lies cleaving in
   the dust. We have forgotten to run with diligence in the way of God's
   Commandments. We have fallen into a lukewarm state. We are following
   afar off. It may be that we have even fallen into sin and sitting in
   this House of Prayer we confess with Pharaoh's butler, "I do remember
   my faults this day."

   It is very possible that we have been made too smart for our sins. God
   may have hidden His face from us. Our faith may be flagging--our graces
   may be withering. It will be so, it must be so when we forsake our God.
   If we leave the flowing Fountain to trust in broken cisterns, we shall
   soon know the bitterness of thirst. "Yet." "Yet," says the text--"yet,"
   though you have fallen into this state, do not despair! Though you have
   transgressed very foully, do not think God has cast you away! "Yet now
   hear, O Jacob, My servant. And Israel, whom I have chosen." Yet--the
   word is a star of the morning, prophetic of brighter rays--yet I love
   you! Yet you are My chosen! Yet My loving heart is true to you! Yet
   will I return unto you in favor! Yet shall you rejoice in Me and be
   filled with My goodness!

   Come then, Brothers and Sisters, if we have wandered ever so far, let
   this word sound like the shepherd's call to bring us back. You need not
   always be sad--there is no necessity that you should be always weak in
   righteousness and abundant in sin--yet the promise is yours! Yet God
   loves you! Yet He invites you to come to Him! Return now and seek His
   face once more. You have lived in the feverish lowlands, yet climb the
   mountains! You have groveled in the dust, yet ascend as on eagles'
   wings! You have been covered with sackcloth, yet put on your beautiful
   array! Your neglect of the promises has not made them the less sure.
   The key of your faith may be rusted, but it will still open the door of
   mercy.

   You may have been unbelieving, but God abides faithful. Up! Enjoy your
   sure inheritance. Let us feel comforted by the very first word of the
   text and let it encourage us to lay hold, despite our own unworthiness,
   upon the great promise of the Lord. The Lord, in order to comfort His
   people and bring them out of their present state, first, reminds them
   of what He has done for them. Secondly, He repeats His promise of what
   He will do. And thirdly, He adds to this a most gracious and full
   promise of what He will do for their offspring.

   I. First, then, and O may the Lord refresh our memories by revealing to
   us the way by which He has led us--first of all HE COMFORTS HIS PEOPLE
   BY THE REMEMBRANCE OF WHAT HE HAS DONE FOR THEM. Come, my

   Brothers and Sisters, reach down for your biographies. Turn over your
   diaries. Go back with me a little while to that spot where first you
   knew the Savior. Then march on along the way by which the Lord has led
   you till you reach the day and hour which found you in the House of
   God, listening to His promise.

   1. Taking the text as our guide, let us notice, first, the Grace we
   have experienced in its practical effect. The practical effect of
   Divine Grace in our case has been to make us God's servants--"Yet now
   hear, O Jacob, My servant." We may be unfaithful servants--we certainly
   are unprofitable ones--but blessed be His name, if not awfully deceived
   we are His true servants! We were once the servants of sin and the
   slaves of our own passions, but He who made us free has now taken us
   into His family and taught us obedience to His will. We can say with
   David, "I am Your servant. I am Your servant and the son of Your
   handmaid: You have loosed my bonds."

   We do not serve our Master perfectly, but we would if we could. There
   are some of His Commandments which we forget, but there are none which
   we would despise. We do, through infirmity, turn aside unto crooked
   ways, but we find no comfort in them. Our meat and our drink is to do
   the will of Him who sent us and our prayer is--

   "Make me to walk in Your commands,
   It is a delightful road.
   Nor let my head, nor heart, nor hands,
   Offend against my God."

   Beloved, if God has made us His servants, let us be comforted. It is so
   great a change and so wonderful an effect of Irresistible Grace upon a
   man to transform him from an heir of wrath into a servant of the living
   God that we have herein ground for comfort.

   2. Observe again, this Grace is peculiar, discriminating and
   distinguishing. He calls us, "My chosen." We have not chosen Him first,
   but He has chosen us. If we are God's servants, we were not always
   so--to Sovereign Grace the change must be ascribed. We might have been
   left, like other men, to continue in sin and to be rebels against the
   King of Heaven, but the eyes of Sovereignty singled us out from among
   others not more unworthy than we were and it was the voice of Love
   which said, "I have loved you with an everlasting love."

   Long before those stars were kindled into flames--long before the sun
   begun his mighty course--long before the mountains lifted their hoary
   heads, or the deep clapped its hands in the tumultuous joy of tempest.
   Long before time began, or space was created, God had written upon His
   heart the names of His elect people. He had selected them, never to
   change His choice. He had united them unto the Person of His Son Jesus
   Christ by a Divine Decree never to be revoked. He had predestinated
   them to be conformed unto the image of His Son and had made them the
   heirs of all the fullness of His love, His Grace and His Glory.

   Have you and I been chosen? Can we see the connection between the link
   of calling and the link of predestination? Have we made our calling
   sure? If so, we may infer most certainly that we must have been
   predestinated. What comfort is here! Would the Lord have loved us so
   long and will He cast us away? I know you are dead and barren and your
   soul feels heavy and your sins stare you in the face, but did not your
   God know all this beforehand? He made the choice, knowing all--why
   then, should He change His purpose? He knew how stiff-necked you would
   be! He understood that your heart was evil and that the imaginations of
   it would be only evil, and that continually, and yet He loved you!

   Ah, my Savior is no fickle lover. He does not feel enchanted for awhile
   with some gleams of beauty from His Church's eye and then afterwards
   cast her off because of her unfaithfulness. No, my Brethren, He married
   her in old eternity and though, according to the words of the Prophet,
   she has played the harlot and done exceedingly evil, yet it is written
   of Jehovah, "He hates putting away." There is no divorce in the court
   of Heaven. Christ has espoused His people to Him in faithfulness and
   they shall know the Lord. Be this your comfort then--the activity of
   Grace has made you God's servant. The distinguishing character of Grace
   has made you His chosen.

   3. Reflect again, in the light of the text, upon the ennobling
   influence of Grace. The people are first called Jacob, but only in the
   next line they are styled Israel. You and I were but of the common
   order. If we had boasted of anything we should have been called Jacobs,
   supplanters, boasting beyond our line. But as Jacob at the brook Jabbok
   wrestled with the angel and prevailed and gained the august title of
   prince--prevailing prince--"For as a prince have you power with God and
   with men and have prevailed," even so has Grace ennobled us!

   It may be that we wear today the common well-worn garb of labor. Our
   names never glitter in the rolls of earth's mightiest--but we are
   allied unto the King of kings if the life of God is in our soul! We are
   of the royal family! We are princes of the blood imperial! We shall
   take our seats among those lordly spirits who forever dwell before the
   Majesty of the Most High. Priests and kings unto our God has Christ
   made us by virtue of His own position. Oh, to think that we, who were
   worse than dogs, should sit among the children! That we, who once stood
   at the swine trough and gladly would have filled our belly with the
   husks, now feed upon the fatted calf!

   What love is this, that whereas we said, "I am not worthy that you
   should come under my roof," He has been pleased to make our bodies the
   temples of the Holy Spirit and God dwells in us and we in Him! My
   Brethren, what an honor to be one with Christ--to be united to the
   Person of Him who counts it not robbery to be equal with God--to be
   made at last to sit upon His Throne, even as He sits upon His Father's
   Throne! Why, when I look upon the dignity which belongs to the meanest
   Christian, the imperial pomp of all emperors and kings sinks into
   insignificance and like a shadow melts away. Think of this, my
   Brethren, and despite your low state of Grace this morning, take
   comfort. He would not have made you such mighty ones as you are in Him
   if He had not intended to bless you still.

   4. Furthermore, the text conducts us onward to notice the creating and
   sustaining energy of that Grace. "Thus says the Lord that made you and
   formed you from the womb." How did you become Believers in Christ? By
   any internal energy of your own? Speak, Believer--was it your free will
   that brought you to the Savior's feet, or was it God's Free Grace? Men
   may hold free will doctrine as a matter of theory, but you never find a
   Believer hold it as a matter of experience. We can all say--

   "Oh, to Grace how great a debtor Daily I'm constrained to be."

   It was all of Your Grace I was brought to obey, while others were
   suffered to go the downward road! About this you can have no
   difficulty, for your own experience tells you that you were dead in
   trespasses and sins and it must have been something beyond any power of
   yours that quickened you into spiritual life. Men might as well claim
   the honors of creation or resurrection as boast of commencing their own
   spiritual life! The Lord alone shall have the Glory of that opening
   hour of love.

   Since that happy day what has sustained you? Has your fire of piety
   been fed by internal, self-produced fuel? Have you kept yourselves from
   the power of Satan? My Brethren, have you kept yourselves in communion
   with God? You know that you have not. You are debtors for your soul's
   daily bread to your Father who is in Heaven. Every good thing which you
   have you have received from Him. The great Father of Lights, with whom
   is no variableness or shadow of turning, has given you every good and
   perfect gift which you have received. You have profited in nothing by
   the flesh, but in all things by the Spirit of the living God.

   Taking you from your first conviction and tracking you to the present
   moment, it has been God's creating and forming. In the womb of
   conviction He fashioned you and He has nurtured you until now. Let this
   be your comfort--if God could quicken you when you were absolutely dead
   and if He has kept you until this moment, can He not revive you again?
   Can He not make that spark again become a flame? Have you fallen too
   low for Him? Is His arm shortened that He cannot save? Is His ear heavy
   that He cannot hear? No! He that has delivered you aforetime will
   deliver you yet again. Therefore be of good comfort.

   5. We will leave this part of the subject when we notice once again
   that this Grace has the characteristic of intense affection in it. This
   is not very plain in our translation but I think we can make it clear.
   God gives to His people the title of Jesurun, which means the righteous
   people, according to some translators. But most interpreters are agreed
   that it is an affectionate title which God gives to His people. Perhaps
   it may be considered to be a diminutive of Israel. I do not know that
   we could pronounce it so as to make it plainly appear here, but very
   likely it is so--a diminutive of Israel.

   Just as fathers and mothers, when they have great affection for their
   children, will frequently give them an endearing name--shorten their
   usual name--or call them by a familiar title only used in the family,
   so in calling Israel, Jesurun, the Lord sets forth His near and dear
   love. God's Grace to us is not merely the mercy of the good Samaritan
   towards a poor stranger whom he finds wounded by the way. It is the
   love of a mother to her sick child. The fondness of a husband towards a
   weeping wife. The tenderness of the head towards the wounded members.

   Beloved, did you ever did try to grasp the thought that God loves you?
   Whenever I try it, it brings tears into my eyes and I can go no
   farther. That the Eternal God should pity me I can understand. That He
   should regard my misery and deliver me I can comprehend. That He should
   look upon me with eyes of benevolence seems reasonable enough. But that
   He should LOVE me? Love me, too, with a love infinitely stronger than
   any love I have to my own children, or to my own spouse! That He should
   so love me that His own darling Son, the Only-Begotten, was not better
   loved than I have been--this is a wonder of wonders!

   1 must not say that Jesus was not so well loved as poor sinful men, but
   I will say when the question came to this-- whether those poor sinful
   but beloved ones should die or Christ should die--He spared not His own
   Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all. Oh, what mysterious love!
   That Christ should suffer that we may go free! That the Father's
   Darling should hang upon the accursed Tree and bleed away His life that
   we might be received into the eternal bosom of Jehovah and might be
   forever accepted as the favored ones of His electing love! He loves
   you! Oh, there is nothing can melt the heart like this--God loves you!

   And while it melts, it strengthens. While God loves me, whom shall I
   fear? If Jehovah has chosen me, if He has set His heart upon me, of
   whom shall I be afraid? Verily, with this I may walk through the valley
   of the shadow of death and fear no evil! With this in the midst of war
   I may have confidence! Upon this in famine I shall be fed. And in
   affliction I shall not be afraid. Oh, the joy which dwells in the
   thought that God loves His people! Jesus loved me and gave Himself for
   me! Can you say this, my Hearer? If you can, you can say more than
   Demosthenes or Cicero were ever able to say with all their eloquence.

   It may be, as we have said before, that we have fallen into a low sad
   state this morning and are trying to get ourselves out of it by
   chastening ourselves with many dark and doleful fears. Now that is not
   the way to rise from the dust. It is not the Law but the Gospel which
   saves at first. And it is not a legal bondage but a Gospel liberty
   which can restore the fainting Believer. It is not slavish fear that
   brings back the backslider to God, but the sweet wooing of love allures
   him to Jesus' bosom.

   As I sat the other night in my study, musing on my message for the
   coming Sunday, some little unbelief crossed my mind. Would the Lord
   sustain me in my ministry among such multitudes? Would He give fresh
   matter on the morrow? And there stood on my shelves nine volumes of my
   sermons, the records of nine years of gracious help. What witnesses did
   those volumes seem to be of the faithfulness of the Lord! Now you can
   look back, some of you, to ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years, which
   are like so many volumes of Grace received! Dare you distrust your God?
   David went forth to fight Goliath with past experience as his comfort,
   "Your servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised
   Philistine shall be as one of them."

   Cannot you use the same argument? You have already slain your
   adversaries--what can stand against you? Be of good comfort and dash
   forward to the fray! Take as your war cry, "His mercy endures forever,"
   and you need never quail, whatever difficulties assail you. So much for
   the first point. Now let us turn with great brevity to the second.

   II. We are encouraged, in the second place, this morning, by THE
   PROMISE OF WHAT GOD WILL DO. He says "Fear not, I will help you." And
   then He adds, "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods
   upon the dry ground." You feel thirsty this morning, that is,
   uncomfortable in heart. You have lost much of the joy of religion and
   your prayer is, "Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation."

   You are conscious, also, that you are barren, like the dry ground. You
   are not bringing forth that fruit unto God which He has a right to
   expect of you. You are not so useful in the Church nor in the world as
   your heart desires to be. Well then, here is His promise of what He
   will do, "I will help you." You cannot pray this morning. You cannot
   wrestle as you desire--"I will help you." You feel unable to overcome
   sin--"I will help you." You are engaged in service too heavy for
   you--"I will help you."

   Whether it is to suffer, to sacrifice, to labor, or to endure, take
   this comfort--"I will help you." I love this promise! It is a very
   short one, but it is all the longer in meaning because it is short in
   expression. You may avail yourself of it in all cases. The promise
   turns every way and blesses in every form. It is like a weapon which
   may be used for fifty purposes. It will be to you, if you will, a sword
   and you may beat it into a plowshare. Or it will prove a shield, a
   spear, a chariot, and I know not what besides. You cannot find any
   possible position into which the child of God can be brought in which
   this promise will fail to bless him!

   Sit down no longer in lethargy! Lift up the hands which hang down and
   confirm the feeble knees, for if God says, "I will help you," how can
   you be afraid? Then comes a promise, fuller in words and as rich in
   Grace, "I will pour water on him that is thirsty." You shall have the
   Grace you want. Water refreshes the thirsty--you shall be
   refreshed--your desires shall be gratified. Water quickens sleeping
   vegetable life--your life shall be quickened by fresh Grace. Water
   swells the buds and makes the fruits ripe--you shall have fructifying
   Grace. You shall be made fruitful in the ways of God!

   Whatever good quality there is in Divine Grace, you shall enjoy it to
   the full. All the riches of Divine Grace you shall receive in plenty.
   You shall be, as it were, drenched with it! And as sometimes the
   meadows become flooded by the bursting rivers and the fields turn into
   pools, so shall you! The thirsty land shall be springs of water. O my
   Brothers and Sisters, when the Holy Spirit visits a man, what a
   difference it makes in him!

   I know a preacher, once as dull and dead a man as ever misused a
   pulpit. Under his slumbering ministrations there were few conversions
   and the congregation grew thinner and thinner. Good men sighed in
   secret and the enemy said, "Aha, so would we have it!" The revival
   came--the Holy Spirit worked gloriously! The preacher felt the Divine
   fire and suddenly woke up to energy and zeal. The man appeared to be
   transformed! His tongue seemed touched with fire! Elaborate and written
   discourses were laid aside and he began to talk out of his own glowing
   heart to the hearts of others. He preached as he had never done before.
   The place filled. The dry bones were stirred and quickening began! They
   who knew him once so elegant, correct, passionless, dignified, cold,
   lifeless and unprofitable, asked in amazement, "Is Saul also among the
   Prophets?"

   The Spirit of God is a great wonder-worker! You will notice certain
   Church members. They have never been good for much. We have had their
   names on the roll and that is all--suddenly the Spirit of God has come
   upon them and they have been honored among us for their zeal and
   usefulness! We have seen them here and there and everywhere diligent in
   the service of God and foremost in all sorts of Christian labor, though
   before you could hardly get them to stir an inch! I would that the
   quickening Spirit would come down upon me and upon you--upon every one
   of us in abundance--to create us valiant men for Truth and mighty for
   the Lord!

   O for some of the ancient valor of apostolic times, that, like good
   knights of the Cross we would dash forward against the foe and with
   irresistible courage deal heavy blows against the adversary of souls
   and his vast host! We may do this! We have only to plead the promise!
   God will be enquired of, but the promise stands true, "I will pour
   water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground." Do not
   lose the blessing through remissness, but ask and you shall receive.
   Brethren, pray for me! For I need more Grace and in return I will plead
   the Lord's words on your behalf.

   III. As a very great comfort to His mourning people, the Lord now
   promises A BLESSING UPON THEIR CHILDREN. You will observe, dear
   Friends, that they must get the blessing for themselves first, for the
   third verse has it--"I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and
   floods upon the dry ground"--that is first. And then afterwards--"I
   will pour My Spirit upon your seed."

   We must not expect to see our children blessed unless we ourselves grow
   in Grace. It is often the inconsistency of parents which is the
   obstacle--the outward obstacle to the conversion of their children. No
   doubt there have been multitudes of children of professing parents who
   have been damned instrumentally by the ungodliness and inconsistency of
   their parents at home. The parents, let us hope, were Christians--but
   there has been so much of apparent inconsistency about them that the
   ruin of their children has been the consequence. It is a notorious fact
   that some of the worst of men have been the children of godly parents.
   I could give living instances but I forbear.

   When good Mr. Williams was murdered at Eromanga--the fact should be
   well-known--the natives had first been exasperated by the most
   abominable conduct on the part of the son of a missionary, who, having
   gone there, had practiced all sorts of evil upon the natives. And then
   good Mr. Williams was sacrificed to their fury. You will find that
   among the most fearfully depraved there are a few of the very deepest
   dye who received an early Christian education and dashed down all its
   restraints that they might run greedily into iniquity.

   I think the children of godly parents are like Jeremiah's figs--the
   good are very good, but the bad are very bad-- very naughty figs, such
   as cannot be eaten. Some of the children of God have been the parents
   of great offenders. Eli begets Hophni and Phinehas. David has an
   Absalom. Noah is father to Ham. Isaac begets profane Esau. The wise
   Solomon is followed by Rehoboam the fool. And pious Hezekiah is sire to
   persecuting Manasseh. Oh, how sad it is that it should be so, but so it
   is! We must, therefore, look to ourselves and our own careful walking
   before God, for we shall not get the promise for our offspring till we
   obtain its fulfillment in our own case.

   But now, supposing that this is done. If we have had faith to receive
   much Grace from God, here comes a blessed promise for our children--"I
   will pour My Spirit upon your seed," in which, observe first of all,
   the need. Our children need the Spirit of God. They are not like
   children educated in the street, the tavern, or the low theater. They
   have not heard from our lips words of lust or profanity. They have been
   hushed to sleep by the name of Jesus as their lullaby. They breathe the
   air of religion. But for all that they need the Spirit of God!

   We love to see the children of godly parents brought into Church
   membership, but we would avoid, above all things, anything like
   hereditary profession or inherited religion. It must be personal in
   each individual or it is not worth a gnat. I believe that the idea of
   birthright membership has tended materially to weaken the strength of
   that most respectable and once powerful denomination, the Society of
   Friends. Believing that their children have an inward Light which they
   ought to follow, I do fear they often teach their children to follow
   inward darkness rather than light. Forgetting the necessity of the Holy
   Spirit, which is infinitely superior to ordinary light of conscience,
   their children have grown up to attend meetings and to wear a
   particular garb without receiving the Spirit--certainly without that
   grand enthusiasm which honored their sires in bygone days.

   We must not adulterate our membership by the reception of the children
   of godly parents unless we have clear proof that they, themselves, are
   converted to God. Your children need the Holy Spirit quite as much as
   the offspring of the Hottentot or the Kaffir. They are born in sin and
   shapen in iniquity--in sin do the best of mothers conceive their
   children, and, however well you may train them, you cannot take the
   stone out of the heart nor turn it into flesh. To give a new heart and
   a right spirit is the work of the Holy Spirit and of the Holy Spirit
   alone.

   In the second place, the source of the mercy which God will give. "I
   will pour out My Spirit." It was the work of the Spirit which
   transformed their fathers--it is that which must transform them. The
   Word may come to them and not be blessed. We may be silly enough to
   take them to baby-Baptism and they would not be blessed. We may
   persuade them to come to the Lord's Table, but they would not be
   blessed. But when the Spirit of God comes upon them, then it is all
   done. Now comes the broken heart! Now comes the humble spirit! Now is
   breathed the earnest prayer! Now love to Christ flames forth and trust
   is built upon Him!

   Do pray, dear Friends, for your children, that God will pour His Spirit
   upon them. And as to the rest, you may depend that all the fruits will
   come in due time. I do not know that the parent needs to say much to
   his child about Baptism or the Lord's Supper, except, sometimes, a
   gentle word as to the duty of the Believer, and a clear explanation of
   the meaning of the ordinances. But I do hold that the duty of the
   parent is to look first and foremost for the work of the Spirit and
   insist upon it that he must be born again or else no profession can be
   made. Tell the child that he his dead in trespasses and sins. Let there
   be no doubt about his natural condition and let this always be your
   prayer, "Almighty Grace, renew his heart! Turn him from darkness to
   Light and make him Yours!"

   I think that in some Sunday school addresses there is not always the
   Gospel so clearly and decidedly proclaimed as it should be. It is not
   very easy, I know, to preach Christ to little children, but there is
   nothing else worth preaching. To stand up and say, "Be good boys and
   girls and you will get to Heaven," is preaching the old Covenant of
   Works, and it is no more right to preach salvation by works to little
   children than to those who are of mature age. We are all dead and as
   the Spirit of God can alone renew us, so He alone can renew them and
   there is no natural goodness, no amiability, no generosity of character
   which can supersede the work of the Holy Spirit. We must remember this
   and hold to it, that we pray to God to work by His Spirit in their
   hearts.

   Then you have in the promise in the third place, the plenty of Grace
   which God gives. He says, "I will pour My Spirit upon your seed"--not a
   little of it--but they shall have abundance. It has charmed me,
   especially of late, when I have conversed with very many children--many
   of them children of godly parents and others we have brought into our
   school and instructed by good and loving teachers. I have been charmed,
   I say, in examining them for membership, at the profoundness of their
   knowledge and the abundance of their Grace. I have questioned them in a
   way I would not question some gray-headed men and women.

   I have gone into points of intricate doctrine with many of them in a
   way which I would not use with many of middle age because I know I
   would take them out of their depth. But these children have been able
   to tell me from Scripture-- and generally their answers have been
   quotations of a text--the great plan of salvation and the doctrines
   connected with it as explicitly as the best Doctor of Divinity in any
   of our Universities. And I have been often pleased to notice that the
   very babes are those out of the mouths of whom God has ordained
   strength and He gives the perfect wisdom of the upright full often to
   those who are but as babes and sucklings. It is so good to notice this!

   You are not to expect children merely to exhibit faint traces of Grace,
   but in the strength of this promise you may look for great things. In
   the deathbeds of your children--and very often children who are early
   saved are early caught up to Heaven--many very wonderful expressions
   have fallen from their lips. Mr. Janeway, in his, "Token for Children,"
   has preserved many examples, showing that some dying children have been
   wondrously mature in piety and the expressions they have used have
   perfectly astounded the most experienced of the saints.

   You ought not, in the case of children, to look merely for life--you
   will find vigorous life! You may not expect a little surface-knowledge
   only, but you may expect to find in them a depth of knowledge in the
   things of God, for so God's promise has it, "I will pour My Spirit upon
   your seed." I must not leave the text without noticing the blessedness
   of all this. "And My blessing upon your offspring."

   Oh, what a blessing it is to have our offspring saved! God give us each
   to see it! What a blessing to have our children enlisted in Christ's
   army! Beloved, we wish them well, we wish them the best of God's gifts.
   But if we were asked whether we would have them famous or wealthy, we
   should pause to ask whether it were good for them. But if it were put
   to us, "Shall they be saved?" we feel we would cheerfully give our life
   if that must be the price, to know that our children walked in the
   Truth of God. "I have no greater joy than this," said one in Holy
   Scripture and there can be no greater joy than this to the Christian
   parent. How happy the family becomes!

   And when they grow up and go out from us, married in the Lord--for how
   else can they be gracious?--we should expect to see a gracious house
   built up. There is a very sad verse, I think you will find it in the
   second chapter of Judges, which runs thus--"And also all that
   generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another
   generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which
   He had done for Israel." Oh, that is sad to see how soon religion dies
   out in a nation! But without household piety--without constant
   instruction both in the Sunday school and at home--the next generation
   in our case will be as ignorant of God as if Christ had not been known
   by their fathers!

   Unless we are careful over the young, there may be none to bear the
   Lord's banner when we sleep among the clods. In matters of doctrine you
   will find orthodox congregations frequently change to heterodoxy in the
   course of thirty or forty years and that is because too often there has
   been no catechizing of the children in the essential doctrines of the
   Gospel. For my part I am more and more persuaded that the study of a
   good Scriptural Catechism is of infinite value to our children and I
   shall see that it is reprinted as cheaply as possible for your use.
   Even if the youngsters do not understand all the questions and answers
   in the "Westminster Assembly's Catechism," yet, abiding in their
   memories, it will be of infinite service when the time of understanding
   comes, to have known those very excellent, wise and judicious
   definitions of the things of God.

   If we would maintain orthodoxy in our midst and see good old
   Calvinistic doctrines handed down from father to son, I think we must
   use the method of catechizing and endeavor with all our might to
   impregnate their minds with the things of God. It will be a blessing to
   them--the greatest of all blessings--a blessing in life and death, in
   time and eternity, the best of blessings God Himself can give. I will
   not prolong this, but there are still two points I must mention.

   Carefully notice the vigor with which these children shall grow. "They
   shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses."

   Close by the water's edge the grass grows very green and the willow is
   a well-known tree for speedily shooting forth its branches. Our farmers
   lop their willows often, but they very soon sprout again. As the old
   proverb has it, "A willow will buy a horse where an oak will not buy a
   saddle, because the willow being often lopped and then springing again,
   yields much to the grower." The willow grows fast and so do young
   Christians. If you want the eminent men in God's Church, look for them
   among those converted in youth. There are, of course, exceptions, but
   after all, our Samuels and Timothy's must come from those who knew the
   Scriptures from their youth.

   O Lord! Send us many such whose growth and advance shall as much
   astonish us as the growth of the willows by the water courses. Why,
   since I have been among you these ten years and more, lads who used to
   come into the school and were the objects of our hope, where are they
   now? Why they are preaching the Gospel this very morning! And as I look
   at the happy parents here and remember the time when the now useful
   minister sat as a lad in the pew and remember that at this very moment
   they are preaching in the name of Jesus, they do seem to have grown
   quite as fast as the willows. They grow so fast and so well and serve
   the Lord so admirably! The promise has, indeed, been fulfilled to the
   very letter!

   Then comes, last of all, the manifestation of this in public. It
   appears from the text that not only are our children to have the Spirit
   of God in their inward parts, but they are to make a profession of it.
   One shall say, "I am the Lord's"-- he shall come out boldly and avow
   himself on the Lord's side. And another shall so ally himself to God's
   Church that he "shall call himself by the name of Jacob." And then
   another who can hardly speak quite so positively, but who means it
   quite as sincerely--"shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord," and
   a fourth shall, "surname himself by the name of Israel."

   Oh, it is a joy, indeed, when those who know the Lord come forward and
   declare themselves to be on His side! May we, by God's Grace, be helped
   to train our children to an open avowal of that which is within them. A
   hint sometimes will do our sons and daughters good when we believe that
   they fear God. Indicate to them that religion is not meant to be kept
   under a bushel, that the Grace of God is not to be covered and
   concealed--and before long, seeing their duty-- God will help them to
   walk in the way of it and it shall be your privilege and mine to
   rejoice at seeing them added to the Church. The promise upon which I
   have preached this morning needs to be pleaded before God, for God does
   not fulfill such promises as these without our bringing them before Him
   in earnest fervent prayer.

   A banker gives me a check and it is a very good one, but I can never
   get the cash for it without going to the counter and presenting it for
   payment. And if God gives me a promise conditional upon my pleading it,
   I must never expect Him to fulfill it unless I enquire concerning it. I
   look upon some here who can remember the way by which God has led
   them--who look upon their children and their children's children
   walking in the Truth of God--you, my Brethren, can confirm the faith of
   the younger parents among us and make us feel that as God has dealt
   well with you, He will deal well with us!

   Some of us, in looking back, can speak of a godly father and a godly
   grandfather. We can look for generations back, till as far as we can
   trace a line--Divine Grace has run in our family. O that the line may
   continue for years to come, till as long as generations are born there
   shall be one of our kith and kin to carry the standard and sound the
   trumpet and fight for the Lord of Israel! I invite you, therefore, to
   much earnest prayer, especially during the coming week, which is
   selected by the Evangelical Alliance as a prayer week for this special
   object. And I trust with regard to this promise none will be backward
   in pleading it.

   As for you who are unconverted, you cannot pray for your children if
   you do not pray for yourselves. You never can expect a blessing, for
   you are under the Divine curse! Nevertheless I pray God to make you
   thirsty and if He makes you hunger and thirst after righteousness, then
   you can put your hand upon this promise, "I will pour water upon him
   that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground." And afterwards the
   remainder of the blessing shall be yours. God bless the Word for Jesus'
   sake. Amen.--

   "Wake, parents of Israel!
   O hasten to plead
   For the Spirit of Grace to descend.
   The Word has gone forth and the faithful have need
   Of your prayers the great cause to defend.
   From the youth of our country shall armies arise,
   The Gospel of peace to proclaim.
   Over the land and the seas, the glad message that flies,
   Shall re-echo Immanuel's name.
   Wake, parents in Israel!
   O, wrestle and pray
   That Grace to our youth may be given
   For the hands that in faith are uplifted today
   Shall prevail with our Father in Heaven."
     __________________________________________________________________

                              The Great Liberator

   DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 17, 1864, BY THE REV. C. H.
   SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free, indeed."

   John 8:36.

   BLESSED is that word "free," and blessed is he who spends himself to
   make men so. You did well to crowd your streets and to welcome with
   your joyous acclamations the man who has broken the yoke from off the
   neck of the oppressed. Many sons of Italy have done valiantly, but he
   excels them all and deserves the love of all the good and brave.
   Political slavery is an intolerable evil. To live, to think, to act, to
   speak at the permission of another! Better have no life at all! To
   depend for my existence upon a despot's will is death itself. Craven
   spirits may wear the dog collar which their master puts upon them and
   fawn at his feet for the bones of his table, but men who are worthy of
   the name had rather feed the vultures on the battlefield.

   The burden of civil bondage is too heavy for bold spirits to bear with
   patience and therefore they fret and murmur beneath it. This murmuring
   the tyrant loves not and therefore he throws the sufferers into his
   dungeons and bids them wear out their days in captivity. Blessed is he
   who hurls down the despot, bursts the doors of his dungeons and gives
   true men their rights. We have never felt, and therefore we know not
   the bitterness of bondage. Our emancipators have gone to the world of
   spirits, bequeathing us an heirloom of liberty for which we should love
   their names and reverence their God.

   If they could have lived on till now, how we should honor them! But as
   they are gone, we do well to applaud our illustrious guest as if we saw
   in him the spirit of all our glorious liberators worthily enshrined.
   Political liberty allows scope for so much of all that is good and
   ennobling and its opposite involves so much that is debasing, that the
   mightiest nation destitute of it is poor, indeed, and the poorest of
   all people, if they are but free, are truly rich. But, my Brethren, men
   may have political liberty to the very fullest extent and yet be
   slaves, for there is such a thing as religious bondage. He who cringes
   before a priest--he who dreads his anathema, or who creeps at his feet
   to receive his blessing--is an abject slave!

   He may call himself a free man, but his soul is in vile bondage if
   superstition makes him wear the chain. To be afraid of the mutterings
   of a man like myself--to bow before a piece of wood or a yard of
   painted canvas--to reverence a morsel of bread or a rotten bone--this
   is mental slavery, indeed! They call the Negro a slave in the Southern
   Confederacy, but men who prostrate their reason before the throne of
   superstition are slaves through and through. To yield obedience to our
   Lord, to offer prayer to God Most High is perfect freedom! But to
   confess my heart out to a mortal with a shaven crown--to trust my
   family secrets and my wife's character to the commands of a man who may
   be all the while wallowing in debauchery is worse than the worst form
   of serfdom.

   I would sooner serve the most cruel Sultan who ever crushed humanity
   beneath his iron heel than bow before the Pope or any other priest of
   man's making. The tyranny of priest-craft is the worst of ills. You may
   cut through the bonds of despots with a sword, but the sword of the
   Lord Himself is needed here. The Truth of God must file these fetters
   and the Holy Spirit must open these dungeons! You may escape from
   prison, but superstition hangs round a man and with its deadly
   influence keeps him ever in its dark and gloomy cell.

   Skepticism, which proposes to snap the chains of superstition only
   supplants a blind belief with an unhallowed credulity and leaves the
   victim as oppressed as ever. Jesus the Son, alone, can make men truly
   free! Happy are they whom He has delivered from superstition. Blessed
   are our eyes that this day we see the light of Gospel liberty and are
   no longer immured in Popish darkness! Let us remember our privileges
   and bless God with a loud voice that the darkness is past and the true
   Light shines--since the name of Jesus, the preaching of His Word, and
   the power of His Truth have, in this respect, in a high degree--made
   our nation free!

   Yet a man may be delivered from the bond of superstition and be still a
   serf, for he who is not ruled by a priest may still be controlled by
   the devil or by his own lusts which are much the same. Our carnal
   desires and inclinations are domineering lords enough, as those know
   who follow out their commands. A man may say, "I feel not supernatural
   terrors. I know no superstitious horrors," and then, folding his arms,
   he may boast that he is free. But he may all the while be a slave to
   his own evil heart. He may be grinding at the mill of avarice, rotting
   in the reeking dungeon of sensuality, dragged along by the chains of
   maddened anger, or borne down by the yoke of fashionable custom.

   He is the free man who is master of himself through the Grace of God.
   He who serves his own passions is the slave of the worst of despots.
   Talk to me not of dark dungeons beneath the sea level! Speak not to me
   of pits in which men have been entombed and forgotten! Tell me not of
   heavy chains, nor even of racks and the consuming fire. The slave of
   sin and Satan, sooner or later, knows greater horrors than these--his
   doom is more terrible because it is eternal--and his slavery more
   hopeless because it is one into which he willingly commits himself.

   Perhaps there are those present who claim liberty for themselves and
   say that they are able to control their passions and have never given
   away to impure desires. Yes, a man may get as far as that in a modified
   sense and yet not be free. Perhaps I address those who, knowing the
   right, have struggled for it against the wrong. You have reformed
   yourselves from follies into which you had fallen. You have, by
   diligence, brought the flesh somewhat under control in its outward
   manifestations of sin, and now your life is moral, your conduct is
   respectable, your reputation high. Still, for all that it may be that
   you are conscious that you are not free.

   Your old sins haunt you, your former corruptions perplex you. You have
   not found peace for you have not obtained forgiveness. You have buried
   your sins beneath the earth for years, but conscience has given them a
   resurrection and the ghosts of your past transgressions haunt you. You
   can scarcely sleep at night because of the recollection of the wrath of
   God which you deserve. And by day there is a gall put into your
   sweetest draughts because you know that you have sinned against Heaven
   and that Heaven must visit with vengeance your transgression. You have
   not yet come to the full liberty of the children of God, as you will do
   if you cast yourselves into the hands of Jesus who looses the captives.

   "If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free,
   indeed"--free as the mere political liberator cannot make you--free as
   he cannot make you who merely delivers you from superstition! Free as
   reformation cannot make you. Free as God alone can make you by His free
   Spirit. "If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free,
   indeed."

   Now this morning may the Lord give His servant help from on high while
   I try to talk with you. To those who feel today their slavery, my
   message may be profitable. Our first point is that to those who are the
   bond slaves of Satan, liberty is possible. The text would not mock us
   with a dream--it says, "If the Son therefore shall make you free." All
   who are slaves shall not be set free, but there is the possibility of
   liberty implied in the text. Blessed "if." It is like the prison window
   through the stony wall--it lets in enough sunshine for us to read the
   word, "hope." "If the Son therefore shall make you free."

   Secondly, there is a false freedom. You see that in the text--"You
   shall be free, indeed." There were some who professed to be free, but
   were not so. The Greek is, "You shall be free really," for there are
   some who are free only in the name and in the shadow of freedom, but
   who are not free as to the substance. Then thirdly, real freedom must
   come to us from the Son, that glorious Son of God, who, being free and
   giving Himself to us, gives us freedom. And then we shall close by
   putting a few personal questions as to whether the Son has made us
   free, or whether we still remain slaves.

   I. First then, dear Friends, our text rings a sweet silver bell of hope
   in the ear of those who are imprisoned by their sin. FREEDOM IS
   POSSIBLE--the word "if implies it. The Son of God can make the prisoner
   free. No matter who you are, nor what you are, nor how many years you
   may have remained the slaves of Satan--the Son, the glorious
   Liberator--can make you free. "He is able also to save them to the
   uttermost, who come unto God by Him."

   Perhaps that which weighs upon you most heavily is a sense of your past
   guilt. "I have offended God--I have offended often, willfully,
   atrociously, with many aggravations. On such-and-such a day I offended
   Him in the foulest manner and with deliberation. On other days I have
   run greedily in a course of vice. Nothing has restrained me from
   disobedience and nothing has impelled me to the service of God. All
   that His Word says against me I deserve. And every threat which His
   Book utters is justly due to me and may well be fulfilled. Is there a
   possibility that I can escape from guilt? Can so foul a sinner as I am
   be made clean? I know that the leopard cannot lose its spots, nor the
   Ethiopian change his skin by his own efforts. Is there a Divine power
   which can take away my spots and change my nature?"

