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        Title: Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 07: 1861
   Creator(s): Spurgeon, Charles Haddon (1834-1892)
CCEL Subjects: All; Sermons;
   LC Call no: BV42
  LC Subjects:

               Practical theology

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

               Times and Seasons. The church year
     __________________________________________________________________

                             Consolation in Christ

   A Sermon

   (No. 348)

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

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At Exeter Hall, Strand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "Lord, thy death and passion give

   Strength and comfort in my need,

   Every hour while here I live,

   On thy love my soul shall feed."

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

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

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

   "Bring his chariot from on high

   To bear him to his throne,

   Clap their triumphant wings and cry,

   His glorious work is done?"

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

   "And angels chant the solemn lay,

   Lift up your heads, ye golden gates,

   Ye everlasting doors give away?"

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

   "Loose all their bars of massy light,

   And wide unfold the radiant scene,"

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

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

   "Jesus pleads and must prevail,

   His cause can never, never fail."

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

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

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

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

   "Sweeter sounds than music knows,

   Charm us in our Saviour's name."

   "Jesus, the very thought of thee,

   With rapture fills my breast."

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

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

   "When every earthly prop gives way,

   He still is all our strength and stay."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "To thy Father's bossom press'd,

   Once again a child confess'd,

   From his hand no more to roam,

   Come, backsliding sinner, come."

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

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

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

                              The Wailing of Risca

   A Sermon

   (No. 349)

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

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At Exeter Hall, Strand.

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

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

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

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

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

   I. Our first sorrowful theme is SUDDEN BEREAVEMENTS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "He did his body with his charge lay down,

   He ceased at once to work and live."

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

   "We are to the margin come,

   And soon expect to die."

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

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

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

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

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

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

                          A Blow at Self-Righteousness

   A Sermon

   (No. 350)

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

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON

   At Exeter Hall, Strand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   III. THE PLEA IS ITSELF EVIDENCE AGAINST THE PLEADER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "Here's pardon for transgressions past,

   It matters not how black their caste;

   And oh! my soul with wonder view,

   For sins to come here's pardon too."

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

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

                              Plenteous Redemption

   A Sermon

   (No. 351)

   Delivered at Exeter Hall, Strand, by the

   REV. C.H. SPURGEON.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "The moment a sinner believes,

   And trusts in his crucified Lord,

   His pardon at once he receives,

   Salvation in full through his blood."

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

   "Now freed from sin I walk at large,

   My Saviour's blood's my full discharge;

   At his dear feet my soul I lay,

   A sinner saved, and homage pay."

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

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

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

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

   "What though thine inbred sins require

   Thy flesh to see the dust,

   Yet, as the Lord thy Saviour rose,

   So all his followers must."

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

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

   'These are thy glorious works, parent of good,

   Almighty, thine this universal frame,

   Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then;'

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

   "Thou hast redeemed our souls with blood,

   Hast set the prisoners free;

   Hast made us kings and priests to God,

   And we shall reign with thee."

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

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

   "Where everlasting spring abides,

   And never withering flowers."

   When Christ cometh he shall do even this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "What though your numerous sins exceed

   The stars that spread the skies,

   And aiming at th' eternal throne,

   Like pointed mountains rise;"

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

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

                               A Merry Christmas

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SABBATH MORNING, DECEMBER 23, 1860, BY THE REV.
   C. H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and
   sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
   And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that
   Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and
   offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job
   said, It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their
   hearts. Thus did Job continually. Job 1:4,5.

   JOB was an exceedingly happy man before his great trial. He was as much
   blessed in the fruit of his body as in his basket, and in his store.
   Our text gives us a very pleasing picture of Job's family. He was a
   happy man to have had so many children all comfortably settled in life;
   for you will perceive that they all had houses; they had left his roof;
   they had all established themselves, and had so prospered in the world
   that there was not one of them who had not enough of the world's goods
   to entertain all the rest. So it seemed as if Job's prosperity in his
   business had attended his children in the different places where they
   had settled. To add to his comfort they were an undivided family--not
   like Abraham's household, where there was an Ishmael who mocked Isaac;
   nor like Isaac's household, where there was an Esau and a Jacob who
   sought to supplant him; nor like Jacob's household, where there was a
   Joseph, and all the rest of his brothers were envious and jealous of
   him; nor like David's household, where there was perpetual strife and
   bickering between the one and the other. Job's descendants were a large
   tribe; but they were all united and knit together in bonds of perfect
   happiness; and moreover they seem to have had a great desire to
   preserve their unity as a family. Perhaps Job and his family were the
   only ones who feared God in the neighborhood; they wished therefore to
   keep themselves together as a little flock of sheep in the midst of
   wolves, as a cluster of stars in the midst of the thick darkness; and
   what a brilliant constellation they were--all of them shining forth and
   proclaiming the Truth of God! I say it was their desire not only to
   enjoy pleasantness and peace, but to maintain it; for I think that
   these annual meetings at the different houses were intended to knit
   them together so that if any little strife had arisen, as soon as they
   met at the next brother's house, all might be settled, and the whole
   host might go on again, shoulder to shoulder, and foot to foot--as one
   phalanx of soldiers for God. I think Job must have been a right happy
   man. I do not know that he always went to their feasts; perhaps the
   soberness of age might have a little disqualified him for joining in
   their youthful enjoyments; but I am sure he commended their feasting; I
   am quite certain he did not condemn it. If he had condemned it, he
   would never have offered sacrifice to God, lest they should have
   sinned, but he would have told them at once it was a sinful thing, and
   that he could give no countenance to it. I think I see the happy group,
   so happy and holy that surely if David had been there, he would have
   said, "Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell
   together in unity."

   Job was a godly man and so godly that unlike Eli, he brought up his
   household in the fear of God, and he was not only quick to observe any
   known sin, but was exceedingly jealous over his children lest secretly
   and inadvertently in their hearts--while they were at their loaded
   tables--they might have said or thought anything which might be termed
   blaspheming God! He therefore, as soon as the feasting was over, called
   them all together and then as a preacher, told them of the danger to
   which they were exposed, and as a priest, (for every Patriarch before
   the Law, was a priest), he offered burnt sacrifices lest any sin should
   by any possibility remain upon his sons and daughters. So says the
   text. I pray that now we may have Divine Grace to listen to it; and may
   what we shall now hear abide with us during the coming week, when some
   of you shall meet together in your own houses! May God grant that our
   parents, or we, if we are parents, may be as Jobs, and when the
   feasting is over, may there come the sacrifice and the prayer, lest we
   should have sinned and blasphemed God in our hearts!

   I shall divide my sermon thus. First, the text, and that is festive, so
   we will ring in a merry bell Secondly, that which is in the text, and
   that is instructive, so we will ring the sermon bell And, thirdly, that
   which follows the text, and that is afflictive, so we will ring the
   funeral bell.

   I. First, then, the text itself, and that is festive--let us therefore,
   RING THE MERRY BELL. I think I hear distinctly three notes in its merry
   peal. First, the text gives a license; secondly, it suggests a caution;
   and thirdly, it provides a remedy.

   1. First, the text gives a license. Now, you souls who would deny to
   your fellow men all sorts of mirth, come and listen to the merry bell
   of this text while it gives a license especially to the righteous--a
   license that they meet together in their houses, and eat and drink and
   praise their God. In Cromwell's days, the Puritans thought it an
   ungodly thing for men to keep Christmas. They, therefore, tried to put
   it down, and the common crier went through the street announcing that
   Christmas was henceforth no more to be kept, it being a Popish, if not
   a heathen ceremony! Now, you do not suppose that after the crier had
   made the proclamation, any living Englishman took any notice of it! At
   least I can scarcely imagine that any did, except to laugh at it; for
   it is idle thus to strain at gnats and stagger under a feather! Albeit
   that we do not keep the feast as Papists--nor even as a commemorative
   festival--yet there is a something in old associations that makes us
   like the day in which a man may shake off the cares of business, and
   disport himself with his little ones. God forbid I should be such a
   Puritan as to proclaim the annihilation of any day of rest which falls
   to the lot of the laboring man! I wish there were a half-a-dozen
   holidays in the year. I wish there were more opportunities for the poor
   to rest. Though I would not have as many saint's days as there are in
   Roman Catholic countries--yet if we had but one or two more days in
   which the poor man's household, and the rich man's family might meet
   together--it might perhaps be better for us. However, I am quite
   certain that all the preaching in the world will not put Christmas
   down--you willmeet next Tuesday, and you will feast, and you will
   rejoice, and each of you, as God has given you substance, will endeavor
   to make your household glad!

   Now, instead of telling you that this is all wrong, I think the merry
   bell of my text gives you a license to do so. Let us think a minute.
   Feasting is not a wrong thing, or otherwise Job would have forbidden it
   to his children; he would have talked to them seriously, and admonished
   them that this was an ungodly and wicked custom to meet together in
   their houses. But, instead of this, Job only faredlest a wrong thing
   should be made out of a right thing, and offered sacrifices to remove
   their iniquity; but he did by no means condemn it. Would any of you ask
   a blessing upon your children's attendance at the theater? Could you
   say, when they had been in such a place, "It may be they have sinned?"
   No, you would only talk thus of a right thing. I think I can prove to
   you that this was a good thing, for first you will notice they met in
   good houses; they did not go to an ale house to feast; they had no need
   to enter the tavern; but they met in their own houses--houses where
   prayer and praise were made. How much better for the working man to
   spend his money on his family than upon liquor sellers! And then it was
   in good company. They did not scrape together all the ruffians of the
   place to feast with them; but they kept to their own kith and kin; and
   feasting is good when good men feast--especially when they spare for
   the poor--as no doubt Job's children did, or else they were quite
   unworthy of their generous ancestor. They feasted in good houses, and
   in good company. And they observed during their feasting, good
   behavior. Job never heard of a wrong expression they had used; no one
   ever told him that they had become riotous, or that they had uttered
   one wrong word, or else Job could not have said, "It may be," but he
   would have said, "It is so." He must be a good son of whom a father
   could say, "It may be he has erred." All that he had was a fear lest
   secretly they might have done wrong; but it appears that openly their
   feasting had been such that even the busy tongue of scandal could not
   find fault with them! And besides, their feasting was a good thing,
   because it had a good intent; it was for amity, for cheerfulness, and
   family union. It was that they might be bound together as a bundle of
   rods--strong and unbroken--that they might be as a strongly intertwined
   cord, interwoven by these their family greetings and meetings.

   Now, I say that if in their case the thing was not wrong--and I think I
   have proved in four respects that it was right--it was in good houses,
   in good company, with good behavior, and for a good purpose--the text
   gives a license for us to do the same, and to meet in our houses, in
   the company of our kith and kin, provided we feast after a good sort,
   and do it with the good intent of knitting our hearts, the one towards
   the other.

   But again--good men of old have feasted. Need I remind you of Abraham's
   making a great feast in his house when his child Isaac was weaned?
   Shall I tell you of Sampson and his feasts, or of David, or of
   Hezekiah, or of Josiah, and of the kings who gave to every man a loaf
   of bread, and a good piece of meat, and a flagon of wine, and they
   cheered their hearts and made merry before God?

   But let me remind you that feasting, so far from being evil, was even
   an essential part of Divine Worship under the old Law. Do you not read
   of the Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of the
   Passover, the Feast of the New Moons, and how many other feasts
   besides? Come they not over again and again? Now if the thing were
   wrong in itself, God would certainly never employ it as an emblem and
   token of the Divine, the pure, and the heavenly Doctrines of His Grace.
   It is impossible that God should have taken a wrong thing to be the
   type of a right thing! He might take a common good and make it the type
   of a special favor--but not an evil thing--it is far from us to suppose
   such a thing of our God!

   Besides, did not the Savior Himself countenance a feast, and help to
   provide the guests with the wherewithal that they might have good
   cheer? Do you think the Savior out of place when He went to the wedding
   feast? And do you suppose that He went there, and did not eat and
   drink? Was it not said of Him, "Behold a drunken Man and a wine bibber,
   a friend of publicans and sinners"? Not that He was either drunken, or
   a wine bibber, but that He "came eating and drinking," to dash to
   pieces the Phariseeism which says that that which goes into a man
   defiles a man--whereas Christ teaches "not that which goes into a man,
   but that which comes out of a man, that defiles a man." Jesus Christ, I
   say, was at the feast! And suppose you that He bore a sad countenance?
   Did He sour with the vinegar of a morose behavior, the wine with which
   He had filled the watering pots? I think not! I believe at that
   marriage feast He joined with the guests; and if He were, indeed, "a
   Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief," as He certainly was, yet did
   He not keep His griefs to Himself, for if He came to suffer, Himself,
   He came to make others glad, and I doubt not that at the feast He
   seemed the most glad of the guests! Most glad because He was really the
   Master of the feast, and because He saw in the wedding the type of His
   own marriage--His own Divine espousal with the Church--which is "the
   bride, the Lamb's wife."

   And let me add once more--God has certainly made in this world,
   provision for man's feasting. He had not given just dry bread enough
   for a man to eat, and keep body and soul together, for the harvests
   teem with plenty, and often are the barns filled to bursting. O Lord,
   You did not give simply dry bread and water for mankind, but You have
   filled the earth with plenty, and milk and honey have You given to us!
   And You have besides this laden the trees with fruit, and given
   dainties to men. You are not stingy, You do not dole out with miserable
   hands the lean and scanty charity which some men would give to the
   poor, but You give generously, and You upbraid not! And for what
   purpose is this given? To rot, to mold, to be trod on, to be spoiled?
   No, but that men may have more than enough! That they may have all they
   need, and may rejoice before their God, and may feed the hungry, for
   this indeed is one essential and necessary part of all true Christian
   feasting! My text, I say, rings a merry bell, and gives us license for
   sacred feasting!

   2. But now the same merry bell suggests a caution. Job said--"It may
   be." They were good sons. Good, godly young men, I am sure, or else Job
   would not have said, "It may be." But "it may be," he said, "it may be
   that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts." Or, as some
   translate it, "have blessed God too little in their hearts." They may
   not have been grateful enough for their prosperity, and for the
   enjoyments which God had given them. "It may be." Well, listen,
   Brothers and Sisters, "it may be," too, that you and I may sin, and
   blaspheme God in our hearts, and be as Job's sons may have been--too
   little thankful--if, though they were true men and true women, though
   they all had a Job for their father, and though their feasting was in
   their own houses, and after a right sort and a commendable sort, yet
   there was a "maybe" that there might be sin. Am I too careful when I
   say, Brothers and Sisters, "it may be"? It may be that in our happiest
   gathering of our family together, it may be that we shall sin? I think
   we could not prefer ourselves before the sons and daughters of
   Job--that were self-righteousness, indeed--we are surely not proud
   enough to think ourselves better than the sons of that "perfect and
   upright" man "who feared God and eschewed evil." I think I am not too
   severe and too strict, when I say, "It may be; "it" may be; look to
   it--take heed to yourselves--be careful, be on your watch tower. Let me
   give you some reasons and arguments why this caution is not
   unnecessary.

   And first, remember there is no placefree from sin! You may set bounds
   about this mount, but the beast will touch the mountain. You may
   endeavor as much as you will to keep out Satan, but wherever there were
   two met together, Satan was ever the third. There was never a company
   met, but the Evil One somewhere intruded! Does he not come into your
   business? Do you not find him entering into your very closet? Yes, and
   the very Table of the Lord--has not Satan sat there and tempted Judas?
   Yes, and tempted you, too? How, then, can you hope that when your
   family are met together, Satan shall not be there? Is it not written,
   "The sons of God came together and Satan came also among them"? I am
   sure they never invited him; but he does not stay away for all that.
   And you will find it so. Never invite him by anything ungodly or
   unChristian-like. But since there are temptations everywhere, however
   pure and upright your intentions may be, however excellent your
   company, think you hear my little bell ringing--"It may be, it may be,
   it may be;" and it may be a blessed check to you.

   Beside this, remember that there is many a special temptation where
   there is a loaded table. Old Quarles said, "Snares attend my board;"
   and certainly they do. More men have perished by fullness of bread than
   ever died by hunger. Hunger may break through stone walls, but I have
   known feasting leap over golden walls--the golden walls of Divine
   Grace. Some men cut their throats with their teeth, and many a man has
   swam to Hell down his own throat! More have been drowned in the bowl,
   'tis said, than ever were drowned in the sea. I trust I need not say
   anything of that to you. I hope not. If there is a man here who falls
   into drunkenness--in God's name let him tremble--for there is no
   admittance for the drunkard into the Kingdom of Heaven! I am speaking
   now to Christians--not to men and women who fall into these vices--and
   I say to them, where you use the most proper moderation in receiving
   the things which God gives you, where you even totally abstain from
   that which might be a temptation, yet even thereyour table may be a
   snare unto you. Therefore, take heed to yourself, Believer, lest Satan
   lie in ambush beneath the family table!

   Remember, also, that they who sit at the table are but men, and the
   best of men are but men at the best. Men have so little Grace, that if
   they are not on the watchtower, they may soon be overtaken, and they
   may say or do that which they will have to repent of afterwards. I have
   heard say that there are men who swallow mouthfuls of earth which they
   will have to digest in Hell, and I do not doubt it. There have been
   times when a happy company have gathered together and the conversation
   has become trifling, then full of levity; perhaps it has gone so far
   that afterwards, when they retired to their homes, they would have
   recalled their words, if it had been possible. Let this caution, then,
   sound in all our ears, "It may be--it may be--it may be!" And let us so
   act that if Christ were at the feast, we should not be ashamed to see
   Him. Let us so speak that if Christ sat at our table, we should not
   count it a hindrance to our joy--but rather that we should be the more
   free, joyous and glad--because of such thrice-blessed Company! Oh, tell
   me not that Christianity curbs our joy! My Brothers and Sisters, it
   shuts up one of its channels--that black and filthy kennel into which
   the sinner's joy must run; but it opens another channel, wider,
   broader, deeper, purer, and fills it to the very banks with joy, more
   lustrous and more full of glory! Think not that we who follow Christ,
   and seek to walk strictly in our integrity, are miserable! We tell you
   that our eyes sparkle as much as yours, and that we have not the
   redness of the eyes in the morning. We can say to the worldling that
   our heart, despite its sometimes heaviness, does rejoice in the Lord,
   and we have peace which is like a river, and a righteousness which is
   like the waves of the sea! O Christian Brothers and Sisters! Let not
   the world think of you that you are shut out here from anything like
   happiness; but so act and so live at all times, that you may teach men
   that it is possible to be happy without sin, and to be holy without
   being morose! This, then, is the caution which our merry bell rings out
   to us.

   But, then, in the third place, having given a license and suggested a
   caution, the merry bell provides a remedy. "It may be"--it may be we
   have done wrong. What then? Here is a remedy to be used by parents, and
   heads of families, and by ourselves.

   Job sent for his sons as a father; he sanctified them as a preacher; he
   sacrificed for them as a priest; by all which I understand, he first
   bade them come together, and then he sanctified them--that is, he first
   spoke to them--commended them for the excellent and admirable manner in
   which they had met together; told them how pleased he was to see their
   love, their union. But then he said, "It may be, my sons, you are like
   your father--there is some sin in you, and it may be you have sinned.
   Come, let us repent together." And so, being, as I believe, all godly
   persons, they sat down and thought over their ways. Then no doubt the
   good old man bade them kneel down while he prayed with them. And then
   he expressed his faith in the great coming Mediator and so, though one
   man's faith cannot prevail for another, yet the faith of the father
   helped to quicken the faith of the sons! The prayer of the father was
   the means of drawing forth the prayer of the sons, and so the family
   was sanctified. Then after that, he would say, "There is no putting
   away of sin, except by the shedding of blood. So they fetched the
   bullocks, a bullock for every son, and for every daughter; the old
   Patriarch slew the victims, and laid them on the altar, and as the
   smoke ascended--they all thought, if they had sinned against God, yet
   by His Grace, the bloodshed, and the victim offered could, as the type
   of Christ, take away their sin. I think I see the good old man after
   the sacrifice was all complete--"Now, my children," he says, "return to
   your homes. If you have sinned, your sin is put away; if you have
   transgressed, the Atonement made has cancelled your transgression; you
   may go to your habitations, and take a father's blessing with you."

   Call to your recollection that Job is said to have seen to his sacred
   work "early in the morning." It is evil lying in bed when we have sin
   on our conscience. He that has a sin unforgiven should never travel
   slowly to the Cross but run to it! So Job would sleep in the morning
   not an hour till he had seen his sons and his daughters sanctified, and
   the sacrifice made. Mark well, that "he offered according to the number
   of his sons." He did not leave out one! If he prayed for the eldest, he
   prayed for the youngest, too--and if he made supplication for the sons,
   he did not forget the daughters! Ah, parents, never forget any of your
   children--carry them allbefore God--let them all be consecrated to Him,
   and let your earnest prayers go up for them all--from your Reuben down
   to your Benjamin. Leave not one of them out, but pray God to grant that
   they may all be bound up together in the bundle of life.

   And notice once again, "So did Job continually." As often as they
   visited, so often was there the sacrifice. I suppose they had 10 feasts
   in the year; and it is supposed by the old commentators that they
   assembled on their birthdays. They were not always feasting--that were
   sinful. In fact, that was the sin of the old world, for which God
   drowned it. "They ate and they drank, they married and they were given
   in marriage," all which things are right enough in themselves. But if
   we are wholly immersed in them, always eating, always drinking, always
   feasting, then they become sins and, indeed, at all times they become
   sin, unless, like Job's feasts, they are sanctified by the Word of God
   and prayer. If our meetings are thus sanctified, we can in everything
   give thanks. Then "he that eats, eats to the Lord, and gives God
   thanks." And being accepted in our thankfulness, the eating is to God's
   Glory! I say, then, my dear Friends, that Job did this continually
   which teaches to the parent his duty of continually pleading for his
   sons and daughters.

   The aim of my remarks is just this--you will, most of you, meet
   together next Tuesday and keep the household feast. I beg you to
   imitate Job on Wednesday morning and make it your special and peculiar
   business to call your children together, and sanctify them by prayer,
   and by pleading the precious Sacrifice of Christ Jesus. So "it may be"
   there has been sin; but there will be no "may be" as to the putting
   away of the sin, for pleading with prayer, and laying hold on the
   sacrifice by faith, you shall stand accepted still--both you and your
   households!

   Now, some may think that what I have said upon this point is
   unnecessary, and that we ought not to speak about such common things as
   these. Do you suppose that the Christian pulpit was set up by God that
   we might always talk to you about the millennium, or the antediluvians,
   or the things that are to happen in Ethiopia or Palestine? I believe
   that the Christian ministry has to do with you in your daily life--and
   the more the preacher delivers that which is practically suggestive of
   profit to our souls--the more closely does he keep to the Master! I am
   sure if my Lord Jesus Christ were here, He would say somewhat in these
   words to you, "Go your way, and eat your bread with a joyous heart, for
   God has accepted you through My blood; but watch and be you as men and
   women who look for their Lord; still keep your lamps trimmed, and your
   lights burning, and your loins girt about. Be steadfast and watch unto
   prayer, that should I come in the morning, or at cock-crowing, I may
   find you ready for My appearing."

   As for you young men and women who will be separated on that day from
   your own parents--having no family circle in which to join--perform
   this pleasant privilege yourselves. Set apart a season the next morning
   in which by prayer and supplication you shall make confession of sin;
   and whenever the feast time comes round--whenever you are invited to a
   social meeting, or the like--look upon it as a necessary successor of
   the social gathering--that there is private supplication, private
   confession of sin, and a personal laying hold anew upon the great
   Sacrifice. If this is done, your meetings, instead of being
   unprofitable, shall be the beginning of better days to you, and you
   shall even grow in Grace through that prayer, that repentance, and that
   faith which have been suggested by your gatherings together.

   I think all this is most fairly in my text. And if I ought not to
   preach from such a passage, then the text ought not to be in the Bible.

   II. And now let us turn to the second head, or what is in the text, and
   that is instructive; we must, therefore, ring the SERMON BELL.

   Well, it will be a short sermon. My sermon shall not be like the bell
   and preacher of St. Anthony's Church which were said to be both
   alike--the bell was pulled a long while, and was exceedingly dreary in
   its tone, and the preacher was precisely the same. The sermon which is
   fairly in my text is this--if Job found it right with a holy jealousy
   to suspect lest his sons might have sinned, how much more do you think
   he suspected himself? Depend on it--he who was so anxious to keep his
   children clean, was himself more anxious that he might always fear his
   God and eschew evil! God said Job was a perfect and an upright man; and
   yet he was jealous! How much more, then, shall you and I be jealous of
   ourselves? Say not in your heart, Christian, "I may go here and there,
   and may not sin." You are never out of danger of sinning! This is a
   world of mire; it will be hard to pick your path so as not to soil your
   garments. This is a world of pitch; you will need to watch often, if in
   handling it, you are to keep your hands clean. There is a robber in
   every turn of the road to rob you of your jewels; there is a thief
   behind every bush--there is a temptation in every mercy; there is a
   snare in every joy. There is not a stone on which you tread under which
   there is not a viper's nest; and if you shall ever reach Heaven, it
   will be a miracle of Divine Grace! If you shall ever come safely home
   to your Father's house, it will be because your Father's power brought
   you there! If Job's sons were in danger at their own tables, how much
   more are some of you in danger, Christians, when you have to go among
   the ungodly? It may be that some of you are called to do business where
   you hear oaths and blasphemy; your way of life is such that you cannot
   help being exposed to many temptations. Be on your guard! It was said
   of a certain great man, that he was so afraid of losing his life. that
   he always wore armor under his clothes. Take care you always wear
   armor. When a man carries a bomb in his hand, he should mind that he
   does not go near a candle. And you, too must take care that you do not
   go near temptation. But if you are called to go through the temptation,
   how watchful, how anxious, how careful, how guarded should you be!
   Brothers and Sisters, I do not think that we are, any of us, watchful
   enough. I have heard of a good woman who would never do anything till
   she had sought the Lord in prayer about it. Is that our custom? If we
   do even a common thing without seeking the Lord's direction, we may
   have to repent it as long as we live! Even our common actions are sharp
   tools; we must mind how we handle them.

   There is nothing in this world that can foster a Christian's piety, but
   everything that can destroy it. How anxious should we be, then, to look
   up--to look up to God--that He may keep us! Let your prayer be, "Hold
   me up, and I shall be safe." Let your daily cry be, especially you
   young Christians, yes and you old Christians. too, "Lord, keep me! Keep
   my heart, I pray You, for out of it are the issues of my life." Do not
   expose yourselves unnecessarily, but if called to exposure; if you have
   to go where the darts are flying, never go abroad without your shield!
   For if once the devil catches you abroad, and your shield at home, then
   he will say, "Now is my time!" And he will send an arrow which may
   rattle between the joints of your harness, and you may fall down
   wounded, even though you cannot be slain. The Lord grant, then, that
   this sermon bell of my text may ring in your ears during the next week;
   and as long as ever you live, may you hear it saying to you, "Be
   careful; be watchful; be vigilant; danger may be in an hour when all
   seems secure to you." Inspect the vessel, see to her keel; look to the
   sails; look to the rudder bands; watch every part of the ship, for the
   storm may be coming though the calm rule at present, and the rocks may
   be ahead though the breakers roll not, and the quicksand may underlie
   your keel, though you think all is well. God help you then, Christian,
   to watch unto prayer! What we say unto you, we say unto all--WATCH!

   III. But now what follows the text--and that is afflictive--and here
   let us ring the FUNERAL BELL.

   What follows the text? Why hear this, "Your sons and your daughters
   were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house; and
   behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four
   corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men and they are dead,
   and I only am escaped alone to tell you." Between the table and the
   coffin there is but a step; between the feast and the funeral there may
   be but a day; and the very bell that rings the marriage peal tolls the
   funeral knell! Here is a death's head for you to put on your table. The
   old Egyptians set a corpse among the guests--that all might know that
   they must die. I set the bodies of Job's sons and daughters at your
   table--to make you think that you will die! Our very eating is the
   grave of God's mercies, and should remind us of our own graves. What do
   we do when we eat but patch the old tenement, put fresh plaster on the
   dilapidated and naked rafters? So, then, we should remember that the
   time will come when we can no more do this, but when the tenement
   itself shall be shaken and be blown down. Sinner! Let no joy cross your
   face till death and you are friends. Saint! Let no joy be in your heart
   either, till you can say, "Welcome, Death; I gladly go with you." Do
   nothing that you would not willingly die doing! Be found in no position
   in which you would be unwilling to stand forever. Be you today what you
   would wish to be in eternity; and so live and so act and so sit at the
   table that if the wind should come and smite the four corners of the
   house, and you should die, yet you fall asleep at one feast, to wake up
   at another feast where there would be no, "may be," about sin, but
   where you should eat bread in the Kingdom of God and drink the new wine
   of which Jesus Christ spoke when He rose from the supper and left His
   disciples!

   Ah, my spirit rises on wings of delight at the solemn tones of that
   funeral knell--for it has more music in it, after all--than my merry
   bell! There is a pleasing joy in sorrow, and mirth is akin to sadness.
   Hearken, Friends, the bell is speaking, "gone, gone, gone, gone." "Who
   is that for? Who is dead in this parish? "That is poor So-and-So." My
   God, when it shall be my turn, may my soul behold Your face with joy; O
   may my spirit, when it receives the last summons, cry with delight,
   "Blessed be God for that sound! It was the merriest sound my soul could
   have desired, for now I sit with Jesus, and eat at His table, and feast
   with angels! And I am satisfied and have the privilege of John--to lean
   my head upon my Savior's breast." Christian! I say never let the
   thought of dying plague you. Let it be a comfort to you, and stand you
   so ready that when the Master shall say, "Arise!" you will have nothing
   to do but to rise at His bidding, and march to Heaven--leading your
   captivity captive! But you, Sinner, when you are sitting at your table,
   remember my funeral bell tolling in your ears. And if you should step
   aside, and the rest should say, "What ails you?"--if you should be
   compelled to rise while they are laughing, and go upstairs to pray, I
   shall not mind. Though some may say I have made you melancholy and have
   marred your feast--Sinner it is no time for you to be feasting while
   God's sword is furbished and sharp, and ready to divide soul from body!
   There is a time to laugh, but it is not till sin is pardoned that there
   is time to dance; it is not till the heart stands with joy before the
   Ark, that there is time to make merry--it is not till sin is forgiven.
   Your time is a time to weep, and a time to tear your garments, and a
   time to sorrow and a time to repent. May God's Holy Spirit give you the
   Grace! The time is now. And the Grace being given, may you fall before
   the Cross and find pardon and mercy there, and then we may say, in the
   words of Solomon--"Go your way; eat your bread with joy and drink your
   wine with a merry heart; for God now accepts your works."
     __________________________________________________________________

                        A Sermon For The Week Of Prayer

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SABBATH MORNING, JANUARY 6, 1861, BY THE REV. C.
   H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving."
   Colossians 4:2.
   THOSE of you who constantly listen to my voice are aware that on the
   first Sabbath of the year I always receive of a venerable Clergyman--a
   veteran warrior in the Lord's hosts--a verse of Scripture which I
   accept as my New Year's text, and which after being printed becomes the
   motto of my congregation for the following year. It is somewhat amazing
   that my venerable friend should have sent me in the envelope about a
   month ago this text. He knew nothing of the proposition for a week of
   prayer. I do not know that it had been even determined upon at that
   date--certainly neither to his knowledge nor to mine--and I could not
   but help thinking when I opened my envelope, and saw what was to be my
   text, that he had been directly and specially guided of God, that my
   text might be in keeping with the engagements of the week. "Continue in
   prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving." How greatly do I
   rejoice that the Churches are awakened to prayer. My honored and
   venerable Brother will this morning stand up in his village Church,
   lift up holy hands, and bid his people join in the common supplication,
   and I feel but too happy as his younger Brother in Christ--as but a
   babe compared to so experienced a pastor--to follow his example in
   stirring you up that you, too, as a great host, may join with the
   general company of the faithful and besiege the Throne of Grace till
   you carry the gates of Heaven by storm, and obtain the mercy which both
   you and the world so much require!
   Without further preface, let me observe that there are three
   exhortations in the text connected with prayer. The first is continue;
   the second is watch; and the third is give thanks. "Continuance" sits
   like Moses on the top of the hill, while Watching and Thanksgiving,
   like Aaron and Hur, hold up its hands.
   I. And first, in regard to prayer, the Apostle says "continue."

   Be you not, O you intercessors with God for men--be you not as those
   whose goodness is as the morning cloud and as the early dew. Do not
   begin to pray, and then suddenly cease your supplications. That will
   prove an ignorance as to the value of the mercy which you seek, and a
   lack of earnestness as to your obtaining it. How many there are who,
   under a powerful sermon, or during a trying Providence, have bent their
   knees suddenly in hasty prayer! They have risen from their knees, and
   they have forgotten what manner of men they were. Take away the whip
   from them, and they have ceased to run; remove from them the tempest,
   and they have ceased to fly before it; they have ceased to pray when
   God has ceased to smite! O Church of God, imitate not these heathen men
   and publicans! Wake not yourself up to a sudden fit of prayer, and then
   return again to your sloth; stir not yourself a moment from your bed to
   throw your heavy head back again upon your pillow, but continue in
   supplication--cease not to pray!

   There is a great distinction between the prayer of the real convert and
   the merely convicted sinner. The merely convicted sinner, terrified by
   the Law, calls but once; the awakened heart, renewed of the Holy
   Spirit, never ceases to cry until the mercy comes! A few days ago, by
   the seaside, on the coast of the Isle of Wight, a woman thought she
   heard, in the midst of the howling tempest, the voice of a man. She
   listened. It was repeated. She strained her ears again, and she caught,
   amid the crack of the blast, and the thundering of the winds, another
   cry for help. She ran at once to the lifeguards who launched their
   boat, and some three poor mariners who were clinging to a mast were
   saved! Had that cry been but once and not again, either she might have
   doubted as to whether she had heard it at all, or else she would have
   drawn the melancholy conclusion that they had been swept into the
   watery waste, and that help would have come too late. So when a man
   prays but once, either we may think that he cries not at all, or else
   that his desires are swallowed up in the wild waste of his sins, and he
   himself is sucked down into the vortex of destruction. If the Church of
   God shall offer prayer this week, and then shall cease to be in
   earnest, we shall think her never to have meant her prayers! If she
   shall but now and then start up, and make her supplications, we shall
   write her down as a hypocrite intent for a moment upon keeping
   appearances, but afterwards relapsing into her lukewarm Laodicean
   condition! The exhortation of my text, I think, stands in contrast,
   then, to the transient prayer which is often offered by ungodly men.
   Continue in prayer; do not pray once, and have done with it, but
   continuein it.

   I think further, that the exhortation to continue may be put in
   opposition to the common dealings of many with God, who pray and pause,
   and pray and pause--are earnest and then cool, earnest and colder
   still. There is a sharp frost--a rapid thaw, and then a frost again.
   Their spiritual state is as variable as our own weather. A shower,
   sunshine, mist, shower, sunshine again! They are everything by turns,
   and nothing long. There are too many Churches which are just of this
   character. See them one week, you would believe they would carry all
   before them. and convert the town or village in which they are located;
   see them next week and they are, "As sound asleep as a church," which
   is a common Proverb, a church being too often the sleepiest thing in
   all the world! Sometimes they ran and they did run well--what did
   hinder them? But they stopped, they paused, they looked about them, and
   after a while they ran again--but they moved not swiftly enough to be
   able to make up the time lost when they were standing still!

   Now I am afraid our Churches have for a considerable period been just
   in this state--have been sometimes hot, and sometimes cold. Look at our
   revivals everywhere--the American revival, it is a great wave and then
   dry sand. Look at the Irish revival. I fear that in the end, it will
   come to the same amount. Almost everywhere there have been great
   stirrings, as if a holy fire had fallen, and was about to burn up all
   the stubble--all men stand in wonder at it, but it ceases and a few
   ashes remain! The fact is, the Church is not healthy; she has
   intermittent fits of health, she has starts of energy, she has
   paroxysms of agony; but she does not agonize for souls--she is not
   always earnest, she is not always busy. Well did Paul need to say to
   this age as to his own, "Continue in prayer." Not one week, but every
   week! Not for a season, but at all seasons! Be you always crying out
   unto the Lord your God!

   In the black country of England, you who have traveled will have
   observed fires which never in your recollection have been quenched. I
   believe there are some which have been kept burning for more than 50
   years, both night and day, every day in the year. They are never
   allowed to go out, because, we are informed, the manufacturers would
   find it amazingly expensive again to get the furnace to its needed red
   heat. Indeed, the blast furnace, I suppose would all but ruin the
   proprietor if it were allowed to go out once every week. He would
   probably never get it up to its right heat until the time came for
   letting the fire out again. Now, as with these tremendous furnaces
   which must burn every day or else they will be useless--they must be
   kept burning or else it will be hard to get them up to the proper
   heat--so ought it to be in all the Churches of God! They should be as
   flaming fires both night and day, caldron after caldron of the coal of
   earnestness should be put to the furnace, all the fuel of earnestness
   which can be gathered from the hearts of men should be cast upon the
   burning pile. The heavens should be always red with the glorious
   illumination, and then, then you might expect to see the Church
   prospering in her Divine business, and hard hearts melted before the
   fire of the Spirit!

   Continue, then, in prayer. Never let your fire go out. But why? Why
   should the Church always be in prayer? Understand we do not mean by
   this that men ought to leave their business, forsake their shops, and
   neglect their household, to be always supplicating. There were some
   fanatics in the early Church who gave up everything, that they might be
   always praying. We know what the Apostle would have said to them, for
   did he not say, "If any man will not work, neither let him eat"? There
   are some lazy people who like praying better than working--let them
   learn that the Lord accepts not this at their hands! Did not the
   Master, even when He was on earth, after He had preached a sermon in
   Simon Peter's boat--did He not as soon as ever He was done, say to
   Peter, "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a
   draught"? He did this to show that work, hard work, the hardest of work
   is quite in keeping with the hearing and the preaching of the Word, and
   that no man has any right to forsake his calling to which God has
   appointed him in His Providence, under pretense of seeking the Lord.
   Never stain one duty with the blood of another. It is quite possible
   that you may continue in your labor, and yet continue in prayer. You
   may not always be in the exercise, but you may always be in the spirit
   of prayer! If there shall not always be iron in the furnace to melt,
   yet let there always be the fire to melt it. If not always shooting the
   arrow up to Heaven, yet always keep the bow well stringed, so shall you
   always be archers, though not always shooting! So shall you always be
   men of prayer, though not always in the exercise of praying.

   1. But why should the Church--to come to the question--why should the
   Church continue in prayer? For several reasons, and the first is, God
   will answer her It is not possible that God should refuse to hear
   prayer; it is possible for Him to bid the sun stand still, and the moon
   to stay her monthly march; it is possible for Him to bid the waves
   freeze in the sea--possible for Him to quench the light of the stars in
   eternal darkness--but it is not possible for Him to refuse to hear
   prayer which is based upon His promise and offered in faith! He can
   reverse Nature, but He cannot reverse His own Nature, and He must do
   this before He can forbear to hear and answer prayer! The prayers of
   God's Church are God's intentions--you will not misunderstand me--what
   God writes in the book of His decree, which no eye can see, that He in
   process of time writes in the book of Christian hearts where all can
   see and read! The book of the Believer's desire, if those desires are
   inspired of the Holy Spirit, is just an exact copy of the book of the
   Divine decree. And if the Church is determined today to lift up her
   heart in prayer for the conversion of men, it is because God determined
   from before all worlds that men should be converted! Your feeble prayer
   today, Brothers and Sisters, can fly to Heaven and awake the echoes of
   the slumbering decrees of God! Every time you speak to God, your voice
   resounds beyond the limits of time. The decrees of God speak to your
   prayer and cry, "All hail! Brother, all hail! You, too, are a decree!"

   Prayer is a decree escaped out of the prison of obscurity, and come to
   life and liberty among men. Pray, Brothers and Sisters, pray, for when
   God inspires you, your prayer is as potent as the decrees of God! As
   His decrees bind the universe with spells, and make the suns obedient
   to Him--as every letter of His decree is as a nail, pinning together
   the pillars of the universe, so are your prayers; they are the pivots
   on which earth rests; they are the wheels on which Providence revolves;
   your prayers are like God's decrees struggling to be born, and to
   become Incarnate like their Lord.

   God will, God must answer the prayers of His Church. I think I can see
   in vision in the clouds, God's register, His file in which He puts the
   prayers of His Church. One after another they have been deposited; He
   has cast none of them away, and consumed none of them in the fire, but
   He has put them in His file and smiled as the heap accumulated; and
   when it shall reach a certain mark which He has set and appointed in
   His good pleasure, and the last number of the prayers shall be
   completed and the blood of Christ shall have bedewed the whole, then
   will the Eternal speak, and it shall be done--He shall command and it
   shall stand fast! "Let there be light," He says, and there shall be
   light at once. "Let the Kingdom come," and the Kingdom shall come; he
   who tarries shall be put out of the way, he who hinders shall be cast
   down, and trod as the mire of the streets. Up, Church of God, in all
   the glory of your prayer, put on your vestments and begin to plead
   through Jesus Christ, your Great High Priest; enter within the veil
   today, for God hears you and He will surely answer you!

   2. There is a second reason why the Church should continue in prayer,
   namely, that by her prayers the world will most certainly be blessed.
   The other evening in visiting the sick, I saw at a distance, down a
   long street, the bright light of a fire. In a moment or so the flames
   seemed to yield, but again it sprang up and lit the heavens! Again it
   became dim and still dimmer. As we walked along, we said, "They have
   got the fire under control; the engines have been at work; how soon it
   is out!" I compare this to the Church's work upon the world. The world
   is, as it were, wrapped in flames of the fire of sin, and the Church of
   God must quench those flames. Whenever we meet together, and are more
   earnest in prayer, angels might well see in the distance the flames
   dimmed, and the fire giving way. Whenever we cease our exertions and
   become languid in our efforts, the flame gets the upper hand of us, and
   once more, spirits from the far-off world can see the fiery mantle
   surrounding our globe. Hand up your buckets, Sirs! Every man to the
   pumps! Now strip to it, everyone of you, work while you have life and
   strength! Now each man to his knees, for it is on our knees that we
   overcome! Each man to his station and to his work, and let us continue
   to pass from hand to hand the quenching water till every spark shall be
   put out, and there shall be a new Heaven and a new earth wherein dwells
   righteousness! To stop while but one part of the fabric is on fire
   would be to condemn the whole! To pause until the last spark shall be
   extinct, would be to give up the world to the devouring element!
   Continue, then, in prayer, till the world is wholly saved, and Christ
   is universal King!

   3. Thirdly, continue in prayer, because souls shall be saved as the
   result of your entreaties. Can you stand on the beach a moment--you can
   scarcely see, but yet you may discern by the lights of lanterns, some
   brave men launching the lifeboat. It is out--they have taken their
   seats; helmsman and rowers, all strong hearts, determined to save their
   fellows or to perish! They have gotten far away, now, into the midst of
   the billows, and we have lost sight of them. But in spirit we will take
   our stand in the midst of the boat. What a sea rolled in just then! If
   she were not built for such weather, she would surely have been
   overturned. Look at that tremendous wave and how the boat leaps like a
   sea bird over its crest! See now again--it has plunged into a dreary
   furrow, and the wind, like some great plow, turns up the water on
   either side as though it were clods of mold! Surely the boat will find
   her grave and be buried in the sheet of foam--but no--she comes out of
   it and the dripping men draw a long breath! But the mariners are
   discouraged; they have strained themselves bending to yonder oars, and
   they would turn back, for there is small hope of living in such a sea,
   and it is hardly possible that they will ever reach the wreck. But the
   brave captain cries out, "Now, my bold lads, for God's sake, send her
   on! A few more pulls of the oar, and we shall be alongside! The poor
   fellows will be able to hold on a minute or two longer; now pull as for
   dear life." See how the boat leaps! See how she springs as though she
   were a living thing, a messenger of mercy intent to save! Again, the
   captain says "Once more, once again and we will do it"--no, she has
   been dashed aside from the ship for a moment, that sea all but stove
   her in, but the helmsman turns her around and the captain cries, "Now,
   my boys, once more!" And every man pulls with lusty sinews, and the
   poor shipwrecked ones are saved!

   Yes, it is just so with us right now! Long have Christ's ministers,
   long has Christ's Church pulled with the Gospel lifeboat--let us pull
   again! Every prayer is a fresh stroke of the oar, and all of you are
   oarsmen! Yes, you feeble women confined to your beds, shut up in your
   chambers--you who can do nothing else but pray--you are all oarsmen in
   this great boat! Pull yet once more, and this week let us drive the
   boat ahead and it may be it will be the last tremendous struggle that
   shall be required, for sinners shall be saved, and the multitude of the
   redeemed shall be accomplished! Not we, but Divine Grace shall do the
   work, yet is it ours to be workers for God!

   4. But continue in prayer once more, because prayer is a great weapon
   of attack against the error and wickedness of the world. I see before
   me the strong bastions of the castle of Sin. I mark the host of men who
   have surrounded it. They have brought the battering ram, they have
   dashed it many times against the gate; it has fallen with tremendous
   force against it, and you would have supposed that the timbers would be
   split asunder the first time. But they are staunch and strong; he who
   made them was a cunning architect; he who depends upon them for his
   protection is one who knew how to make the gate exceedingly massive--is
   one who knew the struggle full well which he would have to
   endure--Prince of Darkness as he is! If he knew of his defeat, yet well
   he knew how to guard against it if it were possible. But I see this
   ponderous battering ram as it has been hurled with giant force again
   and again upon the gate, and has as often seemed to recoil before the
   massive bars. Many of the saints of God are ready to say, "Let us
   withdraw the instrument; let us take away the besieging armament; we
   shall never be able to storm this castle; we shall never effect an
   entrance." Oh, be not cowards, Sirs, be not cowards. The last time the
   battering ram thundered in its course, I saw the timbers shake! The
   very gate did reel and the posts did rock to and fro--see now, they
   have moved the earth around their sockets! Hell is howling from within
   because it knows how soon its end must come! Now, Christian warriors,
   use your battering rams once more, for the gates begin to shake and the
   walls are tottering. They will reel, they will fall before long--one
   more blow and yet another and another, and another, and as Israel went
   up over the walls of Jericho of old, so shall we soon go up over the
   fallen ruins of the walls of the castle of Sin and Satan! The Church
   does not know how near her victory is--we do not believe how much God
   is doing--but let the Holy Spirit for once give us a little more faith,
   and in confidence that we are nearing the victory--we shall continue in
   prayer! Turn not back when we have all but overcome, continue still,
   even till the end shall be, and the voice shall be heard, "Hallelujah,
   it is done! The kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdoms of our
   Lord and of His Christ."

   II. The second exhortation is WATCH.

   Watch, for you will soon be drowsy if you watch not Joshua fought the
   Amalekites, and I never read that his hands were weary, though the
   battle occupied a very long day. Moses was on the mountain in prayer,
   and his hands grew heavy because prayer is such spiritual work and we
   are so un-spiritual that the tendency of prayer upon our nature will be
   to make us drowsy unless we watch. It is ill-praying, when we are
   drowsy. It is ill for a Church that is not half-awake to be in
   supplication. All eyes must be opened! The judgment, the imagination,
   the hope, the memory--all must be in full vigor, or else we can
   scarcely hope that prayer shall be successful. I think I see the Church
   as I fear she is now. There she is upon her knees, with hands clasped.
   She mutters a few words. Her head droops, for she is weary. Again she
   pleads, and yet again her head is well nigh fallen on her bosom--she is
   a sleeping Church in prayer! Am I too severe in this picture? I believe
   it is true. I think there are some members of the Church thoroughly
   awake, but they are few. There are multitudes of professors who do not
   feel the value of souls. There are many who will meet in the room of
   this lower hall and meet in our own chapels, also, to pray who are
   nevertheless not awake, not awake to the world's necessities, not awake
   to Christ's Glory, not awake to the power of the Gospel--nor awake to
   their own responsibilities, so that they will pray-- but pray and
   sleep! Here, then, we see the value of the exhortation of the
   Apostle--"Continue in prayer and watch in the same."

   But watch for another reason--because as soon as ever you begin to
   pray, there will be enemies who will commence the attack. The Church
   never was earnest yet without sooner or later discovering that the
   devil was in earnest, too. The devil has had an easy time of it up till
   the last six or seven years, for the Church has been going on her
   old-fashioned way doing nothing at all! There was very little abuse of
   ministers--ministers were getting to be very respectable men, and very
   little abuse of any section of Christians--they were all getting to be
   very easy and loveable sort of people. But as sure as the Church, or
   any section of the Church, shall be in earnest, they will be abused!
   Never think you are good for anything till the world finds fault with
   you; never reckon that you have got a success unless many begin to cry
   you down! I always think that an article against you, if you have
   sought with an honest conscience to discharge your duty in the sight of
   God, is one of the highest compliments the press can pay you. Consider
   it as such! Never expect that the world will be friends with the
   Church. Indeed the world will be friendly enough with the Church if the
   Church will not do her duty. If there were a sentinel set to guard a
   post against surprise; if you knew him to be a very great friend of
   those who meant to make the attack, I think you would suspect very soon
   that he was in collusion with the enemy. No, Sirs, they who fight
   Christ's battles, must be men who think as well of the world as the
   world thinks of them--that is to say, who have no love to the world's
   esteem and the world no love to them! Martin Luther used to say, "The
   world gives me a very bad character, but there is no love lost between
   us; I can give to it as bad a character as ever it gives to me." The
   world says "quack, pretender, fanatic!" Be it so--be it so, O
   world--you have no power to honor Christ's ministers, except by
   upbraiding them. There is no power in the wicked to honor Christ's
   minister, except they are either trembling before him, or else laughing
   at him. Either way, we will gratefully accept the honor and write it
   down as being a proof of our success.

   But watch, O Church of Christ, watch; a struggle awaits you as sure as
   ever you are earnest in prayer. In riding along the south coast of
   England, you may have noticed the old Martello towers in constant
   succession very near to each other. They are the result of an old
   scheme of protecting our coast from our ancient enemies. It was
   supposed that as soon as ever a French ship was seen in the distance,
   the beacon would be fired at the Martello tower and then, across old
   England, wherever her sons dwelt, there would flash the fiery signal
   news that the enemy was at hand, and every man would seize the weapon
   that was next to him to dash the invader from the shore. Now we need
   that the Church of Christ should be guarded with Martello towers of
   sacred watchers who shall day and night look out for the attack of the
   enemy. For the enemy will come. If he comes not when we are prayerless,
   he will surely come when we are prayerful! He will show the cloven hoof
   as soon as ever we show the bended knee! If our motto is "Prayer," his
   watchword will be "Fierce attack." Watch, then, while you continue in
   prayer.

   But yet again--watch while you pray for propitious events which may
   help you in the answer to your prayer. I have known sea captains, when
   they have got their ships loaded with coal, and they have wished to
   come up to London with their cargo, have been unable to get down the
   Tyne and out to sea. If they could have got to sea, they could make
   their passage. And I have once or twice known a wary captain, being
   well upon the watch, manage to sail out of the river just while there
   was a little change of the wind; and when his fellows have awakened in
   the morning, they have missed him from his berth, and he has stolen a
   march upon them. He watched and they did not, and having lost the wind,
   they have had to lie in port till he has emptied out his cargo and
   returned! Now, the Church should watch while she prays to see if she
   cannot fulfill her own prayers, look out for opportunities of doing
   good, and see if she cannot steal a march upon her enemies. While she
   has one eye to Heaven for help, she must have the other eye on earth to
   look out for opportunities of doing good! God does not always send the
   Spirit to blow with the same force. We cannot make the wind blow, but
   we can spread the sails. So, if we cannot command the Spirit of God,
   when the Spirit of God does come, we can observe His coming and avail
   ourselves of the glorious opportunity! Watch, then, while you pray.

   Watch, too, for fresh arguments in prayer Heaven's gate is not to be
   stormed by one weapon but by many. Spare no arrows, Christian. Watch
   and see that none of the arms in your armory are rusty. Besiege the
   Throne of God with a hundred hands, and look at the promise with a
   hundred eyes. You have a great work on hand, for you have to move the
   arm that moves the world! Watch, then, for every means of moving that
   arm. See to it that you ply every promise; that you use every argument;
   that you wrestle with all your might! When you are wrestling with an
   antagonist, you must keep your eyes on him; you must look to see what
   he means to do next, or where you can get the next grip at him; see
   where you can get a hold, or plant your foot, so that you can throw him
   down. So wrestle with the Angel of Mercy! Watch while you pray. You
   cannot wrestle with your eyes shut, nor can you prevail with God unless
   your own soul is in a watchful state. O Spirit of God, awaken the
   Church and help her to watch while she prays!

   But one other remark-- watch for the answers to your prayers. When you
   post a letter to a friend, requesting a favor, you watch for an answer.
   When you pray to God for a favor, you do not expect Him to hear you,
   some of you. If the Lord were to hear some of your prayers, you would
   be surprised! I do believe that if God should send to you what you have
   asked for, you would be quite astonished! Sometimes when I have met
   with a special answer to prayer, and have told it, some have said--"is
   it not amazing!" Not at all, it would be amazing if it were notso! God
   says--"Ask and you shall receive." If I should ask and notreceive, it
   would be amazing. "Seek and you shall find." If you seek and do not
   find, it is not only amazing, but I think it is contradictory to God's
   Word! The Church has but to ask, and she shall receive. She has but to
   knock, and the door of mercy shall be opened. But we do not believe
   this! We fritter away God's promises and clip the edge of them, and
   then we go to God in prayer and we think that prayer is a very holy
   exercise--but we do not think that God really hears us! Too many
   professors believe it is their duty to pray, but really they are not so
   enthusiastic as to think that God actually listens and sends them what
   they ask for! A man who should say that he knew that God heard his
   prayers, is in some quarters looked upon as an enthusiast. And what is
   that but a proof that we do not believe this precious Book? For let the
   most unprejudiced man be a judge, if this Book does not teach that,
   "Whatever we ask in prayer, believing we shall receive," then it does
   not teach anything at all. And if it is not true that prayer is a power
   which prevails with God, then shut this Book; it is not worthy of any
   confidence, for it does plainly say that which you say it does not
   mean!

   The fact is, my Brothers and Sisters, the answers to our prayers are
   always on the way while we are asking! Sometimes they come while we are
   yet speaking! Sometimes they delay because we have not prayed as we
   should; God keeps the mercy back at times, and puts it out at compound
   interest because He means to pay it to us, interest and all--whereas if
   we had it at once, we would miss the interest, which sometimes doubles
   and trebles the principal! We are never losers by His delays, but
   always gainers! We ought never to say, even though Providence should
   tell us so, that God forgets or is unmindful--we never ought to believe
   that God has been deaf to our cries, or refused to answer our
   petitions. A true Believer pleading Christ's name and Sacrifice, and
   asking in faith, must and shall receive that which he asks of God! Now,
   during the next week, the Churches will meet together to ask for God's
   blessing, and if that blessing were to come, we should read the
   Missionary Heraldand it would begin, "There has been a most surprising
   awakening throughout all the Churches in such-and-such a country!" That
   word, "surprising," ought to be struck out! We should say, "God has
   been as good as His Word; we asked Him to bless the world, and He has
   done it! And if He does not do it, it will be because we have not asked
   aright, for as sure as ever we had asked aright, God would have heard
   us." I believe this to be as true as a mathematical proposition! If
   twice two is four, then it is just as true that God hears prayer! I
   would not look upon it as being a mere notion, a thought, a very fine
   imagining, or a pretty idea--it is a fact, Sirs--it is a fact! It is a
   fact which I could prove in my own experience by a hundred instances if
   this were the time and place to tell them. But I am sure that the
   people of God universally could prove that God does hear prayer. As
   certainly as ever when you write to a friend you get your answer--
   still more surely and certainly if you are pleading the name of Christ,
   God will hear you!

   But oh, open your eyes and look for the blessing! Watch for it. Be not
   so simple as to sow the seed and never look for the harvest. Do not be
   planting and never looking for fruit. Give up your prayers, or else
   expect them to be successful. When we were little children, we had a
   little plot of ground for a garden, and we put our seeds into it. I
   well recollect how the day after I had put in my seed, I went and
   scraped the soil away to see if it was not growing, as I expected it
   would have been after a day or so at the very longest, and I thought
   the time amazingly long before the seed would be able to make its
   appearance above the ground. "That is childish," you would say. I know
   it is, but I wish you were childish, too, with regard to your
   prayers--that you would--when you have put them in the ground, go and
   see if they have sprung up! And if not at once--be childish in refusing
   to wait till the appointed time comes--always go back and see if they
   have begun to sprout. If you believe in prayer at all, expect God to
   hear you! If you do not expect, you will not have it. God will not hear
   you unless you believe He will hear you! But if you believe He will, He
   will be as good as your faith.

   He will never allow you to think better of Him than He is; He will come
   up to the mark of your thoughts, and according to your faith, so shall
   it be done unto you.

   III. I have a third point, but my time is almost gone, therefore let me
   dwell on it very briefly. The third point is, GIVE THANKS.

   Prayer should be mingled with praise. I have heard that in New England
   after the Puritans had settled there a long while, they used to have
   very often a day of humiliation, fasting and prayer, till they had so
   many days of fasting, humiliation and prayer, at last a good senator
   proposed that they should change it for once, and have a day of
   thanksgiving. It is of little use to be always fasting. We ought
   sometimes to give thanks for mercies received. Now, during this week,
   there are to be days of prayer. Take care that they are days of praise,
   too! Why should we go to God as mournful beings, who plead piteously
   with a hard Master who loves not to give? When you give a penny to a
   beggar in the street, you like to see him smile at you--do you not? Is
   he a crossing-sweeper and you have given him a trifle? He looks
   extremely grateful and happy and you think within yourself, "What a
   small expense has made that man happy! I think I will buy another
   pennyworth ofjoy the next time I pass by." So you give him all the more
   because of his thankfulness to you. Now, go not before God with a
   rueful face, you people of God, as though He had never heard you
   before, and you were about to try a great experiment on One who was
   exceedingly deaf, and did not like to give you mercies! God is as
   pleased to give you His blessing as ever you are to receive it; it is
   as much to His honor as it is to your comfort; He takes more pleasure
   in your prayers than you do in His answers! Come therefore, boldly.
   Come with thankfulness in your heart and upon your lips, and join the
   hymn of praise with the cry of prayer. Be thankful for what God has
   done. Look at the past year. I commend it to your consideration when
   you meet for prayer. Has there been for the last 20 years such a year
   as the last? If any man had said seven years ago there would be
   preaching in St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, we should
   never have believed him! But it is has been, and it is to be again! If
   any friends had said that nearly all the theatres in London would be
   filled on the Sabbath, "Oh," you would have said, "it is ridiculous, it
   is an absurd notion!" But it is done, Sirs; it is done.

   If any had said to you seven years ago there would have been a
   congregation of many thousands who, without any drawback in numbers,
   would always assemble every Sabbath to listen to one minister, you
   would have said, "Ridiculous! There is no precedent for it. It is
   impossible! It is not at all possible that the Spirit of God can
   incline a people's heart so long to listen to one man'" It is done,
   Sirs; by God's Grace it is done! And what are we to do but to give God
   thanks for it? When we come before Him to ask Him for fresh mercies,
   let us not be so foolish as to forget the past. "Sing unto Him, sing
   unto Him, sing Psalms unto Him! Come into His Presence with
   thanksgivings, and show yourself glad in Him with Psalms--for the Lord
   is God, and a great King above all gods." So thank Him for the past,
   and pray to Him for the future. Thank Him, too, for the power to pray;
   thank Him for the privilege of taking the Church's needs before Him.
   And do still better--thank Him for the mercy which is to come. Great
   God, I thank You for Sinim, the land of China, which shall come unto
   You! I praise You for India, which shall receive You! I praise You for
   Ethiopia, which shall stretch out her arms unto You! Great God, today
   we bless You for what You will do; Your promise is, in the estimation
   of our faith, as good as the performance itself! We extol and glorify
   You, for Your right hand, O Lord! Your right hand, O Lord, has dashed
   in pieces the enemy. You have broken the bow and cut the spear in
   sunder. You have burned the chariot in the fire. Your right hand, O
   Lord, has gotten You the victory! Oh come, let us sing unto the Lord,
   for He has triumphed gloriously! Let us laud and extol Him, for He is
   King forever and ever! Say unto Zion, "Your God reigns." Behold, He
   comes. He comes to judge the world in righteousness, and the people
   with equity. Rejoice before Him, O you hills, clap your hands, O you
   cedars! Let the sea roar and the fullness thereof; the world and all
   that dwell therein! Praise Him, you heavens; and you Heaven of heavens;
   you spirits that stand before His Throne, for He is God and beside Him
   there is no God. The whole earth praises You, O God. and all Your
   creatures bless You forever and ever!

   Thus with the censor of prayer and praise, let us be this week like
   priests of God; and You, great High Priest, take our sacrifice and
   offer it before Your Father's face!

   I close my sermon. O that some here present may lay the subject of
   prayer to heart this week! Get alone, dear Friends, get alone this
   week! Pray for your children this week, and groan with God over your
   ungodly sons and daughters! Pray for your neighbors this week! Put God
   to the test! See if He does not open the windows of Heaven upon you. Be
   much in prayer and you shall be much blessed. And O poor Sinner! You
   who have never prayed before--the year of God's re- deemed is come!
   This is the acceptable day of the Lord; if you seek Him, He will be
   found of you. "Seek you the Lord while He may be found. Call you upon
   Him while He is near." Cry to Him now! Say--

   "O Sovereign Grace, my heart subdue.1" Trust Jesus with your soul, and
   unworthy though you are, your prayer shall he heard. and you shall be
   able to join with the company of the faithful in praying for others as
   well as for yourself. God bless you all, for Jesus' sake! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                              Portraits Of Christ

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 13, 1861, BY THE REV. C.
   H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to
   the image of His Son." Romans 8:29.

   IT is not so much predestination which will occupy our attention this
   morning, as the fact that Believers are predestinated to be conformed
   to thee image of God's dear Son.

   Perhaps nothing in the world is a surer sign of littleness than a
   slavish imitation of any man. Men lose that which is an honor to
   them--individuality--and then they lose that which is a power to
   them--originality--the moment they commence walking in another man's
   shoes. When one painter slavishly copies another, he is only known as
   the satellite of the greater luminary; he himself is neither
   respectable nor respected. But this is not the case when men select
   models which are confessed to be perfect. You never hear a man accused
   of a lack of originality because he studies the models in sculpture of
   Ancient Greece. It is not usual to hear the accusation of imitation
   brought against painters who have studiously examined the works of
   Michelangelo or of Raphael. These men are put at the head of their
   respective schools and the following of these masters of the art is
   voted to be no folly, but true wisdom. 'Tis even so with the imitation
   of Christ. To imitate other men is weakness; to copy Christ is
   strength. Christ is the perfect type of manhood. He who should imitate
   Him the most nearly, would be the most original man upon earth! It may
   seem a paradox, but it is one which nevertheless needs only to be tried
   to be proved; no man will be looked upon as so strange, so singular a
   being among his fellows, as the man who shall nearest approach to the
   image of the Lord Jesus! He imitates, we grant you; he copies, we
   confess it; but he is himself, despite his copying, an original to
   other men, and he stands out from the common herd as being a
   distinguished and celebrated individual--he will be "known and read of
   all men." If I should stand here this morning, my Hearers, to exhort
   you to imitate any one model in manhood except Christ, I would feel
   that I had a difficult task with sensible men. There is not in all the
   annals of our race, a single name which I could bid you love and
   reverence as much as to shut your eyes to the faults connected
   therewith. There is not a single biography truthfully written which I
   would have you read, and then say, "I will re-live this man's life
   precisely as he lived it." You would make shipwreck if you should
   blindly steer in the wake of the noblest of your brethren! You may take
   a virtue here, and a virtue there, and then in God's strength seek to
   imitate those men who excelled in those points--but to imitate an
   Abraham in all things, would not make you an Abraham--nor would it make
   you what you should be. To seek to follow a Job in all respects would
   not bring you to be perfect, even as your Father who is in Heaven is
   perfect. There remains but one model we can ever commend to you, and
   only one which a man of strong mind can accept as his copy in every jot
   and tittle. That I shall endeavor to present to you this morning, while
   I preach the great Doctrine that all Believers are predestinated to be
   conformed to the image of Christ Jesus.

   In what sense? Why? And is itpossible? Three points each interesting.

   I. IN WHAT SENSE IS A BELIEVER TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF CHRIST?

   There are some views which would be taken of this subject, which I
   think would be shallow and would not reach the full meaning of the Word
   of God. Some men conceive that they are to bear the image of Christ to
   warrant them as being His followers, although their works tell another
   tale! They are to be called Christians, and then under the garb and
   cover of Christianity, they are to make their vices appear like
   virtues, and their crimes are to be dignified as though they were of
   the highest morality. Now a Christian is not to bear the image of
   Christ as a penny bears the superscription of the Queen! That image is
   put there to make the coin current among men. but a penny is not the
   image of the Queen, it is only stamped with it. There are some
   Christians who think that they have the seal of the Spirit upon them,
   the stamp of Christ's warranty, and that they can claim to be accepted
   as Christians because they imagine they have the seal of the

   Spirit and the stamp of Christ's warranty upon them. Now, as the penny
   is not conformed after all to the image of the person whose face it
   bears, so such a man is not, by any pretended warranty he thinks he
   has, really conformed to the image of Christ. There is something more
   required of us, and something more will be bestowed upon us by the
   Spirit, than having in some dark corner the name of Jesus tattooed into
   the skin of our profession.

   Nor, again--neither have they attained to a conformity to the image of
   Christ who are content with a cold morality. You have seen a statue so
   exceedingly well chiseled that it is the very image of the statesman or
   the warrior whom it represents. You might dream that it looked from
   those stony eyes; you might imagine that it would step from its
   pedestal. Is it not put in the attitude of one who is about to lead the
   troops to battle? Could you not conceive it crying, "On, comrades, on!"
   But it stands there stiff and stolid, and its lips move not--it is dumb
   and blind, and motionless. I know some whose imitation of Christ is as
   if it were cut in marble--there is no life in it! Now this is not the
   conformity to Christ's image which the Spirit will give to us. We are
   not to be mere pictures of Christ, dead and lifeless; but the very
   lifeblood of Christ is to run in our veins. Our activity and our energy
   is to be consecrated and Christ-like. We are to be like He as living
   men. Not as cold frozen things, or mummies swathed in the bandages of
   the Law of God--but as living freemen we are to be conformed to the
   image of Christ Jesus!

   Some there are, too, who imagine that to be conformed to the image of
   Christ Jesus, it will be quite enough to act publicly as Christ would
   have acted. They are always talking about points of conscience--"Would
   Christ have done this," or "that?" And then they answer it according to
   their own fancies! They see some Christian who walks under "the perfect
   law of liberty," and is not bound by the, "touch not, taste not, handle
   not," of the old Mosaic spirit, and they cry over him, "Would Christ
   have done such a thing?" They see a Believer laugh, "Would Christ have
   done it?" If a Christian keeps a carriage, "Ah," they say, "did Christ
   ever ride in a carriage?" And so they think that by putting on a face
   that is more marred than that of any other man, they shall become the
   very image of Christ Jesus. You know that in the theatres men come
   forth as kings, "and strut their little hour." And for a while they are
   the very image of Julius Caesar, or of Richard III--and do you suppose
   that such is the intention of the Holy Spirit--that you and I should be
   so dressed that in outward appearance we should be the image of Christ,
   and yet not be like Christ really and truly? God forbid we should
   indulge so idle a dream! The fact is, Brothers and Sisters, while
   practically we must be like the Savior, yet the greatest conformity to
   His image must be within. It must be that unseen spirit, that essential
   holiness which dwells where only God can see it which shall constitute
   the main part of our likeness to Christ. Tomorrow you might put on a
   garment without seam, woven from the top throughout; you might put
   sandals on the soles of your feet; you might wear your beard uncut and
   so say, "In all this I seek to be like Christ." And you might even ride
   through the streets of Jerusalem upon "a colt, the foal of an ass," but
   you would be a great deal more the image of a fool, than you would be
   the image of Christ! This imitation is not to be in mere externals--it
   is to be in internals--in the very essence and spirit of your Christian
   character.

   1. In what, then, is this conformity to be found? I reply, in three
   things. First, the Believer is to be conformed to the image of Christ
   in character. Now, when we think of Christ, what thoughts arise at
   once? We think, in the first place, of an humble One, of One who,
   "though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor." We think of a Man
   who was meek and lowly in heart, who took no lordship over the sons of
   men, but was a Servant of servants, and washed His disciples' feet. If
   we would be like Christ, we must be humble; we must cast aside that
   self-conceit which is interwoven into our nature; we must strive
   against that pride, which is, alas, too natural to us all. When we
   think of Christ, we always bring up before our minds the idea of One
   who was diligent in His Father's business. We see before us not an idle
   sluggard, not One who sought His own rest, who slept upon the oar that
   He ought to tug, or reclined upon the sword with which He should fight.
   We find Him One who went about doing good, who knew no rest except that
   wondrous rest which His holy toil afforded to His spirit. "I have meat
   to eat," He said, "that you know not of." Now if we would be like
   Christ, we must conquer our constitutional sloth; we must spurn all the
   softness of ease; we must be good soldiers and bear hardness. We must
   spend and be spent if we would bear His image. When we think of Christ,
   again, we see One who was full of love-not that love which cants and
   whines, but the love which is true and honest, and which for love's
   sake dares not flatter. We see a love which dwelt not in words, but in
   very deeds--a love which gave its whole self up to the objectives which
   it had chosen. If we would be like Christ, we must be pillars of love.
   We must not be so loving that we yield up everything that is masculine
   in our nature; our love must be that faithful love which, in
   faithfulness, gives wounds even to a friend.

   And yet must it be so deep, so true, that we would prefer to be
   sacrificed and to be offered up in the most painful manner rather than
   the objects of our affection should be made to suffer.

   Oh, we have never come to be like Christ till love is legible upon our
   very face; till we have got rid of our crabbed and stern visage; till
   we have had cast out of us that seven-fold devil of intolerance and
   bigotry! We have never come to be like Christ till we have arms that
   would embrace a world; we have never come to be like He till we have a
   heart on which the name of the Church is written, and a breast which
   bears the names of all the redeemed as the High Priest bore the
   breastplate before the Mercy Seat.

   But yet, further--I think we always associate with the name of Christ
   not simply humility and service, and love, but devotion and
   prayerfulness. We know that when He had ceased to preach, He began to
   pray. When He had left the mountain side which had been His pulpit, He
   went to another mountain which became His silent oratory. The disciples
   might sleep, but not the Master; they might sleep for sorrow, but He
   sweats great drops of blood for agony--

   "Cold mountains and the midnight air Witnessed the fervor of His
   prayer." We can never be like the Master till not only in public, but
   in private we are God's own--never till we know the power of
   knee-work--till we know how to struggle with strong crying and tears;
   never till we could almost shed great drops of blood when we are
   pleading for the souls of men; never till our heart is ready to burst
   with a sacred agony when we are wrestling with God--never till then
   shall we be conformed to the image of God's dear Son! Ah, my Brothers
   and Sisters, I feel, in trying to describe what that image is, like one
   who handles the brush with a shaking, palsied hand--although he has the
   outlines of the most beauteous form sketched upon the canvas. Lo! I
   have daubed where I ought to have been skillful. I have but sought to
   paint one feature, but who among us can describe the whole? We can but
   gather up all thoughts and say, one man is admirable for his faith,
   another for his patience; one is distinguished for his courage, and
   another for his affection; but Christ is altogether lovely! Christ is
   not a mixture of many beauties, but He is allbeauty put together--

   "Nature, to make His beauties known, Must mingle colors not her own."

   We must exhaust all the eulogies which were ever poured upon the heads
   of the excellent; we must drain dry all the earnest strains of the
   enthusiastic songs that were ever cast at the feet of the heroes of
   this world--and when we have done all this--we have not begun to sing
   the praises which are due to our Beloved, our Perfect Exemplar, and
   Covenant Head! In moral virtues, then, the Christian is to be conformed
   to Christ.

   2. But further, there is one thing which is so linked to Christ that
   you cannot think of Him without it and that is, His Cross. You do not
   see all of Christ till you see His Cross. By four nails was He fastened
   to it; by more than four sure thoughts is He always linked in the minds
   of His people with His agony and His death. If we are ever conformed to
   Christ, we must bear His Cross. Do you see Him, Christian? He is
   despised, and rejected of men. Do you see Him passing through the midst
   of a crowd that is yelling and hooting at Him? Men whom He had blessed
   are cursing Him! Lame men whom He had healed are using the power which
   He gave that they may run to scorn Him! Lips that had been dumb if He
   had not given them speech, are venting blasphemies upon Him and He, the
   Lovely, the Forsaken of All, goes outside the camp bearing His
   reproach. Do you see Him, Believer? The world counts Him to be the
   ofscouring of all things. It cries, "Away with Him, away with Him! It
   is not fit that He should live." It awards Him a slave's death--He must
   not only die, but die as a menial dies. He must not simply so die, but
   die outside the camp, as a thing accursed and unclean! See there an
   image of yourself, if you are ever conformed to His likeness. You must
   bear the Cross of suffering; you must bear the shame and spitting of
   ungodly men; you, too, must become in your measure the song of the
   drunkard; you must go outside the camp--even His professed
   followers--you must be crucified to the flesh, and its affections and
   lusts! You must be dead to the world, and the world must be dead to
   you, or else you will never completely bear the image of Christ.

   And while I talk on this subject, I am smitten with grief, for, indeed,
   if I wanted a living illustration of this, must I not rather find it in
   contrast than in comparison? O, what multitudes of professors we have
   who have found out a new way to shun the Cross! We have ministers who
   could preach all the year round, and no man would ever find fault with
   them! We have some who can prophecy such smooth things, that none of
   their hearers gnash their teeth in anger against them! We have
   Christian merchants who find it not at all impossible to keep their
   profession, and yet to be dishonest in their trade! We find men who are
   first and foremost in all manner of worldliness; they are the world's
   men, and yet they are Christ's men too, they say. Where they shall
   stand in that Day when the secrets of all hearts shall be known, I will
   not say, but I leave that text to declare it in which it is written,
   "The love of this world is enmity against God." If any man professes to
   be a Christian, let him count the cost, first, if he means to be a
   thorough Christian, and let him put down among the first items, loss of
   reputation!And if he means to be decisive in his convictions, let him
   put down, loss of many friends, and let him think it no strange thing
   when the fiery trial shall come upon him! God grant you, my Brothers
   and Sisters, that you may have fellowship with Christ in His
   sufferings, and that in the bearing of the Cross, you may be conformed
   to His image.

   Once more only upon this first point. Today we think of Christ not
   merely as the bearer of the Cross, but as the wearer of the crown--

   "The head that once was crowned with thorns,
   Is crowned with glory now;
   A royal diadem adorns
   The mighty Victor's brow!
   No more the bloody spear,
   The Cross and nails no more,
   For Hell itself shakes at His name,
   And all the heavens adore."

   And--blessed thought!--the Believer is to be conformed to the image of
   the Crowned One as well as of the Crucified One! If we are
   Cross-bearers, we shall be crown-wearers! If the hands shall feel the
   nail, they shall grasp the palm! If the feet shall be tightly fastened
   to the wood, they shall one day be girt with the sandals of immortal
   bliss! Fear not, Believer! It is necessary that you should first bear
   the image of the Sorrowful, that you should afterwards bear the image
   of the Glorious. Christ Himself came not to His crown except by His
   Cross; He descended that He might ascend; He stooped to conquer; He
   went into the grave, that He might rise above all principalities and
   powers; as the Man-Mediator, He earned His dignity by His sufferings
   and you, too, must fight if you would reign! You, too, must endure if
   you would win; you must run the race if you would obtain the reward. O
   then, let your hearts be cheered! As you have borne "the image of the
   earthy," you shall also bear "the image of the heavenly." You shall be
   like He is when you shall see Him as He is. You shall be perfect,
   blessed, honored, magnified and glorified in Him! Does He sit at the
   right hand of God, even the Father? You, too, shall sit at His right
   hand! Does the Father say to Him, "Well done," and look on Him with
   inexpressible delight? He shall say, "Well done, good and faithful
   servant," even to you, and you shall enter into the joy of your Lord!
   Is He without a pain, without a fear? Is He without anything to mar the
   splendor of His magnificence? So shall you be! You are as He was in
   this world--you shall be in the world to come just what He is there!
   Come, Cross! I bend my willing shoulders to you, if I may afterward bow
   my head to receive that crown! Come, earth! Lay your heaviest cross
   upon me! Come, you adversaries of the Truth! Bring your hammer and your
   nails; come, you chief enemies; bring your sharpest spears! My soul
   shall bare her breast, and hold out hands and feet to receive the marks
   of the Lord Jesus, that in these she may afterwards arise to claim the
   crown, to claim the image of the Glorious, because she has borne the
   image of the Despised!

   Now all this, I take it, is contained in my text. We are predestinated
   to be conformed to the image of God's Son in character, in suffering,
   and afterwards, in Glory

   II. But, secondly and though it is a very extensive subject,
   hurriedly--WHY SHOULD WE BEAR THE IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY? Why should we
   be transformed as unto the image of Christ?

   Very many answers spring up and each one of them claims the preference.
   But to begin, well may we desire to bear the image of Christ because it
   was that which we lost in Eden. We look back to Paradise with many a
   sigh, but well the spiritual mind sighs not for the spice groves, nor
   for the verdant walks, nor for the trees luxuriant with fruit. If Eden
   had been a Sahara, a howling desert, the truly spirituals mind'would
   still long to have it back again for only one reason-- namely that
   there man was in the image of his Maker. "Let us make man in Our own
   image," said God, "after Our own likeness." All the losses we sustained
   by Adam's ruin were very little compared with that great loss of the
   likeness and image of the Immortal and Immaculate Deity! Oh, if we had
   been spotless and undying, like the God whose image Adam bore, we might
   well have endured to have the earth sterile and barren; and all the
   pains and pangs which the Curse brought upon us would have been light
   and trivial--if we had still retained the image of our God!

   Now then, my Brothers and Sisters, it is this which Christ restores to
   us. He re-makes us, takes away the sinful, rebellious visage, which our
   father bore when he was expelled from the Garden, re-stamps God's own
   face on us, and makes us in the image of the Most High again! Oh, if
   Eden were a sorrowful loss, and if it were desirable to obtain its
   Paradise again, surely the image of God must be desirable first and
   foremost of all!

   But, then, ought not that to be the objective of all ambition, which is
   the ultimate end of God's decree God, it is true, has predestinated
   Believers to Heaven--but that is not all! I do not read in so many
   words that the saints are predestinated to Paradise, but I do read that
   they are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His dear Son.
   This is the end of the whole predestination of God--to make His elect
   like their Elder Brother, that He may be the first-born among many
   brethren! And that which God sees great enough to be the objective of
   all His acts in Providence, and all His deeds in Grace--that which He
   makes the ultimate end of His predestination--ought certainly never to
   be a trifle to you and to me! Rather, we ought to pant and long for it
   as the highest desire of our souls.

   But again--the image of Christ is the Spirit's latent work in us. In
   that day, when we are regenerated, the new man is put into us. Now, in
   what image is that new man? It is in the image of Him that created him!
   The new man, we are expressly told by Paul, is renewed in the image of
   Christ Jesus. The moment that a sinner believes there is put into him
   the first germ of a perfect Christ; it needs but that it should be
   nourished by the Spirit, and continually fed, and it will grow into the
   perfect stature of a man in Christ. Yet even now in a Believer, who was
   converted but yesterday, there is the image of Christ, though it has
   not come to the perfect stature--just as the new-born child is a man,
   and in a certain sense perfect and bears completely the image of
   manhood, yet it is true that that image is not fully developed. So in
   the newborn Believer there is Christ, the indwelling Christ, but it is
   the Christ of the manger, rather than the Christ of the wilderness.
   There is an Infant Christ in every Christian--that Christ is to grow
   and to expand--and then at last in death, shaking off the coils--the
   troublesome burden of the old man--this new man which has been growing
   these years by Divine Grace shall step out. And as the serpent casts
   off its old skin, and comes out fresh and young covered with azure
   hues, so shall the new man leave all corruptions behind! And we shall
   be discovered to be made in the perfect image of Christ Jesus our Lord
   and Master! Now, if this is the Spirit's work, certainly it ought to be
   our love, and we ought to be al3 seeking after it.

   But further, my dear Friends, I need not plead this case with you if
   you are Christians, for there is not a Believer alive who does not pant
   to be like Christ If I had but one prayer to pray, and might not pray
   another, it would be this, "Lord, make me like Christ," for that is to
   comprehend all our other prayers in one! Like Christ, free from all
   corruptions should I be--free from infirmity and passion--I might be
   tempted, but I could say, "The Prince of this world comes and has
   nothing in me." "Like Christ"--O if that prayer should involve the
   lion's den, or the furnace's fiery heat, never mind! We could take
   these encumbrances upon the blessed estate if we could but once have
   the fair hands. To be like Christ--oh, what trial would you not endure
   with it, even though you had the direst tribulations! Better to be like
   Christ in His poverty, in His wanting a place whereon to lay His
   head--better to be like He is as despised and rejected of men, than to
   be like a Caesar, or the richest man in the world's eye, the most happy
   of men! Better to be with Christ in His worst estate than to be with an
   evil man in his best! If, then, this is the universal prayer and cry of
   the Christian, shall not we, my Brothers and Sisters, as part of the
   same family, join in it and say, "Lord, make me to be conformed to the
   image of Christ, my Lord"?

   And after all, if we need anything to whet our appetites and to
   stimulate our desires once more--is not this our highest glory on
   earth, and is not this our crowning privilege above?. What more
   glorious for a man than to be like Christ? I do believe that if the
   spirit of envy could penetrate the hierarchy of angels, Gabriel would
   envy the poorest man on earth, because that man has a possibility of
   being like Christ--while the angel--though he may be like He is in some
   respects, can never grow into the perfect stature of a man in Christ! I
   do think, Brethren, that if it came to the point today, and the angelic
   spirits could have permission to exchange their robes of light for our
   livery of rags--if they could lay aside their harps to take up the
   tools of our toil--if they could relinquish their crowns to have their
   immortal brows moistened with our sweat. If they could give up the
   golden streets to tread earth's mire and dirt--they would think it a
   high honor and a matchless privilege to be allowed to make the
   exchange--with this proviso--that thereby they might be recognized as
   being in the likeness of the Son of God! Why, this will make Believers
   throughout eternity distinguished! Many a man has thought that a few
   hour's toil was but a mere trifle--a few minutes' exposure of his life
   was a little thing only to be snapped at if he might by that, win years
   of honor and esteem among the sons of men. But what must it be in
   comparison when these light afflictions which are but for a moment, and
   put us in the posture and give us the possibility of becoming conformed
   to the image of Christ? I tell you, Gabriel--if you can hear the voice
   of mortals-- that sinner though I am, and groaning beneath the load of
   my inbred sin; mixed though I am with the sons of men and often
   groaning in the tents of Kedar; yet I would not change places with you,
   for I have the hope, the hope to which you can not aspire, that after I
   have slept in death, I shall wake up in His likeness! And as I have
   borne "the image of the earthy," so shall I bear "the image of the
   heavenly." You will not scorn me, I know, bright spirit, because I bear
   the broken and disfigured image of the earthy. You, too, would be glad
   to try to bear it if you might afterwards, as the result thereof, bear
   the image of the heavenly! To see the glee of Christ is angels' joy. To
   wear that face is ours! To bow before it is their delight, but to be
   transformed into it is our privilege--a privilege, I dare say, which no
   other creature that God has ever made shall possess--the privilege of
   being like the Son of Man, and so, like the Son of God! III. But,
   thirdly and lastly, IS IT POSSIBLE? IS IT POSSIBLE?

   "I have tried," says one, "to make myself like Christ, and I cannot."
   Indeed, you cannot. Ah, there is a skill needed to make you like
   Christ! Why, Sirs, the most wondrous artists who have never failed
   before, always fail in the very portrait of Christ! They cannot paint
   the Chief among ten thousand, the Altogether Lovely; they fail entirely
   when they once come there. They may labor, they may strive, but He is
   fairer than the sons of men; and if so with the earthy image, what must
   it be with that within? Orators, before whose eloquence men have been
   swayed to and fro as the waves are tossed by the fourth wind, have
   confessed their utter inability, by many figures of speech, ever to
   reach the excellencies of Christ. Divine poets, whose hearts have been
   pregnant with celestial fire, have been compelled to lay down their
   harps and relinquish all hope to ever sing the Song of Songs concerning
   this fairest Solomon. And must it not be a vastly harder task for a man
   to be made like Christ? If we can neither paint Him, nor sing Him, nor
   preach Him, how can we live Him? How can we be like He? How can we bear
   His image, if we cannot even paint it? Indeed, if this were our work,
   it were impracticable and we might dissuade you from the task! But it
   is not your work, it is God'swork. 'Twas God who predestinated us to be
   conformed to the image of His Son; and God who "made the decree" will
   fulfill it Himself! And by His Omnipotence, the same power which
   created Christ in the virgin's womb shall create a Christ even in our
   sinful hearts, and cause our sins to die out before the indwelling of
   the living Christ!

   But wherein lies the hardness of our being made like Christ? I suppose
   it lies first, in the material to be worked upon. "Oh," says one,
   "there is never a possibility of making an image of Christ out of me.
   Sculptors choose polished marble. I, indeed, am but a rough unhewn
   stone of the quarry--unworkable! I know that the chisel will only blunt
   its edge upon me; I never can be made like Christ. What? Build a Temple
   for God out of bramble bushes? Make a crown for the King of kings out
   of common pebbles of the brook? No," we say, "it cannot be!" But, stop,
   Sir--what matters the materialwhen you know the great Creator? God is
   the great Artist who has predestinated and decreed that He will make
   you, who are today like a devil, one day to be like Christ! It is a
   daring task; it is like God! It is an impossible task; it is only fit
   for one hand and that One has undertaken it and will achieve it! For,
   sirs, when God decrees a thing, what is to stand in His way? He can
   make pathways through the flood--He who can take the fiery power out of
   the flame--He can take the drowning influence out of the waters. To Him
   all things are possible. Can He not, then, even in the morgue of your
   heart, put a Christ who shall bring a glorious resurrection, put a new
   life in you, and transmute even the base metal of your nature till you
   shall become like the golden nature of Him who is God Incarnate? Oh,
   when we have God to deal with--what matters the material? He can
   overthrow your depravity, can cast off your lust, and make you like
   your Lord!

   "Ah, but," says one, "there is another difficulty. Think what a world I
   live in. How can I be like Christ? It is very well preaching this, Sir,
   to us. If you had a number of hermits' cells for us all to live in, it
   might be done; if you would build a large monastery and let us all live
   as Christians together, it might be possible. But I tell you, Sir, you
   do not know my business! It cannot be done, Sir. I have to mix with men
   that curse and blaspheme; I cannot be like Christ. Besides, my business
   is so trying to the temper, so irritating, it cannot be done, Sir, I
   tell you! And then, you do not know we have so many tricks in trade,
   and our trade has so many temptations in it that it is very difficult
   for us to prevent ourselves being decoyed. Sir, it is not possible for
   us to be like Christ while we have to mix with this wicked world! We
   get one touch, as it were, put into the picture on a Sunday, and we
   think we shall be like Christ one day, but the devil puts six black
   touches in during the week and spoils the whole! It cannot be done.
   Sir, it is not possible we should ever be like Christ." But God says it
   shallbe done. God has predestinated you, if you are a Believer, to be
   conformed to the image of His dear Son. Of course Satan will do his
   best to stop God's decrees; but what shall become of anything that
   stands in the way of God's decree? As the car of Juggernaut rolls
   remorselessly on and crushes any man--be he king or whatever-- who
   dares to place himself in his way, so shall God's decree! On, on it
   goes and through blood and bones of your carnal nature, and natural
   depravity, that triumphant chariot of God shall grind! "A hideous
   figure," you say. Indeed, Sirs, you shall find that there is something
   hideous in your experience. You will have to suffer for it. If you are
   in this world you will have to be as Jesus was in this world; rest
   assured that though God will make you like Christ, yet inasmuch as you
   are in a world of sinners, it will necessitate your suffering like He s
   uffered! It will not take from you the power to bear His image, but it
   will bring about you, as a hornet's nest, all those who hated Christ
   before.

   I was standing one day at my window when living far from London, and I
   saw on a house opposite, a canary, which had by some means or other got
   loose from its cage. It had no sooner rested upon the roof than about
   20 sparrows came round it and began to pick and pull, and although the
   poor thing resisted and flew here and there, it stood but a very poor
   chance in the midst of so many enemies. I remembered that text--"My
   heritage is unto me as a speckled bird; the birds round about are
   against her." That will be your lot. Mark this! If you are to be like
   Christ, you will be a speckled bird, and if you are not pecked upon by
   others, you may question whether you are not one of their own kind, and
   therefore they let you alone and freely associate with you. But if you
   differ from them, and prove you have another nature than theirs, you
   will surely be opposed and maligned, even as your Master was!

   Once more and I have done. Many a Christian heart has said, "I think
   the difficulty about the material is not so great when I think of the
   Omnipotence of God; and the difficulty about the associations is not so
   very hard, for I can suffer and I am willing to suffer if I may but be
   like Christ. But the great and insurmountable obstacle is this--that
   image is so perfect I can never reach it! It is high as Heaven--what
   can I know? It surpasses my thoughts; I cannot even conceive the ideal;
   how then can I reach the fact? If it were to be like David, I might
   hope it. If it were to be made like Josiah, or some of the ancient
   saints, I might think it possible. But to be like Christ, who is
   without spot or blemish, and the Chief among ten thousand and
   Altogether Lovely, I cannot hope it. I look, Sir; I look and look, and
   look again, till I turn away, tears filling my eyes and I say, 'Oh, it
   were presumption for such a fallen worm as I to hope to be like
   Christ.'" And did you know it, that while you were thus speaking, you
   were really getting the thing you thought to be impossible? Or did you
   know that while you were gazing on Christ, you were using the only
   means which can be used to effect the Divine purpose? And when you
   bowed before that image overawed, do you know it was because you began
   to be made like it? When I come to love the image of Christ, it is
   because I have some measure of likeness to it! It was said of Cicero's
   works if any man could read them with admiration, he must be in a
   degree an orator himself. And if any man can read the life of Christ
   and really love it, I think there must be somewhat--however
   little--that is Christ-like within him. And if you as Believers will
   look much at Christ, you will grow like He! You shall be transformed
   from glory to glory as by the image of the Lord. I look at you, I do
   not grow like you. You look at me, you grow not like me. You look at
   Christ--Christ looks at you--He is photographed on you by His own power
   of light. Without need of any light beyond Himself, He photographs His
   image on the face of those who live much in fellowship with Him, and
   who contemplate much His Character.

   Now then Believer, it is true the image of Christ is sublime, but then
   it, by the Spirit, makes you into itself so that the difficulty
   supplies the means, and that which looks like the obstacle becomes
   really the means to the attainment thereof! Go again and look at
   Christ. Go and weep because you are not like He is. Go and bow before
   Him with adoration. Go and strain upwards to that great height. In
   doing so your very failures are successes; your fears are proofs that
   you are beginning to be like He is! Are you not beginning to sorrow as
   He sorrowed? Your very agony, because you cannot be as He is, is a
   beginning of the agony which He endured, because He would have had the
   cup pass from Him. I say, Brothers and Sisters, that the more you look
   at Him, though it may tend to dispirit you, that very dispiriting is a
   part of the Divine process! It is a chipping away from the block of
   marble an excrescence, which, if not removed, would have ruined the
   image entirely. God help you to live near to Christ and so shall you be
   more and more like He is every day!

   To conclude--one thing is certain and having mentioned that, I have
   done. You will either bear the image of Christ or the image of Satan!
   You will be developed, every one of you, Sirs. Either those eyes will
   develop till they are the very eyes of fiends and roll with the hellish
   leer of blasphemy; that mouth will be developed till it gnashes its
   teeth in diabolic scorn; that hand will be developed till it has itself
   as though it were iron and dares to defy the Eternal; that soul will be
   developed till it becomes a living Hell, a Hell as full of pains as
   Hell itself is full of demons; or else--and God grant that you may have
   this last alternative!--or else those eyes will shine till they become
   like the eyes of Christ, which are as flames of fire; that face will be
   transformed till it becomes like the face of Christ, as though it
   glowed with Heaven itself; and that heart will be developed till it
   becomes a Heaven as full of songs as Heaven itself is full of music! By
   faith in Christ, or unbelief, your destiny may be known! Do you believe
   in Christ? You are predestinated to be like He is! Are you an
   unbeliever? Then if you die so, you shall be transformed into the image
   of darkness! God save you! Christ help you! "Believe in the Lord Jesus
   Christ and you shall be saved," for, "He who believes and is baptized
   shall be saved. But he who believes not, shall be damned."

   God add his blessing for Jesus' sake!
     __________________________________________________________________

                             Words Of Expostulation

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 20, 1861, BY THE REV. C.
   H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "And now what have you to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters
   of Sihor? Or what have you to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the
   waters of the river?'

   Jeremiah 2:18.

   THE Jews had been chosen by God to be a special people separated to
   Himself forever. By various miracles, by many mercies, by strange
   deliverances, He had proved Himself to be to them a God worthy of their
   trust. Yet, strange to say-- and yet not strange when we know that they
   were fallen men like ourselves--the Jews were constantly desirous to
   mix with the nations. They broke down the hedges with which God had
   enclosed them as a sacred garden; they desired to be laid like common
   lands, and to be joined with other peoples. No, more than this--they
   forsook their own true and loving God who had never deserted them, and
   they sometimes adopted the deities of Egypt, and at other times the
   false gods of Assyria! They seemed never to be content with even the
   gorgeous ceremonials of their own Temple; they must build altars after
   the fashion of Damascus; they must have Sitars on every high place,
   according to the custom of the accursed nations whom the Lord, their
   God, had driven out before them! And they seemed as if they had never
   reached the full desire of their hearts till they had mingled with the
   rites of God, all the filth and the abominations with which heathens
   adored their gods. Constantly did the Lord reprove them for this--for
   this infatuation of theirs which made them turn aside from Him, the
   Living Water, to hew out to themselves broken cisterns which could hold
   no water. They were "often reproved," but they often "hardened their
   necks;" often were they chastened, and they were smitten so often that
   "the whole head was sick, and the whole heart was faint;" they had been
   chastened so sorely that from the soles of their feet even to their
   head, they were full of wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores! Yet
   they still went after evil; they still turned aside from the righteous
   and true God.

   Our text contains one instance of God's expostulating with His people.
   He says to them, "What have you to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the
   waters of the muddy river!"--for so it may be translated--and of course
   that term is applied to the Nile by way of contempt. "Why need you go
   to drink of that muddy river? What have you to do with Assyria, to
   drink the water of Euphrates? Why do you turn aside and leave your own
   cool streams of Lebanon? Why do you forsake Jerusalem to turn aside to
   Noph and to Tahapanes? Why are you so strangely set on mischief, that
   you cannot be content with the good and healthful, but would even
   follow after that which is evil and deceitful?"

   Taking the text just as it stands, I intend, by God's help, to make a
   question of it to you. To myself and to you may God the Holy Spirit
   apply it, and may this be a time for all God's people, to every
   convinced soul, yes, and to the careless, too--a time of searching of
   heart. May God question us and may we be prepared to answer honestly.
   May the Holy Spirit push home the solemn enquiries, and may we with
   truthful hearts search and look and give earnest heed.

   I shall apply the text to three characters--first to the Christian;
   secondly, to the awakened conscience; and, thirdly, to the careless
   sinner. My sermon is not intended to instruct your minds, but to stir
   up your hearts.

   I. Addressing myself to the CHRISTIAN, I shall use the text in three
   senses while I expostulate with you in regard to sin, to worldly
   pleasure, and to carnal trust.

   1. And first, O true Believer, called by Grace and washed in the
   precious blood of Christ, "What have you to do in the way of Egypt, to
   drink the waters of the muddy river?" What have you to do with the sins
   which once delighted you, and which now find happy pastime for the
   world? What have you to do with your deceitful lusts, with the
   indulgence of your old passions? What have you to do to follow the
   multitude which do evil? Believer, answer these questions especially if
   you have lately fallen into sin, if you have backslidden in heart, and
   if you have been led to backslide in your ways. Answer me, what have
   you to do--what excuse have you for what you have done? Do you see
   yonder a gang of men, dragging, like so many beasts of burden, a
   tremendous load? Listen to the cracking of the whip of the overseer! Do
   you see how they pull and strain till it seems as if their every sinew
   would snap? Do you observe them as the hot sweat stands upon their
   brow? Look at them! Let the gang stay awhile, while we examine them. I
   can understand why all these are oppressed with sore labor, for I can
   see the brand of the slave owner upon their backs. Their flesh is
   scarred. But what does this mean? There is one among them who is not a
   slave--a man who is free! What does this mean? How is it that he does
   the slaves' work--that he bends his back to the task master's yoke,
   when he is a free man? Can you answer the question? Let me ask it in
   your own case. I see the sinner burdened in the ways of evil; I see him
   pulling iniquity as though it were with a cart rope, laying hold with
   both his hands on everything that is full of iniquity. But what have
   you to do there? The slaves of Satan are but acting out their
   condition; but what have you to do, to be his slave, since you have
   been redeemed with blood and set free by power? Why, Man, you are no
   slave now you are a son of God! You are an heir of all things! You are
   joint-heir with Christ! What have you to do, then, in the service of
   sin and of Satan? Why do you follow these menial tasks? You will become
   a man who is to wear a crown in Heaven and who, even now, can read his
   title to it! Answer, Christian, and be ashamed and be confounded,
   because you are demeaning yourself in thus sinning against your own
   soul!

   A vision flits before my eyes. The Lord God has made a great feast;
   armies have met together; terrible slaughter has been the consequence.
   Men's arms have been red up to the very elbow in blood; they have
   fought with each other and there they lay, strewn upon the
   plain--thousands of bleeding carcasses. The vultures sniff the prey
   from far-off desert wilds--they fly, keen of scent. God has made a
   great feast for the fowls of heaven, and for the ravenous beasts of the
   earth. Listen to the whirring of their wings as they come in
   multitudes, for where the body is, there shall the vultures be gathered
   together. But what is that I see? I see a dove flying with the same
   speed as the vulture towards the carrion! O dove, what has brought you
   there in dangerous connection with your fierce enemies? Where are you
   going? Is there anything in that bloody feast that can content you?
   Shall your meek eyes glare with the fires of anger? Shall your fair
   white plumage be stained with gore, and will you go back to your
   dove-cot with your pinions bloody red? I appeal to you, my Hearers! Can
   you answer the question? Can you explain the strange vision? How is it,
   then, that I see you, Christian, going with sinners after evil? Is it
   your food? If you are a child of God, sin is no more food for you than
   blood is for doves! If you have been "begotten again unto a lively hope
   by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," your peaceful soul
   will be as much out of element as a dove upon a battlefield! And the
   sight--the sightof sin will be as horrible to you as the sight of
   slaughter to that timid dove which even now flies itself with rapid
   wings to the cleft of the rock. Christian, I say, if you do as the
   worldling does, you go against your nature--against your newborn
   nature! To him it is not strange--should not the swine eat husks? Is it
   not his proper food? Should not the sinner love to sin? Is it not his
   very element? But what have you to do? What have you to do, quickened
   of the Spirit, and renewed in the image of Christ-- what have you to
   do?

   You have seen in Scripture a dreadful picture of a madman, where
   Nebuchadnezzar the king runs with oxen and eats grass till his hair has
   grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws. Is he not
   the pitiful picture of a backslider. For what is a Christian when he
   plunges into sin, but as one who makes himself like the beasts that
   perish, and who herds with the common--yes--and the unclean beasts of
   the earth? O Believer! If it is a pitiful thing to see a man make
   himself a beast, how much more lamentable to see a Christian make
   himself a worldling! "Come you out from among them; touch not the
   unclean thing." Why should the soul of my turtle dove be given up to
   its enemies? Why should the lamb flock with the wolves? Come out, I
   pray you--leave this stygian filth and be clean, you vessel-bearer of
   the Lord! Come forth from the midst of that plague land, where you can
   get nothing but the ashy hue of leprosy, and be clean! Today the Lord
   invites you; refuse not His invitation, but return, you backsliding
   children of men!

   The question, then, cannot be answered--because when a Christian goes
   into sin, he commits an inconsistent act-- inconsistent with the
   freedom which Christ has bought for him, and inconsistent with the
   nature which the Holy Spirit has implanted in him.

   Let us press forward. Christian, what have you to do with sin? Has it
   not cost you enough already? What? Man, have you forgotten the times of
   your conviction? If you have, my Brother, I have not. At the very
   mention of that word, I think I hear my chains rattling anew. Was there
   ever a bond-slave who had more bitterness of soul than I? Five years a
   captive in the dungeons of the Law, till my youth seemed as if it would
   turn into premature old age, and all the buoyancy of my spirit had been
   removed! O God of the spirits of all men! Most of all ought Ito hate
   sin, for surely most of all have I smarted beneath the lash of Your
   Law! And as I look round, knowing the experience of some of you, I can
   recall to my mind the stories you have told me; how when you had first
   felt your need of a Savior, you could not endure yourselves. Ah, there
   are those among you, who when you were under strong convictions of sin
   were ready to commit self-destruction! You prayed, but found no answer;
   you sought, but obtained no mercy; there were not creatures out of Hell
   more wretched than you were then! What? And will you go back to the old
   curse? Burnt child, will you play with the fire? What? Man, when you
   have already been torn in pieces by the lion, will you step a second
   time into his den? Have you not had enough of the old serpent? Did he
   not poison all your veins once, and will you play upon the hole of the
   asp, and put your hand upon the cockatrice den? Have you not seen
   enough of the leopards, and of the dragons, and will you step a second
   time into their dens? Oh, be not so mad! Be not so foolish! Did sin
   ever give you pleasure? Did you ever find any solid satisfaction in it?
   If so, go back to your old drudgery; go back, I say, and wear the chain
   again if you delight in it. But inasmuch as I know, and you know, that
   sin did never give you what it promised to bestow--inasmuch as it did
   delude you with lies, and flatter you with promises which were all to
   be broken--I pray you be not beguiled a second time! Be not a second
   time led into captivity--be free and let the remembrance of your
   ancient bondage forbid you to wear the chain again!

   There is yet another light in which to put the sin of the Believer. Let
   me repeat the question once again--"What have you to do in the way of
   Egypt, to drink the waters of the muddy river?" There is a crowd
   yonder. They have evidently assembled for some riotous purpose. They
   are attacking one man. There are very many of them. Oh, how they
   howl!-- oh, how they scream! They give Him no space to take His breath,
   no time to rest. Let me press through the throng and look at the Man. I
   know Him at once! He has a visage more marred than that of any other
   man. 'Tis He! It is the Crucified One, it is none other than Jesus, the
   Son of Man, the Savior of the world! Listen to the blasphemies which
   are poured into His ears! See how they spit in His face, and put Him to
   an open shame. Onward they bring Him, and you hear them cry, "Crucify
   Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" They are doing it--they have nailed Him
   to the Cross--yonder is a man with the hammer in his hand who has just
   now driven in the nails. Look round upon the mob. I can well comprehend
   why yonder drunkard, why yonder swearer, why the whoremonger, and the
   like of infamous notoriety should have joined in this treacherous
   murder; but there is one man there--I think I know his face--yes, I
   have seen him at the sacramental table, eating the flesh and drinking
   the blood of Christ! I have seen him in the pulpit saying, "God forbid
   that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." I
   have seen him on his knees in prayer, pleading what he called, "The
   precious blood." What have you to do in this counsel of the ungodly,
   this scene of sin without a parallel? "What are you doing here,
   Elijah?" In the name of love's own self, and of every holy thing that
   can ever pertain to a human heart-- what are you doing here? Are you
   sickened at heart at such a spectacle--a Christian crucifying Christ?
   That spectacle is one in which you have had a share! You, too, when you
   have backslidden and have sinned--you have "Crucified the Lord afresh
   and put Him to an open shame." Is there any other picture needed to set
   my text in the very strongest light? "What have you to do, O Christian,
   in the way of Egypt, to drink the water of the muddy river?" Cry
   revenge against yourself, because you have murdered your Lord, and
   opened His wounds anew!

   Have patience with me a moment while I turn my question over and
   revolve it yet again. Believer, you have rebelled against your God! You
   have done despite unto His Spirit! How will you answer for this? What
   will you say to a scoffing world when the quick eyes of the sinner
   shall detect you? What will you say when he hisses out, "There's your
   religion"? How will you answer him? You may pretend to do so, but do
   you not feel that he will get the best of the argument? If he goes his
   way, and says the religion of Christ is a lie and an hypocrisy, what
   will you have to say? Surely you will have to hide your face in
   confusion, and bemoan yourself because by this act you have given the
   enemy cause to blaspheme! And what will you say to Christ's Church when
   the Church shall say to you, "What are you doing here?" How will you
   excuse yourself for dishonest acts in business, or for any lust into
   which you have fallen? Will you tell the Church it was your old nature?
   But how will you answer when the Church says, "They who are in Christ
   have crucified the flesh and its affections and lusts"? More than this,
   how will you answer your own conscience? Will you use some Antinomian
   quibble, and apply that as a plaster to your wounds? No! If you are a
   child of God, you will have to smart for it. The waters of the muddy
   river may be sweet to the Egyptians, but they will be bitter to you.
   You shall have, as it were, a cauldron in your heart, if you drink
   thereof. Christians can never sin cheaply--they pay a heavy price for
   all the pleasures that they ever find in evil.

   And what will you say to your Lord and Master next time you are at the
   sacramental table? How will you dare to eat that bread and drink that
   wine? And when you are alone on your knees, and seeking fellowship with
   Him, how will you dare to seek it, when you have just now been
   following His enemies and imitating them? Ah, well may He say to you,
   "I have withdrawn Myself, I have gone, for you have grieved My Spirit,
   and vexed My soul." Believer, if Jesus Christ were here, what would you
   say to make an excuse for your sin? Surely you would be speechless as
   the dumb, and silent as the grave! Your tears might make confession;
   your shudders should deepen your guilt; but your lips could not make an
   apology. What have you to do, O Christian, in the way of evil? What are
   you doing here, O God's Elijah?

   I do not know whether there are any Christians here who have fallen
   into any special sin during this last week. If there are, Brothers and
   Sisters, open your heart to this question. It may be, my Master has
   sent me to you to nip your sin in its bud--to bring you back before you
   have backslidden very much. Turn, my Brothers and Sisters! He has not
   forgotten His love to you! Turn! His Grace is still the same! With
   weeping and with bitter lamentation, come to His footstool, and you
   shall be once more received into His heart, and you shall be set upon a
   rock again, and your goings shall be established.

   2. To take a different view of the subject. The pleasures of this world
   sometimes entice the people of God, and they find some degree of mirth
   therein. To those Christians who can find pleasure in the common
   amusements of men, this question may be very pertinently put--"What
   have you to do to drink the water of that muddy river?"

   I may be speaking to some Believers who try if they can, to keep their
   conscience quiet while they frequent places of amusement--they lend
   their sanction to things which are not spiritual, and sometimes even
   not moral. Now, I put this question to them. Christian, you have tasted
   of better drink than the muddy river of this world's pleasures can give
   you. If your profession is not a lie, you have had fellowship with
   Christ; you have had that joy which only the blessed spirits above, and
   the chosen ones on earth can know--the joy of seeing Christ and leaning
   your head upon His bosom. And do the trifles, the songs, the music, the
   merriment of this earth content you after that? Have you eaten the
   bread of angels, and can you live on husks? Good Rutherford once said,
   "I have tasted of Christ's own manna, and it has put my mouth out of
   taste for the brown bread of this world's joys." I think it should be
   so with you. Again, Believer, have you not already learned the
   hollowness of all earth's mirth? Turn to your neighbor and ask him.
   Does he frequent the theater? Does he go from one party of pleasure to
   another? Does he indulge in the common pleasures of the world? Ask him
   whether they have ever satisfied him! If he is a worldling, and is
   honest, he will say, "No." He will tell you that his soul pants after
   something better than fashion and dissipation can afford him. He will
   tell you, too, that he has drained that cup, and it is not the wine
   which he thought it was; that it excites for the moment, but leaves him
   weak, and miserable afterwards. What? Shall the parings and offal of
   this world's joys, suit the heir of Heaven?--You who profess to be of
   nobler birth, and to be brother to the angels--no--next akin to the
   eternal Son of God Himself--are you to wallow in this mire, and think
   it a soft and downy couch fit for a royal resting place? Get up,
   Believer! You are not lost to every sense of shame! Betray not yourself
   in seeking satisfaction wherein worldlings confess they have never
   found it.

   But let me ask you--will these pleasures yield to you any helps in your
   growth in Grace? You say the world is crucified unto you--will these
   pleasures help to crucify it? You have prayed that you may be made like
   Christ--will these things help to conform you to His image? Often do
   you cry, "Oh Spirit of God, purge out the old leaven from me." Will
   these help to purge out the old leaven? Unless you will fling the lie
   into the face of all your prayers, I pray you, shun these things! Fly
   at higher game than this. Let the mere hawk fly at the sparrow, but the
   eagle needs something nobler to be the object of its chase. If you were
   of the world, it would be right for you to love her; if she were your
   mother, you might nurse--but even then should not be satisfied with the
   breasts of her consolation. But you confess that not thisworld, but the
   nextis the mother of your soul! I pray you then, be not content with
   what this earth yields, but lift up your eyes, and expect your manna to
   spring not from the earth, but from Heaven, and may it drop into your
   hands!

   I can never understand that Christianity which alternately goes out to
   find joy in worldly amusements, and returns home to have fellowship
   with Christ. In the life of Madame Guyon, who, though professedly a
   Papist, one must always receive as being a true child of God, I have
   read an anecdote something to this effect. She had been invited by some
   friends to spend a few days at the palace of St. Cloud. She knew it was
   a place full of pomp and fashion and, I must add, also of vice. But
   being persuaded by her friend and being especially tempted with the
   idea that perhaps her example might do good, she accepted the
   invitation. Her experience afterwards should be a warning to all
   Christians. For some years that holy woman had walked in constant
   fellowship with Christ--perhaps none ever saw the Savior's face and
   kissed His wounds more truly than she had done. But when she came home
   from St. Cloud, she found her usual joy was departed-- she had lost her
   power in prayer; she could not draw near to Christ as she should have
   done. She felt in going to the lover of her soul as if she had played
   the harlot against Him. She was afraid to hope that she could be
   received again to His pure and perfect love, and it took some months
   before the equilibrium of her peace could be restored, and her heart
   could yet again be wholly set upon her Lord. He that wears a white
   garment must mind where he walks when the world's streets are so filthy
   as they are. He that has a thousand enemies must take care how he
   exposes himself. He who has nothing on earth to assist him towards
   Heaven should take care that he goes not where the earth can help
   towards Hell! O Brothers and Sisters, shun, I pray you, fellowship with
   this world, for the love of this world is enmity against God! Now some
   will say that I am an ascetic and wish you to become Puritans. I wish
   we were Puritans, most certainly, but I am no ascetic. I believe the
   Christian ought to be the happiest man in the world, and I believe he
   is, too! But I know that this world does not make him happy--it is the
   next world. I say that the Believer has a more sure and certain right
   to be a happy and a cheerful person than any other, but if only in this
   world we had hope, we would be of all people the most miserable,
   because this world yields no joy to us.

   3. For one minute I shall now take my text with regard to the Christian
   in a third sense. We are all tried with the temptation to put our trust
   in things which are seen, instead of things which are not seen. The
   Lord has said it--"Cursed is he that trusts in man, and makes flesh his
   arm," but, "blessed is he that trusts in the Lord." Yet Christians
   often do trust in man, and then our text comes home--"What have you to
   do in the way of Egypt, to drink the water of that muddy river?" "Some
   trust in horses, and some in chariots, but we will stay ourselves upon
   the Lord God of Israel." Look at yonder Believer; he trusts in Christ,
   and only in Christ for his salvation, and yet he is fretted and worried
   even though this is the day of rest, about something in his business.
   Why are you troubled, Christian? "Because of this great care," he says.
   Care? Have you care? I thought it was written, "Cast your burden upon
   the Lord." "Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and
   supplication, make known your needs unto God." Can you not trust God
   for temporals? "Ah," says the Believer, "I wish I could." Believer, if
   you cannot trust God for temporals, how dare you trust Him for
   spirituals? Surely if He is worthy to be trusted with eternity, He must
   be fit to be relied upon in time. Can you trust Him for your soul's
   redemption, and yet not rely upon Him for a few paltry pounds? Then
   what are you trusting in? "Oh, I wish I had a good friend," says one.
   "I wish I had someone at my back to help me." Indeed, Sir, what have
   you to do to go in the way of Egypt, to want to drink of that water? Is
   not God enough? Do you want another eye beside that of Him who sees all
   things? Do you want another arm to help besides Him who--

   "Bears the earth's huge pillars up,
   Is His heart faint? Is His arm weary? Is His eye grown dim? If so, seek
   another God; but if He is Infinite, Omnipotent, faithful, true and
   All-Wise, why do you go abroad so muck to seek another confidence? Why
   do you rake the earth to find another foundation, when this is strong
   enough and broad enough and deep enough to bear all the weight which
   you can ever build thereon? Christian, be single in your faith! Have
   not two trusts, but one! Believer, rest only on your God, and let your
   expectation be from Him!
   God bless you, Believer. Let this question ring in your ears this week,
   and if you are tempted to sin, or to worldly pleasure, or to casual
   trust, think you see your minister, and that you hear him saying in
   your ears--"What have you to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the
   waters of the muddy river? Or what have you to do in the way of
   Assyria, to drink the waters of Euphrates?"

   II. I now come to the second part of my subject. Let not our friends
   grow dreary. I shall be brief on the matter that remains--that the Word
   may be felt.

   CONVICTED SINNER, I hope I have some such here. Some of those precious
   ones of God, whose eyes are bejeweled with the tears of penitence, and
   whose hearts are like the fragrant spices, which when broken, send out
   a sweet perfume. And so, my Friend, you feel your lost estate. God's
   Holy Spirit has kindly looked upon you, and begun a good work in your
   soul. And yet during the past week, you have fallen into your old sin.
   Ah, ah, smarting and yet sinning; wounded and yet rebelling! Pricked
   with the ox-goad, and yet kicking against the pricks! It is hard for
   you! It is hard for you! To sin with a steeled conscience is easy, but
   to sin when conscience is raw, is hard, indeed! You have a hard task;
   you have to go on in sin, and tread its thorny path, when your feet are
   tender, having just been burned in the fire! And what was the cause of
   your sin, after all? Was it worth sinning for--to grieve your
   conscience and vex the Holy Spirit? I have heard of a man who had just
   begun the Christian life, and he had some months of sorrow, owing to a
   hasty temper. His neighbor had let some of his cattle stray into the
   field; he asked him to fetch them out again, and mend the fence. His
   neighbor would not, and he flew into such a passion with him, that
   afterwards he sat down and cried! Said he, "Why, if all the cows in the
   field were sold, and I had lost the money, they were not worth the
   bother I made about them, nor worth one moment of the grief which I
   have to suffer." Oh, what fools we all are! Let us, however, write
   ourselves fools in capital letters if when conscience is tender, we yet
   go and do the very thing which we hate, and choose the very cup which
   was so bitter to our taste, so nauseous to us just now!

   And then, convicted Sinner, another question. You are under conviction
   of sin, and you have been lately--as it is a festive season--you have
   been frequenting the dance hall, or the theater. Now these are
   amusements for worldlings. Let them have them; I would not prevent them
   for a moment; let every man have his own amusement and his own joy. But
   what is this to you? What have you to do with it? Why, you know you
   thought the place would fall down while you were sitting there! What
   business had you there? Suppose the devil had come in to take one of
   his own away, and had taken you? He might have been forgiven for his
   mistake--for he found you on his grounds! You were trespassing, and
   therefore if the old Giant Grim had taken you away to Despair's Castle,
   who could have blamed him? Were you not for the time in his territory?
   Had he not, therefore, a right to do as he would with you? But you who
   have a tender conscience, how could you be merry there--listening to
   light music while you had a heavy heart? I never like to see a
   newly-made widow at a wedding, and I do not like to see a convicted
   sinner where others are making merry. When you have joy in your heart,
   you may join with the kindred sympathy of other men's joys; but while
   your soul is bleeding, what a mockery, what a farce it is for you to be
   pretending to find joy in the very thing which has given you the pain!
   You have heard the old and oft-repeated story of the celebrated clown
   who was under conviction of sin. He went to a certain doctor, and told
   him he was exceeding melancholy, and he wished that he could advise him
   something that would cheer his spirits. The doctor prescribed for him
   some remedies, but they failed. He went at last to a celebrated popular
   preacher--who ought not to have been a preacher, for he did not
   understand the Gospel at all--and he, fool that he was, said to the
   poor man, "Well, I do not know what will cheer you up, but I should say
   if you were to go and see the tricks and antics of such-and-such a
   person, the clown at such-and-such a theater, if anything would make
   you merry, that would." "Alas, Sir," said he, "I am that man myself!"
   So strange must have been his position, making others roar with
   laughter while he himself was roaring with terror! And yet this is just
   your position, convicted Sinner, if you can find merriment in the
   world! Let other men have it; it is not the place for you--stand aloof
   from it, and go not there.

   And then, again, take care, convicted Sinner, that you do not trust in
   yourself in any degree. What have you to do to go to Egypt to drink the
   waters of the muddy river? Your works have ruined you! How can they
   save you? Your works have damned you! How can they wipe out the
   sentence of damnation? Fly to Christ, fly to the flowing wounds, and to
   the open heart. There is hope for you there! But at the foot of Sinai
   there is thunder and fire and smoke; and if Moses did exceedingly fear
   and quake, how much more should you, when the mountain seems as though
   it would roll upon you and crush you, and bury your spirit in eternal
   destruction? God help you, convicted Sinner, never to go in that way of
   Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihon--for these things are not for you.

   III. Lastly, to any here present who are CARELESS. I have a hard task,
   and but a few moments for the attempt to bring a reasonable question to
   unreasonable men. You tell me, Sirs, that you love the vanities of this
   world, and that they content you. I look you in the face and remind you
   that there have been many madmen in this world besides yourselves! Yet
   as there is some spark of reason left, let me see if I can kindle a
   flame of thought therewith. Sinner, God is angry with the wicked every
   day. What have you to do with joy? You are already condemned because
   you believe not on the Son of God! What have you to do with peace--a
   condemned man dancing in his cell at Newgate with chains about his
   wrists? You're a dying man; you may drop down dead in this Hall! What
   have you to do with merriment? You! If you were sure you should live a
   week, you might spend six days if you would, in sin; but you are not
   sure you will live an hour! What have you to do with sin and its
   pleasures? God is furbishing His sword today; it is sharp and strong as
   the arm which shall wield it. That sword is meant for you unless you
   repent! What have you to do with taking your ease and eating and
   drinking and being happy? That man yonder, with his neck in the noose,
   and his feet upon the treacherous drop--is it fitting that he should
   sing songs and call himself a happy man? This is your position, Sir!
   Sinner, you are standing over the mouth of Hell upon a single plank,
   and that plank is rotten! Your hope is as the spider's web--your
   confidence is as a dream! Death follows you, not as the slow-paced
   footman, but on horseback, the skeleton rider on his pale horse is
   rattling after you with tremendous speed! And ah, Hell follows him!
   Hell follows Death--the sure and certain consequence of sin! And what
   have you to do with making merry? Have you made appointments for the
   next week? Keep them if you dare, if in the name of God you can make it
   consistent; if you can make it consistent with reason to be busy about
   the body, and neglect the soul, to fritter away that time on which
   eternity depends, then go and do it! If it is a wise thing for you to
   leap before you look; if it is a prudent thing to damn your soul
   eternally for the sake of a few hours of mirth--say so--go and do it
   like an honest man! But if it is unwise to forget forever and only
   think of today;if it is the strongest madness to lose your life to gain
   the mere apparel with which the body is to be covered; if it is madness
   to fling away jewels, and hoard up dust as you are doing, then I pray
   you, I beseech you, answer the question--"What have you to do in the
   way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor?" Turn, turn! "For why will
   you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him
   who dies, says the Lord God: therefore turn yourselves, and I will love
   you." "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."

   Lo, the Cross is lifted up before you! Jesus bleeds! His wounds are
   streaming with His life-blood! Yes and with yours, too! Believe,
   Sinner! Trust Him--with your whole heart trust Him! Come to Him, come
   to Him! With weeping and supplication I pray you come! Knowing the
   terrors of the Lord, I beseech you! As one who pleads for his own life,
   I plead with you! By Heaven, by Hell, by time flying so swiftly, by
   eternity approaching so silently, by death, by judgment, by the awful
   soul-reading eyes, by the rocks whose stony bowels shall refuse your
   prayer to fall upon you, by the trumpet, and the thunders of the
   Resurrection morning, by the pit of Hell and by the flame--I pray you
   think, and believe in Him who is the Lamb of God which takes away the
   sins of the world!

   God bless my words to you through His Spirit's energy, and He shall
   have the praise forever and ever! Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                           The New Park Street Pulpit

   THE CHRIST OF PATMOS

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 27, 1861, BY THE REV. C.
   H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "Andl turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And being turned, I
   saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven
   candlesticks One like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down
   to the feet and girt about the chest with a golden band. His head and
   hair were white like wool, as white as snow; and His eyes were as a
   flame offre; His feet like unto fine brass, as if refined in a furnace;
   and His voice as the sound of many waters. And He had in His right hand
   seven stars: and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and His
   countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw
   Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me,
   saying unto me, Fear not; I am the First and the Last." Revelation
   1:12-17.

   THE Lord Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Having
   neither beginning of days, nor end of years, He is a priest forever
   after the order of Melchisedek. But the views which His people have of
   Him are extremely varied. According to our progress in Grace, will be
   the standpoint from which we view the Savior; and according to the
   position from which we look at Him, will be what we see of Him. Christ
   is the same, but Believers do not all see Him in the same clear light,
   nor do they all approach to the same nearness of fellowship. Some only
   know His offices; others only admire His Character; far fewer commune
   with His Person; but there are some who have advanced still
   further--who have come to feel the unity of all the Church with the
   Person of Christ Jesus their Lord. Under the Old Testament, the lesson
   to be taught was the same, but the capacity of the learners differed,
   and hence the mode of teaching the lesson differed also. A poor man,
   under the Jewish dispensation, was the type of an uninstructed
   Christian; the rich man was the picture of the well-taught Believer.
   Now, the poor Jew brought a turtle dove or two young pigeons (Lev
   1:4-11). The necks of these were wrung, and they were offered. The poor
   man in that was only taught this lesson--that it was only by death and
   blood that his sin could be put away. The richer Israelite who had it
   within his power, brought a bullock (Lev 1:3-9). This bullock was not
   only slain, but it had to be cut in pieces; the legs, the fat, the
   innards were washed in water, and all these were laid in special order
   upon the altar. This was to teach him even as Christ now teaches the
   intelligent and instructed Believer, that there is within the mere act
   of shedding blood an order and a fullness of wisdom which only advanced
   Believers can perceive. The scapegoat taught one truth, the paschal
   lamb another; the showbread set forth one lesson, the lighting of the
   lamps another. All the types were intended to teach the one great
   mystery of Christ manifest in the flesh and seen of angels. But they
   taught it in different ways, because men in those times, as now, had
   different capacities, and could only learn a little at a time. As it
   was under the Old Testament, it is under the New. All Christians know
   Christ, but they do not all know Him to the same degree and in the same
   way. There are some Believers who view Christ as Simeon did. Simeon saw
   Him as a Baby. He took Him up in his arms, and was so overjoyed, that
   he said, "Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace according to Your
   word."

   You know how, in the Church of England, that Song of Simeon is chanted
   every Sabbath, as if it were true that many of the worshippers had
   never gotten further than that--to know Christ as a baby--a Savior whom
   they could take up in their arms, whom they could apprehend by faith
   and call their own. There is an advance, however, upon that experience
   when not only can we take Christ up, but we can see Christ taking us
   up; when we can see not only how we apprehend Him by faith, but how He
   apprehended us of old in the Everlasting Covenant, and took up the seed
   of Abraham, and was made in their likeness, that He might redeem their
   souls. It is a great joy to know Christ, though it is but only the
   infant consolation of Israel. It is a happy privilege to be permitted
   with the Easterns to bring our gold, frankincense and myrrh, and
   worship Christ, the newborn King. This, however, is but a lesson for
   beginners;it is one of the first syl- lables of the schoolbook of
   Divine Grace. To take Christ up in our arms is the sure pledge of
   salvation, but at the same time it is but the dawn of heavenly light in
   experience.

   But, my dear Brothers and Sisters, the disciples of Jesus knew Christ
   in a higher degree than Simeon--for they regarded Him not simply as the
   Incarnate One--but as their Prophet and Teacher. They sat at His feet;
   they heard His words; they knew that never man spoke like that Man.
   Under His teaching they were led on to high degrees of knowledge. He
   gave to them the Divine texts from which, when the Spirit had
   descended, they drew sacred lessons which they taught the multitude.
   They knew more, I say, of Christ than Simeon--Simeon knew Him as One
   whom he could take hold of by faith, and who would make glad his eyes;
   but the disciples knew Him as One who taught them--not merely saved
   them--but instructed them. There are hundreds of Believers who have got
   as far as this. Christ is to them the great Teacher of Doctrine, He is
   the great Expositor of God's will and Law, and they look up to Him with
   reverence as the Rabbi of their faith. Yes, but there was one of the
   disciples at least who knew Jesus Christ even better than this! There
   was one chosen out of the twelve, as the 12 had been chosen out of the
   rest, who knew Christ as a dear Companion, and as a sweet Friend. There
   was one who knew His bosom as affording a pillow for his weary head,
   one who had felt His heart beat close to his cheek--one who had been
   with Him on the Mountain of Transfiguration and had enjoyed fellowship
   with the Father, through His Son Jesus Christ. Now I fear that those
   who advance as far as John did are not very many. They are doctrinal
   Christians, and thus they have made an advance upon those who are only
   trusting Christians, and not more. But John had taken a wonderful
   stride before his fellow men, when he could claim Christ as being dear
   to him, the Companion of his life, the Friend of his days. May the Lord
   teach each of us more and more how to walk with Jesus and to know His
   love!

   But, Brothers and Sisters, there was one who comprehended Christ Jesus
   fully as well as the beloved disciple. 'Twas Mary. She knew Him as One
   who had been born in her, and born of her. Blessed is that Christian
   who can say that Christ is formed in him, the hope of glory, and who
   has come to look not at Christ as only on the Cross, but as Christ in
   his own soul, who knows that he, himself, as truly bears the Savior
   within him as ever did his Virgin Mother--who feels that in him, too,
   by the Holy Spirit, Christ is conceived; that in him, the Nature of
   Christ, that Holy Thing which is born of the Holy Spirit, is ripening
   and maturing till it shall destroy the old man, and in perfect manhood
   shall be born into eternal life. This, I say, even eclipses John's
   knowledge, but it is not perhaps the highest of all! Further than this
   we will not venture this morning. At some other time, when our eyes are
   more enlightened, we may take a glimpse of a yet more excellent glory.

   Dear Friends, you who love the Savior, wish for nothing so much as to
   see more and more of Him! Your desire is that you may see Him as He is,
   yet I can well conceive, if you might indulge your wishes, you would
   wish that you had seen Him as He was transfigured. Do you not look back
   almost with envy upon those three favored ones who went up to the top
   of Tabor, and were there overshadowed when His garment became whiter
   than any fuller could make it, and there appeared unto Him, Moses and
   Elijah talking with Him? You need not envy, for you know how they were
   overpowered with the sight, and "were heavy with sleep." You, too,
   would sleep if you had but the same strength as they, and had to gaze
   upon the same surpassing Glory. I know, too, you have wished that you
   could have seen Him in the Garden ofGeth-semane. Oh, to have seen that
   agony, to have heard those groans, to have marked that bloody sweat as
   it fell in clots to the frozen ground! Well might you envy those who
   were chosen to keep the sacred vigil, and to have watched with Him one
   hour. But you will remember that they slept. "He found them sleeping
   for sorrow." With your powers of endurance--if you had no more than
   they--you, too, would sleep. As in the Transfiguration so in that agony
   and bloody sweat there was a sight which eyes can never see--because
   there was a Glory and a shame which man can never comprehend.

   But perhaps some of you have longed and wished that you had seen Him on
   the Cross. Oh, to have beheld Him there, to have seen those hands
   nailed "to fix the world's salvation fast," and those feet nailed to
   the wood as though He tarried to be gracious, though the world waited
   long in coming. Oh, to have seen that mangled naked body, and that
   pierced side! John, you who did see and bear witness, we might well
   envy you! But, oh, my Brothers and Sisters, why should we? Why should
   we? For have we not seen by faith all of Christ, without that horror
   which must have passed over the beholders, and which did pass over His
   mother when a sword also pierced through her own heart, because she saw
   her son bleeding on the tree? Oh, how delightful it must have been to
   have beheld the Savior on the morning of the Resurrection!--to have
   seen Him as He rose with new life from the chambers of the dead, to
   have beheld Him when He stood in the midst of the disciples, the doors
   being shut and said, "Peace be unto you!" How pleasant to have gone to
   the top of the mountain with Him, and to have seen Him as He ascended,
   blessing His disciples, a cloud receiving Him out of their sight!
   Surely we might well desire to spend an eternity in visions like these!
   But permit me to say that I think the picture of our text is preferable
   to any, and if you have desires after those I have already mentioned,
   you ought to have far more intense longings to see Christ as John did
   in this vision, for this is, perhaps, the most complete, the most
   wonderful, and at the same time, most important manifestation of
   Christ, that was ever seen by human eyes.

   There will be two things which will take our attention this morning.
   The first briefly, namely, the importance of this vision to us, and
   then, secondly, the meaning of the vision.

   I. THE VALUE OF THIS VISION TO US.

   Some may be inclined to say, "The preacher has selected a very curious
   passage of Scripture; one that may tickle our fancy, but that can be of
   no spiritual benefit to us." My Friends, you labor under a very great
   mistake, and I trust I may convince you of that in a minute or two.
   Remember that this representation, this symbolic picture of Christ, is
   a representation of the same Christ who suffered for our sins.
   Strangely diverse as it may seem to be, yet here we have the very same
   Christ. John calls Him the Son of Man, that sweet and humble name by
   which Jesus was so known to describe Himself. That He was the same
   identical Person is very clear, because John speaks of Him at once as
   being like unto the Son of Man, and I think he means that he perceived
   in His majesty, a likeness to Him whom he had known in His shame. There
   was not the crown of thorns, but he knew the brow. There was not the
   mark of the wounds; perhaps the seven stars had taken the position of
   the prints of the nails, but he knew the hands for all that. As in our
   new bodies, when we rise from the tomb, we shall no doubt know each
   other--though the body which shall rise will have but faint resemblance
   to that which is sown in the tomb, for it will be a miraculous and
   marvelous development in flower of the poor withered thing that is but
   the buried seed. But I doubt not that I shall be able to recognize your
   visage in Heaven because I knew your countenance on earth; so did John
   discover, despite the glories of Christ, the identical Person whom he
   had seen in abasement and woe. Christian, look with reverence there.
   There is your Lord, the Christ of the manger, the Christ of the
   wilderness, the Christ of Capernaum, and Bethsaida, the Christ of
   Gethsemane, the Christ of Golgotha is there, and it cannot be
   unimportant for you to turn aside to see this great sight!

   Further, this picture represents to us what Christ is now, and hence
   its extreme value. What He was when He was here on earth is
   all-important to me, but what He is now is quite as much a matter of
   vital consequence. Some set exceedingly great store by what He shall be
   when He comes to judge the earth in righteousness, and so do we. But we
   really think that Christ in the future is not to be preferred to a
   knowledge of Christ in the present; for we want to know today, in the
   midst of present strife, and present pain, and present conflict, what
   Jesus Christ is now. And this becomes all the more cheering because we
   know that what He is now we shall be--for we shall be like He is when
   we shall see Him as He is.

   And yet a third consideration lends importance to the topic of our
   text, namely, that Christ in the text is represented as what He is to
   the Churches. You will perceive He is portrayed as standing in the
   midst of the golden candlesticks, by which we understand the Churches.
   We love to know what He is to the nations; what He is to His peculiar
   people, the Jews; what He will be to His enemies; but it is best for
   us, as members of Christian Churches, to know what He is in the
   Churches, so that every deacon, elder and church member here should
   give earnest heed to this passage--for he has here pictured to him that
   Christ to whom the Church looks up as her great Lord and Hope--that
   Messiah whom every day she serves and adores!

   And I might add yet once more--I think the subject of our text is
   valuable when we consider what an effect it would have upon us if we
   really felt and understood it--we would fall at His feet as dead.
   Blessed position! Does the death alarm you? We are never so much alive
   as when we are dead at His feet. We are never so truly living as when
   the creature dies away in the Presence of the All-Glorious King. I know
   this, that the death of all that is sinful in me is my soul's highest
   ambition, yes, and the death of all that is carnal, and all that savors
   of the old Adam. Would that it would die. And where can it die but at
   the feet of Him who has the new life, and who, by manifesting Himself
   in all His Glory is to purge away our dross and sin? I only would that
   this morning I had enough of the Spirit's might so to set forth my Mas-
   ter, that I might contribute even in a humble measure to make you fall
   at His feet as dead, that He might be in us our All-in-All!

   II. WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS VISION?

   "Take off your shoes, for the place whereon you stand is holy ground."
   If God manifest in a bush commands solemnity, what shall we say of God
   manifest in Christ, and manifest, too, after the most marvelous manner?
   The words of our text are symbols--they are not to be understood
   literally. Christ does not appear in Heaven under this literal form,
   but this is the appearance under which He was set forth to the
   intellect of John. John was not so benighted as to understand any of
   this literally; he knew that the candlesticks were not meant for
   candlesticks, but for the seven light-giving Churches. He knew that the
   stars were not stars, but ministers, and he understood right well that
   all the whole description through, it was the symboland the spirit of
   the vision he was to look to, and not to the literal words.

   But to begin--"And in the midst of the seven candlesticks, One like
   unto the Son of Man clothed with a garment down to the feet and girt
   about the chest with a golden band'" We have, first, in Christ as He is
   today, a picture of His official dignity, and of His royal honors.
   Clothed with a garment down to the feet. This was the robe constantly
   worn by kings--the garment which descended and left only the feet
   apparent. This was also the peculiar dress of the priest. A priest of
   the Jewish dispensation had the long flowing white robe which reached
   down to the ground and covered him entirely. Christ, then, in being
   thus clothed, asserts His Kingship and His eternal Priesthood. It may
   indicate the fact, too, that He has clothed Himself with righteousness.
   Though He was once naked, when He was the Substitute for naked sinners
   who had cast away the robe of their righteousness, He is naked no more;
   He wears that garment dipped in His own blood, woven from the top
   throughout by His own hands--He wears Himself that garment which He
   casts over the whole Church, which is His body. However, the main idea
   here is that of official dignity and position; and when you read of the
   golden band which was about the chest, it is a representation of how
   the high priest was girt. He was girt with a band or belt that had gold
   in it. The belts of the other priests were not of gold; that of the
   high priest's was mainly made of that precious metal, and it was girt
   about the chest--not at the waist--but across the breast as if to show
   that the love of Christ, or the place where His loving heart beat most,
   was just the spot where He bound firmly about Himself the garments of
   His official dignity; as if His love were the faithful belt of His
   loins; as if the affection of His heart always kept Him fast and firm
   to the carrying out of all the offices which He had undertaken for us.
   The picture is not difficult to imagine before your eyes; I only want
   the Christian mind to stop a minute and consider it. Come, Believer,
   you have a Lord to worship who is clothed today with supreme office!
   Come before Him, He can govern for you--He is King! He can plead for
   you--He is Priest! Come, worship HIM, HE is adored in Heaven! Come,
   trust Him--lo, at that golden band hang the keys of Heaven and death,
   and Hell. No more despised and rejected of men; no more naked to His
   shame; no more homeless, or friendless! His royal dignity ensures the
   obedience of angels, and His priestly merit wins the acceptance of His
   Father--

   "Give Him, my Soul, your cause to plead, Nor doubt the Father's Grace."

   Let His garment, and His robe compel your faith to trust your soul,
   yes, and your temporal affairs, too, wholly and entirely in His
   prevailing hands.

   You will perceive that there is no crown upon the head as yet--that
   crown is reserved for His Advent. He comes soon to reign, even now He
   is King--but He is a king rather with the band about His loins, than
   with the crown upon His head. Soon He shall come in the clouds of
   Heaven, and His people shall go forth to meet Him, and then shall we
   see Him "with the crown wherewith His mother crowned Him in the day of
   His espousals, and in the day of the gladness of His heart." Our soul
   longs and watches for the day when the many crowns shall be upon His
   head; yet even now, is He King of kings, and Lord of lords; even now is
   He the High Priest of our profession, and as such we adore and trust
   Him.

   "His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow." When the
   Church described Him in the Canticles, she said, "His locks are bushy
   and black as a raven's." How are we to understand this apparent
   discrepancy? My Brothers and Sisters, the Church in the Canticles
   looked forward--she looked forward to days and ages that were to
   come--and she perceived His perpetual youth; she pictured Him as One
   who would never grow old, whose hair would always have the blackness of
   youth. And do we not bless God that her view of Him was true? We can
   say of Jesus, "You have the dew of Your youth." But the Church of today
   looks backward to His work as complete; we see Him now as the Ancient
   of

   Eternal Days. We believe that He is not the Christ of merely 1800 years
   ago, but, before the daystar knew its place, He was One with the
   Eternal Father. When we see in the picture His head. and His hair white
   as snow, we understand the antiquity of His reign. "In the beginning
   was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." When
   all these things were not, when the old mountains had not lifted their
   hoary heads into the clouds, when the yet more hoary sea had never
   roared in tempest--before the lamps of Heaven had been lit, when God
   dwelt alone in His immensity, and the unnavigated waves of ether, if
   there were such, had never been fanned by the wings of the seraph, and
   the solemnity of silence had never been startled by the song of
   cherubim, Jesus was of old in eternity with God! We know how He was
   despised, and rejected of men, but we understand, too, what He meant
   when He said, "Before Abraham was, I AM." We know how He who died when
   but a little more than 30 years of age, was verily the Father of the
   everlasting ages, having neither beginning of days nor end of years.

   No doubt there is here coupled with the idea of antiquity, that of
   reverence. Men rise up before the hoary head and pay it homage; and do
   not angels, principalities, and powers bow before Him? Though He was
   made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, yet is
   He not crowned with Glory and honor? Do they not all delight to obey
   His behests, and lay their borrowed dignities at His feet? O Christian!
   Rejoice that you serve One so venerable, so worthy to be praised; let
   your soul join now in the song which rolls upward to His Throne, "Unto
   Him who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Alpha and the Omega,
   unto Him be glory, and honor, and dominion, and power, forever and
   ever. Amen."

   "His eyes like flames of fire" This represents Christ's oversight of
   His Church. As He is in the Church, the Ancient of Eternal Days, her
   Everlasting Father, and her Head to be reverenced, so is He in the
   Church, the Universal Overseer, the great Bishop and Shepherd of souls.
   And what eyes He has! How penetrating! "Like flames of fire." How
   discriminating! "Like flames of fire," which melt the dross and only
   leave the real metal. "Like flames of fire," He sees--not by light
   without--but His own eyes supply the light with which He sees! His
   knowledge of the Church is not derived from the prayers of the
   Churches, nor from her experience of her needs, nor from her verbal
   statements, He sees by no borrowed light of the sun, or of the
   moon--His eyes are lamps unto themselves. In the Church's thick
   darkness, when she is trampled down, when no light shines upon her, He
   sees her--for His eyes are "like flames of fire." Oh, what sweet
   consolation this must be to a child of God! If you cannot tell your
   Lord where you are, He can see you, and though you cannot tell what you
   really need, or how to pray, yet He cannot only see, but He can see
   with such discrimination, that He can tell precisely what your true
   needs are, and what are only fancies of an unsanctified desire. "His
   eyes like flames of fire." Why you are in darkness and you see no
   light--but He is the light that lights every man who comes into the
   world, and He sees by the light of His own Person all that goes on in
   you. I love that Doctrine of Christ's universal oversight of all His
   Church. You know there is an idea sometimes held out that the Church
   ought to have a visible head so that all matters may come by degrees
   through a hierarchy to some one man, that so one man knowing all
   things, may be able to guide the Church aright. An absurd because
   impossible idea! What man could possibly say, "I keep the Church. I
   water it, I watch it every moment." No, no, it must be this--"I the
   Lord do keep it. I will water it every moment lest any hurt it. I will
   keep it night and day." There is never a trial to the Church, there is
   never a pang she feels but those eyes of fire discern! Oh, think not
   you would rather view the eyes that once were fountains of tears; they
   wept for your sins, those sins are put away, it is better for you now
   that you should have One whose eyes are like flames of fire--not to
   perceive your sins-- but to burn them up; not merely to see your needs,
   but forever to fulfill your desires! Bow before Him, lay bare your
   heart, hope not to conceal anything. Think it not necessary that you
   should explain anything--He sees and He knows, for His eyes are like
   flames of fire.

   "And His feet were like fine brass, as if they were refined in a
   furnace." The head, you see, is reverent; the feet are blazing; the
   countenance is like the sun for glory; the feet like burning brass for
   trial. I think we may understand by this the Church of God on
   earth--those saints united to Christ who are the last of the body; the
   lower part who are in these times still treading the earth. Christ is
   in Heaven, His head is like "the sun that shines in its strength."
   Christ is on earth in the midst of His Church, and where His feet walk
   among the golden candlesticks, they walk in fire. They are like brass
   refined in a furnace. Now, we think that wherever Christ is, there will
   be the fire of trial to His Church. I would never believe that we were
   on the Lord's side if all men were on our side; if the words we speak
   were not constantly misrepresented, we could not imagine we spoke the
   Words of God; if we were always understood, we would think that we
   spoke not those things which the carnal mind cannot receive! No,
   Brethren, no--expect not ease! Expect not that you shall attain to the
   crown without suffering. The feet of Christ burn in the furnace, and
   you belong to His body--you do not belong to His head--for you are not
   in Heaven! You do not belong to His loins--for you wear not the golden
   band-- but you belong to His feet, and you must burn in the furnace!
   What a wondrous picture is this of Christ! Can you conceive it? You
   know that the robe came down even to His feet. Perhaps it covered them,
   but yet the glowing heat was such that through the robe might be seen
   the burning of the feet of brass. They were fine brass, too. They were
   metal that could not be consumed, a metal that would not yield to the
   heat. And so is Christ's Church! The old motto of the early Protestants
   was an anvil, because "the Church" they said, "is an anvil that has
   broken many hammers." The Evil One smites her--she does not reply
   except by suffering and in that--enduring with patience is her kingdom!
   In that suffering is her victory! In the patient possessing of her
   soul, in her glowing in the furnace, and not yielding to the fire, in
   her shining and being purified by its heat, and not giving way and
   being molten by its fury, in that is as greatly the triumph of Christ,
   as in that bright Countenance which is as "the sun shining in its
   strength." I rejoice in this part of my text. It comforts one's soul
   when cast down and deeply tried. "His feet were like fine brass, as if
   they were refined in a furnace." Let us say to our souls--

   "Must I be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease; While others
   fought to win the prize, And sailed through bloody seas? No, I must
   fight if I would reign; Increase my courage, Lord! I'll bear the toil,
   endure the pain, Supported by Your Word."

   But I must pass on having no time this morning to dwell long on any one
   of these points. "Hs voice as the sound of many waters." And what is
   the voice of Christ? It is a voice which is heard in Heaven. You
   angels, bow before Him! They hear the command--"And at the name of
   Jesus every knee does bow of things in Heaven." It is a voice that is
   heard in Hell! You fiends, be still! "Vex not My anointed. Do My
   Prophets no harm." And there those Hell hounds tug at their chains,
   longing to escape from their imprisonment. It is a voice that is heard
   on earth, too; wherever Christ is preached, wherever His Cross is
   lifted up, there is there a voice that speaks better things than the
   blood of Abel! Sometimes we are apt to think that Christ's voice is not
   heard. We, His ministers, are such feeble creatures; if we have some
   few thousands to listen to our voice, yet how many forget! Amidst the
   storm of the battle cry, amidst political clamors, who can hope that
   the still small voice of the ministry should be heard? But it is heard!
   Across the Alleghenies, the voice of God's minister echoes; no evil
   thing shall in the end stand against the protests of God's servants;
   that which has made slavery tremble to its very soul, has been the
   constant protest of Christian ministers in England! And though the
   lying prophets of the Southern States have sought to undo the good, yet
   must they fall before the force of the Truth of God. There is not a
   humble village pastor standing in his pulpit to edify his feeble flock,
   who is not thereby exerting an influence on all generations yet to
   come. The minister of Christ stands in the midst of the telegraphic
   system of the universe, and works it according to Jehovah's will; all
   society is but a tremulous mass of jelly yielding to the influence of
   Christ's Gospel! I say not, Sirs, that there is any power in us;but
   there is power in Christ's Word when it peals through us in trumpet
   tones! There is power in Christ's Word to waken the dry bones that lie
   in many a valley. China shall hear! India must listen, the gods of,
   though they hear not, yet tremble! And feeble though we are in
   ourselves, yet does God make us mighty to the pulling down of
   strongholds, and He shall make us conquerors through His Divine Grace!

   If you could stand upon some exceedingly high mountain and could be
   gifted with enlarged ponders of vision, it would be a wonderful thing
   to be able to see the Atlantic and Pacific, the Indian ocean, and all
   the seas of the world at once. Suppose we are standing on the loftiest
   summit while a tremendous storm sweeps o'er the whole. The sea roars
   and the fullness thereof--yes, all the seas roar at once--the Atlantic
   echoes to the Pacific, the Pacific passes on the strain to the great
   Indian ocean, the Mediterranean cries to the Red Sea, the Red Sea
   shouts aloud to the Arctic, and the Arctic to the Antarctic! They clap
   their hands, and all at once there is a voice of many waters. Such is
   the voice of Christ's ministry on earth! It may seem to be feeble but
   it never is. There may be but a handful of men; they may be in the
   glens of Piedmont; they may be found upon the hills of Switzerland, and
   they may be dying for Christ--but their tramp is the tramp of
   heroes--their voice shakes the ages and eternity itself trembles before
   it! Oh, how consolatory to the heir of Heaven, and to the minister of
   Christ is the fact that His voice is as "the sound of many waters."

   "And He had in His right hand seven stars.." The Church should always
   see Christ as holding up her ministers. Ministers are very much in
   danger. Stars, or those things that seem to be stars, may be but
   shooting stars; they may be but meteors and flash awhile, right soon to
   melt away--but the ministers of Christ, though they are in danger, yet,
   if they are Christ's ministers, they are perfectly safe! He keeps the
   seven stars. The celestial Pleiades of the Gospel are always in
   Christ's hand. And who can pluck them from there? Church of God! Be it
   always your prayer that Christ would keep His ministers wherever they
   are--commend them to Him, and remember you have this as a kind of
   promise on which to ground your prayer. Brothers and Sisters, pray for
   us! We are but like twinkling stars at least, and He is as the sun that
   shines in its strength. Ask Him to give us light; ask Him to keep us
   always burning; ask Him that we may be as the pole-star guiding the
   slave to liberty; ask Him that we may be as the stars that make the
   southern cross--that when the mariner sees us, stars of Christ--he may
   see not each star individually but Christ manifested in beauteous form
   in the shining of all combined! This shall be my portion today. "The
   seven stars were in His right hand." How many would like to quench the
   light of God's ministers! Many criticize; some abuse, more still
   misrepresent. I can scarcely say a sentence in which I am not
   misconstrued, and I aver that I have often taken Cobbett's rule to
   speak not only so that I could be understood, but so that I thought I
   could not be misunderstood. And yet I am; but what does it matter? What
   does it mean? Still if the stars make not glad the eyes of men; if they
   are in the Lord's hand they ought to be satisfied. They should rest
   content and not trouble themselves. Loud let the waves roar, and let
   the envious sea send up her boisterous billows to quench the heavenly
   fires. Aha, O sea! Upon your tranquil couches sleep the stars. They
   look down upon your boisterous waves, and when you shall subside in
   calm, and the clouds that have risen from your vapor have passed away,
   be it the lone star or one of a constellation; it shall shine out yet
   again, and smile on your placid waters, till you, O ocean, shall mirror
   the image of that star, and you shall know that there is an
   influence--even in that envied spark which you have sought to
   quench--to lead your floods, and make them ebb, and make them flow so
   that you shall be servant to One whom you thought to put out forever!
   The seven stars are in Christ's right hand.

   I shall not detain you much longer, but we must finish this wonderful
   description. "Out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword." I have
   looked at one or two old pictures in which the artists of the olden
   times have tried to sketch this vision. I think it a most ridiculous
   thing to attempt! I conceive that this was never meant to be painted by
   any human being; nor can it be! But one old artist seems to have caught
   the very idea. He represents the breath of Christ in vapor, assuming
   the form of a two-edged sword very mighty and strong to cut in pieces
   His adversary. Now, as the Gospel of Christ must be heardbecause it is
   "the voice of many waters," so it must be felt, for it is "a two-edged
   sword;" and it is surprising how the Gospel really is felt, too! It is
   felt by those who hate it; they writhe under it; they cannot sleep
   after it; they feel indignant; they are horrified; they are disgusted
   and all that; but still there is a something within which does not let
   them remain quiet. That two-edged sword gets at the marrow of their
   bones. They wish they had never heard the Word though they can never
   heal themselves of the wound they have gotten by it. And to those who
   are blessed under the Word--what a two-edged sword it is to them! How
   it kills their self-righteousness! How it cuts the throat of their
   sins! How it lays their lusts dead at the feet of Jesus! How
   all-subduing is it in the Son! No sword of Gideon was ever so potent
   against a horde of Midianites as the sword that comes out of Jesus'
   lips against the hosts of our sins! When the Spirit of God comes in all
   His power into our souls, what death He works and yet what life--what
   death to sin, and yet what new life in righteousness! O holy sword! O
   breath of Christ! Enter into our hearts and kill our sins!

   It is delightful to see each day how the preaching of the Word is
   really the sword of God. I do sometimes retire from the pulpit
   sorrowing exceedingly, because I cannot preach as I would, and I think
   that surely the Master's message has had no effect among you. But it is
   perfectly marvelous how many here have been called by Divine Grace. I
   am each day more and more astonished when I see high and low, rich and
   poor, nobles and peasants, moral and immoral alike, subdued before this
   conquering sword of Christ! I must tell it to the Master's honor, to
   the Master's Glory, "His own right hand has gotten Him the victory."
   Here the slain of the Lord have been many! Here has He glorified
   Himself in the conversion of multitudes of souls!

   But to conclude. "Hs Countenance was as the sun that shines in its
   strength" How can I picture this? Go abroad and fix your eyes upon the
   sun if you can. Select the day of the year in which it is most in the
   zenith, and then fix your steady gaze upon it. Does it not blind you?
   Are you not overwhelmed? But mark--when you can gaze at that sun with
   undimmed eyes, you shall even then have no power to look upon the
   Countenance of Christ! What glory, what majesty, what light, what
   spotlessness, what strength!--"His Countenance was as the sun that
   shines in its strength." Well may the angels veil their faces with
   their wings; well may the elders offer vials full of sweet odors, that
   the smoke of their incense may be a medium through which they may see
   His face. And well may you and I feel and say--

   But, Jesus, turn Your face and look on us. It is midnight, but if You
   turn Your face, it must be noon, for Your face is as the sun! Thick
   darkness and long nights have overwhelmed our spirits, and we have
   said, "I am shut out from the Lord forever!" Jesus! Turn Your face and
   we are troubled no more! Sea of love where all our passions rest, You
   circle, where all our joys revolve! You center of our souls--shine and
   make us glad! This Sun, if we look at Him curiously to understand His
   Glory, may blind us--but if we look at Him humbly, that we may receive
   His Light, He will make our eyes stronger than they were, and shed
   sunlight into the thickest darkness of our despair!

   Oh, Church of God! What do you say to Him who is your Husband! Will you
   not forsake your own kindred and your father's house? Will you not long
   to know Him more and more, and shall it not be your cry today, "Mount
   Your chariot, Jesus! Mount Your chariot! Ride forth conquering and to
   conquer! Show Your face, and the darkness of superstition must melt
   before Your Countenance. Open Your mouth and let the two-edged sword of
   Your Spirit slay Your foes! Come forth, Jesus, bear the seven stars and
   let them shine where light was never been before! Speak, Jesus, speak!
   And men will hear You, for Your voice is as the sound of many waters.
   Come, Jesus come, even though You bring the burning heat with You, and
   we, as Your feet glow in the furnace! Come, look on us and burn up all
   our sins with those eyes of fire! Come, show Yourself and we will adore
   You, for Your head and Your hair are white like wool! Come, manifest
   Yourself, and we will trust You with Your garment, Your priestly
   garment. We will reverence You, and with Your golden band, we will
   adore You, King of kings and Lord of lords! Come then, that we may see
   You, that You may put the crown upon Your head, and the shout may be
   heard--Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The Lord God Omnipotent reigns!

   The humbler we must lie."
     __________________________________________________________________

                           The New Park Street Pulpit

   THE EARNEST OF HEAVEN

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 3, 1861, BY THE REV. C.
   H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "That Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance."
   Ephesians 1:13,14.
   SO then, Heaven, with all its glories, is an inheritance! Now, an
   inheritance is not a thing which is bought with money, earned by labor,
   or won by conquest; if any man has an inheritance, in the proper sense
   of that term, it came to him by birth; it was not because of any
   special merit in him, but simply because he was his father's son, that
   he received the property of which he is now possessed. So is it with
   Heaven. The man who shall receive this glorious heritage will not
   obtain it by the works of the Law, nor by the efforts of the flesh; it
   will be given to him as a matter of most gracious right, because he has
   been "begotten again unto a lively hope, by the Resurrection of Jesus
   Christ from the dead," and has thus become an heir of Heaven by blood
   and birth. They who come unto Glory are sons. Is it not written, "The
   captain of our salvation brings many sons unto Glory"? They come not
   there as servants; no servant has any right to the inheritance of his
   master; let him be ever so faithful, yet he is not his master's heir.
   But because you are sons--sons by God's adoption, sons by the Spirit's
   regeneration--because by supernatural energy you have been
   born-again--you become inheritors of eternal life, and you enter into
   the many mansions of our Father's house above! Let us always
   understand, then, when we think of Heaven, that it is a place which is
   to be ours, and a state which we are to enjoy as the result of
   birth--not as the result of work. "Except a man is born-again, he
   cannot see the Kingdom of God;" that Kingdom being an inheritance, but
   until he has the new birth, he can have no claim to enter it. But is it
   possible for us, provided that Heaven is our inheritance, and we are
   God's children--is it possible for us to know anything whatever of that
   land beyond the flood? Is there power in human intellect to fly into
   the land of the hereafter, and reach those islands of the happy where
   God's people rest eternally in the bosom of their God? We are met at
   the outset with a rebuff which staggers us--"Eye has not seen, nor ear
   heard, neither has entered into the heart of man, the things which God
   has prepared for them who love Him."