   Sinner, there is! No sin which you have committed need shut you out of
   Heaven. However damnable your iniquities may have been, there is
   forgiveness with God that He may be feared. You may have gone to the
   very verge of perdition, but the arm of God's Grace is long enough to
   reach you. You may sit today with your tongue padlocked with blasphemy,
   your hands fast bound by acts of atrocious violence, your heart
   fettered with corruption, your feet chained fast to the Satanic blocks
   of unbelief--your whole self locked up in the bondage of
   corruption--but there is One so mighty to save that He can set even
   you, free! "All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto
   men."

   "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." In the
   matter of guilt, then, there is the possibility of freedom. "But can I
   be freed from the punishment of sin?" says another. "God is just: He
   must punish sin. It is not possible that the Judge of all the earth
   should allow such a rebel as I am to escape. Shall I go Scot free?
   Shall I have the same reward with the perfectly righteous? After years
   of unbelief am I still to be treated as though I had always been a
   willing and loving child? This is not just--I must be punished."

   Sinner, there is no need that you should be cast into Hell. No, you
   shall not be, if your trust is placed in the blood shed on Calvary.
   There is an imperative need that sin should be punished, but there is
   no need that it should be punished in your person. The stern laws of
   Justice demand that sin should meet with satisfaction, but there is no
   Law which demands that it should receive satisfaction from you, for if
   you believe, Christ has given satisfaction for you. If you trust Jesus
   Christ to save you, be assured that Christ was punished in your place,
   and suffered the whole of Divine wrath, so that there is no fear of
   your being cast into Hell.

   If you believe, you cannot be punished, for there is no charge against
   you--your sins having been laid on Christ. And there can be no
   punishment exacted from you, for Christ has already discharged the
   whole. God's justice cannot demand two executions for the same offense.
   O, let not the flames of Hell alarm you, Sinner! Let not Satan provoke
   you to despair by thoughts of the worm that never dies and of the fire
   that never can be quenched. You need not go there--there is a
   possibility of deliverance for you. And though your heart says, "Never,
   never, shall I escape," trust not your heart! God is greater than your
   heart and knows all things.

   Believe His testimony and fly to the great Deliverer for liberty!
   Freedom, then, from punishment is possible through Christ. I think I
   hear one say, "Ah, but if I were saved from past sin and from all the
   punishment of it, yet still I should submit to the power of sin again.
   I have a wolf within my heart hungering after sin which will not be
   satisfied, though it is glutted with evil. The insatiable horseleech of
   my lust ever cries, 'Give, give!' Can I be delivered from it? I have
   been bound with many resolutions, but sin, like Samson, has snapped
   them as though they were but green twigs. I have been shut up in many
   professions, as though I was now, once and for all, a prisoner to
   morality. But I have taken up posts and bars and every other restraint
   which kept me in and I have gone back to my old uncleanness. Can /, can
   I be saved from all these propensities, and all this inbred
   corruption?"

   My dear Friend, there is a hope for you that you may be. If you believe
   in the Lord Jesus Christ, that same blood by which sin is pardoned
   enables man to overcome sin. They in Heaven washed their robes and made
   them white in His blood. But they have another note in their song--they
   overcame through the blood of the Lamb. Not only were they delivered
   from guilt, but from the power of sin. I do not tell you that in this
   life Christ Himself will make you perfectly free from indwelling
   sin--there will always be some corruption left in you to struggle
   with--some Canaanite still in the land to exercise your faith and to
   teach you the value of a Savior. But the neck of sin shall be under
   your foot--God shall lead captive the great Adonibezek of your lust and
   you shall cut off his thumbs so that he cannot handle weapons of war.

   If the enemy cannot be destroyed, at least his head shall be broken and
   he shall never have reigning power over you--you shall be free from
   sin, to live no longer in it. Oh, that blessed word "if"! How it
   sparkles! It may seem but a little star--may it herald the dawning of
   the Sun of Righteousness within you--"If the Son therefore shall make
   you free."

   "Oh," says one, "that is a great 'if,' indeed. It cannot be! My guilt
   pardoned, my punishment remitted, and my nature changed? How can it
   be?" Dear Friend, it may be, and I trust it will be this morning, for
   this "if" comforts the preacher with a hope of success in delivering
   the Word. And may it give some hope to the hearers, that perhaps you
   may be made free yourselves. But I think I hear another exclaim, "Sir,
   I am in bondage through fear of death. Go where I may, enjoying no
   assurance of acceptance in Christ, I am afraid to die. I know that I
   must one of these days close these eyes in the slumbers of the grave,
   but oh, it is a dread thought to me that I must stand before my God and
   pass the solemn test. I cannot look into the sepulcher without feeling
   that it is a cold, damp place. I cannot think of eternity without
   remembering the terrors which cluster round it to a sinner, 'where
   their worm dies not and where their fire is not quenched.' "

   Ah, but my dear Friend, if the Son makes you free, He will deliver you
   from the fear of death. When sin is pardoned then the Law is satisfied
   and when the Law is satisfied then death becomes a friend. The strength
   of sin is the Law--the Law is fulfilled--the strength of sin is broken.
   The sting of death is sin--sin is pardoned--death has a sting no
   longer. If you believe in Christ you shall never die in that sense in
   which you dread death. You shall fall asleep but you shall never die.
   That death of which you think is not the Christian's portion--it
   belongs to the ungodly. In it you shall have no share, if you trust the
   Savior. Borne on angels' wings to Heaven--up from calamity,
   imperfection, temptation and trial shall you mount--flitting with the
   wings of a dove far above the clouds of sorrow! Leaving this dusky
   globe behind you, you shall enter into the splendors of immortality.
   You shall not die, but wake out of this dying world into a life of
   Glory!

   Come, Soul! If you trust in Christ, this "if shall be no if, but a
   certainty today--the Son shall make you free, indeed. I do not think I
   can bring out the full value of this liberty by merely speaking of the
   evils which we are delivered from. You know, Brethren, freedom consists
   not only in a negative but in a positive--we are not only free from,
   but we are free to. We hear of persons receiving the freedom of a city.
   This implies that certain privileges are bestowed. Now, "if the Son
   therefore shall make you free, you shall be free, indeed," in the sense
   of privilege--you shall be free to call yourself God's child. You shall
   be free to say, "Abba, Father," without rebuke. You shall be free to
   claim the protection of that Father's House and the provision of His
   bounty. You shall be free to come to His knees with all your trials and
   tell Him all your griefs.

   You shall be free to plead His promises and to receive the fulfillment
   of them, too. You shall be free to sit at His table, not as a servant
   is permitted sometimes to sit down when the feast is over to eat the
   leftovers, but you shall sit there as a well-beloved son, to eat the
   fatted calf while your Father with you, eats, drinks and is merry. You
   shall be free to enter into the Church on earth, the mother of us all.
   Free to all her ordinances. Free to share in all those gifts which
   Christ has given to his spouse. And when you die, you shall be free to
   enter into the rest which remains for the people of God. Free to
   partake of the New Jerusalem which is above. Free to use her harps of
   gold and to her streets ofjoy. Free to feast in her great banquet which
   lasts forever. Free access to the heart of God, to the throne of Christ
   and to the blessedness of eternity!

   Oh, how good it is to think that there is a possibility of a freedom to
   such privileges as these and a possibility of it to the vilest of the
   vile! For some who were grossly guilty, some who had gone far astray
   have nevertheless enjoyed the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of
   Peace. Look at Paul! No man enters more into the mystery of the Gospel
   than he. He had freedom to do so--he could comprehend with all saints
   what are the heights and depths, and know the love of Christ which
   passes knowledge and yet it is he, it is he who once foamed out
   threats, who sucked the blood of the saints! It is he who dyed his
   hands up to the very elbows in murderous gore. It is he who hated
   Christ! It is he who was a persecutor and injurious and yet is he free
   from evil and he is free to all the privileges of the chosen of God!

   And why not you? And why not you? Woman, tottering and trembling, why
   should not, why should not the Son make you free? Man, tossed about
   with many doubts, why should not the great Liberator appear to you? Can
   there be a reason why not? You have not read the rolls of
   predestination and discovered that your name has been left out. It has
   not been revealed that for you there is no Atonement, but it is
   revealed to you that whoever believes on Him is not condemned. And this
   is the testimony which comes to you--O that you would receive it!--"He
   that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ has everlasting life." O that
   you would be bold and trust Christ this morning and the "if which is in
   our text shall become a blessed certainty to you! So then there is a
   possibility for freedom. We will pause awhile and then warn you against
   false freedom.

   II. BEWARE OF FALSE LIBERTY. Every good thing is imitated by Satan who
   is the master of counterfeits and therefore, liberty--a word fit to be
   used in Heaven and almost too good for fallen earth--has been used for
   the very basest of purposes and men have misnamed the devil's offspring
   by this angelic title. We have in spiritual matters things called
   liberty which are not liberty. There is Antinomian liberty--God deliver
   us from that! A man says, "I am not under the Law of God, therefore I
   will live as I like." A most blessed Truth of God followed by a most
   atrocious inference.

   The Christian is not under the Law, but under Grace--that is a very
   precious fact--it is much better to serve God because we love Him, than
   because we are afraid of His wrath. To be under the Law is to give God
   the service of a slave who fears the lash. But to be under Grace is to
   serve God out of pure love to Him. Oh, to be a child and to give the
   obedience of a child and not the homage of a serf! But the Antinomian
   says, "I am not under the Law, therefore will I live and fulfill my own
   lusts and pleasures."

   Paul says of those who argue thus, their damnation is just. We have had
   the pain of knowing some who have said, "I am God's elect--Christ shed
   His blood for me--I shall never perish!" And then they have gone to the
   ale-house, they have sung the drunkard's song and have even used the
   drunkard's oath. What is this, dear Friends, but a strong delusion to
   believe a lie? They who can do this must surely have been some time in
   Satan's oven, to be baked so hard. Why, these must have had their
   consciences taken out of them! Are they not turned to something worse
   than brutes? The dog does not say, "My master feeds me and he will not
   destroy me, but is fond of me, therefore will I snarl at him or rend
   him"?

   Even the ass does not say, "My master gives me fodder, therefore will I
   dash my heels into his face." The ox knows its owner and the ass his
   master's crib, but these men only know God to provoke Him and they
   profess that His love to them gives them a liberty to rebel against His
   will! God deliver you from any such freedom as this! Be not legalists,
   but love the Law of God and in it make your delight. Abhor all idea of
   being saved by good works, but O, be as full of good works as if you
   were to be saved by them!

   Walk in holiness as if your own walking would make you enter into
   Heaven and then rest on Christ, knowing that nothing of your own can
   ever open the gate of the Celestial City. Eschew and abhor anything
   like Antinomianism. Do not be afraid of high doctrine. Men sometimes
   mislabel good sound Calvinism as Antinomianism. Do not be afraid of
   that--do not be alarmed at the ugly word Antinomianism if it does not
   exist! But the thing itself--flee from it as from a serpent! Shake off
   the venomous beast into the fire as Paul did the viper which he found
   among the firewood. When you are gathering up the doctrines of Grace to
   cheer and comfort you, this deadly viper gets into the midst and when
   the fire begins to burn, he comes out of the heat and fastens upon you.
   Shake him off into the fire of Divine Love and there let the monster be
   consumed!

   My Brethren, if we are loved of God with an everlasting love and are no
   more under the Law but free from its curse, let us serve God with all
   our heart's gratitude to Him. Let us say, "I am Your servant. I am Your
   servant and the son of Your handmaid--You have loosed my bonds." Let
   the loosing of our bonds be an argument for service. Then again,
   Beloved, there is another kind of freedom of which we must all be
   aware--it is a notional professional freedom. "Free? Yes, certainly we
   are. We are the people of God," say some. Not that they have ever
   passed from death unto life. Not that vital godliness is a matter they
   understand.

   No. "We always went to Church, or Chapel. We have never stopped going
   in our lives. We are the most regular of religious people and we were
   baptized, and we go to the sacrament and what is there that we do not
   do? Who convicts us of any sin? If we are not going to the Celestial
   City, who can be? Surely, surely, we enjoy much of the things of God!
   We sit in God's House and we feel a pleasure when we listen to the
   Truth of God. Sacred song bears us on high as well as other men. We sit
   as God's people sit and we hear as God's people hear--surely we are
   free!"

   Ah, but dear Friends, a man may think himself free and still be a
   slave. You know there are many in this world who dream themselves to be
   what they are not. And you have a faculty of dreaming in the same
   manner. Christ must have come to you and shown you your slavery and
   broken your heart on account of it, or else you are not free. And you
   must have looked to the wounds of Jesus as the only gates of your
   escape and have seen in His hands the only power which could snap your
   fetters or else, though you have professed and re-professed, you are as
   much slaves of Satan as though you were in the Pit itself!

   Beware, I pray you, of hereditary religion! A man cannot hand down his
   godliness as he does his goods. And I cannot receive Grace as I may
   receive lands, or gold, or silver. "You must be born again." There must
   be the going up out of Egypt, the leaving the flesh pots and the brick
   kilns, and advancing through the Red Sea of Atonement into the
   wilderness and afterwards into the promised rest. Have you passed from
   death unto life? If not, beware of having a mere notional, professional
   liberty!

   There are many, too, who have the liberty of natural self-righteousness
   and of the power of the flesh. They have fanciful, unfounded hopes of
   Heaven. They have never wronged anybody. They have never done any
   mischief in the world. They are amiable. They are generous to the poor.
   They are this, they are that, they are the other! Therefore they feel
   themselves to be free. They never feel their own inability. They can
   always pray alike and always sing alike. They have no changes. They are
   not emptied from vessel to vessel. Their confidence never wavers. They
   believe themselves all right and abide in their confidence.

   They do not stop to examine--their delusion is too strong and their
   comfort is much too precious for them to wish to mar it by looking to
   its foundation--so they go on, on, on--sound asleep till one of these
   days, falling over the awful precipice of ruin, they will wake up where
   waking will be too late! We know there are some such. They are in God's
   House, but they are not God's sons! You remember the case of Ishmael.
   It is to that which our Lord seems to allude here. Ishmael was a son of
   Abraham according to the flesh, but he never was free. His mother being
   a bondwoman, he was a slave.

   He might call himself Abraham's son if he could, but being only after
   the flesh he was still a slave, for it was not in the power of Abraham,
   in the power of the flesh, to beget anything but bondage. And Ishmael
   at his best was still the son of the bondwoman. Yet you see he sits at
   the table, he eats and drinks just as merrily as the child of the
   promise. No, in some things he is stronger than Isaac--he has the
   advantage of age and I dare say plumes himself on being heir. "Ah,"
   says he, "I am the elder one of the family." At last he mocked
   Isaac--when the boys were at their sports he was violent towards his
   younger brother, even as many Pharisees are very cruel to true
   Believers.

   What came of it? Why, "the servant abides not in the house forever, but
   the son abides forever," and so the day came in which Sarah said, "Cast
   out the bondwoman and her son," and away went Ishmael. He might cling
   to his father and say, "I am your son." "You must go, Sir, you are a
   slave. You were born after the flesh and therefore you take from your
   mother your state and condition and not from your father. Your mother
   was a bond slave and so are you and you must go. The privileges of the
   children's house are not for you. You must go into the wilderness. You
   cannot abide here." But Isaac, though feeble and tempted and tried and
   vexed, is never sent out of his father's house--never--he abides
   forever.

   This is the position of many. They are very good people in their way.
   They do their best, but what is their best? It is the offspring of the
   flesh. And that which is born of the flesh is flesh, Consequently their
   best endeavors only make them slaves in the house, not sons. Only he
   who is born by faith according to the promise is the free Isaac and
   abides in the house. The day will come when God will ask every member
   of the Christian Church and all who profess religion, "Are you children
   by faith in the promise or not?" And if you are only children according
   to the flesh He will send you back again into the wilderness--to
   eternal ruin you must go unless the Spirit of God has given you the
   spirit of freedom.

   There was a custom, observed among the Greeks and Romans that when a
   man died, if he left slaves, they went as a heritage to the elder son
   and if the elder son said, "Some of these are my own Brethren, though
   they are slaves, I therefore pronounced them free," they would be free.
   Emancipation was not always allowed in either Greek or Roman states--a
   man might not always set a slave free without giving a good reason. But
   it was always held to be a valid reason if the son, coming into a
   heritage of slaves, chose to set them free. No question was asked if
   the son made them free. The law did not step in.

   So, dear Friends, if the Son shall make us free, we shall be free,
   indeed. If Jesus Christ, the great Heir according to the promise, the
   great Mediator whom God has created Heir of all things, by whom also He
   made the worlds--if He shall say to us who are as Ishmael, "I make you
   free," then are we free, indeed! And neither Law, Justice, Heaven or
   Hell can bring any argument against us why we should not be free. But
   do beware of all imaginary freedoms and shun them as you would poison!
   And God give you Divine Grace to enjoy the glorious liberty of the
   children of God!

   III. TRUE FREEDOM COMES TO US THROUGH HIM WHO IS, IN THE HIGHEST SENSE,
   "THE SON." No man gets free except as he comes to Christ and takes Him
   to be his All in All. You may rivet on your fetters by going to the
   Law, to your own good works, to your willings and your praying and your
   doings, but you will never be free until you come to Christ. Mark you,
   Man, if you will come to Christ you shall be free this moment from
   every sort of bondage. But if you will go here and there, and try this
   and that and the other, you shall find all your trying will end in
   disappointment and you shall lie down in sorrow and in shame--for none
   but Jesus--none but Jesus--can make us free, indeed.

   Real liberty comes from Him only. Let us think awhile of this real
   liberty. Remember it is a liberty righteously bestowed. Christ has a
   right to make men free. If I should set a slave free who belongs to his
   master, he might run for a time--but since I had not the power to give
   him a legal emancipation--he would be dragged back again. But the Son,
   who is heir of all things, has a right to make him free whom He wills
   to make free. The Law is on Christ's side. Christ has such power in
   Heaven and earth committed to Him that if He says to the sinner, "You
   are free," free he is before high Heaven.

   Before God's great bar you can plead the word of Jesus and you shall be
   delivered! Think, too, how dearly this freedom was purchased. Christ
   speaks it by His power, but He still bought it by His blood. He makes
   you free, Sinner, but it is by His own bonds. You go free because He
   bore your burden for you. See Him bear His agony--"Crushed beneath the
   millstone of the Law till all His head, His hair, His garments were
   bloody." See Him yonder, dragged to Pilate's hall, bound, whipped like
   a common felon, scourged like a murderer and dragged away by hellhounds
   through the streets. Look at Him fastened by those cruel fetters which
   went through His flesh to the accursed wood. See Him yielding up His
   liberty to the dungeon of death.

   There the Mighty One sleeps in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb. Dearly did
   He purchase with His own bondage the liberty which He so freely gives.
   But, though dearly purchased, let us take up that keynote--He freely
   gives it! Jesus asks nothing of us as a preparation for this liberty.
   He finds us sitting in sackcloth and ashes and bids us put on the
   beautiful array of freedom. He discovers us in a darkness which may be
   felt, sitting in the valley of the shadow of death and He brings the
   true Light in His hand and turns our midnight into blazing noon and all
   without our help, without our merit, and at first without our will.

   Christ saves sinners just as they are! Christ died not for the
   righteous, but for the ungodly! His message is Grace, pure Grace,
   undiluted by a single condition or requisition which God might make of
   man. Just as you are, trust your soul with Christ and though there is
   in you no speck of anything that is good, He will save you and give you
   perfect liberty. Dearly has He bought it, but freely does He give
   it--even the faith by which we receive is the gift of God. It is a
   liberty which may be instantaneously received. The captive goes first
   through one door and then another and perhaps a hundred keys must grate
   in the wards of the lock before he feels the cool fresh air gladdening
   his brow.

   But it is not so with the man who believes! The moment you believe, you
   are free! You may have been chained at a thousand points, but the
   instant you believe in Christ you are unfettered and free as the bird
   of the air. Not more free is the eagle which mounts to his rocky nest
   and afterwards outsoars the clouds--even he, the bird of God--is not
   more unfettered than the soul which Christ has delivered! Cut are the
   cords and in an instant you are clear of all and upward you mount to
   God! You may have come in here a slave and you may go out free!

   God's Grace can, in a moment, give you the condition of freedom and the
   nature of it. He can make you say, "Abba, Father," with your whole
   heart, though up to this day you may have been of your father the
   devil, and his works you have done. In an instant is it worked! We are
   told in tropical lands that the sun seems to leap up from under the
   horizon and the dead of night is suddenly turned into the luster of
   day--so on a sudden does God's Grace often dawn upon the darkness of
   sinful hearts. You have seen, perhaps, at times after showers of rain
   have fallen upon the earth, how land which seemed all dry and barren
   was suddenly covered with green grass, with here and there a lily full
   in bloom. And so a heart which has been like a desert, when once the
   shower of Jesus' Grace falls on it, blossoms like the garden of the
   Lord and yields sweet perfume.

   And that in a moment! You who have given yourselves up in despair--you
   who have written your own condemnation! You who have made a league with
   death and a covenant with Hell and said, "There is no hope, therefore
   will we go after our iniquities," I charge you, hear me, when I declare
   that my Lord and Master, who has broken my chains and set me free, can
   break yours, too--and that with one blow! Mark, that if this is done,
   it is done forever. When Christ sets free, no chains can bind again.
   Let the Master say to me, "Captive, I have delivered you," and it is
   done!

   Come on, come on, you Fiends of the Pit! Mightier is He who is for us
   than all they who are against us. Come on, come on, temptations of the
   world--but if the Lord is on our side, whom shall we fear? If He is our
   defense, who shall be our destruction? Come on, come on, you foul
   corruptions, come on you machinations and temptations of my own
   deceitful heart--but He who has begun the good work in me will carry it
   on and perfect it to the end.

   Gather, gather, gather all your hosts together, you who are the foes of
   God and the enemies of man, and come at once with concentrated fury and
   with hellish might against my spirit--but if God acquits--who is he
   that condemns? Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in
   Christ Jesus our Lord? The black stream of death shall never wash out
   the mark of Christian liberty! That skeleton monarch bears no yoke
   which he can put upon a Believer's neck. We will shout victory when we
   are breast-deep amidst the last billows and grapple with the king upon
   the pale horse--we will throw the rider and win the victory in the last
   struggle, according as it is written, "Thanks be unto God which gives
   us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

   Sparta and Greece refused to wear the yoke of Persia and broke the
   proud king's pomp. But we are free in a nobler sense! We refuse the
   yoke of Satan and will overcome his power as Christ overcame it in the
   days gone by. Let those who will, bend and crouch at the foot of the
   world's monarch! But as for those whom God has made free, they claim to
   think, to believe, to act, and to be as their Divine instinct commands
   them and the Spirit of God enables them--"Where the Spirit of the Lord
   is, there is liberty." "If the Son therefore shall make you free, you
   shall be free, indeed."

   IV. And now we put round the QUESTION, are we free, then, this morning?
   Are we free? I will not answer it for you, nor need I just now answer
   for myself, but I would beseech you to make a searching enquiry into
   it. If you are free, then remember that you have changed your lodging
   place, for the slave and the son sleep not in the same room of the
   house. The things which satisfied you when a slave will not satisfy you
   NOW.

   You wear a garment which a slave may never wear and you feel an
   instinct within which the slave can never feel. There is an Abba,
   Father, cry in you which was not there once. Is it so? Is it so? If you
   are free you lie not as you used to do. You go not to the slave's
   work--you have not now to toil and sweat to earn the wages of sin which
   is death. But now, as a son serves his father, you do a son's work and
   you expect to receive a son's reward--for the gift of God is eternal
   life through Jesus Christ our Lord!

   One thing I know, if you are free then you are thinking about setting
   others free. And if you have no zeal for the emancipation of other men
   you are a slave yourself. If you are free you hate all sorts of chains,
   all sorts of sin and you will never willingly put on the fetters again.
   You live each day crying unto Him who made you free at first, to hold
   you up that you fall not into the snare. If you are free, this is not
   the world for you! This is the land of slaves. This is the world of
   bondage. If you are free, your heart has gone to Heaven, the land of
   the free. If you are free today, your spirit is longing for the time
   when you shall see the great Liberator face to face!

   If you are free, you will bide your time until He calls you. But when
   He says, "Friend, come up here," you will fearlessly mount to the upper
   spheres--and death and sin shall be no hindrance to your advent to His
   Glory! I would we were all free! But if we are not, the next best thing
   I would is that those of us who are not free would fret under the
   fet-ter--for when the fetters are felt, they shall be broken! When the
   iron enters into the soul it shall be snapped. When you long for
   liberty you shall have it! When you seek for it as for hidden treasure
   and pant for it as the stag for the water brook, God will not deny you!
   "Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened. Ask and it
   shall be given you."

   God lead you to seek and knock and ask now, for Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                           General And Yet Particular

   DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 24, 1864, BY THE REV. C, H.
   SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "You have given Him power o ver all flesh, that He should give eternal
   life to as many as You have given Him." John 17:2.

   THIS was used by our Savior as an argument why the Father should
   glorify Him in His dread hour of conflict. Our Lord did as much as say,
   "You have already given Me what I now ask. Therefore, since You have
   virtually bestowed it upon me in the Covenant, give it Me now in very
   deed." So the Believer, when he prays, asks for what is already his
   own. And when we come before the Lord in prayer this should encourage
   us much, that our heavenly Father has already given us all things in
   giving us His Son, so that we ask for what is virtually our own.

   The text itself we will try to open up briefly. It contains two
   statements--first, that Christ, as a Mediator, has received from God
   universal authority over all flesh. And secondly, that the object of
   this is special and peculiar, that He may give eternal life to as many
   as the Father has given to Him. You have universal power, but you have
   within it a special purpose. We know that our Lord Jesus Christ has all
   power given to Him in Heaven and in earth--"Angels and men before Him
   fall and devils fear and fly." All things, whether animate or
   inanimate, confess the majesty of Him who is King of kings and Lord of
   lords.

   Our text, however, mentions the most stubborn thing in all the
   world--"flesh." Jesus has power over all flesh. That willful, wicked,
   disobedient thing called flesh Christ knows how to govern. He has power
   over all men as fallen men, for such the term, flesh, describes. I
   understand, then, that Christ has power over all men, to pardon all
   whom He wills. Christ has this day as Mediator, power to convict of sin
   every living soul by His Spirit, if so He wills. And power to bring all
   men to the footstool of His Grace and to give them pardon if so it
   seems good in His sight. We do not believe that there is any exception
   to this rule--Christ has power over every man born of Adam, to give to
   him the Grace of conviction and the Grace of pardon, if so it should
   please Him to do.

   He has power also to make those who are not convicted of sin and who
   are not pardoned, subservient to His purpose. He has power to restrain
   their evil passions from running to an excess of riot. He can use them
   as His drudges to effect His purposes even when they proudly rebel
   against Him--so that though they boast themselves in their own free
   will--they shall really be working out His own eternal purpose. He has
   a bit often in the mouth of His fiercest enemy and a hook in the jaw of
   the bloodiest persecutor.

   Over all flesh He has authority whether it is crowned with royalty or
   wrapped in rags! Whether it curses with profanity or bows down with
   reverent adoration. There is not a mortal man from the equator to the
   poles, of any rank or any language, or bearing any hue upon his skin
   who is not subject to this universal mediatorial power of the Lord
   Jesus Christ. If I understand my text and Scriptures parallel with it,
   it was ordained in order to the salvation of the chosen, that the whole
   world of man should be taken from under the immediate rule of God as
   absolute God and placed under a new form of government of which the
   Mediator should be King and Head.

   As the result of this gracious arrangement a fallen race is permitted
   to exist--a sinful world coming into contact with an absolute God must
   have been instantaneously doomed to Hell. Man, while yet a rebel, lives
   on in virtue of the mediatorial power of Jesus! He has stepped in
   between avenging Justice and the sinner and so the sinner is spared. I
   trace to Christ's Atonement the continued life of the most obdurate.
   All the long-suffering mercy of God seems to me to flow through the
   channel of the Savior's authority over all flesh.

   It is in virtue of this power that the Gospel is preached to all
   men--"All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth. Go you,
   therefore, and teach all nations." Hence the command to believe
   receives its Divine sanction and those are condemned who believe not in
   His name. On account of this universal dispensation of mediatorship, an
   honest, gracious, and sincere invitation is given to whomever will, to
   drink of the Water of Life freely. It is, I say, on account of this
   universal mediatorial power of Christ that I can stand upon this
   platform and say in the broadest possible terms, that whoever believes
   on the Lord Jesus shall never perish, but have eternal life! And I can
   preach a Gospel which, in its proclamation, is as wide as the ruin and
   as extensive as the Fall.

   But why all this? The text tells us that the object and design of all
   this was not universal, but special--that the intention of God in thus
   putting all men under the power of Christ was not that all men might
   receive eternal life, but that He might give eternal life to as many as
   had been given to Him. So that in all this universal dealing there is
   the special and peculiar design that the chosen may receive life--that
   the elect may be filled with spiritual life on earth and afterwards
   enter into the Glory life above.

   God might doubtless have acted upon another plan and have given Christ
   power only over His elect if He had willed, that He might give eternal
   life to them. But it has not so pleased God. It has, on the contrary,
   pleased Him to put the whole race under the mediatorial sway of Jesus
   in order that He might give eternal life to those who were chosen out
   of the world. God might have commissioned His servants to go into the
   world and preach the Gospel to the chosen only-- He might have told us
   to present Christ only to certain persons upon whom there should be a
   peculiar mark. It has not so pleased Him.

   He bids us go "into all the world and preach the Gospel to every
   creature." His high decree and Divine intent being that those whom He
   has ordained unto eternal life shall, through believing, enter into the
   life which He has ordained for them. I do not know whether I have
   brought before you what I am certain is the full idea of the text--a
   general power given to the Mediator over all flesh--as the result of
   which a proclamation of mercy is universally published to men and a
   general declaration of salvation through faith presented to all
   creatures. But this always with a special, limited, definite
   design--that a chosen people--separated from before all worlds from the
   rest of mankind should obtain eternal life.

   I have aimed in my ministry constantly to preach, as far as I can, the
   whole of the Gospel rather than a fragment of it. Therefore those
   Brethren who are sounder than the Bible abhor me as much as if I were
   an Arminian. And on the other side, the enemies of the Doctrines of
   Grace often represent me as an Ultra-Calvinist. I am rejoiced to
   receive the censure of both sides! I am not ambitious to be numbered in
   the roll of either party. I have never cultivated the acquaintance nor
   desired the approbation of those men who shut their eyes to Truths of
   God which they do not wish to see.

   I never desired to be reputed so excessively Calvinistic as to neglect
   one part of Scripture in order to maintain another. If I am thought to
   be inconsistent with myself, I am very glad to be so, so long as I am
   not inconsistent with Holy Scripture. Sure I am that all the Truth of
   God is really consistent, but equally certain am I that it is not
   apparently so to our poor, finite minds. In nine cases out of ten he
   who is nervously anxious to be manifestly consistent with himself in
   his theological system, if he gains his end, is merely consistent with
   a fool!

   He who is consistent with Scripture is consistent with perfect Wisdom.
   He who is consistent with himself is at best consistent with
   imperfection, folly and insignificance. To keep to Scripture, even
   though it should involve a charge of personal inconsistency, is to be
   faithful to God and men's souls. My text seems to me to present that
   double aspect which so many people either cannot or will not see.

   Here is the great Atonement by which the Mediator has the whole world
   put under His dominion. But still here is a special object for this
   Atonement--the ingathering, or rather out-gathering--of a chosen and
   peculiar people unto eternal life.

   I. Let us, this morning, meditate upon the principle of the text and
   our first remark shall be that THE DOCTRINE OF A GENERAL DISPLAY OF
   POWER FOR THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF A SPECIAL OBJECT IS IN ACCORDANCE WITH
   THE ANALOGY OF NATURE. In the world around us we shall find the Creator
   accomplishing special purposes by a far wider display of power than the
   immediate object appears to require. Take, for instance, yonder plant.
   What is the main object for which a plant lives? Every botanist and
   every common observer will tell you that its object in living is that
   it may produce seed and perpetuate its like.

   God's object, then, in yonder plant is to produce a seed from it that
   its species may be perpetuated. How will He do it? Will He send an
   angel to watch over the seed and the seed alone? No, my Brethren, there
   shall be a watchful care over root, stem, cells, tissues, leaves and
   flowers. Although when winter comes, every leaf will drop off and rot
   in the ground and never be heard of again, yet those leaves have been
   the object of a superintending care, most marvelous and wise. Though
   the real object of it all has been the seed alone, yet stem and leaf
   and cell have all been watched over.

   Just so, I think, it is in God's dealings with His elect. He is looking
   to them as to the seed and substance of mankind, but those graceless
   ones who will perish forever like fading leaves have been the object of
   His tender care. If you tell me that the leaves were not absolutely
   necessary to the seed, I will give you another illustration still more
   clear. You are not to think that when God is about to accomplish a
   purpose He studies just how much will do it and then spends no more
   power than a pinching economy finds needful.

   We are wanting rain. Our gardens and fields are crying out for showers.
   Well, our gracious God will send it to us very soon. But will He just
   allot a shower to that piece of ground which requires it--will He not
   rather send a wide range of rain? I have sometimes wondered at this,
   that when the shower falls it must be God's intention to bless the
   field and yet He scatters the liquid blessing upon the salt and briny
   sea where no plants can be nourished and where it seems to be a waste
   to pour the cooling drops. You shall find it rain quite as heavily upon
   the Atlantic as upon the thirsty earth which is opening its mouth for
   the moisture.

   Why is this? Because it is the rule of God when He is accomplishing a
   purpose to deal after a general fashion though still the object is
   specific. Here is this air about us. Why is it made up of oxygen,
   hydrogen and nitrogen and so on? Is it not that plants and animals may
   live upon it? Surely this is the Creator's drift in making such a
   compound. But suppose you transfer yourself in imagination to the polar
   regions where life cannot exist, or to spots in the great desert of
   Sahara where even the vulture with swift wing has never flown. You will
   find the air composed of precisely the same particles!

   Why is this? There is no animal to breathe it, no plant to bloom in it.
   Why then the same? Simply because God is not like finite man--He has
   not to stint Himself to such an expenditure as shall just accomplish
   His own purpose--He acts like a God and in the infinity of His Nature
   He gives more than is absolutely necessary for the accomplishment of
   His purpose. Think again, now, of nature in another aspect. We are
   proud enough to think that God made this world for the comfort of man
   and with an eye to human convenience. Suppose we grant that principle
   for a moment.

   Here is a violet peeping out among the green leaves. Why has it that
   delicious perfume making glad the spring? Why, you tell me it is to
   gratify man. Very likely, very likely. But here are millions upon
   millions of violets which are never smelt by anybody which grow among
   the nettles at the back of the Church, or away in the woods where not
   even a child has wandered, or at a distance from the abodes of men
   where they are never seen or heard of, for--

   "Full many a flower is doomed to blush unseen, And waste its fragrance
   on the desert air." Why is everything so painted by the sun? Why do
   crystals sparkle when the sunbeams fall upon them? How is it you see
   the many lines of a rainbow when the sun is shining on a crystal?

   Why it must be to gratify the eye. God would have this world a place of
   beauty and a joy forever! But crystals sparkle in the polar regions
   where there is not even a bear to look upon them! In that inhospitable
   region where life goes out and where we believe no creature having life
   could possibly exist, the sun still shines and still the crystal
   flashes back to Him the colors of the iris. Why is this? Why is this? I
   cannot tell you, except that I perceive that God gives to the sun a
   power over all things that He may give pleasure to the eye.

   What multitudes of landscapes were never gazed upon by the artist's
   eye, yet there they are, sleeping in their beauty beneath the eyes of
   God. How the birds are singing this morning, how they are pouring forth
   from their throats sweet melodious strains and yet they are singing
   quite as well in the deep forest glade where no man can ever hear them
   as in our gardens and walks. Why is this? Do we not think that the
   birds sing for our joy and that the landscape is spread out for man's
   mental delight?

   It certainly is so, and yet there are landscapes and birds where there
   are no men to see and ears to hear. So I think I might continue all the
   morning giving you analogies from Nature in which God, in the
   accomplishment of a specific purpose adopts a general mode of action.

   II. I will take another view of the question. THIS PRINCIPLE IS SEEN IN
   PROVIDENCE. All of you believe in a general Providence. You believe
   that God superintends all the affairs of the universe so that there is
   not a grain of dust blowing in the street today which has not its orbit
   ordained and fixed as much as the planets in the sky. You believe that

   God overrules the motions of the rush that waves by the river as much
   as he does the policy of kings and emperors. Do not you believe in a
   special Providence, too?

   I do, and I believe you do. You believe that God is watching specially
   over His own people and that all things work together for good to them
   who love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. And did
   it ever strike you that there was any inconsistency in believing in a
   general and a special Providence? I do not suppose it ever did--I know
   it never did me. I know I feel quite easy in believing the two things
   and I should have been very uneasy in not being able to believe both. I
   do not see why the Christian may not transfer the idea and believe that
   there is a general influence for good flowing from the mediatorial
   sacrifice of Christ and yet its special design and definite object is
   the giving of eternal life to as many as the Father gave Him.

   We will take one or two instances in Providence. There is Jonah going
   to Tarshish. He has betrayed his Master and has fled from Nineveh. The
   Lord will have him back. He intends to bring him back in a strange
   conveyance--He has prepared a great fish to swallow him! How is Jonah
   to be got out of the ship? The storm must come and when the storm comes
   what does it do? Does it shake Jonah? Does it expose Jonah's life to
   danger? It does, but it also shakes the whole ship and all who are in
   the ship are afraid that they shall suffer shipwreck. And what is more,
   if there were a thousand ships upon the sea that day they felt the
   storm and yet God's special object was to have Jonah thrown into the
   sea-- though all the ships upon the sea must be tossed with the
   tempest, still there is the special design.

   Take another thing. It is ordained according to prophecy that Christ
   must be born at Bethlehem. Then Mary His mother, who is great with
   child, must be brought to Bethlehem. How shall it be done? Why, in
   order to fetch Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, every man and woman in
   Judea must go to the place of their pedigree and still, though God's
   express design is to bring Mary there that Jesus may be born, He uses a
   general method in order to accomplish it and every other Jewish man and
   woman must go to the place of their pedigree!