   If we paused here, we might give up all idea of beholding from our
   houses of clay that goodly land and Lebanon; but we do not pause, for
   like the Apostle, we go on with the text and we add, "But He has
   revealed it unto us by His Spirit." It is possible to look within the
   veil! God's Spirit can turn it aside for a moment, and bid us take a
   glimpse--though it is but a distant one--at that unutterable Glory!
   There are Pisgahs even now on the surface of the earth, from the top of
   which the celestial Canaan can be beheld; there are hallowed hours in
   which the mists and clouds are swept away, and the sun shines in its
   strength and our eyes, being freed from their natural dimness, behold
   something of that land which is very far off, and glimpse a little of
   the joy and blessedness which is reserved for the people of God
   hereafter! Our text tells us that the Holy Spirit is the earnestof the
   inheritance, by which I understand that He is not only the pledge, for
   a pledge is given for security, but when the thing pledged is given,
   then the pledge itself is restored--but He is an earnest, which is a
   pledge and something more. An earnest is a part of the thing itself--it
   is not only a pledge of the thing for security-- but it is a foretaste
   of it for present enjoyment. The word in the Greek has a stronger force
   than our word, "pledge." Again I repeat it--if I promise to pay a man
   something, I may give him land or property in pledge; but if I pay him
   a part of the sum which I have promised, that is more than a pledge--it
   is an earnest, because it is a part of the thing itself.

   So the Holy Spirit is a pledge to God's people. Inasmuch as God has
   given them the Graces of the Spirit, He will give them the Glory that
   results from there. But He is more--He is a foretaste--He is a sweet
   ante past of Heaven, so that they who possess the Spirit of God,
   possess the first tastes of Heaven; they have reaped the first fruits
   of the eternal harvest! The first drops of a shower of glory have
   fallen upon them; they have beheld the first beams of the rising sun of
   eternal bliss; they have not merely a pledge for security--they have an
   earnest--which is security and foretaste combined!

   Understand, then, for this is what I am about to speak of this morning;
   by the Holy Spirit there is given to the people of God even now,
   experiences, joys and feelings which prove that they shall be in
   Heaven--which do more, which bring Heaven down to them, and make them
   already able to guess in some measure what Heaven must be When I have
   enlarged upon that theme, I shall take the black side of the picture,
   and remark that it is possible for men on earth to have both a pledge
   and an earnest of those eternal pains which are reserved for the
   impenitent--a dark subject--but may God grant it may be for our profit
   and awakening.

   I. First, then, THERE ARE SOME WORKS OF THE SPIRIT WHICH ARE PECULIARLY
   AN EARNEST TO

   THE CHILD OF GOD, OF THE BLESSINGS OF HEAVEN.

   1. And first, Heaven is a state of rest. It may be because I am
   constitutionally idle, that I look upon Heaven in the aspect of rest
   with greater delight than under any other view of it, with but one
   exception. To let the head which is so continually exercised, for once
   lie still--to have no care, no trouble, no need to labor, to strain the
   intellect, or vex the limbs! I know that many of you, the sons of
   poverty and of toil, look forward to the Sabbath, because of the
   enjoyments of the sanctuary, and because of the rest which it affords
   you. You look for Heaven as Watts did in his song--

   "There shall I bathe my weary soul In seas of heavenly rest! And not a
   wave of trouble will roll Across my peaceful breast."

   "There remains therefore a rest to the people of God." 'Tis not a rest
   of sleep, but yet a rest as perfect as though they slept; it is a rest
   which puts from them all care, all remorse, all thoughts of tomorrow,
   all straining after a something which they have not as yet. They are
   runners no more--they have reached the goal! They are warriors no
   more--they have achieved the victory! They are laborers no more--they
   have reaped the harvest! "They rest," says the Spirit, "they rest from
   their labors and their works do follow them."

   My Beloved, did you ever enjoy on certain high days of your experience
   a state of perfect rest? You could say you had not a wish in all the
   world ungratified. You knew yourself to be pardoned, you felt yourself
   to be an heir of Heaven, Christ was precious to you. You knew that you
   walked in the light of your Father's Countenance; you had cast all your
   worldly care on Him, for He cared for you; you felt at that hour, that
   if death could take away your dearest friends, or if calamity should
   remove the most valuable part of your possessions on earth, yet you
   could say, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the
   name of the Lord." Your spirit floated along the stream of Divine Grace
   without a struggle; you were not as the swimmer, who breasts the
   billows, and tugs and toils for life; your soul was made to lie down in
   green pastures beside the still waters; you were passive in God's
   hands; you knew no will but His. Oh, that sweet day--

   "That heavenly calm within the breast, Was the sure pledge of glorious
   rest, Which for the Church of God remains, The end of cares, the end of
   pains."

   No, it was more than a pledge; it was a part of the rest itself. It was
   a morsel taken from the loaf of delights. It was a sip out of the wine
   vats of immortal joy! It was silver spray from the waves of Glory! So,
   then, whenever we are quiet and at peace--"For we who have believed do
   enter into rest," and have ceased from our own works, as God did from
   His-- when we can say, "O God, my heart is fixed, my heart is fixed; I
   will sing and give praise"--when our spirit is full of love within us,
   and our peace is like a river, and our righteousness like the wave of
   the sea--then we already know in some degree what Heaven is! We have
   but to make that peace deeper and yet more profound--lasting and more
   continual; we have but to multiply it eternally, and we have obtained a
   noble idea of the rest which remains for the people of God!

   2. But, secondly, there is a passage in the Book of Revelation which
   may sometimes puzzle the uninstructed reader, where it is said
   concerning the angels, that "They rest not day and night." As we are to
   be as the angels of God, it must undoubtedly be true in Heaven that in
   a certain sense, they rest not day nor night. They always rest, so far
   as ease and freedom from care is concerned; they never rest, in the
   sense of indolence or inactivity. In Heaven, spirits are always on the
   wing; their lips are always singing the eternal hallelujahs unto the
   great Jehovah that sits upon the Throne. Their fingers are never
   divorced from the strings of their golden Harps; their feet never cease
   to run in obedience to the eternal will--they rest, but they rest on
   the wing. As the poet pictured the angel as he flew--not needing to
   move his wings but resting, and yet darting swiftly through the ether,
   as though he were a flash shot from the eyes of God. So shall it be
   with the people of God eternally; always singing--never hoarse with
   music; always serving--never wearied with their service. "They rest not
   day and night." Have there ever been times with you, when you have had
   both the pledge and the earnest of this kind of Heaven? Yes, when we
   have preached once, and again, and again, and again in one day, and
   some have said to me, "But the constitution will be destroyed, the mind
   will be weakened; such toil as this will bring the man low." But we
   have been able to reply, "We do not feel it; for the more toil has been
   cast upon us, the more strength has been given." Have you ever known
   what it is to have the pastor's work in revival times, when he has to
   sit hour after hour, seeing convert after convert--when the time for
   one meal is past, and he has forgotten it? When the time for another
   meal has come and gone, and he has forgotten that--for he has been so
   busy, and so happy with his feast of ingatherings, that he has been
   like his Master, and has forgotten to eat bread and positively did not
   hunger and did not thirst--because the joy of the service had taken
   away all fatigue?

   Just at this hour, our missionaries are engaged throughout Jamaica in a
   sweltering sun, preaching the Word. Perhaps there has never been a more
   glorious revival than that which God has sent to that island--an island
   which has often been blessed, but which now seems to have received a
   sevenfold portion! One missionary, in writing home, says that he had
   not been in bed one night for a week, and he had been preaching all day
   and all night long. And I do not doubt but his testimony to you would
   be, that at least, during the first part of the labor it seemed not to
   be labor; he could sleep on the wing; he could rest while he worked!
   The joy of success took away from him the feeling of weariness; the
   blessed prospect of seeing so many added to the Church of God had made
   him forget even to eat bread! Well, then, at such a time as that, he
   had a foretaste of the rest and the service, too, which remains for the
   people of God! Oh, do not doubt, if you find comfort in serving
   God--and such comfort that you grow not weary in His service--do not
   doubt, I say, but that you shall soon join that hallowed throng, who
   "day without night circle His Throne rejoicing;" who rest not, but
   serve Him day and night in His temple! These feelings are foretastes,
   and they are pledges, too. They give some inklings of what Heaven must
   be, and they make your title to Heaven clear.

   3. But let us pass on. Heaven is a place of communion with all the
   people of God. I am sure that in Heaven they know each other. I could
   not perhaps just now prove it in so many words, but I feel that a
   Heaven of people who did not know each other, and had no fellowship,
   could not be Heaven! God has so constituted the human heart that it
   loves society, and especially the renewed heart is so made that it
   cannot help communing with all the people of God. I always say to my
   Strict Baptist Brothers and Sisters who think it a dreadful thing for
   baptized Believers to commune with the unbaptized, "But you cannot help
   it; if you are the people of God, you must commune with all saints,
   baptized or not! You may deny them the outward and visible sign, but
   you cannot keep from them the inward and spiritual Grace." If a man is
   a child of God, I do not care what I may think about him--if I am a
   child of God I do commune with him, and I must! We are all parts of the
   same body, all knit to Christ, and it is not possible that one part of
   Christ's body should ever be in any state but that of communion with
   all the rest of the body! Well, in Glory I feel I may say, we know we
   shall converse with each other. We shall talk of our trials on the way
   there--talk most of all of Him who by His faithful love and His potent
   arm has brought us safely through. We shall not sing solos, but in
   chorus shall we praise our King! We shall not look upon our fellows
   there like men in the iron mask, whose name and character we do not
   know--for there we shall know even as we are known! You shall talk with
   the Prophets; you shall have conversation with the martyrs; you shall
   sit again at the feet of the great Reformers and all your Brothers and
   Sisters in faith who have fallen before you, or who have rather entered
   into rest before you. These shall be your companions on the other side
   the grave! How sweet must that be! How blessed--that holy converse,
   that happy union, that general assembly, and Church of the first-born
   whose names are written in Heaven! Have we anything on earth like this?
   Yes, that we have in miniature; we have the pledge of this; for if we
   love the people of God, we may know that we shall surely be with them
   in Heaven! We have the earnest of it, for how often has it been our
   privilege to hold the highest and sweetest fellowship with our fellow
   Christians? Why, you and I have often said, "Did not our hearts burn
   within us while we talked together by the way, and Christ was with us
   both?" When we have been together, and the doors have been shut, has
   not the Master said, "Peace be unto you"? When love has gone from heart
   to heart, and we have all felt knit together as one man; when party
   names were all forgotten; when all jealousies and bickering were driven
   out of doors, and we felt that we were one family, and did all bear the
   same one name--having "one Lord, one faith and one baptism"? Then it
   was that we had the earnest, the foretaste, the first drink of that
   well of Bethlehem which is on the other side the pearly gate of the
   Celestial City!

   4. I have to be brief on each of these points, for there are so many to
   mention. Part of the bliss of Heaven will consist in joy over sinners
   saved. The angels look down from the battlements of the city which has
   foundations, and when they see prodigals return, they sing! Jesus calls
   together His friends and His neighbors, and He says unto then, "Rejoice
   with Me, for I have found the sheep which was lost." The angels begin
   the theme; the sacred fire runs through the host, and all the saints
   above take up the strain! Listen how they sing before the Throne, for
   it has just been whispered there of some Saul, "Behold, he prays."
   Listen how their songs get a new inspiration--how their eternal Sabbath
   seems to be Sabbatized afresh, and "the rest" becomes more joyous while
   they sing of new-born sons added to the family, and new names written
   in the register of the Church below! Part of the joy of Heaven, and no
   mean part of it, will be to watch the fight on earth, to see the
   Conqueror as He marches on, and to behold the trophies of His Grace and
   the spoils which His hands shall win. Is there anything like this on
   earth? Yes, there is when the Spirit of God gives to us joy over
   sinners saved!

   The other evening, when some of us sat in our Church Meeting, what joy
   was there, when one after another, those who had been plucked from the
   deepest Hell of sin made avowal of their faith in Christ! Some of us
   look back upon those Church Meetings as the best nights we ever spent;
   when first one, and then another has said, "I have been plucked as a
   brand from the burning," and the tale of Divine Grace has been told.
   And a third has stood up and said, "And I, too, was once a stranger
   wandering far from God, and Jesus sought me." Why, we have, some of us,
   gone home and felt that it was Heaven below to have been there! We have
   felt more joy over the conversion of others, we have sometimes thought,
   than even over our own! It has been such bliss while we have taken the
   hand of the convert, and the tears have been in both eyes--when the
   word of gratitude has been spoken, and Jesus Christ has been magnified
   by lips that once blasphemed Him! My Brothers and Sisters, though the
   whole world should censure me, I cannot help it, I must tell it to the
   praise of God's Free Grace and boundless love! There are hundreds here
   who are the most wonderful trophies of Grace that ever lived on earth!
   My heart has been gladdened, and your hearts have been gladdened, too.
   I must not keep it back! I will not! It was my Master's work! It is to
   His honor! It is to His praise! We will tell that on earth which we
   will sing in Heaven! They have washed their robes and made them white
   in the blood of the Lamb! And I do believe that the joy we felt when
   sinners have been converted, has been an earnest and a pledge that we
   shall be partakers of the same joy in Heaven!

   5. But to proceed. Here is another earnest of Heaven, which is rather a
   personal matter than one which is drawn from others. Did you ever get a
   knotty passage in Scripture which repeated itself in your mind so many
   times that you could not get rid of it? You borrowed some
   commentaries--you opened them, and you found that you might enquire
   within, but get no information whatever upon the particular subject you
   wished most to be informed about. Commentaries generally are books
   which are written to explain those parts of Scripture which everybody
   understands, and to make those that are dark more mysterious than they
   were before! At any rate, if that was the aim of the different authors,
   they have, most of them, admirably succeeded. I do not believe in great
   commentaries upon the whole Bible-- no one man can write such a book so
   that all of it shall be valuable. When a man gives his whole life to
   some one book, that one is worth reading; when a man has taken up, as
   some have done, the Epistle to the Romans, or the Book of Genesis, and
   gone on year after year toiling through it, then such a book has been a
   monument of labor, and has been valuable to the Christian student; but
   generally, large commentaries give little information where most it is
   needed.

   Well, disappointed, you have gone back to your Bible and have said, "I
   must not meddle with this text; it is above me." But it has repeated
   itself in your ears. You could not make it out. It has followed
   you--dogged your steps--it would not go away from you! At last you
   thought, "There was a message from God in that text." You prayed over
   it. While you were praying, some one word in the text seemed to lift
   itself right out of the connection, and shone upon you like a star! And
   in the light of that one word you could see the meaning of all the
   words that preceded and followed, and you rose up from your knees
   feeling that you knew the mind of the Spirit there, and had got a step
   forward in Scriptural knowledge. You remember the day, some of you,
   when you first learned the Doctrines of Grace. When we were first
   converted, we did not know much about them. We did not know whether God
   had converted us, or we had converted ourselves; but we heard a
   discourse one day in which some sentences were used, which gave us the
   clue to the whole system, and we began at once to see how God the
   Father planned, and God the Son carried out, and God the Holy Spirit
   applied! And we found ourselves, all of a sudden brought into the midst
   of a system of Truths which we might perhaps have believed before--but
   which we could not have clearly stated, and did not understand! The joy
   of that advance in knowledge, by God's Grace, was exceedingly great. I
   know it was to me. I can remember well the day and hour when first I
   received those Truths in my own soul--when they were burnt into me, as
   John Bunyan says--burnt as with a hot iron into my soul. And I can
   remember how I felt I had grown all of a sudden from a baby into a
   man--that I had made progress in Scriptural knowledge, from having got
   a hold, once and for all, of the clue to the Truth of God! Well, now,
   in that moment when God the Holy Spirit increased your knowledge, and
   opened the eyes of your understanding, you had the earnest that you
   shall one day see--not through a glass darkly--but face to face, and
   by-and-by you shall know the whole Truth, even as you are known!

   6. But further than this--to put two or three thoughts into one, for
   brevity's sake--whenever, Christian, you have achieved a victory over
   your lusts--whenever after hard struggling, you have had a temptation
   dead at your feet--you have had in that day and hour a foretaste of the
   joy that awaits you, when the Lord shall shortly tread Satan under your
   feet! That victory in the first skirmish, is the pledge and the earnest
   of the triumph in the last decisive battle. If you have overcome one
   foe, you shall overthrow them all; if the walls of Jericho have been
   dismantled, so shall every fort be carried, and you shall go up a
   conqueror over the ruins thereof. And when, Believer, you have known
   your security in Christ--when you have been able to say, "I know that
   my Redeemer lives, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that
   which I have committed to Him"--when you have felt sure that earth and
   Heaven might die, but His love could never pass away--when you have
   sung out the strong lines of Toplady--

   "My name from the Palms of His hands
   Eternity will not erase!
   Impressed on His heart it remains
   In marks of indelible Grace;"-- when you have put your foot upon the
   Rock and feel that you stood securely, knowing that you were safe in
   Him and because He lived, you must live also--in that hour you had the
   pledge and the foretaste of that glorious security which is yours, when
   you are beyond gunshot of the infernal fiend--beyond even the howling
   of the infernal dog! O Christian, there are many windows to Heaven
   through which God looks down on you; and there are some windows through
   which you may look up to Him. Let these past enjoyments be guarantees
   of your future bliss! Let them be to you as the grapes of Eshcol were
   to the Jews in the wilderness--they were the fruit of the land--and
   when they tasted them, they said, "It is a land that flows with milk
   and honey." These enjoyments are the products of Canaan; they are
   handfuls of heavenly flowers thrown over the wall; they are bunches of
   Heaven's spices, brought to you by angel hands across the stream.
   Heaven is full of joys like these. You have but a few of them; Heaven
   is full with them. There your golden joys are but as stones, and your
   most precious jewels are as common as the pebbles of the brook! Now you
   drink drops, and they are so sweet that your palate does not soon
   forget then; but there you shall put your lips to the cup and drink and
   never drain it dry. There you shall sit at the wellhead and drink as
   much as you can draw, and draw as much as you can desire. Now you see
   the glimmerings of Heaven as a star twinkling from leagues of distance;
   follow that glimmering, and you shall see Heaven no more as a star, but
   as the sun which shines in its strength!
   7. Permit me to remark yet once more, there is one foretaste of Heaven
   which the Spirit gives which it were very wrong for us to omit. And
   now, I shall seem, I dare say, to those who understand not spiritual
   mysteries, to be as one who dreams. There are moments when the child of
   God has real fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what
   fellowship between man and man means. There is as real a fellowship
   between the Christian and Christ. Our eyes can look on Hm. I say not
   that these human optics can behold the very flesh of Christ, but I say
   that the eyes of the soul can here, on earth, more truly see Christ,
   after a spiritual sort, than ever eyes of man saw Him when He was in
   the flesh on earth! Today your head may lean upon the Savior's bosom;
   today He may be your sweet Companion, and with the spouse you may say,
   "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth, for His love is better
   than wine." I pray you, think not that I rave! I speak what I know and
   testify what I have seen, and what many of you have seen and known,
   too. There are moments with the Believer, when, whether in the body or
   out of the body, he cannot tell--God knows--but this he knows--that
   Christ's left hand is under his head, and His right hand does embrace
   him. Christ has shown to him His hands and His side. He could say, with
   Thomas, "My Lord, and My God," but he could not say much more. The
   world recedes, it disappears; the things of time are covered with a
   pall of darkness. Christ only stands out before the Believer's view! I
   have known that some Believers, when they have been in this state,
   could say with the spouse, "Stay me with apples, comfort me with
   flagons, for I am love sick." Their love of Christ, and Christ's love
   to them, had overcome them. Their soul was something in the state of
   John, whom we described last Lord's-Day morning--"When I saw Him, I
   fell at His feet as dead." A sacred faintness overcomes my soul; I
   die--I die to prove the fullness of redeeming love, the love of Christ
   to me! Oh, these seasons! Talk not of feasts, you son of mirth! Tell us
   not of music, you who delight in melodious sound! Tell us not of wealth
   and rank, and honor, and the joys of victory. One hour with Christ is
   worth an eternity of all earth's joys! May I but see Him;may I but see
   His face; but behold His beauties--come winds, blow away all earthly
   joys I have--this joy shall well content my soul! Let the hot sun of
   tribulation dry up all the brooks; this fresh spring shall fill my cup
   full to the brim--yes, it shall make a river of delight, wherein my
   soul shall bathe! To be with Christ on earth is the best, the surest,
   the most ecstatic foretaste and earnest of the joys of Heaven! Do not
   forget this, Christian! If you have ever known Christ, Heaven is yours;
   and when you have enjoyed Christ, you have learned a little of what the
   bliss of futurity shall be!
   8. I do not doubt, also, that on dying beds men get foretastes of
   Heaven which they never had in health. When Death begins to pull down
   the old clay house, he knocks away much of the plaster, and then the
   Light of God shines through the chinks. When he comes to deal with our
   rough garment of clay, he pulls it to rags, first, and then it is we
   begin to get a better view of the robes of righteousness, the fair
   white linen of the saints with which we are always covered, though we
   know it not. The nearer to death, the nearer to Heaven, says the
   Believer! The more sick, the nearer he is to health; the darkest part
   of his night is, indeed, the dawning of the day--just when he shall
   think he dies--he shall begin to live! And when his flesh drops from
   him, then is he prepared to be clothed upon with his house which is
   from Heaven! Children of God in dying have said wonderful things which
   it were scarcely lawful for us to utter here. It needs the stillness of
   the robin--the solemn silence of the last hour--the failing eyes, the
   chinked utterances, the pale thin hands, to put a soul into their
   utterances. I remember when a Christian Brother, who had often preached
   the Gospel with me, was sorely sick and dying. He was suddenly smitten
   with blindness, which was a first monition of the approach of death,
   and he said to me--
   "And when you see my eye strings break, How sweet my moments roll; A
   mortal paleness on my cheek, But Glory in my soul."

   He said it with such emphasis, as a man who, but two or three minutes
   after, stood before his God, that I can never read those lines without
   feeling how well the poet must have foreseen a death like his! Yes,
   there are mystic syllables that have dropped from the lips of dying men
   that have been priceless pearls! There have been sights of Heaven seen
   in the midst of Jordan which these eyes cannot see until this breast
   shall be chilled in the dread and cold stream! All these things that we
   have mentioned are the fruits of "that Holy Spirit of promise, which is
   the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
   possession."

   II. A few minutes only--and, O God! Help us!--with all solemnity, I
   utter a few sentences upon THE BLACK REVERSE OF THE JOYOUS PICTURE I
   HAVE PRESENTED TO YOU.

   There is another world, for the wicked, as well as for the righteous.
   They who believe not in Christ are no more annihilated than those who
   do believe in Him. Immortality awaits us all. We die, but we die not.
   We live forever. And if we fear not God, that immortality is the most
   frightful curse that ever fell on creature--

   "To linger in eternal death, Yet death forever fly."

   Can we tell what that world of woe is? In vain do we talk to you about
   the pit of Hell that is bottomless, and the fire that never can be
   quenched, and the worm that dies not. These are but images, and images
   which are used so often that we fear they are almost threadbare in your
   estimation, and you will scarcely give an ear to them! Listen, then, if
   you are this day without God, and without Christ in the world. You have
   in yourself a few sparks of that eternal fire; you have already been
   singed by the vehement heat of that furnace which to some men has been
   so hot that even when they have passed it on earth, like
   Nebuchadnezzar's mighty men, they have fallen down, smitten by the heat
   thereof before they came within its flames! Ungodly, unconverted men
   have an uneasiness of spirit. They are never content; they need
   something. If they have that, they will need something more. They do
   not feel happy; they see through the amusements which the world
   presents to them; they are wise enough to see that they are hollow.
   They understand that the fair cheek is painted; they know that its
   beauty is but mere pretense. They are not befouled--God has awakened
   them! They are sensible enough to know that this world cannot fill a
   man's heart; they know that an immortal spirit is never to be satisfied
   with mortal joys. They are uneasy; they wish to kill time--it hangs
   heavy on their hands. They wish they could sleep 23 hours out of the
   four and twenty, or drink half the day. They try, if they cannot find
   some pleasure that may wake up their energies-- some new device, some
   novelty, even though it were novelty of sin--which might give a little
   excitement to a palate that has lost all power to be pleased.

   Now when a man gets into that uneasy state, he may make a guess of what
   Hell will be. It will be that uneasiness intensified, magnified to the
   extreme--to wander through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none,
   always thirsting, but never having a drop of water to cool that thirst.
   Hungering, but feeding upon wind and hungering still; longing,
   yearning, groaning sighing, conscious of misery, sensible of emptiness,
   feeling poverty but never getting anything whereby that poverty may be
   made rich, or that hunger may be stayed! Ah, you uneasy ones, may your
   uneasiness bring you to Christ! But unconverted men without Christ have
   another curse which is a sure foretaste to them of Hell. They are
   uneasy about death! I have my mind now upon a person who trembles like
   an aspen leaf during a thunderstorm; and I know another man who could
   bear a storm very well, but if there is the slightest thing the matter
   with him--if he has a cough, he fears his lungs are affected--if he
   feels a little hoarse, he is sure he will have bronchitis and die! And
   that thought of dying, he cannot bear; he will hear you talk about it
   and crack a joke over it merely for the sake of covering up his own
   dismay. He fancies you cannot see through him, but you can plainly
   discover that he is as afraid of dying as ever he can be. I know at
   this moment a family where the governess was instructed, when she took
   the job, to never mention the subject of death to the children, or else
   she would be instantly discharged. Oh, that fear of dying which haunts
   some men! Not when their blood boils, and they are excited--then they
   could rush to the cannon's mouth, but when they are cool and steady,
   and look at it--when it is not the sword's point, and Glory, but dying,
   mere dying-- then they shiver!

   Oh, how these strong men start and how they quail! Full many an infidel
   has recanted his infidelity then--given it all up when he has come to
   deal with the awful mysteries of death! But those already of death are
   but the foreshadows of that darker gloom which must gather round your
   spirit, unless you believe in Christ! With some men it has even gone
   further than this. When a man has long resisted the invitations of the
   Gospel, long gone from bad to worse, from sin to sin--a horror, an
   unspeakable horror--will seize hold upon him at times, especially if he
   is a man who is given to intoxication. Then a delirium will come upon
   him, mingled with a remorse, which will make his life intolerable! It
   has been my unhappy lot to see one or two such cases of persons who
   have been ill and have been vexed with fears--fears of a most hideous
   cast which I could not remove. You speak to them about Christ; they
   say, "What have I to do with Him? I have cursed Him hundreds of times."
   You speak to them about faith in Christ; "Faith in Christ," they say,
   "what is the use of that to me? I am past hope; I am given up and I do
   not care about it, either." And then they collapse--go back again into
   that dull despair which is the sure advance guard of damnation itself!
   With these men one may pray; they bid you pray forthem, and then they
   say. "Get up, Sir; it is of no use; God will never hear you for me."
   They will ask you to go home and pray; but assure you that it will be
   useless to do so. You read the Bible to them. "Don't read the
   Scriptures," they say, "every text cuts me to the quick, for I have
   neglected the Word of God. and all my time now is past." You tell them
   that--

   " While the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return."

   No, no, they cannot! You may tell them that there is hope--that Jesus
   Christ calls many at the eleventh hour--you picture to them the thief
   on the cross. No, no--they put far from them all hope and choose their
   own delusions--and perish.

   Now such men give the gravest picture of what Hell must be in these
   forebodings of the wrath to come. I saw one man, now in eternity, and
   where he is, God knows. I could not describe to you what I saw that day
   of him. He said he would not die--and walked up and down as long as
   there was life in him, under the notion, as he said, that if he could
   walk about, he knew he should not die. He would not die, he said. He
   would live, he must l ive. "I cannot die," he said, "for I must be
   damned if I die. I feel I must." And that poor wretch, sometimes giving
   ear to your admonitions, then cursing you to your face, bidding you
   pray and then blaspheming--dying with Hell commenced, with all the
   horrors of perdition just beginning--a sort of infant perdition
   strangling to be born within him! Oh, may God deliver you from ever
   knowing this vilest premonition of destruction! And how shall you be
   delivered, but by this? "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you
   shall be saved, for he who believes and is baptized shall be saved"--so
   says the Scripture--"He who believes not shall be damned." Trust Christ
   and you are saved, be you whom you may! Come to the foot of the Cross
   and cast yourself where His blood is dropping, and you are saved! Give
   your heart to Him; believe in Him; repose your confidence in Him!

   May the Spirit of God enable you to do this! May He help you to repent
   of sin, and having repented, may He bring you to Christ, as the sin
   Propitiator! And may you go away this day, saying, "I do believe in
   Christ. My soul rests in Him!" And if you can say that, the joy and
   peace in believing, which must follow a simple faith in Christ, shall
   be to you the work of "the Holy Spirit of promise, and the earnest of
   our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession."
     __________________________________________________________________

                        The Tabernacle--Outside The Camp

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 10, 1861, BY THE REV. C.
   H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "And Moses took the Tabernacle and pitched it outside the camp, afar
   off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation.
   And it came to pass, that everyone which sought the LORRD went out unto
   the Tabernacle of the congregation, which was outside the camp." Exodus
   33:7.

   I HAVE been somewhat perplexed in studying this text, for according to
   the book of Exodus, the Tabernacle--the Tabernacle strictly so
   called--did not exist at the time to which it refers. In the succeeding
   Chapters of this very Book, we have an account of the gifts which were
   made by the people for the construction of that Tabernacle, wherein God
   dwelt while the children of Israel abode in the wilderness. It seems to
   me, after looking at the various authorities upon the point, and
   considering the opinions of those who have well studied it, that when
   the children of Israel came out of Egypt there may have been some large
   tent constantly pitched in the center of the camp which had no Ark of
   the Covenant in it and probably no altar. The vessels and implements
   for the service of the sanctuary had not then been made. Not even had
   the pattern been seen by Moses in the holy mountain. The people may be
   considered to have been at that time under the Patriarchal dispensation
   which reaches on, if I understand Scripture aright, until the time of
   the giving of the Law and 40 days beyond that, really--for it was 40
   days after the giving of the Law, before the ceremonials of Levitical
   worship were thoroughly established. Moses was 40 days in the mountain
   receiving instruction as to how the future worship of God should be
   ordered; that worship had not then begun in all its glorious
   splendor--Aaron had not even been ordained a priest. The service of the
   Levitical dispensation awaited as yet those statutes and ordinances by
   which its observances were solemnly imposed. Previous to this, as I
   take it, there was a large tent in the center of the camp set apart for
   that worship which was common to Patriarchal times--for prayer, praise
   and burnt sacrifices. Now, here God dwelt in the midst of this
   Tabernacle. He was in the center of His people; His cloud overshadowed
   them by day, and kept off from their heads the burning heat; that cloud
   was like a luminous atmosphere above them by night, so that probably
   they could see by night as well as by day. God was in the midst of
   them--this was their glory and their boast. They had no strange God.
   The LORD Himself had made their camp the place for His feet, and
   glorious, indeed, it was! But while Moses had ascended to the
   mountaintop, the people, who were an unspiritual race, needed something
   that they could see. They needed some visible personification of that
   spiritual God whom they were unable to worship unless they sawHim in
   type and figure. So they said unto Aaron, "Up, make us gods that shall
   go before us!" They broke off their earrings and they fashioned there a
   golden calf, and they said, "These be your gods, O Israel, that brought
   you up out of the land of Egypt." I do not think that they meant to
   worship the calf, but they intended to worship Jehovah under the
   representation of a calf, for it is expressly said in the Word, "Then
   they proclaimed a feast unto Jehovah," which shows that even their
   dancing around the calf was but a human invention whereby they hoped to
   honor and to glorify Jehovah. But they vexed the Holy One unto anger,
   and they grieved His Holy Spirit so that He went forth from the midst
   of them. He would not acknowledge the camp any more as being the place
   where He could dwell.

   A voice might have been heard in Heaven, "Let Us go from here." The
   holy God could not abide any longer in the central spot of a camp so
   defiled by sin! The pillar of cloud moved and Moses bade the proper
   officers lift up the sacred tent--they carried it up the side of the
   hill--Justice was about to take away from the people the Presence of
   God, but Mercy stopped its march! Mercy seemed to say, "Though God
   cannot abide in the midst of the people, yet He will not go very far
   from them." So He stayed upon the hillside, and there was the
   Tabernacle pitched, afar off from the people, but not so far that they
   could know that God was there; not so far but that they who "sought the
   Lord" might reach the

   Tabernacle at an easy distance. This, I say was intended to teach the
   people that God did not recognize their camp as being any longer His
   dwelling place, because human invention had stained His worship and
   laid His honor in the dust.

   What use are we to make of this very significant incident? Give heed,
   Brothers and Sisters, I beseech you. This is just the position, I take
   it, of God's Tabernacle at the present hour. They who seek the Lord
   must go out from the camp, and from the congregation, and if they would
   commune with the Most High, they cannot do it in the camps of even the
   religious and professing world. They must, like the Master, go forth
   outside the camp bearing His reproach. The day will come in which we
   shall be able to have fellowship with God in the camp; when the
   Tabernacle of the Lord shall be among men, and He shall dwell among
   them; but that time is not yet. Now His Tabernacle is out of the camp,
   and away from men. Those who would follow Him must be separate, must
   come out from the masses, must be distinct and set apart in order to be
   recognized as the sons and the daughters of the Lord God Almighty.

   There are three points upon which I shall enlarge this morning. The
   first will be that outside the camp is the place for true seekers of
   God. Secondly, that this going forth from the camp will involve some
   considerable inconvenience. And thirdly, I shall earnestly exhort you,
   as God shall help me, if you are seeking God, to take care that you go
   outside the camp, afar off from the camp according to His Word.

   I. First, then, they who seek the Lord must, at this day, as in the
   time of the narrative we have just read, GO OUTSIDE THE CAMP.

   It is scarcely necessary for me to say that no man can be a true seeker
   of God who has anything to do with the camp of the profane. We must
   take care that our garments are entirely clean from those lusts of the
   flesh, and those blasphemies of the ungodly. It will be impossible for
   you, O Seeker, ever to have communion with God while you have
   fellowship with Belial! You can not go to the synagogue of Satan, and
   to the synagogue of God at the same time; you will be an arrant fool if
   you shall attempt it; you will be mad if you shall persevere in the
   attempt; you will he something more than lost if you desire to be saved
   while you continue in so estranged a state! God will not allow us to do
   as the old Saxon king did who set up his old gods in one part of the
   church, and hung up the crucifix in another, hoping that by having two
   strings to his bow, he might make sure he was safe. Other religions may
   be tolerant, but the religion of Christ knows no tolerance with regard
   to error! Before God's Ark, Dagon must fall. Dagon may be content for
   God's Ark to stand, if he may stand, too--but the Ark of God knows of
   nothing but an absolute Supreme for itself, and a total destruction of
   all other gods. Either you must serve God or nothing; no compromise
   must be attempted--it will be considered as an audacious blasphemy of
   God! Come out, then, if you would be saved--come out from the herd of
   sinners; leave the godless and the Christless generation, for in that
   camp there will be no possibility of fellowship with God!

   Again--we must as much come out from the camp of the careless, as from
   the camp of the profane. The largest company in the world is not that
   of the profane, but of the thoughtless--not those who oppose, but those
   who neglect the great salvation. For every man who is openly an
   antagonist of Truth, there are probably a thousand men who care neither
   for Truth nor error! The Sadducees still remain a very numerous
   body--men who are content to live as they like, holding really and
   secretly within them, certain evil thoughts, but still willing to go
   with the crowd, and to be numbered with the followers of Christ. Ah, if
   you would see the face of God, my Hearer, them come out from among the
   giddy, thoughtless throng! It is not possible for you to worship Him
   who bore the Cross, while you shall be mingling in the amusements of
   the world, and toying with the charms of the flesh! Come out from among
   them--be not numbered with them--let your conduct and conversation
   distinguish you at once from them! Let it be seen that you, also, are
   with Jesus of Nazareth. Let none mistake you for a mere bystander, a
   simple looker-on, but let all know that you are one of His disciples
   because your speech betrays you! Oh, I do again repeat it--let none
   think that in the camp of the negligent, the thoughtless, those who
   count it enough to be moral before man, but who never think of God--let
   none think that salvation is to be found there!

   But we must go further than this--if a man would have fellowship with
   God, he must go even out of the camp of the merely steady, sedate, and
   thoughtful, for there are multitudes whose thoughts are not God's
   thoughts, and whose ways are not His ways, who are in every respect
   conformed outwardly to the Laws of God. They rigidly observe the
   customs of upright society--they think, and therefore abhor the trifles
   of the world--they sit down, and meditate, and therefore understand the
   hollowness of this present life, but who, notwithstanding, have never
   learned to set their affections on things above. Though they are not as
   foolish as to think that the shadows of this world are a substance, yet
   have they never sought eternal realities. You must come out from these,
   for unless your righteousness exceeds theirs, you shall not be saved!
   Unless there shall be something more in you than in the merely steady,
   respectable and outwardly moral, you shall never know the
   peace-speaking blood of Christ, nor enter into the "rest which remains
   for the people of God." Up! Get away from them! It is not enough to
   leave the Amalekites--you must leave even the hosts of Moab--brother
   though Moab may seem to be to the Israel of God!

   We must draw yet another line, more marked and distinct than this. He
   who would know anything of God aright must even come out of the camp of
   the merely religious. Look at them--how they go to their church. What
   for? Frequently to show their finery, and often to be seen of their
   friends. Look how many o to chapel. And what for? It is their custom;
   it is their habit! They sing as God's people sing; they appear to take
   a holy delight in the worship of the Most High; they bow as God's
   people bow when they pray--they do more--they sit at the Lord's Table,
   and appear to know somewhat of the joy which that ordinance affords!
   They come to Baptism; they pass through the stream, and yet in how many
   cases they have a name to live and are dead? Oh, it is one thing to
   attend to religion, but another thing to be in Christ Jesus! It is one
   thing to have the name upon the church rolls, but quite another thing
   to have it written in the Lamb's Book of Life! There is not a church
   under Heaven that is quite pure; with all our care, with all our
   industry, and watchfulness, we cannot prevent the sad fact! Hypocrites
   will mingle with the sincere, and the tares will be sown with the
   wheat--so I suppose it must be, till the reapers come and gather the
   tares in bundles to burn. I pray you let none of you think that you
   have taken out a patent for Heaven when you have made a profession of
   your faith in Christ! That profession may be a lie! The conduct which
   springs from it may be but the result of custom. Except a man be born
   of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God!
   "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." And only "that which is
   born of the Spirit is spirit." Do you believe that one-tenth of the
   religion you see about you is sincere? What do we say, then, to the
   fact that when investigation has been made as to articles sold at
   shops, there is scarcely a single article in any trade which is not
   found to be adulterated? Why is this? If it were only some men who did
   this, and they were notorious, we might flatter ourselves that
   Christians are surely clear. But what if it grows into a custom? When
   the fact comes out that in the most cases our articles of food are
   shamefully mixed, and that with poisonous ingredients in some
   instances, what are we to say? Can that religion which spreads over
   London--which seems to be adopted by almost everybody-- can that be
   sound while it allows this thing to go on under its cover? And have you
   not remarked the course of business? How often you must have noticed
   "astounding failures," and that, too, of men professedly religious! Do
   you not sometimes see the most shameful fraudulent bankruptcies, and
   these are perpetrated by men who have occupied your pews and listened
   to your ministry?

   What does this teach us but that there is more glitter than there is
   gold, and that there may be much varnish and much paint where there is
   but little of the sound material of Divine Grace? Oh, Sirs, if half the
   religion of England were true religion, we should not be such a people
   as we now are! Give us but one man out of three of those who profess to
   be followers of Christ, sincerelyHis and thoroughlyHis, and how changed
   would this empire become, and what a different face would all the
   commercial relations of life bear to the eyes even of outward
   observers! There is, it must be confessed, much delusion! I believe
   there is more sound godliness in England than ever there was since she
   was a nation--but yet as in the rolling of every chariot, there is a
   cloud of dust, so is there mixed up with the advance of the Savior's
   Kingdom, that rolling cloud of dust--hypocrisy and vain pretense. Let
   us take heed to ourselves, then, that we go forth outside the camp;
   that we are distinguished and separated, not merely from the
   irreligious, but from the religious, too--that we are as separate even
   from the nominal church, as we are from that people who profess not to
   know the Lord and are therefore cursed!

   Here I am stopped by the question, But in what respect is a Christian
   to come out from all these, and more especially to come out from the
   mere professors? I will tell you, Brothers and Sisters. There is
   occasion enough just now for the watchman to sound the notes of warning
   in your ears. The reasons why the nominal Church at the present time is
   not the place where the Tabernacle is pitched, is that the Church has
   adulterated the worship of God by the addition of human ceremonies. I
   shall not stay to indicate them, but I believe there is a great
   proportion of the worship of Christians in these days which is not
   warranted by the Word of God. We have made an advance beyond its plain
   letter, and have added to the pure Word of God, inventions of our own.
   Now, in coming out from the Church, we must leave all ceremonies behind
   us which are not absolutely taught in the Scriptures! We must shake our
   garments of every performance, however fair and admirable it may look,
   unless it has strictly the letter of Divine Inspiration to warrant it.
   Having done this in a Church capacity, we must then come out from all
   the doctrines of the church which are not strictly Scriptural. We must
   leave behind us the dogmas of our creeds, if the creeds are not
   consistent with the Word of God; we must dare to bear our testimony
   against all false teaching; we must take care that we share none of the
   blame of those men who keep back a part of God's Word, and therefore
   mar their ministry, and spoil its effect upon their hearers. We must
   come out from all the practices of the Church which are not in
   accordance with God's Word! We must never plead the precedent of godly
   men for any act or thought which God Himself has not enjoined. Come
   right out! You have nothing to do with what even a Christian might
   tolerate; you are to come straight out from the camp, and taking heed
   that you swerve not to the right hand or to the left, "follow the Lamb
   wherever He goes."

   Take care, too, that you are not actuated by the motives of the nominal
   Christian. Many nominal Christians have, as the motives of their lives,
   the maintaining of appearance--the keeping up of the respectable sham
   of godliness. Your conversation must be in Heaven; your motive must be
   derived from Heaven, and your life must be, not in profession, but in
   reality, "a life of faith upon the Son of God who loved you and gave
   Himself for you." In conclusion, if you would have true fellowship with
   Christ, you must come out from the camp and be devoted--your whole
   spirit, soul and body-- entirely in the Lord's strength, perpetually
   and continually to His service! You must say what many say with the
   lips, but what few can really feel in the heart, "For me to live is
   Christ, and to die is gain." Nothing short of this will be a true
   coming out of the camp! Nothing but this will give you that near and
   intimate relationship and communion with God after which every
   Believer's soul is panting, and without which it cannot find repose!

   II. Having thus tried briefly to describe the Truth that outside of the
   camp is the place for seekers of God, I shall now take the second
   point--THIS GOING OUT OF THE CAMP WILL INVOLVE MUCH INCONVENIENCE.

   Some try to get over the inconvenience in the way Joshua did. They
   think they will come out of the camp altogether and live in the
   Tabernacle, and then there will be no difficulty. You know there are
   many pious minds, a little overheated with imagination, who think that
   if they never mix with the world, they could be holy. No doubt they
   would like to have a building erected in which they could live and pray
   and sing all day and never go to work, nor have anything at all to do
   with buying and selling. Thus they think by going outside the camp,
   they would become the people of God. In this, however, they mistake the
   objective of the Christian religion--"I pray not that You should take
   them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the Evil
   One." That were an easy, lazy subterfuge for getting rid of the hard
   task of having to fight for Christ--to go out of the battle in order
   that you may win the victory is a strange method, indeed, of seeking to
   come off "more than conquerors!" No, no, we must be prepared like
   Moses, to go into the camp and to come outof it--always to come out of
   it when we seek fellowship with God--but still to be in it; to be mixed
   up with it; to be in the midst of it doing the common acts of man, and
   yet never being tainted by its infection; and never having the spirit
   troubled by that will and evil which is so rampant there. I counsel
   you, not that you should come out of the world, but that being in it,
   you should be so distinctly not of it that all men may see that you
   worship the Father outside the camp of their common association, and
   their carnal worship.

   This will involve many inconveniences. One stands on the outset. You
   will find that your diffidence and your modesty will sometimes shrink
   from the performance of duty's stern commands. If you follow Christ,
   you must confess Him. The Master desires to have no secret disciples;
   if Christ is worth anything, He is worth confessing boldly before the
   world, before angels and before devils! "Whoever therefore shall be
   ashamed of Me, and of My Words in this adulterous and pitiful
   generation; of Him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed when He comes
   in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." You must be able to
   say emphatically, "I am not ashamed to avow that my heart is given to
   Jesus the Crucified. As He espoused my cause publicly before a gazing
   world, so I espouse His. His Cross have I taken, all else to leave, if
   it is necessary that I may follow Him. He is my Lord, to Him I will
   submit; He is my Trust, on Him I lean; He is my Hope, for Him I look."
   Do not try the plan which some are attempting--of being Christians in
   the dark. Put on Christ. You know how the promise is made, "He who
   believes and is baptized shall be saved." Do not shrink from the second
   part of the command. If you have believed, profess your faith in
   Baptism; be not ashamed of your Lord and Master. Know you not that the
   Lord has said, "He who with his heart believes, and with his mouth
   confesses, shall be saved"? You must make a public confession! I know
   there is no merit in the confession, but still, is it not right?--is it
   not reasonable? How can you expect the blessing of God if you do not
   what Christ tells you, and do it not asChrist tells you? Come out; wear

   His badge; bear His name and say to the sons of men, "Let others do as
   they will, as for me and my house, we will, we must serve the Lord."

   When you have got over that difficulty--when your reserve has given
   place to a good confession, and you appear upon the stage of action,
   you will find that then your trouble really begins! Perhaps when you go
   outside the camp you will lose some of your best friends. Perhaps your
   mother may say she would not mind your serving Christ, but she wishes
   that you belonged to her denomination, while you feel that if you serve
   Christ at all, you must go just where He would have you go, and carry
   out to the letter all His will. Some of your dearest companions may
   say. "Well, if you turn religious, certainly our acquaintance must
   cease; we should never agree, and therefore we had better part." And
   some with whom you have to live, will day after day put you to a sort
   of martyrdom before a slow fire by giving you the trial of cruel
   ridicule; you will find that many a tie has to be cut when your soul is
   bound with cords to the horns of the altar. Can you do it? As Christ
   left His Father for you, can you leave all for Him? Do you know that
   text and is it terrible to you-- "If a man loves father and mother more
   than Me, he is not worthy of Me, and if a man loves son or daughter
   more than Me, he is not worthy of Me"? Are you ready to carry out your
   convictions, come what may? Should you turn back, would that be to rely
   upon the promise which David uttered--"When my father and mother
   forsake me, then the Lord shall take me up"? You are not fit to be a
   disciple of Christ if you cannot take the like of this into the cost of
   following your Savior, and estimate it as a light affliction compared
   with the eternal weight of Glory which shall be given to them who
   faithfully serve Him, and fully avow themselves His, when others would
   turn them aside!

   You will find, too, when you go outside the camp, you will have some
   even professedly godly people against you. It is one of the sorest
   trials that I know of in the Christian life to have godly men,
   themselves, censure you. "Ah," they will say, when you are filled with
   the Spirit, and are anxious to serve God as Caleb did, with all your
   heart--"Ah, young Man, that is fanaticism, and it will grow cool,
   by-and-bye." When you are called to some good work for your fellow men,
   they will tell you, "That is too bold a deed; too daring an act of
   enthusiasm." To say--"Whether any will follow me or not, here I go
   straight to battle and to victory"--this is the prowess of faith, and
   Christ requires it of every one of you! The godly will follow you,
   by-and-by, when you succeed, but you must be prepared to go without
   them sometimes. Look at young David. He knows that he is called to
   fight with Goliath, but his brothers say, "Because of your pride and
   the naughtiness of your heart to see the battle, have you come." But
   David cares not; he brings back the bloody head of the giant, and there
   is his refutation of their slander! You do the same. Be prepared to
   meet with cold-hearted Christians; you will have to stand alone and
   bear their sneer as well as the sneer of the world; you will have to
   endure their "judicious" remarks, and bear their sage cautions, and
   their serious suggestions against your being too bold and too hot. Let
   none of these things dismay you! Do your Master's will and do it
   thoroughly! Go the whole way with your Lord and Master, and you shall
   come to be had in reverence of them who sit at the table with you.

   There is another inconvenience to which you will most surely be
   exposed, namely, that you will be falsely charged. Some will say, "You
   make too much of non-essentials." That is a thing I frequently
   hear--non-essentials! There are certain things in Scripture, they tell
   us, that are non-essentials, and therefore they are not to be taken any
   notice of. Doctrinal views, and the Baptism of Believers, for
   instance--these are non-essential to salvation, and therefore, is the
   inference which follows according to the theory of some--we may be very
   careless about them! Do you know, Believer in Christ, that you are a
   servant? And what would you think if a servant should first wittingly
   neglect her duty, and then come to you and tell you that it is
   non-essential? If she should not light the fire tomorrow morning, and
   when you came down, she were to say, "Well, Sir, it is non-essential;
   you won't die though the fire is not lit"--or if, when she spread the
   breakfast, there was no provision there but a crust of bread, and
   nothing for you to drink; what if she should say, "Well, Sir, it is
   non-essential, you know? There is a glass of water for you and a piece
   of bread--the rest is non-essential." If you came home and found that
   the rooms had never been swept, and the dust was upon them, or that the
   bed had not been made, and that you could not take an easy night's
   rest, and the servant should say, "Oh, it is non-essential, Sir; it is
   quite nonessential." I think you would find it to be non-essential for
   you to keep her any longer, but extremely essential that you should
   discharge her! And what shall we say of those men who put aside the
   words of Christ, and say, "His precepts are quite non-essential"? Why,
   I think because they are non-essential, they therefore become the test
   of your obedience! If you could be saved by them, and if they were
   necessary to your salvation, your selfishness would lead you to observe
   them; but inasmuch as they are not necessary to your salvation, they
   become tests of your willingness to obey Christ!

   If the Lord had left a record in His Word--"He who believes and picks
   up a pebble stone shall be saved," I dare not neglect to pick up the
   pebble stone! And if I found that in Holy Scripture there were
   doctrines even of less value than the great points of our Christian
   religion, I should still think it were my duty to bow my judgment, and
   to turn my intellect to the reception of God's Truth just as God sent
   it forth! That idea about non-essentials is wicked and rebellious! Cast
   it from you! Go outside the camp; be particular in every point. To the
   tiniest jot and tittle, seek to obey your Master's will and seek His
   Grace that you may walk in the way of His Commandments with a perfect
   heart. But then, if you do walk according to this rule, others will
   say, "You are so bigoted." Thus reply to them--"I am very bigoted over
   myself, but I never claim any authority over you. To your own Master
   you stand or fall, and I do the same." If it is bigotry to hold
   decisive views about God's Truth, and to be obedient in every
   particular, as far as God the Spirit has taught me--if that is
   bigotry--all hail bigotry! Most hallowed thing! The thing called
   bigotry is that which inclines one man to bind another's conscience;
   the duty of all men is truly the same. But then I must not make my
   conscience the standard for another. It must be the standard for
   myself, and Iam not to violate it--"He who knows his Master's will and
   does it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." Take heed, therefore,
   that you do His will when you know it. But if another, not knowing His
   will, should reprove you, be ready to give an answer to him that speaks
   to you with meekness. But be not harsh with any man. You are not his
   master! Be not stern with those who differ from you, for you are not
   made the judge of mankind. You are not arbiter of right and wrong.
   Leave others to be as conscientious as yourself, and believe that a
   Christian, though he may differ from you, is as much sincere in his
   difference as you are in your dissent from him. Yet be careful that no
   unhallowed charity compel you to lay down the weapons of your warfare;
   be careful that Satan does not deceive you, and make you charitable to
   yourself. Be charitable towards every other man, but never to yourself!
   Forgive every other man the injuries that he does, but forgive not
   yourself! Weep, lament and sigh before God, and so may He always help
   you thus to go forth outside the camp.

   With one other remark I will leave this point about the inconveniences.
   If you follow Christ and come outside the camp, you must expect to be
   watched. I have frequently noticed that when a member of our Church
   does anything wrong, people will say, "There is your religion--a
   horrible thing!" If a person who scrupulously goes to church, but
   swears, nobody thinks anything of it; but if he is a Dissenter--"Oh, it
   is horrible!" Well, so it is, I admit. But it shows that people expect
   those who dissent to be better than those who do not! I only wish their
   expectation could always be fulfilled. If you profess to go outside the
   camp, others will look for something extra in you--mind that they are
   not disappointed. They oughtto expect it, and I am glad they do expect
   it. I have heard some say, "I do not want to join the church because
   then there would be so much expected of me." Just so, and that is the
   very reason why you should--because their expectation will be a sort of
   sacred clog to you when you are tempted and may help to give impetus to
   your character and carefulness to your walk--when you know that you are
   looked upon by the eyes of men. I wish to have the members of this
   Church carefully watched by the ungodly. If you catch them tripping,
   notice it. If you see them going into sin, let it be spoken of. God
   forbid we should wish to conceal it! Let it come out. If we are not
   what we profess to be, the sooner we are unmasked the better; only do
   judge us fairly; do judge the life of a professing Christian honestly.
   Do not expect perfection of him! He does not profess to be perfect, but
   he does desire to try to keep his Master's Law, and to do to others as
   he would they should do to him.

   We would not say to the world, "Shut your eyes." The eyes of the world
   are intended to be checks upon the Church. The world is the black dog
   that wakes up Christ's slumbering sheep--yes, and sometimes hunts them
   into the fold when otherwise they would be wandering upon the
   mountains! Expect to be watched, Christian! In the day when you say, "I
   will go outside the camp to follow Christ," expect to be
   misrepresented; expect that the dogs of this world will bark at you.
   They always bark at a stranger, and if you are a stranger and a
   foreigner, they will bark at you. Expect, too, that they will watch
   your little slips, so let that be a check to you and make you pray each
   moment, "Lord, hold me up and I shall be safe." I would that there
   could be trained in all our Churches and places of worship, a race of
   men and women who would be really distinct--as much distinct from the
   professing church at large, as that church is from the ungodly world
   itself.

   III. Now I come to use certain arguments by which I desire EARNESTLY TO
   PERSUADE EACH CHRISTIAN HERE TO GO OUTSIDE THE CAMP, TO BE EXACT IN HIS
   OBEDIENCE, AND TO BE PRECISE IN HIS FOLLOWING THE LAMB WHEREVER HE
   GOES.

   I use first a selfish argument--it is to do it for your own comfort's
   sake. If a Christian can be saved while he conforms to this world, at
   any rate he will be saved so as by fire. Would you like to go to Heaven
   in the dark, and enter there as a shipwrecked mariner climbs the rocks
   of his native country? Then be worldly; be mixed up with the people and
   remain in the camp. But would you have a Heaven below as well as a
   Heaven above? Would you comprehend with all saints what are the heights
   and depths, and know the love of Christ which passes knowledge? And
   would you have an abundant entrance into the joy of your Lord? Then
   come out from among them, and be separate, and touch not the unclean
   thing! There are many professors, and I trust they are true Christians,
   too, who are very unhappy--and generally it is because they are worldly
   Christians. Oh, we have some members of our Church, I trust they are
   saved, but you know they are as money-getting, and as money-keeping as
   any men whose portion is in this life! They seem to give as much of
   their whole force to the world as ever a worldling can, and then they
   wonder why they are not happy! Why, they have laid up much of their
   treasure on earth, and the moth has got at it and the rust has
   corrupted it, and what wonder? Had they put their treasure wholly in
   Heaven, no moth or rust would ever have consumed it. It is our
   unspiritualheart that makes our misery. If we were more Christ-like, we
   would have more of Christ's Presence, and more of that peace of God
   which passes understanding. For your own comfort's sake, if you are a
   Christian, be a Christian and be a marked and distinct one-- distinct
   even from the church at large itself!

   But I have a better reason than that, and it is for your own growth in
   Grace do it. If you would have much faith, you cannot have much faith
   while you are mixed with sinners. If you would have much love, your
   love cannot grow while you mingle with the ungodly. You may be a babe
   in Grace, but you never can be a perfect man or woman in Christ Jesus
   while you have anything to do with the worldly maxims, and business and
   cares of this life. I do not mean while you have to do with them in a
   right way, but while you mix yourself up with them, and are operated
   upon by them so as to turn aside from that straight line in which it is
   the Christian's duty to walk! Little stones in the shoe make a
   traveler's walk very uncomfortable, and some of these little practices
   and little sins, as some call them, will make your path to Heaven very
   unhappy! You will very seldom be able to run in God's ways--you will be
   a mere creeper! It will be a long while before you will bear the image
   of Him who created you; you will be a marred vessel--perhaps a vessel
   meant for honor--but marred upon the wheel--notwithstanding that by
   your mixing up with the customs of the world and going with the worldly
   church and with the multitude to do evil.

   But let me put it to you in another way. I beseech you Christian men
   and women, come right out and be your Master's soldiers wholly for the
   Church'ssake!It is the few men in the Church, and those who have been
   distinct from her, who have saved the Church in all times. Who saved
   the Church in the days of the Reformation? It was not the good men who
   were in the midst of the Church of Rome! There were very many humble
   curates in villages, and priests here and there, who were doing their
   best, I believe, to teach the Truth of God. But these men never saved
   the Church of Christ. She would have gone to ruin for all they did for
   her. It was Luther, and Calvin, and Zwingli who came right out and
   said, "No, we will have nothing to do with anti-Christ!" Who saved the
   Church a hundred years ago? Why, I dare to say, it was not those
   excellent men who in their own places of worship were pursuing their
   holy calling, but it was those who were first called
   Methodists--Whitefield and Wesley--the men who said, "This cold age
   will never do; in this absence of the Spirit of God, there can never be
   a time of blessing to the Church." It was men looked upon as fanatics,
   enthusiasts and heretics who ought to be excommunicated. They came
   right out as distinct men; as if they were the particular stars of the
   sky, and they alone cleft the darkness! So must it be with us. There
   must be some among us who care nothing for this world--who dash worldly
   laws and customs to the ground, and in the name of God and His
   Church--and in Truth are prepared--though we may be embarrassed and
   hindered by what is called public opinion--to defy public opinion and
   do the right and the true, come what may! And you, too, in your life
   must do what God's ministers must do both with tongue and life. If the
   Church is to be saved, it is not by men in her, but by the men who seem
   to go out even from her to bear Christ's reproach, and do Him service
   outside the camp.

   And for the world's sake, let me beg you to do thus. Let the Church
   become more and more adulterated with world-liness; let her Christians
   become more and more conformed to the world; let her lords be cowed
   down under the bondage and tyranny of worldliness, and what will the
   Church be worth, and what will the world do? Her salt will have lost
   its savor, and then the world must rot and putrefy! The Church itself
   can never be the salt of the world unless there are some particular men
   who are the salt of the Church! Do you then come out! Be singularly
   exact in your obedience to Christ; be scrupulously observant of all
   that He commands; be you distinct from the professing world, and so
   shall you bless the world through the Church!

   And now lastly, for your Master's sake. What have you and I to do in
   the camp when He was driven from it? What have we to do with hosannas
   when He was followed with hootings, "Crucify Him, crucify Him"? What
   have I to do in the tent while my Captain lies in the open battlefield?
   What have we to do to dwell in our ceiled houses, and to be peaceful,
   and to have the smile of men, while Jesus is hounded to His death and
   nailed to the accursed Cross? By the wounds of Christ, Christian, I
   beseech you, mortify the flesh with its affections and lusts; by Him
   who came unto His own, and His own received Him not, expect not to be
   received even by your own; by Him who was the Heir, and of whom they
   said "Let us kill Him," I pray you expect the same treatment from the
   same world! "Shall the servant be above his Master, or the disciple
   above his Lord?" If they call the Master of the house, Beelzebub, what
   should they say of the servant? Are you prepared for silken ease when
   your Master fought to win the crown? Did He die to save you, and will
   you not be willing to die to serve Him? Again I ask it--what have you
   to do with making love to that world which put Him to death? Dare you
   hold a parley with the enemy against whom you are sworn to fight? What?
   Will you be coward enough to ask for peace at the hands of the foe who
   has reddened himself with Jesus' blood? In the name of God and of His
   Son, cast down your gauntlet, draw your sword, and throw away its
   scabbard! The world was never friends with the man that was a friend to
   Christ! You cannot possibly have its friendship, and smile, and have
   the fellowship and smile of God, too! Make your choice, Christian! Make
   your choice now. Which shall it be--the world or Christ? It cannot be
   both! Which will you have? Will you be called a right good man, or will
   you be hissed and pointed at? Will you wear a fool's cap and a fool's
   coat, and go to Heaven, or wear a wise man's gown and go to Hell? Will
   you wear a thorny crown to be saved, or a golden crown and be lost?
   Make your choice, Christians, for one of these two things it must come
   to! God help us now to say, in the name of Him by whose merit and blood
   we have been saved--"I do this day take Christ to be my Lord, and come
   fair or foul--

   "Through floods and flames, if Jesus leads, I'll follow where He goes."

   So be it! So be it, for Christ's sake--that while saved by faith in
   Jesus--we may prove our faith by never shrinking from the trial which
   that faith necessarily involves! The Lord bless you, for Jesus' sake.
     __________________________________________________________________

                           The New Park Street Pulpit

   ADOPTION

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY EVENING FEBRUARY 10, 1861, BY THE REV. C.
   H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ
   to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." Ephesians 1:5.

   It is at once a Doctrine of Scripture and of common sense, that
   whatever God does in time He predestined to do in eternity. Some men
   find fault with Divine Predestination and challenge the justice of
   eternal decrees. Now if they remember that predestination is the
   counterfoil of history, as an architectural plan--the carrying out of
   which we read in the facts that happen--they may perhaps obtain a
   slight clue to the unreasonableness of their hostility. I never heard
   anyone among professors wantonly and willfully find fault with God's
   dealings, yet I have heard some who would even dare to call in question
   the equity of His counsels. If the thing itself is right, it must be
   right that God intended to do the thing. If you find no fault with
   facts, as you see them in Providence, you have no ground to complain of
   decrees, as you find them in predestination--for the decrees and the
   facts are just the counterparts, one of the other! Have you any reason
   to find fault with God, that He has been pleased to save you and save
   me? Then why should you find fault because Scripture says he
   predetermined that He would save us? I cannot see, if the fact itself
   is agreeable, why the decree should be objectionable! I can see no
   reason why you should find fault with God's foreordination if you do
   not find fault with what actually happens as the effect of it. Let a
   man but agree to acknowledge an act of Providence, and I need to know
   how he can, except he runs in the very teeth of Providence, find any
   fault with the predestination or intention that God made concerning
   that Providence. Will you blame me for preaching, this morning? Suppose
   you answer, No. Then can you blame me that I formed a resolution last
   night that I would preach? Will you blame me for preaching on this
   particular subject? Do, if you please, then, and find me guilty for
   intending to do so; but if you say I am perfectly right in selecting
   such a subject, how can you say I was not perfectly right in intending
   to preach upon it? Assuredly you cannot find fault with God's
   predestination if you do not find fault with the effects that
   immediately spring from it! Now we are taught in Scripture, I affirm
   again, that all things that God chose to do in time, were most
   certainly intended by Him to be done in eternity, and He predestined
   such things should be done. If I am called, I believe God intended
   before all worlds that I should be called; if in His mercy He has
   regenerated me, I believe that from all eternity He intended to
   regenerate me! And if in His loving kindness He shall at last perfect
   me and carry me to Heaven, I believe it always was His intention to do
   so. If you cannot find fault with the thing, itself, that God does, in
   the name of reason, common sense, and Scripture, how dare you find
   fault with God's intention to do it?

   But there are one or two acts of God which, while they certainly are
   decreed as much as other things, yet they bear such a special relation
   to God's Predestination, that it is rather difficult to say whether
   they were done in eternity or whether they were done in time. Election
   is one of those things which was done absolutely in eternity; all who
   were elect, were elect as much in eternity as they are in time. But you
   may say, Does the same affirmation apply to adoption or justification.
   My late eminent and now glorified predecessor, Dr. Gill, diligently
   studying these Doctrines, said that adoption was the act of God in
   eternity, and that as all Believers were elect in eternity, so beyond a
   doubt they were adopted in eternity. He went further than that to
   include the Doctrine of Justification, and he said that inasmuch as
   Jesus Christ was before all worlds justified by His Father, and
   accepted by Him as our Representative, therefore all the elect must
   have been justified in Christ from before all worlds! Now I believe
   there is a great deal of truth in what he said, though there was a
   considerable outcry raised against him at the time he first uttered it.
   However, that being a high and mysterious point, we would have you
   accept the Doctrine that all those who are saved, at last, were elect
   in eternity when the means as well as the end were determined. With
   regard to adoption, I believe we were predestined hereunto in eternity,
   but I think there are some points with regard to adoption which will
   not allow me to consider the act of adoption to have been completed in
   eternity. For instance, the positive translation of my soul from a
   state of nature into a state of Grace is a part of adoption, or at
   least it is an effect of it, and so close an effect that it really
   seems to be a part of adoption, itself--I believe that this was
   designed, and in fact that it was virtually carried out in God's
   Everlasting Covenant. I think that it was then actually brought to pass
   in all its fullness.

   So with regard to justification, I must hold that in the moment when
   Jesus Christ paid my debts, my debts were cancelled--in the hour when
   He worked out for me a perfect righteousness, it was imputed to me, and
   therefore I may, as a Believer say I was complete in Christ before I
   was born--accepted in Jesus, even as Levi was blessed in the loins of
   Abraham by Melchisedek. But I know likewise that justification is
   described in the Scriptures as passing upon me at the time I believe.
   "Being justified by faith," I am told, "I have peace with God, through
   Jesus Christ." I think, therefore, that adoption and justification,
   while they have a very great alliance with eternity, and were virtually
   done then, yet have both of them such a near relation to us in time,
   and such a bearing upon our own personal standing and character, that
   they have also a part and parcel of themselves actually carried out and
   performed in time in the heart of every Believer. I may be wrong in
   this exposition. It requires much more time to study this subject than
   I have been able yet to give to it seeing that my years are not yet
   many. I shall no doubt, by degrees, come to the knowledge more fully of
   such high and mysterious points of Gospel Doctrine. But nevertheless,
   while I find the majority of sound divines holding that the works
   ofjustification and adoption are due in our lives, I see, on the other
   hand, in Scripture much to lead me to believe that both of them were
   done in eternity. And I think the fairest view of the case is that
   while they were virtually done in eternity, yet both adoption and
   justification are actually passed upon us in our proper persons,
   consciences and experiences, in time--so that both the Westminster
   confession and the idea of Dr. Gill can be proved to be Scriptural. We
   may hold them both without any prejudice, the one to the other.

   Well now, Beloved, leaving then the predestination, let us come to as
   full a consideration as the hour shall enable us to give of the
   Doctrine of "the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself;
   according to the good pleasure of His will."

   First, then, adoption--the Grace of God displayed in it Secondly,
   adoption--the privileges which it brings. Thirdly, adoption--the duties
   which it necessarily places upon every adopted child.

   I. First, ADOPTION--THE GRACE OF IT.

   Adoption is that act of God whereby men who were by nature the children
   of wrath, even as others, and were of the lost and ruined family of
   Adam, are from no reason in themselves, but entirely of the pure Grace
   of God, translated out of the evil and black family of Satan, and
   brought actually and virtually into the family of God. They take His
   name, share the privileges of sorts, and they are to all intents and
   purposes the actual offspring and children of God!

   This is an act of pure Grace. No man can ever have a right, in himself,
   to become adopted. If I had, then I should receive the inheritance in
   my own right--but inasmuch as I have no right whatever to be a child of
   God, and can by no possibility claim so high a privilege in and of
   myself, adoption is the pure gratuitous effect of Divine Grace, and of
   that alone. I could suppose that justification might be by works under
   the Old Covenant, but I could not suppose adoption to be under the Old
   Covenant at all! I could imagine a man keeping the Law of God
   perfectly, and being justified by it, if Adam had not fallen. But even
   upon such a supposition, Adam himself would have had no right to
   adoption--he would still have been only a servant, and not a son. Above
   all contradiction and controversy that great and glorious act whereby
   God makes us of His family and unites us to Jesus Christ as our
   Covenant Head, so we may be His children--is an act of pure Grace! It
   would have been an act of Sovereign Grace if God had adopted someone
   out of the best of families, but in this case He has adopted one who
   was a child and a rebel! We are by nature the children of one who was
   convicted of high treason; we are all the heirs, and are born into the
   world the natural heirs of one who sinned against his Maker, who was a
   rebel against his Lord. Yet mark this-- notwithstanding the evil of our
   parentage, born of a thief, who stole the fruit from his Master's
   Garden--born of a proud traitor, who dared to rebel against his
   God--notwithstanding all this--God has put us into the family! We can
   well conceive that when God considered our vile original, He might have
   said within Himself, "How can I put you among the children?" With what
   gratitude should we remember that though we were of the very lowest
   original, Grace has put us into the number of the Savior's family! Let
   us give all thanks to the Free Grace which overlooked the hole of the
   pit from where we were dug, and which passed over the quarry from where
   we were hewn, and put us among the chosen people of the living God! If
   a king should adopt any into his family, it would likely be the son of
   one of his lords--at any rate some child of respectable parentage; he
   would not take the son of some common felon, or some gypsy child, to
   adopt him into his family. But God in this case has taken the very
   worst to be His children! The sons of God all confess that they are the
   last persons they would ever have dreamed He would have chosen. They
   say of themselves--

   " What was there in us that could merit esteem,
   Or give the Creator delight?
   'Twaas even so, Father,' we ever must sing,
   'Because it seemed good in Your sight.'"

   Again, let us think not only of our original lineage, but of our
   personal character. He who knows himself will never think that he had
   much to recommend him to God. In other cases of adoption, there usually
   is some recommendation. A man, when he adopts a child, sometimes is
   moved thereto by its extraordinary beauty, or at other times by its
   intelligent manners, and winning disposition. But, Beloved, when God
   passed by the field in which we were lying, He saw no tears in our eyes
   till He put them there Himself! He saw no contrition in us until He had
   given us repentance; there was no beauty in us that could induce Him to
   adopt us--on the contrary we were everything that was repulsive! And if
   He had said, when He passed by, "You are cursed, be lost forever," it
   would have been nothing but what we might have expected from a God who
   had been so long provoked and whose majesty had been so terribly
   insulted! But no, though He found a rebellious child, a filthy,
   frightful, ugly child, He took it to His bosom and said, "Black though
   you are, you are comely in My eyes through My Son, Jesus. Unworthy
   though you are, yet I cover you with His robe, and in your Brother's
   garments, I accept you." And taking us, all unholy and unclean, just as
   we were, He took us to be His--His children--His forever!

   I was passing lately by the seat of a nobleman, and someone in the
   railway carriage observed that he had no children and he would give any
   price in the world if he could find someone who would renounce all
   claim to any son he might have. The child was never to speak to his
   parents any more, nor to be acknowledged, and this lord would adopt him
   as his son and leave him the whole of his estates. But he had found
   great difficulty in procuring any parents who would forswear their
   relationship and entirely give up their child. Whether this was correct
   or not, I cannot tell, but certainly this was not the case with God.
   His only-Begotten and well-Beloved Son was quite enough for Him! And if
   He had needed a family, there were the angels and His own Omnipotence
   was adequate enough to have created a race of beings far superior to
   us! He stood in no need whatever of any to be His darlings. It was,
   then, an act of simple, pure, gratuitous Grace--and of nothing
   else--because He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy, and
   because He delights to show the marvelous Character of His
   condescension. Did you ever think what a high honor it is to be called
   a son of God? Suppose a judge of the land should have before him some
   traitor who was about to be condemned to die? Suppose that equity and
   law demanded that the wretch should shed his blood by some terrible
   punishment? But suppose it were possible for the judge to step from his
   throne and to say, "Rebel, you are guilty, but I have found out a way
   whereby I can forgive your rebellions--man, you are pardoned!" There is
   a flush of joy upon his cheeks. "Man, you are made rich; see, there is
   wealth!" Another smile passes over the countenance. "Man, you are made
   so strong that you shall be able to resist all your enemies!" He
   rejoices again. "Man," says the judge at last, "you are made a prince!
   You are adopted into the royal family, and you shall one day wear a
   crown! You are now as much the son of God as you are the son of your
   own father." You can conceive the poor creature fainting with joy at
   such a thought, that he whose neck was just ready for the halter,
   should have his head now ready for a crown--that he who expected to be
   clothed in the felon's garb and taken away to death, is now to be
   exalted and clothed in robes of honor! So, Christian, think what you
   did deserve--robes of shame and infamy--but you are to have those of
   Glory. Are you in God' s family now? Well said the poet--

   "It does not yet appear, How great we must be made."

   We do not know the greatness of adoption yet. Yes, I believe that even
   in eternity we shall scarcely be able to measure the infinite depth of
   the love of God in that one blessing of "adoption by Jesus Christ unto
   Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will."

   Still, I think there is someone here who says, "I believe, Sir, that
   men are adopted because God foresees that they will be holy, righteous
   and faithful, and therefore, doubtless, God adopted them on the
   foresight of that." That is an objection I often have to reply to.
   Suppose, my Friends, you and I should take a journey into the country
   one day, and should meet with a person and should say to him, "Sir, can
   you tell me why the sails of yonder windmill go round?" He would of
   course reply, "It is the wind." But, suppose you were to ask him, "What
   makes the wind?" and he were to reply, "the sails of the windmill,"
   would you not just think that he was an idiot? In the first place, he
   told you that the wind caused the revolution of the sails and then,
   afterwards, he tells you that the sails make the wind--that an effect
   can be the parent of that which is its own cause! Now, any man you like
   to ask will say that faith is the gift of God--that good works are
   God's workmanship. Well, then, what is the cause of good works in a
   Christian? "Why, Grace," they say! Then, how can good works be the
   cause of Grace? By all that is rational, where are your heads? It is
   too foolish a supposition for any man to reply to without making you
   laugh, and that I do not choose to do. And therefore, I leave it. I say
   again, Beloved, if the fruits upon a Christian are caused by the root,
   how can the fruit, in any degree, be the cause of the root? If the good
   works of any man are given him by Grace, how can they, by any pretense
   whatever, be argued as the reason why God gives him Grace? The fact is,
   we are by nature utterly lost and ruined, and there is not a saint in
   Heaven who would not have been damned--and who did not deserve to be
   damned in the common doom of sinners! The reason why God has made a
   distinction is a secret to Himself; He had a right to make that
   distinction if He pleased, and He has done it. He has chosen some unto
   eternal life, to the praise of His glorious Grace; He has left others
   to be punished for their sins, to the praise of His glorious Justice
   and in one, as in the other, He has acted quite rightly, for He has a
   right to do as He wills with His own creatures! Seeing they all
   deserved to be punished, He has a right to punish them all! So too, as
   He has reconciled Justice with Mercy or mated it with Judgment, He has
   a right to forgive and pardon some, and to leave the others to be
   unwashed, unforgiven and unsaved--willfully to follow the error of
   their ways, to reject Christ, despise His Gospel, and ruin their own
   souls. He that does not agree with that, agrees not with Scripture! I
   have not to prove it--I have only to preach it! He that quarrels with
   that, quarrels with God--let him fight his quarrel out himself!

   II. The second thing is, THE PRIVILEGES WHICH COME TO US THROUGH
   ADOPTION.

   For the convenience of my young people--members of the Church--I shall,
   just for a moment, give you a list of the privileges of adoption as
   they are to be found in our old Confession of Faith. I know many of you
   have this book, and I am sure most of you will study at home this
   afternoon if you have opportunity, looking up all the passages. It is
   the Twelfth Article, upon adoption, where we read--"All those who are
   justified, God vouchsafed, in and for the sake of His only Son, Jesus
   Christ, to make partakers of the Grace of adoption, by which they are
   taken into the number and enjoy the liberties and privileges of
   children of God, have His name put upon them, receive the spirit of
   adoption, have access to the Throne of Grace with boldness, are enabled
   to cry Abba, Father, are pitied, protected, provided for and chastened
   by Him as a Father, yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of
   redemption and inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation."

   I shall commence, then, with the privileges of adoption. There is one
   privilege not mentioned in the Confession which ought to be there. It
   is this--when a man is adopted into a family, and comes thereby under
   the regime of his new father, he has nothing whatever to do with the
   old family he has left behind, and he is released from subjection to
   those whom he has left. And so, the moment I am taken out of the family
   of Satan, the Prince of this world has nothing to do with me as my
   father and he is no more my father! I am not a son of Satan! I am not a
   child of wrath! The moment I am taken out of the legal family, I have
   nothing whatever to do with Hagar. If Hagar comes to meddle with me, I
   tell her, "Sarah is my mother, Abraham is my father and, Hagar, you are
   my servant, and I am not yours. You are a bondwoman and I shall not be
   your bond slave, for you are mine." When the Law comes to a Christian
   with all its terrible threats, and horrible denunciations, the
   Christian says, "Law! Why do you threaten me? I have nothing to do with
   you. I follow you as my rule, but I will not have you to be my ruler; I
   take you to be my pattern and mold, because I cannot find a better code
   of morality, and of life, but I am not under you as my condemning
   curse. Sit in your judgment seat, O Law, and condemn me; I smile on
   you, for you are not my judge, I am not under your jurisdiction! You
   have no right to condemn me." If, as the old divines say, the king of
   Spain were to condemn an inhabitant of Scotland, what would he say? He
   would say, "Very well, condemn me, if you like, but I am not under your
   jurisdiction." So, when the Law condemns a saint, the saint says, "If
   my Father condemns me, and chastens me, I bow to Him with filial
   submission, for I have offended Him, but, O Law, I am not under you any
   longer; I am delivered from you; I will not hear your sentence, nor
   care about your thunders! All you can do against me, go and do it upon
   Christ! Or, rather, you have done it. If you demand punishment for my
   sin, look, there stands my Substitute; you are not to seek it at my
   hands. You charge me with guilt. It is true, I am guilty, but it is
   equally true my guilt is put upon the Scapegoat' s head! I tell you, I
   am not of your family; I am not to be chastened by you; I will not have
   a legal chastisement, a legal punishment; I am under the Gospel
   dispensation, now, I am not under you. I am a child of God, not your
   servant. We have a commandment to obey the Father who we now have; but
   as to the family with which we were connected, we have nothing to do
   with it any longer." That is no small privilege--oh that we could
   rightly understand it and appreciate it, and walk in the liberty
   wherewith Christ has made us free!

   But now, as the Confession has it, one of the great blessings which God
   gives us is that we have His name put upon us. He will give unto us a
   new name, as is the promise in the Book of the Revelation. We are to be
   called after the name of God. Oh, remember, Brothers and Sisters, we
   are men and women, but we are now God' s men and women! We are no
   longer mere mortals; we are so in ourselves--but by Divine Grace we are
   chosen immortals--God's sons, God's daughters taken to Himself!
   Remember, Christian, you bear the name of God upon you!

   Mark another thing. We have the spirit of children as well as the name
   of children. Now, if one man adopts another child into his family, he
   cannot give it his own nature, as his own child would have had. And if
   that child who he shall adopt should have been a fool, it may still
   remain so--he cannot make it a child worthy of him. But our heavenly
   Father, when He comes to carry out adoption, gives us not only the name
   of children, but the nature of children, too! He gives us a nature like
   His well-Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. We had once a nature like our
   father, Adam, after he had sinned. God takes that away and gives us a
   nature like Himself, as it were, "in the image of God." He overcomes
   the old nature, and He puts in us the nature of children. "He sends
   forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, whereby we cry, Abba,
   Father." And He gives us the nature and the character of children, so
   that we are as much by Grace partakers of the spirit of children of God
   as we would have been if we had been His legitimately born children,
   and had not been adopted into His family! Brothers and Sisters,
   adoption secures to us regeneration; and regeneration secures to us the
   nature of children whereby we are not only made children, but are made
   partakers of the Grace of God--so that we are in ourselves, made unto
   God by our new nature as living children, actually and really like
   Himself!

   The next blessing is that being adopted we have access to the Throne.
   When we come to God's Throne, one thing we ought always to plead is our
   adoption. The angel that keeps the Mercy Seat might stop us on the road
   with saying, "What is your claim to come here? Do you come as a
   subject, or a servant? If you do, you have no right to come; but if you
   come as a son, come and welcome." Can you say you are a son in your
   prayers, Christian? Then never be afraid to pray! So long as you know
   your sonship you will be sure to get all you need, for you can say,
   "Father, I ask not as a servant. If I were a servant I would expect
   Your wages, and knowing that as a servant I have been rebellious, I
   would expect wages of eternal wrath. But I am Your son. Though as a
   servant I have often violated Your rules, and may expect Your rod, yet,
   O Father, sinner though I am, in and of myself, I am Your son by
   adoption and Grace. Spurn me not away; put me not from Your knee; I am
   Your own child; I plead it! The Spirit bears witness with my Spirit,
   that I am born of God. Father, will You deny Your son?" What? When you
   plead for your elder Brother's sake, by whom you are God's child, being
   made an heir with Christ of all things, will He drive away His son? No,
   Beloved, He will not! He will turn again; He will hear our prayer; He
   will have mercy upon us. If we are His children, we may have access
   with boldness to the Grace wherein we stand, and access with confidence
   unto the Throne of the heavenly Grace!

   Another blessing is that we are pitied by God. Think of that, children,
   in all your sufferings and sorrows. "Like as a father pities his
   children, so the Lord pities them who fear Him." Do you lie sick? The
   Lord stands by your bedside, pitying you. Are you tempted of Satan?
   Christ is looking down upon you, feeling in His heart your sighs, and
   your groans. Did you come here this morning with a heavy heart, a
   desponding spirit? Remember, the loving heart of God sympathizes with
   you! In His measure, Christ feels afresh what every member bears; He
   pities you, and that pity of God is one of the efforts that flows into
   your heart by your adoption.

   In the next place, He protects you. Just as a hen protects her brood
   under her feathers from birds of prey that seek their life, so the Lord
   makes His own loving arms encircle His children. No father will allow
   his son to die without making some attempt to resist the adversary who
   would slay him. God will never allow His children to perish while His
   Omnipotence is able to guard them. If once that everlasting arm can be
   palsied; if once that everlasting hand can become less than Almighty,
   then you may die; but while your Father lives, your Father's shield
   shall be your preserver, and His strong arm shall be your effectual
   protection.

   Once again, there is provision as well as protection. Every father will
   take care to the utmost of his ability to provide for his children. So
   will God. If you are adopted, being predestinated thereunto, most
   surely will He provide for you--

   "All necessary Grace will God bestow,
   And crown that Grace with glory, too;
   He gives us all things and withholds
   No real good from upright souls." Mercies temporal, mercies spiritual
   you shall have, and all because you are God's child, His redeemed
   child, made so by the blood of Jesus Christ.
   And then you shall likewise have education. God will educate all His
   children till He makes them perfect in Christ Jesus. He will teach you
   Doctrine after Doctrine. He will lead you into all His Truths until, at
   last, perfected in all heavenly wisdom, you shall be made fit to join
   with your fellow commoners in the great Heaven above.
   There is also one thing, perhaps, you sometimes forget which you are
   sure to have in the course of discipline if you are God's children, and
   that is God's rod. That is another fruit of adoption. Unless we have
   the rod, we may tremble, fearing that we are not the children of God.
   God is no foolish father--if He adopts a child, He adopts it that He
   may be a kind and wise Father. And though He does not afflict
   willingly, nor grieve the children of men for nothing--though when His
   strokes are felt, His strokes are fewer then our crimes and lighter
   than our guilt--yet at the same time He never spares the rod. He knows
   He would ruin His children if He did, and therefore He lays it on with
   no very sparing hand, and makes them cry out and groan while they think
   that He is turned to be their enemy.
   But as the Confession beautifully has it, exactly in keeping with
   Scripture, "Though chastened by God as by a father, yet never cast off,
   but sealed to the day of redemption, they inherit the promises, as
   heirs of salvation." It is one great Doctrine of Scripture that God
   cannot, as well as will not, cast off His children! I have often
   wondered how any persons can see any consistency in Scripture
   phraseology when they talk about God's people being children of God one
   day, and children of Satan the next. Now, it would startle me not a
   little if I should step into a lecture room, and hear the lecturer
   asserting that my children might be my children today and his children
   the next. I should look at him and say, "I don't see that. If they are
   really mine, they are mine. If they are not mine they are not mine, but
   I do not see how they can be mine, today, and yours tomorrow." The fact
   is that those who preach thus do believe in salvation by works--though
   they mask and cover it with specious qualifications as much as they
   may. There is as much need for a Luther to come out against them as
   there was for him to come out against the Romanists! Ah, Beloved, it is
   well to know that our standing is not of that character, but if we are
   children of God nothing can unchild us--though we are beaten and
   afflicted as children, we shall never be punished by being cast out of
   the family, and ceasing to be His children. God knows how to keep His
   own children from sin; He will never give them liberty to do as they
   please. He will say to them, "I will not kill you--that were an act I
   could not do--but this rod shall smite you; and you shall be made to
   groan and cry under the rod"--so that you will hate sin, and you will
   cleave to Him and walk in holiness even to the end. It is not a
   licentious Doctrine because there is the rod. If there were no rod of
   chastisement, then it were a daring thing to say that God's children
   shall go unpunished! They shall, so far as legal penalty is concerned.
   No judge shall condemn them; but as far as paternal chastisement is
   concerned, they shall not escape. "I have loved you above all the
   nations of the earth," says God, "and therefore I will punish you for
   your iniquities."

   Lastly, as sure as we are the children of God by adoption, we must
   inherit the promise that pertains to it. "If children, then heirs,
   heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ." "If we suffer with
   Him, we shall also be glorified together."

   III. And now the final point--THERE ARE SOME DUTIES WHICH ARE CONNECTED
   WITH ADOPTION.

   When the Believer is adopted into the Lord's family, there are many
   relationships which are broken off--the relationship with old Adam, and
   the Law ceases at once. But then he is under a new Law, the Law of
   Grace--under new rules and under a new Covenant. And now I beg to
   admonish you of duties, children of God! Because you are God's
   children, it has then become your duty to obey God. A servile spirit
   you have nothing to do with; you are a child. And inasmuch as you are a
   child, you are bound to obey your Father's faintest wish--the least
   intimation of His will. What does He say to you? Does He bid you
   fulfill such-and-such an ordinance? It is at your peril if you neglect
   it! Then you are disobeying your Father who tells you to do so! Does He
   command you to seek the image of Jesus? Seek it. Does He tell you, "Be
   you perfect, even as your Father who is in Heaven is perfect"? Then not
   because the Law says so, but because your Father says so, seek after
   it! Seek to be perfect in love and in holiness. Does He tell you to
   love one another? Love one another! Not because the Law says, "Love
   your God," but because Christ says, "If you love Me, keep My
   commandments. And this is the commandment that I give unto you, that
   you love one another." Are you told to distribute to the poor, and
   minister unto the necessity of saints? Do it not because you think you
   are bound by the Law to do it, but do it because Christ says
   so--because He is your Elder Brother--He is the Master of the
   household, and you think yourself most sweetly bound to obey. Does it
   say, "Love God with all your heart"? Look at the commandment and say,
   "Ah, commandment, I will seek to fulfill you. Christ has fulfilled you
   already--I have no need, therefore, to fulfill you for my salvation,
   but I will strive to do it because He is my Father, now, and He has a
   new claim upon me." Does He say, "Remember the Sabbath, to keep it
   holy"? I shall remember what Jesus said-- "The Sabbath was made for man
   and not man for the Sabbath," and therefore I shall not be the
   Sabbath's slave. But as inasmuch as my Father rested on the seventh
   day, so also will I from all my works, and I will have no works of
   legality to defile His Rest; I will do as many acts of mercy as ever I
   can; I will seek and strive to serve Him with filial homage. Because my
   Father rested, so will I in the finished work of Christ. And so with
   each of the Ten Commandments. Take them out of the Law; put them in the
   Gospel, and then obey them. Do not obey them simply as being the Law
   engraved on tablets of stone--obey them as Gospel written on fleshy
   tablets of the heart--"for you are not under the Law, but under Grace."

   There is another duty, Believer. It is this--if God is your Father, and
   you are His child, you are bound to trust Him. Oh, if He were only your
   Master, and you ever so poor a servant, you would be bound to trust
   Him! But when you know that He is your Father, will you ever doubt Him?
   I may doubt any man in this world, but I do not doubt my father. If he
   says a thing, if he promises a thing--I know if it is in his power, he
   will do it. And if he states a fact to me, I cannot doubt his word. And
   yet, O child of God, how often do you mistrust your heavenly Father? Do
   so no more! Let Him be true; let every man be a liar--still doubt not
   your Father. What? Could He tell you a lie? Would He cheat you? No,
   your Father, when He speaks, means what He says. Can you not trust His
   love? What? Will He let you sink while He is able to keep you afloat?
   Will He let you starve while His granaries are full? Will He let you
   die of thirst when His presses burst with new wine? Are the cattle upon
   a thousand hills His, and will He let you lack a meal? Is the earth the
   Lord's and the fullness thereof, and will He let you go away empty and
   poor, and miserable? Oh, surely not! Is all Grace His, and will He keep
   it back from you? No, He says to us today, "Son, you are always with
   Me, and all that I have is yours. Take what you will, it is all your
   own. But trust to your Father--

   Now go away, Heirs of Heaven, with light feet, and with joy in your
   countenances, saying you know that you are His children, and that He
   loves you and will not cast you away! Believe that to His bosom He now
   presses you--that His heart is full of love to you! Believe that He
   will provide for you, protect you, sustain you, and that He will at
   last bring you to a glad inheritance when you shall have perfected the
   years of your pilgrimage and shall be ripe for bliss! "As He has
   predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
   Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will."

   I need not this morning delay you any longer in personally addressing
   unconverted persons. Their welfare I always seek. I have sought, while
   speaking to the saints this morning, so to speak that every sinner may
   learn at least this one fact--salvation is of God alone--and that he
   may be brought into this state of mind--to feel that if he is
   saved--God must save him, or else he cannot be saved at all! If any of
   you acknowledge that Truth, then in God's name I now bid you believe in
   Jesus, for as surely as ever you can feel that God has a right to save
   or to destroy you, Grace must have made you feel that, and therefore
   you now have a right to come and believe in Jesus! If you know that,
   you know all that will make you feel empty, and therefore you have
   enough to make you cast your entire hope upon that fullness which is in
   Jesus Christ.

   The Lord bless you and save you! Amen.
   To choose and to command.
   With wonder filled, you then shall own,
   How wise, how strong His hand."
     __________________________________________________________________

                                 None But Jesus

   A Sermon

   (No. 361)

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

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At Exeter Hall, Strand

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "Just as I am without one plea,

   But that thy blood was shed for me,

   And that thou bidst me come to thee,

   O Lamb of God I come."

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

   'Nothing in my hands I bring,

   Simply to thy cross I cling;

   Naked, look to thee for dress;

   Helpless, come to thee for grace;

   Black'--

   ("Black enough," said the old man)

   'I to the fountain fly,

   Wash me, Saviour, or I die.'"

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

   "If aught is felt tis only pain

   To find I cannot feel."

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "Bold shall you stand in that great day,

   For who aught to your charge can lay?"

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

                          None But Jesus--Second Part

   A Sermon

   (No. 362)

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

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

   At New Park Street, Southwark.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "Now, for the love I bear his name,

   What was my gain, I count my loss;

   My former pride I call my shame,

   And nail my glory to his cross."

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

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

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

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

   "But Jesus Christ is my all in all."

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

                      The Glorious Right Hand Of The Lord

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 24, 1861, BY THE REV. C.
   H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "And the Lord said unto Moses, Is the Lord's hand waxed short? You
   shall now see whether My Word shall come to pass unto you or not."
   Numbers 11:23.

   GOD had made a positive promise to Moses that for the space of a whole
   month he would feed the vast host in the wilderness with flesh. Moses,
   being overtaken by a fit of unbelief, looks to the outward
   means--calculates his commissariat--and is at a loss to know how the
   promise can be fulfilled. Shall the flocks and the herds be slain? How,
   then, should they have cattle wherewith to stock the land upon which
   they hoped soon to enter? And if they should slaughter all their
   beasts, there would not be food enough for ravenous people for a month.
   Shall all the fish of the sea leave their watery element, and come to
   the tables of these clamorous hungry men? Even then, Moses thought
   there would be scarcely enough food to feed so vast a host for a month!
   You will see, my Brothers and Sisters, right readily the mistake which
   Moses made. He looked to the creature instead of the Creator. Does the
   Creator expect the creature to fulfill his promise? No; only He who
   makes, fulfills. If He speaks, it is done--done by Himself--His
   promises do not depend for their fulfillment upon the cooperation of
   the puny strength of man! God as a Sovereign gives an absolute promise;
   and He can do it without fear of mistake, because He has Omnipotence
   wherewith to fulfill His greatest word. It were an error, indeed, to
   look to the sea for fish, instead of waiting upon Heaven for the
   promise; to look to the flocks for food, instead of believing on Him to
   whom belongs the cattle on a thousand hills! Suppose, my Friends, this
   country should be threatened by an invasion of some foreign power, and
   you, in your wisdom and full of trembling, should say to those whose
   province it is to guard our happy island--"I fear this land can never
   be protected, for the Emperor of China has but very little power; the
   Presidents of the Republics of South America have but little
   influence"? You would be stared at! Men would ask, what has that to do
   with the question? The troops of Britain are to defend the land, not
   the troops of China, or Bolivia. What matters the weakness of those
   republics or kingdoms? They are not expected to defend our land! You
   would be absurd in looking for help where help was neither expected nor
   promised.

   And yet how commonly we do the same! Godhas promised to supply our
   needs, and we look to the creature to do what God has promised to do!
   And then, because we perceive the creature to be weak and feeble, we
   indulge in unbelief! Why do we look to that quarter at all? Will you
   look to the top of the Alps for summer heat? Will you journey to the
   north pole to gather fruits ripened in the sun? Or will you take your
   journey towards the equator, so that your body may be braced by cool
   invigorating breezes? Verily you would act no more foolishly if you did
   this than when you look to the weak for strength, or the creature to do
   the Creator's work! The great folly of Moses is the folly of most
   Believers. Let us, then, put the question aright. The ground of faith
   is not the sufficiency of the visible means for the performance of the
   promise, but the All-Sufficiency of the invisible God most surely to do
   as He has saidl And then, if after that we dare to indulge in
   mistrusts, the question of God comes home mightily to us--"Has the
   Lord's hand waxed short?" And may it happen, too, in His mercy, that
   with the question, there may come also that blessed promise, "You shall
   now see whether My Word shall come to pass unto you or not."

   It is an amazing thing that such a question as this should ever be
   asked at all--"Has the Lord's hand waxed short?" If we look anywhere
   and everywhere, apart from the conduct of man, there is nothing to
   suggest the suspicion. Look to God's Creation! Is there anything there
   which would make you say, "Is the Lord's hand waxed short?" What pillar
   of the heavens has begun to reel? What curtain of the sky has been torn
   or moth-eaten? Have the foundations of the Earth begun to start? Do
   they not abide as the Lord has settled them? Has the sun grown dim with
   age? Have the starry lamps flickered or gone out in darkness? Are there
   signs of decay, today, upon the face of God's Creation? Have not
   howling tempests, the yawning ocean, and death-bearing hurricanes
   asserted but yesterday their undiminished might? Say, is not the green
   earth as full of vitality, as ready to yield us harvests, now, as it
   ever has been? Do the showers fall less frequently? Has the sun ceased
   to warm? Are there any signs and tokens that God's Creation is
   tottering to its decay? No! Journey where you will, you will see God as
   potent upon the face of the earth, and in the very bowels of the globe,
   as He was when He first said, "Let there be light," and there was
   light. There is nothing which would tempt us to surmise or suspect that
   the Lord's hand has waxed short. And look you, too, in Providence--is
   there anything there that would suggest the question? Are not His
   prophecies still fulfilled? Does He not cause all things to work
   together for good? Do the cattle on a thousand hills low out to Him for
   hunger? Do you meet with the skeletons of birds that have fallen to the
   ground from famine? Does He neglect to give to the fish their food, or
   do the sea-monsters die? Does not God still open His hands and supply
   the needs of every living thing? Is He less bounteous, today, than He
   was in the time of Adam? Is not the cornucopia still as full? Does He
   not still scatter mercies with both His hands right lavishly? Are there
   any tokens in Providence, any more than in Nature, that God's arm has
   waxed short? And look, too, in the matter of Divine Grace--is there any
   token in the work of Grace that God's power is failing? Are not sinners
   still saved? Are not profligates still reclaimed? Are not drunks still
   uplifted from their sties to sit upon the Throne of God with princes?
   Are not harlots as truly reclaimed as were those in the days of Christ?
   Is not the Word of God still quick and powerful, sharper than any
   two-edged sword? Which of His arrows has been blunted? Where have you
   seen the sword of the Lord snapped in two? When has God assayed to melt
   a heart and failed in the attempt? Which of His people has found the
   riches of His Grace drained dry? Which of His children has had to mourn
   that the unsearchable riches of Christ had failed to supply his need?

   In Grace, as well as in Providence and Nature, the unanimous verdict is
   that God is still Almighty; that He does as He wills, and fulfills all
   His promises, and His counsels. How is it, then, that such a question
   as this ever came from the lips of God, Himself? Who suggested it?
   Whatsuggested it? What could there have been that should lead Him, or
   any of His creatures to say, "Is the Lord's hand waxed short?" We
   answer there is but one creature that God has made that ever doubts
   Him! The little sparrows doubt not--though they have no barn nor field,
   yet they sweetly sing at night as they go to their roosts, though they
   know not where tomorrow's meal shall be found. The very cattle trust
   Him, and even in days of drought, you have seen them when they pant for
   thirst, how they expect the water--how the very first token of it makes
   them show in their very animal frame, by some dumb language, that they
   felt that God would not leave them to perish! The angels never doubt
   Him, nor the devils either--devils believe and tremble! But it was left
   for man--the most favored of all creatures--to mistrust his God! This
   high, this black, this infamous sin of doubting the power and
   faithfulness of Jehovah was reserved for the fallen race of rebellions
   Adam! And we alone, out of all the beings that God has ever fashioned,
   dishonor Him by unbelief, and tarnish His honor by mistrust!

   I shall now try, as God shall help me, to mention some four or five
   cases in which men act as if they really believed that God's hand had
   waxed short, and I pray that in the most of these cases, this malady
   may be at once healed by the fact that God has said, "You shall now see
   whether My Word shall come to pass unto you or not."

   I. First of all, with regard to THE CHURCH AS A WHOLE, how often is it
   true that she so behaves herself as if she had a question in her mind
   as to whether the Lord's hand had waxed short? She believes that the
   Divine hand was once mighty enough to bring in 3,000 in one day by the
   simple preaching of Peter. She believes that her God was with her in
   olden times so mightily that her poor illiterate preachers were more
   than a match for the scholars of Socrates and Solon, and were able to
   overturn the gods of the heathen, though they had both poetry and
   philosophy to be their bulwarks. She still believes this and yet, how
   often does she act as though the Gospel had become effete and outworn,
   and the Spirit of God had been utterly withdrawn from her? In those
   early days she sent her missionaries to the ends of the earth! They
   were unprovided for, but they went forth without purse or script,
   believing that He who called them to go, would find them sustenance.
   They landed on islands that were unknown to man, and ventured among
   barbarous tribes who knew nothing of civilization! They ventured their
   lives even to the death--but they won for Christ the empire of the
   whole earth till there was not a spot known to men at that time where
   the name of Jesus had not been preached, and where the Gospel had not
   been proclaimed! But, now, we--the degenerate sons of glorious
   fathers--are afraid to trust God! There are some who would shut out the
   Gospel from India, because, indeed, it might disturb our pitiful empire
   over that people! There are others who think the Gospel is ill-adapted
   to some minds, and that civilization must go before the Cross, and not
   the Gospel in the vanguard of all true civilization among barbarous
   tribes! The mass of us--it is common to us all--the mass of us would be
   afraid to go out trusting in God to supply our needs! We would insist
   that everything should be prepared for us, and that the way should be
   paved! We are not ready to leap as champions upon the wall of the
   citadel, leading the forlorn hope, and planting the standard where it
   never stood before. No, we can only follow in the track of others! We
   have few Careys and few Knibbs, few men who can go first and foremost
   saying, "This is God's cause! Jehovah is the only God, and in the name
   of the Eternal, let the idols be abolished!"

   for more anointed ones to preach the Gospel, believing in its intrinsic
   might, assured that where it is preached faithfully, the Spirit of God
   is never absent! The doubts, the fears, the calculations, the policies,
   the judicious advisors of too many Christians prove my point, that
   often the Church acts as if she thought the Lord's hand were waxed
   short! O Zion! Get up! Get up! Count no more your hosts, for their
   strength is your weakness! Measure no longer your wealth, for your
   wealth has often been your poverty, and your poverty your wealth! Think
   not of the learning or the eloquence of your ministers and
   missionaries, for full often these things do but stand in the way of
   the Eternal God! Come forth in simple confidence in His promise, and
   you shall see whether He will not do according to His Word; you shall
   see a nation born at once; you shall behold the reign of Christ
   hastening on when you know how to deal with the world in the power of
   faith, believing in Christ, knowing that He shall have the beastly for
   His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His
   possession!

   1 ought to say, here, that while this is a common sin of the Church,
   yet there are very many missionaries who have gone out from England
   during the last few years unconnected with any Society. And that there
   are now hundreds throughout the whole earth who have no visible means
   of support but who, by faith and prayer, depending simply upon God,
   find themselves as well provided for as those who have a Society at
   their back! I happen to be acquainted with some few of these men who
   have been foolish enough to trust God; who have been silly enough to
   believe His promise; who have been weak enough to rely only upon Him!
   And I can say their testimony is, that in all things God has been as
   good to them as His Word, and I know they have been more useful as
   missionaries, and more successful in evangelization because they
   believed God! They have proved their faith by their acts, and God has
   honored their faith by giving them great success. I speak thus not of
   all--there are a few exceptions--but still, it is the general rule that
   as a Church, the Church does not believe God--she believes her
   subscribers, she does not believe the Lord! She believes the
   committee-- she does not trust in the Eternal. She trusts in the
   means--she does not rest on the bare arm of God. She wants to have her
   arm sleeved, girded about, and robed with the weavings of man!

   II. But I now pass on to a second point. WHEN BELIEVERS DOUBT THEIR GOD
   WITH REGARD TO PROVIDENCE, the question might well be asked of them,
   "Is the Lord's hand waxed short?"

   I do not doubt that I am speaking to some here, this morning, who have
   had many hisses and crosses in their business. Instead of getting
   forward, they are going back, and perhaps even bankruptcy stares them
   in the face. Or possibly, being hard working men, they may have been
   long out of employment, and nothing now seems to be before their eyes
   but the starvation of themselves, and their little ones. It is hard to
   bear this. This is an iron that enters into the very soul; the pangs of
   hunger are not very easily appeased, and to have need and destitution
   constantly before our eyes is enough to bring down the strong man, and
   make the mighty tremble. Little do some of us know how sharp and how
   acute must be these trials of famine and nakedness. But do you doubt, O
   Believer, do you doubt as to whether God will fulfill His promises
   wherein He said, "His place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks;
   bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure"? Would you question
   the advice of your Master--"Therefore take no thought, saying, What
   shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or, How shall we be clothed? For
   after all these things do the Gentiles seek"? "Behold the fowls of the
   air; for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns. Yet
   your heavenly Father feeds them"? "Consider the lilies of the field,
   how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto
   you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of
   these"? And so you think that your heavenly Father, though He knows
   that you have need of these things, will yet forget you? When not a
   sparrow falls to the ground without your Father, and the very hairs of
   your head are all numbered, yet you still mistrust and doubt Him?
   Perhaps your affliction will continue upon you till you dare to trust
   your God, and then it shall end. Full many there are who have been
   tried and sorely vexed till at last they have been driven in sheer
   desperation to exercise faith in God--and the moment of their faith has
   been the instant of their deliverance! They have seen whether God would
   keep His promise or not.

   And now, O true Believer, what say you to this picture? In the cold,
   cold winter, when the snows have fallen thick on every tree, and the
   ground is hard and crisp, you have sometimes seen the charitable man
   open wide the window of his house and scatter crumbs along the white
   snow; and you have seen the birds come from all the trees around, and
   there they ate and were satisfied. A slanderer who lives next door
   tells you that that man starves his children! Do you believe him? Feed
   the sparrows, and neglect the offspring of his loins? Give crumbs to
   birds, and not feed his sons and daughters? You feel instinctively that
   the kind heart which remembers the fowls of Heaven must yet more
   remember his own offspring! But what do you say to this picture
   concerning yourself? Your God hears the young ravens when they cry, and
   gives liberally to all the creatures that His hands have made, and will
   He forget His sons and His daughters? His people bought with blood, His
   own peculiar heritage? No. Dare to believe Him now. His hands have not
   waxed short. Dare to trust Him now. Please not Satan, and vex not
   yourself by indulging those hard thoughts of Him anymore! Say, "My
   Father, You will hear my cry. You will supply all my needs." And
   according to your faith, so shall it be done unto you. Look back, Sir,
   look back upon the past! How many deliverances have you had? You have
   been in as bad a plight as this, before--did He leave you then? He has
   been with you in six troubles, and are there not six arguments why He
   should not leave you in the seventh? You are growing gray-headed, and
   you have found Him faithful for 60 years! Ah, how few more you have to
   live! Suppose you live till seventy--there are but ten! He has been
   faithful to you in sixty, and can you not trust Him with ten? Surely
   you ought to say, and you must say, I think, if you are actuated by a
   right spirit, "O God, I leave all things in Your hands. I will have
   done with these cares. I will leave everything to You. I know that You
   love me and will not forsake Your own, but will surely deliver them out
   of all their temptations." You shall have my text fulfilled to you, I
   trust--"You shall see now whether My Word shall come to pass unto you
   or not.

   III. But to proceed--there is a third way by which this question might
   be very naturally suggested, and that is

   WHEN A MAN WHO HAS FAITH IN CHRIST IS EXERCISED WITH DOUBTS AND FEARS
   WITH REGARD TO

   HIS OWN FINAL PERSEVERANCE, OR HIS OWN PRESENT ACCEPTANCE IN CHRIST.

   I must confess here, with sorrow, that I have seasons of despondency
   and depression of spirit which I trust none of you are called to
   suffer. And at such times I have doubted my interest in Christ, my
   calling my election, my perseverance, my Savior's blood, and my
   Father's love. I am sorry I ever told you that, but having done so on
   one occasion, I make now my humble apology as before God for it. I met
   with a sharp rebuke this last week. A Brother who lives very near to
   God--I believe one of the holiest men living--told me he never had a
   doubt of his acceptance once he believed in Christ, and another
   Christian confirmed his testimony. I do not question the Truth of my
   Brothers, but I do envy them. 'Tis a wondrous position to stand in! I
   know how it is. They, both of them, live by simple faith upon the Son
   of God, and one of them said to me, "When I speak to some of the
   Friends, and tell them they should not doubt and fear, they say, 'Yes,
   but our minister has doubts and fears.'" When he said that, I felt how
   wrong I had been, because the pastor should be an example to the flock,
   and if I have sinned in this respect, as I must sorrowfully confess I
   have, at least there was no necessity that I should have said so, for
   now it gives cause to some of the weak of the flock to excuse
   themselves. My Brothers and Sisters, if I should stand here and say I
   occasionally steal my neighbor's goods, you would be shocked! But when
   I said that I sometimes doubt my God, you were not shocked! There is as
   much guilt in the one as in the other. There is the highest degree of
   criminality in connection with doubting God and I feel it so. I do not
   see that we ought to offer any excuse whatever for our doubting our
   God. He does not deserve it of us--He is a true and faithful God, and
   with so many instances of His love and of His kindness as I have
   received, and daily receive at His hands--I feel I have no excuse to
   offer either to Him or to you for having dared to doubt Him.

   'Twas a wicked sin; 'twas a great and grievous offense! But I pray you,
   do not use that sin on my part as a cloak for yourselves! I pray that I
   may be delivered from it entirely, and with an unstaggering faith, like
   Abraham, know that what He has promised, He is able also to perform.
   And then I trust I shall not have under my pastoral care a puny race of
   men who cannot trust their God, and who cannot, therefore, do
   anything--but a strong host of heroes who live by faith upon the Son of
   God--who loved them and gave Himself for them; who shall be a
   thundering legion; whose march to battle shall be but a march to
   victory, and the drawing of whose swords shall be but the prelude and
   prophecy of their triumph! Take not me as an example further than I
   follow my Lord, but pray for me that my faith may be increased. Doubt
   not, I pray you! Believe your God, and you shall prosper. The joy of
   the Lord is our strength, not the melancholy of our hearts. It does not
   say, "He who doubts shall be saved," but, "He who believes shall be
   saved." I know some ministers preach up doubts and fears so much that
   you would really think that doubting was the way to Heaven; and the
   more you could doubt and fear, the more proof there would be that you
   were a child of God! The fact is--the children of God do doubt and
   fear. I am sorry to say all of them, (no, not all of them--I question
   whether all of them do not, but still my Brother says he does not, and
   I believe him. I fear, however, he will doubt one of these days. I hope
   he never may; but when he does, it will be very wrong and very wicked
   of him, indeed, just as it has been with me, and as it has been with
   you), for when we doubt, it is sin. Oh cursed sin of unbelief--most
   damnable of sins, because it so stains God's honor, and so makes the
   enemy to blaspheme! "There," they say, "there is a man who cannot trust
   his God; a minister who cannot trust his God; a Christian who cannot
   repose upon the promise of the Almighty!" We cannot measure the guilt
   of sins--all sins are all base and vile--but there are crimes which we
   set down as being very heinous, which, I believe, are but little when
   compared with that which we think so trivial--the sin of doubting God
   and mistrusting His promise! If unbelief is like a thistle in the
   field, which proves that the soil is good, or it would not produce
   thistles--at any rate that is no reason why you and I should sow
   thistle seed! Let us cut the thistles up if there are any, and may the
   Holy Spirit plant the evergreen fir of hope, the towering pine of love,
   and the hardy boxwood of faith! Trust in the Lord! "Rejoice in the Lord
   always, and again I say, rejoice." Let your joy be full; be not cast
   down and troubled, but rejoice in Him evermore.

   IV. I shall now pass on to a fourth point very briefly--"is the Lord's
   hand waxed short?" This is a question which I may well ask of any here
   present who are CONVICTED OF SIN, BUT ARE AFRAID TO TRUST THEIR SOUL,
   NOW, AT THIS VERY HOUR, IN THE HANDS OF A LOVING SAVIOR.

   "Oh, He cannot save me, I am so guilty, so callous! Could I repent as I
   ought; could I but feel as I ought; then He could save me; but I am
   naked and poor, and miserable. How can He clothe, enrich, and bless me?
   I am cast out from His Presence; I have grieved away His Spirit; I have
   sinned against light and knowledge--against mercy--against constant
   Grace received. He cannot save me." "And the Lord said unto Moses, Is
   the Lord's hand waxed short? You shall now see whether My Word shall
   come to pass unto you or not." Did He not save the chief of sinners,
   Saul of Tarsus? Why, then, can He not save you? Is it not written, "The
   blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanses us from all sin"? Has that
   blood lost its efficacy? Have Christ's merits lost their savor? Are
   they no more an offering of a sweet smell before the Throne of God? Has
   His Sacrifice lost its plea, and the plea its authority? Is He no
   longer prevalent before the Father's face? Soul! Soul! Soul! Would you
   add to your sin? Then doubt Christ's power to save you! Would you seal
   your doom? Then through this mock humility, distrust Christ. But would
   you be saved? Then dare, I pray you, in the teeth of all your sins, to
   trust my Master--

   "He is able
   He is willing: doubt no more."

   He is able, for He is God! What can He not perform? He is willing, for
   He was the slaughtered Man; and He who died, and had His heart pierced
   for us, cannot be unwilling! Do you wish to stab Him in the most tender
   point, and vex Him? Then indulge that mean, ungenerous thought that He
   is unwilling to forgive! But would you wish to honor Him, and relieve
   yourself at the same time? Then step out of all appearances, all hopes
   and fears suggested by your own feelings! Come to the foot of His
   Cross, and looking up into those eyes, full of languid pity, and to
   those hands streaming with precious blood, say, "Jesus, I believe! Help
   You my unbelief," and so you shall see whether He will not keep His
   Word!

   If you should come to Him and He should refuse, then would He not have
   broken His promise? Did He not say, "Him who comes unto Me, I will in
   no wise cast out"? "But, O Sir, I am so black a sinner! I am one of
   Satan's castaways." But what if you are? Christ did not make any
   exception! He said, "Hm who comes," and that means any, "him," in all
   the world who comes! If with weeping, and with supplication, mourning
   for past sins, you will go to Him now, poor Sinner, you will find Him
   quite as good as His Word, and you shall wonder and be astonished to
   find your own hardness of heart suddenly taken away, and all your load
   of guilt removed! Oh, I would that I had words, that this heart had
   language, and needed not to employ dull flesh with which to utter its
   thoughts! Soul, Soul, my Lord is worthy of your faith! I trusted Him.
   This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him! I looked unto Him and was
   lightened, and my face was not ashamed, and--

   "Ever since by faith I saw the stream, His flowing wounds supply;
   Redeeming love has been my theme,
   And shall be till I die!"

   Oh, if you knew my Savior; if you knew Him, you would trust Him! Surely
   if you will but think of the tens of thousands who are around the
   Throne, today, singing the song of Divine Grace, each one of these
   would seem to say to you, "Sinner, trust Him. He was true to me." If
   God's people who are here this morning could stand up and speak, I know
   their testimony would be, "Soul, trust Him--He has been good and true
   to me." Ah, my Lord, why have You not cast some of us away long ago?
   When we think of our unbelief, and our repeated backsliding, the wonder
   is that You have not torn up the marriage-bond and said, "He shall
   go--he shall go--he has rebelled against Me. He is as a backsliding
   heifer and as a bull unaccustomed to the yoke." But no! The strong love
   of God which first laid hold of us has never let go its grip; He has
   kept us when we have forsaken Him; pardoned all our shortcomings, and
   blotted out all our trespasses! And here we are to bear witness that He
   is a God ready to forgive, passing by iniquity, transgression and sin!
   Sinner, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, I command you--believe on
   Christ and--"As though God did beseech you by me, I pray you, in
   Christ's place, be reconciled to God." Think not that He is hard
   towards you; Jehovah's heart yearns to clasp His Ephraims to His
   breast! Prodigal! Your Father sees you--come, He will meet you--He'll
   kiss you; He'll clothe you; He'll make a banquet for you. He will bring
   forth music and dancing; and His own heart will have the sweetest of
   the music in itself! Come, then, come, I pray you--trust Him and
   leaving all else behind, of good or bad which belongs to you--come
   empty to be filled! Come naked to be clothed!

   V. I have but now one other point and I shall not detain you, probably
   two moments, while I dwell upon it. The subject would not be complete
   without it. It has been said of some preachers of the Word, and
   especially of me, that we delight to preach damnation and the fires of
   Hell. I think that all who have heard me constantly know that a more
   unfounded libel was never uttered against any living man! I have
   preached terrible sermons; they have been few and far between; but I
   have never preached them with tearless eyes! It has ever been to me a
   far greater misery to preach, than it has been to any to hear; and this
   last sentence or two, with which I conclude, is wrung from my very
   soul.

   And you say, do you, that God will not avenge your sins upon you--that
   you may go on in your iniquities and yet meet with no punishment; that
   you may reject Christ and do it safely; trample on His blood, and yet
   God is so calm that His anger will never flame forth against you? Well
   Soul. Well Soul, "You shall see whether His Word shall come to pass or
   not." But let me tell you His hand is not waxed short! He is as strong
   to punish as when He bade the floods cover the earth; as powerful to
   avenge as when He rained hail out of Heaven upon the cities of the
   plain! He is today as mighty to overtake and punish His enemies as when
   He sent the angel through the midst of Egypt, or afterwards smote the
   hosts of Senacherib! You shall see whether He will keep His Word or
   not--go on in the neglect of His great salvation--go to your dying bed,
   and buoy yourself up with the false hope that there is no hereafter, no
   Hell to come! But, Sinner, you shall see. You shall see. This point in
   dispute shall not long be a matter of question to be laughed at on the
   one side, and to be taught with tears on the other. You shall see and
   we are willing enough, ourselves, to wait that time; only, Soul, when
   you shall see, it will be too late to escape! When the fire gets hold
   upon you; when the hail of God begins to dash you in pieces, and there
   shall be none to deliver, where will your infidelity be then? Where
   your hard sayings against God's earnest ministers, then? You will use
   another note, and sing another tune, and yell another cry! O God, grant
   that none among us may ever dare to doubt You, and think that You
   cannot and will not punish us! By Your Grace may we come to the Cross
   as sinners, and be saved, lest unhappily in the world to come when You
   say, "Depart you cursed," we shall see whether Your Word shall come to
   pass unto us or not! May God add His own blessing for Jesus' sake!--

   "From where, then, shall doubts and fears arise?
   Why trickling sorrows drown our eyes?
   Slowly, alas, our mind receives
   The comfort that our Maker gives.
   Oh for a strong, a lasting faith,
   To credit what the Almighty says!
   To embrace the message of His Son,
   And call the joys of Heaven our own!
   Then should the earth's old pillars shake,
   And all the wheels of Nature break,
   Our steady souls should fear no more
   Than solid rocks when billows roar!
   Our everlasting hopes arise
   Above the venerable skies,
   Where the eternal Builder reigns,
   And His own courts His power sustains."
     __________________________________________________________________

                         The Shulamite'S Choice Prayer

   DELIVERED ON SUNDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 24, 1861, BY THE REV. C. H.
   SPURGEON, AT NEW PARK STREET, SOUTHWARK.

   "Set me as a seal upon Your heart, as a seal upon Your arm: for love is
   strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: its flames are flames
   of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench Your love,
   nor can the floods drown it." Song of Solomon 8:6,7.

   THIS is the prayer of one who has the present enjoyment of fellowship
   with Christ. But being apprehensive lest this communion should be
   interrupted, she avails herself of the opportunity now afforded her to
   plead for a something which shall be as the abiding token of a covenant
   between her and her Beloved when His visible Presence shall be
   withdrawn. You will notice that this is not the cry of a soul that is
   longing for fellowship, for that cry is--"Tell me O You whom my soul
   loves, where You feed." It is not even the cry of the soul that has
   some fellowship and needs more, for then it would say, "Oh that You
   were as my brother!" Nor is it the cry of a soul that has had
   fellowship but has lost it, for that is, "Saw You Him, whom my soul
   loves?" And she goes "about the streets and in the broad ways" saying,
   "I will seek Him." But this is the prayer of the spouse when she has
   been coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon His bosom. The thought
   strikes her, that He who has sustained her is about to go from her, to
   depart and leave her for a season, because it is expedient and more
   useful for her, and she prays that since He is no more on the earth,
   but has entered into the ivory palaces where her God dwells, that He
   would be pleased to make a covenant with her never to forget her, and
   that He would give her some sign and mark by which she might be assured
   that she is very near to His heart, and still written upon His arm. I
   take it to be the prayer of the Church at the present day, now that
   Christ is before the Father's Throne; the Bridegroom is not with us; He
   has left us; He has gone to prepare a place for us, and He is coming
   again. We are longing for His coming; we are saying in the language of
   the last verse of this Song of Songs, "Make haste, my Beloved and be
   You like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of spices." Yet
   before He went, it seemed as if His Church did pray to Him, "Set me as
   a seal upon Your heart, as a seal upon Your arm." And this is the cry
   of the Church tonight, and I trust your cry, too, that while He is not
   present but is absent from you, you may be near to Him, and have a
   sweet consciousness of that blessed fact!

   Now without further preface, let me first notice, the prayer, and
   secondly, the reasoning with which the spouse argues her suit The
   prayer is, "Set me as a seal upon Your heart, as a seal upon Your arm."
   The argument is four-fold. She pleads thus, "Love is strong as death."
   She waxes bolder--"Jealousy is cruel as the grave." She wrestles
   again--"The flames thereof are flames of fire, a most vehement flame."
   And once again she brings forth her choice words, "Set me as a seal
   upon Your heart, for many waters cannot quench Your love, neither can
   the floods drown it."

   I. THE PRAYER, you will notice, is two-fold, although it is so really
   and essentially one--"Set me as a seal upon Your heart, as a seal upon
   Your arm."

   Now I think I can perhaps explain this text best by a reference to the
   high priest of old. You know that when he put on his holy
   garments--those robes of glory and beauty--he wore the breastplate of
   cunning work in which four rows of precious stones were set. If you
   will turn to Exodus, the 39th Chapter and 14th verse, you will read,
   "And the stones were according to the names of the children of Israel,
   twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet,
   everyone with his name, according to the twelve tribes." How suggestive
   of this prayer!--"Set me as a seal or as an engraved signet, as a
   precious stone that has been carved--set my name upon Your breast." Let
   it be always glittering there. But beside this breastplate, there was
   the ephod, and we are told that, "they made shoulder pieces for it, to
   couple it together; by the two edges was it coupled together." Then in
   the sixth verse we read, "And they set onyx stones enclosed in settings
   of gold; they were engraved, as signets are engraved, with the names of
   the children of Israel. And he put them on the shoulders of the ephod,
   that they should be stones for a memorial to the children of Israel. As
   the Lord commanded Moses." So that it was set as a signet upon his
   shoulder, or upon his arm, as well as upon his heart. I think these
   were to indicate that the high priest loved the people, for he bore
   them on his heart; and that he served the people as a consequence of
   that love, therefore he bore them upon his shoulders. And I think the
   prayer of the spouse is just this--she would know once and for all that
   Christ's heart is entirely hers; that He loves her with the intensity,
   and the very vitality of His Being; that His inmost heart, the
   life-spring of His soul, belongs to her. And she would also know that
   that love moves His arm. She longs to see herself as supported,
   sustained, strengthened, defended, preserved and kept by that same
   strong arm which put Orion in its place in the sky, and holds the
   Pleiades that they should give their light forevermore. She longs that
   she may know the love of His heart, and that she may experience the
   power of His arm. Can we not, each of us, join the spouse in this
   prayer tonight? Oh, Lord, let me know that my name is engraved on Your
   heart not only let it be there, but let me knowit. Write my name not
   only in Your heart, but may it be as a signet on Your heart that I may
   see it.

   Doubtless there are the names of very many written upon Christ's heart
   who have not yet been able to see their names there--they are there,
   but not written as on a signet. Christ has loved them from all
   eternity; His heart has been set on them from everlasting, but as yet
   they have never seen the signet. They have never had the seal of the
   Spirit to witness within that they are born of God! While their names
   may be in His heart, they have not seen them there as a seal upon His
   heart; and no doubt there are multitudes for whom Christ has fought and
   conquered, and whom He daily keeps and preserves, who have never seen
   their names written as a seal upon His arm. Their prayer is that they
   may see Christ's love visibly, that they may discover it in their
   experience, that it may be beyond a question, and no more a matter of
   doubt--that His hand and His heart are engaged for their eternal
   salvation! I repeat it, you can all join in this prayer, you people of
   God--it is a cry that you can put up now, and continue to put up till
   it is fully answered. Oh, let me know, my Lord, that I am Yours, bound
   to Your heart, and let me know that I am Yours, protected and preserved
   by Your arm! This is the prayer. I shall not say more upon it because I
   wish to speak more at length upon the arguments with which it is here
   pleaded.

   II. The spouse argues with her Lord thus. It is to my advantage that
   you should thus write my name upon Your hand and heart, for I know this
   concerning Your love, that it is strong; that it is firm; that it has a
   wondrous intensity, and that it is sure and unquenchable. With these
   four pleas she backs up her suit.

   1. She pleads that He would show her His love, because of the strength
   of it. "Your love is strong as death." Some expositors think that this
   means the Church's love. Others say, "No, it means the love of Christ
   to His Church." I will not try to determine which it means, for they
   are extremely like each other. Christ's love to His Church is the
   magnificent image--the affection which His people bear to Him is the
   beautiful miniature. They are not alike in degree and measure, for the
   Church never loves Christ so much as Christ loves her, but they are as
   much alike as the father, in his strength, is to the baby in its
   weakness. There is the same image and superscription. The love of the
   Church to Christ is the child of Christ's love to the Church, and
   consequently, there is something of the same attribute in both. And
   while it is true that Christ's love to us is so strong that He did defy
   and endure death for us, it is also true that the love of the Church to
   Him is as strong as death. Her chosen sons and daughters have endured
   the pangs of the rack, and the pains of the sword, and have gone
   through a thousand deaths sooner than be turned aside from their chaste
   fidelity to their Lord! I shall, however, keep to the first idea that
   this is the love of Christ, and shall use it thus as being the plea of
   His Church that because His love is strong, she desires to be certified
   of her interest in it, and to see most visibly the signet and seal of
   her being really in His heart. "Love as strong as death." What a
   well-chosen emblem this is! What besides love is as strong as death?
   With steadfast foot, Death marches over the world; no mountains can
   restrain the invasion of this all-conquering king! There is no chalet
   on the mountain Alp so high that his foot cannot climb to hunt the
   inhabitant; there is no valley so fair that he does not intrude and
   stalk--a grim skeleton across the plain. Everywhere and in every place
   beneath the moon have you sway, O Death! The lordly lion bows his neck
   to you; Leviathan yields up his corpse which floats many a crucifix
   upon the briny waves. You are the great fisher; you have put your hook
   into his jaw, and dragged him from the sea. Master of all are you! You
   have dominion given unto you; you wear an iron crown, and you dash in
   pieces as though they were but potter's vessels, the strongest of the
   sons of men!

   None among the sons of Adam can withstand Death's insidious advances!
   When his hour is come, none can bid him delay. The most clamorous
   prayers cannot move the flinty heart of Death. Insatiable and not to be
   appeased, he devours and devours forever! That scythe is never blunted,
   that hourglass never ceases to flow. Mightiest among the mighty are
   you, O Death! But Christ's love is strong as death. It too can climb
   the mountain, and lay hold upon the mountaineer far removed from the
   sound of the ministration of the Gospel. It too can march into the
   valley. And though Popery with all its clouds of darkness should cover
   it, yet the love of Christ can win its glorious way! What can stand
   against the love of Christ? The stoutest must yield to it, and
   adamantine hearts are dashed to shivers by one blow of its golden
   hammer! As the sun dissolves the chains of frost, and bids the wind
   rush on in freedom--though once bound as if it were stone--so does this
   love of Christ, wherever it comes, give life and joy and liberty, snap
   the bonds, and win its way, never being retarded, never being hindered,
   because it is written, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,
   and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." Who can
   measure the strength of Christ's love? Men have defied it, but their
   defiance has been overcome! They have long resisted, but they have been
   compelled to throw down their weapons; they have crossed it, but they
   have found it hard to kick against the pricks; they have gone on caring
   for none of these things, but thus the eternal Counsel has decreed
   it--Christ must--He shall have that redeemed man, and He has had him!
   Jesus Christ's love is strong as death! Sooner might a man live, after
   God's will had decreed that he should die, than a sinner remain
   impenitent one hour after God's love had decreed to melt his heart!
   Sooner might you defy the grave and hurl back upon his haunches, the
   pale horse of Death, than turn back the Holy Spirit when He comes in
   His Divine Omnipotence to lay hold upon the heart and soul of man! As
   all the owls and bats with all their hoots could not scare back the sun
   when once its hour to rise has come--so all the sins and fears, and
   troubles of man cannot turn back the light of love when God decrees
   that it should shine upon the heart! Stronger than death, His love is
   found! Death is but weakness itself when compared with the love of
   Christ! What a sweet reason why I should have a share in it! What a
   blessed argument for me to use before the Throne of God! Lord, if Your
   love is so strong, and my heart is so hard, and myself so powerless to
   break it, oh, let me know Your love, that it may overcome me, that it
   may enchain me with its sure but soft fetters, and that I may be Your
   willing captive forevermore!

   But let us notice here that when the spouse says that Christ's love is
   strong as death, you must remember that she may in faith have foreseen
   that it would one day be tried which was the stronger. You know, do you
   not, that these two once entered into the lists to try their strength?
   And it was a struggle upon which angels gazed. Jesus--I mean Incarnate
   Love--at the first seemed to shrink before Death. "He sweat, as it
   were, great drops of blood falling to the ground." You cannot see the
   brow of His antagonist, but could you have perceived it, Death--the
   invader--was trembling more than Christ--the Invaded! Christ had the
   prophecy of victory, but Death--the fates were against it. Do you
   remember that story of how the Savior's back was plowed, His hands
   pierced, and His side opened? Death--I think I see the flush that
   crossed his pale face as he thought that he had gained the victory--but
   Jesus triumphed--Love reigned while Death lays prostrate at His feet!
   Strong as Death, indeed, was Jesus' love, for Jesus swallowed up Death
   in victory! Not merely overcame it, but seemed to devour it; to make
   nothing of it. and put it away once and for all. "O Death," said Love,
   "I will be your plague! O grave, I will be your destruction!" And Love
   has kept its word, and proved itself to be "strong as Death."

   Well, Beloved, we may add to these few remarks this word. Rest assured
   that as Death will not give up its prey, so neither will Love. How hard
   and firm does Death hold its captives! Till that Resurrection trumpet
   shall make him loose their bonds, none shall go free! Their ashes he
   preserves as carefully as a king keeps the jewels of his crown; he will
   not allow one of them to escape, as did Israel out of the land of
   Pharaoh. In the house of bondage, there they must lie. And is not
   Christ's love as strong as this? He shall keep His own. Those who are
   His, He never will let go. No, when the archangel's trumpet shall
   dissolve the grasp of Death, then shall be heard the cry, "Father, I
   will that they, also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am."
   And when Death itself is dead, Love shall prove its eternal strength by
   taking its captives home. Love, then, is strong as Death. Lord Jesus,
   let me feel that love! Let me see Your arm nerved with it, and Your
   heart affected by this strong love which all my enemies cannot defeat;
   which all my sins cannot overturn; which all my weakness cannot deny. I
   think this is a most sweet and powerful argument to lead you to pray
   the prayer, and one which you will use when you are pleading before
   God.

   2. Let us now turn to the second plea--"Jealousy is cruel as the
   grave." Krummacher, in a sermon upon this passage, following the
   translation of Luther, quotes it as though it ran thus--"Jealousy is
   firm as Hell." And I believe that such is the proper translation, at
   least quite as correct as the present one. "Jealousy is firm as Hell."
   Those of you who have Bibles with the margins in them, (and the margins
   are generally like fine gold), will perceive the words in the corner,
   "Hebrew, hard"--"Jealousy is hardas the grave," which is just the idea
   of firmness, it is as firm as the grave. Sheol, I believe the word is
   here for grave, otherwise we translate it, "Hades"--or as Luther
   translates it--"Hell." "Jealousy is hard as Hell." The idea is just
   this--that the love of Christ in the form ofjealousy is as hard and as
   sternly relentless as is the grave and Hell. Now Hell never looses one
   of its bond-slaves. Once let the iron gate be shut upon the soul, and
   there is no escape. When the ring of fire has once girdled the immortal
   spirit, none can dash through the flaming battlements. The dungeon is
   locked; the key is dashed into the abyss of destiny, and never can be
   found--

   "Fixedis their everlasting state, could they repent, 'tis now too
   late." "Escape for your life, look not behind you," is a cry which may
   be uttered on earth, but which can never be heard in Hell! They who are
   once there, are there forever and forever. That modern doctrine of the
   restoration of damned souls has no foundation in the Word of God; it is
   a dream, and they shall find it so who once go into that place! "Where
   their worm dies not, and where their fire is not quenched"--a more
   perfect picture of an unrelenting seizure could not be found anywhere!
   The firmness and hardness of the grave and Hell are without abatement;
   when once they have got their hands upon their prey, they hold it with
   a tenacity which defies resistance.

   Well, but such is the love of Christ! If just now we had to speak of
   its strength, we have now to speak of its tenacity, its hardness, its
   attachment to those whom it has chosen. You may sooner unlock Hades,
   and let loose the spirits that are in prison there, than you could ever
   snatch one from the right hand of Christ! You may sooner rob Death of
   its prey, than Jesus of His purchased ones; you may spoil the lion's
   den, but shall the lion of the tribe of Judah be spoiled? Shall the
   prey be taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive delivered? Before
   one child of God shall be lost, you shall go first and make Death relax
   his grasp, and then next you shall make Hell with all its fury give up
   its prey! As soon as ever it can be proved that one child of God
   perishes, it can be proved that the fires of Hell can be put out--but
   until then there shall never be a shadow of a fear of that. As
   certainly as lost souls are lost, so certainly believing souls are
   saved! Oh, little do they know the love of Christ who think that He
   loves today and hates tomorrow! He is no such Lover as that--even
   earthly worms would despise such affection! Is Christ's affection a
   play of fast and loose? Does He choose and then refuse? Does He justify
   and then condemn? Does He press to His bosom, and afterwards reject
   with distaste? It is not so. Some mighty imagination might conceive
   Niagara Falls staying in its course, and made to ascend and climb the
   hills, instead of leaping downwards in its strength; but even then, no
   imagination can conceive the love of Christ retracing its eternal
   pathway! The Divine fury which is in it, drives it on, and on it must
   go as it has begun; the love of Christ is like an arrow which had been
   shot from the bow of destiny; it flies, it flies, and Heaven itself
   cannot change its course! Christ has decreed it--such men shall be His,
   and His they shall be! Nor will He turn away one of them, or make a new
   election, or plan a new redemption, or bring those to Heaven whom He
   never intended to bring, or lose those whom He ordained to save! He has
   said, and He will do it. He has commanded His Covenant forever, and it
   shall stand fast. He will have compassion on whom He will have
   compassion, and He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy! You have
   then, here, another reason why you should pray that your name may be
   upon Christ and upon His arm--once there, it is there forever! It is so
   surely there, so jealously there, so strongly there, so fixedly there,
   that it can never be removed, come what may! Christ is jealous of His
   people; He will not let another have His spouse; He will not sit still
   and see the Prince of Darkness walking off with her whom He espoused
   unto Himself in the eternal ages. The supposition is absurd! That cruel
   jealousy of His would make Him start up from His heavenly repose to
   snatch His chosen spouse from him who would seek to lead her to the
   hellish altar! She shall not be divorced from Him; she must not be
   married to another--

   "Stronger His love than death or Hell,
   Its riches are unsearchable!
   The first-born sons of Light
   Desire in vain its depths to see;
   They cannot reach the mystery,
   The length, the breadth, the height." 3. If the love of Christ is
   strong as death; it is such that it can never be moved from its
   objective, yet the question still arises, "May not the love itself die
   out? Even should it abide the same in its purpose, yet may not its
   intensity be diminished?" "No," says the Shulamite, "it is an attribute
   of Christ's love that the flames thereof are flames of fire which have
   a most vehement flame." More forcible is the language of the
   original--"The coals thereof are the coals of God"--a
   Hebrew idiom to express the most glowing of all flames--"the coals of
   God"! As though it were no earthly flame, but something far superior to
   the most vehement affection among men! Some who look carefully at it
   think there is an allusion in this sentence to the fire which always
   burnt at the altar, and which never went out. You remember there were
   coals of fire which were always kept burning under the Levitical
   dispensation. The flame was originally kindled by fire from Heaven, and
   it was the business of the priest to perpetually feed it with the
   sacred fuel. You will remember, too, that one of the cherubim flew and
   took a live coal from off this very altar and said to Isaiah, "Lo, this
   has touched your lips." Now, the love of Christ is like the coals upon
   the altar which never went out. But the spouse has brought out a fuller
   idea than this. She seems to say, "Its vehemence never decreases; it is
   always burning to its utmost intensity." Nebuchadnezzar's furnace was
   heated seven times hotter, but no doubt it grew cool. Christ's love is
   like the furnace, but it is always at the seven-fold heat, and it
   always has within itself its own fuel! It is not merely like fire, but
   like coals of fire, always having that within itself which supports it!
   Why did Christ love the spouse? What first lit the fire? He kindled it
   Himself! There was no reason whatever why Christ should love any of us,
   except the love of His own heart. And what is the fuel that feeds the
   fire? Your works and mine? No, Brothers and Sisters, no, no, a thousand
   times no! All the fuel comes from the same place--it is all from His
   heart! Now, if the flame of Christ's love depended upon anything we
   did--if it were fed with ourfuel--it would either die out, or else it
   would sometimes dwindle as the smoking flax--and then, again, it might
   kindle to a vehement heat. But since it depends on itself, and has the
   pure attributes of Divinity, it is a self-existent love, absolute and
   independent of the creature. Well, then, may we understand that it
   never shall grow less, but always be as a vehement flame!
   Now, I do not want to preach about this, but I wish you would think of
   it a little. Christian, turn it over in your mind--Christ loves you;
   not a little; not a little as a man may love his friend; not even as a
   mother may love her child, for she may forget the infant of her womb.
   He loves you with the highest degree of love that is possible! And what
   more can I say, except I add, He loves you with a degree of love that
   is utterly impossible to man; no finite mind could, if it should seek
   to measure it, get any idea whatever of the love of Christ towards us!
   You know, when we come to measure a drop with an ocean, there is a
   comparison. A comparison, I say, there is, though we should hardly be
   able to get at it! But when you attempt to measure our love with
   Christ's--the finite with the Infinite--there is no comparison at all!
   Though we loved Christ ten thousand times as much as we do, there would
   even then be no comparison between our love to Him, and His love to us!
   Can you now believe this--"Jesus loves me"? Why, to be loved by others
   here often brings the tear to one's eyes. It is sweet to have the
   affection of one's fellow; but to be loved of God, and to be loved at
   an intense degree--so loved that you have to leave it as a mystery the
   soul cannot fathom--you cannot tell how much! Be silent, O my Soul and
   be you silent, too, before your God, and lift up your soul in prayer
   thus--"Jesus, take me into this sea of love, and let me be ravished by
   a sweet and heavenly contentment in a sure confidence that You have
   loved me and given Yourself for me."

   4. We shall now turn to the last argument of this choice prayer, which
   is equally precious. It is the unquenchable eternity of this love.
   There is that in its very essence which defies any opposite quality to
   extinguish it. The argument seems to me to run thus--"Yes, but if
   Christ's love does not die out of itself--if it has such intensity that
   it never would of itself fail, yet may not you and I put it out?" No,
   says the text, "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods
   drown it." Christ has endured many waters already--the waters of bodily
   affliction, the waters of soul travail, the waters of spiritual
   desertion. Christ was in this world like Noah's Ark--the depths that
   came up from beneath Hell troubled Him; the great floods came from
   above; it pleased the Father to bruise Him. The cataracts leaped on Him
   from either side; He was betrayed by His friends; He was hunted by His
   foes. But the many waters could no more destroy His love than it could
   drown the Ark of gopher wood! Just as that Ark mounted higher and
   higher, and higher, the more the floods prevailed--so then that love of
   Christ seemed to rise higher and higher, and higher--just in proportion
   to the floods of agony which sought to put it out! Fixed and resolved
   to bring His ransomed people home, the Captain of our salvation becomes
   perfect through suffering, plunges into the thick of the battle, and
   comes out of it more than Conqueror! And oh, since then, my Beloved,
   what floods has Christ's love endured! There have been the floods of
   our sins; the many waters of our blasphemy and ungodliness. Since
   conversion there have been the many waters of our backslidings, and the
   floods of our unbelief. What crime on crime--what transgression on
   transgression have we been guilty of! Yet He has never failed us up to
   this moment.

   "By the grace of God we are what we are. And we are persuaded that
   neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
   angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor height, nor depth nor any
   other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which
   is in Christ Jesus our Lord." What if we should be tried in
   circumstances? "Neither famine, nor persecution, nor nakedness, nor
   peril, nor sword shall separate from the love of Christ." What if we
   backslide, and wander from His ways? "Though we believe not, He abides
   faithful." And what if in the last black hour we should have bitter
   sufferings on the dying bed? Still He shall be with us in the last
   moment, for it is written, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is
   Death." So you see, Death is to be destroyed, and we are to be victors
   over him! Gather up, then, all the thoughts of how we have tried, and
   how we shall try the Master, and let us set to our seal tonight our own
   solemn, "Yes and Amen" to this most precious declaration of the
   Shulamite--"Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods
   drown it." Then, Lord, write my name on Your heart, engrave my name as
   a signet on Your arm that I may have a share in this unfailing and
   undying affection and be Yours now and forever!

   Poor Sinner! I know you have been saying while I have been preaching
   thus--"I wish I had a share in that love." Well, thisprayer you may
   pray tonight--"Set me, Lord--set me as a seal upon Your heart, as a
   seal upon Your arm. Love me, Lord. Help me, Lord. Let Your heart move
   towards me; let Your arm move for me, too. Think of me, Lord; set me on
   Your heart. Lord, set me on Your arm; Lord, I long to have Your love,
   for I hear it is strong as death, and You know I am chained by Satan,
   and I am his bond-slave. Come and deliver me--You are more than a match
   for my cruel tyrant; come with Your strong love and set me free. "I
   hear that Your love is firm, too, as Hell itself. Lord, that is such a
   love as I need; though I know I shall vex You, and wander from You,
   come and love me with a love that is firm and everlasting! O Lord, I
   feel there is nothing in me that can make You love me; come and love
   me, then, with that love which finds its own fuel! Love me with those
   coals of fire which have a vehement flame; and since many waters cannot
   quench Your love, prove that in me. Lord there are many waters of sin
   in me; but Lord, help me to believe that Your love is not quenched by
   them. There are many corruptions in me; but Lord, love me with that
   love which my corruptions cannot quench. Here, Lord, I give myself
   away--take me! Make me what You would have me to be, and keep and
   preserve me even to the end."

   May the Lord help you to pray that prayer, and then may He answer it
   for His mercy's sake.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                    Humility

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 17, 1861. BY THE REV. C. H.
   SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "Serving the Lord with all humility of mind." Acts 20:19.
   IT is not often that a man may safely speak about his own humility.
   Humble men are mostly conscious of great pride, while those who are
   boastful of humility have nothing but false pretense, and really lack
   and need it. I question whether any of us are at all judges as to our
   pride or humility; for verily, pride so often assumes the shape of
   lowliness when it has its own end to serve, and lowliness on the other
   hand is so perfectly compatible with a heavenly dignity of decision,
   that it is not easy at all times to discover which is the counterfeit
   and which is the precious and genuine coin. You will remember that in
   the case in our text, Paul speaks by Inspiration. If it were not for
   this fact, I would not have believed even Paul, himself, when he spoke
   of his own humility. So distrustful do I feel of our judgment upon this
   point, that if he had not spoken under the Infallible witness and
   guidance of the Holy Spirit, I would have said that the text was not
   true. When a man says he serves God with humbleness of mind, speaking
   merely from his own judgment, there is clear proof before you that he
   is a proud man! But Paul speaks not to his own commendation, but with
   the sole motive of clearing his hands of the blood of all men. Led, no
   doubt, by the Holy Spirit thus to speak--that he might be an example to
   all coming ages--he becomes the mirror to all the ministers of Christ
   that we, too, each of us in our degree serving the Lord, may without
   degree be filled with humility, taking the lowest seat, not esteeming
   ourselves beyond what we ought to think, but submitting ourselves to
   men of low estate--emptying out ourselves as He did who emptied Himself
   of all His Glory, when He came to save our souls.
   I shall take the text this morning, and shall speak of it as the Lord
   shall please to help me in my weakness. First, I shall speak of the
   comprehensiveness of humility. You notice the text says, "Serving the
   Lord with allhumility." Secondly, I shall speak upon the trials to
   which our humility will be subjected; and thirdly, upon the arguments
   by which we ought to support it, t o generate it, and to sustain it in
   our souls. And then, fourthly, I shall show forth some practical
   effects of humility, and urge you to show them forth with me in our
   daily lives.
   I. First then, the COMPREHENSIVENESS OF HUMILITY.
   It is a somewhat striking expression; it is not merely serving the Lord
   with humility, but serving the Lord with all humility. There are many
   sorts of pride. Perhaps while I am running over the list, you will be
   able, by looking at the contrast, to see that there must also be many
   kinds of humility.
   There is the pride of the heretic who will utter false doctrines
   because he thinks his own judgment to be better than the Word of God;
   never content to sit like a child to believe what he is told, he is a
   disputant but not a disciple. He will insist upon it that his own
   reason is to be the well-spring of his own beliefs, and he will receive
   nothing beyond his own reach. Now Paul never had the heretic's pride.
   He could say, "God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our
   Lord Jesus Christ." No, so willing was he to sit at the feet of Jesus,
   that he counted all the learning which he had received before he sat at
   the feet of Jesus to be of no value! He spoke not with the wisdom of
   words, nor with human learning, but with the demonstration of the
   Spirit and with power.
   There is next the pride of the Roman Catholic, who attaches merit to
   his own works, and hopes to win Heaven as the reward of his own doings.
   From this Paul was totally free. He had humility which is the very
   contrast of it. Often did he say, when speaking of himself, "yet not I,
   but Christ." He learned to count his righteousness as filthy rags, and
   all his former doings were to him but dross and dung that he might win
   Christ and be found in Him.
   Next there is the pride of the curious. The man who is not content with
   simplicities, but must pry into mysteries. He would, if he could, climb
   to the Eternal Throne, and read between those folded leaves, and break
   the seven seals of the mysterious book of destiny. You know well our
   Apostle has many things in his writings which are hard to be
   understood, yet he uttered them because of the Spirit; you never meet
   with any attempt in the Apostle's writing--as you do in the preaching
   of some ministers, and as you do in the conversation of some
   professors--to reconcile predestination with free will. He was quite
   content to preach to men as free agents, and exhort them to repent;
   quite willing to speak of God as working in us to will and do of His
   good pleasure, while we also work out our own salvation with fear and
   trembling. Paul was never curious to find out where the lines of Truth
   met; he was perfectly content to take his Doctrine from his Master's
   Spirit, and leave the old wives' fables, and endless genealogies and
   disputes, and questionings, to those who had no better guests to
   entertain.
   Again--there is the pride of the persecutor; the man who is not content
   with his own notions, but would hunt to death another; the pride which
   suggests that I am infallible, and that if any man should differ from
   me--the stake and the rack would be the due deserts of so great a sin
   against so great a person as myself! Now, the Apostle acted towards
   those who differed with him with the greatest wisdom and kindness, and
   though full often he was beaten with rods, or subjected to false
   brethren, and hauled before the magistrates, I think he had none of the
   spirit of Elijah that would bring down fire from Heaven upon any man.
   He was kind, and had that charity which suffers long and hopes all
   things, and endures all things, and believes all things. In this, too,
   you have an instance of allhumility. He had the humility of a man of
   generous spirit.
   And there is the pride of the impenitent man who will not yield to God.
   He says, "I am free; I was never under dominion to any; my neck has
   never felt the rein, my jaw has never felt the bit." Not so our
   Apostle. He was always humble, teachable, and filled even to
   sorrowfulness with a sense of his own unworthiness. "Oh, wretched man
   that I am," he said, "who shall deliver me from the body of this
   death?" Far enough was he from rebellion against the Most High God; for
   he would sit at the feet of Christ and learn, yes, and he would lie at
   the foot of the Throne in dust and ashes, and confess himself to be the
   very chief of sinners, and less than the least of all the saints! I
   think you will very soon learn from the contrast I have presented to
   you, what the Apostle meant when he said, "in allhumility." There are
   many sorts of pride. There are many sorts of humility, too. The Apostle
   had them all, or rather they were blended together in a sweet mixture
   in his daily preaching and conversation. I hope this morning to give
   you a clearer view of the comprehensiveness of humility, and so I will
   put it to you in another shape.
   Some of the old writers, who like to use terms to sound very much
   alike, say, There is a proposedhumility, or humility before the service
   of God; there is an opposed humility, or humility during the service of
   God which continues under trial; and there is, thirdly, an imposed
   humility, when the soul, conscious of sin during the act, imposes upon
   itself the task of bending before God, and offering repentance for its
   sin. Not caring much for these terms, because I think that old writers
   went out of their way to make them, I will be content with the
   substance. There is humility before serving God. When a man lacks this,
   he proposes to himself his own honor, and his own esteem in serving
   God. How easy is it for us to preach a sermon, having our eyes upon our
   hearers, hoping that they will be satisfied with us, and will say, "He
   spoke right well--the man is an orator: he is eloquent." Yes, and how
   easy it is to propose to please yourself so that you may be able to say
   as you come down from the rostrum, "I have not failed today in my own
   judgment, and I am satisfied with myself." This is pride before
   service, and it will mar everything! If we do not come to God's altar
   humbly, we cannot come acceptably. Whether we preach or pray, or give
   alms, or whatever we do, it is necessary that we bend exceedingly low
   before we enter upon the work; for if not, self-seeking and
   self-glorifying will lie at the bottom of all, and God neither can nor
   will accept us.
   Look at too many Christians! How little of that humility before service
   they have. They will pick that position in the Church which will give
   them the most honor; and if there is work to do which will confer no
   position upon them, they leave that to others. If you require a man to
   occupy an honorable position in the Church, you can find scores; but if
   you need one who shall be a menial in the House of God--who shall be
   the least in God's heritage--how difficult to find one! We are so
   pleased with the glitter of publicity, and the glory of man's esteem,
   that I doubt not that in us all there is time of choosing our position
   for the honor's sake, rather than for God's sake! But it was never so
   with the Apostle Paul. I think I see him now, working long past
   midnight making his tents, taking stitch after stitch with his needle
   through the hard canvas, working away to provide for his own individual
   needs, because an ungracious people held back the laborer's reward.
   Then I see that tent maker going into the pulpit with his hands all
   blistered with his hard work, as rough as a laborer's hands. You would
   say of him at once, in getting up to speak, that man never proposes to
   himself the praises of his hearers! He is not like the Grecian orator
   who will go anywhere to get applause, turn aside to tell any tale, or
   to preach anything if he can but excite his audience to say, "He is an
   orator! Let us write him down among the great names; let us put the
   crown upon his head, and celebrate him through the midst of Greece as
   being the golden-mouthed man who can speak right mightily, as if the
   bees of Hybla had hived their honey upon his lips!" Never could you see
   that in Paul; you could discover at once that his solitary aim was to
   win souls, and so to glorify Christ. Let us labor after this as a part
   of allhumility.
   But again--there is in the next place humility during the act. When a
   man finds that God is with him, he may be base enough to glorify
   himself. He may have been very humble, indeed, when he began the
   battle, but there is one enemy there at his feet, and another has just
   been dashed down by a blow from his right hand. The Evil One whispers
   in his ear, "You have done well; you are doing well." And then pride
   comes in and spoils all! That is a splendid Psalm which begins, "Not
   unto us." David thought it necessary to say it twice. "Not unto us, O
   Lord! Not unto us." Then he deals the deathblow with the other
   sentence, "but unto Your name be all the Glory." To sing that song when
   you are trampling on your foes; to sing that song when you are reaping
   the great harvest; to sing that song when God's people are fed under
   your ministry; to sing that when you are going on from strength to
   strength, conquering and to conquer, will prove a healthy state of
   heart! Nothing but the most extraordinary Grace can keep us in our
   right position while we are serving God and God is honoring us. We are
   so inclined to steal His jewels from the crown, to put them on our own
   breasts; if we would not steal the diadem itself, yet we look with
   longing eyes upon it as if we would like to wear it if but a single
   moment. I have thought, sometimes, how many Christians are like the son
   of Henry the Fourth, who when his father lies asleep, puts the crown on
   his head. You and I have done the same; we have forgotten God; He was
   to us as One who sleeps, and we began to put the crown on our own head.
   Oh, fools that we were! Our time for crown-wearing has not come. We do
   but anger our Father, and bring grief into our spirits when we think of
   crowning ourselves, instead of crowning Him; worshipping our own image
   instead of bending before the Lord God Jehovah.
   Christian men and women and especially you, O my own Soul, let us take
   heed that while serving God, we serve Him as the angels do who cover
   their faces, and cover their feet while they fly upon His errands!
   Then there is another kind of humility to make up all
   humility--humility after the service is done. In looking back upon
   success achieved, upon heights attained, upon efforts which have been
   blest, it is so easy to say, "My right hand and my mighty arm have
   gotten me the victory." Men generally allow their fellow creatures some
   little congratulation. Can a man congratulate you without admitting
   that you may congratulate yourself? Now there is respect and honor to
   be given to the man of God who has served his race and his Master. By
   all manner of means, let the names of Luther and Calvin and Zwingli be
   held in honor. Has not God Himself said it?--"The righteous shall be
   had in everlasting remembrance." It were wrong in us if we did not
   honor God's servants, for it would seem as if we dishonored the Master.
   But it will never do for the servant of God to honor himself! After his
   work is done he must lay his head upon his death pillow, saying, "I am
   not worthy of the least of all Your mercies! What am I, and what is my
   father's house, that You have brought me here? I am, having done all,
   but an unprofitable servant; I have not even done as much as it was my
   duty to have done." Sunday school teachers, tract distributors,
   visitors of the sick, you that feed the hungry and clothe the
   naked--especially you deacons and elders, ministers of the church--see
   to it that you never, when your work is done, speak of yourselves or of
   your work. No; your brethren, even if you speak in apparently humble
   terms, will soon find, when you talk much of what you do, that you are
   proud of it. You may think that you have misled them, but you certainly
   have not; much less have you deceived your God! Take care that you put
   your finger on your own beauty. When you are painting another man,
   imitate Apelles, who drew Alexander with his finger upon the scar; but
   when you are painting yourself, put your finger over your choice
   beauty, for depend upon it that the hiding finger of your modesty will
   be more beautiful than the beauty you conceal! Labor, then, for God's
   sake, for the Church's sake, for your own sake, to serve the Lord with
   all humility--humility before the act, humility duringthe service, and
   humility when all is done--"Serving the Lord with all humility of
   mind."

   II. But, secondly, the TRIALS OF HUMILITY, or the dangers through which
   humility has to pass.

   And first and foremost, one of the trials to which humility will be
   exposed is the possession of great ability. When a man has seven
   talents, he must remember that he has seven burdens, and he who has
   ten, if he has more than others, should feel that he has ten times any
   other man's burden of responsibility; and therefore he should be bowed
   down. Let a man feel that he possesses more power than another, more
   eloquence, more mental acumen, more learning, more imagination, and he
   is so apt to sit down and say, "I am something; I am somebody in the
   Church." Yes, one may indeed speak with solemnity here. It is so
   ridiculous for us to ever boast of any talents which God has given us.
   It is as though the debtor in the jail should say, "I am a better man
   than you, for I am in debt 10,000 pounds, and you only a hundred." The
   more we have, the more we owe, and how can there be any ground for
   boasting there? A man might as well be proud because he is six feet
   high, while another is only five feet, six inches, as be proud that he
   has 10 talents, while another has only five. We are what God has made
   us, as far as gifts are concerned. If the Lord said to Moses, "Who has
   made man's mouth?" because Moses said he was of stammering speech, you
   may say that to yourselves if you can speak well. Or if you act well,
   "Who has made man's arm?" Or if you think well, "Who has made man's
   brain?" The honor never can be to the thingitself, but to that Mighty
   One who made it what it is! Great talents make it hard for a man to
   maintain humility. Shall I surprise you when I say that little talents
   have precisely the same effect?