   Here, again, is a particular object accomplished by general means. I
   might continue with many, many other instances, but indeed, you have
   only to open your eyes and see. My Brethren, if you pray tomorrow for
   God to send a favorable wind to waft the missionary-ship to its haven,
   the same wind will waft a merchantman, or a pirate, too, if they are
   going the same way. It may be that you pray that rain may come to
   extinguish a fire, and perhaps a shower comes, but you do not expect it
   to fall just where the fire is, but also for miles around. If you know
   some poor man living in Lancashire and you pray for him, that God would
   deliver him from poverty--if your prayer is heard, it may very likely
   be by quickening the trade of the whole country and conferring a
   blessing on the people of the whole neighborhood!

   In fact, you know yourselves if you are praying to God to bless your
   children, it is not possible that your children should be blessed
   without the blessing coming down upon others, because God's blessing
   any one man is the means indirectly of blessing other people. You
   cannot have a godly family down a court without the whole court being
   the better for it. You cannot have one Christian man favored by his God
   without his household having some portion of the favor. God sends the
   favor only to His servants--that is the special intention--but still
   there comes with that a wider blessing.

   While thinking over this matter I could only compare it to the moon
   when surrounded with a halo. The interior ring was the moon's own self,
   but round about it was a halo of brightness. Such is God's dealing with
   His people. There is the central substance of eternal, immutable
   love--but round about it there is a Divine halo--it encompasses all the
   creatures of God and makes them, in some measure, to participate in the
   light of the great central love, which belongs peculiarly to His
   saints.

   III. Let us for one moment show that this has been ILLUSTRATED BY
   MIRACLES. Joshua is fighting with the Ca-naanites. There has been a
   long battle, but he desires to see his enemy exterminated and boldly
   turning round he cries to the sun, "Stand still upon Gibeon. And you,
   moon, in the valley of Ajalon." What did the sun and moon stand still
   for? Why to help Joshua against the Canaanites! But do you not think
   all the people everywhere had a longer day as the result? Did not every
   man who looked up wonder how it was that the sun stood still? There was
   a poor man with a hard task and he was afraid he should not finish it
   before the sun went down. How glad was he to find an extra hour added
   to the day!

   He knew nothing about the special purpose and yet there was a special
   purpose in it all. Every man and woman on that side of the hemisphere
   enjoyed a length of light unusual for that time and yet there was no
   design of blessing them in Joshua's prayer. They were blessed
   incidentally. The real object was that the children of Israel might
   fight the battle and complete it. Take another miracle--Sennacherib has
   come against Jerusalem--he is about to swallow up Hezekiah and all the
   little kingdom of Judah. Hezekiah takes Rabshakeh's letter and lays it
   before the Lord. As the result of this, the angel of the Lord went
   through the camp of Sennacherib and slew his mighty men and the power
   of Assyria was broken.

   What was the effect of it? There was the little straggling kingdom of
   Babylon, then contending for existence with Assyria. That kingdom was
   spared and became afterwards the destroyer of Assyria. And you read
   that Berodachbaladan, the king, sent messengers to Hezekiah to thank
   him for what was done. You see Babylon gets good out of the destruction
   of Sennacherib, but was this the main design? Certainly not. The grand
   object of God in destroying Sennacherib was to deliver Hezekiah and His
   people and yet the whole earth rejoices and has rest when the great
   hammer of the Lord falls on Assyria and its empire is broken and
   destroyed. It was a blessing to all the East when the power of the
   despot was broken that night--but the object of it was for Israel and
   for Israel, alone.

   Come to the days of Christ and observe another miracle--there is a ship
   tossed within the tempest. Her mast is ready to go over the side. Her
   timbers crack--she will be swamped and go down. No, she will not--for
   there sleeps with His head upon the helm, the Master of the tempest,
   the Lord High Admiral of the sea, King Jesus! And when He has been
   awakened He stands up and rebukes the winds and waves and instantly
   there is a great calm. Why did He make the calm? For the preservation
   of His disciples and His own ship. But did the calm end there and give
   no blessing to others? We are informed that there were with Him many
   other little ships and so they all enjoyed the calm, too. The direct
   and definite intention was to make His disciples at peace and in
   safety. But the effect of it did not end with the disciples, but every
   ship which was out upon the sea of Nazareth that night enjoyed the
   calm.

   One more instance and I will not multiply them, lest I fatigue you.
   Paul and Silas are in prison--God's object is to terrify the jailer and
   to bring out of prison His two servants, Paul and Silas. What does it
   say?--"The foundations of the prison were shaken and Paul and Silas had
   their bands loosed"? No, Brethren. "And every man's bands were loosed."
   Was it God's object to bring every man out of prison? No one dreams of
   such a thing! This was merely a concurrent benefit which went with
   God's special object in dealing with His poor persecuted followers,
   Paul and Silas.

   So I believe that as it was in these miracles, so it is in that grander
   miracle, the great work of Grace. Jesus Christ comes into the world as
   a Propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but for the sins of
   the whole world. And yet it is true He loved His Church and gave
   Himself for it. He laid down His life for His sheep and for His people
   did He die and not for the world, in one sense, and yet in that other
   sense which I have tried to bring out, He was a Propitiation for the
   sins of the whole world.

   IV. Let us now LOOK AT FACTS. How do we really find the Gospel operate?
   I think I see this island of Great Britain covered with forests with
   men living in them having their naked bodies painted, dwelling in
   caves, feeding upon herbs and acorns. I think I see a simple-minded
   man--some think it was Paul--landing upon the shore and coming forward,
   trying to teach these savages the way of salvation. Oh, what a prolific
   hour was that when first the Gospel was preached in Britain! What has
   been the effect of it?

   Brethren, let us answer another question first--What was the immediate
   design of God in sending the Gospel to Great Britain? My answer is to
   save as many as He had ordained to eternal life. That was His great
   object. But what has been the effect of it? I trace the liberty, the
   happiness and the prosperity of our country throughout these many
   centuries, to the prevalence of the Gospel in it. And though I believe
   God's design in sending the Gospel--I mean the central design--was that
   He might separate unto Himself His own chosen people, yet in connection
   with the Gospel, innumerable and incalculable blessings have come to
   every Englishman.

   And there does not live a man who claims the name of Briton who is not
   under solemn obligation to the preaching of the Gospel for ten thousand
   benefits. Christ has, indeed, in England, seemed to have power over all
   Englishmen, that He might give eternal life to as many as the Father
   gave Him. Look at the Reformation. What was God's object in raising up
   Luther and Calvin and Zwingle to work the Reformation? Why, for this
   grand purpose--that Christ might see of the travail of His soul and
   that His chosen might believe in Him. That was the purpose of the
   Reformation! But what did the Reformation accomplish?

   Not only this, but a thousand things besides, for it was to the
   Reformation that arts and sciences owed their progress. The human mind
   was liberated and expanded. And millions of people who never obtained
   eternal life through Jesus Christ, nevertheless, through the glorious
   Reformation obtained their liberty and ten thousand other mercies
   beyond all price. This is a matter of fact. And if you take the Gospel
   to the South Seas, if you preach it to the benighted people there, you
   will find that it will subdue all flesh to its Divine power. But still
   the object is kept in view--that as many as God gave to Christ might
   have eternal life.

   Let us observe one self-evident truth. It is a remarkable fact that
   where the Gospel is not preached in its general aspect, God does not
   seem to work out His special object to any large extent. I mean to say
   that if you will go into any Chapel in London and you find a minister
   there who preaches nothing whatever of the Word of God, except that one
   part of it which is most blessedly and sweetly true--God's electing
   love--if you will listen to that man and hear him preach from the first
   of January to the end of December upon that one topic--the specialty
   and peculiarity of Divine Grace--you need not go into the vestry to ask
   the deacons if they have many conversions.

   I am certain you will find there are few, indeed, and those mostly
   among persons who were convicted of sin and aroused elsewhere, and who
   obtain liberty under the gracious doctrine. But the absolute conversion
   of many is not a thing to be expected, and certainly not a thing found
   where the preacher is so restrained by his sense of electing love as to
   be unable to boldly preach the rest of the Gospel and say, "Believe in
   the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." You have only to try it,
   dear Friends--put your feet into the Chinese shoes and prevent their
   growing to the proper size, in order to keep them in ecclesiastical
   comeliness--and you will soon find your walk of usefulness very much
   restricted.

   Hold on to the point of being consistent! Make that the main
   thing--banish those texts which speak about anything general--never
   open your mouth with a universal invitation! Make it out that the Bible
   has not a word in it directed to men as men, but only to the chosen and
   I will undertake that unless there is an unprecedented act of God's
   Sovereignty, you shall preach from one end of the year to the other and
   you shall not be troubled at the number of the elect people. There will
   be very few who will ever come forward.

   But I know also, (and he who will look candidly will see it), that the
   most effective ministry is that one which is not ashamed of the
   Doctrines of Grace! The ministry which does not stutter or stammer in
   talking about election! Does not trim or cut the Divine Sovereignty of
   God, but which is equally clear upon the other point that God has
   declared His own solemn oath, "I will not the death of a sinner, but
   had rather that he should turn unto Me and live." A ministry which
   holds Sovereignty but holds man's responsibility, too, which dares to
   talk about God's special object with bold voice and yet insists upon it
   that He has proclaimed to every creature under Heaven this gracious
   proclamation, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be
   saved."

   Well, now, these are facts and facts which are not to be disputed,
   either. We hear people sometimes sneer and say, "Ah, there are many
   conversions, but are they genuine?" Sir, they are genuine! For we will
   boast this much that if there are not genuine conversions found in this
   Church, for instance, there are no conversions genuine under Heaven.
   For when I see harlots made chaste and remaining honorable women year
   after year. When I know drunkards who forswear the cup and who labor
   with their might for the reclaiming of others. When I look upon those
   who were once singing the song of the lascivious on the ale-bench who
   now for years--mark you, not months--for years persevere in holiness, I
   make this my glory!

   If any can find better conversions under Heaven let them find them! I
   am satisfied that they are such converts as Apostolic times added to
   the Church--such as honor God in their lives and glorify Christ daily
   by their walk and conversation. I believe you shall find most
   conversions where neither Truth of God is held back, but where, as in
   the text, the two are taught. "You have given Him power over all flesh,
   that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him."

   V. OUR PRINCIPLE EXPLAINS MANY SCRIPTURES and this goes very much in
   its favor. I like to read my Bible so as never to have to blink when I
   approach a text. I like to have a theology which enables me to read it
   right through from beginning to end and to say, "I am as pleased with
   that text as I am with the other." You know, Brothers and Sisters, you
   must be conscious of it, that there are many texts of Scripture which
   look wonderfully like universal redemption. Wonderfully like it and if
   they do not intend some sort of generality, they certainly speak in a
   very singular manner.

   Such a text as this, "He is the Propitiation for our sins: and not for
   ours only, but for the sins of the whole world." "Who gave Himself a
   ransom for all to be testified in due time." I might mention more of
   these--but if you get with an Arminian brother he will have them all at
   his fingertips, so you will spare me the trouble. These people are
   always dwell- ing upon these, and think they have quite upset the
   doctrine of particular redemption though that is as plain in Scripture
   as the nose upon a man's face! We know Scripture says, "He has laid
   down His life for the sheep." He has redeemed us from among men.
   "Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it." And you know that
   passage--"Husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the Church
   and gave Himself for it."

   How did He love the Church? He loved the Church with a special love,
   far above that which He gives to others, or else according to that
   metaphor a husband ought to love his wife, and love every other woman
   just as much! That is the natural inference of that text. But you
   clearly see there must have been a special love intended in the husband
   towards the wife and so there must be a special love in Christ. He
   loved the Church and gave Himself for it.

   Now do you not think, Brethren, as there are two sets of texts in the
   Bible, the one of which very clearly speaks about the infinite value of
   the Atonement and another which very evidently speaks about the
   intention of that Atonement being for the chosen and for the chosen
   only, that the best way is to believe them both and to say, "Yes, I see
   it--as the result of Christ's death all men are put under the system of
   mediatorial Grace, so that Christ has power over them. But the object
   of His doing this is not that He may save all of them, but that He may
   save out of these all which He now has in His own hands--those whom the
   Father has given Him"?

   The shepherd trusts me with all his sheep in order that I may sever
   from them twenty which he has marked. A father tells me to go into the
   midst of his family, his whole family, in order that I may take out of
   it one of his sons to be educated. So God gives to Christ all flesh,
   says the text, but still always with this definite and distinct
   purpose--that He may give eternal life to those whom He has given to
   Him.

   VI. Let us go on in the sixth place to say briefly that this seems
   quite CONSISTENT WITH THE NATURE OF

   GOD. We too often measure God after a human standard and therefore make
   mistakes. Remember that God has such an abundance of mercy and Grace
   and power, that He never has to calculate how much will be necessary
   for the accomplishment of His purpose. He does largely and literally
   like one who cannot but act in an infinitely gracious manner. If you
   have some chickens and you wish to feed them, you will only throw down
   as much barley as the fowls will want, but you do not think of feeding
   all the sparrows of the neighborhood!

   It would be a very good thing if you could for they all need food. But
   you throw down as much as will accomplish your purpose. Now our God
   never has to stint Himself in this way, but with large handfuls He
   feeds the special objects of His care and the ravens and kites besides.
   God, again, exhibits a kingly character in His great methods of general
   love. At the coronation of the old kings, the fountains in Cheapside
   ran with red wine. Now you will say, "What a waste!" The gutters ran
   down on both sides with wine. It was not necessary, was it? The king's
   object was that his subjects might have wine.

   Well, if that were his only object that might have been accomplished by
   opening the bottles one by one and stopping when there was just enough
   to satisfy their thirst. Why did it run down the streets? Was it a
   waste? Not at all, it exhibited the royal glory. The king was glad to
   give the people wine to drink, but he wanted also to show himself a
   king and as nobody but a king could make gutters run with wine,
   therefore he did it to illustrate his own magnificence. And our God,
   when He is about to exhibit mercy, does not say, "So much will just
   accomplish My purpose and save My elect"-- that is His main object. But
   behold, He makes the rivers run with wine and the floods with milk, so
   there is enough and to spare and yet no waste, because His grander
   object is His own Glory, and He is glorified even by that love which
   does not effectually save.

   When Napoleon was at war, his favorite tactics were, we are told,
   always to bring crushing battalions to bear upon some one point to
   carry everything before him. That, my dear Friends, is the mode of
   procedure in which you and I have to act. If we have to accomplish a
   purpose, we must concentrate the whole of our might upon that one
   point. But suppose one greater than Napoleon, or a Napoleon with ten
   times ten thousand times more troops than he had? He would not need to
   concentrate his battalions upon one point, but simply cry to all his
   hosts, "Advance!" and they would go crushing down his foes at every
   point of the line.

   So our God cares for the salvation of His elect. But that is not the
   only thing He cares about--His own Glory is higher than this. His Glory
   is the whole of the line and our God, while He effectually saves those
   whom He has chosen, has no need to bring all His power upon one point.
   He has abundance to spare after He has done all that we know of. He
   can, while He is blessing His people, also bless the entire universe
   according to His own will. And I doubt not that so He does and that
   Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of His Glory, because Heaven
   and earth, though they may not alike participate in the fullness of
   Divine complacency, are full of the beams of His love.

   VII. I have to conclude by saying that this principle is a MODEL FOR
   OUR CONDUCT. I was talking the other day with a Brother. He said he did
   not think the conversion of the world was the legitimate object of
   missionary enterprise, because all that Christ intended by the Gospel
   was the gathering out of a people. Well now, it seems to me that my
   dear friend was quite right and quite wrong. As to God's purpose in the
   sending of the Gospel to the world he was quite right, it is the
   gathering out of a people.

   But as to my work he was quite wrong, for the work of God's minister is
   not the gathering out of a people. Christ surely knows what His own
   disciple is to do. Just hear. "Go you and teach all nations, baptizing
   them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
   That is our work. He did not say, "Go you and sever out of all nations
   a people to be taught and to be baptized." No! Christ's marching orders
   to His people are in these words, "Preach the Gospel to every
   creature." What will be the result of this universal proclamation?

   The chosen will be saved. Then, Lord, why not send me to Your chosen?
   Why send me to all nations? "What business have you to question your
   Master's will? Is not this the very way in which I have chosen, that My
   elect shall be brought, by the preaching of the Gospel to all nations?"
   I look as the result of missionary enterprise, not for the world's
   conversion--I do not expect it--I believe that God will gather out of
   all people His chosen, and that Christ will come and when He comes,
   then shall He reign from the river even to the ends of the earth. But
   all the missionary societies put together will never convert the world,
   nor do I believe they will do very much towards it unless they very
   soon alter their tactics.

   We shall have to try something very different from all the societies
   which have ever been in operation before we see any great results. I am
   waiting for a good time to come. Till then we must use old vessels till
   we get better ones, but better ones will be found. My own impression is
   that the world will never be converted by missionary agencies, but that
   is not your business--I am not to make God's decrees the rule of my
   walk. I am to make God's revealed will my rule of action. Christ tells
   me to, "Preach the Gospel to every creature," and if I were absolutely
   certain there was not one elect man upon earth, I would obey and preach
   the Gospel for all that--because if there were not a single soul saved
   by it, we are unto God a sweet-smelling savor.

   So then, I say to you individually, talk about Christ
   everywhere--preach Jesus Christ to every creature. Say to every man and
   woman you meet, "There is life in a look at the Crucified One." Tell
   men that, "Whoever comes unto Him, He will in no wise cast out," and
   let this be always your comfort, that all that the Father gives to Him
   shall come to Him! That Jesus shall see His seed. That of all that the
   Father has given Him He will lose none, but will present them all at
   His right hand at last. Fly back to God's electing love and the decrees
   of God as the pillow of your rest.

   But take the general command and the universal power of Christ over all
   flesh as the sword with which you fight and the staff upon which you
   lean. It is for this end that I ask you, dear Friends, to contribute as
   you shall see fit, to the spreading of the Gospel in foreign lands by
   the Missionary Society. I do not believe it is a perfect
   organization--I believe it is full of faults. I believe, however, it is
   the only way in which we can send the Gospel to the heathen just now.

   We will have a better plan by-and-by, I hope, but meanwhile--as this is
   the only one--let us use it with vigor, for, after all, it is not the
   instrumentality, but God. And if I have to look upon this as an
   ox-goad--an unfit tool to strike the Philistines, yet as I have not a
   better I will use it till a better shall be found! Meanwhile let us
   pray the Lord to speed His own cause and gather out His chosen by His
   Grace. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                 Labor In Vain

   DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 1, 1864, BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,
   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Jonah said unto them, Take me up and cast me forth into the sea; so
   shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great
   tempest is upon you. Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the
   land. But they could not: for the sea worked and was tempestuous
   against them." Jonah 1:12,13.

   THESE mariners manifested most commendable humanity. They were not
   willing, even though it were to preserve their own lives, to cast
   overboard an innocent man. Therefore they first used their best
   endeavors. And when these failed they made a solemn appeal to God,
   entreating Him not to lay upon them innocent blood--and then, since
   necessity has no law, Jonah, as a last resource was given up to the
   boisterous element, but not till every effort had been made to save
   him. We should he very careful of human life, doing nothing which even
   indirectly may destroy or injure it.

   And if we should be jealous over life, how much more anxious should we
   be concerning men's souls! And how watchful lest we should do anything
   by which the least of the human family may have his eternal interests
   endangered by our example or teaching! God give us Divine Grace, like
   these mariners, to row hard that if possible we may bring the ship to
   land laboring that none around us may be left to perish.

   I shall not, however, dwell upon that aspect of the text. Our Savior
   selected Jonah as one of His peculiar types-- "There shall no sign be
   given," said He, "to the men of this generation but the sign of the
   Prophet Jonah." We believe, therefore, that we are not erring if we
   translate the details of the history of Jonah into spiritual
   illustrations of man's experience and action with regard to Christ and
   His Gospel.

   We have before us a picture of what most men do before they will resort
   to God's remedy. That remedy is here most fairly imaged in the
   deliverance of the whole ship's company by the sacrifice of one on
   their behalf.

   I. Our first observation is that SINNERS, WHEN THEY ARE TOSSED UPON THE
   SEA OF CONVICTION, MAKE DESPERATE EFFORTS TO SAVE THEMSELVES. The men
   rowed hard to bring the ship to land. The Hebrew is they "dug" hard,
   sending the oars deep into the water with much exertion and small
   success. The tempest so tossed the sea about that they could not row in
   a good and orderly manner. But they desperately tugged at the oars,
   which the towering waves rendered useless by too deep a digging.

   Straining every sinew they labored by violence to get the ship in
   safety to the haven. Brethren, no word in any language can express the
   violence of earnest action with which awakened sinners strive and
   struggle to obtain eternal life. Truly, if the kingdom of God were in
   the power of him that wills and him that runs, they would possess it at
   once! Since they struggle, however, in an unlawful manner, the crown of
   victory will never be awarded them. They may kindle the fire and
   rejoice in the sparks, but thus says the Lord, "This shall you have of
   My hand: you shall lie down in sorrow."

   Let us notice some forms of the fleshy energy of men straining after
   self-salvation. The most usual is moral reformation. We have seen the
   drunkard, when conscience has been awakened, renounce his cups
   altogether. He has gone further than temperance and has espoused total
   abstinence. And proceeding further still, it often happens that in the
   excess of zeal, he vomits forth furious words against all who go not
   the same length of abstinence as himself.

   Yonder man was given up to blasphemy, but now an ill word never comes
   from his tongue--and he is therefore content with himself because he no
   longer curses God. Another has followed an ill trade, or has been in
   the habit of neglecting Sunday worship. Conscience has mercifully led
   him to give up his ill connections and attend a place of worship. Is
   not this well? It is, indeed, well. But it is not enough! It is
   marvelous how far men will push their reforms. And yet how little solid
   peace such purging can secure. For what is the sinner after his
   reformation but the blackamoor washed clean, a blackamoor still?

   I would have the Ethiopian clean by all manner of means. But I would
   not let him fancy that the soap and the niter will make him white. I
   would have the leopard tamed and caged, but this will not remove his
   spots. Moral reforms are excellent in themselves, but they are
   dangerous if we rest in them. Let even a corpse be washed, but let no
   man dream that the most careful washing will restore it to life. "You
   must be born again" rings out the death knell of all salvation by human
   effort. Unless reforms are founded in regeneration, they are baseless
   things which fail in the end for want of foundation. They are deceptive
   things, affording a transient hope, which soon, alas, must melt away.

   Ah, my Hearer, you may go on improving and reforming, but all your
   present and future amendments can never wipe out the old score of sin.
   There stands the black catalog of your sins, engraved as in eternal
   brass! The gloomy record remains unaltered and unalterable by any deeds
   of yours. Something more potent than your tears and change of life must
   take away the sins of your departed years. Beware, then, of thinking
   that you are getting the ship to land--no matter how hard you row with
   these oars of human resolution.

   Others add to their reformation a superstitious regard to the outwards
   of religion. According to the sect with which they unite, they become
   excessively religious. They reverence every nail of the Church door and
   every panel of the pulpit. There is not a brick in the aisle which is
   not sacred to them, nor even tile on the roof! Every rubric, every
   "Amen," every vestment and candlestick has to them a world of sanctity
   about it. They are not content with the ordinary days of worship, but
   the Church bell rings every morning. And well it may, for if men are to
   earn salvation in God's House, they had need be there all day and all
   night, too!

   Even in a Protestant Church, men row very hard with multitudinous
   observances and superstitious performances, but when you get into the
   Romish Church, the labor in vain comes to a climax! There are vows of
   poverty, celibacy, silence, passive obedience and a thousand other
   tortures! If the Moloch whom they worship is not satisfied he ought to
   be. We heard but the other day of a gentleman giving up all his goodly
   heritage, selling his broad acres and pouring all the purchase money
   into the coffers of the monks and priests in order that at last by
   rowing hard in this way he might get the ship to land.

   It is remarked of the Hindus that they give vastly more to their idols
   than we bestow upon the cause of God and I suppose it is true--but then
   they also are rowing hard to get the ship to land. All they do is for
   themselves. Self is always a mighty power in the world. Do but teach
   men that they can gain their own salvation by their own doings and
   mortifications and offerings and I would expect to see the treasury
   filled! I would expect to hear the whip constantly going upon the
   shoulders. But I should despair of seeing anything like holiness
   surviving in the land. Superstition is hard rowing but the ship will
   not come to the land by it. Men invent ceremony after ceremony. There
   is this pomp and that show--this gaudy ornament and that procession.
   But the whole matter ends in outward display, no secret soul-blessing
   results flow from there. Priests and their votaries may go on piling up
   human inventions ad infinitum, but they will forever fail to ease the
   conscience, or give rest to a disturbed soul. Man's awful necessities
   crave something more than the husks of superstition!

   You will find another form of the same thing among ourselves. Many
   persons row hard to get the ship to land by a notional belief in
   orthodox doctrine. This superstition is harder to deal with, but quite
   as dangerous as the belief in good works. It is quite as legal an idea
   for me to think to be accepted by believing good doctrine as to expect
   to be pardoned for doing good works. Yet we have scores of people who,
   if they can get hold of the Calvinistic creed at the right end--if they
   become masters of it and know how to argue against Arminianism--if they
   become not only sound Calvinists but a little sounder still, having not
   only the sixteen ounces to the pound but two or three ounces over and
   above, so as to make them ultra-Calvinistic--why then they fancy that
   all must be well!

   "I never can hear a preacher," this man will say, "who is not sound. I
   can tell at once when there is a grain of free will in the sermon."
   This is all very well, but he who boasts thus may be no better than the
   devil! No, he may not be so good, for the devil believes and
   trembles--but these men believe and are too much hardened in their own
   conceit to think of trembling. Away with the idea that believing sound
   doctrine and chaining ourselves to a cast-iron creed is vital godliness
   and eternal life! Orthodox sinners will find that Hell is hot and that
   their knowledge of predestination will not yield a cooling drop to
   their parched tongues.

   Condemning other people--cutting off the saints of God right and
   left--is but poor virtue and to have these blessed doctrines in the
   head while neglecting them in the heart is anything but a gracious
   sign. If you can "a hair divide between the west and north-west side,"
   do not therefore fancy that your fine gifts and profound orthodoxy will
   ensure you an entrance into the kingdom of Heaven. Ah, you may row with
   those oars, but you will not get the ship to land--you must be saved by
   Sovereign Grace through the operation of the Holy Spirit upon the
   heart--or you will not be saved at all. As it is not by doing that we
   are saved, neither is it by subscribing to creeds. There is something
   more than this needed before the ship can reach the port.

   Perhaps, in this congregation, we have other subtle methods of
   endeavoring to do the same thing. The pastor has noticed that many are
   resting upon their own incessant prayers. Ah, my poor Hearer, you know
   your need of something, you can hardly tell what. You have heard the
   subject of salvation explained to you a hundred times and now when it
   comes to the pinch you do not understand it after all. I thank God that
   you have learned how to pray--that your sighs and cries and groans come
   up before Him. But I sorrow because you trust in your prayers and rest
   in them. Remember that you will no more be saved for the sake of your
   prayers than for the sake of your good works.

   If your knees become hard as the knees of St. James are said to have
   been--hard like the camel's through long kneeling--and if with the
   Psalmist you could say, 'My throat is dried, my eyes fail," yet all
   this, if you look to it and do not look to Christ, will never avail
   you. I knew what it was for months to cry out to God and to find the
   heavens above me as brass, because I had not understood clearly the
   soul-quickening words, "Believe and live," but dreamed that by praying
   I could get myself into a suitable state to receive mercy, or perhaps
   move the heart of God towards me!

   Whereas that heart needed no moving towards me, it was full of love
   from before the foundation of the world. Pray, my dear Brethren. Let me
   never discourage you in that. But do let me beg you not to sit still,
   or recline upon your prayers, for if you get no further than your
   prayers, you will never get to Heaven. There is more wanted than crying
   to God! More wanted than earnest desires, however passionately they may
   be breathed. There must be faith in Jesus or else you will row hard
   with your prayers, and you will never bring the ship to land.

   Then there are others who are toiling by--I scarcely know how to
   describe it--a sort of mental torture. Oh, the many who say, "If I
   could feel as I ought to feel. O, Sir, my heart is as hard as a nether
   millstone. And yet I do not feel that it is hard--I wish I did. I would
   give my eyes if I could repent. I would give my right arm if I could
   but weep for sin! I would be satisfied to be a beggar, or to lie
   rotting in a dungeon if I could but feel that I was fit to come to the
   Savior! But, alas, I feel nothing! If I did but feel my unfitness--did
   but know my own unworthiness--I should have hope. But I am made of such
   Hell-hardened steel that neither terrors or mercies can move me. O,
   that I could repent! O, that this rock could give forth streams like
   that Rock which Moses smote in the wilderness of old! O, that I could
   but bring my heart to melt into something like desires after God and
   Christ! Oh, I am everything but what I should be!"

   Now, my dear Hearer, you will row very hard in this way before you will
   ever come to land, for self-righteousness lies at the bottom of all
   this. You want to save your heart from hardness and then come to Jesus,
   which is much as to say you wish to save yourself and then come to Him
   to put the finishing stroke upon you. You have a secret attachment to
   your own goodness or you would not be so eager to compass a
   fitness--you should at once do as you are bid and rest alone on Jesus.
   Your business is not with self, but with Jesus! With Jesus, just as you
   are. However hard your heart may be--however destitute of feeling you
   may have become--this, though it should be subject for lamentation,
   should never keep you from resting in Him who is able to save to the
   uttermost them that come unto God by Him.

   I tell you, your trying to get your heart into a right state, your
   trying to repent, your trying to be humble is all labor in vain. It is
   all going the wrong way to work. Your business is with Christ! He can
   soften, cleanse and sanctify, but you can do none of these, try as you
   will. Come as you are to my Lord Jesus, hard-heart and all, and the sea
   shall soon be calm for you. While you row with your own oars, the sea
   will only work and be the more tempestuous.

   Various are the shapes which this carnal energy assumes. I have met
   with many who are in this kind of case. They are constantly starting
   objections to their own salvation and trying to answer them. They have
   comfort for a moment and they say, "Yes, this is very sweet, but"--and
   then they will spend a week or two in trying to split up that but. When
   they are rid of this but, a mercy will come to them from another
   quarter and they are sure to meet it with, "Ah, blessed be God for
   that, but." They are always pulling away at these buts.

   These big waves come sweeping up to the side of their vessel and they
   try to dig their oars into them. Friend, if you are never saved until
   you, an unpardoned sinner, have answered all objections, you will never
   be saved because there are a thousand objections to the salvation of
   any man which can only be met by one argument and that is the blood of
   Jesus. If you will go here and there seeking answers to the devil's
   suggestions of unbelief you may travel the whole world and end your
   fruitless task in despair.

   But if you will come to Jesus, if you will see Him like another Jonah
   thrown out of the ship for your sake. If you will but see Him lost that
   you may be saved, then a peace which passes all understanding shall
   keep your heart and mind by Christ Jesus.

   II. We will now take the second point. Like these mariners, THE FLESHY
   EFFORTS OF AWAKENED SINNERS MUST INEVITABLY FAIL. The text says, "The
   men rowed hard to bring it to the land. But they could not." With all
   man's rowing after mercy and salvation, he can never find it by his own
   efforts. For this good reason, first of all, that it is contrary to
   God's Law for a sinner to get comfort by anything he can do for and by
   himself. Here is the law--"By the works of the Law there shall no flesh
   living be justified."

   That rule, then, fixed and fast as the laws of Nature, shuts out
   forever all hope of the attainment of joy and peace by anything that we
   can do, or be, or feel--for all these the Law already claims of us. How
   mad then will it be on our part if we run counter to a Divine Law!
   Success is impossible in so perverse a course. I do well, therefore, if
   I discourage all the efforts of awakened consciences to find peace
   anywhere except in the work of Christ. Let a man labor ever so
   earnestly, yet if he goes against the laws of Nature, you know his
   labor is lost.

   Here is an oven to be warmed for hungry persons need bread. See the
   workers yonder, how they toil, bringing snow with all their might to
   heat the oven. "Well," you say, "do not discourage them. Do not
   discourage their earnest activity. It is a pity when you see people
   really determined to do anything, to discourage their efforts." Ah, it
   is a pity, indeed, except when these efforts are foolish. If I see them
   bringing snow to heat an oven I know they will never do it, work as
   hard as they may.

   And when sinners bring their own works to yield them spiritual comfort,
   I know that they are spending their labor for that which profits not
   and I must and will discourage them! Some years ago certain persons
   engaged in a speculation to sink a coal mine in a part of England where
   coal was never found. Prospectuses were issued. Directors obtained. And
   shareholders duped! And the workmen began to sink their shaft. Now it
   was absolutely certain--any geologist could have told them so--that
   they would not find coal, let them dig to doomsday.

   Suppose you and I had gone there and seen them digging and had laughed
   at them, or told them it was all of no avail? Wiseacres might have
   replied, "You ought not to discourage coal mining, you ought not to
   discourage men who are working so very hard." I would say, "I would not
   discourage coal mining in any place where there is coal to be had. But
   for these poor souls to throw away their sweat and their money for that
   which is not coal--I will discourage them in that insane enterprise and
   think I do them good service."

   When we see men struggling after eternal life through their own
   efforts, we know eternal life is not to be had there. We are glad that
   they are awakened to anything like effort, for anything is better than
   spiritual sloth--but we are grieved to see them laboring in the very
   fire, toiling where success can never crown their endeavors. There is
   no salvation by the works of the Law--why then look for it there? If
   you dash your head against the law of Nature, the law of Nature will
   not change for you. And if you labor in opposition to the irreversible
   Law of God, you will pay the penalty of it in your utter failure.

   The ancients fabled that it was one of the tortures of Hell to which
   the daughters of Danaus were condemned, that they should fill a tub
   without a bottom with buckets full of holes. Behold the picture of the
   self-righteous man's undertaking! He may labor, he may toil, but he is
   filling a bottomless tub with leaky buckets. And work as he may, though
   he drop down dead in the attempt, success is impossible. O that he knew
   it to be so and would trust in the Lord Jesus! Besides this, the man
   cannot succeed in obtaining salvation by his own efforts because in
   what he is doing he is insulting God! He is casting dirt in the face of
   Christ! He is denying the whole testimony of the Holy Spirit.

   Ah, my Hearer, if you could save yourself, why was it necessary that
   Christ should die for you? If your prayers could avail, why did He
   sweat great drops of blood? Why, Man, if there were any merit in your
   mortification, or your reformation, what need that the Prince of Life
   and Glory should veil Himself in ignominy and suffer a death of shame?
   You do, in fact, say by your fleshly attempts, I want no Savior, I can
   save myself! You do, in fact, scoff at the great Atonement which God
   has made in the Person of Christ!

   This insult will ruin your soul, except you turn from it. Repent of it,
   I pray you. Humble yourself and receive Jesus' finished work. If
   scorning the Jordan, Naaman had gone to Abana and Pharpar, he might
   have washed not only seven times but seventy times seven! He might have
   earnestly persevered in the constant immersion, but he would have
   remained a leper to his dying day. If you scorn the Atonement and
   neglect God's great command to believe and live. If you go about to try
   and feel, or be, or do, you will use these Abanas and Pharpars to your
   own damnation! And to your own salvation never.

   I pray you, do not insult God by looking for balm in Gilead, or for a
   physician there. There is no balm in Gilead, there never was any. There
   is no physician there, or else the daughter of my people would long ago
   have been healed. Men would long ago have saved themselves. You must
   look higher than the Gilead of human energy. You must look higher than
   earth's physicians. You must look to the hills where comes our Help,
   the great mountains of a Savior's work and merit!

   There are many other reasons why it is impossible that a man can ever
   get comfort in the way of works and feelings. The principal one I will
   mention is because that is the way of the curse. He who is under the
   Law is under the curse. So long as I stick to the Law, do what I may, I
   am under the curse of the Law and consequently under the curse. And how
   can I expect in the way of the curse to find the eternal blessing? Oh,
   folly, to choose the way of the curse as the way of blessing! But the
   best proof of it all is experience. Ask either saint or sinner and you
   shall find that peace was never obtained in the way of the flesh. Turn
   to the Christian and he will tell you, "Therefore being justified BY
   FAITH, we have peace with God."

   He will tell you that when he turns away from faith and looks to
   himself his darkness begins at once. He will assure you that he never
   walks in perfect light and true comfort except when he keeps his eyes
   fast fixed upon the great Sacrifice of Calvary. I know, Brethren,
   whenever I am dull and drooping as to my eternal interests, it is
   always because I have thought more of my graces than of Christ's Grace,
   or more of the Spirit's work in me than of the finished work of Christ
   on my behalf. There is no living happily but by depending wholly upon
   Christ. A sinner resting upon his Savior as his only hope is blest.

   Now, if this is the experience of all saints, and if no sinner living
   will dare to tell you that he can get his conscience quiet by his own
   works--why do any of you try? Heaven bears witness that salvation by
   faith is certain--Hell bears witness that works do but ruin us. O, hear
   the double testimony and lay hold upon eternal life through the Person
   of Christ Jesus! O my dear Friend, if you are really panting for
   salvation, go not round and round these dreary performances of your own
   doings! It must all end in misery, disappointment and despair. "They
   rowed hard to bring it to land. But they could not."

   All human work which does not begin and end in the Lord Jesus must be a
   failure. All your works have been failures with you up to the present
   and so it will be to the end of the chapter. Give it up and God help
   you to try His method, for it is sure and efficacious.

   III. Now, with very great brevity, I will bring you to the third point
   of the sermon which is that THE SOUL'S SORROW WILL CONTINUE TO INCREASE
   SO LONG AS IT RELIES UPON ITS OWN EFFORTS. What is the effect of all
   that the creature does before it believes in Christ? It may be
   overruled for good, but much of its effect is mischievous. The good
   effect which flows from it lies in this--the more a man strives to save
   himself, the more convinced will he become of his own impotence and
   powerlessness.

   I thought that I could turn to God whenever I pleased till I tried to
   turn to Him. I thought repentance a very easy thing till I began to
   repent. I dreamed that faith in Christ must be mere child's play till I
   had to groan, "Lord, help my unbelief!" As for the Law, when we attempt
   to keep it, we groan under a heavy burden which we have no strength to
   bear--

   "How long beneath the Law I lay in bondage and distress! I toiled, the
   precept to obey, But toiled without success."

   Oh, it is hard serving the Law! He is a cruel taskmaster. The whip is
   always going and the flesh is always bleeding. It is hard service.
   Weary and faint, we fall down under it and feel it to be a load
   intolerable to be borne. Well is Haggi chosen as the type of the Law,
   for indeed it genders unto bondage.