   I have seen in my short time, some of the biggest men I ever set my
   eyes upon who were the smallest insects that were ever subjected to the
   microscope; some great men in the pulpit, too--stately, dignified,
   magnificent, majestic--men of whom a fortune could have been made
   outright if you could but have bought them at their proper value and
   sold them at what, in their opinion, they were worth; men who were only
   fit to be bishops--they never could have been the inferior clergy--a
   curate's place would have been utterly insignificant! To have been a
   tent-maker, or an ordinary preacher like Paul would have been far
   beneath their level. They always have the idea that they were born on a
   very fortunate day, and that the world owes them the utmost
   consideration and respect merely for their doing human beings the honor
   of living in the midst of them, though there is nothing very much they
   have ever done! Now little talents often make a man proud. "There," he
   says, "I have but a trifle in the world, I must make a flare with it. I
   have but one ring, and I will always put the finger that wears that,
   outwards, so that it may be seen." It is a very common habit of all
   people who wear rings to keep the fingers on which they wear them
   always exposed to view, especially if they have only one ring! If a man
   has no gold in his pocket, he is sure to put on gold cuff links; and if
   a man has scarcely any wealth at all, he is sure to put it on his back,
   because he must keep up a position, and that position, never having
   been his rightful position, he is obliged to maintain at great cost.
   Now, if you have little talents, and feel you have, do not swell and
   burst with envy. The frog was never contemptible as a frog, but when he
   tried to blow himself out to the size of the bull in the meadow, then
   he was contemptible, indeed! I have frequently had this observation
   made to me in the most pompous manner by some little minister, "Oh,
   Sir, I feel the danger of your position, and I always make it a matter
   of prayer to God that you may be kept humble." I am exceedingly obliged
   to the gentleman, but I am sure I could make it a matter of prayer for
   him, that he might be made humble, once in his life, by way of a
   change--for he has never yet known what humility is so far as he was
   personally concerned. Now you know very well that it is just as easy
   for a man to be proud in his rags, as my Lord Mayor in his gold chain.
   There is many a proud one riding in his little cart quite as vain as my
   lord who rides in a gilded coach. Indeed, I dare say he, the last one,
   feels very little pride, but very great shame at having to make himself
   so ridiculous! You may be a king and yet be humble; you may be a beggar
   and yet be proud; you may be great and yet little in your own esteem;
   you may be little and yet you may be greater in your estimation than
   those who are the greatest! See to it, then, that your low estate does
   not make you proud any more than your high estate.

   Again, success often has a very sorry influence upon humility. The man
   was humble before his God, till God had given him the great victory
   over the Moabites, but then his heart was lifted up within him, and the
   Lord forsook him. When he was little in Israel, he bowed before the
   Most High; when he became great, he exalted himself. Great success is
   like a full cup, it is hard to hold it with a steady hand. It is
   swimming in deep waters, and there is always a fear of being drowned.
   It is standing on the top of the pinnacle of the Temple, and Satan
   often says, "Cast yourself down." But on the other hand, lack of
   success has just the same tendency. Have you not seen the man who could
   not get a congregation, and who insisted that it was because he was a
   better preacher than the man who did? I sometimes read a magazine, the
   message of which is this--if you want to be a good preacher, you must
   preach according to the outlines which are given you in this magazine!
   There are some who do this, but still find their chapels empty; then
   says the magazine with all complacency--"The men who get the
   congregations are always the weakest men; they are always the men who
   have the least mental power, while we who have but a few, a mere
   handful--we are the intellectual people." "The mob always will," they
   say, "run after the foolish men." So that the Brother who gets no
   success, comforts himself with this thought--that Providence is quite
   wrong, and that the Christian public are quite mistaken that he ought
   to be, if things had been right, the most popular man living, and that
   it is quite a mistake he is not. Now, lack of success has a very great
   influence on some men to make them feel, "Well, if I cannot succeed in
   getting other people to think me somebody, I will think everybody else,
   nobody, and I will elevate myself above them all in my own opinion."
   Now, I am speaking some home-truths. I have received a deal of advice,
   myself, and I think I may sometimes take the liberty of giving it to
   others. I hope that those who are always thinking of success as
   certainly involving pride, may also take to themselves the comfortable
   reflection that their non-success, suggesting as it may very bitter
   thoughts about their Brothers, may also be pride, only in another
   direction!

   But then, again; long enjoyment of the Master's Presence has a tendency
   to make us proud. To walk all day in the sunlight brings us in danger
   of a sunstroke. Better not sit too near the fire, or one may get
   scorched. If we have nothing but full assurance, we may come to be
   presumptuous. There is nothing like the heat of summer to breed
   putrefaction. When you have long-continued joys, fear and tremble for
   all the goodness of God. But on the other hand, long- continued doubts
   will breed pride. When a man has long been doubting his God, and
   mistrusting His promise, what is that but pride? He needs to be
   somebody and something. He is not willing to believe his God in the
   dark--he thinks, in fact, that God deals harshly with him, in allowing
   him to be in despondency at all! He thinks he always ought to have joy
   and satisfaction, and so it comes to pass that his doubts and fears are
   as ready parents of pride, as assurance could have been. In fact, to
   cut short a very long story, for I might go on with these two sides of
   the question all morning, there is not a position in the world where a
   man cannot be humble if he has Divine Grace; there is not a station
   under Heaven where a man will not be proud if left to himselfI pray
   you, never think that leaving one station and getting into another will
   be any help to your humility. 'Tis true the peasant boy in the Valley
   of Humiliation sang--

   "He who is down need fear no fall
   He who is low no pride,
   He who is humble ever shall
   Have God to be his Guide."

   But I dare say that very same boy was sometimes singing in that very
   valley, songs of despondency, Psalms of pride and wicked rebellion
   against his God. It is not the place, it is the heart It is not the
   position, but the Grace. That man is as safe on a pinnacle as on level
   ground, if God holds him up; and he is as much in danger in the valley
   as he is upon the high place if God is not with him. If the Lord
   forsakes him, he will fall in either place! If the Lord is with him, he
   will stand in every position! I have thus hinted at some of the dangers
   to which humility is exposed.

   III. And now, thirdly, SOME OF THE ARGUMENTS BY WHICH WE OUGHT TO BE
   PROVOKED TO HUMILITY OF SPIRIT.

   1. First, let us draw some arguments from ourselves. What am I, that I
   should be proud? I am a man, that is to say, a worm; a thing that is
   and is not. An angel--how much he surpasses me, and yet the Lord
   charged His angels with folly, and the heavens were not pure in His
   sight. How much less, then, should the son of man, a creature full of
   sin, lift himself up and exalt himself as though he were something?
   Verily, man at his best estate is altogether vanity; his life a dream,
   an empty show. Oh, vain man, why should you be proud? Think of our
   mortality. In a few more years we shall be worm's meat. Caesar's dust
   shall be eaten, eaten by the most base of creatures! Take up the skull
   of some departed one in your hand and say, "What had this man to be
   proud of?" Go to some morgue and mark the corruption; look on some body
   which has been buried but a little while--what a heap of loathsomeness!
   And yet you and I carry about with us the elements of all that
   putridity--the food of all that rottenness! How, then, dare webe proud?
   I have at home a picture which is so admirably managed that when you
   look closely at it, you see two little children in the bloom of youth
   at play, enjoying each other's company. If you go some distance from
   the picture, the outlines get more and more indistinct and standing
   some few yards away from it, it turns into death's head, with vacant,
   empty eyes, and the bones of the skull and the jaws--a perfect death's
   head. Now, this is just ourselves! When we are looking with our poor
   short-sight of time, we look like fair beings that are full of life;
   but stand at a Scriptural distance, and view these things, and you soon
   perceive that we are nothing, after all, but death's heads! What right,
   then, have we to be proud? Begin not to be proud, Man, till your life
   is secure--and you know that will never be! You bubble, boast not of
   the many colors you have--you shall directly burst. You glorious
   rainbow, exalt not yourself because of your varied hues--when the sun
   withdraws its light, or the cloud moves, you are gone! Oh, you fleecy
   cloud that is so soon to burst on the earth, and be dissipated
   forever-- think not of yourself and your fleecy glories--for you shall
   soon depart and be gone! Every time your humility gives way, and your
   pride lifts up its head, remember that you are mortal, and the skeleton
   may teach you humility.

   But there is yet a stronger argument than this. What are you but
   depraved creatures? When the child of God is at his best, he is no
   better than a sinner at his worst, except as far as God has made him to
   differ! "There goes John Bradford-- but for the Grace of God." No,
   there goes Paul to curse--if notfor the Grace of God. There goes Peter
   to be a Judas-- unless Christ shall pray for him, that his faith fail
   not. A sinner saved by Grace and yet proud? Out on such impudence! God
   pardon us, and deliver us from that evil!

   But, then, let us remember we are not only depraved so that we are
   inclined to sin, but we have sinned, and how can we then be proud?
   Sinners whose highest deservings are the wrath of God, and the hot
   flames of Hell--how can we venture for a single moment to stand as
   those who had done anything meritorious or could claim anything of our
   God? Verily, you and I may stand up today and say, "What is man that
   You should be mindful of him, or the son of man that You visit him?"
   The more we think of ourselves, if guided by God's Spirit, the more
   reasons we shall find for "Serving God with all humility."

   2. But there are not only reasons in ourselves, there are reasons in
   Christ Our Master was never exalted above measure. You never detect in
   Him one proud or scornful glance upon the meanest of the mean or the
   vilest of the vile. He condescended to men of low estate, but it did
   not look like condescension in Him. He did it in such a way that there
   was not the appearance of stooping. He was always on their level in His
   heart. He ate and drank and sat with publicans and sinners, and all in
   such an easy, happy spirit, that no man said of Him, "Look how He
   stoops." Everyone felt that stooping was His natural attitude; that He
   could not stand up and be proud; it would be unbecoming in Him. "And
   shall the servant be above his Master, or the disciple above his Lord?"
   You who are purse-proud, or talent-proud, or beauty-proud, I beseech
   you, think how unlike you are to the Master. There was nothing in Him
   that would keep man back from Him, but everything that would draw them
   to Him. "He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Himself the
   form of a Servant, and being in fashion as a man, He became obedient
   unto death, even to the death of the Cross." Look at that strange
   sight, and never be proud again. There is the God of Heaven, and with
   the basin in His hands and the towel on His arms--He is washing His
   disciple's feet; and here are you and I, instead of washing other men's
   feet, we want them to anoint our heads, and pour on the balmy cordial
   of a flattering unction, that we may say of ourselves, "I am rich and
   increased in goods," whereas by that very desire, we prove ourselves to
   be naked, and poor, and miserable! By the love of Christ, then, let us
   seek to be humble.

   3. There is yet one other source for arguments, though, of course,
   there are so many that I could not mention them all, and that is God's
   goodness towards us, which should make us exceedingly humble. You
   remember that text which says, "Put on, therefore, as the elect of God,
   hearts of compassion and humbleness of mind"? Now, I have known some
   who believing that they were the elect of God, have put on haughtiness
   of looks! You know the school I allude to; certain gentlemen who are
   the elect, and nobody can ever come near to them; all other Christian
   people, if saved, which is a great question with them, will at least be
   saved so as by fire. Verily they appear to read the text thus--"Put on,
   as the elect of God, pride and self-conceit." Like another text which
   says, "See that you love one another with a pure heart fervently,"
   which I think some people read the wrong way, upwards, and they make it
   out, "See that you hate one another with a pure heart fervently." And
   oh, how fervently they have done it! How fervently they have hated one
   another! Now the mercy of God in having elected us--the mercy of God in
   having bought us with the precious blood of Jesus Christ-- should tend
   to keep us very low in the dust of self-abasement.--

   " What was there in you that could merit esteem,
   Or give the Creator delight?"

   What was there in you that Christ should buy you with His precious
   blood? What in you that you should be made the temple of the Holy
   Spirit? What is there in you that you should be brought to Heaven; that
   you should be made to sit down with Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob at the
   right hand of God? What if you have been grafted into the good olive
   tree? Remember, you were once branches of the wild olive, and you are
   now nothing but grafts. What if your branch hangs down with the weight
   of its produce? There was a time when it brought forth nothing but the
   apples of Sodom, and the grapes of Gomorrah! Bless God and thank Him
   that the root bears you, but you bear not the root. What have you that
   you have not received? Who made you to differ? Your very gifts are
   given you by electing love; God gave them not because you deserved
   them, but because He chose to do so. He has made you a vessel unto
   honor, chastened you and made you in a fair and goodly mold; made you a
   fair vase, showing forth the skill of the Master. But who made you; who
   made you? Look back to that clay pit; look back to the potter's house,
   to the fashioning fingers, and the revolving wheel, and surely you will
   say, "My God, unto You be the praise for what I am, but of myself, I am
   less than nothing; I am worthless and useless; unto You be all the
   Glory."

   IV. I shall now come to my last point, upon which, with excessive
   brevity, I would speak to myself. Indeed, I have been all the morning
   speaking to myself as much as to you.

   I have now a story suggested to me. There was an excellent lady who
   accosted me one day, and told me that she had always prayed that I
   might be kept humble. Of course I was excessively grateful to her,
   although it was a very usual thing, so I said to her, "But do you not
   need to pray the same prayer for yourself?" "Oh, no," she said, "there
   is no need; I do not think there is any tendency in me to be proud."
   Well, I assured the good lady that I thought it was necessary for her
   to always pray, for as sure as ever she thought she had no tendency to
   be proud, that proved at once that she was proud already! We are never,
   never so much in danger of being proud as when we think we are humble!

   Well, now, let us turn to practical account what I have said. You and I
   have a great work before us. I speak now especially to my Church and
   congregation. We are about to enter into a large edifice, having large
   designs in our hearts, and hoping that God will give us large success.
   Let us have humble motives in all this. I hope we have not built that
   house, that we may say with Nebuchadnezzar, "Behold this great Babylon
   which I have built." We must not go to our pulpit, and to our pews with
   this soft note ringing in our ears. "Here will I make unto myself my
   nest, and gain a great name." Or, "Here will be members of the largest
   Baptist Church to receive a part of the honor which is bestowed upon
   the success of the ministry." No; let us go into that house wondering
   at what God has done for us; marveling that God should give such Grace
   to such a Church, and that it should have such innumerable conversions
   in its midst. Then, when we have settled upon our work, when we see
   that God is blessing us, let us still keep very low before Him. If we
   want to lose God's Presence, it can soon be done--pride can shut the
   door in the face of Christ. Only let us take out our tablets and write
   down, "God is for me, therefore let me be proud"--only let us say with
   Jehu--"Come, and I will show you my zeal for the Lord of Hosts," and
   God's Presence will soon depart from us and Ichabod will be written on
   the front of the habitation. And let me say to those of you who have
   already done much for Christ as Evangelists, ministers, teachers, or
   what not--do not sit down and congratulate yourselves! Let us go home
   and think of all the mistakes we have made, all the errors we have
   committed, and all the follies into which we have been betrayed, and I
   think instead of self-congratulations, we shall say, "I have heard of
   You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes sees You, therefore do I
   abhor myself in dust and ashes." Let us humble ourselves before God!
   You know there is a deal of difference between being humble and being
   humbled. He who will not be humble, shall be humbled! Humble
   yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, and He shall lift
   you up, lest He leave you because you hold your head so high. And
   should I be addressing any here this morning who are very much exalted
   by the nobility of rank, who have what the poet calls--

   "The pride of heraldry,
   The pomp of power,"

   be humble, I pray you! If any man would have friends, let him be
   humble. Humility never did any man any hurt. If you stoop down when you
   pass through a doorway, if it should be a high one, you will not be
   hurt by stooping; you might have knocked your head if you had held it
   up. He who is willing to be nothing, will soon find someone who will
   make him something, but if he will be something, he shall be nothing,
   and all men will try to make him less than nothing! Go then, I pray
   you, as Christian men and women, and speak with the poor and needy. Be
   kind and affectionate towards all men. Let your Christian life suggest
   Christian courtesy and Christian charity.

   As for you who have never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is
   useless to recommend you to humility, for how can you get the flower
   till you have the root? Begin, I pray you, with the root. This is the
   root of every Christian Grace-- faith in Christ! Come to Jesus, today,
   just as you are. Trust Him with your poor, guilty soul. Believe Him to
   be both willing and able to save you. Repose your confidence in Him
   alone. You will then be saved, and being saved with such a salvation,
   you will bring forth humility as one of the sweet fruits of the Spirit
   of God, and your end shall be everlasting life, by the Grace of God.
     __________________________________________________________________

                               The Silver Trumpet

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 24, 1861, BY THE REV. C. H.
   SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins
   are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are
   redlike crimson, they shall be as wool"

   Isaiah 1:18.

   THE chiefs of sinners are objects of the choicest mercy. Christ is a
   great Savior to meet the great transgressions of great rebels. The vast
   machinery of Redemption was never undertaken for a mean or little
   purpose. There must be a great end in so great a plan, carried out at
   so great an expense, guaranteed with such great promises, and intended
   to bring such great Glory to God! The plan of salvation has in it all
   the wisdom of God; the purchase of salvation has in it the fullness of
   the Grace of God; the application of salvation is an exhibition of the
   exceeding greatness of the power of God; and all these three attributes
   in their greatness could not have conspired together for any but a
   great and marvelous purpose! At the very outset of our discourse this
   morning, I think we might draw a safe conclusion that Christ
   contemplated saving great sinners with a great salvation. To make the
   whole affair great there must be a great sinner--to be, as it were, the
   raw material upon whom the great wisdom, the great Grace, and the great
   power may be exerted to make him into a great saint! I think both
   saints and sinners have a very confined and limited idea of the
   goodness of God. We measure Him by our own standing. Oh that we knew
   the meaning of that text, where God says, "I will not execute the
   fierceness of My anger; I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am
   God and not man" (Hosea 11:9.) He acts in everything, not as a king
   gives to a king, or as some right royal heart acts towards the needy,
   but as a God! There is none who can come near to Him; as He is
   surpassing in His Glory so that mortal eyes cannot behold it, so He is
   excelling in His love and Grace, so that mortal comprehension can never
   grasp, comprehend, or fathom the infinity of His mercy! Keeping mercy
   with thousands, showing pity to multitudes--who is a God like He,
   passing by transgression, iniquity and sin?

   My text shall at once introduce itself. It is a great text,
   indeed--specially meant for sinners of the deepest dye. I pray that the
   energy and power of the Spirit may now open the door of all our hearts,
   that God's mercy may enter in. Four things we will attempt to do this
   morning. First, we will remark that the text is addressed to sinners of
   the deepest dye. Secondly, it contains in it an invitation to reason of
   the most prevailing power. Thirdly, it promises pardons of the fullest
   force. And, fourthly, it presents to us a time of the most solemn
   significance.

   I. First, then, our text is addressed to SINNERS OF THE DEEPEST DYE.
   Some of my Brothers are greatly scandalized by the general invitations
   which I am in the habit of giving to sinners, as sinners. Some of them
   go the length of asserting that there are no universal invitations in
   the Word of God. Their assertion, however, its not so forcible an
   argument as a fact, and we have one here. Here is most plainly an
   invitation addressed to sinners who had not even the qualification of
   sensibility! They did not feel their need of a Savior; they had been
   scourged and flogged till the whole body was a mass of sores, and yet
   they would not turn to the hand that smote them, but went on sinning! A
   more accurate description of careless, worthless, ungodly, abandoned
   souls never was given anywhere! We have in the context, one of the most
   graphic descriptions of human nature in its utterly lost and godless
   estate. There is not a single gleam of light in the midst of the thick
   darkness. The man is bad--bad--bad from the beginning to the end! No,
   he is all worst, and the worst is come to its worst. There is not a ray
   of promise in their nature, not a glimmer of anything good in the
   description of the persons to whom this text is addressed.

   I call your attention, again, to the Chapter which I have read. In the
   first verse you will perceive that the text was addressed to senseless
   sinners--so senseless that God Himself would not address them in
   expostulation, but called upon the heavens and the earth to hear His
   complaint. He spoke to the firmament, to the stars, to the sun and to
   the moon, and He bade them hear. Men had grown so deaf to God's
   admonitions, so utterly dead to His appeals, that He refuses to address
   them any more in notes of warning. "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O
   earth!" What a fine poetical setting forth of the thought--that God
   appealed to dead, inanimate creatures, for man had become more brutish
   than the stones of the field; and yet to such is the invitation given,
   "Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord."

   You will readily see in the next place, that the text is given to
   ungrateful sinners. "I have nourished and brought up children, and they
   have rebelled against Me." Oh, how many of us come under this
   description! God was good to us in our early childhood; we were dandled
   on the knees of piety; we were laid to sleep on the couch of holiness.
   God provided for our needs; we were not born slaves, or in a tottering
   shed, but the dawn of our days was the rising of His merciful care. But
   how we have sinned in childhood, and since we have come to manhood, how
   have we violated all the admonitions of His love, done despite even to
   the blood of Christ, and to the Spirit of God! We have forgotten His
   mercies; we have kicked against the pricks; we have made the blessings
   of His Providence the assistants to our sin, and the gifts of His Grace
   the excuses for our iniquities! Oh, we may, many of us, stand here
   coldly and plead that we have been ungrateful to a good, a patient, and
   a bountiful God! And yet to such is the text addressed, "Come now, let
   us reason together."

   By reading in the third verse, you will perceive, again, that the text
   is addressed to men who are worse than beast,. We often slander the
   brute creation. We speak of a man being as drunk as a beast. I do not
   know that beasts are ever drunk! Sometimes, when a man has gone into
   very low vice, we say he has committed a very beastly sin. I question
   whether the word is at all accurate! How do beasts sin? Do they not bow
   their necks, and wear the yoke of man, who is as a God to them? Do they
   quarrel with the Law in which God has said, "I have given you dominion
   over the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the
   sea"? If we were half as obedient to God as the beasts are to man,
   there would be very little sin in us. But men must feel in their
   consciences that they have been worse than the brutes; they have not
   served God as an ox has served the master; they have not recognized Him
   even so much as the stupid ass has recognized its crib! None of us
   would keep a horse for 20 years if it never worked, but only sought to
   injure us; and yet there are men here whom God has kept these 40 and 50
   years, put the breath into their nostrils, the bread into their mouths,
   and the clothes upon their backs, and they have done nothing but curse
   Him, speak ill of His service, and do despite to His Laws! He is,
   indeed, a long-suffering God when He speaks to such as these, and says,
   "Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord." One may be
   astonished that there is such a text as this in the Bible, but the
   astonishment is far greater when you see to whom it is addressed--to
   menwho are beneath the level of the brute creation! Oh, my dear
   Friends, you who fear God, never think there are any men too bad to be
   saved! Go to the reprobates, to the harlots, to the drunks, to the
   abandoned; if God invites men who are worse than the ox and the ass,
   you may go and invite them, too, in the hope that the invitation shall
   be accepted, and they may be saved! How many there are who have gone
   from the dunghills of sin up to the Throne of God, and how few, on the
   other hand, have ever come out of the Pharisee's chair to mount up to
   the starry skies!

   Look again at the Chapter before us, and the description of those to
   whom this text is addressed will become yet more full and clear. It
   appears from the 14th verse, that they were a people laden with
   iniquity. When a man is loaded and pressed down, he can make no headway
   whatever; these people were loaded with such a weight of iniquity that
   they could not stir. Their sin had become a part of their nature. Like
   ingrained colors, the sin could not be got out; if they sought to go to
   Christ, their sin was like a chain on their feet; if they had some
   thoughts of goodness, the old habits of vice soon slew those infants in
   the very birth! They were laden with iniquity. They could say, "How can
   I be better? How can I be different? Sin has become a hamper and clog
   to me, and I cannot move. I cannot escape from it." Yet even God says,
   "Come now, let us reason together." It is a dreadful thing when sin
   becomes not only nature, but a second nature--when the use of sin
   breeds the habit of sin, and the man gets entangled in the meshes of an
   iron net from which he has no power to escape. Yet, to him, even to
   him, bond-slave of many lusts--chained hand and foot, and straightly
   shut up against the power of God--even to him is the Word of the Gospel
   sent! "Let us reason together, says the Lord." Furthermore, they were a
   people not only loaded with sin, but they were teachers in
   transgressions, "Children who are corrupters." As old Charnock says,
   "They corrupted one another by their society and example, as rotten
   apples putrefy the sound ones that lie near them." Why, I know some men
   who, wherever they go, carry plagues and death about them. I have
   noticed that in almost every village, and in every knot of society in a
   large town or city, there is some one man who seems to be the incarnate
   devil of the parish--he is the man who teaches the young to drink, to
   swear, to commit licentiousness. He is a man whom Satan seems to have
   sought out to take care of his black flock in that particular
   district--who is a kind of shepherd with a crook in his hand to lead
   the young into dangerous pastures, and make them lie down beside the
   poisonous streams. Yet, even to such an one, and there may be such an
   one here--a wicked old wretch who has taken his degrees in Satan's
   college, has become a Master of Belial, a prince, and chief of sinners,
   a Goliath amongst the Philistines--yet, to such a man is this word sent
   today! Your hands are bloody with the souls of the young; you have kept
   a Hell-house; you have grit up public entertainments which have
   debauched and depraved the young; today you have gold in your pocket
   which you have earned by the blood of souls; you have the fool's penny,
   and the drunkard's shillings which have really come into your hands
   from the hearts of poor women! You have heard the cries of the starving
   children, and you have tempted their husbands to take the drink, and
   ruined their bodies and their souls; you have kept a place where the
   entertainment was so low, so groveling, that you awoke the slumbering
   passions of evil in the minds of either young or old, and so you shall
   sink to Hell with the blood of others on your head as well as your own
   damnation--not with one millstone about your neck but with many!
   "Carried away," as John Bunyan put it, "not by one devil, but by seven
   devils who shall drag you down amidst the curses of the multitude whom
   you have deceived." Ah, and you, Sir, infidel lecturer, who stand up
   and defy the Deity, knowing in your own soul that you tremble at Him,
   and are awfully afraid--even to you, the worst of the worst, the vilest
   of the vile, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, rotten, putrid,
   corrupt--even to you does God speak today, "Come now, let us reason
   together, says the Lord; though your sins are as scarlet, they shall
   are as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be
   as wool."

   Can I go any further than this? I think not; still, we must read the
   Chapter through. The blessed text we have on hand is addressed to men
   upon whom all manner of gifts had been lost and thrown away. It is a
   great aggravation of our sin when we sin under the rod; if a child
   disobeys its parent the moment it has been punished, it is
   disobedience, indeed; but oh, how some here have been chastised, and
   how little have they been profited by it! Will you, Sir, allow me to
   remind you of the cholera, and how you escaped from the jaws of death?
   Do you remember that fever, and how you were laid very low, and you
   said then, "Please God, in Your mercy to raise me up, and I will be a
   different man"? And you were a different man, for you were worse than
   you were before, and far more hardened! Oh, there are some of you who
   have, perhaps, escaped from shipwreck or from fire, plucked from
   between the very teeth of the dragon! Some of you have met with
   accidents of the most serious kind, one upon another--you have a bone
   that is scarcely set even yet--an old fracture which should jolt your
   memory and remind you of the goodness and mercy of God--but all this
   has been lost! Ah, Sir, take heed, take heed! God's justice is like the
   axe of the Romans; it is bound up in a bundle of rods, and when the
   rods are worn out, then is the axe to be used! Take care--if the rod
   does not bring you to repentance, the axe shall bring you to damnation!
   If you will leap over hedge and ditch to be damned, you will come to
   the end of this awful steeplechase--sooner than you think--and you will
   find it a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! But
   to you, even to you, though years of sorrow have been lost upon you--to
   you this day is the message of the Gospel sent--"Come now, and let us
   reason together, says the Lord, though your sins are like scarlet they
   shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall
   be as wool."

   Furthermore, I think that in giving this description, I shall be better
   preaching the Gospel than during the other parts of the sermon. Let me
   assure you that the invitation of the text is sent to men who appeared
   to have been totally depraved from the sole of the foot even to the
   head! There was no soundness in them--there could not be found a single
   spot where there was not either a bleeding gash, or a blue bruise, or a
   swelling ulcer deep beneath the skin; they were all "wounds and bruises
   and putrefying sores." Are you such in your own esteem today? Are you a
   sinner so vile that you wonder how you dared to come where God's people
   meet? Do you feel as if your wounds are so corrupt and noisome, that
   you marvel how a godly man can stand by your side, or how your pious
   mother can mention your name in prayer, as she still does? Have you
   gone so far in sin that you cannot go any further? Have you become as
   damnable as a man can be in this mortal life? Yet to you--vilest, most
   lost, most depraved--is the word of this salvation today sent, "Come
   now, let us reason together." To crown all, this message was once sent
   to the very worst of men, for it was sent to some whom God calls,
   "Sodom and Gomorrah." How awful were the crimes of Sodom--we would not
   mention it--how dreadful was the lust of Gomorrah! The ear of modesty
   could not hear, even if the shameless tongue could dare to
   speak--"Their sin went up to Heaven." It was corrupt upon the earth; it
   was a stench to Heaven itself! And yet to such is the invitation of the
   Gospel this day sent--"Hear, oh you rulers of Sodom, and you
   inhabitants of Gomorrah! Come now, and let us reason together." They
   were men whose very religion was hateful to God; men whose Psalms and
   songs and burnt offerings were as sins before the Most High; they had
   made their holy things unholy, and their good things vile. Their gold
   was dross, and their wine mixed with water; their very holiness was
   unacceptable to God! Yes, and how many there are of this sort to be
   found in our streets who, when they sing a hymn in chapel or church,
   may well wonder how God bears with their impudence in daring to sing!
   Who, when they stand up to pray, might fear that they should drop down
   dead for their hypocrisy, for they never pray at home! You have
   multitudes who would go, now and then, to church, who would keep up
   superstitious ceremonies, and are afraid lest their children should die
   without being sprinkled, and yet not afraid of dying and being lost
   themselves! Superstitions they will attend to, but the real religion of
   God, they are careless of. Next Good Friday, what a many will go to
   church who never go on the Sabbath! Good Friday is an ordinance of man,
   and man will attend to that; but the Divine Sabbath they will neglect.

   There are many too, among the Papists, who would not eat meat on a
   Friday, but they would steal the meat on a Thursday--there are persons
   who would not venture for a moment to go against the rubrics of their
   particular prayer book, but they will violate the Laws of God, and
   think nothing of doing everything which God commands them not to do,
   and leaving undone everything which He commands them to do! Yet to
   such, to such men whose religion is a lie, whose profession is a
   pretense, whose very seeking after holiness is but a subterfuge to hunt
   after gain--even to such is the Gospel sent--"Come now, and let us
   reason together." I have a big net this morning--O that we might all be
   caught in its meshes! There is not one of us today who can be exempt
   from this invitation; not even that poor soul yonder who shivers in his
   shoes because he fears that he has committed the unpardonable sin --

   "None are excluded hence, but those
   Who do themselves exclude!
   Welcome the learned and polite,
   The ignorant and rude!"

   "Repent and be baptized every one of you," said Peter. As John Bunyan
   put it, one man might have stood in the crowd and said, "But I helped
   to hound Him to the Cross!" "Repent and be baptized every one of you."
   "But I drove the nails into His hands!" says one. "Every one of you,"
   says Peter. "But I pierced His side!" says another. "Every one of you,"
   says Peter. "But I put my tongue into my cheek, and stared at His
   nakedness, and said, 'If He is the Son of God, let Him come down from
   the Cross!" "Every one of you," says Peter. "Repent and be baptized
   every one of you."

   I do feel so grieved at many of our Calvinistic Brothers and
   Sisters--they know nothing about Calvinism, I am sorry to say--for
   never was any man more caricatured by his professed followers than John
   Calvin. Many of them are afraid to preach from Peter's text, "Repent
   and be baptized every one of you." When I do it, they say, "He is
   unsound." Well, if I am unsound on this point, I have all the Puritans
   with me--the whole of them almost without a single exception! John
   Bunyan first and foremost preaches to Jerusalem sinners, and Charnock,
   you know, has written a book, " The Chief of Sinners, Objects of the
   Choicest Mercy'" But I do not care for that. I know the Lord has
   blessed my appeals to all sorts of sinners, and none shall stop me in
   giving free invitations as long as I find them in this Book! And I do
   cry with Peter, this morning, to this vast assembly, "Repent and be
   baptized every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, for the
   promise is unto you and to your children, even to as many as the Lord
   our God shall call."

   I have thus directed the letter, and tried to find out the persons to
   whom the invitation is sent.

   II. Secondly, the text presents us with REASONING OF THE MOST PREVALENT
   POWER.

   O that God would reason with you this morning; and that you who are
   unconverted would be willing to reason with Him! My poor lips cannot
   reason with you as God can; I can but humbly and feebly be the
   representative of the Lord Jesus for a moment to poor trembling souls.
   "Come now, and let us reason together." You say, "I am too great a
   sinner to be saved." I reply to you this--What passage in God's Word
   forbids you to seek for mercy? Here is the Book; turn it over from
   beginning to end, and see if you can find any passage in it which says,
   "Such-and-such a man may not knock at the mercy gate, and may not seek
   a Savior." You know there are many verses which say in spirit, "Whoever
   will, let him come." Why, this is a wooing Book! It is always inviting
   you! It cries to you; no, it does more! I hope that by God's Grace it
   will compel you to come. I cannot find any passage that is a door to
   shut you out, but hundreds that invite you to come! Still you say, "I
   know I am too vile to be saved." Has the Lord ever refused you? Have
   you been to Him, and sought His Grace through Christ, and has He said
   to you, "Get you gone, you are too vile"? Why, then, will you limit the
   Holy One of Israel before you have tried Him? Or have you prayed? Have
   you? He has not promised to answer you consciously the first time? God
   always hears a sinner's prayer, but He does not always let the sinner
   know that He has heard it! Mercy comes quickly, but a sense of mercy
   may be some time delayed. Oh, Soul, I do assure you there was never yet
   a sinner who sought God, and God refused him, if he sought through
   Christ. I would ask you yet again--Are there any, you think, of the
   damned in Hell who went there because Christ' s blood could not save
   them? Ask them! Why Sirs, if any of them could say in Hell, "It was
   God's fault that I came here," it would take the sting out of their
   torment! There is not a soul in Hell who ever repented of sin; there is
   not a soul there who ever sought mercy through Christ, and if you could
   perish seeking a Savior, you would be the first--but that can never be!
   Well, Soul, since there is no text which denies you--come! Since the
   Lord has never yet refused you--COME! Since none have been lost for
   lack of power in Him to save--COME! COME, I pray you!

   But if these reasons do not suffice you because you will put yourself
   out of the pale of hope, and say, "I am not worthy, I am not worthy,"
   let me suggest a few thoughts to you. Why was it that our Lord and
   Master, when He came into the world, chose to be born of sinful women?
   It is remarkable that those women whose names are mentioned as the
   ances- tors of Christ, are perhaps, with one exception, of the vilest
   character! There is Tamar, who commits incest with her father-in-law;
   there is Rahab the harlot; there is Bathsheba the adulteress; and yet
   Christ sprung out of their loins! Why this black stream to mingle in
   with the current from which Christ should come? Why, Soul, surely it
   was to show you that He was a Savior for sinners'Surely if He had not
   meant to lay hold on the vilest of the vile, this never would have
   occurred. But look again--what did Jesus do when He was here on earth?
   Where was He taken to when a Child? Why, to Egypt, where they
   worshipped leeks and garlic, and onions, and such like trash, that it
   might be said, "Out of Egypt have I called My Son." Where did He begin
   to preach? Why, by the coast where the people that sat in darkness saw
   a great Light! What was His general society? He was once in the house
   of a Pharisee, but how often was He the friend of publicans and
   sinners? And of those who followed Him, what a strange sort they were.
   Pick out anyone you please, and there is little to be said about his
   previous character. These are the fishermen from the lake of Galilee,
   rough and uncouth; there is Peter who denies Him; there is Magdalene,
   out of whom was cast seven devils; there is that other woman who had
   been a sinner. Who was the man whom He converted after He had gone to
   Heaven? There is only one case in the Bible where a man was converted
   personallyby Christ after He had ascended--and that is the bloody Saul
   of Tarsuswho was exceedingly mad against God's people, and was going to
   Damascus, that he might hunt after the disciples! The chief of sinners
   hears the cry--"Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" What did Jesus do
   when He was dying? Did He not save a thief--a vile thief--one of the
   scum and parings of the world--and did He not say, "Today shall you be
   with Me in Paradise"? Ah, Souls, my Master always went where He was
   most needed--among the chief of sinners!

   And you know His preaching. It was a preaching that was meant for the
   worst of men! Look at that parable of the feast, "Go you into the
   highways and hedges." Go and catch the hedge birds--the men who are
   looking after the linen drying on the hedges! Go after those who have
   not where to lay their heads--those who are filthy, ragged, and
   something worse--go and tell them to come in! Not the princes' sons,
   nor the great, nor the good--but bring here the blind, the halt, and
   the lame, and whomever you shall meet, and bid them to the wedding.
   Why? He came to give Light to the dark, to give bliss to the miserable,
   to give life to the dead, to give salvation to the lost! Now what have
   you to say to this? I think such reasoning should bring you to this
   conclusion--

   "I'll to the gracious king approach,
   Whose scepter mercy gives--
   Perhaps He may command my touch,
   And then the suppliant lives!
   I can but perish if I go,
   I am resolved to try!
   For if I stay away, I know
   I must forever die.
   But if I die with mercy sought,
   When I the king have tried,
   That were to die, delightful thought,
   As sinner never died.?'

   But I have not finished my reasoning yet--for there may still be some
   desponding soul who says--"Yes, God may do great wonders, but I should
   be the greatest wonder of all." Look here, Sinner! One of God's ends in
   salvation is to honor Himself--"that it may be unto the Lord for a
   name, for an everlasting sign, which shall not be cut off." How does a
   physician get a great name? Not by curing pin scratches; or by setting
   to rights, little cuts upon men's fingers. Any old woman can do that!
   It is by bad diseases, by things that are reckoned to be incurable, and
   then, as soon as the man has cured what was given up by others, he is
   sure to advertise in the newspapers his splendid success. "So-and-So
   was turned out of all the hospitals, and had taken all manner of
   medicine--at last I healed him." Why, my dear Friend, if you are
   such-an-one spiritually, you are the most fitted to be the means, in
   God's hand, of honoring His Grace. See what great engineers will do!
   When a man makes a railway across a good, hard, gravelly soil where all
   is perfect, you say, "Why any person can do that." But when Stephenson
   constructed the railway across Chatmoss--a moss which sucked in any
   quantity of materials that was put there, and all was lost, yet, when
   the railway was at last formed across that bog, everybody said--"What a
   marvel!" Then look at the great wonders of Mr. Brunei. He always liked
   to undertake impossibilities and carry them out. Things which staggered
   everyone's conception, he would attempt and perform. We might find
   fault, perhaps, with the expense, but in this case we have a God whose
   bank has no bottom, who has an unlimited treasury, and He loves to take
   hold on those black impossibilities, and go to work with them and show
   both to men and angels what wonders He can do! Ah, poor Sinner, if you
   are the vilest of the vile, I think you would show forth God's Grace
   the better.

   I cannot help quoting John Bunyan again. In his, "Jerusalem Sinner
   Saved," he says--"There are some of us who are God's people whose love
   is getting very low, and whose zeal is flagging, and we are not the men
   we should be. Oh, but," he adds, "if the Lord would but convert some of
   these jailbirds; if he would but call by His Grace some of those
   whoremongers and adulterers, and thieves, and drunkards, what spirit
   they would put into the Christian Church; what new life would be poured
   into us, for they are always the most earnest men when converted! And
   so," he says, "I pray that some of these big sinners may get saved,
   that the Church may have a new increase of zeal and love from men who
   love much, because much has been forgiven." If I cannot persuade, if I
   cannot reason with you, for my lips are poor, poor, things as
   substitute for God's own voice--yet let me quote His own Words, and
   those Words are a solemn oath. Now when a man takes an oath, you do not
   think of doubting him, I hope. Now God puts His hand upon His own
   Self-Existence, and He says, "As I live, says the Lord, I have no
   pleasure in the death of him who dies, but had rather that he should
   turn unto Me and live." He does not wish your damnation; it is not His
   pleasure that you should be lost; He gets glory, it is true, to His
   justice, but He gets no satisfaction to His love if you perish! As a
   father would sooner kiss his child than use the rod, so would the Lord
   sooner see you at His feet in prayer than under His feet in
   destruction! He is a loving God; He is not hard to be dealt with. Since
   Christ became the Substitute for men, God has showed to us that He has
   a heart of compassion. Come back, Prodigal, come back! My Father sends
   me to you; come back, I pray you; He will not reject you! Oh, Spirit of
   the living God, melt the heart that will not move; for surely the love
   of God, and the riches of His Grace might melt the adamant, and make
   the solid granite move! "Turn you, turn you; why will you die, O house
   of Israel? Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his
   thoughts, and let him turn unto God, and He will have mercy upon him,
   and to our God for He will abundantly pardon." I leave, then, the
   reasoning--only adding this, as an old Divine once said, and his saying
   was the means of the conversion of one at least--"He who believes, has
   set to his seal that God is true; he who believes not, makes God a
   liar." Says he, "Sinner, which will you do, today; will you believe and
   so set to your seal that He is true, or will you disbelieve, and go on
   doubting, and so making God a liar?" Oh, do not this evil thing, but
   believe in Jesus, and you shall be saved!

   III. I must now briefly turn to my third point. The words of this
   blessed text contain a PROMISE OF PARDON OF THE FULLEST FORCE.

   "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
   though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Now these
   colors are selected because of their exceeding brilliance. Scarlet and
   crimson are colors which at once attract the eyes. There are some
   colors which a man might wear and pass unmolested, but when a man is
   clothed in bright colors, he can be perceived at a far greater
   distance. Now, some sins are striking, glaring sins; you cannot help
   seeing them; and the sinner himself is compelled to confess them. But
   the Hebrew word, most of you know, conveys the idea of doubly
   dyed--what we call ingrained colors--when the wool has lain so long in
   the dye that it cannot be washed out, though you wash or wear it as
   long as you please--you must destroy the fabric before you can destroy
   the color. Many sins are of this class. Our own natural depravity, in
   fact, is just like this--it is ingrained. As well might the Ethiopian
   wash himself white, or the leopard take away his spots--sinners who
   have learned to do evil, learn to do it well! Yet here is the promise
   of full pardon for glaring and for ingrained lusts! And note how the
   pardon is put--"they shall be as snow"--pure white, virgin, snow! But
   snow soon loses its whiteness, and therefore it is compared to the
   whiteness of the wool washed and prepared by the busy housewife for her
   fair white linen. You shall be so cleansed that not the shadow of a
   spot, nor the sign of a sin, shall be left upon you! When a man
   believes in Christ, he is in that moment, in God's sight, as though he
   had never sinned in all his life! No, I will go further--he is that day
   in a better position than though he had never sinned, for if he had
   never sinned, he would have had the perfect righteousness of man--but
   by believing, he is made the righteousness of God in Christ!

   We had once a cloak, that is taken away; when we believe, Christ gives
   us a robe; but it is an infinitely better one. We lost but a common
   garment, but He arrays us royally. Strangely indeed is that man clothed
   who believes in Jesus! Yon thief who is hanging on the Cross is black
   as Hell--he believes and he is as white as Heaven's own purity! Faith
   takes away all sin through the precious blood of Jesus! When a man has
   once gone down into that sacred laver which is filled with Jesus'
   blood, there "is no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," left upon
   him! His sin has ceased to be! His iniquity is covered; his
   transgressions have been carried into the wilderness, and are gone!
   This is the most wonderful thing about the Gospel. This does not take
   away part of our sin, but the whole of it; it does not remove it
   partially, but entirely--not for a little time, but forever! "He who
   believes on Him is not condemned." And though today you should have
   committed every crime in the world, yet the moment you believe in
   Jesus, you are saved--the Spirit of God shall dwell in you to keep you
   from sin in the future--and the blood of Christ shall plead for you
   that sin shall never be laid to your charge! Some years ago there was a
   man who had committed murder. He had been, indeed, a most dreadful
   character, but through the teaching of a minister of Christ, he was
   converted to God. He had one anxiety, namely, that having believed in
   Jesus, he might be baptized before he suffered the sentence of the law.
   It could not be effected according to the law of the country in which
   he then lived, except he be baptized in chains. And so he was baptized
   in chains; but what did it matter? He was baptized in joy; he knew that
   He who can save to the uttermost, could save even him, and though in
   chains, he was free; though guilty before man, pardoned in the sight of
   God; though punished by human law, saved from the Curse by the precious
   blood of Jesus. And of course, do not misunderstand me, he was not
   saved by the baptism--he was saved by the blood. There is no knowing
   how long God's arm is; these is no telling how precious Christ's blood
   is-- until you have felt the power of it yourself! And then you will
   wonder as long as you live, even through eternity, and you will be
   astonished to think that the blood of Christ could save such a wretch
   as you are, and make you the monument of His mercy!

   IV. I now come to notice, in the last place, the TIME which is
   mentioned in the text, which is of the MOST SOLEMN SIGNIFICANCE.

   "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord." "Come now." You
   have sinned long enough; why should you harden your hearts by longer
   delay? Come now, no season can be better! If you tardy till you're
   better, you will never come at all. Come now. You may never have
   another warning; the heart may never be as tender as it is today. Come
   now. No other eyes may ever weep over you; no other heart may ever
   agonize for your salvation. Come NOW, NOW, NOW--for tomorrow you may
   never know in this world--Death may have sealed your fate, and the once
   filthy may remain filthy, still. Come now; for tomorrow your heart may
   become harder than stone, and God may give you up. Come now;it is God's
   time. Tomorrow is the devil's time. "Today if you will hear His voice,
   harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, when your fathers
   tempted Me, and proved Me in the wilderness, and saw My works." Come
   now. Why delay to be happy? Would you put off your wedding day? Will
   you postpone the hour when you are pardoned, and delivered? Come now;
   the heart of Jehovah yearns for you; the eyes of your Father see you
   afar off, and He runs to meet you. Come now; the Church is praying for
   you. These are revival times--ministers are more in earnest--God's
   people are more anxious. Come now--

   "Lest slighted once, the season lost Should never return again!"

   Come now. Mortal man, mortal man, so near your end--thus says the
   Lord--"Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live; and
   because I will do this, consider your ways." Come now; oh, that I had
   power to send home this invitation! But it must be left in the Master's
   hands. Yet, if an anxious heart could do it, how would I plead with
   you! Sinner, is Hell so pleasant that you must endure it? Is Heaven a
   trifle, that you must lose it? What? Is the wrath of God which abides
   on you no reason why you should labor to escape? What? Is not a perfect
   pardon worth the having? Is the precious blood of Christ worthless? Is
   it nothing to you that the Savior should die? Man, are you a fool? Are
   you mad? If you must play the fool, go and sport with your gold and
   silver, but not with your soul! Dress yourself like a madman, wear a
   mask, paint your cheeks, walk in shame, and make a mockery of yourself,
   if you must play the fool--but why cast your soul into Hell for a joke?
   Why lose your eternal interests for a little ease? Be wise, Man! Oh,
   Spirit of God, make this sinner wise! We may preach, but it is Yours to
   apply. Lord apply it! Come forth great Spirit! Come from the four
   winds, O Breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live! In
   the name of Jesus of Nazareth, O Spirit of God come forth! By the voice
   which once bade the winds cease from roaring, and the waves lie still,
   come Spirit of the living God! In the name of Jesus who was crucified,
   Sinners, believe and live! I preach not now in my own name, or in my
   own strength, but in the name of Him who gave Himself for sinners on
   the Cross. "Repent and be baptized every one of you." "Believe on the
   Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved"--

   "But if your ears refuse
   The language of His Grace,
   And hearts grow hard like stubborn Jews,
   That unbelieving race.
   The Lord in vengeance dressed
   Shall lift His hand and swear
   'You that despise My promised rest, Shall have no portion there.'"

   Let me dismiss you with the words of blessing. May the Grace of our
   Lord Jesus, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit,
   be with all who believe in Christ now and forever. Amen and Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                               The Great Supreme

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SABBATH MORNING, SEPTEMBER 28, 1856, BY THE REV.
   C. H. SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "Ascribe you greatness to our God." Deuteronomy 32:3.
   OUR God is one God. He is none other than the Infinite Jehovah who of
   old spoke unto His people, and revealed Himself by that marvelous
   incommunicable name--the name Jehovah! And yet though He is one God, we
   are taught in Scripture that He is one God in three most glorious
   Persons. While we rightly believe in the unity of the Godhead, and are
   so far Unitarians, we believe there are three Persons in one God, and
   thus we are Trinitarian Unitarians. We believe that the Father is God,
   and we ascribe unto Him greatness, for we believe that He made the
   world, and settled the pillars thereof. We believe that He fashioned
   the universe, and that He moves the starry orbs through space. We look
   up to the wondrous depths of a shoreless night, and we see the starry
   fleet sailing alone, and we believe that God is their Captain. We look
   still further and as by the aid of science we discover the void
   illimitable, we believe that God dwells there, and is the Infinite
   Creator and Preserver of all things that exist and subsist. We ascribe
   greatness unto Him, the Creator and the Protector of the world. We
   equally believe that Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate in the flesh,
   is very God of very God. We conceive the work of our Redemption to be
   as Divine a work as that of Creation. We consider that the miracles He
   did partly furnish us with, the abundant proofs that He must have been
   none other than God. We behold Him rising by His own might from the
   tomb. We see Him standing at the right hand of God, making intercession
   for us. We expect with joy His Second Coming. We look forward to the
   Day of Judgment, wherein He shall hold the great Assize of nations. And
   for these reasons, believing Him to be God, we ascribe greatness unto
   Jesus Christ, the Surety of the better Covenant. And as for the Holy
   Spirit, believing that the work of Conversion is as great as even that
   of Redemption, or creation, we believe Him to be the Everlasting God.
   We see Him so described in Scripture, that we dare not speak of Him as
   an influence, as a new emanationfrom the Deity; but we conceive Him to
   be a Person as very God of very God, as is the Father, so is the Son.
   We solemnly subscribe to the creed of St. Athanasius, that though there
   are not three Gods, but one God, yet there are three Persons in the
   glorious Trinity in unity of the everlasting Jehovah, unto whom belong
   the shouts of the universe, the songs of angels, and the ascription of
   our united praise. Our God, then, is to be understood as Father, Son,
   Holy Spirit! One God whom we adore--and the words of Moses apply to the
   God of Christians as well as to the God of Jews--"Ascribe you greatness
   to our God."

   I shall use the text, first, as a caution; secondly, as a command. I
   shall be but brief upon each particular, for my strength I feel may
   speedily fail me, but I trust in God to make some impressions on our
   hearts.

   I. First, then, I shall use it as A CAUTION.

   Inasmuch as Moses has said, "Ascribe you greatness to our God," we
   believe that he intended thereby to hint to us that we ought to ascribe
   greatness to none else. If greatness is to be ascribed to God, then
   none of God's creatures may in the least share the honor of that mighty
   attribute of greatness! Now as there are many who violate this Truth of
   God, and need this caution, they must allow me, if any of them are
   here, to caution them.

   First, then, the man who trusts his salvation in the least degree to
   priests or pope, or any dignitary of any church, violates this great
   command--"Ascribe you greatness to our God." If I bow my knee before a
   saint; if I worship a created being; if I seek the intercession of any
   save the one Person who is ordained to be the Mediator between God and
   man, the Man, Christ Jesus, I do in that degree derogate from the
   greatness of God! Some think not. They suppose that by using some
   influence with the Virgin Mary, or with the saints, these may also be
   induced to plead with God. No, they consider it to be honorable to
   employ some ambassador, seeing they conceive themselves to be unworthy
   to go to God with their own suit, and do not think Christ to be an
   all-sufficient Mediator to go for them! We reply that however humble
   they may think it on their part; however they may really and honestly
   suppose that they are magnifying God Himself; it be- comes them to know
   this--that they are not doing homage to His greatness in supposing that
   a saint is more merciful than God/In imagining that a saint shall have
   more influence with God than His own Son, I suppose that His heart is
   not tender enough to be open to my cry without the use of
   influence--which is to say the very least of it--throwing some slur on
   the Infinity of His mercy, and detracting in no small degree from the
   benignity of His Grace. God has one Mediator because man needed it! He
   has no more mediators because neither God nor man requires any! Christ
   is All-Sufficient. You do need a Mediator between yourselves and God,
   but you need none between yourselves and Christ. You may go to Christ
   just as you are, with all your filthiness, with all your sins, for He
   came to save you from what you now are, and to make you a people for
   Himself who should show forth His praise. Detract not, then, from the
   Glory of His Grace by bowing down before others, and asking them to
   intercede for you!

   I remember a singular anecdote which sets out very clearly the
   absurdity of the intercession of the saints. Some of you may have heard
   it before, but as many of you may not, I will tell it again. A good
   English farmer had a landlord who resided in Ireland. On a sudden the
   bailiff raised his rent so tremendously that the poor farmer could by
   no means pay his way, and was getting entirely ruined. He therefore
   applied to the bailiff to have the rent taken down to a fair average.
   After applying scores of times, he got no answer, and he was very near
   destruction. He applied to other persons whom he supposed to have
   influence with his landlord; but he made no way at all, and was as
   ill-treated as before. So doing what he had quite a right to do, he
   just went over to Ireland and called to see his lordship of whom he had
   taken the farm. He was shown in to him, and explained that he had taken
   the farm at a rent which he held to be fair to himself and to his
   landlord, and that then he had made a living, but that on a sudden the
   bailiff unaccountably raised the rent, so that he was nearly ruined.
   "My good friend," said the landlord, "why did you not come before? I
   don't wish that any man should be ruined through me. Let the rent be
   taken down to anything you think fair." "But," said the man, "I spoke
   to your bailiff; I did not dare to come to speak to a gentleman like
   you." "Oh," he said, "farmer, you are very welcome." But before the
   farmer left, he took him to see a chapel where there were all sorts of
   pictures. The farmer was rather startled, and asked to know what they
   meant. "Why," said the landlord, "these are the priests, and these are
   the saints. I put up my prayers to them, and then they intercede with
   Jesus Christ on my behalf." The farmer laughed. The landlord asked him
   why, and he said, "I was thinking it could be a pretty bit of business;
   it would be doing very much the same as I did. I went round to your
   bailiff, and to your friends, and I never got any redress till I came
   to yourself, Sir. So you may go round to all these very fine ladies and
   gentlemen you call saints, and I believe you will never get much from
   them, till you go to the Lord, Himself, and present your petition
   direct to Him. And if you do, I believe you will have a very good
   chance of success." This is a singular British-like mode of
   illustration, but it is sufficient, I think, to put aside the idea of
   going to saints in order to intercede with God! The fact of worshipping
   saints, of trusting my salvation in the hands of men, and thinking that
   any persons can forgive my sins, is to my soul, abhorrent beyond
   abhorrence, and hideous beyond horror! We should "ascribe greatness to
   our God"--to Him and Him alone!

   Very possibly, however, what I have said of that matter will be agreed
   to by all of you, and the arrow will fly into other breasts than yours.
   Allow me, therefore, to make the remark that in Protestant countries
   there is still a very strong tendency to priest-craft. Though we do not
   bow down and worship images, and do not professedly put our souls into
   the hands of priests, yet, I am sorry to say it, there is scarcely a
   congregation that is free from that error of ascribing greatness to
   their minister! If souls are converted, how very prone we are to think
   there is something marvelous in the man! And if saints are fed and
   satisfied with marrow and fatness, how prone we are to suppose that the
   preacherhas something about him by which these wondrous things are
   done! And if a revival takes place in any part of the vineyard, it
   matters not in what denomination, there is an aptness in the human mind
   to ascribe some part of the glory and the praise to the mere human
   agency! Oh, Beloved, I am sure every right-minded minister will scorn
   the thought! We are but your servants for Christ's sake; we speak to
   you, by God's Grace, what we believe to be God's Truth--but ascribe not
   to us any honor or any glory! If by anything a soul is saved, God from
   first to last has done it! If your souls are fed, thank the Master! Be
   respectful and grateful to the servant as you can be, but most of all
   thank Him who puts the Word into the mouths of His servants, and who
   applies it to your heart. "Oh, down with priest-craft!" Even I, myself,
   must down with it! Down with it!" If I, like Samson, fall beneath its
   roof, let me fall myself and be crushed, well content in having pulled
   down or contributed to remove one solitary brick in that colossal house
   of Satan! Take care, Friends, that you put no honor upon any man that
   you ought to have ascribed unto your God. "Ascribe you greatness to our
   God."

   There is, too, in our land of freedom, somewhat of a tendency to
   ascribe greatness to kings and mighty men. We are, most of us,
   professedly democrats. We generally talk democratically when we get
   together. But there is not an Englishman who is much of a democrat
   after all. When we get by a noble lord, how we do look up to him, as if
   he were some angel come down from on high! How we defer to the man who
   bears a title, and whatever he might state, we should have scarcely the
   honesty to tell him the truth, because he added, "Duke," or, "Lord," to
   his name! Why, my Friends, in this world we seldom judge men as to
   character; we judge them as to rank The poor and honest man goes
   through the streets--will you crowd to see him? A man wears a crown who
   is a perjurer--and will you not rush out and clap your hands at him?
   You judge according to rank, and not according to character! Would God
   we all knew how to judge men not according to the sight of our eyes, or
   the hearing of our ears, but according to the rightness of their
   characters! Oh, honor the Queen; God has said so in his Word. Pay
   deference unto authorities as you should do; but if in anything they
   swerve, remember your knee must bow to God, and to God alone. If in
   anything there is anything wrong, though it should have a sovereign's
   name attached to it, remember, only one is your Master, one is your
   King, "King of kings and Lord of lords." Ascribe not greatness unto
   emperors and monarchs--"Ascribe you greatness unto our God," and unto
   our God alone!

   In the case of those who are in the employ of masters, it is but just
   and right that they should render unto their masters that which is
   their due. But when the master commands that which is wrong, allow me
   solemnly to caution you against giving to him anything which you are
   not bound to do. Your master tells you, you must break the Sabbath. You
   do it because he is your master. You have violated this command, for it
   is said, "Ascribe you greatness unto God" You are tempted in your
   employment to commit a fault; you are commanded to do it. You are
   irresolute; you waver for a moment--you say, shall I obey God or man?
   At last, you say, "My master said so, I must obey him, or I shall lose
   my job." Remember you have not ascribed greatness unto God when you say
   that! Rather say this--"In all things that are right, I am the servant
   of all men; but in things that are wrong, I will not yield. I will
   stand up steadfast for God's right and for God's commands. Men may be
   my masters when they tell me to do the thing that is honest, and the
   thing that is just, but if in anything they swerve from that, I will
   not break my heavenly Master's command! He is more my Master than
   they--I will stand firm and fast by Him." How many young men are
   tempted from the path they ought to pursue by those who exercise
   influence upon them? How many a young woman has been turned aside from
   rectitude by some command which has been given her by a person who had
   influence over her? Take care that you allow no man to get dominion
   over your conscience! Remember, you will have no excuse at the Day of
   Judgment; it will be no palliation of your guilt to say that you were
   commanded by man to do wrong, for God will reply to you--"I told you to
   ascribe greatness to Me, and to Me only, and inasmuch as you obeyed man
   rather than God, you have violated My command." "Ascribe you greatness
   to our God." Take that caution--believe it--and receive it in your
   daily life, and in your dealing with great and small.

   This text has a bearing upon certain philosophic creeds which I will
   just hint at here. Some men, instead of ascribing greatness to God,
   ascribe greatness to the laws of Nature, and to certain powers and
   forces which they believe govern the universe. They look up on high;
   their eyes sees the marvelous orbs walking in their mystery along the
   sky; they take the telescope and peer into the distance, and they see
   yet more marvelous orbs, some of them of fire, and others of a
   structure they cannot understand. And they say, "What stupendous laws
   are those which govern the universe!" And you will see in their
   writings, that they ascribe everything to law, and nothing to God. Now,
   all this is wrong! Law without God is nothing! God puts force into law,
   and if God acts by laws in the government of the material universe, it
   is still the force of God which moves the worlds along, and keeps them
   in their places! Law without God is nullity. Reject every philosophy
   that does not ascribe greatness to God, for there is a worm at the root
   of it; there is some cancer at its heart, and it yet shall be
   destroyed! That and that alone shall stand which ascribes "greatness
   unto our God."

   II. So far by way of caution. Now by way of COMMAND. "Ascribe you
   greatness to our God."

   This command comes to the sinner when he first begins seriously to
   consider his position before God. My Friend, you have never thought of
   Heaven or of Hell until this moment, except it is a casual thought
   which is offensive to you. You are now in God's House, and perhaps you
   are inclined to think of your own position. You remember that you are
   standing upon a narrow neck of land between two unbounded seas--

   "A point of time, a moment's space
   May land you in yon heavenly place. Or shut you up in Hell."

   I hope you are asking yourself, "How can I be saved?" I beseech you in
   the very outset of that question take this for your guide--"Ascribe
   greatness to our God." By this I mean when you look at your sins,
   ascribe greatness to God's Justice. Do not do as some who say, "It is
   true, I have rebelled against God, but then very likely He will not
   punish me." Be not as some who suppose that God's Justice is such a
   thing of willow, that it can easily bend to justify without
   satisfaction, and pardon without Atonement. Remember this as undoubted
   Truth of God, that our God is very great in justice. Solemnly I assure
   you from God's holy Word that He is Just, that He will by no means
   clear the guilty unless they are cleared by Jesus Christ. If you have
   sinned but one sin, God will punish you for it! If you have sinned but
   one hour, that one hour will damn your soul despite all your repentance
   and all your good works--unless the blood of Jesus Christ shall take
   the sins away! Remember, God cannot pass by sin without expressing His
   displeasure, and either on your shoulders, or else on those of Christ,
   the lash must fall--for fall somewhere it must! God must punish every
   sin; He must punish every crime; and unless you have confidence that
   Christ suffered for you--remember He is very great--the whole of His
   wrath, every drop of the shower of His anger must fall on your poor
   helpless head, and every word of His awful curse must sink deep into
   your inmost heart! He is a very great God! He is not like the little
   kings of earth who sometimes pass by sin without punishment; but He is
   severely Just, and strict towards all offenders. He says, "I wilpunish
   you for your sin." "The soul that sins, it shall die." Start with that,
   then, when you begin to think of being saved.

   Next to this, addressing the sinner who is already convicted of this
   sad and solemn thought, let me say, "Ascribe greatness unto our
   God"--that is, to His Mercy. My Friend, you are sensible that you are
   guilty; conscience has had its work with your soul; you are certain
   that if God is Just, He must punish you. You are well aware He cannot
   pass by your iniquities without exhibiting His wrath concerning them.
   Maybe under a sense of guilt you will cry, "My sins are too great to be
   pardoned." Stop! Stop! Put Jesus Christ's blood upon them, and my life
   for yours, my soul for yours, they are not too great! Instead of
   ascribing greatness to your sin, ascribe greatness to our God!
   Remember, if in coming to God as a penitent, you think that His Mercy
   is little, you dishonor Him; if you suppose that the blood of Christ is
   not capable of washing out your blackest crime, you dishonor the
   glorious Atonement of Christ! Whenever you doubt, you defraud God of
   His honor, for remember He has said it, "Him that comes unto Me, I will
   in no wise cast out." Come, poor Sinner, and ascribe greatness to God's
   Mercy! Believe that His arms are wide--believe that His love is deep;
   believe that His grace is broad--believe that He is All-Powerful to
   take away your vilest sin, and wash you of your crimson guilt. "Ascribe
   greatness to our God." Be convinced of His great Mercy, you seeking
   souls who want Christ, and know not where to find

   Him.

   Further let me appeal to the Christian. "Ascribe greatness to our God."
   You are in trouble, dear fellow-laborers; you are wearied with the
   hardness of your journey; your poverty has got hold of you; your
   troubles are multiplied and increased. It is a dark night with you just
   now; you see not your sins; you have no sweet promise to light upon--no
   cheering Word to reassure your poor desponding heart. Come, here is a
   text for you--"Ascribe you greatness to our God." Great as your
   troubles are, remember He is greater! If the darkness is very thick,
   remember the mountain stands as firm at night as in the day! And when
   clouds girdle His Throne, yet they never shake its basement--

   "Firm as the earth His promise stands,
   And He can well secure
   What you commit into His hands,
   Till the decisive hour."

   Never think your trials are too huge for Him. Take them to Him; cast
   them on the Lord; trust Him with them all; His everlasting shoulders,
   that, like Atlas, bear the world, did never totter yet, nor shall they!
   Cast the whole roll of your troubles at His door--He will relieve you!
   Take the whole bundle of your sorrows, cast them at His feet--He can
   take them all away! And when the devil tempts you to believe that God
   cannot help you, tell him that you think better of Him than that; you
   ascribe greatness to the Almighty, and you believe He is great enough
   to deliver you from all your sorrows. Perhaps just now you are engaged
   in prayer; you have been for weeks and months agonizing at the Throne;
   you have had but little success there. Well, as you go to the Mercy
   Seat, take this with you "Ascribe you greatness to our God." We often
   get but little from God because we think Him a little God; we ask very
   little of God at times, and there- fore we get little. He who in prayer
   believes God to be great, and asks of God as if He were great, shall be
   certain to get many mercies from Him! Little-Faith gets little answers,
   but Great-Faith believes God's greatness and says--

   "I am coming to a King,
   Large petitions I will bring!
   For His Grace and power are such,
   None can ever ask too much!' Thus in prayerascribe greatness unto God!
   Do you ask a hundred? Ask a thousand! Have you asked a thousand? Ask
   ten thousand! Oh, I beseech you never stint for faith, nor stint for
   desire. God has said, "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."
   Remember the king of Israel. The Prophet came to him and gave him the
   bow and arrows. He said, "Shoot with the bow and arrows." And he shot
   once or twice, and then he stayed his hand. And the Prophet said, "You
   should have shot again and again, and then you would have smitten all
   the Assyrians until you had destroyed them." Even so does God! When He
   gives us faith, He puts the bow and arrows into our hands. Oh, do not
   smite once or twice! Smite many times, and you shall smite your sins
   until you have destroyed them! Draw the long bow of prayer--shoot your
   arrow as far as ever you can; ask for nothing small--in small
   petitions, you suppose Him to be a small Giver. Ask greatly, and He
   will give greatly! "Ascribe you greatness to our God." But I hope you
   are today engaged in duty. You have the duty thrust upon you by
   Providence which you do not flee from. Like Jonah you are half a mind
   to go to Tarshish instead of going to Nineveh, for you are afraid your
   strength will never bear you up in so huge a labor as that which has
   fallen to your share. Stop! Pay not your fare to Tarshish, else winds
   shall pursue you. Believe this--
   "Weak as you are,
   Yet through His might,
   All things you can perform!"

   And believing, go forward; go forward and stop at nothing! If God
   should call me to break the Alps in sunder, let it please Him to give
   me faith. I believe He would give me strength to do it. If God were to
   call you, as He did Joshua, to stop the sun in its course, and seize
   his golden bridle, and bid his coursers stay their hasty race, you
   would have strength enough to do it! "Ascribe you greatness to our
   God." If like Luther, you had to brave the Vatican, and breast the
   storm, if God intended you for the work, He would give you Grace to
   stand in it! And if your trial should be one of persecution, if you are
   called to the stake, you need not fear to march boldly to it, and
   embrace it--for He who called you to die, will give you dyingGrace,
   will give you burningGrace--so that you shall endure in the midst of
   hideous torments, and terrific pains! "Ascribe you greatness to our
   God." Yes, greatness made more great in the midst of creature weakness

   And now, to close, there is one point I wish to urge upon your
   attention tonight. Wherever I go, it is the almost universal complaint
   that the former times were better than now. Everywhere it is the solemn
   conviction of Christians that the Church is in a very wrong position;
   go where you please, you will hear one confession, one doleful,
   lamentable groan, that the Church is cold and lifeless! Not dead, but
   Laodicean--and I believe that Laodicea is the most correct picture of
   the Church at the present moment. We are neither hot nor cold, and
   Christ is angry with us. Where is the zeal--the zeal of Whitefield? Ah,
   where are the men who weep for perishing sinners? Where are the
   ministers who weep for souls as if they were full of life or death?
   Where are the Baxters, now, whose knees shake when they climb their
   pulpit stairs because they feel how solemn is their position, and whose
   cheeks are glittered with tears because they know the doom of perishing
   sinners, and long to snatch them from the fire? Where are your Rowland
   Hills, now, who descend to common language to reach the common people?
   Yes, and where are your praying men, and praying women? There are many
   of them--but where are those who pray with all their hearts as if they
   meant it? Ah, Heaven knows, the Church is just now where it ought not
   to be! But, oh, Christians, sit not down in despair! Think not that God
   has given us over. "Ascribe you greatness to our God." In the very
   worst of times, God can bring us out again! In the times of Arius, when
   the world was gone aside to disbelieve the Divinity of Christ, God
   provided an Athanasius who in bold, stern language put to flight the
   Ari-ans and stood up for God! When the world had gone aside to
   Pelagianism, He found an Augustine who uttered the words of Grace, and
   delivered the world from that mesh of errors. When the Church had gone
   into foul delusions, there was the monk found who shook the world--the
   Luther to proclaim the Truth of God! And when the Doctrines needed
   purity, there was the Calvin to cast salt into the troubled craters,
   and make them calm and limpid, so that man could see to the very
   bottom!

   And when in later times, the Church ofEngland, and the Church in
   England had sunken very low, all men said God had given up His Church;
   there were found six young men in the college of Oxford. God only knows
   how they got there, and how they were converted. Those six--Wesley and
   Whitefield being of the number--awakened the world again from its dark
   and long slumber! And when we had relapsed again, God found the
   successors of Whitefield--the Romains, the Topladys, the John Newtons,
   the Rowland Hills--men like Christmas Evans, like John Berridge! These
   came to bear the standard of the Lord, and to support His Truth. And
   mark you, now, God has got the man somewhere! Yes, the MEN somewhere,
   and they will yet come out. There will be a shaking one of these days;
   the men shall yet come to move the Church once more; we shall not
   forever sleep; we shall not forever lie still; there will be a revival
   throughout this land, I do believe, such as our fathers never saw! The
   times shall come when the heavens shall give ear and shall hear the
   call, and shall send down rain, when the earth shall blossom with
   righteousness, and the heavens shall drop with dew. For that time we
   all heartily pray, for the time we earnestly wait. "Ascribe you
   greatness to our God."

   To my own Church and people, only one word and then farewell. My
   Friends, we also are about to engage in an enterprise for which I fear
   we are not quite competent. But remember God will provide for us. Often
   on my bed do I toss restlessly by night to know what is to become of
   all these people. Where is my Church to be housed, and where my
   congregation to be gathered? And but last night in unbelief I thought
   it never could be that such a place could be built. But ah, always
   "ascribe you greatness to God." Let us attempt great things, and we
   shall do great things. Let us try at them and, God being with us, we
   shall do them yet! If I had cared to preach in fine and gaudy language,
   I might, perhaps, have done it; but I have cared only to speak just as
   common people do. I often tell tales that shock propriety--I shall do
   it again! I often do things that others condemn me for--I shall do
   still worse, God helping me! If I can but win souls by them, I am not
   to be daunted by any opinion whatever; if heirs of Heaven are snatched
   from Hell, I shall rejoice to have done it by any means in the world!
   Well, then, if I am ever to have the poor around me, then will I trust
   in God, in His poor, and in His Church, that they will yet raise a
   tabernacle where His name is to be honored! Lay it to your hearts and
   if you think it is God's work, go about it with faith and with vigor.
   "Ascribe you greatness to our God."

   Oh, you who hate my God; you who despise Him, the day is
   coming--perhaps tomorrow shall be the day when you shall "ascribe
   greatness to my God;" for you shall feel His great foot upon your
   loins, and His great sword shall cut you in two; His great wrath shall
   utterly devour you, and His great Hell shall be your doleful home
   forever!

   May God grant it may not be so, and may He save us all, for Jesus'
   sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                   The March!

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 31, 1861, BY THE REV. C. H.
   SPURGEON, AT EXETER HALL, STRAND.

   "And it came to pass, when the ark set out, that Moses said, Rise up, O
   Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee
   before You." Numbers 10:35.

   THE people of God in the wilderness were led instrumentally by the
   wisdom of Moses and his father-in-law Hobab; but really their guiding
   star was the visible Presence of God in the pillar of cloud by day, and
   pillar of fire by night. I suppose that the possession of this pillar
   as a guide did not remove from them the duty and the necessity of using
   the judgment of Moses and Hobab as to the place where they should
   encamp. You will remember that Moses expressly said to his relative,
   "You know how to encamp in the wilderness, and you shall be unto us
   instead of eyes." They had the guidance of God, yet they were not to
   neglect the wisdom which God had given to His servants, and the
   judgment with which He had endowed them. We ought to learn from this, I
   think, that while we ever seek the guidance of God in Providence, yet
   we may frequently find direction and guidance in the use of our own
   common sense, our own discretion with which the Lord has endowed us. As
   long as the pillar of cloud tarried, the people always waited. However
   inconvenient the spot might be, if it rested one day, or 20 days, or a
   month, or a whole year, they stood still. But the moment that the cloud
   moved, whether the fiery column marched through the darkness of the
   night, or the cloudy pillar mellowed the brightness of the sun and
   screened them from its torrid heat, they removed at once. However
   excellent might be their quarters, they never dared to delay when once
   the Presence of God moved from above them. It was His to lead--it was
   theirs to follow. Yet, before they began the march, before the standard
   of Judah was uplifted, and that tribe began to take up its tents to
   lead the van, the silver trumpet was always blown in the front. It was
   heard through the entire encampment-- the silver trumpet, which seemed
   to say, "Arise! Depart!--This is not your rest. Your God has removed,
   and you must follow." Then Moses himself came forward, and stretching
   out his hands, he cried, "Arise, O Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered,
   and let those who hate You flee before You." When this was done, on
   marched the mighty host, and when they came to their halting place,
   again, and the trumpet sounded for the rest of eventide, up came the
   king in Jeshurun, the Prophet of Horeb, and lifting up his hands, again
   he cried, "Return unto Your rest and unto the many thousands of
   Israel," and the pillar rested over the top of the great encampment,
   and gave them a bright and flaming light by night, even as it gave them
   a glorious covering and protection by day.

   To what use are we to put this prayer of Moses; for no passage of
   Scripture is of private interpretation. No single text in the Word
   relates simply to the occasion on which it is spoken; but whatever
   things were written aforetime were written for our learning. The Word
   of God is a living Word--not a Word that had life in it in the day of
   Moses, and is now dead--but a Word which is as living to us at this
   hour as when it first came from the Prophetic lips of the great
   Lawgiver! I think I shall be warranted in using the text, "Rise up, O
   Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee
   before You" in three ways this morning. We shall use it, first, as the
   watchword of God's Israel in every age. Secondly, we are warranted by
   the 68th Psalm in referring this text, typically and mystically, to the
   Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I think, also, the guidance
   of God's Spirit will warrant us, in the third place, in using this text
   personally, for ourselves as individuals, and as a Church; and we would
   offer this prayer now that the Ark of God in our midst is about to be
   removed, "Rise up, O Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those
   who hate You flee before You."

   I. First, then, THIS HAS BEEN THE WATCHWORD OF THE CHURCH OF GOD IN ALL
   AGES. The people of God in the wilderness were the picture of God's
   Church upon earth. We are strangers and foreigners upon the earth; we
   are pilgrims and sojourners as all our fathers were. I was struck last
   evening, on reading for my own instruction the 33rd Chapter of the Book
   of Numbers, with the constant occurrence of verses concerning the
   removal of the people. "And they removed from Ethan, and turned again
   unto Pihahiroth." "And they journeyed in the wilderness of Ethan, and
   pitched in Marah. And they removed from Marah and came unto Elim." They
   went from the place of bitterness to the place of feasting. "And in
   Elim were twelve fountains of water, and threescore and ten palm trees;
   and they pitched there. And they removed from Elim, and encamped by the
   Red Sea. And they removed from the Red Sea, and encamped in the
   wilderness of Sin. And they took their journey out of the wilderness of
   Sin, and encamped in Dophkah. And they departed from Dophkah and
   encamped in Alush. And they removed from Alush, and encamped at
   Rephidim." And so the whole Chapter is a succession of removing and
   encamping, till at last they ceased to dwell in tents, and came to live
   in their own walled cities in the land of Canaan! Just such has been
   the history of the Church--it has always been removing from its place,
   and such has been the condition of each individual. Here we have no
   abiding city. "We seek a city which has foundations whose Builder and
   Maker is God." Here we have but an earthly house of our tabernacle
   which is soon to be dissolved, and we are continually men of the weary
   foot who rest not but journey onward to the place of rest.

   Albeit that they had no habitation except their tents, yet it is true
   of Israel in the wilderness, that they always had an habitation. Do you
   not remember the song of Moses--"Lord, You have been our dwelling place
   in all generations." Wherever they were, God was their dwelling place!
   As I have said before, by day they were covered with His cloud, and
   they dwelt under the vast canopy like princes in a pavilion. By night
   they were covered with its fiery luster, and they rested under it with
   a light that never made glad the earth by night save only to their
   eyes. God's wings were always over them! He carried them all the days
   of old, and they did really rest and dwell in Him. Today, in our
   Father's house, there are many mansions, and it was true of them
   yesterday that in their Father's house were many tents; in those tents
   they dwelt; but all of them dwelt in their Father's house. This, too,
   is true of the entire Church--always wandering, yet never far from
   home--unhoused, yet always in palaces--sometimes destitute, afflicted,
   tormented, and yet always clothed, always rich, always feasting to the
   full; deserted, yet not alone; forsaken, yet multiplied; left, yet
   still abiding with Him who fills all in all!

   We might carry the parallel out still further, but it is enough for us
   to remark this morning that in another point, the people of God in the
   wilderness were the picture of the Church of Christ. Wherever they
   marched, when God went before them, they marched to victory! Lo, the
   Red Sea rolls in their way; the pillar of cloud moves; they follow; the
   frightened sea divides, and the Red Sea, itself, is astonished! What
   ails you, O Sea, that you were driven back, and your waters stood
   upright as a heap? It was before the Lord, before the Presence of the
   mighty God of Jacob! They march onward; the Amalekites attack
   them--they fall upon the Israelites all of a sudden when they are
   unaware--but God fights for them, Moses' hands are upheld until the
   going down of the sun, and Joshua smites the Amalekites and Jehovah
   Nissi is all glorious! Then Sihon, king of the Amorites, came out
   against them, and Og, king of Bashan, and the Moabites attack them, but
   the Lord is in the front of them, and they suffer no harm. Their
   enemies melt before them as the fat of rams; into smoke they are
   consumed, yes into smoke they disappear. Even so has it been with the
   Church of God in all ages! Her march has been that of one who is fair
   as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.
   Let but her silvery trumpet sound, and the echo shakes the vaults of
   Hell; let but her warriors unsheathe their swords, and their enemies
   fly before them like thin clouds before a Biscay gale! Her path is the
   pathway of a conqueror--her march has been a procession of triumph.
   Wherever she has put her foot, the Lord has given her that land to be
   her heritage forever and ever, and as it was in the beginning, it is
   now and ever shall be till this world shall end. Amen.