   And well was blazing Sinai chosen as its representative, for even Moses
   said, when standing upon that mountain, "I do exceedingly fear and
   quake." To be clean divorced from all legal hope is a blessed
   preparation for Gospel marriage with Christ. It was well that rowing
   hard made the mariners feel their inability to cope with the
   tempest--and it is best of all when creature efforts produce a clear
   discovery of creature weakness.

   Another good result will sometimes follow. The man passionately
   striving to save himself by keeping the Law finds out the spirituality
   of that Law, a spirituality which he never saw before. He has given up
   outward acts of sin, but all of a sudden he is startled to find that
   even though he has given them all up in open fact, he is still
   condemned for allowing the thoughts of them in his heart! Even a look
   may be fornication, though no act of sin shall follow it. He remembers
   that even the wish of his heart may be theft. And that covetousness is
   not only straining after another man's goods, but envying him the
   enjoyment of them.

   Now he finds the work is impossible, indeed, for he might sooner hold
   the winds in his fist than control his passions, or with his breath
   blow the sea into a calm sooner than he could restrain the impetuous
   propensities of his nature. O, Brethren, it is a good thing when we
   find that the Commandments of God are exceedingly broad--when we see
   the sharpness of this great axe of the Law and how it cuts at the very
   root of the tree and leaves us no green thing standing wherein we can
   boast!

   So far so good. Fleshly effort, overruled by Divine Grace, has helped
   us to the discovery of the grandeur and dignity of the Divine Law. But
   I am afraid that much of this toil and labor is very mischievous
   because it makes unbelief take a firmer grip. It is easier to comfort a
   soul who has been a short time in darkness than it is to comfort one
   who has given way a long time to an unbelieving state of heart. I
   remember one, I believe she is in darkness now and if I remember right
   it is ten years ago since she first fell into these doubts and fears. I
   am sometimes afraid she will never see the Light because it has become
   chronic with her.

   Giant Despair's prisoners do not all escape. He has a yard full of
   bones, remember. These are the relics of willing prisoners who would
   not be comforted and put out their own eyes to avoid the Light. I
   believe that some sinners make excuses for themselves out of their
   despair and that they let their doubts and fears grow till they cast a
   thick shadow, like Jonah's gourd. And then they sit down with a
   miserable sort of comfort beneath the leaves. "There is no hope,
   therefore will I go on in my sins. There is no hope for me, therefore
   let the worst come to me. I can but be damned. I will fold my arms and
   sit still."

   Oh, this is a damnable temptation! It is one which ruins multitudes I
   am sure! This is Satan's man-trap! Beware of it! This is the devil's
   stocks in the inner prison--he is to be pitied who is laid by the heels
   in them. While you are rowing hard to get your vessel to land and
   standing out against the gracious plan which God has ordained, you are
   letting the nightmare of unbelief grow into a dread reality! You are
   letting this deadly incubus rest more terribly upon your hearts. O,
   Sinner, I pray God deliver you from this work-mongering, this horrible
   trying to save yourself by something homegrown and home-spun. If we
   could cut off the head of your self-righteousness, we would have hope
   of you! If you would give up all attempts to deliver yourselves and
   leave the case in Christ's hands, the thing would be done!

   But while you are thus doubting and fearing, you are sinking deeper in
   the mire. And it is harder to get you out now than ever it was.
   Remember this one thing, that while the sinner is thus straining
   himself to get to Heaven by his own righteousness, his day of wrath is
   getting nearer. He is adding sin to sin. He is accumulating the fuel
   for his own burning, filling the sea of wrath in which he must be
   drowned forever. "What? When I am praying, groaning and crying to God
   and when I am trying to mend my ways and do my best, do you say I am
   only doing mischief?"

   I do say it. I say these things are good in themselves, but if you are
   resting in them, you are so flying in the teeth of God's great Gospel,
   so insulting the dignity of the great Savior that you are adding sin to
   sin! And among the firewood for your burning there shall be none so dry
   which shall burn so terribly as your own good wicked works, your own
   rebellious virtues, your own proud detestable righteousness which you
   set up in opposition to the merit, blood and righteousness of God's
   appointed Mediator!

   Gold is good enough, but if you bow down before the golden calf I will
   hate the gold because you worship it. Your morality is good enough, but
   if you trust to it I will hate your morality because it is your
   destruction. Sinner, I pray you remember that your life is being
   shortened all the while you tarry in the plains of self. Time flies and
   you fade like a leaf, while your righteousnesses, which are but filthy
   rags, are crying out against you! You are laboring without success. But
   more, you are losing time which might have been turned to better
   purpose. While you are spending your money for that which is not bread,
   you are getting nearer and nearer to the dread famine when there shall
   be no bread to buy.

   While you are trying to get this fool's oil with which to keep your
   lamps burning, the Bridegroom is coming and the midnight is hastening
   when you shall have to say, "Give us of your oil, for our lamps are
   gone out." There shall be no time, then, for you to buy for the
   darkness shall have come upon you and the door shall be shut and the
   Bridegroom's supper shall have begun. O that I could have some power to
   induce you not to follow any longer these fine ways of yours, these
   proud deceptive plans! O that you would receive God's plan of
   redemption and enjoy the peace which it brings!

   IV. We will try to explain God's plan and then we have done. That is
   our fourth point--THAT THE WAY OF

   SAFETY FOR SINNERS IS TO BE FOUND IN THE SACRIFICE OF ANOTHER ON THEIR
   BEHALF. Here is Jonah. Leave out the fact that he was sinful and he
   becomes an eminent type of Christ. "Take me up and cast me into the sea
   and the sea shall become calm under me." Substitution saves the
   mariners--Substitution saves sinners. This is the essential oil of
   Gospel Truth. Jesus Christ says to His people, "I am cast into the sea.
   There in that depth I sleep for a while, like Jonah, to rise again on
   the third day. But My being cast into the sea makes a deep calm for
   you." How very simple this process was. They take Jonah--he himself
   desires it--he is thrown overboard and the deeps swallow him up.

   Ah, poor Jonah, what a fall! What a terrible descent! What a frightful
   end to his prophetical career! Down he goes. Did I not see huge jaws
   opening amid the billows? Was he not devoured by some terrible monster!
   Poor fellow, he must have our pity! But how strange it is! Why the wind
   has ceased--it has dropped dead! And the waves seem to be playing now
   where they were battling fiercely a moment ago! No, the sea is glassy!
   We need not the oars any longer! Up with the sails, we shall soon be
   safely in port!

   An odd thing this, the drowning of one becomes the safety of all.
   Mariners, let us sacrifice to Jonah's God. Ah, it is a strange and
   marvelous thing! It is that which sets angels singing and makes the
   redeemed spirits wonder on forever, that Jesus came down into this ship
   of our common humanity to deliver it from tempest. The vessel had been
   tossed about on all sides by the waves of Divine wrath. Men had been
   tugging and toiling at the oar. Year after year philosopher and teacher
   had been seeking to establish peace with God. Victims had been offered
   and rivers of blood had flowed and even the first-born of man's body
   had been offered up.

   But the deep was still tempestuous. Then Jesus came and they took Him
   and cast Him overboard. Out of the city they dragged Him. "Away with
   Him! Away with Him! It is not fit that He should live!" Out of all
   comfort they had cast Him long ago--now from society they cast Him,
   too. From pity they cast Him! From all sympathy they cast Him! And at
   last from life itself they hurled Him, while God stands there to help
   them to cast Him into a sea of woes. As He, Jesus, dies there is a
   calm. Deep was the peace which fell upon the earth that dreadful day.
   And joyous is that calm which yet shall come as the result of the
   casting out of that representative Man who suffered--the Just for the
   unjust to bring us to God!

   Brethren, I wish I had better words with which I could fitly describe
   the peace which comes to a human heart when we learn to see Jesus cast
   into the sea of Divine wrath on our account. Conscience accuses no
   longer. Judgment now decides for the sinner instead of against him.
   Memory can look back upon past sins, with sorrow for the sin it is
   true, but yet with no dread of any penalty to come! It is a blessed
   thing for a man to know that he cannot be punished, that Heaven and
   earth may shake, but he cannot be punished for his sin!

   If God is unjust I may be damned. But if God is just I never can be.
   That is how the saved sinner stands. Christ has paid the debt of His
   people to the last jot and tittle and received the Divine receipt. And
   unless God can be so unjust as to demand twice payment for one debt, no
   soul for whom Jesus died can ever be cast into Hell. It seems to be one
   of the very principles of our nature to believe that God is just. We
   feel it and that gives us our terror at first. But is it not marvelous
   that this very same first principle, the belief that God is just,
   becomes afterwards the pillar of our confidence and peace?

   If God is just, I, a sinner, alone and without a substitute, must be
   punished. Christ stands in my place and is punished for me. And now, if
   God is just, I, a sinner, standing in Christ, can never be punished!
   God must change His Nature before one soul for whom Christ was a
   Substitute, can ever by any possibility suffer the lash of the Law. I
   must confess I do not understand the atonements which some preach. An
   atonement which does not atone--a redemption which does not redeem--a
   redemption which intends to redeem all men born of Adam and yet leaves
   the major part in slavery--an atonement which makes full atonement for
   all human sin and leaves men to be condemned afterwards--I cannot
   comprehend that!

   But I do understand a Substitution--Christ taking the place of the
   Believer--Christ suffering the quid pro quo for the Believer's
   punishment--Christ rendering an equivalent to Divine wrath for all that
   His people ought to have suffered as the result of sin. I right well
   and right joyously understand that the Believer, knowing that Christ
   suffered in his place, can shout with glorious triumph, "Who shall lay
   anything to the charge of God's elect?" Not God, for He has justified!
   Not Christ, for He has died, "yes rather has risen again." My hope is
   not because I am not a sinner, but because I AM a sinner for whom
   Christ died. My trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy
   Christ died for me!

   My rest is here, not in what I am or shall be, or feel, or know, but in
   what Christ is and must be! In what Christ did and is still doing as He
   stands before yonder Throne of Glory. O Beloved, it is a blessed thing
   to get right out of self. But many Believers seem to have one foot on
   self and one on Christ. They are like the angel with one foot on the
   sea and the other on the land--only being angels--they cannot stand on
   such a footing. Put both feet on the Rock, Beloved! Stand altogether on
   Christ!

   Arminianism is one foot on Christ and the other foot on self. "Christ
   has saved me," says the Arminian. There is His foot on the land. "But,"
   he says, "I must hold on. It depends upon me whether I persevere to the
   end." There is his foot on the sea. If he does not look out, that foot
   will give way. But how blessed it is when the Christian can say, "I am
   saved." There is no if, no but about it. There is nothing for me to do
   to complete my salvation. It is all done. There is not one jot or
   tittle left to complete the Covenant of my salvation. The Covenant of
   effectual Grace is all written out in the fair handwriting of my Savior
   with a pen dipped in His own blood, and it guarantees all spiritual
   blessings to me forever! The edifice has been built and there is not
   wanted a beam or a brick, or even a nail or a tin tack to complete it!

   From its foundation to its top stone it is all of Grace and all
   perfect. My garment of salvation has been woven from the top
   throughout--there is not a rag of thread or stitch of mine wanted to
   complete it. "It is finished," said the Savior, as He dipped it for the
   last time in the glorious carmine of His own blood and made a rich
   royal robe for His people to wear forever! O Brethren, if there were
   one stone to be put to the walls of our salvation--one single trowel
   full of mortar to make the stones set firmly--it would be all undone,
   all in ruin. But the whole of it has been completed! Stone and mortar,
   from basement to summit--all has been completed by Sovereign Grace!

   And what shall you and I do? Since Jesus has been cast overboard for
   us, let us now rest in perfect quiet. Let us enjoy the peace "that
   passes all understanding, which shall keep our hearts and minds through
   Christ Jesus." And then, having been saved in such a way as this, let
   us now go to work for God--not to win life, not to win Heaven--life and
   Heaven are ours already! But loved by Him let us now love Him with a
   perfect heart!

   The man who has not attained to rest in Jesus is incapable of virtue. A
   man who does anything for his own salvation acts from a selfish motive,
   does everything for himself. He has no virtue in him. But the man who
   is saved, who knows there is nothing for him to do, either to put
   himself into salvation or to keep himself in it--knowing that all is
   now finished, having no need to do anything for self--he does
   everything for God and is holy in heart and life. Now he can sing with
   Toplady--

   "Loved of my God, for Him again, With love intense I'd burn. Chosen of
   Him before time began, I'd choose Him in return."

   Let us show that this is the true root of virtue. Let us teach men who
   say this doctrine is licentious that it is the most heavenly soil in
   which the fruits of the Spirit can grow! Like a genial sunshine is this
   doctrine to our fruits to ripen them! Like a heavenly shower to bring
   them forth! God give you, Sinner, to rest in my Savior! God give you,
   Saint, to live to your Savior and He shall have the praise in both
   cases. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              What God Cannot Do!

   DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 8, 1864, BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,
   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "God, that cannot lie." Titus 1:2.

   TRUTH once reigned supreme upon our globe and then earth was Paradise.
   Man knew no sorrow while he was ignorant of falsehood. The Father of
   Lies invaded the garden of bliss and with one foul lie he blighted Eden
   into a wilderness and made man a traitor to his God. Cunningly he
   handled the glittering falsehood and made it dazzle in the woman's
   eyes--"God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes
   shall be opened and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."

   Proud ambition rode upon that lie as a conqueror in his chariot and the
   city of Mansoul opened its gates to welcome the fascinating enemy. As
   it was a lie which first subjugated the world to Satan's influences, so
   it is by lies that he secures his throne. Among the heathen his kingdom
   is quiet and secure, because the minds of the people are deluded with a
   false mythology. The domains of Mahomet and the Pope are equally the
   kingdom of Satan and his reign is undisturbed, for human merit,
   priestly efficacy, and a thousand other deceptions buttress his throne.
   The darkness of ignorance, the dungeons of falsehood and the chains of
   superstition are the main reliance of that monster who oppresses all
   the nations with his infernal tyranny.

   Since by the lie Satan now holds the world and maintains his power, he
   everywhere encourages lies and aids their propagation. Look about you
   and see what a prolific family falsehood has! The children of the
   untrue are as many as the frogs of Egypt, and like those plagues, they
   intrude into every chamber. The slime of falsehood may be seen upon
   most things, both in secular and religious life. You have lying news
   and garbled reports in print. And as for the flying gossip of the
   tongue, if it touches the characters of good men, beware of believing a
   word it utters. If you would not have complicity with those who make
   the lie, be not hasty to entertain it.

   From the high places of the earth falsehood is not excluded. The
   untruth glides right royally from the kingly tongue, but is as much a
   lie as if the ragged mendicant had blurted it forth with low-lived
   oaths and curses. What is diplomacy for the most part? Is it not "the
   art of lying"? Was not he thought to be the best politician who used
   language to conceal his thoughts? In how many a conference have the
   plenipotentiaries labored which could overreach, dissimulate and
   intrigue to the greatest degree?

   In the commerce of courts who knows not that flatteries and lies are
   the most abundant commodities? The art of king-craft, as practiced by
   the most high and mighty Prince James, whose name dishonors our English
   Bible, was only and simply the science of lying in the neatest possible
   manner. In these modern times, the difference between the promises of
   the politicians and the performances in the House of Commons proves
   that the lie is still commonly patronized. Falsehood is everywhere. It
   is entertained both by the lowest and the highest. It permeates all
   society. It has ruined the whole of our race and so defiled the entire
   world that upright men exclaim, "Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech,
   that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!"

   In the so-called religious world, which should be as the Holy of
   Holies, here, too, the lie has insinuated itself. Of old there were
   prophets who prophesied lies and dreamers of false dreams. And there
   were others who spoke the Word of God with such bated breath and after
   such a fashion that it was no longer the Truth as it came from God, but
   truth alloyed with human falsehood. It is so today. There are those
   wearing the vestments of God's priests who do not hesitate to profess
   what they do not believe. Such men are the priests of Hell. To wear a
   bishop's miter and teach infidelity--how shall I stigmatize it? It is
   nothing less than detestable hypocrisy and robbery.

   And what shall I say of men of all creeds, all subscribing to the same
   articles and catechism when all the world knows they cannot all
   honestly believe the same thing and yet differ as much from one another
   as light from darkness? What shall I say but that shame covers my face
   that there should be so many ministers of God who are untrue to their
   convictions and continue to do and say what they feel to be
   unscriptural? In other quarters philosophy is believed and Christianity
   professed--the traditions of men are put in the place of God's Truth.
   The prophets prophesy lies and the people love to have it so.

   Brethren, we have everywhere to battle with falsehood and if we are to
   bless the world we must confront it with sturdy face and zealous
   spirit. God's purpose is to drive the lie out of the world and let this
   be your purpose and mine. His Holy Spirit has undertaken to drive
   falsehood out of our hearts--be this our determination, in His
   strength--that it shall be cut up root and branch and utterly consumed.
   Then let us walk in the Truth of God. "Buy the Truth and sell it not,"
   hold fast the Truth, speak the Truth in love and act the Truth in all
   our deeds, for so shall we be known to be the children of that God of
   whom our text asserts that He is "God, that cannot lie."

   After wandering over the sandy desert of deceit, how pleasant is it to
   reach our text and feel that one spot, at least, is verdant with
   eternal Truth! Blessed be You, O God, for You cannot lie!

   We will use our text in the following manner this morning--first, while
   we do not attempt to prove it, we will remind you of a few things which
   may confirm your confidence that God cannot lie so that our opening
   remarks shall be upon the truth of the text. Then secondly, we will
   speak upon the breadth of the text, endeavoring to show that we must
   give no narrow interpretation to the words before us, but must receive
   them with an extent of meaning not usual to the expression. And then,
   thirdly, we will try to use the text for our own improvement, arguing
   from it that if God cannot lie He ought to receive our loving
   confidence.

   I. First, then, let us commune together awhile concerning THE TRUTH OF
   THE TEXT, not, as we have said, to prove it, because we all believe it,
   but to confirm our confidence of it. I think we shall feel assured that
   God cannot lie when we remember that He is not subject to those
   infirmities which lead us into falsehood. Lord Bacon has said, "There
   are three parts in truth--first, the enquiry, which is the wooing of
   it. Secondly, the knowledge of it, which is the presence of it. And
   thirdly, the belief, which is the enjoyment of it."

   In each of these three points, by reason of infirmity, men fail to be
   perfectly true. In the search after truth, our moral eye is not
   altogether clear and therefore we fail to see what we love not. We do
   not follow truth in a straight line, but are very liable to turn aside
   to the right hand or to the left, either to obey our prejudices or
   advance our profit. "Truth lies in a well," said the old philosopher.
   Many go down into that well to find Truth, but looking into the water
   they see their own faces and become so desperately enamored of their
   own beauty that they forget poor Truth, or dream that she is the
   counterpart of themselves.

   Now the great God cannot be liable to this error, because there is no
   discovery of truth with Him. He needs not to search anything out, for
   "all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have
   to do." When in Scripture that term is sometimes used--"Shall not God
   search this out?"--when we hear Him spoken of as "searching the heart
   and trying the reins of the children of men," it is not because He is
   not perfectly acquainted with all things, but only to set forth the
   certainty and accuracy of Divine knowledge.

   God has no need to search, or if He had, having nothing in Him which
   should lead Him to make a dishonest search, He does not lie. When we
   have searched out the Truth of God there is the knowing of it. And here
   the falsehood gets a footing in the form of a sin of omission, for we
   often refuse to know all that we might know. It would be inconvenient,
   perhaps, for us to be too well acquainted with certain arguments, for
   then our prejudices must be given up and therefore we close our eyes to
   them for fear of knowing the truth.

   Do not many men leave passages of Scripture altogether unread because
   they have no wish to receive the doctrines which are taught in them?
   Every time you refuse to give a hearing to God's Truth, you do in
   effect lie because you prefer not to know the Truth of God, which is
   really to prefer to hold error. Now nothing of this kind can ever
   happen with our only wise God. He knows all Truth, seeing it all at a
   glance and retaining it ever in His mind. In nothing is He ignorant,
   either willfully or otherwise.

   He receives Truth as His own Beloved and when the world casts her out,
   she finds a happy shelter beneath His shield. We are quite clear that
   we frequently fall into the lie through a defect in our believing, for
   we sometimes know more than we care to believe. Truth is grasped by the
   understanding but thrust out by the affections. We know her as Peter
   knew his

   Lord and yet deny it after the same fashion as that disciple did his
   Master. Moreover, through weakness, we are led to doubt what we know to
   be God's Truth and even to speak unadvisedly with our lips.

   Now this can never occur with God, since God is One and is not to be
   divided into parts and passions and His tongue can never be diverse
   from His heart. God's tongue is His heart and God's heart is His hand.
   God is One. You and I are such that we can know in the heart, and yet
   with the tongue deny. But God is One and indivisible. God is Light, and
   in Him is no darkness at all. With Him is no variableness, neither
   shadow of turning.

   Then again, the Scriptural idea of God forbids that He should lie. Just
   review your thoughts about God, if you can. What idea have you formed
   of Him? If you have read Holy Scripture and have gotten the slightest
   shadow of an idea of God, I think you will see that it is utterly
   inconsistent with the thrice Holy One, whose kingdom is over all, that
   He should lie. Admit the very possibility of His speaking an untruth
   and to the Christian there would be no God at all. The depraved mind of
   the heathen may imagine a monster to be a god who can live in adultery
   and in theft and in lying, for such the gods of the Hindus are
   described as being. But the enlightened mind of the Christian can
   conceive no such thing. The very word "God" comprehends everything
   which is good and great. Admit the lie and to us at once there would be
   nothing but the black darkness of Atheism. I could neither love,
   worship, nor obey a lying God.

   Again, we all know that God is too wise to lie. Falsehood is the
   expedient of a fool. It is only a short-sighted man who lies. For some
   present advantage the poor creature who cannot see the end as well as
   the beginning states that which is not. But no wise man who can look
   far into the future ever thinks a lie to be profitable. He knows that
   Truth may suffer loss at first but that in the long run she is always
   successful. He endorses that worldly-wise proverb, that, "Honesty is
   the best policy" after all. And the man, I say, who has anything like
   foresight, or judgment, or wisdom, prefers always the straight line to
   the curve and goes directly to the mark, believing that this is in the
   end the best.

   Do you suppose that God, who must know this, with an intensity of
   knowledge infinitely greater than ours, will choose the policy of the
   witless knave? Shall God, only wise, who sees the end from the
   beginning, act as only brainless fools will choose to behave
   themselves? Oh, it cannot be, my Brethren! God, the All-Wise, must also
   be All-True. And the lie, again, is the method of the little and the
   mean. You know that a great man does not lie. A good man can never be
   false. Put goodness and greatness together and a lie is altogether
   incongruous to the character.

   Now God is too great to need the lie and too good to wish to do such a
   thing! Both His greatness and His goodness repel the thought. My dear
   Friends, what motive could God have for lying? When a man lies it is
   that he may gain something, but "the cattle on a thousand hills" are
   God's and all the beasts of the forest and all the flocks of the
   meadows. He says, "if I were hungry I would not tell you." Mines of
   inexhaustible riches are His and treasures of infinite power and
   wisdom. He cannot gain anything by untruth, for "the earth is the
   Lord's and the fullness thereof." Why, then, should

   He lie?

   Men are false, oftentimes, to win applause. See how the sycophant
   cringes to the tyrant's foot and spawns his villainy. But God needs no
   honor and no fame, especially from the wicked. To Him it were the
   greatest disgust of His righteous soul to be loved by unholy creatures.
   His Glory is great enough even if there were no creatures! His own
   self-contained Glory is such that if there were no eyes to see it and
   no ears to hear it, He would be infinitely glorious. He asks
   nothing--no respect and no honor of man--and therefore has He no need
   to stoop to the lie to gain it. And of whom, again, could He be afraid?
   Men will sometimes, under the impulse of fear, keep back or even
   contradict the truth, but can fear ever enter into the heart of the
   eternal God?

   He looks down upon all nations who are in rebellion against Him and He
   does not even care to rise to put them down. "He that sits in the
   heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision!" Are not the
   chariots of the Lord twenty thousand, even thousands of angels? Even
   these are but as a drop in a bucket, when compared with the deep and
   infinite sea of His own power. Who, then, shall think that Jehovah
   needs to be afraid? "Fear," and "Jehovah," are two words which cannot
   meet together. Therefore, since there can be no motive whatever which
   should possibly lead God to lie, we feel well assured that the
   declaration of Paul is most certainly true--"God, that cannot lie."

   Moreover, dear Friends, we may add to all this the experience of men
   with regard to God. It has been evident enough in all ages that God
   cannot lie. He did not lie when Adam fell. It seemed a strange thing,
   that after all the skill and labor which had been spent in making such
   a world as this, so fair and beautiful, God should resign it to the
   dominion of Satan and drive the man whom He had made in His own image,
   out of his home, his Eden, to labor in sweat and toil and suffer- ing
   until he came to his grave. But God did it and the fiery sword at the
   gate of Eden was proof that God could not and would not lie.

   He might come to Adam and bemoan himself, crying, "Adam, where are
   you?" as if He pitied him and would, if it had been possible, have
   spared the stroke. But still it must be done and Eden is blasted and
   Adam becomes a wanderer upon the fruitless earth. Then afterwards, to
   quote a notable instance of God's faithfulness, when the flood swept
   away the race of men and Noah came forth the heritor of a new Covenant,
   we have clear proof that God cannot lie. No flood has ever destroyed
   the earth since then. Partial floods there have been and parts of
   provinces have been inundated, but no flood has ever come upon the
   earth of such a character as that which Noah saw--therefore the
   rainbow, every time it is painted upon the cloud--is an assurance to us
   that God cannot lie.

   Then He made an oath with Abraham that he should have a son and that
   his seed should become possessors of all the land in which the
   Patriarch had sojourned. Did not that come true? They waited in Egypt
   two hundred years. They smarted under the tyrant's lash. They lay among
   the pots and yet, after all, with a high hand and with an outstretched
   arm He brought forth His people, led them through the wilderness and
   divided Canaan by lot to them, having driven out the inhabitants of the
   land before them. Since that time He made His Covenant with David and
   how fast has that stood! All the threats which He has uttered against
   the enemies of Israel--how surely have they been fulfilled!

   Last of all and best of all, when the fullness of time was come, did
   not God send forth His own Son, born of a woman, made under the Law?
   Did He not, according to His ancient promise, lay upon Him the iniquity
   of us all? Were not the Incarnation and death of our Lord Jesus the
   grandest proof of the truthfulness of God which could be afforded? His
   own Son must leave Heaven emptied of His Glory, must be given up to be
   despised and rejected of men, must be nailed to the accursed wood and
   be forsaken in the hour of His bitterest grief--herein is Truth,
   indeed! I say if this must be according to the promise and if this was
   according to the fact, then we have the clearest and the surest
   evidence that God cannot by any possibility be false to His own Word.
   Rightly has He earned the title which His Nature claims--"God, that
   cannot lie."

   May I not add as another argument that you have found Him true? You
   have been to Him, dear Friends, in many times of trial. You have taken
   His promise and laid it before His Mercy Seat. What do you say--has He
   ever broken His promise? You have been through the floods--did He leave
   you? You have passed through the fires--were you burned? You have cried
   to Him in trouble--did He fail to deliver you? O you poor and needy
   ones, you have been brought very low, but has He not been your Helper?
   You have passed hard by the gates of the grave and Hell has opened its
   horrid jaws to swallow you up, but are you not today the living
   monuments of the fidelity of God to His promise and the veracity of
   every Word of the Most High God? Let these things, then, refresh your
   memories that you may the more confidently know that He is "God, that
   cannot lie."

   II. Let us pass on to look at THE BREADTH OF MEANING IN THE TEXT. When
   we are told in Scripture that

   God cannot lie there is usually associated with the idea the thought of
   immutability. As for instance--"He is not a man that He should lie, nor
   the son of man that He should repent." The word "lie," here includes
   beyond its ordinary meaning the thought of change, so that when we read
   that God cannot lie, we understand by it not only that He cannot say
   what is untrue, but that having said something which is true, He never
   changes from it and does not by any possibility alter His purpose or
   retract His Word.

   This is very consolatory to the Christian, that whatever God has said
   in the Divine purpose is never changed. The Decrees of God were not
   written upon sand, but upon the eternal brass of His unchangeable
   Nature. We may truly say of the sealed Book of the Decrees, "Has He
   said and shall He not do it? Has He purposed and shall it not come to
   pass?" We read in Scripture of several instances where God apparently
   changed, but I think the observation of the old Puritan explains all
   these, He says, "God may will a change, but He cannot change His will."
   Those changes of operation which we sometimes read of in Scripture did
   not involve any change in the Divine purpose!

   God, for instance, sent to warn Hezekiah that according to the common
   course of nature he must die, and yet afterwards fifteen years were
   added to his life--God's purpose having been all along that Hezekiah
   should live till the end of the fifteen years. But still His purpose
   equally included that Hezekiah should be brought so near to the gates
   of death that in the ordinary course of nature he must die. And then
   that the miracle should come in was still part of the purpose, that
   Hezekiah might be cured in a supernatural manner and be made to live
   nearer to his God in consequence. God wills a change, but He never
   changes His will.

   And when the Last Great Day shall come, you and I shall see how
   everything happened according to that hidden roll wherein God had
   written with His own wise finger every thought which man should think,
   every word which he should utter and every deed which he should do.
   Just as it was in the Book of Decree, so shall it transpire in the roll
   of human history. God never changes, then, as to His purpose and here
   is our comfort. If He has determined to save us and we know He has, for
   all who believe in Him are His elect, then we shall be saved. Heaven
   shall never by any possibility be defeated by Hell. Hell and earth may
   combine together to destroy a soul which rests upon Christ, but while
   God's Decree stands fast and firm, that chosen soul is safe! And since
   that Decree never can be removed, let us take confidence and rejoice.

   No promise has ever been altered and no threat, either. Still is His
   promise sure. "I have not said unto the seed of Jacob, seek you My face
   in vain." No new decrees have been passed repealing the past. We can
   never say of God's Book, as we can of old law books, that such-and-such
   an act is obsolete. There is no obsolete Statute in God's Book. There
   stand promises, as fresh, as new, as vigorous and as forceful today as
   when they first dropped from the mouth of God. The words, then, "God,
   that cannot lie," include the very gracious and precious doctrine that
   He cannot by any possibility change.

   But we must not, while talking in this manner, forget the primary
   meaning, that He cannot be false in His thoughts, Words, or actions.
   There is no shadow of a lie upon anything which God thinks, or speaks,
   or does. He cannot lie in His prophecies. How solemnly true have they
   been! Ask the wastes of Nineveh! Turn to the mounds of Babylon! Let the
   traveler speak concerning Idumea and Petra. Turn even to the rock of
   Sidon and to Your land, O Immanuel! We may boldly ask the traveler,
   "Has He said and has He not done it? Have His words fallen to the
   ground? Has God's curse been an idle Word?" No, not in one single case.

   All the words of the Lord are sure. The prophecies will be as true as
   they have been and the Book of Revelation, though we may not comprehend
   it today, will doubtless be fulfilled in every stroke and in every line
   and we shall marvel how it was that we did not know its meaning. But at
   present it is enough for us to know its Truth--its meaning shall only
   be learned as the events explain the prophesy. As God is true in His
   prophecies, so is He faithful to His promises. Have you and I, dear
   Friends, a confidence in these? If so, let us try them this morning.

   Sinner, weeping and bemoaning yourself, God will forgive you your sin
   if you believe in Jesus! If you will confess that He is faithful and
   just to forgive you, He has promised to do so and He cannot lie.
   Christian, if you have a promise today laid upon your heart, if you
   have been pleading it, perhaps for months and it has not been
   fulfilled, I pray you gather fresh courage this morning and again renew
   your wrestling. Go and say, "Lord, I know You cannot lie, therefore
   fulfill Your Word unto Your servant."

   If the promises of God were not kept, God would lie. They must,
   therefore, be fulfilled. And let us believe that they will be and go to
   God, not with a wavering spirit which half hopes that the Words may be
   true, but with the full assurance that they cannot fail! As certainly
   as we know that day and night shall not cease and that summer will not
   fail, so surely let us be convinced that every Word of the Lord shall
   stand!

   His threats are true, also. Ah, Sinner, you may go on in your ways for
   many a day, but your sin shall find you out at last. Seventy years
   God's long-suffering may wait over you, but when you shall come into
   another world you shall find every terrible Word of Scripture
   fulfilled. You shall then know that there is a place, "where their worm
   dies not and the fire is not quenched." You shall then experience the
   "wailing and gnashing of teeth" unless you repent. If you will believe
   in Jesus you shall find the promise true! But if you will not, equally
   sure shall be the threat.

   This is a dreadful part of the subject to those who are out of Christ,
   who have never been partakers of the Holy Spirit. It will be in vain
   for you to cry to Him, then, and ask Him, then, to change His mind. No,
   though you should weep oceans of tears, Hell's flames cannot be
   quenched nor can your soul escape from the place to which it is finally
   doomed! Today, while mercy is preached to you, lay hold upon it! But
   remember, if you do not, as God cannot lie He cannot suffer you to
   escape--you must feel the weight and terror of His arm.

   We might thus go through everything which concerns God, from prophesy
   to promises and threats and onwards and multiply observations but we
   choose to close this point by observing that every word of instruction
   from God is most certainly true. It is astounding how much sensation is
   caused in the Christian Church by the outbreak, every now and then, of
   fresh phases of infidelity. I do not think that these alarms are at all
   warranted. It is what we must expect to the very end of this
   dispensation.

   If all carnal minds believed the Bible, I think the spiritual might
   almost begin to doubt it. But as there are always some who will attack
   it, I shall feel none the less confident in it. Really, the Book of God
   has stood so many attacks from such different quarters that to be at
   all alarmed about it shows a very childish fear. When a rock has been
   standing all our lifetime and has been known to stand firmly throughout
   all the ages of history, none but foolish people will think that the
   next wave will sweep it away.

   Within our own short life--say some five-and-twenty years'
   recollection--have we not remembered, I was about to say almost as many
   as five-and-twenty shapes of infidelity? You know it must change about
   every twenty years at least, for no system of infidelity can live
   longer than that! There was the witty system of objection which
   Voltaire introduced. And how short-lived was that! Then came the
   bullying, low-lived, blackguard system of Tom Paine. And how
   short-lived was its race! Then, in more modern times, unbelief took the
   shape of Secularism--what particular shapes it takes now we scarcely
   know--perhaps Colensoism is the most fashionable--but that is dying out
   and something else will follow it.

   These creations of an hour just live their little day and they are
   gone. But look at belief in Scripture and at Scripture itself. The
   Bible is better understood, more prized, and I believe, on the whole,
   more practiced than ever it was since the day when its Author sent it
   abroad into the world. It is still onward. And after all which has been
   done against it, no visible effect has been produced upon the granite
   wall of Scriptural Truth by all the pickaxes and boring rods which have
   been broken upon it.

   Walking through our Museums nowadays, we smile at those who think that
   Scripture is not true. Every block of stone from Nineveh, every relic
   which has been brought from the Holy Land speaks with a tongue which
   must be heard even by the deaf adder of Secularism and which says,
   "Yes, the Bible is true and the Word of God is no fiction." Beloved, we
   may rest assured that we have not a Word in the Book of God which is
   untrue. There may be an interpolation or two of man's which ought to be
   revised and taken away, but the Book, as it comes from God, is Truth
   and nothing but Truth--not only containing God's Word, but being God's
   Word--being not like a lump of gold inside a mass of quartz, but all
   gold and nothing but gold!

   And being Inspired to the highest degree--I will not say verbally
   inspired, but more than that--having a fullness more than that which
   the letter can convey! Having in it a profundity of meaning such as
   words never had when used by any other being, God having the power to
   speak a multitude of Truths at once. And when He means to teach us one
   thing according to our capability of receiving it, He often teaches us
   twenty other things which, for the time, we do not comprehend but
   which, by-and-by, as our senses are exercised, reveal themselves by the
   Holy Spirit. Every time I open my Bible I will read it as the Word of
   "God, that cannot lie." And when I get a promise or a threat, I will
   either rejoice or tremble because I know that these stand fast.

   Dear Friends, this leads us, in closing this point, to say that when we
   read that passage--"God, that cannot lie"-- we understand that His very
   Nature cannot lie, for He hates lies! Wherever there is a lie God is
   its Enemy. It was to overcome the lie of sin that God sent His Son to
   bleed. And every day the thoughts of God are centered upon the
   extermination of evil and the extension of His own Truth. Nothing can
   set forth in words to us the hatred and detestation which God has in
   His heart of anything which is untrue. O that we knew and felt this and
   would glow with the same anger, seeking to exterminate the false,
   slaying it in our own hearts and giving it nothing to feed upon in our
   temper, our conversation, or our deeds!

   III. But I shall now come to make a practical use of the text, in the
   third place, by observing HOW WE OUGHT TO ACT TOWARDS GOD IF IT IS TRUE
   THAT HE IS A "GOD THAT CANNOT LIE." Brethren, if it is so that God
   cannot lie, then it must be the natural duty of all His creatures to
   believe Him. I cannot resist that conclusion. It seems to me to be as
   clear as noonday that it is every man's duty to believe the Truth of
   God, and that if God must speak and act Truth and Truth only, it is the
   duty of all intelligent creatures to believe Him.

   Here is "Duty-faith" again, which some are railing at, but how they can
   get away from it and yet believe that God cannot lie, I cannot
   understand. If it is not my duty to believe in God, then it is no sin
   for me to call God a liar. Will anyone subscribe to that--that God is a
   liar? I think not. And if to think God to be a liar would be a most
   atrocious piece of blasphemy, then it can only be so on the ground that
   it is the natural and incumbent duty of every creature understand- ing
   the truthfulness of God to believe in God! If God has set forth the
   Lord Jesus Christ as the Propitiation for sin and has told me to trust
   Christ, it is my duty to trust Christ, because God cannot lie.

   And though my sinful heart will never believe in Christ as a matter of
   duty but only through the work of the Holy Spirit, yet faith does not
   cease to be a duty. And whenever I am unbelieving and have doubts
   concerning God, however moral my outward life may be, I am living in
   daily sin! I am perpetrating a sin against the first principles of
   morality. If I doubt God, as far as I am able I rob Him of His honor
   and stab Him in the vital point of His Glory. I am, in fact, living an
   open traitor and a sworn rebel against God upon whom I heap the daily
   insult of daring to doubt Him.

   my Hearers, there are some of you who do not believe in Christ! I wish
   you would look at your character and position in this light. You are
   not trusting in Christ for your salvation. Remember, "He that believes
   not God, has made Him a liar." Those are John's own Inspired Words and
   you are, every day that you are not a Believer in Christ, virtually
   writing upon your doorpost and saying with your mouth, "God is a liar.
   Christ is not able to save me. I will not trust Him. I do not believe
   God's promise. I do not think He is sincere in His invitation to me to
   come to Christ. I do not believe what God says."

   Remember that you are living in such a state as this and may God the
   Holy Spirit impress you with a sense of the sin of that state. And
   feeling this your sin and misery, I pray God to lead you to cry, "Lord,
   I believe, help You my unbelief!" This, then, is our first practical
   conclusion from the fact that God cannot lie. Other thoughts suggest
   themselves. If we were absolutely sure that there lived on earth a
   person who could not lie, how would you treat him? You know there
   cannot be such a man! There may be a man who will not lie, but there
   cannot be a man of whom it may be said that he cannot lie, for alas, we
   have all the power of evil in us and we can lie and to a certain degree
   it is quite true that "all men are liars."

   But if you could be certain that there was a man out of whose heart the
   black drop had been wrung and that he could not lie--how would you act
   towards him? Well, I think you would cultivate his acquaintance. If you
   are true yourselves, you would desire his friendship. You would say,
   "He is the friend for me! I have trusted in such-and-such a man and he
   has played the Judas. I asked counsel of another, and he was an
   Ahithophel. But if this man cannot lie, he shall be my bosom companion
   if he will accept me. And he shall be my counselor if he will but have
   the goodness to direct me."

   1 should expect to see a levee of all the good in the world waiting at
   the man's door! You know how the world, with all its sinfulness, does
   reverence the man who is true! We had an instance in our streets the
   other day of the good man and the true, who received homage of all and
   yet that man could lie. But inasmuch as we never have seen that he did,
   but his life has been straightforward, therefore have we paid him honor
   and deservedly so. Well now, if such is the case, should not all
   Christians seek more and more the friendship of God. "O Lord, be You my
   familiar Friend, my Counselor, my Guide. If You cannot lie I will lay
   bare my heart to You. I will tell You all my secrets. I will trust You
   with all the desires of my heart. I know You can never betray me, or be
   unfaithful. Let there be a union established between my soul and Yours,
   and let it never be broken." Let communion with God be the desire of
   your hearts on the ground that He cannot lie.

   If we knew a man who could not lie we should believe him, I think,
   without an oath. I cannot suppose that when he came into the court of
   justice they would pass him the Bible. No, his word would be better
   than the oath of ordinary men if he could not lie. You would not need
   any sign or evidence to prove what he said. You would take his word at
   once. So should it be with God. Ah, dear Friends, God has given us more
   than His Word, He has given us His Oath. And yet, strange is it that we
   who profess to be His children are vile enough to distrust our own
   Father. And sometimes, if He does not give us signs and evidences, we
   begin to distrust Him so that, after all, I am afraid we rather trust
   the signs than trust God and put more confidence in frames and
   evidences than we do in the naked promise, which is an atrocious sin,
   indeed!

   Many Believers cannot be comfortable without signs and evidences. When
   they feel in a good frame of mind--ah, then God's promise is true! When
   they can pray heartily, when they can feel the love of God shed abroad
   in their hearts, then they say, "How God has kept His promise." Ah,
   but, my Brothers and Sisters, that is a seeing faith. "Blessed are they
   that have not seen and yet have believed." Faith is to believe in God
   when my heart is as hard as the nether millstone! When my frames are
   bad, when I cannot pray, when I cannot sing, when I can do nothing
   good. To say, "He has promised and will perform. He has said that
   whoever believes in Christ is not condemned. I do believe in Christ and
   therefore I am not condemned"--this is genuine faith.

   Again, if we knew a man who could not lie we should believe him in the
   teeth of fifty witnesses the other way. Why, we should say, "they may
   say what they will, but they can lie." You might have good evidence
   that they were usually honest men, but you would say, "They can lie.
   They have the power of lying. But here is a man who stands alone and
   cannot lie. Then his word must be true!"

   This shows us, Beloved, that we ought to believe God in the teeth of
   every contradiction. Even if outward Providence should come to you and
   say that God has forsaken you, that is only one. And even if another
   and another and another should come and fifty trials should all say
   that God has forsaken you, yet, as God says, "I will never leave you,
   nor forsake you," which will you take--the one promise of God who
   cannot lie, or the fifty outward Providences which you cannot
   interpret? I know what the devil has been whispering in your ear--

   "The Lord has quite forsaken you, Your God will be gracious no more."

   But then, remember who has said, "Fear you not, for I am with you: be
   not dismayed, for I am your God." Which will you believe--the devil's
   insinuation, or God's own testimony? My dear Sister, you have been
   praying for a certain thing for years? You pray, you pray, and you pray
   again, and now discouragement arises! Unbelief says, "God will not hear
   that prayer! That prayer of yours does not come up before the Throne of
   God and there will be no answer." But the Lord has said, "Ask and it
   shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be
   opened unto you." Which will you believe--your unbelief--the long
   months of weariness and the anxieties which prompted you to
   discouragement? Or will you believe in the naked promise?

   Why, if God cannot lie, let us give Him what we would give to a man if
   he were of the same character--our full confidence even in the teeth of
   contradiction--for He is "God, that cannot lie." If a man were
   introduced to us and we were certain that he could not lie, we should
   believe everything he said, however incredible it might appear to us. I
   shall have an appeal to every soul here present. It does seem very
   incredible at first sight that God should take a sinner, full of sin
   and forgive all his iniquities in one moment simply and only upon the
   ground of the sinner believing in Christ! I remember the time when it
   seemed to me utterly impossible that I could ever have my sins
   forgiven.

   I had a clear sense of the value of pardon and this thought would be
   always ringing in my ears--"It is too good to be true that you should
   be pardoned. That you, an enemy, should be made into a child! That you
   who have gone on sinning against light and against knowledge, should
   yet rejoice in union to Christ. The thing is too good to be true!" But,
   beloved Friends, supposing it should seem too good to be true, yet,
   since you have it upon the testimony of One who "cannot lie," I pray
   you believe it.

   "But, Sir." No! None of your "buts"! He cannot lie. "Ah, but." Away
   with your "ahs" and your "buts," for Jehovah cannot lie! He has said
   it, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." To believe is to
   trust Christ. If therefore you are trusting Christ, you must be saved.
   And whatever you may be, or whatever you may have done, if you will now
   trust Jesus Christ you have God's Word for it--and He cannot lie--that
   you shall be saved! Come now, will you kick against the promise because
   of its greatness? Do not! Let your doubts and fears be hushed to sleep
   and now, with the promise of God as your pillow and God's faithfulness
   as your support, lie down in peace and behold in faith's open vision
   the ladder, the top of which leads to Heaven!

   Trust the promise of God in Christ and depend upon it that He will be
   as good to you, even to you, as His own Word, and in Heaven you shall
   have to sing of the "God, that cannot lie." I would that these weak
   words of mine, for I am very conscious of their feebleness this
   morning, may nevertheless have comfort in them for any who have been
   doubting and fearing--that they may trust my Lord. And sure I am that
   if they begin a life of faith, they will begin a life of happiness and
   of security! "The just shall live by faith," and well may they do so,
   when they have trust in a "God, that cannot lie."

   Adapted from The C.H. Spurgeon Collection, Version 1.0, Ages Software,
   1.800.297.4307
     __________________________________________________________________

                      The Arrows Of The Lord'S Deliverance

   DELIVERED ON TUESDAY EVENING, MARCH 22, 1864, BY THE REV. C. H.
   SPURGEON, AT THE OPENING OF UPTON CHAPEL, LAMBETH.

   "You should have struck five or six times. Then had you struck Syria
   till you had consumed it: whereas now you shall strike Syria but
   thrice.

   2 Kings 13:19.

   THAT deathbed scene speaks volumes for the power of holiness. Elisha
   was the Prophet of God--a man of no honorable station except that he is
   always honorable whom God calls to serve Him. Joash the king of
   Israel--who has often rejected Elisha's admonitions and continued to
   worship in the groves of Baal though Elisha had denounced them and had
   proclaimed that Jehovah, alone, was their God. Now the Prophet is about
   to die at the good old age of ninety and Joash comes to weep at his
   bedside. It was something remarkable for the king to come there at all.
   Kings do not often visit deathbed scenes, especially the deathbeds of
   God's servants!

   But it was something more remarkable for that king to stand and look
   upon the decaying form of the aged Prophet and to weep over his face.
   More notable still was the language in which the king expressed his
   sense of the value of the Prophet to the State--"O my Father, my
   Father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof." He felt as if
   now all his strength was cut off. The king had trusted in his cavalry,
   though he had but a slender force, and he compares the Prophet to that
   which he looked upon as being the strongest arm of his military
   service. Or he looks upon the State now as being a chariot with wild
   horses and no stately Prophet to stand erect and hold the reins. Now
   have the reins dropped and where will the chariot go? It will soon be
   overturned and the mad coursers will drag it here and there. So the
   king, out of a sort of selfish respect for the Prophet--for it was
   respect and yet it was selfishness--stands and weeps over Elisha's
   dying bed.

   Dear Friends, let us seek to live so that even ungodly men may miss us
   when we are gone! It is possible for us in a quiet, unobtrusive manner
   to so adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things that when we
   die many shall say, "Let me die the death of the righteous and let my
   last end be like his." And men shall drop a tear and close the shutters
   and be silent and solemn for an hour or two when they hear that the
   servant of the Lord is dead. They laughed at him while he lived, but
   they weep for him when he dies. They could despise him while he was
   here, but now that he is gone they say, "We could have better missed a
   less-known man, for he and such as he, are the pillars of the
   commonweal. They bring down showers of blessing upon us all."

   I would covet this earnestly as a gift, not for the honor and esteem of
   men, but for the honor and glory of God, that even the despisers of
   Christ may be compelled to see that there is a dignity, a respect about
   the walk of an upright man. Yet the scene at the deathbed of Elisha,
   fragrant as it is with the tribute of respect paid to the Prophet by an
   ungodly and unprincipled monarch, is memorable for the lessons then and
   there taught the king. And not less suggestive is it of profitable
   instructions to us. I propose, therefore, first of all to consider the
   significant sign. Then I want you to join with me in censuring the
   slack-handed king. After which we shall have no difficulty, I think, in
   unanimously justifying the righteous wrath of the Prophet.

   I. VERY SIGNIFICANT WAS THE SIGN. Israel was at that time engaged in
   warfare against Syria. As a sign that God intended to give victory to
   His people, the king is bid to take the bow and arrows. Elisha, as
   God's representative, puts his hand upon the king's hands. The window
   is opened and the arrow is shot. As it flies through the air, the
   Prophet says that that arrow is the arrow of the Lord's deliverance of
   His people out of the hand of Syria. The interpretation of this
   symbolic act is simple enough. God will save.

   Deliverance is of the Lord but it must be accomplished by human
   instrumentality. Joash must take the bow and arrows, but the hands of
   Joash cannot make the arrow speed unless Elisha, the representative of
   God, puts his hands there. So the man, Divinely strengthened by God,
   shoots the arrow and the deliverance comes. Such, from the beginning of
   time even until now, has been God's ordinary way of blessing His people
   and of gathering in His chosen. He works. The instrumentality is
   nothing without Him. He takes care to elect means which, from their
   very feebleness, convince the most skeptical that the power cannot be
   in the creature! While, at the same time He rarely effects any great
   thing for His people apart from human agency.

   God, who created all things, is the Agent. But He uses the creatures as
   tools and weapons in the hand of the skillful and the mighty. He works
   in us to will and to do of His own good pleasure. It is His pleasure.
   It is He who works in us. But then it is for us to will and to do,
   because He works in us. Review the whole history of the Church as you
   find it in Scripture and you will see that this has ever been the fact.
   When God would save an elect company out of the mass of corruption
   grown, at last, too fetid for even His patience to endure, He saves the
   chosen eight--how? By a miracle?

   Call it a miracle if you will, but it was mechanical enough when Noah
   begun to lay timber upon timber, fastened them with nails and
   constructed the ark. It was a simple act of faith and a very rational
   act, too, to build a ship! Yet in that ship God's chosen eight were
   preserved. You see the Grace of God and the obedience of Noah. You know
   that the Almighty devised the ark and human hands fashioned it
   according to the pattern He had given.

   Go further on, to a yet more stupendous work of Divine power when God
   brought up His people out of Egypt with a high hand and with an
   outstretched arm. When He led them through the sea as through the
   wilderness and made the depths stand upright as a heap as though they
   were congealed in the heart of the sea. Here was God gloriously
   manifested so that the whole song was unto Jehovah and to Jehovah
   alone--"Sing unto the Lord for He has triumphed gloriously, the horse
   and his rider has He thrown into the sea"!

   Still, still, see you not that calm, meek man, rod outstretched, the
   symbol of abiding human instrumentality in the midst of Jehovah's
   wonders? God divides the sea, not Moses. But God divides not the sea
   without Moses' rod. So, too, when the Rock gave water in the
   wilderness, Moses' voice, and afterwards Moses' rod, must fetch the
   water out of that Rock. And when Jordan was divided, the feet of the
   priests went first down to the river's edge and then--"What ailed you,
   O Jordan, that you were driven back?" Did the priests speak to it? Who
   dreams of such a thing? And yet God did it not without the priests.

   So was it with the capture of the various cities under Joshua. In that
   first and memorable one, the taking of Jericho, they did but little
   when the walls fell flat to the ground on the seventh day. But you will
   remember that those walls did not fall until the people had compassed
   the city the seven days! Nor did they fall without the sound of the
   rams' horns and the shouts of the multitude. So again, turn to the time
   of the Judges and how did God deliver His people then? Why, my Friends,
   you find at one time it is the ox-goad of Shamgar, and at another time
   it is the jawbone in the hand of Samson! Sometimes it is Gideon's lamp
   and pitcher and then it is Jephthah's good and true sword.

   Ever is it true that God has means, selecting for His purposes things
   of earth to execute the fiats of Heaven. But I might, perhaps, weary
   you with mentioning the history of the kings and running on through the
   Prophets. Therefore let us come at once to Apostolic times. Old Rome
   was to be subdued. The deep-seated idolatries of ages were to be rooted
   up and the fabulous deities were to be shaken from their pedestals. The
   Spirit of the Lord could do it in a moment--He might have convinced all
   men of the folly of idolatry--silently breathing upon human minds they
   might have been convicted of sin and turned to the great Father of
   Spirits.

   A Revelation of Christ might have been given to every man without a
   single minister. But did He choose to do it? No, my Brethren, He did
   not. The twelve fishermen must first proclaim the Word and afterwards
   such men as Timothy and those who were the true "successors of the
   Apostles," must in every region preach the Words of Truth. Or, point me
   to a single period in the history of the Church where God has worked
   without instrumentality and I will tell you that I suspect whether God
   has worked at all if I do not see the instruments He has employed.

   Take the Reformation. Can you think of it without thinking of God? At
   the same time can you mention it without the names of Luther, and
   Calvin, Zwingle and Melancthon? Then in the later Reformation in
   England, when our slumbering Churches were suddenly started from their
   sleep--who did it? The Holy Spirit Himself--but you cannot talk of the
   revival without mentioning the names of Whitfield and Wesley--for God
   worked by means then, and He works by means still.

   I used to notice a remark which was made concerning the revival in the
   north of Ireland, that there seemed to be no prominent instrumentality.
   The moment I saw that, I mistrusted it. Had it been God's work more
   fully developed through instrumentality, I believe it had not so
   speedily come to a close. We grant you that God can work without means
   and even when He uses means He still takes the Glory to Himself, for it
   is all His own. Yet it has been the rule, and will be the rule till the
   day of means shall come to an end, that just as God saved man by taking
   upon Himself man's flesh, so everywhere in the world He calls men by
   speaking to them through men of their own flesh and blood.

   God Incarnates Himself--if I may use so strong an expression in a
   restricted sense--in His Spirit Incarnates Himself in the chosen men,
   especially in His Church, in which He dwells as in a temple. And then
   through that Church He is pleased to bless the world. Now we must hold
   this forever. We are not to let the arrows lie still and say, "God will
   do His own work. Elisha will shoot the arrows." This is idleness. We
   have had enough of this! Look at those Churches which say, "God will do
   His own work." You will find that the more these people talk about
   God's doing His own work, the more they sink into a fatal apathy.

   No Sunday school. No care for the conversion of souls. Just bigotry,
   bitterness of spirit, carping and backbiting against all those who are
   willing to labor in the Master's vineyard. And when they have entangled
   Brethren whose conversion was effected under other ministries than
   their own, they talk as if they had been re-converted and did not know
   the Truth of God till they heard the particular, excellent, superfine,
   hot pressed Gospel which they deliver! There is all that sort of thing
   among them. You see a spirit the reverse of amiable. A mind palpably
   contrary to that which was in Jesus Christ.

   On the other hand, it is an equally dangerous error to suppose that we
   are to take the arrows and shoot without God. This is, in fact, the
   more dangerous of the two. Although, if I have to compare two devils
   together, I know not which is the worst of these evil spirits--the
   spirit that idly says--"Leave it to God"--or the spirit which goes
   about God's work without depending on Him. O Lord of Hosts, it is not
   by might, nor by power, but by Your Spirit! Nevertheless the love of
   Christ constrains us to spend and be spent in His cause.

   II. And now, secondly, let us CENSURE THE SLACK-HANDED KING. The
   Prophet gave him the bow and the arrows and bade him shoot down upon
   the ground. It was left to him. God foreknew and had predestinated how
   many victories he should win. But still, at the same time, it is
   marvelous how our free actions tally exactly with God's predestination!
   He is bid to shoot and he shoots once. He draws his bow and shoots
   again. A third time he draws the bow and then throws it down slack upon
   the ground.

   The Prophet is angry with him for he will only have three victories. If
   he had struck the ground six times he would have had six victories. But
   inasmuch as he only shot the three times, he is only to have three
   triumphs. The king is to be censured and censured severely. But as he
   is dead and gone and our censure cannot much affect him, let us censure
   those who now imitate him. And we think that we can find very many of
   the same sort!

   How many Believers have but little faith and seem quite content to have
   but that little? They cannot grasp the promise of God and believingly
   expect to have it fulfilled. They scarcely know their own interest in
   Christ. They are safe enough, but they are generally wretched enough.
   They cannot take God at His Word and therefore their temporal troubles
   and their spiritual cares press very heavily upon them. Oh that they
   had Grace to strike the ground six times! Oh that they knew how to cast
   all their burdens on Him who cares for them! Oh that the Lord would
   give them new faith so that they would trust Him implicitly and leave
   their souls in the hands of Him who shed His heart's blood that He
   might redeem them from wrath!

   Why, I do not know, dear Friends, that there is any necessity for us to
   be always doubting and fearing and trembling! Some think there is. But
   this is because they have not a high idea of the standing of the child
   of God and of the position which God would have him attain. They shoot
   the three arrows and they say--"I am saved, that is enough. I shall get
   to Heaven." Oh that they would go on shooting till they could get a
   Heaven below, till they could begin by strong faith to--

   "Read their title clear, To mansions in the sky," and rejoice with joy
   unspeakable and full of glory!

   Then you see another class of people who are just the same as to their
   knowledge. They do not understand the deep things of God. They are
   content to know that which saves the soul from ruin and the remedy
   which is provided in Christ, but they do not know, and perhaps do not
   care to know, the doctrine of God's electing love. They never dive into
   the doctrine of God's immutable faithfulness to His chosen people. They
   let the deep things of God lie still for strong men, but they,
   themselves, are content to be babes.

   Oh, dear Friends, how much you miss who neglect to study God's Word.
   And what blessings do you cast away from yourselves who are willing to
   be ignorant of the most sublime Truths of Revelation! I would that
   instead of shooting three times, you would have Grace to shoot more and
   more and more till you comprehend with all saints what are the heights
   and depths and lengths and breadths of the love of Christ which passes
   knowledge. You will see, perhaps, these same people, or others like
   them, who are very content about their daily walk and conversation.
   They are not drunkards. They do not swear. They are scrupulously
   truthful. They commit no breach of Sunday--but when you have said this,
   you have said about as much as you can say of them.

   Their religion seems to have made them moral, but it would be difficult
   to perceive that it has made them holy. There is very little family
   prayer--not much interest taken in the conversion of the children.
   There is an angry temper, perhaps, which is somewhat curbed but still
   the Brother thinks that it is impossible to curb it any more and so he
   tolerates himself in the occasional indulgence of it. There is much
   which is not inconsistent, perhaps, in the eye of the world, but which
   is most certainly not consistent in the mind of the Spirit of God.
   These Brethren have, in fact, shot three times and they have struck the
   ground once or twice, but they have not made a clean sweep of their
   besetting sins. They still tolerate some of them. They have not reached
   to a high point of holiness.

   Now I am as far as anybody from believing that a man ever will be
   perfect in this life, but I will never be satisfied till I am! And if I
   cannot be perfect, I will seek, by God's Grace, to get as near to it as
   possible. And this should be the labor of every Christian. Not in order
   to save himself, but because he is saved he should labor after the very
   highest degrees of holiness and seek that God might shine through him
   as through a lamp and that men may take knowledge of him that he has
   been with Jesus and learned of Him. High faith, high knowledge, high
   living--oh what blessed Christians should we have if these three went
   together!

   So, too, there are many Christians who do not shoot more than three
   times, inasmuch as they are content with very low enjoyments. Oh the
   many, the many professors who all their days are subject to bondage!
   Now Christ came to deliver such from the fear of death. And yet though
   Christ came to do it, it is not done in their case. They do not receive
   the Spirit of Adoption, but they seem to have received the spirit of
   bondage again to fear, and they think that this is the rule with God's
   people. When they read of some saints who have climbed the mountains
   and have had sweet fellowship with Christ, they say, "Ah, such men are
   uncommon and such experiences are like angels' visits, few and far
   between. We cannot get up to this."

   I do believe, dear Friends, that this spirit creeps over us all. We
   read the biography of such a man as Brainerd and we shut up the book
   and sigh and say, "Oh I could never be so devoted as he was!" We have
   turned over the life of Whitfield and when we have read it, we have
   said, "Ah, a very extraordinary man--a very extraordinary man! It is
   not likely that I shall ever get his zeal." And when we turn to the Old
   Testament and read of Abraham, we say, "Yes, Abraham's faith was very
   wonderful. But we do not look upon him as a pattern which we are to
   imitate--we believe that his faith is something set up high in a
   niche--to which we can never get."

   My Brethren, this is all wrong! I believe that the Christian man ought
   not to be content to be equal with Abraham, because Abraham lived in
   the dark, before the Sun had risen. It was, at least, but twilight in
   Abraham's day. And yet if he had so much faith when he could only see
   through the dim smoke of sacrificial rams and bulls, how much more
   faith and confidence in God ought you and I to have when we see Christ
   Himself, and when God speaks to us through His Son? Shame on us that we
   are content to be such dwarfs when we might grow into giants--that we
   are here frittering away our time when we might immortalize ourselves
   and glorify our Lord.

   How is it that we are content to bring forth a lean ear, and then a
   scanty ear, when there should be seven ears upon one stalk, like the
   plenty of Egypt? How is it that we have here and there a cluster, when
   instead, if we did but shoot more, if we had more faith and more
   confidence in God, we might be like the grapes of Eshcol, whose
   clusters were too heavy for one man to carry? Yes, I am afraid there is
   in this Christian land very, very much of this stopping short of what
   we might be. We do not press on and reach to that which is before, but
   saying, "I am saved," we are content and sit down before we reach the
   goal, or have apprehended that for which we were apprehended of Christ
   Jesus.

   Now I want your attention for just a moment while I try to show some of
   the reasons why the king did not shoot more. I cannot tell certainly,
   but I think some of the reasons which I am going to give you may be
   correct. Perhaps he felt rather tender towards the Syrians. It is just
   possible that he felt he did not want to hurt them too much. He would
   be victorious--he would get his enemy under his feet. But if he did
   more he would crush him outright and he hardly wanted to do that.

   So I think that some professors do not want to be too hard with their
   sins--they have a sort of hidden tenderness towards their own
   corruptions. O, dear Friends, how very angry we get when somebody tells
   us a little too plainly about our faults! And how angry we are with
   anything which seeks to cut the throat of our favorite sin! Ah, we do
   not know how tender we are to our sins, any of us, whereas the viper's
   brood should be crushed in the nest! We are often saying as we wound
   them, "Yes, keep them under. But no--I could not give them all up--I
   could not--no, I must have just a little indulgence. There must be this
   and that."

   The laying of the axe to the root of the tree is not pleasant work. Lop
   the big boughs off if you like, but laying the axe to the root--no, we
   do not quite like that. There is in us, after all, through our natural
   corruptions, a hankering attachment to our sins. The old man says,
   "Spare them," and it needs much Grace and triumphant Grace, too, to
   say, "No! Hew them to pieces before the Lord and let not even the best
   of the sheep or of the cattle be spared." Tenderness to sin will always
   check us in any great growth in Grace. We shall not use God's bow as
   much as we should if we once begin to pamper self-indulgence, to
   cultivate our own ease and make provision for the flesh.

   Again, perhaps the king did not go on to shoot because he thought it
   was hardly his business to be employed as a bowman. "Why should I stay
   here forever," says he, "shooting arrows? I did not object when the
   Prophet's hand was upon me, to shoot. But to stand here and keep
   striking the ground is hardly the occupation for a king!" And then the
   thought, perhaps, that he should have three victories and that would be
   enough. "Why, it will be something wonderful! Three victories, one
   after another, will be quite enough to crown me with everlasting renown
   and I do not want more than that." And so he did shoot but three times.

   And how many a Believer seems to say, "Can I always be keeping watch
   over my corruptions? Am I to be so precise and to live so near to God?
   What? Am I to be so much in prayer? Am I to be such a Bible student,
   and to be so much occupied? No, if I can overcome some of my sins and
   be a respectable Church member and do a little in the Sunday school,
   and get to Heaven--that is enough." You do not want, you see, to be
   made good. You do not want to be made Christlike. You do not want to be
   able to triumph over your sins. You mistake your high calling--you
   think you are called to be a slave, when you are called to reign! You
   fancy that you are called to wear sackcloth, when you are bid to put on
   scarlet and fine linen! You think that God has called you to a
   dunghill, whereas He has called you to a throne! You imagine that you
   are to be but here and there--the skirmishers in the battle--when He
   has called you to stand in the front rank and to fight constantly for
   His cause.

   I think, also, that the king may have begun to doubt whether the
   victories would really come. He knew very well that he had not many
   soldiers and that Syria was very strong, so he thought, "Well, it takes
   some faith to think that I shall beat them three times, but it is not
   likely I shall do it the fourth." He doubted the Divine power and the
   Divine promise because of his own weakness. And many a Christian does
   that. I think, Brethren, that we who are in the ministry might do
   vastly more for God than we do, if, remembering our own weakness, we
   did not let that overshadow God's strength.

   Why, what cannot a man do when he has faith in God? Without Christ we
   can do nothing. But remember the converse of that proposition--that
   with Him we can do all things. If He will be with me I can do all
   things, or can bear all sufferings. Let us not forget this. And never
   let a sense of human weakness mar our clear perception of the might and
   majesty of God. Let us shoot often, for as often as we shoot, God will
   answer our faith.

   And do you not think, too, that it is very likely that the king
   despised the Prophet's plans? Why, he seemed to say, this was absurd,
   striking the ground in this way! If there were any men to be shot at,
   he would not spare the arrows. But to strike the ground in this
   way--absurd! Ridiculous! So, too often, we miss a blessing because we
   do not like God's plans. We have got some new scheme of our own. It is
   not preaching the Gospel--that is old-fashioned. We will try something
   else. It is better than going out into the highways and hedges and
   compelling them to come in. No, we want a shorter cut than that! We
   keep fancying that if we were to give up some ordinance--perhaps if we
   held our tongues about Baptism--or if we were to cut about this
   doctrine and that, we should get on better.

   Ah, this is all wrong, dear Friends. Carnal policy may take its place
   in the cabinet and in the government of the land, but never in the
   House of God! If right is right, pursue it. If God commands it, do it
   and leave the consequences to Him! If He bids you shoot on the ground,
   you shoot on the ground. You may see no Assyrian there. But every time
   you shoot, that arrow finds the heart of your enemy and shall lay him
   low.

   I would, dear Friends, that I could so speak tonight as to give the
   members of this Church a very high and noble ambition to do much and to
   get much for God--to get much Grace--to have much holiness--to do much
   work. In fact, I wish I could bring you into such a state of heart as
   the Prophet wished to see in Joash--that you would take the arrows and
   shoot them off.

   III. THE RIGHTEOUS WRATH OF THE PROPHET is our third point. And we
   think WE CAN WELL JUSTIFY HIS ANGER. We do not like to see either an
   old man, or a dying man angry. But I think the Prophet here did well to
   be angry, even though at the hour of his death. Oh how he loved the
   people and how he wept to think that their king was standing in their
   light and was robbing them of precious privileges!

   Now when I look, dear Friends, upon many Church members and see how
   utterly idle and careless they are about Christ's cause and how many
   professors seem to be as dead as the seats they sit upon and to have no
   more Grace than worldlings, I think if my soul were warmed with
   something like a holy passion against them, I might say, with more
   truth than Jonah, "I do well to be angry." How much Israel suffers from
   the slack-handedness of the king! Oh, Christians, you suffer
   yourselves! You miss a thousand comforts! What you might do for God you
   are unable to do! What you might sit down and feed upon yourselves you
   utterly miss because you will not go on farther and seek higher
   attainments!

   And all your Brethren suffer, too. Your prayers at the Prayer Meeting
   have not that fervor and unction which they would have if you lived
   nearer to God. Your experience is not so profitable to them as it would
   be if you walked nearer to Christ. The whole Church treasury is robbed
   by you. Church membership is a sort of joint-stock company. We, each
   one of us, take out of that stock and put into it. There is a prayer
   treasury--we all want to be prayed for. There is taking out of it. We
   must all put prayers into the treasury and those members who do not
   pray--and are there such? And those members who do not yearn over
   souls--and are there not such? Those members who have no zeal for
   God--and are there such?--rob the treasury of God! And I know not why I
   might not compare them to Ananias and Sapphira, for they keep back a
   part of the price. God have mercy upon them for this!

   The Church has greatly suffered on this account. Why, if this king had
   shot more arrows, Syria would have been quite overcome and cut in
   pieces. But because he was slack in this, Syria waves her proud banner
   over captive maids and sorrowing widows whose husbands have been slain
   in battle and weep in the streets of Samaria. The devil rejoices when
   he sees slumbering Christians! The world laughs in its sleeve at
   professors nowadays because it says, "In the old Puritan times, when we
   saw a Christian we were afraid of him. Ah, when a man joined the Church
   in those days, he was a man who meant what he said. But ah, there are
   so many of them now who only join the Church to be respectable. And
   they only go to a place of worship because of custom that the people
   may trade with them and be cheated--that they may talk with them and
   hear such idle talk as they would not hear from men in the streets, who
   never profess anything! Ah, we have almost overcome and destroyed the
   Church when we see her members behaving so."

   It is these people, who may be Christians, but who are only half
   Christians. These people who are not altogether cold, but who still are
   not hot. These people whom I would not shovel away with the dross, but
   who nevertheless are so adulterated with base metal that you can
   scarcely call them pure gold. It is these people who make the daughter
   of Philis-tia to rejoice and the sons of the adversary to triumph. How
   Jehovah's name was dishonored! In Assyria's streets they laughed at
   Jehovah. They said that their gods were greater than He. Oh what a
   shame it is that you and I should ever put Christ to more shame than He
   endured for our sakes!

   My Brothers and Sisters, what do we think of ourselves if we have ever
   in any measure crucified the Lord afresh and put Him to open shame? It
   is not only inconsistent Christians who do this but those Christians
   who do not seek to come up to the standard--who are contented to be
   poor in Grace when they might be rich. I believe that such persons
   bring much dishonor to Christ by their doubting, by their hard thoughts
   of Christ, by their miserable countenances and often, too, by their
   want of zeal, their want of prayer and their shallowness in the ways of
   God.

   Look abroad and see how busy men are in the world! When a man wants to
   make money, see how he rises early and sits up late and eats the bread
   of carefulness! It is wonderful what ingenuity men put forth to get a
   fortune, what desper- ate attempts they make! How they will go to India
   and sweat under the burning sky and brave the fever there. Why, there
   are thousands of England's sons who do this year by year. See how at
   the North Pole bold and brave men have sacrificed their lives to force
   a passage. Men have been willing, in scientific experiments, to
   sacrifice social comforts, risk their health and forfeit their lives!

   It seems to me that everybody is enthusiastic except Christians, and
   that men can get their blood hot on any subject except religion! In
   these days the ice has been given to the Church of God and the fire has
   been cast upon the world. Look at the devil's advocates, how they
   compass sea and land to make one proselyte. If you are dead and dull,
   they will not be so here at your next-door neighbors--St. George's
   Cathedral! You may be careless about the poor, but they will not be!
   You may, perhaps, cease to be much in prayer and much in action, but
   you will find that they will not cease their incantations!

   Why, when the devil comes to a man he will say to him, "Come with me! I
   want you to leave your wife and children tonight! Come with me," and
   away the man goes to some low pot-house. "I want you to go in here,"
   says the devil, and the man goes in--perhaps a respectable man, as the
   world has it. "Now," says the devil, "I want you to drink ale and
   stout. It will make your brain reel. It will make your eyes red
   tomorrow morning and perhaps send you into delirium tremors." "I will
   do it," says the man and he drinks it pleasantly and sweetly as though
   he were drinking draughts of Heaven's own nectar.

   It may be that he goes reeling home, or has to be carried there, but he
   is quite ready to go again and again, though he may beggar his children
   and see his weeping wife and his starving family. He does it all so
   cheerfully and thinks, in fact, that he is a very fine fellow and is
   only enjoying himself, though he brings untold miseries unto his
   family. You will sometimes see a man go into vice and bring his own
   body to the verge of the grave and make himself a mass of rottenness at
   the command of the devil and yet he never grumbles at his master, never
   thinks of running away from him!

   And here is my Lord, whose service is perfect freedom, who gives us to
   eat and to drink of better food than angels ever tasted! Who the more
   we do for Him the more He rewards us and the more strength He gives us
   to work with. And yet we are cold and dull and dead! And if we are
   asked to do something, we say we have so many calls. Or if we are asked
   to go upon some enterprise which has a little dishonor or discomfort
   connected with it, we go back--would lie in bed and take our ease! Oh
   what a shame, what a shame this is!

   Prophet, you did well to be angry! I would that some burning spirits
   would come among us and speak even bitterly to us, if they could but
   make us feel that--

   "Life is real, life is earnest," and that the cause of Christ demands
   that spirit, soul and body should be at the highest tension, at the
   very sternest stretch, spending and being spent, even unto
   blood--resisting sin and contending for the mastery of Christ!

   Well now, I took this text because it seemed to me--I do not know how
   it seems to you--as if it were a lesson to your minister and to you
   tonight. Here you are, come into this new Chapel and into a
   neighborhood new to you. We who are come here from other Churches, as
   the old Prayer Book version puts it, "Wish you good luck in the name of
   the Lord." We wish for you the highest and the best prosperity that we
   desire for ourselves. But we do want to impress upon you that while God
   will help you and stand by you, always remember that the Church must be
   active.

   Every single individual must take his portion in this sacred fight, in
   this grand crusade against sin. I pray Brother Evans never to stay his
   hand from the shooting of the arrows. If God shall bless him in one
   effort, let him go on to another. If he sees seven souls converted, let
   him mourn that it is not eight. If he sees the place filled, let him,
   even then, not rest satisfied but let his cry still be for something
   beyond. And, as the eagle rests not, but flies upward, ever facing the
   sun, such may his course be--onward and upward and true to the
   line--until the Master shall take him into His Glory in the rest which
   remains for the people of God.

   And you who are here, do you sit still? Do not say, "Well, if we get
   these seats comfortably filled we shall be content." I hope you may
   have them filled, but I hope you will not, then be content! No, let it
   be your aim, then, to pray that God will convert the seat-holders, that
   the congregation shall become the Church. And do not be content, then!
   Ask that the aisles may be filled, that God will convert the standers
   and that your Church may burst the walls of the house in which you
   meet. Do not think that your standard of a Prayer Meeting is to be a
   low one. Do not begin to say, "If we have twenty or thirty at a Prayer
   Meeting that will do."

   Why, many of our Churches are below even that standard! Do not be
   content even with fifty, but go on shooting. Yes, Brother Evans, go on.
   And you members of this Church--go on shooting your arrows! Do not ask
   God for a little, but open your mouth wide and God will fill it! Take
   care that you open it as wide as ever you can. Ask Him for great things
   and when you ask do not ask as though you thought you were very
   venturesome. No, but ask because He is sure to give! Believe that God
   can and will give you a gracious justification for believing in Him.
   Ask, too, because He knows what your hearts cannot even conceive of,
   for He is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond what you can ask!

   Do not be content, I pray you, at Upton Chapel, with being a nice,
   respectable, strong Church in the denomination! Do not be content with
   that! I say it very sorrowfully, but we have known some Churches which
   did run well. They have got a good place of worship, a very handsome
   building with little bits of colored glass and the people's faces on
   Sundays are all sorts of colors. And when they have got to this pitch
   they have said, "Well, we are very respectable people. We do not want
   the poor people. We do not want to go into the lanes and highways and
   hedges and fetch them in." In fact, they get sometimes to be like some
   of your old servants--you hardly know which is master and which is
   servant. And so the Lord may hardly know which is master in the
   Church--these people, or Himself--for they will not do what He tells
   them. They have got too big for that. They could do it once, but they
   cannot do it now.

   Now that will not be the case here for years to come. I hope it may
   never be the case here. But may you ever be a faithful Church! May you
   ever be a working Church till the Lord Himself shall come. May God
   grant that you may keep on shooting your arrows, that you may expect
   great things and do great things. And now, you members of the Church
   and all of us who are here present, let us consecrate ourselves anew
   unto God. Let us ask ourselves tonight whether we have not been
   shooting too few arrows. Whether we have not thought too much of the
   little we have been doing. Whether we might not have done more. Whether
   we must not do more. Whether now, for the future, we will not believe
   God's promises more firmly. Preach His Word more boldly. Tell it to
   others more frequently. Give to God more liberally. Pray to God more
   earnestly, consecrate and devote ourselves to the Lord more perfectly.