   Now, having just touched upon the parallel, let me show how this war
   cry has really been heard of God, and has been fulfilled to all His
   people. Turn to this Book, this Book of the wars of the Lord. Wherever
   His Church has gone, and He has risen up, have not His enemies been
   scattered? Though they were the hundred Kings of Canaan, were they not
   hanged upon trees, or speedily put to death with the edge of the sword?
   Though it were Agag, king of the Amalekites, was he not hewn in pieces?
   Though it should be the mighty princes of the Philistines--did not
   their champions lose their heads, and their princes fly apace? Though
   it should be the embattled ranks of Syria--did not God smite them in
   the valleys, and chase them on the hills? Though it were
   Sennacherib--did not God rise up, and did not His enemies at once die
   before His Presence? Did they not fall like the leaves of the forest
   "when autumn has blown"? Though it were the hosts of Egypt in later
   times, or the mighty ranks of Babylon, or Media, or Persia--can we not
   say concerning them all--"Your right hand, O Lord, Your right hand, O
   Lord, has dashed in pieces the enemy. Your right hand, O Lord, has done
   wonderful things, this is known of all the earth"? But when we have
   read the Bible story through, the Book of God's triumph has only begun!
   Look to the later battles of the Church. You remember the story of
   Oliver Cromwell and his men at the battle of Dunbar--when before the
   battle they, all of them, knelt on the heather and asked the Lord their
   God to be with them, and then springing up they chanted this old
   Psalm--

   "Let God arise, and scattered let all His enemies be,
   And let all those who hate Him, before His Presence flee.
   As the smoke is driven, so drive You them. As fire melts wax away,
   Before God's face let wicked men, so perish and decay." And then, home
   went their swords, and their enemies fled down the hill, and a speedy
   victory was given.
   I quote not this except as a picture and illustration of the history of
   the entire Church. I think, in a spiritual sense, when Luther first
   bowed his knee, the Church began to chant, "Rise up, O Lord! Let Your
   enemies be scattered." When Knox in Scotland upheld the Glory of Jesus'
   name, was it not, once again, "O God arise! Let those who hate You,
   flee before You"? When Whitefield and Wesley, seraphic Evangelists of
   Jesus Christ, went through this land, was not this the very song of
   Israel, "Rise up, O Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered"? And shall it
   not be ours today? Let God but go forth with our arms; let Him but
   speak through our ministers; let Him but dwell in our elders; let Him
   but make the bodies of our Church members His temples, and His enemies
   will be scattered, and they will consume away! I can well conceive, my
   Brothers and Sisters, that such a prayer as this would well befit the
   tongue of a minister who lands as the first herald of the Cross in some
   barbarian land! My Brother, a solitary missionary in some populous city
   in China, might bow his knee, when first he attempts to preach, and
   say, "Rise up, O Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who
   hate You flee before You." A Williams landing upon Erromanga might say,
   even though his blood stained the wave, "Rise up, O Lord, and let Your
   enemies be scattered." Livingstone and Moffat, toiling in the midst of
   the thick dense ignorance of central Africa, might frequently say from
   their innermost souls, "Rise up, O Lord, and let Your enemies be
   scattered." Those brave men who risk all for Christ, not counting their
   lives dear unto them, that they might finish their course with joy--I
   think when they, as pioneers for Christ, bear the Ark in the midst of
   the wilderness, they could not breath a better prayer for themselves,
   and you and I cannot do better than put it up for them now, "Rise up, O
   Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee
   before You."

   Brothers and Sisters, this ought to be our prayer today, in
   anticipation of the Millennial splendor. When it is to come, I do not
   know. Dr. Cumming may; but I am not as wise as he. This I know,
   Scripture says He is to come, but I thinkit says, "He shall come in
   such an hour as you think not"--He comes as a thief in the night.
   Whether He shall come in the year 1866, I do not know. I hope He may,
   but I had rather that He should come in the year 1861. I should not
   like to postpone my watchfulness till 1866, but be always looking for
   Him. Whether He shall come in the morning or at cockcrow, in mid-day or
   midnight, blessed is that servant who when his Lord comes shall be
   found watching! Cast your eyes mentally over the world, and look at
   what a state it is in today. What wonderful changes have taken place,
   and yet how firm are the roots of evil! How tightly bound around the
   very granite of earth's nature are the roots of the great upas tree of
   iniquity! Who can hope to tear it up by the roots, or cut down this
   towering cedar? See in one land where liberty was blustered, the lash
   still dripping with gouts of gore; see in another land where there is
   much advancement in many things, the people priest-ridden, and borne
   down beneath the yoke! Look at the myriads who have never seen the
   great Light of God--who sit in darkness, and in the Valley of the
   Shadow of Death. Where is the arm, where is the arm that can put back
   the world upon its proper pivot? Where is the almighty power that can
   turn once again the pole so that earth shall stand no more oblique, but
   in uprightness roll before the Throne of God? Where is the arm that can
   roll up the clouds as a mantle, and the mists as rags? There is but
   one! And our business is to cry today, "Rise up, O Lord! Let Your
   enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee before You." Come
   quickly, come quickly--come, Lord Jesus! Then shall the world be rid of
   her tyrants; then shall slavery cease to be; then shall Your
   unsuffering Kingdom come! Then the Great Shepherd shall reign, and
   everywhere shall He be extolled--"to Him shall be given of the gold of
   Sheba; prayer also shall be made for Him continually, and daily shall
   He be praised."

   Before I pass from this head, quietly, for the edification of each
   individual Christian, let me remark that this prayer will suit your
   personal difficulties. Have you been in conflict lately? Has old
   Apollyon put you to your wits end? Has he thrown his fiery darts at you
   thick as hailstones when they fell on Egypt? Have you been crushed
   beneath his foot? Can you not deliver yourself? Pray, "Rise up, O Lord,
   and let Your enemies be scattered." Do your doubts prevail? Has your
   faith suffered an eclipse? Has a darkness that might be felt brooded
   over you? Say, "Rise up, O Lord." All that is needed in the darkest
   night to clear it away is for the sun to rise. Battle not with your
   doubts yourself; wrestle not with your own fears. Pray, "Rise up, O
   Lord; these doubts of mine are enemies to Your honor--enemies to Your
   promise-- enemies to Your Truth! Rise up, O Lord, and let them flee
   before You." You shall soon find peace and quietness, and in assurance
   and confidence, your souls shall rest. Are you beset today by men who
   hate you? As a child of God have you acted with such simplicity and
   integrity that men, not understanding you, have imputed to you wrong
   motives? Have you been slandered and abused? "Avenge not yourself, but
   rather give place unto wrath. Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the
   Lord." Let your prayer be, "Rise up, O Lord, and let Your enemies be
   scattered." Are you serving God in some particular work where many are
   seeking to undo all that you can accomplish? Are you a City Missionary,
   and do you labor in the midst of a den of iniquity? Does it seem that
   what you do in one day is undone in one hour by others? Take it to the
   Throne of Grace! Say, "Rise up, O Lord, and let Your enemies be
   scattered." Have you a great purpose conceived within your soul and
   does Providence seem to stand in the way of its accomplishment? Has the
   Lord commanded you to some special work, and do friends discourage, and
   enemies abuse? This prayer may suit you--"Rise up, O Lord!" It needs
   but that God should make bare His arm--His rising up is enough! As
   Luther said when opposing the Church of Rome--"They are not strong; God
   can overthrow them with His little finger." And so say you! All the
   foes of the Church with all their battlements behind which they are
   entrenched, are nothing. They but seem to be. They are shadows,
   emptiness, nothing! Do you in confidence cry to your God--"Lord, do but
   rise; do but stand up; do but manifest Your power in any way whatever,
   and Your enemies are scattered at once, and those who hate You must
   flee before You forev-ermore"--

   "When He makes bare His arm, what shall withstand His work? When He,
   His people's cause defends, who, who shall stay His hand? Let us, in
   life and death, boldly Your Truth declare And publish, with our last
   breath, Your love and guardian care."

   II. We shall now take the text IN ITS REFERENCE--TO CHRIST. Scripture
   is the best defender of Scripture. The diamond is not to be cut except
   with a diamond. We shall not understand one passage in the Word without
   another to explain it. That Book has keys in its own self for all its
   own locks. The 68th Psalm informs us that the moving of the Ark from
   the lower place of the City of David was typical of the ascending of
   Christ into Heaven. Ah, I think, my dear Brothers and Sisters, the
   sorrowing Church, when they beheld their Lord dragged by cruel men to
   judgment, when they heard Him accused and slandered, when they saw Him
   mocked and spit upon, must have considered the battle to be a defeat.
   The tears must have stood in their eyes when they saw that He who was
   to be the Deliverer of Israel could not deliver Himself! How dense must
   have been the gloom over the fearing hearts of the Church when they saw
   their King, their Head, dragged away and nailed ignominiously to the
   Cross! And how dead must all their hopes have been when at last He
   bowed His head and gave up the ghost, and the sword pierced Him to the
   heart, and out there came the blood and water! Was it not the day of
   Hell's triumph, the hour of earth's despair, the moment of Heaven's
   defeat? No. It was the reverse of all this! That moment when Christ
   died, He gave the deathblow to all His enemies! That hour when they
   thought they were treading on Him, He was crushing them and bruising
   the serpent's head! Even when the Master was laid in the tomb, and had
   to sleep there His three days, as Jonah in the whale's belly--if the
   Church had had faith, they might have come early on the dawn of the
   first day of the week, and standing outside the tomb, they might have
   begun to sing, "Rise up, O Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let
   those who hate You flee before You."

   I think it will be no fantastic imagination if we conceive that the
   angels did in that hallowed day come down from Heaven before the sun
   had risen, knowing the appointed time, and while one of them rolled
   away the stone, the rest stood waiting on the wing and chanted, "Rise
   up, O Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You
   flee before You." I think I see the Champion awake! He unbinds the
   napkin from His head, He sees again the light--He rolls off the
   cerements of the tomb, rolls them up and places them by themselves. He
   has risen! The stone has been rolled away. He comes forth into mid air.
   O Hell, how did you shake! O Death, how were you plagued! O Earth, your
   Sun had indeed risen that day! Heaven, surely you did rejoice, and the
   song rolled mightily along your streets! He rises and in that mo- ment
   sin dies! The resurrection of Christ was God's acceptance of Christ's
   Sacrifices. It was all that was needed. The handwriting of ordinances
   had once been nailed to the Cross--they are now forever blotted out!
   Once had He borne the burden, but now the burden is removed from His
   neck. God accepts Christ as being justified, and therefore He rises
   from the dead, and by that act all His people are justified! "He rose
   again for our justification." The last hope of sin was crushed--its
   last pretense to any claim upon the people of God was hushed
   forever--its last arrogant claim to any right to their souls, or to
   their bodies, was quashed in Heaven's High Court when Christ, the
   Risen, came forth in pure white robes to demand the spotlessness of His
   people in Him because of His Resurrection f?rthem!

   Nor was sin alone that day scattered. Did not all the hosts of Hell
   fall before Him? How glad they had been! All the demons had exalted
   themselves with the hope that their reign would now begin; loosed would
   be the iron chain; broken would be the bolts at the Pit's mouth! Now
   might they come forth and revel, for the King who was to destroy them
   had been destroyed Himself! But when He rose, blank despair sat on the
   face of every fiend. How could they hope to kill His people? "Because
   He lives, they shall live also." How could they hope to condemn His
   people? "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is
   Christ who died, yes rather, that is risen again." Their hopes were
   gone! They were scattered, indeed! As the wax melts before the fire, so
   did their hopes melt away. Where was that day the boast of death? Had
   Christ remained in the jaws of death--had the Holy One seen
   corruption?--then had the redeemed remained the bond slaves of death,
   too. But He lives! He has broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars
   of iron in sunder. Blessed are they who sleep, for they shall rise,
   too; He has led the way; the Breaker has gone up before them; the King
   at the head of them. He has cleared the gap! They have but to follow
   and enter into the Resurrection and the Life. That day I think all the
   gods of the heathen fell down! It is a tradition that at that hour when
   the veil of the Temple was torn in two, all the gods tottered on their
   thrones--they did so spiritually--if they did not literally. That day
   slavery began to relax its grasp of its whip; that day the tyrant's
   throne began to shake; that day Heaven shone with greater splendor, and
   Hell was more murky and dull than it had been before; that day Evil
   heard its own death knell sound in the air, while Good heard the
   marriage-peal of rejoicing saints, while angels shouted over a rising
   Savior!

   Nor was that all. After Christ had thus risen, you will remember that
   He rose again. He rose from the grave to earth--He next rose from earth
   to Heaven. I think we may again conjecture that the angelic spirits
   came to meet the Master, and they said, "Rise up, O Lord! Let Your
   enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee before You." Up
   He went, dragging sin, death and Hell at His chariot wheels,
   scattering, as He rode along, those gifts which He had received for
   men. He went up with sound of trumpet, and with shouts of archangels!
   They near the gates--they sing, "Lift up your heads, O you gates, and
   be you lift up, you everlasting door, that the King of Glory may come
   in." The angelic spirits on the other side chant, "Who is the King of
   Glory?" And once again, in waves of melody, they dash open the pearly
   gate singing again, "Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be you lift
   up, you everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may come in." On, on
   He rides; having scattered forever all His enemies--having put all
   things under His feet, and being crowned King of kings and Lord of
   lords; The Wonderful; The Counselor; The Mighty God; The Everlasting
   Father; The Prince of Peace! Glory be unto Your name, Jesus; my soul
   warms with Your fire! Glory be unto You! These hands would put the
   crown upon Your head--this voice would sing instead of preach Your
   praise! Blessed be You, God over all, blessed forever! You have
   ascended up on high; You have led captivity captive; You have received
   gifts for men. Rise up, Lord--rise up from the Throne of Your majesty!
   Come and take the purchased possession! Come to claim Your own, and
   these hands shall welcome You with joyful applause, and this tongue
   shall welcome You with joyous songs. Yes, even these very feet shall
   dance like David before the Ark, if You will but arise, for Your
   enemies shall be scattered and they who hate You shall flee before You!

   III. But thirdly, WHAT MESSAGE HAS THIS TEXT FOR US, AND HOW MAY WE USE
   IT?

   In the Providence of God we, as a Church and people, have often had to
   wander. This is our third sojourn within these walls. It is now about
   to close. We have had at all times and seasons a compulsion for moving;
   sometimes a compulsion of conscience; at other times a compulsion of
   pleasure as on this occasion. I am sure that when we first went to the
   Surrey Music Hall, God went with us. Satan went too. That frightful
   calamity, the impression of which can never be erased from my mind,
   turned out, in the Providence of God, to be one of the most wonderful
   means of turning public attention to special services. And I do not
   doubt that it--fearful catastrophe though it was--has been the mother
   of multitudes of blessings! The Christian world noted the example; they
   saw its success; they followed it and to this day, in the theater and
   in the cathedral, the Word of God is preached where it was never
   preached before! Never could it be more manifestly seen than in that
   place, that the Word of God, when preached simply and earnestly, is the
   power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes! In each of our
   relocations, we have had reason to see the hand of God, and here
   particularly, for there are very many residents in the West end who
   have in this place come to listen to the Word, who probably might not
   have taken a journey beyond the river; and here God's Grace has broken
   the hard heart; here have souls been renewed, and wanderers been
   reclaimed! Give unto the Lord, O you mighty; give unto the Lord glory
   and strength; give unto the Lord the glory that is due unto His name!
   And now we journey to the house which God has in so special a manner
   given to us! I stand before you now as Moses stood before the people of
   Israel, and with faith like his, though not with such power and might
   as belonged to that honored servant of God, I would pray, "Rise up, O
   Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee
   before You."

   "But what enemies do we have?" you ask. We have multitudes. We shall
   have to do battle in our new Tabernacle more nearly with that old enemy
   of the Church, the Scarlet Beast--Rome has built one of its batteries
   hard by our place, and there is one who styles himself, "Archbishop of
   Southwark." Well, we shall have to do battle against him, and woe to
   you, Babylon! Woe to you, Babylon! Let but Christ be preached, and
   where is Anti-Christ? Let the Cross be lifted up, and away with your
   crucifixes! Let the Truth of God be declared, and where are your lies?
   This one Book, as the old Reformers used to say--this Book against all
   the popes and cardinals and priests and all the devils in Hell! You
   have seen the picture, I dare say, of a pair of scales, in one of which
   there is a Bible, very heavy, touching the very ground; and in the
   other, there is a pope with his tiara on, and a cardinal with his
   scarlet cap, and a whole host of priests and Virgin Marys and idols all
   piled up! There is another learned doctor just hooking on to the
   chains, and trying to pull down, if he can--but all their combined
   weight cannot reach anything like the weight of this one blessed Book!
   Why, a farthing candle of Divine Truth can set on fire a whole prairie
   of popish error! It needs no great power in the preacher--he needs but
   to preach Christ's Truth as he finds it in the Word of God, and he
   shall find it to be a blast from the nostrils of God to wither up the
   beauty of this towering cedar! What matters it to me whether it is a
   cedar or a fir? In the name of God, I feel my axe this morning! It is
   sharp and keen, and shall be laid to the roots of this tree, and if we
   cannot avail, yet other hands and other arms should wield that same axe
   so sharp and keen, and you, towering cedar, whose top is in the stars,
   but whose roots are in Hell--you shall yet come down and the nations of
   the earth shall rejoice because of your fall!

   Then we shall have another enemy. We have hard by us, almost as a
   next-door neighbor, Infidelity. There has been one of its special
   places for display. Well, well, Infidelity is but a very puny adversary
   comparatively; it is not half so cunning as Popery, and has nothing
   like its might. There is something in Romanism that can seize the human
   mind, but Infidelity is bare, bald, naked, filthy. There are very few
   who will be overturned by that in an age when men are compelled to come
   more and more closely to God in the discoveries of Nature and the
   wondrous findings out of science. We are not afraid of you, O
   Infidelity! Come forth Goliath--it is but David who meets you--the
   ministers of Christ are but little compared with your stalking
   greatness and gigantic might; but the sling and stone of Christ,
   preached simply and preached affectionately, shall reach the forehead
   of your wisdom, and find you out and bring you down!

   But we have worse enemies than this! We shall have to deal with the
   indifference of the masses round about us, and with their carelessness
   concerning Gospel Truth; we shall have to deal with prevailing sin and
   corruption--sin which at nightfall, from the very steps of that
   edifice, may be seen in all the colors of its harlotry. And how will we
   deal with it? Will we bring in some Socialist system? Shall we preach
   up some new method of political economy? No! The Cross, the old Cross
   is enough! This is the true Jerusalem blade, like that razor of old,
   with which the Tarquin cut the whetstone. We will but preach Christ as
   the sinner's Savior, the Spirit of God as applying Christ's Truth to
   the soul, and God the Father in His Infinite Sovereignty saving whom He
   will, and in the bounty of His mercy willing to receive the vilest of
   the vile! And there is no indifference so callous, no ignorance so
   blind, no iniquity so base--there is no conscience so seared as not to
   be made to yield when God wills it before the might of Hsstrength!
   "Rise up, O Lord! Rise up, O Lord! Let these Your enemies be scattered,
   and let those who hate You flee before You."

   But what is to be our prayer? Does it say, "Rise up, O preacher--occupy
   your pulpit"? True we may say, "Awake, Barak, awake and lead your
   captivity captive, you son of Abinoam." But that is after the battle is
   fought, not before! "Rise up, O Lord! O God the Father, rise up! Pluck
   Your right hand out of Your bosom, and let Your purposes be
   accomplished! O God the Son, rise up! Show Your wounds and plead before
   Your Father's face, and let Your blood- bought ones be saved! Rise up,
   O God the Holy Spirit!With solemn awe, we do invoke You! Let those who
   have resisted You give way! Come, melt the ice! Dissolve the granite!
   Let the hardest heart give way. Rise up, Lord, Father, Son and Spirit,
   we can do nothing without You!But if You arise, Your enemies shall be
   scattered, and they who hate You shall flee before You."

   Will you and I go home and pray this prayer by ourselves, fervently
   laying hold upon the horns of God's altar? I charge you, my Brothers
   and Sisters in Christ, do not neglect this private duty! Go, each one
   of you, to your chambers. Shut your doors and cry to Him who hears in
   secret, and let this be the burden of your cry--"Rise up, O Lord! Let
   Your enemies be scattered." And at your altars tonight, when your
   families are gathered together, still let the same cry ring up to
   Heaven! And then tomorrow and all the days of the week, and as often as
   we shall meet together to hear His Word and to break bread, cry, "Rise
   up, O Lord! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You
   flee before You." Pray for your children, your neighbors, your families
   and your friends, and let your prayer be--"Rise up, O Lord. Rise up, O
   Lord." Pray for this neighborhood. Pray for the dense darkness of
   Southwark and Walworth, and Lambeth. And oh, if you cannot pray for
   others because your own needs come so strongly before your mind,
   remember, Sinner, all you need is but faith to look to Christ, and then
   you may say, "Rise up, O Lord! Scatter my doubts--kill my
   unbelief--drown my sins in Your blood. Let these, Your enemies, be
   scattered; let those who hate You flee before You." Amen. Amen!
     __________________________________________________________________

                       The First Sermon in the Tabernacle

   A Sermon

   (No. 369)

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

   Rev. C. H. SPURGEON,

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

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

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

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

   I. First, then, the SUBJECT.

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

   "Jesus is worthy to receive,

   Honour and power divine,

   And blessings more, than we can give

   Be Lord for ever thine."

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

   "A man there was--a real man,

   Who once on Calvary died."

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

   "Who in his measure feels afresh

   What every member bears;"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

   "Jesus, lover of my soul."

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

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

                          Evangelical Congratulations

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON MONDAY EVENING, MARCH 25, 1861, BY THE REV. W.
   BROCK, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, yes, and will rejoice."
   Philippians 1:18.
   HOW Paul would have rejoiced had he been living now! Judging from the
   effect that was produced upon his mind by the evangelical labors at
   Rome, what do you think, Brothers and Sisters, would have been the
   effect produced upon his mind by the evangelical labors in London?
   Because the Brethren there were waxing bold in the name of Christ, he
   was glad. The fact that in the metropolis of the empire the glad
   tidings were proclaimed filled him with the most profound satisfaction.
   His heart was, and his heart still would be, joyful in the Lord! And
   yet I take it that the ministry of the Gospel in Rome must have been
   comparatively on a small and insignificant scale. I suppose that in
   proportion to the population, and in proportion to the size of that
   city, the preaching must have been very circumscribed, and all things
   considered, considerably obscure. No preacher had lifted his voice from
   the terrace of the Capitol, no congregation had been gathered into the
   great area of the Coliseum, no public announcement had been made over
   all Rome, that if the people would flock to the Pantheon, they might
   hear about the Incarnation of the Son of God. Anything like that would
   have kindled Paul's gladness into rapture! Christ preached out on the
   Campus Martius, or in the Hall of Minerva, or on the platform of the
   Athenaeum at Rome would have left him nothing this side of Paradise to
   desire! As it was, his cup was running over. Men were told in honest
   speech about the One who had come down from Heaven, who had come at the
   Father's bidding to proclaim His will and to accomplish His purposes.
   They had been told of a Friend that "sticks closer than a brother;" of
   the Advocate and the Mediator between God and man. And, the Spirit of
   all Grace concurring with that which had been preached, the Apostle was
   fully persuaded in his own mind that they had heard words whereby they
   would be saved, and that the promise of the life that now is, and the
   promise of the life that is to come, would by them be personally
   enjoyed. Hence he said, "I do rejoice," and then emphatically again,
   "Yes, and will rejoice."

   But how he would have rejoiced, or how he would rejoice if he were
   living now! Why, for every one man who preached the Gospel in his time,
   there are thousands who are preaching it now; for every hundred hearers
   of that day, there are thousands upon thousands now; and for every one
   place into which the citizens of Rome might go to hear about Christ and
   Him Crucified, I need not say that there are many and ever multiplying
   places now. And you, my Brothers and Sisters--the pastor of this
   Church, and those connected with him--you have added to the number,
   thank God, of those places, and we are tonight to celebrate the
   completion of one, I suppose, of the best places that has ever been
   raised for the honor and for the Glory of Christ! From the first day
   until now, from its foundation to its top stone, you have begun and
   continued and ended--your desire, your prayer, your purpose, your
   ambition having been just simply this--that here the Redeemer's name
   may be magnified, that here His great salvation in all simplicity may
   be proclaimed! And we have come here tonight to assure you of our
   sympathy, to give to you the pledges of our brotherly affection, and in
   the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, to bid
   you heartily God speed--

   "Peace be within this sacred place, And joy a constant guest; With holy
   gifts and heavenly Grace, Be our attendance blessed."

   Well, the Apostle rejoiced, and would have rejoiced a great deal more
   had he occupied the place which I am occupying now! My purpose is to
   show to you tonight why there should be such rejoicing in connection
   with the preaching of Christ Crucified.

   Various reasons, of course, could be assigned--at least several reasons
   could be thrown into various forms. I throw my idea of the matter into
   this form--by the preaching of Christ, the renovation of mankind is
   intelligently proposed, and not only so, but it is graciously
   guaranteed. Given--a ministry that shall speak out openly what Christ
   is, what Christ has done, what Christ is doing, what Christ requires,
   what Christ administers, and the renovation of our fellow man is not
   only intelligently proposed but is thereby on God's part graciously
   guaranteed. I rejoice that the very first text from which my Brother
   has preached in this noble edifice was, though unfeignedly, so
   singularly coincident with my own--"They ceased not to teach and to
   preach Jesus Christ." The preaching and the teaching of Christ was the
   very first message with which he opened his service here, and I take
   that among other things to be a token for good.

   I. In the first place, we rejoice in the preaching of Christ because
   thereby THE RENOVATION OF FALLEN MAN is intelligently proposed.

   High time, by common consent, that something was done in that
   direction! Of course everybody admits the foundations are out; and
   while many persons admit it, they also go about to suggest improvement,
   amendment and cure. You will give me your attention while I
   recapitulate some of the projects which they suggest in order to the
   attainment of an end which is desired by us all. This is one
   suggestion--Give the people, they say, a good, sound, secular
   education; impart to them the elements of knowledge, and when they are
   apprehended and understood, then educe and cultivate the corresponding
   results. Let them know about their own bodies and their own minds; let
   them know something about the chemistry of common life; let them know
   something about their relations to one another and to society at large,
   and then when you have done that, there is some hope that their
   renovation may be obtained. This is another suggestion--Give to the
   people sound remunerative employment, recognize the right of every
   honest and industrious man to live, and then act upon your recognition
   by not preventing or interfering so that he cannot live. A fair day's
   wages, they say, for a fair day's work. The ample recompense for the
   unbegrudging toil. Save your countrymen from the dread of pauperism,
   and never insult them any more by the sanctimonious condescension of
   some of your so-called Christian charities. Let every man be enabled to
   earn his bread in the sweat of his brow, and thus you may hope that
   their renovation will be obtained. This is another suggestion--Confer
   upon them honorable enfranchisement. Barring the criminal and the
   imbecile, esteem every man throughout the country to be a free man. If
   you expect him to pay the tribute, give him a voice in the imposition
   of that tribute; let him be regarded by yourselves, and equally with
   yourselves, and in all practical respects touching the commonwealth,
   let him be regarded as a free man, and then you may hope that the
   renovation so desirable will be obtained.

   This is another suggestion--Take care to raise them into better and
   more civilized habits. See where they live; see how they eat and
   drink--mark their demeanor, one towards another, and towards the
   community at large. Change all that, or get them to change it so that
   they shall prefer cleanliness to filth, frugality to wastefulness, the
   seemly garment to the rotten rags, and the well-ventilated and the
   well-lighted apartment to the moldy attic in the roof, or to the dark
   pestiferous, rotten cellar underground. And when you have done that,
   you may hope that so far their renovation will be obtained. And this is
   another suggestion--Let the people have their tastes cultivated.
   Introduce them to the great works of ancient and modern art, throw open
   your museums, take them into your art galleries, admit them into your
   artistic and your antique salons, fire their love for the beautiful,
   kindle it yet more brightly and more brightly still! Insure their
   rejection of the base through their predilection for the refined, and
   accomplish their abhorrence of the groveling through their rapture with
   the sublime, and when you have done that, you have done much to obtain
   the renovation that we all desire.

   I believe these are the great suggestions of the men who designate
   themselves, and I respectfully regard their designation, as the
   philosophical philanthropists. These are the suggestions which those
   men make; and they say get all such things done, and then you will have
   society just what society ought to be both in regard to God and in
   regard to man. But now, can you look at these suggestions for a single
   moment without marking a most fatal defect throughout them all? They
   tell you about dealing with a man externally, but not a word about
   dealing with him internally. He is to be better cultured, better
   dressed, better housed, and all that, but as to the man, the subject of
   all that we are talking about--as for the man essentially and
   inherently considered, there is nothing whatever done, and after all
   that philosophy and philanthropy together have accomplished, the man's
   heart is just what it was before! Well, I say in any company, in any
   place, what I say here--that if you leave the man's natural heart
   untouched, you may culture and cultivate him as you may, there is that
   which will laugh all your culture and all your cultivation to scorn! If
   a man's heartis right, his life will be right; if a man's heartis right
   in its relations towards God and towards man, his life will be right,
   but not else. And no man's heart on earth is right. No! There is an
   universal, an absolute and unvarying necessity, as our Lord brought it
   out so distinctly with Nicodemus, "You must be born-again." "You must
   be born-again;" and choosing as we do to sit at His feet, we accept the
   great oracular deliverance from Heaven, and authorized by that, we
   pronounce that all the suggestions which I have referred to are worth
   nothing! No, my Brothers and Sisters; to educate the people is
   expedient, to remunerate them incumbent, to enfranchise them desirable,
   to civilize them important, and to cultivate their tastes, if you will,
   laudable in all respects--but if you were to do all that tomorrow with
   every man, and women, and child in England, you have not put them into
   their right position, you have not inspired them with the right
   dispositions, you have not set them on the prosecution of the right
   career. A man may be educated and yet licentious--he may be well-paid
   and yet vindictive; he may be enfranchised and yet covetous; he may be
   civilized in all his habits, and yet intemperate; he may be a man of
   cultivated taste, and yet he may have no love for his neighbor and no
   love for his God.

   Why, what dishonesties, what startling dishonesties have been
   perpetrated by men who have had all the benefits of our foremost
   colleges and of our first-rate schools! What debaucheries, what fearful
   debaucheries have been perpetrated by men whose barns have been filled
   with plenty, and whose presses have burst out with new wine! What
   inhumanities, what cruel inhumanities have been perpetrated by men who
   have boasted, and who have blustered and who have brawled that they
   were free! What falsehoods, what shameful, incredible falsehoods, have
   been perpetrated by men who have been clothed in purple and fine linen,
   and have fared sumptuously every day! And what profanities, cross and
   blasphemous, have been perpetrated by men who have been the warmest
   admirers of Michelangelo and Rubens, and who have been among the
   choicest of your connoisseurs, the very choicest of them in art! I need
   not adduce the evidence. It would insult and grieve the congregation if
   I did. Everybody here knows how that evidence accumulates. No, no,
   education and morality are not coincident--competence and morality are
   not coincident--civilization and morality are not coincident-- liberty
   and morality are not coincident--and refined and cultivated tastes are
   not coincident with morality so that if you have the one, you are sure
   to have the other! Brothers and Sisters, you may deal with man's
   external condition as scientifically as you can, and with his
   character--so far as the outward character goes--as philosophically as
   you can; but as I said before, there is an underlying aboriginal
   peculiarity of his nature that laughs all your science and your
   philosophy to scorn! You cannot turn his condition into a paradise, you
   cannot convert him into a king and a priest unto God. Everywhere,
   without the exception of a land under Heaven, and without the exception
   of an individual under Heaven, men need the clean heart and the right
   spirit--the new creation in Christ Jesus. They are dead in trespasses
   and sins; and they must be made alive unto God before you will get for
   them the renovation or the improvement which is so much desired.

   Hence my rejoicing, and hence, as I believe, Paul's rejoicing, were he
   here, because of the preaching in a commodious place like this--because
   of the preaching of 'Christ/Brothers and Sisters, it will be preaching
   that goes down to the bottom of things; it will be preaching that deals
   not with the symptoms, but with the sources of human guilt; it will be
   preaching that takes all profanity and debauchery, and dishonesty, and
   inhumanity, and falsehood, and deals with them, mark--not in their
   overt acts so much as in their rudimental germs. My Brother's preaching
   here will declare that if you could do all which our philosophic
   philanthropy desires, man would go wrong, and be wrong, and presently
   would actually go on to justify and to glory in the wrong. It will be
   the preaching, in one word, that declares the absolute necessity of a
   new creation, of a new creation in Christ Jesus.'lt will deal not with
   conjecture but with certainty, not with theories but with facts, not
   with experiments but with realities, not with the words which man's
   wisdom teaches but with the words which the Holy Spirit teaches! It
   will deal not with the superficial, temporary, partial amendment, but
   intentionally at least with a profound, a radical, a fundamental, an
   everlasting cure! The preaching will never ignore one peculiarity of
   our nature because it is embarrassing, nor overlook another because it
   is inconvenient, nor tremble at another because it happens to be
   possessed of some authority and power. I anticipate and rejoice that
   here will stand the preacher to declare in the good mother tongue of us
   all, that the tree is bad, but that, by God's Grace, it can be made
   good; that men are living unto themselves, but that, by God's Grace,
   they can be brought to live unto Him; that the Divine image is defaced,
   but that that Divine image can be restored; that where sin is reigning
   even unto death, there Divine Grace may reign instead, through
   righteousness, even unto everlasting life; and therein we do rejoice
   and if you are of my mind therein tonight we will allrejoice!

   Think of this place, look around it. Conceive of it devoted to a
   purpose like this, and with tendencies and probabilities--for I am
   speaking only of these now--with tendencies and probabilities like
   these before our minds, is there a man or a woman listening to me who
   does not lift up his heart and rejoice and thank God now? Oh, I see the
   banner floating here that will be displayed because of the Truth. I
   hear the trumpet blowing here that will proclaim the message of God's
   own mercies to man; I see the embassy going on here touching
   reconciliation between God and man, and I see the confederacies of
   Christian brotherhood here provoking one another to love and to good
   works! Our country will be the better for this place; we shall be
   relieved of our pauperism after all, and saved from our licentiousness,
   and rescued from our immorality. Yes, and we shall be rescued, too,
   from the superstition that would endanger our immortality by its
   sacerdotal, and wicked, and mischief-making tendencies; from the
   superstition that would put our immortality in jeopardy; and from the
   atheism that would laugh that immortality to scorn. It will be that our
   own land, so happy amid the nations of the earth already, shall be the
   royal habitation of righteousness, and joy, and peace in the Holy
   Spirit. Christ is preached. He has been preached here today already,
   and "therein I do rejoice, yes, and will rejoice."

   II. Secondly, we rejoice in the preaching of Christ because thereby the
   renovation in question is GRACIOUSLY

   GUARANTEED.

   There can be conceived of by us a wise and sound plan that may,
   nevertheless, be frustrated when all comes to all by unknown and
   unperceived opposition. There are men all round about us who say, "Yes,
   and you ought to remember that and hold your peace, for just as beyond
   any question civilization will fail, so Christianity will fail
   likewise." And they apparently have a case; let us look at it. They
   say, "What can you do there" And then they point us to the masses
   rising up early, sitting up late, eating the bread of carefulness, if
   in hundreds of cases they can get the bread to eat. "What can you do
   there" And they point us to our merchants, our physicians, our
   statesmen, our artisans, our bankers who are all with one accord
   apparently looking for what they preposterously call the main chance.
   "What can you do there?''" And then they point us to religious
   assemblies where superstition and formalism have everything their own
   way, and where because of sacramental rites performed upon unconscious
   infants, people are told that they are members of Christ, children of
   God, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven. "What can you do there"
   And then they point us--alas, how they can point us--to multitudes
   whose licentiousness and profligacy are gradationally gross, and
   perhaps to quite as many multitudes whose licentiousness is
   gradationally refined, and then they say, "Now look at them, look round
   and tell us whether such ones will ever be prevailed upon to deny
   ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and
   godly in this present world?" And they take our own utterance, our own
   Scripture, and they say, "You may well enough call them 'dead in
   trespasses and sins.'"

   Brothers and Sisters, we looked at the other case--let us look at this.
   I acknowledge that there are about it indications that ought to make
   every thoughtful Christian a great deal more thoughtful and a great
   deal more Christian, too. Oh, the domination of ungodliness is
   desperate, and its tyranny is terrific, and its wisdom is superhuman,
   and its mastery of man is malignant in the last degree! How one stands
   sometimes and looks at it dismayed! If it would be content to take what
   is inherently abominable in itself, it would not be so bad. But it
   comes and takes what is in itself inherently amiable and moral, and
   with that it tries to do the work of death! It takes our legitimate
   occupations, and makes them a decoy to irreligiousness; it takes the
   amenities of our social life, and perverts them to ungodliness; it
   takes the great charities of our homes, and makes them antagonistic to
   devotion; yes, and it goes to the very altar of God, and it makes the
   sacred and solemn ordinances of the Church an opiate--pleasant
   enough--but dreadfully and fatally poisonous to the soul! So, I look as
   they bid me look, and then think of all the particulars and resources
   of my case again; and as I do so, I say, "Your premises apparently are
   sound, but your conclusion is altogether unsound; the Church is not
   always to be second to the world; Christ is not always to be resisted
   by the devil." No, no, my Brothers and Sisters, the Church is to take
   precedence of the world; Christ is to be triumphant locally and before
   the world; Psalms and hymns, and songs of praise are to come up into
   the ascendant, and knees are to bow, and tongues are to confess that
   Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father! And for believing
   like that, in the face of such a case, I offer these as my reasons.

   1. With the preaching of Christ, God has formally connected the
   exertion of His power. "With God all things are possible." I sometimes
   apprehend that good men are forgetful of this and they are for lying
   down and dying as though God had somehow or other ceased to be able to
   do everything. "With God all things are possible." And should He gird
   His sword upon His thigh, should He go about to show Himself strong, I
   ask what are the world, the flesh and the devil in their worst
   combinations, then? What adversary would not succumb then--what
   adversary would not become a friend? "Yes," you say, "almightiness in
   action would do all that we require." Brethren, I speak of almightiness
   in action now. It is not simply that in this place there will be the
   message of God. Along with that message there will be God Himself. It
   is not that the Word will be preached merely, but of His own will God
   will beget men by the Word. It is not simply that the Gospel will be
   proclaimed, but that that Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. My
   Brother will not stand here as the statesman stands in the senate house
   or the advocate at the bar, or the lecturer on the platform of an
   Athenaeum. He will stand here, I doubt not, as well-accoutered and
   well-furnished as they are mentally, intellectually and so on. But
   eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures as he or any other man may be, it
   is neither that eloquence, nor that might which will effect the end.
   These things and the things like unto them, are the vehicles through
   which God sends down His blessing, the instrumentalities by which God
   accomplishes His work, the means and medium by which it pleases God to
   work. He will stand here a fellow-worker with God, so that the Word
   will be in demonstration of the Spirit and in power. Mark--the human
   will be confirmed by the superhuman, the natural will be accompanied by
   the preternatural, the earthly will be helped and succored and blessed
   by the Divine. With all that may be persuasive or argumentative or
   pathetic, with all that may be properly and intentionally adapted to
   commend the Truth to every man's conscience in the sight of God, there
   will be the energy whereby God is able to subdue all things unto
   Himself. "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord
   of Hosts." And so in the face of all that seems to be opposed to us we
   do rejoice and we will rejoice because God's own channel for the
   communication of His power is the preaching of Christ.

   2. Secondly, with the preaching of Christ, God has been formally
   pleased to associate the accomplishment of His purposes. He has His
   purposes. "God so loved the world, that He sent His only begotten Son,
   that whoever believes on Him should not perish, but have everlasting
   life." The Lord told Paul at Corinth, when Paul was all but giving way
   to our common unbelief--He told him to stay there and not to hold his
   peace. Why? "Because I have much people in this city." And emboldened
   and encouraged by that, he stayed there a year and six months! Well,
   those purposes which thus come out in the Scriptures of Truth which are
   possessed by us--those purposes are to be accomplished! "By two
   immutable things in which it is impossible that God should lie, His Son
   is to see of the travail of His soul until He is satisfied. God is in
   Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." But now, how are those
   purposes accomplished? Mark! "Go into all the world, and preach the
   Gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized shall be
   saved; he who believes not shall be damned." Mark again--"It has
   pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them who believe."
   Mark again--"Whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
   How shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed; how shall
   they believe in Him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they
   hear without a preached" Mark again--"There is one Mediator between God
   and man--the Man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to
   be testified in due time. Whereof I am ordained a preacher." Do you see
   my drift? The preaching, obviously, demonstratively, stands connected
   with the purpose, which cannot fail--bound up with the Everlasting
   Covenant which is ordered in all things and sure! "The Word of the Lord
   endures forever, and this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached
   unto you." I think therefore of our friend occupying this place, and of
   other men occupying similar places, and I take up with Paul's Jubilate
   again! He will stand here, and this will be the plea, "As though God
   did beseech you by me." That will be the plea, "As though God did
   beseech you by me."

   And do I speak to men tonight who do not understand as soon as they
   reflect how such a plea must chasten the preacher; how it must humble
   and yet dignify him; how, if he has a soul, it must bring out his soul
   and all that is within? "God by me beseeching you." What man so
   affected and impressed can be careless, heedless, prayerless, selfish?
   Oh, the plea does wonderful work for the minister! And what does it do
   for a people who will listen? Why, it arrests them, takes hold upon
   them, keeps hold of them, and God being present with His blessing,
   never lets them go! And what does it do in regard to the Spirit of all
   Grace, the Author and Giver of all the gifts you need? That plea
   adopted, earnestly and devoutly used, will bring the preacher into the
   fullest sympathy with the Holy Spirit of promise, as he stands here
   pleading, expostulating, comforting, encouraging, warning--with the
   plea moving everything within him, and everything around him, the
   Divine purposes are recollected and they are accomplished--until he and
   the brotherhood will have to say, "Who has begotten us these? the young
   men and maidens, the old men and children, and the strangers who are
   within your gates." Yes, and let us hope that some of you who have
   heard all the sermons up to now and have never surrendered yourselves
   to Christ--that you will be given to them in answer to their prayer;
   not the units, but the groups; not the individuals, but the many, born
   "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
   but of God." Oh, what will this place be then? Brethren, the angels
   will have large employment in this Tabernacle! Heaven will have much to
   do in what is passing here! "For God is not a man that He should lie,
   nor the son of man that He should repent. Has He said it, and shall He
   not do it, has He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" Of Him, and
   through Him, and to Him are all things, and He will come and stand by
   our Brother here, proving Himself to be "God over all, blessed for
   evermore."

   3. Then, lastly--God has been pleased formally to identify the
   preaching of Christ with the manifestation of His sympathies.

   Why, we could tell of much already--we could tell of much which has
   been done in our own time, and not upon a small scale either. But let
   us rather remember what God did in the earlier times of our evangelical
   history. What happened at Jerusalem? Believers were the more added unto
   the Lord, multitudes both of men and women, and "a great company of the
   priests were obedient to the faith." What happened at Ephesus? The name
   of the Lord Jesus Christ was glorified, and "the men who had used
   curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all
   men, and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand
   pieces of silver." What happened all through Macedonia? "God makes us,"
   said the Apostle, "to triumph everywhere in Christ." And what happened
   upon the larger scale through proud and philosophic Greece, and through
   lordly and domineering Rome? Why, we have it on the testimony of our
   enemies, that the preaching turned the world upside down! The
   preachingdid, mind you! Before the preacher came, everything was
   earthly, and sensual, and devilish; after the preacher came, there was
   the alteration, the improvement, the renovation of which we speak. Not
   by the preacher's unassisted, original, independent effort--the
   excellence of the power was of God, and not of man! Mighty through God
   were the preachers throughout Greece and Rome, and Asia Minor, and
   mighty, too, through God will the preacher be here! Say that London is
   as corrupt as Corinth was, that it is as worldly as Rome was, that it
   is as rationalistic as Athens was, that it is as dead set against
   Christ and His Gospel as Jeru- salem was, and you cannot very well say
   more than that. Yet He that stood by the preacher in those places, and
   in those times, will stand by the preacher here! "Go, go, stand and
   speak in the Temple all the words of this life." On Sabbath mornings he
   will hear that, and at other times besides, and when his courage and
   his heart may fail, he will hear besides, "Go, for I have much people
   in this city;" and so sent, he goes, and so going, what ensues?
   Participation of the Divine Nature is vouchsafed unto the people.
   sympathy with the Divine Purposes is induced within the people,
   communications of Divine Grace are given to the people, life
   everlasting becomes possessed by the people; "Heirs of God" are they,
   and "joint-heirs in Jesus Christ."

   Brothers and Sisters, I speak boldly as I ought to speak. It is a vile
   and wicked calumny that our Doctrines of grace lead to licentiousness.
   Never was there anything more palpably contrary to the Truth of God!
   And all the history of the Church being my proof tonight--where Christ
   is preached as He ought to be preached, after the Apostolic manner--
   neither licentiousness nor wickedness of any kind, will abound there!
   No, there will be honest dealing, kindly neighborhood, patriotic
   loyalty, world-wide philanthropy, truth-telling speech; there will be a
   race of men loving God with all their hearts, and therefore their
   neighbor as themselves! You cannot alter that order; you will never get
   a man to love his neighbor as himself till he has first of all loved
   God! And what we are looking for, and hoping and praying for being done
   is that order will supervene here. Loving the Lord their God with all
   their hearts, therefore the people will love their neighbors as
   themselves; and not being the amended ones, but the regenerated ones;
   not being the improved ones, but the twice-born ones; not being the
   corrected ones but the newly-created ones--the law will have no need to
   arm itself for them, justice will never need to be on the alert for
   them, humanity will never need to tremble for them! No, and the purest
   chastity will never need to blush for them. Their bodies will be the
   temples of the Holy Spirit, and their members will be the members of
   Christ, sacred to His service in every way in which they can be
   employed. The tree having been made good, there will be fruit unto
   holiness, and the end of that shall be everlasting life!

   Well then, who does notrejoice? Everybody responds, "I rejoice." We all
   rejoice because of what will be done by the preaching of Christ here!
   We know that this place will be the birthplace of precious souls
   through successive generations; we know that this place will be like a
   great big human heart, throbbing, pulsating with beneficence and
   benevolence obtained directly from the Cross of Christ; and this great
   big human heart will be propelling far and near, a thousand influences
   which shall be for "Glory to God in the highest, for peace on earth,
   and good will towards men." It will be none other than the House of God
   and the very gate of Heaven!

   If indeed, the preaching were of another kind from what we know it will
   be, it would be a very different thing; if I thought the preaching here
   was to be the preaching of Christ robbed of His Divinity--the pure and
   perfect man to admiration, but not the co-equal and the co-eternal Son
   of God--I could not rejoice! But I know that it will be preaching in
   which Christ's proper Deity will be spoken out unambiguously, and
   unequivocally, and systematically. I know that He will be declared here
   to be the Friend that "sticks closer than a brother," and at the same
   time, our Lord and our God. If I thought that the preaching here was to
   be the preaching of Christ as merely an example and not as a Sacrifice,
   or as a sacrifice in some vague, indeterminate, rationalistic,
   deceitful, false sense of submitting His own will to His Father's, I
   could not rejoice. But I believe that it will be the preaching of
   Christ's propitiatory Sacrifice, as a proper sin-offering, and that
   these words will bring out the aspect of the case as presented here--

   "He bore that we might never bear His Father's righteous ire."

   If I thought that the preaching here was to be the preaching of Christ
   with any hesitancy as to His power, or His readiness to save the
   transgressor, I would not rejoice; but I believe that there will be no
   approach to such hesitancy, that it will be Christ with His precious
   blood cleansing from all sin, Christ able to save even to the uttermost
   all who come unto God by Him. If I believed that it would be the
   preaching of Christ independently or apart from His jurisdiction; if I
   thought it would be represented here that Christ had nothing to do with
   the lives, and the conduct of His people--I would not rejoice. I
   believe, on the contrary, that His royal and kingly Character will be
   insisted upon, and that every Believer will be told, "At your peril do
   you make Christ the minister of sin." If I believed that the preaching
   here was about to be at variance with the scholarship, the
   thoughtfulness, the uprightness, the spiritual-mindedness, of the past
   ages of the Church, I could not rejoice. I believe, on the contrary,
   that it will be preaching in strictest harmony with the sound
   evangelical scholarship, and with the lofty evangelical integrity, and
   with the concordant evangelical orthodoxy of all the ages that are
   past! I stand here as I would stand in some other places that I know to
   resent the imputation, and to show cause, if necessary, for the
   resentment that in preaching Christ as we do, we have no scholarship,
   no talent, no honesty, no spiritual-mindedness on our part. Brothers
   and Sisters, it is not so! I speak unto wise men, and ask you to judge
   what I say.

   If I believed that the preaching here would regard all godly mystery as
   a scandal, and all godly boldness as a calamity, and all godly
   aggressiveness as a nuisance, and all godly joyfulness as an offense, I
   certainly could not rejoice; but I believe that the preaching here will
   hold all godly mystery in veneration, will strengthen and enforce all
   godly boldness, will honorably vindicate all godly aggressiveness, and
   will give, on behalf of godly joyfulness, the conclusive argumentation
   and the kindly and the pathetic appeal. And so believing, I ask again
   whether we shall not close our gathering, our service, tonight, with
   one great song and Psalm of thanksgiving to the Lord our God!

   The maxim, the watchword, the war cry here will be Revelation, not
   intuition; faith, not imagination; the Scriptures, not tradition; the
   Gospel, not philosophy; the Person, not the proxy; Grace, not merit;
   the Cross, not the crucifix; the Savior, not the Church! I, believing
   that, and knowing that, hearing indeed from all the brotherhood
   constituting the Church here, a great, unanimous, hearty, irrepressible
   AMEN, as I am thus speaking on their behalf--let us, I say, take the
   cup of salvation, and let us call upon the name of the Lord! There may
   be others, I dare say there are, who have to sing the melancholy
   dirge--we have to sing the exultant Psalm! They may, if they will,
   chant the lamentable elegy-- we mean to chant the triumphant Canticle!
   They may go and perform, if they must, the service for the dead--we
   come here to celebrate the great festival of a living Gospel, a living
   Church and a living Savior--

   "Let the vain world pronounce its shame,
   And fling their scandals on Your cause;
   We come to boast our Savior's name
   And make our triumphs in His Cross!
   With joy we tell a scoffing age,
   He wwho was dead has left the tomb!
   He lives above their utmost rage,
   And we are waiting till He come."

   Christ is preached! Therein do I rejoice, and therein I will rejoice!
   And now, Brothers and Sisters, let us have the rejoicing in a joyous
   collection. I catch that response of yours, and I catch it as an honest
   man with his eyes upon honest men; and if you go--in the main, at all
   events--with what I have now been saying, I ask you that you will give
   the evidence of your sympathy with me, and then and thereby the
   evidence of your sympathy with our Brothers and Sisters, in making your
   collection tonight the outward and the visible sign of a gladness of
   your inmost soul, which amounts, approximately at least, to the joy
   that is unspeakable and full of glory!
     __________________________________________________________________

                                Opening Services

   Tuesday Evening, March 26, 1861

   MEETING OF THE CONTRIBUTORS.

   On Tuesday evening, March 26th, the first of the Public Meetings in
   connection with the opening of the Tabernacle took place. It was
   limited exclusively to the Contributors to the Building Fund, of whom
   more than 3,000 were present. Up to the moment Sir HENRY HAVELOCK took
   the Chair, the platform below the pulpit presented a busy scene, as it
   was here the collecting cards had to be turned in. Some half-dozen
   gentlemen officiating as clerks were for about an hour unceasingly
   engaged in receiving and recording the contributions handed in by some
   hundreds of volunteer collectors, the respective amounts varying from a
   few pence up to many pounds. Rich and poor vied with each other, and it
   would be hard to say which excelled. The whole matter seemed to awaken
   a personal interest in each individual.

   When the period arrived for commencing the business of the meeting, Mr.
   SPURGEON gave out the third hymn, which had been composed expressly for
   the occasion --

   "Sing to the Lord with heart and voice,
   You children of His Sovereign voice;
   The work achieved, the temple raised,
   Now be our God devoutly praised.
   For all the treasure freely brought--
   For all the toil in gladness worked--
   For warmth of zeal and purpose strong--
   Wake we today the thankful song.
   Lord of the temple! Once disowned,
   But now in worlds of light enthroned--
   Your Glory let Your servants see
   Who dedicate this house to Thee!
   What if the world still disallows--
   Our corner and our top-stone You!
   Your shame and death and risen joy,
   Shall here our ceaseless thought employ.
   Be Your dear name like ointment shed
   O'er every soul, on every head.
   Make glorious, oh our Savior King,
   The place where thus Your chosen sing.
   More grand the temple and the strain
   More sweet, when we Your Heaven shall gain;
   And bid, for realms where angels dwell,
   Our Tabernacles here, farewell!"

   After offering up a few words of prayer and reading portions of the
   35th and 36th of Exodus, descriptive of the offerings brought to the
   Tabernacle by the Jews in the wilderness, he briefly introduced Sir
   Henry Havelock, the Chairman for the evening.

   The CHAIRMAN said he hoped he would be excused if he were at a loss how
   to address such a meeting as this, because he supposed that a similar
   assembly in a building like this had never been addressed before in
   England. The kind way in which they had greeted him gave him
   encouragement, and was sufficient to enable him to give utterance to
   thoughts, which, but for their hearty welcome, he would hardly have
   power to express. He had been expressing a doubt to a friend near him,
   that he would not be able to get through the duties which devolved upon
   him satisfactorily, but his friend remarked to him that this was not an
   occasion when speaking was required, for the occasion spoke for itself.
   He thought it did speak for itself. They could not look around that
   magnificent building without feeling that it was entirely of God's
   doing. The progress which had been made in that work of God was the
   most extraordinary thing in modern Church history! It began two and a
   half years ago with fear and trembling; but from the first they had
   been triumphantly advancing, and they had seen the work grow larger and
   larger, until now they saw it completed. It was impossible to come to
   any other conclusion but that God had worked mightily with His people.
   Then let them look at their pastor, and at the different phases through
   which he had passed, and they would agree with him that God had been
   with him in each of them. At one time it was said the work would break
   down in a month, but it did not come to pass; it was also said that it
   was a passing excitement, and would soon come to an end, but he thought
   their appearance there did not look like passing excitement! What
   excitement there might be before the end of the meeting, he could not
   foretell; but if they were really mad, as some people said, there was
   certainly a great deal of "method in their madness." He was no orator,
   and they should not expect a long address from him, but he thought they
   ought to thank God for the blessings which He had showered upon that
   building at each stage of its erection. There had been nothing like it
   accomplished before! Let them hope it was but the beginning of many
   such undertakings destined to be carried to a similarly successful end.
   Their pastor, in speaking to him of the building, pointed out some
   deficiencies in the inner room. He said that everything was not as yet
   quite comfortable, and remarked that it was like a newly married couple
   coming to a new house. Now, he (the Chairman) hoped the simile would be
   carried a little further, and that the church would not only be like
   the newly married couple in a new house, but like the noble matron who
   had become the mother of many children! They had heard that the small
   sum of £3,000 was required for the complete payment of every liability
   connected with past expenditure, and from what he saw there that night,
   he felt convinced that all would be speedily given. And when no more
   should be needed, that need not prevent them from displaying their
   generosity in the cause which they had at heart. They had just had a
   precedent in Scripture brought before them where the people of old were
   told they need not bring any more to the Tabernacle; but they had not
   been told so there! He therefore hoped they would still contribute to
   the work until they had accomplished everything which they desired. It
   was intended that after the building itself had been paid for, the
   remainder of the money which might be raised would be devoted to the
   education of young men intended for the ministry; in addition to that,
   there was accommodation beneath the church for about 2,000 scholars;
   and he was sure that was a purpose for which their contributions would
   still be given, even though the money might not be needed for the mere
   bricks and mortar of the structure. He trusted they would excuse him
   saying more; but he could not conclude without thanking them kindly for
   so patiently listening to the remarks he had made.

   The REV. C. H. SPURGEON said they were all aware that there was a happy
   contest between himself and his congregation. It was a very bad thing
   certainly for a newly married couple to fall out, especially in the
   scarcely furnished home, but it so happened that the contest in their
   case was as to which should bring the better dowry to stock the house
   with. The minister should in every case do his share of the work, or
   how could he with any conscience appeal to his flock? Now, he had
   undertaken that he would bring in £1,000 between the month of January
   and the opening of the building. He had fulfilled his pledge; in fact,
   he had gone somewhat beyond it. They might remember, that on the last
   occasion they left off with a drawn battle. Having two or three bankers
   behind him, who generously came to his aid, he had outstripped the
   congregation by some 30 shillings. However, he considered it an
   undecided battle, and if they could beat him tonight, he would be very
   glad. He then read over a list of the various contributions he had
   received, amounting to £1,170 14s. There was still, he said, a shot or
   two in the locker to win the victory with, even should their industry
   and zeal excel in their results what he had accomplished. They might
   say the amount was £1,200 and it was matter of wonder and thankfulness
   that the bazaar had realized a clear £1,200. He ought to state, and he
   should not be saying more than should be said, that there were many
   ladies in the congregation who had been working very, very hard, and
   had always been at the side of his beloved wife whenever there had been
   a meeting for work; still, the main anxiety and arrangement had rested
   upon her, and had it not been for those ladies, who, like the women of
   Israel, brought the labor of their hands, the work could never have
   been so singular a success. Of old it was written (Exo 35:25, 26)--"And
   all the women who were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and
   brought that which they had spun, both of blue and of purple, and of
   scarlet, and of fine linen. And all the women whose heart stirred them
   up in wisdom spun goats' hair." So now they did the same. Thus had the
   willing-hearted people of God, each in their own way, brought an
   offering unto the Lord of gold, and silver, and copper, and blue, and
   purple, and scarlet so that the house of the Lord might be completed.
   So large a sum as had been realized spoke well, both with respect to
   individual co-operation, and to the sympathy of the Christian public.
   The result which they had attained was exceedingly satisfactory,
   because almost every farthing which they required had been raised. He
   would not say the whole of it; but they would, no doubt, have the
   amount in a few minutes. The top-stone would soon be brought forth with
   shouts of praise! How had such a result been attained? The reply was,
   that there had been three main elements in it. The first was faith in
   God. At the beginning of the year, they needed £4,000 and an entry to
   this effect would be found in the Church book, signed by himself and
   the deacons--"This Church needs rather more than £4,000 to enable it to
   open the New Tabernacle, free of all debt; it humbly asks this temporal
   mercy of God, and believes that for Jesus' sake, the prayer will be
   heard and the gift bestowed, as witness our hands." As for himself, he
   never had a doubt about the opening of that place free from debt since
   he attached his name to that entry. The work in which they had been
   engaged had been a work of faith from the beginning to the end; the
   Lord has fulfilled His promise to the letter--for according to our
   faith has it been done to us. Why not have faith in God for temporals?
   Will He ever allow His own cause to lag for lack of means? In this
   case, as the need grew, the supply increased; as the proportions of the
   project were enlarged, the liberality of the Christian public
   increased; and even during the last three or four weeks, he had been
   amazed at the contributions which he had received. Contributions had
   come by post varying in amount from pounds to a few shillings; they had
   come from America, from Australia, and from almost every country in the
   world, from men of all ranks, and persons of every denomination!
   Universal sympathy had been shown, and most of the donations from
   readers of the weekly sermons were accompanied by letters so
   affectionate and encouraging, that it was a happy thing that such an
   opportunity had been given for the utterance of up to now unknown
   Christian love! Faith in God had done much of that which had been
   accomplished, and unto a faithful God be Glory. But "faith without
   works is dead"--very dead indeed in chapel building! One must work
   there, and he could say he had toiled as hard as any man could to
   accomplish his purpose.

   The house had been built for God, and his sole objective with regard to
   its future income was that it might be applied to the tuition and
   training of young men as ministers, that thus the Church in the
   Tabernacle might be a helper to many of the Churches of Christ. But
   besides individual energy there had been a third thing, combination of
   numberslaboring with one aim. Many poor persons had brought offerings
   which they could ill afford to spare, and no one could ever know how
   many of them had received back, indirectly from himself, the amount
   they had given, but which they would have been grieved if he had
   refused. He publicly thanked all his generous friends throughout the
   world for their cooperation, and he would thank them all, individually,
   if it were possible to do so. Before the Chairman sat down, Mr.
   Spurgeon paid a warm tribute to the memory of General Havelock, the
   Chairman's father. They might not, he said, be aware that there were
   only two dissenting lords, and those two were Baptists; there were only
   two dissenting baronets, and those two were Baptists also. Both of them
   had earned their titles fairly--those were Sir Samuel Morton Peto, and
   Sir Henry Havelock; the one the king of spades, and the other the
   savior of our empire in India. He was sure the country would for many
   years remember the name of Havelock. As a Christian minister, he was no
   apologist for war, but it was a righteous cause in which Havelock was
   engaged; it was rather to save than to subdue; to rescue women and
   children than to slaughter men; but he was sure that when his fame as a
   warrior should cease to be heard, his name as a Christian would live.
   He was glad to see Sir Henry Havelock with his father's people in a
   Baptist Tabernacle; he hoped they would see him for years to come, and
   that the blessing of the God of his father might richly rest upon him.

   Mr. MUIR said there was no one who attended the last meeting held two
   months ago but must have felt a desire to do all they could to show
   their zeal in raising that building, and he was very glad the wish had
   now been accomplished. At the time to which he referred, it was his
   intention to take a journey to the north, and he thought he would do
   what he could to further the work. He accordingly took a number of
   cards with him in order to collect contributions. Some of his friends
   gave very liberally, although he must confess that he had more
   difficulty in obtaining contributions from others. He then read his
   list of contributions, which amounted to £123 14s.

   The REV. F. TUCKER of Camden Road Chapel, said he could echo every word
   that had fallen from Mr. Spurgeon with regard to the gentleman who
   occupied the chair that evening. Long, long indeed would it be before
   to any Baptist, or to any Christian, or to any Englishman, the name of
   Havelock would be a common or indifferent word. He had himself come
   there that evening partly from sympathy, for he knew what it was to
   have to do with a chapel debt; and although the debt upon his chapel
   was only about one-tenth part of that which rested upon theirs, he only
   hoped it would cost him one-tenth part of the trouble! One of the most
   difficult things in the world to deal with was the tail of a debt. They
   might bury the body of the animal, but if the tail still was above
   ground--it was like the tail of the rattlesnake--it made a great and
   formidable, and alarming noise although the body had been safely
   interred. Now, that night, he understood they intended to bury the
   rattlesnake, tail and all, and over that grave no one might write
   "Resurgam." He had come, however, personally to congratulate them. It
   was not the first time that he had stood within these walls. He was at
   the first public meeting held in that place some few months ago. It was
   then in its deshabilleand yet he looked around the place with
   admiration and he felt, as he told his Brother Spurgeon, as he supposed
   the captain of some ordinary seafaring steamer must have felt when he
   first stood in the hold of the Great Eastern. The Great Eastern was now
   on the Gridiron in Milford harbor. They intended tonight to float their
   magnificent vessel off the Gridiron, and might God grant her a long and
   prosperous voyage. He congratulated them not merely on the size of the
   great building, but also on its beauty.

   He did not think it was anything too large. His own chapel would seat
   about 1,100 persons, and it was large enough for him. But if John
   Bunyan were on the earth, should they like to confine him to a little
   company of 1,100 persons? If George Whitfield were on the earth, should
   they like to limit him to a little company of eleven hundred? Now they
   had got Charles Spurgeon on earth--should they shut him up in a little
   company of eleven hundred? As to the beauty of the building, no words
   he could use could adequately describe it. He did, from his heart,
   congratulate them on the size and beauty of the edifice. But he had
   also to congratulate them upon another matter--upon the Doctrines that
   would be preached in that grand building! He was not there to give
   account of every word that his Brother Spurgeon had ever uttered, nor
   of every aspect of every Doctrine which he had presented; but as an
   older man than his Brother, he was sure he would not be thought
   impertinent if he said that he, with many of his Brethren throughout
   the country, had watched Mr. Spurgeon's course with intense and
   prayerful interest. They could see his growth and development towards a
   liberality and a symmetry of creed which had filled all their hearts
   with gratitude and joy! Just as dear Jonathan George--dear sainted
   Brother--just as he had at the meeting to which he (the speaker) had
   referred, there were some people who wanted to keep the eagle in a very
   small cage; but he said it was no use doing that--the eagle would
   either break his wings or break the cage. Well, they rejoiced that
   night that it was not the wings of the eagle which had been broken, but
   the cage; and they now saw the noble bird careening through the
   firmament in the shining light of the Sun of Righteousness!

   He looked upon his Brother Spurgeon as one who upheld the Sovereignty
   of God and who, on the other hand, declared the responsibility of man.
   He preached that never could the sinner repent without the aid of the
   Holy Spirit, and yet he called upon every sinner to repent and believe
   the Gospel. Especially did his Brother make prominent the grand
   Doctrine of the atoning Sacrifice of Christ, and the kindred Doctrine
   of Justification by Faith in the Righteousness of the Lord and Savior.
   He took it that the central object which would be exhibited by his
   Brother in that place would be the Cross and nothing but the Cross. The
   central object would not be the roll of the eternal decrees, not the
   tables of the moral Law, not the laver of Baptism, not the throne of
   judgment--the central object would be the Cross of the Redeemer! Right
   and left they would find the roll of the eternal decrees, the tables of
   the Law of God, the laver of Baptism, and the judgment throne, but the
   CROSS of Jesus would stand in the midst, shedding its pure and
   harmonizing light over all besides. There was many a building in the
   Established Church of this land where they might enter, and they would
   hear as clear an exposition of Gospel Truth as they would from Mr.
   Spurgeon, but in many another building of the Established Church, all
   was priestly power, and sacramental efficacy. In many another, all that
   was preached was reason, intuition, the wisdom of man and not of God.
   And yet all those men had subscribed to the same articles; all those
   men belonged to the same Church. Come within this building, whenever
   they might, he believed they would hear nothing of sacramental efficacy
   on the one side, or of man's reason or intuition on the other; but
   their dear Brother would say that he had determined not to know
   anything among them but Christ, and Him Crucified.

   One word more and he had done. They were living in the days of "Essays
   and Reviews"--living in the days of a Nationalism, which, for his own
   part, he considered far more unscriptural than any Romanism. He wished
   to explain himself; he meant to say for himself that he would rather be
   a poor humble-minded member of the Church of Rome, believing too much,
   than he would be one of those modern philosophers, too wise to believe
   anything at all. With this modern philosophy he had no patience! The
   Bible, according to those men, was an old-fashioned book which had its
   value 2,000 years ago, but now its value was diminished by all the
   length of those 2,000 years. They had now outshot the Bible, said these
   men--they had got ahead of the Bible! They were now more intelligent
   and wiser than the Bible. Well, let them take it as those men said, and
   then he (the speaker) would add, let the venerable Book have fair play
   after all. If by it those men were so much wiser than they would have
   been, then, he said, it was only fair that they should strip themselves
   of all they had learned from the Bible--with regard to the attributes
   of God, the origin of the universe, the standard of morals, the destiny
   of spirits beyond the grave--and if they did that, he could fancy he
   saw them peeling off coat after coat, like an onion, and getting "small
   by degrees" but not "beautifully less," and he did not know what would
   remain of them. Why, in ancient Greece there were intellects as subtle,
   and spirits as profound as any in modern times. He believed that on
   some lines of philosophical inquiry, none had been able to surpass
   them; but when those men entered on the Doctrines of theology, how far
   did they get? Why, just as far as this, "the world by wisdom knew not
   God." That was as far as they got! The youngest Sunday school child, he
   was going to say, knew more about God, than Socrates and Plato, and if
   these men knew more about God than Socrates and Plato, where did they
   get their knowledge, except where the little Sunday scholar got his,
   from the Scriptures! It was easy to stand on the Mount of Revelation,
   and then to spurn the ground upon which they stood; but let them cut
   that ground from under them, and down they would go into the pit of
   Hell! There was, he continued, in ancient Athens an old cynic who went
   into the marketplace with his lantern kindled in the full blaze of day,
   and said, in the Market of Athens, "I am come to look for an honest
   man." And all Athens smiled at the satire. But suppose he had said, "I
   have come here at noon with my lantern to light up the scenery, to
   bring to view those grand hills, and this glorious city, and that blue
   sky?" Would not the cry have rung through Athens, "Diogenes is mad"?
   What, then, is the insanity of the men who, in the full noon-day of the
   Gospel illumination, bring forward the little lamp of their own
   intuition and say, while turning their back upon the Sun of
   Righteousness shining in His strength, "See what our little lantern can
   show? See what a vast circumference it illuminates?" But oh, let that
   Sun but withdraw His shining, and the pall of night come down upon the
   scenery, and what a very twinkle would their lantern be in that abyss
   of darkness!

   The REV. J. BIGWOOD said he could not fail to express his deep
   gratitude to God that He had permitted such a building as the present
   to be erected in which the glorious Gospel in all its purity and
   simplicity would be preached. He had been wondering why it should be
   called a tabernacle--a tent--a place that was to pass away. Surely if
   there was a mansion in London, this was the one which would remain when
   all others had passed away! Was it not rather a temple than a
   tabernacle? Regarded in an ecclesiastical point of view, it was a
   marvel that such a building should be built and opened free from debt.
   What was the secret? If was the faith which the pastor and Church had
   exhibited in the mighty power and goodness of God. The minister was not
   alone; God was with him, and he with God; He walked with God, and
   relied upon His power, and God had granted him the desire of his heart.
   He congratulated them with his whole heart upon what they had
   accomplished, and he hoped that God's blessing would rest upon them,
   and that thousands might there be born-again to God.

   The REV. J. RUSSELL congratulated Mr. Spurgeon and his friends on the
   completion of the Metropolitan Tabernacle at Newington. Its being
   erected so near the Borough made him feel a deep interest in it, for he
   was born in the Borough, and knew the whole neighborhood well. Close
   by, in former days, there stood the Fishmongers' Almshouses with their
   pretty gardens, and there his beloved father used to go and speak to
   some of the aged inmates of the love of Christ. And he hoped the
   members of this Church would visit the poor all around, and make known
   to them the glad tidings of mercy through Christ. It was called a
   Tabernacle, which curiously enough in its derivation meant a little
   wooden house--taberna, a wooden house, tabernaculum, its
   diminutive--but the general sense is an habitation, and its sense in
   Scripture, the habitation of God. They had erected a large and
   magnificent house, but its size, its splendor, its elegance, its
   beautiful columns, would avail nothing if it were not the habitation of
   God. But he believed it would be, and that would be its glory. He
   rejoiced that a place of that size had been erected. There were large
   theatres, large Roman Catholic chapels, why should there not be large
   chapels where great numbers of people might be brought together to hear
   the Gospel? He hoped there would be others like this. They had showed
   great zeal and generosity; it was a coincidence rather amazing that the
   poll-tax computed on the children of Israel, for the erection of the
   Tabernacle in the wilderness, amounted to about £35,000 and the cost of
   their tabernacle was not much less! It was entitled to the name of
   Metropolitan, for it drew its hearers from all quarters, and the
   results of this great effort will affect not only the metropolis, but
   the world. The numerous Sunday school children there instructed would
   grow up and carry with them to many distant parts, the good Seed of the
   Kingdom of God. He thanked God for what Mr. Spurgeon and his friends
   had been enabled to accomplish, and he trusted they would have the
   continual and abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

   Mr. SPURGEON said they might get their hymn books ready; but he would
   first give them a statement of the liabilities that had been sent up to
   him. They needed for the builder, £3,000; for the architect, £200; for
   gas, £160; for the gates and boundaries, £300; for the treasurer, £100,
   matting, carpets, etc., £350, for fittings, furniture, etc., about
   £100; which made £4,200, or thereabouts. These calculations were made
   so that they would meet all demands; but the pledge he made to the
   public was that they should enter that place free of debt and that
   would be accomplished when rather more than £3,000 had been paid in,
   for the other matters could wait awhile, and would not be undertaken
   until the funds were in hand to warrant their being done. He read
   additional lists of contributions received from various sources, and
   gave the following abstract of the whole--he had brought in over
   £1,500; his wife and her lady friends, £1,200;the people that night,
   about £771. Clear proceeds of the lecture by Mr. Layard, £100. The
   collection on the previous day amounted to rather more than £120,
   making a total of £3,700. Mr. Spurgeon then called upon the whole
   assembly to sing the Doxology; the congregation immediately rose and
   sang with great fervor those words of praise to the God of Heaven, and
   repeated them with enthusiasm at the request of the rejoicing pastor.

   The REV. C. STOVEL was then called upon. They had maintained, he said
   their operations with a constant living zeal, and he wished them to
   receive the affectionate assurance of his joy in their success. Yet he
   could not join in any flattery that could lead them from the point
   where zeal, care and discretion would be required. Not a little would
   it require of personal effort, and of wisdom to maintain the
   institutions in this place in due order and in effective operation; not
   a little would be required of patient reliance upon God before the
   agencies committed to their trust should have been brought out for use.
   They must become learners at the feet of Jesus, and while they kept the
   Cross in the center, as Mr. Tucker had reminded them, and promised in
   their behalf, they were to remember that above that Cross--the Cross
   never to be forgotten--there would be a living Savior before whom they
   must all bow. Reference had been made to some of the features of there
   own time. He wished not himself to enter the Establishment and define
   its various features. He had read the book, or nearly the whole of it,
   to which reference had been made. He besought them not to turn to that
   book to awaken a theological odium about it; but to study practically
   in the testing house of daily life, the points which it threw out into
   public light. His impression was, that there was more to be dealt with
   than at first sight might be suspected, and they might be assured, that
   in the present time they stood in a position where the docility of a
   learner was much required to bring the Truth of Heaven home to the
   direction of our present affairs. If they would take his advice--he
   presented it only for what it was worth--it was that they should
   entangle themselves as little as possible with the theories of the
   past, or with the speculations of the present--but to keep themselves
   in thought, in heart, and in action, free to follow the commandments of
   Him who lived and ruled forever. For his part he could not help
   thinking that the personality of our Christianity was precisely the
   point on which their thoughts should always rest. The reverend
   gentleman enlarged upon this topic, and concluded by assuring the
   meeting that they had the most tender and sincerest desires of his
   heart for their spiritual welfare.

   Mr. SPURGEON then stated that while the last speaker had been
   addressing them, Sir Henry Havelock had been compelled by his camp
   duties to retire, and Mr. Moore of the eminent firm of Copestake and
   Moore had occupied the chair at his request. He should, by the
   chairman's leave, depart from the ordinary rules of public meetings, by
   putting two or three motions to them. The first was that their hearty
   and sincere thanks should be tendered to Sir Henry Have-lock for
   presiding over them, coupled with their kindest wishes, and earnest
   prayers for his esteemed mother, Lady Have-lock, and the whole family.
   The motion was carried by acclamation.

   Mr. SPURGEON then proposed a vote of thanks to the architect, and the
   builder for their joint skill and generosity. The builder, he was happy
   to tell them, had become a deacon of the church; and in referring to
   the architect, he remarked that the chapel would be a model for others,
   whether large or small. The motion was carried in the midst of loud
   applause.

   Mr. POCOCK, the architect, and Mr. HIGGS, the builder, both returned
   thanks and were warmly applauded.

   Mr. SPURGEON said he wished them to signify their hearty recognition of
   the splendid Christian generosity of which they had been partakers by
   proposing a vote of thanks to the contributors to that magnificent
   building. The motion was carried by acclamation.

   Mr. SPURGEON: Now, my Friends, I would ask you tonight to offer one
   more prayer for me than you have offered before. What am I to do with
   such a work as this upon me? It is not the getting up of this building;
   it is not the launching of the vessel--it is keeping her afloat! Who is
   sufficient for these things? How shall I, a young man, a feeble child,
   go in and out before this people? Blessed be God, there is a glorious
   answer to this question! "Mystrength is sufficient for you; Mystrength
   shall be made perfect in your weakness." That arm which has upheld us
   up to now, shows no sign of palsy! Those eyes which has smiled upon us
   until now, have not grown dim. The promise has not failed! We have had
   this day another pledge of His faithfulness, and another foretaste of
   His future goodness. In the name of the Lord would I set up my banner
   tonight. He has been Jehovah-Jireh here; now, tonight we would call
   this place Jehovah-Nissi--for here has the Lord's banner been
   displayed! But, Brothers and Sisters, as to the future we must ask for
   the blessing, or we shall not have it. If you ever prayed for me
   before, pray for me tonight! Oh, my dear Brothers and Sisters, upon
   whose hearts I have been borne so long--you who have listened to me so
   patiently, and have sometimes had your souls comforted, do not forget
   me! Of all men the most pitiable if you take away your prayers, and if,
   in consequences, God take away His Spirit--of all men the most happyif
   you will bear me in your arms; if the Lord shall still be my Strength
   and my Shield! More than I have done to advance His Gospel, I cannot
   promise to do, for God knows I have preached beyond my strength, and
   worked and toiled as much as one frame could do. But I hope that in
   answer to your prayers I may become more prayerful, more faithful, and
   have more power to wrestle with God for man, and more energy to wrestle
   with man for God. I pray you, as though I asked it of you for my very
   life, do this night commend me to God! If you have ever been edified,
   encouraged, or comforted through me, I beseech you carry me before God.
   And especially you who are my spiritual sons and daughters, begotten of
   me by the power of the Holy Spirit--you who have been reclaimed from
   sin; you who were wanderers in the wild waste until Jesus met with you
   in the Music Hall, in Exeter Hall, or in Park Street--you, above
   all--you mustpray for me! Oh, God, we pray You, let multitudes of the
   vilest of the vile here be saved! I had rather die this night, on this
   spot, and end my career than lose your prayers. You aged members,
   deacons and Elders, will you not be more earnest than ever? My younger
   Brothers and Sisters, my co-equals in age, comrades in battle, you,
   young men, and women, who are strong to overcome the Wicked One, stand
   up with me, shoulder to shoulder, and give me your help! Let no strife
   and no division creep in among us! Let no vainglory mar our deeds! Let
   nothing be done which could drive away the sacred dove, and rob us of
   the Presence of the Holy Spirit! Brothers and Sisters, pray for us, in
   the name of all the ministry, I say, pray Brethren, pray for us! I
   think the ministers here would rise as one man, and say with me,
   standing as I do in the most perilous of positions, "Brethren pray for
   me." For oh, if I fall, what dishonor to the Holy Church at large? If
   your pastor sins, what shame! If this Church becomes a failure, what
   dishonor! Great God, we lay hold upon Your promise tonight! We prayed
   last Sabbath evening, "If Your spirit go not with us, carry us not up
   hence." And now we grasp the promise, and by faith would we believe in
   its fulfillment--"My Presence shall go with you, and I will give you
   rest."

   Mr. SPURGEON concluded by proposing a vote of thanks to Mr. Moore, who
   occupied the chair; and it was also carried by acclamation.

   Mr. MOORE, in returning thanks, said, he had never seen a sight so
   thoroughly charming as the one before him. Speaking in sober earnest,
   and as a Churchman, he must say that this was a magnificent sight. Mr.
   Spurgeon had done the Church of England more good than any clergyman in
   it, in his opinion. He had watched his career ever since he came to
   London, when he was supposed to be not quite as sane as he was now. He
   had listened to his sermons, and he had considered his success a
   miracle. He believed that Mr. Spurgeon was a miracle raised up by
   Almighty God to advance His Kingdom. He had had something to do with
   selling that plot of land, as he was one of the Fishmongers' Company,
   and he must say that he had been astonished how they had raised the
   money. It would have taken Churchmen 10 years! It was a thing almost
   unexampled in the Christian Church! There was no one who sympathized
   with them more than he did, and he believed that that Church would be
   instrumental in bringing many to Christ. He would just say one thing
   further in reference to the miraculous influence which the preaching of
   Mr. Spurgeon had had on the Christian world. He had said a hundred
   times, that they would never have had St. Paul's, nor Westminster
   Abbey, nor the Theatres opened for Sunday preaching if it had not been
   for such influence. He hoped Mr. Spurgeon's appeal for their prayers
   would be listened to, and he prayed God, himself, that their minister
   might never be left to disgrace the position in which he was placed.

   Mr. SPURGEON then pronounced the benediction, and the proceeding closed
   with the Doxology.
     __________________________________________________________________

                      Meeting Of The Neighboring Churches

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE NEWINGTON, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1861.

   THE invitation to the ministers and members of neighboring churches, to
   show their support in the opening of the new Tabernacle, by attending
   especially at a meeting held this evening, was most cordially accepted,
   and the number present proved the heartiness of the response. An
   audience approaching 4,000 in number assembled on the occasion, while
   on the platform and pulpit were a goodly array of ministerial Brothers.
   The CHAIR was occupied by the Rev. Dr. STEANE.

   The fourth hymn, given out by Mr. SPURGEON, and described as a hymn of
   welcome and fellowship, was first sung.

   The Rev. WILLIAM ROBINSON, of York Road Chapel, offered prayer.

   The CHAIRMAN, in opening the proceedings, said two days ago that
   magnificent edifice for the first time resounded with the proclamation
   of the Gospel, and its lofty dome thrilled with the notes of prayer and
   praise. Then, with an appropriate and becoming solemnity, it was
   consecrated and set apart to the worship of Jehovah, the Father, the
   Son, and the Holy Spirit, the God of our salvation. He had not the
   privilege of being present on that occasion, but then, as now, he most
   affectionately, and cordially sympathized with his Christian Brother
   who was henceforth to minister there in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He
   said that by Rev. Spurgeon's godly zeal, and untiring diligence,
   sustained by the whole Christian public, the magnificent structure had
   been reared; and now, the pastors, the deacons, and the members of the
   neighboring churches, without regard to denomination, without
   distinction of name, without reference to varieties of judgment, and
   opinion, had been by him, and his friends, invited to gather together
   in that great concourse. That invitation had been accepted with the
   deep affectionate Christian sincerity with which they believed it to
   have been given; and they were there to offer to Mr. Spurgeon, and to
   the church over which he presided, their affectionate congratulations.
   As they surveyed that splendid structure--the largest sanctuary which
   had ever been reared by such churches as theirs to the service and
   Glory of God--they were filled with adoring reverence and gratitude,
   and exclaimed, "What has God worked!" He wished on that occasion to be
   commissioned by the meeting to assure Mr. Spurgeon, and the church
   itself of the entire cordiality, of the affectionate respect, of the
   brotherly love with which the sister churches in the neighborhood
   regarded them all. He did not want that expression to be the individual
   expression of his own heart, but of the hearts of the pastors and
   members of the churches present. Perhaps he should proceed in a novel
   and unexpected way, but he should ask if his Brothers, the pastors of
   the churches, would entrust him with the commission to communicate
   their congratulations and affectionate love, to signify it by rising.
   (Here the ministers rose at onc^. If the meeting would commission him
   to tell Mr. Spurgeon how much they loved him, and how devoutly and
   unanimously they wished him, "God speed," they would signify that by
   rising. (Everyone in the building at once ros^.

   Nothing could have been more prompt, more unanimous and more
   delightful, and he now begged to offer to Mr. Spurgeon the right hand
   of brotherly fellowship. (This was done in the most hearty manner). He
   had no intention, when he entered the building, of proceeding in the
   manner that he had done. But was it not a good, a wise, and happy
   suggestion? He trusted that his dear Brother would live to be the
   pastor of that church for a far longer period than any of the Brothers
   present had ministered in their respective churches; long might he live
   with God's blessing to labor there! He devoutly desired to thank the
   Providence of God which had brought Mr. Spurgeon among them. That
   Providence might have brought a Brother who would have been an element
   of strife and discord--but God's Grace had brought a Brother among
   them, with whom they were one in feeling, one in doctrine, one in
   heart, one in sympathy, and one in Christ. There were present the
   representatives of many churches, yet they were one Church--a part of
   the general assembly and Church of the First-Born. They were not two
   churches, if they spoke of the Church of the redeemed in Heaven, and
   the Church of the blood-bought on earth; they were not two churches,
   but one body of which Christ was the ever-living and glorified Head! He
   trusted, through the Grace of the Lord Jesus pervading all members of
   that one body, they would henceforth be still more united than in past
   time they had been, and exhibit that unity in the face of a scoffing,
   infidel, and ungodly world. He trusted they would spend a happy
   evening, the recollection of which would never be erased from their
   memories, and when, in that upper and better sanctuary, the true
   Tabernacle, not made with hands like this, through the infinite riches
   of Divine Mercy, they would be worshippers together, it might be among
   the sweetest and hallowed reminiscences of their life on earth, that on
   the present occasion they were gathered together a united assembly of
   Brothers and Sisters in the Lord.

   Mr. SPURGEON did not know what he could say in answer to the
   affectionate expressions of his Brothers. They would excuse him if he
   did not attempt to express his gratitude on his own account, for his
   heart was too full. It had been singularly his lot to be placed in a
   position where he had the kindest Brothers for neighbors that ever
   gathered round any man. It was not easy for people to love him, for he
   sometimes said very strong things; when he meant to say a thing that
   should take effect, he felt that he ought to say it in a strong manner
   in an age like this, so shallow and so careless. Yet he had the love
   and esteem of his Brothers far more than if he had attempted to speak
   smoothly. He believed he was everybody's debtor; he did not know that
   anybody owed him anything, but he owed something to everybody; for all
   his friends had kindly helped in the present effort. While his own
   church had to do the most, yet there had hardly been a place from which
   they had not received some aid. He could scarcely look round London
   upon any Church of Christ where he could not find some dear Brother who
   had taken as large an interest in the work as themselves. He could only
   say on behalf of his own church, that they were heartily at one with
   all Churches of our Lord Jesus Christ who held their common faith in
   that neighborhood, and he hoped in the future they would have better
   opportunities of testing their willingness to assist all efforts
   carried on by their Brethren. Next week there was to be a meeting,
   called a meeting of denominations, which would be addressed by members
   of all denominations upon the Scriptural Unity of the church. They, as
   a church, had ever been distinctly Baptists, but he hoped it would be
   their pleasure yet more and more in the future to bear upon their
   banner the motto of, "Union in Christ," which was the true light in
   which to see the union of all the saints. He hoped they should have
   meetings for fellowship, and mutual encouragement at least every
   quarter, and thus the pastors of the district would become more
   intimate and more cordial, by joining their prayers, and by mingling
   their efforts.

   The Rev. WM. HOWIESON, of Walworth, said he had come there that evening
   to bid his Brother Spurgeon, "God speed," in his new and enlarged
   sphere of labor. He believed he was his nearest ministerial neighbor,
   and if his coming to Newington should affect the attendance at other
   places of worship in the neighborhood, he (Mr. Howieson) would be very
   likely to suffer himself! Still, whatever might be the consequences to
   him in that respect, he did most heartily welcome Mr. Spurgeon to
   Newington, and he prayed that his most sanguine expectations as to the
   success of his ministry might be more than realized. A short time after
   the site for the building had been secured, he had some conversation
   with a Baptist minister from the West of England, respecting it. He was
   asked, "What do you and the other ministers in the neighborhood of the
   Elephant and Castle mean to do, now that Mr. Spurgeon's tabernacle is
   to be built there?" He did not understand the question. "Well," said
   the gentleman, "you will find Brother Spurgeon a very potent neighbor,
   and if you do not do something, you will find you will not hold your
   own." He wanted to know what they were to do, and asked his friend what
   he had to suggest. The reply was--"You must do as they were accustomed
   to do in the old coaching days. When a new opposition coach had been
   put upon the road, the people connected with the old Evangelist said
   one to another, 'If we mean to stand our ground, we must horse the old
   coach better.' So, he said, you and your Brothers must preach
   better--horse the coach better." He trusted that this would be one of
   the effects of Mr. Spurgeon's coming there--that they should all preach
   better! There was, no doubt, much room for improvement; and perhaps
   that improvement was needed more in the spiritual than in the
   intellectual qualifications for their work. The Chairman had been
   nearly 40 years, a pastor of the same church, and he was sure he could
   not have been so long a pastor, "without having become acquainted with
   the peculiar temptations to which they as ministers were exposed." He
   knew they were in danger of neglecting their own hearts, while they
   were professedly taking care of the souls of others; he knew that they
   were tempted to substitute a critical study of the Scriptures, as
   ministers, for a devout and daily perusal of them as Christians; that
   they were apt to perform or discharge the duties of their office in a
   professional sort of way, instead of feeling themselves the power of
   those Truths which they declare to others; that they were in danger of
   resting satisfied with a fervor and elevation of soul in public,
   instead of a calm and holy communion with God in private. He said if
   they gave way to those things, then as the result of diminished
   spirituality, there would be a barren ministry, for it was only as they
   were living near to God, themselves, that they could be the means of
   blessing to others--it was only by feeding on His Truth, themselves,
   that it became spirit and life to those who heard it--it was only as
   they were living and preaching in the spirit of prayer, that the
   weapons of their warfare were mighty through God to the pulling down of
   strongholds! Happy then would it be for them as ministers, and happy
   for their respective churches, if the coming of Mr. Spurgeon to
   Newington should drive them all to their knees in prayer, and should
   lead them to cry mightily to God for the help of His Spirit, and should
   impress upon their minds more than it had ever been--that a minister's
   life was the life of his ministry! But he demurred to one
   representation of his West of England friend, for this was not an
   opposition coach! It was doubtless opposed to something, for it was
   opposed to Satan, and all his works, but it was not opposed to him, nor
   to his church, nor to any minister in that neighborhood who preached
   Christ and Him Crucified. What was his Brother Spurgeon's objective in
   the building of that large place of worship? Was it merely to gather
   around him a large and influential congregation? Was it merely that he
   might be admired and applauded? Was it that he might commend the Gospel
   to the tastes, rather than the consciences of his hearers? Oh, no! It
   was that he might not cease to teach and preach in that place, Jesus
   Christ, and that a great number might believe and turn unto the Lord!

   Then their hearts, their Master, and their success were one. There were
   "diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." There were "differences of
   administration, but the same Lord." There were "diversities of
   operations, but it was the same God which worked in all." When,
   therefore, he looked round upon that beautiful structure, and tried to
   imagine its future history, he could not but rejoice to think of what
   would take place within its walls. There, hearts would be broken by the
   power of God's Spirit, and then healed again by the restoring power of
   Christ's precious blood! There, multitudes of conversions would be
   worked by regenerating Grace, and then these multitudes trained up for
   Glory! There backsliders would be reclaimed, mourners comforted,
   Believers established! There, there would be many triumphs of faith
   over temptation, of love over selfishness, and of hope over the fear of
   death! There, there would be workings of devout emotion--now sinking
   down in the dust of penitence, now soaring to Heaven in
   praise--sometimes earnestly wrestling in supplication, and sometimes
   pouring forth the strains of adoring gratitude; one hour weeping before
   the Savior's Cross, another exulting before the Savior's Throne! Oh,
   when he thought of the probable history of that magnificent place of
   worship, he was compelled as a Christian to pray, "The Lord God of your
   fathers make you a thousand times as many more as you are, and bless
   you as He has promised."

   The Rev. PAUL TURQUAND said he was the nearest independent minister to
   Mr. Spurgeon, and perhaps the first of that denomination who had spoken
   in that place of worship. He did not wish to bring them before him as a
   Christian Church, and utter the language of flattery, nor did he wish
   to stand before the minister of that noble place of worship, and swing
   the censer of adulation, and cover him with that perfume. But he would
   like to utter the language of heartfelt praise. The minister and the
   congregation had done well, nobly, magnificently, triumphantly, and he
   did not think he was praising them unduly when he gave expression to
   those words. They had taught others by the success which had crowned
   their efforts, that they ought to hope for nobler things, and dare
   greater things than they had up to now done; they had proved there was
   a latent power in the Christian Church which only needed circumstances
   to fully evoke it; their friends had shown them, when the Christian
   Church had a good purpose before it, resolution to accomplish it, and
   faith in God to accomplish it, that their work would be sure to be
   crowned with success! He was exceedingly glad that this admirable
   edifice had received the name of "Tabernacle." It was a word which
   carried them back to the structure erected in the wilderness; it told
   them of the bronze altar on which the substitutionary victim was laid;
   it brought before them the bronze laver in which the water typifying
   the influence of the Holy Spirit was held, and as his Brother, Mr.
   Howieson, had said, just as it was there so should it be here--that
   God's work and power should be greatly manifested! His prayer for them
   and their minister was, "Clothe Your ministers with the garments of
   salvation, abundantly bless the provision of Your house, satisfy Your
   poor with bread, so we, Your people, will give You thanks, and show
   forth Your praise from day to day." He was very glad the Tabernacle had
   been placed in the midst of London. Some country Brother told him that
   it would be a good thing if it had been placed in Pekin or St.
   Petersburgh. He himself would not have been sorry if it had been built
   in Paris, or better still, in Rome! What would the Pope have thought of
   it? If he had been consulted, he would perhaps have recommended that it
   should be erected on the other side of the water. As, however, it was
   in Newing-ton, he would say it was in a very good place indeed. He was
   glad that it was placed in the middle of London, for there was no city
   in the world that had so much influence as London, and if they acted
   upon London, they acted upon the whole world! He was pleased to think
   that the Tabernacle was in his own neighborhood, but still, some
   prophets of evil put the question, how would it act upon their
   churches? It might perhaps cause some vacant seats--perhaps some
   members of their churches might leave. Well, there was no garden but
   what needed occasionally to be weeded--and they might depend upon
   it--the Garden of the Lord occasionally needed weeding! "What is a
   weed?" was asked of a celebrated botanist. And he said, "a weed is a
   flower out of its right place," and Mr. Spurgeon very likely would take
   some of those weeds, and by planting them in their rightplaces, cause
   them to become flowers in the Garden of the Lord! He had a powerful and
   eloquent voice, and was well able to arouse the indifferent, and to
   make those who were careless and unconcerned, thoughtful with regard to
   their souls. If there had been one burden upon his (Mr. Turquand's)
   spirit, it was this--that in that neighborhood, indifference seemed to
   have gathered like a cloud on the people. He did not think they were
   more immoral than in other parts of London, but he did think they were
   more indifferent. If, however, they would come to hear Mr. Spurgeon,
   they might be led to go and hear others, and he hoped a spirit of
   hearingwould be diffused among them! Why, in such a case, when the
   congregations grew larger, the preacher would grow more eloquent, and
   possibly the Paul of York Street might become an Apollos! At any rate,
   when a noble boat was stranded, and men were perishing, it was a high
   crime to quarrel about the manning of the life boat! Let us hasten to
   the rescue and be as willing to take the oar as to stand at the helm!
   As the representative of his congregation, he could say they had always
   had a friendly spirit towards Mr. Spurgeon, and had done something to
   help him. They had but one objective in view--the conversion of souls,
   and the Glory of their Master. When an army stood in phalanx before the
   foe, they did not regret that some general, great in battle, was coming
   to their help, and should they not rejoice that another had come to
   assist them in the tremendous struggle, whose watchword was--"to the
   help of the Lord against the mighty"?

   A hymn was here sung, after which the CHAIRMAN introduced the Rev.
   George Rogers as the gentleman who had the educational superintendence
   of the young men, who were in training for the ministry, under Mr.
   Spurgeon.

   The Rev. GEORGE ROGERS, after speaking in terms of congratulation, said
   he had been told the building was an extravagant affair--a nine-days'
   wonder--and that before many months had passed, it would be converted
   into a penny theater. A man's prophecy was often the intimation of his
   desire. The wish was father to the thought. Such a remark might apply,
   if it had been a simple speculation, erected for an untried object. But
   he believed it to be the result of a gradual and solid growth. A giant
   infancy, and a giant youth required a habitation of its own when it
   came to manhood. He felt and all must feel, that that magnificent
   structure had been raised as a public homage to the Doctrines which Mr.
   Spurgeon preached, and to the earnest manner in which he had proclaimed
   them. This house was built, not for him, but for the God whom he
   serves; not for him, but for the Savior whom he loves; not for him, but
   for the Spirit on which he relies; not for him, but for the church over
   which he presides; not for him, but for the souls by which he is
   encompassed. It was a noble memorial of the unseen realities of the
   faith of the Gospel. To every passer-by it would be a witness that the
   tabernacle of God was with man, and that He would dwell among them. To
   every eye it would tell of the liberty, and the independence which
   Protestant dissenters could claim in this land, and of the readiness of
   the Christian public to support Doctrines of such a nature, when
   earnestly preached! Some ascribed it to the infatuation of the people.
   Why, Englishmen were not such fools as to give their money away without
   consideration, and without an approval of the object! Some time ago, in
   a continental city, the priest of a certain cathedral got up a
   subscription for a golden crown to be put on the head of the Virgin. A
   solemn festival was held on the occasion of the coronation, at which
   the king, and his courtiers were present; but one man retired from the
   scene to weep, and when asked why he wept, said, "They put a golden
   crown upon the Virgin, but there is no crown for the Infant Jesus." But
   here, what they had done had been to put a crown upon the head of
   Christ, and as they would often sing in that place, to "Crown Him Lord
   of All." The building gave the lie to those who said the Doctrines of
   Grace were inimical to good works. Their friend Mr. Spurgeon preached
   all the Doctrines of Grace. Election, Particular Redemption, came from
   his lips in trumpet tones. He saw the love of Christ to His Church, and
   of the Church to Christ overflowing in sweet nectar in the Song of
   Solomon. Some said those Doctrines were destructive of all good
   works--that people who listened to such Doctrines did nothing--his
   answer to these objectors was, let them look at this building. Election
   would never have built it, except by seeking to make their calling and
   election sure. Particular Redemption would never have built it without
   the particular love which it was calculated to inspire. The Doctrine of
   Perseverance would never have built it without the act of perseverance.
   Faith would never have built it without works. One of his students, who
   came late one morning, said his clock did not go right. He replied to
   him it was an anti-nomian clock--it was without good works. The creed
   of Mr. Spurgeon was not antinomian, and that building was a witness to
   it! Nor would works without faith have built it. No tree could grow
   without being well watered at the roots; and if they wished this tree
   of theirs to grow and bear much fruit, they must bring down the rains
   and dew of Heaven by their prayers. Why were they, the neighboring
   ministers and Churches there, but to show that the objective was not to
   set up altar against altar? It was to publish the same Doctrine. The
   God whom we all honor is to be honored in this place. The Savior whom
   we love is to be exalted in this place. The Gospel which we love is to
   be preached here. The Atonement on which we rest our hope is to be the
   open fountain here for sin, and for uncleanness. He, therefore, felt an
   interest in the building, and all his Brothers in the ministry must
   have a common interest in it. Although one star might differ from
   another star in Glory, it was their combined rays that guided the
   pilgrim on the desert, and the mariner upon the wave. They had done a
   good work, and had worked long and hard, and unitedly. What was next to
   be done? They had now no more to do with begging, with bricks and
   mortar, and with bazaars. Let them turn all their energies into
   spiritual channels; let the hands that had been stretched out to labor,
   be lifted up in prayer; let the feet that had borne them to the houses
   of the rich to collect gold, now carry them to the habitations of the
   poor to give them that consolation whose price was far above rubies!
   Having such a start, great things were expected from them. The eyes of
   the Church and of the world were upon them. There was much Grace
   needed, and it was to be had with faith and prayer. He came to that
   meeting from the bed of an aged lady, and when he told her he was
   coming to Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle she said, "May it be a house in
   which thousands shall be turned to God." That was his wish, and he was
   sure it was the wish of them all.

   The CHAIRMAN called upon the Rev. Mr. BETTS, of Peckham, whom he
   introduced as the successor of the well-known Dr. Collier.

   The Rev. R. W. BETTS said, like William Jay of Bath, he was not born
   under the platform dispensation, but, when he received the hearty
   letter from his Brother, Mr. Spurgeon, asking him as a neighboring
   minister to come and give them a few words of greeting upon taking
   possession of that magnificent edifice, he felt it altogether
   impossible for him to refrain, and therefore he had come as a
   neighboring minister to bid them welcome and God speed. He was
   perfectly astonished at that beautiful, and that magnificent structure.
   After some remarks upon the name of the building, he proceeded. As he
   was coming from Westminster the other evening on an omnibus, there were
   two large buildings which he passed, and he could not help remarking
   the contrast presented by the outward aspects of those buildings. The
   one was St. George's Cathedral; the other was the "Metropolitan
   Tabernacle." The one was dimly lighted, with a group of some dozen
   miserable people standing outside the gate, and the whole thing seemed
   enshrined in gloom. But in the Tabernacle, the light was brilliantly
   streaming from the windows, and the whole place seemed full of life and
   vigor. If he had been a stranger in London, he would not have needed
   anyone to tell him the difference of those buildings--the one all
   darkness, the other all light; the one full of the light of
   Christianity, the other a hollow empty sepulcher of rites and
   ceremonies. In the one, the living personal Christ, preached as the
   power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes; in the other His
   Glory eclipsed by rites and ceremonies, and all taken away that is
   vital and essential in the Gospel of our Lord and Savior. There was
   another thing that struck him about those two buildings--the
   incompleteness of the one, and the beautiful perfection of the other.
   The spire of the one structure--where was it? It was nowhere! Although
   so many years had elapsed since that structure was commenced, yet the
   faithful did not seem to be ready with their offerings; the necessary
   was not exactly forthcoming. What was the case with the Tabernacle?
   Within a year or two the magnificent sum of £30,000 had been subscribed
   for its erection. He looked upon that as a token of the earnest
   Protestantism of our Sav-ior--of the love of the people of England for
   the simple Gospel of our Lord and Savior. He supposed that the spire of
   St. George's Cathedral would one day be completed, but whether
   completed or not, Roman Catholicism as a system must fall; it was
   founded in the sands of human tradition and priestly ordinances; and
   when the waves of our Gospel salvation and the winds of Divine Truth
   shall have beaten upon it a little more, it will fall, and great will
   be the fall of it--and God speed that day! But he did not come to tell
   them that; he came there simply as a neighboring minister to bid Mr.
   Spurgeon and his friends a hearty welcome, and God speed to that
   locality. He did so because they came in his Master's name. In
   conclusion, he urged them, as there only remained £500 to completely
   finish the edifice, to see if they could subscribe it that night, and
   then in future the meetings would be free.

   "All hail the power of Jesus' name," was then sung.
   The Rev. NEWMAN HALL congratulated the congregation and the pastor upon
   the successful termination of their arduous labors, and upon their
   being able to meet in a building free from debt--a building not raised
   by taxes wrung from the community at large, willing or unwilling, but a
   structure raised by the free-will offerings of God's people--of those
   who, recognizing the spiritual gifts with which God had endowed their
   friend, and were desirous that a building should be reared capable of
   holding as many thousands as could be conveniently reached by his rich
   voice. He need not say to them, what, no doubt, they were saying to
   themselves, "Be not high-minded on account of what you see." He knew
   they felt it to be a matter, not of pride, but of deep humble gratitude
   to God, who condescended to permit unworthy sinners in any way to be
   engaged in advancing the interests of His Kingdom. He knew their
   earnest prayer was that the old words might be continually
   verified--"What house will you build for Me? I dwell in the high and
   holy place, but with this man will I dwell, who is of an humble and
   contrite spirit and who trembles at My word." For some time, Surrey
   Chapel had been the largest Christian sanctuary south of the Thames. He
   hoped there was not a worthy member of Surrey Chapel who did not
   rejoice that there was a sanctuary raised more than twice as large! And
   even should it lead to a decrease of the number of worshippers at
   Surrey Chapel, yet, if on the whole, the cause of God were more
   advanced, it would be their duty and their pleasure to say--"Herein do
   I rejoice, yes and will rejoice." Envy, jealousy, pity everywhere, were
   monstrous in connection with the work of God. What? Regret if others
   are doing more than we are? Regret that others are more useful than we?
   Is it not all one business--one interest? Are not all things ours?
   Whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas--all are ours! We are rowing the
   same boat against the strong tide--each of us doing our best. Shall I
   regret if others in the crew with stronger arms, and more vigorous
   strokes, are helping to send the boat more strongly against the tide,
   and bringing it more quickly into port? Our house is on fire, we are
   bringing water to extinguish the flames--shall I be sorry if my brother
   can handle a larger bucket, and throw a greater volume of water upon
   the flames? We are engaged in one grand warfare, and if we are, each of
   us, standing in the place our Captain has bid us occupy, and fighting
   bravely for Him, shall we regret it if others are more advanced in the
   fight, and with heavier blows, and surer aim are making greater havoc
   among the enemy? It might sound anomalous, but it was most true, in
   great enterprises every man must do his best to excel his brethren, and
   when he had done his best, he must rejoice that many of his brethren
   excelled himself. They might excel Surrey Chapel in the size of the
   building, and in the number of the congregation, but they did not and
   could not be expected to excel it in the machinery they employed for
   evangelization. This was the work of his revered predecessors, Rowland
   Hill and James Sherman, and therefore he could refer to it without any
   supposition of arrogance or boasting. In connection with Surrey Chapel,
   they had 18 Sunday evening services conducted by members of the
   congregation in various courts and lanes in the district--five
   Evangelists were maintained to go about and instruct the poor, and
   comfort the sorrowful. They had 12 Sunday schools with 4,500 children,
   and 400 teachers--four week-day schools, three sets of secular lectures
   going on, week by week, in different parts, for the benefit of the
   working classes. They had benevolent societies distributing about £400
   a year in addition to the money collected at the Sacrament for poor
   members, and they had the Temperance Society helping all. He sincerely
   hoped the time was not far distant when they would exceed Surrey Chapel
   in all these instrumentalities and labors; when they would have 36
   Sunday evening services, ten Evangelists, 24 schools with their 9,000
   children, and 800 teachers, eight week-day schools, and half a dozen
   sets of lectures; and he trusted that this sanctuary would soon be
   opened for the advocacy, if the glorious temperance principle, which
   had rescued so many from vice and ruin. Let them always bear in mind
   what a Church was. It was not an institution the members of which had
   nothing to do but to come on Sunday, and hear comfortable sermons, and
   go home and discuss them, weigh the Doctrines in them and criticize the
   preacher. He knew their minister would be the last to encourage them in
   a namby-pamby sort of religion of that kind! No, the churches were to
   be arsenals where the weapons of love were stored with which they were
   to attack the enemy round about--grand depositories of Christian
   enterprise; a glorious propaganda, every member a member of the society
   of Jesus--not leaving it to the pastor to be the only Evangelist, but
   every man saying to his neighbor, "Know you the Lord God."

   What an interesting sight was the opening of a new sanctuary! How one's
   thoughts looked forward! What important events would take place in this
   sanctuary in the course of years--events that might not be chronicled
   in the history of this world, but in which angels would take the very
   deepest interest! Here the people of God, worn and jaded by the toils
   and cares of life, will come to be refreshed with the heavenly manna,
   and the invigorating streams of the River of Life. Here the sorrowful
   and downcast will feel their burdens lightened, and be able to say to
   an old Yorkshire working man, a friend of mine, "Ah, it is blessed
   work, Cross-bearing, when it's tied on with love!" Here those who come
   tormented with doubts and fears, will see the clouds dispersed, and
   feel their anxieties removed. Here the tempted, carried down headlong
   by the tide of peril, will see the hand of love stretched out, and
   grasping it by the hand of faith, will be drawn up unto the firm land
   of salvation! Here souls dead in trespasses and sins will hear the
   voice of Jesus, Come forth! There will be many a cry, "What must I do
   to be saved?" There will be many a prayer heard, "Jesus, Son of David,
   have mercy upon me!" Here the saints of God will be trained for a
   better sanctuary. Angels will often hover over this spot and carry up
   the glad tidings, "Behold, he prays!" I seem to see the ladder that
   Jacob beheld let down from Heaven--angels are coming up and down,
   blessings are descending, and prayers and praise are ascending; and
   Jesus the Redeemer is above, seated at the right hand of Power, making
   all-prevalent intercession for His people. Oh, may this be the
   consecration that shall hallow this Tabernacle! Never may Ichabod be
   written on these walls! Never may there cease to be preached here, and
   loved here, the pure, the simple, the all-glorious Gospel of the Grace
   of God--the Grace of God revealed to all transgressors! The size of the
   building seems to me in glorious harmony with the glorious character of
   the Redemption that we preach. It seems impossible to speak of a
   straitened and limited theology in a spacious building so vast as this.
   No, as Dr. Chalmers says, "In the commission we have received to preach
   the Gospel to every creature, there is no frozen limitation, but a
   munificence of mercy, boundless as space, free and open as the expanse
   of the firmament." I am persuaded that never will there be so great a
   multitude gathered together here that your minister will hesitate to
   proclaim a Christ for every man, declaring that all who believe shall
   be saved, and that none shall be lost except those to whom it is said,
   "You will not come unto Me that you might have life!" Christ--Christ
   Crucified, the only foundation of the sinner's hope, the only secret of
   the Believers' life and joy! This, my Friends, is the true palladium of
   the Church. "Here," as old Oliver Crom- well says in one of his
   letters, 'here would I rest, and here only.'" It is not our sect,
   however we may prefer it-- Episcopacy, or Independency, or
   Presbyterianism, or Methodism. It is not the having a Liturgy, or the
   having free prayer; it is not a gorgeous ceremony, and it is not a
   Scriptural simplicity; it is not much water or little water--it is not
   the adult immersion or the infant sprinkling--no, it is Jesus exhibited
   in the pulpit, honored in the worship, manifested in the lives of all
   the people that is the glory of the Church--and without that there is
   no glory. It is not the splendor of architecture, nor your glorious
   portico, and majestic columns--not this graceful roof, and these airy
   galleries, and these commodious seats so admirably arranged for worship
   and for hearing. It is not the towering dome, or the tapering spire
   emulating the skies. It is not clustering columns and intersecting
   arches through which a dim religious light may wander--it is not all
   these--though I do not despise the beauties of architecture--which is
   the glory of the Church. Nor is it the splendor of the pew, though
   wealth and fashion and learning may be there, and overflowing numbers
   crowd the sanctuary. It is not the splendor of the pulpit--the
   eloquence that can wave its magic wand over a delighted audience till
   every eye glistens, and every heart beats with emotion--the erudition
   that from varied stores of learning can cull its illustrations to adorn
   the theme--the novelty of thought and sentence, and argument that can
   captivate the intellect and satisfy the reason--the fancy that can
   interweave with the discourse the fascinations of poetry, and the
   beauties of style. No, it is not any one of these, nor all of these
   together! It is Christ in His real and glorious Divinity; Christ in His
   true and proper Humanity; Christ in the all and sole sufficiency of His
   Atonement; Christ in His in-dwelling Spirit, and all-prevailing
   intercession. This is the glory! And without this, though we had all
   other things, Ichabod must be written on the walls of any church. This
   is the true Ark before which alone Dagon falls prostrate. This it is
   that gives us a glory greater than that which the Temple of Solomon
   ever possessed. For here we have the living manna upon which we may
   feed. Here we have the true Mercy Seat. Here we have the real
   Sacrifice--He who takes away the sins of the world! Here we have
   constant miracles. What? Will they tell us there are no such things as
   miracles possible? There are miracles-- actual, glorious miracles
   taking place continually, verifying the Truth of our Christian system.
   The eyes of the blind are still being opened! The ears of the deaf are
   still being unstopped! And the lame man still leaps as a hart, and the
   dead man sepulchered in his sin comes forth to live a life of holy
   obedience and grateful love! Because I know this Gospel of Christ
   Crucified is preached, and will be preached and manifested here,
   therefore I say there is no enchantment against Israel, there is no
   divination against Jacob. "How goodly are your tents, O Israel and your
   tabernacles, O Jacob." Peace be within these walls, and prosperity
   within these palaces. For my Brother and companion's sake, we all of us
   now say, "Peace be with you."

   Mr. SPURGEON proposed a vote of thanks to the chairman and to the
   various ministers, observing that large as the place was, and preaching
   as he did a great Redemption, yet every pillar was made of iron, firmly
   fixed and immovable, and he hoped to preach a sure, settled Covenant
   Gospel, and not a frail and failing one. The thanks were carried by
   acclamation. The Doxology was sung and the meeting separated.
     __________________________________________________________________

                       Christ Set Forth As A Propitiation

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON GOOD FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 29, 1861, BY THE REV.
   C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "Christ Jesus whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith
   in His blood"

   Romans 3:25.

   We commenced the services in this place by the declaration that here
   Christ shall be preached. Our Brother who followed us expressed his joy
   that Christ was preached herein. He did rejoice, yes, and would
   rejoice, and our friends must have observed, how, throughout the other
   services there has been a most blessed admixture not only of the true
   spirit of Christ, but of pointed and admirable reference to the glories
   and beauties of His Person. This morning, which is the beginning of our
   more regular and constant ministry, we come again to the same noble
   theme. Christ Jesus is today to be set forth! You will not charge me
   for repeating myself--you will not look up to the pulpit, and say,
   "Pulpits are places of tautology." You will not reply that you have
   heard this story so often that you have grown weary of it, for well I
   know that with you, the Person, the Character, and the work of Christ
   are always fresh themes for wonder! We have seen the sea, some of us,
   hundreds of times, and what an abiding sameness there is in its deep
   green surface; but who ever called the sea monotonous? Traveling over
   it as the mariner does, sometimes by the year together, there is always
   a freshness in the undulation of the waves, the whiteness of the foam
   of the breaker, the curl of the crested billow, and the frolicsome
   pursuit of every wave by its long train of brothers. Which of us has
   ever complained that the sun gave us but little variety--that at morn
   he yoked the same steeds, and flashed from his car the same golden
   glory, climbed with dull uniformity the summit of the skies, then drove
   his chariot downward, and bade his flaming coursers steep their burning
   hooves in the western deep? Who among us has complained of the monotony
   of the bread that we eat? We eat it today, tomorrow, the next day; we
   have eaten it for years passed, and though we have other savory matters
   therewith, yet still the one unvarying food is served upon the table,
   and the bread remains the staff of life. Surely I know that as Christ
   is your food, and your spiritual bread; as Christ is your sun, your
   heavenly light; as Christ is the sea of love in which your passions
   swim, and all your joys are found, it is not possible that you as
   Christian men and women should complain of a monotony in Him, "He is
   the same yesterday, today and forever," and yet He has the dew of His
   youth. He is the manna in the golden pot which was always the same, but
   He is the manna which came from Heaven which was every morning new. He
   is the rod of Moses which was dry, and changed not its shape, but He is
   also to us the rod of Aaron which buds and blossoms and brings forth
   almonds.

   I come then now to preach Christ Crucified, as God has set Him forth to
   be a Propitiation for us through faith in His blood. To begin at once,
   then, we shall notice first, what is meant here by God's setting forth
   Christ as a propitiation. Secondly, we shall dwell upon the Truth which
   may very naturally be drawn from the first--Christ the Propitiation, as
   looked upon by the Believer. And then, thirdly, putting the two
   together, I mean inverting the two thoughts, we shall look at Christ as
   set forth by us, andlooked upon by God.

   I. First then, the text says ofChrist Jesus, "WHOM GOD HAS SET FORTH TO
   BE A PROPITIATION THROUGH FAITH IN HIS BLOOD."

   The words, "set forth," in the original may signify, "foreordained;"
   but according to eminent critics, it has also in it the idea of setting
   forth as well as a "foreordaining." Barnes says, "The word properly
   means to place in public view; to exhibit in a conspicuous situation,
   as goods are exhibited or exposed for sale, or as premiums or rewards
   of victory were exhibited to public view in the games of the Greeks."
   So has God the Father set forth, manifested, made conspicuous the
   Person of the Lord Jesus as the Propitiation of sin. How has He done
   this? He has done it first by ordaining Him in the Divine Decree as the
   Propitiation of sin. Christ did not take upon Himself the office of
   High Priest without being chosen thereunto as was Aaron; as surely as
   every member of Christ's body is elect according to the foreknowledge
   of God; as certainly as in God's Book all His members were written
   which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them,
   so certainly was the Head, Himself, ordained the chosen of God. As our
   poet puts it--

   "Christ is My first Elect He said, Then chose our souls in Christ our
   Head." Perhaps some might say there could be no election where there
   was no room for choice. But how do we know that there was no room for
   choice? We can scarcely imagine that angel or archangel could have been
   set forth as propitiation for sin. Who can tell whether the Almighty
   mind might not have devised another plan? Who shall dare to limit the
   Holy One of Israel? At any rate, there was this choice between the
   Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; the Divine Wisdom conjoined with
   Divine Sovereignty, and chose and appointed and determined that Christ
   Jesus, the Second of the Mysterious Three, should be the Propitiation
   for our sins. When Christ comes into the world, He comes as One of whom
   all eternity had spoken--He is the Child born--born from the womb of
   destiny; He is the Lamb whom God had appointed from before the
   foundation of the world. Long before this world was made, or Adam fell,
   Christ had been set forth; in the volume of the Book, it had been
   written of Him, "I delight to do Your will, O God." I think those who
   are afraid of looking back upon the great decrees of God, because they
   say they are secrets, have a fear where no fear is appropriate. There
   is never fear, my Brothers and Sisters, of our meddling with secret
   things. If they are secret, it is quite certain that we shall not
   meddle with them! Only let it be announced once and for all, that they
   are secret, and there is no one who can betray the secrets of God! But
   things that are revealed belong to us and to our children; and this is
   one of the things that is revealed; this is the decree and we will
   declare it, the Lord said unto Christ, "You are My Son, this day have I
   begotten You, and He has said unto Him moreover, I will make Him My
   First-Born, higher than the kings of the earth." And all this that He
   may be the "Propitiation for our sins by faith in His blood."

   And next, God had set forth Christ to be the Propitiation for sins in
   His promises before the Advent. Did He not set Him forth most plainly
   in the Garden where we fell? Was He not plainly revealed afterwards in
   the Ark in which Noah was saved? Did not God speak constantly, not only
   by verbal promises, but by typical promises, which are just as sure and
   certain as those which are spoken in words? Did He not to a 100 seers,
   and to multitudes of holy men and women, constantly reveal the coming
   of Him who should bruise the serpent's head, and deliver His people
   from the power of the curse? It is wonderful to see how engaged the
   Holy Spirit was through every age and era in ordaining types, in
   bringing forth representations, and symbols in which Christ should be
   set forth as being the appointed Propitiation for sins through faith in
   His blood! But the great setting forth was the actual doing of the deed
   when Jesus Christ came forth from the chambers of mystery, and revealed
   Himself in the manger--when God set Him forth by angelic messengers
   appointed to be His attendants--set Him forth by the star in the East
   which should guide the distant strangers to the place where the young
   Child was. He set Him forth afterwards by preserving His life in the
   midst of imminent perils, fulfilling promises made concerning His
   Infancy in the place where He was hidden from Herod's fury, and in the
   spot where He was educated and brought up. Throughout the life of
   Christ, how constantly did His Father set Him forth! The voice of God
   was in the voice of John--"Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the
   sins of the world." And on the Cross itself, "when it pleased the
   Father to bruise Him, and put Him to grief," what an exhibition was
   there of Christ to the eyes of Jew and Gentile, of prince and peasant,
   of the learned Greek, of the ruler Roman--that God had appointed Christ
   to be the full Propitiation for sin! I think, my dear Friends, while we
   must always regard the Cross as being the representation of Christ's
   love to His Church, we must also view it as being God setting forth to
   man the way by which He will accept man, pardon his sin, hear his
   prayer, and be reconciled with His erring creatures.

   But, O my dear Friends, this is not all; God the Father set forth
   Christ since then by signs following. What a setting forth that was of
   Christ the Propitiator, when the Holy Spirit came down on Pentecost!
   And what have all conversions been since then? Have they not been
   repeated seals to the testimony that Christ is the appointed Redeemer
   of men, and that through Him the faithful are justified and accepted?
   You, I trust--many of you--had such a special setting forth of Christ
   in your own hearts, the that you can set your seal to the text before
   us for Him has God set forth in you as being the Propitiation. By
   effectual Grace your eyes have been opened--by infinite love your
   stubborn heart has been melted; you have been turned from every other
   hope and every other refuge; you have seen Christ to be the Power of
   God, and the Wisdom of God; compelled by an Omnipotent influence which
   you neither could nor would resist, you have received Him as the Sent
   of God, have taken Him as being God's Messiah, and your only refuge.
   God in you, then, has graciously fulfilled the text, "Him has God set
   forth to be a propitiation."

   But now, to change the subject for a moment, and yet to continue on the
   same point--what is it that God has so manifestly set forth? We have
   seen how He has done it--we turn now to what? Sinner, listen, and if
   you have already accepted that which the Father has revealed, let your
   joy become full. God has set forth Christ as being the Propitiation!
   The Greek word has it, ilasthrion, which, being translated, may mean a
   mercy seat or a covering. Now God has said to the sinner, "Do you
   desire to meet Me? Would you be no longer My enemy? Would you tell Me
   your sorrows? Would you receive My blessing? Would you establish a
   commerce between your Creator and your soul? I set forth Christ to you
   as being the Mercy Seat, where I can meet with you, and you can meet
   with Me." Or take the word as signifying a covering--as the Mercy Seat
   covered the tablets of the Law, and so covered that which was the cause
   of Divine ire, because we had broken His commandments. "Would you have
   anything which can cover your sin? Cover it from Me, your God, so that
   I need not be provoked to anger? Cover it from you so that you need not
   be cowed with excessive fear, and tremble to approach Me as you did
   when I came in thunder and lightning upon Sinai? Would you have a
   shelter which shall hide altogether your sins and your iniquities? I
   set it forth to you in the Person of My bleeding Son! Trust in His
   blood and your sin is covered from My eyes--no, it shall be covered
   from your own eyes, too! And being justified by faith, you shall have
   peace with God through Jesus Christ your Lord." Oh that we may have
   Grace to accept now what God the Father sets forth! The Romish priest
   sets forth this and that; our own Romish hearts set forth
   such-and-such-another thing, but God sets forth Christ. The preacher of
   doctrine sets forth a dogma. The preacher of experience sets forth a
   feeling. The preacher of practice often sets forth an effort. But God
   puts before you, Christ "Here will I meet with you. This is the place
   of My rest--glorious to Me, safe to you???come to Christ! Come to
   Christ, and you will come to Me." The Lord Almighty comes to Christ,
   and there He comes to you. God, then, has set forth Christ Jesus--made
   Him conspicuous as being the Mercy Seat, and the great hider of sin!

   What has He set forth? He has set forth Christ before every one of you,
   in the daily preaching of the Word, and in this Inspired Book as His
   anointed to do His work, suffering in the place of all who believe on
   Him. He has set Him forth as nailed to Calvary's Cross, that your
   sinsmight be nailed there; set Him forth as dying, that your sins might
   die--no, buried that your iniquities might be buried--risen, that you
   might rise to newness of life; ascended, that you might ascend to God;
   received in triumph, that you might be received in triumph, too; made
   to reign, that you might reign in Him; forever loved, forever crowned,
   that you in Him may be forever loved, and forever crowned, too. Christ
   has God the Father set forth, that by faith in His blood, your sins
   being put away, you might enjoy the blessing of complete justification!
   "Who is he that condemns, Christ has died, yes, rather, has risen
   again, and sits at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession
   for us." "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" Thus,
   then, and in these respects, has God the Father set forth Christ.

   II. And now I proceed in the second place--and may the Spirit of God
   descend more visibly into our midst than at present--to speak upon a
   duty, rather a privilege, which so naturally rises out of God's having
   shown forth His Son as being the Propitiation through faith in His
   blood. That privilege is that WE SHOULD LOOK TO CHRIST, AND LOOK TO
   CHRIST, ALONE, AS THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS, AND TAKE CARE THAT OUR
   FAITH IS SIMPLE, AND FIXED SOLELY ON HIS PRECIOUS BLOOD.

   A very common mistake is to look to our sense of need as being, at
   least in some degree, a propitiation for sin. Repentance is an absolute
   duty, and a Christian Grace--a Grace without which there can he no
   salvation; but there has been a strong temptation upon many minds to
   make repentancea preparation for Christ, and to regard a sense of need
   as being a kind of wedding garment in which they may approach the
   Savior. How many read that promise, "Come unto Me, all you who are
   weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest," and they fondly
   imagine that if they could be more weary, and more heavily laden, then
   they would have rest? Whereas, being weary and heavy laden gives no man
   rest! It is coming to Christ that gives him rest, it is not the being
   weary and the being heavy laden! And I have known some ministers who
   preach what is called a deep experience and law-work, and preach very
   rightly, too, because many of the people of God have to endure this;
   but I think they lead the people into error, for the people imagine
   that this law-work, this deep experience, has something to do with the
   propitiation of their sins. Now, my Hearers, the sins of God's people
   are taken away by the blood of Christ, and not by any repentance of
   their own. I have already guarded my statement, and now I will make it
   as bold as possible. I say that repentance of sin does in no way
   contribute to the removal of that sin meritoriously. I say that our
   sense of need does not take away our guilt, nor help to take it away;
   but the blood, the blood, the blood alone, pure and unmixed, has
   forever washed the people of God, and made them whiter than snow! So,
   poor Heart, if your soul is as hard as a nether millstone; if your
   conscience seems to be seared by long habits of sin; if you cannot
   force tears from your eyes, and scarcely can get a groan from your
   heart--yet you are groaning today because you cannot groan, weeping
   because you cannot weep, and sorrowing because you cannot sorrow--hear
   you, then, this Gospel message! God the Father has set Christ forth to
   be your Propitiation! Not your tender conscience; not your groans; not
   your sense of need; not your law-work; not your deep experience! He is
   enough without any of these--have faith in His bloodand you are saved!

   But again, many have fallen into another mistake. They make their
   propitiation depend upon their evidences. I would be the last to say,
   "Away with evidences, away with evidences," for they are good things in
   their proper place; but there are too many persons who always judge of
   their past conversion, and ultimate salvation by present evidence.
   Judge Brothers and Sisters, whether you could ever form a proper
   estimate of the world by its appearance on any one day. If I had taken
   you out a month ago into the fields, you would have declared that the
   trees were dead; what signs of life would you have perceived? The bulbs
   were buried in the ground--you might have taken a solemn oath that
   flowers were banished, and you might have imagined that because there
   were none, there never would be any! But what was your evidence of the
   world's state worth? Look at it now--the buds are bursting on the
   trees; the flowers are springing from the sod; everything is hastening
   on towards spring and summer. Why as it is absurd and ridiculous for us
   to judge of the world's estate by the fact that there was a cloud
   today, and there was a shower of rain yesterday, and therefore infer
   that the sun has lost its force and will never shine--it is just as
   ridiculous to judge of our standing before God by our present standing,
   according to our evidences on some one day! The right way to read
   evidences is this. First, my Soul, whether you are saved or not, as a
   poor guilty sinner, look to Christ! When you have done this, then read
   your evidences--then--not till then. Then the blessed evidence will be
   a confirmation. The witness of the Spirit will confirm your faith; but
   if you look to your evidences first, you will be foolish indeed. It is
   as in a reflector--first, let us have the light, then will the
   reflector be of use to us to increase and reflect back the light; but
   if I take my reflector into a dark place and look for light in it, I
   shall find none--I must first see to the light itself--and then to the
   reflection of it. Our Graces are the reflection of Christ's love; they
   are the tokens of it, but we had better go to Christ first, and then
   look to the tokens afterwards!

   I am sure if you, as a spouse, had offended your husband, you would
   find but very sorry comfort in looking at those little tokens of love
   which in the past he had conferred on you. You would go to him first,
   ask him whether his love was still firm, whether he had forgiven the
   fault, and when you had received the assurance of his unabated and pure
   affection, could you go upstairs to the secret drawer, and look over
   the love notes and the love tokens--but they would have afforded you
   sorry comfort before. So with any child who has been chastened by his
   parent--if he thinks that his father is angry with him, he will not, if
   he is a wise child, a simple-hearted child, go up to the nursery, and
   look at the gifts which his father gave him--but going to his father's
   knee, he will look up with a tear in his eye and say, "Father do you
   love me? Can you forgive your child?" And, when he has had the personal
   token, the kiss of acceptance, then may the child go back and see in
   every mouthful that he eats, and every garment which he wears, the sure
   token of his father's continued affection! Evidences are good as second
   things, but as first things they are usurpers and may prove
   anti-Christs to Christ. Whatever my evidences may say, if I believe in
   the precious blood, there is not a sin against me in God's Book, and in
   the teeth of everything which might make me tremble--

   "Just as I am, without one plea, But that His blood was shed for me And
   that He bids me come," I come again, and come afresh to Him whom God
   has set forth to be the Propitiation for our sins!

   Friends, I may surprise you by what I am about to say, but there is
   another fault into which we sometimes fall, namely, looking to God's
   promises instead of looking to Christ as the Propitiation of sin. The
   text does not say that God the Father has set forth promises; indeed He
   has given us exceedingly great and precious promises, and they are true
   in Christ. We often err by going to promises, instead of going to
   Christ. I know many Christians who, when they are in distress, take up
   the Bible to find a promise--a very good and a very admirable plan, if,
   mark--it is preceded by something else! It they go to Christ first,
   they may come to the promise afterwards. "Yes," says one, "but suppose
   a promise is fulfilled." Very good; you have comfort out of it, but I
   say suppose the promise is notfulfilled? What then? Why it is just as
   sure for all that--whether the promise is fulfilled or not! Fulfillment
   is not my duty--my business is to take Christ, whom God the Father has
   set forth as the Propitiation of my sins, and if in searching this Book
   through there is not a single promise which I dare lay hold of; if I
   cannot find one bottle filled with the rich wine of consolation--if I
   can lay hold on no bunch of the grapes of Eshcol, still, God the Father
   has set forth Christ, whatever else He has not set forth-- and my eye
   looks to Christ and to Christ alone! There is a man who very much
   desires an estate. At the same time his heart is smitten with the
   beauty of some fair heiress. He gets the title deeds of her estate.
   Well, the title deeds are good, but the estates are not his though he
   has got the title deeds! By-and-by he marries the lady, and everything
   is his own. Get the heiress and you have got the estate. It is so in
   Christ--promises are the title-deeds of His estates--a man may get the
   promises and not get Christ, and then they will be of no more use to
   him than the deeds of another man's estate would be to me, if I am not
   the lawful proprietor. But when my soul is married unto Christ, then I
   am heir of all things in Him and with Him! Why, Christian, what right
   have you to say, "that promise is not mine because it is not
   fulfilled." Your right to the promise does not lie in its being
   fulfilled, nor yet in yourpower to lay hold of it! Every promise that
   is in the Bible belongs to everyone who is in Christ, and belongs to
   him as much one day as another day, because Christ is his at all times,
   evermore the same! Oh, I do not know whether I can put this exactly as
   I mean it. What I mean is that the devil has often tempted me with,
   "You have not had a promise sent home to your heart for months; you are
   no child of God; you cannot get that sweetness out of such-and-such a
   passage that some men can." I reply to Satan in this way, "Well, God
   has never said He has set forth the promise to be a propitiation
   through faith, but He has set forth Christ, and my soul accepts that
   which God has set forth, and if ever a promise is applied to me, the
   promise is mine for all that, and in faith I will lay hold on it, and
   defy you to rob me of it when my soul has laid hold on Christ." Oh,
   that we lived more on Christ and less on anything but Christ--nearer to
   Christ's Person, more surely resting on Christ's blood--more simply
   accepting Him as our All-in-All.

   I have not yet done on this second head--A remark or two suggest
   themselves to me now. God has set forth Christ to be the Propitiation
   through faith in His blood, and we ought to accept Christ as being an
   all-sufficient Propitiation. I believe in Christ today; but if some sin
   lies upon my conscience and I am worried and troubled about it, ought I
   not to perceive at once that I have failed to accept Christ as an
   all-sufficient Propitiation? Whether my sin is little or it is great,
   whether it is fresh or old, it is the same sin, and blessed be God, it
   has all been atoned for through Christ the Propitiation! We ought to
   take Christ as being the death of every sin and of all sin--as having
   expunged and wiped out the great debt as well as the little--the 10,00
   talents as well as the 100 pence. We have never gotten the full idea of
   Christ till we know that every sin of thought, of word, of deed that
   the Believer has ever been guilty of finds its death, its drowning, its
   total annihilation in the Propitiation which God has set forth! Oh, we
   need to come where Kent was, when he said--

   "Now free from sin I walk at large
   My Savior's blood's my full discharge!
   At His dear feet my soul I lay
   A sinner saved, and homage pay."

   Well, but when we have come as far as this, we need to add a second
   thought. God has set forth Christ to be not only an all-sufficient, but
   an immutable Propitiation for sin. Christ is as much my soul's
   Propitiation when my soul has fallen into sin, as when I have stood
   firm and resisted temptation, if I am a Believer. "That is putting it,"
   you say, "in a bold and almost Antinomian way." I cannot help it. It is
   true--it is true that the Propitiation of Christ is never more, never
   less; it cannot be more, it is complete; it cannot be less, for it is
   the same yesterday, today and forever! That man who has been washed in
   blood is spotless; his doubts and fears have not spoiled his
   appearance, his powerlessness yesterday in prayer, his despondency a
   week ago, his all but complete unbelief last month, do not mar the
   perfection of Jesus' righteousness--do not take away from the complete
   achievement of the pardon of his sin by precious blood! I do believe
   and hold and rejoice in that precious Truth--that our standing before
   God, when we have believed in Jesus--depends no more upon ourframes,
   and our feelings, than the sun itself in its native glory depends upon
   the clouds and darkness that are here below. The same--the same in all
   its splendor, the same undimmed, as full of Glory, as full of majesty,
   the righteousness and blood of Christ abides; and we, standing before
   God in Him--not in ourselves--are always complete in Him--always
   accepted in the Beloved; never more so, never less so. "Strong meat
   this," says one. Be it strong--nothing short of this will ever satisfy
   the tried Christian in the hour when sin rolls over his head! If any
   man can make a bad use of the Doctrine of the real Substitution of
   Christ, and the standing of Christ's people in Christ's place every
   day--if any man can make a licentious use of that, his damnation is
   just; he has no part nor lot in this matter! But I know this--I am not
   to be restrained from the comfort of a Doctrine because some licentious
   vagabond chooses to destroy his soul with it! Still there stands the
   glorious Truth. And nothing short of this is the full glory of Christ's
   atonement--that when once He shed His blood, and when once that blood
   has been applied to us, by it, and italone, we stand completely pure
   and are as pure one day as another day--perfect, complete, accepted,
   made secure and safe in Christ Jesus the Lord. "Him has God the Father
   set forth to be a propitiation for sin." My soul accepts Him today as
   it did yesterday, and knows that the sin is put away forever.

   III. Now I shall come to my third and last point. Turn the thoughts
   over. We have said God sets forth Christ, and we looked at Him. Now, as
   a matter of duty and privilege, we must SET FORTH CHRIST, and GOD WILL
   LOOK AT HIM.

   The preacher, standing here as he does today before this immense
   assembly, knows that without God's looking upon the ministry, it will
   be vain and void. How shall God's eyes be secured? How shall His
   Presence be guaranteed? If in this pulpit Christ is set forth, God will
   look down upon that Christ set forth, and honor and bless the Word.
   Brothers and Sisters, I might preach clear Doctrine, but God might
   never looks down upon Doctrine; for I could point you to churches with
   tears in my eyes, because I am able to do so, where conversions are
   rare things. The Doctrine is high, high enough--perhaps so high as to
   have become putrid. I will not say that, but I do know some churches
   where there has not been an addition to the church by the stretch of
   ten or a dozen years together, and I have known the reason. Christ was
   not set forth, and therefore God did not look down on what was set
   forth! I have known, too, churches--and with equal sorrow do I mention
   them--where practicehas been preached, but not Christ. People have been
   exhorted to do 10,000 things; moral duties presented before the people
   in pleasing and well-polished essays have taken the place of the Cross
   of Christ, and there have been no conversions! By degrees the
   attendance has become very slender--for Christ is not preached. It is a
   strange thing--there are some exceptions to the rule, but still the
   rule is there even where there are not many to listen. Only preach
   Socinianism, and what a splendid hunting-ground this tabernacle will be
   for the spiders! Give up Christ and preach philosophy--you need not
   have an organ, and a skillful person to play the people out of the
   church--they would never need that. They will never come in! So it is.
   Those flimsy doctrines never can prevail because no one will listen to
   them--they are not attractive. They look as if they would attract
   all--but none can receive them; the secret being that God will not look
   down on any man's ministry unless that man sets forth what God sets
   forth-- Christ Jesus as the Propitiation of our sins!

   It is not a question as to whether there will be conversions when
   Christ is set forth; that is certain. Some good Brothers quote the
   text, "Paul may plant, and Apollos may water, but"--and they are a long
   while upon the, "but," and they pervert the text a little, "but God
   gives the increase." Now the text does not say any such thing! It says,
   "Paul plants and Apollos waters, God gives the increase." They are all
   linked together--Paul does not plant in vain; Apollos does not water in
   vain--God gives the increase! He is sureto do it, and if there are not
   souls saved, there is always some reason for it; and the reason to
   which I would look--leaving now the inscrutable Sovereignty of God out
   of the question for a moment--the reason would be either that Christ is
   not preached, or else He is preached in such a way as He never ought to
   be preached--with cold-heartedness, with lack of zeal, with want of
   tenderness! Only let Christ be preached by an earnest heart, though
   there be no eloquence or though the elocution is defective--Christ
   being set forth, God the Holy Spirit will come forth, and the Word must
   and wilbe blessed! His Word shall not return unto Him void. It shall
   prosper where He has sent it.

   But again, as in the ministry we must set forth Christ if we would have
   God's smile, so you, my Brothers and Sisters, in your pleadings for the
   souls of men, must set forth Christ. What a mass of wickedness is
   hereabouts. What tens of thousands in this immediate neighborhood who
   know nothing of God! Here is a city with very nearly three millions
   inhabitants; it is not a city, but an empire in itself. What shall we
   do when we are on our knees? I confess I have sometimes found myself
   utterly unable to express my desires in prayer to God for this city.
   When you once get a notion of its sin, its infamy, its dens, its
   innumerable missionaries teaching Satanic doctrines, its multitudes of
   men and women whose likelihood it is to ensnare the simple ones, it is
   an awful burden to carry before God! You cannot pray for London except
   in sighs and groans! Good old Roby Flockhart, who stood for many years
   in the streets of Edinburgh, used to be much laughed at, but he
   preached every night in the week, and had during the winter months, a
   little lantern which he put upon a stick, and then stood in a corner
   and preached to the passers-by. He preached with a great power, but
   much eccentricity. That good man was eminent in his prayers when alone.
   A gentleman who was extremely poor, told me that he went one night to
   see poor Robert; the candle had been blown out, and he stumbled his way
   up two or three pair of stairs and came at last to Flockhart's room; he
   opened the door and he could not see the good old man, but he could
   hear him say, "O Lord, dinna forget Edinboro, dinna forget Edinboro,
   turn not away Your hand from auld Reekie, dinna forget her, Lord! Your
   servant will never give You rest till You pour out Your spirit upon
   Edinboro." My friend stood still and there was that old man alone with
   his God--my friend had never heard such groaning and crying--it seemed
   as if he could even hear the falling of his tears while he prayed for
   God to bless Edinburgh, and to pour out His Spirit upon that city. He
   made some noise, and the old man said, "There is somebody there I
   suppose." He struck a light and found he had taken one of the pillows
   of his bed to kneel upon by the side of an old chair which was about
   the only furniture, with the exception of the bed. He would pray for
   Edinburgh by the hour together, and then go out to preach, though many
   laughed at and hooted him. Oh, one wants to feel like that for London,
   too, kneeling there till one's knees are sore, crying, "Do not forget
   London, do not forget London! Lord do not turn Your face from London!
   Make bare Your arm in this great city." But how are we to make our
   prayers prevail with God? Brothers and Sisters, we must show forth
   Christin prayer, and then God will look upon our prayers! The Methodist
   cry which was once heard at the Prayer Meeting when a poor Methodist
   Brother could not go on, and someone at the far end of the chapel cried
   out, "Plead the blood, Brother, plead the blood"--that old Methodist
   cry has force and power in it! "Plead the blood." God cannot, cannot,
   cannotresist the cry of the blood of Christ! Abel's blood demanded
   vengeance, and it had it. Christ's blood demands pardons, and shall
   have it, must have it--our God cannot be deaf to the cry of His own
   Son's blood! And if you and I, and all of us together can plead the
   precious blood of Christ for London, a revival must come, will come,
   shall come, and the face of the times shall be changed! God's arm shall
   be revealed, and, "all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of
   the Lord has spoken it."

   Yet once again and here with affectionate earnestness--I come to plead
   personally with each of you. Soul, are you this morning sick of self,
   and longing to be saved? Do your sins condemn you? Do the lusts accuse
   you; does your conscience flog you? Have you been to God in prayer?
   Have you sought for mercy, and has no mercy come? Have you read the
   Bible to find a promise? Has no promise dropped with honey to you?
   Come, I pray you, and obey the Word of God which I utter in your
   hearing--come and take CHRIST, and show Christ's blood to God, and He
   will, He must smile upon you! If you cannot take the promise, take the
   BLOOD! If you cannot come before God with any feelings, come with
   CHRIST in your hands! "May Itrust Christ?" asks one. May you?! You are
   commandedto do it! He who believes not has made God a liar because he
   believes not! He who believes has set to his seal that God is true!
   Sinner, God is satisfied with Christ; does He satisfy God, and will He
   not satisfy you? The eternal Judge has accepted Jesus, and do you
   refuse Him? The Lord has opened the door, and stands at it. Is the door
   good enough for the king, and yet not good enough for a rebel like
   yourself? "But." Away with your "buts!" You want to bring something to
   add to Christ--is He enough to reconcile God, and not enough to
   reconcile you? "But, but," again. So God thinks the precious blood to
   be a sufficient price, and you think it is not? Oh fool and slow of
   heart, how dare you think that God has not set forth enough, but you
   must add to it! Instead of this, I pray you in Christ's stead, believe
   in Christ as you are! Whoever you may be, whatever your past life has
   been, whatever your present feelings are--entrust your soul with
   Christ, and God declares that your sins are put away! Put your soul as
   it is--I care not how black with sin, it matters not how depraved it
   is--put it here on that Mercy Seat which God has set forth, and you
   have put it where God commanded you put it, and its salvation rests no
   more with you. You have put your salvation into Christ's hands, it is
   His business to save you, and He will do it--

   "I know that safe with Him remains
   Protected by His power
   What I've committed to His hands
   Till the decisive hour."

   I do not know how it is, but this simple Doctrine is the hardest
   Doctrine to make clear. It seems so easy, and yet many will mystify and
   doubt it. "What, no good works, no good feelings?" All these things are
   fruits of Grace--but salvation does not dependupon good works--they are
   a result of salvation. Salvation is in Christ, wholly in Christ--in

   Christ alone--and the moment any of you trust Him genuinely to be your
   sole and only Savior, you have accepted God's Propitiation, and God has
   accepted you. It is not possible for the Lord, unless He could reverse
   His Nature, to stain His honor, belie His Character, make His Word a
   farce, and the Atonement of Christ a falsehood--to reject any man under
   Heaven who believes in Christ, and takes Him to be His All-in-All!

   This day is called Good Friday--may it be a good Friday to some of you!
   Perhaps I have some here to whom I have preached these last seven
   years, and yet you have remained unsaved. I am clear of your blood if
   you had only heard but this one morning sermon, for God witnesses I
   know not how to put the plan of salvation more clearly than I have
   done! "God has set forth Christ to be a propitiation through His
   blood." I bid you look to Christ bleeding, to Christ sweating drops of
   blood, Christ scourged, Christ nailed to the Cross, and if you believe
   in Christ's blood, He is the Propitiation of your sins. But I can do no
   more than this; it is mine to preach, it is mine to pray, and mine to
   plead. Oh may God the Holy Spirit give you Grace to receive, to accept,
   to yield to this blessed proclamation of free mercy! Other salvation
   there is none. You may rack your soul with pain, and wear out your
   bones with toil, but there is rest nowhere but here, "Believe on the
   Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." "He who with his heart
   believes, and with his mouth makes confession, shall be saved." "For he
   who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who believes not
   shall be damned." What shall I say? Instead of pleading further with
   you, I would plead with God in private that many of you may now try
   whether Christ cannot save you. Rest yourself on Him, trust yourself
   with Him, and He will be as good as His word, and save younow, and save
   you even to the end. The Lord add His blessing, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

              The Interest Of Christ And His People In Each Other

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON GOOD FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 29, 1861, DELIVERED BY
   REV. C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "My Beloved is mine, and I am His." Song of Solomon 2:16.
   THE Church says concerning her Lord, "My Beloved is mine, and I am
   His." No "ifs," no "buts." The two sentences are solemn assertions.
   Not, "I hope, I trust, I think." But, "my Beloved is mine, andI am
   His." "Yes," but you will say, "the Church must then have been gazing
   upon her husband's face. It must have been a season of peculiar
   enjoyment with Him, when she could speak thus." No, Brothers and
   Sisters, no! The Church, when she thus spoke, was in darkness, for in
   the very next verse she cries--"Until the day breaks, and the shadows
   flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be You like a roe or a young hart upon
   the mountains of Bether." I say, Brothers and Sisters, this solemn
   certainty, this double assertion of her interest in Christ, and
   Christ's interest in her, is the utterance of the Church even in her
   darkness, in the cheerless season of His absence! So then, you and I,
   if we believe in Christ, ought, even when we do not see His face, still
   to cultivate full assurance of faith, and never be satisfied unless we
   can say, "My Beloved is mine, and I am His." When you cannot say this,
   my Hearer, give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids. Be
   not happy; take no solace find no comfort as long as there is any doubt
   about your union with the Beloved--His possession of you and your
   possession of Him!
   We will now, having thus prefaced the text, come at once to it. There
   are two members, you perceive, to the sentence, "My Beloved is mine,
   and I am His." These two things come in a strange order, you will say,
   "Surely we are first Christ's, before Christ is ours." A right thought
   of yours. We shall take the text, then, this evening two ways. We shall
   first speak of it as it would be in the order of time. "I am my
   Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine." We shall afterwards speak in the
   order of the text, which is the order of experience. The words as
   Solomon penned them, are not the order of fact as far as God is
   concerned, but the order in which we find out God's great doings!
   You know God's first things are our second things, and our second
   things are God's first things. "Make your calling and election sure."
   Calling is your first thing--election is the second. But election is
   God's first thing, and calling is the next! You are not elected because
   you are called; and yet, at the same time, you shall never know your
   election until first you have made your calling and election sure! The
   order of the text is the order of experience. We shall take the members
   of the sentence as they would be if they spoke in the order of fact.
   I. To begin, then. I AM MY BELOVED'S, AND MY BELOVED IS THEREFORE MINE.
   1. "I am my Beloved's." Glorious assertion! I am His by His Father's
   gift Long before suns and moons were made, and stars twinkled in the
   midnight darkness, God the eternal Father had given the chosen to
   Christ, to be His heritage and marriage dowry. If God, then, has given
   my soul to Christ, I am my Beloved's. Who shall dispute the right of
   God to give, or who shall take from Christ that which His Father has
   given to be His heritage? Fiends of Hell! Legions of the Pit! When God
   gives, can you take back the gift? If He puts the souls of the chosen
   into the hands of Christ, can you pluck them from Him? If He makes them
   Christ's sheep, can you pluck them out of His fold, and make them your
   own? God forbid we should indulge the blasphemous thought, that any can
   dispute the ownership which Christ has in His people, derived from His
   Father's gift!
   But I am my Beloved's, if I am a Believer, because of Jesus Christ's
   purchase of me. We were bought not with corruptible things, as with
   silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. Christ has an
   absolute right to all that He bought with His blood. I do not believe
   in that dreamy atonement, by which Christ redeems, and purchases, and
   yet the purchase is a fiction, and the redemption a metaphor! All that
   Christ bought with blood He will have. If a man buys with gold and
   silver of an honest man, he gets his own, nor will he be content until
   he does; but when Christ ransoms with His blood and buys of God
   Himself, and redeems His own people, it is not possible that He should
   be frustrated of His purpose or denied the objective of His death! I am
   my Beloved's then, because He has paid the full price for me, counted
   down the purple drops, and positively and surely has as much bought me
   with His money as ever Abraham of old bought flocks of sheep and oxen,
   or as ever of old Jacob served for Rachel and for Leah. No title deeds
   ever made estate more tru- ly the property of the purchaser, than did
   the Resurrection guarantee the rights of Christ in the "purchased
   possession." "I am my Beloved's," by a double tie--by the Father's
   gift, and by the Son's Divine purchase. These two things are not easily
   reconcilable to some minds. But let it be carried in your hearts as a
   matter of fact, that there is as much Grace in the Father's giving the
   elect to Christ as if no price were paid, and secondly, that there was
   as full and true a price paid to the Father as though the Father had
   been Justice only and not Love. The Grace of God and His justice are,
   both of them, full-orbed, they are never eclipsed; they are never made
   to you with divided luster; He is as gracious as though He were not
   just; He is as awfully severe as though there were no Grace in His
   Nature.
   But more than this, "I am my Beloved's," for I am His by conquest. He
   fought for me, and He won me, let Him possess me. He went alone to that
   great battle. He defied all the hosts which had made me their prey,
   encountered first my sins, and slew them with His blood, He encountered
   Satan himself next, and bruised the serpent's head, encountered Death,
   and slew him by "destroying him that had the power of death, that is,
   the devil." O Christ! You deserved to have those for whom You did
   wrestle and agonize even unto blood, and who by Your strong hand, You
   brought out of the land of their captivity! Never could a conqueror
   claim a subject so justly as Christ claims His people; they were not
   only His, eternally His, by the purchase of His blood, but they are His
   because He has taken them by overwhelming might, having delivered them
   out of the hand of him who was stronger than they! That word which He
   gird upon His thigh, is both the right by which He claims, and the
   might by which He keeps His ransomed.
   Besides this, every true Believer can add, "I am my Beloved's," by a
   gracious surrender. "With full consent I give myself to You." This is
   your language, Brothers and Sisters. It is mine. "I am my Beloved's."
   If I were never His before, I do desire to give myself up to Him now.
   His love shall be the fetters in which I, a happy captive, will walk at
   His triumphant chariot wheels. His Grace shall bind me with its golden
   chains so that I will be free, and yet His bondman forever. The mercies
   of each hour shall be fresh links, and the benefits of each day and
   night shall be new rivets to the chain. No Christian would like to be
   his own; to be one's own is to be lost; but to be Christ's is to be
   saved! To be one's own is to be a wandering sheep; to be Christ's is to
   return to the great Bishop and Shepherd of our souls. Do you not
   remember, many of you, the night when you first surrendered to Christ?
   He stood at the door and knocked--the door was overgrown with brambles;
   the hinges had rusted from long disuse; the key was lost; the keyhole
   of the lock was welded together with filth and rust. Yes, from within
   the door was bolted fast! He knocked--at first a gentle knock, enough
   to let you know who it was. You laughed. He knocked again. You heeded
   not; you heard His voice as he cried, "Open to Me, open to Me. My hair
   is wet with dew, and My locks with the drops of the night." But you had
   a thousand frivolous excuses, and you would not open to Him! Oh, do you
   remember when at last He put in his hand by the hole of the lock, and
   your heart was moved for Him? "Jesus! Savior! I yield, I yield! I can
   hold out no longer, my heart melts. My cruel soul relents. Come in!
   Come in! Please pardon me that I have kept You out so long; resisted so
   long the wooings of Your heavenly love." Well, you will say tonight,
   and set your solemn hand and seal to it, that you are Christ's because
   you do once again, voluntarily and freely, surrender yourself to Him!
   I think tonight would be a very proper occasion for each of us to renew
   our dedication vows. We are, many of us, Believers; let us go to our
   chamber and say thus--"O God! You have heard our prayers as a Church.
   We have entered into Your house; we have seen it filled to the full. By
   this, the answer which You have given to our prayers, we rededicate
   ourselves to You, desiring to say with the spouse more fully than
   heretofore, 'I am my Beloved's.'"

   Let us pause here an instant. We have seen how we came to be our
   Beloved's, let us enquire in what sense we are so now.

   We are His, first of all, by a near affinity that never can be broken.
   Christ is the Head; we are His members. There is nothing which my Head
   possesses so truly as my hands, and my heart. Your head could not say
   that its helmet and plume are so truly its own as the neck, the sinews,
   the veins, which are joined thereunto. The head manifestly has a
   distinct and peculiar property in every member. "I am my Beloved's,"
   then, even as my hands and feet are mine. "I am my Beloved's"--if He
   loses me, I will be mutilated. "I am my Beloved's," if I am cut away,
   or even wounded, He will feel the pain. The Head must suffer, when the
   members are tempted and tried. There is nothing so true and real, in
   the sense of property, as this! I would that you who doubt the
   perseverance of the saints would take these few words to heart. If once
   Christ should lose His people, He would be a Head without a body. That
   would be a ghastly sight! No, if He lost one of His people, He would be
   the Head of a mutilated body--that would not be a glorious sight. If
   you imagine the loss of one mystical member of Christ, you must suppose
   an imperfect Christ--one whose fullness is not full, whose glory is not
   glorious, whose completeness is not complete! Now I am sure you would
   reject that idea. And it will be joy for you to say, "as the members
   belong to the Head, so am I my Beloved's."

   Further than this--we are our Beloved's by a most affectionate
   relationship. He is the Husband, Believers are the spouse. There is
   nothing that a man has that is so much his property as his own wife,
   except it be his very life. A man's wealth may melt by losses; a man's
   estate may be sold to pay his debts; But a man's wife, as long as she
   lives, is his absolute property. She can say, "He is mine." He can say,
   "She is mine." Now Christ says of all His people, "You are mine, I am
   married to you; I have taken you unto Myself, and betrothed you unto Me
   in faithfulness." What do you say? Will you deny the celestial marriage
   bond? God forbid! Will you not say to your Lord tonight, "Yes, I am my
   Beloved's"? Ah, there is no divorce court in Heaven; there is no
   division; no separation bill possible, for He "hates divorce." If
   chosen, He will not reject; if once embraced, He will never cast out;
   His she is, and His she shall be forevermore. In this sense, then, "I
   am my Beloved's."

   Yet once more--"I am my Beloved's" by an indissoluble connection, just
   as a child is the property of his father. The father calls his child
   his own. Who denies it? What law is so inhuman as to allow another to
   tear away the offspring of his heart from the parent? There is no such
   law among civilized men! Among the aboriginal savages of the Southern
   States of America, such a thing may exist; but among civilized men
   there can never be any dispute but that the father's right to his child
   is supreme, and that no master, and no owner can override the rights of
   the parents to his children. Come, then-- even so are we His! "He shall
   see His seed." "He shall see of the travail of His soul." If He could
   lose His Glories, if He could be driven from His Kingdom, it He could
   be despoiled of His crown, if His Throne could totter, if all His might
   could melt away as the snow wreath melts before the summer's sun--yet
   at least His seed would be His own! No law, human or Divine, could
   unchild the believing child, or unfather Christ, the Everlasting
   Father. So then, it is a great joy to know that each Believer may say,
   in the highest sense--"I am my Beloved's. I am His child, and He is my
   Parent." I half wish that instead of my preaching now, we could stand
   up, each of us who feel the force of this sweet sentiment, and say,
   "'Tis true, great God; by eternal donation, by complete purchase, by a
   full surrender, by a mighty conquest, I am my Beloved's. He is my Head,
   my Husband, my Father, and my All."

   2. The second sentence in order of time is, "My Beloved is mine." Ah,
   you very poor men and women, you who could not call one foot of land
   your own, and probably never will till you get the space where you lie
   down to sleep the sleep of death! If you can say, "My Beloved is mine,"
   you have greater wealth than Croesus ever knew, or than a miser ever
   dreamed! If my soul can claim Christ, the eternal God and the perfect
   Man, as being my own personal property, then my soul is rich to all the
   intents of bliss--even if the body walks in rags, or should the lips
   know hunger, or the mouth be parched with thirst!