   I am sure there is room for great improvement in the best of us. O
   Lord, what a spark is my love to You! Oh that You would blow it into a
   flame, till it were as coals ofjuniper! To use the words of an old
   minister--"David said, 'The zeal of Your house has eaten me up,' but it
   will be a long time before some people are eaten up. It has not begun
   to nibble at them yet and there is no fear of their being eaten up."

   Now I would like to see a man "eaten up" with his religion! I would
   that the Christian would give himself up so completely to the mighty
   whirlwind of Divine Grace that it might carry him away and make him but
   as a particle of straw in its tremendous course! The Lord grant you
   power and Grace thus to be given up to Him and thus to serve Him! May
   God now add His own blessing, for Christ Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                            The First Five Disciples

   DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 15, 1864, BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,
   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "And the two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus. Then
   Jesus turned and saw them following and said unto them, What do you
   seek? They said unto Him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted,
   Master), where do You dwell? He said unto them, Come and see. They came
   and saw where He dwelt and abode with Him that day for it was about the
   tenth hour. One of the two which heard John speak and followed Him was
   Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother, Simon,
   and said unto him, We have found the Messiah, (which is, being
   interpreted, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus
   beheld him, He said, You are Simon the son of Jona: you shall be called
   Cephas, (which is by interpretation, A Stone). The day following Jesus
   would go forth into Galilee and find Philip and say unto him, Follow
   Me. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip
   found Nathanael and said unto him, We have found Him, of whom Moses in
   the Law and the Prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of
   Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out
   of Nazareth? Philip said unto him, Come and see. Jesus saw Nathanael
   coming to Him and said of him, Behold an Israelite, indeed, in whom is
   no guile. Nathanael said unto Him, Why do You know me? Jesus answered
   and said unto him, Before that Philip called you, when you were under
   the fig tree, Isaw you. Nathanael answered and said unto Him, Rabbi,
   You are the Son of God, You are the King of Israel. Jesus answered and
   said unto him, Because I said unto you, Isaw you under the fig tree, do
   you believe? You shall see greater things than these, And He said unto
   him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter you shall see Hea ven
   open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of
   Man." John 1:37-51.

   IF it is true that "Order is Heaven's first law," I think it must be
   equally true that variety is the second law of Heaven. The line of
   beauty is not a straight line but always the curve. The way of God's
   procedure is not uniform but diversified. You see this with a glance,
   when you look at the creation around us. God has not made all creatures
   of one species but He has created beasts, birds, fishes, insects,
   reptiles. All flesh truly is not the same flesh, neither are all bodies
   of the same order. The dull dead earth, itself, is full of variety.
   Gems sparkle not all with the same ray. The grosser and less precious
   rocks are marked and veined. Each one according to its own fashion. In
   the vegetable world what a variety of plants, shrubs, herbs, flowers
   and trees we have about us! In any one of the kingdoms of Nature,
   whether it is the animal, vegetable, or mineral, you shall find so many
   subdivisions that it would need a long schooling to classify them and a
   lifetime would not suffice to understand them all.

   Consider the winged creatures which flit through the air--what a
   diversity there is between the tiny humming bird, which seems to be but
   a living mass of gems, and the eagle which, with soaring wings ascends
   to the sky and sports with the lighting! The whole world is full of
   marvels and no two marvels alike. You shall never be able to find God
   repeating Himself. This great Master may often paint two pictures which
   seem alike, but investigated with the microscope, what differences at
   once are revealed!

   Even those stars which seem to shine with rays of the same brilliance
   are discovered by the aid of the telescope to be of different colors,
   forms and orbits. No, even the very clouds are piled in varied forms
   and the masses of nebulae which make up the Milky Way are
   distinguishable from each other. God, in no instance that we can ever
   find, has used the same mold a second time. He is so affluent of
   designs, so abundant in the wisdom that devises, so prolific in plans
   that even when He would accomplish the same end He chooses to take
   another road to it. And that new road is quite as direct as those by
   which He has formerly reached His purpose.

   Certainly this observation holds good in Providence. What strange
   diversity there has been in the dealings of God with His Church! When
   He has chastened His people He has scarcely ever made use of the same
   rod twice. At one time Midianites shall come up and devour the land of
   Israel. Another day the Philistines with their giants shall invade the
   country. Then shall come the Babylonians and the Assyrians. Later the
   Roman power shall tread Judea under foot. And as the rods of His
   chastisement have been always different on the great scale, so you have
   found it on the little scale.

   God has seldom chastened you twice in the same way. You could trace
   diversities either in the manner of the blow or the instrument you were
   struck with, or in the part of your mind which seemed to be the most
   affected by His chastisements. In deliverers, again, how great a
   variety--you scarce find two alike! God raises up a Gideon, but
   Jephthah is not like Gideon and Samson is not like Jephthah, nor is
   David to be compared to Samson or Gideon. They are all diverse. And
   their weapons are varied, too. One man has to use an ass' jawbone,
   another must use a sling and a stone--one shall be content with the ox
   goad, while another must draw the dagger.

   Different methods God ordains as well as different forms of man. And He
   delivers His people just according to His own will, but ever in a
   different form. Well may Providence be so diverse when you consider
   that men themselves whom God uses to be His principal instruments are
   so unlike each other. There are not merely the great differences of
   race and of nationality, nor even the differences of birth and
   education, but we are all different in constitution--no two minds being
   alike. There is an individuality about every one of us which will
   prevent our ever being mistaken for anyone else.

   We might by accident be undistinguished, but let us be known and very
   soon important differences will be discovered. God is ever the God of
   variety and He will be so to the end of the chapter. He will do new
   things before He rolls up the book of history--we shall see new acts of
   the Lord--He will fight His battles after fresh methods, raise up
   deliverers different from any who have come before and will exalt and
   glorify His name upon new instruments of music. Let us expect it. He is
   the God of variety, both in Nature and in Providence.

   My text is a very clear illustration that the same law applies in the
   work of Grace. There is ever the same kind of operation and yet ever a
   difference in the manner of operation. There is always the same Worker
   in the conversion of the soul and yet different methods for breaking
   the heart and binding it up again are continually employed. Every
   sinner must be quickened by the same life, made obedient to the same
   Gospel, washed in the same blood, clothed in the same righteousness,
   filled with the same Divine energy and eventually taken up to the same
   Heaven. And yet in the conversion of no two sinners will you find
   matters precisely the same.

   From the first dawn of the Divine life to the day when it is
   consummated in the noontide of perfect sanctification in Heaven, you
   shall find that God works this way in that one, and that way in the
   other, and by another method in the third--for God still will be the
   God of variety. Let His order stand fast as it may, still will He ever
   be manifesting the variety, the many-sidedness of His thoughts and
   mind. If, then, you look at this narrative--somewhat long, but I think
   very full of instruction--you may notice four different methods of
   conversion. And these occur in the conversion of the first five who
   formed the nucleus of the college of Apostles--the first five who came
   to Christ and were numbered among His disciples!

   It is very remarkable that there should be among five individuals four
   different ways of conversion! Were you, however, to examine any five
   persons, I suppose you would find similar disparity. Pick out five
   Christians indiscriminately and begin to question them how they were
   brought to know the Lord. You will find methods other than those you
   have here. And probably quite as many as four out of the five would be
   distinct from the rest.

   I. The first case we have in the text is THE CONVERSION OF THE TWO
   DISCIPLES. One was probably John. We cannot speak with absolute
   certainty, but it was very probably John. We know it to have been the
   habit of this Evangelist to omit his own name whenever he could.
   Sometimes he speaks of "that other disciple," when he means himself.
   And now and then he puts it, "that disciple whom Jesus loved."

   His love nurtured in him a kindly esteem of others, but an humble
   estimate of himself. While, therefore, he never omits to record the
   need of praise others obtained from the lips of Christ, as often as he
   can he omits his own name. It is supposed then--and I think
   rightly--that one was John. The other was Andrew, Simon Peter's
   brother. The first two disciples are the fruits ofpreaching.

   May we not expect to find that the major part of our conversions are
   the result of the public ministry? "The two disciples heard him speak
   and they followed Jesus." Let us offer a few words concerning this
   first matter. We expect, Beloved, to see a great number of souls
   brought to God by the preaching of the Truth of God. The preaching of
   the Cross may be and it actually is to those who perish, foolishness.
   But unto us who are saved, it is the power of God and the wisdom of
   God. Wherever there is the most Gospel preaching, you will find the
   most conversions.

   Many of our societies for carrying the Gospel to the heathen forget
   their main work. And while setting up colleges, translating Bibles and
   publishing tracts, they neglect to use this great hammer of God, this
   mighty battering ram which is to dash down strongholds. The preaching
   of the Cross, the crying of, "Behold the Lamb of God!"--this is God's
   appointed agency. Other labors are to be entered into, but this is the
   main and chief agency for the conversion of souls.

   Observe in the case before us, the preacher. He was a man Divinely
   illuminated. Jesus Christ came to John's Baptism, but at first the
   Baptist did not know Him. After awhile, however, when the descending
   Spirit marked out the Messiah, John then knew to a certainty that this
   was He of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did write. Ever
   afterwards John's testimony was clear and bold. Though he ended his
   ministry with the loss of his head, he never lost the honesty of his
   purpose or the lucidness of his testimony. He continued faithfully to
   declare that the Messiah had come.

   Brethren, it is of importance in the work of the ministry that the
   preacher be a God-illuminated man. Not that education is to be
   despised--on the contrary, we cannot expect the Spirit of God in these
   days to give to men the knowledge of languages if they can acquire that
   knowledge by a little perseverance. It is never the Divine rule to work
   a superfluous miracle. With the faculties and powers we possess, we
   must yield up our members unto God as instruments of righteousness. So
   far, then, as the education of the man is concerned, we believe God
   leaves that with us, for if we can do it there is no need that any
   miracle should be worked.

   But let the man be educated ever so well, he is then but as the lump of
   clay--God must breathe into his nostrils the breath of spiritual life
   as a preacher, or else he will be of no service--just a dead weight
   upon the Church of God. What shall we say, then, of those men who enter
   into a pulpit because the family living is vacant, or because, indeed,
   being too great fools for either the army or the law, they must needs
   be put where their livelihood can be more easily obtained--in the
   Church? How crying is this sin in our times, that men should have
   Episcopal hands laid upon them, declaring that they are moved to the
   ministry by the Holy Spirit, when they know not whether there is a Holy
   Spirit, so far as any experimental knowledge of His power upon their
   own hearts is concerned!

   The day, I hope, is passing away when men shall be more skilled at
   hunting the fox than at fishing for souls. And on the whole, God is
   raising up in this land a spirit of decision upon this point--that the
   Christian minister must be a man who knows experimentally in his own
   soul the Truths of God which he professes to preach. God may convert
   souls, it is true, by a bad preacher. Why, if the devil preached, I
   should not wonder at souls being converted--if only the devil preached
   the Truth. It is the Truth and not the preacher. Ravens, unclean birds
   though they are, brought Elijah his bread and his meat--and unclean
   ministers may sometimes bring God's servants their spiritual food. But
   for all that, unto the wicked, God says, "What have you to do to
   declare My statutes?" The minister must be a God-taught man whose eyes
   have been opened by the Holy Spirit. This, at least, is the standing
   rule--whatever exceptions may be pleaded.

   Then, mark you, granted that this is the case we must not expect his
   ministry to be alike successful at all times, for in the present
   instance, on one occasion the Baptist gave a very clear testimony for
   Christ, but none of his disciples left him to follow Jesus. The next
   time he preached he was successful, for two of his disciples joined the
   Master, though on the former occasion we read not that one of his
   hearers was led to declare himself on the Lord's side.

   My Brethren, God suffers His ministers to cast the net sometimes on the
   wrong side of the ship. Even a whole night they may toil and take
   nothing. They may sow upon the barren ground, upon the highway and
   among the thorns. They may cast their bread upon the waters, and as yet
   they may not find it, for the promise speaks of "many days." Still the
   minister must persevere. If souls are not saved today, they may be
   tomorrow. I was wondering, as I read this passage, whether there were
   some who heard last Sunday in vain, who perhaps would hear to profit
   today. I was lifting up my heart in prayer to God that these words,
   "the next day after," might come true to some here.

   Whereas, the other day, I cried, "Behold the Lamb!" and you did not see
   Him or trust Him, I will repeat the cry, "Behold the Lamb!" again
   today. O that you may be led to follow Jesus! When you have well
   considered the preacher and his success, I would have you observe his
   Subject. How short the sermon!--a rebuke to our prolixity. How plain it
   was-- no difficult phrases--no high-flown elocutionary
   embellishments--no feats of oratory here! It is just, "Behold the
   Lamb!" But observe the Subject--John preaches of Jesus Christ, of
   nothing else but Christ. And of Christ, too, in that position and in
   that form in which He was most needed but least palatable.

   The Jews accepted Christ the Lion. They looked for the mighty Hero of
   the Tribe of Judah who should break their bonds. Such Jesus was. But
   John did not preach Him as such. He preached Him as Christ the
   Lamb--the Lamb of God, the suffering, despised, meek, and patient
   Sacrifice. The Baptist held Him up to the sons of men on this occasion
   as the great Sin Bearer. He seems to have brought out most prominently
   in his own thoughts and before the minds of the people the picture of
   the paschal lamb and of the scapegoat. He dwelt upon this, that Jesus
   was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

   If there are to be many conversions worked in any place, the preacher
   must be a man taught of God and he must persevere, even though he has
   been unsuccessful. But he must see to it that this is the staple of all
   his sermons, the raw material out of which he makes every
   discourse--"Jesus and Jesus the Lamb! Jesus the Sin Bearer." He must
   ever be crying, "You Sinners, see your sins laid on Him! You guilty,
   look to Him! Trust Him! There is life in a look at Him. He has taken
   your sins and carried your sorrows--look to Him!" Let the preacher
   stammer here and he is undone. Let him be unsound on the Atonement. Let
   him speak in feeble strains, as though he apologized for so
   old-fashioned a doctrine and you shall hear of no conversions from
   January to December.

   But let him hold this to be the first and most important Truth--that
   Jesus Christ came into the world to be a Sin Bearer for sinners, even
   the chief, and there must be conversions! God were not true to His
   promise, the Truth were no longer the potent thing it has proved itself
   to be in the olden times if souls were not quickened and turned to God
   by such a ministry as this! O you who preach the Gospel, keep close to
   this, "Behold the Lamb of God!" You young men who stand up in the
   streets, make this your topic! And you who minister to the Church of
   God, give them all the doctrines of the Gospel, but still always come
   back to this as the needle comes to its pole--"Behold the Lamb of God
   which takes away the sin of the world!"

   In these two conversions by public ministry it is interesting to
   observe the process. Carefully notice the narrative. A spirit of
   enquiry was stirred up in Andrew and his companion and they began to
   follow Christ, not exactly as disciples as yet, but as searchers. If I
   may say so, they followed Christ's back. They had not come to see His
   face yet, or to sit at His feet. They followed His back as some do who,
   being impressed under the Word, have a desire after Christ and intend
   to set about an honest investigation of His claims to their faith.
   While they are following behind Christ, He turns round and faces them.

   Oh, what a blessed turning for them! It was a blessed turning for Peter
   when the Lord turned and looked upon him! And in this case while they
   are, as it were, following His back, He turns and He looks upon them. I
   cannot tell you how much love there was in His eyes. The love of a
   mother to her first child may perhaps picture the love of Jesus Christ
   to these, His first disciples. He was God, He was Man, He was God's own
   Son. But He had never been a Master of disciples till that moment. Now
   He springs to a rank which He had not obtained before. Now He has some
   who will call Him "Rabbi," and will be willing to be guided by His
   teaching. He looks round upon them. Even so, when enquiry is excited by
   the ministry, and men begin to search, Jesus Christ looks upon them.
   With an eye of earnest affection He regards them and assists them in
   their search.

   Jesus put to them the question, "What do you seek?"--a very modest
   question. Notice it. It is the first word of Christ's ministry. It is
   the first word I find Christ speaking at all in public--"What do you
   seek?" And was not it a very comprehensive question? "What is that you
   seek?" If there are any honest enquirers here after salvation, He puts
   the same question to you this morning--"What do you seek?" Are you
   seeking pardon? You shall find it in Me. Are you seeking peace? I will
   give you rest. Are you seeking purity? I will take away your sin. A new
   heart will I give you and a right spirit will I put within you. What
   are you seeking? Some solid resting place for your soul upon earth and
   a glorious hope for yourself in Heaven? Whatever you seek, it is here.

   What a text this might be for a missionary when first consulted by some
   of the awakened heathen, when he should say, "You are on the search
   after Truth. Now what is it you really want? What do you seek? What is
   it? Because whatever it is that the human heart in its right state can
   possibly seek after--all that is to be found in Christ." Christ meets
   the man who is in an enquiring frame of mind by suggesting to him
   further enquiry. He stirs up the heart. While the soul's fire is
   burning He puts fuel to the flame.

   They say, "Master, where do you dwell?" And His answer to them is,
   "Come and see." This is just how the process of conversion is worked in
   men's hearts. They want to know more of Christ and He says to them,
   "Come and see." You would have peace--come and see whether I can give
   it to you. I tell you that if you trust Me, your peace shall be like a
   river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. "Come and see."
   You say you want purity--just try now the effect of the obedience of
   faith. See if it does not change your heart and renew your spirit.
   "Come and see." O you who are seeking and asking questions about Christ
   and about His Gospel and His Person and His pedigree, "Come and see."

   The best way to be convinced of the potency of our holy Gospel is to
   try it for yourselves. If you are honest seekers, if the Grace of God
   has made you so, then come and test and try! "Blessed is every man that
   trusts in Him." This is our witness and our testimony. But if you want
   to be sure of it for yourselves, "Come and see." They took Christ at
   His word. They came and they saw. We are not told what they saw, but we
   are told what was the result--they stopped with Him that night and they
   remained with Him all His days and became His faithful disciples.

   my dear Friend, if you would but come and see Christ! If by humble
   earnest prayer you would give your heart up to Him and then trust in
   Him implicitly to be your Guide, you would never lament the decision!
   If Jesus proves a liar to you, then desert Him! If His promises are not
   true, then stand no longer numbered with His disciples. But give Him a
   trial--

   " O make but trial of His love!
   Experience will decide how blest are they and only they,
   Who in His Truth confide."

   You see, then, the way in which God's Grace works through the Word--it
   excites a spirit of enquiry, then a still further enquiry, then the
   test of experience--and afterwards leads to the giving up of the heart
   to Christ.

   II. The next case is a very different one. The third of Christ's
   disciples, one Simon Peter, was brought in by PRIVATE INSTRUMENTALITY
   and not by the public preaching of the Word. Observe the forty-first
   verse, "Andrew first finds his own brother Simon, and says unto him, We
   have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, the Christ." This
   case is but the pattern of all cases where spiritual life is vigorous.
   As soon as ever a man is found by Christ, he begins to find others.

   The word "first" implies that he did not give it up afterwards--he
   first found his own brother Simon! How many he found afterwards I
   cannot tell, but I will be bound to say that Andrew continued to be a
   fisher of men till he was taken up to the third Heaven. He found very
   many after he had found Peter. The first instinct of the new-born life
   is to desire the good of others. I will not believe that you have
   tasted of the honey of the Gospel if you can eat it all yourself. True
   Grace puts an end to all spiritual monopoly.

   1 know there are some who think there is no Grace beyond their own
   Chapel. They believe that God never works beyond the walls of their own
   tabernacle. Beyond the range of the voice of their minister everything
   is unsound, unorthodox, pretensions perhaps, but still fatally
   delusive. They hold that all others are out of the bond of the Covenant
   and, not unlike those ancient wranglers in the land of Uz, they say,
   "We are the men and wisdom will die with us." Surely God's people never
   talk in that fashion, or if they do, they are then speaking the
   language of Ashdod and not the speech of the child of Israel, for the
   Israelite's tongue drops with love and his speech is full of the
   anxious desire that others may be brought in!

   Look at our Apostle Paul. You shall never find stronger
   predestinarianism than you read in the ninth chapter of Romans, and yet
   what does he say? His heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is
   that they may be saved. He had heaviness of heart, he says, for his
   Brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh. There was no man more
   anxious to convert souls than Paul, though there was no man more sound
   in the doctrine of the election of God. He knew it was not of him that
   wills, nor of him that runs, but yet he could say as Samuel did, "God
   forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you."

   See, then, that the first desire of a Christian man is to endeavor to
   bring others to the Savior. Relationship has a very stern demand upon
   our first individual efforts. Andrew, you did well to begin with Simon.
   I do not know, my Brethren, whether there are not some Christians
   giving away tracts at other people's houses who would do well to give
   away a tract at their own. I wonder whether there are not some going
   out to the villages preaching who had better remain at home teaching
   their own children--or whether even in the Sunday school there may not
   be those who come before God to perform one duty, while their hands are
   stained blood-red with the murder of another duty. Your first business
   is at home. You may have a call to teach other people's children--that
   may be--but certainly you have an imperative call to teach your own.
   You may or you may not be called to look after the people of a
   neighboring town or village, but certainly you are called to see after
   your own servants, your own kinsfolk and acquaintances. Let your
   religion begin at home.

   We have heard of some people who export their best commodities--many
   traders do--I do not think the Christian should imitate them in that.
   At least let the Christian have all his conversation everywhere of the
   best savor, but let him have a care to put forth the sweetest fruit of
   spiritual life and testimony at home and in the circle of his own
   kinsfolk and acquaintances. Andrew, you did well, first, to find your
   brother Simon. When he went to find him he may not have thought of what
   Simon would become. Why, Simon was worth ten Andrews, as far as we can
   gather from the Evangelists! Peter was a very prince among the
   Apostles! And with that ready tongue of his and that bold, dashing,
   daring spirit--with that confident, resolute soul--there were none of
   them a match for Peter!

   John might excel in love, but still Peter was verily a leader among the
   Apostles, and Andrew would but little compare with him. You may be
   yourself but very deficient in talent and yet you may be the means of
   bringing a great man to Christ. Ah, dear Friend, you little know the
   possibilities which are in you! You may but speak a word to a child and
   in that child there may be slumbering now a great heart which shall
   stir the Christian Church in years to come. Andrew has only two
   talents, but then finds Peter. Andrew's testimony to Peter is worthy of
   remark. There was great modesty in it and that, I dare say, commended
   it to Peter.

   He did not say, "I have found the Messiah"--he says, "We." Whoever was
   the other disciple, he gives him his share of the discovery. Our speech
   never loses force by losing pride but generally increases its power in
   proportion to its modesty, though that modesty must never interfere
   with boldness. His testimony was very plain and very positive. He did
   not beat around the bush or hesitate, but it is just this--"We have
   found the Messiah." Plain and unadorned was the statement, very
   positive. He did not say, "I think we have," or, "I trust we have,"
   but, "we have." And this was just the thing for Simon Peter.

   Peter wanted positive and plain dealing and he was a man who wanted it
   pushed home by a brother's friendly voice, or else it had little
   availed him to speak of Christ at all. When he was brought to Jesus,
   observe the process of conversion. Jesus describes to him his present
   state. He said, "You are Simon, son of Jona." Some interpret this, "You
   are Simon, the son of the timid dove." He explains to him what he
   was--shows that He knew him--that He understood both his boldness and
   his cowardice--both his rashness and his constancy. And then, when He
   had told him what he was, Jesus gave him a new name indicative of the
   nature which His Grace would give--"You shall be called Cephas, a
   stone."

   Now this is the general plan of conversion. It is the plan in every
   case, really, though not apparently. Nature is discovered and Grace is
   imparted. The old name we are taught to read with sorrow and a new name
   is given to us and we rejoice in it. There may be some here who have
   not been converted to God under the ministry but under the words of a
   Sunday school teacher, or a sister, or a friend. Thank God and take
   courage. It does not matter how you are converted, so long as you are
   resting upon Jesus only!

   If you have not been a searcher of the Word, if Christ has never seemed
   to say to you, "Come and see," yet if your nature has been changed and
   you have received a new name--if there is a radical change in the
   rest--you are a child of God. That you are brought into the fellowship
   of the saints is an illustration of the unity of God's purpose. That
   there should be distinctive marks in your conversion is quite in
   harmony with the diversity of His operations.

   III. "The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee and find
   Philip and say unto him, Follow Me." The fourth disciple is called
   without either the public Word or private instruction--he is called
   directly BY THE VOICE OF JESUS. Now in truth all men are so called, for
   the voice of John or the voice of Andrew is really the voice of Jesus
   Christ speaking through their instrumentality. But in some cases no
   apparent instrumentality is used. We have known some who on a sudden
   have felt impressions, from where they came or where they tended they
   did not know.

   In the midst of business we have known the workman suddenly check his
   plane--a great thought has entered into his brain--where it came from
   he could not tell. We have known a man wake up at midnight--he could
   not tell why, but a holy calm was upon him and as the moon was shining
   through the window there seemed to be a holy light shining into his
   soul and he began to think. We have known such things to
   occur--surprising cases--when men have been planning deeds of vice.

   Was it not so with Colonel Gardner--that very night about to perpetrate
   a crime and yet stopped by Sovereign Grace upon the very brink of it,
   without any apparent instrumentality? We can not tell, Brethren, when
   God may regenerate His elect, for though we are to use means and cry to
   God to send forth laborers into the vineyard, yet the Sovereign Lord of
   All will frequently work without them. The Word which has been heard in
   years gone by. The Scripture which was known in childhood may, by the
   direct power of the Holy Spirit, without any immediate apparent means,
   turn the man from darkness to Light. Jesus Christ spoke but two words,
   but those words were enough--"Follow Me"--and Philip at once obeyed.
   What preparation of heart there had been before, I cannot tell. What
   still small voice had been speaking before this in Philip's ear, we do
   not know. Certainly the only outward means was this voice of Christ,
   "Follow Me."

   And there may be in this House some who will be converted this morning.
   You do not know why you are here. You cannot tell why you strayed in.
   But yet it may be--God knows--Christ would have you come here because
   He would come here Himself. Is not there something which invites a
   pause in that word, "would," as we read it in this verse?-- "The day
   following Jesus would go forth into Galilee." Is not there something of
   the Divine necessity which we have often noticed in another place?--"He
   must needs go through Samaria." Did not He feel instinctively that
   there was a soul there which He must meet with and He must go after it
   and speak the all-commanding, sin-subduing Word?

   Perhaps this morning Jesus would come to the Tabernacle! Jesus would
   come here because He knows that Philip is come here, too. Philip, where
   are you? You may have lived in sin and despised Christ, but if He says,
   "Follow Me," I beseech you obey His word and follow Him! To follow
   Christ is the picture of Christian discipleship in every form. Follow
   Christ in your doctrines--believe what He teaches! Follow Christ in
   your faith--trust Him implicitly with your soul! Follow Him in your
   actions--let Him be your example and Guide! Follow Him in
   ordinances--in Baptism follow Him and at His Table follow Him!

   To every deed of daring, to every place of spiritual communion, to the
   mountain of secret prayer, or to the crowd in open ministry, follow
   Him! According to your measure tread in the footsteps of your Lord and
   Master. And this, I say, may be directed to one who has had no other
   instrumentality used upon him, but just the mysterious voice of
   Christ-- "Follow Me." It was so with the third case. Perhaps of the
   three this experience is the highest. The first two were told, "Come
   and see," and they came to understand the value of Christ. But this one
   is made to follow--he carries out practically that which the others did
   but see.

   The second conversion before us attains a higher degree than the first.
   But this is the highest of all when the change of nature, as in the
   case of Peter, now leads to a change of action, as in the case of
   Philip, who arises and follows Christ.

   IV. I hope I have not wearied you, for there is yet the fourth case of
   the fifth disciple, which differs from them all-- Nathanael. What shall
   we say of Nathanael? Was he converted by ministry? It does not appear
   so. Was he converted by PRIVATE INSTRUMENTALITY? He was partly so.
   Philip finds Nathanael, but Philip's finding of Nathanael was not quite
   so effectual as Christ's finding of Philip. When Christ found Philip,
   Philip believed. But when Philip found Nathanael, Nathanael would not
   believe. He said, "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"

   Philip is partly the instrument, but there is something more. Jesus
   Christ Himself shows His own power BY TELLING TO

   NATHANAEL THE SECRETS OF HIS HEART. But still, Nathanael's conversion
   to Christ seems to me to be PARTLY OWING TO THE STATE IN WHICH HE THEN
   WAS. He was already in some sense a saved man--he was a devout
   Israelite. He was a true seeker of the Messiah beneath the fig tree.
   Well, then, there were these things put together--there was a
   preparation of heart which was doubtless worked of God.

   But this preparation did not bring him to Christ, though it made him
   ready for Christ. It brought him to God in prayer, but it did not bring
   him yet to the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Then
   came Philip's instrumentality and then came Christ's Divine Word which
   convinced Nathanael and led him to put his trust in the Messiah. This
   is a sort of composite case and doubtless there are many in the Church
   of God, who, if you should ask them, "How were you converted?" would be
   somewhat puzzled to give the answer.

   We find in our Church Meetings a very large proportion of people who
   say, "Well, I cannot trace my conversion to any one sermon--many
   sermons have impressed me--indeed, most do. I cannot say, Sir, that I
   was converted when I was a child, but I sometimes think I was, for even
   at that time I was the subject of many impressions and I certainly did
   offer prayer. Yet there was a time," they will tell you, "there was a
   time when I seemed to come out more distinctly into the Light. And when
   I could say of Christ, 'You are the Son of God! You are the King of
   Israel,' but I cannot say exactly when the sun rose."

   Now this, I think, was Nathaniel's case. Perhaps trained and brought up
   by godly parents, he had been in the habit of prayer--that prayer was
   somewhat ignorant--but it was very sincere. He sought the solitude of
   his shady garden and under the fig tree poured out his heart unto the
   Lord. That man is not saved. No! But there is a great part of the work
   done. Do not tell me that that man in his prayer has nothing in him
   more than the blasphemer. I tell you that he needs as much as the
   blasphemer does to have an effectual Word from Christ, but still there
   is a preparatory work in this man which there is not even in Philip, or
   in Simon Peter. There is a something, not meritorious, but still
   preparatory to the reception of the Gospel of Christ.

   And when you labor for the conversion of such a man as this--and I do
   hope there may be some in this crowd--then it does not matter whether
   it is the ministry, or whether it is private instrumentality--there is
   sure to be good result because there is good ground to begin with. God
   has already furrowed and plowed the soil and so when the seed is
   scattered, there may be a little objection at first, but ultimately it
   will take root. Be looking out then, dear Friends, you who know how to
   talk to others about their souls! And wherever you see anything like
   devotion, even if it is mistaken and ignorant, look at that case! Be
   especially hopeful about it and try, if you can, to inform that person,
   "We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets did
   write."

   Introduce Christ, talk of Jesus, bring these Nathanaels to Jesus--these
   who are like the honest and good ground, these men without guile or
   cunning--bring them to Jesus! Still, mark you, their prayers and your
   instrumentality will not be enough unless Christ shall meet them with
   some startling, soul-discovering Word and shall say, "Before that
   Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." Ah,
   you seeking Soul, Christ sees you! Before you came here this morning
   Jesus saw you! Before you hear the challenge, "Look to Christ," Christ
   has looked upon you. If you are truly seeking in the loneliness of that
   upper room, or in that field behind the hedge, Jesus sees you!

   When you are by the wayside and your heart is going up, "Lord, save me,
   or I perish," Jesus sees you! One of you has been writing to me this
   morning, and you say, "Pray for me that I may be saved, for I want to
   be saved." Ah, my Friend, if you want to be saved, Jesus wants to save
   you and so you are both agreed on that point! You, like Nathanael, are
   seeking Him. And I come this morning, like Philip and I long to bring
   you to Jesus, my Master. Oh, how I pray Him to speak to you and if so,
   He will tell you that He knew you when you were dead in sin and loved
   you, notwithstanding all!

   And therefore He brought you to this House to hear His Word. Mark you,
   Nathanael's is the best case of the whole! He was favored above many.
   Who was the first man that ever had a promise from Christ? It was
   Nathanael! What was that? Why, that promise seems to me to be the sum
   of the Gospel--or rather the token-promise of the Gospel--which every
   Christian should carry in his hand. Jesus said, "Because I said unto
   you, I saw you under the fig tree, believe you? You shall see greater
   things than these." Nathanael was the first man who ever received a
   promise from the lips of the Lord Jesus when He was here on earth!

   O you seeking Nathanaels, I think this is a promise for you--"You shall
   see greater things than these"--you shall see yourself pardoned! You
   shall see your prayers ascending Jacob's ladder and blessings coming
   down from God to rest upon your soul! I had hoped to have brought out
   many more points, but indeed, the chapter is too full for any to handle
   in so brief a time. You will observe, however, that I have given you
   just a glance at the surface of it which will suffice to show that the
   means of conversion and the general tenor of conversion will be found
   to differ in each case. Perhaps Nathanael's is the highest of all--he
   receives Christ in a fuller way than any of the others and he enjoys
   greater promises than they do.

   But still they are all genuine, though they are not one of them like
   the other, except that John and Andrew may be put together. Judge not,
   therefore, your conversion by its means or by its particular form, but
   judge it by its fruit. Does it bring you to Jesus? Are you depending
   upon Him now? If so, go your way--your sins, which are many, are
   forgiven you! Eat the fat and drink the sweet, for God accepts
   you--therefore rejoice! But and if you have had a thousand conversions,
   if you are not resting on Jesus this morning, tremble, for your refuge
   is a refuge of lies! Your hope is a spider's web--God deliver you from
   it and bring you now to rest upon the finished work and the perfect
   Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus! And then, with Andrew and Peter and John,
   and Philip and Nathanael you shall meet before the Throne to praise Him
   who is the Son of God and the King of Israel! The Lord bless you, for
   Christ's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                   Unbelievers Stumbling--Believers Rejoicing

   DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 22, 1864, BY THE REV. C, H. SPURGEON,
   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "As it is written, Behold I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of
   offense: and whoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed." Romans
   9:33.

   OUR Apostle was inspired of God and yet he was moved to quote passages
   out of the Old Testament. The Spirit of God might have dictated new
   words to him. He might have shown him how to confirm the Truth by other
   arguments, but He is not pleased to do so. He moves His servant to
   establish the present Truth by Truths formerly revealed and thus He
   sets us an example of searching the Scriptures and prizing the ancient
   Oracles of God. The passage before us appears to be composed of two
   Scriptures woven into one, a method not very infrequent with the
   Apostles. A part of the text before us is found in Isaiah 28:16.

   The Apostle does not quote verbatim, but gives us rather the sense than
   the words--"Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried
   stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation: he that believes
   shall not make haste." But the Apostle inlays this word of Prophecy
   with another, selecting this time from Isaiah 8:14--"And He shall be
   for a sanctuary. But for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense
   to both the houses of Israel." I cannot help making an observation or
   two upon these passages before I come to the text before us.

   In Isaiah 8:14 you will perceive a striking proof of Christ's Divinity.
   Observe the thirteenth verse--"Sanctify the Lord of Hosts Himself. And
   let Him be your fear and let Him be your dread. And He," that is the
   Lord of Hosts, "shall be for a sanctuary" to Believers, "but a stone of
   stumbling and for a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel."
   Isaiah utters a prophecy of the Lord of hosts. Paul quotes it in
   reference to the Lord Jesus Christ, plainly intending us to infer that
   the Lord Jesus Christ is no other than Jehovah Himself!

   We learn from the other passage another Truth of God which serves more
   closely to illustrate our text. In Isaiah 28:16, we read, "Behold, I
   lay in Zion for a foundation a stone." The Apostle has omitted the
   words "for a foundation," and has inserted the words of the other
   passage, "a stumbling stone, a rock of offense." But the original
   prophecy in Isaiah serves to show us that God's real object in laying
   Christ in Zion was not that men might stumble at Him, but that He might
   be a foundation for their hopes. The real object of God was that Christ
   might be the cornerstone of human confidence.

   But the result has been that to one set of men, renewed by Almighty
   Grace, Christ has become a sanctuary of refuge and a stone of
   dependence. And to others left to their own depravity He has become a
   rock of offense and a stumbling stone--thus the remarks upon the
   primitive Scriptures which Paul quotes. And now let us come to the
   verse itself. Our text tells us that many persons stumble at Christ.
   And, then, secondly, it assures us that those who receive Christ and
   believe in Him, shall have no cause to be ashamed.

   I. The first declaration needs no proof, for observation itself teaches
   us that MANY STUMBLE AT CHRIST. No sooner was God manifest in the
   flesh, than mortals began to stumble at Him. "Is not this the
   carpenter's son?" was the question of those who looked for worldly pomp
   and imperial grandeur. "His father and His mother we know, and His
   brothers and His sisters, are they not all with us?" was the whispered
   objection of His own townsmen. In His own country the greatest of all
   Prophets had no honor. Our Lord was rejected by all sorts of men. They
   looked at Him from different quarters, but all with the same scornful
   eye.

   The Pharisee stumbled at Him because He was not superstitions and
   ostentatious. Indeed, He did not wash His hands before He ate! Nor did
   He pray at the corner of the streets! Why, He entered into the company
   of publicans and sinners! He did not make broad His phylactery. He
   healed the sick upon the Sunday! He had no respect for traditions and
   therefore every righteous Pharisee abhorred Him. The Sadducee, on the
   other hand, much as He hated Pharisaic superstition, despised Christ
   equally as much. His objections were shot from quite another quarter.
   To him Christ was too superstitious, for the Sadducee would not believe
   in angels or spirits, or the resurrection of the dead--all which
   beliefs the Prophet of Nazareth openly avowed.

   Philosophical skepticism detested Jesus because His teaching had in it
   very much of the supernatural element. All His life long, in the high
   courts of Herod or of Pilate, or in the lowest rank of the mob of
   Judea, Christ was despised and rejected of men. They had long ago
   persecuted all the Prophets whom the Lord had sent and it was little
   marvel that they now assailed the Master Himself. "We have piped unto
   you and you have not danced. We have mourned unto you and you have not
   lamented," might all the Prophets of God say, for Israel received
   neither the lonely man, whose meat was locusts and wild honey, nor the
   more genial Spirit who came eating and drinking.

   They put all God's Prophets away and would have none of their rebukes.
   And when the Son Himself had come, they said, "This is the Heir, let us
   kill Him, that the inheritance may be ours." The Jews, with one voice
   rejected Him, save only the remnant, according to the election of
   Grace. But the Jew is not alone in his offense at the Cross. We know
   that when the Gospel was carried afterwards to the Gentiles, Christ
   Crucified was a stumbling stone to them. The polished Greeks, with
   their various systems of philosophy, expected in the Messiah deep
   thinking and classic taste. But when they heard Paul preach the
   resurrection of the dead, they saw nothing flattering to their
   philosophy and therefore they openly mocked him.

   While the Jew gathered up his broad-bordered garment and called Christ
   a stumbling block, the Greek marched off to his classic temple or to
   his scientific academe and cried, "Foolishness! The men who talk thus
   must be mad!" In every age, even to the present time, wherever Jesus
   Christ is preached, the human heart at once has been stirred with wrath
   against Him. God's ambassador has found men unwilling to receive the
   peace which he proclaims. God's dear Son, who came with no words but
   those of mercy and of tenderness, has been abhorred and rejected by the
   very men whom He came to bless. "He came unto His own and His own
   received Him not."

   However, we have very little to do with these past ages--we have far
   more to do with the present and with ourselves. And it is a sad thing
   to know that among this assembly, though I suppose we all call
   ourselves Christians, there are many who still find Christ Jesus to be
   a stumbling stone to them and a rock of offense. It is a lamentable
   fact that there are hundreds of thousands in London to whom the Gospel
   of Christ is as little known as to Hindus or Tartars. Christ is not a
   stumbling block to these--they are unaware of Him and therefore they
   have not the guilt which some of you have--of having heard of Him and
   having rejected Him.

   Among the present assembly there are some who stumble at Christ because
   of His holiness. He is too strict for them. They would be Christians
   but they cannot renounce their sensual pleasures. They would be washed
   in His blood, but they desire still to roll in the mire of sin. Willing
   enough, the mass of men would be to receive Christ, if, after receiving
   Him, they might continue in their drunkenness, their wantonness and
   self-indulgence. But Christ lays the axe at the root of the tree--He
   tells them that these things must be given up--"because of these things
   comes the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience," and,
   "without holiness no man can see the Lord."

   Human nature kicks at this. "What? May I not enjoy one darling lust?
   May I not indulge myself at least now and then in these things? Must I
   altogether forsake my old habits and my old ways? Must I be made a new
   creature in Christ Jesus?" These are terms too hard, conditions too
   severe, and so the human heart goes back to the flesh pots of Egypt and
   clings to the garlic and the onions of the old estate of bondage and
   will not be set free even though a greater than Moses lifts up the rod
   to part the sea and promises to give to them a Canaan flowing with milk
   and honey. Christ offends men because His Gospel is intolerant of sin.

   Others stumble at our blessed Lord because they do not like the plan of
   being saved altogether and alone through faith. Have I any such here? I
   suppose I have. They say, "What? Are our good works to go for nothing?
   Is there nothing that we can do to assist in our salvation? You tell us
   that it is trusting in Christ alone without anything else which
   justifies the soul. Then we do not understand it, or if we understand
   it we do not like it." This is too humbling, too simple, too easy.
   "Why," says the man who has always been to his parish Church or to his
   Meeting House, who owes nobody anything and is kind to the poor--"Why,
   then I am no better off than the harlot who walks the pavement at
   midnight! Or the thief who is spending his month at the treadmill."

   You are no better off, my Hearer, as to your eternal salvation if you
   refuse to believe in Christ! The damnation of the openly ungodly is
   sure, but so is yours, if, after having heard the plan of salvation you
   turn upon your heels and despise it because you prefer your own
   righteousness to the righteousness of God! Ah, how many are shipwrecked
   upon this rock, swallowed up in this quicksand? They would be saved but
   they will not bow the knee. They are not content to take God's
   salvation by faith in Christ Jesus and so they perish through their
   willful pride.

   I have known others who stumble at Christ because of the doctrine which
   He preaches, more especially the Doctrines of Grace. There will come
   into this House, some who, if we preach a sermon upon Christian virtue,
   will say, "I enjoyed that discourse." But if we preach Christ and begin
   to talk about the deep doctrines which lie underneath the Gospel, such
   as election, effectual calling, and eternal and immutable love,
   straightway they are angry almost to the gnashing of their teeth. They
   would have Christ, they say, but they cannot accept these doctrines.
   "What? God saves whom He wills and not so much as ask the creature's
   permission? Shall He do just as He pleases with us as a potter does
   with lumps of clay? Are we to be told to our face that it is not of him
   that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy? We
   cannot endure this--we will betake ourselves to some place where man is
   made more of and where God is not set so high above our heads!"

   Ah, but my Friend, Jesus Christ will not shape His doctrine to please
   you, nor tone down the Truth of Scripture to suit your carnal taste.
   Mark you, it is in the ninth of Romans that my text is found, and in
   that ninth of Romans you have the most plain and bold declaration
   anywhere on record concerning the Sovereignty of Divine Grace and if
   you choose to make that Sovereignty a reason for not believing in
   Christ you will perish for your pains. And, perish deservedly, too,
   because you will quarrel with God's Word and damn your own soul to be
   avenged on God's Sovereignty.

   But indeed, my dear Friends, when sinners are resolved to object to
   Christ, it is the easiest thing in the world to find something to
   object to. I have met with some who stumble at Christ's people. They
   will say, "Well, I would believe in Christ, but look at professors! See
   how inconsistent they are! See many Church members, in what an unholy
   way they walk and even some ministers," and then they will begin to
   quote various faults of some of God's eminent servants and they think
   this is an excuse for going to Hell themselves, because others do not
   walk straight in the way to Heaven!

   O, will you send your soul to Hell because another man is not all he
   should be? What if David falls and David is restored, is this any
   reason why you should fall and never be restored? What if some pilgrims
   to Heaven do turn into Bypath Meadow and have to come limping back into
   the road--is this a reason why you should follow the road to the City
   of Destruction? I think, Man, that this should only make you the more
   diligent to make your calling and election sure! The shipwrecks of
   others should make you sail more carefully. The bankruptcies of other
   men should make you trade with greater diligence and humility. To quote
   the defects of others as a reason why you should continue in the error
   of your ways is a fool's method of reasoning! Take heed, lest you find
   out your folly in the flames of Hell!

   The real objection of the natural man is not, however, to God's people,
   nor to the plan of salvation itself, so much as to Christ. The rock of
   offense is Christ--to the Person of Christ. You will not have this Man
   to reign over you! You are not willing that He should wear the crown
   and have all the honor of your salvation. You had rather perish in your
   sin than that Jesus Christ should be magnified in your salvation. This
   is a severe charge, you will tell me. If it is not true, I pray you
   prove it false by believing in Jesus! If you have no objection to
   Christ, accept Him! Sinner, I charge you, if you say you do not stumble
   at Christ, then lay hold upon Him! If He is not obnoxious to you, clasp
   Him in your arms now!

   Why, Man, if you are in your senses, since Christ can save you with an
   eternal salvation, you will certainly grasp Him, unless there is some
   objection in the way. And because you do not lay hold of Him, I tell
   you there is some hindrance in your sinful heart--an offense at Christ
   which will be your ruin unless God delivers you from it. Now may God
   help me to reason a few minutes with those who are not believers in
   Christ, who have made Him a stumbling stone and a rock of offense.

   Dear Friend, let me come close to you and take your hand and talk with
   you. Have you ever considered how much you insult God the Father by
   rejecting Christ? If you were invited to a man's feast and you should
   come to the table and dash down every dish and throw them on the ground
   and trample on them, would not this be an insult? If you were a poor
   beggar at the door and a rich man had bid you into his feast out of
   pure charity, what do you think you would deserve if you had treated
   his provisions in this way? And yet this is just your case. God owes
   you nothing. You are a poor sinner without any claim upon Him and yet
   He has been pleased to prepare a table for you. His oxen and His
   fatlings have been killed and now you will not come!

   No! You do worse! You raise objections to the feast! You despise the
   pleasant land and the goodly provision of God! Just think at what an
   expense the provision of salvation has been made! The eternal Father
   gave His Son. Hark you--His Well-Beloved, the Darling of His heart, His
   only Son--He gave Him to DIE, and do you despise such a Gift as this?
   What do you think? Would it not bring the blood into your face if you
   should give your only son to fight for your country and they to whom he
   was given should despise you and your gift? If out of some superhuman
   patriotism for your country's good you should even slay your son, would
   it not cut you to the quick if men should laugh at you and scoff the
   deed?

   And yet such you do to the eternal Father, who for the love of men has
   rent His Darling from His bosom, nailed Him to the tree and filled Him
   with unutterable pains. You despise the unspeakable gift, the richest
   deed of bounty which even the infinite heart of God could have
   imagined, or the infinite hand of God could have performed! You despise
   all this! You touch God, let me tell you, in the apple of His eye. You
   do now wound Him in the most tender part! You might better have run
   upon the edge of His sword or dashed yourself upon the bosses of His
   buckler than to despise and reject His Only-Begotten Son, slaughtered
   for human guilt!

   Think again, what a proof is here of your sinfulness and how readily
   will you be condemned at the last when this sin is written on your
   forehead. Why, Man, there will be no reason to bring up any other sins
   against you! The book in which your faults have been recorded scarcely
   need be opened, for this, alone, will be enough! You have made Christ a
   stumbling block, you have objected to God's dear Son--why need we any
   other witness? Out of this one mouth you shall be condemned--"You did
   abhor the Prince of Glory. You did refuse Him your heart"--take him
   back to the place from where he came. What if he has never been an
   adulterer or a whoremonger, yet is not this enough? Does not this show
   the blackness of the traitor's heart and the vileness of his character?
   He would not have Christ! He made the foundation which God laid in
   Zion, "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense." What do you think
   of this, my Hearer?

   Moreover, as this will be a swift witness to condemn you, how will this
   increase your misery? Do you think God will be tender over you when you
   have not been tender with His Son? When He shall cast you into Hell,
   will He make the flames less hot? Do you think His vengeance will be
   cool towards the man who stumbled at His Son? No! But this shall whet
   the edge of His sword. "This traitor did do despite unto the blood of
   Christ." He will pour oil upon the flames. "This man made My
   Only-Begotten Son to be a stumbling stone. And now will I prove to him
   that whoever stumbles upon this stone shall be broken and upon whomever
   it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder."

   Do you think that a king would be any the more inclined to be merciful
   towards a traitor if he knew that that traitor had despised his son?
   No. I think the sentence would be the more severe. Ah, Sinner! If all
   other sinners escape, you who have heard the Gospel shall not. If God's
   arrows miss other sinners, they shall strike you! You shall be the
   special object of almighty vengeance because you were disobedient,
   stumbling at this stumbling stone. Think again, Man, will not this seat
   the eternity of your woe? How can you escape if you neglect so great a
   salvation? You have broken down the only bridge which could have led
   you into safety! You have pulled down the only refuge which could have
   protected you from Divine wrath--"There remains no more sacrifice for
   sin."

   How can there be? Do you think when you are in Hell that Christ will
   come a second time to die for you? Will He pour out His blood again to
   bring you from the place of torment? Man, do you have so vain an
   imagination as to dream that there will be a second ransom offered for
   those who have not escaped the wrath to come, and that God the Holy
   Spirit will again come and strive with sinners who aforetime willfully
   rejected Him? No, inasmuch as even your Savior is objected to and you
   put eternal life from you and the foundation itself is a stumbling
   stone, there can remain nothing for you but a fearful looking for of
   judgment and of fiery indignation.

   And now one other word with you. Does not this view of the case make
   your heart tremble? Is it not enough to have broken God's Law? Why do
   you go the length of despising His Son? O my eyes! If you could weep
   forever you could never weep tears enough, because once you refused to
   look to Him who is now your daily joy. Is not this one of the worst
   sins we shall have to confess? And O Sinner, will not you confess it
   now? Will not this thought break your heart--that you have up to now
   despised the altogether lovely and loving One? May the Spirit of God
   drive that home as a nail in a sure place, and I think you will turn to
   the Redeemer and say, "My Lord and my God, forgive me that I have dealt
   so un- kindly with You. Accept me, receive me to Your bosom. Wash me in
   Your blood. Take me to be Your servant and save me with a great
   salvation."

   Happy is the man who has been brought by Divine Grace thus to confess
   his fault and stumble no longer. After all, what is there to stumble
   at? O my Hearer, why should you reject Christ? He is not a hard
   taskmaster--"His yoke is easy and His burden is light." Why should you
   refuse your own mercy? To be saved--is that a misfortune? To be
   cleansed from sin--is this a calamity? To be made a child of God--is
   that a disadvantage? To escape from Hell and fly to Heaven--is not this
   the most desirable of all mercies? Why, then, despise Christ? It is
   unreasonable! God deliver you from this unreasonable sin and bring you
   now to accept Christ with a perfect heart and He shall be praised for
   it forever.

   II. I shall now try, by the help of God's Spirit, to explain the second
   part--the more comforting part of the text, "WHOEVER BELIEVES ON HIM
   SHALL NOT BE ASHAMED." He shall be ashamed to think he did not believe
   be-fore--he shall be ashamed to think he does not believe more firmly
   now--he shall often feel shame and confusion of face on account of his
   ingratitude and his sinfulness and his wandering of heart. But the text
   means he shall not be ashamed of having trusted Christ. He that
   believes on Christ shall never have any cause to be ashamed of so
   doing.

   1. In handling this I shall first of all notice when those who trust
   Christ might be ashamed of having trusted Him. Well might they be
   ashamed if Christ should ever leave them. If it should ever come to
   this, that He who is the husband of my heart, should desert me and
   leave me a lone widow in the world. If, after having said, "I will
   never leave you nor forsake you," He should after all take Himself away
   and never indulge His servant with one smile from His face, I should
   then, indeed, have reason to be ashamed of having put my trust in such
   a fickle Savior.

   The Arminian's christ is one whom they have good reason to be ashamed
   of because he redeems men with his precious blood and yet they go to
   Hell. The Arminian's christ loves today but hates tomorrow. He saves by
   grace, but that grace is dependent upon man's use of grace. He does
   bring men out of a state of condemnation and he does justify them--but,
   after all, he lets them go back into a state of condemnation and they
   still perish! But the Christian's Christ is a very different Person,
   whom once He loves He never leaves, but loves them to the end. Where He
   has begun a good work He carries it on and perfects it.

   The Christian's Christ can say, "I give unto My sheep eternal life and
   they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of My hands."
   Until the Christian finds that the Grace of God is clean gone, that
   Christ's love has ceased, he shall never have any cause to be ashamed.
   Again, the Christian would have cause to doubt if Christ were to fail
   him, either as to Providence or Grace, in his times of trial and
   temptation. When in the midst of the rivers, if the Lord does not
   sustain me, I shall have cause to blush for my hope. If, walking
   through the fires the flames do kindle upon me and I do not find the
   Lord to be my present help in the time of trouble, then I am put to
   shame.

   O Beloved, when will this happen? In six troubles He has been with you
   and in seven no evil has touched you. You have been brought very low!
   You could not have been much lower unless you had been in your grave.
   You have been very poor, scarcely having bread to eat, or raiment to
   put on! Everything in which you trusted has been cut from under you.
   You are left orphans in the world, with the exception of your Father
   which is in Heaven. But still, for all that, has not your bread been
   given you? Have not your waters been sure? And today must not your
   testimony be concerning God that He has been a Friend who sticks closer
   than a brother? Well, then, you never need be ashamed, because there
   never shall come a time when He shall leave you to perish through
   stress of trials or suffer you to be destroyed by the force of
   temptations.

   Again, a Christian would have cause to be ashamed if Christ's promises
   were not fulfilled. They are very rich and very full and there are very
   many of them--and if I take these promises and act upon God's Word and
   then, after all, find the promise to be mere waste paper--if the Lord
   breaks His own Oath, then I should be ashamed to have believed in an
   unfaithful God! But when will that be? Christian, has the time come
   with you yet? You have had promises applied with power to your heart
   and you have taken them to God in prayer. Let me appeal to your
   experience! Have they not been fulfilled beyond your expectation or
   your faith? Has not God done for you exceedingly abundantly above what
   you can ask or think?

   And yet this morning, perhaps, you are afraid His promise will not be
   kept! You have come here in lowness of spirit, you have had so many
   troubles during the week that you really begin to be ashamed of having
   trusted in God. Be ashamed of yourself for being ashamed! And depend on
   it, your confidence is not a thing to blush over. But O my Broth- ers
   and Sisters, how ashamed would the Christian be if when he came to die
   he should find no support, no kind angels near his bed, no Savior to
   bear his head up amidst the billows! But have you ever heard of a
   Christian who was ashamed in his dying hour? Is it not rather the sure
   witness of all the departed that their last moments have been gilded
   with the sunlight of Heaven?

   Have not they snug on their dying beds, with David, "Yes, though I pass
   through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for You
   are with me. Your rod and Your staff they comfort me"? If, indeed, we
   could wake up in the resurrection and find ourselves without a Savior.
   If we could stand at the judgment bar of God and find that Christ's
   blood had not made us clean. If, after all our faith in Him, we should
   hear Him say, "Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire," then might
   we be ashamed! But our text assures us that we never shall have to
   suffer this. Let us then roll ourselves upon this sweet comfort--having
   believed in Christ we shall never in this life, nor in the life to
   come--need to be ashamed of our hope.

   2. Having noticed when the Christian might be ashamed, let us notice
   why he might be ashamed if such things were to come. I have sometimes
   thought, dear Friends, that in some respects, if the Bible were proven
   to be false, I should never be ashamed of having believed it. If there
   should be no Savior, I think that when I stand before God's Throne I
   shall not be ashamed of having believed the Gospel because, I think, I
   could dare to say even to the eternal God, "Great God, I believed of
   You that which reflected the highest honor upon Your Character. I
   believed You capable of a great deed of kindness, the giving of Your
   own Son. I believed You to be so just that You would not forgive
   without a punishment and yet so gracious that You would sooner give
   Your Son than not have mercy upon men.

   "I believed of You higher things than either Jew, or Mahommedan, or
   Heathen--and my soul did love You for it. I did preach what I thought
   would honor Your name and now that it turns out to be a mistake, I am
   not ashamed of having believed it, for it was such a thing as should
   have been true--Your Nature and your Character made it likely to be
   true and I mourn to think it is not, but I am not ashamed! I wish it
   had been. It would make You, great God, even more glorious than You
   are."

   Beloved, we are under no apprehension that it shall turn out to be so,
   for we know whom we have believed and we are persuaded that He is able
   to keep that which we have committed to Him. Why would a Christian be
   ashamed if the Gospel were untrue? We should be ashamed, first of all,
   because we have ventured our all upon its Truth. We have ventured our
   all upon Christ. The world says you should never put all your eggs in
   one basket. And when a man speculates in some one thing and it all
   comes down, wise people hold up their hands and say, "Ah, very
   imprudent, very imprudent! Better have three or four strings to your
   bow! You must not be depending on any one thing."

   The world is quite right in human things. But here are we--we are
   depending everything upon one Man--my soul has not a shadow of a hope
   anywhere else but in Christ and I know that your spirits have not even
   the ghost of a shadow of dependence anywhere but in the blood and
   righteousness of that Divine Redeemer who has completed our salvation
   and ascended up on high. If He can fail us, then all our hopes are
   gone! We are, of all men, most miserable. If our hope should turn out
   to be a delusion, we should be foolish, indeed, and have reason to be
   ashamed of our hope.

   We should be ashamed, again, because we have given up this life for the
   next--believing in the world to come, we have said, "This is not our
   rest, we have no abiding city here." The world's proverb is, "A bird in
   the hand is worth two in the bush." But we, on the other hand, have
   said that the bird in the hand is nothing at all--that the bird in the
   bush is everything. Our soul says, "Joy! We do not expect it here, it
   is there that joy is to be found." "Wealth? No man is rich on earth,
   riches are in Heaven, the true treasure is in Glory." "Love does not
   find a fit object here--our affection is set upon things above, where
   Christ dwells at the right hand of God."

   Now if things should turn out wrong and we have believed in vain, then
   we shall be ashamed of our hope, but not till then! Not till then,
   Beloved! And that shall be never! We know whom we have believed and we
   are confident that in giving up this earth we have only given up a
   handful of ashes that we may enjoy riches and Glory forever. Again, if
   Christ should fail us, we should be ashamed because we began boasting
   before we had ended the battle. "My soul shall make her boast in the
   Lord."

   I hope you can say, dear Friends, that though you have not entered
   Heaven and have not yet seen Christ face to face, yet you have learned
   to bask in the Cross of Christ and no man has been able to stop you in
   your glory. You have boasted in Christ! You have said that He is a sure
   Foundation, that He is a precious Husband, that He is All in All to you
   and worthy of your best love! But if He should fail you, why then, you
   would be in the position of a man who boasted before the time. But we
   shall never be ashamed! We do right to boast with a full mouth! Let us
   glory in the Lord. But oh, if He should fail us--which He never
   can--then were we ashamed, indeed!

   Besides, we have done more than boast! You and I have actually divided
   the spoil! And oh, if the battle should be lost, then we should be
   ashamed! We are told that in one of the great battles on the continent
   in the olden times, the French, before the battle began, commenced
   selling the English captives to one another and calculated how much
   each man would have of the spoil. But then, fortunately, they never
   gained the victory. But you and I have already entered into our
   rest--we have had the earnest of our inheritance--we have begun, even
   on earth, to eat the clusters of Eshcol. And if it should be a delusion
   we should be ashamed, but not till then. Courage, dear Friends! We may
   go boldly on dividing the spoil! For while Christ is true and God is
   faithful, there shall be no reason for being ashamed.

   I have known some ashamed when they have made a bad speculation because
   they have induced others to enter into it. They have been more ashamed
   to face their friends who have lost money than they have been to
   acknowledge that they lost themselves. You and I have been inducing
   others to embark in this great venture. We have taught others to
   believe in Christ. And some of us scarcely spend a day without winning
   some souls to confidence in Christ. Oh, sweet Assurance! We have not
   preached cunningly devised fables and shall never be ashamed!

   3. I must crave your patience just a moment while I now pass on to
   notice who are they who shall never be ashamed? The answer is general
   and special. The text says, "Whoever believes"--that is, any man who
   ever lived, or ever shall live, who believes in Christ shall never be
   ashamed. Whether he has been a gross sinner or a moralist. Whether he
   is learned or illiterate. Whether he is a prince or a beggar, it
   matters not--"Whoever believes in Christ shall never be ashamed." You,
   Man, over yonder, though you may very seldom come to the House of God,
   yet if you believe in Christ today you shall never be ashamed of Him.
   You who have sat in God's House for years and feel yourselves guilty of
   having rejected Christ, yet if now you trust Him you shall not be
   ashamed.

   But there is a specialty, it is "Whoever believes." Others shall be
   ashamed. There must be a real and hearty believing. There must be a
   simple confidence in the Person and work of Jesus--wherever this is
   there shall be no shame. "Ah," says one, "but I have such a little
   faith. I am afraid I shall be confounded." No, you come in under the
   "Whoever"-- "Whoever believes," though his faith is ever so little,
   shall never be ashamed. "Ah," says another, "but I have so many
   doubts." Still, dear Heart, since you believe you shall not be ashamed.
   All your doubts and your fears shall never damn you, for your faith
   will prevail.

   "Oh, but," says another, "my corruption is so strong! I have come this
   morning lamenting because of my imperfections. They have obtained the
   mastery of my faith and I have fallen during the week." Yes, Soul, all
   fallen as you are, yet if you believe you shall never be ashamed. Does
   sin stare you in the face? Do you feel very heavy under a sense of your
   own unworthiness? Dare to believe in Christ just as you are--sins and
   all--venture on Him without any other confidence. When frames are dark
   and graces dead, when evidences are black, when everything gives you a
   frown and a curse, yet dare to believe in Him!

   Now take Him to be your Friend when you have no other! Now flee to this
   Refuge when every other door is shut! Now that winter has frozen every
   brook, now come and drink of this Brook which flows on forever! This
   Well of Bethlehem which is within the gate can never fail you! And you
   need not to put your life in jeopardy to get it, it is free to you this
   moment! Stoop and drink confidently! Stoop and drink and you shall
   thirst no more, for, "Whoever believes in Him shall never be ashamed."

   4. To conclude, the text means more than it says, for whereas it says
   they shall not be ashamed, it means that they shall be glorified and
   full of honor! If you trust Christ today, it will bring you shame from
   men, it will ensure you trials and troubles--but it will also ensure
   you honor in the sight of God's holy angels and Glory at the last in
   the sight of the assembled universe! Where is the man who trusts Christ
   today? There he stands in the pillory and men say, "Aha! Aha! The fool!
   The fool! The fool! He trusts a God whom he cannot see! He believes in
   a Christ whom we have heard of but whom we never heard! He trusts in
   the blood of a crucified Galilean!

   The worldling cries, "We are too wise for that! We will believe
   geological theories, spiritualism, or metaphysics! We will believe the
   devil himself sooner than we will believe in Christ!" So they scoff at
   the man who trusts Christ. The scene is changed, the generation of the
   living has passed away and the world has become one great burial field.
   There they lay.

   Innumerable hillocks mark where the bodies of men are sleeping. The
   trumpet sounds, it rings clear through earth and Heaven and up from the
   graves rise bodies which have once been worm's meat and souls come back
   into those frames-- and now where is the man who trusted Christ?

   The trumpet has startled them all from their tombs and they awake
   together--"Where is the man who trusted in Christ?" Who is it that
   inquires for him? The King Himself upon the Throne has asked the
   question! King Jesus, sitting on His judgment seat, searches for His
   friends--"Where is the man who trusted in Me? Bring him here." See the
   change, no hooting and yelling and laughter and slander now! A
   triumphant squadron of bright spirits carry up the Believer to the
   right hand of Jesus and there he sits enthroned like Christ, sitting
   with Him to judge men and angels, reigning upon Christ's Throne in all
   Christ's splendor!

   "Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the King delights to honor,"
   thus shall it be done to the man who puts his trust in Christ! Come,
   Christian, whatever may be your state today, however the world's
   mockery may ring in your ears, think of that unwilling honor which the
   crowd of sinners will have to give you at the Last Great Day! Think of
   how your fame and reputation shall rise with your bones! And as worms
   cannot devour your body to prevent your rising, so shall not slander
   and rebuke devour your character to prevent its rising, too! Glory
   shall be yours--everlasting Glory--while your enemies shall be clothed
   with shame and eternal contempt!

   Well, what do you say, dear Hearers? On which side are you this
   morning? Is Christ a stumbling block to you? Will you go on stumbling
   at Him and objecting to Him? Do you say rather, "No, we will have
   Christ and trust Him." Oh, if the Lord has brought you to this, I will
   clap my hands for joy! And you, you Angels, strike your harps! You
   Seraphs! Tune your lyres anew, for there is joy in Heaven as there is
   joy on earth when a soul comes to put its trust in Christ! The Lord
   bring every one of us, for His name's sake. Amen. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Laus Deo

   DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 29, 1864, BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON,
   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "For of Him and through Him and to Him, are all things: to whom be
   glory forever. Amen."

   Romans 11:36.

   MY text consists almost entirely of monosyllables, but it contains the
   loftiest of sublimities. Such a tremendous weight of meaning is
   concentrated here that an archangel's eloquence would fail to convey
   its teaching in all its glory to any finite minds, even if seraphs were
   his hearers. I will affirm that there is no man living who can preach
   from my text a sermon worthy of it. No, among all the sacred orators
   and the eloquent pleaders for God, there never did live and never will
   live a man capable of reaching the height of the great argument
   contained in these few simple words. I utterly despair of success and
   will not, therefore, make an attempt to work out the infinite Glory of
   this sentence.

   Our great God alone can expound this verse for He only knows Himself
   and He only can worthily set forth His own perfections. Yet I am
   comforted by this reflection that maybe, in answer to our prayers, God
   Himself may preach from this text this morning in our hearts. If not
   through the words of the speaker, yet by that still small voice to
   which the Believer's ear is so well accustomed. If thus He shall
   condescend to favor us, our hearts shall be lifted up in His ways.

   There are two things before us, the one worthy of our observation and
   the second of our imitation. You have in the text, first of all,
   doctrine and then devotion, The doctrine is high doctrine--"Of Him and
   through Him and to Him, are all things." The devotion is lofty
   devotion--"To whom be glory forever. Amen."

   I. Let us consider THE DOCTRINE. It is laid down by the Apostle Paul as
   a general principle that all things come of God--they are of Him as
   their source. They are through Him as their means. They are to Him as
   their end. They are of Him in the plan, through Him in the working and
   to Him in the Glory which they produce. Taking this general principle,
   you will find it applies to all things and it is ours to mark those in
   which it is most manifestly the case. May the Lord, by His Holy Spirit,
   open His treasures to us at this moment that we may be enriched in
   spiritual knowledge and understanding.

   Meditate, dear Friends, upon the whole range of God's works in Creation
   and Providence. There was a period when God dwelt alone and creatures
   were not. In that time before all time, when there was no day but, "The
   Ancient of Days"--when matter and created mind were alike unborn and
   even space was not--God, the great I Am, was as perfect, glorious and
   blessed as He is now. There was no sun and yet Jehovah dwelt in light
   ineffable. There was no earth and yet His Throne stood fast and firm.
   There were no heavens and yet His Glory was unbounded.

   God inhabited eternity in the infinite majesty and happiness of His
   self-contained greatness. If the Lord, thus abiding in awful solitude,
   should choose to create anything, the first thought and idea must come
   of Him, for there was no other to think or suggest. All things must be
   of Him in design. With whom can He take counsel? Who shall instruct
   Him? There existed not another to come into the council chamber, even
   if such an assistance could be supposed with the Most High.

   In the beginning of His way before His works of old, eternal Wisdom
   brought forth from its own mind the perfect plan of future creations
   and every line and mark therein must clearly have been of the Lord
   alone. He ordained the pathway of every planet and the abode of every
   fixed star. He poured forth the sweet influences of the Pleiades and
   girt Orion with His hands. He appointed the bounds of the sea and
   settled the course of the winds. As to the earth, the Lord alone
   planned its foundations and stretched His line upon it. He formed in
   His own mind the mold of all His creatures and found for them a
   dwelling and a service.

   He appointed the degree of strength with which He would endow each
   creature, settled its months of life, its hour of death, its coming and
   its going. Divine Wisdom mapped this earth--its flowing rivers and
   foaming seas--the towering mountains and the laughing valleys. The
   Divine Architect fixed the gates of the morning and the doors of the
   shadow of death. Nothing could have been suggested by any other, for
   there was no other to suggest. It was in His power to have made a
   universe very different from this if He had so pleased. And that He has
   made it what it is must have been merely because, in His Wisdom and
   prudence, He saw fit to do so.

   There cannot be any reason why He should not have created a world from
   which sin should have been forever excluded. And that He suffered sin
   to enter into His creation must again be ascribed to His own infinite
   Sovereignty. Had He not known that He would be master over sin and out
   of evil evolve the noblest display of His own Glory, He had not
   permitted it to enter into the world--but, in sketching the whole
   history of the universe which He was about to create, He permitted even
   that black spot to defile His work--because He foreknew what songs of
   everlasting triumph would rise to Himself when, in streams of His own
   blood, Incarnate Deity should wash out the stain. It cannot be doubted
   that whatever may be the whole drama of history in Creation and
   Providence, there is a high and mysterious sense in which it is all of
   God.

   The sin is not God's, but the temporary permission of its existence
   formed part of the foreknown scheme and to our faith the intervention
   of moral evil and the purity of the Divine Character do neither of them
   diminish the force of our belief that the whole scope of history is of
   God in the fullest sense. When the plan was all laid down and the
   Almighty had ordered His purpose, this was not enough--mere arrangement
   would not create. "Through Him," as well as "of Him," must all things
   be. There was no raw material ready to the Creator's hand. He must
   create the universe out of nothing. He calls not for aid--He needs it
   not and besides, there is none to help Him. There is no rough matter
   which He may fashion between His palms and launch forth as stars.

   He did not need a mine of unquarried matter which He might melt and
   purify in the furnace of His power and then hammer out upon the anvil
   of His skill--no, there was nothing to begin with in that day of
   Jehovah's work--from the womb of Omnipotence all things must be born.
   He speaks and the heavens leap into existence! He speaks again and
   worlds are begotten with all the varied forms of life so fraught with
   Divine Wisdom and matchless skill. "Let there be light and there was
   light," was not the only time when God had spoken and when things that
   were not, were, for aforetime had He spoken and this rolling earth and
   yon blue heavens had blossomed out of nothingness.

   Through Him were all things--from the high archangel who sings His
   praises in celestial notes--down to the cricket chirping on the hearth.
   The same finger paints the rainbow and the wing of the butterfly. He
   who dyes the garments of evening in all the colors of Heaven has
   covered the kingcup with gold and lit up the glowworm's lamp. From
   yonder ponderous mountain piercing the clouds down to that minute grain
   of dust in the summer's threshing floor--all things are through Him.
   Let but God withdraw the emanations of His Divine power and everything
   would melt away as the foam upon the sea melts into the wave which bore
   it!

   Nothing could stand an instant if the Divine foundation were removed.
   If He should shake the pillars of the world the whole temple of
   Creation falls to ruin and its very dust is blown away. A dreary waste,
   a silent emptiness, a voiceless wilderness is all which remains if God
   withdraws His power. No, even so much as this were not if His power
   should be withheld. That nature that is as it is, is through the energy
   of the present God. If the sun rises every morning and the moon walks
   in her brightness at night, it is through Him. Away with those men who
   think that God has wound up the world as though it were a clock and has
   gone away--leaving it to work for itself apart from His present hand!

   God is present everywhere--not merely present when we tremble because
   His thunder shakes the solid earth and sets the heavens in a blaze with
   lightning--but just as much so in the calm summer's eve when the air so
   gently fans the flowers and gnats dance up and down in the last gleams
   of sunlight. Men try to forget the Divine Presence by calling its
   energy by strange names. They speak of the power of gravitation. But
   what is the power of gravitation? We know what it does, but what is it?
   Gravitation is God's own power!

   They tell us of mysterious laws of electricity and I know not what. We
   know the laws, and let them wear the names they have. But laws cannot
   operate without power. What is the force of nature? It is a constant
   emanation from the great Fountain of power, the constant out-flowing of
   God Himself--the perpetual going forth of beams of light from Him who
   is "the great Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness, neither
   shadow." Tread softly, be reverent, for God is here, O Mortal, as truly
   as He is in Heaven! Wherever you are and whatever you look upon, you
   are in God's workshop where every wheel is turned by His hands.
   Everything is not God, but God is in everything and nothing works, or
   even exists, except by His present power and might. "Of Him and through
   Him are all things."

   Beloved, the great glory of all is that in the work of Creation
   everything is to Him. Everything will praise the Lord--He so designed
   it. God must have the highest motive and there can be no higher motive
   conceivable than His own Glory. When there was no creature but Himself
   and no being but Himself, God could not have taken as a motive a
   creature which did not exist. His motive must be Himself. His own Glory
   is His highest aim. The good of His creatures He considers carefully.
   But even the good of His creatures is but a means to the main end--the
   promotion of His Glory. All things, then, are for His pleasure and for
   His Glory they daily work.

   Tell me that the world is marred by sin and I lament it. Tell me that
   the slime of the serpent is upon everything beautiful here and I sorrow
   for it. But yet, even yet shall everything speak of the Glory of God.
   To Him are all things and the day shall come when with eyes spiritually
   illuminated you and I shall see that even the introduction of the Fall
   and the curse did not, after all, mar the splendor of the majesty of
   the Most High. To Him shall all things be. His enemies shall bow their
   necks unwillingly but abjectly, while His people, redeemed from death
   and Hell, shall cheerfully extol Him.

   The new heavens and the new earth shall ring with His praise and we who
   shall sit down to read the record of His creating wonders, shall say of
   them all, "In His temple does everyone speak of His Glory and even
   until now to Him have all things been." Courage then, Beloved! When you
   think that matters go against the cause of God, throw yourselves back
   upon this as a soft couch. When the enemy hisses in your ears this
   note--"God is overcome! His plans are spoiled. His Gospel is thrust
   back. The honor of His Son is stained," tell the enemy, "No, it is not
   so! To Him are all things."

   God's defeats are victories. God's weakness is stronger than man and
   even the foolishness of the Most High is wiser than man's wisdom and at
   the last we shall see most clearly that it is so. Hallelujah! We shall
   see, dear Friends, one day in the clear light of Heaven, that every
   page in human history, however stained by human sin, has nevertheless
   something of God's Glory in it. And that the calamities of nations, the
   falling of dynasties, the devastations of pestilence, plagues, famines,
   wars and earthquakes have all worked out the eternal purpose and
   glorified the Most High!

   From the first human prayer to the last mortal sigh! From the first
   note of finite praise onward to the everlasting hallelujah all things
   have worked together for the Glory of God and have served His purposes.
   All things are of Him and through Him and to Him. This great principle
   is most manifest in the grand work of Divine Grace. Here everything is
   of God and through God and to God. The great plan of salvation was not
   drawn by human fingers. It is no concoction of priests, no elaboration
   of Divines. Grace first moved the heart of God and joined with Divine
   Sovereignty to ordain a plan of salvation.

   This plan was the offspring of a Wisdom no less than Divine. None but
   God could have imagined a way of salvation such as that which the
   Gospel presents--a way so just to God--so safe to man. The thought of
   Divine Substitution and the Sacrifice of God on man's behalf could
   never have suggested itself to the most educated of all God's
   creatures. God Himself suggests it and the plan is "of Him." And as the
   great plan is of Him, so the fillings up of the details are of Him. God
   ordained the time when the first promise should be promulgated--who
   should receive that promise and who should deliver it. He ordained the
   hour when the great Promise-Keeper should come--when Jesus Christ
   should appear--of whom He should be born, by whom He should be
   betrayed, what death He should die, when He should rise and in what
   manner He should ascend.

   What if I say more? He ordained those who should accept the Mediator,
   to whom the Gospel should be preached and who should be the favored
   individuals in whom effectual calling should make that preaching mighty
   for salvation! He settled in His own mind the name of every one of His
   chosen and the time when each elect vessel should be put upon the wheel
   to be fashioned according to His will. He ordained pangs of conviction
   should be felt when the time of faith should come! How much of holy
   light and enjoyment should be bestowed--all this was purposed from of
   old! He settled how long the chosen vessel should be glazing in the
   fire and when it should be taken up--made perfect by heavenly
   workmanship to adorn the palace of God Most High. Of the Lord's Wisdom
   every stitch in the noble tapestry of salvation most surely comes.