   But how is my Beloved mine? He is mine, because He gave Himself to me
   of old. Long before I knew it, or had a being, He covenanted to bestow
   Himself on me--on all His chosen. When He said, "Lo, I come; in the
   volume of the Book it is written of Me, I delight to do Your will, O
   God," He did in fact become My Substitute, giving Himself to do my
   work, and bear my sorrow! Mine He is because that Covenant has been
   fulfilled i n the actual gift. For me (I speak in the first person,
   because I want you each to speak in the first person, too), for you, my
   Soul, He laid aside His robes of Glory to become a Man; for you He was
   swaddled in the weakness of Infancy and lay in the poverty of the
   manger; for you, my Soul, He bore the infant body, the childish form,
   and the human flesh and blood; for you the poverty which made Him cry,
   "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but I, the Son
   of Man, have not where to lay My head." For you, my Soul, for you that
   shame and spitting, that agony and bloody sweat, that Cross, that crown
   of thorns, those expiring agonies, that dying groan! "My Beloved," in
   all this, "is mine." Yes, yours the burial; yours the Resurrection and
   its mystic meaning; yours the Ascension and its triumphant shouts;
   yours the session at the right hand of God; yes, and by holy daring we
   avow it, He who sits today, "God over all, blessed forever," is ours in
   the splendor of His majesty, in the invincibility of His might, in the
   Omnipresence of His power, in all the Glory of His future Advent! Our
   Beloved is ours, because He has given Himself to us, just as He is.

   But besides that, our Beloved is not only ours by His own gift, which
   is the reality of it all, but He is ours by a graciously completed
   union. What a wonderful thing is the Doctrine of Union with Christ. "We
   are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For this cause
   shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his
   wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I
   speak concerning Christ and the Church." Christ and His Church are
   one--one as the stones are one with the foundation; one, as the
   branches are one with the vine; as the wife is one with the husband;
   one, as the members are one with the Head--as the soul is one with the
   body--no, if there can be conceived a union closer, and there is but
   one, we are one with Christ, even as Christ is one with His Father! "I
   in them, and You in Me;" for thus the union stands. Now, as soon as
   ever we are one with Christ, you see at once that Christ must be ours.
   There is a common property between Christ and His people. All theirs
   belongs to Him--His belongs to them. They have not two stocks, they
   have but one. He has cast in His wealth, they have cast in their
   poverty--from that day they have common funds. They have but one
   purse--they have all things in common. All He is and all He has is
   theirs, and all they are or can be belong to Him.

   I might add, but this is a high point, and needs to be experienced,
   rather than preached upon, Christ is ours by His indwelling. Ignatius
   used to call himself the God-bearer and when some wondered at the
   title, he said--"I carry God about within me; our bodies are the
   Temples of the Holy Spirit." That is an amazing text, amazing in the
   splendor of its meaning! Does the Holy Spirit dwell in a man? Yes, that
   He does! Not in this temple, "not in tabernacles made with hands." That
   is to say, of man's building, but within this soul, and in your soul,
   and in the souls of all His called ones, He dwells. "Abide in Me," He
   said, "and I in you." Christ must be in you, the hope of Glory; Christ
   must be formed in you, as He was in Mary, or you have not come yet to
   know to the fullest, the Divine meaning of the spouse, when she said--
   "My Beloved is mine, and I am His."

   Now, tonight, I wish that we could get practical good, to our comfort,
   out of the thought that Christ is ours, if we are Believers. Hear me,
   then, a moment or two, while I dilate upon that thought. Christ is
   surelyyours. It is not a questionable property, a matter to be put into
   dispute with Heaven's chancery; beyond question Christ is the
   property--the rightful heritage--of every elect and called one!

   Again--Christ is ours personally. We sometimes speak of severally and
   jointly. Well then, Christ is ours jointly; but, blessed be His name,
   He is ours severally, too! Christ is as much yours tonight, however
   mean you may be, as though He did not belong to another man living. The
   whole of Christ is yours! He is not part mine, and part yours, and part
   another man's. He is all mine, all yours--personallymine, personally
   yours! Oh that we could realize this fact!

   And then, again, Christ is always ours. He is never more ours at one
   time, and less ours at another. The moment we believe in Him, we may
   know our perfect and invariable right to Christ--a right which depends
   not upon the changes of the hour, or upon the temperature of our frames
   and feelings, but upon those two Immutable things wherein it is
   impossible for God to lie. Christ is ours tonight; and, Glory be to His
   name for it, if we believe, He is ours forever--

   "This sacred bond shall never break, Though earth's old columns bow!
   The strong, the feeble and the weak Can claim their Savior now!"

   And this they shall do, perhaps with greater joy, but not with greater
   right, when they stand before the Throne of God!

   I cannot, tonight, in a place to which I am so little accustomed, bring
   all my thoughts together as I would. But, I think if I could but put
   this Truth of God before you, or rather, if the Spirit of God would put
   it so that you could feel Christ to be yours, it would make you spring
   from your pew with ecstasy! Why, it is enough to thrill every chord in
   a man; and if a man may be compared to a harp, make every string in him
   pour forth an ocean of music! Christ mine-- myselfChrist's--there
   cannot be a more joyous or more heavenly theme beneath the skies!

   II. I have thus completed the first work of this evening--taking the
   sentences of the text in the order of time. I shall now take the text
   IN THE ORDER IN WHICH IT IS GIVEN TO US, WHICH IS THE ORDER OF OUR
   EXPERIENCE.

   Do you not see, that to a man's experience, God's order is reversed? We
   begin thus--"My Beloved is mine." I go to Him, take Him up in the arms
   of my faith, as Simeon took up the little Child in the Temple, and
   pressing Him to my heart, I say--"Jesus, You are mine. All unholy and
   unclean, I nevertheless obey Your command; I believe You, I take You at
   Your word; I touch the hem of Your garment; I trust my soul wholly with
   You; You are mine and my soul can never part with You." What next? Why
   then, the soul afterwards says--"Now I am Yours, tell me what You would
   have me to do. Jesus, let me abide with You. Lord, I would follow You
   wherever You go; put me on any service, dictate to me any Commandment;
   tell me what You would have me do to glorify You"--

   "Through floods, through flames, if Jesus leads, I'll follow where He
   goes."

   For I am His! Christ is mine--this is faith. I am His--this is good
   works. Christ is mine--that is the simple way in which the soul is
   saved! I am Christ's--that is the equally simple method by which
   salvation displays itself in its practical fruits. I am afraid some of
   you have never carried out the last sentence, "I am Christ's." I know
   some, for instance, who believe (mark, I am not speaking to those who
   do not who believe it to be the duty of every Christian to profess his
   faith in Baptism, but nevertheless are not baptized. They say they are
   Baptists in principle. They are Baptists without any principle at all!
   They are men who know their Master's will, and do it not, and they
   shall surely be beaten with many stripes. In other men it becomes a sin
   of ignorance; but with such men it is willful. They reply, "It is a
   non-essential." Things non-essential to salvation are nevertheless
   essential to obedience As I said a few Sabbaths ago, you would not like
   a servant who only did what he liked to do, and told you that some of
   your commands were non-essential. I am quite certain that if a soldier
   did not load his gun, or stand in rank, or shoulder arms at the word of
   command, the court martial would never listen for an instant to the
   plea of non-essential! God's commands require obedience, and it is
   essential that every servant be found faithful. I say, it is
   exceedingly essential to a Christian to do what he is told to do.
   Whatever Jesus bids us do, if it save us from nothing, at any rate the
   fulfillment of it will save us from the sin of being disobedient to
   Him!

   Now will you try, my dear Friends, not in the one command only, which
   lies at the threshold of the house, but in all others, to feel that you
   are not your own? "Ah," says one man, "I am not my own; I have so much
   to do for my family." Another says, "I am not my own; I belong to a
   political party." Another, "I am not my own; I belong to a firm." Just
   so--all these are ways in which men are kept from saying, "I am my
   Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine." Oh that we could, by any means
   whatever, feel that we were all Christ's! I, though I had a drop of
   blood in my veins that was not His, I would seek to have it let out;
   and if there were a single power I have--mental, physical, or spiritual
   which could not and would not serve God, though it might impair my
   comfort--I would devoutly pray that this Jonah might be thrown into the
   sea, this Achan stoned with stones, this Haman hanged on the gallows!
   This cankered thing, it is a deadly thing--this damnable thing must be
   cut away, once and for all, for, "better to enter into Heaven halt and
   maimed, than having two eyes and two arms to be cast into Hell fire."
   We must have eyes that see Christ! We must feel that we are all
   Christ's, and live as if we were all Christ's, for we have no right to
   say, "My Beloved is mine," unless we can add, "And I am His." Why look,
   Sirs, look at the great multitude of professors. How few there are who
   live as if they belonged to Christ! They act independently of Hm! They
   buy, they sell on their own account--that they are stewardsnever
   penetrate their thick brains; that all they have is not their own, but
   His, never seems to have come into their heart, though they have sung
   it with their lips--

   "And if I might make some reserve, And duty did not call, I love my God
   with zeal so great, That I would give Him all."

   Many a man has sung that, with his thumb-nail going round a coin in his
   purse, to find out whether it was a four penny or a three penny bit! He
   says he would give Christ all; but then he means that the bill is to be
   drawn at a very long credit, and he will pay when he dies--he will give
   up what he cannot take away with him--and when he leaves his rotten
   carcass, he will leave his rotten wealth. Oh that we could all feel
   that we were all Christ's! Why, the Church of God would not be penned
   and shut up within the narrow bounds of England and America for long,
   if once we felt we were Christ's! At this very moment China is open to
   Christian enterprise. The leader of the so-called "rebels" turns out to
   be, after all, a man who is exceedingly enlightened in the things of
   God. He has said to Mr. Roberts, the missionary, "I open today 18
   chapels in Nankin--write to your friends and tell them to come over and
   preach, and we will be glad to hear them. I give you a passport, that
   no man may touch you, and any man who will preach Christ's Gospel shall
   go unharmed through my dominions." And he actually issued, but a few
   days before the coming of the last mail, a proclamation by which all
   idolatry is abolished throughout his dominions, and witchcraft and
   fortunetelling are made crimes, and he invites and prays specifically
   that his Brothers in England will send over the Word of Life, that they
   may have it among the people. Now I do honestly avow, if this place had
   not been built, and I had had nothing beyond the narrow bounds of the
   place in which I have lately preached, I would have felt in my
   conscience bound to go to learn the language and preach the Word there!
   But I now know what to do. I must here abide, for this is my place; but
   I would to God some were found in the Church, some in London, who have
   not such a gracious tie as this to keep them in their own land, to say,
   "Here am I, send me. I am Christ's man; there is Christ's field. Let me
   go and reap it, for the harvest is ripe. Help me, O God, and I will
   seek to ingather it for Your honor." "My Beloved is mine, and I am
   His." That last, "I am His" would make life cheap, and blood like
   water, and heroism a common thing and daring but an everyday duty, and
   self-sacrifice the very spirit of the Christian life! Learn well, then,
   the meaning of that sentence, "Iam His."

   But will you please notice once again--(I fear lest I shall weary you,
   and therefore will be brief)--"My Beloved is mine"--that is my calling.
   He calls me to Him. He gives Himself to me. He is mine. I am His--that
   is my election!I was His before I knew Him to be mine; but I learned my
   calling first, and my election afterwards. We have scores of people who
   will not come to Christ because they cannot understand election. Meet a
   boy in the street, and invite him to go to a two-penny school. "No,"
   says the boy, "I don't feel fit to go to a national school to learn to
   read and write--for, to tell you the truth, I don't understand the
   Hebrew language," You would reply, "But, my good lad, you will learn
   Hebrew afterwards, if you can--but that is no reason, at any rate, why
   you should not learn English first! Come first to the little school;
   you shall go afterwards to the grammar school; if you get on, you shall
   go to the University, take your B.A. degree, and perhaps come out as a
   Master of Arts." But here we have poor souls that want to be have their
   M.A. before they have gone to the penny school! They want to read the
   tomes before they will read the primer book. They are not content to
   spell A, B, C--"I am a sinner, Christ is a Savior"--but they long to
   turn over the book of decrees, and find out the deep things of God. You
   shall find them out afterwards--you shall go step by step, while the
   Master shall say to you each time, "Friend, come up higher." But if you
   begin with election, you will have to come down again--for there will
   be a more honorable man than you who will come in, and you will begin
   with shame to take the lowest place. I have seen plenty of high-flying
   Christians who began at the top of the tree; they were themen; wisdom
   would die with them; the judges, the dictators, the very consuls, the
   cardinals, the popes--they knew everything. And whenever such men are
   gracious men, the Lord always puts the lancet into them, and makes them
   grow smaller and smaller, and smaller, till at last they say, "Woe is
   me, for I am undone." And they cry, "My soul is even as a weaned
   child." Begin at the bottom and grow up. But do not begin at the top
   and come down! Thatis hard work--but going up is pleasant work, joyous
   work! Begin by saying, "My Beloved is mine." You shall come to know
   your election, by-and-by. and say, "I am His."

   And now I do not think I will preach any longer about my text, but just
   come down upon my Hearers for a few minutes, with all my might! How
   many among us can dare to say this tonight? Hundreds of you can!
   Thousands of you can! If this were the Day of Judgment--if tonight you
   stood, fresh risen from your graves--if nowyou heard the trumpet
   sound--if nowyou saw the King in His beauty sitting upon the Great
   White Throne, I know that many of you would say, "My Beloved is mine,
   and I am His." If this day the millennial reign of Christ had begun--if
   the vials had been opened, the plagues poured out, and if now Christ
   were come--that the wicked might be driven out, and that his saints
   might reign--I am sure there are many of you who would say, "Welcome,
   welcome, Son of God! My Beloved is mine, and I am His." And there are
   many of you, too, who if the angel of death should pass the pew, and
   flap his black wings into your face, and the cold air of death should
   smite you, would say, "'Tis well, for my Beloved is mine, and I am
   His." You could shut your eyes and your ears to the joys, and to the
   music of earth, and you could open them to the splendors and melodies
   of Heaven! To be fearless of death should always be the mark of the
   Christian. Sometimes a sudden alarm may rob us of our presence of mind;
   but no Believer is in a healthy state if he is not ready to meet death
   at any hour, and at any moment. To walk bravely into the jaws of the
   dragon--to go through the iron gates and to feel no terror--to be ready
   to shake hands with the skeleton king; to look on him as a friend, and
   no more a foe--this should be the habitual spirit, and the constant
   practice of the heir of Heaven. Oh, if this is written on my soul, "My
   Beloved is mine, and I am His!" Come, welcome Death--

   "Come, Death, and some celestial band, I'll gladly go with you."

   But--and a solemn "but"--pass the question round these galleries, and
   in this area, and how many among you must say, "I never thought of
   that. I never thought whether I was Christ's, or Christ mine." I will
   not rebuke you tonight. I will not thunder at you. God's Grace to me
   forbids that this should be a day of thunder. Let it be a day of
   feasting to everyone, and of sorrow to none. What shall I say to you,
   then, but this? O that Christ maybe yours! When He was here on earth,
   He chose to go among sinners--sinners of the blackest hue! And now He
   is in Heaven; up yonder He loves sinners as much as He ever did. He is
   as willing to receive you tonight as to receive the thief! It will give
   as much joy to His heart to hear your cry tonight, as when He thanked
   God that these things were revealed unto babes. It is to His honor that
   you should be His; it is to His joy that He should be yours. Sinner! If
   you will have Christ--if now the Spirit of God makes you willing--there
   is no bar on God's part when the bar is taken away on your part! If you
   are willing, by His Grace, He is more willing than you are! If the gate
   of your heart is on the latch, the gate of Heaven is wide open! If your
   soul does but yearn after Christ, His heart has long yearned after you!
   If you have but a spark of love to Christ, He has a furnace of love to
   you; and if you have none at all--no love, no faith--oh I pray you have
   it now! "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."
   You! You! YOU! Did you come here out of curiosity? Zaccheus heard
   Christ out of curiosity; but he was saved. Did you come for a worse
   purpose? God bless you, anyhow, for whatever reason you came; and may
   He bring you to Himself tonight! Trust Christ now, and you are saved.
   My life for yours--if you perish trusting in Christ, I will perish,
   too! Even should I have an ear listening to me which belongs to a
   harlot, to a thief, to a murderer, yet, "he who believes in the Lord
   Jesus Christ shall be saved." And if you believe in Him, and you are
   lost, I will be lost with you; and the whole Church of Christ must be
   lost, too; for there is the same way to Heaven for the best as for the
   worst--for the most vile as for the most righteous! "No man comes unto
   the Father but by Christ." Nothing can damn a man but his own
   righteousness! Nothing can save him but the righteousness of Christ.
   All your sin--your past sin--shall not destroy you--if you now believe
   in Jesus! It shall be cast into the sea forever, and you shall begin
   again as though you had never sinned. His Grace shall keep you for the
   future, and you shall hold on your way an honor to Christ's Grace, and
   a joy to your own soul! But if you are disobedient and will not eat of
   the good of the land, then will I say, as Isaiah said of old, "I am
   found of them that sought Me not, but all day long have I stretched out
   My hands to an ungodly and gain-saying generation." God has stretched
   out His hands! Oh that you were wise and would run into His arms
   tonight!

   I know I am speaking to some self-righteous men--some who say, "It is a
   shame to tell men they are depraved. Iam not." Well, we think if their
   lives were written, it might be proved they were. "It is a shame," they
   say, "to tell men that they cannot get to Heaven by their good works,
   because then they will be wicked." It is an odd thing, though, that the
   more this Truth is preached, the better the people are! Preaching good
   works as the way to Heaven always makes drunkards and thieves, but
   preaching faith in Christ always produces the best effects. Dr.
   Chalmers, who was no fanatic, says, "When I preached mere morality, I
   preached sobriety till they were all drunkards; I preached chastity
   till it was not known anywhere; I preached honesty till men grew to be
   thieves. But," he says, "as soon as ever I preached Christ, there was
   such a change in the village as never was known!" Well, we believe that
   self-righteousness will destroy you, my Friend, and we therefore tell
   you, honestly and plainly, that you might as well hope to get to Heaven
   by flying up in a balloon as to get there by your good works! You may
   as soon sail to India in a sieve as get to Glory by your own goodness;
   you might as well go to court in cobwebs as seek to go to Heaven in
   your own righteousness. Away with your rags, your filthy, rotten rags!
   They are only a harbor for the parasites of unbelief and pride! Away
   with your rotten righteousness, your counterfeit gold, your forged
   wealth! It is of no worth whatever in the sight of God! Come to Him
   empty, poor, naked! It grates on your proud ears, does it? Better, I
   say, to lose your pride than to lose your soul! Why be damned for
   pride's sake? Why carry your head so high that it must be cut off? Why
   feed your pride on your soul's blood? Surely there is cheaper stuff
   than that for pride to drink! Why let it suck the very marrow out of
   your bones? Be wise! Bow, stoop, stoop to be saved! And now, in the
   name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Man, the God, I do command you, as His
   messenger and His servant--and at your peril reject the
   command--"Believe, repent and be baptized, every one of you." "Believe
   in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved," "for he who believes
   and is baptized shall be saved. He who believes not shall be damned."

   God add His blessing, for His name's sake. Amen.
     __________________________________________________________________

                                 Temple Glories

   A SERMON DELIVERED ON SUNDAY EVENING, MARCH 31, 1861, DELIVERED BY REV.
   C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

   "It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to
   make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when
   they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and
   instruments of music and praised the LORD, saying, For He is good; for
   His mercy endures forever: that then the house was filled with a cloud,
   even the house of the LORD; so that the priests could not stand to
   minister by reason of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD had filled
   the house of God"

   2 Chronicles 5:13,14.

   "Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from
   Heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the
   glory of the LORD filled the house. And the priests could not enter
   into the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled
   the LORD'Shouse. And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire
   came down, and the glory of the LORD upon the house, they bowed
   themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement and
   worshipped and praised the LORD, saying, For He is good. For His mercy
   endures forever." 2 Chronicles 7:1,2,3.

   IN the wilderness God showed His glorious Presence in the midst of the
   camp of Israel. To show His secret indwelling in His Church--in the
   innermost chamber of the sacred tent, there perpetually beamed the
   bright and ineffable light of the Shekinah; and to manifest His visible
   Presence to protect and guide His flock, a pillar of cloud covered the
   people by day, screening them from the burning heat of the sun, so that
   in that extremely hot and terrible region they were delivered from
   excessive heat; and at night lest they should feel forsaken in the
   midst of the desolate darkness of the desert, this pillar of cloud
   became a pillar of fire. There was light throughout all their
   dwellings, for I suppose that this pillar of fire, like a luminous
   atmosphere, covered the entire camp. They had thus a sun and a shield.
   They had light in darkness, and salvation from the heat, their shelter
   was God's wing, their light gleamed from His eyes. Now the thought had
   fallen into the heart of David to build for God a house instead of the
   tent in which He was willing to dwell, which, by reason of years, had
   no doubt grown old and somewhat shorn of its glories. He purposed to
   build a permanent structure. Solomon, his son, carried out the purpose
   of David. The Temple was built. We have no precise idea of the
   architecture and appearance of this glorious edifice. The two pillars,
   Jachin and Boaz, are thought by some to have been vast castings of
   brass, set up in front rather for ornament than service, like the
   enormous obelisks in the gateways of the Egyptian temples; while others
   conceive that these renowned columns supported the entablature of the
   portico; in either case they were stupendous in size, and beautified in
   the most elaborate manner. The building itself was not large, but
   exceedingly magnificent. We make a great mistake when we think of
   Solomon's Temple as being famous for size; it was scarcely half as
   long, and barely half as wide as this present house, or that the area
   was not one fourth of this which is now crowded with immortal souls. It
   was 60 cubits long in the clear, which with the most liberal
   calculation which can be given for the cubit, is but 100 feet, while if
   the cubit is half- a-yard, the breadth was but 30 feet. There are
   hundreds of Christian Churches which excel that marvelous building in
   mere size. Its chief fame lay in the countless treasures lavished upon
   it. One of the most reasonable calculations of the expense of that
   gorgeous structure is 120 million pounds, while other estimates arrive
   at the inconceivable sum of one billion! The wonder is how they could
   have used such an amount as even the smaller sum. Whatever it might
   have been, it would have been a vain-glorious work, unless in that
   temple There had been the same manifestation of the Divine Presence as
   had been given in the Tabernacle.

   Now these were two, the cloudand the fire. The two passages of
   Scripture which I have read to you give you two pictures. In the first
   you have the cloud, in the second you have the fire; and in these two
   together you have the sacred mystic symbols of the Presence of the
   Eternal God in the midst of His people. Oh, that now, tonight, though
   no visible cloud shall be seen, though no fire shall burn the bullock
   and the ram, yet may faith discern the cloud, and may experience in the
   heart perceive the fire, and may each of us say, "God was with us of a
   Truth;" and add, "Did not our hearts burn within us, while he spoke
   with us by the way?"

   I. The first passage of Scripture, which I read in your hearing,
   affords me the first head of my discourse. You will perceive that the
   people were gathered together to praise God. Then THE CLOUD appeared;
   the priests were no longer able to minister, for God had claimed the
   great house as being exclusively His own!

   Let us note the occupation in which they were engaged. They were
   praising God. Let us mark how they performed this work. You will
   perceive that they did it unanimously "It came even to pass, as the
   trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in
   praising and thanking the Lord." What a joyous thing it is to hear the
   thousands praise God at once; every man contributing to the song; the
   poor coarse voice belonging to some of us who never can learn music,
   let us try as much as we will; the flute-like voices of our sisters,
   the deep resounding mellow bass of the full-developed man; all the
   different tones, and notes, and voices, perhaps expressive of our
   different degrees and growths in Grace, of our different trials, and
   our different temperaments, all join to swell one common hymn which
   rolls upward to the Throne of God! Every man who refuses to praise God
   mars the song. Every dumb lip spoils the music. Every silent tongue has
   a disastrous effect upon the unanimity and oneness of the choir. Let us
   all praise the Lord! Let all creatures that have breath praise Him! Let
   the Heaven of heavens extol Him! We can never expect to have God in
   this house, or in our own houses, or in our own hearts until we begin
   to praise Him! Unless as a people we unanimously, with one heart,
   though with many tongues, extol the King of kings, farewell to the hope
   that He will give us His Presence in the future! Oh, my dear Brothers
   and Sisters, let us look back upon the past! Who among us is not a
   debtor to mercy? "Let those refuse to sing who never knew our God," and
   never tasted of His Grace! Be silent, O tongue, if you have never
   tasted of the goodness of the Lord! Breath, be wasted on the air, if
   your mouth has never been satisfied with good things! But, my Soul, if
   your life is His gift, and your joy His mercy, let no wicked silence
   bury His praise! He has been so good, so kind, so generous to all of us
   without exception, that we can and must, each one of us, according to
   our ability, with heart and voice, praise, laud, and bless His name
   always!

   But then you perceive they not only sang unanimously, but they shouted
   heartily. In some of our churches, there are half-a-dozen people
   dressed in white, who stand up to praise the Lord or rather to magnify
   the music leader. In many of our dissenting congregations, some five or
   six who are the choir, sing to the praise and glory of themselves, and
   the people sit still and listen, not daring to spoil music so
   magnificent. In many other places, it is thought most seemly to
   delegate the work of human hearts, and tongues and lips to some
   instrument which shall praise the Lord. May that never be the case
   here! As often as we meet together here, may the song roll up to Heaven
   like the voice of many waters, and like great thunders. A little God
   might deserve little praise, but the Great God deserves the great
   praise of all His creatures! I have noticed that in business, many men
   show a great deal of energy; but in singing God's praises they are
   almost as mute as Matthew's fish! They can listen to the notes, but
   they do not attempt to join; they have no objection that others should
   sing, but they are mute themselves. Oh, let us sing to our God! And
   heartily, too! And if the voice is not so well tuned as we could wish,
   yet if the heart is in tune, God will accept the song, and even angel
   notes shall not be more acceptable! Fathers love to hear the voices of
   their own children--why should our heavenly Father have a dumb family?

   Mr. Rowland Hill was one day in the pulpit, and an old woman among the
   crowd got right up to the pulpit steps. She had the art of singing
   through her nose, and she sung so desperately bad, that good old
   Rowland turned round and said to her--"Hold your tongue, my good woman;
   you spoil the singing." "Oh, Sir," she said, "it comes from my heart,
   Mr. Hill. It comes from my heart!" "Sing away, good soul," he said,
   "sing away as much as ever you like. I am sure I beg your pardon for
   interrupting you." And so would I say to every man who, in God's house,
   cannot sing as he would--if it comes from the heart, we could not
   interrupt you, for the very stones would speak if they who fear God and
   have tasted of His Grace did not exalt and extol Him! Well, if you will
   not praise God in earnest, you must not expect to see the cloud of His
   Presence, for it was when with one heart, with a mighty sound, they
   praised God that the cloud suddenly made its appearance.

   Then notice next, that their praise was Scriptural praise. They sung
   that old Psalm, "His mercy endures forever." Now you, I dare say,
   thought when I was reading that Psalm, there was not much in it. It was
   a repetition--a monotony; it was striking the same note again and
   again--ringing the same bell. Well, this just shows that God does not
   require in our song the display of great poetical ability; He does not
   need that the verses should have in them flights of rhapsody or dreams
   of fancy! Let the rhyme be good by all means; let the syllables each
   have their proper length. God always should have the best of the best;
   but better is the wild song of the Revivalist with the homely street
   tune, sung from the very soul, than the noblest music that was ever
   penned, or ever flowed from human lips, if the heart is absent, and if
   the strain is not in accordance with God's Word. The more Scriptural
   our hymns are, the better. In fact, there will never be found music
   which can excel old David's Psalms! Let us interpret them in an
   evangelical spirit; let us fill them full of the Gospel of Christ, of
   which they are, indeed, already full in prophecy, and we shall sing the
   very words of the Spirit, and shall surely edify each other, and
   glorify our God! If tonight, then, our music has been Scriptural; if
   our praise has been hefty; if our song has been unanimous; if we have
   sung of that mercy which endures forever, we have good cause to expect
   that God will manifest Himself to us, and faith will perceive the
   cloud.

   That is a grand old Calvinistic Psalm, "His mercy endures forever."
   What Arminian can sing that? Well, he willsing it, I dare say; but if
   he is a thorough-going Arminian, he really cannot enjoy it and believe
   it. You can fall from Grace, can you? Then how does His mercy endure
   forever? Christ bought with His blood some who will be lost in Hell,
   did He? Then how did His mercy endure forever? There are some who
   resist the offers of Divine Grace, and all that the Spirit of God can
   do for them, yet disappoint the Spirit and defeat God? How, then, does
   His mercy endure forever? No, no, this is no hymn for you--this is the
   Calvinist's hymn! This is the hymn which you and I will sing as long as
   life shall last, and going through the dark Valley of the Shadow of
   Death we will make the shades resound with the joyous strain--

   "For His mercy shall endure, Ever faithful, ever sure!"

   It was while the people were thus engaged that all of a sudden that
   cloud which before floated over the Tabernacle made its appearance over
   the Temple; but this time, instead of hanging over the roof, it
   descended and entered into the courts and filled the sacred places! The
   priests were standing, each of them, in his proper place, swinging to
   and fro the sacred censers, and making a sweet perfume; others of them
   were standing at the altar waiting till the time should come for
   sacrifice. But no sooner did this cloud fill the house than the priests
   ceased to minister! They felt there was no room for man, for God had
   filled the place! Brothers and Sisters, will you give me your attention
   while I try to picture to you what shall be the effect if God shall be
   pleased to fill this house with His Glory? I can conceive the effect
   upon that vast assembly on that august day of the dedication. The Glory
   of God had filled the house, and the priests were set aside. Where God
   is, man is forgotten; you will think little of the minister, save for
   his work's sake; you will talk the less of the man when you shall see
   the Master! This house shall cease to be called by my name, and shall
   be called by God's name! If God shall fill the place, it will be to
   your souls not the house where you can sit to hear this man or that,
   but the place where you shall see the beauty of God, and enquire in His
   Temple. You will love your pastor; you will cherish your Elders; you
   will rally round your deacons; you will, as a Church, recognize the
   bonds of your Church-relationship--but pastor, Elders, deacons,
   Church--all will be merged and all forgotten if the Glory of the Lord
   shall fill the house! This always has been the effect of great
   revivals--no man has ever been very apparent. When God blessed the
   world through Whitefield and Wesley, who were they, and what did they
   think of themselves? "Less than nothing they became when God was
   All-in-All!" The going up of priests is the dishonor of the High
   Priest, Christ Jesus; but when priestcraft ceases to be, and is cast
   down--then the Lord alone is exalted in that day! May the Lord here,
   while He uses human instrumentality, let you all see that "it is not by
   might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord."

   This has indeed been my mission, to show the power of God in human
   weakness! I do acknowledge and confess what is so continually said of
   me, "The man is not educated." Granted. "His periods are unpolished."
   Granted. "His manner is rough." Be it so, if you will ' 'Himself a
   fool"--Yes, amen, and whatever else you choose. Gather together all the
   epithets in the catalog of abuse--come heap them here! But who has done
   this, who has saved souls, and called the people to His footstool? Why,
   if the instrument is mean, the more Glory be to Him who used it! And if
   the man is nothing, "I glory in infirmity, that the power of God may
   rest upon me." Make me less and less; I pray you do it; let it be so;
   but still, O

   God, use this poor ox-goad, make it still mighty to the slaying of
   Philistines, and make Your Word still a discerner of the thoughts and
   intents of the heart! Let the Lord fill the house, and man will be
   forgotten!

   Besides this, you can easily picture in your minds what a solemn awe
   fell on all who were gathered that day when once that cloud had filled
   the house. Perhaps there were in that vast assembly some who came there
   flippantly, to see the edifice. There were some who had heard of its
   plates of gold; they had heard of its bronze laver; they had listened
   to the stories of the great stones which Hiram, King of Tyre, had
   floated on rafts to Joppa, and they came to see the place. There were
   others, too, who had contributed largely to the building of it; they
   came to be seen--that the king might thank them for the gift--that the
   people might see their generous benefactors. These motives, we admit
   were base, but the motives were lost, and forgotten when once the Glory
   of God filled the house! Then they felt the place was too solemn to be
   looked at as a mere display; they thought it, then, too awful to be
   regarded as their own, and on the breast of every Israelite might have
   been read these words, "This is none other than the House of God, and
   the very gate of Heaven," for God had filled the house! Then, too, you
   may believe right well that the saints of Godrejoiced/They had sung
   before; the prayers made sweet melody; but oh, what music was in their
   souls when once that cloud had covered all! I think they wept for joy!
   They could not speak. I know I would have been transfixed to that spot.
   I would have said--

   "Come, then, expressive silence; hymn His praise," for oh, when God is
   present, how can we tell our joys! Sing unto Him, sing unto Him! Praise
   Him on the cymbals; praise Him on the high-sounding cymbals! But when
   you have done, all your joy overflows your words--the music of your
   hearts excels the music of your lips!

   And then, I think I may add safely enough, the suppliants of that day
   felt they might pray more earnestly because they prayed surely. God had
   filled the house--now He would hear their prayers! Whenever they turned
   their eyes to the Temple, they would meet the eyes of God; when for
   deliverance from sin, pestilence, war, drought, mildew, locusts, or
   caterpillars, they turned their eyes towards Zion's hill--they felt
   they must be heard, for God had filled the house. Oh, that tonight the
   people of God may be glad! Oh, that you may go home as they did from
   Solomon's Temple, blessing the king, each man, in the gladness of
   heart, and feeling that you may pray, for God will hear; that God has
   so manifestly acknowledged this house as His that whensver we shall
   meet for supplication, though we are but two or three, where prayer is
   desired to be made, there Christ is in the midst of us to bless us! I
   ask, my Brothers and Sisters, that we may have such a manifestation of
   God that all these effects, in the very highest and fullest degree, may
   be received and participated in by us!

   I have thus preached upon my first text as briefly as I could, leaving
   the more time to enforce the lesson of the second. You have sung His
   praise; now, Lord, fill the house! You have chanted His name; you have
   lifted up your voices to Him whose mercy endures forever. Oh, King of
   kings, shine forth! Oh, You who dwells between the cherubim, display
   Yourself to each of us and do it now, for Jesus' sake!

   II. The first text has had reference to the past. For mercies received
   we must praise God if we would be favored with His Presence. The next
   text dwells especially upon the future. The people, after praise,
   joined with one another in solemn prayer and sacrifice--then was it
   that THE FIRE came down! They had the cloud before, but now they had
   the fire, and then once again they stood up, after having bowed
   themselves, and they worshipped the Lord and sang once again, "His
   mercy endures forever."

   I have said in this place five or six times already, that unless my
   Church shall pray for me, and God shall hear their prayers, I am of all
   men the most miserable, but if your supplications shall be heard in
   Heaven, I am of all men the most blessed by God! Think of this
   assembly, repeated as it will be Sabbath after Sabbath--what if we
   should have no food for the saint--what if the Word should never be
   spoken earnestly to sinners, and should therefore be unblessed? It will
   be in vain that this house is filled! In vain did I say? Infinitely
   worse than that! Will it be nothing that we are associated together in
   Church-fellowship. Nothing! It will be everything that shall foretell
   our future misery unless God is here. In vain the rearing of this
   structure with all the perseverance that has been used, and with all
   the smiles of God, unless we have His blessing now. If ever you prayed
   for me, and for this Church before, pray for us seven times now! Oh,
   you who are my sons and daughters spiritually--who have been born to
   God by the preaching of the Word--to you I make my first appeal! I
   beseech you never cease to pray that here God's Word may be a
   quickening, a convincing, a converting Word. The fact is, Brothers and
   Sisters, we must have conversion work here! We cannot go on as some
   churches do with- out converts. We cannot, we will not, we must not, we
   dare not! Souls must be converted here, and if there are not many born
   to Christ, may the Lord grant to me that I may sleep in the tomb of my
   fathers, and be heard of no more. Better, indeed, for us to die than to
   live if souls are not saved! You, then, who have already been saved
   under our ministry, make this, I pray you, a matter of daily prayer.
   You who are members of this Church, who have been long ago in Christ,
   before our time--I charge you by Him who lives and was dead, be instant
   in season, and out of season with your constant supplications. O Sirs!
   What shall I do if I have the misfortune to lose my prayer book? And
   you are my prayer book--my litany, my daily collects are all written on
   my people's hearts! Where am I? Like a poor shipwrecked man floating
   far out at sea upon a raft with no friendly sail in sight, unless I
   have your daily prayers. But if I have them, I shall be as some
   well-laden ship floating in the midst of its convoy with many larger
   vessels, and fairer sails which keep it gladsome company in storm and
   in fair weather, till we all shall reach our port together and at once!
   Pray for us that our faith fail not, that our pride break not forth.
   Pray for us that we may pray! Pray that we may read the Word with a
   greater understanding of it, and that when we stand up to speak, a horn
   of the oil of the Spirit may anoint our head that we may speak the
   Words of God, and not the words of man. And with your prayers, mingle
   your sacrifices; bring each day, each one of you, the precious blood of
   Christ! Take in your hands, handfuls of the frankincense of His merits!
   Stand each morning and each night before the Divine Throne as the
   king's remembrances, putting Him in remembrance of what Jesus did.
   Plead with Him by His agony and bloody sweat, by His Cross and Passion,
   by His precious death and burial. Plead with Him to save souls! Use the
   strong arguments of Jesus' veins; take to yourselves the Almighty logic
   of a bleeding Savior's groans; stand to it that you will not let the
   angel go except He bless you! Back up your prayers with tears! Prove
   the sincerity of your tears by acts! Live out your prayers. Pray for
   the peace of Jerusalem, and then work and strive for it. As one man,
   with one heart, be you daily crying to your God, and seeking by acts of
   faith to prove the reality of your supplication.

   And then, mark you--then shall the fire come down! We already have, I
   trust, the cloud. God this week has acknowledged this house to be His.
   We need the fire. "But what is the difference?" you ask. Why, there may
   be the Presence of God in a house after a certain fashion, inasmuch as
   His people there worship Him; but yet it may not be His active
   Presence. We need not the cloud--the symbol of only His being there in
   mystery--we need the fire which is the symbol of His acting while He is
   present! Oh, my Brothers and Sisters, how much the preacher needs the
   fire! He who has the tongue of flame can soon melt hearts, but what are
   these poor pieces of clay unless God bid the seraph touch them with a
   live coal from the Altar? Preaching is a farce unless the minister has
   fire within him! And when the fire is there, preaching is God's
   ordained and guaranteed way of bringing souls to Himself. You have
   heard preachers, I do not doubt, with an erudition so perfect that you
   could not fathom their meaning. You have heard them with an eloquence
   so exalted that you could not explain what it was that they would set
   forth. You have listened to some who rather seemed to have lips of ice
   than lips of fire; you have heard of many who are successful in giving
   sleep to those who never sleep at home. There are some preachers who
   can distribute narcotics with a bounteous hand, and send at one motion
   of their deadly arm a whole crowd to sleep! May it never be so here! If
   we cannot keep you awake, it is better ourselves to go to sleep. When
   the congregation is asleep, it is a sign the minister ought to be in
   bed--where he could be comfortable--rather than in a pulpit where he is
   mischievous. But attention may be riveted without feeling being
   excited. We need the fire to make the feeling. Oh, I have heard a man
   preach a sermon to which an angel might have listened for its faultless
   truthfulness, but it lacked fire; but I have known another whose
   ministry was faulty in many respects, rough were his words, the Gospel
   which he preached was not a full-orbed Gospel, but yet he spoke like a
   man who meant what he said, with his heart boiling over at his eyes,
   with his soul rolling out of his mouth in one tremendous cataract, and
   men were moved, and the masses flocked, and thousands listened, and
   souls were saved because the man was in earnest! Ah, when I see a man
   go up into his pulpit and ask the Lord the Holy Spirit to assist him,
   and then opens wide his manuscript and reads it all--I wonder what he
   means? And when he prays that he may have the tongue of fire, and then
   speaks in such a mumbling cold trivial manner that his hearers detect
   at once that there is no heart about him--I wonder what he means?

   Oh, fire of God, come down upon the tongue of the minister! But we need
   this fire upon the hearers, too. How well people listen when they come
   to hear something! When they come up, and do not expect to get
   anything, it is not often they are disappointed; but when they are
   willing to listen to whatever is to be said in God's name, how
   delightful, how easy, how pleasant it is to address them! We need much
   of that kind of fire! Oh, how we need the ear that is circum-
   cised--the heart that is softened! The minister is the sower; O God,
   plow the furrows first! The minister waters; great God, plant the cedar
   first! We are but the lights; Great God, give the eyes! We are but the
   trumpets; O Lord, open the ears! We do but speak--Great God, give life
   that when we speak, we may not speak to dead men, but that life may be
   given through our word! Fire is abundantly needed upon the hearers!

   What a noble effect is produced when once the fire comes down upon a
   congregation! I will picture you a Church without fire, and then one
   with it. There is a Chapel--we will not say where--anywhere you like.
   On Sabbath morning the minister enters his place; he hardly expects to
   see it half full. He comes in about five minutes late. He gives out the
   hymn--two or three singers rise up and slaughter the praise. The people
   keep dropping in all through the hymn. Prayer begins, and they are
   still dropping in. The Chapter has been read, and the second hymn going
   on; they are still coming in. At last they have got quietly settled.
   The clerk has just finished the last verse; he composes himself to his
   usual sleep; the congregation also prepare themselves for what they are
   about to receive. Firstly has produced its effect; secondly is telling
   upon the people very manifestly; and by the time that thirdly has been
   given out,[three sermon points] perhaps the last pair of eyes will have
   ceased to gaze upon the pulpit and the vacant face within it! But as
   you stand in the aisle, you say to yourself, "Well, this is a sight
   indeed! That is a good man in the pulpit, but what right has he there?.
   These are good people, but what do they come here for? There is no
   earnestness, no life." The notices have to be given out-- "Prayer
   meeting on Monday evening; lecture on Thursday." Well, we will come on
   Monday evening. So we go. There is the minister and about four people
   besides ourselves. There are hardly enough to ask to pray; after one
   has prayed, the minister will have to pray twice to make up the time;
   the prayers are 20 minutes long--they are not prayers, they are
   sermons. If anything, the Prayer Meeting is duller than the service,
   for there were people at the one, if no life; but here there are
   neither people nor life! Well, we will go and speak to the deacons.

   "Well, Friend, how has your Church increased of late?" "Well, Sir, we
   do not increase; we have not looked to that lately; but Sir, things are
   very well; we are going on very comfortably." "How long since you have
   had a baptizing?" "Oh, we had a baptizing in old Dr. So-and-So's time.
   That is about, I think--let me see--fifteen years ago, I think." "You
   have not had one since?" "Well, I do not know; we may have had one. We
   have had some members join from other Churches, but we certainly have
   not had many." "And are you doing anything in the neighborhood for
   good?" "Well, no. We have some young people who are a little too rash
   and hasty; they will not be quite quiet; but our minister does not
   think there is any use in going out of the old ways. Besides, he says
   revivals are all wildfire--that the Lord will certainly have His own,
   and that we ought not to exert ourselves beyond the proper limit. You
   know, he says that ministers who preach too often, always die
   prematurely. Our minister wants to live to a good old age, and
   therefore he is careful of his valuable life."

   We will go and see the minister now. We will ask him to let us into the
   study. Sets of manuscripts--a bad sign! Shelves full of sermons, and
   very little Puritan theology. Bad sign again. I wonder whether he will
   let us stop by while he is making a sermon? The way to begin to make a
   sermon is to bend the knees and to cry to God for direction; that is
   the first point. He does not do that; he has marked 20 or 30 texts for
   the next month or two, and he has had a bill printed, and told the
   people what he means to preach from, to prove that he is guided by the
   Spirit for months in advance, and not in the same hour when he needs
   it! So he looks to see what the text is, and takes down various books
   that he has upon the subject, writes out his epistle to his church and
   the thing is done, and he may go out visiting. No groaning over souls,
   mark; none of Baxter's compassion; no knocking of the knees together as
   he goes up the pulpit stairs; no sleepless nights because he cannot
   preach as he would; no groaning when he comes home because he thinks
   there has been a failure where there ought to have been a success. No;
   the reason is because there is no fire. O God! Send down the fire and
   what a change there will be!

   The fire has come. The next Saturday the minister is in his study
   again, and the thought--an awful thought-- strikes him, "What if the
   blood of souls should be at my door?" He gets up. He paces the room;
   puts his hand upon his forehead; he had never thought of that before!
   Preaching these years, but he never thought he was responsible for
   men-- never imagined that he must certainly be either his brother's
   keeper, or his brother's murderer! He cannot stand it. That discourse
   he was going to deliver will not do; he will take another. A text comes
   to his mind; it shall be this--"Ho, everyone who thirsts, come you to
   the waters!" When he wakes on Sabbath morning, he is all in
   fear--suppose he should break down? He lifts up his heart to God; he
   prays for help. He goes up into the pulpit; he is trembling. He begins
   to speak; the people do not know what to make of it--the minister is
   different from anything he was before! He begins to speak to everyone
   who thirsts, and now he begins to cry, "Ho!" He never spoke as loud as
   that before! Now he begins to plead, "Come you to the waters!" They
   never saw him stretch his hands out to plead before. "And he who has no
   money, come, buy wine and milk." And the tears roll down his cheeks,
   and he begins to plead with all the pathos of his nature while he begs
   souls to come to Christ, to come to Christ, to come to Christ!

   The old sleepers find they cannot sleep; those who have had the most
   comfortable nap before, cannot effect it now. Eyes gleam--rays flash
   from many eyeballs which had for months been unconscious of a
   sympathetic glance; tears are seen! The minister pleads with God after
   he has pleaded with men; he comes down to the vestry. The old deacon
   takes hold of both his hands--"Bless God for such a sermon as this,
   Sir; it has quite stirred me up; this is how old Dr. So-and-So used to
   preach." And the next deacon says, "I bless God for this! Don't you
   think we ought to have a special Prayer Meeting about it? Better give
   notice of it this evening." Prayer Meeting next Monday. There are not
   many, but there are four times as many as there were before; and oh,
   how they pray! Twenty minutes does not do; they pray 10 minutes each;
   they keep to the point; they do not preach; they pray for God to bless
   the minister. Next Sabbath morning a fuller house; Sabbath evening
   crowded; souls are awakened, God is blessing the Word--saints pray,
   sinners tremble. The neighborhood is changed, and Christ is glorified!
   This is the effect of the fire. O God, send the fire here!

   But, you will perceive, it is said that the priests could not enter
   into the house of the Lord because the Glory of the Lord filled the
   house. The first time the priests could do nothing, but they stopped
   where they were. The second time they had to be more forgotten, still,
   for they could not stay in the house. Let God send the fire of His
   Spirit here, and the minister will be more and more lost in His Master;
   you will come to think less of the speaker, and more of the Truth of
   God spoken; the individual will be swamped; the words spoken will rise
   above everything! When you have the cloud, the man is forgotten; when
   you have the fire, the man is lost, and you only see his Master!
   Suppose the fire should come here and the Master be seen more than the
   minister--what then? Why, this Church will become two, or three, or
   four thousand strong! It's easy enough in God to double our numbers,
   vast though they are. We shall have the lecture hall beneath this
   platform crowded at each Prayer Meeting, and we shall see in this place
   young men devoting themselves to God; we shall find young ministers
   raised up and trained, and sent forth to carry the fire to other parts!
   Japan, China and India shall have heralds of the Cross who have here
   had their tongues touched with the flame! The whole earth shall receive
   benedictions! If God shall bless us, He will make us a blessing unto
   all! Let but God send down the fire, and the biggest sinners in the
   neighborhood will be converted; those who live in the dens of infamy
   will be changed; the drunk will forsake his cups, the swearer will
   repent his blasphemy, the debauched will leave their lusts--

   "Dry bones be raised and clothed afresh, And hearts of stone be turned
   to flesh." If there is anywhere within these walls tonight a man who
   has not been within a place of worship for these last 20 years. If
   there are others who have forfeited all claim to honor, and all title
   to respect, Great God, make these the first-fruits of Your power! Make
   them instances of Your mercy, trophies of Your Grace! This will be the
   effect of that fire which of old consumed the sacrifice, and which
   today consumes our sins, and fires our works, our songs, our prayers,
   till all smoke up to Heaven, and God accepts them as an offering of a
   sweet smell.

   I shall not detain you longer, having thus set before your mind's eye
   the two things for which we should earnestly seek, and for which we
   should cry to God. I shall close by simply preaching the Gospel, and I
   do not think that on this first occasion I can do it better than by
   simply telling the story of how I was brought to Christ myself. I had
   been for years as a child in secret the prey of the most desponding
   feelings. One thought had crushed me. I was a sinner, and God was angry
   with the wicked every day. I began to pray, prayer gave me no comfort,
   but made my burden more heavy. I read the Bible; the Bible was full of
   threats to me; I could find no promises there. I attended the house of
   God constantly, but I never knew from all the preaching that I heard
   what I must do to be saved; my eyes were blind and my soul ignorant. I
   heard a practical preacher, but what was the use of practice? It was
   like teaching a man to march who had no feet. I heard the Law
   thundered, but it was not thunder that I wanted, but notes of mercy. I
   hope that no creature ever had more intense and awful sorrow of heart
   than I under conviction of sin--feelings which I strived to conceal
   from all--and I was thought to be dull and idle because I had little
   heart for anything. As I have said before, I prayed daily and
   constantly, but my groans seemed to be reverberated from a bronze
   Heaven, and God gave no mercy to me. It might have been so to this day
   if it had not been for the purpose and Providence of God which
   prevented me from going to my usual place of worship, and compelled me
   to turn into a little Primitive Methodist chapel. Now that day was so
   snowy that there were very few people there, and the minister did not
   come; I think he was snowed up. But they found out some poor man, a
   local preacher, and he was put into the pulpit. Blessed be God! Blessed
   be God for that poor local preacher. He read his text. It was as much
   as he could do. The text was, "Look unto Me, and be you saved, all the
   ends of the earth." He was an ignorant man, he could not say much; he
   was obliged to keep to his text. Thank God for that. He began, "Look,
   that is not hard work. You need not lift your hands, you do not need to
   lift your fingers. Look, a fool can do that. It does not need a wise
   man to look. A child can do that. You don't need to be full grown to
   use your eyes. Look, a poor man may do that, no need of riches to look.
   Look--how simple--how simple." Then he went on, "Look unto Me. Do not
   look to yourselves, but look to Me, that is, Christ. Do not look to God
   the Father to know whether you are elected or not, you shall find that
   out afterwards, look to Me. Look to Christ. Do not look to God the Holy
   Spirit to know whether He has called you or not. That you shall
   discover, by-and-by. Look unto Jesus Christ." And then he went on in
   his own simple way to put it thus--"Look unto Me. I am sweating great
   drops of blood for you. Look unto Me, I am scourged, and spit upon. I
   am nailed to the Cross. I die. I am buried. I rise and ascend. I am
   pleading before the Father's Throne, and all this for you."

   Now that simple way of putting the Gospel had enlisted my attention,
   and a ray of light had poured into my heart! Stooping down, he looked
   under the gallery and said--"Young man, you are very miserable." So I
   was, but I had not been accustomed to be addressed in that way. "Ah,"
   he said, "and you will always be miserable if you don't do as my text
   tells you. That is, look unto Christ." And then he called out, with all
   his might, "Young man, look! In God's name look and look now!" I did
   look, blessed be God! I know I looked, then and there; and he who but
   that minute ago had been near despair, had the fullness ofjoy and hope!
   And that instant he who was ready to destroy himself, could have stood
   up then and there to--"Sing of Him, whose pardoning blood had washed
   sins away." And now here I stand to preach in this great building the
   same Gospel in the same simple tones. Sinners, look to Christ and be
   saved--

   "Ever since by faith I saw the stream,
   His flowing wound supply,
   Redeeming love has been my theme,
   And shall be till I die."

   Oh, Sinners! What if God should make this your spiritual birthday? And
   it can only be thus by your simply looking to Christ! Yes, by the
   prayers of an earnest wife, I beg you look. Oh, young man! By the
   groans of a loving mother, I beg you care for your soul and look! Yes,
   old man! By the decline of years, and by those gray hairs and the
   nearness of your grave, I pray you look! Yes, you sons of poverty, by
   all that you have to suffer here, look, look to Jesus, that you may
   find in Him eternal riches! And you rich men, if you would not be
   cursed by your riches, look and find the healing for the diseases of
   this life! To one and all is the Word of this salvation sent--"He who
   believes and is baptized shall be saved; he who believes not shall be
   damned." "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and
   your house."
     __________________________________________________________________

                 Public Meeting Of Our London Baptist Brethren

   AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, TUESDAY, APRIL 2, 1861.

   SIR MORTON PETO IN THE CHAIR.

   A noble assembly having filled the house, after singing, the Rev. C. H.
   SPURGEON offered prayer. REV. C. H. SPURGEON--In inviting our Baptist
   Brethren to meet together this evening, it was in the hope that
   something might be suggested which might promote our success as a
   united body, and that words of encouragement from comrades in the same
   regiment might gladden all hearts; we offer the heartiest welcome to
   our beloved friends--this chapel belongs not to me nor to my Church
   specially, but to all the Baptist denomination! I feel tonight as if I
   were rendering up the trust deeds to the proper
   proprietors--acknowledging that this house belongs not to any man, but,
   first, to the God of the whole world, and, next, to those who hold the
   pure primitive ancient Apostolic faith. We believe that the Baptists
   are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the
   Reformation, we were Reformers before Luther or Calvin were born; we
   never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it. We have an
   unbroken line up to the Apostles themselves! We have always existed
   from the very days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and
   forgotten like a river which may travel underground for a little
   season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by
   Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never
   existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted
   others; nor, I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right
   to put the consciences of others under the control of man. We have ever
   been ready to suffer as our martyrologies will prove, but we are not
   ready to accept any help from the State to prostitute the purity of the
   Bride of Christ to any alliance with Government! And we will never make
   the Church, although the Queen, the despot over the consciences of men.
   I will now resign the meeting to my esteemed friend, Sir Morton Peto,
   who has many a stone in this building, and who, I trust, will honor us
   with his presence on many future occasions.

   The CHAIRMAN--My dear Christian Friends--when invited to lay the first
   stone of this building, I deemed it a high honor and privilege. To be
   asked to preside tonight at the meeting of the Baptist Brethren of the
   metropolis, I deem also to be an honor and a privilege. Let me say at
   once how much I sympathize with all of you in meeting in this
   magnificent building tonight, under circumstances of the most
   gratifying character, without anything to allay or diminish our joy and
   thankfulness to God. I recollect having said when the first stone was
   laid, that I saw no reason why this building should not be opened free
   from debt, and what has just fallen from your esteemed pastor has shown
   how that anticipation has been abundantly realized! In meeting my
   Baptist Brethren for the first time in this building, my thoughts
   naturally recur for a moment to the past. Mr. Spurgeon has spoken of
   our history, of our martyrologies, and the sufferings of our
   forefathers. They have labored; we have entered into their labors. The
   result of that is shown in the ability of God's people connected with
   our denomination to raise a temple like this to His praise; and we have
   to acknowledge how much we owe to our forefathers in the opportunity we
   have of giving as a privilege, not as an exaction, and in seeing such a
   result of giving as this edifice displays. There are many grounds on
   which we rejoice with our friend--the first and greatest of all is that
   which was referred to in the text on the evening of the opening
   day--"Christ is preached and therein do I rejoice; yes, and I will
   rejoice." In the sermon of the afternoon, to which that of the evening
   seemed a graceful and fitting pendant, your pastor said that with all
   the misconceptions entertained with regard to his ministry, there was
   one point about which there could be no misconception--he thanked God
   he could say from his heart he had simply preached Christ. Now I
   believe the evidence we have in this building is no mean one that he
   has preached Christ--because if ministers have recourse to what they
   deem intellectual or philosophical preaching, or any other than that of
   preaching Christ, we soon find in our denomination empty pews show the
   result! There is an underlying stratum in the deep feelings and hearts
   of our countrymen of reverence and love for the old Gospel which
   nothing else can supplant. The great strength of this country is that,
   whatever may be written or said, the people at once refer to the Law
   and to the Testimony, and that which is not found written there has no
   place in their reverence or their esteem!

   The next cause we have for rejoicing is the feeling that the privilege
   we have of worshipping God according to our consciences in this and
   every other edifice connected with His praise is to be traced to the
   result of the sufferings of our forefathers. But that privilege has
   entailed on us an adequate responsibility. In reading the writings of
   the Puritan Fathers, I am struck to see how deeply they were impressed
   with the principles on which they acted. They were not Nonconformists
   because their fathers were; they would themselves have gone to the
   stake to assert the principles connected with the Headship and the
   position of the Great Head of the Church in the sole right of
   sovereignty within that Church. In the present day there is entailed on
   us a great responsibility in guarding tenderly and carefully these
   privileges. There is not only a desire on the part of the State to keep
   the Church so-called allied to the State, but to put in the thin end of
   the wedge and intermeddle with other denominations. If we find the
   Church as we understand it, in the slightest degree interfered with, we
   must as one man arise and say we will never allow the privilege of the
   Headship of the Great Head of the Church to be interfered with by any
   State in existence--all honor to the Queen! No one can say more
   fervently than the Baptists, "God save the Queen," but while we render
   to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, we must have respect to the
   commandment which enforces that nothing of Caesar's shall touch that
   which is God's. We--the members of other Baptist churches, congratulate
   with all our hearts the pastor, deacons, and members of this Church on
   the accomplishment of this great work, without any feeling excepting
   that of devout thankfulness to God for what He has enabled them to
   achieve! And we desire that abundant success may attend the
   proclamation of the Gospel in this building. Long may the pastor be
   spared to minister to a devoted, loving, and affectionate people! Long
   may he be surrounded by deacons who are able and willing to take the
   stroke oar in all the labors that appertain to them in connection with
   the secular affairs of the church; long may he see this place too
   narrow for even the communicants who assemble as his church members,
   and long may he have the power of the Holy Spirit attending an
   effective ministry and witnessing every month in that baptistery to the
   result of his labors! That which does not bring souls to Christ is
   worth nothing!

   Among Evangelical bodies, especially our own denomination, there may be
   slight differences, and will be among men who think for themselves--yet
   in the great fundamental and vital Truths of godliness, there exists no
   difference among us, and we only rejoice in so far as our ministry is
   made effectual in the way I have mentioned. Look at the influences
   which will go forth from this Church--look at the schools brought
   together here, and the children instructed in the knowledge of God and
   Christ! Look at the evangelical labors of the Brethren who constitute
   the Church in the surrounding districts, teaching and preaching Christ!
   Mr. Spurgeon will not conceive that his members, when they have simply
   attended here on the Sabbath and partaken of the Lord's Supper, have
   done their duty, but will feel that they must become living Epistles of
   Christ, known and read of all men! And then, while we shall no doubt
   consistently maintain that great Truth which we feel has been committed
   to us, we shall live in harmony with all those who hold the great,
   vital truths of godliness. One cannot but feel a most anxious desire
   and hope that long after our Brother is called to the upper sanctuary,
   his place may be filled in generations to come by those who, like he,
   will lead their hearers constantly to Christ, and that this will not
   only be a monument to the praise of God in our own generation, but in
   many generations following!

   What a splendid monument is this building to the voluntary principle!
   When I am in the House of Commons, I am continually told on the
   Church-rate question. "Oh, but the rural districts." Well, if my friend
   Mr. Spurgeon can raise during 18 months throughout the country a sum of
   money to erect this edifice, do you think that the State Church need be
   so anxious about the rural districts? One could not desire a better
   thing than that those members of Parliament who are so afflicted for
   fear the country churches should fall down, should come and see what
   has been raised here! This edifice tells--and may it long tell--the
   world at large that when people are imbued with all their heart and
   soul with the love of Christ, and feel that their great end is to live
   to Him, there is no fear of their allowing the House of God to fall
   about their ears! And when anything ceases to be a church which so
   holds the sympathies and hearts of the people, if the church falls
   down, I pity the church, I pity the people, I pity the denomination!
   Three years ago I called the attention of the House of Commons to the
   fact that the natives of Calcutta had spent more money in one year in
   the erection and sustaining of their heathen temples, than the whole
   amount of the church-rates of this country collected during the
   previous year! I then asked this question, "Is your religion not of a
   character to take a more vital hold on your hearts than the religion of
   Hinduism? Shall it be said that the Son of God became Incarnate and
   died in this world, and left as His legacy to His loving disciples the
   propagation of His Truth, and they can only support the edifices in
   which that glorious name is praised by exacting from their fellow men
   that which shall sustain them?" Our friends have done nobly in
   asserting what can be done on the voluntary principle, and if anyone
   points me in future to the rural districts with regard to the
   church-rates or anything of this kind, I shall, among other things,
   point to this place, and say, "See what the Baptist denomination in the
   person of our friend and his Church have done, and do not insult me by
   imagining that I think Christian principles require such support as you
   would give it."

   We do rejoice with you most heartily, genuinely, and lovingly tonight.
   I have told you the grounds on which we rejoice. It is not a mere
   sentiment, a mere effervescent feeling, but that true bond of
   brotherhood kindled in the heart by love to the same Savior, by
   adopting as we do from sincere conviction those Truths which we hold to
   be vital and necessary. It is to the assertion of those Truths that we
   desire to see not only this, but every edifice in connection with our
   denomination, so that in regard to all our churches and their pastors,
   there may be no doubt that they act from one princi-ple--a love to
   Christ and a desire to follow Him--for it is in following Him, alone,
   that they honor Him!

   Rev. J. H. HINTON--I am happy in being permitted to take a part in the
   services connected with the opening of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, and
   in having the opportunity of saying, in the terms of the invitation of
   my Brother Spurgeon, "a few kind words." Kind words are, indeed, easy
   of utterance when the heart is kind, and my heart is kind towards my
   Brother and has been so from my earliest acquaintance with him! Let Mr.
   Spurgeon, then, and his friends accept my warmest congratulations and
   best wishes! Long may the life be spared which is so devotedly and
   laboriously spent; the intellectual powers which acquire and supply so
   large an amount of Evangelical Truth; and the magnificent voice which,
   with so much facility, pours it into the ears of listening thousands!
   As no resolution or topic has been put into my hands, I will take one
   as presenting to us a collateral aspect of the great Doctrine of the
   Influence of the Holy Spirit--an influence blessed and Divine, wherein
   lies the entire success of the Evangelical ministry. It is said of our
   Lord that, "God gave not the Spirit by measure unto Him." Undoubtedly,
   the absolute fullness of the Holy Spirit rested on Jesus; He was
   capable of receiving it all, and His great work required it all. But we
   get here the idea of the Spirit being communicated "by measure"--to
   some persons, and on some occasions, more--to others, less. It is
   natural that this should be so, the bestowment of that Divine Influence
   being an act of Sovereign Grace; the history of the progress of
   Christianity presents many illustrations of the fact. The Holy Spirit
   was poured out in a comparatively small measure during the life and
   ministry of our Lord. Of all preachers of the Gospel, He may be said to
   have been the least successful in the conversion of men--not absolutely
   unsuccessful, but successful in the smallest degree as to the number of
   conversions. There were, doubtless, fit reasons for this--the time was
   not then, nor the circumstances in which a very copious effusion of the
   Holy Spirit's influence could fitly have been given. You know how
   copiously the Spirit was poured out after the Ascension of Christ.

   In subsequent ages the changes have been manifest. If the Spirit had
   continued to be poured out as it were on the day of Pentecost, I
   imagine that long before this time the whole world would have been
   converted to God. We know what took place in the Middle Ages; that,
   when the Man of Sin was to be revealed and Popery established, the
   influences of the Spirit were restrained--not absolutely, but
   communicated in small measure. At the time of the Reformation a large
   outpouring of the Spirit was given; at successive periods and in
   various parts of the world, as in America, Scotland, Wales, Ireland,
   Jamaica, Sweden and elsewhere, at periods of no certain recurrence, and
   for durations of time not definite, but yet in extraordinary degree as
   compared with other times and places, the Spirit has been poured out.
   The present seems to me to be a dispensation in which the Spirit is
   communicated "by measure," and in a measure determined by Divine
   Sovereignty and Wisdom; a measure incorporated with and subordinated to
   the development of God's own plan, and the opportunities to be supplied
   for the manifestation of man's and the devil's corruption. Since we
   live under this dispensation, a question of practical interest to
   ourselves is this--what is the kind of measure, the amount according to
   which the influence of the Spirit is poured out now? Thank God, it is
   not absolutely withheld, otherwise there would be no conversions at all
   under the ministry of the Gospel, and even a proclaimed Savior would be
   a Savior universally trampled on and despised! That it is not the
   outpouring of the Spirit in its fullness is palpable from the fact
   that, amid such multiplied privileges, such vast and multiform
   activities for the dissemination of the Truth, so few comparatively are
   converted to God. The majority, even of Gospel hearers, is probably
   unconverted--the entire population scarcely touched--and when we
   consider not only how many people are now alive, but how fast people
   are born and die, the small number of conversions takes a character
   still more striking! At this rate it appears to me quite certain that
   the conversion of the world would never come. To accomplish it there
   must be a much larger outpouring of the Spirit than there now is. Then,
   in connection with this, a much larger supply of the influences of the
   Holy Spirit may be had; the abundant supply lies in the hands of
   Christ! It is not that all is done that can be done; a very great deal
   more can be done; a power remains by which the whole world may be
   rapidly subdued to God! This may be done any time, anywhere--this
   moment, next year--whenever and wherever God pleases. It waits for the
   arrival of the appointed time given for the development of human
   corruption, and the time when the Man of Sin is to die. Whether the
   Church is awake or asleep--whether there is prayer or no
   prayer--whether there is activity or no activity--it matters not. It
   must come, and perhaps it will come like a heavy, copious shower to
   wake us all up from sleep, and to set us on an activity such as we have
   never entered on before! At the same time it may have, and probably
   will have its antecedent and concomitant signs. Very likely it may be a
   time when there is much prayer and activity--when there is much
   depression and agony of heart--when the Church humbles itself in
   unknown throes of sorrow for a declining work of Grace. Nobody knows
   when, nor how. We have to pray for it, to wait for it, to hope for it,
   to look for it, as some people say they look for Christ's Second
   Coming. We do not know when it comes; I only say, Sir, God grant it may
   be here, and grant it may be now!

   The REV. ALFRED C. THOMAS said he could scarcely feel himself worthy of
   the name of a Christian, certainly not of a Baptist, if he could not
   rejoice in their Metropolitan Tabernacle, and express his hearty thanks
   to God for the accomplishment of its erection. He had been asked to say
   something upon the fact that the Baptists as a denomination were
   distinguished for maintaining the nullity of ordinances without
   faith--a point that might be well sustained by reference to the history
   of their denomination. They had never regarded anything external or
   ceremonial as worth a rush, except as inspired by faith in Christ, who
   alone could sanction with His Presence and fill with His blessing, the
   ordinances that set Him forth, and told to the world the great Truths
   of His Gospel. In order to sustain that, he purposed to read to them
   extracts from their confessions of faith set forth in the 17th Century.
   Those confessions were not made with a view to bring the minds of men
   under a servile sway, but to convey to others what in their estimation
   the mind and will of Christ was as revealed in His Scriptures. They had
   never sought, as it had been affirmed, to force them upon any set of
   men; they had never gone to any temporal power to ask the shield of its
   authority for the maintenance or the right of proclaiming them.
   Nevertheless, there had been times in their history when they had felt
   it necessary to put forward explanations of their faith in Christ. In
   the confession of faith put forth by the General Baptists in 1611, the
   Tenth article was as follows--"That the Church of Christ is a company
   of faithful people, separated from the world by the Word and the Spirit
   of God, being knit unto the Lord and unto one another by Baptism upon
   their own confession of faith and sin." In the 39th article of a
   confession put forth in 1646, by "seven congregations in London,
   commonly but unjustly called Anabaptists," they said, "Baptism is an
   ordinance of the New Testament given by Christ to be dispensed upon
   persons professing faith, or that are made disciples, who upon
   profession of faith ought to be baptized, and after to partake of the
   Lord's Supper." That would suit their strict Baptist brethren to the
   letter. In 1656, another confession maintained the same forms of faith.

   He would read one given in 1660, which was rather more strong than some
   of the rest. It was, "That the right and only way of gathering churches
   according to Christ's appointment, is first to preach the Gospel to the
   sons and daughters of men, and then to baptize in the name of the
   Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, such only of them as profess
   repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. And as
   for all such who preach not this Doctrine, but instead thereof the
   Scriptureless thing of sprinkling of infants, (falsely called baptism),
   whereby the pure Word of God is made of no effect, and the New
   Testament way of bringing members into the church by regeneration, is
   cast out, when, as the bond-woman and her son--that is to say, the Old
   Testament way of bringing in children into the church by regeneration,
   is cast out, as says the Scripture, all such, we utterly deny,
   forasmuch as we are commanded to have no fellowship with the unfruitful
   works of darkness, but rather to reprove them." That, he thought, was
   strong enough for any Baptist! Another confession put forth by the
   Elders and deacons of many congregations in London and the adjacent
   counties, 1688, stated in the 29th article, "Baptism is an ordinance of
   the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ to be unto the party
   baptized a sign of his fellowship with Christ in His death and
   resurrection; of his being engrafted into Him, of remission of sin, and
   of his giving up himself unto God through Jesus Christ, to live and to
   walk with Him in newness of life. Those who do actually profess
   repentance towards God, and faith in and obedience to our Lord Jesus
   Christ, are the only proper subject of this ordinance. The outward
   element to be used in this ordinance is water, wherein the party is to
   be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
   Ghost. Immersion, or the dipping of the person in water, is necessary
   to the due administration of this ordinance."

   Those were confessions of faith in which they as heartily agreed that
   day, as their fathers had in every age of the Church. That amounted to
   an historical and unquestionable fact; but how were the Baptists
   entitled to say that they were the only denomination who had always
   maintained the nullity of religious ordinances without faith, and
   especially on the vexed subject of baptism? Two religious sections--the
   Papists and Episcopalians--maintained the requisiteness of sponsors,
   and baptized children upon the faith of the sponsors. Their
   Presbyterian and many of their Congregational or Independent Brethren
   baptized infants upon the supposition of there being some covenant
   between God and the believing parent together with his children. It was
   assumed that there was a faith in the parents, but it was a proxy
   faith. Others, like Dr. Halley, threw this altogether overboard, and
   did not charge baptism with the requisition of faith at all, either in
   the infant, the parents, or relatives. The Baptists believed that that
   which was without faith was sin. That of course was a Truth of God in
   religion, but it was equally a Truth of God in many other things! A
   worship which did not recognize God, lacked that element of faith. The
   service they gave to their Master--given without faith in His right to
   receive it, in His authority to command it, in His gracious acceptance
   of it--was not an act of religiousness to Jesus! Christ came to build
   up a Kingdom among men. Was it a national kingdom? Did He not come to
   overthrow it in the form of its nationality? Did He come to set up and
   maintain a kingdom of combined spiritual and unspiritual elements--to
   put the gold and the miry clay together? Or did He come to say that
   they should be henceforth separated--that He would cause them to be
   refined, and accept that which rendered to Him spiritual services
   alone? In that kingdom Christ was the only Redeemer, the only Lawgiver;
   there were none united to Him who were not united to Him by faith.
   They, only, who saw Him as the Crucified, and pursued Him with the same
   simple faith to His Throne, were the subjects of His Kingdom, whatever
   their name among men! In that Kingdom there were ordinances; Christ
   only had a right to appoint them, and without faith in Him as their
   King, how could they accept them? In that Kingdom all the subjects were
   distinguished from the rest of the world as Believers; that was their
   great distinction as separated from the world whose chief
   characteristic was unbelief.

   But then, were those ordinances of Christ's appointment purely tests of
   their fidelity to Him, or were they expressions of His loving will for
   His children--were they exhibitions of His love, or mere mandates of
   His authority? "If you love Me, keep My commandments, and you who do
   not love Me have not even to do with My commandments. You not only have
   no part in My righteousness; you have not to touch My commandments." He
   could not be served as a King who had not been trusted as the Great
   High Priest and Apostle of their profession! He would not allow them to
   lift up His ordinances, maintain His precepts, and advance His Kingdom,
   unless they had enshrined Him as the one Offering for sinners in their
   heart's affection and trust! The ordinances were given as symbols of
   Himself, and when the minister went down with his candidates to the
   baptismal font, they would see there as eloquent an exposition of
   Christ's Gospel as they would ever hear from the platform on which he
   stood! He (Mr. Thomas) never administered the ordinance without wishing
   he could preach as effectively and eloquently what Christ was, and what
   He had done for men, as that ordinance set the Gospel forth. Did not
   Christ say to them, "I ordain these ordinances as proofs to you of My
   love; I give you once in your life at least the opportunity of saying
   to all who are witnesses, 'I deserve to die eternally; I build my hopes
   for escaping that eternal death on Jesus and Jesus only'"? Once in
   their life at least, though they had a stammering tongue, they could
   tell to thousands that witnessed their baptism, that this was the basis
   of their faith. "Union to Christ" would be the echo of that font
   whenever its waters were disturbed! "Nothing but His death avails me as
   a sinner; my hopes were brightened when He rose from the dead and, as
   He lives and reigns, nothing can cloud them." And when they passed on
   from that ordinance to the Table of the Lord, did they say anything
   very different? They said in their baptism that they had come into
   possession of life by faith in the Savior who died--and when they
   participated in the memorials of His death, what did they say but that
   whereas they had life only by union with Him, they could live only by
   ceaseless union with Him? Hence the next and permanent ordinance was a
   meal, to show that as they sustained bodily nature by food and drink,
   so they had no life in them except they ate His flesh and drank His
   blood! With such convictions they would set forth, each one for
   himself, as a unit of a denomination, that they had no faith in
   ordinances that did not require faith in their subjects--faith in Him
   who ordained them!

   The Rev. C. H. SPURGEON--I have several things I want to say now that a
   great many Baptist brethren are gathered here. The first is, let me
   earnestly entreat all my Brothers and Sisters to back up our Chairman
   in a bill which he has introduced into the House with regard to the
   burial of unbaptized persons. I hope that all of you read the Baptist
   Magazine--you certainly ought to do so. I will not say that there is
   any improvement on the past--I can only say it is the aim of the
   editors to still make improvements, and to make it more worthy of the
   denomination of which it is the representative. In that magazine you
   may have read Sir Morton's speech, which is there embalmed in amber.
   There is a clergyman in Newton Flottman (I do not know whether the
   place is as dark as Timbuktu), who has actually been carrying away the
   mold from his churchyard to put it on his parish land. This mold was
   composed of bones of the dead, an entire skull having been found in it,
   and a complaint was made to the clergyman, who very coolly said, "Well,
   but that was the corner of the church yard where they buried Baptists,
   Methodists, and other Dissenters;" and therefore I suppose he thought
   it was the best thing to do to make some use of them after they were
   dead! If my bones shall ever by any ill fortune come into an
   Episcopalian churchyard, I hope they will be used in the same way, for
   I should like to be of use as long as ever there is an atom of me in
   existence! Sir Morton is introducing a bill into Parliament to compel
   clergymen to allow all, indiscriminately, to be buried in the church
   yard. It seems to be a very hard thing, indeed, that we are to pay to
   keep their churches up, and yet they will not allow us a tomb! The
   nation lends to the Episcopalian denomination, the national
   edifices--surely if they will not be generous enough to pay their own
   repairs--they might permit us to use the national graveyard in common
   with themselves! At present, in the dead of night, we are put up in a
   corner where the nettles grow. I have buried people in country church
   yards, and if I had time, I would go and do it in every churchyard, and
   defy anyone who dared do it, to use the law against me! If laws cannot
   be altered, they can be defied. It is abominable that any sect of
   Christians should have the opportunity of becoming obnoxious to their
   Brethren by fighting over the coffin of a dead child! I am as heartily
   at one with the Evangelicals of the Church of England as any man that
   lives; some of my dearest friends are members of that body, and it is a
   pity that they should be put in a position where they can insult the
   feelings of Christians by refusing to bury our dead. Let us put them
   out of harm's way; let every Baptist congregation send up a petition, a
   form of which they will find in the Baptist Magazine; let us show that
   Sir Morton does not represent a slender handful of men, who are
   inactive, but a Christian body who feel if they are to be insulted, it
   shall not be their fault if they do not remove the stumbling block out
   of their Brothers' way!

   I have a project on hand for which I want to engage your sympathies.
   The incomes of most Baptist ministers are so miserably small that they
   are not able to buy books. It would do all our country Brothers good to
   read more Puritan theology, and have the opportunity of stocking their
   libraries better. I have long had this project on my mind, and some
   time ago I asked Mr. Nichol, an eminent publisher in Edinburgh who
   brought out a series of the British Poets at a cheap rate, whether, if
   I could get some Presbyterians and Independents to back up the scheme,
   and spoke myself to my Baptist Brethren, he could not reprint much of
   our standard divinity at a cheap rate. There will be six magnificent
   volumes each year for a guinea. One hundred thousand copies at the very
   least must be sold before he will be able to see any profit at all; and
   what I have to propose is that every Baptist Church throughout the
   country should devote one guinea at least each year to provide a
   library which shall permanently belong to the Church so that in the
   course of 100 years, there would be a splendid mass of old divinity
   stored away which would be read by coming generations. Some time ago I
   offered my deacons all the books I had, to start a library here for the
   use of future ministers. They did not wish me to do that, but we shall
   seek to get such a library that any minister after me may find a
   well-stored granary at hand! If all our churches do the same, and spend
   their money this year in backing up the admirable scheme of Mr. Heaton
   by purchasing the four volumes setting forth Baptist views, they will
   have the first installment, to which they can add, little by little, in
   successive years, and thus confer a gift on the denomination second to
   none! Then again I should like to say a good word for the iron chapel
   movement. I wish some of them could be bought and moved about from
   place to place, although for permanent buildings, I have no faith in
   them. They are dreadfully cold in winter, and they are frightfully hot
   in summer, but they may be put up very cheaply, and attempts may in
   this way be made to increase the number of our churches in this city.