   Nor must we stop here--through Him all these things come. Through His
   Spirit the promise came at last, for He moved the seers and holy men of
   old. Through Him the Son of God is born of the Virgin Mary by the power
   of the Holy Spirit. Through Him, sustained by that Spirit, the Son of
   God leads His thirty years of perfection. In the great redemption God
   alone is exalted. Jesus sweats in Gethsemane and bleeds on Calvary.
   None stood with our Savior there. He trod that winepress alone. His own
   arm worked salvation and His own arm upheld Him. Redemption work was
   through God alone! Not one soul was ever redeemed by human suffering!
   No spirit was emancipated by mortal penance. All is through Him.

   And as through Him the Atonement, so through Him the application of the
   Atonement. By the power of the Spirit the Gospel is daily preached.
   Upheld by the Holy Spirit, pastors, teachers and elders still abide
   with the Church--still the energy of the Spirit goes forth with the
   Word to the hearts of the chosen. Still is "Christ crucified," the
   power of God and the wisdom of God because God is in the Word and
   through Him men are called, converted, saved. O my Brethren, beyond a
   doubt we must confess of this great plan of salvation that it is all to
   Him! We have not a note of praise to spare for another!

   Silenced forever with everlasting confusion is the man who would retain
   a solitary word of praise for man or angel in the work of Grace. You
   fools! Who can be praised but God, for who but God determined to give
   His Son Jesus? You knaves! Will you rob Christ of His Glory? Will you
   steal the jewels out of His crown when He so dearly bought them with
   drops of His precious blood? O you who love darkness rather than light,
   will you glorify man's will above the energy of the Holy Spirit and
   sacrifice to your own dignity and freedom? God forgive you!

   But as for His saints, they will always sing, "To God, to God alone be
   all the Glory! From the first to the last let Him who is the Alpha and
   the Omega have all the praise! Let His name be extolled, world without
   end." When the great plan of Grace shall be all developed and you and I
   shall stand upon the hilltops of Glory, what a wondrous scene will open
   up before us! We shall see more clearly then, than now, how all things
   sprang from the fountainhead of God's love. How they all flowed through
   the channel of the Savior's mediation and how they all worked together
   to the Glory of the same God from whom they came. The great plan of
   Grace, then, bears out this principle.

   The word holds good, dear Friends, in the case of every individual
   Believer. Let this be a matter for personal enquiry. Why am I saved?
   Because of any goodness in me, or any superiority in my constitution?
   Of whom comes my salvation? My spirit cannot hesitate a single moment.
   How could a new heart come out of the old one? Who can bring a clean
   thing out of an unclean? Not one! How can the spirit come out of the
   flesh? That which is born of the flesh is flesh. If it is spirit it
   must be born of the Spirit. My Soul, you must be quite clear about
   this, that if there is in you any faith, hope, or spiritual life, it
   must have come of God!

   Can any Christian here who possesses vital godliness differ from this
   statement? I am persuaded he cannot. And if any man should arrogate any
   honor to his own natural constitution, I must, with all charity, doubt
   whether he knows anything at all about the matter. But, my Soul, as
   your salvation must have come out of God--as He must have thought of it
   and planned it for you, and then bestowed it upon you--did it not also
   come to you through God? It came through faith, but where did that
   faith take its birth? Was it not of the operation of the Holy Spirit?
   And what did you believe in? Did you believe in your own strength, or
   in your own good resolution? No, but in Jesus, your Lord. Was not the
   first ray of light you ever had received in this way?

   Did you not look entirely away from self to the Savior? And the Light
   which you now have, does it not always come to you in the same way, by
   having done once and for all with the creature, with the flesh, with
   human merit--and resting with childlike confidence upon the finished
   work and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is not, dear Hearer,
   is not your salvation, if you are, indeed, saved, entirely "through"
   your God, as well as "of" your God? Who is it that enables you to pray
   every day? Who keeps you from temptation? By what Grace are you led
   onward in spiritual duty? Who upholds you when your foot would trip?
   Are you not conscious that there is a power other than your own?

   For my part, Brethren, I am not taken to Heaven against my will, I
   know, but still so desperate is my nature and so prone to evil that I
   feel myself floated onward against the current of my nature. It seems
   as if all we could do were to kick and rebel against Sovereign Grace,
   while Sovereign Grace says, "I will save you. I will have you, whatever
   you may do. I will overcome your raging corruption. I will quicken you
   out of your lethargy and take you to Heaven in a fiery chariot of
   afflictions, if not by any other means. I will whip you to Paradise
   sooner than let you be lost."

   Is not this your experience? Have you not found that if once the strong
   hand of God were taken from your soul, instead of going onward to
   Heaven you would go back again to Perdition? It is through God you are
   saved! And what do you say, Believer, to the last point? Is it not "to
   Him"? Will you take one single jewel out of His crown? Oh, there is not
   one of you who would wish to extol himself! There is no song we sing
   more sweetly in this House of Prayer than the song of Grace and there
   is no hymn which seems more in keeping with our own experience than
   this--

   "Grace all the work shall crown,
   Through everlasting days.
   It lays in Hea ven the topmost stone,
   And well deserves the praise."

   Let who will extol the dignity of the creature. Let who may boast in
   the power of free will--we cannot do it! We have found our nature to be
   a very depraved one and our will to be under bondage. We must, if other
   creatures do not, extol that unchangeable Omnipotent Grace which has
   made us what we are and will continue to keep us so till it brings us
   to the right hand of God in everlasting Glory! In each individual,
   then, this rule holds good.

   Once more, in every work which the Christian is enabled to do, he
   should bear in mind the rule of the text. Some of you are privileged to
   work in the Sunday school and you have had many conversions in your
   class. Others of you are distributing tracts, going from house to house
   and trying to bring souls to Christ, not without success, by God's
   Grace. Some of us, too, have the honor of being sent to preach the
   Gospel in every place and we have sheaves of our harvest too many for
   our barns to hold. In the case of some of us, we seem to have received
   the promised blessing to its fullest extent. The Lord has spiritually
   made our children like the sand of the sea and the spiritual offspring
   of our heart like the gravel.

   In all this it behooves us to remember that, "of Him and through Him
   and to Him," are all things. "Of Him." Who makes you to differ? What
   have you which you have not received? The burning heart, the tearful
   eye, the prayerful soul--all these qualifications for usefulness come
   of Him. The fluent mouth, the pleading tongue--these must have been
   educated and given by Him. From Him all the many gifts of the Spirit by
   which the Church is edified--from Him, I say, they all proceed. What is
   Paul? Who is Apollos, or Cephas--who are all these but the messengers
   of God in whom the Spirit works, dividing to every man according as He
   wills?

   When the preacher has achieved his usefulness, he knows that all his
   success comes through God. If a man shall suppose himself capable of
   stirring up a revival, or encouraging even one saint, or leading one
   sinner to repentance, he is a fool! As well might we attempt to move
   the stars, or shake the world, or grasp the lightning flash in the
   hollow of our hand as think to save a soul, or even to quicken saints
   out of their lethargy! Spiritual work must be done by the Spirit.
   Through God every good thing comes to us. The preacher may be a very
   Samson when God is with him--he shall be like Samson when God is not
   with him only in Samson's degradation and shame!

   Beloved, there never was a man brought to God except through God and
   there never will be! Our nation shall never be stirred up again into
   the celestial heat of piety except by the Presence of the Holy Spirit
   anew. Would God we had more of the abiding sense of the Spirit's work
   among us! That we looked more to Him! That we rested less in machinery
   and men and more upon that Divine but Invisible Agent who works all
   good things in the hearts of men! Beloved, it is through GOD that every
   good thing comes. And I am sure it is to Him. We cannot take the honor
   of a single convert. We do look with thankfulness upon this growing
   Church, but we can give the Glory alone to Him! Give glory to the
   creature and it is all over with it! Honor yourselves as a Church and
   God will soon dishonor you!

   Let us lay every sheaf upon His altar, bring every lamb of the fold to
   the feet of the Good Shepherd feeling that it is His. When we go abroad
   to fish for souls, let us think that we only fill the net because He
   taught us how to throw it on the right side of the Church. And when we
   take them they are His, not ours. Oh, what poor little things we are
   and yet we think we do so much! The pen might say, "I wrote Milton's
   Paradise Lost." Ah, poor Pen! You could not have made a dot to an "i,"
   or a cross to a "t," if Milton's hand had not moved you! The preacher
   could do nothing if God had not helped him. The axe might cry, "I have
   felled forests! I have made the cedar bow its head and laid the
   stalwart oak in the dust." No, you did not--for if it had not been for
   the arm which wielded you, even a bramble would have been too much for
   you to cut down!

   Shall the sword say, "I won the victory! I shed the blood of the
   mighty! I caused the shield to be cast away?" No, it was the warrior,
   who with his courage and might made you of service in the battle, and
   apart from this you are less than nothing. In all that God does by us
   let us continue to give Him the praise--so shall He continue His
   Presence with our efforts. Otherwise He will take from us His smile and
   so we shall be left as weak men. I have, perhaps, at too great length
   for your patience, tried to bring out this very simple but very useful
   principle. And now, before I go to the second part, I wish to apply it
   by this very practical remark.

   Beloved, if this is true, that all things are through Him and to Him,
   do you not think that those doctrines are most likely to be correct and
   most worthy to be held which are most in keeping with this Truth of
   God? Now, there are certain doctrines commonly called Calvinistic (but
   which ought never to have been called by such a name, for they are
   simply Christian doctrines), which I think commend themselves to the
   minds of all thoughtful persons. For this reason, mainly, that they do
   ascribe to God everything.

   Here is the doctrine of election, for instance. Why is a man saved? Is
   it the result of his own will or God's will? Did he choose God, or did
   God choose him? The answer, "Man chose God," is manifestly untrue
   because it glorifies man. God's answer to it is, "You have not chosen
   Me, but I have chosen you." God has predestinated His people to
   salvation from before the foundation of the world. Ascribing the will,
   which is the hinge of the whole matter, and turns the
   balance--ascribing that to God--we feel we are speaking in keeping with
   the doctrine of our text.

   Then take effectual calling. By what power is a man called? There are
   some who say that it is by the energy of his own will, or at least that
   while God gives him Grace, it depends upon him to make use of it. Some
   do not make use of the Grace and perish. Others make use of the Grace
   and are saved--saved by their own consenting to allow Grace to be
   effectual. We, on the other hand, say no--a man is not saved against
   his will--but he is made willing by the operation of the Holy Spirit. A
   mighty Grace which he does not wish to resist enters into the man,
   disarms him, makes a new creature of him and he is saved. We believe
   that the calling which saves the soul is a calling which owes nothing
   at all to man, but which comes from God. The creature being, then,
   passive, while God, like the potter, molds the man like a lump of clay.
   Clearly the calling, we think, must be through God--for so it coincides
   with this principle, "of Him and through Him and to Him are all
   things."

   Then next, the question of particular redemption. Some insist upon it
   that men are redeemed not because Christ died, but because they are
   willing to give efficacy to the blood of Christ. He died for everybody
   according to their theory. Why, then, are not all men saved? Because
   all men will not believe? That is to say that believing is necessary in
   order to make the blood of Christ efficacious for redemption! Now we
   hold that to be a great lie! We believe the very contrary-- namely,
   that the blood of Christ has in itself the power to redeem and that it
   does redeem and that faith does not give efficacy to the blood but is
   only the proof that the blood has redeemed that man. Hence we hold that
   Christ did not redeem every man, but only redeemed those men who will
   ultimately attain unto eternal life.

   We do not believe that He redeemed the damned! We do not believe that
   He poured out His life blood for souls already in Hell! We never can
   imagine that Christ suffered in the place of all men and that then,
   afterwards, these same men have to suffer for themselves--that in fact
   Christ pays their debts--and then God makes them pay their debts over
   again! We think that the doctrine that men, by their wills, give
   efficacy to the blood of Christ is derogatory to the Lord Jesus and we
   rather hold to this that He laid down His life for His sheep and that
   His laying down His life for His sheep involved and secured the
   salvation of every one of them. We believe this because we hold that,
   "of Him and through Him and to Him are all things."

   So, again, take the total depravity of the race and its original
   corruption--a doctrine much abhorred of those who lift up poor human
   nature--but is, nevertheless, true. We hold that man must be entirely
   lost and ruined, because if there is some good thing in him, then it
   cannot be said that, "of God and through God and to God, are all
   things," for at least some things must be of man. If there are some
   relics of virtue and some remnants of power left in the race of man,
   then some things are of man and to man will some things be. But if of
   God are all things, then in man there must be nothing--man must be set
   down as ruined--hopelessly ruined--

   "Bruised and mangled by the Fall," and his salvation must be described
   as being from the first to the last, in every jot and every tittle of
   that almighty Grace of God, which at first chose him, at length
   redeemed him, ultimately called him, constantly preserved him and
   perfectly shall present him before the Father's Throne.

   I put these doctrines before you, more especially today, because last
   Friday many Believers both in Geneva and London met together to
   celebrate the centenary of the death of that mighty servant of God,
   John Calvin. I honor Calvin, not as teaching these doctrines himself,
   but as one through whom God spoke and one who, next to the Apostle
   Paul, propounded the Truth of God more clearly than any other man that
   ever breathed. He knew more of Scripture and explained it more clearly
   than most. Luther may have as much courage, but Luther knows little of
   theology. Luther, like a bull, when he sees one Truth, shuts his eyes
   and dashes against the enemy, breaking down gates, bolts and bars, to
   clear away for the Word!

   But Calvin, following in the opened pathway with clear eyes, searching
   Scripture, ever acknowledging that of God and through God and to God
   are all things, maps out the whole plan with a delightful clearness
   which could only have come of the Spirit of God. That man of God
   expounds the doctrines in so excellent and admirable a manner that we
   cannot too much bless the Lord who sent him, or too much pray that
   others like him may be honest and sincere in the work of the Lord. Thus
   much then, of doctrine, but one or two minutes by way of devotion.

   II. The Apostle puts his pen back into the ink bottle, falls on his
   knees--he cannot help it--he must have a doxol-ogy. "To whom be glory
   forever. Amen." Beloved, let us imitate this DEVOTION. I think that
   this sentence should be the prayer, the motto for every one of us--"To
   Him be glory forever. Amen." I will be but very brief, for I would not
   weary you. "To Him be glory forever." This should be the single desire
   of the Christian. I take it that he should not have twenty wishes, but
   only one. He may desire to see his family well brought up, but only
   that, "To God may be glory forever."

   He may wish for prosperity in his business, but only so far as it may
   help him to promote this--"To Him be glory forever." He may desire to
   attain more gifts and more graces, but it should only be that, "To Him
   may be glory forever." This one thing I know, Christian--you are not
   acting as you ought to do when you are moved by any other motive than
   the one motive of your Lord's Glory. As a Christian you are "of God and
   through God." I pray you be "to God." Let nothing ever set your heart
   beating but love to Him. Let this ambition fire your soul! Be this the
   foundation of every enterprise upon which you enter, and this your
   sustaining motive whenever your zeal would grow chill--only, only make
   God your object! Depend upon it, where self begins, sorrow begins. But
   if God is my supreme delight and only object--

   "To me 'tis equal whether love ordain My life or death appoint me ease
   or pain."

   To me there shall be no choice, when my eyes singly look to God's
   Glory, whether I shall be torn in pieces by wild beasts or live in
   comfort--whether I shall be full of despondency or full of hope. If God
   is glorified in my mortal body, my soul shall rest content. Again, let
   it be our constant desire, "To Him be glory." When I wake up in the
   morning, O, let my soul salute her God with gratitude--

   "Wake and lift up yourself, my Heart, And with the angels bear your
   part, Who all night long unwearied sing High praises to the eternal
   King." At my work behind the counter, or in the Exchange, let me be
   looking out to see how I may glorify Him. If I am walking in the
   fields, let my desire be that the trees may clap their hands in His
   praise. May the sun in his march shine out the Master's Glory and the
   stars at night reflect His praise.

   It is yours, Brethren, to put a tongue into the mouth of this dumb
   world and make the silent beauties of creation praise their God. Never
   be silent when there are opportunities and you shall never be silent
   for want of opportunities. At night fall asleep praising your God! As
   you close your eyes let your last thought be, "How sweet to rest upon
   the Savior's bosom!" In afflictions praise Him--out of the fires let
   your song go up! On the sick-bed extol Him! Dying, let Him have your
   sweetest notes. Let your shouts of victory in the combat with the last
   great enemy be all for Him. And then, when you have burst the bondage
   of mortality and come into the freedom of immortal spirits--then, in a
   nobler, sweeter song--you shall sing unto His praise!

   Be this, then, your constant thought--"To Him be glory forever." Let
   this be your earnest thought. Do not speak of God's Glory with cold
   words, nor think of it with a chilly heart, but feel, "I must praise
   Him. If I cannot praise Him where I am, I will break through these
   narrow bonds, and get where I can." Sometimes you will feel that you
   long to be disembodied--that you may praise Him as the immortal spirits
   do. I must praise Him! Bought by His precious blood, called by His
   Spirit I cannot hold my tongue! My Soul, can you be dumb and dead? I
   must praise Him! Stand back, O Flesh! Away, you Fiends! Away, you
   Troubles! I must sing, for should I refuse to sing, surely the very
   stones would speak!

   I hope, dear Friends, while thus earnest, your praise will also be
   growing. Let there be growing desire to praise Him of whom and through
   whom are all things. You blessed Him in your youth, do not be content
   with such praises as you gave Him then. Has God prospered you in
   business? Give Him more as He has given you more. Has God given you
   experience? O, praise Him by better faith than you exercised at first.
   Does your knowledge grow? Oh, then you can sing more sweetly! Do you
   have happier times than you once had? Have you been restored from
   sickness and has your sorrow been turned into peace and joy? Then give
   Him more music! Put more coals in your censer, more sweet frankincense,
   more of the sweet cane bought with money. Oh, to serve Him every day,
   lifting up my heart from Sunday to Sunday, till I reach the ever-ending
   Sunday! Reaching from sanctification to sanctification, from love to
   love, from strength to strength, till I appear before my God!

   In closing, let me urge you to make this desire practical. If you
   really glorify God, take care to do it not with lip-service which dies
   away in the wind, but with solid homage of daily life. Praise Him by
   your patience in pain, by your perseverance in duty, by your generosity
   in His cause, by your boldness in testimony, by your consecration to
   His work. Praise Him, my dear Friends, not only this morning in what
   you do for Him in your offerings, but praise Him every day by doing
   something for God in all sorts of ways, according to the manner in
   which He has been pleased to bless you. I wish I could have spoken
   worthily on such a topic as this, but a dull, heavy headache sits upon
   me and I feel that a thick gloom overshadows my words, out of which I
   look with longing, but cannot rise.

   For this I may well grieve, but nevertheless God the Holy Spirit can
   work the better through our weakness and if you will try and preach the
   sermon to yourselves, my Brethren, you will do it vastly better than I
   can. If you will meditate upon this text this afternoon, "Of Him and
   through Him and to Him, are all things," I am sure you will be led to
   fall on your knees with the Apostle and say, "To Him be glory forever,"
   and then you will rise up and practically, in your life, give Him
   honor, putting the "Amen" to this doxology by your own individual
   service of your great and gracious Lord. May He give a blessing now and
   accept your thank offering through Christ Jesus. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                             Baptismal Regeneration

   A Sermon

   (No. 573)

   Delivered on Sunday Morning, June 5th, 1864, by the

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

   "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel
   to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;
   but he that believeth not shall be damned."--Mark 16:15-16.

   IN the preceding verse our Lord Jesus Christ gives us some little
   insight into the natural character of the apostles whom he selected to
   be the first ministers of the Word. They were evidently men of like
   passions with us, and needed to be rebuked even as we do. On the
   occasion when our Lord sent forth the eleven to preach the gospel to
   every creature, he "appeared unto them as they sat at meat, and
   upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they
   believed not them which had seen him after he was risen;" from which we
   may surely gather that to peach the Word, the Lord was pleased to
   choose imperfect men; men, too, who of themselves were very weak in the
   grace of faith in which it was most important that they should excel.
   Faith is the conquering grace, and is of all things the main requisite
   in the preacher of the Word; and yet the honoured men who were chosen
   to be the leaders of the divine crusade needed a rebuke concerning
   their unbelief. Why was this? Why, my brethren, because the Lord has
   ordained evermore that we should have this treasure in earthen vessels,
   that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. If you
   should find a perfect minister, then might the praise and honour of his
   usefulness accrue to man; but God is frequently pleased to select for
   eminent usefulness men evidently honest and sincere, but who have some
   manifest infirmity by which all the glory is cast off from them and
   laid upon Himself, and upon Himself alone. Let it never be supposed
   that we who are God's ministers either excuse our faults or pretend to
   perfection. We labour to walk in holiness, but we cannot claim to be
   all that we wish to be. We do not base the claims of God's truth upon
   the spotlessness of our characters, but upon the fact that it comes
   from him. You have believed in spite of our infirmities, and not
   because of our virtues; if, indeed, you had believed our word because
   of our supposed perfection, your faith would stand in the excellency of
   man and not in the power of God. We come unto you often with much
   trembling, sorrowing over our follies and weaknesses, but we deliver to
   you God's Word as God's Word, and we beseech you to receive it not as
   coming from us poor, sinful mortals, but as proceeding from the Eternal
   and Thrice Holy God; and if you so receive it, and by its own vital
   force are moved and stirred up towards God and his ways, then is the
   work of the Word sure work, which it could not and would not be if it
   rested in any way upon man.

   Our Lord having thus given us an insight into the character of the
   persons whom he has chosen to proclaim his truth, then goes on to
   deliver to the chosen champions, their commission for the Holy War. I
   pray you mark the words with solemn care. He sums up in a few words the
   whole of their work, and at the same time foretells the result of it,
   telling them that some would doubtless believe and so be saved, and
   some on the other hand would not believe and would most certainly,
   therefore, be damned, that is, condemned for ever to the penalties of
   God's wrath. The lines containing the commission of our ascended Lord
   are certainly of the utmost importance, and demand devout attention and
   implicit obedience, not only from all who aspire to the work of the
   ministry, but also from all who hear the message of mercy. A clear
   understanding of these words is absolutely necessary to our success in
   our Master's work, for if we do not understand the commission it is not
   at all likely that we shall discharge it aright. To alter these words
   were more than impertinence, it would involve the crime of treason
   against the authority of Christ and the best interests of the souls of
   men. O for grace to be very jealous here.

   Wherever the apostles went they met with obstacles to the preaching of
   the gospel, and the more open and effectual was the door of utterance
   the more numerous were the adversaries. These brave men who wielded the
   sword of the Spirit as to put to flight all their foes; and this they
   did not by craft and guile, but by making a direct cut at the error
   which impeded them. Never did they dream for a moment of adapting the
   gospel to the unhallowed tastes or prejudices of the people, but at
   once directly and boldly they brought down with both their hands the
   mighty sword of the Spirit upon the crown of the opposing error. This
   morning, in the name of the Lord of Hosts, my Helper and Defense, I
   shall attempt to do the same; and if I should provoke some
   hostility--if I should through speaking what I believe to be the truth
   lose the friendship of some and stir up the enmity of more, I cannot
   help it. The burden of the Lord is upon me, and I must deliver my soul.
   I have been loath enough to undertake the work, but I am forced to it
   by an awful and overwhelming sense of solemn duty. As I am soon to
   appear before my Master's bar, I will this day, if ever in my life,
   bear my testimony for truth, and run all risks. I am content to be cast
   out as evil if it must be so, but I cannot, I dare not, hold my peace.
   The Lord knoweth I have nothing in my heart but the purest love to the
   souls of those whom I feel imperatively called to rebuke sternly in the
   Lord's name. Among my hearers and readers, a considerable number will
   censure if not condemn me, but I cannot help it. If I forfeit your love
   for truth's sake I am grieved for you, but I cannot, I dare not, do
   otherwise. It is as much as my soul is worth to hold my peace any
   longer, and whether you approve or not I must speak out. Did I ever
   court your approbation? It is sweet to everyone to be applauded; but if
   for the sake of the comforts of respectability and the smiles of men
   any Christian minister shall keep back a part of his testimony, his
   Master at the last shall require it at his hands. This day, standing in
   the immediate presence of God, I shall speak honestly what I feel, as
   the Holy Spirit shall enable me; and I shall leave the matter with you
   to judge concerning it, as you will answer for that judgment at the
   last great day.

   I find that the great error which w e have to contend with throughout
   England (and it is growing more and more), is one in direct opposition
   to my text, well known to you as the doctrine of baptismal
   regeneration. We will confront this dogma with the assertion, that
   BAPTISM WITHOUT FAITH SAVES NO ONE. The text says, "He that believeth
   and is baptized shall be saved;" but whether a man be baptized or no,
   it asserts that "he that believeth not shall be damned:" so that
   baptism does not save the unbeliever , nay, it does not in any degree
   exempt him from the common doom of all the ungodly. He may have
   baptism, or he may not have baptism, but if he believeth not, he shall
   be in any case most surely damned. Let him be baptized by immersion or
   sprinkling, in his infancy, or in his adult age, if he be not led to
   put his trust in Jesus Christ--if he remaineth an unbeliever, then this
   terrible doom is pronounced upon him--"He that believeth not shall be
   damned." I am not aware that any Protestant Church in England teaches
   the doctrine of baptismal regeneration except one, and that happens to
   be the corporation which with none too much humility calls itself the
   Church of England. This very powerful sect does not teach this doctrine
   merely through a section of its ministers, who might charitably be
   considered as evil branches of the vine, but it openly, boldly, and
   plainly declares this doctrine in her own appointed standard, the Book
   of Common Prayer, and that in words so express, that while language is
   the channel of conveying intelligible sense, no process short of
   violent wresting from their plain meaning can ever make them say
   anything else.

   Here are the words: we quote them from the Catechism which is intended
   for the instruction of youth, and is naturally very plain and simple,
   since it would be foolish to trouble the young with metaphysical
   refinements. The child is asked its name, and then questioned, "Who
   gave you this name?" "My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism;
   wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an
   inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." Is not this definite and plain
   enough? I prize the words for their candour; they could not speak more
   plainly. Three times over the thing is put, lest there should be any
   doubt in it. The word regeneration may, by some sort of juggling, be
   made to mean something else, but here there can be no misunderstanding.
   The child is not only made "a member of Christ"--union to Jesus is no
   mean spiritual gift--but he is made in baptism "the child of God" also;
   and, since the rule is, "if children then heirs," he is also made "an
   inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." Nothing can be more plain. I
   venture to say that while honesty remains on earth the meaning of these
   words will not admit of dispute. It is clear as noon day that, as the
   Rubric hath it, "Fathers, mothers, masters, and dames, are to cause
   their children, servants, and apprentices," no matter how idle, giddy,
   or wicked they may be, to learn the Catechism, and to say that in
   baptism they were made members of Christ and children of God. The form
   for the administration of this baptism is scarcely less plain and
   outspoken, seeing that thanks are expressly returned unto Almighty God,
   because the person baptized is regenerate. "Then shall the priest say,
   Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is regenerate and
   grafted into the body of Christ's Church, let us give thanks unto
   Almighty God for these benefits; and with one accord make our prayers
   unto him, that this child may lead the rest of his life according to
   this beginning.'" Nor is this all, for to leave no mistake, we have the
   words of the thanksgiving prescribed, "Then shall the priest say, We
   yield thee hearty thanks, most merciful Father, that it hath pleased
   thee to regenerate this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for
   thine own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy holy
   Church.'"

   This, then, is the clear and unmistakable teaching of a Church calling
   itself Protestant. I am not now dealing at all with the question of
   infant baptism: I have nothing to do with that this morning. I am now
   considering the question of baptismal regeneration, whether in adults
   or infants, or ascribed to sprinkling, pouring, or immersion. Here is a
   Church which teaches every Lord's day in the Sunday-school, and should,
   according to the Rubric, teach openly in the Church, all children that
   they were made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of
   the kingdom of heaven when they were baptized! Here is a professedly
   Protestant Church, which, every time its minister goes to the font,
   declares that every person there receiving baptism is there and then
   "regenerated and grafted into the body of Christ's Church."

   "But," I hear many good people exclaim, "there are many good clergymen
   in the Church who do not believe in baptismal regeneration." To this my
   answer is prompt. Why then do they belong to a Church which teaches
   that doctrine in the plainest terms? I am told that many in the Church
   of England preach against her own teaching. I know they do, and herein
   I rejoice in their enlightenment, but I question, gravely question
   their morality. To take oath that I sincerely assent and consent to a
   doctrine which I do not believe, would to my conscience appear little
   short of perjury, if not absolute downright perjury; but those who do
   so must be judged by their own Lord. For me to take money for defending
   what I do not believe--for me to take the money of a Church, and then
   to preach against what are most evidently its doctrines--I say for me
   to do this (I judge others as I would that they should judge me) for
   me, or for any other simple, honest man to do so, were an atrocity so
   great, that if I had perpetrated the deed, I should consider myself out
   of the pale of truthfulness, honesty, and common morality. Sirs, when I
   accepted the office of minister of this congregation, I looked to see
   what were your articles of faith; if I had not believed them I should
   not have accepted your call, and when I change my opinions, rest
   assured that as an honest man I shall resign the office, for how could
   I profess one thing in your declaration of faith, and quite another
   thing in my own preaching? Would I accept your pay, and then stand up
   every Sabbath-day and talk against the doctrines of your standards? For
   clergymen to swear or say that they give their solemn assent and
   consent to what they do not believe is one of the grossest pieces of
   immorality perpetrated in England, and is most pestilential in its
   influence, since it directly teaches men to lie whenever it seems
   necessary to do so in order to get a living or increase their supposed
   usefulness: it is in fact an open testimony from priestly lips that at
   least in ecclesiastical matters falsehood may express truth, and truth
   itself is a mere unimportant nonentity. I know of nothing more
   calculated to debauch the public mind than a want of
   straightforwardness in ministers; and when worldly men hear ministers
   denouncing the very things which their own Prayer Book teaches, they
   imagine that words have no meaning among ecclesiastics, and that vital
   differences in religion are merely a matter of tweedle-dee and
   tweedle-dum, and that it does not much matter what a man does believe
   so long as he is charitable towards other people. If baptism does
   regenerate people, let the fact be preached with a trumpet tongue, and
   let no man be ashamed of his belief in it. If this be really their
   creed, by all means let them have full liberty for its propagation. My
   brethren, those are honest Churchmen in this matter who, subscribing to
   the Prayer Book, believe in baptismal regeneration, and preach it
   plainly. God forbid that we should censure those who believe that
   baptism saves the soul, because they adhere to a Church which teaches
   the same doctrine. So far they are honest men; and in England, where
   else, let them never lack a full toleration. Let us oppose their
   teaching by all Scriptural and intelligent means, but let us respect
   their courage in plainly giving us their views. I hate their doctrine,
   but I love their honesty; and as they speak but what they believe to be
   true, let them speak it out, and the more clearly the better. Out with
   it, sirs, be it what it may, but do let us know what you mean. For my
   part, I love to stand foot to foot with an honest foeman. To open
   warfare, bold and true hearts raise no objection but the ground of
   quarrel; it is covert enmity which we have most cause to fear, and best
   reason to loathe. That crafty kindness which inveigles me to sacrifice
   principle is the serpent in the grass--deadly to the incautious
   wayfarer. Where union and friendship are not cemented by truth, they
   are an unhallowed confederacy. It is time that there should be an end
   put to the flirtations of honest men with those who believe one way and
   swear another. If men believe baptism works regeneration, let them say
   so; but if they do not so believe it in their hearts , and yet
   subscribe, and yet more, get their livings by subscribing to words
   asserting it, let them find congenial associates among men who can
   equivocate and shuffle, for honest men will neither ask nor accept
   their friendship.

   We ourselves are not dubious on this point, we protest that persons are
   not saved by being baptized. In such an audience as this, I am almost
   ashamed to go into the matter, because you surely know better than to
   be misled. Nevertheless, for the good of others we will drive at it. We
   hold that persons are not saved by baptism, for we think, first of all
   that it seems out of character with the spiritual religion which Christ
   came to teach, that he should make salvation depend upon mere ceremony.
   Judaism might possibly absorb the ceremony by way of type into her
   ordinances essential to eternal life; for it was religion of types and
   shadows. The false religions of the heathen might inculcate salvation
   by a physical process, but Jesus Christ claims for his faith that it is
   purely spiritual, and how could he connect regeneration with a peculiar
   application of aqueous fluid? I cannot see how it would be a spiritual
   gospel, but I can see how it would be mechanical, if I were sent forth
   to teach that the mere dropping of so many drops upon the brow, or even
   the plunging a person in water could save the soul. This seems to me to
   be the most mechanical religion now existing, and to be on a par with
   the praying windmills of Thibet, or the climbing up and down of
   Pilate's staircase to which Luther subjected himself in the days of his
   darkness. The operation of water-baptism does not appear even to my
   faith to touch the point involved in the regeneration of the soul. What
   is the necessary connection between water and the overcoming of sin? I
   cannot see any connection which can exist between sprinkling, or
   immersion, and regeneration, so that the one shall necessarily be tied
   to the other in the absence of faith. Used by faith, had God commanded
   it, miracles might be wrought; but without faith or even consciousness,
   as in the case of babes, how can spiritual benefits be connected
   necessarily with the sprinkling of water? If this be your teaching,
   that regeneration goes with baptism, I say it looks like the teaching
   of a spurious Church, which has craftily invented a mechanical
   salvation to deceive ignorant, sensual, and grovelling minds, rather
   than the teaching of the most profoundly spiritual of all teachers, who
   rebuked Scribes and Pharisees for regarding outward rites as more
   important than inward grace.

   But it strikes me that a more forcible argument is that the dogma is
   not supported by facts. Are all persons who are baptized children of
   God? Well, let us look at the divine family. Let us mark their
   resemblance to their glorious Parent! Am I untruthful if I say that
   thousands of those who were baptized in their infancy are now in our
   goals? You can ascertain the fact if you please, by application to
   prison authorities. Do you believe that these men, many of whom have
   been living by plunder, felony, burglary, or forgery, are regenerate?
   If so, the Lord deliver us from such regeneration. Are these villains
   members of Christ? If so, Christ has sadly altered since the day when
   he was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. Has he really
   taken baptized drunkards and harlots to be members of his body? Do you
   not revolt at the supposition? It is a well-known fact that baptized
   persons have been hanged. Surely it can hardly be right to hang the
   inheritors of the kingdom of heaven! Our sheriffs have much to answer
   for when they officiate at the execution of the children of God, and
   suspend the members of Christ on the gallows! What a detestable farce
   is that which is transacted at the open grave, when "a dear brother"
   who has died drunk is buried in a "sure and certain hope of the
   resurrection of eternal life," and the prayer that "when we shall
   depart this life we may rest in Christ, as our hope is that this our
   brother doth." Here is a regenerate brother, who having defiled the
   village by constant uncleanness and bestial drunkenness, died without a
   sign of repentance, and yet the professed minister of God solemnly
   accords him funeral rites which are denied to unbaptized innocents, and
   puts the reprobate into the earth in "sure and certain hope of the
   resurrection to eternal life." If old Rome in her worst days ever
   perpetrated a grosser piece of imposture than this, I do no read things
   aright; if it does not require a Luther to cry down this hypocrisy as
   much as Popery ever did, then I do not even know that twice two make
   four. Do we find--we who baptize on profession of faith, and baptize by
   immersion in a way which is confessed to be correct, though not allowed
   by some to be absolutely necessary to its validity--do we who baptize
   in the name of the sacred Trinity as others do, do we find that baptism
   regenerates? We do not. Neither in the righteous nor the wicked do we
   find regeneration wrought by baptism. We have never met with one
   believer, however instructed in divine things, who could trace his
   regeneration to his baptism; and on the other hand, we confess it with
   sorrow, but still with no surprise, that we have seen those whom we
   have ourselves baptized, according to apostolic precedent, go back into
   the world and wander into the foulest sin, and their baptism has
   scarcely been so much as a restraint to them, because they have not
   believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Facts all show that whatever good
   there may be in baptism, it certainly does not make a man "a member of
   Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,"
   or else many thieves, whoremongers, drunkards, fornicators, and
   murderers, are members of Christ, the children of God, and inheritors
   of the kingdom of heaven. Facts, brethren, are against this Popish
   doctrine; and facts are stubborn things.

   Yet further, I am persuaded that the performance styled baptism by the
   Prayer Book is not at all likely to regenerate and save. How is the
   thing done? One is very curious to know when one hears of an operation
   which makes men member s of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of
   the kingdom of heaven, how the thing is done. It must in itself be a
   holy thing truthful in all its details, and edifying in every portion.
   Now, we will suppose we have a company gathered round the water, be it
   more or less, and the process of regeneration is about to be performed.
   We will suppose them all to be godly people. The clergyman officiating
   is a profound believer in the Lord Jesus, and the father and mother are
   exemplary Christians, and the godfathers and godmothers are all
   gracious persons. We will suppose this--it is a supposition fraught
   with charity, but it may be correct. What are these godly people
   supposed to say? Let us look to the Prayer Book. The clergyman is
   suppose to tell these people, "Ye have heard also that our Lord Jesus
   Christ hath promised in his gospel to grant all these things that ye
   have prayed for: which promise he, for his part, will most surely keep
   and perform. Wherefore, after this promise made by Christ, this infant
   must also faithfully, for his part, promise by you that are his
   sureties (until he come of age to take it upon himself) that he will
   renounce the devil and all his works, and constantly believe God's holy
   Word, and obediently keep his commandments." This small child is to
   promise to do this, or more truly others are to take upon themselves to
   promise, and even vow that he shall do so. But we must not break the
   quotation, and therefore let us return to the Book. "I demand
   therefore, dost thou, in the name of this child, renounce the devil and
   all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous
   desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou
   wilt not follow, nor be led by them?" Answers "I renounce them all."
   That is to say, on the name and behalf of this tender infant about to
   be baptized, these godly people, these enlightened Christian people,
   these who know better , who are not dupes, who know all the while that
   they are promising impossibilities--renounce on behalf of this child
   what they find it very hard to renounce for themselves--"all covetous
   desires of the world and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that they
   will not follow nor be led by them." How can they harden their faces to
   utter such a false promise, such a mockery of renunciation before the
   presence of the Father Almighty? Might not angels weep as they hear the
   awful promise uttered? Then in the presence of high heaven they profess
   on behalf of this child that he steadfastly believes the creed, when
   they know, or might pretty shrewdly judge that the little creature is
   not yet a steadfast believer in anything, much less in Christ's going
   down int